“Hey, big brother Arata. If I grow up, can I be a musician!” 

“Of course, Kirameki. Just follow your heart’s content, and your big brother will do everything for you, okay? Just make sure you’ll pass your entrance exams, learn a lot of musical notes, and, and-...”

“Boo… brother. You’re so stingyyy,” Kira, my sister, grumbled  and pouted. “Fineee~. I’m going to learn the fiddle! And I want you to be the first one to hear it!”

“That’s a promise?” Kirameki added, and placed her pinky in front of my face.

“I promise!”

But that day never happened. 

……….

“When you’re a pirate, everything’s free!”

Well, the truth was, I got what I wanted. But not what I needed.

The partitions surrounding me were just enough to accommodate two people on a single bed. It had two rooms: one for the bedroom and one for the kitchen… For everything. Every month, we paid roughly around forty-thousand Yen - the cheapest of them all. I traveled around Tokyo to find an apartment that was enough for us to live in and enough to call my home… Our home. It was for my sister, after all.

And yet, it was never enough.

Studying at a university, attending classes early in the morning, skimming my notes and other textbooks, and working late at night while paying for our expenses was hell. I placed my bag down and impatiently wiped the sweat drenching my face. The smell of dust and rotting food plugged the air, but I brushed off the foul scent and looked at the mirror.

The reflection of myself greeted me. Now that I had a clear look in the mirror, ebony eyebags wrapped my skin near my sockets. My threadbare uniform with dozens of holes was also a sight to behold. I averted my sight from my crazed hair reaching for the ceiling, scaring the surrounding women from left and right as they talked shit behind my back. I also had a watch strapped around my wrist, but it never told the time. 

Woefully, my funds were enough for my sister and me to survive for the month… barely survive for the month. I heaved a sigh within a few seconds and took out my wallet. After estimating the money inside, I knew we were short on cash. It wasn’t enough.

“Tsk.. Only one hundred thousand Yen… Forty thousand for the apartment’s rent, twenty thousand to buy some medicines for my sister, saving some thirty thousand yen for my tuition, and…. Ten thousand yen for food and other expenses. Fuck…”

I opened the fridge and found less than ten instant noodles left inside, a couple of rice sacks, some cooking ingredients, and preserved food suitable for a week. But if I had to squeeze through this tight budget, more or less, my sister could scrape by… Especially if I could magically work it out.

But I excluded myself from that computation. Honestly, paying twenty thousand for my sister’s medicine was still too much for the expenses I had to compute. Not to mention, I also had to pay for the electrical and water bill. I didn’t even include my transportation cost. Shit got real.

“Maybe I could make something out… I promise, Kira… Big brother’s going to give you a life you deserve…” I said, and caressed my sister’s forehead.

For an eighteen-year-old kid, this was a nightmare. This wasn’t life. I could hardly call it my life if it weren’t for Kirameki, my sister.

In front of the entrance door was the last picture we took of our parents before they passed away. We were never rich, so they left us with nothing but troubles. It wasn’t their fault. It was nobody’s fault at all. But for me, it was easier to blame our problems on others than accept the shitty life we were dealing with. The only saving grace I had… was my sister. As long as she was alive, I would do everything for her.

“Eleven in the evening…. How long have I been awake? Twenty hours? Let’s see…. I have a class at seven in the morning… if I sleep around one or two and wake around three or four, I would have approximately two to three hours of sleep. But I also need to earn some cash while I’m at it… Maybe sleeping isn’t the best call. Or maybe having one hour of sleep should be enough to keep me up. I’ll just grab a coffee and see how to go from there. Fuck… Fuck my life. Well, I guess I have to work now,” I muttered. “Work with another job besides being a cashier. If only I could make a large amount of cash within the night… Maybe I could also do that. I still have some spare time.”

As soon as I got everything out of the way, I opened my ancient laptop and browsed the usual site. I was a pirate. After pushing some buttons, the internet threw me to the land where I had to purchase everything to access it. Not everyone could grab their hands at the latest games, literature, research, and anime. Some who couldn’t pay were… forced to do nothing.

But I changed that. With one chance to use my expertise, I cracked the code and managed to survive with Kira.

“I’ll just drag them here and… there. That should do it.”

[Welcome to the INitflex, a site where you can watch all the latest series and television shows for as low as one thousand five hundred Yen per month!]

I downloaded all the videos and posted them online. Brace yourselves, JEDDIT. Free videos are coming.

[Choose your poison ;) We have vanilla, ugly bastards, tentacles, and more for as low as one thousand eight hundred yen per month! And we have anime…]

[Not to mention, we have one-on-one fans where you can ONLY meet them there!]

