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Flower to Flower, Human to Human
The world has ended. Let’s define the pre-era and the post-era. Just like the time before the birth of Christ, and the time after his birth. In other words, the time before the art museum date, and the time after. The meaning of life has changed, reality has changed, and inside of me has changed.
“There’s something I need help with…”
Today as always, my business was flourishing, and everyone came to me during recess. Classmates with trouble, pressure from teachers, unsolvable problems… everyone was hoping for me to help them. After all, I’m a high school superman. No matter what you ask of me, I have only one answer I can give.
“It’s fine. I’ll do something about it.”
When I flash an invigorating smile, my view changes.
Bzzt—Disconnected.
When I come back to my senses, everything has been resolved.
“Thanks, Ouji-kun!”
“That’s our hero for you!”
“I’ve fallen for you all over again!”
Fresh melons were pressed against me. It’s a spiral of happiness. Everyone is happy, and their opinion of me is getting better and better. Thanks to that, more requests come in.
“Leave it to me.”
Bzzt—Disconnected.
Whatever the shadow is doing, it’s all righteous. Nobody dared to loathe what “I” was doing. They didn’t have any right to do so, either. I was the one who had wished this shadow into existence.
“I’ll do anything!”
Bzzt—Disconnected.
More strength, more light. I want more strength so I can protect others. More light so I can brighten this world. Counting the people I had saved, I slept soundly and peacefully.
Once morning came around, I quickly washed my face and left home. Someone needs help today. The light shining down on me was too dazzling, so I covered my face with one hand.
Bzzt—Disconnected.
When I came back to my senses, my body was facing the completely opposite direction, and I danced back to my home. The sun had fallen in the sky, and the outside of my home was dark.
Being disconnected for a solid 12 hours is pretty new, for sure. But, when you think about efficiency, if I let the shadow take over from the moment I start going to school, it makes things much easier. I glanced down at the shoes I had put on myself this morning and nodded in a satisfied manner.
The next morning, I immediately disconnected when I woke up, and I regained my consciousness when I laid back down in bed, wearing my pajamas. On a whim, I looked at my hands.
…Why don’t I just let him take over completely? Compared to the envelope I was holding in my hand, my palm felt much smaller. Wait a second. If I keep going like this, won’t I be able to eventually sneak my way into the tiny clothes of the tiny Emanuella-san? No matter where I fall, it’s a rosy future! A perfect ideal life!
“Ah, how rare.”
Inside the envelope was a postcard from Ponta. He’s helping people in need somewhere in this wide world.
“How admirable…”
And how lonely. I shook my head, got into the bath, and prepared myself for the next day of school I wouldn’t even experience.
‘Tomorrow, the coldest cold front so far this winter will sweep through the area. I know working in the cold will be tough, but it’s better than freezing to death! Haha!’
Nobody was in the living room. The only person I could hear was the weather Onee-san on the TV as she talked about tomorrow’s weather. What day is tomorrow, anyway? I forgot. I turned off the TV, since I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Before falling asleep, I took a random book out of my bookshelf. My friend for tonight was Akutagawa Ryuunoske’s ‘Spinning Gears’. In it, the protagonist who uses ‘Boku1’ is controlled by illusions and auditory hallucinations. From a story perspective, it’s a mysterious thriller. Normally, reading it would make me want to puke.
Once again, I found myself unable to read it to the very end, and I set it unfinished on the desk next to my bed. People say you shouldn’t let children read romantic porn magazines or books, but what they really should age-restrict are publications like these that can utterly destroy a child’s mentality.
The protagonist of ‘Spinning Gears’ is Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, and this story was apparently a first-person novel from his perspective during the later years of his life. In another short story, Akutagawa, he speaks of a Doppelganger—another self, and how he met them.
In the end, he claimed he had ‘a mild case of anxiety’, only to be poisoned by drinking medicine, right? It’s pretty disgusting if you ask me. Poison of all things.
I slept on the sofa that night as well.
