Chapter 13: Nozomi’s ☆ Secret 1 (2)

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VOLUME 3

SPECIAL STORY: Kushinada-Hime (1)

My name is Kushinada Nozomi.

I’m a third grader at Iwanaga Elementary School, and I’m also our cla.s.s representative.

I’m pretty short, bad at speaking to others, and don’t really stand out in any way. In other words, I’m a completely normal, plain girl.

But, I did have just one huge, huge secret.

Recently, there’s been one thing that’s been worrying me.

Well… it wasn’t really worrying me, but it was just a bit strange.

One of my cla.s.smates was really, really big.

(Hmm…)

It was Wednesday, and our afternoon cla.s.ses had been cancelled because people said they were too inefficient. So, school ended before noon.

I was in the middle of getting taught basic math when I turned my eyes forward.

There was a single girl sitting in front of me.

Well, it was a bit strange to call her a girl though. Her legs and arms were long and she looked like those actors I saw a lot on the TV or maybe a character who might show up in a manga. She was really pretty.

She was supposed to be my age, but she was somewhere between 1.5 to 2 times taller than me. Her hair was beautifully blonde like the sun, which made it unlike anything a j.a.panese person should have. She was also filled out in ways that were clearly different from everyone else in the cla.s.s, whose bodies had not even developed secondary s.e.x characteristics yet.

She stuck out like a sore thumb in this super average school.

“Howawawa…”

This girl, my inexplicable cla.s.smate named Yagami Tama, suddenly let out yawn before mumbling something weird to herself. “Frakshons? I don’t get it… which chef invented these frakshons?”

She talked to herself a lot.

We were in the second half of February, which meant there was still enough chill in the outside air. It also meant that our school year was almost over (3), and everyone was feeling a bit sluggish. In the middle of such a school day, I just stared at that girl.

Yeah, no matter how many times I looked at her… this was too strange.

Why was there an adult like Tama-chan mixed in with our cla.s.s?

(Yeah, she has to be an adult. This is way too strange.)

I had already learned my fractions over and over again at cram school, so I was pretty bored. So I just sat there with one elbow on my desk, observing Tama-chan.

(I asked the teacher too why we’re in cla.s.s with an adult, but she just looked at me like I said something crazy. Maybe all the other people in this cla.s.s are idiots too, but n.o.body else seemed to think it was strange either… this is so strange. Adults shouldn’t be in elementary school.)

Because you’re both the same age, they had told me. I had no idea how they justified that reasoning, but apparently that was why I had to sit here together with her, taking a math cla.s.s that I already completely understood.

In high school you could jump grades, but for elementary schoolers, learning things ahead of everyone else was completely pointless.

Even if I tried really hard at cram school and forced myself ahead of everyone else, my parents would just tell me “Nozomi-chan, you’re such a good child. You’re smarter than all the other children at your school, aren’t you?” What a pointless, unproductive way to praise your child.

(Tama-chan is worse at studying than a normal adult, so maybe that’s why she’s here in elementary school…? But then they could just say that instead of telling me she’s the same age as me. But Tama-chan and everyone else keep on saying that… even though she’s an adult. She really looks like an adult.)

After school, I’ve seen Tama-chan get stopped by pedestrians and the police, who give her these scary looks and ask her why she wasn’t embarra.s.sed to be carrying an elementary schooler’s bookbag. (4) But at school, n.o.body said a word. It was unnatural.

I’m sure there was some big secret involved in all of this.

“Hwa?”

Tama-chan seemed to suddenly realize she was being watched, and turned around to look at me.

“Need something, Nozomi-chan?”

She usually acted like a huge idiot, but occasionally she could be quite perceptive.

“Not really…”

I felt a bit of panic, but I decided that this might be a good opportunity to try and verify some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about.

“Tama-chan is too big, and I can’t see the blackboard.”

That was true too.

When Tama-chan was in front of me, she seriously blocked my view of everything.

I knew that all too well… but the seating arrangements were decided by j.a.panese alphabetical order on our first names, and “Tama” was right before “Nozomi.” Ugh, me and my great luck.

“Really? Mmm… then how about this~?”

Tama-chan suddenly reached out for me, and to my horror, easily lifted me up.

She put me on her own lap.

“Now Nozomi-chan can see the blackboard!”

Tama-chan gave me an innocent smile, and today once again I found myself unable to say anything back.

It was after school on the same day.

After I had eaten lunch, cla.s.ses were already over, so I found myself cleaning the cla.s.sroom with everyone else.

