Tsukumodou Kottouten Vol 5 Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Luck

Luck is a very subjective concept.

For instance, you might consider yourself lucky if you happen to catch the train at the very last second.

But if that same train later gets into an accident, the fact that you boarded it at all could only be seen as unfortunate.

Let’s say that the accident then leads you to have a fateful encounter at the hospital. You could argue that boarding the train and getting injured was in fact, fortunate.

But if that fateful encounter results in bitter memories, you could only consider yourself unlucky.

Ultimately, the fact that you ‘luckily’ boarded the train ended being unfortunate after all was said and done. Of course, the reverse could have easily happened as well.

To put it bluntly, events aren’t lucky or unlucky in and of themselves; that depends entirely on your point of view.

In other words, it’s meaningless to even think about things that way.

But people still tend to end up thinking about everything in terms of luck…

◆

I was all alone in my cla.s.sroom, waiting for the teacher to arrive.

I was forced to stay after school to prepare the handouts for cla.s.s tomorrow since I got to school late this morning.

That wasn’t my fault though. I just had bad luck.

I overslept this morning…and don’t tell me not to blame that on bad luck either. The only reason it happened in the first place was because my alarm clock never went off.  It was working just fine yesterday, but then the battery died all of a sudden.

My luck really was the worst.

Train doors and elevators would always close in my face and traffic lights always turned red on me.  In cla.s.s, my teachers would ask me the things I just so happened to have skipped, and I always made the wrong choice whenever I tried to guess the answer to true or false questions. I’ve never won any sort of prize or lottery either.

There had to be some sort of scientifically unprovable force giving me bad luck.

And now this.

I was born under an unlucky star. Not even the name my parents gave me in hopes of bringing me good fortune could change that.

“This sucks so much!”

I impulsively pounded on my desk and heard a metallic jingling sound.

It was the bangle I had bought the other day. I remembered what it was supposed to be and clicked my tongue.

Lucky bangle, my a.s.s!

The fact that I was tricked into buying a fake like this was more proof of my bad luck.

“Ugh, what a useless…”

The cla.s.sroom door opened just as I was about to rip the bangle off of my right wrist and throw it away.

It wasn’t the teacher, but Kurata-kun, one of my cla.s.smates. Truthfully, he wasn’t just a cla.s.smate; he was actually my secret crush.

“Kurata-kun, why are you here?”

“Ah, I’m supposed to help prepare handouts. s.h.i.+ntani was on patrol and caught me at the arcade last night. What’re you here for, Toujou?”

“I’m also supposed to help with the handouts since I was late this morning.”

“Overslept, huh? That sucks.”

I would have said the same until just a moment ago, but if this meant I could be together with Kurata-kun, then my luck wasn’t bad at all. In fact, I’d say things turned out pretty nicely.

“What’s taking him so long, though?”

The door opened and s.h.i.+ntani-sensei entered the room just as we were starting to wonder where he had disappeared to.

“Are we ready? Alright. Kurata, Toujou, take these.”

I took the worksheets from him. Don’t try to touch my hand too, you dirty old man!

“Kurata&rsq

uo;s here because he was fooling around last night, and Toujou’s here because she was late for school. You brought this all on yourselves, you hear?”

That was rich, coming from a guy who was late just a second ago. I felt like asking if it was only OK when he was late. …Actually, it would have been better for him not come at all. I wished he would just go away.

“Alright, let’s get started!”

My internal pleas were denied and he stepped into the room, slamming the sliding door shut behind him.

He might have closed it too forcefully, but the door suddenly disconnected from its rails and lurched forward.

“Behind you!”  I yelled out to warn him.

The falling door slammed against his head just as he turned around to look.

s.h.i.+ntani-sensei ended up getting carried to the nurse’s office after he injured his head. Kurata-kun and I were told to go home as a result of that mess.

“I feel bad for s.h.i.+ntani, but we got pretty lucky this time, huh?”

“Yeah…”

I unconsciously touched the bangle on my wrist.

“Did it actually work…?”

—

I only got my hands on this lucky bangle yesterday.

It was a pretty horrible day and nothing was going well. I was even unlucky enough to completely bomb a test. Don’t tell me not to blame my bad score on my luck either. I’m not that stupid, if I say so myself.

