Vol 1 Chapter 23 (2/2)

As I watched Asaka munching on her onigiri slowly, I felt that she was rather cute when a sudden ”Gu~ lu~ ” sound appeared from a corner of the pitch-black hut.

”Uaaaaahhhhhh, what's that sound, who's over there?”

”Hiroto, is it a ghost, I'm scared.......” Asaka leaned her head onto my shoulders as her voice slightly trembled as she said.

”Don't be afraid, I'll go take a look! Asaka, stay here and quietly wait for me, alright~?” I stroked Asaka's hand several times, to give her some a.s.surance, before deciding to proceed to the corner of the pitch black hut to see what's going on.

”Hiroto, don't go, you'll be eaten by the ghost.” Asaka worriedly told me.

”I'll be fine, Hiroto-me is extremely strong~” I smacked my chest and took in a deep breath in order to beef up my courage to check the area.

(Honestly speaking, I'm quite scared, but for Asaka's sake I must be brave, what if it's most probably a wild cat or something, if I don't take any action and have a look I'll be scared to my death doing nothing.)

Something in the darkness seemed to be s.h.i.+vering while giving off moderate noises, I kept encouraging myself as I approached it, frankly speaking I already didn't feel that much frightened already.

After I had reached the corner of the pitch black hut, I realised with a surprise that it's actually a small girl, she clutched her face as she trembled, hugging herself tightly in the corner.

Even through the darkness I could clearly see her hair color, it's shockingly silverish white, what kind of age that this person must be in to be still having patches on her clothing.

(TL: patches on the clothes, it means that imagine there's a large hole on your s.h.i.+rt, you would normally throw it away right? But you also could take another cloth and sew the hole up (albeit with a different color sometimes if you cannot find alternative cloths, as probably hinted in the text above))

Pulling away her hands that was tightly clutching onto her face, I gave a cry of shock, and a worried Asaka quickly ran over to check what's going on, before yelping in horror too.

The small girl's face cannot be described by mere words, it's simply too frightening to even had a glance at it; a long scar ran through her entire face, and her eyes was one small, one big, her nose is completely flat, and pus was always dripping from her nostrils.... in comparison, her mouth was considered rather normal, except that it was rabbit-lipped.

”Hiroto onii-chan, have you seen enough already?” The horror in front of us actually knew my name, and she even called me onii-chan!!!”

I started to recall what Mokuzai had said before about Second oji-san's daughter having pa.s.sed the test too, before saying uncertainly: ”You're Natsu?”

Asaka who was standing beside me suddenly seemed to remember and said: ”Natsu? Second oji-san's daughter?”

”Yes, I'm Natsu, Hiroto onii-chan, can you give me an onigiri?” Natsu's voice sounded exceptionally nice to hear, which is in contrast to her face appearance.

”Sure, come and eat together with us.”

”Thanks.”

At that moment I couldn't intepret Natsu' current expression on her face, because of her face, and I thought to myself that Asaka is really extremely cute to the max in comparison.

Under the moonlight, Natsu also seemed rather frightening, as she took an onigiriand bit onto it, tears dripped from her face.

Still slightly frightened, I looked at Natsu and asked: ”Natsu, what happened? Is it because the onigiri isn't delicious?”

”I.... I miss my okaa-san, ever since okaa-san had pa.s.sed away, I've never eaten anything as delicious as this onigiri, otou-san didn't like me because of my appearance, and because I looked so scary, the children in the Takeno family kept throwing stones at me......” Tears dripped out from Natsu's face that induced fear in people as she said.

My heart ached, and I walked to Natsu's front and hugged her face close to my chest, letting her wail in my embrace.... and hearing her sobbing getting louder and louder, I gently told Natsu still embraced in my arms: ”Natsu-chan, would it be fine if I called you this way? Actually a person's appearance cannot determine a person's worth, what's truly beautiful is the inner beauty within a person, so cheer up, be more positive, as long as your thinking changes, your body and your spirit would definitely change with that too. If you're always positive, you'll naturally always have friends around y ou.... when I became sensible, my otou-san used to always say, me and Asaka's okaa-san pa.s.sed away from problems when giving birth to us, and he often told us that, without any okaa-san we must be even more stronger, never to shed our tears easily.”

The person in my embrace after hearing my consolation, had her sobbing eventually getting softer and softer, and at last she looked at my face and said: ”Mm, I must be strong, I won't easily shed any tears, then will Hiroto onii-chan mind what my appearance looked like?”

(TL: I can't help it, I had to say: FLAG!!!)

I stroked Natsu's hair, and said gently: ”Of course I won't, don't be too concerned about your appearance Natsu-chan, me and Asaka will always play with you~”

Hearing my affirmative words, Natsu smiled even more happily, and said: ”Mm mm, thank you Hiroto onii-chan.”

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Watching Natsu lying in Hiroto's embrace, a fierce anger erupted out of nowhere from the depths of my heart. As I gripped tightly onto the corners of my skirt and watched them hugging each other closely, a few poisonous words flared out form my mouth: ”Who would want to play with that ugly b.i.t.c.h, look at you, what if you frightened Hiroto! Look at all the pus on your face, all of it got onto Hiroto's clothes already, it's really disgusting!!”

Hiroto glanced up to look at me with an expression of surprise on his face: ”Asaka, how could you say this sort of thing, she's our imouto too!”

(TL: imouto = ”lil' sister”)

”I don't have this kind of imouto, I only have Hiroto, my most cutecuutecuuutecuuuuutecuuuuuute onii-chan.”

Sobbing emerged from Hiroto's arms, and Hiroto started to be a little enraged: ”Asaka!!!!! How could you say this kind of things, hurry up and apologize to Natsu-chan, if you don't apologize, I..... I won't play with you next time!”

”Hiroto how could you do that, I'm then your nee-chan!!!! .... All right, all right, I'm sorry Natsu, I shouldn't have said something like that.”

After apologizing I saw that Hiroto's face started to become better.... I knew that Hiroto won't be angry with me in the first place, I had wanted to continue saying something but at this moment Mokuzai pushed open the door and entered: ”Waka-sama, let's go; two hours have pa.s.sed, if we're being spotted then it'll be disastrous.”

”Asaka no big baka, make sure you play with Natsu-chan~ tomorrow I'll come again to play with all of you.” After hearing Mokuzai's words, Hiroto hastily said to me before leaving, and thereafter he hurriedly left with Mokuzai.

”Bye Hiroto onii-chan.” Seeing Natsu calling out to Hiroto onii-chan, I felt extremely p.i.s.sed off.

”Hiroto onii-chan is so kind.”

Although Natsu's voice is very small, I still managed to hear it.

”Hiroto is mine.” I puffed furiously at Natsu, before walking to a corner of the pitch black hut; being silently angry at Hiroto while looking forward to Hiroto visiting again tomorrow.

-ch 23 end-

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