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A Wild Sheep Chase
During times when you communicate with a UFO, there are four important steps to always keep in mind.
Step 1: Observe the other party from a safe distance.
Step 2: Leaving behind indications that you were there.
Step 3: Ensuring proper cultural exchange.
Step 4: Review unlawful abduction and confinement guidelines.
It would be an interesting setting for the start of a new story, don’t you think? If a UFO came from the Andromeda Galaxy to look for a groom, and especially if green tentacles and violet eyelashes were her charming points, I’d blow past all the racial reformation laws and warp out with her without a moment’s hesitation. As of right now, though, I have no plans to partake in a second Apollo mission like this. Instead, I want to argue that these four steps are actually very much relatable to us humans.
This story all came about, as you can probably guess, at the point where I met an extraterrestrial being for the first time.
*
It was in the middle of September, on the third Saturday of the month. The scent of fragrant olives drifted through the air beneath the bright blue sky with no cloud in sight. The time was currently 8am in the morning. I was riding on my bike on my way to school.
The day of the sports festival was slowly approaching, and our school allowed us to come to school even on Saturdays. Various people from various classes are all practicing their hardest to get ready.
“There’s also the pool contest, isn’t there?”
But I would be an amateur if I let it end there. When you think of sports festivals, you can’t forget the flag of all nations. If you’re part of the winning class, you receive the used sports clothes from girls who came from various countries all over the world! Ah, a dream like that sure is nice, right? After that, you get pictures of girls doing the peace sign, or SOS signs. From there you cross the seven seas, and you’re suddenly the foreign player at someone else’s sports festival, where you find a blond boing-boing girl you can get close to.
“—You seem as energetic as ever, Senpai.”
When someone tugged on my hair, I got off the saddle.
“W-What was that about? I was just thinking that I really wanted to win this year.”
“Is that so? Still, even if you do, I think the chances of running into an overseas beauty or an alien trying to learn from humans is practically zero.”
“…You’re acting too much like an esper as of late! Do you actually have telepathic powers like an alien would?!”
“No, but seeing how you are so much of a pervert that anybody could read your lewd thoughts, I’m worried aliens might actually come and communicate with you.” I heard a voice coming from the luggage carrier of the ladies’ bike.
Her voice had no intonation, and there was no friendliness on her face. Her voice was the perfect example of indifference, lacking any sort of emotion. She has cat-tail hair on one side of her head, and she looks like a small kitten—Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko. Today, we’re riding to school as we normally do. Ever since the typhoon incident last month, there are two things that have changed about Tsutsukakushi.
The first thing is this morning routine. Like a stray cat seeking a place to sleep, she comes to my house every morning to wake me up. Even though it’s in the opposite direction she should take to get to school.
“Are you really okay with this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have to head to school early because of morning practice for the sports festival. And you have to get up even earlier than me. I was wondering if you were pushing yourself too much.”
“My race practice is early in the morning as well, so this is fine.”
“Ohh? And what race are you participating in, Tsutsukakushi?”
“………”
No response came. An uncomfortable sigh caused abrupt silence, and that was the end of our conversation. It happened again. When I grew quiet myself, I felt the girl’s warmth pressing against my back, and she tugged on the hem of my shirt. Almost like a cat begging to be fed.
This is the second thing about her that’s changed.
As of late, Tsutsukakushi would just act like she wasn’t listening to me. Of course, when I said things like ‘The shadows of that tree almost look like spats that would look great on you,’ then I understood her reaction. But this could also happen normally during a normal conversation, like right now.
The frequency of this happening varied greatly, but when it happened, no matter what I tried, she would remain silent. In order to get Tsutsukakushi to open her mouth again, there was only one thing that worked. I cleared my throat.
“U-Um, T-Tsu…”
“……”
“Tsukiko… What race are you participating in?”
“The rice cake eating race. I’m practicing so I can eat as much as I can, so I’m participating in sports early in the morning so that my stomach is fully empty.”
“Even if you don’t do that, you’re a demonic god who’s always had an empty stomach ever since you were born.”
“That is very rude. I am just eating as much as I can so my growth spurt happens as quickly as possible.”
“Hahaha, you’re like a mammal preparing for the next Ice Age… I’m looking forward to seeing you like that, Tsu… Tsukiko.”
“Yes, you can look forward to seeing me all grown up.”
I laughed, and I felt the girl behind me let out a satisfied breath as well. Like that, the frozen time and mood started moving again. Basically, Tsukiko-chan of the Tsutsukakushi Household seems to be really bothered if I don’t call her ‘Tsukiko’. For some reason, I feel oddly nervous whenever I call her like that. I think ‘Moon Child’ sounds pretty interesting, though.
“What are you going to practice today, Senpai?”
“I think I might join practice for the variety competition relay. But first I have to look for someone who could help me. The other relay members aren’t exactly treating me like I’m a valid partner.”
“Why is that?”
“A lot happened last summer, right? There’s weird rumours going around even within the first-years.”
“Now that you mention it… You’re hated by every single underclassman on this blue planet.”
“Ah, it’s that bad, huh?”
Tsutsukakushi filled me in to the point where I felt depressed. Has she awoken to some kind of fetish for insulting me? Whose fault is this? Who changed her? I shivered at the thought of it, but there was no sign of her taking it any further. Instead, she seemed to be fiddling around with her tail-hair.
