I, who advocate giving up, feel like a disqualified person

"I know what you mean, brother... It's easy for people to go astray after being hit, and it's also perfectly natural. It takes courage to stand up and protect others, and it's even harder to do so even when they're not accepted... It's also easy to use your power to hurt others and condone bullying... It's precisely because it's so natural that people who protect others even when they're hurt, who refuse to give up even when they're weak, are more worthy of respect and more rare... Am I right?"

".."

Although I am not as great as she said, I do think that it is much easier to stick to a path than to give up.

"You're still confused, right? That must be the case... I've known you for so long, I'm incredibly familiar with your state of mind... You can't hide it from me no matter what."

"Really..." I'm so lucky to have such a sister. No, it's really great to meet her.

"It's precisely because I was worried that you might have psychological problems from focusing on so many things...that's why I tried to get you to stop caring so much. But now it seems that I was too impatient." Her eyes showed an apologetic look. "You must be in a lot of pain right now."

"...It's not so much pain..." I thought about it carefully, "but rather a feeling of missing something."

"What's missing?" She seemed to be attracted by my words.

"...I feel empty inside, like I was holding something...but it's gone." It's like I've lost something, but because I don't know what I've lost, I don't know whether to be anxious or sad. "I just vaguely feel...that a lot of my emotions and experiences have been poured into that place."

Holding Ye Jin's hand, I placed her hand and hers on my chest and could feel her still steady heartbeat.

"Brother...the heart is not the place to store memories."

"I know..." The emotion was clearly generated in the mind, but it caused pain in the heart, "But there is a lingering pain here that cannot be solved. I want to know why."

"..Do you really want to know?"

"Hmm..." I thought she was just asking casually, but I didn't expect her to ask further questions.

"anyway?"

"anyway.."

I feel like I've heard this conversation somewhere before.

"..Although I don't know if I can help, I roughly know where your feelings come from." Her tone sounded as if she had some kind of clue.

“..Huh?”

"Let me confirm again, do you really want to know?"

Under the street light, her eyes sparkled with a different kind of brilliance.

. . . .

This was something Ye Jin, as a younger sister, wanted to preserve in her memory. She had thought she would never have the chance to talk about it again, but seeing the person she loved most being tormented by this incident, she was also torn.

In reality, the relationship between the two wasn't complicated, as they were cousins. In Sheji's view, his mother and Ye Jin's mother were sisters, so they were blood relatives within three generations, so he naturally treated Ye Jin like a younger sister. Ye Jin had originally thought so, but she stumbled upon something.

In fact, his mother was adopted and had no relationship with the mother of the Sheji family. And he and the man he had called "brother" for several years were not siblings in terms of blood relationship.

Since that day, she found that she could no longer control her obsession with this guy. However, Ye Jin could clearly feel that his heart had long been occupied by someone else.

Who is that person? When did I know him? Why don't I know him? Why hasn't my brother ever mentioned him?

She secretly investigated the truth with a series of questions without Yi Sheji knowing. Then she found out that there was a reason why Sheji's parents moved their family here.

Originally, the Sheji family didn't even live in this city. Because she remembered clearly that the two of them could only see each other during the Spring Festival at first, and then his family moved here, and she was able to visit this brother so frequently.

And for some reason he seemed to have completely forgotten about it.

After reading his diary and eavesdropping on the conversation between adults and accidentally mentioning his brother's experience, she finally came to a conclusion. However, this conclusion could not be revealed to the government.

"..Do you know something?"

After Ye Jin's repeated questioning, Sheji finally began to realize that the person standing before him was not someone completely clueless. The situation that had seemed hopeless suddenly began to become clear.

"Yes, although I don't know if it will help you."

"It's okay, tell me!"

He really cares about that person.

Thinking of this, Ye Jin felt as if his heart was being pulled by something.

It was even more painful than seeing the girls around him. Because she knew that Sheji had an indelible person in his heart, she didn't think those girls could replace that person. So in her opinion, those people would not end up together with Sheji.

However, he eventually began to investigate that person's whereabouts. In other words, she couldn't express her feelings to him clearly after all. She had thought she was special to him.

No, in fact, in his eyes she is special.

As if there is no barrier between them, he will be depressed and worried in front of her, he will act tough and cool in front of her, he will preach in front of her, and he will also say unbearable words without restraint. He will not be shy in front of her, nor will he be polite, nor will he indulge her, nor will he criticize her...which means he will not like her.

"..."

In his eyes, I will always be just a sister who will eventually marry into another family when I grow up.

"..Before that, I have something to confirm with you."

I will definitely regret it.

Ye Jin couldn't help but think this way, but he couldn't escape the urge in his heart. Perhaps this was his last chance.

"What?"

Faced with the confusion on the face of the guy named Yi Sheji, she finally plucked up the courage to ask the question.

"..do you like me?"

“…”

"If we were not related by blood, would you like a girl like me?"

".."

Never understood

How on earth did her mind go from discussing the issue to whether I liked her or not? But since she asked that...

"No need to add so many preconditions. Of course I like you. You're beautiful and have an interesting personality, and we get along very well. The only downside is that you sometimes have a bad temper, but I think that's also cute. So if you ask me if I like you, of course I will say yes."

".."

"However, if you mean if a girl like you appeared before me, would I pursue her? I really can't be sure about that... because I don't know the process of falling in love with a girl. And I can't guarantee that I will always love someone."

This kind of thing is as confusing as my future.

"...what's with that jerk tone?" Her originally serious expression finally gave way, and a smile appeared on her face involuntarily. "You still don't believe me when I say you think too much...If there's a girl you like, then find a way to be with her. Why be so timid?"

"..That kind of girl has never appeared before."

"No way? There are a lot of girls around you, including me. Is there no one you want to date?"

"No."

