Illustration: Takashi Sano
Characters
Natsukawa grove
The second daughter of the Natsukawa family is in her second year of high school. She is a member of the basketball club, and is loved by her schoolmates for her boyish charm. Maybe it’s because of her competitive and stubborn personality? After parting with ‘Shuu’ when she was a child, her heart still aches, and the reunion after ten years has made her lose her way. A seventeen-year-old girl who is no longer naive.
Shusaku Takanashi
In her second year of high school, she decides to stay with the Natsukawa family, who are all girls, because of her father’s overseas posting. She and Kokurin have been childhood friends since they were young, and they were in the same class when they transferred to another school. She was raised by her father since her mother passed away when she was a child. He is a seventeen year old boy who is pure and indecisive.
Sayuri Natsukawa
The eldest daughter of the Natsukawa family, she takes care of all the household chores as well as looking after her two younger sisters during the absence of both parents. She feels like a babysitter, with a gentle motherly nature and a girlish naivety and romance, but she has a very fleshy figure. A twenty-four year old woman with excellent cooking skills.
Natsunagawa Nana
She’s the younger of the three Natsukawa sisters. She’s in the first year of middle school. Because she is a younger sister, she is spoiled and arrogant. She is spoiled and arrogant, and a bit willful. As a result, she’s always in conflict with the aggressive and stubborn Golem. Although her body is not fully developed, she is a precocious young lady who is interested in boys’ affairs, and a thirteen year old girl who wants to know more about men.
summaries
Shusaku Takanashi, a high school sophomore, decides to temporarily stay at the Natsukawa family home while his father’s close friends, Mr. and Mrs. Natsukawa, happen to be out of town for the two years of his father’s overseas posting. Living over there are the fleshy eldest daughter. Sayuri, and her younger sister, who has an abnormal libido. Nana, plus the three Golem sisters who have been close since childhood. Can the innocent Shusaku really live with the three charming sisters without any problems?
CONTENTS
Prologue The Reason for My Ex-Hair
Chapter 1: Reunion
Chapter 2: The Temptation of Little Girls
Chapter 3 First Exercise
Prologue to my reasons for cutting my hair
Little Fix’s mom sadly passed away when Little Fix and I were four years old.
The cause of death was a traffic accident, on her way home from buying dinner, the truck driver dozed off and ran into the sidewalk and hit her, I heard that it seems that she was killed instantly.
Xiao Xiu was a boy of the same age who lived in my neighborhood when I was in kindergarten. Underneath his short, smooth, straight hair, I could see his tears flowing like raindrops, and I could tell that he was deeply saddened.
The To the young and ignorant man, he was completely helpless to do anything at all about his mother’s death. As for the circumstances of my first encounter with Xiao Xiu, I don’t remember them at all. If I do have any memories, it was only during those days that I stayed by his side. Xiao Xiu was born a month before me, he was born on July 8, the day after Tanabata, while I was born on August 12, three days before the anniversary of the Final War, and although he and I are not related at all, he is considered one of our family members.
My dad and Koshu’s dad have been good friends since middle school. My father was doing research on wildlife at the university, while Shuu’s father was a down-to-earth clerk at a large trading company. Although the nature of their work was very different, and they had nothing to do with each other, they were incredibly compatible, and not only were they neighbors, but the two families also kept close contact with each other.
Usually on Sunday evenings, we host Hsiu and his dad over for a nice dinner together.
Xiao Xiu’s mother’s funeral was held at a small temple at the end of our town. In the middle of June, when the rainy season is at its peak, it had been raining lightly since the morning of that day, and even though it was raining heavily, the mourners continued to arrive. Relatives of Koshu, colleagues from his father’s company, friends of his parents, and neighbors living in the neighborhood, including our family, were among the worshippers.
When the coffin was to be loaded onto the hearse for the “final goodbye”, Xiao Xiu did not cry, and my mom, holding my newborn sister, my sister who left home at the age of seven, and me, watched the scene in disbelief.
At that time, both of us had just started kindergarten, and we didn’t know much about “death”, but for Xiao Xiu, “the death of his mother” meant that he couldn’t see his favorite mom anymore.
Actually, Xiao Xiu’s mom’s funeral was quite boring for me. It was hard to gather so many people on purpose, but everyone’s mood was low, everyone was silent, even my sister, who always smiled gently, had a somber expression on her face.
The adults were all dressed in the same black outfits, moving quietly and slowly. Whenever I made the slightest bit of noise, my dad put his index finger on his bearded mouth and gave me a scary look, while my mom held my newborn sister and didn’t care about my noise at all.
Today, even though it’s not my birthday and it’s not Christmas, adults are giving small children treats full of goodies to make them well-behaved and non-noisy.
The day after the funeral, I went to play at Xiao Xiu’s house.
On this day, Hsiao Hsiu took a leave of absence from kindergarten.
He wasn’t actually sick, he just wanted a day off at home.
It’s been raining non-stop since yesterday and I went out with a bright red umbrella and yellow riding boots.
In his left hand, he carried the plastic bag with yesterday’s snacks, intending to come and comfort Shuu.
When I rang the doorbell, Xiao Xiu’s father came out to answer the door. His father had also taken the day off from work, and after struggling to squeeze a smile out of his dull face, he immediately resumed his dull expression and walked inside.
Sitting alone on a bench in the corridor, his head resting low on his hands-clasped knees, Shuu didn’t look up even when he saw me coming.
“This, for you!”
When I finished, I pulled the treats out of the bag.
“Thanks!”
After thanking him, Xiao Xiu accepted the snacks, but he didn’t look happy at all, holding his newborn sister, his sister who left home when she was seven years old, and me, and looking at the scene in disbelief.
At that time, both of us had just started kindergarten, and we didn’t know much about “death”, but for Xiao Xiu, “the death of his mother” meant that he couldn’t see his favorite mom anymore.
Actually, Xiao Xiu’s mom’s funeral was quite boring for me. It was hard to gather so many people on purpose, but everyone’s mood was low, everyone was silent, even my sister, who always smiled gently, had a somber expression on her face.
The adults were all dressed in the same black outfits, moving quietly and slowly. Whenever I made the slightest bit of noise, my dad put his index finger on his bearded mouth and gave me a scary look, while my mom held my newborn sister and didn’t care about my noise at all.
Today, even though it’s not my birthday and it’s not Christmas, adults are giving small children treats full of goodies to make them well-behaved and non-noisy.
The day after the funeral, I went to play at Xiao Xiu’s house.
On this day, Hsiao Hsiu took a leave of absence from kindergarten.
He wasn’t actually sick, he just wanted a day off at home.
It’s been raining non-stop since yesterday and I went out with a bright red umbrella and yellow riding boots.
In his left hand, he carried the plastic bag with yesterday’s snacks, intending to come and comfort Shuu.
When I rang the doorbell, Xiao Xiu’s father came out to answer the door. His father had also taken the day off from work, and after struggling to squeeze a smile out of his dull face, he immediately resumed his dull expression and walked inside.
Sitting alone on a bench in the corridor, his head resting low on his hands-clasped knees, Shuu didn’t look up even when he saw me coming.
“This, for you!”
When I finished, I pulled the treats out of the bag.
“Thanks!”
After thanking him, Shuu accepted the snacks, but didn’t look at all as happy as he used to be, and a long time passed before he heard the sliding door open and close again.
I felt someone sit down behind me, and I intuited that it was Hsiu, but I kept my head on my shoulders, gazing at the snail, my mouth continuing to lick the candy.
Hsiu just sat quietly, not saying a word, wondering if it was because of something his dad had said to him.
What was wrong with him? I don’t know. Suddenly a hand behind my back stroked my hair, while I still pretended I didn’t care, still looking at snails and eating candy.
I was too young to realize things like heterosexual contact.
At that moment, I felt a gentle tug on my hair and turned to try to look back.
“Ah, don’t move!”
“Yeah?”
I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing.
Shuu worked my hair slowly and gently.
“Well, it’s done!”
Koshu braided my hair into a long braid that even managed to hang down from my right shoulder to the front.
“Woohoo!”
My mouth opened as wide as a plate while my eyes went so wide it was as if magic had appeared in my hair braid.
“It’s beautiful! Just like my sister…”
My sister, who was in the sixth grade, often wore her hair in a very large braid.
It was so delightful to become like my sister that I wanted to see the full braid and thus kept turning my head back.
But no matter how desperately I turned around, I couldn’t see the back of my head. The result was like a puppy chasing its own tail in circles, but just as I was shaking my braids to get a better look, the front of the three braids that I had managed to braid with great difficulty came undone.
“Ah, no, that would…”
Shuu took the rubber band that had originally tied the chocolate box from the bag of treats and proceeded to carefully tie the end of the hair braid.
I played with the knots in my braid.
“Shuu, why do you do these things?”