*
I had a dream. An average dream that merely showed fragments of this world, which continued on and on. For example, Tsukiko-chan turned into a robot tank, Azuki Azusa became a dragon princess, Steel-san became a midnight hero, Emi became a giant monster, and the vice club president and Ponta attended our class reunion ten years later.
It had no common thread of reason. It was a dream that could be used as material for an upcoming anime. Maybe even a western movie? Even Tsukasa-san appeared near the end. She played with the younger versions of everyone at the amusement park, telling the story of a happy world. Even though I knew it wasn’t reality, I didn’t want to get up.
“…That’s the dream I had.” I looked up at the dark ceiling.
Of course, there was no response. It was still in the middle of the night, and several of my muscles were aching. I checked my temperature. 38°C. Apparently I had caught a cold. After sweating everything out under the warm blanket, I’ll surely be back to good health soon!
I turned on the A/C, and while the warm air blew over me, I laid a towel on my head and nodded off. Waking up, falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep. Morning came, night came, my sense of time slowly crumbled away then compressed again, leaving me no clear feeling. While my consciousness drifted through the universe before the Big Bang, only my ears remained sharp.
The sound of the clock painfully dragging the second hand along, the sound of the A/C wheezing like an elderly person, the kitchen sink’s faucet spitting out water, a dog’s howl in some other house nearby. Suddenly, a freezing silence reached my ears.
None of these sounds were made for me. None of these were voices calling to me. They happened in a place unrelated to me, in a method unbeknownst to me, and their duty had finished. Even though I heard all of these sounds, none of them were directed towards me. Nobody would whisper to me.
“……Ah……” A meaningless mutter escaped my lips.
The ceiling felt awfully high, the entrance unbearably far away, and the world too wide for a single person. Shadows of loneliness assaulted me from every corner. I’m all alone in this large world. I had always been, and I am even now. I stretched my hand over the pillow and opened up the box of medicine. I put a large amount of pills in my mouth, and washed it down with lots of water. I closed my eyes, and I forcefully kept them shut.
In order to get away from the world, in order to not break my shell, in order to stay as the person of the sun2 that I am.
…Just kidding! My eyelids shot open, and I flashed a bright smile. You end up getting carried away sometimes when you’re sick, right? When I was younger, I assumed the worst things about myself, like I was picked up under a bridge, I wasn’t loved at all, and every sort of thing that could break a child’s mind. Being kind to yourself and spoiling yourself is something natural. Especially when you’re feeling weak.
…What is this, some special Yokodera-kun route in a game?
“Hm?”
Just then, I heard a different sound from usual. Like something was scratching a surface, again and again. It’s a sound I would quickly notice even if I wasn’t sick. The sound came from the balcony. It shouldn’t be a location that offered a lot of space to stand on. The closed door was covered by the curtains, which didn’t allow me to look outside. I could merely hear the sound. Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch.
It was too loud to leave alone, and it was even shaking the door. It was a sound with obvious intent behind it. Maybe the season had changed and gigantic insects were swarming around outside? Either way, I had to check what it was. I slowly approached the balcony and opened the curtains—
“…Eh?”
Only to be greeted by smooth, familiar cheeks. A cat-tail-haired girl clung to the side of the glass door.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!?”
My scream echoed through faraway lands, filling my house.
*
“Who would scream just from seeing someone? How rude can you be?” Tsutsukakushi paced between the kitchen and the Japanese room, stomping her slipper-clad feet against the floor.
She was clearly sulking. I could tell even without her having any facial expressions.
“I’m sorry! I really am! I just happened to mistake you for someone else!”
She paced in a circle inside the Japanese room adjacent to our living room, and I apologetically clapped my hands together.
“B-But if you show me such a half-fish-person approach…” I wanted to complain, but I felt Tsutsukakushi’s cold aura glaring down at me, so I stopped myself.
“How rude. Who are you calling a mermaid?”
“Mermaid? I called you a half—”
“Who is a Mermaid-san who won first place in the beauty contest because of her charm? For crying out loud.” Moonchild Mermaid-chan spoke with a calm tone, casually bragging about her beauty.