In fact, all my answers were correct. They were just off by one line.

I hadn’t been that jumpy during the test and even double-checked my answers. I just didn’t notice that they were all in the wrong spots.

But the test was still covered in x marks when I got it back.

I must have been cursed by some kind of death G.o.d or poverty G.o.d when I was born. That was the only way any of this could make sense.

That was how I always thought about it anyway; I was already used to having bad luck.

Somewhat reluctant to bring the bad test home with me, I was wandering around town when I found myself in front of a small shop. I had inadvertently wandered deep into an alleyway without even realizing it.

The small, old looking shop stood alone at the end of the alley.

For some reason, I decided to go in.

The inside of the shop was just as dated as the exterior. Not dirty in any way, mind you, but a little lackl.u.s.ter. It felt like a perfect fit for me.

It was dotted with slightly creepy dolls, oddly shaped lamps and various other curios. I didn’t know if they were secondhand goods or antiques or something, but they were definitely showing signs of age. I also saw several similarly shaped bangles lined up on one of the shelves. They were all c-shaped cuff bangles and had a diamond shaped stones set into them.

“Welcome.”

The woman behind the shop counter spoke up. She was an eye-catching beauty whose appearance didn’t at all match the whimsical feel of the shop.

“Are you looking for anything specific?”

There wasn’t anything in particular I wanted, but I was curious about the bangles that I just saw.

“Just these. Why do you have so many of the same bangle?”

Everything else in the shop was unique so why they were the only ones that looked ma.s.s produced?

The shop lady answered as I was thinking to myself.

“They might look similar, but all they’re all very different. No two Relics are ever exactly alike.”

“Relics?”

“That’s what they are—but they’re not like antiques or cla.s.sical art, you know? They’re magic tools created by powerful magicians or mighty ancients. They can also be objects that have absorbed their owner’s grudges or natural spiritual power after long exposure.

“They’re pretty common, you know?

“These bangles are also Relics just like stones that summon misfortune, cursed straw dolls, or three sided mirrors that show you how you’ll die.”

Going by what she said, this was a shop that dealt with miscellaneous fortune related goods.

“These bangles bring good fortune and although they look similar, their actual abilities are very different.

She walked towards the shelf with the bangles on display.

“One generates new luck for you if you share your own fortune with others, one transfers your future luck to the present, one converts some of your life into luck, and finally—”

She gently looked at me and quietly whispered.

“One lets you steal luck from anyone who touches it.”

I was shocked.

It was almost as if she knew exactly what was worrying me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t considered it before…if only someone would share even a part of their luck with me, who had been unfortunate since the day I was born.

Why were lucky bangles like these being put in front of someone as unlucky as me?

“So which will you choose?”

She asked and gestured at the bangles in front of me.

—

The bangle was attached to my right wrist when I left the shop.

I looked at it and remembered the words the shop woman told me before I left.

“Be careful not to steal too much luck from other people. Even if it leads you to good fortune, it won’t necessarily lead you to happiness.”

◆

It didn’t happen often, but I wasn’t just sitting around today at my part time job at the Tsuk.u.modo Antique shop.

Of course, it wasn’t because business was booming—not like something like that could ever happen.

It was actually because I was wasting time with the laptop in front of me.

My school had a computer cla.s.s and we were spending a little time learning how to manage the OS, use spreadsheet programs, and all that stuff. That’s why I was allowed to temporarily borrow this laptop. Of course, it was restricted so that I couldn’t go to sites that high school students weren’t supposed to visit, but I could still use the internet.

I was using it to read up on current events and sports news.

“What’s so great about these things?”

Looking over my shoulder was the shop owner, Towako-san.

She exuded a dignified aura and would most certainly be cla.s.sified a beauty if she were to act demure. Despite that, her face was warped into an inconsiderate grimace that that looked like she was spitting out something unpleasant.

“What are you doing anyway? I have no idea.”

“Not much. I’m just reading up on current events. It’s pretty much like reading a newspaper or a magazine.”

“Then why don’t you read those instead?

“This is more convenient since I don’t have to go out and buy them one by one.”

“Then why don’t you watch TV?”

“But then I would have to watch it at specific times to see what I want.”

“It should be fine if you record beforehand right?”