“I’m the only junior close to you. Eventually I’ll start growing. Once I become an adult, it will be mine. I see, I see.”
“…Um, Tsutsukakushi-san?”
“Calm and collected time of state and location with comforting tranquility and master servant relationship. I see, I see, I see.”
Tsutsukakushi kept chanting like she was casting a weird magical illusion, nodding the whole time. Her small head hit my back from time to time. It feels like she’s knocking on the door of a beautiful future. Why don’t you show me that future as well?
“…Now that I think about it, I’m actually not hungry this morning.”
“H-How did that happen?! The supply-and-demand chain for the entire world will fall apart!”
“What do you mean by that? There are times when I feel full as well, you know. I might not be able to practice for my rice cake eating contest… My, I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands today.”
“Huh?”
“…Since I have so much free time, I might just help someone I know out with some training. I wonder if there is someone out there like that.”
“A-Ahh! Ehm, then would you help me practice for my relay?”
“If you are desperate, I might give it some thought.”
“Please… Tsutsu… Tsukiko, help me.”
“It can’t be helped then, I will help you, Yo… Yoko… Yo… u… to… kun…”
“Hm?”
“…I will give it some thought, Senpai.”
Tsutsukakushi fumbled over her words and suddenly cleared her throat. She went a bit overboard, though, and started coughing for real. It looked like it kind of hurt, to be honest. Anyway, as you can tell (at least as far as I can tell), Tsutsukakushi has been in a good mood lately. It’s the exact opposite of back when the typhoon was going on. She seems to be in such a good mood that there’s one thing she wouldn’t say again. Namely, ‘Let’s look for my feelings and expressions.’ That’s the third, biggest change of it all.
If Tsutsukakushi herself is satisfied, then I have no right to bring it up. But is it really fine to just stop like this? The heroine has given up on the main plot line here. Why do I feel like things won’t be that easy?
“…Senpai.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“There’s a nice breeze, and it’s wonderful weather. It seems like today will be a good day.”
“…Yeah, maybe. I hope so.”
Well, if Tsutsukakushi is fine, then it should be okay, right? Pushed along by the fall breeze, I started pedaling again. The small kitten got back on the luggage carrier and softly held on to me. Tsutsukakushi is happy, I’m happy, the world is happy—Only that girl isn’t happy. When I thought of Azuki Azusa, my yawn swiftly changed into a sigh.
Azuki Azusa was a problem. Last week, she kept suddenly coming to mind, even to a level where I would dream of her. Even someone like me who doesn’t know any shame couldn’t forget about her. Things got messy and complicated, and no matter where I went, Azuki Azusa’s shadow would linger around my feet.
Well, I had set aside this problem for now, which I actually shouldn’t have, because I know that it’s going to come back to bite me, and ignoring it won’t help anything. The fall breeze was so comforting, though, that I just totally neglected it. Maybe that might have been the reason for a lot of things in the end.
‘To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.’
That’s what my personal God, Oscar Wilde, said a long time ago. If you think about the flipside of that, for someone like me who’s barely intellectual at all, the choice to not do anything is sheer stupidity. Before I had realized it, it was already too late. Either way, at this point in time, I, and possibly even Tsutsukakushi, had thought that was the end of it.
—That is, until we ran into her.
*
When we went around the corner on our way to school, I had to step on the brakes of this happy yellow bike we were riding on. Standing in the dead center of the roadway in front of a park was a single person raising both of their hands.
“Careful!” I screamed those cliché words aloud like it would do anything.
“Mugh.” Tsutsukakushi let out some kind of weird noise behind me.
When I turned around because of the dull impact hitting my back, she was holding her nose with both hands, writhing in agony like a fish on land. Her head probably ran right into my back because I suddenly stepped on the brakes.
“S-Sorry! Are you okay?!”
If anything happened to Tsutsukakushi’s doll-like face, the world would without a doubt end. While I was worried about Tsutsukakushi, the girl standing in the middle of the street just stood there, looking at me.
“………Hmph.”
She flapped her arms up and down and jumped up and down with her body. At the same time, she looked up at me as if trying to evaluate me. Yes, indeed, the person that I nearly ran over was indeed a small girl. Tsutsukakushi would definitely be a strong contender for the winner of the National Japan Miniature Girl Step-sister contest (at least inside my head). That being said, if this girl in front of us were to participate in the contest, things might actually turn pretty dangerous for Tsutsukakushi’s position…
I mean, if you look at this girl, she’s a grade school student at best. Yet the way she looked didn’t feel real at all. Her hair had a vivid color as if it been ravished in the fierce sun of Mediterranian Sea. She had her hair bound up in twintails with charming ribbons, like a gift brought down to earth by God himself. Her big eyes looked like rubies or topaz, giving off a feeling that she didn’t belong in this country.
She gave off a pleasant scent, making me wonder if she might actually be using perfume. It was a sweet scent like if she had come right out of a TV screen that was showing a foreign country. On top of that, her shoulders and armpits were in plain view, which was the result of a cute childish one-piece outfit, generating a lovable atmosphere that really suited her age.
“…This is dangerous.” I spoke honestly.
