Naw, See? I Totally Won! – Part 06

October 6th, Friday. One day left until the school festival.

Home was supposed to be a place of comfort. And for a zombie like me, my room was the best paradise where I could take it easy.

But today, I didn’t relax at all. I kept working on the signboard.

It was already late at night, past ten. A model student like Hiramatsu would probably be asleep by now, but me, a zombie? I never felt sleepy. Normally I stayed awake until five in the morning, then crashed at school. That was my life, killing time watching late-night shows with Eu, or being dragged into Megalo hunts.

So this kind of steady work was right up my alley.

After school, Hiramatsu helped me again, but we didn’t finish the signboard. So I brought it home and kept at it.

Seriously, who the hell suggested we go all out with the design? I’d like to smack them.

Still, it looked like I might actually finish it. I should treat Hiramatsu to some food next time. I yawned, stretched, and decided to take a break in the living room.

In the hallway, I ran into Sera, dressed in a knit turtleneck, shorts, and tights for loungewear.

Her long ponytail was a glossy black. Her face was so perfectly sculpted you could call it beautiful or cute, and her hands were as milky and delicate as porcelain.

That kind of beauty wasn’t human. Then again, that wasn’t an entirely incorrect description. She was a Vampire Ninja—a being closer to vampires, or maybe even demons, than to humans.

She crossed her arms, resting her plump chest on them, and clicked her tongue.

“I was just about to call you,” she said.

“Then why’d you click your tongue?”

“Because the thought of wasting my time for your sake made it come out naturally.”

She turned on her heel and went into the living room. I followed her in.

Oh? The three girls were all here. It was rare to see them together this late.

“What are you all up to?” I asked.

“We made a late-night snack.”

“Hehe. I made the food today!”

Seriously? Why didn’t you say that sooner?!

Eu, the quiet girl with silver hair that usually just watched TV, placed her favorite teacup on the table and handed me her notepad.

Her silver hair flowed down to her waist like silk threads. Her eyes, deep blue as the ocean’s depths, pulled me in. Her slender frame was wrapped in armor: plate mail and gauntlets, like a knight.

She was gazing up at me with her usual emotionless eyes.

Her name was Eucliwood Hellscythe, a mysterious girl said to have come from the Underworld.

On the table sat a large plate with three stacked okonomiyaki. Beside it were tubes of mayo and Worcestershire sauce, along with bags of dried seaweed and bonito flakes. Was this really a midnight snack?

And what was this rainbow-colored cream stuff supposed to be? Maybe it was optional toppings to go with the okonomiyaki?

“What is this dish?” Haruna asked. “It’s just a pancake, but it tastes strange.”

So it looked like a pancake to her. It clearly had green onions and sakura shrimp inside.

With knife and fork in hand, Haruna dug into the okonomiyaki. Instead of pouring sauce on top, she dipped bites into a small dish of sauce. First just Worcestershire sauce, then just mayo, then mixing them a bit, testing flavors as she went.

I guess when she encountered unfamiliar food, she studied it like this, one bite at a time.

“Is it good?” I asked as I sat next to Haruna.

With her mouth full, just about to scoop some more, she said, “Nuh buhd.”

She meant to say it wasn’t bad at all. And if the proud, arrogant Haruna said that, it had to be good.

“Let’s me see.” I reached for a piece with my chopsticks.

“Ah, hey! Yours is over there.”

Over where? I looked and found nothing.

“Wait, you mean this rainbow-colored cream?”

“It’s the okonomiyaki I made,” Sera said. “I cooked it, but for some reason, it didn’t set.”

“Bet you messed up the process again.”

Face as grim as Vajrayakṣa,^[1] Sera spoke softly, full of anger, “How rude. You make it sound like I always mess up.”

That’s exactly what I was saying. The coward that I was, I could not voice my thoughts.

“See, I left some for you,” Haruna said.

“She’s such a kind girl,” Sera said. “Always saves her portion for you.”

More like always dumped it on me. When would Sera realize that her cooking was hazardous?