“That’s not all you can do with the internet though. You can also order things online, you know.”

“But you’re ordering things, why not just do it over the phone? I generally don’t like making mail orders anyway since I can’t see the products in person.”

It was no good. She was an a.n.a.log person through and through.

“Tokiya, you’re at work. You can’t just play around.”

The one who b.u.t.ted in this time was my fellow part time employee, Maino Saki.

Perhaps wanting to share her own opinion, she came over to look at the screen.

Her long pale hair, which shone silver in the light, spilled onto the keyboard.

“Careful, Saki-chan, that’ll pull your soul out.”

At Towako-san’s lie, Saki quickly pulled back as if she were frightened. Her face, however, was still the very definition of expressionless. She possessed a special ability where her emotions rarely ever showed on her face.

“That’s just a camera. The computer obviously won’t steal your soul.”

“I know that, it was a joke.”

“Really now.”

With that lack of expression, I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Anyway, you need to stop playing around.”

“Why? It’s not like there aren’t any customers here. I’m only borrowing it for a week anyway. Why can’t I keep using it?”

“If that’s the case, don’t you have something you should be doing?”

Saki dropped several books in front of me.

The books had t.i.tles like “With This, Even You Can Make a Homepage”, “How to Become a Popular Web Designer”, and “Techniques for Making Attention Grabbing Web Pages.”

Her book choices were unusual as always.

She often read how-to and self-help books but had the tendency to always choose ones that missed the mark.

“If you want to use it, why don’t you switch with me?”

I tried to get up from the seat, but Saki grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down.

“You’re going to do it. I have other things to take care of.”

“You mean you couldn’t understand the books…”

“Ahh, I have so much to do.”

Saki gave a hurried response and ran away. Bull’s eye, huh.

But I wasn’t planning on making any web pages either way. Being able to use them and knowing how make them were two completely separate things.

I briefly flipped through the books, but soon shut them and went back to browsing the net. Resignation is truly the great lesson of life.

I stumbled upon a blog page after a while.

It was pretty common for people nowadays to publish things about their daily lives or hobbies for other people to read. It went without saying that celebrities posted things, but regular people were in on it too.

This one could be summed up as a blog and a fortune telling page. I indifferently took a look at it.

The post was about how amazing things started happening after the author bought a lucky bangle. None of the things they wrote about were particularly interesting though.

“What’s this?”

Saki, who had brewed some black tea, came over to look at the laptop monitor again.

“You were interested in fortune telling?”

“Not really. I just thought it would be nice to have one of these so-called lucky bangles, if they were actually real that is.”

“Is there something that makes you think you’re unlucky??”

“All the time. Like when I see the train door close on me right when I arrive at the station.”

“Why not just wait for the next one?”

“You should have checked the train timetable first.”

I flinched a bit at the nearby Saki and faraway Towako-san’s double retort.

“There’s also when stoplights turn red right in front of me.”

“Can’t you just wait?”

“Run before it changes.”

“Plus, I’ve never won any prizes in lotteries.”

“Isn’t working regularly at this store good enough?”

“I’m not going to raise your salary, you know.”

“I’ve never won the new year’s post card lottery either.”

“But if you don’t send any cards out, there’s no way you’ll win.”

“Did you even send out any in the first place? I didn’t get one.”

“Then why does my phone battery die whenever I really want to talk to someone.”

“Who’re you talking about?”

“You should have fully charged your battery.”

“Then how come the topics I study for are the only ones that don’t show up in tests?”

“I said, who were you trying to talk to!?”

“That’s why you should study everything instead of betting on getting the right questi…mm?”

The flow of the conversation broke and an awkward silence was born.

“Ahem…”Saki cleared her throat.

“Either way, it doesn’t matter. Everything Tokiya said depends on how you look at it.”

“It’s not about being lucky or unlucky in the first place. That’s just an excuse people use when they don’t do what they need to.”

I guess I wasn’t able to get them to sympathize with my misfortune.

“In fact, I think you’re lucky, Tokiya.”

“How so?”

It was true that I couldn’t counter her arguments, but I don’t ever remember being told I was lucky.

“Because you can work here at the Tsuk.u.modo Antique Shop. There’s no greater fortune than that.”

