002
“P-Pardon me for intruding, Big Brother Koyomi.”
“Oh, it’s you. Thanks for coming by, Sengoku. C’mon in.”
“I-It is an intrusion, isn’t it, Nadeko’ll just head home.”
“You can’t leave, you just got here!”
“G-G-Goodbye. It’s been fun.”
“Not yet it hasn’t?!”
“It…it was the greatest day ever.”
“You get that much of a kick out of taking off your shoes in our front hall?! Have you found the secret to happiness?!”
One day in early August─during summer break.
A day when a case involving a certain swindler had been settled for the moment, and my little sister’s friend Nadeko Sengoku had come by the house─as promised.
The excuse was that I’d gotten intel on the swindler from Sengoku, and now I was going to give her the rundown on what’d happened along with a proper thank you.
The correct thing probably would’ve been for me to go to her house to express my gratitude─but when I went to hang out over there last month, despite the fact that we had a great time playing The Game of Life, things eventually got weird and I ended up kind of fleeing from Sengoku’s mother, so I didn’t really have a strong inclination to head that way again.
Animal instinct, perhaps.
Or aberrational instinct.
Which is why I called Sengoku up and invited her over to our house─I thought about meeting her on the road and giving her an escort back, but, “That’s, okay,” was the response I got.
I mean, she’d come over to our place with Kanbaru month before last, so she knew where it was─and she used to come over all the time to see my sister when they were in elementary school anyway.
If she could get here on her own, no need to be overbearing─spare the road and spoil the child, as they say.
Nevertheless, Sengoku isn’t the most reliable kid, so I was a little anxious that she wouldn’t show up at the appointed hour, and if she didn’t I had every intention of pulling out all the stops to find her─but the doorbell rang at precisely the appointed time.
She was so punctual that it almost seemed like she’d been waiting outside the gate monitoring the atomic clock or something─she didn’t have a cell phone, though, so that wasn’t possible.
Maybe she’d synchronized her watch with it before she left the house─well, no, I guess no one’s that anal.
Every single one of Sengoku’s phone calls is precisely at the top of the hour in my cell’s log, but that’s obviously just a coincidence too.
“Anyway, come in. It’s fine, I cleaned my room and everything.”
“Ah, o-okay…”
“Everything’s set, so we can party all night!”
“E-Eek.”
I’d meant this as a joke to make her feel more relaxed, since she seemed anxious about being at my house despite knowing me for so long, but she’d taken it literally and shrunk back in terror. She was quaking in her boots.
Hmmm.
Then again, in the six months since our reunion, I’d never really seen Sengoku not panic-stricken.
Sengoku = panic-stricken.
This was her personality, so maybe there was nothing I could do about it─I guess I just needed to keep a close watch over her from here on out.
When I’d been the one darkening her door, she’d had her bangs pulled up with a hair band, but today, perhaps because she’d walked here, she was in her default mode, bangs down over her face.
I couldn’t even get a glimpse of her expression.
So to be perfectly honest, I had no idea what she was really feeling.
From the looks of it, she was being bashful, or maybe reserved, but it was equally possible that she was just repulsed.
If she felt at a loss, like she couldn’t refuse the persistent invitations of her friend’s older brother and ended up somewhere she didn’t want to be, I couldn’t feel worse, that is, what a big misunderstanding…
I want to believe that wasn’t what was going on.
If she’d only be a little more frank, it would make everything okay─seriously, even just one percent as frank as Kanbaru.
Just when Senjogahara’s acid tongue, or dispiritingly acrimonious disposition, was showing signs of mellowing─promising to go into remission after the con-man case, I just couldn’t face being hated by my little sister’s friend.
It would interfere with, impede, my exam prep.
“C’mon, get those shoes off already. Come in already.”
“R-Right. Okay. Off they come. Whatever you say. Anything at all.”
“…”
How so timid…
If she hated me, I suppose there was nothing I could do about it, but could she please not bring undue suspicion on me with her antics?
Anyway, whether she was being bashful, or watchful, or just plain waffling, Sengoku somehow made it across the threshold─and followed me right on up to the second floor.
