Dragon Life

Chapter 63
“M-Milooord!! A boy fell from the sky!!”

Hmmm~, it"s nice to stay at a chilly house with the air conditioner on. Ah, but I"m bored. Too bored. I"m so free that I don"t know what to do. There"s nothing interesting on TV, and I got tired of clearing my games. I"m spending the time while flipping my mobile open and closed, and when I stare at the clock, it shows that it"s just a little past noon.1

— My older brother made his preparations and “left” yesterday night.
— I “saw them off”.
— That"s why I was home alone.

But that was it.

In the end, I just couldn"t accept it.2

“…I"m feeling down, maybe I should go out once in a while?”

By the way, I hadn"t eaten lunch yet. Mustering up the minimum amount of energy required to go to the convenience store to buy something, I left the house.

I"d like to eat the “Extremely Hot!Tantanmen” this summer. It"s extremely spicy but you just grow used to it, right? Though I can"t stand it when things taste like a lot of chemical seasonings were used.3 I thought of such things as I walked above the hot asphalt, feeling like a steak being burned on an iron plate, when I came across a quarreling pair of girls.

Tantanmen
dish of noodles covered in a sauce of sesame paste and chili oil.
click image for source.

“Hold on! I finally managed to invite you, what"re you saying now?!”

The girl with blond hair heaped up in a way-over-the-top manner was so angry at the other girl that you could see the steam coming out of her ears.4

Wow, you both are terribly gaudy. Their degree of exposure is also quite high. Under this heat, I wonder if they don"t mind taking on the sun rays directly; the ultraviolet rays could cause spots to appear on their skin in the future. Or perhaps they are totally smudged in that sunscreen that is, “Incredible! It isn"t sticky at all!” according to its propaganda. In comparison, I"m wearing a jersey and a cap to protect myself from the sun; it"s a totally rough appearance.

“You do not have to invite me so especially, OK? I am quite busy, y"know.”

“Busy…? Kii-chan, hadn"t you said that you were free!”

Hnng, I don"t want to get involved if possible. However, to get to the convenience store that I am aiming for I have to pa.s.s by the side of these two people. It"d take too long to take a detour. Aahh, I want to enter the store with its air conditioner on as soon as possible! Advance! To the convenience store!

“I ain"t free! Even now… Yaay, I‘m glad! Were you waiting~?”

“Hm?”

It was no good.

When I tried to pa.s.s by them while pretending to be just air, the girl who had been called Kii-chan caught my arm and pressed her rich chest against me in a tight grip. It doesn"t feel unpleasant per se, but I do feel a slight sense of resistance because I don"t usually a.s.sociate with this race of people. Besides, what"s with the ‘yaay", what"re you ‘yaaying" for?

I mean, I haven"t really waited for you, but what"s this about?

“Who the heck"s that!”

When my gaze met with the blonde girls", she glared at me. I"m scared.

“A new friend, I had promised to meet with her todaay~.”

‘See, I‘m busy ain"t I?" She added, while even rubbing her cheek to mine. I prepared myself for the perfumes characteristic to gawdy girls which are strong enough to hurt one"s nose, but let"s keep it a secret that I thought her perfume smelled deliciously like vanilla.

I haven"t made any promises to meet with her nor anything remotely close to that though. I seem to have been made into her scape route from this talk. I got caught up in something troublesome. I should have taken the detour regardless of the heat.

“…Kii-chan, you really changed… You wouldn"t go out together with such a girl before!”

“Hmheheh, it"s "cause it"s more fun than hanging with you guys~”

“What"re you saying! I don"t know care anymore! I"ll be telling Take about this!”

“As you pleeease! Such an idiot boyfriend, I‘m ending it here with him!”

The other woman got fuming angry and walked away. From her brand bag, she took out a cell phone with lots of jumbled strapped trinkets attached, and it seemed like she was calling somebody. Was she talking to the guy called Take?

“H-hey, is that fine? Isn"t she calling your boyfriend?”

“It"s fiiine, I‘m breaking up with him already~”

So that"s how it is? It"s something uncomprensible for me who has always had a year-around boyfriend-less life, but, the same as Touka, I wonder if boyfriends and girlfriends really break up so easily?

“More importantly, you reeally saved me! Sorry for involving you; I‘m treating you to a parfait, so forgive me, pretty please?”

She suddenly switched from the cold expression she was sporting just now to a bright smile which was unexpectedly beautiful; it made me think that she"d probably look prettier without any makeup. Since appearances and hobbies are particular to every person I can"t say it aloud, but I definitely recommend her to go without makeup.

“…Hm? You“

She fixed on me a firm, scary gaze, and scanned over by face; and I reflexively shifted my eyes away. After looking at my whole body for a while, the girl smiled like a large blooming flower.

“Perhaps you"re Itokchan?”

Yes?

I wonder why she knows my name.

