CH 46

His Late Father and Mother

Translated by HamletJr

Edited by HamletJr

“Morning, Shizuna.”

“Good morning, Ryuichi-kun.”

On the day that Ryuichi promised to go on a trip with Shizuna, he’d already arrived at her house at about 9:00 in the morning. He thought she would be waiting for him inside the house, but he was surprised to see her already outside the front door, perhaps out of sheer excitement.

“This girl’s just so excited, you see. Fufu, how nice it is to be young~.”

“I was really looking forward to it, okay? I couldn’t help it.”

Shizuna puffed her cheeks out poutily. Seeing this made Ryuichi and Sakie chuckle, which made her even more sulky as she turned her head to the side in displeasure.

When he reached out and patted her head, her expression immediately changed to a smiling one, and she hugged his arm.

“You’re an easy one to please, arent’cha?”

“Happy things make me happy. Obviously it’d show on my face right away, you know? ♪”

True, he nodded in agreement. After saying goodbye to Sakie and telling her that he would take care of Shizuna for the day, the two started walking.

“?”

“Ah…”

On their way, they bumped into Sohei just as he was leaving his house. He was probably going out to meet a friend to hang out with today; when their eyes met, he turned his back to them and ran away, looking uncomfortable.

“Let’s get going, Ryuichi-kun.”

“Yeah.”

Compared to Akira, who still harbored hostility toward Ryuichi, Sohei’s behavior was much more manly and resolute. For him, Shizuna was his childhood friend whom he had been in love with for a long time, so it couldn’t have been that easy to give up on her.

His back was cloaked with melancholy, but Ryuichi and Shizuna walked in the opposite direction from where he was headed without paying any attention to him.

“Sorry, Shizuna. Today’s date might not really be, well…”

“No, it’s okay. I’m fine with anything as long as I’m with you.”

“I see. Thanks for understanding.”

“Yes. ♪”

Well, he didn’t know if it could be called a date that a girl would enjoy, but it seemed that Shizuna truly only needed to be by his side to be happy. Even as he glanced sideways at her, who was walking with his arm in her embrace, her gaze remained unclouded, bright, and forward-looking.

“…I’m glad to have you by my side, Shizuna.”

“Yup. I’ll always be with you, now and in the future too.”

Her reply came without a moment’s hesitation, and he nodded in response. Now, the reason why he’d asked her out this time was certainly to thank her for her usual hospitality and also to take her somewhere. She’d readily agreed to go out with him not only to enjoy this weekend with him, but also to see where he was planning to go.

“All right, looks like the station’s the first stop of the day.”

First, they had to head for the station and take a 30-minute train ride. It had been a while since Ryuichi had been away from town like this, even if he was only traveling a short distance away.

“It feels so exciting to go somewhere new with you, Ryuichi-kun.”

“Glad to hear that.“

While they waited for the train to arrive, they killed some time by buying some snacks at a store. 

When the train eventually arrived, even though it was a holiday and was thus not as crowded as on the weekdays, the train was still sufficiently populated to see passengers here and there, albeit sparsely.

With Shizuna’s hand in Ryuichi’s, they boarded the train and sat down next to each other in an empty seat. There were four boys about the same age that they had never seen before sitting in the opposite seats where they sat, and though they had been admiring Shizuna’s figure, they immediately looked away when they noticed Ryuichi.

“Fufu, they look so scared of you even though you’re such a kind person.”

“…Ain’t anything new by now, ain’t it?”

“Yup. But it doesn’t matter what other people think; as long as I and the other girls know how kind you are, that’s all that matters.”

Ryuichi certainly wasn’t the sensitive type so as to worry about what total strangers thought about him, especially after all this time. Shizuna took out the snacks they had just bought and offered them to Ryuichi.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

The snack was a bunch of thin sticks covered in chocolate. He took one of the sticks offered to him and started munching on it, but once he finished his piece, Shizuna suddenly started doing some sort of gimmick.

“Mmm!”

“……?”

“Mmm!!”

She stuck her face out at Ryuichi with one of the sticks in her mouth. At first, he wondered what on earth she was doing, but then he realized what she wanted to do, and he muttered to himself, “Is she a kid or something?”

However, he still found it nice to see such a beautiful girl like her trying so hard to do something like this.

“Fine, if you really want to.”

“♪♪”

He put his mouth on the other side of the stick that she was holding in her mouth, and they proceeded to eat slowly, each making munching noises of their own. Then, of course, the distance between the two became zero, and their lips touched each other. 

The taste of chocolate spreading in his mouth and the sweet smell of Shizuna’s scent…did not make him put his tongue in her mouth, but she still seemed to be very satisfied.

“I’ve always wanted to do this since way back.”

“Really?”

“Yup…It was really bittersweet, sort of.”

She smiled as if to say she was satisfied. Incidentally, Ryuichi was sitting by the window, so when he turned toward Shizuna, he would inevitably see the boys sitting on the other side. Perhaps they had been watching the whole scene, as his eyes met theirs.