“My mom taught me…”
An unintentional sentence once again evoked a memory. Thinking of the mom that he will never see again, Xiao Xiu lowered his head and was silent, and when I saw him like this, I didn’t dare to continue to ask.
“┅”
“┅”
The rain seemed to intensify by this time, but we both remained silent.
Xiao Xiu’s mom is a beauty, isn’t she?
True to the saying that “red faces have thin lives,” his mother had crystal clear snow-white skin and flowing, shiny hair.
Xiao Xiu’s mother’s waist-length hair, no matter what time of the day, looked as if it had been freshly washed, soft and shiny, and I think it could be described as “black wet feathers” as they say in classical lectures!
“Mom taught me…”
When I heard those words, in my mind’s eye, I saw Hsiao Hsiu’s mother carefully teaching him how to braid three strands of hair, using her beautiful hair as a textbook.
Perhaps because Hsiu’s mom has prettier hair than I do, she must be able to weave prettier braids than I do.
Suddenly, I had what I call jealous feelings.
I want to be the most important person to Hsiao Hsiu.
Gazing at Xiao Xiu’s gloomy side face, in my young mind, I actually unconsciously sprouted that kind of thought.
Xiao Xiu, who hadn’t been able to get up the energy for a long time, as the days passed by, one day, two days, three days, ten days, one month, and so on, his mood finally became more and more cheerful.
Ever since that day when Xiao Xiu helped me braid my hair, I would beg Xiao Xiu to braid my hair every day, and after about a month and a half or so, this matter was as commonplace to the two of us as it was to our families, and it was already a kind of tacit understanding with each other.
In the neighborhood, since there were no other children of similar age, Hsiu and I roamed together as a pair, no matter what time of day it was. When the weather was nice, we went to the temple near my house. Behind the temple, through the thick grassy forest and up a small, steeply sloping slope, was the square we often visited. It was a secret place surrounded by thick trees and invisible from the outside, making it an excellent hiding place. Needless to say, this was something that only Shuu and I knew about. The square was about eight tatami mats wide, and there were suitable rocks to sit on if you moved slightly from the center.
Coming this way was a secret pact between the two of us. Usually I sat on the rocks while Hsiu stood behind me and braided my hair, and in the secret place that belonged to him and me, we played until late in the evening every day.
After playing enough, I would always come home with a dirty me and would shower with my sister before dinner.
“Come take a shower!”
My sister would always call out to me from downstairs while I stayed in my own room on the second floor, undoing the knots in one braid of hair after another as I thought back on all the happy things that had happened with Shuu today.
What do I play with Xiao Xiu? What did I say to Hsiao Hsiu? With Hsiao Hsiu… with Hsiao Hsiu… with Hsiao Hsiu.
Just the thought of being with Hsiao Hsiu keeps that whole day very pleasant for me.
Whenever I went out to play, I used to wear my hair loose and long, but when I came back at night, my hair was in braids, and my family was very curious because of the complete change in my hairstyle.
Initially my father and mother thought that I had begged my sister to make it up for me, and when they asked her about it at dinner, she denied it in a very gentle tone.
“No, not me!”
So, who is it? Despite the fact that they kept asking me, I still refused to reveal it, and my inquisitive mom, exchanged the secret of the braid with me in exchange for a handmade pudding, but I remained tight-lipped and not the least bit fazed by it. Because this secret is not my secret alone, but an important agreement shared by the two of us, Xiao Xiu and I, I will never tell. Even if I exchange it with something like pudding, it’s still not worth it, and I have no reason to divulge it!
Because they didn’t do anything else bad, my parents didn’t ask any further questions, and the secret of the braid was kept that way, and Xiao Xiu and I continued to live a smooth life as usual.
If there’s one thing that’s changed in this period, it’s that my braids have grown to two, and my knots have gotten thinner. I suggested this to Shuu for two reasons: firstly, I was getting a bit bored with the same old braids, and secondly, if the knots were thin, it would be a lot of work to braid my hair, and it would take longer for my heart to flutter.
Yes, I would be so shy that my heart would flutter, because when I braided my hair, Hsiao Hsiu’s fingertips would touch my neck, and such a small skin-to-skin kiss would make my heart poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof.
Just like this, with the change of seasons, without realizing it, it is surprising that a year has already passed.
With the one-year anniversary of Hsiao Hsiu’s mom’s death and the end of the rainy season, what followed was a scorching hot summer. Little has changed much about my day-to-day life with Little Xiu, other than the fact that he turned six a few days earlier than I did.
August, the height of the summer period.
The woods surrounding the secret place were alive with the sound of cicadas chirping from time to time. I basked in the pleasant scenery of this quiet summer afternoon, sitting on the rock as usual, waiting for Xiao Xiu to braid my hair.
With skillful movements, Shuu split my hair in two and grabbed it for the job of weaving.
Over the course of the year, probably because he continued to braid my hair every day, Shuu has been able to braid three bunches of hair very quickly and beautifully. When I wanted to think that a little slower would be better, two braids were already done.
“Well, it’s done!”
From this side to the ends of the hair, it’s a little different than it used to be.
Koshu took about two braids that were braided and draped them down the front of my shoulders.
What’s that? It’s strange… I straightened the hair that was hanging down from my shoulders to my chest, and when I looked closely, I saw that it wasn’t the usual rubber bands, but two pieces of red plastic jade attached to it.
“Is this…?”
I gripped the front of my braid with my fingers and looked at Shuu’s face as he stood behind me.
Xiao Xiu blushed sheepishly.
“This, for you!”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Isn’t it your birthday?”
The day was-August 12, indeed, my sixth birthday.
Is this Shuu’s birthday present to me?
Shuu asked in a wary voice while peering at my face that looked dazed from being so happy.
“Don’t like it?”
“No, nothing like that.”
I shook my head in panic, my braid bobbing along with me.
“It’s really… it’s really a pleasure.”
It’s a gift from Hsiao Hsiu!
Up to now, this has been a greater joy than any gift I’ve ever received from my dad, my mom, or my grandma in the country. More than anything else, this is my most precious, most precious treasure.
I really feel happy thinking about it.
You can sleep as much as you want, have plenty to eat, and play every day, plus Xiao Xiu is always with you.
I think if it could be like this forever, every day would be a happy day.
But as fall was approaching, Hsiao Shu told me something… One day in mid-October, when we were tired of playing and were about to say goodbye, Hsiao Shu said, “I’m going to move soon…”
“Moving? Moving to which side?”
“Northeast place.”
“That place, is it far?”
“Well, there’s no way to get there without taking the Shinkansen.”
There’s no way to get there without taking the Shinkansen?
That place was far more than I could have imagined for me at the time.
“So, when will you be back?”
Koshu’s eyes didn’t look at me, only merely saying, “I don’t know.”
“When you say you don’t know, then it’s a sign that maybe there’s never going to be a come back again maybe lo?”
Hsiu averted his face and nodded his head softly.
It may or may not have never come back.
Tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? No matter how long it takes, for me who was expecting an answer, I became bewildered by the shock.
“It’s leaving Sunday morning.”
Today is already Thursday, and if it’s Sunday, it’ll be three days from now. And if we leave in the morning, then the only time left to play with Koshu is tomorrow and the day after. Why didn’t you tell me about such a big event earlier? I felt very sorry and sad in my heart.
“Xiao Xiu is about to leave? To go to a place that I don’t know how far away it is and never come back!”
Xiao Xiu is… leaving… As soon as I thought that I would never see him again, tears involuntarily flowed down my face.
The flustered Xiao Shuu looked at me with red eyes and coaxed me, saying, “Ah! By the way, I have brought something good today.”
“Good stuff?”
“Eh!”
From the pocket of his shorts, Koshu took out the small box wrapped in purple cloth and opened the lid to me.
“Look, this…”
Inside the locket was a ring. The silver-colored ring was adorned with a very small diamond, a gemstone the size of a grain of rice that shone brightly like a star falling to the ground under the light of the setting sun.
The ring, that wasn’t a toy like a cookie or something that was given away, it was a real ring.
“Wow…”
As if I’d forgotten about the crying I’d just done, I looked closely at the ring.
“This one, what’s it for?”
“This is a souvenir from mom…”
A lonely expression flashed across Hsiu’s face when he finished.
“It’s a ‘souvenir’?”
I asked in surprise.
“Actually, I’m not really sure, it seems like it’s meant to be kept rather than forgetting someone who has passed away!”
Koshu nodded and explained with me.
“Uh…”
In fact, I still have no idea what a “souvenir” is.
“This is something very… very important that was taken from Dad’s side on the day of the funeral.”
Was showing me something that important before parting intended for me, as a memento of the memories of the two of us? Or maybe I was conveying some special meaning to Shuu as more than just a friend.
But I didn’t think too much about it, I just kept gazing at the pretty ring.
