Chapter 99

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As she was putting on her shoes in the entrance, Shimako sensed someone walking towards her down the hallway and turned around.

"Ah, father. I"m heading out now."

The faint smell of incense from his kimono. The immaculately bald head that he shaved every day. Shimako loved the "Buddhist monk" appearance of her father.

"What"s this? You"re going out somewhere?"

"Yes."

"It doesn"t look like you"re going to school &h.e.l.lip; "

Today she was taking a break from the Lillian"s Girls Academy uniform that he always said made her look like a crow. Instead she was wearing a refreshing white dress with a deep blue floral pattern.

"I"ve arranged to go to a Buddhist statue exhibition with Noriko."

"Hmm, with Nijou Noriko-chan, huh."

Her father folded his arms and smiled knowingly.

"What a good junior she is, taking you to learn about Buddhist statues. Students like that must be quite rare at Lillian"s Girls Academy."

"But we"ll be seeing a Maria Kanon statue today."

Shimako informed him.

"&h.e.l.lip; Really?"

Her father mumbled, seemingly dispirited.

"Um - "

Shimako reconsidered her answer, thinking that she may have said something wrong, but her father seemed to recover and spoke cheerfully.

"Right. Are you, perhaps, going to meet Shimura-san?"

"Takuya-kun? Yes."

Shimako nodded. They"d arranged to meet at the station plaza near the art gallery and then they"d all go and see the Buddhist statues together.

"What"s up with calling him Takuya-kun? I thought he was older than you."

Her father chided her. He was completely correct in what he said, so Shimako quietly reflected on this.

"You"re right. I"ve heard Noriko call him that and I subconsciously picked up on it. I"ll be more careful in the future."

Then her father said something unusual.

"You don"t have to take it so seriously. I was just teasing you, you know. If that"s what you want to call him, then I don"t care if you call him "Takuya-kun.""

"No, I don"t particularly want to call him that."

"&h.e.l.lip; Really?"

Her father mumbled in his dispirited voice.

"Well - "

Shimako thought she must have said something to ruin the mood. But no matter how she thought about it, she couldn"t figure out how her father had wanted her to take that statement.

Since she couldn"t figure it out, there was nothing she could do. Shimako put on the hat that she"d left on top of the shoe boxes and looked up at her father.

"I"m going to see Shimura-san, was there anything you wanted?"

"If you see him, could I trouble you to deliver a letter for me?"

Her dad said as he poked around in his kimono sleeves.

"A letter?"

"Yesterday, a printout of his home page arrived in the mail. I"ve written up my impressions of it. I was going to put it in the post but if you"re meeting him you can hand it over directly. If you don"t see him, you can put it in one of the postboxes on your way home."

The envelope she was handed already had a stamp on it but her father was probably thinking that getting it to its recipient a day earlier was better.

"Alright."

Shimako took the letter and put it in her handbag.

"Well then, I"m heading off."

"Take care."

"Okay."

She left the entrance after the rerun of the farewell.

As she walked, Shimako considered that she probably was the type of person that her dad would label as "no fun."

Her father was an interesting person. His claim to fame as a monk was that his sermons were fun and easy to understand. He"d make wagers with the temple supporters and do other things that would at first glance be considered improper for a clergyman, but it was allowable because of his personal virtue.

She was struck by a thought as she opened the lattice door. Was she really joined to him by blood?

(&h.e.l.lip; I suppose we are joined though.)

With eyes downcast she stepped out into the lane, turned around and closed the lattice door.

"Oi."

The door suddenly called out to her.

"Uwaah."

Shimako surprised herself with how loudly she cried out.

"Why are you so surprised? It"s just me."

On closer inspection, her father was standing on the other side of the lattice.

"You mustn"t have noticed me because you were daydreaming."

"Ah, yeah."

Clutching her chest, she managed to agree. Seeing her in this state, her father seemed to be a bit happy as he said, "Must have been good."

"Um &h.e.l.lip; father, was there something you wanted?"

Shimako asked, after opening the lattice door she"d just recently closed. Her father wouldn"t have followed her here just to scare his daughter.

"Listen carefully, Shimako."

"Ah, yes."

Shimako put herself on guard for whatever he was about to tell her.

Her father looked grave as he informed her:

"Apparently the inbound JR line has stopped."

- That was certainly grave news.

The phone rang as she was debating what clothes to wear.

"h.e.l.lo."

She picked up the phone still holding the white and light-blue summer sweater and light pink blouse she"d been looking at in the mirror.

"Noriko?"

"Ah, onee-sama. Good morning."

As she gave this greeting she sensed there was some kind of problem, since Shimako-san had said, "Noriko?" without any preface.

"Noriko, you were coming on the JR line, right? Did you know it"s stopped?"

"What? It"s stopped!?"

This was indeed an urgent telephone call. Sensing the topic of conversation, her great-aunt / landlady Sumireko-san switched on the TV in the living room. But unfortunately none of the channels were showing a ribbon of text about train line outages.

"I heard there was an accident. I"m not sure when it"ll start again. I can get there on a private railway, but will you be okay?"

"Um."

Despite Shimako-san"s question, Noriko was in a mild panic because she hadn"t been expecting this situation and her mind had gone completely blank.

She"d been living in Sumireko-san"s apartment for five months now but she"d never thought about how to get somewhere when the JR line wasn"t running.

"I"m not completely sure, but I think you should be able to get a bus from in front of your station to another station on a private line."

"Ah, right."

