by Nisioisin
If anything, the sight was a turn-off.
Hm? Wait a second…
“Tsukihi.”
“Yeah?”
“Prepare to be undressed,” I announced, reaching for the knot on her obi.
“Wha? What? Koyomi, stop, what are you doing?! Aieee!!”
Tsukihi tried to resist me, but it was the other sister who was the fighter. My littler little sister’s resistance meant little to me. Believe it or not, I had seen my fair share of battle.
I wasn’t quite the dastardly magistrate in a period piece, but I did grab the sash and spin her round and round, faster and faster, until it was completely unraveled. I mercilessly peeled away her yukata, tied her hands together with the now-free obi, and shoved her down onto the hallway floor and straddled her.
Seriously, if the front door opened now and someone caught a glimpse of this, I was finished in all sorts of ways.
If it was Karen, that would be one thing, but if it was my mom and dad, then more than finished, it would be the end.
The series would end with this paragraph.
The worst possible conclusion… We’d really regret that the story had continued.
Today wasn’t looking good for my favorability rating. It wasn’t just falling but freefalling, in practically a straight line, with no sign of bottoming out.
And thus.
“Hmm? Just as I thought,” I said.
“What, what, what? What just happened? What’s going on? Can someone please tell me why my brother just stripped me, tied me up, and shoved me down?”
“Well, Tsukihi. Didn’t you use to have a scar right around here?”
I pointed at a spot near her chest.
Usually it would be hidden by her underwear, but she’d just gotten out of the shower and wasn’t wearing a bra (one of her sports bras made out of soft material), leaving the area completely exposed.
I caught a brief glimpse through the opening of her flimsy yukata and thought that something seemed off─and I was right.
The scar that should have been there─was gone.
The event that left that scar had created such a strong impression that I still remembered it. In fact, it was impossible to forget. It was more an incident than an event.
The scar.
Back when Tsukihi was in elementary school, she got herself wrapped up in trouble for reasons that weren’t entirely clear─and as the result of that trouble, she jumped off the roof of the school building and got that scar.
She didn’t hit the ground. As luck would have it, or maybe like in a kung-fu movie, she landed on the canopy of a truck that just happened to be parked underneath, and thereby managed to escape with her life─but the injuries she suffered were obviously pretty grave.
In particular, the scar on her chest, where a piece of the canopy’s frame stabbed her, had been guaranteed in no uncertain terms by the doctor to remain for the rest of her life.
Hm?
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Actually, you don’t have any scars on your body at all.”
Now that I looked closer, it wasn’t just the wounds from then. As a Fire Sister and defender of justice who lacked the impressive fighting skills of her partner, Tsukihi was constantly acquiring new scrapes and bruises.
Okay, I’ll level with you, I may have been behind some of those scrapes and bruises─but all of them had vanished.
Not a trace of them, her skin was smooth and clean.
Faintly rosy from bathing─supple, lustrous, like a drop of water would just bounce off.
“Wounds heal, you know. I’m a human being.”
“Hrm? Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
It made sense. It did.
Still, something seemed strange. I mean, why hadn’t I noticed before? I’m not always ogling my sister’s skin (what kind of pervert do you take me for) so I couldn’t say for sure… But was it because she was still young?
Part of the metabolic process? Hrrm…
“Um, would you mind getting off me now, Koyomi? Taking my clothes off is one thing, but if all you wanted to do was check for scars, I don’t see why you had to tie my hands up or straddle me.”
“No, I suppose that was unnecessary.”
I’d gotten carried away.
In the course of one day, I’d straddled both of my sisters. What kind of brother was I?
Hmph. Well, I guess this was a good thing. Better less scars than more scars. She was a girl, after all, and “battle scars” only sounded cool.
Satisfied (it probably wasn’t that big of a deal in the first place), I touched Tsukihi’s breast once and let her go.
“Why did you grab my breast before getting off?!”
“No reason, really.”
Why not, as long as it was there?
On a whim, to put it succinctly.
“It caught my eye so I just wondered what it felt like.”
“That casually?!” cried Tsukihi.
“Yeah. Here. Puyo-puyo. Puyo-puyo.”
“Don’t poke them with your feet! And stop making goofy sound effects like some puzzle game.”
“Fire!”
“Don’t make a chain!”
“Ice Storm! Diacute! Brain Dumbed! Jugem! Bayoe-n!”
“Zonked!”
No garbage puyo fell on my side─though I felt like there might be a disastrous number of nuisance puyo in the queue (hard puyo, at that).
Honestly, as a fan since Story of Sorcery, I wanted to get off a real seven-hit chain at least once, while I lived.
