Vol 1 Chapter 4 (1/2)
VOLUME 1-1
Chapter 4
Early in the morning at the Hinooka household.
After seeing off her father as he drove off to work early, Tsuyu rolled open the morning newspaper in the yard of their house.
The cool morning air crept in through the sleeves of her pajamas.
Glimpses of clear sky broke through the cloud cover above, indicating that today’s weather would be nice.
“So Kobo-chan is finally in high school too…”
The sound of squeaking brakes resounded through the air. It seemed to have come from the front porch.
It sounded different from the brakes of the mailman’s bicycle she was used to hearing. It wasn’t from one of the Yakult1 salesladies either.
When Tsuyu turned back to look out the door, a boy wearing a high school uniform was there straddling a bicycle and chewing on what looked to be bread. It was Touya.
Noticing Tsuyu poking her head out the door, Touya hurriedly finished swallowing his food.
“Good morning!” Touya cheerfully greeted.
“…G-Good morning,” Tsuyu replied timidly, while still holding open her newspaper.
Who’s this? What’s going on?
I’ve been seen in my pajamas? Should I report him? Should I?
A pile of questions marks ran through Tsuyu’s head.
After staring at her carefully, Touya asked a question.
“Could you be Hinooka’s little sister?”
Tsuyu simply nodded.
Touya then took out his cell phone and confirmed the time.
“…Is Homura still sleeping?”
Tsuyu nodded again and then, after a moment, quickly ran back inside and up to the second floor of the house.
“Homura, Homura!”
She sprang into Homura’s room without knocking and tore off the bed covers as she woke up Homura, who was sleeping while rolled up into a ball on her bed.
“Wake up, Homura!”
“…What is it… I’m still sleepy, you know…”
Homura looked at Tsuyu with half-closed eyes.
“I said someone’s at the door!”
“……We could use some Joa2…”
“Not the Yakult saleslady! An unknown guy! Someone you know? A former boyfriend? A stalker!? Should I report him?”
“…Eeh~? Who is it now…?”
She sluggishly crawled out of bed with her hands and feet and headed towards the window to look outside.
Her younger sister’s sense of gravity, which was quite lacking in the first place, had utterly failed to fully wake Homura.
“Homura, your front b.u.t.ton!”
Homura leaned out the window.
Tsuyu quickly moved behind her and covered the open front of Homura’s pajamas.
Touya waved his hand from the front porch.
“Good morning, Hinooka! Are you finally awake? Hurry up and come down!”
“……”
Homura finally stopped staring down absently as her eyes came into focus.
“What are you doing in front of my house, Touya-kun?”
“What are you talking about? I already told you yesterday, remember?”
“What was it again?”
“Running. We agreed to go running together!”
“…Ah… Ah… Right, right. I did promise that.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sorry, just wait there a bit.”
“I’m not waiting more than five minutes.”
After bringing her head back inside and closing the window, Homura began to sluggishly change clothes.
She put on some exercise clothing that she had almost never used. She had bought it at some point in the past to match the tastes of her boyfriend at the time.
“Should I do your hair?” Tsuyu asked in a sunken tone.
“Hmm, no, it’s fine.”
After slipping off her pajamas, Homura turned to face the mirror of her dresser and nodded in relief. She removed the cleaning shop tag attached to her s.h.i.+rt.
“I can’t make him wait too long. It’s my fault for sleeping in, after all—all right, this will do,” Homura said as she picked up a running cap.
“Who is that guy?” Tsuyu asked with a suspicious face.
There were a lot of things she wanted to ask, but that was what concerned her the most.
“Hmm? He’s a friend from school.”
“Ah, right, he’s wearing a Seiran High uniform… So, is he your new boyfriend?”
“Things would be simpler if that were the case.”
Tsuyu went over to the window and peeked down at the front porch through the curtains.
The boy in question, with nothing else to do, was doing some trick moves with his bicycle on the spot.
“…Homura, is that kind of person to your taste?”
“Like I said, he’s not my boyfriend,” Homura said as she skillfully tied her hair back behind her head. With her cap on as well, it was just right. “The truth is, I don’t really understand it either.”
Tsuyu stared reproachfully at Homura, who looked good no matter what she wore.
“In any case, it seems he’ll be coming here every morning from now on.”
Homura suddenly said something outrageous right at the start of the morning.
It would have turned into a scene of carnage if their father was still around to hear that.
“Eh? Every morning!? Hey, wait, M-Mom…!?”
Just as she tried to seek aid from her mother downstairs, Tsuyu heard the sound of the front door opening, and she rushed to the window again.
