"Hey. Are you well? Are you properly eating the food I le--Beep."

I hung up on voicemail.

Meaningless. Why even ask a question you already know the answer to?

"If that's all you're saying, you might as well have not sent this message."

Is this all I am to you, Mother? Someone you tentatively send messages to every once in awhile so as to appear worried?

How shallow.

This is why I hate connecting my phone to yours, Mother. It's useless. You don't care about me after all.

"Oh right, there are other messages..."

To begin with, I only wanted to listen to a specific message. I just got surprised by Mother's voicemail, and ended up hanging up in agitation rather than move on to my message.

I sighed and then quickly dialed voicemail again.

Really, this is the only reason why I have a phone. I mean, as a shut-in, what use is a phone to me? Especially when it seems like all sorts of unpleasant people would try and contact me.

I lifted up the phone to my ear, just in time to hear the other side's familiar yet pleasant voice, "Sir, you have," before switching to an unpleasant yet also familiar mechanical voice, "Two," and then it quickly returned to the previous voice to make a rather uncanny sentence, "Messages. Please enter 1 to listen to the first voice message. Press 2 to listen to the second voice message. Press 3 to delete all messages. Press 0 to return."

I have already listened to the first message, so of course I'd be clicking number 2 as opposed to number 1.

"..."

There was nothing but silence.

However, I didn't really feel concerned. After all, all of her voicemails start like this. It's a characteristic of hers.

The silence persisted for about a second a half, before it was sharply cut by a tender, high pitched voice: "Ohayou, Onii-chan!"

As soon as I heard the voice, my heart warmed. This. This is it. This is the reason why I still own a phone. This is the only reason why I am able to raise up from sleep, and continue to this day.

This is the super popular seiyuu(voice actress) that voiced three of the most iconic heroines in the last decade, Natsume Yuki!

For the last two years, she's been leaving me voicemails everyday asking about me. Truly, the only one who cares about me is Yuki.

Now that I'm feeling better, I couldn't help but smile.

"How are you today, Onii-chan? I hope you're properly eating."

I couldn't help but nod in acknowledgment and respond out loud, "Of course I'm eating well. I wouldn't want to worry you, after all."

After a slight pause, Yuki continued with a dejected tone, unlike her previous one: "Yuki on the other hand isn't doing all that well..."

When I heard that, my heart tightened. What could it be? How come Yuki isn't doing well?

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Thankfully, there was a pause after her sentence. Otherwise if I couldn't calm down in time, I would've missed what she would say next.

...Calm down, there's no way  it's serious. Alright. No matter what happens, I'll do my best to help Yuki out. No matter what. She's been there for me since day 1.

"They aren't willing to have Yuki talk to Onii-chan...A-a-at this rate, Yuki won't be able to talk to Onii-chan anymore. Y-yuki doesn't want that! Yuki..."

And then silence.

The silence persisted for about three seconds before it was abruptly interrupted by the operator.

"Would you like to listen again?"

However. However...I-I couldn't think. Not being able to talk to me anymore? Someone is trying to take Yuki away from me?  

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This can't be. But why. Why? WHY!?

"Beep beep beep."

"Eh?"

I was brought back to reality by the beeps. I didn't click anything...So I've been forcibly terminated.

"I-I have to find out w-why Yuki can't talk to me anymore!"

I immediately dialed voicemail back and pressed 2.

It was really hard to hear, because I felt my heart beating in my ears. However, I listened again. And again. And again.

Until I finally noticed that she mentioned "They".

"They...? They...can it be, her agency?"

I made my first contact with Yuki through her agency to begin with, so really, most likely, she meant them.

If it's her agency...then I only have to contact them, right?

I tried to comfort myself to no avail.

Immediately, I opened my computer and accessed my email.

I'll send them an email to get to the bottom of this.

"...I guess they beat me to it."

As soon as I opened my email, I noticed a new email in my inbox.

It was her agency.

I took a deep breath and opened the email. After doing a quick read, I found out why they took Yuki away from me.

