My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 2

by Takashi Kajii

  Whoa! Kuroha was leaning over the side of her boat, staring at Yuzu-san and me through what looked like a pair of toy binoculars. They were probably one of the professor’s inventions.

  If Kuroha was using binoculars to look up at us when she was so close, her vision must have gotten really bad. Probably from all that reading.

  The professor chuckled a bit, but then caught herself as if she’d noticed something. I looked out to where she was peering, and, out far beyond the boat with Odaira-sensei and Miru, there was a single boat.

  There was a person on the boat, wearing a hood that covered his head, but judging from the body type, it was probably a man. Since he had the hood on, it was hard to tell.

  “Hmm, that might be him...” The professor nodded, then all of a sudden she jumped from her boat to the boat with Yuzu-san and me. Then she hugged me.

  What are you thinking? Why are you hugging me?!

  “Wh-What are you doing?!” I yelped.

  “Sorry for being so sudden, but you see, I really love you, Imose-kun-noda!”

  “Whaat?!” I exclaimed.

  “I fell in love with you at first sight! Please, will you be my boyfriend?”

  S-S-Say what?!

  I’d been confessed to! But all the while the professor was yelling these climactic lines, her facial expression had been calm. You could say she was putting on an act.

  “I’m way more little-sistery than Kuro-chan or Yuzu-cchi-noda! Choose me-noda!” The professor grabbed my arm and pulled it toward her chest.

  Oh, she does have some roundness there... I was lost a bit in the realization that the child-like professor had some girly aspects to her.

  “Gin-san, don’t forget that I’m your little sister, too!” Yuzu-san grabbed on to my other arm, as if to counter the professor.

  Yuzu-san, you know your breasts are totally rubbing up against me, right?! Ooh, that side is nice and big and soft and...

  “Stop tempting my Nii, you harpies! Geezer, put some back into it and catch up!” Miru and Odaira-sensei quickly caught up.

  I felt a death stare, and turned to look in that direction. Kuroha had lowered her binoculars and was wearing a face of pure malice.

  With everyone together, the professor took in a deep breath, and yelled out in a surprisingly loud voice, “You’re so popular, Imose-kun. It’s no wonder your dream is to become an orthodox style literature author-noda!”

  She yelled it so loud that my ears hurt. I can hear you fine without you screaming, you know!

  “You’re way different than that other someone who writes such icky books and just mopes around all day-noda!” she went on. “Books without beautiful girls are just garbage, and the people who write them are garbage too-noda! If you want to be popular, maybe you should read some of Odaira-sensei’s books-noda!”

  Who is she talking about? No one here writes anything like that...

  “There’s no point to changing the world-noda. It’ll just prove that people with no talent can’t do anything regardless-noda!” As the professor finished, she laughed in an exaggerated, “Hahahahahahaha!”

  Suddenly...

  “S I L E N C E ! ! ! ! ! !”

  A great bellow reverberated across the lake’s surface.

  Immediately afterward, there was a thunk as something rammed into the boat we were on!

  “Uwaaaaaa!” Our boat tilted over and we were about to fall into the water. Someone was rowing a boat that had rammed into the rear of our own. I looked back, and was met with the eyes of a young man.

  His hair was pointing up, and his eyes had a sharp stare. He was wearing a cape, and had on what looked like an old fashioned military uniform. The fashion sense was so odd that I wondered to myself which men’s clothing store would sell such an outfit.

  A coat with a hood was lying on the floor beside his feet. It was the same person that the professor had been looking at afar earlier. I knew this person. It was the first time we had met, but I had seen his picture before.

  We found you! We finally found you!

  “You fell for it, Aniki! Now then...” proclaimed the professor, laughing confidently as she jumped back into her original boat.

  There was only one person who the professor would address as “Aniki”... her brother, Sadame Choumabayashi... i.e. Mr. Bedhead!

  “Ahaha, you’re such an idiot for falling for our little act, Aniki-noda!” she laughed.

  “Meguri, why you little...!” Mr. Bedhead was glaring at the professor with a fierce stare.

