Liar Mii-kun and Broken Maa-chan - Chapter 4 - Because of Being Another

“Is Tōru a honey bee?”

“It’s been a while since I was treated like an insect…”

We talked like this the first time Nagase and I met on our day off. To be precise, it was not just a chance meeting but a scheduled one at a set time, so it was inevitable we would meet.

It would be hard to call this a date, too. We went to a batting cage called “Sea Lion’s Lookout,” so our date would be more with metal bats and baseball balls than with each other.

Given the choice between this and golf, Nagase opted for batting practice. She wasn’t in either of those clubs at school, so it was a foregone conclusion.

Nagase confronted fastballs going a hundred kilometers per hour, and if I wrote “cutting through space,” it would sound like a battle manga ability, but in short, it was a series of swings and misses. On the rare occasion that she did just barely brush it, her hand would go numb and she would jump up and down, so it was probably a blessing in disguise that she didn’t manage to directly hit it. Though when I said it, I was hit.

Watching Nagase’s gallant figure from the back, I noticed she was left-handed.

“Why batting, though?”

Nagase, who had set a record of striking out ten times in a row of a total of thirty pitches, seemed fit to be entered in a dictionary as a picture of irritation. She sat down next to me, scowling while breathing out on my shoulder.

“Is that what you consider batting, Nagase?”

“Swinging a bat will get you to Koshien(1)! Wait, no, no! We’re going to a fashionable coffee shop and getting lemon juice! And then we’ll go buy something shiny and glittery! And go for a high-class dinner worthy of Higuchi Ichiyō(2) and split the costs together! That’s a date!”

“…So to sum it up, you want to get some tea, buy metalware, try to eat as many gyoza dumplings as you can for a challenge and fail.”

“Reality can be whatever I want!”

I think she’s just bending over backward.

“And then, in an open field…”

“Wha-wha-what? Anyway, calm down.”

I put a towel over Nagase’s head dripping with sweat. 

“So soon?” Nagase asked. 

The owner, impressed or maybe filled with pity at Nagase’s full swing, handed me that towel without a word earlier. With it, I wiped down Nagase’s skin, which was dripping with healthy sweat.

“Ugh…”

“Turn here.”

As if embracing her, I held her head against my chest and polished all over. Nagase’s hair was a bit warm and soft. 

“And I’m done.”

I tried to let go of Nagase. But she defied me by head-butting my solar plexus. 

“What are you doing?”

“Just, a bit more.”

“You want to strike out again?”

“Because my legs turned into Pocky(3)!”

“Are you a gingerbread man living in a gingerbread house(4)? Even so, weak.”

“No, I just said it because my thighs and my back are all strained.”

“Oh, so you want to stay like this? Sure.”

“Too honest…”

As an anticlimactic ending, faint vermilion spread on the nape of her neck.

The gazes of the people around us began to gather. It was probably irritating to see a man and a woman embracing each other without even a bat in their hands. Nagase was oblivious to it, the towel blocking out her vision. I, too, decided to look only at Nagase.

Nagase’s upper arms and shoulder peeked out from under her clothes when she was playing with the metal bat.

I was tempted to trace them with my fingertips, but my hands were now filled with Nagase, so I held back.

“Nagase, your shoulders are lovely.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I really like them.”

“Ahaha.”

“…Should we go somewhere else?”

Following Nagase’s previous request, we went to a nearby tea house.

Their speciality was light meals and we ordered fried udon with no room for the lemon. Nagase slurped her noodles, idly complaining, “You can’t get romance from udon or ramen, only calories.” She must have been hungry after the workout because she ate splendidly. though when I told her that later, I was hit. 

Nagase drank up the refill of water and settled down as if suddenly regaining her lost gravity. Her red-drunk face color returned to its place, returning back to the normal Nagase. Then I spoke up, just a bit seriously.

“Uh, sorry.”

“What’s that, all of a sudden?”

“No, it’s just, that I don’t think of this as a date.”

Nagase rolled her eyes and then vaguely laughed with a nod, “Well, that’s true.”

“I didn’t get that you wanted it to be a date at all, Nagase. I should have thought more about where we were going.”

After all, we arranged it via email yesterday at 11pm, and now we’re meeting, just twelve hours later.

Nagase shook her glass, the ice clinking. “I guess,” she said. “I don’t think it’s classy at all. But fried udon was delicious and batting was fun, so that’s enough for me.”

Nagase affirmed with a satisfied smile. For a moment, I wondered if I should encourage her to join the softball team if swinging a bat was a source of entertainment for her. But I read the mood and held my words back.

“I see. All good, then.”

“Yeah.”

I thought she was complaining a while ago, but now she really seems to be enjoying herself. What a strange girl.

“Well, it’s all good, but next time I’m looking forward to being really ecstatic.”

“…I will try to take proper measures.”

Nagase got another glass of water and we chatted for a while more.  

During that, another topic came up.

“Tōru, are you going to go to a local university?”

Nagase asked the question assuming I would go in the first place. So I was stagnant in my reply.

“I’m thinking of getting a job after high school.”

“Ah, is that so.”

“Right now, I’m being taken care of at my uncle’s house. So I don’t want to overstep.”

With me being so vague and using the word “uncle,” Nagase seemed to have sensed something.

“Is talking about your family a bit too heavy?”

Nagase didn’t know that I was a person involved in the “Incident.”

“Yes, they are all dead.”

I didn’t tell her why or how. 

Maybe I could have kept on hiding it forever.

If only she wasn’t Nagase Tōru.

Maybe even now.

Nagase responded with an emotionless “I see” and took a sip of water.

“So, are you the kind of guy that gets hurt when talking about family?”

“Do I seem like that?”

Nagase didn’t answer if it was true or not, only smiled.

“I want to know about you, but If you don’t want to talk about it, then I won’t.”

…That’s new.

Contrary to my expectations, being cared for by others was not a bad feeling.

“It’s alright. I take pride in that my nerves are easier to snap and easier to mend than most people’s.”

“Amazing, just like an amoeba.”

Then, I was treated as a honey bee(5) and the topic drifted to each other’s family stories.

“You said it’s been a while, so what was that about?”

“In the past, my younger sister called me a worker ant.”

“Hoho…”

Nagase’s eyes widened. It was apparent she was imagining something bad.

“Then, I nominate Tōru as my personal worker ant!”

“Then Nagase will be a bell cricket(6).”

“Can I? The female of a bell cricket eats the male before laying eggs, you know.”

