In the end, the whole family didn’t wind up in the same room until that evening. Our father had been out hunting with our older brother, and our mother had been attending a tea party. They’d been ignoring their work and social expectations until I was well again and it had finally come to bite them in the butt. Sorry, guys... At least the tea parties were supposedly better here than they were in the capital.
But the problem now was the suffocating silence around the dinner table.
My father, who always doted on me, was deep in thought.
My mother, who always doted on the youngest of us, was deep in thought.
My older brother, who always doted on his siblings, was deep in thought.
Nobody said a word. The vibes at the table were completely off. William was watching me to see what I’d do. I was right here after convalescing for three whole days, but they’d only asked if I was okay and then gone dead silent. Considering how much they usually indulged us, it was more than a little strange. Whenever we had custard, my older brother, George, would usually let me have his, but tonight he just ate it without a word. Even our servants could tell something was off, as they looked quite worried themselves.
I wondered if maybe it was because the three of them were all trying to work through this reincarnation business on their own. If they hadn’t eaten as much matsutake as William and I had, then it would be natural for them to be a bit preoccupied with trying to figure out what was happening.
If they weren’t going to talk now, it would be a real pain going to each of their rooms and asking them individually, not to mention explaining everything again and again. I really just wanted to get the whole thing over with in one fell swoop.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, my family and the servants all seemed to be used to Emma’s general weirdness, so maybe I could just ask them all right then and there? That would be the fastest way.
Slam!
The second I’d finished with my custard, I shot out of my seat and took a deep breath. The whole family had their eyes on me, and I called out to them in the language we used in our previous world.
“Tanaka family roll call! Countdown!”
“Three!” My father, Leonard, stood up and saluted without a second’s delay.
“Two!” My mother, Melsa, stood up and saluted.
“One!” My older brother, George, stood up and saluted.
“Liftoff!” William and I put our fists in the air.
Even though it wasn’t actually a roll call, this was a Tanaka family tradition we’d always done when we went on vacations to make sure nobody got left behind. Even after we grew up and stopped going on family vacations, all it took was one of us starting it when we were all sufficiently drunk and it’d get the whole family laughing. It was one of those things that would’ve been humiliating if anyone outside our family saw us doing it, but if any one of us gave the signal, we’d get the flow going before we could think to stop ourselves.
That’s right. It was a Tanaka family tradition.
Normally, it would’ve been a killer punch line for us, but this time we stared at each other in shock. It was only natural, given that we’d all acted completely on reflex. William hadn’t even needed to do it since I already knew he was a Tanaka, but it was so ingrained in us that he couldn’t help it.
“Meet me at Emma’s House in twenty minutes,” I continued in Japanese. Our other three family members all went wide-eyed and nodded. Then, I turned and went back to my room as though nothing weird had happened.
I’d known it was going to look odd, but the servants’ expressions were killing me. I wanted to get out of there before Martha yelled at me.
“M-Milady! You mustn’t run in the halls!”
Welp, so much for that.
Later on, William said I could’ve just talked to everyone in Japanese, but the roll call was proof that we were all part of the Tanaka family. I knew it was going to look weird, but I’d wanted to know if we were all one hundred percent Tanakas before we pieced everything else together. That was all. It wasn’t like I couldn’t think of any other way to check... Not at all. No way.