  “So, you are Sadame Choumabayashi-san, yes?” I yelled, and he looked in my direction. “How do you do? My name is Gin Imose. Please give us back the manuscript and the Meguri Gun.”

  “You foolish brat... Did you seriously think asking Myself nicely would get you what you want?” he demanded.

  “No, I didn’t think you would give in without a fight, Mr. Bedhead.”

  “B-B... This is not a bedhead! This is my ‘Literary Hair’!” Mr. Bedhead touched his hair.

  “All great authors must have very distinct hair” is something people say, that’s true. I see now. I can definitely understand that.

  “It doesn’t look good on you,” I said.

  “Shut up! You have no right to criticize me when you are wearing such an outdated outfit!”

  Huh? My SCHOOL UNIFORM is super classy, man!

  “Outdated? Going by 23rd century tastes, your outfit is quite a number you know, Aniki-noda!” the professor declared.

  “I prefer Gin-san’s reserved black uniform myself. I think it is wonderful,” added Yuzu-san.

  “I can’t believe he refers to himself as ‘Myself.’ I mean, it’s one thing in a book, but to use that as a real person... It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered someone like that,” pondered Kuroha.

  “Creep,” said Miru, simply.

  “When Miru-chan calls you a ‘creep,’ that’s a great honor! I’m so jealous, I’ll never forgive you, Sadame-kun!” yelled Odaira-sensei.

  We had all gathered together and were blasting Mr. Bedhead with all we had.

  “Enough!!! Silence!!!” Mr. Bedhead had stamped his foot so hard his boat was rocking back and forth. He was clearly a very emotional person. As he was distracted, we had slowly proceeded with our plan.

  “Aniki, you screwed up!” the professor announced. "Take a look: your boat is surrounded-noda!”

  Before we had gotten on the boats, we had all planned to surround him if we ran into him. We had formed a triangle around him in the lake with Mr. Bedhead’s boat caught in the center.

  “Mr. Bedhead, you cannot escape. Now, we are going to tie a rope to your boat and have you follow us!” I declared.

  There was no response. He looked at our three boats and spoke in an unexpectedly calm voice.

  “Hmph. You finally show yourselves, but I do not have the time to play with you right now.” He took out a small, white, round object from his coat.

  —?! That’s a time traveling marshmallow!

  “They’re already finished?!” I exclaimed.

  “That shouldn’t be possible-noda. It’s too fast for them to be completed-noda!” said the professor, flabbergasted. “Aniki, you didn’t... You used a smaller amount of the ingredients and made them extra quickly?! It’s true they’d be ready in less time, but...”

  “Little sister of mine, and all the rest of you followers of Gai Odaira... Wander for the rest of your lives, trapped in this era!” he shouted.

  “Stop, Aniki!” she cried back. “If you eat marshmallows that are incomplete, then...”

  Mr. Bedhead ignored the pleas of the professor, and popped the marshmallow into his mouth.

  My vision was filled with blinding white light. A wave of light burst out from Mr. Bedhead’s boat. A beam heading upwards reached up into the heavens, and the blast wave along the surface of the lake caused waves to appear. The large waves rocked out boats back and forth violently, and we all lost our balance and fell over.

  “Ugh...�
� I somehow lifted up my head. Has Mr. Bedhead already traveled through time? I looked over at the boat he was in...

  I gasped and stood up. Everyone else also stood back up and looked over, dumbfounded.

  He was still there.

  What used to be Mr. Bedhead was still there. It must have been a side effect from eating an incomplete time traveling marshmallow. Not a single trace was left of the former form of Mr. Bedhead. His body had been changed beyond all recognition.

  He spread his wide, dark black wings, and opened up his big, suspicious-looking eyes. He had a slender body, thin in some places, and overflowing in other places... It was a tragic transformation into a different form.

  Not a single trace of his original form was left... If Odaira-sensei were to describe it in one of his books, he would surely say something like this:

  GIRL

  Mr. Bedhead had been transformed completely into a young, pretty girl. He looked to be about eight years old. His bangs were cut and he had short, bobbed hair that matched his youthful looks. He was wearing an old-fashioned type of gym uniform called bloomers, which was something that you would only see in the 23rd century on 2D characters.