“I knew it! You"re Itokchan riiight~?! Look, it"s me, Atashi!!5 Kikuko!! I lived in the same neighborhood and we played together a long time ago!”

Yup?

Kikuko? From the neighborhood?

“We swam in the river together when we were little, and we used to pretended to be a biker gang too, and run around with our bycicles in the middle of the night! Ah, that"s right! We used to go the circus and aspired to be knife throwers, and we even used Honokkun for practice, don"t you remembeeer? We got spotted by the circus master and he even let us perform for a while, right?!”

Swiming in the river is something that"s fine to do. But pretending to be part of a biker gang, what the h.e.l.l! What were you thinking, younger me?! I don"t even remember…! W a i t ? B u t I d o r e m e m b e r .

Certainly, I was attracted by the circus and went to see it often, and since we went and came so frequently, the circus master called us over, and I do remember having been taught a lot of things just for fun. But she was the best at throwing knives, and she was taught at her house for a while even when the circus moved to another town.

…Huh? Does that mean, no way.

“Kikuko, Oneechan?”

This lady? Her? That Oneechan who was graceful, like a Yamato Nadeshiko, but who could be relied on due to her older sister-like disposition; that girl who I admired, is this lady?

“Yeeah! It"s been sooo loong! I missed yoou! You"re so cute! I wanna eat you up!”

“Stop it.”

She came at me, spreading both arms and trying to hug me, but I promptly duked away, so she laughed it off saying, “Ah, it was a joke.”

Besides, eating is my specialty. I can"t hand it over.

“Be that as it may, what happened? Since you came back, that means something happened, riight?”

As I wondered what she was talking about with a blank expression, she made a weird face at me. It was me the one who wanted to make a weird expression though.

“I‘m talking about the other world, you know. Hm? Maybe the current Itokchan hasn"t gone over yet?”

…That"s right. I had totally forgotten.

I didn"t recognize her when we met before, because at that time I didn"t have my past human memories. We just missed each other, since even our appearances were different. Thinking back on it now, it"s very weird.

“Did everything go aaall riiight after that?”

“About that, I have brought such a great tragedy upon you.”

I somehow said it in such a formal way and yet, “Just don"t mind it~, since I chose to cover for you,” she replied with a laugh.

But actually, she ended up dying because of that. It is my fault. There should have been some other way. In that case she wouldn"t have died… Eh? Huh? Wait a minute. What"s the meaning of this? At that time, Kikuko-oneechan died for certain. Lord Cleric also said that her soul returned to the circle of reincarnation in her former world, and according to that, she should be being reincarnated about now, I guess.

—Then, what about the Kikuko-oneechan that"s in front of me right now?

“…Eh? Why are you alive?”

“Hold on, don"t look at me like you"re staring at a dead person! I"m alive and well as you see!”

‘You can touch me, right?" She says as she touches my shoulder with her hand. Her feet are not transparent and she"s not a ghost. She"s truly alive.

“When I got surrounded by that black haze, some strange voice spoke to me, you see. It said that I could return to my original world after dying. At that time I also understood that you were Itochchan. Ain"t it mysterious?”

…Ain"t that too convenient? A mysterious voice that you can hear when you are in a pinch. …Was she too, dancing on someone"s palm in the end? This doesn"t sit well with me.

“Even so, I was surprised! I really came back here when I died, and not much time had pa.s.sed too, so I was like, ‘what the heck," y"know?”

‘But I was really glad to be back," Kikuko-san adds with a full smile. She had gone to the extent of visiting me, the me who was living as ‘Vito", who could have actually belonged to any other place, looking for clues to return to the Earth. She"s surely really happy to have come back home.

“Hm? But if you recovered your memories and came back, does that mean…”

“Yeah, …I died.”

It seems that the rule of being able to return to one"s original world when dying was also true to me. Both Oneechan who went over in body and flesh, and my Dragon self, came back to our world by losing our lives. So, I wonder if this means that Touka and the others can come back if they die over there. If my brother fails, and somehow loses the book necessary for returning, and they have no way to come back, that could come in handy. …I have no way to tell them about this now, but it is not always the case.

“Sigh… a lot happened, it seems.”

I nodded, giving her a bitter smile. Really, a whole lot happened. I can"t fully accept it yet, and have complex feelings about it, but these memories are, without a doubt, my own.
“Well, it"s all fine in the end. Me too, I could return to being an ordinary girl! Sometimes I worry a bit about Maji, but I‘m truly happy to be back home.”

‘It was a nice experience too," she comments; it"s one of Kikuko-oneechan"s good traits to be able to see everything in a positive light. I, on the other hand, just keep on troubling over things without end.

“I‘ve been living sluggishly for a long while, but I‘ll improve myself from now on. It may be late to be thinking about it now, but why have I been hanging out with that kinda people, I wonder?”

