Watch out! I twisted my upper body to avoid her attack.
Even after returning to the 23rd century, she was still carrying that dictionary around with her all the time, in order to study modern Japanese. She wasn’t doing it as a hobby, but was studying modern Japanese with a laser focus. She had always been able to read and write at a high level, but she seemed to want to completely perfect her knowledge.
And the reason for that was...
“Honestly! I can’t believe you would just go on and blab about those sorts of things!” yelled Kuroha.
“Isn’t it a lovely memory of your childhood? If you asked me about my favorite memories of bathtime, it’d have to be the times I tied up my brother and dunked him the bath up and down and up and down like a ship!” exclaimed Yuzu-san. It seemed Yuzu-san had only done it after her brother had begged her to, saying that he’d die if she didn’t do it. “Honestly I’m a little jealous of you two...”
“Then you want me to do it with you, too, Yuzu-san?” I asked.
“What?” “Huh?!” said Yuzu-san and Kuroha, their faces both looking surprised.
“I’d be happy to write letters on you if you want.”
“Oh, my... Speaking of which, my brother had a lot of manga where there were girls with the kanji 正 written all over their thighs. He was always saying he wanted that to happen to him, one day. I guess having your body written on is something wonderful, no matter what time period you are in...”
“I wonder why I feel so incredibly icky right now... Anyway, we’re not kids, so we can’t play write-on-the-body anymore,” said Kuroha, giving me a nasty glare to indicate that she was dead-set against the idea.
“Even though it is the origin of my writing style...” I began.
“Anyway! Your writing style... Well not just that, but your stories, too... They’re really an acquired taste! I think you should try writing something a more general audience can appreciate,” Kuroha said.
“Like, what exactly?” I asked her.
“Hmm... This novel site has a ‘most read’ ranking, so why don’t we read the novel that’s ranked number 1?”
The novel site I had uploaded my story to was mainly intended to help train amateur authors and get them criticism and feedback, but the works at the top of the rankings had a huge number of passionate fans.
They might be more useful examples than crappy novels from real publishers!
“Fine, let’s see,” I said.
I switched the webpage to the ranking list. The work at the top was DOUBLE LILSIS. It was a story where both a gimai and a jitsumai appear. The main character was living with his gimai, but one day his jitsumai suddenly appears, and the main character has to choose between them. It seemed he ends up getting together with his jitsumai in the end. It had a reputation of taking the best parts of Gai Odaira and Haruka Haruka’s works together.
“His blood-related little sister just shows up one day? That’s ridiculous,” scoffed Kuroha after she read the story intro. Clearly she was not a fan.
“The jitsumai was innocent and tickled the male instincts, while the gimai was really clever but kind of opinionated. With a setup like that, it’s no wonder one was way more popular than the other,” I said.
“...So all that matters is that someone is childlike and innocent?” asked Kuroha.
“Well, little sister characters being innocent is the standard trope. Odaira-sensei says that all that time.”
For some reason, Kuroha went quiet with a pout. She opened her mouth a little as if she were going to say something, then stopped herself and reached into her pocket to check her cellphone. “Yuzu-san, it looks like she’s already left her house. She’s surprisingly punctual.”
“Oh, then we need to hurry and get ready ourselves,” replied Yuzu-san, looking a little concerned.
The two of them were heading out to do something. The “she” Kuroha had referred to was a classmate of hers, and the three of them plus Miru were going for a girls’ outing.
...I mention this like it was nothing particularly special, but for the Imose household this was a historically big deal!
When she wasn’t in school, Kuroha was the type to bury herself in modern literature books, and she almost never made any friends in her class. If she wasn’t talking, she was the quintessential “cool beauty,” so it must have been hard to approach her. It seemed like she was always by herself at school.
For Kuroha to go out and have fun with a classmate was as uncharacteristic as Odaira-sensei showing interest in a high school girl!