This time, the words were different from before. Nowadays, our country is highly dangerous. There’s perverts walking around early in the morning like this who would fantasize about used sports wear from countries all over the world, loitering around on their bikes. Before this foreign girl gets taken off somewhere, I have to step in and protect her with all my might. In times like these, Yokodera-kun has to show his true value. The power to be misunderstood by other people—’A person’s looks says 90%1’, activated!
“Say, what are you doing in a place like this? Are you alone? Where are your parents? Or an older sister who just went through her growth spurt that otherwise looks exactly like you?”
“Uuu?”
“…Do you have trouble speaking Japanese? Espagnol? Esperanto? Espresso? Dou you habu a esu saizu sista?”
“Uuuu…”
“………”
I felt the limits of communication when it came to different cultures. At the same time, I felt the limit of my own abilities even more. If I had to guess, the girl probably couldn’t understand what I was saying. She wore the face of an anxious wild animal. After that, she turned her outstretched arms upside down. She continued making that motion with the palm of her hands facing downwards.
“Huh? Do you want me to get off my bike?”
“Uuu!” She moved her head up and down like a nod.
Her bound-together hair wiggled like a pair of snakes. When I directed my gaze over to Tsutsukakushi, she gave a faint nod. I put down my bike’s kickstand and slowly approached the girl. I met with her gaze as I lowered my waist.
“Uuuu…”
As if to signal that I should crouch down more, she moved her arms up and down, only stopping when my knees touched the ground.
“…Uuu.”
She then held out the palms of her hands, as if to tell me to stay just like that, and took a few steps back. And just when she had put approximately ten meters between us—
“—Fire!”
Like a bullet shot from a gun, she started charging, right towards me at full speed.
“W-What are you doing?!”
Of course, being just your average high school student, I didn’t know how to react to a bullet being shot in a normally peaceful town. I couldn’t even move. With a half-broken posture, I could only watch the bullet incoming.
“Uuuu—Fina—llyyyy?!”
Right in front my eyes, at about a distance of one meter, the bullet girl kicked the ground.
“…Uu?”
Only for her feet to slip.
“Unnnynaaaaaaaa?!”
Mid-air, her body turned two times and twisted once. If you played it back in slow motion, it’d look as amazing as some of the things you would see during the olympics. If I had to give it a name, I would call it a beautiful moonsault. Everyone would give this a 10/10 score. It was a perfect success. Every single move was executed flawlessly to the utmost detail. There was nothing to complain about. If you take out the fact that the place she landed was my face.
“Ouchhhh?!”
“Unnininya?!”
At a weight I estimated at around 30kg, a jump kick landed right on my face. The only person who could keep standing after this kind of impact would probably be a pro wrestler or a pro lolicon. Sadly, I am neither of those, which is why my knees buckled and the back of my head gave a passionate kiss to the asphalt. The only reason my neck didn’t snap was probably because of my high morals and the generous deeds I had performed in my life. It was a bit of a reward (or a punishment?) from this dear lord above me. Still, the impact was enough to make my view go black.
For a short moment, light flickered in front of my eyes. I had a pleasant dream. A dream containing a rendezvous with a cute young girl located near a beautiful somewhere in this world. But my body was being shaken back and forth, forcing this dream to vanish into nothingness. What greeted my ears first before anything else was—
“…Onii-chan.”
It was the legendary name only granted to the chosen ones back in the ancient times in the illusionary land of Zipangu2. When I slowly opened my eyes to inspect the scenery in front of me, I saw the blue fall sky, as well as radiating hair, and the fierce color of the Mediterranian Sea. I was lying on my back, as a sweet scent came drifting down from above. The moonsault-girl was on top of me, clinging to my chest.
“…What did you just say?”
“Onii-chan!”
When I looked up at her face, the girl flashed me a grin. She put her ear to my chest, only to laugh again after listening to my pulse. Another grin. That was what you would call a 100% perfect smile.
A while ago, I had read a novel called ‘A Wild Sheep Chase8’ with a girl who had ‘100% perfect hearing’ (A sheep and rat love story Azuki Azusa would have liked. I’d recommend it to everyone!). The feelings of the protagonist are coming back to me now.
Basically, the way she is smiling is 100% perfect. Her eyes looked like wrinkled, narrowed gummy bears. I saw the lines on her marshmallow cheeks. The shape of her lovable mouth resembled sugar sweets melting away. Her laughing voice felt so comfortable and natural that it nearly made my heart ache. Everything I could have ever wanted from a laughing voice was right there in front of me.
“O-One more time! One more time!”
“Onii-chan?”
“O-Ohhhh! One more time! One more time!”
“Onii-chan! Onii-chan!”
The tension between us vanished at once, like the snow melting away during spring, and the girl rubbed her cheek against me as if she had always wanted to do this. Ahh, this truly is a blessing from God…!
“…Senpai.”
“Wha?”
I felt a presence to the right of me.
“Who is this girl?”
As if to freeze this comfortable fall weather, a 300-degree-below-zero snow storm came blowing down at me. While the 100% girl still rubbed her cheeks against me, I directed my gaze sideways to find Tsutsukakushi staring down at me. Inside her blue eyes was the Demon Lord. The Demon Lord of absolute zero. I even started having auditory hallucinations of the sound of ice cracking. Or maybe it’s the sound of a door starting to freeze, a door which would have normally led to a fantastic future.
“W-What’s wrong?! Go back to your usual kind self, Tsutsukakushi!”