After school, we could choose to join a club, take an elective, or just go home.

It was all something about how independence was important and blah blah blah.

Honestly though, when our afternoons were completely free like this, I found myself with way too much time to know what to do with.

There was a meeting on Wednesdays for all the cla.s.s reps though, so I was a bit b.u.mmed out by that.

Honestly, I’m only our cla.s.s rep because I lost a game of rock paper scissors and it was forced on me. My mom told me it was an important t.i.tle and a good thing and seemed pretty proud about it, but honestly for me it was mostly just a bother.

Of course, this was an elementary school cla.s.s rep meeting, so it’s not like we had any real power.

Everyone just got together and we just repeated the same old, clichéd discussions, pretending to be adults.

Like idiots.

(Actually…)

All the desks in the cla.s.sroom were piled in the front of the room as we swept the floors with brooms. But at that point something came to mind.

(Tama-chan always goes straight home after school, doesn’t she?)

During your free time, you could try clubs and electives, or even extracurriculars or work experience, but there were also plenty of fun-loving people around me who chose to do none of those things.

But Tama-chan was really popular (honestly, no matter how much of an “important” cla.s.s rep I was, compared to Tama-chan, n.o.body really respected me at all), tall, and super athletic. She got invites all the time from the sports clubs.

But she rejected all of them, and she also hated studying so she didn’t really take any other cla.s.ses so she just ended up going home.

According to my childhood friend Satou, she often played with the boys in the park, or ended up going to the high school to visit her sister.

“Hey, Tama-chan.”

Tama-chan had dunked a cleaning cloth into a bucket and was raising a fuss about something. “Hmph! Cold! Like Antarctica! Taro and Jiro were so sad!” (5).

I walked up to her and asked, “Tama, what do you always do after school?”

“Howawa……?”

Tama-chan opened her mouth wide like an idiot and answered me without thinking.

“Umm umm, well, Tama has to grow up and be an adult. So there’re these irregularities, right? And these evil G.o.ds, right? Tama goes around gobbling them up! There’re lots and lots of irregularities in this town, so Tama has a lot to eat, and Tsurugi-nee says that’s good for Tama’s growth too!”

… Was she speaking j.a.panese?

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“What does Nozomi-chan do after school?”

Tama-chan wrung her washcloth with incredible strength and c.o.c.ked her head to the side.

“Tama always invites Nozomi-chan to play but she never says yes. That makes Tama really sad. Umm, lately Tama has been in the park playing soccer, but there aren’t any other girls. Nozomi-chan, do you want to come?”

“Soccer?”

I mean, I don’t hate watching it on TV, but playing it myself was a bit…

“I can’t. I’m pretty bad at sports.”

“But you’re so good at studying!”

“Studying and athleticism have nothing to do with each other. Also, I have cram school.”

“Cram… school?”

Tama-chan stared at me blankly.

Well, I guess lately parents have stopped going on and on about cram schools and studying and tests and whatnot, so there were even some people nowadays who haven’t even heard of cram school.

What a blessed life that was.

“Umm, excuse me?”

A voice came from the hallway while we continued our idle talk.

“Umm, is Yagami Tama-chan here?”

“Howawawa…?”

Tama-chan promptly stood up (and when she stood up she sure was huge…) and turned toward the door.

“Hmm? It’s meat. What are you doing here?”

Meat?

My curiosity was piqued by that interesting choice of words, so I turned to look at the door as well.

Tama-chan’s huge body was blocking my view so I couldn’t see too clearly, but there was a girl standing there who looked to be about high school age, and she handed Tama-chan a small bundle.

“Tama, you forgot your bentou, didn’t you? I found this left in the kitchen so I didn’t know what to do, but then I thought I’d send it to you… I-it’s not like I thought it’d be sad to see you go with an empty stomach or anything. I just felt like it, okay?!”

Sounded like we were dealing with a tsundere here, and atop that tsundere’s head…

It almost looked like there was a pair of thin, white bunny ears moving to and fro…?

I only saw it for a second, and it’s not like I was trying really hard to pay attention, so maybe it was just my imagination…

To Nozomi

It was after that.

We had finished cleaning the cla.s.sroom, and I had also just finished with my tedious, meandering cla.s.s rep meeting when, with perfect timing, I received a mail on my phone.

It was from my mom.

It seems like the cram school teacher is sick so there won’t be any lessons today. Could you come home directly? If you could help with walking Alice and the laundry that would be great.

Alice was the name of our dog.

She always disappeared somewhere, so we named her Alice.

