Translator: Ranzan Editor: JackOFallTrades
It was just another loud cicada-cry filled day of the summer.
On the first through the third day of summer vacation, Yuuto, Kengo, Suehiko, and I spent our time in the biggest house of the four, Yuuto"s, blasting through our summer vacation homework.
Last summer vacation"s result after thinking "Hey, I"ll just copy his homework on the last day" resulted in nothing but the four of us having a mountain of empty paper to turn in, and we were only able to fill half of it before we went back to school.
Of course, that"s not the end of the story, and on the first day back, our teacher, Mr. Ogane said, "What? What is this? Are you mocking me with this c.r.a.p? Huh? What the?" and cut us up into mince meat with cruel words and a face that would scare Frankenstein"s monster.
We turned pale and cold sweat emerged, and after spending quite a bit of time in that awkward situation, for one month I had to fight with all the printouts he gave me to grade.
Because of that, someone then said, "Why don"t we all just work together on the first day? If we do it on the last day, everything we studied is gone from our heads anyway!" and came up with a crazy plan, and after two days and nights of work we were able to finally put all that work away.
「Whoohoo, wow, the sun is so yellow.」
The bright light of the sun pierced through the windows and into our blinking eyes, as I tried avoiding pa.s.sing out and stifling a yawn for the nth time.
I was on another person"s sofa, but, I didn"t feel like sleeping much longer, and I wanted to get some of this tiredness out of me by bending my body back to get rid of all this fatigue.
Either way I was stuck here with my older than old friends, and we were friendly and formal with one another so we were able to put up with this all.
「Ahah hah hah, these two late nights really make you realize it"s summer vacation. I drank some, but you want some of my coffee, Kaito?」
「Yuuto"s…your coffee? Sorry, I"m afraid I might catch some handsome virus from you, boy.」
「What? What the h.e.l.l is a handsome virus?」
He took the can of coffee and though he had been in the same scholastic battlefield as me, light uttered "Phew, a little tired" as I teased him for his handsomeness as usual,.
I always teased him about that, but this time we were so tired our reactions were more the usual. With all this power wasted on late nights, even a good-looking guy gets down.
「Kaito, no, it"s not handsome virus he"s got, but livin" the life virus. Give me some of your essence, then I can finally get a girlfriend.」
Then a voice like a zombie came from under the table out of that muscle head idiot Kengo.
「What the h.e.l.l is Yuuto essence? That"s disgusting, Kengo.」
「Okay, I"ll sell it to you for 1500 yen.」
「Could you not pay him for that, Kaito? And Kengo too. You don"t have to work to get a girlfriend.」
「Phewww….to have a girlfriend. Give ME ONE! I want a cute girl!」
「…if you have to say it, it"s impossible, right?」
「Ugh.」
「Ah, he"s dead.」
Yuuto looked expressionless at Kengo"s death.
His soul had left him pale.
「Hey, how did Kengo die in the five minutes I was in the bathroom?」
Clack, who entered and shut the sliding door was a guy with gla.s.ses and a glossy picture of a girl on his shirt, Suehiko.
「He died choking on his own desires. Too bad.」
「I see, I told him to just search for a two-dimensional girlfriend instead.」
「A girl you can"t touch has no meaning!」
「Instead of a dirty, inferior third dimension, a forever-beautiful two-dimensional one is way better! I guess I"d make an exception for a real life magic girl like Tilel… (from Shakugan no Shana?)」
As he said this, Suehiko stretched out his shirt, and showed the emphasized face of his blond lolita with black b.u.t.terfly wings.
「Both of you are perverts, it"s not even spring yet!」
「「Shut up you sister-lovin" perv!」」
After a short breath, the reaction took a bit too long to be produced.
「Who are you calling a sister-lover?!」I said.
「You! Once when we went out on a mixed date with girls from Hoshi Girls school, you called your sister and said she asked to go and then left us in the middle with her!」
「Well, you were going to use a young girl like her in some perverted game, so since you were going after those other girls I had to say "I don"t want Mai to figure out what you"re up to".」
「Even though we tried to get you with those girls you said "I have to take sis shopping" and left!」
「And when we"re not together at school, you"re usually always with your sister. You two are together too much.」
「Ugh!」
I was about to respond to the unexpected statement, but the anger made me stop my words.
「Last year"s Christmas present you couldn"t choose between this or that, and then you go too far and get her a BRACELET?! That"s less of a present for a sister and more for a girlfriend!」
「Not you too, Yuuto?!」
No, it was different. It was true that we were closer than most brothers and sisters, but there wasn"t anything perverse about it.
Well, a sister a year younger than you is cute too, and if she brings home a boyfriend you want to beat the h.e.l.l out of him.
「I mean, Kaito, if we were to tell you to stop hanging around your sister, do you think you could do it before you could claim you had a girlfriend as a reason?」
「No, I think she would understand. A child has the image of having a weak body, but since she"s a bit mature she"d expect it, right? I mean, even so, she really does like being around me, so she"d cry if I were to leave her suddenly…」
「…it"s because you say stuff like that we think you"re after her.」
「Hm? You said that so quietly, I couldn"t hear what your were saying.」
「Kaito understands what"s going on. Even though he knows most of the answers to everything, for some reason he can"t get a girlfriend.」
「What?」
Along with me turning my neck, for some reason looking around I saw both Kengo and Suehiko turn their neck in confusion too.
