Chapter 87

LOST DAYS · 4 “Man, am I lucky…” It was one in the morning. Nearly the entire neighborhood was asleep. The moment I got back from the convenience store, I opened up my plastic bag and grinned from ear to ear. It contained assorted snacks and beverages, as well as two small-ish cups of custard pudding. “Small-ish” makes it sound like this was low-quality stuff, but with convenience-store pudding, small-ish means high quality. Why two, though? Simple: They had a little sweepstakes drawing thing at the counter, and I won a free cup. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I pretty much never win raffles or things like that, but maybe some kind of newfound power was making itself known within my brain. Good job, me. It really felt great, winning such an awesome prize after doing only about a thousand yen’s worth of shopping. How did convenience stores make any money, doing stuff like this? The thought concerned me a little, but I wasn’t about to give my prize back, so instead I whispered “Thanks” to the clerk out of appreciation. We had two days left until the school festival, and my little game-dev sleepover was rapidly coming to a head. In fact, since I was just about done with the coloring work for Bear-Rilla and the rest of my zoo, all I had left to do was draw up a few more backgrounds. The “climax” part mainly involved Mr. Tateyama, who had been pulling all-nighters the whole time. Listening to the late-night moaning from his computer desk always made me feel at fault, somehow, but I couldn’t really help him with his programming work. So instead, I’ve been our official food-and-drink supplier for the past few days. It also gave me a chance to procure dinner for myself, so it was a win-win for everybody. Is that how you use that term? I dunno. I guess it doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to just sit there idly, though. Mr. Tateyama asked me for coffee, and he was about to get it. I took off my shoes and headed down the hall. It wasn’t that far to the stairway, so I didn’t bother turning on a light, keeping my hand against the wall as I proceeded. The rest of the family had to be sleeping by this time. I didn’t want to wake them up, so I tried my hardest not to make a sound. Slowly, carefully, I crept along, and as I did I passed by the door with the KID’S ROOM plate. For a moment, the events of my first day here flashed across my mind—getting locked in the book room, being accused of possessing a filthy mind. That was four days ago already. Time flies. Funnily enough, that whole time, I never ran into any of Ayano’s siblings again. I spent most of my time cooped up in my room, but it seemed odd that we never saw a hint of one another, even though we were in the same house. They had to be going to school over these four days, and I’m pretty sure we would have been sharing a bathroom… I climbed the stairs slowly, taking care not to make any creaking sounds, as my mind dwelled on these mystery siblings. Ayano told me not to worry about them on the first day, and so I didn’t. I made a point not to bring them up whenever I talked to her. But, to be honest, my curiosity was starting to consume me. What could they have been thinking, pulling all those pranks on me the first day? And why was Ayano so adamant about not letting me so much as see them? “Huh?” Once I reached the upstairs hallway, my plan was to head right for my teacher’s room. Instead, I stopped at the top of the stairs. The door to the room I was sleeping in was half-open, and for some reason, light was leaking out. Had I forgotten to turn out the lights when I left? No, I definitely remembered doing that. So what’s up, then…? …Hmm? What’s that? It was hard to make out from the glare, but it looked like something was slithering around under the door… Whoa. Is whatever that is coming this way? Wait! Wh-what the…?! Huh? Huh?! “Agh…!!” The tiny shadow that jumped out the doorway zoomed toward me at blazing speed, then bit my right foot. The sudden pain made me want to shout out loud, but I managed to hold it back. What the hell?! What just bit me?! I crouched down, trying my best to shoo the dark menace away, but as I did, the door burst open the rest of the way. The light pouring out now fully illuminated the doorway. Inside, I spotted the silhouette of a boy. “H-Hanao! No!” The boy who came out the door looked pretty disoriented, but his aim was true as he swooped down and picked up the blob in the darkness. Now that it was exposed to the light, I could see what the shadow was. Ahead of the pain, ahead of the boy, I addressed it first. “A, a hamster…?” The boy holding Hanao the hamster crouched down so we were at the same level, and looked at me concerned. “Um, are you all right?! I’m—I’m really, really sorry about this…!” He looked about one or two years younger than me. His stark black hair had a couple of hairpins in the front. He was dressed for the outdoors, with a white shirt and cargo pants, but the boy’s obvious timidity indicated he wasn’t exactly the rugged mountain type. He was frantically bowing at me in apology, so I sat on the floor and tried to assuage him. “It…it’s fine! Just calm down! I don’t think it broke the skin, so it’s all good! Okay?” I checked to be sure, but I wasn’t hurt at all. It must’ve gone easy on me. The boy looked at least a little relieved to hear this. “Are…are you sure?” It did