Is A Girlfriend Who Can't Say "I Love You" No Good? Houkage-san Reads Light Novels Too Much - Chapter 3 Reviving The World

It was a ten-minute train ride to go to school in the opposite direction from home. We arrived at the station, which had a busy shopping area and was considerably the largest station in the neighborhood.

(…As expected, there’s quite a lot of people here at this time of the day.)

As I walked and looked around. thinking to myself silently.

On the sidewalks that protrude like balconies on the both sides of the station directly above the tracks, there was a mosaic of sound coming from a wide variety of people, office workers, students, people leisurely taking a walk, children accompanied by their parents, and even elderey people who were happily walking together.

There was a lot of noise coming from every direction. The area near the ticket gates of the station was especially crowded with loads of people, making it difficult to move in the direction I wanted to go. As a rotten high school boy, I was fine with this, but my companion might get swept away by the crowd.

“This way. Don’t get separated.”

As I called out to her, I grabbed my sister’s arm and pulled her close to me.

“Ouch… Don’t pull me, mou.”

I don’t think I need to worry much about Hayu, whose mouth was currently agape. Even though she doesn’t do any club activities, she’s got plenty of energy and stamina in her body. The problem is my other companion.

I looked around, resisting the waves of people flocking around me, and saw that she was right behind me. Maybe it’s because she’s always lacked a sense of presence, but I feel uneasy if I don’t check on her every few seconds. Apparently, she’s not very good at any sports either.

—Houkage Ayumi, she noticed my gaze and looked up at me. She seemed to be unaccustomed to this sort of crowd, and her voice wheezed as if she was in a tight spot.

“I’m f-fine. I will… follow properly—”

I guess she wanted to say she can still follow but a hurried lady approached and shoved her in the back. Gah! I choked on my breath as I felt a headbutt on my back.

“Ugh!? Are you alright, Houkage…?”

“Yes… sorry”

Houkage apologized, but she couldn’t seem to move, so she clung to my back tightly. Her arms were resting on my back like a boxing guard, and I felt my face heat up for a different reason altogether instead of the heat of the crowd.

Well, what is it, I wonder… It might be nice to walk through a heavy crowd once in a while. As soon as my boiling head started to think about the situation, I was pulled away. It was Hayu.

“Come on… let’s get going already.”

With a sigh, she took me by the arm and weaved our way through the crowd.

I, and Houkage, who was attached to my back, were pulled along helplessly in this situation. When I half turned around, my eyes met with Houkage’s. She gave me a small nod.

“Sorry… We’ll be right there.”

True to my word — the large bookstore was right in our sight.

It all started last night, a little while after the incident at the coffee shop.

“Hey, Ani. Are isekai stories really that popular?”

“Well, I guess I’ll go check it out on my way home tomorrow.”

“Umm… Yeah. Sounds good.”

That was the beginning of the conversation. And so, this is how we ended up visiting a large bookstore in the downtown area, which as far as I know has the largest light novel section in the entire neighborhood.

Unlike any other day, Hayu was waiting for me in front of the school gate as promised. She was staring at her foldable hand mirror and humming to herself as she fiddled with her bangs her and there.

I could tell she was in a good mood even from quite a distance, it was probably because she had shown some cooperation with the situation with Kaho.

“Hayu. Sorry I kept you waiting.”

“Hmm? Yeah. You’re late.”

When she turned around, she had a decent smile on her face, and I almost let out a breath of relief.

“If you’re late, then you’re late but…Why is Houkage-senpai here?”

I bottled up the breath I had started to exhale at the sound of my sister’s voice, which began to chill me halfway through her words.

Beside me was Houkage. As I said in the coffee shop, I wanted to talk to her as much as possible whenever I went out.

“I look forward to working with you.”

Houkage was unconcerned and bowed her head to Hayu peacefully.

—That’s why we came here, to the biggest bookstore in the neighborhood.

Hayu was out of it when she found out that she was going to be accompanied by the normally disagreeable Houkage, but when she entered the bookstore building alongside us, she was too busy being excited by the novelty of the place.

I walked around like a pigeon, poking my head around to see if I could find any stylish goods, or maybe even a café with an austere atmosphere… and eventually I arrived at my destination.

It was located on the second floor of a large, three-story bookstore.

“Heeeeh… it has a pretty big sales floor.”

Standing with her hands on her hips, Hayu exclaimed in admiration.

A row of bookshelves spread out in front of her. There were only light novels lined up on the shelves. This was the light novel section, which also took up a percentage of the manga section.

“It’s not in the literature section, it’s in the manga section.”

“It depends on the store.”

Rows of light novels, you could see their spines reflecting the shiny lights in the ceilings. As I traced them with my eyes, I told her everything I knew about them. I don’t have Iisaka, who knows a lot more about these sorts of things, so I have no choice but to tell her the limited knowledge I have.

“There are few stores that even have old works like this in their stores, and many small bookstores only stock the bestsellers and new books, so they’re shoved into the empty spaces of other collections.”

“Hmmm, it’s still a bit second rate though. Both as a novel and as a manga.”

“Don’t talk like that… I think you’re in a unique position right now.”

“Who knows,” she said, and stopped as she was walking around the corner. There was a sight that was exactly what she was looking for.

{Light Novels with an Isekai Setting Section}

The books were displayed on a flatbed with their covers visible to everyone who wanted to take a look at them.

“It’s true. It’s so popular that it’s even being featured in bookstores. …What? Some of them aren’t paperbacks?”

“This is a size called ‘4×6’. This is the size used for books and other publications.”

It was Houkage who looked around the flatbed and explained to the confused Hayu.

“What’s the difference between a book and a paperback?”

“It depends on the product, but unlike paperbacks and new books, which have a fixed release date every month, there is no fixed release date for them.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought light novels were supposed to come out in a paperback format.”

Hayu looked down at the table, which was lined up with half paperbacks and half 4×6 books. She picked up a book randomly and looked at the back cover, which had the synopsis and price written on it.

“Ah, it’s really expensive. No wonder it’s bigger than a paperback.”

“In the first place, a paperback book is a popular version of a book that is considered to be a masterpiece, which is made available at a lower price after several years or longer. Nowadays, it’s not unusual for a new work to be released in a paperback format from the beginning.”

“So, is this going to be in the library later, too…?”

“I don’t know. If it sells well enough, there might be a paperback version, or it might even be transferred to a paperback label. …But the one here is a softcover, with each label having its own release date, so it’s basically like a paperback anyways!”

At my words, Hayu’s eyes fluttered in puzzlement.

“Eh? Then why don’t they just use a paperback already? Why is it this size?”

“…You’ll have to ask the publishers about that”

“Tsk…You’re a useless brother.”

After mercilessly poking at me like a piece of poison, Hayu picked up the aforementioned book again.

“…If Kaho’s writing becomes a book, will it be something like this?”

If it was a popular work, it might have a chance, but I didn’t really understand the criteria for publication as a layman. In the first place, I hadn’t read any of Kaho-chan’s works yet. She hadn’t told me the website on which it’s posted nor the name of the work itself.

As we were both lost in thought, a voice called out to us in an indifferent tone.

“Kaho…?”

It was Houkage. I was about to answer, ‘Oh, that’. But then I remembered that Hayu had wanted to keep it a secret and so I closed my mouth.

Instead, Hayu pointed her palm at Houkage.

“No. It’s our conversation, please don’t step in.”

“Is that so?”

Houkage easily backed off. At least, it seemed that way. That’s why I felt my heart getting restless.

After looking around the non-light novel section for a while, we decided to take a rest on the sofa in the rest area.

There were other people seated on the couch, so I leaned against the wall and pulled the tab of a can of juice I had bought from the vending machine.

“I wanted to rest at the cafe I saw earlier anyway.”

With a plastic bottle of an apple jelly drink on her lap, Hayu looked up at the ceiling and complained.

“I’m not rich enough to buy you a drink at a coffee shop several times a week…”

The last time we went to the coffee shop, I paid for Hayu’s portion. I really wanted to make a good impression on Houkage, but she was adamant that she would pay for her own drinks, and so it ended up being a waste of money.

Even now, Houkage was silently sucking on the straw extending from the paper carton of the banana drink she bought herself.

Hayu compared Houkage’s banana drink with her chest and whispered, ‘Isn’t it milk related after all…?’ After, she spoke about her impressions of the book she had just looked through.

“It’s the end of the world, isn’t it? All these people want to go to another world. In short, it’s just a bunch of losers from modern society trying to escape from reality, right?”

I was disappointed to see the same old Hayu, but I pointed it out to her.

“Those assumptions are too extreme… Stories about adventures in other worlds have been around since ancient times, back when they were called folklore or fables. There is a lot of great children’s literature based about an adventure in another world.”

“That may be true, but… is this the kind of otherworldly story that used to be told back then?”

If you ask me, it’s a hard question to answer. This is because such ‘stories with a lesson to be learned’ tend to return to one’s own world in the end, although there are many exceptions to that as well. However, I had the impression that the so-called ‘another world’ light novels often leave you there and never let you return back.

I wondered if this meant that I shouldn’t feel a sense of responsibility or pressure to return home now that I was free from the bonds of this world.

When I explained it in the least negative way possible, Hayu shrugged her shoulders deliberately.

“See~, that’s what I call escapism. My brother, too, is confined to his room, books, and games, and the only one who will take care of him is someone like Iisaka-senpai, right? If you ask me, he’s just holed up in a convenient other world.”

It’s a terrible thing to be told straight to my face… The objective part of me suppressed the words of denial. It was not like I’m going to live my life the way she tells me to.

Am I… running away? I don’t know what I want to do in the first place, so I don’t even feel like I’m running away from it.

While I was diverting my consciousness to my inward thoughts, Hayu’s impressions of other worlds continued.

“…Well, there were many stories about people who were reincarnated from earth in other worlds. They died in an accident or something.”

As a result of a quick skim of the synopsis of the book that was on that special features earlier, it seems that Hayu’s impression is that there are many sentences with the word “reincarnation” in them.