Between fish people and mermaids, I wonder which trait is more prominent. I casually observed her figure, analyzing it for my upcoming thesis on the topic, when—
“…You can go to sleep.” The cold air coming from Tsutsukakushi grew even stronger.
I was forced down into my futon.
“Let me check your body temperature. How high is your fever?”
“It probably went down quite a bit, but… Wait, if you sleep beside me, we can share it between us!”
“It seems like it’s still pretty high. Have you taken your medicine?”
“She ignored me.” From my position down on the blanket, I looked up at her.
“It seems like you’re plenty energetic nonetheless.”
From her position past the Japanese room’s sliding door, Tsutsukakushi turned towards me, coming to the living room. What had she seen inside there? The traces of my sickness, no doubt. I don’t know what kind of expression she’s making. She simply shrugged, like she was angry or disappointed.
“…I really am… relieved.” She spoke with a faint voice.
Surprisingly, I had been suffering through the fever for two whole days. Since I didn’t call in sick at school, she must have come to visit me because she had gotten worried.
“…I’m sorry. Your home is so far away.”
“It’s not that big of a deal. You did me a favor at the… well… birthday party, so I wanted to repay you.” Tsutsukakushi stumbled over her words.
She must have been on her way home. She awkwardly held down her uniform’s skirt, a cute gesture indeed. She actually came to check up on me. I guess all you need in life is a reliable junior. What a heart-warming story.
“By the way, why were you in the garden?”
“I rang the doorbell, but nobody came to open it, so I wanted to check up on you.”
“Yeah, I didn’t notice you at all because I was sleeping… hm?”
As things like these tended to happen, the door was locked from the inside. The area around the lock was taped up for some reason. On the ground next to it lay a small hammer and a screwdriver, like a handyman’s workstation. It seemed like a perfect setup for not leaving behind any fingerprints.
“Oh, excuse me.” Tsutsukakushi-san went to clean up the objects.
She looked a criminal trying to clean up after themselves.
“…Um, what is that?” I asked her with a nervous laugh.
“I was going to break the taped area with Hammer-san.” Tsutsukakushi nodded with a serious expression.
I was smiling. The criminal wasn’t.
“When breaking into a house from the garden, you can do this to prevent the glass from breaking apart. My grandmother taught it to me.”
“Where did she even acquire such knowledge!?”
“I was really happy at the birthday party, so I wanted to repay you…” She repeated the same words over and over, but it wasn’t quite enough to convince me.
Tsukiko-chan was growing up to become a criminal. All you need in life isn’t a reliable junior, but a professional. What a heart-freezing story. After putting away her tools, Tsutsukakushi looked down at the sofa. There she saw the towel, my change of clothes, and scraps of paper.
“Well, since I’m here already…”
“You don’t have to go that far!”
“Don’t mind me, Senpai. You just take a good rest.”
On top of removing the evidence of her crime, she even started to clean the living room. The rolled-up tissues, the towels, the countless medicine bottles and cups. She even started reaching for the shirt and underwear I had taken off.
“Please! I’ll take care of the underwear myself!”
“Someone sick just has to rest. Hmm, hm…”
I desperately pleaded with her, but it was all for naught. She took them to a place out of my sight, and probably stuffed my underwear into the washing machine. What inhumane embarrassment. I’ll never be able to become a wife. Someone else touched my underwear… Well, I guess this is the second time for her, so it doesn’t really matter.
The windows were open, and the curtains were pulled to the side. A fresh breeze blew around me, and the air inside of the room was cleansed.
“…I’ll put this away as well.”
The ‘Spinning Gears’ novel was taken away from me and stuffed into the back of the dark bookshelf. I’m sure there will come a time when I want to read it again. But that time isn’t now. I can say that much for certain.
Thanks to Tsutsukakushi’s great efforts, the room looked inhabitable again. Since she has such a wild Onee-san at her home, I guess she’s used to doing things like this. I always knew she’d make a great wife.
“By the way, it doesn’t seem like your family is home.” Tsutsukakushi tilted her head. “Are they out on a trip out somewhere?”
“Ah, yeah. That one is still in the hospital.”