“Hey, stop touching your little sister’s breasts so much!”
“I’d seem like a very, very incredible character if someone heard that out of context…”
There wouldn’t be a speck of favorability to him, and words like “fiendish” and “monster” would be too tame.
That guy was an evil rakshasa.
“We’ll use that on the in-store displays!” recommended Tsukihi.
“What bookstore would want to put that up?”
“Brave ones, let’s hope.”
“Don’t go stirring up trouble.”
Talk about interference with business.
“Cripes…” Grumbling, Tsukihi stood up from the floor and hurriedly put on the yukata that I’d removed. “If you keep doing stuff like this, Karen and I are gonna have to squeal on you to Miss Hanekawa.”
“No, not that.”
I could only imagine how angry she’d get.
Be that as it may, I was pretty aboveboard as to where I drew the line, to turn a calm gaze on it. There were people whom it was all right to touch, and people whom it wasn’t all right to touch, a clear difference.
“Cripes. Cripes and criminy,” muttered Tsukihi. “After all the trouble Karen and I go through to keep our relationships with our boyfriends so pure, why should we have to subject ourselves to such a deep relationship with our own brother?”
“Quit your complaining. Chances are Karen is going through something similar at this very moment.”
A deep, or as they put it, a Teens’ Love relationship─courtesy of the wicked clutches of my junior. When you thought about it that way, maybe the Fire Sisters did share a connection on some unseen level.
Anyway, boyfriends. That’s right, they did have those.
“Ah, let’s see. Was your boyfriend’s name Rosokuzawa? You still haven’t broken up with him?”
“I hate to disappoint you, but we are head over heels in love. Call us love bombers. As for Karen’s boyfriend, Mizudori, I understand there’s been some discord…but I think they’re still getting on well, overall. Of course, if they found out the kind of stuff our brother does to us, we’d have to break up right away.”
“Hmph.”
That got on my nerves.
As their older brother, the mere fact that they had boyfriends was unforgivable. Dating while they were still in middle school? It made me resentful.
I wish they’d break up.
Of course, for my own part, i
f Senjogahara ever found out how I behaved with my sisters, she might hit me with her own set of divorce papers.
In that regard, it was still probably too early to introduce Senjogahara, reborn or not, as my girlfriend. I was already in enough trouble on account of my sisters using the Tsubasa Hanekawa card. When it came to this stuff, Hanekawa wasn’t exactly on my side.
“Anyway, I’m really going this time,” I declared.
“Don’t come back! You’re not welcome in this house anymore!”
“Oh, but I will always return…to your heart!”
And so, after our spontaneous exchange in sibling-speak, I waited until Tsukihi ascended to the second floor and finally opened the front door and stepped outside.
Naturally, I had no way of knowing.
No way of knowing, at that point in time─that I would never place my hands on that front door again.
007
“Flocky choux? What is this? How can this be? Have they taken a pon-de-ring and a French cruller and united them? What a surfeit of wonder! Old-fashioned! I hanker at the very sight of them! The very sight, I tell thee! I need not even sample one morsel to comprehend the daintiness of their flavor…but sample, I shall! And tofu donuts? The mere name rouses me! Look at these muffins, lined up like fat, glittering jewels! Why have they been hiding the existence of muffins from me for so long?! Ah, fie on thee, villain. And what is this? The golden chocolate, the many other donuts I have eaten in the past, like chosen ones, displayed in such teeming mounds? Magnificence! For reals?! My lord, can I eat them all?”
“Of course not.”
Did she expect me to buy so many donuts that we racked up enough points on one visit to order the giant Pon de Lion stuffed animal from their gift catalog?
You know what? Not a shred of her character from the beginning of the series remained. Or from the middle.
Wasn’t she ditching her traits a little too soon?
If she was going to change so much, she could quit talking like a geezer while she was at it.
Especially if she was also gonna say, “For reals?!”
Even when they actually existed, aberrations ultimately lacked substance, so the surrounding environment influenced them in an undiluted fashion─Black Hanekawa was a perfect example.
Between her first appearance and her second, the monster cat’s character had changed significantly─as a direct reflection of the changes in Hanekawa’s heart and mind.
I could only conclude, then, that much of the responsibility for Shinobu turning into such an idiot fell on my doorstep…
I see. Was that the impression I gave, objectively speaking (for instance, to Hachikuji or Hanekawa)?
For reals?
And so.
I, Koyomi Araragi, granted the wish of a Lolita and former vampire, Shinobu Oshino, by escorting her to Mister Donut.
As the lone Mister Donut franchise in the area, it was an extremely valuable location.