“Huh, so does that mean we would need to engage in babymaking?”

“Sexual harassment is forbidden!”

The flustered figure of naive Nagase was both stimulating and gentle for the heart.

“By the way, I have a younger sister too.”

It was then that I heard about Nagase Itsuki for the first time. 

“She’s in the third grade, so there is about a seven-year age gap between us. Recently she’s been cheeky and broke some bones.”

“…Corporal punishment?”

“She’s doing karate, something like that. And today she said she has a softball match.”

I see, I was hearing good things.

“Should we go watch her play?”

“Hmm, that’s alright, but… Alright.”

“If you don’t feel like it, we can go somewhere else.”

“No, I mean…  You are not allowed to spit on Itsuki.”

Worrying about something she didn’t need to. How sad.

“About the time, has it started already?”

“She said it would start at 1 pm, so it’s alright.”

We decided to chat a bit longer at the tea house. 

“I have a complicated family, too.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t really have anything to do with it. It seems to be a problem between my father and grandfather.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe it’s because of that, but I don’t have any info about grandpa and grandma. I don’t even know how much I’ll get as a New Year’s gift from them(7).”

“Hmm.”

Nagase’s lips twitched. “What a half-hearted response. I’m revealing my private life to you, you know.”

“It’s difficult to comment on it.”

It’s not that I didn’t want to contribute, but simply that I couldn’t think of any comment at all.

Nagase hesitated and concluded, “Well, that’s true, too.”

About 30 minutes later, after leaving the restaurant,

“So when are you going to call me by my name?”

“When you learn proper Japanese.”

“Haha,” I got a small laugh from Nagase. 

“You are a funny liar, aren’t you, Tōru ? Your surname suits you well.”

“Yeah, I like it too.”

It’s not my real surname, though.

After that, just like we spontaneously planned, we watched the match in which Itsuki played for free without buying tickets. We met up with Itsuki after the match and received a light punch, then was pulled into a hug, which was fun, though it made Nagase visibly jealous.

The reason for a lot of grumbling, overexaggerated actions, and sometimes a bit of fun. 

After Nagase and I broke up, I realized we were having a good time together.

Because we were both idiots in love with each other.

 

The day after playing explorers. 

Today, we are going to dip our toes into playing detectives.

 

I went out to return the notebook to Nagase via Itsuki, and before I knew it, I found myself sitting on a bench on the rooftop. The bench was quite a tricky thing, as right below the backrest, the part that touched my buttocks smoothly indented, making it comfortable to sit on. I decided to end my tendency to put all my weight on the bench and get buried in it, or rather, the tendency to escape by using it as an excuse. I didn’t have so much free time on my hands that I could use it freely. After all, I was going out this afternoon.

The pre-noon rooftop was permeated with warmth, fitting the term “mild winter.” Even the wind, which barely blew by, had no sharp edges, just a light shiver as it passed by. As if a juvenile delinquent changed their gender and became a secluded young lady. But only for today.

Because of that, I was barred from going out under the pretext of cold temperatures. 

Next to me on the bench was Nagase, who had promised not to come to my hospital room.  Today was Saturday, and I was seeing her in plain clothes for the first time in a while. I’ve had the same impression before, but it was an impersonal outfit. I felt that Nagase’s individuality should be more distinctive, like with slippers sticking out from under her armpits or something.

“It’s difficult to behave when you are staring at me.”

An embarrassed Nagase. Well, I will not tell you what’s in my heart.

Now then, why was Nagase there? She doesn’t lie as much as I do, and she was disciplined enough to keep her word and not go to my hospital room. I ran into her in Itsuki’s room as she was visiting, so there was no problem there even if I were to use some far-fetched arguments. Nagase’s smiling “Hello there” made me pull a face. Was it all coincidental or planned? 

And so, I have come to the rooftop for a date with both Nagase and her sister, both my hands like red spider lilies(8). 

Itsuki was now playfully coiling around someone whom she called “Doc” bringing in laundry. It was that nurse from before. To call “doc” someone who instead of a normal greeting would sexually harass you with “What’s the color of your underwear today?” (I was the only one who was asked) showed that Itsuki didn’t have any eye for people.

Maybe that’s why she was so nice to me.

“Somewhat heartwarming, no?” Nagase muttered, squinting at the sun and protecting her forelocks from being blown into disorder by the wind. She looked like a mother watching her frolicking daughter from the shade of a tree, or a statue-like old woman on a porch lovingly caring for her grandchildren. If I were to say so, she seemed more like the former.

“Yeah.”

I replied like an old man on a porch (with the extra of either a rice cracker or a cat in his lap).

“Peaceful, isn’t it?”

Nagase was lured into the sudden aging outbreak. 

“Harmonious, yes.”

“Though it’s not like I’m having all that much fun here.”

At this pace, we would be selected for the job of characters in a folk tale.

Realizing that this was not the way to go, Nagase took a dip in the rejuvenating waters of youth.

“But you can really tell that Itsuki really likes you, Tōru,” Nagase said, keeping her eyes on Itsuki. I had no choice but to reply “Is that so?”. It seemed that I had remained as the old man.

“She’s been getting more and more scared ever since the girl in her room disappeared. Now she hardly leaves the hospital room at all.”

“Oh, so it’s more serious than I thought.”

“But she’s grown up enough to want to go outside and jump about when you are around.”

“No, no need to praise me so openly, I’ll get carried away.”

“I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about Itsuki.”

Nase cut me off in a clear demeanor. In order to keep up with those incomprehensible questions and answers, I rewound my mind back by around sixty years old. But my hunchback did not improve. 

“It’s almost too maiden-like for my own little sister to say that being with someone you love can even lessen fear.”

“Well, I get amnesia for my worries when I’m with Mayu.”

“What are you competing with me for…?” she said with a pitying look as if calling me an idiot.

It seems that I was not being respected as a man. 

“Where’s Maa-chan today?”

“She’s resting and recuperating from staying up late.”

“I see,” she replied vaguely, not addressing anyone. 

She looked in the opposite direction of me, toward the door, and then her eyeballs just flew side to side.

“Can I ask you something?”

Nagase’s demeanor changed and the habit at the end of her words(9) disappeared for a moment.

“Depends on the content.”

“That’s true,” Nagase pretended to laugh, and, “It’s about Maa-chan.”

“Confidential.”

I inexcusably cut her off. Nagase furrowed her brows in return for my angry response.

“I just want to know the whole story about what happened eight years ago.”