“Hospital… I see. Since when?”
“New Year’s Eve… No, Christmas, I think. Mom is staying over there, and Dad is busy with his business trip.”
“Hm…” Tsutsukakushi tilted her head even more.
“…You’re making it sound like it’s nothing special.”
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
“…Why did you not tell me about something like that?”
“I mean, it’s not really worth mentioning, is it?”
“But…”
“I’m used to this. Don’t worry.”
This situation has probably remained unchanged ever since I started staying over at Tsukasa-san’s home. Even if I don’t remember the specifics, it’s burned into my mind. I’m very certain of it.
“…Is that so? Maybe I’m the one in the wrong here.” Tsutsukakushi muttered, sounding hesitant. “I guess the problem isn’t really that Senpai never told me, but rather that I never tried to ask. Now that I think about it, I don’t know anything about your family, and I still acted like it was totally fine.”
“Hmmm…”
“Why did I never have the desire to know more? But I guess I can do just that from now on…”
“Hmmmmmm…”
More importantly, when you look at Tsutsukakushi from a low angle like this, her ankles and thighs are quite the sight. Of course, I don’t mean that in a weird way. I just thought that the shape of her legs probably made it really comfortable to intermingle with them underneath a kotatsu… Of course, I don’t mean that in a weird way.
“…My eyes are up here, pervert.”
“H-How cruel! My nose! Don’t pinch it with your toes! Do it more!”
“……”
“Mughoooo!?” I received even more passionate skinship from the aggressive Demon Lord-chan.
I can tell she’s going to be a great wife!
“For crying out loud. Just get some rest, and get better soon.”
She put down a banana and some yogurt next to my bed, along with a spoon. Wait, is this going to be the one event that I’ve never been able to experience thus far!?
“Ahhh!”
“What is that? You’re like a goldfish waiting to be fed. Do you have no shame?” She scolded me with a cold voice.
Yeah, I guess that would be the natural response. Ahaha, i feel like crying. Where are my tissues?
“…For crying out loud…” Tsutsukakushi sighed and sat down on the ground next to me.
“Ohh… Ohhh?”
“You have no intention of being spoiled, and yet you immediately catch on like this.” She peeled the banana and held that defenseless naked protrusion towards the tip of my nose as she averted her gaze.
Ohh…? Is this some sort of metaphor? This is a bit different than I imagined, but I still felt happy nonetheless. I finally understand how a fish feels when it’s waiting to be fed.
“But I don’t mind doing this for you once in a while.”
“Hm?”
“If you’re sick, then you can rely on me. As much as you want.”
“H-Hm…”
“Because I… because we are…” I couldn’t make out what she said after that.
Instead, she put her soft palm against my forehead. Her small fingers were cold, and they felt amazingly good against my burning face. She must have learned this from her work at the children’s welfare club. She does the appropriate thing during the appropriate time. She’s cut out for this kind of work. Just like that… um, person… who worked at the nursery school.
After stuffing the banana into my stomach, I felt warmth filling me from beneath the blanket.
“Twinkle twinkle, little star3—”
A faint tune arrived at my ears. It wasn’t exactly a song, since it possessed no pitch, no intonation, and the lyrics were simply repeated over and over. But it was wonderful to listen to. Her blue eyes were narrowed, and her long eyelashes were closed. Her profile reminded me of someone.
Or maybe she had taken care of me like this in the past before, when I had fallen ill. Though I don’t remember much about that Hedgehog anymore. Even if Tsukasa-san is gone, this girl here carries her blood.
My eyelashes started to feel heavier, and I fell back in that world. This time, I had no dreams.
*
It felt like I had taken a good sleep after a long time. The inside of the Japanese room and living room had turned dark, and the silence of the night reigned. It might be really late by now. When I pushed myself upright, I saw nobody else there. I felt a bit lonely, so I covered my head with the blanket.
After waiting for a moment, I heard faint footsteps. I listened through the blanket, and I could hear Tsutsukakushi coming down from the second floor. Right after that, light filled the Japanese room.
“Senpai, I brought a change of clothes.”