“…Do you really want to be reincarnated so badly? I think getting run over by a truck or a train would be pretty painful.”

I heard the faintest hint of dampness in Hayu’s voice, I wondered if she was thinking about Kaho-chan right now.

At these words, Houkage took her mouth off the straw.

“Even human beings are created by dividing from the body cells of their parents, so it’s like being born again. The point is that we are shedding our other shell, not just our brain, but our genes as well.”

“No… that’s not how it works. When you give birth to a child, the mother is still alive, right? What is reincarnation in this case… Well, what is it?

“—Yes. It’s like a dead person moving into another body.”

Hayu made a face similar to when she had a headache, but she dismissed it with discipline and defined it again.

Houkage nodded as she understood what Hayu was saying.

“So what about how mantis mates? Mantises are known for the fact that the females sometimes eat the males during mating.

Some people think this is cruel, but if you consider that the male is being eaten by the female while releasing sperm, and that his body is now being used to nourish the fertilized egg, it is a rather moving scene of reincarnation. I can feel the dynamism of life within it.”

Houkage was not joking. In fact, the depths of her eyes, where it is usually difficult to read her emotions, were slightly glowing. She must have thought it was really touching. But whether or not she could share it properly was another matter…

“Only Houkage-senpai can be touched by something like that…!”

Hayu lies face down on the ground, clutching her apple jelly drink. If it hadn’t been for the plastic bottle with the lid closed, she might have just crushed it completely.

Houkage’s shoulders slumped in disappointment at not being able to share her excitement with Hayu. However, she was not discouraged.

“Then, what about this one? When her eggs hatch, the female of a species of spider living in the Republic of South Africa dissolves her own internal organs into a slurry and feeds the liquefied guts to her offspring by mouth. When she finally has nothing left to spit out, she feeds her entire remaining body to her offspring. This is the very transfer of life. In other words, it is reincarnation.”

“Would you not talk about weird stuff to people who are drinking Jell-O, please!?”

“Calm down, Hayu! …You’ll get in trouble if you shout so loud.”

I held her down as she tried to stand up and argue with Houkage. I looked around in a panic. Some of the people on their break were looking at them to see what was going on, but when they saw her embarrassed face, they looked away as if they were embarrassed themselves. I think it’s called second hand embarrassment?

“Ugh…!”

“Don’t worry,” As I explained to Houkage, I lightly patted my sister’s head as she writhed in voiceless agony,

“In this case, reincarnation means to be reborn in another world with the memories of your previous life intact, or in another sense, being lost in another world.”

“Another world while retaining your memory… like ‘Quantum Space Interference Machine’ where you go to another world with your memories.”

“I don’t know that book, but it’s probably not even close…”

After a few exchanges, I was able to convey the nuances of “reincarnation” to Houkage as well.

“I see. It’s ‘Riverworld’-like… Sorry for the confusion.”

“No, I enjoyed your story about ‘reincarnation’.”

I was not flattered when I answered Houkage who had bowed to me.

“I used to think that reincarnation was a word for religion or fantasy, but depending on your point of view, it’s just lying around in the grass too. The world feels different somehow now.”

My cheeks naturally relaxed when I remembered such a simple discovery and the face of Houkage, who was talking so much.

For a while, Houkage looked at me as if she was wondering what I was doing. Then, as if remembering something, she turned her head and put her mouth back on the straw of her drink. The contents had already disappeared, and there was an airy, watery sound coming out of the drink instead. But she still didn’t let go of her mouth for a while.

“…Ah, by the way, Houkage said you had something to do. A book, is it?”

When I thought it was time to take a break, I suddenly remembered and asked her about it. Since Houkage always carries a book with her and seems to read while bathing, I thought she might be looking for something in a big bookstore—

I threw the flattened carton in the trash and turned around to look at Houkage, who simply told me.

“No, no. I had to buy some new underwear.”

As if to replace my stiff body, Hayu stepped in front of Houkage. She put her face close to mine and chided me in a whisper.

“That, being, said… please don’t say that kind of thing in the open when there are various men around. …I mean, you don’t need underwear now, do you?”

“Sorry. But I can’t find anything that fits my size at the local store. That’s why my grandmother gives me money to buy them whenever I have a chance to go to a big store.”

Houkage said sincerely, and Hayu, who was honest to the core, was hurt by these poisonous words.

“Oh, I see… It must be tough when it’s big.”

However, she couldn’t resist saying a sarcastic remark instead of a tongue clicking. Hayu’s gaze went to Houkage’s chest, whose features were the exact opposite of her own.

As an older brother, I thought my sister was being very rude, but I knew that anything I said in return would treated as sexual harassment. It was too much for me to handle.

“Then why don’t you go to the shopping mall right there? I’m sure there were signs for some not so expensive apparel.”

Prompted by the unwillingness of Hayu, Houkage nodded — thought for a moment, and then said.

“Will you come with me, Aramaki-kun?”

—After ten minutes.

For the first time in my life, I stepped into the women’s lingerie department.

Fluttering, shiny, colorful clothes adorned my entire field of view — that’s all there was to it, but it was so bright that it burned my eyes, just like a snowfield on a very clear day. It was very uncomfortable to be surrounded by objects that I couldn’t look at directly.

Perhaps it was due to the time of day, but it was a relief that there were not many other customers. Because of this, there was only one clerk working at the register. I shuddered to think that I would have been talked to by the clerk or exposed to the gaze of other female customers.

Houkage was on the other side of the curtain. In other words, she was trying on her clothes.

She fumbled through the line of bras and ended up in the fitting room, holding every single one that fit. She really had everything in her hands and didn’t seem to be particular about any color or design at all.

And so, for every one that fits.

“What about this one?”

She puts out her hand with her underwear dangling from the edge of the curtain and asks me what I think about them.

Each time she does, I have to slowly lift my fixed gaze on my feet and look at it.

This time it was a pale green color with no particular pattern, but it had a modest ruffle around the edge. My first impression was that it looked like it could be used for fetching water. Of course, even in this extreme situation, I was sensible enough to not say anything about it.

The only thing that reminded me of how this happened was the voice of Houkage I heard in the bookstore. After she asked me to follow her to the clothing store, she said:

“My grandmother said that I should buy some cute underwear because I am young. But I don’t really know what kind of underwear is good for me, so could you please take a look?”

I thought, “Why doesn’t she ask Hayu to look at it instead of me?” But Hayu was reluctant to go to the store with Houkage. I tried to refrain from choosing her underwear, but it seemed that Houkage was seriously troubled. At first glance, she had no expression on her face, but my special observation eyes that I had developed over the past year told me that she was.

Specifically, her mouth seems to be closed, but it’s not closed completely, and her eyes sway slightly whenever she makes eye contact with me. That’s the face you make when you’re in trouble but can’t say anything.

As a boyfriend, I can’t leave her like that.

In fact, there was no way I would not like it if I were on a date with the girl I love. However, underwear is still… impossible. I can’t help but be aware of them even if there’s nothing in them.

I couldn’t look directly at the curtains or the lingerie department, so I complained, looking at the signs for the escalator and restroom hanging a little further away from here.

“You know, Houkage… This store doesn’t seem to have that kind of weird underwear, so why don’t you just pick what you want?

There was no reply from behind the curtain. The only thing is that the bra that was sticking out from the curtain was pulled back into place.

Then her voice replied back skeptically.

“…Is it okay for me to choose?”

“? Well, it’s your property.”

“But I’ve upset your sister again today.”

Why did she bring up Hayu all of a sudden? I waved my hand in an appropriate manner.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s usually like a cat, but she has a temper tantrum.”

“It’s not just your sister. I’ve always been like that. When I speak out of turn, I make everyone around me uncomfortable.”

As Houkage continued to spill out her damp words, I could hear the faint sound of her clothes ruffling, suggesting that she was trying out her next one.

Then I jokingly replied, partly to distract her from her mood.

“I don’t know why you think that way, because you always go your own way without worrying about what others think.”

Behind the curtain, Houkage readily admitted.

“Yes, I do. That’s why my mother and father told me I couldn’t live with them.”

………

Needless to say, I was taken aback by the suddenness of the conversation. From behind a thick curtain that allowed nothing but voices to pass through slowly, there were words that continued to be spoken.

“It’s quite a thing to be rejected by your parents, even though you weren’t particularly sick and didn’t want to be. So I don’t really know what the right thing to do is.”

The strangest thing of all was that Houkage’s voice sounded so calm.

When I had heard her on the phone from the bathroom before, I had thought that both of her parents had passed away, or else they had separated for work reasons or something. However, the way she said it now, it seems that they are still alive and well and living separately, all because of Houkage’s personality.

However, even though Houkage is different, she is not the type who has difficulties in her daily life. She sometimes says and does things that are out of the ordinary, but her emotions are rather quiet and gentle. Even if her parents do get frustrated like Hayu, how can a parent keep a child away from them because of that?

Moreover, Houkage seemed to take this fact as something acceptable. I wonder what kind of parent-child relationship they have if that’s the case.

While I was pondering it silently, Houkage returned with her underwear in tow.

“When I look in the mirror like this, I don’t know whether I’m beautiful or ugly, whether it suits me or not.”

Houkage’s voice was flat as usual. But now that she was facing a mirror that reflected her entire body, she felt as if her emotions were even more depressed than usual.

If you can’t see yourself when you look in the mirror… What kind of feeling does that give you?

“That’s why it’s better to let someone else decide on what I should wear. The one I’m wearing now is said by Shisui-san and the others to be an ‘old lady’ type of color. Also, there was a time when I wore something reddish-purple and the changing room was buzzing with noise.”

According to what I learned earlier, the clothing store near Houkage’s house is a small, privately owned store that caters to women over the age of fifty. It might be a tough taste for high school girls.

However, at that time, I was too occupied with the question of how the combination of Houkage and red and purple underwear would look. (By the way, the conclusion of the judgment was “possible, but not particularly desirable.”)

I didn’t show such thoughts and repeated my previous argument.

“If that’s the case, I think you should ask Hayu. I don’t know much about women’s clothing after all.”