“……”
“Ah, not Tsutsukakushi. Tsuki—”
“You two seem to have known each other for a long time, seeing how you’re this close, Yokodera-san.”
Before I could hope to cast Ali Baba’s spell, she stole the words from me and even added a tone like she was talking to a distant stranger. It was a calm voice, but for some reason it made my entire body shake in fear, and sweat started coming out of every pore of my body, making me feel more drenched than girls from certain videos out there.
“T-There seems to be a misunderstanding… I don’t actually know her…”
“Is that so? So you’re close enough to mess each other up, and you’re telling the unimportant, worthless me that I’m just a waste of time. I see.”
“Don’t say that things like that! She’s listening!”
“I know that. I get it. You are in the middle of raising this child into a glamorous Sister-san, right? Senpai truly is a pervert who lives for the future.”
“You don’t get it at all! Also would you just stop it already…?!”
Grabbing the 100% girl’s shoulders, I forcefully pushed her away so she’d stop rubbing her cheeks against me.
“Hehe, who is it?”
“What do you mean?! This isn’t some quiz!”
“…You don’t know at all?”
“No clue! You’re as unimportant, unrelated, and unknown as a shoe that I wore back in kindergarten falling down from the bed! Police Officer-san, there seems to be a misunderstanding here! I request an attorney! A defense team! A giant defense group with years of experience!”
“…Is that so…?” The girl let out a saddened sigh. Before I could say anything else, though, she took out what looked to be a plush toy strap you would put on your bag.
“Unyanya… wish… so that…”
She tightly embraced it in her hands, and her eyes were glued to me. It almost sounded like she was chanting something.
“…Huh?”
I felt like the world turned upside down. I felt no vertigo, no tremor nor impact, just the sensation of my senses shaking. At the same time, I heard a familiar, unsettling and ominous laugh. But this sense of discomfort swiftly vanished into nothingness, because—
“Oh, I did it again! Sorry for being late!”
Like a magnet being pulled towards us, a man ran up, panting like he was trying to control his breath during his jog. It was a familiar face, and a childhood friend of mine.
“…Perfect timing, Ponta. Help me out here.”
*
At the park’s entrance, small totem-pole-like pillars were set up to stop any cars from entering. The three of us sat on top of them to talk things out, whereas the fourth person—
“Wahhh, let go of me!”
—was dangling in the air, her neck held by her older brother.
“Why don’t you leave it at that, Ponta?”
“That would be like making seafood paste out of cuttlefish. Emi, you can’t bother other people like this. I keep telling you that, don’t I?”
“It’s been so long, so who cares?!”
“You octopus!”
Ponta tried to force her to bow her head in apology, but she tried to resist as much as possible, like some extraterrestrial twintails monster. That’s right, I remember now. I finally remember. This little chaos-maker is Emi. How could I forget?
This park is about halfway between the Yokodera’s house and Ponta’s house. We often met up here and made our way to school together. So of course it’s not weird at all for us to run into each other here. There’s nothing strange about that in the slightest.
“I guess it’s Tsutsukakushi-san’s first time meeting her, huh? Even if Yokodera forgives you, you still have to apologize to the Sun and Tsutsukakushi-san, alright?”
“Gandhi, Gandhi! No violence!”
“This ain’t violence, this is discipline. Do you understand how someone would feel if you jumped on them like that? Hm?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t do that sort of thing!”
“Why is this not getting into your tiny brain, you shrimp? It’s not funny at all.”
While his younger sister was resisting fiercely midair, Ponta could only scratch his cheek in bemusement. Tsutsukakushi shook her head slightly in response without him realizing it. Even after trying to get them together, it still is as awkward as ever. You have a friendly and open-hearted boy with a tall stature and a small girl with no expression on her face. Neither of them really seemed able to grasp each other entirely. Making your friends become friends with each other is unexpectedly difficult.
“With that out of the way, let me introduce you again. This here is my little sister Emanuela Pollarola. I just keep it short and call her Emi. Now greet them properly, Emi.”
“I wonder about that~”
“Do it!”
“You hit me! Um, uhh, I’m Emi, his little sister, and it’s my dream to make miso soup every morning for Youto-onii-chan!”
In response to Emi, who gave a short introduction with a smooth rhythm—
“…I see. I understand. Nice to meet you. I am Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko.”
“Tsutsukakiku? Tsutsukinoko? Tsuts…Tsu tsu tsu…Alright, Tsuu-chan!”
“It’s Tsutsukakushi. I am one year younger than your Onii-chan and Yokodera-san, Emanuela Pollarola-san.”
With her usual indifferent tone, Tsutsukakushi responded to Emi by calling her by her full name like an angry mother. She had a rival with sparkling eyes in front of her, and she resembled a Yuki-onna3-chan standing at the cliff of a glacier. Isn’t the expression she’s making a bit too ominous?
“The reason her Japanese is a mess is because she lived a long time over in Italy—But if anything, her personality is the worst part of her. She might say rude things sometimes, so feel free to smack her if you need to.”
“Yahoo! I’ll make them a mess!”
“I wasn’t saying that to you. I’ll seriously get angry at ya.”
“Sorry! I reflect! I love Onii-chan!”
“Do you think that’s all you have to say? You’d better take this seriously.”
In response to Emi and her dampened eyes, Ponta averted his face and scratched the tip of his nose. The Pollarola Household’s sibling quarrels always ends like this. After saying all of that, Ponta still looked a bit satisfied by the whole thing.