“Ah, thanks.”
A set of clothes was put down next to my pillow. Normally I’d feel embarrassed about her going through my clothes, but she had already gone through all sorts of books and DVDs in my room, so this was nothing in comparison.
“I also came here for a portfolio adjustment.”
“A what now?”
“Has your target age range decreased recently?—This agenda was brought to the table by myself and the other 100 committee members. We had a lively debate.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“We decided that today at midnight, your treasured goods would be rearranged, and your portfolio would be rebalanced according to use case and stock price. Congratulations~”
“Again, what are you talking about?!”
“Tsukiko Stock Price Index—or TSUPIX for short.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard of this index!”
“Since adult charms and Onee-san stocks were becoming overweight in your current investments, I recommended diversification. According to the official Standard & Poor’s weighting methodology, if you create a bubble economy4 relying solely on stocks of myself, a bright economic future will soon follow.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
“If stock prices of Me and prices of My land continue to rise, you should be able to make an easy fortune with low risk. After that, we can dance at Juliana’s and go out for sushi in Ginza5. Someday we’ll buy up all of Guillopon’s jewelry stores with cold, hard cash, and we’ll even be able to buy Kaide Diamond’s engagement ring. Indeed, indeed.” Bubbly angel Tsukiko-chan nodded to herself while she dreamed about the future.
I seriously have no idea what she’s talking about, but market manipulation is a serious crime! Also, a bubble will always pop, and it’s already ten years too late to think about the Japanese asset price bubble! Or did I sleep for so long that the world has drastically changed? What year and what day is it, anyway?
I glanced worriedly at my smartphone, and was relieved when I saw the date. Thank God! The only things that are old are my tastes and my ideas about my junior!
“No, wait a second! This isn’t good! It’s tomorrow already!”
“What’s wrong?”
I panicked and jolted upright, but Tsutsukakushi just watched me in confusion.
“The marathon tournament! There’s barely twenty hours left until it starts!”
The loss of my sense of time had caused me to not even realize it, but the season’s main event was dangerously close. This is bad! I don’t have any more time. If I recover quickly enough, then… No, this isn’t the time to be saying that. My sense of longer-term time was shaky before, anyway.
Now that my muscles have atrophied, I should be practicing running around a public park. Or should I just run around my house? Either way, I have to act right away. However, when I tried to get up, my head spun. My body was asking for rest. I forced myself to stand up. Gritting my teeth, I somehow managed to stand on my own two feet. This body doesn’t belong to me alone. It exists for everyone’s sake.
“…Senpai?”
“It’s fine. I’ll do something about this.”
“Senpai.”
“Leave it to me.”
“…Senpai…”
“I’ll do anything!” I waved my arm dismissively towards the voice next to me.
I can’t fail. I have to get first place at the marathon and resolve the trouble between the two clubs. After all, I’m a hero. I need to do something about this. After all, nobody else can do it—
“—There.”
Click. The two fluorescent lights inside the living room turned on. When I looked over, Tsutsukakushi was standing next to the door, her fingers on the light switch.
“Tsukiko-chan?”
“I forgot to turn on the lights here. They’re quite different from the lights in the Japanese room, aren’t they?”
“Um, what?”
“Either way, it’s gotten late today. Isn’t there something else you have to do before anything else?”
“I mean, I have to go running right away…”
“It’s that, this, see? Take a bath, yes.”
“A bath?”
“That’s right, a bath. A bath with citrus in it.” Tsutsukakushi suddenly said.
She nodded in agreement with herself, making me wonder if she was just saying whatever came to mind. When I pointed that out…
“…You are free to believe whatever you want…” Tsutsukakushi glanced over towards the sofa.
The sofa I had been using as my bed. From there came the scent of febreze. She had apparently cleaned it while I was sleeping.
“Hm…?”
Let’s think about this carefully. I had been drenched in sweat for the past two days as I suffered from a fever. I hadn’t taken a shower that entire time.
“…Um, Tsutsukakushi-san, could you be honest with me? Do I actually…?”
“You smell great.” Tsutsukakushi said without a moment’s hesitation. She took a deep breath.
However, the air she sucked in must have not been too clear, and she coughed immediately. She coughed after smelling me?! This is too much! Thus, Yokodera-kun prepared himself to take a bath, hiding his face in shame. The light entered the openings between my fingers, blinding my eyes.
Because I was protected by the artificial light around me, the black shadow lurking at my feet scattered like a group of spiders.
*
Something had happened around half a year ago. When we were hit by a strong typhoon in the middle of summer, I took a bath at the Tsutsukakushi Household. Back then, I had considered the possibility that Tsutsukakushi might invade the bath while I was using it. I decided to be a gentleman and wash every part of my body to prepare for that, so that I would be as healthy as possible. While lowering my body into the warm cypress-lined water, I pictured dreams of a brilliant future, and my heart had been racing with excitement.
“Phew…”
How naive I was back then. I sat inside my own home’s cramped space bath and laughed at myself as I took a shower and washed my body. There’s no way that someone like Tsutsukakushi with how guarded she was would allow something like that to happen. The only thing she’d probably lower her guard for would be a pin-up scene in a magazine. Not to mention that I’m the only one taking a bath, so there’s a 0% chance. I was the one at fault for getting my hopes up. While I was busy washing my hair thinking this, the light in the bathroom turned on.
“…Senpai.” I heard Tsutsukakushi’s faint voice. “I’ll put a towel here.”
“Yeah, thank… you?”
This is my home. I already know where the towels are located. I had, of course, already gotten a towel out before I got into the bath.
“Um… are you going to switch the towels? Why?”
“No. …This one is for me.” I heard a hesitant voice.
Tsutsukakushi’s towel? She’s going to use it? Why? Now? Here!? N-No, don’t break down, Yokodera Youto! Don’t get flustered! I know what this is all about. She’s just getting my hopes up only to take a bath after I’m done. I know that already!
“You can just take a bath with me, you know~”
“…Yes, that is correct.”
“My, my, how defensive you are, Tsu… Wait, what?”
A brief silence followed, like she was thinking about something. Her footsteps distanced themselves from the bathroom, and a minute passed. I could see her shadow through the door connecting the bath and bathroom.
“Um, Tsutsukakushi-san?”
“Excuse me.”
The doorknob turned, and the door opened. And then, in the midst of the steamy air, a snow-white Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko was standing there. The suddenness of it all caused my consciousness to almost leave my body, but I want to confirm something.
Tsutsukakushi was wearing a shirt of mine. Since this shirt was old and loose, I kept meaning to throw it away. As for why she was wearing my clothes, I could guess the answer right away. It’s because she’s a fan of Yokozuna6. She told me as much last summer.
In other words, she clad herself in clothes bigger than her own size to make herself feel like a sumo wrestler. In other words, her white ‘body’ was simply the white shirt. I’m sorry for deceiving everyone. In reality, I’m the only one naked. The only one… naked…
“Keeeeeeeeeeeeh!?” Letting out an ear-splitting shriek, I crouched down, using both of my hands to hide everything important.
I can’t show my dirty body to anyone before becoming a wife!
“Y-You’ll see! Everything will be seen! Get out! Right now!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already made preparations for that.” Tsutsukakushi spoke with confidence. She held something black in her hand.
It was an eye mask.
“Thanks to this, I can’t see anything. My defenses are perfect-ect-ect, I say.”
“You’re trying to sound cool, but there’s plenty of holes in this plan, aren’t there!? It’s full of holes!”
“Don’t worry. I don’t hate Senpai’s holes.”
“At least try to inspire some confidence with what you’re saying, okay!?”
Inside this narrow washing space, the eye-masked girl stretched out both her hands, carefully tottering ahead. At the same time, the naked man hid behind the shower head and the washing bucket, pressed into the corner of the room.
The heck is this? No, seriously, why is this happening? What kind of roleplay is this? Can I get a refund!?
“Are you dissatisfied?”
“I mean… well, you know!”
“…Senpai, you’re still exhausted. I thought desperately about how I should help you, so I came up with the idea of washing your back.”