I was surprised to see her like that indeed. Kikuko-oneechan"s household is so serious a family, that you can call it ‘super serious". She had lessons and study sessions, homemaking training, and even child raising training. She used to slip away from all that and play with us. I wonder if she had been acc.u.mulating resentment within her over all that. I heard that she started living alone to attend university in the city, but I never thought she"d change this much in the years we did not meet.

“Are you going back home now?”

“Yeah. When I left it felt like I was running away from home, so like, in order to fix things up, you see… Well, it"s already time, I thought, plus my parents were being noisy about it, so I was wondering if I should return soon~?… Hm?”

Kikuko-oneechan hummed as she looked up at the deep blue sky while standing on tiptoes, and then she stayed like that. I wondered if she was watching some bird, and when I too, looked upwards, I saw that something white was floating in the sky. It was not a cloud though, so I thought for a moment that maybe it was a paper bag, but somehow that didn"t seemed to be it either; anyhow, it was gradually growing bigger.

“Eh, what"s that?” (Itoka)

“A bird? No, ain"t it too big…” (Kikuko)

When the both of us fixed our gazes on it, we could see white feathers. ‘Oh, so it was a bird after all~?", ‘Do you think it"s falling because it"s injured?", ‘Wonder if it"s alright?", we were thinking such things, but something seemed off about it. No, what was off about it wasn"t its shape, but its size.

“Wait a sec, ain"t that a pe~rson?”

No way!

But it gradually grew, and it was no paper bag nor a big bird; it was something that had a human figure.

“…Ain"t it headed this way?” (Kikuko)

“It is.” (Itoka)

It was almost right above us, or rather, directly above me. It"ll unmistakeably crash down on top of me if I keep standing here as I am. If that was a mannequin, it probably won"t hold out. But mannequins do not usually come down from the sky. No, humans normally don"t come falling down either!

As I stood still, stunned by the unpredictable situation, ‘it" cried out.

“Make, MakewayMakeway–!!”

Oh, so it was a boy?

At the moment I thought so, my whole body was totally impacted as strongly as a boke that has received the world"s best tsukkomi actor"s harshest retort head-on.6

That was a bad example? Sorry. Anyway it was a huge impact.

“Itokchan! are you o-okaay~?”

I"m not okay.

It wasn"t a representation out of a romance comedy where I was softly pushed down by the boy who fell from the sky all of a sudden, but it was like I was crushed against the ground, and we were now lying down together, which is a sight to be appraised. My back was tremendously in pain. My skin may have gotten scratched. Or did it get bruised?
Not understaning what the heck was going on, I had closed my eyes when my face distorted due to the pain, but when I opened them again I was startled. In front of me, there was — a peerlessly beautiful boy, with unique pink hair. Moreover, there was a pair of snow white wings on his back. Was this guy a cosplayer? In any case, it was really well done. The wings that sprouted from a position slightly below the shoulder blades were synchronized with the boy"s movements. I wonder if these things are like those famous items that move with the brain waves now? His clothes too, appear to be what an ordered priest would wear as casual clothers. It"s weird, though, because they suit him.

“Uugh no! I wasn"t told about this! I was told I"d be sent over properly, but to just be thrown out there in the middle of the sky… I"m still not good at flying, ngg.”

His teary dark blue eyes are sparkling like jewels. It was fascinated by him for a bit, wondering if it was all right for such a beautiful person to exist. With his large eyes framed by long eyelashes, that small mouth and white skin slightly tinged red at the cheeks, he had the lovely appearance of a bisque doll.

“…I mean, oh…!”

As if he had finally noticed that I was crushed under him, he opened his teary eyes up wide and got off of me in a panic. At that instant, I felt a soft potpourri-like scent. I can"t identify the kind of herbs in detail, but I wonder why I felt nostalgic about that scent.

“Are you alriight? Can you stand up~?”

Oneechan anxiously helped me stand up, but in my sight there was only him.

Even though his height is short and he looks like a girl at first sight, I know for a act that he"s a boy.

“Anyway it"s you people"s fault for having been standing down here! It"s not my fault! Don"t be letting yourselves be squashed under people as you please!”

He"s not good at expressing his feelings honestly, although that side of his is cute; he"s a girlish boy.

“Hooold on, if Itokchan wasn"t there, you would have smashed into the ground face first, how about you apologize about it, hm~?”

“D-Don"t get it wrong! It"s not like I fell on this person because I wanted to!”

Leaving me alone, the two begin to argue about who was in the wrong. However I don"t have the energy to stop them at the moment and only give a bitter smile at them.

This seems like it"ll become a wave of disturbance.

— An angel boy has come falling from the skies.

Alas! I wonder if the time has come to be called to heaven at long last, ring the bells! Amen.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Translator"s Lair~☆

Itoka"s and Kikuko"s talk kinda reminded me of this

but it was like, “Watashi wa mou shindeiru”, too… #sorrynotsorry