“I’ve always wondered, Sera. Have you ever eaten your own food?”

“Of course I have.”

What?! How was she still alive?

“You taste it and this is how it ends up?” Haruna scowled.

“No, I haven’t tasted it. This is embarrassing, but when I tried my cooking before, I passed out from how delicious it was.”

“Delicious?”

“Big brother, did she just say delicious? Is she stupid?”

Eu stared blankly. Well, that was her usual expression.

“I don’t even know what’s in it. It’s gross,” Haruna said.

Sera blushed, which was a rare sight. “How rude! I didn’t use any coloring.”

Honestly, I kinda wished she did.

“What did you put in it?”

“Ugh, then what did you put in it?”

“I suppose you could say… I put my heart into it.”

So she crammed all the world’s negativity in there?!

“I combined that with flour and made it into an okonomiyaki meunière.”

She turned it into meunière?! She took a pancake-like batter, coated it in flour, pan-fried it in butter, and added lemon juice?!

There. I’d shared my thoughts. Now I didn’t have to eat it, surely.

“And for the main dish… behold.”

A rock landed on the hotplate. It sizzled, and smoke curled up.

“What is this?”

At this point, nobody could blame me for sounding like a robot. As for Haruna, she was probably speechless the moment a main dish appeared for what was supposed to be a late-night snack.

“Stone-grilled,” Sera said.

Stone-grilled what?! The important part is what you’re grilling, you know!

“Give me more credit. If I stop here, it’s just ordinary cooking, isn’t it?”

In a way, I was already full. I didn’t need any more surprises after this.

Sera grabbed a dumpling-like thing with her chopsticks and stuck it onto the stone. There was a pop, and the dumpling was burnt to a crisp.

“This is charcoal grilling.”

“Are you stupid?” The same look of contempt Sera usually shot at me, I shot back at her today.

She shoved the charred dumpling into my mouth, and the next moment, I spewed foam like I’d rubbed soap in my mouth and collapsed on the spot.

“So, Ayumu, did you finish your homework?”

Haruna, no longer caring about any of this, started nagging like an overbearing mom. She likely meant the signboard.

“No, not yet,” I said, gasping for air as I pushed myself up.

“I’ll help, so finish it quickly, ‘kay?”

“I don’t need your help.”

“‘I’ll help too.”

“It’s fine. I’m almost done anyway. Thanks.”

I smiled gently at Eu, and she gripped my hand tightly. So cute! Ever since she returned, Eu was unbearably adorable.

“Help me with mine then,” Haruna said.

“What?”

“Well, your classroom walls are kind of bare, right? So I thought we should line them with drawings of yokai.”

“The school festival is tomorrow, you know.”

“That’s why I’m telling you to help me. There are bigshots among yokai too, aren’t there?”

I see. She wanted to line them up like portraits in the music room. Finally, I got it.

“That sounds interesting. Allow me to help.”

Sera unexpectedly jumped in. Eu grabbed a ballpoint pen, fully motivated.

“Then I’ll grab the sketchbook.” Haruna started clearing the hotplate and the stone.

And I still hadn’t eaten Eu’s okonomiyaki. Maybe I’ll sneak a bite later.

---

And so I sketched some random illustrations with a pencil.

I couldn’t think of anything. Yokai, huh. Yokai, yokai. A kappa,^[2] maybe?

“Here’s the first one.”

Sera flipped her sketchbook around to show me. Already done, huh?

Wait, i-it’s Maitreya^[3] in a half-lotus position.

She had the same idea as Anderson. Why would she pick the same thing?

Still, what a god-awful drawing. Elementary school level. I couldn’t say that, of course.

“It’s a kappa.”

It is?! This girl’s sense of aesthetics was just as weird as her cooking.

“I’m done too. Ta-da!”

Haruna held up her sketchbook. It showed a loving couple doing a comedy routine. Who the hell were those supposed to be?

“The title is, Saul and Pippa.”

Salt and pepper? Also, those aren’t yokai, they’re just normal people!