Sumireko-san drew a map on the back of a leaflet showing the train line, along with the names of the buses that would get her to various private railway stations. There were buses leaving from the north and south entrances that led to train stations for different railroad companies. Surprisingly, there were quite a number of ways to slip into the city center. Then, just as she was feeling relieved, Sumireko-san wrote an additional comment, "But it"ll take time. And it"s Sat.u.r.day," which left Noriko feeling dejected.

"You should be fine with any of the private railways, just get on a train headed east. If you get to a station on the Yamanote line then you can switch over there."

"Understood."

"Calm down. It can get frustrating when a bus takes longer to get somewhere then you expect, but there"s no rush."

"Okay."

She"d understood everything. Noriko marveled at how well her onee-sama could read what was going through her mind.

"Don"t worry, you"ll be fine. I think I should be able to make it there at the arranged time, so I"ll tell Shimura-san that you may be running late."

"Thanks."

"Well then, I"ll see you."

After hanging up the phone, Noriko changed into the summer sweater and a white skirt before hurrying out of the apartment.

Sumireko-san had been watching Noriko vacillate over what to wear earlier, and she smiled and said:

"You can do it if you try."

She"d failed.

She hadn"t known that the JR line was stopped until she arrived at the station.

"When"s it going to be running again?"

Mami frantically pressed the young station attendant for an answer and he leaned back slightly and answered, "S-soon."

Just as she was thinking, "Yeah, right," a train really did arrive on the platform. There was no mistaking that it was heading in to Tokyo.

"We apologize for the inconvenience."

Belatedly, the announcement that the train had arrived echoed across the platform.

The train that had just arrived was full of pa.s.sengers from the station before, and the one before that, so despite being 10am it was as crowded as during morning rush hour.

"But the schedule"s all messed up, so it"ll probably take a lot longer than usual."

The station attendant from before said to Mami as she was leaving to board the train.

"I suppose so."

But she still thought she"d be better off getting on the train. The line ahead was clear. Even if progress was sluggish, she"d eventually reach her destination. It seemed like it would be quicker than getting a bus from here to a private railway station.

But the train moved even slower than she"d expected. It barely moved at all, as though it was blocked by something.

Whenever she thought she should get off at the next stop and catch a bus, it would move a little. Then when she"d think she wouldn"t have to get off, it would stop moving again. It almost felt like it was directly opposing her choice.

"Ah, hi, Kenji? I"m on the train right now. It"s not moving at all. It"s so annoying."

A short distance away, in the same carriage, a young lady was talking on her cell phone.

"I think I"m going to be totally late, so stay there and wait for me okay?"

(Argh, that"s enough.)

If you"ve said what you had to then hang up already. Mami launched a psychic attack at the unseen woman but it didn"t cause any damage to the boneheaded monster. She kept rabbiting on, her speech only interrupted by her shrill laughter.

An old man sitting by the door shook his legs in irritation, muttering, "Unbelievable."

His legs came in contact with the legs of the pretty young lady seated next to him, who turned away from the old man and clicked her tongue.

The old woman standing in front of the young lady scowled in displeasure.

The chain-reaction steadily raised the irritation level inside the train.

Irritation, a surge of anger, losing patience, annoyance, exasperation.

Mami thought that anyone looking at her would think she was oozing irritation from every pore too.

(Ah, Takuya? It"s me, Mami. I"m on the train right now. I might be a bit late, so can you wait for me? Because I want to see your face.)

In order to shut out the annoyances surrounding her, Mami imagined making a call to Takuya-kun. It was incredibly stupid, but also a bit fun and made her feel somewhat better.

(h.e.l.lo, Takuya? Are you, perhaps, also stuck on the train and annoyed?)

Mami didn"t know where the Shimura residence was.

But what if Takuya-kun was riding together with her on the same train, in the same carriage? Mami killed some time thinking about that.

But alas, Shimura Takuya was not riding on that train.

Furthermore, because of where he lived, he rarely ever took that train line.

All this meant that he arrived at their meeting place quite a bit before the arranged time, allowing him to enjoy some time window shopping around the train station.

Naturally, he was completely unaffected by the irritation in that other train and was instead feeling quite relaxed.

It was 10:30.

He"d done a circuit around the fountain in the train station plaza then walked away from it. All he wanted to do was confirm that Nori-chan hadn"t arrived yet. But it also gave him the opportunity to confirm his rival"s movements.

"&h.e.l.lip; I knew it."

Takuya nodded minutely as he started walking.

As expected, he was following along.

Kounoshin.

He"d found out that Takuya was going to meet a girl and came along to have a look. How pitiful that he had nothing better to do on a Sat.u.r.day than follow around a family member. He should get a hobby (at least something other than old-time comedy.)

Kounoshin was maintaining a respectable distance so that Takuya wouldn"t realize he was being followed.

What did he want? To pay his respects to Nori-chan? In that case, Takuya would reluctantly introduce him, then tell him to hurry up and go home.

"But, wait. What if mom asked Kounoshin to follow me - "

In that case, a careless introduction could potentially have major consequences. Who knew what would happen if Kounoshin reported that his partner was 15 years old.

(Uwah, Shimura-kun you pedo.)

That"s how some of his female university cla.s.smates had reacted when he"d carelessly talked about Nori-chan previously.

(I don"t want to think about that.)

Those girls were of no concern. It was none of their business. But it would be rough to have his own family look at him like that.

He"d have to keep Kounoshin from seeing Nori-chan after all.

- And so with that, Takuya put into effect his plan to throw off Kounoshin by wandering around the station building.

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