“Does Dai Dai look good?”
Hearing that, a light quickly spread across my face.
“Yeah!”
After hearing my answer, Xiao Xiu took out the ring from the small box and tried to put it on the middle finger of my right hand. Suddenly, an inexplicable, sweet and sour feeling came over me, and I became very “excited” inside.
“Ah! Shuu, this is for the wedding!”
“Huh?”
“Because if the boy himself puts the ring on the girl, it means he must marry her! So you can’t not marry me, Shuu!”
“Yeah!”
Koshu listened in a bit of a panic.
“Shuu, do you hate me?”
“Nothing like that…”
To the stammering Koshu, I still talked to myself.
“Then… marry me?”
“Yeah? Uh…”
“Whoa!”
After I had forcibly decided to marry Shuu, I was completely absorbed in the pleasant atmosphere of “newlyweds”. I moved my body closer to Shuu, and he didn’t seem to hate this feeling and didn’t object.
Gradually the time came when we had to go back, because the time passed with both of us discussing things like ‘going to the prettiest backcountry on our wedding trip’ or ‘living in a wide, low-lying garden and keeping a big, majestic dog’ and so on.
I don’t know when, but it’s already dark and starting to get a little cooler, so mom should be worried by now! And I’m hungry, so I have to go home soon.
“It’s gotten so dark! If we don’t go home soon…”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Koshu stood up from the rock.
Still, I sat down and took off the ring on my right middle finger and slowly wrapped it up.
I don’t want to return this ring… yet.
Because I don’t want to lose the proof that I’m married to Hsiao Hsiu.
If I wear this ring, I’ll be Shuu’s bride. So if possible, I’d like to wear it like this all the time. I’ve always wanted to be Shuu’s bride.
But Xiao Xiu was going to a far and unknown place in three days, and then there would be no way to continue to be with him after that.
So I asked Shuu, “Shuu, can I borrow this ring today?”
“No, I can’t, because that’s something very important…”
Hsiao Hsiu didn’t agree.
“Please, just for one day. I’ll pay you back tomorrow…”
My ring-clad hands pleaded with hands folded in front of him.
“But…”
“Please!”
Xiao Xiu hesitated for a long time to respond to my pleas, but finally he couldn’t take it anymore and reluctantly said, “Then it’s only for one day…”
“Can I borrow it?”
“You can never replace the ring with anything else oh!”
“Eh!”
I nodded vigorously after I replied happily.
“Bye!”
“Bye, see you tomorrow!”
After saying goodbye to my little monk in the temple courtyard, I walked home in high spirits.
“Why are you so slow today? I can’t believe I didn’t get home before dark…”
After receiving a scolding from my mother, who was preparing dinner in the kitchen, I ran to my room on the second floor with my right hand in the pocket of my dress, as if the fact that I was wearing a ring hadn’t been discovered. I sat on the end of my bed, forgetting to undo my braid, and just stared at the diamond on my ring.
That night, I was surprised to lose sleep because I was so preoccupied with the ring.
Before going to bed, I wanted to see it again….
I couldn’t help myself, so I turned on the lamp and quietly took the ring out of the little box I had hidden under the toy box, and put it on my right middle finger, just as Shuu had done for me. The diamonds on the ring reflected the orange light of the lamp, which was quite different from the glow I saw at sunset or under fluorescent lights.
Lying on the bed, I gazed at the ring that was the evidence of my marriage to Xiao Xiu, and carefully recalled the little moments that I had spent with Xiao Xiu.
If Sunday comes, Hsiao Hsiu is going far away, to a place I know nothing about, and far, far away, and may never come back.
Such words are really annoying. I really hope they can’t move or try to keep Xiao Xiu… what… what’s the best way to do it?
This ring is important to him.
But what happens if the ring is missing?
No, it’s too important to go missing, just hide it. In that case, everyone would stay and look for it, and they wouldn’t be able to make the trip! The move would naturally be postponed….
Quite a feasible way that things should work out, and with this strong idea, it slowly became apparent to me that the idea was bound to work.
Uh-huh! Let’s hide this ring! Not for a long time, of course. Just a short time.
Of course, if it’s possible, it would be nice to be like this all the time ah….
Once the “solution” to keep the little fix was established, my imagination began to take wing in a good direction.
I’m sorry about Shuu’s dad, but maybe he’ll go to Tohoku alone! Xiao Xiu and his deceased mother might have thought that Xiao Xiu’s father would be lonely on his own, but Xiao Xiu’s father was already an adult, so even a little bit of loneliness shouldn’t have mattered!
But if once I don’t have Xiao Xiu beside me, it will have a great deal to do with it, I will definitely become so lonely and forlorn that even my favorite pudding will not want to eat it anymore.
Besides, it’s not a good thing to separate two people after marriage, so after a while, I’ll explain to everyone about marrying Xiao Xiu.
What would Dad and Mom say? Would they object because I’m still too young?
Well, I don’t think so. Dad and mom always say that Xiao Xiu is a good boy. So if the other person is Xiao Xiu, they should be in favor of it, and my sister wouldn’t be against it either, right? She and I have a good relationship, so she should support me. As for my sister… she’s still too young, so there’s no need to ask her.
Many people were invited to the wedding ceremony: my friends, my kindergarten teacher, my grandmother from the countryside, my uncle from the bakery, the letter carrier, my brother who delivered the newspaper, my grandfather who always petted the puppy on his walks, and my sister’s friend, Kenichi-kun, who often came over to our house….
After the marriage ceremony, Xiao Xiu and I became officially married. So, of course, Hsiao Hsiu and I will live together.
It was so wonderful to live with Koshu! This way we can go to kindergarten together, eat together, bathe together, sleep together… every day.
Thinking about it, in my half-asleep state, I involuntarily laughed wildly ‘heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh…’.
So that’s how I slowly drifted off to sleep while dreaming beautiful dreams of my new married life with Shuu.
I probably went to bed too late that night, and the next morning I woke up later than usual until my mom came to wake me up.
“You’ll be in elementary school next year and won’t be able to take care of yourself yet.”
I rubbed my sleepy eyes and slowly crawled out of the warmth of the blanket while listening to my mom’s whispered scolding.
That day when Xiao Xiu announced his impending move at the kindergarten, many girls cried when he said his goodbye words in front of everyone, but I was not at all indifferent. Because I was very confident in the “Battle Plan to Keep Shuu” that I had drawn up in bed last night.
As soon as I got home, I changed my light blue school uniform into loungewear and headed straight to my usual place, where Xiao Xiu had already arrived first, and as if he was very uneasy, he stretched out his hand as soon as he saw me and said, “Give me back my ring!”
I didn’t dare to raise my head to gaze at Xiao Xiu, because the thought that from now on, I would have to lie to my favorite person, so I felt a lot of pain inside. If I told the lie that I had proposed last night, I would definitely suffer a condemnation from my conscience, but I had no other choice, I didn’t want Xiao Xiu to leave me, finally I encouraged the courage to say.
“I’m sorry! The ring is missing…”
When I told Hsiu this, his reaction was intense and completely unexpected.
“Gone!”
Shuu, who had never been so angry, pressed me with an agitated voice.
I was terrified and fidgety at his angry tone.
“No, it’s not like that, it’s not lost, just can’t be found…”
“How come, don’t you wear them all the time?”
“I…”
I was speechless for a moment, but I said, “It’s gone now, but it’s okay. If you look for it… if you look for it, you’ll find it.”
“Then we’ll get right on it.”
As soon as Xiao Xiu finished speaking, he turned around and prepared to leave.
“This… this won’t do!”
I hastily opened my mouth to stop it.
Because if I did, I wouldn’t even know why I lied about the missing ring in the first place.
“Is it really lost?”
At his rebuke, my whole body froze and was speechless.
“No… no…”
“What’s wrong with that? That’s a very important thing! Didn’t you say it would never go missing? But…”
Shusaku accused excitedly.
“So… so, if you look for it, you can find it!”
Being scolded by Shusaku like that, I stammered in fear and couldn’t speak.
“Then go and find it at once! Go and find it for me at once!”
What can I say? I can’t say I’m hiding in my house, I really don’t know, I really want to cry!
“Didn’t you say you’d never lose it? Because of that I lent it to you, but… you were so… so bad!”
I didn’t expect to be scolded so harshly by Xiao Xiu, and at this point, I’m a little bit at a loss for words.
“It can’t be helped that the ring is missing!”
From the start, Hsiu had been glaring at me.
“You can’t say that! It’s because you promised you wouldn’t lose it that I lent it to you…”
“I know this one!”
“So why did you lose it? That… that ring was a memento of mom’s, and it’s something very important to me!”
I guess Hsiao Hsiu liked his deceased mom more than the living me!
In the midst of the constant arguments with Hsiao Hsiu, a fire of jealousy burned inside me.