Behind the curtain. There was a pause to inhale and exhale slowly, and then Houkage said, in a matter-of-fact-like voice.

“In this case, I thought I should use Aramaki-kun as the standard, so yes. If it’s not possible, I’ll try to find one similar to the one that people wear in my class.”

And so, as she said, she began to try without asking me anything more.

“…”

I didn’t think about the meaning of Houkage’s words. I tried very hard not to think about it.

I didn’t want to, I tried not thinking about it.

“Houkage.”

I found myself calling out. The scraping sound behind the curtain stopped.

“Yes.”

“That one… that you showed me, the third one just now.”

“What kind?”

“Ah… Umm, that pale blue one with the simple ornaments.”

“Okay.”

“I thought… it was kind of ‘cute’…”

“This one?”

A hand with a pair of underwear comes out from the edge of the curtain again. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and nodded my head, but then realized that I couldn’t convey the message, so I said, “Yes, that.”

Her hand retracted again, followed by a faint rustling sound. It seemed that she was trying on the bra again.

I put my hand on my chest and let out a breath, trying to keep the sound of the clothes rustling out of my mind. I hope I was able to be of some help. …Finally, the tension broke and a smile appeared on my face.

—When I looked up, my eyes met her. Of course, it was not Houkage’s.

“Have you decided on what you want?”

I don’t know when she came in front of me, but it was the clerk who was supposed to be at the cash register. I hadn’t noticed her, but she might have been waiting nearby for a while.

The reason was that she was twitching her cheeks, failing to hide her good-natured giggles out of her mouth, as if she had just heard our exchange. I felt as if her voice was filled with a smile that went beyond a sales smile.

I felt the curtains move behind me as I let my mind run away from reality.

“I’ll take this one, and a few more if you have the same one.”

I turned my head and saw that Houkage was only showing her face. A glimpse of the blue shoulder straps on her shoulders lingered in my mind for a while.

Afterwards, we met up with Hayu, who had met us in front of the station, and we went straight home.

“Uwa… you two really did buy underwear together…”

When Hayu saw the paper bag that Houkage was carrying, she let out an exasperated sound in return. I’m sure she thought I was going to run off halfway through. But I did it. I had fulfilled the role of a boyfriend at a great cost.

The train ride back home was crowded, but I managed to get Houkage and Hayu to sit down. Hayu occasionally stole a glance at Houkage as she held the paper bag carefully, and when their gazes met, Hayu would quickly look away.

Hayu didn’t say much that night, and didn’t even come to my room for anything. Perhaps she had something on her mind after seeing the genre of light novels that Kaho was writing. She seemed to have stayed at the bookstore even after we had left for the clothing store.

When I think about it, I may have been a little mean to my sister today. The reason I went out today was for Hayu, but I spent a lot of time shopping with Houkage.

…Maybe instead of relying on Iisaka all the time, I should try to learn about light novels myself.

With that in mind, I visited my favorite anime store the next day, this time all by myself. It was a tenant in a building on the opposite side of the station from the bookstore we visited yesterday.

It was not as big or as well stocked as the large bookstore nearby, but it does have books that are not usually available in general bookstores, and it also has some special offers from time to time. It was a store I visited two or three times a month.

I came here to buy a catalog of light novels, but there I met an unexpected person — well, in a sense, it was a person I had been thinking about recently.

“Kaho-chan?”

“What?”

When I saw her, my impression of her was pretty much the same as the last time I saw her. Her short-cut hair was stroked cleanly, and her usually downcast eyes were open wide in surprise. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses, whereas she had been wearing contacts the last time we met, but it was rather nostalgic to see her like this.

Perhaps it was in anticipation of seeing her growth, but the uniform I saw her in for the first time looked a bit too big for her.

She was Hayu’s best friend, Murase Kaho.

I bumped into her in the light novel section of the store I was looking for.

“Tenta-san? Why are you here?”

A beat later, she gave a reply in a confused voice. She turned around in a panic, and the school bag she was holding in both hands swung like a pendulum.

Kaho-chan’s shoulders were tense as if she was nervous, but that was always the case. I guess it’s hard to gauge the distance between you and your friend’s brother.

I was a little unsure if I should answer honestly. If I told her that Hayu had taken the fight with Kaho seriously and was working hard to resolve it from the root, the matter would be largely resolved. However, considering Hayu’s troublesome personality and the fact that I didn’t fully understand Kaho-chan’s personality, there was a possibility that the situation might get complicated to the point of this becoming an irreparable situation.

“…I’m doing a little shopping. Look, you can get special offers at the store.”

In the end, I played it safe. Perhaps because there was no reason to doubt me, Kaho was easily convinced with that.

“Ah, is this the new edition of Witch & Chariotia by any chance? You liked it, didn’t you?”

The title Kaho-chan mentioned was a manga about a robot battle set in a fantasy world that had been made into an anime, and I remembered lending it to Kaho-chan when she stayed in Hayu’s room before.

I jumped at the excuse that she gave me.

“Yeah, I was looking for some mini setting materials.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Well, I guess so. I come here often. Kaho-cha…”

I was about to call her with a chan, but I was a little lost. I’m not sure if I should call my sister’s friend, who is only one year younger than me, “Kaho-chan”. Wouldn’t it be too familiar, or maybe even a little weird? I wondered if it would be too self-conscious to change it after I had already called her that.

In the end, I decided to call her just as I did before.

“—What about you, Kaho-chan?”

“I’m…”

She was about to say why, but then she opened her mouth, turned her head down, closed her mouth, and choked up.

I waited for her reply.

The fact that I waited without saying anything must have gotten through to her. Kaho-chan let out the breath she had been holding and relaxed her shoulders.

“Did you hear from Hayu? I’m writing a novel on the Internet.”

Kaho-chan’s voice was a little lower than Hayu’s, and she sounded much calmer than I would have expected from someone her age. At the same time, she sounded fragile and it felt like she would break at any given moment.

“Yeah. She didn’t tell me the title, though. I heard it’s popular?”

Kaho-chan shrugged her shoulders and rubbed them.

“Well, umm… yes, but I got into a fight with Hayu about it…”

“I heard that too. I’m sorry, I think my sister said something terrible to you.”

“No, please don’t apologize. It’s Hayu’s fault, not Tenta-san’s fault.”

Kaho-chan stuck out her palm with her fingers together and suddenly acted stubborn. She was a good friend of Hayu’s, and despite her calm appearance, she has a strong heart.

“She’s been like that for a while. She takes what she hears on TV and the Internet to heart and treats anime and video games as if they are the source of all evil…”

When it came to complaining about Hayu, Kaho-chan became much more verbal and less reserved.

“I’ve been told by her to get a better hobby everyday too.”

When I said this with a bitter smile, Kaho-chan raised her head for some reason.

“What the heck is that! When Hayu was a little girl, she used to make Tenta-san accompany her for Rasputu-chan, right? And now she’s complaining about your hobbies?!”

The “Rasputu-chan” that Kaho was referring to was the “Monster Monk Girl Rasputu-chan” anime series for little girls, a show that Hayu was fascinated with until she was in her early elementary school years.

When we were young, the Aramaki family was working together as the family’s finances were getting tighter due to our father’s failed job change. At that time, we would spend the night alone and eat any leftover dinner.

At dinner time, Hayu would be watching “Monster Monk Girl Rasputu-chan Z”. It was an entertaining drama in which Rasupu-chan, an immortal girl from beyond the stars, fights for love and death in a sponsored tourist attraction. It became a hot topic because every week, no matter how unnatural the situation, there was always a scene where the application of the main sponsor, some social networking company, was used.

Whenever I left her alone, she would stick to the TV and watch it at a very close range, so in the end she had to watch it with my parents, who were in charge of taking care of my sister.

“I remember Kaho-chan watching it with me. Rasputu-chan that is.”

“Y-Yes! Do you remember? I came to visit you when I first got to know Hayu.”

It seems that nostalgia makes people really excited. Kaho-chan forgot her reservations and leaned forward towards me after hearing that.

It was at the park that Hayu and Kaho-chan had first met, and while she was reading a book, Hayu had taken Kaho-chan home and watched an anime recording with her. Kaho was a child who didn’t watch much anime, but she was watching it with her eyes sparkling behind her glasses.

“…Ah, by the way, you’re wearing glasses today? I thought you had switched to contacts.”

Kaho-chan seemed to panic a little.

“Yeah… Umm, well, it’s easier this way…”

I looked at Kaho-chan’s face, wondering why she had switched back from contacts to her glasses.

Facing my gaze, Kaho-chan failed to keep calm, and she turned her face away from me.

“…Tenta-san, I heard you joined your school’s literature club?”

“You heard that from Hayu… Well, going straight home every day is not very pleasant. So, I just read random books in the club room.”

“Have you ever written anything…?”

Kaho-chan’s question, which she asked with an upward glance, was not so strange for a member of the literature club. Rather, the problem should have been my attitude of not having written anything at all ever since the festival. Nevertheless, I was stunned, having been caught off guard by her sudden question.

“I couldn’t do it.”

“But you used to make up all kinds of stories for me and Hayu before.”

“That’s… because.”

I assumed she was talking about the kind of doodles I used to write in my notebook, which Hayu had also told Kaho-chan about. I don’t know how they could remember something from such a long time ago. I felt embarrassed whenever they reminded me of it.

That was a work of fiction, but rather—

“—That was just child’s play. I’m not like you, Kaho-chan.”

For some reason, Kaho-chan denied what I said.

“That’s not true. I was so interested in the story that Tenta-san used to write that I decided to try and write one myself.”

I was even more perplexed at those words. I had never thought that a story that I had made up in such a lazy way could be the catalyst for someone else to begin writing themself.

There was something… strong about what she said that was lingering in me, but I shook my head a little.

“I can’t compete with you at all, no matter what. Kaho-chan is now a popular internet author, right?”

“Ah…”

At my words, Kaho-chan shrunk again.

“Actually… That’s why I’m here today.”

“What do you mean by that…?”

Kaho-chan looked at a group of books on a flatbed on the sales floor.