Of course Saki, who was devoted to customer service and loved this shop, would say something like that.

Happiness, huh. Well, I guess being able to have pointless conversations like this could be called happiness.

“Well, maybe it is.”

“I know, right?”

“Yeah. I also get to work with you.”

“……”

Saki froze up.

“Come on, if you don’t say something back, I’ll be really embarra.s.sed.”

“I don’t care anymore.”

Saki picked up the black tea she just brought over and hurriedly went back to the kitchen. I didn’t even get to take a sip. While she was out, I heard the sound of something loudly being knocked over coming from the kitchen.

Errr…that didn’t have any deep meaning, but maybe she misunderstood me? I looked at Towako-san to confirm, and saw her looking at me with an unpleasantly wide grin on her face. I guess I really did make a mistake this time.

“You’ve come a long way, being able to say something like that.”

“It was just a joke!”

I offered a panicked explanation to Towako-san who headlocked me from behind.

“No—even as a joke, it’s still a step forward you know.”

“I said I don’t know about taking steps forward or backwards…Towako-san?”

Towako-san’s headlock tightened for some reason.

“Towako-san…this is starting to hurt…”

But perhaps she didn’t hear my voice or something, because it tightened even more.

“Towako-san!”

I managed to pry myself away from her arms with brute force.

“What was that!?”

She continued to stare at the laptop screen as if she couldn’t hear any of my complaints.

“Towako-san?”

“This…might actually be a relic.”

On the laptop screen was the blog page along with an image of the “lucky bangle”.

—

There are certain objects in the world known as “Relics”

No, not like articles of fine art or antiques. They’re magic tools created by powerful magicians and mighty ancients, or objects that gained power after long exposure to their owner’s grudges and natural spiritual power—many “cursed items” were often times, in fact, Relics

They appeared in old stories, anecdotes, or legends as “objects of power.”

For example: a stone that brings good luck, a doll whose hair grows night after night, a mirror that shows you how you’ll look in the future, or a sword that brings ruin to anyone who draws it.

Most everyone has heard of stories like that.

People often consider Relics to be mere fantasies because they’ve never come across any. Even if a relic were right before their eyes, they’d fail to notice it. If a mysterious event were to occur, they’d just dismiss it as a coincidence.

Some simply don’t care, while others are certain that such things do not exist.

But relics are real, and more common than people think.

I was also recently involved with some relics, a bottle that strengthened or weakened presences, a piercing that let you hear the voices of peoples’ hearts, and a ring that allowed you to see the red string of fate tying you to your soul mate.

“This is a relic?”

“Yeah, it looks like one.”

I magnified the image and Towako-san stared at it some more.

“I still can’t make out the finer details though”

“What kind of power does it have?”

I could tell from Towako-san’s expression that it wasn’t simply an object that gave its wearer good luck.

Relics weren’t always purely beneficial, there are also some with what could be called negative side effects.

“Lucky relics, in essence, conveniently distort the predetermined future just a little bit. They’re items that are capable of granting small wishes in a sense. However, there are several patterns that their abilities can follow.”

“Patterns?”

“Bangle shaped lucky Relics can be divided into several types, with their powers also varying. One transfers your future luck to the present, one steals luck from others and in exchange for making someone else unlucky, your own luck increases. One converts some of your life into luck, and one generates even better luck for you if you share your fortune with others.”

I felt like I understood what she wanted to say, but was a little unclear on how the compensation worked and how the bangle’s effects manifested.

What was luck actually defined as?

“Should I give a few examples?”

Seeing my confused expression, Towako-san offered some concrete examples.

“Let’s say you want to score well on an exam. You should have gotten 50 points by guessing on the multiple choice questions but got 80 points instead. Lucky, right? But then you only get 50 points in a future exam where you should have gotten 80 points. The end result is that the luck remains the same. This is the pattern where you borrow luck from the future. But you’ll still never get everything right if you only depend on intuition to answer the questions. There’s a limit to what luck can get you. Like I said before, lucky relics bend fate just a little bit, so that good things occur.

“Next is the pattern where someone else’s luck gets stolen. Let’s say you were destined to get to get 50 points and someone else was supposed to get 80. The owner of the bracelet who was originally supposed to earn 50 points now gets 80. In exchange, the person who was supposed to get 80 points now gets only 50. The total amount of luck hasn’t changed, but as far as the person with the bracelet is concerned, they just got lucky.

