VOLUME 4

Chapter 2: Part 6

I wanted to enjoy the school festival, but I couldn’t have fun at all by myself.

This experience just reconfirmed the fact to me that festivals were meant to be enjoyed with others. Maybe I should even go and hang out with Orito… Yuu and Tomonori had been taken by Haruna, and I didn’t see Sera anywhere.

Looking around me, I saw that very few people were roaming around by themselves. There were a lot of couples, and many of them had probably used this school festival as an opportunity to confess.

As I enjoyed my people watching, I felt my eyes suddenly drawn to one girl.

She was a small girl wearing a white Gothic Lolita outfit. If you compared Haruna with a cat, then this girl seemed like a squirrel.

I didn’t know if she was in elementary school or middle school, but for some reason she was holding a bottle of “Kos.h.i.+no Bairi” sake and sitting down on the stairs.

… It was the ghost! This was the girl making the grilled squid in the science cla.s.sroom, wasn’t this?!

“Fnyohh~~.”

I thought I would just leave her alone, but she let out a weird-sounding sigh, so I sat down next to her.

“… What d’you want? Fnyohh~~.”

The girl glared at me from the corner of her eyes. Was her face that red because she had been crying?

“Hi little girl. What’s your name?”

“When you ask someone for his name, it’s common courtesy to ask in Swahili!”

She let out a cackle. Well, now that she’s made that joke…

“Jila lako ni nani?” I asked her for her name in Swahili.

“Hnn? What the h.e.l.l are you going on about?”

The world was such an unfair place. She was looking at me like I was an idiot.

“At least just tell me your name.”

“Hnn…” she pursed her lips for a bit. “It’s Chris, obviously.” She said that as if I should already know.

Chris… Kurisu… where have I heard that name before…?

Ah, wasn’t our homeroom teacher’s name Kurisu Takes.h.i.+? To think that old man would have such a saucy and cute little daughter…

I see, she was at school back then because she had been waiting for him, wasn’t she? She wasn’t some ghost, but had just come to school to meet her old man who was working late, and then out of curiosity went to the science room and grilled some squid. Right?

“I’m Aikawa Ayumu.”

“Yeah? So what? Fnyohh~~.”

“There’s that strange sigh again… what are you doing here exactly?”

“Hnn… I got chased out. ‘If you’re gonna drink sake then do it outside’ they said to me!”

Gulp gulp gulp. She tipped back the sake bottle and drank straight from it. So she seriously was drinking?!

“Did something… happen?”

“Hnnnn… you’ll listen to me? You’ll listen to Chris’s story?”

It sounded like something bad had happened. Well, I guess I’m not surprised since she has that good-for-nothing teacher as a dad.

“Go ahead. I’m used to listening to other people’s complaints.”

“Well, you know… umm it was that thing. You know, that thing. Yeah. Do you know how many years it took for Chris to finish that thing?!”

I have no idea. What, did her jigsaw puzzle get messed up or something? She was being way too vague, so I couldn’t even guess what she was talking about.

“The theory was perfect. No, the theory was too perfect!”

Gulp gulp gulp. She sent more of the “Kos.h.i.+no Bairi” sake down her throat, holding the bottle with both hands.

“Nyoh~~. Ehehehe. A girl can’t live without sake, am I right?”

…… I didn’t say a word, but just confiscated her sake bottle.

“Hey! What are you doing?! Don’t do that…”

“Ahh, there there there there…”

I pet her head, perhaps a bit strongly. And then…

“Nyoh nyoh nyoh nyoh~~… what magic fingers… h-hey, stop!”

She closed her eyes and seemed to be enjoying it, but then her expression turned stern and she shook my hand off.

“Well, what then? What did you fail at?”

“…… Hn. Right. I succeeded too much, and it turned into a failure.”

“So, you proceeded more results than were necessary?”

“Yeah, like that. And it turned into that… fnyoh~~.”

She let out a sigh and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h back the sake bottle, so I sent a karate chop right to her head.

“Hmph! That’s Chris’s sake! Give. It. Back!”

The little girl waved her hands around, but I could barely feel her short small hands as they whacked me. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was a zombie.

But… huh? Did her arms just get longer? She hadn’t been able to reach the sake bottle a moment ago, but now she had grabbed onto it.

It was almost like… her body was growing or something… was it just my imagination?

“Ah, I can’t take it anymore! You can see I’m not gonna beg you but give it back! Aikawa you moron!”

“When you’re asking someone for something, you should be sure to call them ‘oniichan.’”

“Give it back… oniichan.”

Ahh, that was pretty cute. I almost immediately gave her the sake bottle back. That was close.

“Oniichan! I don’t like this… give it back!”

The little girl almost pushed me to the floor trying to get her sake back.

At the moment when she almost succeeded in grabbing it back… the vice princ.i.p.al found us.

“Hey! What are you doing with a sake bottle?!”

His yell left my ears ringing and he came towards us. The “Kos.h.i.+no Bairi” bottle was taken away. This was bad. I could get suspended for something like this.

“This belongs to Kurisu-sensei.”

At my voice, the little girl began to shake and she stood up.

I’m not talking about you, you idiot. Sit back down. But before I could tell her that, she ran off at full speed.

I explained the situation to the vice princ.i.p.al. I told her that my homeroom teacher Kurisu had a daughter, and his daughter had been holding onto this sake bottle. And that I had confiscated it from her.

“What are you talking about? Kurisu-sensei isn’t married. He doesn’t have a daughter.”

He doesn’t have a daughter? Then… who was that girl just now? As I watched the girl’s retreating back… I couldn’t help but suspect that she was a special kind of being like Yuu.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES