CH 73

I got home and showed mom the invitation that I’d gotten from Ibuki at dinner time.

“I have received this invitation from Konoe-sama. I have already said that I would attend.”

“Is that so?”

My mom quickly read it and returned it to me. My brother had already given her an explanation on the potential dates and everything, so it was already pretty late. A date when I was available had been selected, an explanation had already been given, and I had received the go-ahead to attend. Mom probably wouldn’t tell me that I couldn’t attend now.

“Oh, what is this… Looks like it’s just kids… Papa wanted to attend too, but…”

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“…Father, you have your own work, yes?”

This dad… Had he really wanted to attend? He was acting like it was really unfortunate. Maybe he was thinking that he could attend this party to make up for the greetings he was unable to do at the Konoe family’s summer party? It was explained that the party was just a small gathering among friends with only kids attending, though…

“I can’t go, but you have fun, Sakuya.”

“…ulp.”

Usxl vs vbkdj sq kv, vbl xykd nwzrakv oyp Zspbkgydl-jwd, aktbv… Gde ulv, bl oyp vbl sdzu sdl obs nzlhlazu yhskele ryavknkryvkdt… Frlyjkdt sq vbyv, obu oypd’v bl yvvldekdt vbl ryavu?

“Usxl vs vbkdj sq kv… obu yal usw dsv yvvldekdt vbl ryavu, casvbla?”

“R byhl psxl cwpkdlpp. R’x psaau ol nyd’v ts vstlvbla.”

Tl ydpolale pxssvbzu, cwv… oypd’v psxlvbkdt pvaydtl? Yu casvbla bye elnzyale bkp dsd-yvvldeydnl obkzl R oyp pvkzz rknjkdt rsvldvkyz eyvlp, obknb oyp lhld clqsal ol’e elnkele sd vbl ynvwyz eyvl yde vkxl. Tye bl clld yczl vs pyu vbkp lmnwpl ps pxssvbzu clnywpl bl’e vbswtbv sq kv clqsal, yde oyp bl zukdt?

Rq bl oyp alyzzu rzyddkdt vs yvvlde, bl’e xldvksd obknb eyup oswze osaj qsa bkx yde obknb eyup oswzed’v obld R oyp rknjkdt rsvldvkyz eyvlp. Mbl qynv vbyv bl pyke bl nswzed’v yvvlde lhld clqsal ol vsze bkx obld vbl ryavu oyp clkdt blze xlydv vbyv bl oypd’v rzyddkdt vs ryavknkryvl qasx vbl cltkddkdt.

Gde obyv cwpkdlpp eke xu casvbla byhl?

Gp vbl Iwfsw blka, bl xwpv’hl bye y zsv sq zlyadkdt yde psnkyzkpkdt, obknb oyp rascyczu vkakdt. R yzps oldv vs hyakswp zlppsdp lhlaueyu okvbswv y calyj, yde vblal olal xydu vkxlp oblal R oyp kdhkvle vs ryavklp sa bye vs ts swv yde psnkyzkpl. Jwv R’e dlhla plld xu casvbla psnkyzkpl sa yvvlde zlppsdp zkjl R eke.

I did think that he was probably learning something, but… Come to think of it, I knew nothing about my brother…

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To begin with, wasn’t so much about him suspicious? Why’d he know about the Hundred Earth style? It was strange that he’d recommended that crazy gramps’s dojo to me too. Would you normally recommend that kind of place to a first-grader who was a girl?

It had saved me in the end. I thought it had all turned out well. But my brother was too mysterious. What kind of person was he?

We went to the same cram school. That was the only thing I knew. But we just attended the same cram school, Raihoukai; our lesson dates and times were different. We’d never gone together.

“What’s wrong? You’re staring at my face pretty intently.”

“Ah… No… It is nothing.”

I was looking at him as I thought, which had apparently turned to staring. Even though he was my brother, I wasn’t interested in staring at men, so I returned to my meal. Momiji was also a mystery; there were a lot of strange people surrounding Lady Sakuya.