“The things I write for submission sites can be broadly categorized as an ‘isekai series’ like the ones you see there.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that much.”

“The title is ‘My Search for Myself after Being Reincarnated as a Head’.”

“That’s a really great title…”

“So I just wanted to check out this section for reference.”

Oh, so her reason was generally the same as ours yesterday.

“So, do you study the trends of popular works these days?”

Kaho-chan’s face turned slightly red.

“Yes… To be honest, in some ways I’m copying the structure of various successful works. After all, I want as many people as possible to read my story. Well, it may be impure…”

“No, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You want people to read it, that’s why you publish it on the Internet, right?”

“That’s true… but if there are so many prior works similar to that, my work that I took advantage of will eventually be buried within them.”

Instead of tilting my head, I folded my arms. I’m not sure what Kaho-chan is talking about.

“…When the time comes, it comes. I don’t think you need to worry about it for your hobby.”

Kaho-chan slowly turned towards me. It was a gesture that could be taken either as a turn around or a shake of the head.

“That, too, is true… But, as Hayu says, it’s the kind of story you write that would result in failing your exams.”

Her eyes were sadly downcast and she made a tired sound.

“I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted my time.”

That night, I bumped into Kaho-chan at the anime store.

As usual, Hayu came to my room without any notice. I was lying on my bed reading a book, when she sat down next to me, making the tired springs of the bed creak.

I was reading a light novel that I had bought earlier during the day. Hayu glanced at it and held her gaze for a few seconds, but didn’t say anything.

I didn’t call out to her either. I just closed the book and prepared to listen to what she had to say.

The silence was not long. My sister was never one that was patient.

“Hey… Why do you think that is?”

“What is?”

“…Why did Kaho-chan decide to write a story about another world? Is it because it’s popular?”

I knew the answer.

“She said she wanted to write one.”

“That’s not…”

Her silence was even longer than before as she trailed off with her words. She looked up in dismay, and then her eyes suddenly turned serious.

“You talked to Kaho? When?”

I caught both of her arms that were flailing towards me and pulled myself up. Hayu’s momentum was tremendous, but I managed to put her down and slowly avoid any casualties.

“Relax. We just met today. We met at an anime store I happened to go to. Kaho-chan seemed to be busy, so I talked to her, though it wasn’t for very long.”

I looked her straight in the eye and explained patiently, and she gradually relaxed over time. She didn’t flail anymore when I let go of her hand and urged me to continue with a condescending look.

“I didn’t tell her that you were researching light novels. But I got to hear a lot about the story. Kaho-chan was also very upset.”

It was in her third year of junior high school that Kaho-chan started to post her novels on a site. She came across the site while browsing the Internet, feeling overwhelmed with the thoughts of her upcoming exams.

At first, she just browsed the site as a reader, but eventually she wanted to try writing her own stories too. She has always liked books, and she also reads light novels. The people she interacted with in the user community recommended it to her, and so she just got into it.

After that, she was so happy to receive responses to her stories that she developed a sense of mission to respond to her readers, and she became addicted to that feeling.

Kaho-chan, who had never been able to devote herself to anything in her life up to that point, continued to post chapters of her work as if she were possessed, uploading and uploading, and sometimes revising and uploading as well.

(I think it was partly because I felt uncomfortable with my classmates and parents who were strangely tense because it was the time of my exams) —At least that was what Kaho-chan said.

(Is it really that important…? I don’t know why I felt like I was outside the mosquito net even though I was a part of it. I had decided to go to the same high school as Hayu, so maybe the people around me who were going left and right with tension like it was the end of the world looked strange to me.)

That sense of discomfort easily turned into a rebellion, and that made her get into writing novels that were not related to the exam.

She chose the genre of “another world” not only because it was popular, but also because she wanted to express her feelings of having found a whole new world.

As a result of cutting down on her sleep, Kaho-chan’s work, ‘My Search for Myself after Being Reincarnated as a Head,’ was well received by many users, and her ranking on the site slowly rose.

Even so, Kaho-chan managed to maintain her grades in both her school and mock exams. Fortunately, our high school, which she had promised Hayu that she would get into, was not so difficult to get into, and as long as she attended her school and cram school classes diligently and kept up with her studies, it seemed that she would be able to cross the minimum line.

“It seems that it was a prerequisite for Kaho-chan to keep her promise to you to go to the same school.”

“…She failed in the end, though. It’s only natural for her to break down if she lives like that.”

“Don’t talk like that—”

I was about to tell her to stop being like that, but instead I let out a sigh. Even the insensitive Hayu understands.

Kaho-chan had been devoting herself to her online novels on the premise of balancing them with her exams, and now that she has stepped away from one subject, she feels as if her writing the novels itself was a mistake and so she began having second thoughts. That’s why she ran away when Hayu denied her writing of the novel and further accused her of failing her exams due to them.

Still, my sister couldn’t help but clam up at that.

“Don’t tell me you have never found anything that you are really passionate about.”

Because of me, Hayu hates otaku culture. Kaho-chan knew this and that was why she couldn’t confide it with me. But still, words of disappointment came out of Hayu’s mouth.

“I thought we were friends…”

“Hayu.”

I sat down next to her and called out her name.

“How can you be friends with someone if you don’t know them from the inside out?”

As I said this, I was asking myself the same question.

“Maybe so. In fact, when I see people around me having fun, working hard, I feel like I’m inferior because I don’t have those things at all, so I distance myself, I run away, and that’s why I can’t make friends.”

I cut her off, but she didn’t respond. I just continued.

“Houkage is the complete opposite. She’s not afraid of people who are completely different from her. Don’t be afraid to approach them, talk to them, and accept that even if you don’t understand them, it’s natural. But when I look at Houkage, I think that’s true.

It is a foolish assumption to think that all human beings can understand each other. If you believe that, then when you meet someone you don’t understand, you’ll think, ‘Humans are supposed to be able to understand each other, but I can’t understand this person at all’ — that means that this person is not human.”

I may have been too abstract with my words. But it was my feelings, after having spent time with people like Houkage and Iisaka over the past year.

Houkage’s way of feeling and thinking doesn’t fit with the people around her, and she is sometimes shunned due to that, but I have never heard her criticize others due to that. She just seemed to be lonely at times.

Iisaka is cheerful and outgoing, and has no hesitation in claiming that she likes what she likes. Unlike me, she doesn’t think that her hobbies are noble or lowly in the first place. This is also why I am sometimes made fun of and become depressed, but I respected her unshakable strength.

I’ve come to believe that the important thing in getting along with people is not to understand each other, but to find a way to get along with each other after admitting that you don’t understand each other.

That is why.

“I don’t understand, but if it is okay with you.”

The fact that Houkage gave me such a response to my confession made my heart go crazy.

After seeing me up close and getting used to Houkage and Iisaka, Hayu seemed to have understood what I was trying to say.

As if frustrated by something she didn’t know about, Hayu let out a voice while moving her fingers in a fidget.

“…I really miss her, I want to understand Kaho.”

“I’m sure you do.”

There was no contradiction between admitting the possibility of not understanding and continuing to strive to understand it. In fact, I want to know everything that Houkage is thinking about too.

I was about to put my hand on her head, but I hesitated, thinking that she would not like it, and then I decided that it was okay if she did not like it.

“So, what are you going to do now that you want to understand Kaho-chan?”

Hayu looked at me and then answered.

“I’m going to read the light novel that Kaho wrote.”

My hand, which was on my sister’s head, was forcefully flung away.

The desktop computer in my room is more than two generations old, and I inherited it from my father when he bought a new one. It’s basically like a piece of crap, but it’s not that bad if you want to browse the internet with it.

When I opened the website that contained Kaho-chan’s works, I was surprised to see the top page.

“‘My Search for Myself after Being Reincarnated as a Head’ ….What’s this? It’s ranked second overall in the ranking of unpublished works. It even won a contest. She’s amazing, isn’t she, Kaho-chan?”

“…I-I see.”

Looking over my shoulder at the display, Hayu leaned forward and tickled my ear with her sweet, confectionery-like voice. It seems that she was happy that Kaho-chan’s work was being appreciated so widely.

I quickly opened the page of her work. It seemed that I had to register as a user in order to leave any comments and ratings, but I guess I didn’t need to at the moment.

The site is written in a horizontally only form, which is different from the way I usually read books, but once I got used to it, I was able to read through it easily—

The story begins with a high school student, Kuya, who was born into a poor family but was doing his best to live each day. When he visits a big old western-style house for a part-time job of moving, he is hit by a huge figurehead that falls from the second floor and so his head is cut off.

The last thing the boy sees is his own lifeless head reflected in the figurehead’s eyes—

When he woke up, Kuya had been turned into a soccer ball. To be precise, it was used as a ball for the ball kicking game that the goblins like to play. After rolling around a lot, Kuya realized that he now had no legs, no arms, no stomach, no heart — in other words, his entire body from the neck down was gone, and yet somehow only his consciousness was alive.

Kuya was taken by goblins in a raid on a traveling merchant, and during the fight, he realized that he could freely manipulate his reflection in the mirror from the neck down. After using this unique ability to manipulate and defeat the goblins, Soraya is carried on a journey in the lap of Sera, a beautiful girl who is the daughter of a traveling merchant.

Kuya asked Sera to let him look up at the sky, and noticed that there were two suns floating in the sky. He noticed that this was a different world from the one Kuya was previously on—

After that, as the title suggests, the main character, Kuya, searches for his body while getting into trouble with Sera and others in various places of the world.

The story is basically an adventure drama in which the protagonist, Kuya, uses the ‘Power of Torso’ that only those who live without a body can use to freely manipulate humans and dragons to save people from evildoers and disasters in various places. However, when he accepts a part of the ‘body’ he finds in the journey, he loses the power to control everything.

Kuya learns from a prophet that he can return to his world once he has all of his body parts, but in order to protect Sera and her family, he must have the ‘power of the remaining pieces’.

He wants to go back to Earth where his family is waiting for him, but he also wants to continue protecting Sera and the others. The conflict between these two contradictions seems to be the main idea of the story.