“Uh, what?”
“I see. So the idea that I came up with after thinking with all my might was too childish for you? My value in this world has dropped yet again… Sniff.”
“No… No no no no no! I mean, if you’re that adamant about it, you can, but…”
“Then, if you would excuse me.” Like a jackal leaping at me, Tsutsukakushi grabbed my back. “Now stay still. No matter how much you scream and cry, nobody will hear you.”
“You deceived me!?”
“If you really don’t like it, I’ll stop.”
“W-Well… I don’t dislike the idea of it, but…”
I’m not wearing underwear right now! Do you not understand how embarrassing this is?! Well, I don’t have any shame to begin with, but being naked, not to mention with a girl right behind me, feels weird. But it also feels like a reward. I feel like the slightest bit of movement could cause a chain reaction. I sat on the plastic chair and handed her the shower head.
“Ah, you’re holding it wrong—”
“Hmm?”
She pointed the nozzle in her own direction.
“Ah… Bleh…!” Showered with warm water, Tsutsukakushi let out a shriek from behind me. “I’m drenched…” She muttered in a troubled voice.
Hmm… That must be tough for her. As they say, shared pain is half of the pain. I slowly turned around, full of expectations. When I did so, I saw the shirt clinging to her skin, revealing stimulating underwear beneath it.
“…No.”
My neck was forcefully twisted back to its original position. Can she feel my intentions even when blindfolded? Does she have some sort of sixth sense?
“Just look ahead, Senpai. I will scrub your back.” She rubbed the towel up and down against my back.
It felt more like a punishment than a reward.
“…You’re hurting me.”
“It’s fine. Totally fine. I’m used to it by now. I just need to get the body wash.” Her arm reached past my side towards the shelf in front of me.
“Ah.”
“…That was close.”
She almost dropped the container. She barely caught it with her small fingers, putting it back to its former place. Hey now, can’t she see pretty clearly? Is this a Hellen Keller incident? I swear I’ll file a complaint with the manufacturer of the eye mask.
“…How is my back? Is it dirty?” I asked.
The self-proclaimed eye-masked individual thought for a second. “It is quite dirty indeed. It will definitely be a turn-off for other people, so we can’t show this to anybody else.”
“…Ah, okay…”
Oh man, I feel like crying. I’m definitely the one who wins a trial but loses in life. I might eventually have my own family and house, but I won’t be able to take baths with my children. The cruel Hellen Keller-san behind my back continued speaking.
“…Since you can’t appear in front of anyone else, you should be getting some rest.”
“I will once the marathon tournament is over.”
“No can do. A sick person has to take it easy.”
“Only for the marathon tournament.”
“No. I say no, so that means no.”
“Why are you so against it?”
“…Right back at you. Why are you adamant about going?”
“……”
“How… can you work this hard?” She muttered.
Her hand washing my back came to a halt. The bath area was surrounded by close walls, which made the sound reverberate awkwardly. I heard the sound of the water dripping from the faucet, as well as her small throat moving up and down. There must be something else at the base of it all, aside from the marathon. She’s asking me now that we’re in a more private space.
I can’t give her an answer. I’m always trying hard to find my own words. It’s been like that ever since I met Tsutsukakushi. Using words is too complicated for me. That’s why I used someone else’s words.
“A flower is most beautiful when it knows the time to fall. People are like flowers; they will die without hesitation7’.”
“…Whose words are these?”
“I forgot.”
A princess in a war country had said this. Both flowers and people should focus their everything towards the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and that makes them beautiful. I’m the same. If I don’t, then there’s no meaning to being here.
Everyone is growing. Tsutsukakushi is, Azuki Azusa is, and even MaiMai is. They’re all growing far away from me, like the stars in the night sky. The best I can do is forget about the person I once liked. I have to at least save someone now while I still remember.
“—Is it necessary to save someone?”
I felt someone holding onto me. Warmth assaulted my back. I dropped my gaze to find two arms wrapped around my waist. Only then did I realize that I was being embraced.
“Necessary or not, this is my life.”
“Is it bad to do nothing?”