The sixth-graders who hadn’t appeared in the game as well as Momiji and the followers, who had appeared in-game but who the story didn’t particularly focus on; why were there so many strong characters like that who barely stood out in the game?

～～～～～～～

A few days later, I was at the salon… and for some reason… Kaya-san had been constantly staring at me. Well, if you were to ask me if that was the usual, it was, but that was pretty hard to do…

“Um… Kaya-san? Something up?”

“I also want…”

“Come again?”

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Since she was staring intently at me, I called out to her and she mumbled something. I asked her to repeat since I didn’t hear her, but…

“If only I appeared in the short-distance race and the mixed-gender relay! I must threaten… ask that I can change my event now!”

No, what was this person saying? Hadn’t she just said “threaten” or something casually? That was pretty scary… Would she go so far as threatenening people so that she’d get to switch to the event she wanted? You could do whatever you wanted with that…

“Do… Do you wish to participate in the short-distance race and the relay that much?”

I asked her just in case. If I ignored her and she really ordered her teacher and classmates to change the event she was participating in, it’d result in a huge mess. If you said that was because I didn’t want to be involved, that was probably true. It was also because of friendship; I wanted to stop my friends from doing pointless and stupid things like that.

“I do not care about the actual event! I just want to be in the same event as you, Sakuya-chan! Lining up together… waiting together… feeling both joy and sorrow in turns at the results together… I want to taste that excitement!”

“I-… Is that so…”

I couldn’t say anything anymore… What could I even say? What did she want from me?

How strange… Was Kaya-san like this? In the beginning, she was more… normal…more sensible… she wasn’t like this, right?

“Fufufu. You do not understand anything.”

“Azami-chan?”

As I was talking with Kaya-san, Azami-chan came over and made a rare appearance. She came over to us at the salon more than Satsuki-chan did, but she didn’t normally come over. Even though she was always with her monryuu and faction, she came over today.

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“What don’t I understand?”

“Have you not noticed? Then, I shall tell you. Is that okay? If you are in the same event as Sakuya-sama, you will be able to line up together, but you will be far away from her; all you can do is assume position. You will feel a subtle sense of distance while staring at her because she is too far away, and you cannot converse with her. But it is not far enough to see the full picture; she will be hard to see because of the surroundings.”

Azami-chan had gotten good at talking to Kaya-san. But was that something you could say so confidently?

“Is that okay? If you cannot enjoy playing team sports and such together, it is better to fully view Sakuya-sama’s beauty as she runs with all her heart, keep track of every drop of sweat, remember her face wet by bitter tears, and etch her figure jumping with joy into your heart. You cannot see that if you are halfway near her.”

“Th-That is…”

It looked like Kaya-san was shocked, as if she’d been struck by lightning. What was this? I was the only one who couldn’t keep up, though…

“Most importantly, students in higher grades must guide the events of the students in lower grades. Why have you not volunteered to be part of the sports festival’s executive committee? If I were Sakuya-sama’s senior, I would volunteer to be a committee member, guide her, and hold her hand and shoulders just after she’d finished running. I would guide her like that, but… that is all impossible.”

“I-It can’t stay like this! I’ll order… ask that I switch with one of the executive committee members!”

“Oh…”

Kaya-san ran from the salon… without any time for me to stop her. Um~… stopping my friends from behaving recklessly because of friendship… or something, right? Well, it was fine… I hadn’t seen anything.

“Azami-chan… why did you stir Kaya-san up like that?”

The problem was Azami-chan. She had completely stirred Kaya-san up.

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The older committee members would definitely guide the event participants and help them stand in order of arrival. But that didn’t mean the same committee member would guide you for all the events; even if Kaya-san were to become a committee member in charge of the short-distance race and relay, that didn’t mean she’d be guiding me.

Considering all the work she had to do as a committee member, it was extremely unlikely that she could do it if she wanted to guide and be in charge of me. There was a small chance she’d get what she wanted for the risks and labour involved. It was probably a bad bet.