…Huh? Something is off. Not just this entire exchange, but there’s something else wrong. Ponta has a little sister with Italian blood, and she had gotten familiar with me while saying something like ‘He’s Onii-chan’s friend, so he’s also Onii-chan’, or something along those lines. Ponta’s nickname had also changed from ‘Pollarolla > Ponchi > Ponta’—Wait, did his nickname always have such a cool origin?
Ponta had a little sister. That is true. We’ve even played together before. I know that’s true, as well. This little sister is Emi. It’s a perfect syllogism. So there should be nothing weird about this. Nothing at all… But is that really the case?
I glared down at the sandy, dark asphalt below me. Some unpleasant memories are rattling around in my brain. It’s like a cold, hard bone is stabbing my throat. But if you asked me why I felt this way, and what I should do to fix it, I had no idea whatsoever.
“Now, here’s the thing, Yokonoji4.”
“Hm?”
I thought he was busy talking with his little sister, but Ponta suddenly called out to me in a weird way. He usually did that in the past whenever he had a big request to make of me.
“For a while now, Emi’s been really obstinate about checking out our high school. If somebody doesn’t watch her closely, she’ll get thrown out. But I’ve got no time whatsoever, see?”
“Yeah, you’re in the executive committee for the sports festival, right? Are you busy?”
“Indeed! I’m trying to stretch the budget as much as possible and send what’s left over to the poor children in Africa! So these activities are taking every single moment out of me. But if I leave her alone, it’ll be hell for me as much as it is for those African children. If I had two bodies, I could take care of both things. You feel me?”
So he wants me to become his second body, I see. He talks a lot, but in the end he still wants to fulfill his little sister’s wish, huh? That is very much like Ponta. That being said, I already have other plans.
“I’d love to help you out, but today I was already going to show Tsutsukakushi—”
“Unya!”
With a shout, Emi escaped from Ponta’s grasp and looked up at me.
“It’s the request of a lifetime, Youto-onii-chan! I love you!” She showed me a bright grin.
Yet again, I realized that this was truly a 100% perfect smile. At the same time, I felt like it resembled someone else’s. I didn’t know who this could be, and yet it shook my heart greatly, and I felt a throb running through it. This only lasted for a brief moment, though.
“Uuu… is it no good? If so, then I’ll hold back…”
I felt like I was being driven by Emi’s saddened voice. The bone—the sense of discomfort in my throat—started stabbing me even more fiercely. She bit her lip and the gesture awakened a desire within me to protect her, something like a small animal could induce. It’s a base desire and natural concept of every living being on this planet to want to comfort and spoil something this small and cute. My heart started to warm up a bit. I’m sure that if I transmitted these feelings throughout the world, it would bring world peace—
“—Hello, police officer? I would like to share some information about a loli and a pedo team around in the neighbourhood.”
“Why are you calling the police?! And what kind of team even is that?! Are we superheroes?”
“I see, so you think you’re being cool. Good for you, Pervert-san.”
I was doused with a cold, realistic voice, and any signs of world peace vanished like mist.
“Wait wait, you’re wrong, okay?! It’s not like that!”
“I know. It’s that other ‘that’, right?”
“Whenever you pretend you know what I’m talking about, you don’t get it at all!”
“It’s fine. I believe in you, Senpai. I’ll see you again once your lolicon tendencies have been improved.”
“Rather than believing in me in the future, how about you trust me now?!”
I mean, I understand that being entranced by a girl of this age would make me an enemy of society. Those kinds of guys would always blurt out inconsistent nonsense like ‘My feelings are pure!’, but that logic doesn’t work. I can understand why Tsutsukakushi feels that way.
“But my feelings are pure!”
“Please come here quickly, police officer. There is actually a loli-pedo deluxe king here.”
“Huh?!”
Tsutsukakushi tapped on her imaginary phone, standing up from the bike. Looking in the opposite direction from me, she raised her chin.
“…I’m joking. You should have told me that she’s your friend’s little sister. Why don’t you grant her wish?”
“But the practice for the sports festival…”
“I’m suddenly really hungry. I think I’ll eat a lot today after all.”
“Tsutsukakushi…”
“I’ll be going ahead. Take your time.”
Who knew if that was all she wanted to say? Before I could say anything, she started walking quickly down the road. From a distance, it almost looked like her small body was staggering.
“…Is this really okay? If you had prior arrangements, you can just go with her.” Ponta walked towards me as he shrugged his shoulders, but all I could do was shrug in return.
Of course, this was in no way a good thing. I’ll definitely have to pay this girl, who prioritizes others over herself, back later.
“Just showing her around a bit will do the trick, right?” I asked.
“I’m a cuckoo on the mountain of gratitude, my friend. I’ll definitely repay this debt.” Ponta clapped his hands together and slightly bowed. After hearing this, Emi jumped up and down in happiness. But in the same moment, I felt like I heard an uncomfortable, ridiculing voice from somewhere. “Heh, you idiot.”
“Hm?”
“Hmm? What’s wrong, Youto-onii-chan? Did you see someone so beautiful you had to turn around and stare?”
“How about you stop blurting out ridiculous things like that, okay?!”
