Do you think girls come falling down out of the sky?
That’s what happened in the movie I saw yesterday. Well, that sort of thing might make a great introduction for a movie or comic book—a prologue in which something mysterious and unusual occurs. The protagonist is your would-be hero of justice, setting forth on a big adventure.
“Man, I want a girl to come falling down out of the sky!”
It’s actually a rather foolish thing to say. I mean, there’s no way a girl like that is normal. Being drawn into a bizarre world and made to play the part of some hero of justice—in real life, such a turn of events is bound to be full of danger and more trouble than it’s worth.
I don’t know about everyone else, but that’s why I, Kinji Tohyama, don’t need any girls falling out of the sky. I want to lead a normal, peaceful life. So the first thing I’m going to do is transfer out of this school. This utterly absurd school…
Ding-dong.
I woke up to a single chime of the doorbell. Not good.
It would seem that I fell asleep wearing nothing but my trunks. Turning towards the cell phone at the head of my bed, I learned that it was seven in the morning.
Who in the world is ringing my doorbell at this time of the morning? Maybe I’ll just pretend not to be here.
But there was something about that single chime that gave me a sense of foreboding. After sluggishly slipping on a dress shirt and putting on my school pants, I proceeded to make my way through this apartment, which was needlessly spacious for a single occupant, and looked outside via the spy hole. It was as I expected.
“…Ngh.”
There stood Shirayuki. She was dressed in a pure white blouse with a dark red collar and a dark red skirt. In that spotless Butei High school uniform, Shirayuki held a lacquered compact mirror in one hand while she busily tidied up her bangs.
What is she doing here? Shirayuki proceeded to take a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
I can’t ever figure her out, I thought to myself as I opened the door.
“Shirayuki.”
As I opened the door, Shirayuki hastily closed her mirror and hid it behind her back.
“Kin-chan!” said Shirayuki perking up and calling me by my nickname from childhood.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop calling me that?”
“Oops. S-sorry about that. Kin-chan, I was thinking about you just now, so when I saw you, I couldn’t help but—Oops, I called you Kin-chan again. Sorry, Kin-chan. Oops…”
Shirayuki’s complexion visibly paled, and she covered her mouth with her hand in a state of panic. Seeing her reaction, I lost the will to protest any further. The reason that Shirayuki calls me, Kin-chan stems from the fact that the two of us are childhood friends. As Shirayuki’s name suggested, she had snow-white skin, and the bangs of her glossy black hair were cut at a perfectly straight angle, just as they had always been since she was a child. She had kind and gentle eyes, with beautiful, long eyelashes. One could expect no less from a person who comes from a long line of shrine maidens of Hotogi Shrine. As always, she was an example of the ideal Japanese woman.
“More to the point, this is a men’s dormitory. You shouldn’t just come waltzing into a place like this.”
“U-um, up until yesterday, I was staying at Ise Shrine for training, so I wasn’t able to look after you.”
“I told you, you don’t need to.”
“B-but…” said Shirayuki starting to snivel.
“Okay, okay! It’s no big deal.” With no better solution, I decided to let Shirayuki, whose eyes had become moist with tears, into my apartment.
“T-thanks for letting me visit.” Shirayuki bowed at nearly a ninety-degree angle before crossing the threshold and slipping off her black shoes, which she placed neatly by the door.
“So? What did you want?” It was too much trouble to gather at the dining table, so I just sat down on the floor by the coffee table.
“I-I wanted to give you this.” Shirayuki lightly sat down in the proper Japanese fashion with her legs folded underneath her and untied a bundle wrapped in a cloth.
From the bundle, Shirayuki presented multi-layered lacquer boxes, which she placed in front of me and removed the lid, also adorned with a gold lacquer design. Inside the boxes were soft and fluffy looking Japanese omelets, salted and sweetened boiled shrimp all perfectly lined up, silver salmon, and Saijou persimmons. And amongst all of these luxurious ingredients was a glistening helping of white rice.
“You…must have gone through a lot of trouble making this, didn’t you?” I said as Shirayuki handed me a pair of lacquered chopsticks.
“N-no, I just woke up early is all. Besides, Kin-chan, I figured that during spring break, you were only eating pre-made meals from the convenience store again, so I was kind of worried…”
“That’s nothing for you to be concerned about.” The fact was I had eaten nothing but pre-made meals from the convenience store during spring break and gratefully accepted the delicious looking breakfast Shirayuki prepared.
I had to admit that Shirayuki’s cooking, especially Japanese cuisine, was absolutely exquisite. Shirayuki, still sitting in the same manner, had a hint of cherry blossom-color on her cheeks, and started to peel the skin off of a tangerine. Seeing as how she carefully removed all the pith from the fruit and placed it on a white plate, it was apparent that the tangerine was meant for me.
I suppose I should thank her at least.
With my stomach now full and a tangerine in my mouth, I turned towards Shirayuki.