Thinking about what Azami-chan said, a committee member would have lots of things they’d need to do, so they couldn’t stare at someone from afar. With the contradiction in those two statements, it was strange for Azami-chan to say that Kaya-san should become a committee member if she wanted to watch me from afar.

“I did not really lie, though? It is true that not being selected for the same event as you, Sakuya-sama, will enable one to watch from afar. If the events were at similar times, I would have to wait for mine to start at a different place, so I picked an event that was at a very different time to yours, Sakuya-sama.”

Azami-chan… Had you thought that far when you were picking events? Hang on, I didn’t even know what times the events were scheduled for; how did you know that?

“And it is true that the upperclassmen committee members lead the events. I do not know if she will coincidentally be in charge of you, Sakuya-sama, but it is certainly possible, no?”

“That may be true…”

Nevertheless, I still didn’t know why she stirred up Kaya-san like that.

“That girl always, always, has you to herself at the salon! And she always looks at you in an obscene manner! Are you not aware that she is glancing at your legs?”

“What are you talking about…?”

In the first place, while Kaya-san was a girl, I was outwardly a girl. I was a guy on the inside, so I liked girls, but there weren’t a ton of girls who liked other girls. I liked Kaya-san, Azami-chan, and Satsuki-chan, but I hadn’t fancifully thought that they considered me an object of their affections.

That was fine if it was true, but it couldn’t have been true, right? If you looked a lot, there were those types of people in the world, but it should’ve been impossible for people like that to conveniently be around me. 

And first-graders were still kids. Sixth-graders were, well, also kids, but they were entering puberty so they might start having some interest in love. But said sixth-grader wouldn’t have felt love for a first-grader.

“That lack of self-awareness is dangerous! You are too careless about your own charms, big sister Sakuya! You are pure and beautiful! Everyone is chasing after you! You must be more self-aware, and be careful!”

“I-I understand… I will be careful…”

I was bulldozed by Azami-chan’s force, so I nodded for now. Azami-chan was also overreacting. If anything, everyone avoided me. And wouldn’t first-graders likes and dislikes be similar to “I want to marry you, mom~” and “I like you, teacher”?

Well, even if Azami-chan was overreacting, I did have to be more careful. I had to be especially careful in my interactions with Ibuki and Enju. Even though I wasn’t interested in the both of them, people might say “Lady Sakuya’s pretty stuck-up to be acting like she’s Ibuki’s marriage candidate” if I was just acting friendly around them.

With all of those things, everything was going similarly to the game “Love Flowers”. That might be the case for me too. I wanted to take measures before that happened, but… if I got badly involved, there might be a higher likelihood of it happening, so I was in a hard situation.

“Oh! And, Sakuya-sama, there is a cafe near Nyan-chan Land that is quite cute! We should all have tea there.”

“Well… that is true. It is cute…”

Azami-chan brought out a magazine that had a special feature article on Nyan-chan Land inside it. Could she really bring a magazine to the academy? Yeah, she could. The Five Norths Association would forgive most things. I didn’t know about the other students, but Azami-chan, who was part of said association, didn’t need to worry about that.

Putting that aside, when I looked at the magazine article, the cafe in Nyan-chan Land was cute. The menu they gave out and the latte art had Nyan-chan drawn on them, and there were Nyan-chan pancakes, which were all cute.

“Let’s take a break there. Alright?”

“I see… Let us discuss this again with everyone.”

We couldn’t make the decision by ourselves. We should talk with everyone tomorrow.

And also… these places were expensive just because of how they looked and the characters in them, but they tasted cheap. What would cost a few hundred yen outside would cost thousands of yen in a souvenir shop or theme park.

And the price was only high because there was a character on it; not because it tasted good or was well-made. For the average person, it’d be… comparatively expensive.

To families whose children attended Touka Academy, a price like that wouldn’t be a large amount, but… the issue was probably the taste. It might’ve been cute because of the character on it, but the taste… would it really satisfy the refined palettes of Touka Academy children?

I didn’t know what that would feel like. Instead of just me and Azami-chan making the decision, we should probably discuss with everyone and decide then.