Chapter 8: Better Friend

Prev List Next

VOLUME 2

PART 2: YATA NO KAGAMI (1)

It was after school at Konohana Sakuya Academy.

It was right after the afternoon cla.s.ses which focused on simple learning, and a sense of lazy release filled the air.

“Kagami.”

To pa.s.s the time, I had slowly and deliberately packed up my things, pointlessly gone to the bathroom to check my face in the emirror and to wash my hands, and in general just stood idly around.

But the person I was waiting for – Kagami – showed absolutely no signs of wanting to go home. In fact, she was sprawled out on her desk and in a death-like sleep, so I finally decided to gather up my courage and walk up to her.

I wish she would’ve gone home right after cla.s.s. Then I could’ve just used the excuse “Ahh, it’d be wrong of me to bother her when she’s in such a hurry, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to talk with her.”

How inconsiderate of her, ugh.

“Kagami, Kagami.”

“……?”

I shook her by the shoulders as she slept there like a doll, and she finally lifted her head up and looked at me suspiciously.

She looked horribly sleepy… although she always looked like that.

“Funyaa. What is it, Sasami-san? I was quite happily sleeping just a minute ago.”

“Ah, sorry sorry. I had something to ask you.”

Considering my communication skills were a bit lacking, I tended to cower whenever somebody gave me a scary look.

“By the way, why exactly is Kagami sleeping all the time? Aren’t you sleeping at home? Or maybe there’s too much going on at home for you to sleep?“

“At home? I do sleep at home.”

Ugh, wake up, dammit.

“Did you interrupt my sleep just to ask me that?”

Kagami continued to grumble about being sleepy, but at least sat up enough that she could properly listen to me.

“You do realize that I’m also busy, yes? If this is something trivial then I’ll get angry.”

Busy people don’t sleep that much.

“Umm, well… uhh, it’s not that big of a deal, but…”

I twiddled my fingers as I began to speak. Geez, even for me, that sounded really timid.

My face blushed bright red as Kagami just looked more and more suspicious.

“Well…”

I blurted it out to the world.

–

“Please become my friend!”

–

………

“………”

A h.e.l.lish silence filled the room.

Kagami looked at me with tremendously doubtful eyes, like I was really an alien in disguise or something. After that, she took a really fancy-looking pillow out from her desk drawer and buried her face in it.

Once I saw that she had begun to lightly snore again, I desperately grabbed and pulled her ear.

“Don’t sleep! Please don’t! Just listen to me! I’m being serious here!”

“Funyaa… I can feel some intense negativity in the air… just let me sleep… I don’t want to get involved with this at all.”

Kagami seemed like she couldn’t be bothered to help. I began to get desperate, tears forming in my eyes.

Well, I’ve come this far already. Might as well go all the way. I’ll explain everything to her!

“Think about it! I started school in February, which is a really random time, right?! And on top of that, not only is it pretty sketchy that I’m the homeroom teacher’s sister, but that idiot oniichan of mine introduced me on the first day with ‘Sasami-san was always a hikikomori… she’s a very sad, sad girl’ and now everyone’s totally avoiding me!”

Everything was my brother’s fault.

“It’s not like they’re bullying me… it’s more like everyone’s being way too considerate. They treat me like I’m some kind of tumor or something… just standing far off to the side and watching me from there… and everyone uses formal j.a.panese when they talk to me! I can’t make friends like this! People answer me when I talk to them, but it’s like I can’t do anything but make small talk… everyone’s just way too nice! It’s unnatural!”

I knew I was being selfish, but I couldn’t take this anymore!

I wasn’t some poor little girl everyone had to watch out for!

“I-I want to have a normal school life! I’ve always wanted something like that… to make friends, to join a club after school… to laugh and cry… you get it?! But everyone just acts so distant from me… so the dream is still way too much of a dream!”

I mean, today the only conversation I had outside of cla.s.s was with a cla.s.s representative. “Umm, I’ve filled out this careers questionnaire… i-is this okay?” (I was trying my very best to get her to talk to me here) “Ah, yes. Thank you very much” (Two seconds, conversation over). That was it!

It’s not like I was some frightened bunny or something, but I was seriously about to die from loneliness here!

“Sigh…”

Kagami looked at me through sleepy, half-lidded eyes, and c.o.c.ked her head slightly to the side.

“Well, I understand what you’re saying, and I can sympathize… however, I still do not know why you are asking me to be your friend.”

Kagami sounded as indifferent as ever.

