Chapter 6 - Letter

“...I sincerely apologize for my behavior.”

“...”

“After half a year of being hunted down by my editor day in and day out, I finally completed my manuscript,” Misako humbly explained, “and I was simply elated.”

“...”

“I wished to share that joyous feeling with my beloved little brother, to have him enjoy the happiness I was enjoying,” she continued. “Then, with the power of alcohol flowing through me, I wanted to run it back with the surprise naked apron bit so I could have fun teasing you... That was the only thing on my mind.”

“...Your true thoughts leaked out at the end there,” Kai observed.

“Um, Shiraseki-kun, I think this is enough...” said Nanaka. At the end of her worried gaze was an older sister who had been forced to kneel on the floor and reflect on her actions.

It was difficult to tell from her face whether or not Misako was truly sorry, as she trembled on the ground. Apparently, her legs had fallen asleep. When she’d jumped out of the house earlier, Nanaka had been stunned; after all, a woman in a naked apron emerged from her classmate’s apartment, where he supposedly lived alone. As a result, Misako had seized the chance to barrage Nanaka with a flurry of questions: name, date of birth, height, weight, zodiac sign, hobbies, favorite food, favorite song, and even her three sizes and the color of her underwear were all asked about before Kai slapped his sister’s head.

After that, Kai made Misako kneel in the hallway. He supposed that it made sense that her legs would be asleep by now. “...Fine,” he said reluctantly, “you can move now, nee-san.”

“Pfwaahhh! My legs!” she moaned, stretching her limbs in every direction as she began to flail about on the floor. “Thanks, Nanaka-chan,” she said next. “You saved me. If I’d had to kneel there for another second, I would only be able to move like a fish on dry land by now!”

“You’re already doing that,” Kai pointed out.

“A-Ahaha...” said Nanaka, before trying to change the subject. “Um, Misako-san, you’re Shiraseki-kun’s older sister... right?”

“That’s right! And from today onwards, let me be your older sister, too! So come on, ‘Misako-san’ makes it sound like I’m a stranger or something. Call me onee-chan and—”

“You are a stranger,” Kai told her bluntly. “It pains me to admit, but nee-san’s my older sister. Thankfully, Aoi-san, she’s not your older sister.”

“Did you hear that?” Misako whined. “He’s so cruel. But listen up, Nanaka-chan; don’t get the wrong idea. My brother is shy, you see, and most of what he says is just to cover up his embarrassment. So please take those big, cute, pure eyes and see past it to find out his true feelings!”

“Anything and everything nee-san says is a pile of nonsense, so you should forget all of it,” Kai advised Nanaka.

“Kai.”

“What?”

“I’ve told you this before,” Misako said dramatically. “If you treat your older sister too poorly... I’ll cry, you know?”

Kai was the one that wanted to cry.

“Still, that surprised me,” Nanaka said. “A beautiful older girl came rushing out of your house in... um, an incredible outfit.”

“Looks like my first impression was right on target,” Misako put in.

“If you were targeting a train wreck,” said Kai.

“Oh boy,” sighed Misako, “I was shocked, too... In the blink of an eye, my little brother had become a carnivore who’d bring a girl back to his house on the second day after transferring schools... I guess boys really do grow into men if you don’t see them for three days!”

“That’s not what that means,” he said shortly.

“...Am I in danger, too?” she wondered next.

“Not a chance.”

“Woah! A response that disdainful is sure to hurt your sister’s feelings, don’t you think?” Misako asked him sulkily.

Misako’s feelings could be as hurt as she wanted, Kai thought. His head hurt so badly that it felt as though it’d split in two... Emotionally speaking, of course.

“...Pfft.” Out of nowhere, there was a small laugh from Nanaka, who couldn’t keep it in any longer. “I’m sorry. Shiraseki-kun, I didn’t know you could talk like this,” she tried to explain. “It’s kind of fun and... pfft.” It seemed that Nanaka couldn’t hold herself back after all, and she continued to snicker happily.

No one ever feels good when they’re laughed at, but watching her smiling face as she tried to suppress her soft laughter made Kai want to start laughing along with her.

“Nanaka-chan, can I ask you just one more question?” said Misako, her expression now so serious that she seemed like a completely different person. “I know very well that Kai isn’t the type of person who could find a girlfriend right after transferring schools. That being said... what’s the relationship between you two?”

“Um, well, Shiraseki-kun and I are classmates, and, um—”

“...I joined the same club as her, is all,” said Kai.

“Hm? Club?” Misako asked next. “What club?”