There, she saw her mother Serina just as she was going outside.
She was handing a gla.s.s of juice to Touya, who was politely greeting her with a bow.
“I already told Mom about it yesterday evening.”
“Gununu… A-At least meet in the evening instead…”
“All right, perfect.”
Homura finished dressing herself in front of the mirror. Emotionally, at least, she felt like a competent athlete.
She had to make Touya wait another ten minutes in order to wash her face.
As Homura did so, Tsuyu could hear the bright conversation between Touya and her mother as they acted friendly with each other.
Now that it had come to this, Tsuyu had no choice but to seek backing from her father.
“Ah, that’s right. Tsuyu, lend me your shoes.”
“Use your own!”
Lunch break.
Homura resolutely bowed her head in apology to her lunch friends.
“I’m sorry, Makino-san and everyone. I’m going to be spending lunch elsewhere for a while starting today… I really am sorry!”
Homura prostrated herself in apology with both hands on her desk.
“…What did you just say?”
In the cla.s.sroom during lunch break.
The other girls who were sitting with their desks arranged together looked like ominous silhouettes with the sunlight from the window at their backs.
They laced their fingers together while resting their elbows on their desks and solemnly whispered to each other.
“It’s a boy.” “It’s a boy.” “She won’t come back anymore.” “It was a short friends.h.i.+p.”
Makino propped one leg on a chair and leaned forward threateningly.
“Hey, Hinooka. If we make it look like ya can leave our turf and make yourself respectable so easily, it’ll set a bad example, ya know?”
“……” Homura trembled in silence.
“Shall I floor ya…?”
Makino made her hand into a finger pistol and thrust it before Homura’s face.
Her finger lightly touched Homura’s cheek, making her jump with a start.
“Hyah.”
“…Hinooka-san, you have an eraser imprint on your face.”
“Eh…? N-No way.”
“You were dozing off on your desk earlier.”
“Ah, you’re right. The brand [NOMO] is etched on her face.” “No, it’s not.”
“Then how about [Dostellar]3?” “No!”
Laughter filled the area around the group of desks, with Homura half-crying half-laughing in the center.
Makino spoke gently.
“You decided to partic.i.p.ate in the Boxed Lunch Contest during the s.h.i.+nryoku Festival, right?”
“Y-Yeah.”
There was a large boxed lunch in the bag Homura held, along with a recipe magazine underneath it.
Appearance-wise, it was quite ‘simple’, but being easily understood was one of Homura’s good points.
“Is that so?”
“Then, that means you’ll be busy for two weeks. Good luck.”
“Who’s going to taste-test it? I feel a bit envious.”
“Yeah. What a shame. Talking with you is always interesting, Hinooka-san.”
“At first, I thought you were a quieter person, and it was a bit hard making retorts to you.”
“How to put it, it’s like you always do counter-throws, I guess?”
“Counter-throws?” Was that from some fighting game?
“Right, right. It’s like you wait for the other person to make a retort to a joke and then you throw in the opposite direction with a heave.” “I don’t get it at all.” “To put it another way, you have the courage to toy with others.”
At that moment, Homura felt like she had returned to the happy atmosphere of when she was in middle school.
With reluctance, she left the cla.s.s.
“……”
Homura inadvertently looked over the cla.s.sroom as she left, but Kujou-san wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the cla.s.sroom at lunch time today as well.
“So, how was the running?”
“It wasn’t so hard.”
“Liar. You were gasping for breath when we went up the hill.”
Near the lawn in the courtyard, there was a wooden deck spread out with benches arranged on it. It looked a bit like a park.
This was a popular spot that was quickly filled up during lunch time, but Homura and Touya had luckily managed to secure a bench for themselves. Rather, the people around them might have been trying to be considerate. After all, there were nothing but couples on all the other benches…
“We didn’t have enough time today, so I cut the course in half. We’ll be running double the distance tomorrow.”
“Wait, that’s too sudden!”
Relaxing into a cross-legged posture on the bench, Touya stared pointedly at Homura.
“Even if you’re lucky and manage to win in the s.h.i.+nryoku Festival, you can’t just suddenly start partic.i.p.ating in the Exploration Club’s activities without any training.”
“I know.”
Homura nodded as she clenched her fist.
“Basic stamina is important, right? I read that much.”
“Oh.”
Touya raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“You finally read the Exploration Club pamphlet?”
“Well… it’s hard to read, so just a little.”
“That alone is enough. Then, I guess I’ll dig into this.”
There were two boxed lunches on the bench between Homura and Touya.