“That’s why it’s confidential.”

Even when requested with sincere eyes, all that arose was inevitably only confusion and refusal.

Nagase had neither right nor reason to know about it, so I had no duty to tell her. It would be more normal not to tell her. 

But Nagase would not back down. Many of the women I fell for had a character stubborn to the point of selfishness. Of course, Mayu was different, being both dangerous and selfish, truly special.

“Then… What about Sugawara-kun? Sugawara-kun, well, everyone knows that he was the town murderer, but what does that even mean?”

“I’m not friends with the student council president and I’m not an accomplice. What kind of comment do you want me to make?”

“Sugawara-kun was not the kind of boy who would do such a thing. He was kidnapped and there, something must have happened. So… tell me.”

She appealed, hanging her head down. It felt like at any moment, she could suddenly burst into tears, and start screaming and hurling irrational and furious accusations at me, the atmosphere on the verge of ignition palpable. 

I was used to dealing with such emotional upheaval. 

Because I am Maa-chan’s Mii-kun.

“Nagase,” I said, putting pressure on her name. 

Nagase’s chin rose, the forelocks framing her face, parting left and right.  

“Don’t misunderstand, it’s not that I can’t tell you, I just don’t want to. I’m not trying to be mean, but I can’t stand when people close to me try to figure out every little detail about it.”

It’s not that I want to forget. I didn’t add those words but sent them somewhere in my mind.

“Before, I was happy at how new what you told me was. That you won’t talk about it if I don’t want to. I want to put that into practice now, because it’s not only me who hated what happened, but Mayu, too.” If only I could remember.

Using those fine-quality memories I suppressed Nagase’s freedom of speech.  

Naturally, Nagase’s almond eyes gave me a thorough assessment.

“Coward.”

“I’m aware.”

That’s why I could deal with Nagase like this.

“Coward, coward, coward, coward, coward…”

Repeated verbal abuse.

Insisting that I’m unfit for anything but. 

I rubbed the bandage on my left arm and listened, trying not to miss a word.

“I’m not saying you’re an idiot, just that you are wrong, you know that, right?”

“Regardless of you being right or wrong, I think I get what you mean.”

“Then why do you look so unbothered?” Nagase pointed out as if classifying me as a different kind of animal.

I dug into my memories to find something to respond to that.

“Because my nerves are easily disconnected and easily connected. Good at fending off the pain.”

As I said it, Nagase’s tongue stilled, matching the memory.

The past was still stored inside Nagase’s head. 

And now, it all became a hotbed of awkwardness.

The change in Nagase’s mood could be read from the expression around her mouth and the way she averted her eyes.

Something broke between us and we turned our faces away from each other.

The cold playfulness of the passing gentle breeze was less objectionable.

“Tōru.”

“I’m not Tōru right now, I’m Mii-kun.”

It was a roundabout way of conveying a clear, cowardly rejection.

I watched from the corner of my eyes the shadows on Nagase’s expression without turning to look. 

Itsuki and the nurse had obtained from somewhere a bubble-making set and were freely distributing bubbles into the air. Powered by the lukewarm flow of air, the transparent spheres celebrated a few seconds of life.

As light as that soap bubble, Nagase left the bench. “I’m going home,” she indicated her intention with the shortest number of words.

Whenever we parted after spending time together, there was always “ssu” at the end of her words. 

Today, nothing followed. 

“I’ll only tell you this,” I said as if it was my last will.

“What?” Nagase said in a cold tone, turning around.  

“You think that something very peculiar has happened between us.” 

“Yes…”

“But something strange has really happened.”

Me, her, and him.

I gave her lies, lies, lies.

“…I don’t like this kind of wordplay.”

I expected Nagase’s right hand to become a clenched fist and fly at my head.

But instead, she grit her teeth and retracted her clawed hand, and Nagase was out of range 

Every time Nagase and I meet, all we get is a simmering stew of emotions, unwanted and opaque.

Nagase approached her frolicking sister, said a few words, and then made a beeline for the rooftop entrance.

Just before Nagase Tōru’s figure disappeared, I remembered the words I forgot to say before, as if they were a new thing again.

I had to tell Nagase-san something.

Triggered by Nagase’s exit from the rooftop, the nurse returned to her neglected work, and Itsuki received a tube containing the soap solution before running up to me. While doing so, she blew through the green straw, leaving behind bubbles like tire tracks. 

Itsuki was taller than me when I was sitting on the bench, approaching from the direction of my knees. “Hya, hehe,” she greeted me in a new language while holding the straw in her mouth. She was only able to use one hand right now, and with one of them holding the tube, she had difficulties handling the straw. I took the tube from her and finally, Itsuki started speaking Japanese again. 

“Where’s big sis?”

“She doesn’t want to breathe the same air as me.”

I reported on the situation with some creative liberties. Itsuki’s response was a soap bubble.

She dipped the tip of a straw into the solution and blew the bubble over my head.

The soap bubbles were lightly produced, creating an everyday fantasy around the bench.

“Did it make you feel better?”

Itsuki softly and gently asked for my opinion.

“Are you trying to comfort me?”

“Yeah.”

Just like I have done before, Itsuki stroked my hair. The liquid dripping from the straw stimulated my scalp. Even so, I couldn’t bluntly refuse what she was offering. 

During all that, the nurse packed up the massive heap of laundry and our eyes met as she was about to leave the rooftop. 

She had a bad, elderly way of smiling. “So popular,” she made fun of me with the movement of her lips. When we first came to the rooftop, she had been in a bad mood because she treated the police like intruders since they were racing around the hospital on the pretext of forcing people to investigate the outrageous crime, but she seemed to have recovered from that. 

I replied by shooking her away with a wave of my wrist. Her last chuckle made my skin crawl.

“Ah, Doc, you are so clever.”

Under some influence, Itsuki waved her hand at the nurse, an age-old greeting.

With that, the head patting ended with the tickled aftermath of a rise in body temperature.

“So you are a quirky girl who takes bubble-making sets with her, huh, Itsuki?”

“Doc gave it to me. She can pull all kinds of things out of her pockets, you know.”

That’s amazing, having a usual three-dimensional pocket.

Since the two of us were alone, Itsuki jumped on my lap. She looked up at me with a smile of superiority, “Hehehe,” deemed humorous by their devoted followers but seen as eerie laughter by the standard evaluation.

“Doc told me that she’d tell you the color of her panties in exchange.”

“…You’ll become a better adult if you don’t respect her so much.”