“What kind of yokai is that supposed to be?” I asked.

“It’s a yokai that writes the character for person on its palm three times and makes you eat it.”

“Sounds like a good fellow. Like a nice senior looking out for a nervous newbie.”

Eu raised her hand. Were we doing some kind of gag routine now? I had to come up with a joke as soon as I showed my work?

I peeked at Eu’s drawing. It was amazing. A portrait that looked like the real thing. I didn’t know who it was, but probably a Hollywood actor… maybe?

A muscular man with wings on a bandana. He looked like a dashing guy from the seventies.

“Ah, that’s Thunder Hawk^[4] using the Mexican Typhoon.^[5]”

Who doing what? Haruna stared at Eu’s drawing wistfully.

“What about yours, Ayumu?” Haruna asked.

I showed my half-finished kappa.

“Horrendous,” Sera said.

Says you! I was glad my sense of aesthetics didn’t match Sera’s.

“Awful.”

When Haruna said it, I was like whatever.

“Terrible.”

“Try a little harder, big brother!”

When Eu said it, I actually felt motivated.

Haruna raised a hand. “Then let’s draw one more each!”

Eu and Sera, too, raised their hands in agreement. I reluctantly raised mine.

“I can’t wait for tomorrow!” Haruna’s cowlick bounced up and down as she drew. She was really looking forward to the school festival.

Come to think of it, Haruna was apparently always alone at Matellis Magic School.

Maybe, like me, she’d never joined school festivals, cultural festivals, or other events before.

Fine, then. Tomorrow—just for tomorrow—I wouldn’t tell her off no matter how excited she got.

It was a festival, after all.

---

Saturday came. I didn’t quite remember who suggested it, but this year’s school festival was to be held at night, starting at three in the afternoon and running until ten at night.

We students were busy with preparations from the morning, but I wondered what Haruna would do. Would she come early as a school staff member, or arrive later as a regular attendee?

I changed into my uniform and, without knocking, peeked into Haruna’s room.

What used to be my little brother’s room had now completely transformed into a girl’s room.

Cookbooks and fashion magazines lay scattered across the floor. A pile of manga called Detective God Great Conan was stacked high by the pillow. The curtains and sheets were brighter than they had been when my brother still lived here.

Haruna still seemed asleep, maybe because she hadn’t slept a wink the night before. I could hear her muffled, groan-like breathing from under the covers.

She probably couldn’t sleep from all the excitement, like a kid.

Still, that was not a very adorable way to breathe. Should I wake her or let her rest a little longer? Maybe I should check her sleeping face.

Curious about what her cowlick looked like while she slept, I pulled back the bulging blanket a little, revealing a girl with a bright red face, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her cowlick had wilted.

“Haruna, did you catch a cold?”

Good grief. Getting sick from being too excited right before the festival. What a perfect twist.

“A-Am I…” Haruna rasped. She cradled her head and let out a groan.

So that groaning wasn’t her breathing.

“Am I… going to die?”

Her voice trembled. I couldn’t believe such weak, pessimistic words came from Haruna’s mouth.

I realized then that this wasn’t just a cold. Something far more serious was happening.

---

1. Vajrayakṣa (also known as Kongō-yasha or Jīn gāng yèchā míngwáng) is a fierce Wisdom King (Vidyārāja) in East Asian Buddhism, protecting Buddhist law by destroying evil and consuming evil passions.

2. A kappa is a famous yōkai in Japanese folklore, known as a water-dwelling creature inhabiting rivers, lakes, and ponds. It is often described as a child-sized amphibious humanoid with green, scaly skin, webbed hands and feet, and a turtle-like shell on its back.

3. Maitreya is a bodhisattva who is regarded as the future Buddha of this world in all schools of Buddhism, prophesied to become Maitreya Buddha or Metteyya Buddha.

4. Thunder Hawk (T. Hawk) is a fictional video game character from Capcom’s Street Fighter series.

5. The Mexican Typhoon, also known as the Storm Hammer, is one of T. Hawk’s special attacks.