“...The social game club,” he admitted reluctantly. “I joined it.”

Misako froze for a moment to digest his words, and then hopped up to her feet with great intensity. However, her legs were still asleep, and her shaking muscles made her look like a newborn fawn as she stumbled toward Kai and latched onto him.

“W-What are you—” said Kai, who hadn’t expected her to put all her weight on him like that and barely managed to keep them from falling.

“...I see, I see,” she said, completely ignoring his question.

“H-Hey, nee-san!” Kai tried to force her off, but Misako didn’t have the faintest intention of letting him go. Instead, she grabbed him from the front with both arms and held him close. As a result, his face was buried in her chest, which was soft and conveyed a raw warmth. She clutched him tightly enough that he could hear her heartbeat, all while Nanaka was looking on, and he couldn’t help but feel extremely embarrassed.

Misako didn’t seem to care one bit, and after holding that position for a while, she suddenly and unceremoniously let go of him. “Wait here for a second,” she said, heading towards the far side of the living room. She began rifling through her bag, which was resting on the wall, and when she found whatever it was she’d been searching for, she headed back towards Kai. In her hand was a single manila envelope.

“What?” he asked, taking the envelope. Then he realized it had been addressed to ‘Mr. Shiraseki Kai.’ The postmark was from Tokyo. At this point, Kai had a bad feeling. ‘Tsukigase Private High School Social Game Club President, Kurenai Akane,’ was what he saw when he flipped over the envelope to check the sender. He had seen this handwriting many times before. Every time he’d handed in something for Akane to check, his document would come back filled with red corrections written in this handwriting. There was no way he’d ever mistake it.

“...What is this?” he asked.

“This came in a little while ago,” Misako admitted, “but... I couldn’t decide whether or not you should see it. I’ve been holding on to it.”

“Is that from... a friend from Tokyo?” asked Nanaka, hesitantly making her way into the conversation and cautiously feeling out her approach. For a letter from a friend, Kai’s reaction was dull, his face was stern, and the atmosphere around him was somewhat heavy. Kai knew that despite all of this, she likely couldn’t think of any other explanation, and was trying her best to inquire.

“No, um... This person...” He showed her the name on the sender’s address. “She’s the president of the social game club at Tsukigase, my old school... To me, she’s sort of like a god.”

“God?” asked Nanaka, clearly surprised.

Perhaps that had been dramatic, thought Kai. But that was just how distant, and bright, and unforgettable Akane was to him, even now. “When I was at Tsukigase,” he told her, “everything I learned about what a planner should do, I learned from her.”

“Wow...” Nanaka marveled. “She must be really amazing!”

“...Yes,” Kai agreed. Although he recognized that Nanaka was being considerate with her cheery response, he could only muster up a short reply, and his gaze naturally fell to the letter in his grasp. The weight of it rested in his hand, and he felt like it was heavy—heavier than any one envelope could be.

“Hey, Kai! How could you be so cold to such a beautiful girl?!” Misako scolded him. “You’ll regret this in ten years, I’m sure of it!”

“Nee-san,” he said, “that’s just your experience.”

“Kai, you’re thinking too much about it,” his sister lectured him. “It might not even be something you need to worry about. It might be a ‘How are you,’ or a seasonal greeting letter. If it were for me, the letter would start like that and then progress into a cruel demand for me to complete my manuscript... but that shouldn’t be the case for you. I haven’t looked inside... You can leave it for another time when you feel like reading it. Now! Let’s forget all of that, right, Nanaka-chan?!”

“H-Huh?!”

Misako completed her perfect fake out by suddenly hugging Nanaka. “There’s still a ton of stuff I want to ask you!” she cried happily. “Come on, come here! Let me prepare scones and black tea for you!”

“We don’t have that here,” said Kai, who caught on right away to the fact that Misako was acting livelier on purpose to cheer him up, just like Nanaka did. Misako said this and that about black tea, but what she ended up bringing out from the kitchen was a bottle of sake. It looked like she planned on savoring a conversation with Nanaka alongside her alcohol.

Kai had no intention of letting Nanaka get dragged that deep into Misako’s plot. He peeled his clingy sister off of her instead, and managed to let Nanaka make her escape. Once they were out of the house, he realized it was darker than he’d expected. The surrounding area was already completely under the veil of night.

“Shiraseki-kun!” Nanaka stopped under a streetlight outside of his house and turned around. “See you tomorrow!”

“Y-Yes. See you... tomorrow.”

“Yup!”