  Honestly speaking, he was quite cute...

  “Ahh, I tried to warn you-noda...”

  “Wh-Wh-What is the meaning of this?!” Mr. Bedhead had realized from our reaction something was wrong and had looked down at himself. The most unique feature was the bat wings that had sprouted out from his back.

  “Oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!” Odaira-sensei exclaimed. “Gym clothes, bloomers, and wings! I can’t stand it anymore!” He jumped into Mr. Bedhead’s boat, gunning straight for him. “Give me those bloomers! I want to put them on my head!”

  “S-Stop it!” Mr. Bedhead screamed.

  Odaira-sensei’s fingers pulled down on Mr. Bedhead’s bloomers, and Mr. Bedhead aimed a swift kick in his direction.

  “Hahaha! You say a lot of things, Sadame-kun, but it seems you like pretty little girls after all!” teased Odaira-sensei, as he deftly jumped back to his own boat, twin-tails fluttering all the while.

  “You’re a poser,” sniped Miru.

  “Those gym clothes look very good on you!” added Yuzu-san, quite sincerely.

  “Professor, is that some kind of side effect?” asked Kuroha, who was calmly assessing the situation, unlike everyone else.

  “That’s right-noda,” she agreed. “It’s like how Odaira-sensei’s love for beautiful girls turned him into one. In this case, my brother’s resentment toward moe caused his transformation-noda!”

  “And the wings?” Kuroha asked. “Are they some kind of personification of his wicked intent?”

  “I suppose that’s possible, but if I were to give my opinion as a scientist...” The professor drew out the suspense with a long pause. “...I’d just call it an added bonus!”

  “...It’s going to be quite a troublesome bonus if he flies away!” Kuroha shouted.

  Uh, that would be really bad, wouldn’t it?

  If only I could simply grow tentacles and wrap them all around the bloomer-wearing girl that is now Mr. Bedhead, much like the religious art I saw in the museum... But I highly doubt the professor would have an invention to do that...

  As I was pondering, Kuroha looked over and gave me a signal. She must have been planning something about Mr. Bedhead.

  “You have faith in old literature, yes? I read modern literature as well,” said Kuroha.

  “...So you do, black-haired girl?” answered Mr. Bedhead.

  I get it! Kuroha is gonna talk to Mr. Bedhead and distract him. And maybe... Perhaps I was being naive, but I thought if she could convince him we were right, then maybe we wouldn’t have to do anything rough like capture him at all. He would return the manuscript and we could all go back to the future together.

  All right, let’s all persuade him!

  “I prefer modern literature to the orthodox style myself. But I don’t have the hatred you do for it. I’m not going to go changing history, you know?” explained Kuroha.

  “Hmph. Such was the only course of action. In order to set literature back on the correct path, merely changing the literary world would be insufficient. The very roots must be pulled up and replanted.”

  “The roots?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Culture. And that which gives rise to culture... education.”

  “Education, you say?” I couldn’t help but to cut in.

  Mr. Bedhead turned to look at me. “Literature... No, not just literature... It was the decay in this country’s schools and educational system which truly set our culture along such a regrettable course. The establishment of that kind of education is what seeded the soil in which the banality of the orthodox style could take root.”

  “The orthodox style is not banal!” I said hotly. “And the school system hasn’t decayed!”

  “Silence, brat! You should know the difference in school between the two time periods. Compare in your mind the schools of the 21st and 23rd centuries. You must see how far the schools have degenerated, no?!” As if to emphasize his horror, Mr. Bedhead’s wings spread out wide.

  Compare the schools? I didn’t want to just do whatever he told me to, but if I was going to try and convince him, I at least needed to be able to counter what he was saying. I thought back to the experiences I had had in school, both in the 21st century and the 23rd century...

  “So, do you have anything to say for yourself, brat?” he demanded.

  “I think the schools in the 23rd century are perfectly fine,” I said. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “What do you mean, fine?! The teachers are no longer of flesh and blood, and the role is now borne by 2D girls that are nothing but products of a machine. There is even the horrid system for rewarding correct answers with a flash of women’s drawers, the ‘positive stimulation reinforcement,’ i.e. ‘postimment.’ Could it get any more degenerate?! I think not!”