Suddenly, I actually said something I couldn’t even believe.
“Why do you have to… keep saying, saying things like mom, mom’s… stupid.”
Oops! Said something I shouldn’t have, and now it’s too late to regret it.
“Stupid!”
After Xiao Xiu finished speaking angrily, he ran away from my back in a huff.
“Ah, wait!”
Though I immediately regretted it and opened my mouth to call out to him, trying to stop it, I couldn’t stop it in time before Koshu’s figure disappeared in the woods.
The following day-Saturday, Xiao Xiu took a leave of absence from the kindergarten, and was told that he had to prepare for the move.
I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t say “sorry” to Shuu for his unexpected absence.
I was so upset and anxious that whole day that I was not even interested in playing my favorite game.
After having lunch at home with my mom, I immediately ran to my usual place. And hid that ring in the pocket of my skirt, originally intending to apologize to Shuu and return the ring on the way.
But when I came up for air and ran to the secret place, there was no sign of Hsiu.
Come too soon?
I birthed myself on a rock in the center of the square and waited for him in silence. But by the time my sweat had dried up, I still hadn’t seen Hsiu.
Gradually it was already time for an afternoon snack, but still Shuu had not appeared.
Suddenly, a disturbing thought crossed my mind, but I immediately and hastily dismissed those thoughts.
I don’t think so! This is my last chance to hang out with Shuu. So he must come and meet me. Xiao Xiu may be a bit angry because of what happened yesterday, but he can’t just not come, he must come… he must come.
The wait just went by minute by minute.
The days were short in the fall, the sun was quickly slanting west, and I began to feel more restless. In the midst of the restlessness, I sat, stood, and peered into the backyard of the temple at one time or another, but still none of the little fixes came.
Foolish Koshu. Foolish, foolish, foolish! Why don’t you come yet?
The waiting mood gradually changed from anxiety and anger to prayer.
Come on… come on! Because I want to apologize to Hsiao Hsiu.
Slowly it was getting to the point where if he didn’t come home he would be scolded by his mom, and still Shuu hadn’t shown up.
But I kept waiting, and after this, a few more hours passed.
The surroundings had completely darkened, and it was hard for me to come to a conclusion that… Xiao Xiu would not come!
My unbraided hair, made to fly by the chilly fall winds, fluttered incessantly in the wind.
Xiao Xiu must still be angry, which is very scary….
Unbearable grief welled up in his heart, and tears could not help but come to his eyes.
It’s all my… It’s all my fault for making jokes about the missing ring, and for saying things I shouldn’t have said, thus making Xiao Xiu hate me.
I stood alone in the center of the square, my sadness and despair causing me to cry constantly.
By the time I got home, it was well past seven in the evening.
I was severely reprimanded by my mom, but for my part, I was silent and said nothing.
Ignoring my mother’s incessant questions, I silently walked back to my room and sat on my bed in silence.
That night, I cut my long hair short myself.
I sat alone on my bed, sobbing as I used scissors to cut the long, waist-length hair behind me.
I didn’t expect to part with my favorite Xiao Xiu in such a way, it was unbearable.
Xiao Xiu has always been very gentle with me, even though he can tolerate whatever I say, but this does not include the lies I told him. However, I betrayed Xiao Xiu who treated me so gently.
There was no way to return to those happy days with Hsiao Hsiu.
As long as the long hair that Hsiao Hsiu had once braided for me fluttered in the wind, I would surely recall all the things that Hsiao Hsiu had done again.
It was better to cut my hair short for fear that the thoughts that welled up would be too much for me.
The result of hurting my favorite person in the fall of the year I was six was that I used my own hand to cut off the memories of my relationship with Shuu, as well as the ring I left on my hand as an exchange.
Chapter 1: Reunion
“Uh… ooh… wahhh!”
The young girl suddenly shrieked in a nightmare that felt like she was being ghosted, and then woke up.
Here was the bed in his own room, the sparrows could be heard chirping through the window, and the crisp early October sunrise shot through the gap in the curtains.
“That’s…”
Because of the sudden change of scene, for a moment, the young girl was at a loss for words.
Is it a dream…
The young girl-Natsukawa Korin knew that she had just caused herself so much pain because of a dream, and she couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.
Golem, a sophomore who had celebrated her seventeenth birthday only two months ago, half-sat up in bed and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with her hand.
So it was a dream, and I actually saw…
His expression was still grim since he had just woken up from a nightmare.
Her hair was cut so short and short that it could even be mistaken for a boy’s, parted in the middle from slightly to the right of center, but she woke up from a nap with her hair all messed up throughout.
She was wearing a unisex nightgown with green vertical stripes. The nightgown seemed to be a little too big, with the cuffs folded back about ten centimeters so that the white lining was visible.
It’s already the season where there’s a big difference in temperature between morning and evening, and it’s a little cooler in the early morning, but Golem still breaks out in a cold sweat. Her pajamas were sticking to her back because of the sweat, so she felt uncomfortable. Her hand gently patted her poofing heart.
The front of the pajamas looked almost indistinguishable from the back, and the most mediocre thing about middle school was facing the bottleneck of pubertal development, but lately Golem seemed to have died and given up entirely.
“Ugh! Why is it always that bony!”
In fact, girls her age secretly envied her because of her slimness, Golem wasn’t happy with her figure at all, and even wondered if it was because of her short, boyish hair. She couldn’t actually figure it out herself. She actually received quite a lot of chocolates for Valentine’s Day this year!
As is also evident from her love of basketball, the matter of upper body dysplasia in no way distresses her. But her small face makes her look younger than she really is.
It’s been several minutes since I woke up, but the feeling surging inside me never calms down.
Why did you have this dream again?
The season of the year just happens to be this time of year.
The exhaustion of waiting in the temple with obsession.
The little fix that never came.
The setting sun in the west, the darkening sky, the icy autumn wind.
Long hair swayed with the breeze and tears welled up involuntarily.
That night, in his room, while crying, he cut his hair short.
It had been ten years ago, but it was as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
Golem reached out to the back of his head to stroke the slender neck. The long hair that had reached his back as a child was now gone.
The sadness that had settled in the depths of my memory was now slowly coming to the surface of my consciousness.
Hair that had been cut off flew all over the place, and tears of agony flowed down in a torrent.
All the memories with Shuu and the sound of the scissors cutting his hair at that time kept ringing in his ears without being able to forget it.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch….
After I started elementary school, I had many such scenes in my dreams. There were also several times when I was shaken awake by my mother and sister from a horrible nightmare.
But as each year passes, the number of nightmares becomes less and less, and lately it has almost completely disappeared. Is it because I have a fever and a cold that I’m dreaming again?
Isn’t the morning basketball practice test coming up already?
Goering thought of something vaguely for quite some time after she woke up, but when she looked at the bedside alarm clock…
“！”
Golem’s sleepy eyes immediately opened so wide.
The alarm was set to go off at 7:30, but the clock hand had now gone to eight.
Oops! It’s late!
“Ah! There’s no more time…”
With a shrill cry, Goering bounced out of his quilt and hurriedly darted out of his room, rushing downstairs in a single breath.
Da, da, da, da!
The voice came from Sayuri’s sister who was washing dishes in the kitchen.
Sayuri is seven years older than Golem and is twenty-four this year.
Her hair was organized into a bundle at the base of her neck, loosely braided into three strands from root to tip.
There were three hair knots and she tied the ends of the braids with rubber bands.
Sister was wearing a white blouse with a double-breasted sweater over it and a long skirt, the look of a young wife.
Sayuri, in fact, is currently single and has been at home since graduating from college helping out around the house and taking care of her two young sisters.
Bulging from the inside of the apron’s bib were huge 90D breasts that would give any man a surge of desire to bury his face in them, no matter what man looked at them.
On top of that, her face is a standard beauty which!
Although the eyes under the perfectly arched eyebrows were slightly droopy, this could never be considered a disadvantage, but on the contrary, it became her unique charm. Her entire body exudes a gentle aura, as innocent and romantic as a young girl.
“Ouch! Morning…”
Sayuri said good morning to Golem briskly.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
She said as she walked into the dressing room.
Not long after came the sound of clattering, clattering water and pressed on the sound of a hair dryer. I didn’t have much time, but I wanted to fix my hair a little.
Sayuri came to the table and said to her sister who was walking towards the stairs, “Golem, there’s still breakfast?”
“There’s no time, so I’m not eating!”
“But if you don’t eat breakfast at all…”
Golem squinted at her sister and headed upstairs without saying a word.
When Golem came down from the second floor a short time later, his clothes had been changed again and dressed up.
She was wearing a dark blue facecloth, and a dark blue skirt of the same.
“Sis, where’s the bento?”
“Loaded!”
“Thanks!”