Before he could ask if he should see her off, Nanaka energetically swung her arms in a “bye-bye!” motion and ran off. When he couldn’t see her anymore, Kai opened up the palm of his right hand, which he had been subconsciously swinging back at her. When was the last time he had waved “bye-bye” to someone? Kai wondered. He felt a warm, fluffy sensation—quite different from embarrassment—lingering on the palm of his hand.

When Kai went back inside, he found himself welcomed into a living nightmare where Misako was drinking straight from the bottle and bemoaning Nanaka’s departure. He explained to his sister that Nanaka had a lot of friends, and that she was a completely different type of person from him, all while Misako clung to him drunkenly. She gleefully cackled at his story for a bit, but fell asleep very quickly. Misako liked alcohol, but she was also very weak to it. The fact that she knocked out as soon as she crossed a certain threshold was, in Kai’s mind, her one saving grace.

Kai dragged the spare futon out into the living room and laid Misako on it before heading back to his own room, where he sat down at his desk and tried to open the envelope, only to find that his hands simply would not move.

He knew very well that Akane was not the type of person to write down her complaints and send them in a letter. If she wanted to do that, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to expect her to come to Niigata to say it in person. Still, even then, he was too afraid to confront the contents of the letter and couldn’t move his hands. Far from opening the letter, he was struggling with the same nausea that came up the morning he’d had that awful nightmare of the day he’d quit at Tsukigase.

“...I’m sorry,” he finally said.

In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to read the letter.

◇

When he woke up in the morning, Misako was already gone, and her now-empty futon had been neatly folded up.

He ate breakfast, went to school, and spent his time the same way he had yesterday.

He didn’t have any classmates he was friends with and, as a result, sat at his desk all day. Nanaka tried calling out to him a few times, but was intercepted by a different friend of hers each time she tried, and the two ended up not talking at all. He just played social games, ate lunch, went back to class, and repeated this process until school was over.

The only thing that changed from the day before was that Nanaka walked over to him as soon as class was over. “Shiraseki-kun,” she said, “let’s go!”

“O-Okay,” he agreed.

Of course, there was no way that something as unusual as this would be missed, and a curious group of classmates nearby brought it up. They were all girls, and Kai wanted to run away at full speed but couldn’t for obvious reasons.

“What’s this? Nana, you and Shiraseki-kun got a thing going on?”

“It’s not a thing,” Nanaka told them. “We’re going to our club.”

“Club? Oh! So Shiraseki-kun joined the same club as you.”

“...Huh? Wait, Nana, what club were you in again?”

“The social game club! I keep telling you!”

“Ahh, that’s right, that’s right.”

“Speaking of, we gotta go to our club too... Ughhhh...”

“Bye, Nana. Let us know if Shiraseki-kun does something funny.”

Their classmates waved their hands casually and left like a fickle breeze.

Nanaka waved back, too, but once they were out of view, she made a serious face and began thinking out loud. “...Do you think they’d be surprised if I told them about how you bit your thumb yesterday?” she wondered, thinking about their request to share whenever ‘Shiraseki did something funny.’

“Um, please, don’t,” he muttered back. It was true that signing his club application form with blood and ultimately fainting from anemia was a story complete with its own punchline. Between funny and not funny, it was very clearly an amusing story to anyone but himself. To top it all off, there wasn’t a hint of exaggeration to the story, which only served to trouble him more. He knew the blood had rushed to his head and all, but his actions yesterday were still a bit much.

“I’m kidding, kidding,” Nanaka told him with a laugh. “I won’t tell them. After all, that wasn’t a funny story, that was you being coo—”

“...Coo?”

Nanaka stammered out, “N-Nevermind,” as if to pull the emergency brake on her statement, and then covered her face in embarrassment.

As the pair headed toward their clubroom, they caught the other two members, Aya and Eru, in the hallway right before their destination, and the four moved to enter the room together.

“...Huh?” Nanaka tilted her head with a puzzled expression as she tried to unlock the door.

“What’s wrong?” asked Eru.

“I think... it might have been unlocked,” Nanaka told her uneasily.

“Oof, did ya forget to lock it yesterday?” Aya suggested.

“Even if I did... I think the school officer would have locked up afterward,” Nanaka theorized.

They figured out why the door was unlocked as soon as they entered. “Hello,” said the girl who’d been standing next to the president yesterday, and who was currently standing inside of their clubroom. “I’m Shizaki, the student council vice president,” she said, introducing herself. “...Perfect, it seems you’re all here.”