I was totally confused. But I’d hear her out just in case. I unplugged my ears and assumed a posture to get everything she would say.

“So, hm, aha, transparent red oxide color(10)…”

“…So, red…”

“Oh, so you are imagining it. Perverted old man.”

Teasingly Itsuki sprayed me with rainbow soap bubbles. It didn’t bring me back from the red color in my mind.

“I’m not that interested anyway.”

I fidgeted with my bangs and tried to keep up appearances. At that moment, two soap bubbles caught on my pinky and ruptured. As simple and brittle as my relationship with Nagase.

“Hey.” And so on. “Want to get lunch with me today?”

“Hm.” Mayu, I guessed, would be occupied in her dreams until past noon, based on the amount of sleep she gets on a daily basis. “Sure.”

“So, after we eat, let’s do something fun together…”

From the pitch of Itsuki’s voice, it was clear she was that proposal more than the meal.

But I had to decline.

“I’d love to invite you somewhere, but I have plans to visit a grave in the afternoon.”

Itsuki’s childlike face looked up at me as she listened to my explanation, her light-sensitive organs drooped with a question.

“Grave? Whose?”

“It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.”

Four times a year, in spring, summer, fall, and winter, I visited a cemetery facing the mountains.

The day my mother died was in winter. My father and my sister’s mother were in spring, my brother in summer, and my sister in autumn. 

Among them, my mother was the longest-standing, and she also accumulated the fewest memories.

But to think that she was the one left out was a hasty conclusion.

The real loner was my sister. She was the only one who still stayed up late at night and never went to the grave, and her body was still missing.

“Was Tōru’s mother a beauty?” Itsuki innocently asked. As if she was Mayu.

“I don’t really remember her face. She was tall, though.”

She must have been taller than my father. She was weirdly long-legged, and her behavior, personality, and speech were consistently ironed out. Even though I remember my mother as being sharp and dynamic, her facial features alone don’t surface from the depths of the past. After her death, I have seen her in photographs time and time again, but I still couldn’t put her figure down in my mind.

“Like a soap bubble…”

Even when I was able to see her real body, it was difficult to seize it. That’s how I saw her.

I was really reserved about the person that gave me my name. 

“So, she wasn’t pretty?”

Itsuki interrupted my monologue. To illustrate, by giving birth to soap bubbles.

“Maybe. But Itsuki, don’t become as pretty as a soap bubble.”

I was not sure she understood the meaning of my advice, but Itsuki accepted the teachings with “Okay.”

“So, Itsuki.”

“What’s up, perverted old man?”

To be called an “old man” by someone so innocent and pure as a high schooler, I felt the blue lines appearing on my face(11). 

I composed myself.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Removing the deception, it would be more accurate to say that I had something to ask her.

“What, what?”

“Oh, you know, after going to my hospital room.”

“Is, is it a confession?”

“I don’t hate the law that much.”

My words did not reach Isuki, who was crying out in agony as she stirred the solution with a straw. 

To have such a simple side to her, she really was Nagase’s sister. 

Once, Nagase and I walked together and polluted the air with our stupid couple’s aura. 

How could I have predicted that “once” would crystallize into sadness and bitterness?

“Since Tōru has a girlfriend, would that mean two-timing? Ahh, I’ll be called a homewrecker, ahhh…”

“Stop.” I pushed Itsuki’s pause button. 

“Uuu…” Really.

The current Nagase was somewhat more complicated than when I first got to know her. 

Was this due to a sense of distance between Nagase and I, or was it caused by something else entirely?

I couldn’t tell the two apart.

All I could do was put a stop to it all.

 

In the hospital room, there was a debilitated Watarai-san and the high-school boy, who was staring at the TV and pretending that the creature called me did not exist. The middle-aged man had set out early in the morning in search of his ideal nurse.

With her consent, I abducted the mild-mannered girl to my bed. Itsuki was like a yo-yo, dashing forward and then returning after a while. 

I let Itsuki sit on the bed to feed her wild delusions and sat down next to her. Then Itsuki rolled over and used my lap as a chair. Maybe she grew to like it on the rooftop.

“So, so? Are you going to ask about my chest size and stuff?”

A high school student looked at us, unable to ignore us.  From the futon, Watarai-san’s bloodshot eyes also gleamed dully. I have somehow roused a misunderstanding that should not have been made of me as a person.

“By the way, if you do, I’ll tell big sis.”

“Don’t do that, I’ll get my head cracked open.”

For the most part, Itsuki was around “さ” in hiragana, not just “A.” And she probably never even measured it.  

“So, are we going to talk about starting a deeper relationship?”

When did we set up a place for such an agreement? Recent events have been affecting the ups and downs of her spirit too much.

“I’m really sorry, but there are too many obstacles to deepen our relationship to the level of an air-raid shelter as you are right now.”

“A national conspiracy?”

Conspiracy or not, exactly right.

“Let’s talk about this again if after five years we won’t grow apart.”

“Eh? But Doc said that as long as you have money, the age difference won’t be a problem.”

“The age difference itself isn’t a problem, but the base number is.”

 If it was about someone at sixty-two and seventy, it would be “How vigorous,” but with eighteen and ten years old, it would be more like “Mr. Policeman, right there.”

At my calm denial based on the Japanese Constitution, Itsuki’s mood slightly turned for the better, and she reached for the soap bubble set that was standing on the side table.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Impatient. Seems like I have a tendency to play too much before getting down to business. I swore to myself to reflect on that.

“I want to ask about Nawa Mitsuaki.”

Kazuki’s eyelids were activated and his other organs were left behind, as if she had never thought that name would come up.

“I thought it was ‘Yobai.(12)’”

“You should not use the words that that nurse taught you with other Japanese people.”

I had played my part in nurturing this child’s healthy future. Itsuki, who would never honestly accept that, said, “Hmph,” and with a sulking expression started decorating the room with soap bubbles. There, there.

“You know, I’m dating a girl who is 18 years old. I can’t flirt with anyone else, right?”

I was not sure what I was explaining to a ten-year-old, and the onlooker’s gaze sent chills down my spine, so I stuck to the subject.

“Fuu.”

Blowing, blowing, flying, flying, a swarm of bubbles. 

I discovered that the expression on my face when I stubbornly asserted my own will, my heart twisted, strongly resembled my sister.

But the method of correcting the twisting of the mood could be used on the sister of a year ago, not on the current one.

Better to avoid actions that could lead to misunderstandings.