Although I have various ties with those people, to use such ties to guide their feelings towards love for me, to be honest, I think it is a very bad behavior.

"..What would you do if one of them confessed to you?"

"No way." I quickly thought about the possibility of those people in my mind doing this to me. "Is there anything about me that can attract girls?"

"It's possible, but not impossible... But since you're completely oblivious, I won't point it out." She sighed and pulled out her phone. "I'll write down everything I know and send it to you after you've treated me to a meal."

"Why not just tell me directly? Why make it so complicated?"

"I do, isn't that okay?" She said unhappily, then continued to operate her phone. "Continue with the previous question."

"Hmm? What other questions do you want to ask?"

"Do you think there's such a possibility between you and me? We're not related by blood."

"You mean...we were both picked up? The probability of that is too low."

"Can't you think of a simpler possibility?" She became even more annoyed. "Why do you always get stuck on such a rut?"

"Oh...that means one of us was picked up or taken away by mistake in the hospital?" I continued to guess.

"Okay." She didn't seem to want to correct me. "Just treat it like that. Just pretend one of us was picked up. Then what? How will you treat me?"

"..Well..if you want, I don't mind helping you find your biological parents."

"..Why does the premise require me to be picked up?!"

"Eh? Was I really picked up? How did you know this?"

"I was just saying hypothetical! Why did you take it so seriously?!"

"...because I find it strange that you're suddenly discussing this kind of thing with me...after thinking about it, the possibility behind it is just like this..."

"Ah, it was a mistake to ask you that." She slapped her forehead and sighed, "Forget it, I don't want to ask you this kind of question anymore, just do whatever you want, you idiot."

".."

Is she worried that I will continue to dote on her? Although I don't dote on her that much, it's not impossible for girls of this age to compare themselves with their brothers.

"I don't know what you mean by that, but you've been my sister for so many years. Even if there's nothing to do with me, I can still promise to treat you the same way I do now... or even better. Well, how should I put it... there's no need to worry about that. You can still ask me for anything, as long as I can do it."

".."

After she heard what I said, she stared at me in a trance, and then she turned her head away after a while.

"I don't need your concern. Just focus on yourself, idiot brother."

Chapter 10: Never Clear

The email Ye Jin promised didn't arrive until after midnight, which made me wonder if I'd fallen for her emotionally charged tactics in that atmosphere. Otherwise, I wouldn't have stopped her from frantically ordering things like lamb and beef rolls. However, when I texted her to urge her to send it quickly, I only got a reply: "Just wait quietly."

Then I comforted myself by saying, "Maybe she knows too much so it takes her a long time to write the email," and suppressed my overflowing curiosity and quickly closed my eyes to sleep.

The next morning, no matter how many times I refreshed my inbox, I still hadn't received any emails from Ye Jin. So I quickly realized I'd been tricked by that girl... but I wasn't angry. It wasn't the first time she'd tricked me, after all. While exploiting my past scars was a bit excessive, she was still my sister, and I couldn't harbor any hatred towards her.

“Life is really hard.”

Sighing the same words I had sighed countless times, I set off for school.

The weather is still cold. I'm likely to repeat this sentence over and over again for the next two months, occasionally sighing at the falling snow. Anyway, this month is almost over, and with it the arrival of winter vacation and the Spring Festival. Time, like a pusher, constantly pushes us forward from this transitional period in life.

What should I do next? What can I do next? As I pondered, the "?" that should have followed these words was squeezed into a smooth "." I, numb to it, finally came to a conclusion that was enough to comfort myself.

Becoming an unfettered creator. It's like responding casually to a teacher's question in elementary school about wanting to be a scientist. Even though I said it, my actions didn't move me even a hair's breadth towards that goal. I was muddle-headed before, and I've been wasting my time ever since. Regardless of ambition, I'm still the same person.

...

"Why couldn't I find you anywhere yesterday afternoon? Even if you really wanted to go home, you should have told me, the squad leader, right?"

"..Feel sorry."

Lin Yi caught me early in the morning and gave me a scolding. While I did do something wrong, it felt like she was deliberately trying to make things difficult for me. Ultimately, she assigned me a job washing food. Of course, there was no such thing as warm water at school, so washing food in a cold sink was terrifying.

However, even though there was room for negotiation, I still accepted it without saying a word. If this can make her feel better, then it doesn't matter.

"..I'll go with you too." After I took a few steps, she suddenly caught up with me quickly. Of course, she was also carrying a box of ingredients.

"Do you need two people?"

"It will be quicker this way, and cold water is not very comfortable to use."

"Oh..." I didn't know how to face her for a moment.

"This isn't for you, it would be the same for anyone else."

I had said this to her before, but now it was coming from her... well, it felt a bit forced.

"Did you mean what you said before?" She didn't look at me, but spoke in a tentative tone.

"...not really." In a way, that wasn't what I wanted to say at all. "I just think it's not good for you and me to be too close."

"...Ah, I see. Even if you and your girlfriend were assigned to the same class, you didn't have to distance yourself from me like this, right? You know, words like that really hurt." After clarifying the matter, her mood seemed to improve a lot. "And then you completely ignored me, which made me very upset, and my attitude towards you couldn't help but become worse."

“..This is also my fault.”

Actually, I wanted to reconcile with her, but I forgot about it.

"Forget it, let's both take a step back."

"Hmm..." Now she was the first to bring up the question. I thought she wouldn't care about me at all.

"Ying really wants you to come to my house...but I don't know whether I should invite you home. After all, you already have Yehui, and going to another girl's house..."

"Wait a minute, how did you figure out that Yehui and I were dating?" I asked her in surprise.

"...When you were sick before, she took leave to take care of you. We all knew it." She actually gave a reason. And this reason really made me unable to refute it. After all, it was true.

"..ha."