You might ask why Kuroha had suddenly gotten so chummy with someone from her class. It was because she had won herself a certain award. Thanks to that, it seems like some of the people around her were actually talking with her.
“Onii-chan, don’t do anything weird while we’re gone, okay?” said Kuroha, and she and Yuzu-san left my room.
Left to my own devices, I decided to write. I hadn’t figured out what I was going to do for my next work yet, so I was planning on continuing my 21st century personal experience diary—which, since I’d returned to the 23rd century, was more like a personal diary.
As I turned toward my PC to start writing, I paused. Let’s check my email first...
I had posted my email address publicly on the novel site, so maybe someone had emailed their thoughts on my writing. As I opened the email application with high expectations... Oh! I’ve actually got mail!
I wonder if it’s someone’s thoughts on my writing?
I looked at the subject and from fields...
Subject: ONII-CHAN SAVE ME!
From: UR REAL LILSIS
My real little sister?!
Suddenly a little sister I’d never known about had appeared out of nowhere... It was a plot that happened all the time in orthodox style literature. For example, the work that had won the Homyura Prize many years ago, LILSIS FUNGUS, had had jitsumai sprouting up like mushrooms in the main character’s room without any warning at all. If you were to just think about the stories that are out there, having a new little sister appear in the middle isn’t really that rare, but this was real life! I couldn’t believe it was happening to me!
I started to fantasize about what this little sister I had never known must look like.
Since I’m in my second year of high school, my little sister will probably be a cute girl in middle or elementary school, right? Or maybe she’s a cool, mature high school first-year like Kuroha?
I began to read this email from my real little sister carefully, one character, one word at a time.
(Translator’s Note: In order to express the nuances of the meaning, I have translated the body of the email into modern Japanese.)
Dear My Real Onii-sama,
My name is Reika, and I manage a karaoke bar in KEISEI TATEISHI in the KATSUSHIKA district of TOKYO. My business had been doing well so far, but lately we have been losing customers, and I have fallen into considerable debt. If you, my dear brother, would find it in your heart to not abandon your poor little sister, please click here. It will open a website which will do wonders for your personal finances. Did you click? Ah, you did. Very good. Now please click the button that says “register” in the upper right...
This is a serious problem!
My little sister who ran a karaoke bar in KEISEI TATEISHI (never heard of it), was in trouble! I hurried and clicked the link “here” that was in a bigger font. But it opened up a stock trading site for beginners called “STOCKS FOR CARELESS LILSIS.” It seemed like it was recommending stocks to buy...
Is stock trading really something you want to do carelessly?!
Still in shock, I started reading the website.
—Five minutes passed.
Huh? This is kind of strange. I mean, I just spent five minutes seriously reading a stock site! Could that letter I got be one of those “spam” things I’ve heard of?
I couldn’t be sure, so I thought maybe I’d forward it to someone else and get their opini
on. Now that I think about it, my classmate Sugawara-kun was saying that he’d be interested in having his fourth girlfriend have some kind of really out-there attribute. A little sister that runs a karaoke bar? That’s revolutionary! Okay, I’m gonna forward it to him! When I was about to click his address, I noticed something. Another email had arrived.
The subject read: “DEAR NII-SAMA,” and it was from: “REAL LILSIS.”
Oh, not again.
I figured this was probably another suspicious email. I was curious which kind of site it would lead me to, though... Maybe a site for marriage arrangements with 2D characters? I decided to go ahead and check what its contents were.
I gasped.
Just from reading it, I could tell... this was not spam!
The sender was a girl who was my blood-related little sister, and she said that she wanted to meet and discuss something. Her name was Amaneko, which didn’t ring a bell for me.
She had written the place and time she wanted to meet: 3 PM at my hometown’s busy shopping district, today. I knew just from that it wasn’t spam. But that wasn’t all...
She had written information about my birth.
“How could she have known...?” I couldn’t believe it.
The circumstances of my youth were somewhat uncommon. Not the fact that I was adopted, but the details around my birth were a little out-of-the-norm. The only people who could have known about it would have been myself and my family.