Though a chain store, this was the only Mister Donut I had ever seen, so if you were to tell me that it was the flagship store or even the only one in all of Japan, I might just believe you. Considering the dearth of convenience stores and fast-food restaurants, it was something of a miracle that the franchise was in our area.
Which I suppose is why it wasn’t a very large Mister Donut (they didn’t offer the meat buns, broth noodles, or other dim sum that the larger stores carried), but Shinobu’s eyes still sparkled with delight as if she were in a wonderland out of one of her finest dreams.
Even her blond hair seemed to glitter with an extra shine. Kind of like a Super Saiyan.
As you may guess from all that sparkling, and from her outburst when we entered the store, she was inordinately excited.
I don’t think I had ever seen the little girl version of Shinobu show such unalloyed excitement over anything. That said, I could hardly get worked up with her.
As a pretty little blond girl, she was already drawing enough attention for the both of us. The more nuts Shinobu got, the calmer I had to be.
“Nrrr,” she growled, “I cannot have them all? No, I suppose not─I gave it an assay but knew it wouldn’t bode even as I said it. Worry not, I too have learned the customs of the human world. I shan’t overshoot, the opportunity to eat at Mister Donut, alone, contents me. Verily then, what would ye say to one of each flavor?”
“I don’t know where you get your concept of money from, but I’m begging you, cut me some slack. I’d go bankrupt in no time.”
I lived off an allowance. It’s not like I had a part-time job. We were so far out in the sticks that there was nowhere to work in the first place.
“Eh? What? Art thou suggesting that I must choose, cruelly enough, from amongst these great, heaping mounds of donuts?”
Shinobu went pale with sudden disappointment.
Over mere donuts.
I felt sorry for her from a different angle.
“I’ll bring you back here once a month,” I promised, “so exercise some restraint for today. Stop being such a greedy pig and display some of that class of yours. You do still have some, right? Class? Let’s just see what you can handle and start with maybe three. Reasonable, yes?”
“Now, now, my lord and master, must thou be so barren-spirited? ‘Greedy’! What a cankerous thing to say. After all, we are only talking about coin. Would it not be wiser for thee to consider this an investment, say a down-payment, to buy my favor?”
“What good would it do me for you to owe me favors?”
“We spoke of the contents of maidens’ skirts.”
“I’ll find out what’s up a girl’s skirt on my own. I don’t need your illegal leaks.”
“Nrrr. My lord appears to be a man among men.”
“Tsk. It’s about time you noticed. Every day for breakfast, I have croque-monsieur.”
“The breakfast of gentlemen!”
“And I’m also punctual!”
We were having a stupid conversation, just a stupid conversation, okay?
“Ahh, enough. Fine,” I relented, “how about you and I each choose five? That’ll be ten total, which we can share.”
I suppose it was a hundred-yen sale. I could spare a thousand yen. I didn’t need any favors, but it wouldn’t hurt to put her in a good mood. To keep the lines of communication smooth between us─I doubted I’d be asking her for any help, but I still didn’t want her getting in the way of my canoodling with Hachikuji.
“But in return, no muffins or pies,” I laid down. “Those aren’t included in the sale.”
“Argh… I’ll bear it, if I must.”
Shinobu nodded in the most reluctant fashion you can imagine.
What a deadbeat… How about a thank you?
I’d meant to buy a study-aid with the money. If I failed my exams, I was blaming her.
Anyway, after finally hashing out our terms, it took yet another thirty minutes for Shinobu to select her ten donuts from the display case (I even let her choose my five. Since we were sharing anyway, there was really no “my five” and “her five”).
Shopping with girls was tough.
The former vampire also seemed to have tunnel vision and zero finesse. After spending thirty minutes “cruelly” choosing, she got a whopping three flocky choux in the end.
Chocolate flavor, apple flavor, and blueberry flavor.
Strictly speaking, they were different, but this was her chance to try out all different kinds of donuts. You’d think she’d go for a little more variation.
Maybe I should have said something, but between the way she looked and her antiquated speech, Shinobu was drawing a lot of stares. I didn’t have the mental fortitude to engage in one of our slapstick dialogues right by the register.
Judging from the cashier’s reaction, the assumption seemed to be that Shinobu was talking that way thanks to her favorite anime or something, but I wasn’t adventurous enough to play along with that mistake.
Phew. So be it.
Since I was goi
ng to bring Shinobu here every month, all sorts of misunderstandings and understandings would obtain sooner or later.
It was all an anti-matter of time.
In addition to the ten donuts, I ordered two cups of free-refill coffee, after which Shinobu and I headed to a table on the second floor.