「Well, spring IS still far away.」
「「「We don"t like to be mocked by some guy living it up!!」」」
I don"t know why, but a sad feeling seemed to loom over us all, HEY!
「It"s weird, thinking about it maybe we all didn"t need to work on this, right? I"m so sleepy, hey Suehiko, you"re way weaker than me and you"re still roaring to go.」
「Well, I don"t dislike studying, so I don"t have time to do anything else. And even more, an otaku like me is used to situations like this one.」
「Heh, why, your hair is everywhere and your face is pale, and you"ve got a painfully nerdy t-shirt but you still look pretty cool!」
「Kaito, come back to earth. I don"t look cool at all.」
Whoa, as soon as he said that, thump, Yuuto tapped my shoulder.
「Remembering those reports about『Write a huge report about how your parents or other people working around you put their heart into their work and the reason why』and so on makes me sick.」
「Well, the contents back then in elementary school really were 『Ask your mom and dad about the work they do』and so on, right?」
「Suehiko, I don"t who you"re talking about, but don"t you think that"s gross?」
Suehiko pushed up his gla.s.ses with his pointer and middle finger and then responded with a laughless smile and a deep voice.
「Anyway, we"re done for today. We can"t do our final reports together anyway.」
「Yeah, I need to get done with these anime that I let sit here these past two days too.」
From hearing my words, we all grabbed our bags and packed up.
「Well, I think I"m going to make my report all up. I hate studying, but reports just make my blood boil.」
「No, studying doesn"t boil anything. And don"t blame me if you get caught.」
After that banter and getting all the packing done, we collected all the candy wrappers and all the empty energy drink containers.
The room was clean again, and we all left Yuuto"s house.
「See ya! I"m going to sleep.」
「Bye, I"ll call you during the break so we can go pick up girls with Yuuto again.」
「Impossible because he loves his girlfriend. Invite Suehiko.」
「After he destroyed my chance the first time I invited him, I decided never again.」
「I don"t want to go either. I don"t know what"s fun about that at all.」
「Ah, let me say I won"t go either as well. Mai will lecture me with tears falling from her eyes.」
「I"ve heard too much of that from you.」
We said our goodbyes, and waved as we left the house.
After leaving the house, I went the opposite way of the other two.
「Ah, today is…Sunday!」
After two late nights, I got back my sense of days by checking and seeing today was Sunday. On my cellphone was a picture of my younger sister.
Mai was good fooling around with computers so she messed with my phone and set her picture as my phone"s wallpaper. No matter how much I changed my pa.s.sword, that picture would come up soon after, so I just gave up and left it.
It"s true, I can be blamed for having a sister complex.
I"d like to do something to change it sometime.
「I should talk about my report with my daad. I can"t let him get away without asking about it.」
My father was pretty well known by the businesses around, as he ordered furniture and interior design items from overseas for them.
His routine work was pretty much going overseas on business trips, and if I asked him he would probably have one or two good stories.
While listening to the sound of the cicadas descend on me, I walked the asphalt thinking about nonsense while feeling how hot today would become.
As I looked up there were the usual c.u.mulonimbus clouds of summer flowing through the sky on this sunny day.
☆
During the middle of my trip, we found a beautiful river to rest by as noon arrived.
Then, I now spread out a place away from the river in preparation for lunch. Well, Minnalis and Shuria did most of the cooking, so I just made sure that they didn"t burn the pot by stirring every once in a while until the food was done.
Minnalis and Shuria weren"t around. They must be playing around with water behind the wood blind.
Maybe because I was alone, I just looked up in the sky, and remembered the last day of summer vacation.
「…back then, what did father tell me?」
It was a day that was pretty much unrecognizable.
I had just wasted the day, and I really shouldn"t have remembered it, but it was a day that made you laugh and remember『that happened too, huh?』
However, that unchanging blue sky, somehow reminded me of it all.
That sky almost seemed to be multi-layered.
「Ah, yeah, 『Have trust in the value of things.』」
「What did you say?」
Minnalis asked me.
It seems that they were done playing in the water, as they both had shimmering hair still wet with the water.
「Nothing, are you going to make lunch?」
They shrugged, and got the pot and food ready as they sat, ready to help.
「Ah, Kaito-sama, I don"t want a lot of vegetables.」
「No, Shuria, you can"t have everything your way.」
Minnalis chided Shuria.
「Yeah, Minnalis is right. I"ll put a little more meat in for you, so just bear it.」
「Good! Thank you Kaito-sama, can I give you a kiss?」
「Don"t go too, FAR!」
「Ow! That hurt!」
She was messing around trying to kiss me so I flicked her forehead with a bit of power for a forehead flick.
We were used to travelling, so Shuria started acting like a child like she usually did when we were on the trail we blazed.
It was mean, but the flirtatious manner of approaching me somehow reminded me of the family dog.
Somehow, it felt like punishing a dog the way I reacted to her.
「Stop messing around, after coming this far Dartlas isn"t that far away. If we get there quickly than we can get a good place to stay.」
「Understood, master.」
「Roger!」
At this pace we"d be in Dartlas again soon.
And, that"s where Grond lived.
Ah, his last moment, I wonder how he felt.
Thinking about regrets, grief, envy.
Whatever it was, the last thing he saw was…
…complete anguish, and the depths of despair.