“As for the pattern where you exchange your life for luck, well, that one’s pretty straightforward. In exchange for one year of your life, you get 80 points where you should have gotten 50. I’m not sure of what the actual exchange rate would be though.

Of course, in addition to being blessed with the luck to get all your guesses right, you could also have the questions you studied for show up on the test, or have the teacher mismark a question in your favor. There are lots of ways this could go.”

“However by that logic, wouldn’t you get 100% if you actually answered all the questions?  Like if you take the exams where you would have scored 10 points in the future and add them all together, wouldn’t you get a score of 100 where it should have been 0?”

“So you’d think.  However, the amount of luck that people have in one lifetime is fixed.  In the same way, the amount of luck that you can use at one time is also fixed.  For example, if you have a multiple choice exam with four options for each question, what are the chances that you’ll guess every single correctly?”

“Ummm…”

This was starting to feel like a statistics lesson…

“The probability should be pretty low… I think?”

“Well I don’t have the exact number either, but that’s about right, chances are pretty low.  It’s not just a matter of having to luck the score 10 points in the next 10 exams. You also need to consider the probability of it all showing up at the same time.  Luck is the same, in order to get 100 points on the exam you would have otherwise scored zero in, you would need an extraordinary amount of luck.  If you’re talking about your entire life’s luck, sure.  However, people are only able to use one part of their life’s luck at a time”

“Like even if you have a bathtub full of water, you can only drink the amount your stomach will hold?”

“I can’t say that’s a brilliant a.n.a.logy, but it’s something like that, yeah.”

“So rather than being lucky, can this relic be thought of as something that increases the probability of your wishes being granted?”

“You could also say that since having something with low probability occur is what you would call having good luck.”

“I see.”

“But that’s not where the problem lies.”

“You’re right.”

The problem was figuring which pattern this relic followed. It would be fine if this was the type that redistributed luck, but any of the other types would be problematic.

All the more so if they were unknowingly using its ability.

“Can you tell which type this one is?”

“Not just by looking at this picture.”

This bangle had a silvery pattern engraved on it and a single diamond shaped stone set in the center.

“I’d need to look at the stone. You can tell what kind of ability it has by looking into it, but…”

Towako-san said that there were several lucky bangles so they probably all looked the same except the stone.

I scrolled down the web page and took a look at the other blog posts.

“Something really nice happened today. I won a prize in a magazine prize contest that I entered before.

“I forgot to do my homework, but the teacher came late. I was able to copy someone else’s homework in that time, safe!”

“I bought some juice from the vending machine, but got an extra can. That was the first time in my life this happened. It was a little embarra.s.sing cause I stood out, but how lucky!”

“My good luck has been getting recently even though my fortune said it was going to be bad this month. Maybe it’s because of this bangle I bought before.”

The blog was updated pretty much every day, but the author only added included images to their meaningless updates every once in a while.

If I went back further, the entries were mostly about how things didn’t go well for them, but after they recently got their hands on the bangle, it was all about how lucky they were.

The exact date the bangle was purchased wasn’t written anywhere, but judging by the blog posts, they got it about two weeks ago.

“If it weren’t for this bangle, these events could all be dismissed as coincidences.”

Towako-san said this as she looked at the screen. I agreed with her.
Was this a real relic bringing her luck, or was it just a fake?

I looked away from the blog.

The author was someone name “Yukie”. I didn’t see a last name or kanji, and there wasn’t any proof that this was her real name either. She did write that she was a high school student, but there was no information on what grade she was in or even what school she went to. Although it sounded like she was a girl, there really was no telling people’s true genders on the internet. Her hobbies were fortune telling and reading, with her favorite book being a foreign novel.

Amongst all of that, there was one thing that caught my eye.

That was an entry t.i.tled “My Favorite Shop”.

“That’s the shop that sells miscellaneous fortune telling goods, right?”

Saki interjected. She was probably listening in on our conversation earlier.

Although I didn’t think we’d be able meet “Yukie” so easily, we did now have some sort of clue. There was some value in looking into it for now.

“Why do you know so much about it, Saki? Are you into fortune telling?

