CH 41

In the end, what did she meant by those words?

Even after I had returned to the car, I couldn’t let go of those words she had murmured.

The only person she cared about, was herself.

Did this mean she had worries regarding some aspect of her physical appearance?

Thinking that even someone as well-proportioned as Shizuku had things they were worried about, I was filled with complex feelings.

After the stop, the car started heading towards our destination once more. No matter how much I thought and no matter how many hypotheses I came up with, I couldn’t arrive at a satisfactory answer.

In the end, people’s worries are things you can’t comprehend unless they tell you.

There are women who won’t put their thoughts into words, but will still ask you to try and understand them. If it is something that even mind reading skills can’t help you comprehend, it’s an impossible hurdle to cross.

While I was the only one racking my brains and worrying over stuff, Kaede and Shizuku happily conversed. Meanwhile, Kirasaka would sometimes bump heads with Shizuku. Their usual fights seemed to have been engaging enough for Kirasaka as she had fun on the otherwise boring journey.

Yuuto wasn’t able to participate in their conversations in particular, but since he had been happily listening to them converse, I guess there was no problem.

Luckily, we didn’t get caught in any traffic, and were able to proceed smoothly. Therefore, we were very close to reaching mouseland, even before the clock had struck 10.

“We will arrive shortly, please prepare your luggage”

Our driver, Kuroi-san called out to us. He seemed to have roughly calculated the time required to traverse the remaining distance from a road sign.

“Ara? We’ve already come this far, huh”

“It’s unexpectedly close, isn’t it?”

Said Kirasaka and Kaede, with surprised expressions. I guess they were so engrossed in their chit-chat that they hadn’t noticed the road sign.

Well, you guys kept happily talking……talking about my sleep-talks and whatnot.

When the buildings entered our field of view, we could see most of the pedestrians walking towards the same place.

How do I know?……the reason is simple, because mouse patterns started appearing in large numbers.

[TN – seriously, “mouse patterns” was what was written in the original. I would say it refers to mouse-patterned disneyland shirts, balloons, placards, signboards etc.]

While looking outside the window, I had instinctively started feeling unwell. This was due to realizing that we were about to plunge into a crowd worse than what we were seeing right now.

[TN – Don’t be confused as to whether we had forgotten to add the closing quotation mark below, cuz it really just goes on]

“If possible, I want to quietly relax at a café or something.

It takes a lot of time to ride the attractions, there is no place where I could calm down and eat food, and there are just too many people. This sort of place is harsh for humans like me.

I recalled having once seen on the TV, the announcer interviewing the attendees who had been waiting for their turn to ride the attractions. When they were asked if it was ok to be waiting for such a long period of time, they answered with a smiling face, “It’s important to know how to spend that time, you know!”.

That answer is correct……and yet not so.

Knowing how to spend time while waiting in line for a ride – is indeed very important.

For example, if you’re just sloppily playing around with your smartphone, that would truly be a waste of time.

Therefore, the right answer is to prepare in advance as to how you should go about spending that time and what you could be talking about with the person you came with; these tactics would have to be prepared beforehand.

Before any of that though, it is ok just not to ride the attraction.

I often see a wait time of one hundred and twenty minutes, and in that kind of time, I can even return home.

After waiting for a long period of time, the attraction ends in just a moment.

If you’re not tactful, you could end up with not even an hour to spare throughout the day.

If that was the case, you could simply be at home instead and spend several hours doing the things that you want to do. That way, you could spend your time meaningfully.

That is why, after entering the premises, I will make up some excuse and spend my time as meaningfully as possible at some quiet place around……isn’t that what you are thinking right now, Nii-san?”

With that, Kaede had finished her long, but accurate impersonation of me.

“……No, there’s no way”

……What was with this sister?

Was she an esper?

She was smiling at me and it was terrifying.

“Well then, I shall be on standby at a hotel nearby. If anything comes up, please contact me”

After dropping the five of us at the parking lot, Kuroi-San said these few words and left.

He had said he would be dropping us off at the park and then picking us up when it was time to leave……which meant he would take us home too. I was really grateful for that.

We watched him drive away until the car was completely out of sight. To the four of us who were still standing in the parking lot we had gotten off at, Kaede said this,

“Well then, let’s get going soon!”

“Ah! Kaede-chan, you shouldn’t run?”

“Wait a moment, the two of you. I have not given you your tickets yet!”

Yuuto had prepared the entrance tickets beforehand, but Kaede had taken off before he could pass those around.

Shizuku chased after Kaede while Yuuto chased after the both of them. From behind, Kirasaka and I watched this strange situation unfold before our eyes.

“Kaede-chan is usually a perfect sister but sometimes she can be very childish, huh”

“I don’t have any words I can say……”

It was precisely so.

It was so precise that I couldn’t find any words to say.

Besides, if she was always a perfect sister, I would have lost my standing as her elder brother. Therefore, it was good that there was an unexpected side to her.

“Ah, she got stopped by an employee……”

“That idiot……”

Both of our parents had been working since we were kids, so it had been quite a while, several years even, since we last visited an amusement park.

I understood that, but I wanted her to be a tad bit calmer.