Between the Ikeda siblings, the younger sister Kyoko was far more mature, even though she was two zodiac animals behind(13). The speed at which the mind grows is determined by the environment, just like plants. The way she and Itsuki spoke and acted differed.

“Itsuki, do you know why Nawa Mitsukai disappeared?”

Regardless of her state, I brought up the matter.

Itsuki held the straw in her mouth, put her finger on the edge of her lips, and tilted her head to express her disapproval like in a drama.

Seems like I caught her.

“When we talked yesterday, you said you’d be glad if the culprit was caught. At that time, I hadn’t yet considered the possibility of someone else being involved in Nawa Mitsuaki’s disappearance, that is, the culprit. I hope I’m wrong, but I hoped that you would know something about that ‘culprit.’”

Without a word, Itsuki put the tube and straw on the shelf. The bubble troupe collided with the identically transparent window, the group unfortunately meeting their end. If I were a poet, I’d probably blurt out something like, “It’s just like my existence” or something at that scene. 

“Did I say something like this?”

Itsuki didn’t seem upset or behave awkwardly, but rather, she responded cheerfully.

It was too gentle of a tone for this conversation.

“No, if you don’t remember then it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh? If you’d like, what about rewinding back?”

Itsuki Nagase was the kind of person without even a hint of malice.

If she stays calm, doesn’t cause trouble, and doesn’t stumble, she will become a high-quality person in the future.

But we were still in the past.

“But, Itsuki, when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you have a roommate accompanying you, don’t you?”

“I’m not a scaredy cat!”

She stupidly protested. “Right,” I calmed her down and proceeded to the next question.

“Did Nawa Mitsuaki do that for you too?”

“Yeah.”

“Was she a normal person?”

“Well, um…”

“Did she send you to buy yakisoba buns?”

“Huh?”

The tilt of her head made me realize the generation gap between us.

“…Alright, that’s enough from me. Would you like to talk about something else?”

With me declaring that proposal, Itsuki perked up.

“Now, tell me all about what you like about big sis.” 

“Oh, I don’t know, like the mismatch between what’s on the inside and what’s on the outside…”

After a few moments a conversation that had some merits but took a while to take off, the door was opened with unnecessary force, and a nurse came in to distribute lunch.

The nurse’s voice was familiar, though I felt it was not good for my health to get used to it.

“Yes, yes, food! Don’t give up until you get your foie gras!”

She must have thought she was a part-time student at a restaurant because she used the tips of her fingers and arms to carry four trays.  As soon as she saw the creature on my lap, she gently relaxed her mouth.

“When’s the wedding?”

“Shut up, transparent red oxide.”

I memorized it. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after the day after tomorrow it would become useless info, the knowledge destined for the back-burner. 

Today’s menu consisted of oyakodon and onion soup with white miso. The food at that hospital was rather good in terms of taste. It was not as bad as I had expected before I was admitted – I thought I would take one bite and have to call the chef.

“Oh, where is Takenaka-san?” The nurse asked the three of us about the whereabouts of the middle-aged man.

No one was brave enough to tell her that he was on a quest searching for her ass. 

“Well, he’s not here. Is Itsuki going to be eaten by this big brother here?”

“Please get fired soon.”

“Are you going to eat?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll help myself to the chicken.”

“No, don’t, really.”

I was the only one who got the special oyakodon. The onion slices, filled with juice, served as a facsimile of the chicken.

“And, Watarai-san, are you dead? Get up.”

The nurse mercilessly peeled off the futon that was Watarai-san’s second skin.

In it was the old man, pale and bloodless, his body shriveled up like a beetle larva.

The nurse, perhaps sensing the danger of something out of the ordinary, put on her work face (so she could).

“Would you like to have a checkup at noon?”

“No, no.” Like a freshly made zombie, he made an effort to bend his stiff body up.

The nurse watched attentively with her fingers on her temples but respected the patient’s wishes.

“If you’re not going to eat the food, give it to someone else.”

Till the end, the nurse advised against leaving any leftovers.

But still.

Nagase Tōru and Nagase Itsuki.

It seemed that both sisters were bad at lying. 

Just like me.

“Hmm, the chicken tastes slightly like soap bubbles. Bleh!”

“It’s because you sucked on the wrong straw.”

The only difference between us was that I was a habitual offender.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to see you off?”

I asked (or was forced to ask) Itsuki after we took a break after our meal.

“Yeah, my house is close-ssu.”

Itsuki put on a rosy-cheeked act and headed out in high spirits. I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, even though I was quite shameless, that Nagase passed on such a thing to his sister. 

“Where is my goodbye kiss?”

Every word of that was wrong. I wanted to vomit my soul out of my mouth and run away.

“I can’t go home until we let go of our hands… But I don’t want to go home yet.”

Not holding hands! Leave at the speed of sound!

“This, that, are we doing this ‘you’re not returning home tonight’ thing? In a park or a field…”

Don’t imitate it even with the buildup! That, that…

“…Give me a break.”

The fourth-grader has fallen. Itsuki was elated with her own misuse of “Yes, what?”

If I was cross-dressing as Yamato Nadeshiko, I’d bite off my tongue in shame(14). 

“Joking aside, why didn’t you ask that nurse to accompany you?”

If I called her, she was likely to appear instantly from around the stain on the wall.

“I can handle it during the daytime, don’t treat me like a kid.”

Full of resentment, Itsuki ran to the door of the hospital room. Opening the door, she said calmly, “See you later,” flew out and disappeared into the hallway.

“Hey.”

At the same time, there was a strong voice, standing against the age of the speaker.

Watarai-san half-creeped from his futon like a snail and approached me.

“What did you just say?”

“Excuse me? It’s not like I was trying to make a trial run of a marriage scam.”

“Something about whether that girl has heard anything about the culprit,” Watarai-san spoke with effort.

Seems like I caught one more person.

Heavily breathing, Watarai-san interrogated me.

Well, it seems like his health has returned. Talking to Itsuki here was worth the trouble after all.  

“I was just curious.”

“Don’t ramble on and answer the question.”

Most of his body was ejected from the futon.

Sticking closely to me, was a stand-out old man with yellow dental plaque.

The high-school student was out at the store. The two of us, the hated two, were alone. 

“You are not hearing-impaired, right, sir? You could hear what we were saying.”

“Yes, my ears are still working. Now then, tell me.”

“I have no reason to. It has nothing to do with Watarai-san.”

“It has,” he simply declared.