When I turned back to Emi, she just tilted her head in an innocent way. For some reason, a lot of suspicious things keep happening this morning. For a while now, it’s all been… Um, what? What was it again? The sky above me looked so blue that I stopped caring. As long as I had the 100% perfect smile of this girl, I didn’t need anything else.
*
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but today is actually Saturday. Right in front of the school gate, as well as the special bike parking lot near to the West gate, were all full of bikes. That’s why I usually enter the campus from the opening next to the security building. If I were just going inside as your average high school student, that is.
“Hold on tight, okay… Here we go!”
“Ehehe! So high up! More, more! Jump! Let’s jump! Do a backflip!”
“The one who will be the victim of that will be you, okay?! Don’t just blurt out random things you’ve heard before!”
Carrying Emi on my shoulders, I made my way through the locked West gate. Considering my current complicated circumstances, I can’t follow the current rules of society. After our talk at the children’s park (and after teaching her other methods of greeting people besides moon-saulting), Ponta said that he was going to borrow equipment for the sports festival and went off to another school.
Left behind were me, Yokodera-kun, who wishes to rid himself of the nickname ‘pervert,’ and the grade school student who keeps blurting out random words in situations where said words are uncalled for. Once we got closer to our school, I warned her a bit just in case.
“Emi. Do you remember what to say if we run into a teacher?”
“Easy-peasy! Sure thing! No problem! I can say it! …What exactly?”
“That this person here is a friend of your Onii-chan, and that he’s not anybody suspicious. That you just came here to take a look at the school, okay?”
“Leave it to me! When I say it, I’ll start crying like I’m scared of something!”
“And who would ask you to do something like that?”
“A police officer looking to earn some brownie points?”
“Who taught you about that sort of thing?!”
I’m worried. Terribly worried. I’m scared she might just cause my arrest in the near future. I am already being treated like a blob of disgusting selfishness by all the female students. If I may list the crimes they accuse me of: Molester, pervert, kidnapper. If I show up now with a girl from overseas on my shoulders, I’m basically asking to be taken in by the police. And that was exactly why I chose to come in at the West gate that doesn’t have any security.
After I got in safely, I heard voices of admiration to my right, from the school building. From the sounds of it, these voices belonged to sports clubs who were busy with their personal free training. I avoided the main walkways ahead and instead slipped into the back of the school building to my left.
“Wahh, we’re like ninja! Nin nin! You can’t see these shinobi clothes! Stay back, stay back! I see! This is Onii-chan’s school, I take it?”
“…Do they actually show historical plays with ninjas in Italy?”
After we succeeded in sneaking inside, Emi got even more excited, only to quickly calm down again as she sat top of my shoulders. She grabbed my hair, pretending she was controlling me like a giant robot. Her thighs rubbing against my head felt warm like the sunlight.
From how natural Emi’s reactions were, I could guess that this was how she always acts with Ponta. Maybe I should tease him about this in the future.
“That reminds me, are there any places you would like to visit here, Emi?”
“I wanna see the music room!”
“Music room? How interesting. Do you like music?”
“A bit, but I’m as bad as a pumpkin at playing instruments. If only Onii-chan liked singing a bit more. But, what I want to see most of all is…”
“Is what?”
“The pool! Is it still filled with water? I wanna see the big people swimming in there!”
“Ohh, it seems like we’re a good match. I also want to see some big girls swimming in there. According to my data sources, the swimming club uses the pool from May to October, so it should still be open. Not to mention that we’ll be having swimming races this week during the sports festival, so you should be able to use it even if you’re not a club member.”
“Cool! You sure know a lot, Youto-onii-chan!”
“Ha ha ha! Not that much, but quite a bit! Feel free to call me the Swimsuit Expert!”
When making your way towards the outdoor pool, you’d have to walk around the outer circumference of the courtyard or pass right through one corner of it. People are gathered all over the place because of the upcoming sports festival. A kind, popular young man like me, possessing nothing but goodwill, is helping a girl in taking a look at the pool, so maybe they might actually let me go?
But, right as our conversation got lively, as we walked along the school building—
“Hey, Pervert. What are you doing? Who is that?”
“Huh?”
I felt something hit my back, and then again. I wondered what it was. By the time I realized that small stones were being thrown at me, another one hit me, so I called out to the person using me as a target when I turned around. Honestly, though, I would have been better off if I didn’t do that.
The landmark for the place for storing bikes, a large tree, was on one side of us. On the other was the school building. We were in the center of the courtyard behind the school building, and no light found its way here thanks to the shade. The person using this space as a jogging track was none other than this pseudo-ponytail-jersey of the well-known track-and-field club.
“Urgh… What terrible timing…”
The person with the worst compatibility with me, and the person the furthest from understanding me, was standing there. It was the track-and-field club’s vice president, whose affection levels for me are negative at best. We had run into her during her training. Talk about bad luck.
“What do you mean by ‘Urgh’? How cruel. Rude. Just die already.”
“A-Ah, yeah… Sorry… Wait, aren’t being way more cruel than me?”
“Don’t talk, Pervert. I don’t want to hear your voice. And who is that girl? Don’t talk, pervert.”
“Um… I can’t answer you if I’m not allowed to talk, though?”
“Shut up and keep quiet. Did you choose a defenseless girl now that you’re done with the club president? The judgement for this child-creating plan involving this young outsider girl is the police office plus the embassy. That’s what I would expect from a pervert like you. Your sexual assault and rape cross the boundaries of countries. Hurry up and die. Die and come back after three days, only to die again.”