It is a painful and entertaining success story in which the protagonist, who was initially shunned for being a raw head, is recognized by the people around him by overturning the situation with his wisdom and unusual powers.

“Kaho… she had all of this bottled up in her head?”

Hayu, who was leaning back and staring at the display, let out a drawl. I guess I can’t get the impression that Kaho-chan has a taste for this bizarre type of story.

“Unlike you, she seems to be the type of person who keeps her troubles bottled up.”

“I am a little resentful at you though…?”

I couldn’t stop myself from saying it, and she tightened her grip on my neck with a judo-style bare knot. I tapped roughly and looked at the clock in the corner of the screen. Before I knew it, it was already around two in the morning.

“…That’s it for today, I guess. If I don’t go to bed, I’m going to have a hard time tomorrow.”

I think I’ve read about as much as a light novel volume today. The series is still going on, and I can’t get to the bottom of the table of contents page in just two or three scrolls. We wouldn’t be able to finish it all in one night.

Hayu had already loosened her grip on my neck, but she remained in the same position and did not answer me back.

“Hayu…?”

I called out again. Hayu stared at the table of contents on the display and only moved her lips.

“I was afraid… what would happen if I read and didn’t understand it. This is Kaho’s secret, the contents of her head… but it’s a light novel that I’ve never heard of before, so I might not understand it at all…”

The reason why Hayu didn’t read what Kaho wrote first was probably because she knew that if she didn’t understand what it meant, she would feel as if Kaho-chan had left her behind. I guess it was because she had to face the fact that there were many people who understood Kaho-chan better than Hayu did.

That was why I went to the literature club to fill Hayu in the outer moat before she started reading anything specific. I don’t think she was able to grasp the various aspects of light novels through those activities though. Even so, she may have learned that there are many different ways to read light novels.

“So, what did you think after reading it?”

“…I can’t figure it out. I can’t figure out why it’s a different world, why there’s a raw head doing all that…”

“Well, that’s because the mystery hasn’t been solved until you’ve finished it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Hayu finally peeled herself away from me and sat upright.

“It’s about why Kaho decided to write this story.”

She hesitated for a moment and then added, a little uncomfortably.

“If it’s Houkage-senpai, do you think she’ll be able to analyze it in some way?”

Immediately, I remembered Houkage’s words about not being able to evaluate herself when she looked in the fitting room mirror. Not being reflected in a mirror gives freedom, but also anxiety. The protagonist of “Raw Head” also has no body of his own, which is why he can take over other bodies.

It could be linked to the mental state of Kaho-chan, who is absorbed in her creative work because she is unaware that she is a student preparing for an exam—I shook my head at that thought.

“It’s probably not about that.”

It doesn’t matter if Hayu asked Houkage or me. It was not about whether or not she understood it either.

“It’s about whether you enjoyed it or not.”

Hayu stood there and was silent for a while.

Then, without answering, she trudged back to her room.

The next day after school, I visited the club room, biting back a yawn, only to find Houkage sitting there silently.

She was reading an unusual light novel, one about a different world. She must have borrowed it from Iisaka.

She lifted her eyes from following the text, looked at me, and opened her mouth. There was a pause, and then she moved her lips again.

“Welcome.”

“Welcome…?”

I almost laughed. Her manner was even more awkward than usual. I put my bag down and sat down next to Houkage.

“I’m so tired… It’s only us two today huh?”

“It seems so.”

It was no surprise that there are only us both as members of the club, but for the past few weeks, Iisaka or Hayu had been showing up quite often, so it had been a long time since the two of us had done any club activities alone.

…Once again, I can’t help but feel nervous. This distance was dangerous in many ways, as it reminds me of the underwear selection the other day.

…I wonder if she is wearing it right now…?

I looked at Houkage, thinking such a disgusting thing in my head.

As usual, she kept her unwavering gaze on the book at hand. But there was something…

“…What’s wrong?”

I asked Houkage, who seemed to be acting strangely for some reason. Then Houkage said something else entirely.

“Is your sister not coming today?”

“Eh? Yeah… I don’t know. She might have left to go home today.”

Last night, she seemed to have a lot on her mind after reading Kaho-chan’s novel. In the morning, she was not in the right state of mind, dripping soy sauce on her bread today, which scared our dad, so I guess she wanted to be alone today.

“I see,” Houkage nodded nonchalantly. Then she returned to reading her book.

The book she was reading was unusual, but the pace at which she was reading was pretty much the same. She hooked her supple fingertips on the edge of the page, and with a comfortable flick of the thin paper, she began to flip through the pages.

I looked at her quiet profile as usual and thought that I might be mistaken in thinking that she was acting strangely.

“It’s kind of weird.”

The answer to my earlier question came back to me.

“Weird?”

“We talked about this before. That a human man and woman should have a one-on-one relationship.””

This must have been when we talked about harem stories. That was what we came to in the end.

“That’s why I’m supposed to want to be alone with you, but now that it’s happening, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

The conversation took another leap, and it took me a little while to understand. So it was only at a slow pace that my face became hot and stained with red.

“Houkage, that’s…Um, what do you…?”

I couldn’t even ask her what she meant properly. Like Houkage had said, I should be happy, but I didn’t know what to do.

“Aramaki-kun, do you want me to do something for you?”

Houkage’s words hit me even harder. She shouldn’t have asked such a wild question to a second year high school boy. Moreover, although I had some doubts about it, the fact that the two of us were in a relationship.

What came to my mind was all the things we could not do at school.

Well, before thinking whether I could or couldn’t do it, I firstly didn’t have the courage to ask for it. In my chest is a beast that has yet to know love, where there is a wilderness of cowardly winds blowing as well.

But if I didn’t say anything here, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I took a deep breath that filled my lungs, then said with a straight face.

“…T-Then… I guess I’d like to hold your hand.”

—That’s right. We’ve been dating for over a month now, but we’ve never held hands up till now.

Houkage liked to talk about her thoughts and impressions of books, but she was not interested in physical contact — or the so-called “lovemaking” — at all (I could only assume so). That was why, even though I’m a self-deprecating person, I couldn’t really ask for her to do so.

So this truly was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I was extremely nervous when I made the suggestion, but Houkage nodded nonchalantly and turned to me with her pipe chair.

“I understand. I’ll try, so let’s do it.”

“Well, then, it’s up to you…”

I turned my chair around and wiped my sweaty hands with my handkerchief before holding out my right hand.

Houkage raised her left hand and,

Then she laid her palm on mine — and intertwined our fingers together.

“What…?”

Her hand was one size smaller than mine. I shuddered as I felt the supple fingers of that small hand slip between my own finger gaps.

It was the so-called “lover’s grip”. What I had asked for was a normal handshake, but Houkage always went beyond my imagination.

Even as I froze, Houkage looked up at me, wringing our hands together.

“What do you think?”

“I-It’s a strange feeling.”

As I answered, I hesitantly squeezed her hand back. Houkage’s hand was so soft that I thought it would melt.

“Yes, it is. Humans are craftsmen, so maybe there’s something special about moving and touching fingers.”

To put it simply, humans are creatures that feel good when they move their fingers. And since it actually felt good, she wasn’t wrong.

As if to test her words, Houkage’s fingers moved around languidly. With each push, my rational mind was crumbling with the sound it was making, but Houkage didn’t seem to notice and just looked at our clasped hands.

I mobilized all of my seventeen-year-old self-respect to keep my cool.

“…It sort of tickles.”

The space between your fingers is the part of your personal space that you perceive as your body. It’s also the place where you used to wade when you were a fetus. When a part of another person enters your body, it can definitely tickle a bit.

Now that she mentioned it, unlike the other parts of my body, I can’t help but feel creepy when I put a foreign object between my fingers. And even more so, now that Houkage’s fingers were moving in such unpredictable ways.

(Is Houkage entering my body…)

Why does my girlfriend say things that make me so nervous with her pale face? She talks about her own body in a matter-of-fact way, as if she were talking about the biology of another animal.

That kind of quirkiness is appealing, but I’d like something a little more satisfying.

“Does that tickle you too, Houkage?”

“Well… yes.”

As soon as Houkage looked up and vaguely said that, I suddenly squeezed her hand with all my strength. Houkage’s small hand stretched out as if it was squeezed from the inside, accepting the fingers of a man between her narrow fingers.

“Ah…”

The only response from Houkage was a small exhale and the squeaking of our hands clasping together. Then she gave a questioning look at me.

“Sorry… Did that hurt?”

“No… but I was a little surprised.”

The look that Houkage casted on my hand as she said this was one of wonder. As if following that wonder, she grasped my hand again.

“Isn’t Aramaki-kun naughty sometimes?”

We were silent for a while— I had reached my limit in so many ways — and there was a silence that only made my heart race even further.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear the spirited voices of an athletic club. I could see Houkage’s fingers twitching as if they were reflecting the sound of the wind, but I guess my fingers were moving too. Even if I don’t know for sure myself, Houkage might be able to feel it.

—After a while…

“Can I make a request as well?”

Houkage asked me. I nodded my head in silence. I was in the mood to do anything she wanted.

But Houkage’s ‘request’ caught me completely off guard.

“Please tell me who Kaho-san is.”

“…How does Houkage know about Kaho-chan? Did you ask Hayu?”

“No. It’s just that when I think about what your sister said in that bookstore, I thought it might be due to her that the two of you are looking into light novels.”

That’s a sharp intuition, I thought, rolling my tongue. But no matter how much my girlfriend asks, I couldn’t break my promise to my sister to not talk about it.

“I’m sorry… I can’t tell you for a reason.”

Pointing it out was basically admitting it, but if I don’t say anything more, I’ll be able to keep my promise.

Houkage made an unusual face. She opened her mouth slightly as if she was surprised, and looked diagonally down. Just as I was about to panic, thinking that she was angry, Houkage’s quiet gaze returned to me.

“Kaho-san is a woman’s name, isn’t it?”

I had nothing to feel guilty about, but my stomach clenched at her words.

“Eh? Y-Yeah…”

“Aramaki-kun.”

“Yes…”

“I think we agreed that harems are not appropriate for human romance.”