...No. I shook my head.
There were other people who naturally would know about the circumstances of my birth.
My birth parents.
But I’d heard that my birth parents had both passed away soon after they’d given me up for adoption. How in the world did this person know about how I was born? Could she really be my blood-related little sister? My jitsumai?
My heart was beating a mile a minute.
Something I had no experience with was approaching... I re-read the mail in confusion. The final sentence was this:
WANT TO MEET YOU NII-SAMA
*
One day in the 23rd century, Kuroha, Yuzu-san, and I were together in Kuroha’s room.
“Kuroha, Yuzu-san... Odaira-sensei really is an author that I should revere from the bottom of my heart! He’s even thinking about the future of our youth!” I declared.
“Oh, my... Gin-san, what are you so elated about?” Yuzu-san asked. “Is it that book... Arithmetic with Gai Odaira?”
“It’s an arithmetics problem book that Sensei wrote himself for middle-schoolers,” I confirmed. “Let’s read it!”
Special Edition: “Arithmetic with Gai Odaira”
ANSWER WORD PROBLEM W/ ★
MIKO-CHAN GO SHOPPING
COMESIN → MIKO-CHAN
MIKO-CHAN: “GO SHOPPING W/ 5000 YEN”
MIKO-CHAN → ELEMENTARY SCHOOLER ◎
TWIN-TAILS SHINY SPARKLY BLONDE
EYES LIKE DEEP OBSIDIAN
LIPS LIKE PRETTY PINK CHERRY BLOSSOMS
BOOBS APPROPRIATE FOR AGE LIKE FLAT BOARD ← DFC
CUTE FAIR-SKINNED TOOTSY ← ∩ DUMDUMMY
ME → WANNA TAKE HER HOME FOR REALS
SO
I WILL ASK A QUESTION NOW
HOW OLD IS MIKO-CHAN?
“Onii-chan... How is this an arithmetic problem?” Kuroha asked.
“It’s actually a book on philosophy.”
“Philosophy?!”
“The answer to the question is extremely simple. Miko-chan is a character that Odaira-sensei wrote, so she’s going to be 10 years old. That’s common knowledge for all 80 million people in Japan, you know? To ask a question that anyone already knows the answer to... See, it’s philosophy-y! Sensei is truly a sage for our time!”
“...It says it’s an ‘arithmetic’ problem book, but it’s just another collector’s item for his true believers...”
Chapter 2 - Ish Mine
In the 23rd century we can control the temperature, so it’s lovely all year-round. Actually, that’s a total lie. At the end of July, the late afternoons are as you might expect, witheringly hot.
Even my usual SCHOOL UNIFORM was just too suffocating, and I eventually decided on wearing a T-shirt with an illustration of a cute girl on it tucked into a pair of beige slacks. It was a sporty, yet traditional combination sure to be a hit with the girls.
“Lookin’ good,” I told myself.
I was going to meet a girl one-on-one, after all, so it was only natural I would be careful about how I dressed. I had arrived at the busy shopping area around the nearest train station called “AKIHABARA Road” in order to meet with the girl who claimed to be my blood-related little sister.
It didn’t really hold a candle to the actual AKIHABARA, but a bunch of AKIBA-like shops lined the street. These days most towns had streets named after AKIHABARA, but in the past they had been named after GINZA instead, I’d heard.
At the entrance of AKIHABARA Road was a small park, and there was a large statue of the wife of the mayor, a 2D preschooler. Mr. Pedoro, our mayor, had created the park and erected the statue, so we citizens really adored it. We called it the “Pedo Park” out of respect.
The girl who claimed to be my jitsumai had said we should meet at the Pedo Park statue. Looking around the base of the statue... I wasn’t able to see anyone that looked like it was her. Just in case, I went over the body of the email she had sent me again in my head.
This girl named Amaneko had known quite a lot about the circumstances of my birth. Here’s an example of one of the sentences in her email.