“I feel like you’re asking more and more complicated and impossible things of me!”
“Don’t grumble about something so trivial and just die the day before yesterday.”
Emi, who had stayed quiet this entire time, spoke up with wide eyes.
“Ohhh…? Sexual assault? What exactly is that?”
“This pervert takes his rock hard drill and forcefully updates your body. I’ve heard that it hurts. Very much so.”
“Hey! Heyyy?! Stop that right now!”
“It hurts? Very much so? You’ve heard? So you don’t actually know?”
“I do know. I know most of it. I can imagine. This pervert is too pushy when he does it. He forces your legs open and starts using his dynamite drill.”
“Waaaaah! She’s a grade school student! Can you please not use vocabulary like that?!” I fiercely protested against any continuation of this machine-gun-like onslaught of dirty words.
Put simply, I ran away as fast as I could. Any more than this would be bad for her education! At the same time, the parent-teacher association might come for me and ruin my own education! Also, why is the vice president describing my techniques to such an extent?
“Ah—”
I felt like the vice club president wanted to say something, but I just took that as a ‘Tch’ instead of anything else. It was probably just your average click of the tongue.
When you’ve just survived a battle, the first place that comes to mind for you to run to is the place you’re the most used to. I found myself running there, still carrying Emi.
Past the location for parked bikes was the clubroom building. Then again, it’s just a prefabricated building that has sports clubrooms and the like on the first floor and culture-related clubrooms on the second floor. The rooms aren’t necessarily big, but just having a room in itself was a sort of status symbol, and the clubs waged a constant war for the clubrooms. Though it’s always an easy victory for the track-and-field club thanks to our renowned Steel King.
And now I decided to use the track-and-field club room as a safe haven. Nobody else was there. Only two bags were lying in front of the lockers, one of which belonged to the club president. Naturally, the other one belonged to the vice club president, who had been wearing a track-and-field jersey. This feels like I’ve entered the lion’s den, to be honest. Have I always been this much of an idiot? I should have probably run away immediately so that I don’t bump into the vice president again.
That being said, all this running around tired me out, making my legs feel as heavy as lead. Emi shook her body like she was dejected about something while sitting on the concrete floor.
“This is my club’s room. Going to the pool now would probably result in a lot of resistance from a lot of fronts, so let’s do that another time, okay?”
When I sat down next to her, Emi kept her gaze facing downward still.
“…Youto-onii-chan, they call you a pervert at school? Are you a pervert? Have you been one this entire time?”
“Ah, well…”
“Or is that person special? Is she bullying you all day every day like this with a barrage of words?”
Judging from her words, I had two choices. Should I tell her about my weaknesses and bad traits, just when I had finally gotten closer to my friend’s little sister? Or should I just ignore the badmouthing from the girl who’s part of the same club and from the same school as me? Since I had lost all shame, I couldn’t tell which choice would ultimately be more embarrassing for me.
“W-Well, that girl has some good parts to her… It’s just that we don’t get along too well, and it’s like she harbors some one-sided hatred. Of course, I can’t say there’s no reason for it… And it’ll eventually clear up with time! I have confidence that we’ll be able to make up in heaven in a few hundred years!”
A response mixed with facade and honest feelings came out, blaming nobody in the end. Both of these are important. That’s just what it means to be human. But from the looks of it, Emi didn’t appreciate this response. She shook her head several times. Every time, her two tufts of hair shook.
“Onii-chan, aren’t you popular with everyone and everything?”
“O-Of course I’m popular in a certain sense. Everybody in my year knows about me!”
“In a bad way? Or in a cruel way?”
“I choose to remain silent.”
“High school… seems more boring than I thought.” The selfish young girl complained with a mutter. “This is totally different from the dream a long time ago…”
A long time ago? How far back are we talking about? Also, how old is Emi? I couldn’t guess her age at all. As someone who could guess age just by looking at pictures, and as someone who’s made a name for myself doing that, this was a rare thing. I had heard the age difference between Ponta and his little sister before. He said ‘When I entered kindergarten my mother brought her’. So if we just subtract that, we get… Huh? Eh? How old? Was subtracting always this difficult?
Yet again, I felt like something was stuck in my throat. It was detailed enough to irritate me, yet big enough for me to notice it. Something was definitely off. I was so busy trying to figure out the identity of this sense of discomfort that I didn’t realize that the girl next to me had stood up.
“This is not funny at all!” Emi screamed as she raised both her hands.
She was like Atlas5 standing in a corner of the world, shouting in utter desperation about the fact that nobody knew that she supported the heavens.
“Boring! Boring! I hate boring things!”
“Emi…?”
“I think it should be fine to make things a bit more interesting.” Emi grinned.
She held a plush toy of some kind tightly in her hand. It looked oddly familiar. It was an unpleasant, ominous animal. A cat’s tail was barely visible through the slim openings between her fingers.
“I wish that Youto-onii-chan would become more cool. Also, I want things to feel like we’re at the pool around here. Then everybody could enjoy school even more!”
WIth her 100% perfect smile, she cast a curse with no ill-intent whatsoever. She spoke it out loud with the voice of an angel, but ironically enough invoked the Evil Stony God. With unfathomable rashness, she stacked wish upon wish.
“Emi! What are you doing?!”