“Something to do with who, Nawa Mitsuaki or Nagase Itsuki?”

“…with Nagase Itsuki.”

With a blowing aura of authority, the abashed mouth of Watarai-san.

“What kind of business do you have with her?”

 In response to my question, Watarai-san was reluctant to reply. Maybe it was an abuse of the elderly at this point – the counterattack did not come.

“If you don’t want to tell me, then I’ll excuse myself. I have some things to do.”

“Wait.”

In response to my rushing and prodding, he exploded with a statement. 

“That girl, Nagase Itsuki, is my granddaughter.”

Something exploded inside my eyes.

My brain got stimulated and went wild. 

It was an unexpected turn of events, like being attacked head-on by a vengeful spirit.

“So, the surname Nagase…”

“It’s a surname from the mother’s side. When they got married, my son had a fight with me, he didn’t want to have the same last name as me, so he used his wife’s. That’s why it’s different.”

“…”

Nagase’s. Itsuki’s.

Blood relation. Granddaughter, grandfather.

So, in other words… It’s so-called…

Turns out the fishing line I cast ended up catching something different.

“Are you playing dumb?”

“No… so that means that Watarai-san is a man of great taste, I think.”

“Huh?”

The old man, apparently lacking in the main constituent of bones, seems to find even the lightest of puns irritating.

“But Itsuki and Nagase don’t care about you at all, do they?”

I was afraid to misspeak by going straight to the point, but I didn’t want to do this halfway and ended up finishing the sentence.

Watarai-san’s response was tinged with loneliness.

“I didn’t introduce myself when we met face to face, so they don’t know about me.”

“Ah…” Right, Nagase told me about the past… “So that’s it…”

“But it is hard for grandparents to be indifferent to their grandchildren, you know.”

Watarai-san’s opinion was deeply felt and tempered through the years. 

It reminded me of Mayu’s grandparents, somehow.

Seeing me not charmed by his sentimentality, Watarai-san looked as if he was about to tighten his grip on me and asked me a question with spit flying from his mouth.

“Don’t get my grandchildren into trouble.”

“I won’t. But I made a promise. I promised I would find Nawa Mitsuaki.”

“What are you, a police officer?”

“No, I’m just someone who, if I’m not mistaken, could be calling you a granddad-in-law.”

I still couldn’t put the possibility of the younger sister in the past tense. Suddenly, I was a playful kid getting on the nerves of an old man, my tongue leaving its post and picking through the buffet of words in my mind.

“I see, I see, I see, you and Tōru…” He smacked his lips at the end of his words.

“Le, well, we have an awkward relationship right now.”

I was about to say we have a lewd and awkward relationship(15). Luckily my tongue took a break.

Either he withstood this like a tree and lost his malice, or he had been poisoned by my venom and lost the will to argue in his soul.

After that moment of uncharacteristic excitement for someone elderly, he retreated back to his own place of residence.

“You care about your grandchildren even without interacting with them.”

“My own kid became a parent. I was moved by the time, reminding me of my first child. Such sentimentality helps you push on. That’s why old men think that having grandkids is a good thing.”

Watarai-san became a storyteller, softly recounting the course of life.

I unintentionally turned into a listener. Looking for an opening.

“That’s why, while I think that it’s a tragedy that the girl was killed, it hurts more to see the parents with their heads hung low.”

…Now.

I cut in to sow discord into the air.

“…The girl, right?”

I purposely put a break and hit the question mark.

To confirm the catch.

Watarai-san withered, with wrinkles around his eyeballs, his gaze becoming a glare.

“What?”

“No, was there a girl?”

“Ah?”

His voice was rough as if irritated.

I pointed out with a cold preface, “It’s weird. Why do you know that it’s a girl who died?”

“Why, you ask…”

“The name is Nawa Mitsuaki. Doesn’t it sound like a boy’s name(16)?”

This testimony was obviously contradictory. Pointing a finger with a snap.

Watarai-san looked both bewildered and dumbfounded at my questioning.

“She was in the same room as Itsuki, wasn’t she? It would be weird if I didn’t know.”

“Huh.” That’s true.

“And don’t you read newspapers? It was all over the news.”

Watarai-san, in a manner resembling the onset of a red tide(17), cleared away the confusion and provided an answer. 

“Ah, I understand. I didn’t look at it that way… So, next.”

“What is it now.”

“I have one more question.”

“So, what is it?”

“How do you know the girl died?”

“You…”

Then, everything but Watarai-san’s heart and blood stopped.

He seemed to have belatedly realized how carelessly he had handled the situation.

“The TV and the newspapers are still treating her as missing. There are no mentions of her being killed. So why are you implying that? You heard what I said, didn’t you? I only now said the girl was dead.”

His ears were still healthy, weren’t they? I knocked on my own ears as a sarcastic follow-up.

Watarai-san was confused. In short, the confusion in the scene changed by the moment, keeping the viewer engaged. His irises clouded, nose twitched, hands shaking aimlessly.

Eventually, the confusion converged in a single point, as if having found a way out. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. At this age, I can’t concentrate fully on what people say.”

“Is that so. Rather sad, isn’t it?”

A lie, but I put a hand on my chest and shook my head from side to side. The manner of speaking of Natsuki-san.

“Are you not interested in the well-being of the people suffering misfortune? It seems you were able to listen to my conversation with Itsuki without any problems.”

“That’s because it was about my granddaughter.”

For such a snappy reply, it made sense. I also had some confidence that I could pick up even the slightest murmur related to Mayu through ultrasound. That’s a lie, though the will was there.

“That’s true, I guess. After all, the grandchildren are the apple of one’s eye, so I’m sure they could live inside the ears, too.”

“Oh, oh, I have no idea what you mean.”

Like a dog that has had its tail released after being continuously stepped on, the stiff muscles of Watarai-san’s shoulders gradually relaxed. I inserted my words into that moment.

I rolled my tongue, feeling as if I was putting my finger in between his ribs. 

“Just one more thing.”

“Are you Columbo or something(18)…”

Watarai-san smiled weakly. As if he knew that I was an old man, too.

I wanted to scoff at myself for only being able to see things that way.

“Why do you know she was murdered?”

What happens twice happens three times.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Watarai-san’s body and face were now working solely for the sake of astonishment and admiration.

I was sure it was bad for his health.

“I didn’t once say that she was dead. I said that she died, and then that she was killed. There is no room for doubt here, is there, Watarai-san? You are too inattentive.”