“Everyone still just doesn’t know how to talk with Sasami-san, I think. If you continue to try to talk with everyone, then it’s only a matter of time before you make friends.”

“I don’t have that much time! It’s already March, you know! I only have around a month left of my first year!”

It was probably some alteration (my desire to not be held back a year probably warped the world in some way), but it seemed I’d at least be able to advance a year next semester.

I wasn’t quite sure, but I think you changed cla.s.ses when you got to your second year. But rather than starting from zero, wouldn’t it be better to already be close to a few people and then use that chance to expand your circle of friends?

It was absolutely necessary for me to make friends. For the sake of my happy school life.

But if I stumbled and messed up from square one, then I’d be alone until I graduated.

I really didn’t want that.

“Anyways, for now, people are taking pity on me or something, so no matter how much time pa.s.ses I don’t think I can break the ice with people… so first, I’ll become friends with someone like Kagami or whatever and we can laugh and talk together! Not only would it be practice for being a normal high schooler, but everyone will think I’m a cheerful girl who smiles a lot and they’ll stop being afraid to talk to me!”

“Not only is that roundabout, but I noticed you referred to me as ‘Kagami or whatever’…”

Kagami did not look very agreeable right now, but I gripped her hand in mine with tears leaking from my eyes.

“It’s fine if it’s all just an act, but please just be my friend! I’m begging you! I don’t want to eat alone at lunch anymore! When we pair up in English and gym, I don’t want my partner to look at me anymore and go ‘U-Umm, Tsukuyomi-san, n-nice to meet you…’ like they’re going to hurt me by breathing on me or something!”

Having no friends made it hard to breathe… to the point where I almost didn’t want to come to school anymore.

“I want to sell myself as someone bright and cheerful from now on! I don’t want to be the center of attention, but I just want to be a super normal high school girl who’s leading a normal but fun high school life!”

Yes, this was the first step to that goal.

I would live a happy, completely normal life.

“But I really don’t know what to do… I haven’t had a single friend before today either! So I want to make this kind of a rehearsal with Kagami, and learn how to be ‘normal’! Kagami knows about my life, and I won’t cause too much trouble, so I think it’ll be a good chance to practice! You’ll be like a loaner friend before I get a real one!”

“Are you aware of what’s coming out of your mouth right now? To hear a human say that…”

Kagami let out a deep sigh and gloomily brushed my hand off.

“Well, I suppose school is a place for people to learn how to function in groups. I might be an adult who can accomplish everything perfectly fine by myself, but for an immature child like Sasami-san, being alone may very well be difficult.”

Was she trying to pick a fight with me?

“Neesan also gave me strict orders to keep watch over you since I’m in the same cla.s.s, so I suppose if we become ‘friends,’ then we can do things together and that’s convenient for me as well.”

Kagami then puzzled for a bit.

“You still have the power of the Supreme G.o.d, right? If you wanted to, you could just alter the hearts of everyone around you and make them into your friends. Would that not be much simpler than going through the pain of trying and failing to talk with them?”

“Yeah, but I can’t do that.”

Although, that was pretty tempting. I was lazy at heart, after all.

But the power of the Supreme G.o.d was not “myself.”

It was something forced into me at the Tsukuyomi Shrine… at that awful place.

The Tsukuyomi miko was entrusted with these powers, and it was her duty and right to use them.

But I had chosen the path of laziness, and so the normal Tsukuyomi Sasami could not use these powers for her own convenience.

“I have to grow myself, or nothing will have changed.”

“……”

Kagami just gave me a blank stare. As usual, I had no idea what this girl could be thinking.

“Funyaa.”

She finally let out a yawn, and buried her head again in her pillow.

“Well, I understand… let’s just make the best of it then. I look forward to our friendship, Sasami-san. And you should be considerate of your new friend’s feelings… and let her sleep.”

“O-Okay! Ehehe… we’re friends, got it! Good night!”

“So loud. Be quiet.”

“Okay! Ehehe~~…”

And thus,

On that day, I made my first friend.

It was the next day.

Our lunch break had begun… the laughing voices of students with empty stomachs who had finished a hard morning’s worth of work filled the cla.s.sroom air.

“Kagami, Kagami.”

By the time I saw Kagami, she was already asleep. I just waited for the right time before speaking up.

I watched Kagami’s completely unremarkable black hair wave back and forth, while trying to send out a “Hey! Look at how cheerful I am! I’m not a gloomy girl with a dark past at all!” aura all around the cla.s.sroom.