On the dining room table sit two four-cornered purse pouches, identical in pattern but very different in color.
Golem took the larger one from this and put it in her school bag, while the remaining smaller one was a bento reserved for her younger sister, Nana, who was four years younger than Golem.
Golem walked out of the dining room proceeded to the living room and walked over to the picture frame that sat on the TV.
“Good morning, Dad and Mom! I’m leaving.”
The photo in the frame is of Goering’s parents, standing side by side in their adventurous outfits against the backdrop of a dense tropical jungle. The huge man with the beard of Dharma is the father, Takeshi, and the smaller, shorter-haired mother, Kayoko. Kayoko is holding a tiny baby orangutan, and on Takeshi’s right shoulder is an extremely colorful and beautiful parrot.
More than twenty years ago, Kayoko was a junior in Takeshi’s class, and at that time she was the flower of the laboratory. Although there was no lack of pursuers and admirers around her, no one dared to have any improper thoughts and did not pursue her. Unexpectedly, the bearded and unattractive Takeshi finally won the heart of a beautiful woman.
One look at this photo shows that the couple is now in a small place in the interior of Africa, where they no longer even have electricity or running water, much less enough drinking water, a secret place that is not even recorded on a map. It has been three years since the two men left their beloved daughters in Japan and traveled to Africa for wildlife research.
During the first year, he stayed in the more developed cities along the coast in order to prepare for the official investigation, so he had more frequent contact with his family by airmail or international phone calls. But in the two years since they arrived in the interior of the tropical jungle, there had been only one airmail a month. It wasn’t that Takeshi and Kayoko were too lazy to write letters, but they were now staying in the local villages for field work, but the mail was only received once a month.
When her parents first said they were going to Africa, Golem, who was still in her second year of middle school, was very strongly against it. They said everything was for research, what kind of research she didn’t know, but to abandon their children like that, the two of them going to such a distant foreign country by themselves, was so irresponsible.
In fact, this is only a superficial reason, her heart does not want to be separated from her parents.
But how can a parent not know the heart of a child? As scholars, their dream was to go to the field to investigate, so their will was very strong. As a result, they went in the name of “scientific progress” or “wildlife conservation”.
Kayoko was busy with her usual research, so she had trained Sayuri to help with the household chores since she was very young, and now all of the household chores and the responsibility of taking care of her two younger sisters fell on Sayuri’s shoulders.
“Sister Kobayashi, are you really still sleeping…”
Saying this while squinting at the flustered Golem was Naina, the youngest of the three sisters, who was sitting at the dining table in her uniform, cradling a mug filled with warm coffee milk in both hands.
Of course, “Rin-san” refers to Kobayashi, and the youngest Nana drops the first letters of the names “Kobayashi” and “Sayuri” in order to differentiate between the two “sisters”. In order to differentiate between the two “sisters”, the youngest Nana dropped the first letter of the names “Kokurin” and “Sayuri” and called them “Lin-san” and “Yurin-san” directly.
Nana had just turned thirteen this spring when she started middle school, a full eleven years after her eldest sister Sayuri.
Fighting with arrogance has long been a habit for the stubborn Golem, and daily clashes are almost inevitable.
Nana’s haughty attitude had been the same since she was a child, and she was known as “Miss Iceberg” because she wore a corset since the fifth grade and ignored the behavior of the boys in her year….
Like Sayuri, she inherited her mother’s slightly chestnut-colored hair, which she divided into two bunches and tied up with tiny ribbons, and the hair above her left and right ears was so soft that it always felt puffy like the pom-poms used by cheerleaders.
Naina’s breasts and ass were still underdeveloped, and encasing the skinny figure was a premium gray facecloth suit, and the best of its quality. There was a very large button to accent the white women’s shirt where the collar intersected the text. The bottom half of the green plaid skirt was very short.
Much different from the hurried Golem, the unhurried Naina slowly finished her cup of coffee milk.
Looking up, he scoffed at Golem.
“Footsteps that loud first thing in the morning, that’s how you are, that’s why you don’t even have a boyfriend, even as a sophomore.”
After putting the bento into her book bag, Golem, who had walked past Nana, stopped to stick her tongue out at her with a special look of disdain.
“So annoying! You’re the one who can’t get a boyfriend! I don’t want to be with you!”
“You swear!”
“What?”
“I’m Nana, not some little bunny, and I’m not like you because you don’t even have a boyfriend anymore.”
“What are you saying? Even if I don’t have a boyfriend, I’m still better than you, like you, you haven’t even had one yet, and don’t you still wet the bed?”
It’s a great exaggeration that the two sisters would talk about such things when they were quarreling, and the one who hadn’t come yet… was really exaggerating.
But it’s a fact that Nana would still wet the bed in first grade.
Forget it, no amount of arguing will ever You, just talking about the past, how do I know what happened to you in the past, it’s not fair!
Nana couldn’t answer by bringing up the previous embarrassing incident, but she immediately crossed her face and pretended that she didn’t hear it.
Just about every time, Korin, who was angry at his sister’s condescending attitude, would quickly snatch the toast she had bitten while spread with jam, taking advantage of the other’s head turning to the side.
“Give it to me!”
“Ah! What are you doing!”
Naina put down her mug and stood up from her chair, but by accident, the pretty knees of the hem of her short skirt bumped against the edge of the table.
“Clank!”
Ignoring the danger, Naina’s footsteps had darted toward the hallway foyer long before Golem’s had resumed her standing position.
As soon as Nana, who was chasing after her angrily, reached the entrance hall, the half of the toast that was covered in jam had already disappeared into Golem’s mouth. Golem, who realized that Nana had already chased after him, barely managed to stuff the toast in his mouth while wearing his sneakers.
Nana, realizing that she couldn’t get it back anymore, cocked her head and said.
“Very damnable, give Nana’s breakfast… back to me!”
“Good! Then you…”
I couldn’t hear him clearly because my mouth was full, so I thought he said, “Yes! Because your school is closer…”
As if that’s what it says!
The school leading to Golem is a bus ride that takes you through four more stops, and then at least a ten minute walk from the stop to get there.
And Nana only had to walk about fifteen minutes from home to the middle school section of her private academy.
Even if you re-toast the bread and take your time with breakfast, there’s still plenty of time.
“Nothing to do with that.”
Even though they had just finished arguing, Always Sisters, it was as if Nana could understand what Golem was saying.
But Golem argued about those things as if he didn’t care at all, while turning his back on Nana to swallow what was in his mouth.
Golem said to Sayuri, who had only just reached the foyer.
“I’m outta here!”
Golem finished with great spirit and then darted out toward the door.
“Ah, Sister Lin!”
Nana continued to yell incessantly in a rude voice at the back of her sister who was drifting away.
“Idiot! Thief! Eater!”
In the evening, dragging his tired body, Golem returned home as soon as he found an unfamiliar pair of sneakers in the entrance hall.
As if they had just come off, and were still clean, with the toes facing outwards in a neat row.
In this house, one should know very well whose sneakers one is in, in which case… is it a guest?
Judging from the style and model, this is definitely a boy’s shoe.
If it was Nana’s boyfriend, there would be nothing to see, and while thinking about this uninteresting incident as he walked into the house, he could vaguely hear the sound of lively talking coming from over in the living room.
“I’m back. Who is it? This guest…”
Golem, who walked into the living room while talking, suddenly stopped talking.
There were a total of three people in the living room.
Sayuri, Nanae, and one other person…
Similar in age to Golem. A good-looking boy, with the collar of a plaid facecloth shirt peeking out from the collar of a white sweatshirt, and faded jeans underneath.
She is a little too thin and frail. Her hairstyle is combed back from the side, only the front hair is left long, and she has a crying mole at the corner of her left eye.
For a moment, Golem didn’t know who he was.
But, shortly after that, she finally realized that the young man… that young man was… her childhood playmate ‘Xiao Xiu’.
Xiao Xiu…
Golem’s book bag fell from his hands with a loud noise.
That voice caused the three people chatting around the table to turn together to Golem’s side. There were cups of black tea and plates of cake on the table, and it looked as if they were drinking tea and chatting.
“Ah! You’re back!”
Sayuri, who was sitting in the seat closest to the door of the restaurant, smiled.
However, Golem didn’t react at all, with a wooden expression, staring blankly at the teenager sitting beside Sayuri.
It’s been ten years, and although there’s been a big change due to ‘growing up’, this teenage boy is truly ‘Xiao Xiu’ in a thousand ways. It had already started to take on the flavor of a man, but the slender face hadn’t changed too much from its appearance back then.
Meeting again after ten years.
Why? Why? Why? Why? …
Because it was just too sudden to meet again, making Golem’s mind so confused that he couldn’t think at all.
“Ms. Goering… is that right?”
After hearing the teenager’s words, Golem nodded his head slightly.
