My brother is perfect—so very, very perfect, like a flawless moon on a clear night.
He looks adorable, and his temper’s gentle as spring rain.
He cooks like a kitchen god—once you taste his food, everything else tastes like cold ash.
He handles housework like wind over water; no matter the mess, he sets it right fast.
Places he cleans end up spotless, gleaming like polished jade.
He’s skilled at fine crafts like sewing—clothes or cloth dolls, his hands stitch spider-silk lines.
Everything he makes turns out pretty and cute, like blossoms opening after rain.
Most of my clothes and my sisters’ are made by him; even the maids’ uniforms are his work.
...
His strengths could fill days and nights—endless like stars strewn across a deep sky.
In short, my brother is perfect.
And me—Yumigawa Nozomi, his little sister—I adore him, like bamboo reaching for light.
Also, he practically raised me.
When I was one, our parents caught travel fever and disappeared without a care, like birds leaving the nest.
My sisters didn’t know how to tend a baby; mistakes piled up, and I cried rivers.
After a while, my constant crying wore them thin, so they passed me to my brother like a noisy sparrow.
When he first took me from them, he looked a little lost.
Then he smiled like dawn and said, “Littlesky, I’ll raise you.”
His promise glowed like a lantern against the night.
And so he became my caretaker; for me, he bustled every day like wind under our eaves.
Walking, reading, speaking—each step and word came from him, strung like beads on a thread.
He was only six then, a small pine shouldering the winter sky.
...
Raised by him, I clung to him—close as a shadow to a lamp.
I was with him in everything: play, books, meals, baths, sleep—like a river pressed to its bank.
Even my sisters envied me; our closeness felt like winter sun through paper windows.
I thought we’d live like this forever, happy as swallows under the eaves.
But I was wrong; after he took up our forebear’s mantle, he left this place and my side, roaming the world like a lone crane.
Still, my heart is set; I’ll leave here and find him, like a kite tugging back toward the wind.