“It’s lunchtime! Wake up, Kagami. We’re gonna eat lunch together, remember?”

“Ugh, what is it this time…”

Kagami looked annoyed as she lifted her head, and stared at me as I almost jumped up and down with excitement.

“Ahh… right, we were ‘friends,’ was it? What an unnecessarily heavy burden this has turned out to be… lunch, did you say?”

Kagami words were devoid of almost any sense of friendship. She blinked a few times.

“To be honest, I can sustain my bodily functions without eating. So I would prefer to take lunch break as an opportunity to have a nice nap without anybody getting angry at me.”

Now that I thought about it, Kagami was kind of a spiritual robot or something like that, right?

“Umm, Sasami-san brought lunch from home, right? I’m going to sleep… so just please go ahead and eat. Here, you can push our desks up to each other and we can sit on opposite sides and face each other… it’ll be like the real thing.”

“One person eating and the other person is already asleep… that just sounds lonely…”

But hah.

I had expected Kagami to give me this kind of response.

“I didn’t bring any lunch today. There’s a cafeteria at this school, right? Let’s go together. It’s not like Kagami can’t eat anything, right? Let’s go eat together~~.”

“Uwah you’re so anno-… ah, let’s go together then. We’re friends, after all.”

I get the feeling she had started to say something really mean there…

We got up and went out of the together, side by side.

Our school was pretty old, but it was built during good times, so the building itself was really beautiful.

The design was a bit old-fashioned, but there was plenty of light flowing in, and it was a comfortable place to be.

The first year, right-hand-side cla.s.sroom and the cafeteria were both on the first floor, so they were pretty close together.

However, Kagami still swayed back and forth as she walked, seeming to have a hard time walking even that far.

“Just thinking that I’ll have to go to the cafeteria every day is making me nauseous…”

“In that case, what if I go and buy some sandwiches every day instead? I’ll buy Kagami’s portion too, of course! Or maybe I should bring lunch from home? I’ll make oniichan make some for Kagami too!”

“You sure don’t mind working sensei hard, Sasami-san… ahh, that strangely fancy-looking lunch that Sasami-san brings every day was made by sensei, wasn’t it…? Sensei might have a servant mentality, but if you exploit him too much someday his love for you might run out, you know? He’ll start to dislike you, you know?”

“Ahaha, there’s no way oniichan would ever not like me.”

“But, making your biological older brother prepare lunch for you everyday isn’t really normal, is it? Weren’t you the one who wanted to live a normal life?”

Ouch. She hit a sore spot there.

“How about picking up after yourself once in a while? I can teach you how to cook, if you want… don’t always be a burden, and maybe even make sensei lunch sometimes. I’m sure that will make him happy.”

“Eh? Kagami can cook?”

“I’m in charge of all the housework in our house.”

“Ahh, I guess I can’t really see Tama or Tsurugi doing housework… but, that’s pretty amazing. Really have to respect you here. Laundry, cleaning the house… I’ve always depended on other people to do those things. I can’t do any of that myself. Can’t do any of those ordinary things…”

“I was like that in the past too.”

Kagami still looked pretty detached, but I could’ve sworn I saw just a faint trace of emotion in her eyes.

“I was a doll. Just a doll without a will of her own. And I was used like that… to efficiently exterminate irregularities. I was nothing more than a tool used for the purpose of humanity and the world. “

Kagami was a lump cut off from the Supreme G.o.d, and had been taken in by an evil human organization.

She was a spiritual weapon.

Now that I thought about it, Kagami wasn’t unlike me. After all, I had been raised for the sole purpose of being the Tsukuyomi miko and making the world a better place for humans.

“But, neesan took me in… and I began a life that was so busy that I couldn’t even find the time to be bored anymore. In the midst of that, I discovered my own emerging humanity. It still is far from perfect, but for the first time inside of me, I found emotions and a heart. I was so happy… it was almost like a miracle. A simple doll like me had found happiness.”

Kagami smiled, and I noticed how pretty she looked when she did that.

It was the beauty of a doll that had been painstakingly crafted.

Or no, it was the beauty of a girl who had struggled with all her might every day to survive.

“I’m sure Sasami-san is the same. After all, she’s been blessed with much more than I have been. You’re a human overflowing with emotions, and you’re trying hard to improve yourself. Your happiness… your salvation… it will naturally come. And in the near future.”

At that point, Kagami coughed, and awkwardly turned away from me.