I…
Across the room, ‘Koshu’ seemed to be smiling out of shyness.
“Long time no see…”
“Ah, uh…”
Just standing there dumbfounded by the threshold of the restaurant, Golem replied ambiguously.
Awkwardness filled the air as Sayuri acted as if she was the narrator between the two of them, and purposely raised her voice.
“Look, Korin, do you remember? Takanashi Shusaku-kun, who used to live in the neighborhood and was very close to you!”
She didn’t need to tell Golem that.
But what Golem really wanted to know was what and why Shuu had come here.
“Why… why… why?”
The things he wanted to ask came like a mountain of questions, but, because of this shock that came without warning, Golem didn’t know what to say for a moment.
As if answering for her, Sayuri took it upon herself to start explaining the cause of this whole thing.
“Goering, you should know that Shusaku-kun’s mother has passed away! Shusaku-kun has been living with his father and his two people since then, and this time his father had to be dispatched overseas because of his work, so…”
I’ve heard that the term of office to an overseas branch is two years.
Originally, my son Shusaku was to go along, but Shusaku is now a seventeen year old sophomore in high school, and like most of his classmates, he hopes to go on to college, and because of that he has to stay in Japan.
However, at the age of seventeen, it was still slightly wrong to ask him to live on his own. Despite his father’s reluctance, he had no choice but to go to work because of the company’s orders.
It had been ten years since the death of his wife, and his wife’s side of the family and his own side of the family had become completely estranged. Therefore, during these two years, it was difficult to find a suitable person to take care of his son, so naturally, he thought of his friend in Africa, and discussed the matter on his letterhead with the feeling of waiting for help, and unexpectedly received a satisfactory answer.
In their letter, they said, “We are doing research in Africa, so if you are a smart Shusaku-kun, we would be very happy to hear from you. During our time overseas, the children we left behind have been taking care of each other and living a good life! Recently, I had to go to a large town in the harbor area to pick up some research equipment that had been shipped to me, so if I leave right away, I should be there soon, and at that time, I will explain to the children by international phone call… That’s all I’m going to do.”
In this way, the decision was made without the child’s knowledge of anything, simply after discussions between the two parents themselves.
“If we’re talking about taking care of Shusaku, Sayuri is probably more competent than either you or I. I’m quite relieved about that.”
Kayoko said that to Shusaku’s father, probably because she didn’t want him to worry too much! Plus if there’s no other reason, as long as Sayuri says ‘yes’ it means everything is ok.
“That’s why…”
After hearing Sayuri out, Golem couldn’t wait to speak.
“It’s all clear now, isn’t it! But why haven’t you said half a word of welcome till now?”
“That’s…”
“And what is that?”
Sayuri approached Golem, asking after him like a little girl with deliberate mischief.
“That… yes… because… I think I was startled…”
“What, what did you say?”
Sayuri looked at Golem in shock at her suddenly saying that.
“Hey, hey, I don’t mean any harm, it’s just that Goering and Shusaku-kun, they used to be very good friends, so… so…”
For Golem to react so strongly, Sayuri really hadn’t even dreamed of it!
What Sayuri had imagined in her head before, everyone’s dialog should be like this: Sayuri: “Golem, from today Shusaku-kun is going to live with us.”
Golem: “Yeah! It’s true!”
Sayuri: “I guess I’m happy because Korin and Shusaku are so close!”
Golem: “Well, I’m glad!”
Sayuri: “Where’s Nana?”
Nana: “Nana is happy too.”
Shusaku: “Then, I’ll trouble you.”
Sayuri: “No, no, I’m not saying that.”
All: “That’s great, that’s great!”
A perfect ending for a peaceful mess.
It’s supposed to look like this.
“During mom and dad’s absence, although it’s not true that whatever comes up has to be decided by the three of us, you can’t make arbitrary decisions on your own, sis…”
“I’m sorry! I just thought that if it was Shusaku-kun, Goering would be in favor of it…”
“Why did it turn out like this? And without consulting me.”
The two sisters had completely different stances, and while Sayuri and Golem were conversing, Nana interjected, “Rin-san. Don’t nag me like that, Nana is definitely in favor of letting Shusaku live here.”
“You, shut up!”
At Golem’s indiscriminate accusations, the haughty Naina puffed out her cheeks unhappily.
“What? When it comes to matters within our family, the three of us have to discuss them together before we can make a decision, right? So Nana should have the right to express her opinion as well.”
If we keep talking like this, the situation will definitely be the same as it was in the morning, and as if he hadn’t heard Nana’s words, Golem just directly confronted the downcast Sayuri.
“There are just three girls living in our house, it would be highly inappropriate to have a boy living in it, something so simple that you should understand it quite well if you use your brain a little!”
“Ah! Why?”
Sayuri cocked her head as if she found it unbelievable.
“Why… don’t you think it’s dangerous? A boy has come to live in a place where three girls live, so if something happens, what is going to happen?”
“What do you mean by ‘something’?”
Sayuri inquired with a puzzled look on her face.
“That… that…”
Beside her, Naina noticed that a blush actually flashed across Golem’s cheeks.
“Surely, Sister Lin, surely-“
“No, it’s not like that, it’s not like I meant anything else…”
“And what was that about?”
Naina was still holding a grudge from the incident in the morning when Golem robbed Toji, so she kind of wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get revenge.
“That… that… that…”
For a moment, Golem’s troubled face was as red as an apple, and he actually didn’t know what to say to make it better.
“Ah! Sure enough, can’t tell.”
“You’re making a lot of noise! I told you to shut up, didn’t I?”
“Damn it, keep calling it kid, kid, kid, isn’t there only a four year difference between Nana and Rin-sister?”
“Y…”
The two still kept fighting, and Shusaku, who was silently watching from the sidelines, finally opened his mouth with trepidation.
“If this will cause you problems, then I will go back and talk to my father again to see if it’s okay…”
“Is that good?”
Sayuri interrupted Shusaku and glared hard at Golem.
“Damn it, are you completely ignoring the stranded Shusaku-kun? Where are you going to tell Shusaku-kun, who has no place to stay, to go?”
“Ah! No, there’s no need to come…”
Sayuri glared at her with a stern look that taught Golem to flinch involuntarily as Sayuri desperately tried to convince her.
“Then, favor it! Please approve of Shusaku moving in together, okay?”
“That’s…”
In the face of Sayuri’s incessant persuasion, Golem began to stammer and couldn’t answer.
Nana suddenly interjected herself into the conversation between the two sisters at this point.
“Sister, if we keep arguing like this, I don’t know when we’ll be able to settle it, so let’s decide with a fair vote!”
Before Golem could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, Naina pulled a loud voice and shouted.
“Then, those in favor please raise your hands…”
“I’m for it!”
Nana and Sayuri said and raised their hands.
“So, what about the opposition?”
Golem raised his hand expressionlessly.
“Okay, it’s two to one, so we’ve decided that the result of the discussion is ‘yes’.”
Pah-pah-pah…
Sayuri and Nana clapped their hands happily, but Golem frowned unhappily.
“Sister Lin!”
Nana glared at the speechless Golem while speaking in a naughty tone, “Since it was decided by the majority, you should be okay with it, right?”
Damn it.
Golem glared at her proud sister with a horrible look in her eyes, while Nana couldn’t help but feel a chill as if she was being blown by a chilly wind.
“No matter what, I’m just against it to the end!”
Golem dropped this on his way out.
“Ah! Goering, wait…”
Golem ignored Sayuri’s calls and climbed the stairs on his own.
“Hoo…”
Takanashi Shusaku exhaled greatly and sank his scrawny body into the bathtub, overflowing with hot water and causing smoke to fill the entire bathroom.
The bathtub was big enough for him to stretch his feet out; the one in the apartment he had lived in with his father was so small that he couldn’t get into it without bending his knees, and there was a world of difference between the two. The interior was covered in green tiles, the seams of which were so clean they made a chirping sound when you rubbed your fingers on the inside of the tub.
As expected, the place where girls live is really clean….
For the past ten years, Shusaku and his father had been living together, and even a nice hot bath was a luxury to look forward to.
The life of two men, though unattached and considered carefree, had many inconveniences. The one that saved him the most was at mealtime, when canned food was bought in the food outlets of department stores, and Shusaku and his father ate their dinners face-to-face, which was simply very unpalatable.
For Shusaku, who was used to eating canned food, it had been a long time since he had eaten a freshly cooked meal, and this was indeed something that Shusaku was grateful for.
“The miso soup you made, it’s really delicious…”
When he took a sip of the white radish and fried tofu miso soup that Sayuri had cooked, he really thought it was just delicious!
“If you let Sayuri take care of it, that’s a big relief!” Kayoko really wasn’t lying when she said that, there really were no words for Sayuri’s cooking.
