*Knock, knock!*
I’m relaxing on top of my bed when somebody knocks on the door.
“Hey, Andreu. Do you mind if I come in? I think we need to talk about what happened today…”
I can hear Marta’s voice coming from the other side. It looks like she came to talk about the reason why she was playing as our opponent in the last match.
But I don’t feel like answering as I usually would… let’s provoke her a little bit.
“Who is i~t?”
In the most annoying tone I can find, I ask who she is. It’s obvious I already know, but it’s in these little details that you can truly annoy other people. And I certainly am angry at her right now, so I want to do it.
“Hah… don’t be stupid, you know it’s me! So open the door already!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone called ‘me’.”
“Stop being a kid and open the door!”
“Don’t wanna! I don’t have anything to talk about with a traitor like you!”
She bangs on my door.
“If you don’t open it, I’ll do it!”
She bangs on it again, putting more force, and the door bulges a little. If it continues like this, she’s going to break it…
“...ok, ok! Stop banging on the door, I’m opening it!”
She stops, and I continue laying on my bed. Yeah, I have no intention to open the door. Not yet. She has to suffer more!
“Why are you taking so much time to open the door…?”
“I was busy, but I’m coming…”
Hahaha! I laugh at her. It’s hard to hold your laughter in situations like this one, but if she hears me laugh, she’ll really break the door… I need to stay quiet.
About thirty seconds pass. By now, I’m sure she has realized I’m playing with her.
“Andreu! Stop fooling around! If you don’t open the door now, I’m smashing it open!”
*Bang!* With a loud sound, my door bulges inwards.
Aaaagh! She’s really going to break it!
“Wait! Wait I said! I’m opening it for real now, so stop it!”
“...”
She doesn’t say anything but stops her efforts to break the door. Finally, some tranquility…
“I’ll count to ten before smashing the door open… One, two…”
Aaaagh! My tactic to lie to her yet again has failed! She knew I wasn’t going to open the door… how did she know? Does she know the future?
I raise from the bed and open the door. Reluctantly.
“So… who is it?”
After I unlock the door, I open it and stick my face out… and receive a punch.
Yeah, I kind of deserved it, though there was no real need… Why are you so violent, Marta? At least she didn’t put too much force on it, so it doesn’t really hurt. Well, it hurts my pride, but who cares about it?
“Auch! It hurts!”
I pretend I’m really hurt, rubbing my face and spilling some tears. Let’s see if she feels bad about it…
“Stop doing stupid stuff already and move aside!”
…but in response, she kicks the door, forcing it open. And, of course, it smashes on my poor left foot.
“Agh! I was pretending before, but this does hurt!”
“Oh, I’m sorry… you should have moved aside when I asked you to…”
In an indifferent tone, she enters my room and closes the door. You bitch! Don’t you feel even a little remorse for your actions!?
Stroking my poor foot, I lay once again on the bed.
“What do you want, Marta? Don’t you know I’m busy?”
“Yeah, busy… busy doing nothing, you mean?”
Ugh! That hurts! But it’s true, she knows me too well. There’s no way for me to fool her. Maybe if I change tactics, I would be able to fool her once again… Fufufu! Time to make some plans!
She fidgets a little, looking at me with an awkward expression. But she doesn’t say anything.
“*Sigh* What do you want? Why did you almost smash my door, but now you’re standing here, saying nothing?”
“So… you know… I… no, because of you, I…” Come on, Marta. I know you can do it! “I… we… we have something to talk about… I think.”
“You came to apologize, then?”
“Yes! N-no! I-i mean…” She struggles for a while until she finally says, in a voice so low I can barely hear. “I’m sorry…?”
Was it really that hard, Marta? Is apologizing really that difficult for you? Also… why was there a question at the end of your apology? Are you sorry, or not?
“For what are you sorry?”
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Yeah, I’m going to force you to say it. I won’t show mercy! Hahaha!
“No, wait! Don’t say it yet, Marta. I’m going to ask Clara to come to my room too. Wait for a moment.”
“But…”
“No buts! If you’re going to apologize and explain, Clara deserves to hear it too!”
“...ok.”
Hahahaha! Today is a glorious day! The day I managed to force my older sister to do what I want! Even if it’s only because she’s sorry!
I’m going to save this scene in my brain for the rest of my life!
Hmm, now that I think about it… I’m a little pitiful, getting so happy because of this situation… Well, who cares. I’ll enjoy it to the fullest!
----------------------------------------
“...”
“...”
“...”
I went to Clara’s bedroom and came back with her. As the good little sister she is, she followed me as soon as I asked her. Bringing her to my bedroom was easy.
But then…
Clara is sitting on my bed right next to me, looking at me with a pout on her face and her arms crossed. Since she came inside my room and saw Marta, she hasn’t said anything. She hasn’t even looked at her!
But her furrowed eyebrows and puffed-up cheeks are so adorable! It’s like a little angry squirrel!
And in front of me, sitting on a chair and with her head lowered, is Marta.
She doesn’t look very good right now. I’m sure she’s worried about Clara’s reaction, and the fact that she hasn’t said anything at all to her.
Is that despair I see on your face, Marta? If so… Hah! Serves you right! This is what you get for doing stuff you knew you shouldn’t!
And this leaves me with no other choice but to turn my head alternatively between them, looking for a way to make this situation less awkward.