…

I’m not sure if it was my imagination—but I felt as if the hand I was holding was slowly getting a little stronger.

“No… Um, Kaho-chan is not like that. She’s a friend of Hayu’s.”

I don’t know why my voice sounded so meek, even though I was telling the truth. I have a tendency to get nervous in these kinds of situations.

“Hermann Hesse’s ‘Youth is Beauty’ is about falling in love with your sister’s friend.”

“I didn’t know that…”

“—Anyway, if Aramaki-kun and your sister are obsessed with this Kaho-san, then I have to solve that problem.”

It seemed that Houkage, in her own firm way, was obsessed with eliminating the situation where I focus on other girls.

I appreciate that she cared about me like that, and I’d like to discuss it with her if I could, but then I’d be breaking my promise to my sister.

When Hayu was little, she spent a lot of time alone at home with me, and I was the only person she could trust and rely on. I don’t think she felt that way anymore of course, but I am aware that I must not betray her, no matter what happens.

But Houkage seems to be serious, though it was hard to tell from her expression, and our hands were tightly clasped together.

We are in a standoff. The situation is completely different, but I can’t help but think of the man who was ruined in that coffee shop…

—Then.

　Bang!

The standoff was broken in an unexpected way. The sliding door of the club room was suddenly opened with a great force.

I reflexively peeled myself away from Houkage and nearly fell off my pipe chair. Houkage paused and looked at her left hand.

The one who came in was Hayu, who I thought had already left. She was panting heavily and leaning against the doorframe to keep herself from slumping down.

She seemed to be in such a panic that a tuft of her bangs was hanging over the edge of her mouth, but she didn’t bother to fix it.

She had a tendency to be impatient about everything, but this was very unusual.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

When she looked up after forcibly bottling up her excess breath, I saw that her mouth was trembling and with tears in her eyes.

“What should I do, Ani? …Kaho is gone!”

“? Calm down. What do you mean?”

“So! I was just about to go home when they called and said she wasn’t home!”

“Did you get a call from Kaho-chan?”

“No! From home, from mother! She said she got a call from Kaho’s house!”

Afterwards, as I tried to sort out Hayu’s frustrating story, They found out that Kaho hadn’t returned home since she ran away last night, and that her mother had called the Aramaki family, worried about her.

If Kaho-chan was going to stay the night, it would most likely be at Hayu’s house, and that’s why they didn’t really search for her last night.

I also called my mom at home to make sure, but she said that the Murase family was in a big mess right now.

The reason why Kaho-chan left home was because her parents were opposed to the publisher’s proposal to publish her book, “My Search for Myself after Being Reincarnated as a Head”.

When I heard this, I turned pale. Even though I had met Kaho just yesterday and talked to her about the problem that caused her to run away from home, I hadn’t realized that she had been thinking about it so deeply.

I don’t know how light novels from the Internet are positioned in the ‘adult world’. But even so, it must be a big deal for a high school student to debut as a commercial author. I should have asked her in more detail why she looked so unhappy when she talked about her writing yesterday.

If something happened to Kaho-chan, I would be greatly responsible for it. I slowly opened my fist, which had been clenched unconsciously.

Hayu was sitting on a chair, drinking a cup of coffee that Houkage had made just now. She seemed to have calmed down a bit.

“We’ll have to find her soon.”

I said as I placed a hand on my sister’s shoulder. She looked up at me with sultry eyes, seemingly deflated from her distraught reaction.

“How do we find her? I don’t know where Kaho is. I don’t know anything about Kaho anymore…”

Hayu, who was always cheerful and played the role of an honor student in front of others, had lost her confidence and was slumping down depressingly.

“That’s why I didn’t realize that Kaho was at a critical time and came to me for advice on her debut, and I pushed her even further by saying such terrible things…”

“Please calm down, sister. This is not the time to sum up your situation with her.”

As she put the pot back in the coffeemaker, Houkage gave Hayu a sharp look.

“Shut up! You don’t know what’s in people’s hearts, you cold hearted lizard!”

At last, she forgot to even speak respectfully to her, but Houkage still did not change her expression. Only the black ripples of the drink seemed to have become finer in the glass pot, which her fingertips had not left.

“Hayu.”

I called her name quietly. I wasn’t angry with her for her outburst at Houkage, but as her older brother for more than fifteen years, I knew it was a bad idea to go along with her tantrums. My sister is capable of feeling sorry for herself when she’s wrong, and that’s the best way to punish her. I was angry, so I decided to give her the best punishment.

“Houkage is right, now is not the time to dawdle. Let’s go find Kaho-chan.”

Hayu turned her intense gaze from Houkage to me. The strength in her eye seemed to have left when she looked at me.

“…I’ve already told you that I don’t know where Kaho is.”

I cut her off.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it matter…”

“We are going to look for her exactly because we don’t know where she is.”

Hayu tried to say something, but couldn’t find the right words to put on her breath, so she let out an empty sigh and stood up.

“Fine. Anyway, let’s go.”

That’s all she said, and headed for the door. I put my bag on my shoulder too.

“So, Houkage, we’re going—”

“Wait.”

This time, Houkage immediately snapped at my words.

“I’m coming with you.”

—In the evening, the cloudless search did not yield any results.

Hayu went to the coffee shop where she and Kaho had fought last, the area around it, and the route where they had usually hung out together, while Houkage and I walked around Kaho’s school.

While we were walking together, I had told her all about the situation between Hayu and Kaho-chan. Of course, we took Hayu’s permission beforehand.

In the end, when we couldn’t find Kaho-chan at sunset, we returned to our area.

The first place Hayu wanted to go was to the park where they played together when they were kids.

Now, Hayu and I are sitting side by side on the mountain-shaped playground equipment. It is a half-spherical concrete block with a slide where three or four children can sit side by side and a cavity in which they can play inside.

Only the top of it was flat, but it was filled with just me and Hayu. When I was in elementary school, there was plenty of room for not only the two of us, but also for Kaho-chan and her friends to sit together.

Houkage was sitting on the swing some distance away, making a phone call. She is calling her grandmother at home to tell her that she will be home late.

Looking up at the purple sky, grains of stars shone as they oozed out of the sight.

“She’s not here…”

At the sound of my tired voice, Hayu beside me bit her lips in frustration.

“I thought she would be here… there’s a roof.”

“It would be too easy. And if she doesn’t want the people at home to find her, this is too close to be away.”

“But in the light novel I read the other day where the sword turns into a girl, the childhood friend who ran away after a fight with the main character was sulking in the park tunnel.”

She was talking about “Sword Girl Gradation,” which we talked about in the literature club before. I’m pretty sure there was a scene like that. It’s the kind of scene where you find a girl you’ve known since childhood in a tunnel playground in the rain, and while you talk about your memories of the park and make peace with each other, you get nervous about her getting wet in the rain.

“…You’ve been poisoned quite a bit, haven’t you.”

“I tried to understand what she was doing… But I just couldn’t.”

I saw Houkage standing up from the swing after finishing her call. I put my hand on Hayu’s shoulder.

“It’s not just your fault, you know. I’m also…”

She didn’t shake my hand off, which was unusual, since she usually flung my hand away instantly.

“…It has nothing to do with you. I just can’t forgive myself for this.”

And then Houkage came in. She tried to climb up the slide, almost fell, gave up, and came up the backstairs.

“What do we do next?”

“You can go home already. It’s late after all.”

Hayu only half looked back at her, but she said that without making any eye contact. It was not with ill-will that she did that. But Houkage was pretty determined.

“Not so fast.”

“…Why not?”

“I promised Aramaki-kun that I would try my best to not offend his sister.”

Hayu seemed to have been caught off guard by how the conversation had suddenly fallen apart, but I guess she had gotten used to the way Houkage speaks. She killed her irritation and asked back.

“So what?”

“Imouto-san doesn’t approve of harems, so I have to get rid of the current situation where Aramaki-kun is devoted to both, his sister and Murase-san.”

This time, Hayu seemed to be taken aback. But she took a moment to understand, and then her face twitched.

“So… You’re saying you’re going to make me leave my brother’s side in order to get me to accept this relationship…?”

“Yes. Because that seems to be the form of ‘proper man-woman relationship’.”

“…This person”

Hayu didn’t say anything back in reponse, but whispered in my ear, not Houkage’s, “You’re weird,” and ran down the slide. Seeing this, I could see for myself that was very fit.

I was at a loss for words. This way, from the earlier pursuit in the literature club, Houkage was certainly acting in accordance with my and Hayu’s wishes. However, it was Houkage who chose the method of “eliminating Hayu in order to be liked by Hayu.”

It made me both happy and a little scared. With a wry smile that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I stood up and lent a hand to Houkage to pull her up to the top.

Then I thought of an answer to Houkage’s question about what to do next.

“Next… Just saying, Hayu doesn’t know where to look anymore.”

I put my hand on the back of my neck and said, looking around from the small pile of concrete. Naturally, I couldn’t find Kaho anywhere nearby.

“What kind of person is this Murase-san?”

“If I have to say… She’s Hayu’s friend, reserved, calm, and… yes, she used to read books in this park since elementary school.”

It was also in this park that I first met Kaho-chan. She was sitting on a bench reading a children’s book with her dog when I brought Hayu here to play with me some time after she started elementary school. Kaho-chan was sitting on a bench reading a children’s book with her dog, and her slightly oversized, black-rimmed glasses looked good on her.

They were in the same class, and I got involved with Kaho to play with her later too.

(“This is not the place to read books! Let’s play!”)

Kaho-chan, who was apparently not a good friend of mine at that point, seemed to be confused. I pulled her away and gave her the ‘tickle’ treatment, making her apologize profusely.

(“I don’t care where I read my books!”)

(“I’m sorry, Murase-san…”)

(“Y-Yeah… I mean, Aramaki-san, are you okay?”)

(“Ugh… please stop tickling me…”)

Ever since then, Hayu and Kaho-chan had become friends. Looking back, that may have been the origin of the on-going situation..

“After that, whenever we came to the park, Kaho-chan was always there. I guess she wanted to play with Hayu too.”