“Cause I was doing research on rival stores?”

“Rival stores, huh. Since when have we been a fortune telling store? Oh wait, a fortune telling store and an unfortunately selling store. They are actually pretty similar.”

Towako-san hit me as I agreed with Saki.

I would have never imagined being invited by Kurata-kun.

We started getting along a lot more since that incident with s.h.i.+ntani, and this was the first time I had been invited after school like this.

But I couldn’t get my hopes up.  There had to be a pitfall waiting for me somewhere; that’s how it always went.

My bad luck would come and ruin things just when I thought everything was going well.

It happened often enough that I believed it.

I was walking next to Kurata-kun.  We weren’t holding hands, but walking together back from school with my crush was still a dream come true.

But as happy as I was, I couldn’t help also being a little uneasy.

I couldn’t afford to have something like bad luck ruin this. Not after I had finally gotten together alone with him.

I unconsciously looked at the bangle on my right wrist.

—steal luck from anyone who touches it.

The words of the shop lady came back to me.

I was pretty sure the teacher touched it that day. Shortly after, he was met with misfortune and I got the chance to get along with Kurata-kun. It almost felt like I had stolen the teacher’s luck.

I tried stealing people’s luck little by little after that day, and it felt like my luck had increased even more.

Despite my initial doubts, I was now convinced that this bangle did indeed have the power to call forth luck.

But I wanted even more.

I wanted enough luck so that no one could interfere with my time with Kurata-kun.

Of course, I couldn’t do anything like stealing luck from him. I needed to find someone else as a replacement.

That’s when I saw the two people a little ahead of us walking in our direction. I was going to s.h.i.+ft myself slightly towards these people as they pa.s.sed by and b.u.mp into them on purpose.

“Kya!”

I ended up b.u.mping into them harder than I expected, and stumbled as a result.

I’m going to fall. Just as I was about to lose my balance, I found myself supported by pair of strong arms.

It was Kurata-kun.

“Are you alright?”

“Th-thank you.”

What a happy accident. I thought I messed up by b.u.mping into them too hard, but was lucky enough to be helped by Kurata-kun.

“I’m sorry, are you OK?” The person I b.u.mped into apologized.

“No it’s alright. I should be the on apologizing. Please don’t worry about it.”

Because you just let me take your luck.

The distance between Kurata-kun and me lessened even more after he came to my support.

Since he didn’t seem to mind, we continued cuddling and walking like that.

I was feeling really lucky right now.

Towako-san let us get out of work early and at Saki’s guidance, we were headed towards the store that Yukie said was her favorite. On the way there, we pa.s.sed by private high school. This was the only high school in the neighborhood. Since “Yukie” usually stopped by the store on her way from school, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for her to be a student here.

The going-home club had already left, but there were still people in the middle of their club activities here and there.

There were also few couples wearing school uniforms walking towards us from the opposite direction.

It looked like the students here wore sailor uniforms. I was just thinking that they wouldn’t suit Saki’s taste since they were mostly white when—

“What are you staring at?”

Saki warned me.

“Oh, nothing much”

As I turned my head towards Saki, I accidentally b.u.mped into a girl who was pa.s.sing by.

“I’m sorry, are you okay?”

I hurriedly apologized to the girl that I had just b.u.mped into.

The girl accepted my apology with a smile and continued on with the guy that she was with.

“What’s this?”

Saki spoke up and picked something up from the ground. It was a student handbook.

“Did that girl drop it?”

She looked at the picture attached to the handbook and pointed to the girl that I had just b.u.mped into.

As I thought about returning the handbook to her, I noticed something glittering near her hand.

“…is that?”

On the girl’s right wrist was the bracelet we saw on the blog page.

I looked at the name on the student handbook and saw her name, Toujou Yukie, written on it.

What a coincidence, coming across the author of the blog, “Yukie,” like this.

Not letting this chance pa.s.s us by, Saki and I followed after her. Toujou and the boy she was with crossed the pedestrian crossing.

Just as she approached the crosswalk, the light turned green and she continued across. I had hoped to catch up to her while she was stopped at a red light, but it looked like that wouldn’t happen.

We need to hurry.

I increased my walking pace and continued towards the pedestrian crossing.