“Um…”
I don’t know what to say… I thought they solved their problems during the match, but it looks like Clara only temporarily accepted Marta’s apology so that we could win the match…
Agh… this situation is killing me! Somebody say something! Anything! I don’t care who, or what, just say something! Why are you two behaving like this!? It’s me the one who should be fooling around, as usual, and not you! Why do I have to be the sensible one!? I’m not good at that role!
“Marta.” She twitches when I call her. “You wanted to say something to me and Clara, am I right?”
“I… I…” Her eyes swim all around the place as she nervously fidgets with her hands. “I, I…”
“...you?”
I make a sign for her to continue, but she only keeps repeating the word ‘I’. Ok… it looks like she broke…
See? This is what happens when you never ask for forgiveness: you’re not used to it and you have a hard time when you know you MUST do it.
Me? I’m on the ‘better say sorry’ faction, so I don’t have this problem. I do the deed, even if I know it’s bad, and then ask for forgiveness. And at the same time, I’m already planning the next deed and how I’m going to apologize for that one…
As you can see, it’s a lot better.
“Marta!” This time, she jumps when I call her. “Calm down and start from the beginning, ok?”
*Sigh…* “I, I… I was angry...” At first, it looks like she broke once again, but she manages to continue. “I was angry because you never wanted to play with me.”
I urge her to continue. So far, she hasn’t explained anything.
“I was tired of listening to you playing together all the time, so I planned some way to force you into it! Also, I had to beat the shit out of you at least once! How could you be the one to always win? I had to fix that first!”
Panting because of being out of breath, she finishes the phrase by pointing at me.
Please, let’s leave this out already… You killed me, and you won. Happy now? I think the other stuff is a lot more relevant.
Finally, Clara reacts and, in an equally heated and angry voice, refutes Marta’s words.
“It was YOU who stopped playing with US, and not the other way around! And it was Andreu, and not YOU who helped ME when I needed it! You told me to solve the bullying by myself, remember!? So of course I’m going to ask him instead of you!”
“I… was a stupid brat by then!” Marta stands up, shouting in shame. “I was too immature to realize I wasn’t the most important one and didn’t realize you needed us!”
Oh, yeah… I forgot. Well, it isn’t like I actually forgot, but that I didn’t want to remember…
At that time, Marta was in high school, and, like most adolescents, she thought she ‘was too good’ to mingle with her ‘stupid little siblings…’. That she was an adult and we were too childish. That everything revolved around her and everyone had to do her bidding. That she was better than everyone. That only her problems mattered, and everyone else’s problems were irrelevant.
Ok, ok, let’s stop here… I think you got what I mean…
It’s just that I was in the middle of it. Between the egocentric Marta, who just started high school, and Clara, who needed my help. And I was going to start high school next year too, so I was busy with lots of other stuff.
…you must understand I can get heated too when remembering about it.
“So what? You were a brat? Is this really everything you have to say to me? And to Andreu!? Do you know how much I needed you? No. How much WE needed our older sister!? And you weren’t there for us!”
Marta lowers her head in shame and drops to the chair.
“I… I’m, I’m sorry…! I'm sorry I was so stupid then, and ignored you when you needed it the most!”
Are that tears I see in Marta’s cheeks? It’s the first time since… I don’t remember the last time.
“I just want everything to return to how it was before…”
“Hmph! If this is what you want, you’ll have to do a little bit more than apologize!” Clara crosses her arms and adds in a lower voice. “...though, well, this is the first step, I suppose…”
Hmm… is it me, or the more mature of us three is actually Clara, the youngest one? At least, this is what it feels like right now…
Marta is crying on the chair, and Clara is looking at her with the same furrowed brows as before. Come on, why do both of you have so much trouble saying what you actually want to say…?
This might be the time for me to intervene.
“Come on, Clara… it’s clear that she feels bad about it. She even asked for forgiveness. Don’t be like her and forgive her. She can make it up for you from now on, don’t you think?”
Marta raises her head and looks at me with an incredulous expression. At the same time, tears continue to fall from her cheeks.
What!? After so much dissing against me, saying whatever you wanted, did you really believe I’m incapable of caring? If so, how is it that I was the one to help Clara instead of you?
“But, you also…”
“Don’t worry about me. I did what I thought I had to do, and I’ll never regret it. In fact, if I we returned to that time, I would do the same.”
“Andreu…”
Clara breaks into tears too and hugs me. It looks like she was truly holding herself back…
Marta is now looking here. In the middle of crying, she’s trying to stand up from the chair before sitting once again.
“Don’t you have something else to say?”
She hesitates. Then, understanding what I mean, and with a lot of hesitation, she finally says.
“I’m… I’m sorry for you too, Andreu…”
She almost choked when saying it.
If you truly are sorry, why do you still treat us so differently? Did those continuous losses in games really hit you so hard that, even now, you hesitate to treat me properly?
But I’ll be the bigger person and ignore her behavior… for now.
“Ok… come here…”
She jumps at me and Clara, who are on top of the bed hugging each other, to join us. Both my sisters are crying like there’s no ending.
“I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry…”
“Andreu, you’ll never leave me, right?”
I pat both their heads as they bawl. Oh, come on, don’t soak my clothes… Hmm, wait! Why do I feel this wet sensation in my cheeks?
Tears? Nah, it can’t be.
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“All ends well that ends well. After talking about it for some time, we agreed to try to restore our original relationship. Now, let’s see how long this peace lasts for…”