Was he being inattentive, or was he treating me too lightly? 

Actually, that might be it. But now, he would more or less have to take me seriously.

“The heater in this room is set too high.”

His nose was shiny with disgusting sweat.

But did his head, with its brain cells dying, become more sluggish the more he got upset?

Since it wasn’t a slip of the tongue by Watarai-san himself, there was plenty of room for a counterargument if he just took a more defiant stance.

Natsuki-san and the doctor would not have fallen into such an interrogation in the first place. They would tell me nothing. It’s in their nature to knock down the hurdles in hurdle racing.

I wondered if Watarai-san had finally arrived at that conclusion, and he perked up like a manga protagonist when they finally made up their mind. His voice, too, has overcome its muddiness, back in business.

“Why do you know that?”

Oh, so he’s come up with that kind of a counterattack.

“I was taken aback when you said something outlandish like that. But if you are correct, then how do you know that?

Watarai-san attacked with his bloodshot eyeballs. So he wanted to say that I was the culprit, then.

Well, let’s disprove that with a lie that will leave him lost for words.

“The truth is, I have actually witnessed the crime take place.”

I stressed out that fiction with a serious face.

Watarai-san was like a picture-perfect kind, old man, so he trusted me completely. 

His noble spirit collapsed in twenty seconds.

His tongue derailed, repeatedly switching between sudden stops and slow progress.

“The crime, so, that girl, and…”

“Yes, from beginning to end, without leaving anything out. No, that was an inevitable killing, or rather, you could call it an accident, a helpless death. But from the perspective of the deceased and her family, I imagine they would feel despair not about the process but about the result.”

If I pressed too much, the thin-skinned liar would be folded in four, then a few more times, and then sent flying as a paper crane, so I used just enough to use the words as a weapon to choke out the opponent’s speech and energy.

At the department store, Natsuki-san was letting me taste that free of charge. Or maybe just the counterfeit.

Torturing the elderly with words to the point of causing physical and mental decline was something even that bully would think twice about, at most keeping the distance with a megaphone. It would be to avoid the scrutiny of the public with the discussion face to face. Ah, how evil.

“So, there’s no way I can keep my promise to Itsuki.”

I’m truly sorry about that. 

How about you, Watarai-san?

I won’t send that question Watarai-san’s way. Basing it on personal experience, I saved the draft inside my chest.

Watarai-san, seemingly exhausted, had his voice emanating from around the forehead as if the departing soul was opening its mouth just before ascending(19).

“If you knew, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“There are circumstances I can’t tell you about.”

I dressed up the bare words, “I don’t know,” with a reason and a thought.

But he didn’t know what I did. The suspicion planted in that way was identical to a tree without roots. Whether discovering a way to wither it, without the preparation, the pain would  make a heart respond to the weight.

“Well, then, I’m going to visit my mother’s grave, so I’ll see you in the evening. Take care.”

I showed the palm of my hand and waved my fingers as a goodbye.

I had a bias against the role of “it” in a game of tag, finding it hard to find it favorable, but if you understood how the game worked, you could turn it around.

Sliding across the floor on the crutches, I left the grandfather in the hospital room with insatiability and fear. 

An old man, dying alone in a countryside hospital. The sight of his back was so melancholic that you could prepare a headline in advance.

In the corridor, the tray-stacked serving trolley had not been collected yet, and she was waiting. It always seemed to have women under its thumb, but with a strange relationship where it was also the one being pushed forward.

Well, I didn’t have much to say about human relations. I bid a one-sided farewell to the trolley and put my crutches and left leg to use, heading to Mayu’s temporary lodgings. Before chatting with the friendly cab driver, I decided to take a look at Mayu’s condition. Her sleeping face was by no means like soothing mineral water, but neither was it like city rainwater nor was it muddy water gargling in the mouth. Not as tasteless as purified tap water, but rather had the mystique of the water running underground. My uncle’s family still uses well water for drinking, I think. The countryside really is great. Now let’s return to the main subject.

I digress, but I have made my decision to go see Mayu’s unconscious expression. Unconsciousness sculpted her face, somehow more conscious than when she was with me. Ah, how philosophical. 

My literary intellectual curiosity connected with that, and without assistance from aliens living in the depths of the Amazon, my sporty movement in front of the stairs came to a halt.

Perhaps because the angle of the staircase was extremely steep and the stairs themselves very long, the elevator had great popularity in this hospital. But when young people used it, the elderly were left behind looking at them with envy in their eyes. So the patients put on airs and, with the determination of members of a judo training camp, ascended and descended the stairs. I, for one, would walk down the stairs even if there wasn’t a single other patient to be seen. When I boasted about it to Natsuki-san, she asked me, “Do you like stress fractures that much(20)?” I hate them. 

Taking the stairs, I felt about thirty seconds of my life expectancy being drained away. In a hallway nearby, I succeeded in finding Mayu. She was outside her room and was throwing something out of the front window.

“…”

That something was the manga I had received (or was forced to receive) from Koubi-sensei. In Mayu’s right hand, a pair of blue-patterned scissors suitable for her cut the paper cover and the contents as she pleased and, after finishing up the chopping, instead of a pot, she threw it outside the window. Next, she forcefully pierced through the center of the manga with the blade of the scissors and opened it, starting the act of destruction. The hospital personnel with a cold attitude suitable for the winter ignored the waste of Earth’s resources and waste dumping. They were in charge of saving lives, not Mother Earth. Though that’s a lie. They simply didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that violent person.

Partly to interrupt Mayu’s work, I approached the window. Reacting to my distinctive footsteps, Mayu took a break and turned to face me. Naturally, since we were outside, she had an expression like an enjoyer of Noh theater(21). 

“Hey, good morning.”

It was early afternoon, so I probably should have used “good day(22)” as the correct way to greet her in Japanese, but Mayu had scolded me before when I greeted her like that. Because the first thing after waking up is “good morning.”

“What are you doing?”

There was no reply, so I spoke up again. The scissors opened and closed, once. 

“That isn’t Mii-kun’s, is it.”

She thrust out the palm of her hand with the remains of the manga in it. On a fragment of a page, the heroine, who lost everything below her neck due to a physical cause, was smiling and bleeding… No, that’s weird. I didn’t even need to think about how that manga was a two-color print, black and white, so why would it be colored in bright red of blood? The facts were right in front of me.

“Maa-chan, what’s with those fingers…?”