After her last year of elementary school, Hayu started to go out by herself, and Kaho and I only exchanged a word or two whenever Hayu brought Kaho home. I told her briefly that I was surprised to see her wearing contact lenses after a long time.

Houkage listened to the story with folded arms, but when I stopped talking, she asked me again.

“What did you and Murase-san talk about when you met yesterday?

“Well, I talked to her about her fight with Hayu and Kaho-chan’s worries about the value of her work. …Also, she seemed to have switched back to glasses in high school, but I guess that doesn’t matter.”

“…Do you dislike glasses, Aramaki-kun?”

“? No, not really. Hayu seems to think they’re a bit unrefined.”

“I see. What else? For example, the place where Aramaki-kun stopped by.”

“The place I stopped by… Yeah, did I mention that I frequently visit the store we met at yesterday? Does that mean she’ll avoid that place?”

Kaho-chan, who ran away from home, would probably want to avoid places where she might meet people she knows. But if that’s the case, we’re in over our heads.

However, Hayu, who seemed to have been listening under the slide, said with unexpected strength.

“No… let’s go to that store!”

The train ride to the downtown area took a good amount of time. By the time we got there, it was already the time of day when most of the stores were beginning to close, and the neon lights of the nearby buildings, the warm colored lights leaking from the windows of the restaurants, and the rows of streetlights weaving their way through the darkness decorated the streets.

So it was nothing but luck that we were able to meet Kaho on our way to the anime store that was about to close.

“Kaho!”

We descended from the station to the ground and took the straight road to the store. When Hayu spotted her friend ahead of her, she dumped her school bag on the spot and dashed towards her furiously.

“What—Hayu!?”

Kaho-chan noticed this, and she was in her casual clothes, which looked much more mature than her rumpled uniform. Almost reflexively, she turned her back on Hayu and ran away. However, Kaho was not the athletic type and her bag looked very heavy, so she was moving very slowly.

“Wait—!”

After searching for Kaho for a long time, Hayu was furious as Kaho ran away as soon as she saw Hayu’s face. Hayu was part of the track and field team, and seemed like she was about to reach Kaho shortly—

Anyway, Kaho-chan was frantically running away and didn’t notice that the traffic light ahead of her had turned red.

It was only when the light hit her in profile that she realized she was stepping out into a crosswalk with a small truck approaching — and stopped.

The truck noticed Kaho and slammed on the brakes, but was unable to stop at the time.

That’s when Hayu ran out.

While running in an arc, she took Kaho’s arm and pulled her to the sidewalk with a backstep with all her might.

I’m not sure if it was Kaho or Hayu who screamed. But, they were able to avoid contact with the truck just in time.

However, the two of them got tangled up and fell down, almost hitting the guardrail — I caught up with them late and held them solidly.

However, my physical strength was not enough to take the weight of two people. I fell on my butt and hit my lower back hard. I felt a nostalgic pain on my tailbone, but I was determined not to let them go.

“Are you okay?”

Houkage came running up to me in a hurry. Her voice brought me back to my senses. The two bodies began to squirm in my arms, which were holding them tightly.

“Ani, that’s enough, let me go… It hurts.”

I think I tightened my arm a little too tightly to support them firmly. Perhaps due to the shock of the near accident, Hayu was in tears.

Shoot… loosening my grip, but first, Hayu squirmed up. Kaho-chan seems to have not recovered yet and is still clinging to my blazer.

While I was patting Kaho’s back to calm her down, a truck backed up and the driver peeked out. I could not complain if he suddenly yelled at me, but fortunately he was like a calm man.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Ah, I’m fine… I’m sorry.”

It was completely our fault, so I had no choice but to apologize to him. After checking several times, the driver left, saying he was glad that we were all alright.

Hayu and Houkage also bowed their heads and saw the truck off. And–

Kaho-chan was dumbfounded, forgetting to run away.

“I’m sorry to worry you…”

Kaho-chan’s words, with a slap mark pasted on her cheek, weakly melted into the cold night air.

We all settled down on a bench on the platform of the station.

After that, Hayu reported to Kaho-chan’s house that she was safe, and the four of us came to the station in a very delicate mood. At the end of the platform, the train had just left, and we were sitting on a bench with four seats. In the order from right to left, there was: Kaho, me, Houkage, and Hayu.

When I asked Kaho-chan about it, she told me that she had spent the night at an internet cafe last night, wearing makeup to make her look more mature — maybe that’s why she wasn’t wearing her glasses today. She had skipped school today and had been walking around the area randomly.

While we were talking, I left my seat and bought some canned juice for the four of us. As I picked up one of the cans, Hayu opened her mouth. She tried not to look at Kaho-chan.

“Why did you run away from home…?”

“You didn’t hear? …I had a fight with my parents.”

Hayu and Kaho-chan. A conversation at one end of the bench and the other. Sandwiched between them, Houkage and I remained silent, our eyes flickering back and forth as each speaker took her turn.

“I said I wanted to accept the offer to publish my work…”

Today Kaho-chan was not wearing glasses, but she made a gesture with her finger on her nose as if to reposition them. I remembered that it was a habit of Kaho-chan’s to do that.

“Did they object?”

“Yes. They said it was too early and that I wouldn’t be able to study while taking on the responsibilities of a job. …I think they’re worried about me because I just failed the entrance exam…”

Kaho-chan’s parents are serious, if not uptight, people with a conservative streak. As long as she didn’t cause trouble to others, they would leave her alone, which was not the case in our family.

Kaho-chan took the can from me and pressed it to her forehead without opening it.

“I understand what they are saying… I’m not that good with my hands, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it up even if I do make my debut in these difficult times. I’m worried that if my school life doesn’t go well because of it, it will affect the rest of my life.”

Kaho-chan was a cautious person by nature. For better or worse, she was a forward-thinking person, the opposite of the type of person who would run for a student council president or enter a speech contest on a whim or on the spur of the moment. Because they met when they were just children, they were able to become friends easily.

So, when she was told that she would be making her commercial debut, it was understandable that she would have a negative-looking imagination. However, she still wanted her work to be published, despite her parents’ objections.

“But I wanted to make the most of my work if I was given the chance… So I got into a fight, and I didn’t know what to do, and I just wanted to be alone, so I ran away from home…”

I could kind of understand her. I guess she thinks that she has to succeed in this work because it was created in ‘exchange’ for breaking her promise to Hayu. Otherwise, the value of her promise to Hayu would be diminished.

“…W-What are you going to do? Now what?”

Hayu asked, crushing the can she had finished earlier.

Kaho-chan did not answer her, but she finally pulled on the tab of the canned juice. She dropped her shoulders and the can opened.

“I’ve decided not to, because I don’t think my debut… is going to work after all.”

As if she had been played, Hayu stood up.

“Why don’t you just do it!? Isn’t it fine!?”

“Hayu…”

Kaho-chan looked up at her best friend’s face and shook her head as she did so.

“I can’t… Earlier, when Hayu and Tenta-san helped me out, I thought. I’m just a child who can’t do anything yet, and I’m still causing trouble for everyone… With that kind of a personality, there’s no way I can write something good. The people at the company just want to promote me like a toy, like I’m an active JK author or something…”

“You don’t know that until you try it!”

Kaho-chan’s eyes fluttered as she waved the can around in her hands and spoke enthusiastically.

“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden…? The last time I saw you, you were making fun of me, thinking that light novels were stupid…”

“Ugh… that’s…”

Hayu wandered her wavering gaze towards me and Houkage. She was embarrassed to talk about what she has been doing all this while.

“Anyway! I’ll support you, Kaho! If you’re so worried about running away from home, you’ll definitely regret it if you don’t try it out!”

Hayu tried to show her supportive feelings with force, but Kaho-chan just gave Hayu a bitter smile.

“Thank you Hayu… But, I still can’t do it.
I wrote the other world story partly because it was popular, but in the end it was because I wanted to escape. I’ve been thinking about my exams, class relationships, and the fact that I’m not as good as others like Hayu… I wanted to escape from reality.”

Hayu looked as if she had something stuck in her throat. Escape from reality. That’s what she used to say when talking about light novels about other worlds.

“Even if I make my debut with such a work, I feel empty. It’s not like there’s anything in store for you if you go out into the world with something that turns its back on reality like that…”

“Kaho…”

Hayu was at a loss for words as to what to say to Kaho, who was hating herself for the very thing Hayu had made fun of so much just yesterday.

I wanted to say something to Kaho, but I couldn’t think of any way to encourage her, who must have been struggling with this ever since she was approached about publishing it.

Of course. I wrote something once, and I’ve been running away from it ever since.

—While we were silent, the train arrived at the platform and spat out the sparse passengers. The light from the train window was unusually bright today.

This is a busy area, but at the same time, a short walk away is a residential area. That’s why most of the customers at this time of night were office workers on their way home from work. Whether they were going straight home or going out for a drink, they walked to the ticket gate smoothly without hesitation, nor without any particular conversation.

I guess that’s reality, that’s life.

We watched in silence as the train closed its doors and drove away, and the passengers headed for the ticket gates.

As the reverberations of the wheels and the footsteps of the people disappeared, the silence returned. No one will ever know why we didn’t try to catch the train home. But we felt like we shouldn’t just leave.

That’s when it happened.

She had been listening in silence until then, but suddenly she stood up and opened her mouth.

“Funi-homon!”

Her voice rang out loud and clear on the platform, which was almost empty except for us.

Maybe it was the innocent tone of her voice, or maybe it was something else, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know the word in the first place.

I explained to Kaho-chan that she was a member of the literature club like me, and that she had come along with us by chance, but the two of them had not yet exchanged any proper words.

However, without any explanation, Houkage turned to Kaho-chan.

Kaho-chan’s body tensed up as she met the gaze of the expressionless upperclassmen.

“Murase-san.”

“Y-Yes…”

“What is the other world?”

What is it… Being asked that, Kaho-chan did a little thinking, and then answered with what she could think of.

“Ummm… ‘A world that is different from mine’…something like that?”