“Urk…”

“?!”

Of course, they quickly averted their gazes, but he mused that they must’ve been interested perhaps because they were at that age. He didn’t want them to feel bad and think that he didn’t want them watching them. Sure, they’d done it because it was her request, but it was still their own fault for doing what they did in such a place.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, the guys over there were watching us.”

“Ah, that…”

She, too, seemed to have figured it all out now.

“My appearances are what they are, but you’re a pure, beautiful girl who seemingly lives in a completely different world from mine. I guess they must’ve been a little surprised too.”

“A pure, beautiful girl, huh… Can you still say that about me after I’ve shown you that face?”

She was likely referring to the face she’d made on the picture on her smartphone. It was certainly far from the face of a pure girl; it was the face of a woman sunk in pleasure, but ultimately, it was just another face of hers, one that she only showed when she was having sex with him. It wasn’t part of her public self, and since the usual Shizuna had an undeniable atmosphere of purity about her, there was nothing strange about it at all.

“Yes, I can. Because that’s a face you only make at special times.”

“I wonder about that…”

Apparently she wasn’t convinced. He wrapped his hand around her shoulders, hugged her a little tightly, and whispered to her.

“Just so you know, I like that face of yours too, y’know?”

“Urk…I know. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have ravaged me so senselessly like that.”

Well, it seemed she knew that too. While her words were quite strong, her expression was a mixture of shyness and happiness, and he could tell that she really liked to be attacked.

“Really goes to show that you’re a total masochist.”

“…I can be on the aggressive side too, you know!”

“Oh? Well, should we put that to the test next time?”

“Sure, I’ll show you!”

Their plans for the evening were set. And so, time went on as they talked about some rather obscene things for high school students, and soon, they arrived at their destination.

“Careful.”

“Yup.”

Even in trivial places, he didn’t forget to take her hand.

“…Fufu. ♪”

He wasn’t aware of it himself, but she properly took notice of his kindness and smiled.

“I’ll take care of some things first.”

“All right.”

He then stopped by a flower shop. Although he wasn’t very picky with flowers, he picked up a beautiful flower that his intuition told him was good, and headed for the cash register.

“Ah…welcome.”

“How much is it?”

It was an astonishing sight to see someone so obviously delinquent-looking like Ryuichi buying flowers. Shizuna was laughing behind his back, her shoulders trembling, and the girl at the register seemed so scared of Ryuichi that she wouldn’t even look at him… “Am I really that scary?” he muttered to himself.

“T-Thank you very much for your patronage…”

“………”

He gave up, not wanting to say anything else.

“She was really scared of you, huh?”

“…Say, Shizuna. I’m not that scary, right?”

“I don’t think you’re scary, you know?”

Shizuna’s pure and innocent reply was his only saving grace. They then continued walking, with Shizuna surveying her somewhat new surroundings, though that wasn’t the case for Ryuichi.

“I’ve been here before to shop with my mom, but I’ve never walked around the place like this.”

“Well, it’s a 30-minute trip away, after all. No reason to come all the way here if you ain’t got anything to do.”

While they were conversing, they made their way to a place a little higher up. It was a place where many graves were lined up, and one of the reasons Ryuichi had bought flowers was to come here.

“There they are.”

There stood two graves on the ground. The names “Shishido Maito” and “Shishido Azusa” were engraved on them, respectively.

“You can tell a lot about a married couple when they’re buried separately, huh?”

“…Right.”

Normally, if a couple died together, their names would be engraved on one grave and their remains would be placed there. The fact that that wasn’t the case here, however, symbolized the distorted relationship between Ryuichi’s parents.

“Well, that old man and that hag did argue a ton over this. Doesn’t matter now, though.”

With that, he turned his gaze to the two graves once more. He then hugged Shizuna’s shoulder as she stood next to him and held her close to him as if to show her to the two deceased people.

“Yo, it’s been a while. Not sure how many years it’s been, but are you doin’ well? Still having affairs in the afterlife?”

Those were not words that one would say in front of a grave, but still, those words leaked out of his mouth. Not long ago, he would’ve never come to visit a grave like this, and he wouldn’t have come no matter what anyone said to him. But now that his feelings and his mindset had changed, here he was.

“Even now, I still don’t know if I’m happy or blessed. But I’m definitely leading a fulfilling life right now. A life that you two regretted not having.”

He uttered those words with confidence. And with that, Shizuna opened her mouth to follow.

“Nice to meet you, Ryuichi’s father and mother. My name is Rindo Shizuna.”

And so, this was how Shizuna met Ryuichi’s parents.

“…What’s wrong, dear?”

“Is that…no, it can’t be.”

A short distance away, an elderly couple was staring at Ryuichi and Shizuna. The look in their eyes was one of bewilderment, but it soon turned to disgust and anger.