Sweet Sister — Aneki My Elder

“I know I don’t laugh enough,” she said. “It’s nice to know you see me doing it.”

My elder sweet sister.

I hid behind the shrine’s storage shed until the moon became a chipped coin in the sky. My knees were scraped. My pride was a raw wound. And then, I heard the click-click-click of wooden geta on stone.

She turned those weak-tea eyes on me, and for the first time, I saw the laugh from my sketch. It was small, just a twitch at the corner of her mouth, but it was real.

I said nothing.

Her name was Sora. But to me, she was always Aneki , a title I pronounced with a reverence that made our mother smile and our father nod approvingly. She was five years older, with ink-black hair she braided every morning into a single, severe rope that swung like a pendulum between her shoulder blades. Her eyes were the color of weak tea, soft but direct. And she smelled of jasmine rice and the faint, metallic tang of the tailor’s shop where she worked.

Aneki stood at the edge of the lantern light. Her braid was loose, hair wild around her shoulders. She carried a cloth-wrapped bundle.

She stood, dusted off her skirt, and held out her hand. Her palm was calloused from needles and scissors. It was the most beautiful hand I had ever seen.