It was worth a shot, knowing that most people on the internet would watch these sorts of things. I would be rich in no time if I had them for free or even at a cheaper price!

[Listen to any music for twenty-four seven! Without paying for anything, except for the playlist!]

Wow… That sounded disgusting and useless. But people also subscribed to these shitty things, so it had its use for me.

And last, but most importantly, games. People loved games, specifically if they were free. I was a pirate. So I could make everything accessible in exchange for my fame and a small amount of cash in my name. It was the only thing I knew I could do.

After typing a few codes enough to bypass the system, the site rewarded me with full access to the entire area. I punched a few buttons, copied everything, and placed it on a site where I could sell them at a lesser price than the original company. The entire shares would be immediately transferred to a fake account, which I could use to withdraw the money.

I even made a name out of myself. Some people in the JEDDIT community as Blackjack. Captain Blackjack. The more I heard my name, the more I convinced myself I became a modern pirate, similar to the iconic one created by the big and famous mouse. Anyway, this fame helped me a bunch. Thanks to the meme nickname, everyone in the community knew my personality. And that became a double-edged sword for me to handle.

The internet security copyright, or whatever they call it, didn’t like the idea. But no matter how hard they tried to pinpoint my location and the pirate site, they could never pin me down. Well, not without a particular device where they could track me down. This ancient shit could avoid the radars of the trackers made from the present time… If I could guess it right.

It didn’t take long before the money started kicking into my account. My bank account turned zero to hero, as I eventually earned one hundred thousand yen more to add to some expenses. But thanks to the tax system on the internet and in our country, only fifty thousand Yen went inside my wallet.

“Even pirates can’t escape from the government, huh?” I asked myself.

Moreover, the people behind those copyright issues might be actual idiots. How on Earth can they not catch me when the earnings I received were deducted thanks to these taxes? But the answer was in front of me. The fake account and the online card were untraceable and disposable. At least, for now.

“Finally! I can buy you some nice clothes, Kira! I can finally….”

When I glanced at my side, my sister, Kirameki, or Kira, was sleeping with her foot-long pillow tucked around her body. Her hair had not been combed for a while, and Kira’s dress was all sliced into pieces… just like mine. She also looked like a worm. If she continued wrapping herself around that pillow, Kira could break the fabric and… It didn’t matter. I could buy her another if I could earn some money. That was my goal. I wanted to give everything to my sister…

Kira had her mouth wide open. Drools slowly dripped from her lips, but she was still an angel in my eyes. Her snores reached the entire room, but the sound was more soothing than it seemed. That girl was my sister, and I would do everything to give her the life she deserved. Yes. I will do everything for Kirameki, even if it means killing someone to protect her.

But beside Kira was a mountain of medicines she needed to take. All of which wasn’t a cure for cancer. Cancer Sarcoma, to be precise.

I slowly reached out for my jet-black trousers and hoodie to start the night. These clothes concealed my presence. I didn’t need a weapon. All I had was myself, but I had more ways than one to get some money that involved risks and a brave heart.

“I need to earn at least one hundred thousand Yen. If I’m lucky, maybe five hundred thousand Yen won’t hurt,” I intoned. “I need to buy more medicine for Kira… Next week, I must pay for my upcoming tuition due for this month.”

But before I could even take a step outside, a hand grabbed onto me and pulled the end of my hooded sweatshirt. As I turned around, Kira desperately pulled me closer without even opening her eyes. She was too weak for anything. However, my sister used every ounce of her strength just to momentarily stop me before leaving our home.

“Big brother…. Where…. Are you…?” Kirameki asked. She couldn’t even finish a sentence. But my sister conveyed what she wanted to tell me, still with her fingers gripping my shirt.

“I’m just trying to get some money… Don’t worry. Your big brother is going to go home soon. Just wait for me, okay?”

I hopelessly held back my tears as I watched Kira struggling just to speak those words. Her eyes were about to fall. But thanks to Kira’s sheer will, my sister forced herself to talk to me, even though it was painful for her body. All I could do was watch her despair.

“No, no, no, no, no… Kira. Just rest. Just rest for brother, okay? Resting makes me happy.”

“I… I can’t,” Kira answered.

“Why?” I tilted my head.

“How can I rest… when you keep doing everything for me… I want to help you too…” My sister clung to the table and tried pulling herself up from the bed. She succeeded. But when she walked for a few steps, Kira stumbled and wiggled like a fish. Thankfully, I was there beside her.

“Please, Kira… Do it for me… I’m your brother…. This is my job… I want to protect you.”

“But who’s going to protect you?”

The night was silent. The icy wind from the door entered the room. There was nothing I could say after hearing those words. My sister reluctantly agreed and watched me leave the room, unable to stop me from any longer, even if she wanted to.