“That was quite out-of-character for me… my tongue must be rotting. I want to vomit.”

Wow, way to ruin the moment.

“Is this the cafeteria?”

We found ourselves arriving at our destination as we talked.

I was surprised how much time could fly when you weren’t alone.

The Konohana Sakuya Academy cafeteria felt like a modern eating hall and was quite stylishly designed.

A bunch of seats were lined up in a row.

The menu was written in cla.s.sy cursive.

We could see the neatly-trimmed garden outside the huge windows, and also the cheerful faces of a lot of students in their reddish-pink school uniforms.

“Umm… what should we do?”

“You buy a food ticket from this vending machine here, and hand it to that woman over there.”

Kagami didn’t hesitate at all as she led me around. Had she eaten in the cafeteria before?

I nonchalantly followed after here, when I suddenly realized something.

There was a wall of people in the middle of the cafeteria, and I could hear a ruckus coming from over there.

“Come on, come on!” “Ugh, my little Cosmo (i.e. stomach)…!” “Don’t lose! This isn’t happening! You can’t let this happen!” “It’s ten against one… why can’t we win?! Is our school’s chibi teacher a complete monster…?!” “N-No more…!” It was a bunch of teachers.

It looked like they were having an eating contest.

Gulp gulp gulp.

Tsurugi was at the center of it all, scarfing down her beef rice bowl like it was water.

“Fwahh~~! Old woman, I need more over here!”

Tsurugi was ecstatic, a few grains of rice still stuck to her cheek.

There were an uncountable number of bowls heaped up in front of her, hiding the aftermath of what was a fierce battle.

Heaps of groaning teachers with their full bellies exposed to open air were crumbled next to her, while my brother was tearing into a beef rice bowl while using the bowl to hide his face.

But, no matter how weird he was, my brother was still a normal human and had a stomach with a finite volume, and he soon flopped down onto the floor, face up. The bowl was still stuck to his face.

“Ahh, Tsukuyomi sunk!” “Y-You idiot! Tsurugi-chan promised to kiss us on the cheek if we won!” “Fufu… you fools… everything will be mine!” “Agh! The bowls that Tsurugi-sensei finished with! You want to go for an indirect kiss, don’t you?!” “You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Do you intend to violate the Tsurugi Love Alliance Treaty?!” “Chibi-sensei’s saliva would be wasted on you lot! Give it to me!” “I don’t like to fight. I just like to win!!” The teachers began another ugly battle over the bowls.

“Ahh, I’m so full.”

Tsurugi ignored the chaos developing around her and just picked her teeth with a toothpick like some middle-aged man.

Kagami and I just stood there, watching with sad, sad eyes as our school’s fun-loving teachers screwed around as usual. Tsurugi finally seemed to notice us, and happily raised her hand in greeting.

“Fufufufu! My my, isn’t this an odd pair to behold! You guys eating in the cafeteria today too? Let your sister treat you! All the other teachers promised to pay for my meals from now on if I won this eating conte-“

Tsurugi was happily going on and on, but then her eyes widened.

“Kagami, watch out! Behind you!”

But the very split second before Tsurugi could finish that sentence…

A young-looking cafeteria employee (the one Tsurugi had nevertheless been calling “old woman”) came over carrying the extra helping of food that Tsurugi had asked for. But she suddenly seemed to trip on pure air.

It was unnatural.

It was almost like something had pulled her leg from under her…

“Uhyah?!”

The old woman let out a scream, while the tray she was holding, as well as the beef rice bowl, miso soup, and pickled vegetables on top of it went flying into the air.

Swwshhh.

And of all places, everything poured right onto Kagami.

“……”

Kagami’s face and uniform were completely soiled by the beef, rice, raw egg, and all the other food. She fell as silent as a ghost, and turned to look at the old lady who was pale and shaking on the floor.

“U-Umm… s-sorry…”

The old lady was cowering, but it’s not like she had any ill intent, so Kagami let out a sigh.

“No need to apologize. It was an accident… please excuse me Sasami-san, but I have to go wash this uniform and change into my jersey… please eat lunch by yourself.”

After leaving off with that, Kagami walked off in her usual indifferent way, devoid of even the faintest traces of emotion.

“……”

Tsurugi watched her little sister, a rare look of grimness in her eyes.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) A sacred mirror in j.a.panese folklore. The same mirror used to lure Amaterasu (in this series, Tsurugi) out of hiding from her cave.

Prev List Next