“I’m not doing anything. I don’t know anything! Nothing at all!”
“Like you don’t know anything! Hey, look at me!”
“Nihihi! Brassiere!”
“Not brassiere! …Huh? Brassiere?”
Emi opened a locker, and what she pulled out of it was definitely a brassiere. The length of the bra was unexpectedly long, which is a wise saying from the great Kantoku6. My eyes opened wide at the sight of it. It was time to appreciate this sight with all my body and soul!
The cups were unexpectedly large, and it had quite a flashy design. Bravo brassiere, indeed! I want to cuddle in bed with the girl this bra belongs to! I want to do stuff that would get regulated by zoning! I wondered who this bra belonged to. I looked over and saw the vice president’s bag in front of the locker, and her name on the locker itself.
“Waaaaaawawawa! S-Stop, please!”
“Onii-chan, pass!”
“Catch! Wait, noooo?!”
“Nice brassiere! Return!”
“Don’t throw it back at meeeeeeee! Put it baaaaaaack!”
The brassiere game of catch was getting more and more heated. It almost felt like a game of hot potato as the bra flew through the air between the two of us, the straps fluttering in the wind. Every time I held it in my hands, I felt a comfortable soft sensation. The scent of the bra filled the air. Is this Shangri-la? Is this paradise? Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird7 is right here. Every time the bra soared through the sky, Emi and I started laughing. Ahahaha! Nihihi! This is the best, right? This is the best!
Emi brandished it with all her might and threw it into the air as if she were aiming for the universe. I jumped after it, but stalled in my flight as I headed towards Andromeda, ending up in a free fall when I was reminded of the laws of physics.
“Eh…”
The bra landed gently on the person standing in the doorway, like a bird’s feather fluttering down. How long had she been watching this brassiere game? The bra hung down from the vice president’s head, and she stared at us with a nihilistic expression.
“……”
“……”
Endless silence ensued. I really thought time had stopped. In the end, I used this silence to get down on my knees, prostrating myself preemptively. It was a full-blown Japanese-style prostration like you’d see in training videos. I was praying for forgiveness. I felt like a radish as my forehead scraped the ground, but then I felt a soft sensation above my head. It was a hat. A baseball hat with a wide visor landed on my head, suddenly, abruptly, coincidentally. When I put a hand on it, I could tell that it had a smart design. I felt like some subspecies of a prince. When did this happen?
I don’t care, and it’s not important. This hat isn’t some symbol of anything. What’s more serious about this is the evidence of a rewritten world in front of me. Something was wished for. Something was sought after. Something was cursed? I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.
“Hey, Prince. It’s cool of you to keep the heart of a young man like that.”
“……Eh?”
“The Prince likes basketball, right? I get it. There’s times when I feel like playing catch. I get that as well. You just happened to use the underwear that was in front of you. I totally get that as well.”
It was the same way the vice president always spoke. It was the same usual atmosphere the vice president always had. It should have been the same vice president as always. Yet—
“I’ll allow it this time, Prince.”
—Had she always called me that? When I looked past the visor, I saw the vice president, awkwardly twitching her cheeks as she tried to… smile, I think? Even though we’ve been fellow members of the same club for a year and a half, this is the first time I’ve seen her like this. She lifted up the hem of her shirt and ran her hand along the inside.
“W-Wait, what are you…?”
“Give me your hand.”
She held in her hand a lump of golden yellow. Upon a closer inspection, I could tell that it was a sports bra.
“Use this next time. It’s easier to throw.”
“Eh?”
“Give it back once you’re done. And keep it a secret from everyone else.”
“Eh?”
She raised an index finger in front of her mouth in a gesture of secrecy. She didn’t seem like the eternal enemy of Yokodera-kun, but instead just an average girl… Wait, an average girl wouldn’t do something like this, right? Eh? What is this? While I was baffled, my gaze glued to the sports bra, she said an indifferent “I’m changing into my swimsuit now” and pushed us out of the room. I could feel the dazzling sunlight shining down on us. Even with the cap, I felt sweat building up around my temples.
Something is definitely off here. There are so many things that seem incorrect that my head couldn’t keep up. And if that weren’t enough…
“Nyahaha, the heck was that?”
Emi, standing next to me, stretched her back as she looked up at the sky, letting out an optimistic sigh. This was supposed to be the path that goes along the outer circumference of the back of the school building. Standing in front of us should be a second building with normal classrooms. But this second building… Was it always this luxurious-looking, like a church with white walls?
“Youto-onii-chan. School is more fun now, right?”
Emi looked at me and let out a completely carefree laugh. Her small hands pointed up at the fall sky towards the top of the building. On top of the round dome’s roof was a stylish cross and the tri-colored flag of Italy.
1 Written as Private Face Sealing Skill
2 The name for Japan back in Europe during the middle ages
3 Snow woman in Japanese folklore
4 ‘Yoko no Ji’ in the original, which means ‘Character for horizontal/beside’.
5 Most likely a reference to Atlas from Greek mythology, who had to hold up the celestial heavens for eternity.
6 Yes, he is indeed referring to the illustrator of this novel. Here is the pixiv post where Kantoku said this as a title, released in 2010. Beware though, NSFW.
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(play)
8 This a reference to A Wild Sheep Chase, where one of the characters is ralled ‘Rat’
CClaw Translations 