still hurt a little, but considering how teary-eyed the boy was, I decided not to dwell on it. “Yep, no problem,” I said, smiling in as friendly and engaging a manner as I could. “So are you Ayano’s brother?” The boy looked a little scared by the question, but still nodded broadly. “Y-yes, I am, but…are you gonna report this to her?” The moment he asked the question, he began shaking. Report? It wasn’t like we were at boot camp. But judging by his act, I probably wouldn’t want to be around Ayano when she was mad. She did make her brother scream on my first day here, after all. I’d…better keep that in mind. “No, of course not! Um, I just wanted to say hello, since I haven’t seen you before…” I extended a friendly hand to him. “My name is Haruka Kokonose. What’s yours?” The boy shifted his hamster to one hand in order to shake mine. “Um, it’s Kousuke. Hi.” That name raised a flag in my memory. Ayano mentioned a “Shuuya” on my first day here, I was pretty sure. One of them had to be older than the other. Was it Kousuke, or Shuuya? I started to get curious. Kousuke stood back up and started bowing again. “Um, I’m gonna go downstairs. Again, I’m really sorry about scaring you this late.” Going to bed, maybe? It was pretty late. I wanted to talk to him a little more…but he was probably tired. Maybe next time. “Sure. Good…” …Or maybe he wasn’t? You never knew. An odd sense of anticipation made me stop midsentence. Did I really need to occupy his time like this? Ooh, but I should really ask now that I have the chance. Ooh, but it’s not nice for me to pry into family matters, either. Still, a little chat wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? “K-Kousuke?” “…Yes?” Kousuke gave me a puzzled look. I picked up the convenience-store bag at my side and took an item out of it. “You a fan of custard pudding?” “I…I don’t think I’ve ever eaten something so good before! I usually just eat the ones that come in three-packs, so…!” Kousuke, seated across the desk from me, appeared to be in a state of pure bliss. Not so fast, Kousuke. Those three-packs shouldn’t be ignored, either. There’s a sort of universal appeal to them. You’ll come around to that someday. As I mentally intoned these words of enlightenment to myself, I brought another spoonful of custard to my lips. Yum. Mr. Tateyama looked pretty shocked when I brought him his coffee, Kousuke following right behind. The way he put it, the three children Ayano played big sister to were all super-shy around strangers, almost never getting friendly with people they didn’t know. Being told that seemed to embarrass Kousuke a little, but now I understood why I practically never saw them. “That little guy really likes you, though, huh?” Hanao the hamster was resting quietly on Kousuke’s shoulder. He seemed totally serene, no longer a threat to my feet. “Hee-hee! Yeah, we’re really good friends,” said Kousuke, giving Hanao a few pets across his back. He stretched himself out appreciatively in response. “So you’re here to work on your festival presentation, Kokonose? I think Ayano said it was the day after tomorrow.” “Uh-huh. It’s the big yearly school festival. You could visit it too if you like, Kousuke. There’s a ton of food stalls and stuff, and it’s like a really big party every year.” Kousuke dolefully shook his head at the invite. “Thanks…but I better not. I can’t deal with lots of people in one place. There’s some stuff I have to do on that day, too.” The thought seemed to actively depress Kousuke. Mr. Tateyama did just talk about how shy they were, didn’t he? Probably should’ve been a bit more thoughtful there. I opened my mouth to try to gloss over the topic, but Kousuke beat me to it. “Oh, but Ayano and…and the other two said they’d visit.” “Oh, really? All of them?!” That was a bit of a surprise. Actually, more than a bit. A lot. I was all but convinced they hated me by then. But they were really coming over? Wow! The thought instantly excited me. “Well, that’s really great!” I smiled at him. “Makes me even more excited about doing this right, you know?” Kousuke returned the smile. “Yeah. I’ll be rooting for you, too. Really, if I didn’t have that stuff to do, I would’ve tried to go for a little while.” “Oh, yeah, you mentioned that. What kind of stuff, though? Something difficult?” “Kind of,” Kousuke said. “I’m going on an interview for a part-time paperboy job. There’s this place that’ll hire kids my age, and I’ve just got to get it.” I see. Sounded convincing enough, for a moment. But Kousuke couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen. It wasn’t an age most people recommended kids start working. Why was he going through the effort? I found the question difficult to ask, but Kousuke, picking up on my feelings, continued. “I feel like I really have to change. Mom’s dead, and everyone else is working so hard…I can’t act like this total coward for the rest of my life.” Then he fell silent, noticing my reaction to this. …So, um, wait a minute. What did Kousuke just say? “Mom’s dead.” …Meaning, Mr. Tateyama’s wife? That was crazy. My teacher never mentioned a word of that to us. And ever since I joined this school—forever, really, as long as I’d known him—I’d never seen him demonstrate even a twinge of sadness. Even as we entered the second semester, he was the same as always. “…She passed away? Mr. Tateyama’s wife?” Kousuke looked startled at the question.