But anyway… it looked like I didn’t have cram school today. Hmm…

I had gotten a bit of unexpected free time, but honestly it’s not like I knew what to do with it.

But I didn’t want to just go back home and do the bidding of my mother who, despite acting so high and mighty all the time, still managed to shove all the ch.o.r.es onto my shoulders. So, I decided…

I actually just got some things to do from the committee meeting, so I’ll go do that.

“And I’ll tell her that I have to help weed the school grounds… okay, that should do it. Now she won’t complain if I’m late.”

I finished writing my response and left school, wearing my red backpack.

Well, it looks like I made a lot of free time for myself… what should I do?

(Maybe I should drop by an Internet café? I do want that limited item for Yamata no Orochi SNS that you can only get at net cafés, but… Tama-chan also invited me to soccer, so maybe I can do that too? But there are boys there, and boys are so vulgar…)

I thought as I walked along the streets of Ame-no-Nuboko City alone.

While walking, I suddenly noticed something.

In the middle of the endlessly stretching series of residential fences and walls running along the street…

There was a gaping wide entrance to an unnatural looking back street.

I had always pa.s.sed by this place without paying that gloomy, dark s.p.a.ce any mind, but today I strained my eyes to give it a good look.

(Ah, here it comes again…)

I felt a shiver run up my spine.

I had just one secret that I could never tell anybody.

Initially, I thought it was a cat.

Or no, maybe I wanted to believe that it was a cat.

There was a plastic garbage bin in the back alley. I had no idea who put it there and who was using it.

I saw something sticking its head into that bin and rummaging around.

That thing had eight long, rough and bony legs, and almost looked like a gigantic spider.

Its entire form was rather hazy, and I couldn’t see it very well unless I reaaaaally strained my eyes.

I’m pretty sure that you’d never find a drawing of this particular monster in any of the children’s picture books, and for some reason, a bunch of heads that looked like the heads of middle-aged men stuck out of that monstrous body like grapes from a vine. The monster was mumbling to itself and wriggling around right next to the trash can.

(Uuuu…)

My legs began to tremble and I felt paralyzed, but I forced my eyes away.

(I can’t see it, I can’t see it, I can’t see it. Nothing like that exists, it can’t, it can’t.)

I desperately prayed in my head while my legs moved of their own accord and carried me at a reckless pace away from that place.

I ran until I was exhausted and out of breath, and I stopped in the middle of the road, trying to steady my breathing.

My bookbag was still carrying all my textbooks, and its weight made me almost collapse.

“Hm, Nozomi?”

As I tried to frantically deal with this frigid chill running through my veins, I heard a voice calling out to me from the side.

I suddenly realized that I was right next to the park that I originally was vaguely wandering toward. It was the park Tama-chan was playing soccer at, surrounded by a bunch of boys from our cla.s.s.

The kid who had called out to me from within that youthful throng was Satou.

Satou Yamato.

“What’s wrong?”

This was my childhood friend who wore gla.s.ses and looked pretty self-important even though he was only slightly taller than I was. He came up to me with a look of worry in his eyes.

He really wasn’t a bad guy, but Satou would never understand.
“It’s nothing.”

I really didn’t have the strength or energy to get mixed up in a soccer game right now.

“I’m going back.”

“Hm, isn’t that Nozomi? Why is she here?” “Is she on her way to cram school or something?”

I didn’t want to deal with everyone’s stares right now, so I turned heel and started walking home.

“……”

However, I did notice that Tama-chan, who stood heads above all the other kids, was looking at me in uncharacteristic silence.

That night, I had a dream.

I dreamt that the spider monster I had seen in the back alley somehow managed to unlock my bedroom window and came stealing into my room.

And then, completely out of the blue, Tama-chan appeared in the dream and beat the spider monster up.

Sorry, Nozomi-chan… Tama is so sorry…

Tama-chan’s expression as she apologized with tears leaking from her eyes left quite an impression on me.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Kushinada-Hime is the wife of Susanoo, who was saved from the Yamata-no-Orochi according to j.a.panese mythology.

(2) Nozomi not only is the name of a character in this arc, but it also means “wish” or “desire.” You could interpret this t.i.tle to mean “Secret Wish.”

(3) The j.a.panese school year starts in April.

(4) Elementary schoolers in j.a.pan generally carry these things called “randoseru,” which are very red and indicative that the bearer is in elementary school.

(5) A reference to Taro and Jiro from Antarctica Story, a movie about an expedition to save some sled dogs from Antarctica.

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