The food she cooked would be delicious to anyone who ate it. For Shusaku, who had lost his mother a long time ago, being able to eat her cooking really made him happy, so when Sayuri told him to eat more, he really ate a lot without any hesitation.
When they decided to stay at the Natsukawa house, both Shusaku and his father felt embarrassed, but if they could eat such delicious meals every day, they would really have to thank their father for transferring to an overseas posting.
But Shusaku was a little uneasy about the new life he was about to start.
Why does Miss Goering object to my coming to this house?
The lovely Nana and the gentle Sayuri immediately hit it off with him. Golem, however, has been cold to him.
The room Shusaku was staying in was the room at the far end of the second floor hallway to the right, which was the room of the three sisters’ mom and dad. And directly across the hall was Golem’s room, and she had a plastic sign on the door that read KARINS ROOM.
Shusaku unpacked the bags he’d brought with him, thinking several times about visiting Kokurin, but dismissing the thought of the blank stares he might receive from her.
The argument of “in favor of cohabitation” or “not in favor of cohabitation” would leave a bad influence in the future, and the next day, Kokurin still put on a bad face. At dinner it was the same, she just ate the food on the table silently without joining in the conversation with the others, and although Sayuri deliberately kept bringing up the topic to Kokurin, she only answered a few sentences briefly, and as soon as she was done eating, she immediately went back to her room on the second floor.
Can we live in peace from now on?
Shusaku’s uneasiness about his new surroundings slowly came over him.
Ever since his mother passed away, it was a bit overwhelming for Shusaku, who was raised by a man, to suddenly be placed in the ‘women’s garden’ that is the Natsukawa household. Since he still wasn’t quite used to everything over here, especially just now when he was changing in the locker room, he saw cute corsets and panties in the collection basket next to the washing machine, which were probably Nana’s things! He was shocked when he realized it.
Having never had much to say to the girls in his class, for the naïve and late blooming Shusaku, he still didn’t know much about girls, especially Kokurin, who didn’t have much of a crush on him, so how on earth was he going to approach her well? He really doesn’t know.
But it’s only the first day…
Come to think of it, it might be a bit too hasty to become good friends on the first day, although it was said that there had been a deep friendship in childhood, but that had also been ten years apart, so how to deal with Kokurin who was meeting her for the first time, Shusaku himself didn’t know, and just relying on the impression of yesteryear, it might be hard to get along well with her as well.
Shusaku is confused about his new surroundings, and in the same way, Golem’s side is troubled by Shusaku’s sudden move, I guess!
The time spent living together was two full years.
It’s something that can’t be rushed. If you take some time, maybe you can become good friends with Golem! It’s the same feeling as when I was a kid.
I think I’m in a good mood because I’m soaking in the bathtub! Optimistic thoughts kept floating in my mind, and the tension in both my mood and body slowly eased. In the hot water, the fatigue from the day’s panic slowly disappeared, and Shusaku’s mood relaxed to the point of falling asleep.
That’s when he noticed what looked like someone standing outside the bathroom door.
“Shusaku-kun…”
This voice is… Sayuri, right?
“How’s the hot water?”
Shusaku, who heard those words, slowly opened his eyes wide.
“Ah! Just right.”
“Yes…”
Sayuri paused for a moment before saying, “Can I come in and wash it too?”
“Ah, yes, please!”
Because he asked him as if nothing had happened, Shusaku answered her like that without realizing it. But Shusaku was immediately startled.
Yeah? Together?
“Whoa, whoa, this is bad!”
Before the stopping voice could be uttered, the bathroom door was opened and Sayuri just walked in.
She wrapped her hair with a pink towel and covered her chest to her crotch with a white towel, but it was impossible to cover that voluptuous body with just a towel, and if you look at the deep cleavage, the tops of the voluptuous peaks on both sides were about to be pushed out from the towel, and the graceful curves were hidden. Even with a slight movement, one could peek at that secret and lush delta from the bottom edge of the towel that was tightly covering her crotch, but Shusaku panicked and averted his eyes.
Then… then think of something quickly… Anyway… anyway, it is impossible to escape from this side…
But since there’s only one exit from the bathroom, and there’s already a naked Sayuri over there. In any case, to escape from this side, one must push away this very attractive female body in front of them, but for a naive young man who has never even lifted a girl’s hand, that kind of thing shouldn’t be able to be done.
Shusaku, who was in a desperate situation, no matter what he was thinking about not seeing Sayuri’s naked body, sank his floating waist into the bathtub and faced his head towards the wall.
Behind her, she was scooping up hot water in a washbasin, while there was a continuous sound of scooping.
Sure enough… Sure enough, she had entered…. This should be clean bath water, because no one had taken a bath yet, so that’s par for the course, right?
“Excuse me, please…”
“Ah, yes…”
Only though it wasn’t his intention, Shusaku stayed close to the end of the tub to make a space where Sayuri could come in.
Swish…
The female body that sank into the bathtub overflowed the full hot water, and Sayuri’s toes accidentally came into contact with Shusaku’s ass.
Shusaku was suddenly startled!
Shusaku’s waist popped up like a spring, sending waves of water over the edge of the bathtub.
“Whew… it feels so good…”
Sayuri exhaled slightly and spoke in a completely uninhibited tone.
“Sure enough, it’s too cramped if two people enter together!”
So please go out…
Shusaku thought that in his mind, but was hesitant to say it out loud, and instead just echoed her in a casual voice.
“Ah! It’s really…”
Sayuri laughed at the strange posture of Shusaku, whose body had stiffened due to his constraints.
“Oh… you don’t have to shrink like that all the time!”
So, how to do it well…
After Sayuri said those words, Shusaku also wanted to change his body to a comfortable position, but he still shrunk his body without moving. Because he thought that if this position changed slightly, then a certain part of his body would come into contact with her soft body.
If that’s the case, how exactly will it change…?
Even though he didn’t touch Sayuri’s body, just the thought of being this close to a girl’s naked body made his heart poof, poof, poof, and his crotch started to feel its itch.
In case of touching… touching… touching, the stamen must be very elastic…
This overpowering excitement was already beginning to show an immediate response in the crotch of that healthy seventeen year old teenage boy.
Ah! Oh, no.
This is indeed a very bad thing.
Sayuri is the woman who will replace his mother in the two years from now. To have erotic fantasies about her would simply be a very absurd thing to judge by common sense, the thing that he wanted to do to Sayuri would no longer be able to hide that thing if it was discovered, and if he was ousted because of just that, if it was exposed ~ he would surely be ousted~ then all of this would be ruined.
So, you have to be clear in your head, even though it’s a normal “man’s” energy, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. But you can’t do anything about it, so it’s really sad for men!
Even… ordinary mind, ordinary heart, don’t… don’t think nonsense…
Shusaku forced himself to remain calm at this point, using his usual technique, and Seki began to do a review of Japanese history.
Uh-huh! Kamakura Shogunate was established in 1192, Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600… No, no, this is the Battle of Sekigahara, and Ieyasu started his Shogunate in 1603, right?
However, Sayuri said extremely provocative words in a tone of indifference to Shusaku’s hard work that almost brought tears to her eyes.
“You’re going to get dizzy if you keep suppressing it like that, come and rub my back!”
“！”
Rubbing… back…
Because of that one sentence, the normalcy that was painstakingly barely made was shattered in an instant.
Does this mean Sayuri rubbing my back… or me rubbing Sayuri’s back…?
In Shusaku’s mind had chased away that remembered blurry historical chronology, and instead the image of rubbing each other’s backs with Sayuri surfaced.
Soap was applied to the naked bodies of two… two people, and the bubbles all over made the bodies slippery….
For a teenager of this age it is very easy for things to happen, and as soon as they start to vibrate the wings of delusion, it is not easy to suppress them. Stimulated by such sexual fantasies, the blood in his body began to concentrate rapidly on the point in his crotch.
KOO KOO KOO…
In the hot soup, the unattractive and elongated thing suddenly raised its head, and the pretty pink tip pushed through the foreskin to “greet” him.
I… I can’t do it anymore.
If it’s already become like this, then there’s no use pretending anymore.
The only way is to run away-.
“Whoa, I… can’t anymore!”
Shusaku hastily covered the important part of his lower body and stood up from the bath.
“Ah! Wait, Shusaku-kun!”
Ignoring Sayuri’s stopping voice, Shusaku dashed out of the bathroom.
No… No way, we must help him.
While Shusaku was catching his breath, Sayuri suddenly and boldly walked out of the bathroom naked and grabbed Shusaku’s shoulders with her hands.
“Why, what’s the hurry?”
“！”
Shusaku’s eyes inadvertently turned just in time to see her perfect upper nude body, and there was an electric sensation as if it were a real touch.
“Woohoo!”
Shusaku pushed Sayuri’s hand away and immediately took out the bath towel from the cover of the undressing cage and fled that place in a huff.
DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG…
The wet soles of his feet left tracks on the floor as he climbed up to the second floor and ran inside his room just after passing through the second floor hallway.
“Hohohoho…”
Shusaku pressed his back against the closed door.
What… what? I almost couldn’t come back to my room….
But he remembers everything about Sayuri’s naked body that he had just been chasing behind.
But, I can’t stand it anymore…
This happened on the first day of cohabitation, which was something completely unexpected before Sin, how could this happen.
Shusaku looked down at the naughty thing in his crotch.
You! Why are you so energetic?
But the other side should also have no idea how it could be cocked with such pride.
Since there was nothing Shusaku could do about his dick bucking up foolishly like that, Shusaku took a bath towel in his hand and wiped that wet body after while wrapping it around his waist as he escaped.
So what exactly am I going to do from now on?
It was also impossible to go back to the bathroom now, as it might not be pleasant to go downstairs and see Sayuri coming out of the bathroom. In any case, I’d better go to bed earlier tonight… While thinking about these things, it was not easy for the excess blood in the crotch to slowly recede, and the long shaft finally dropped its head.
Suddenly he saw that on the bed was a neatly laid out quilt, and at the foot of the bed were folded two-piece pajamas.
Uh, well, this…
Sayuri had helped him prepare it! After living alone with his father for so long, he was touched by the care of a gentle woman like this.
Yes, for two years from now, in order to become a member of this family, something like that somewhat strange atmosphere just now is something that should be forbidden, Shusaku clenched his fists and clapped his hands vigorously, and kept telling himself.
Was it because his body felt cold after taking a bath, or did the little monk who had gotten bigger catch a cold.
“H… H… Hajo!”
Screwing up his nose shouldn’t be a cold, and Shusaku picked up the pajamas that were sitting at the foot of the bed, but bulging in the quilts that had been laid out on the bed.
What is it?
Shusaku thought it was strange, and while leaning his face up timidly, as if the time had been calculated perfectly accurately, he suddenly jumped up from the quilt.
“Ah!”
“Woohoo!”
Surprised, Shusaku dropped the pajamas he was holding while falling on his back on the bed.
The person who jumped out from under the bulging quilt turned out to be Nana. Sitting on her knees on the bed with both hands pointing upwards towards the ceiling, she made a cute face.
Wrapped around her developing body were pink pajamas scattered with little white exemptions and carrots.
“It was a gift from Sayuri-san on my birthday this year, as if to correct my carrot-hating mindset!”
Naina untied the ribbon that tied her hair, and the long chestnut-colored hair fell to her chest.
Naina tilted her lovely neck sideways.
“Shocking, isn’t it?”
“Scared… scared…”
Shusaku, whose face was heating up, was trying his best to say those words while sitting down like this. But the heart in his left chest was still beating.
“Why, why did that happen…?”
“Heh heh heh heh…”
After laughing as if she was worried, Nana spoke as if nothing had happened.
“It’s okay!”
“Ah…”
Does it really matter?
Ever since that day, I’ve noticed that this young girl is supposed to be of the reasonable and common sense type.
Nana, who had finished her bath earlier, had sneaked into Shusaku’s room while he was coming downstairs, and it seemed as if she was specifically waiting for him to finish his bath. Because her body was still warm from the bath, and because she was fully buried in the quilt, her glowing skin was slightly pink in color.
Naina then put her feet down from one end of the bed while thumping the sheets.
“Mr. Shusaku, sit over here.”
“Yeah, ah…”
Shusaku, like a child who has become a good boy after he has been criticized for saying something bad about someone else, obediently sat down next to the young girl. As if she was sitting and waiting, Nana looked up at Shusaku’s face with her kitten-like round eyes.
“As a matter of fact, Nana has a favor to ask of you…”
“Please?”
“Well, I was going to say it over dinner, but since it’s a very embarrassing request, I thought it would be better to talk to you alone…”
An embarrassing invitation that can only be said when you’re alone?
To this pavilion of young girls pretending to smile, Shuusaku he but feel a little shy.
“AH, AH…”
Was it a rather embarrassing request? Naina hesitated for a moment, and it wasn’t long before she squirmed and decided to speak up.
“Nana, call Shusaku-san ‘brother’, okay?”
Why, why should it be like this? …
In the meantime, Shusaku was embarrassed himself for thinking of that evil.
“Yes…”
“Really good?”
Nana’s happy face glowed while Shusaku nodded his head as if forced to do so.
“Uh, uh…”
“Whoa!”
Is it quite happy? Nana tiptoed from the bed and wrapped her arms around Shusaku’s neck.
“Nana only had sisters, so she always wanted a brother.”
“Yes…”
The young girl’s slightly swollen bosom pressed against Shusaku’s bare chest, and the scent of shampoo from that light hair filled her nose.
“N… Nai… Nai… Nai-sama!”
At the soft touch and the clean scent of a freshly bathed girl, the naive Shusaku he began to panic.
“I’m having a hard time…”
“Ah, sorry!”
After apologizing, Nana’s hand was released from Shusaku’s neck, and her leg was glued to his side as if she didn’t want to separate.
“Brother, brother!”
“What…”
Brother-.
Upon hearing such a title, Shusaku, who had been raised alone since birth, felt very embarrassed after hearing it.
“Nana has a favor to ask of my brother…”
“Speaking of ‘requests’… is there something else?”
“Ah! That was an invitation to ‘Shusaku-san’ just now, and this time it’s an invitation to ‘Niinii’!”
For Shusaku, he thought it was the same no matter which side, but in Nana’s head it was as if it was something completely different Sin.
“Nana’s been ah, interested in boy stuff lately.”
Shusaku’s heart went poof, poof!
I didn’t realize that from this young girl’s lovely mouth, she would once again reveal such words that were so irritatingly shy.
“There are so many things that I want to know… but these are things that I don’t dare to ask other boys yeah! So Nana wants to ask brother to please teach me about men.”
“No, but… what to say about that kind of thing…”
Want me to teach you about men.
What is the meaning of this sentence? Nana knows, right?
“Yeah… I’ll teach Nana about men~” Nana grabbed both of Shusaku’s hands with a sweet voice like a kitten grabbing for bait.
Whew!
Shusaku’s elbow was pressed right against those palm-sized boobs, had he suddenly forgotten, or was it just hot in the quilt? Or was there another purpose besides that? Nana’s first button of her nightgown was already open, and from the open area of her dress she couldn’t see her ethereal valley, but only peeked under the slightly raised foothills.
Da-da-da-da-da…
The sensational touch with this sensational atmosphere made the crotch of the naughty little monk, who had only managed to calm down completely, raise his head once again.
It’s so, so hard…
What Shusaku wrapped around his crotch was a bath towel that was wrapped around his waistline. Therefore, if an erection was erected, it would be exposed even if it was all at once.
Be… be calm. The other person is… Ms. Nana, she’s still just a middle school kid. Isn’t she like her own sister? It’s a shame to do something strange like that to a child like that… You have to do something about it…
Despite Shusaku’s desperate attempts to persuade the disobedient penis, everything seemed to be in vain, and the little rascal in his crotch, kept on moving stupidly.
If this goes on, it’s only a matter of time before I lose my virginity… It’s just a matter of time… I can’t-.
“Ah… I… have a little more urgent matter…”
Not knowing for what reason he said such a thing, as soon as he finished speaking Shusaku stood up and broke away from Nana’s wrist while running out of his room.
“Ah, wait!”
Nana’s hand came after her and grabbed the end of the bath towel that was wrapped around Shusaku’s waist.
Soon…
With a firm tug, she pulled away the knot wrapped around Shusaku’s waist, but all that remained in Nana’s hands was the bath towel.
“Woah woah woah!”
The shy Shusaku was so intent on escaping Nana that he rushed across the room naked.
Bang!
By accident, the whole thing slammed into the opposite door, while opening it.
Shusaku’s eyes thus gazed at each other and the eyes of the other.
Who exactly is it that you’re on all fours with?
Of course it was the owner of this room,… Goering.
Do you look like you’re doing your homework? Korin, who had been facing the table and sitting in a swivel chair until just now, turned his face toward the door because of the sudden crash and looked at the so-called sudden intruder – the intruder who didn’t move.
Ah…
Now, Shusaku realized what a state he was in, and his face just kept twitching.
Shusaku seemed eager to make things clear, but would he really be allowed to?
Clover made a reluctant smile in greeting.
“Oh, ah…”
The doppelganger that hadn’t gotten hard when he had greeted her suddenly jumped up.
“Ah…”
Golem, who had a hard time coming back to his senses, blushed and opened his mouth.
It probably seems as if there isn’t ample time to clarify the matter.
The ensuing sound of Golem’s fury cut through the silent night and resounded through the neighborhoods to the left and right.
“Get out!”
(To be continued)