  “The 2D teacher can be created to each student’s individual tastes, so we can study while we talk with them,” I shot back. “Isn’t it important to nurture each student’s individualism? And the reward videos help to motivate people to study!”

  “Stop spouting such sophistry!” he snapped. “It is due to the persistence of that kind of education that people of proper intelligence and tastes are no longer raised! In the 23rd century there are nothing but imbeciles and ignoramuses!”

  Mr. Bedhead shouted out angrily, but it was not me who responded.

  “That’s not true! There are educated people even in the 23rd century!” said Kuroha, and Mr. Bedhead turned his piercing gaze toward her.

  “Oh? Black-haired girl, are you telling me that you are properly educated?”

  “That’s not what I meant to say exactly, but I might be better than you, at least,” she said.

  “Hmph. Then how about we test that education of yours, shall we?”

  Test her education? What is he suggesting? I hope this doesn’t get too crazy...

  Mr. Bedhead stuck his hands into his bloomers and pulled out a book to show Kuroha. The title is よゐこの漢字問題集 (Kanji Workbook for Children)... I can’t even read that hiragana!

  “This is a workbook for children to teach them kanji. Try reading it,” said Mr. Bedhead, as if challenging her, and he flipped it open to a certain page. Written on the page were three kanji.

  鯖　鰤　鯵

  What the... I couldn’t help but look. What in the world are those?! I’m pretty sure they’re kanji, but they’ve got to be some kind of super-ultra specialized kanji, right? They’ve got so many strokes, and they look like some kind of ancient language or spell or something. This isn’t something you’d learn in school, it’s advanced research level!

  Even Kuroha would surely not be able to read such difficult kanji. This was not a good situation. But...

  “‘Saba’ (mackerel), ‘buri’ (yellowtail), ‘aji’ (horse mackerel).” Kuroha read each one in turn.

&nb
sp; “It can’t be!” exclaimed Mr. Bedhead, with an expression that matched the line. He must never have imagined that Kuroha could have been able to read them.

  “Ahaha... You go on about education but you just end up quizzing her on kanji. You’re just ever so proud of those facts you crammed into your brain, Aniki. You have such a narrow worldview-noda,” laughed the professor.

  “Reading Nii’s prose is way harder,” added Miru.

  Hold on a sec. This might not seem hard to everyone else, but for a normal person in the 23rd century like me, this is a pretty damn high-level competition!

  Mr. Bedhead paid no heed to the peanut gallery, and proceeded to the next question. “Not bad, black-haired girl... Then, how about this!”

  官能

  “Whaa?!” Kuroha was flustered.

  “Sadame-kun, that is a strange question to ask, isn’t it? I find it odd that it would appear in a book aimed at children, but...” asked Odaira-sensei.

  “That’s a book he wrote himself-noda,” answered the professor. “He just made it to show off all the old words he knows-noda.”

  “Ah, that would explain it. He must have had quite a lot of free time to make something like that.”

  The professor and Odaira-sensei were having a casual conversation, and it was almost as if they were having a nice cup of tea together, watching Kuroha and Mr. Bedhead face off.

  “Come now, black-haired girl!” he challenged. “Can you not read this?”

  “I-I can read it! ... Kannou...”

  “Nee... What does kannou mean?” asked Miru, ever so pure.

  “I-I-It means...”

  “Come on, tell me!”

  “It means to feel sexual pleasure, something like that, okay?!” yelled out Kuroha, who couldn’t have been more upset about having to say it aloud.

  Mr. Bedhead let out a mocking laugh. “Is that it, black-haired girl? In the end, you know nothing more than the surface meaning of kanji. In fact, kannou means the operation of the human sensory organs such as the ears, eyes, etc...”

  “...Huh? Really?” Even Odaira-sensei didn’t seem to know this.

  “Nee’s read way too many of those kannou books in our library,” pointed out Miru. Kuroha’s face went red from cheek to cheek.