Unlike Hayu, Kaho-chan was shy, so she might not have been prepared for Houkage’s lack of expression. Houkage sounded like she was in a good mood.

Houkage nodded her head.

“Yes. A world that is not of ours, a world that is not here. So what do we need to define the world that is not here?”

“….Umm, the definition of reality?”

“Yes, Murase-san. That’s why writing about another world is just drawing another reality.”

“? How can that be?”

It was me who answered Hayu that was not following the current conversation.

“…No, that’s what she means, Hayu. For example, in order to know the concept of ‘hot’, you have to know something that is not hot — something that is at a normal temperature or something ‘cold’. If you don’t know what to compare it to, you won’t be able to come up with the idea of ‘hot’ no matter how high the temperature is.

God is great, but the reason why some people go astray even though they are being watched over by a great God is because there is a devil. If there is no devil, he can’t guide people, God’s greatness will be damaged. That’s why the devil exists and God is great. Such concepts always exist in pairs.”

“…So, you’re saying I have to know the real world in order to write about another world?”

“That’s right, little sister. You also wouldn’t be a ‘sister’ if it weren’t for Aramaki-kun.”

Hayu nodded to Houkage, but frowned. It must have been humiliating to be defined based on her brother.

Unaware of Hayu’s reluctant gaze, Houkage spoke to Kaho-chan.

“Murase-san. If you have been writing about other worlds, you must have been facing reality all your life. If you want to intentionally create a different world — an ‘unreal’ world — you need to know, examine, feel, and chew on reality itself.

The person who writes, the person who creates such a story, is not escaping, but rather, is looking at reality more than anything else.”

“B-But… writing the unreal side of it doesn’t mean anything in the end.”

Strangely enough, the author herself, Kaho-chan, said something that seemed to deny the existence of other worlds.

“It’s not necessarily so.

There are many people who develop their personalities by reading the meaning in stories that are not real, such as myths, folklore, and fables. Alchemy has become a cornerstone of chemistry, and I think there are many inventions inspired by various science fiction works.

There are things to be gained from other worlds. And when we can apply what we gain from other worlds to reality, reality grows, and so naturally, the next different world that is created will also grow.”

For example, if an invention from a fictional story is realized in the real world, it ceases to be fictional, and the writer uses the world with the invention as a foothold to build another world, it creates a new invention.

“If you gain anything from writing about other worlds, or if readers gain anything from reading about your other worlds, it is undoubtedly the power to change reality itself.”

Imagination and realization, otherworld and reality, humans are creatures that can move back and forth between the two, reincarnate and grow. That’s why it’s never useless to depict other worlds in a story. By envisioning a world that is not real, we can gain a vision to change reality completely.

This is what she is trying to say—Kaho-chan looked up at Houkage with a dazzling face.

I told Hayu that the work I had written while I was away at school with her was not in vain. Houkage approves of me.

The light from a passing train on the tracks across the street adorned Houkage like a backlight.

I wonder how the haloed figure of Houkage appeared in Kaho-chan’s mind, which had been exhausted from the three-way battle of her childhood ambition, obsession, and self-criticism for quite some time now.

“Murase-san—”

Houkage, posing with both fists on her chest, looked into Kaho-chan’s eyes and said emphatically—

“Our love of b**bs has transformed us from apes into humans.

We have built a civilization through the heart and soul of moe.

By collapsing our harems, we have created infinite possibilities.”

…?

What is she talking about…? Though, Kaho-chan’s eyes sparkled at her words.

“—light novels are filled with all of those things.”

When Kaho-chan froze with her mouth half open, Houkage continued to speak passionately.

“I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to think a lot about light novels ever since I met Aramaki-kun and his sister. At first, there were some things that didn’t make sense to me, but as I gained more experience, I realized that they have a lot of meaning in them. I regret that I had not read them before.”

“H-Haa…”

Kaho seemed to notice as Houkage’s face came closer. Houkage looked expressionless, but there was a sparkle behind her eyes as she looked at Kaho-chan.

She was serious. She was not joking at all.

“I never thought I’d be able to meet the person who wrote a light novel in person. I’m the type of person who thinks books and authors are separate, but I respect people who write books for that reason. I’m thrilled.”

She didn’t look very impressed, but if you ask me if she was lying, I’d have to say no.

Kaho-chan looked at Hayu to ask for help, but Hayu just looked away silently.

I smiled as I felt troubled and tapped Houkage on the shoulder to make her step back. Houkage still looked as if she wanted to say something else, but when I took her hand and pulled her closer, she obeyed me without hesitation.

As if to switch places, Hayu crouched down in front of Kaho-chan and put her hands on her knees.

“Well, I think you get the idea that Houkage-senpai is a strange person… but I think what she said earlier is true.”

“Hayu…”

“I read it too, raw head… is it abbreviated to ‘raw head’?

Aaa… Kaho’s face became frightened and expectant at the same time. Hayu smiled softly back. Even though she was my little sister, I could say it was an angelic smile.

“In the original world, when the description of the protagonist’s sister waiting for the protagonist’s return was, ‘She pretends to hate her brother, but really she’s a sickeningly bracky woman with no breasts,’ I honestly thought I’d be out for blood with that description.”

Kaho-chan looked like she was about to break out in a greasy sweat and looked away.

Then Hayu spoke her honest opinion about it.

“But it was interesting. I couldn’t wait to read the rest of the story. …I wanted to find the body with the main character of the raw head. I can’t wait to read more. Kaho, you have been looking for a long time. As Houkage-senapi said, when I read about the other world, I felt like I understood a little bit about Kaho that I didn’t understand before.”

On her lap, little by little, Kaho-chan’s hands start to tremble. The fingers, too weak to make a fist, did not curl up or open — they were grabbed by Hayu’s hand.

“It’s a good novel. Please sign my book when it comes out.”

Kaho-chan awkwardly lowered her face. Hayu wasn’t sure if she should look at Kaho’s face or not, and she ended up peeking under and smiling at Kaho as she did so.

Houkage and I watched the two of them from a distance.

“It looks like they are about to make up…”

“Yes, it does.”

Houkage was already back to her usual calm self, though she had shown a bit of enthusiasm earlier. She finished the can of juice she hadn’t drunk yet and put it in the trash.

She came back and stood beside me, looking at Houkage’s face, I exhaled as if I was separating something from within me, then I asked her something that had been bothering me for a while.

“…How did you know where she was? That Kaho-chan would be at the store.”

“It was your sister who suggested we come here.”

“But she came up with that idea from what Houkage said, right?”

“…If I had to say, it was my intuition.”

I thought that was a very un-Houkage-like answer. I thought she might have made some sort of great detective deduction.

She glanced at me, and when our eyes met, she returned her gaze and continued.

“I was thinking as I listened to Murase-san’s story. I thought that if I were her, I might want to meet Aramaki-kun. So I asked you where she might be able to meet Aramaki-kun alone.”

“Kaho-chan meet me? Not Hayu? Why?”

When I pointed at myself in surprise, Houkage stared at me a little silently. Then she answered.

“It’s just a hunch.”

“? Is that so…”

I didn’t understand, but it was just her hunch. I have to just accept that.

I looked and saw that Hayu and Kaho-chan were sitting next to each other, mooring their hands together and talking about something. I think we could catch the next train back home.

As the conversation died down, Houkage’s words from earlier came back to me.

“The person who writes, the person who creates, is not escaping, but is looking at reality more than anything else.”

…

I took a deep breath, then turned to Houkage.

“Thank you for today, Houkage… Thank you for helping us find Kaho-chan.”

“No. I just wanted to solve the problem.”

“…I still don’t understand what you say sometimes, Houkage.”

“I get that a lot.”

Houkage’s expression did not change. Even more than usual, her posture didn’t change at all.

I chose my words carefully and spoke to my girlfriend.

“You said that ‘Moe Moe’ is civilized, right?”

Houkage blinked slowly.

“I thought that the people who write about it are looking at reality… and they really are.

I’ve never been able to look someone straight in the face because I’m not as fulfilled or hardworking as those around me. I felt like they thought I was an inferior person. So I just looked at fake faces from manga and video games.”

Houkage told me that the ability to recognize letters is based on the brain’s ability to identify faces. The ability to recognize the faces of many people and to consider their emotions is what gave rise to human civilization.

“I guess that’s why I couldn’t accumulate a living civilization. Even though I liked comics and games, I never had the desire to create anything.”

Houkage listened to me in silence. I knew I shouldn’t run away from those straight eyes.

“But lately, I’ve been looking at your face. It’s a very confusing face.”

“I’m often told that. By both my father and my mother.”

She said it in a flat voice, which made my jaw drop. I was about to ask her back. But

For now, I decided to tell her about myself.

“Yes. I don’t know what it is, but it’s good for me. I can think about it all the time.”

“…………”

“…And similar to what happened with Kaho, I read a lot of light novels and other books. Then, I felt like writing…”

Houkage gulped for air and looked as if she had choked on it.

“I haven’t thought about it yet, but I wanted to write about what I’ve lived and felt, the people I’ve met, the books I’ve read, the games I’ve played, the things I’ve done and not done. I don’t know if that means facing reality, but… well, it’s the literature club.”

I’m not trapped in another world, as Hayu says. I’ve been in the real world of giving up. I had to find another world to aim for, even if it was difficult. I think I’ve learned that from Kaho-chan’s experience.

And if I can find my ideal world and have the confidence that I am living for it. If only I could develop the ability to write correctly, rooted deep within that confidence. I might be able to teach it to Houkage.

Instead of a mirror that can’t reflect her — I want to tell her that she is so beautiful.

That’s what I can do for her. That’s what I can do to believe that I have a meaning in life. That’s why.

I was getting thirsty even though I had just drank a can of juice. I was just as nervous as I was when I confessed my feelings to her, so I told her.

“Will you read my novel again… when I write the next one?”

The smile on Houkage’s face may have been too thin to be a smile, but it was definitely a smile.

Aramaki Tenta has a crush on his girlfriend.

That’s about it.

Today’s light novel gently closes its pages.

The Hokage’s L/RightNovel

Episode #3

Baily’s beads

Fin.