The crosswalk signal began flas.h.i.+ng; it was changing faster than expected. I clicked my tongue. We probably wouldn’t make it in time if we continued walking, so we ran across the pedestrian crossing.

We were now a little closer, but Yukie continued on and showed no sign of noticing us.  The distance between Saki and me had also increased a little bit, but we continued to tail Yukie.

“At this rate, all we’re doing is following them.”

“I know, I know.”

My goal wasn’t to follow them. What I wanted was to confirm whether that bangle she had was a relic or not, and to do that, I would have no choice but to talk to her. Although I knew what I had to do, I couldn’t just shout after a girl I didn’t know. I needed to mentally prepare myself first. More importantly, she would probably be cautious if I shouted after her all of a sudden.

I looked at Saki.

“You should be the one to yell after her.”

“You’re right, she would probably cower away if Tokiya, as a guy, suddenly started shouting.”

I’m sure plenty of people would also shrink away from your expressionless face, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.

Toujou-san had gotten further away while we were talking. I hurried after her in order to close the distance between us.

She went to the next pedestrian crossing and once again, the light turned green just as she approached. She crossed the street without waiting.

We increased our pace the same way we did before and the pedestrian crossing light began flas.h.i.+ng again. This time, it actually turned red before we were completely able to cross. The cars honked for us to hurry up and began moving the moment we crossed to the other side.

Because the lights turned green just as Toujou approached them, they were already red by the time we reached them. If we weren’t careful, we’d lose sight of her and get separated by the crosswalks.

Toujou crossed a four-way intersection and once again, the pedestrian crossing lights began flas.h.i.+ng when I tried to go after her.

I quickly turned left at the intersection and began running. Saki, who didn’t come after me, fell behind a little.

“Let’s go!”

Halfway through crossing the road, I turned around to look at Saki and saw a faint look of terror on her face.

“?”
I turned back around. A large shadow was barreling towards me, obscuring the left side of my vision. It was a truck making a left turn. The driver probably didn’t see me at all and showed no sign of slowing down.

He finally noticed me there after turning and slammed hard on the brakes.

He wasn’t going to stop in time.

I kicked at the ground and bolted across the pedestrian crossing as fast as I possibly could.

The truck just barely avoided hitting me and stopped in the middle of the pedestrian crossing. I got away with little to spare.

“Are you alright?”

Saki came over to me shortly after.

I told her I was OK, but really, that scared the life out of me.

Although I wasn’t injured, we completely lost sight of Toujou because of the crowd of onlookers that ended up gathering around us.

—

“How’d it go?”

We were back at the Tsuk.u.modo Antique shop and I was giving Towako-san a report on the situation. I couldn’t say for sure what kind of power the bangle had, but I suspected that the bangle she owned had a high chance of being a relic.

After the incident with the truck, I sent Saki back first and took several round trips from the school gates to that traffic light.

The first time, I had to stop for a red light twice and was able to cross without waiting once.

I was stopped at a red light all three times on the second run.

For the third, fourth and fifth times, I got stopped at the red light once, and was able to cross twice at the green light without waiting.

I was testing to see if I would be able to cross every street without waiting on the red light the same way Toujou-san was able to.

For now, I could say that I did not have the same success she did even after making a total of five trips. Although it probably would eventually happen if I tried a few more times, hitting a green light every time wasn’t something that happened often, my own bad luck notwithstanding.

Perhaps she was in a hurry and wished that nothing would get in her way. Then, due to the relic’s power, she luckily ended up not getting caught by any traffic lights.

Of course, this could also have happened to just be a lucky day for her, but if this was related to the luck-summoning bangle, it had to be more than just a coincidence.

“The problem is that we still don’t know which type of bangle she has.”

“That is indeed the only information we’re missing.”

“What if I said the reason I almost got hit by the truck was because I became unlucky in her place?”

I did b.u.mp into her once before. Couldn’t she have stolen my luck then?

“That’s still not conclusive enough. Although you could certainly say that she wasn’t stopped at any traffic lights because she stole your luck, it’s still at a level where you could call it a coincidence. As far as the thing with the truck goes, it’s only to the point where we can say that you just had bad luck.”

Towako-san’s thoughts weren’t too different from my own.