"They want me to pay them more to have Yuki talk to me...?"

Under the guise of Yuki 'working' for me, we're able to talk. However, it seems like if this got public it could hurt Yuki's image. That's why, they're asking for a higher paycheck.

"If it's just money...I have a ton of it!"

If there's one thing I'm not lacking, then it's money! You can practically say that I'm made of money!!

With that being said, I sighed in relief and decided to immediately wire them the money.

Who cares about stupid pocket change, if that's all it takes to have Yuki talk to me again?

"Eh? I can't access my bank account to make a transfer?"

This can't be.

Let me try again.

"..."

Why isn't it working? There's no way that's possible!

For the first time in forever, I dialed up a number to talk to a real person.

I need to have the bank sort this out as soon as possible so I can rest at ease!

...

...

...

"...Y-yes, y-yes, thank you v-very much."

I then hung up.

"God dammit!"

I threw a punch toward the wall.

"Oww!!!!"

Shit, that hurts!!

My eyes started sweating.

"How come they...How come they froze my account!?"

From what the bank told me, the ones who opened said account decided to freeze it. However, the ones who opened the account were my parents.

This means that my parents were the ones who froze my bank account?

I immediately decided to call Mother.

...After a few beeps, the line suddenly hung up. Right afterwards, a text came through.

>Your father is asleep, so talk like this.

"I don't give a fuck if Father is asleep or not!"

I rang again.

"Beep beep beep beeeeep....."

>What do you want? Dear, please, don't call in the middle of the night. It's 4am. Just send me a text, or call me again in a couple of hours.

I rang again.

"Beep beep beeeeep....."

>Did you listen to my voicemail?

"I don't care about your shitty 'concern'!"

I rang again.

This time around, it refused to connect at all. She must have blocked incoming calls.

>Just listen to the voicemail. If you still want to talk, talk to me tomorrow. I'm going to return to sleep. Talk to you tomorrow. Don't tire yourself, honey.

"...ARGHH!!!"

I punched the wall again. After that, I resigned to my fate and dialed voicemail again.

This time though, when I heard the operator's voice, it felt anything but pleasant. I immediately hit 1 so as to skip it.

"Hey. Are you well? Are you properly eating the food I leave at your doorstep? You must take good care of your health, even if you never leave your room. I miss you honey. Why don't you leave every once in awhile and let your mother take a look at your face?"

Stop it. You don't care at all. Stop acting like you care.

"They probably haven't told you, but your younger brother has started slowly taking over your father's responsibilities at work."

I don't fucking care.

"Your father decided to take it easy and run to become the prime minister."

Is that all you wanted to tell me, Mother? What does that have anything to do with me? Whether that backstabbing fucker took my place, or that pure ego in the form of a human decided to inflate himself even further?

"Because of that, you father decided that there can't be anything that will ruin his reputation, and made the decision to...limit you until the end of the elections. But don't worry, momma here will take care of everything for you! You just say it, and I'll get it. Just get out of your room every once in awhile."

"...!"

So that's why...

You want to hide me from the world?

You don’t want anyone to know that I’m your eldest son?

"For that stupid reason...you decided to take Yuki away from me...?"

Suffocating.

I suddenly feel that my room is small. It's choking me. I'm having a hard time breathing.

I-I need air.

I opened the window, and yet I didn't feel a tiny bit better. In fact, it felt worse.

"I-I need to get out of here...Fresh air..."

Looking at the time, no one should be awake yet. I snuck out of the house for fresh air.

To be frank, this isn't the first time I've snuck out for fresh air. Although when I usually do go out, I go out in a better mood than what I'm feeling right now.

I just lost myself and started to walk aimlessly. Before I knew it, I stopped before a crosswalk. Taking a look at the pedestrian light, it was red.

I took a look left and right.

To my right, I saw a truck slowly making its way to speed past me.

"Let's see how you'll suppress this."

Taken by the depressing reality that in this world, there probably isn't a single one that cares about me, I couldn't help but take a step forward.

"I'll force you to care. I'll force you to acknowledge me to the world."