“Tsukihi was supposed to be here too…but apparently she’s still stuck mopping up.”
“M-Mopping up? After what?”
“That swindler, obviously─not like I know what that actually means. Yeah, I have no idea what Karen or Tsukihi is thinking─”
Nor what Sengoku is.
I just don’t understand how middle school girls think, I guess─though that’s a real can of worms. How can you ever really know what anyone else is thinking?
Even Shinobu, with our link and everything─I can’t say I understand her.
“W-Wow. It’s true. It’s a party, you’re throwing Nadeko a party.”
At long last, after a whole stack of waffling─it took us thirty minutes to go a distance of not even thirty steps─Sengoku finally started to sound happy and excited when she got to my room.
Though it was less about the room and more about the snacks and juice spread out on the floor.
It was pretty modest as parties go, and there wasn’t any surprise element─in fact, the warm welcome I’d received at Sengoku’s house the other day had been a few notches more lavish─but I was just glad that it made her happy.
Though it was actually my sister who’d done all the preparation for this “party,” not me… It was after she’d put the finishing touches on it that she’d gone out to “mop up after that swindler.”
Part of me hated her thoroughness, but maybe it was only to be expected from someone who’d become the boss of all the middle school girls in the area.
Show Nadeko the same good time I would, Tsukihi had directed me─quite the direction, when it came from your own little sister.
“Wh-Whoa, popcorn. Nice! Let’s stuff our faces full of popcorn… Nadeko’s gonna pack it in till she can’t breathe. Then swallow it without chewing.”
“You’ll die.”
“Dreamy.”
Sengoku squatted down, sounding entranced.
I was a little surprised anyone could be so happy about snacks… Maybe she wasn’t allowed to eat sweets at home?
Given how cloyingly sweet her parents were to her…
It was surprising indeed.
Hup, Sengoku plopped down on a cushion and started taking off her socks. Both left and right. Apparently she wanted to be barefoot─and she was, before I could finish the thought.
She carefully folded her socks and laid them next to her.
“…”
She took off her socks almost like people take off their hats indoors, but…huh? Hang on, I dunno. I dunno I dunno. Is there some rule of etiquette that you take off your socks when you’re in someone else’s room?
I had very little experience being in other people’s rooms, so it didn’t help much by way of comparison…
I was always only going to Senjogahara’s or Kanbaru’s room…and in Kanbaru’s case, never mind socks, you could get hurt if you went in there without work boots.
“Y-You said Tsukihi had gone out…” It was clearly taking Sengoku everything she had to restrain an overwhelming urge to go buck wild on the smorgasbord of snacks laid out before her. Somehow managing to set aside her desire to shove her face full of popcorn at the earliest possible opportunity, she asked, “What about Karen?”
“Her too. They’re a set, a package deal.”
True, the difference in size made it hard to bundle them together, so they might not be easy to sell as a set… What to do with them?
Nothing, some people would say, it just wasn’t something you did to your little sisters.
“Y-Your good parents?”
“Well, that’s a very polite way of putting it… No, my good parents are also out, that is, at work. Holidays, summer break─their jobs don’t have anything to do with those things. By which I mean they don’t have any of those things.”
“R-Really… Th-Then it’s just the two of us today, Big Brother Koyomi.”
“Hm? Well, since you put it that way, yeah, it’s just the two of us. Something wrong with that?”
“Of course not. Teeheeheeheehee,” Sengoku giggled adorably.
Finally.
Huh, I guess she was so tense because she was worried about my parents─other people’s parents are definitely a source of tension, that’s for sure.
I’d had a hell of a time with Senjogahara’s dad, and even if we don’t bring that in, I did run away from Sengoku’s mother. And while I’m totally used to it now, to the point that I’ll go hang out with them even when Kanbaru isn’t there, at first her grandparents made me nervous too.
“Well, first off, welcome, Sengoku.”
I poured juice into the two glasses I’d set out, and handing one to Sengoku, we started off with a toast.
“Y-Yeah! Nadeko is welcome, Big Brother Koyomi! Cheers! Happy birthday!”
“…”
My birthday’s in April.
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