NII-SAMA WAS BORN FROM LOVE OF DAD AND MIKAERU-CHAN
Mikaeru-chan...
She was a heroine that had appeared in the second season of the cult-classic shrine maiden anime MIKO/ARCHANGEL. She was, of course, 2D.
And she was... the person my birth father had married. It seemed my birth father had had quite a thing for shrine maidens. In the 23rd century, humans and anime characters could get married and have children. I was the child of a human and a 2D character... a so-called “2.5D kid.”
These days 2.5D kids weren’t all that rare anymore. But compared to children born from two flesh-and-blood people, i.e. “normal” kids, 2.5D kids weren’t very common. In the past, it seemed like they had been discriminated against, and even today a small segment of people despised them.
So there were some people who would publicly talk about being 2.5D kids and some who wouldn’t. In the moe-filled society we had today, there wasn’t any disadvantage to being 2.5D, but I personally didn’t tell anyone unless there was some reason to. It wasn’t something I’d go out of my way to talk about.
The email from Amaneko didn’t just talk about how I was a 2.5D kid, but even wrote the exact name of the 2D girl that my dad had fallen in love with.
Where did she get that information? I want to meet her and find out right away...
She had set the meeting time for 3 PM in the afternoon. I checked my wristwatch. It would be in just a few minutes, but I still didn’t see anyone that could be her.
I looked up for no real reason and saw the statue’s panties.
“If you see panties, make sure to pay your respects” was what my dad had always taught me. But just as I was about to place my hands together in thanks...
“I’m sh-sho-shorry!” someone nearby me yelled out. “I totally screwed up!”
It seemed like a girl was apologizing to someone. Everyone in the area immediately focused on where the voice was coming from. When I turned to look myself...
There was a girl in a blue sailor uniform bowing her head up and down rapidly. As she arched over I could see her little butt underneath her pleated skirt. In front of her was... a life-sized figure of a beautiful girl.
“Um... Can you please say something? If you don’t, then I’mma...” She stopped herself, shook her head, and corrected herself, “Then I will... Pleash forgive me for bumping into you!”
This girl was apologizing to a figure, as far as I
could tell. At first the other onlookers were aghast, but as they figured out what was going on, they moved away with smirks on their faces. The girl seemed unsure of herself...
“Huh? Are you a figure, maybe? W-Wow-nodesu! This is my first time seeing a life-sized figure-nodesu!”
She spoke with a -nodesu tic, like a cute, strong-willed anime character.
She mistook a life-sized figure of a beautiful girl for a real person...? In 23rd century Japan? Ah... They don’t have figures on the streets in some other countries around the world, so maybe she’s a foreigner who isn’t used to Japan...
As I couldn’t help but look at the interesting girl, she turned around and looked in my direction.
Our eyes met.
Her big, upturned eyes were the thing I noticed first. She looked like she was in middle school. I could tell from her sharp eyes that she was strong-willed, but her small nose, lips, and healthy cheeks were adorable.
Hanging to the left, almost like an animal’s tail, she had tied up her hair with a little bell, and every time she moved it would jingle. The bell was louder than a normal one, and I got a sense that the sound was announcing to the world, “I am here!”
And then...
“Ahh!” As she raised her voice, her eyes opened wide, and she covered her mouth with her right hand and pointed at me with her left. Immediately after that, she trotted up to me, her side-tail swaying back and forth, like how a pet dog would make a bee-line after seeing its owner.
“Aaaaaa...” She looked up at me, making sounds that weren’t actually becoming words.
Then it dawned on me.
Could she... Could she be...
...mistaking me for a life-sized figure?! I needed to clear up any confusion.
“I beg your pardon, but I am a human.”
Perhaps the girl didn’t understand what I meant, as she didn’t respond and just nodded vigorously.
Hmm? Maybe it’s my imagination, but doesn’t she look like someone I know...?
My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 3 Page 2