Shizaki moved her gaze from person to person, as if to confirm their presence. “I am here in the stead of our busy student council president to offer you a message,” she informed them.

“Um... If this is about our disbandment, then it should have been resolved with Shiraseki-kun joining, right?” Nanaka asked.

“Yes, we did indeed receive his club application form. We have no issues on paper...” Shizaki explained. “However, the president has said that, ‘Their disbandment was already set in stone. There’s no reason to go back and overturn that decision.’”

“Oh dear, it’s like he wants us to march back into his office with how badly he’s screwing around,” said Eru, her ladylike tone taking on a menacing air.

“He is not screwing around,” said Shizaki, with an exhausted shrug. “Rather, this was a first-class, ridiculous ploy he came up with to protect the small rat heart which he calls his ‘pride.’”

Kai couldn’t figure out whose side Shizaki was on. Technically, she was in a lower social position than the president, but yesterday it had been made apparent that she walked all over him.

“However, the president’s statement does hold some water,” Shizaki continued. “It would be an issue for a decision, once voted upon at a student council meeting, to be so easily overturned.”

“Dear, whose side are you even on?” asked Eru, who looked like a delinquent picking a fight as she closed the distance between their faces.

“I would appreciate it if you refrained from being so agitated. I, too, described it as being one of the student council president’s ridiculous ploys... So, I put a word in of my own.” Shizaki smiled as she said this, but the expression on her face was absolutely not a kind one. Rather, she was conveying the tension of a predator, having sighted its prey. “The particulars behind the disbandment of the social game club included not only a lack of members, but also a want of any sort of achievement from the club,” she went on to explain. “As the majority of this school’s students are required to participate in club activities, we have no leeway to allow the continued existence of clubs with no substantial activity, regardless of how many people they gather. However, if you were to prove your diligence to us, I’m sure an opportunity for your club to be officially allowed to continue would present itself.”

“So, what does that mean?” Kai asked next, pressing her for a conclusion.

Shizaki turned to him with the same terrifying smile. “In one month, there is supposedly a routine competition among social game clubs,” she told him. “If you lose, your club will be disbanded immediately.”

“T-That’s so soon!” Nanaka wailed in shock.

“For a social game club, the routine competition should be something to be perpetually prepared for,” Shizaki pointed out. “If you are unable to respond to that challenge, then would it not mean your club has not been engaging in substantial activity...? Is that alright with you?”

Kai more or less had this girl figured out by now; there were a few of these people at Tsukigase, as well. She was probably the type of person who enjoyed watching someone squeal as she handed them an impossible task, which would also explain why she made fun of the student council president at every opportunity.

The sight of Nanaka, who was silently panicking, deepened Shizaki’s terrifying smile to even further depths. “Well then,” she said brightly, “I wish you the best, and can only hope you put up a good fight.” With those final words, she finally left the room.

“...What should we do?” Nanaka squeaked, unwittingly letting out her true feelings of panic.

“Welp, there’s only one thing we can do here, y’know,” Aya said philosophically.

“T-That’s true!” Nanaka said, perking up a bit. “Let’s all work togethe—”

“Hold it, dear.” Eru cut Nanaka off as she tried to frantically rephrase her statement. Then she took a step forward and swung herself back—and began to glare at Kai. “So,” she said coldly, “this man actually joined our club?”

“Yeah... Is something wrong, Eru?”

“‘Planner’?” Eru asked pointedly.

“Y-Yes, that’s right,” Kai told her, his voice cracking under the pressure of Eru’s stare.

“...I see.” Kai thought she seemed faintly happy when she heard his reply. But that didn’t last for long, and a scowl quickly returned to her face as she moved her intense line of sight toward Nanaka. “And Nanaka, dear,” Eru said sweetly, “what are you going to do?”

“M-Me too! I’ll do my best as a planner too!” Nanaka said hastily. “I’ll have Shiraseki-kun teach me and—”

The instant she heard those words, Eru’s face clouded up again. This was no regular cloudy expression, either—her face was a pitch-black sky, and just at that moment, it foretold rain and thunder. She didn’t so much as let Nanaka finish before raising her hand to cut Nanaka off again. “...You’re all liars,” she said flatly.

“Huh?” asked Kai, now thoroughly confused.

“You!” said Eru vehemently, her eyes returning to Kai. “At your previous school, you published a big lie online and were chased out all the way here.”

There was only so much Kai could have prepared himself for, and Eru’s sudden accusation was so out of the blue that it left him petrified, as though he were physically bound. She knew of his incident at Tsukigase, he realized quickly. It’s not as if he could’ve hidden it, though; a quick online search for his name would return a result that branded him as being the culprit behind the Rondo leak and the ensuing chaos. Eru must have found something like that.