“I lived my life like that before. At the Center Exam… Ah, I never told you. When Steel-san was in a pinch, I actually—”
“That’s not what I mean.” Tsutsukakushi interrupted me with a flat yet oddly assertive tone. “That’s not what I meant. There’s a difference between not trying to do anything, and not having to do anything. You don’t have to do anything, Senpai.”
“But then I won’t be able to…”
“That’s right. Without being able to do anything, you won’t save anybody.”
My view was filled with white steam. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew who was there with me. I felt warmth, her breath, and the beating of her chest.
“But people still have value even if they can’t save someone. Flowers can stay as flowers, humans as humans. That’s all that’s necessary.” Her whispers entered my ears.
“Senpai might be a pervert who tends to go crazy and doesn’t understand other people’s feelings, he might always be kind to others, working for their sake, thinking about weird things, but…” Her tone sounded incredibly sincere. “That makes you my Youto-kun.”
It felt like someone had grabbed my back. Or rather, was supporting it.
“…That’s why you can stay who you are. I will accept you. I know that you are Senpai, and the best Senpai you can be.” She searched for my hand and tightly grasped it.
Something filled my vacant heart. It wasn’t something comparable to what I had lost. It wasn’t even a substitute, and yet it filled my chest. What is this? My eyes started to get hot, and liquid dripped down onto my lap. Weird. I hadn’t washed myself off yet, so why was this? Who poured water down my cheeks? I can’t explain it.
My chest hurt. It was painful, but it was warm at the same time. My waist and palm were embraced, and I felt a warm chest pressing against my back. Unable to do anything, I merely covered my face with my open hand. As the water continued to pour down, Tsutsukakushi kept holding onto me.
*
And concerning this development, there’s only one thing I need to say. There’s a boy and a girl alone in the bath. One is naked, the other is soaked. Their back and chest were touching, their hands and fingers were intertwined, and their breathing was in the same rhythm. Nobody else was in the house, and nothing but silence filled the space around them. What did the two youngsters do? You know what they did, right?
They just took a perfectly normal bath.
*
Once we came out of the bath, night had arrived yet again. Tsutsukakushi begged to stay with me until morning, but I somehow convinced her to go home, and fulfilled my mission impossible of safely escorting her. See, everyone? This is a perfectly healthy story!
…Well, I guess she figured that a sick person wouldn’t do anything weird to her. She was really adamant about staying with me, but I declined. After all, I couldn’t look Tsutsukakushi in the eyes—Of course, I couldn’t tell her that.
I prepared everything for the following day, and laid down again. Since I had slept a lot, I couldn’t fall asleep. But since I had made a promise, I at least needed to show up. What I can do there is a different story, however.
Flowers should stay as flowers, and humans as humans. That’s what Tsutsukakushi said. But then which ‘Yokodera-kun’ should I be? What am I forcing myself to do?
I thought back to everything I had heard. The words that destroyed what I had built up, the words that broke the barrier I had placed in front of my heart, and the words I had heard a long time ago when I was still innocent and young.
Is it really fine to not do anything? Is it really fine to sit still? I laid on my back inside the Japanese room without Tsutsukakushi inside of it and stared at the ceiling. The fluorescent light banished the shadow to the corners of the ceiling. Without doing anything, I just stared at the ceiling.
And finally, morning came. The day of reckoning.
1 One of many personal pronouns commonly translated ‘I’. In Henneko, ‘boku’ is the same pronoun that Youto Yokodera uses.
2 Yokodera Youto was written here with the characters for “Person of the sun.”
3 In the original, it’s the Japanese lullaby Nennen Korori Yo
4 A reference to the Japanese asset price bubble from 1986-1991, which happened right before America’s dot-com bubble.
5 Juliana’s (Tokyo) was a Japanese disco, and ‘eating sushi in Ginza’ is some kind of 80s slang. I guess it’s pretty much just rich people talk.
6 The highest rank in sumo. A reference to an older volume when she also wore his shirt.
7 A death poem written by Hosokawa Garasha (Gracia)
CClaw Translations 