Volume 2 - CH 5.1

1

The day of the trip to a hot spring, Sandai had planned to get out of the bed at 6 in the morning, but it was about 30 minutes later that he actually woke up.

He hadn’t been really able to fall asleep last night, and had finally fallen asleep at 3 am, so that was surely the cause. He knew in his head that he should go to bed earlier than usual, but it being the night before the trip as well, he had been feeling a weird excitement. 

Nothing serious nor problems would come out of this oversleeping since there was time to spare, but he was feeling sleepy because his sleeping time was short.

He would love to go back to sleep, but he wouldn’t be able to stand if he were to oversleep. He should get up proper.

After washing his face and brushing his teeth and such, Sandai wrapped the cashmere muffler he had gotten from Shino around his neck, took the traveling bag he had packed up and got ready yesterday, and headed to the station, their meeting place.

There were quite a number of people at the station. It was the season, so it seemed there were also many people going on a long trip back home for visiting parents and such.

That said it was still early morning, so still on the better side. There would be more people once noon, and the station would likely be jam packed.

He wouldn’t want to go to the station at that time. Crowdedness on the level beyond lively would indeed be mentally exhausting.

“I wonder what to pick…”

To fight his sleepiness, Sandai bought a canned coffee from the vending machine at the station and drank it. After all, caffeine could help, and he simply liked coffee as well.

His companion when taking a break from studying and such would also be coffee.

However, he had also heard that drinking too much coffee would be bad for the stomach. It would be better to not chug it down.

While drinking the coffee little by little, Sandai began gathering info on new light novels on his phone since there wasn’t anything to do either until Shino came.

“For next month… There sure is a lot of new work. I see, it’s the season when award winning work and stuff’s coming out too, huh. There sure are some crazy titles there, too. ‘You, Whom I Met at the Intersection Tomorrow and Yesterday. Just When I Thought You Were a Beautiful Girl Who Liked to Cosplay, You Turned Out to Be an Actual Magical Girl, and Your True Form Was a Middle-Aged Man, so I Cried.’ …There’s an impact in it, but I don’t think I wanna check it out, though.”

He wasn’t sure whether it was the publisher’s joke or a title they had decided with after giving it a serious thought, but as to be expected he would ignore this.

“Hmm?”

A chat message suddenly came in. It was a message from Shino saying: I’m almost there. 

Sandai returned back to the home screen and waited for Shino to arrive.

A train arrived a few minutes later, and Shino got down from that train. Today Shino was in plain clothes beaming with the desire to go for an outing, so it was a little fresh.

She was wearing a knitted wool hat, boots and black tights emphasizing her slender and long legs, and then on her back was a ladies-pink backpack for travel.

There was a childlike, and unexpectedly grownup feel as well.

“Nya.”

Shino imitated a cat’s paw, and made a morning greeting like a cat. There wasn’t any special meaning to this sort of action of Shino, it was just that, she somehow wanted to do it.

There wouldn’t be any need to think deeply how to react to this, and it would be fine to simply go along.

“Nya.”

“Nya nya nya.”

“Nya nya nya nya. You look cute today, too.”

“Yeah! I gave my best in the matching!”

“Thanks for giving your best. Though, like that your neck’s slightly cold, right? Here,” Sandai said, unwrapped half of the muffler and wrapped it around Shino’s neck. 

Shino noticed that this muffler was the Christmas present she had given him.

“This muffler was my Christmas present for you! It makes me so happy you’re actually using it like this… The muffler is snug and warm.”

“After all, it has been warmed up by my neck, My Lord.”

“Hmm, it’s not bad—wait, not My Lord, but Princess!”

“My humble apologies, Princess.”

While holding a conversation mixed in with such playfulness, they moved to the platform where the train heading to their destination would stop on.

They were worrying a little whether to use the bullet train or conventional train. Either would bring them to their destination. However, it was their long-awaited trip, so they purposefully decided to use a conventional train that would stop at every station on the way there so they could sightsee as well.

Of course, they didn’t have the time to get down at every station to sightsee, so they narrowed it down on the ones they were particularly interested in and looked around for about 30 minutes only.

It was brief, but they were unexpectedly able to have fun, still.

Each place had differences. One would be in western style, Japanese style, and so on. It was fun just getting to experience those.

Though, it didn’t mean that everything differed, as there was only one thing in common in all of the places.

There would always be such local specialties or souvenirs which were unclear whether they were even trying to sell or not.

“They’re selling a weird clay figure-like thing.”

“That’s not a clay figure but a totem pole.”

“Are there people who would buy this?”

“Don’t they put this up because there are?”

“There’s totally none, I’m telling you. Look closely, its made day.”

“…It says five years ago.”

What did the maker of this totem pole feel when they realized the reality that it was being put up on the storefront without ever getting bought for five years?

Could they feel sad and be choked with tears, or perhaps they didn’t really mind it since it was a business…?

As for Sandai, the one that would’ve given a humane touch had the better impression, so he would be happy if it was the former if possible.

As they were proceeding to the next stations while sightseeing various towns in this way, the townscape that could be seen was gradually becoming emptier as well.