Everyone reacted differently to Eru’s accusation:

“...A big lie?” Nanaka repeated, tilting her head. She didn’t seem to know anything yet, and therefore couldn’t quite understand the meaning behind Eru’s words. Aya was harder to read because of her carefree manner, but the fact that she wasn’t surprised or confused meant she most likely already knew about his past.

Kai felt like his heart was about to be crushed by the weight of the words “big lie.” But that was the truth: from the results alone, the gacha did indeed work as advertised, which meant that Kai’s statement had been nothing more than a lie. And now, in this moment, there was no power behind his words. He had nothing to say in his defense.

“...For a liar to learn from a big liar... Oh dear, how stupid! How stupid!” Eru shouted in their faces before heading for the door, only to stop right before making her exit. “Nanaka, if that’s your plan... I couldn’t care less what happens to this club.” Then, having said her piece, Eru flounced out of the room.

“Yowch,” said Aya. “Man, there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“W-We have to go after her!” Nanaka bleated.

“And whaddya gonna do if you catch up?” Aya asked bluntly. “I think you’d just make it worse if you tried talking to her now.”

“...I’m sorry,” said Kai. “This is my fault.”

“N-No! This isn’t your fault, Shiraseki-kun!” Nanaka said, trying to reassure him. “You see... Eru’s been mad at me for a long time... I’m trying to act as a planner, despite not knowing anything about social games... That’s why Eru’s upset.”

“Welp, it’s true that Nana-sen’s a bit too out of the loop,” Aya observed, before turning to leave herself. “Mmkay,” she decided. “Well, I’m gonna go home for today, too.”

“Huh?!” Nanaka cried out. “Ah-chan, you too?!”

“Ahh, well, you know, I’m working more part time jobs for the summer swimsuit gacha rush and I’m SUPER busy right now!” Aya explained. “I’m like a normie!”

“B-But you heard what that girl said, right?” Nanaka asked insistently.

“Mmm... but I’m a programmer,” Aya told them. “If the planner doesn’t hand me a plan with specifications, there’s not much I can do. So even if I stayed behind, there’s nothing for me to do today. Plus,” she declared, “my number one priority is definitely gacha! Aight, see you tomorrow! Later!” Aya didn’t give any more openings for questions or concerns as she struck an enthusiastic salute and left the room.

Before they knew it, Kai and Nanaka were the only two in the club room.

“...I’m sorry, Shiraseki-kun,” she told him gloomily.

“I don’t think you did anything you’d need to apologize for,” Kai told her. “Besides, I understand where Oushima-san is coming from.”

“You... do?”

Kai nodded at her question. It wasn’t as if Aya had been completely correct, but she certainly wasn’t altogether wrong, either. “Oushima-san is a good person,” he told her.

“...Huh?” Nanaka asked, tilting her head in confusion again. It would seem she didn’t get it, but Kai’s reasoning was simple.

“There are some programmers out there that won’t listen to you even if you bring them plans or specifications,” he explained, “until they feel like you’re worthy of being listened to. But what Oushima-san said earlier means that she’ll hear you out, as long as you’ve done your share of the work.”

“...I see!” Nanaka said, sounding relieved. “Yeah, Ah-chan might be a bit weird, but she’s a good person! So if we put together a proper plan, she’s sure to work with us!”

“That’s what I believe too,” Kai agreed.

It had been rough back when Kai was at Tsukigase. There were a handful of people who’d hated his guts, solely because Akane—the club president, in other words—had taken a liking to him. When he’d try and talk to those people, they’d give him the cold shoulder. They’d judge everything from his font choice to singular numbers if he somehow dragged them into a meeting, and would ignore him if anything at all didn’t seem up to their standards.

As far as he could tell, Aya was not one of those people. “So, first... let’s do our best as the planners,” he decided.

Just as Aya said, the programmer and illustrator had nothing to do until there was a plan. Getting both her and Eru back into the club room was important, but if there was nothing for them to do once they returned, it’d be meaningless anyway.

So first, Kai and Nanaka—the two planners-—needed to do their best. On top of that, if Eru truly was upset at Nanaka because of her inability to play her part as a planner, it was all the more important that they did their job before attempting to call her back.

“Alright!” Nanaka declared, slapping her cheeks to bring her mood back up. “Let’s do this, Shiraseki-kun!”

Kai responded with a strong nod.