Mayu’s fingers, with a cut-off thin layer of skin and flesh with a silver blade, had become both paint and a brush. Like a kindergarten child with hangnails, deep overripe vermilion cracks run aimlessly through the fingers. Overlapping, crossing, blood and sweat tormenting the skin. In the palm of her hand, in addition to the fate and health lines, she has mutilated herself with self-inflicted wounds that could be used for palm reading. The scraps of the manga stuck to her hand with the clots of blood.

Even her dominant right hand with which she freely used the scissors was ruined to the point it could be mistaken as the site of a full-family massacre.

Mayu, however, did not complain about the pain, only investigating with her eyes the history of that get-well gift.

“Why did you cut your fingers?”

“They smelled.”

“Huh?”

“They smelled the same as that book, so I cut them too.”

“…Ah, I see.”

I responded with pure affirmation not catching up with my emotions. 

Where did that attitude from before of painstakingly cutting apples with such care go? 

Even though both of the things were red. 

Mayu always transcended my hopes and expectations with ease. 

I smelled the blood, once, and Mayu stared at me with her chin pulled back in satisfaction. 

“That’s not important. Who gave it to you? Who came? Did you meet someone?”

Mayu cross-examined me three times. On instinct, she flaunted the tip of the double-edged blade, covered with a raw red liquid. I didn’t want to die, so I decided to lie as usual.

“A friend left this, thinking I must be bored in the hospital. But that person is a scoundrel who didn’t know about Maa-chan, so I was totally bummed out.”

I cowered my shoulders with a flourish of acting and let out a sigh with a different nuance of meaning. It was not a feel-good lie, though. 

But if I were to be honest and tell her I’ve met the liar she hated so much, she would mistake me for a magnet and come with the scissors at me. Even reeking of blood, I was sure I would be yelled at by the doctors for wasting blood and needing a transfusion. 

Because my aunt also brought a set of fruit for my hospitalization, Mayu probably “devastated” that, too.

As someone with the cleanup committee’s blood in his veins, I took the initiative to clean up this mess, though that’s a lie. 

“Then it’s okay to throw it away, right?”

“Yes, but… Please use a trash can.”

I’ll have to invest some pocket money after I get discharged from the hospital to buy it again. And after that, I’ll have to get a bandage from a nurse.

“So, Maa-chan. Stay still for a second… Please stand up straight.”

Mayu obediently followed my order, turning to face me with a hunched back.

I nodded once, then let my crutches dry by the window and balanced myself on one foot.

And then, as the challenging spring and summer of high school arrived, to smooth the difficult feelings and the mood of that eccentric person (that I mistook it for a lover), I boldly embraced Mayu. I wanted to secure at least the final volume of it, suddenly wanting to paw at her leg. And I also wanted to prevent Mayu’s fingers from using any more blood paint.

In addition, I was curious to see how she would react to this kind of situation in public.

The end of Mayu’s hand placed on my back was still connected to the tool that used the principle of leverage to cut objects. It cooled my back in multiple ways, a situation that anyone would avoid like a chilly evening in the summer.

Mayu’s blood seeped from her fingers on my back, sharp and cold as metal.

Mayu sealed her eyes and mouth with her eyelids and lips, yielding herself in nonresistance.

She has not been tended to by a doctor yet – yer bandage was clumsily tied around.

…I wanted to clear away the regrets of Nawa Mitsuaki, but I also wanted to avenge Mayu’s head wound on her behalf as soon as possible. Well, though the reason is a lie.

Still, I wondered if it was thoughtless of me to leave the scissors in Mayu’s room in that precedent. 

Were the expenses and Mayu’s direct diet because of me?

“…”

Are you tired of huddling close to Mayu?

Was it Mayu’s grandfather who asked me that?

Mayu’s grandparents avoided their grandchildren.

So, after they came to visit me, they went home without seeing Mayu.

Most people would keep their distance from Mayu if they saw her inner world.

But it was precisely because she was like that that I was blessed with the opportunity to keep her all to myself. In return, I would take upon myself the role of pesticide, warding off evil.

…That being said.

It was probably more like it was I who was being monopolized. 

The troubles have ended, and in harmony, we once again became a stupid couple. 

May happiness be with us, us humble people who wish for such extremely ordinary days.

I wish I could just lie.

Let’s go to the cemetery, solve the case that’s happening right now before we get discharged from the hospital, and get the truth out there.

 

TRANSLATION NOTES

Sorry for the delay. NaNoWriMo and job hunting is taking more of my time and energy than expected. We will see how it goes, but I do want to finish translating this volume at least in full, so no worries there.

I had less time than usual to proofread, so if you see any mistakes or inconsistencies, please do point them out so I can fix them.

FOOTNOTES

1. Referring either to Koshien Stadium or Koshien baseball tournament – either way it’s about baseball.
2.  A pen name of a prolific Japanese writer of the Meiji era, appearing on a 5000 yen banknote.
3.  Japanese sweets; long, thin biscuit sticks coated in a sweet layer.
4. Lit. “Are you a master/resident of a candy house” but yeah this makes more sense
5. AFAIK this doesn’t mean anything specific in Japanese. Maybe refers to being put to work? If anyone has an idea, please enlighten me. その後に蜜蜂扱いされてから
6. 鈴虫 suzumushi. They make pretty cool sounds, kind of like cicadas, and are sometimes kept as pets.
7. Similar to Chinese red packets, on New Years the kids in the family get money from the adults.
8. Maybe referring to the fact that you are not supposed to eat them? No idea.
9. Referring to “-ssu” Nagase adds
10. Yes, this is a real shade of red.
11. Like in anime or this emoji（ﾟдﾟlll）
12. A play on yabai, a colloquial/kind of vulgar word meaning “terrible” or “cool”? Idk.
13. Chinese zodiac – that is, two animals mean two years.
14.  No idea. Yamato Nadeshiko is an ideal of Japanese beauty, but I have no clue what it means here. Maybe he’s trying to say that a proper Japanese woman would be shocked at Itsuki’s words?
15.  Org. や and やらしい
16. Yes, it is most often masculine.
17.  赤潮, actually an algal bloom
18. Reference to american detective drama Columbo, about the detective with the same name. According to Wikipedia “He often leaves a room only to return with the catchphrase ‘Just one more thing’ to ask a critical question.”
19. Like this
20. According to Wikipedia: “A stress fracture is a fatigue-induced bone fracture caused by repeated stress over time.” So she’s telling him to not overexert himself.
21. As in expressionless/like a mask? idk
22. Ohayou vs konnichiwa

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