If I talked to her directly, perhaps she would let me look at the real thing and maybe I would know then. However, we weren’t able to judge from the information we had, as expected.

I would try confirming again tomorrow.

—

I went to visit Toujou-san’s school again the next day and was a little out of breath since I ran out as soon as the last homeroom ended.

Toujou had left school late yesterday, but that didn’t necessarily mean she would be late today, which was why I had to hurry. I pa.s.sed by students going back home as I walked from the station to the high school. I kept walking with my eyes peeled so I wouldn’t miss her by accident.

I caught sight of her walking alone among the students. Her hairstyle was different from yesterday, so I almost didn’t notice her.

She pa.s.sed by me a short distance away. I turned around so I wouldn’t lose her and began to follow. Perhaps she was going someplace else today, but the route she was taking today was different. Like yesterday, she smoothly continued walking without getting stopped by any traffic lights. It really was like she was guided by luck.

Perhaps I was also getting used to tailing people; it seemed I wasn’t getting stopped at all by the traffic lights today.

Getting better at stalking people is kinda…

I was feeling just a little concerned for my future but continued to observe Toujou-san so I wouldn’t lose sight of her. She didn’t have to stop at any traffic lights until she reached her destination.

The place she stopped by was a silver accessory store. Saki said it was a miscellaneous fortune telling store, but this place looked like it dealt with accessories. Unlike Tsuk.u.modo it had a fas.h.i.+onable feel about it, and the inside was overflowing with high school girls on their way home from school.

So that’s what popular stores look like—Toujou walked towards the counter as I thought to myself.

As I watched her from afar, she b.u.mped into some people who were trying to get in line right behind her. She cheerfully allowed them to go before first. When Toujou-san went up to the register to pay, the employee clapped his hands for some reason.

I strained my ears. It seemed her receipt had been entered into a lottery, and that she had won a prize. I saw her happily celebrate her good fortune.

After that, she headed towards the station, boarded the train, and finally looked like she was heading home.

The station she got off at was the same stop as Tsuk.u.modo. She left the station and went to the toilet. I couldn’t follow her there, of course. I waited, pretending to look at the train table, and thought.

Considering the thing with the traffic lights and the prize that she won at the shop, there was no doubt that she had especially good luck.

However, I couldn’t tell which type of bangle she had with those observations alone.  There was also no way around the fact that “luck” itself wasn’t something that could be strictly defined.

I probably wouldn’t make any progress even if I continued observing like this. I needed to talk to her directly. But what could I say to get the conversation to turn to the subject of relics?

I was still pondering my options when she came out of the bathroom.

I waited a little bit before following and went through the ticket gate next to hers. She suddenly stopped at the gate.

Thinking that even she had her own small moments of unluckiness, I looked at Toujou-san only to find her staring right back at me.

“Ugggh.”

I was feeling b.u.mmed and let out a sigh.

It was because of yesterday’s date…if you could even call that a date.

Just thinking about it made my heart sink.

Kurata-kun invited me to hang out at the arcade while two of us were alone together after school.

That was fine in and of itself, it’s not like I hated arcades or anything. But then Kurata-kun met up with his friends at the arcade, and in his excitement for the coin game, pretty much forgot that I was there. I also took a shot at the coin game when he asked me to and won thanks to the relic’s power.  He seemed pretty happy when I split the coins with him.

But something was wrong. This wasn’t the image I had in mind. I had imagined us chatting about each other over a meal or something. After he finished playing at the arcade, he invited me to come with them next time and we separated from there.  Kurata-kun then rode on the back of his friend’s bike and went home.

I was headed in the opposite direction and sadly had to go the station with some of Kurata-kun’s other friends.

Everything had been perfect until we got to the arcade.

It was supposed to be just the two of us, without anything or anyone interfering.

If that was what he had in mind, then we shouldn’t have gone together.

The difference between my elated feelings before we got to the arcade and my rock bottom feelings right now were literally like heaven and earth.

All the love that I held for him before had disappeared and sunk away somewhere. He was an unexpectedly childish brat who couldn’t even read the mood.

He was just a kid who found playing with his friends more fun than pursuing romance. I might have actually been happier before, when I still admired Kurata-kun in secret. As I thought, I had a disposition for misfortune. Even the person I fell in love with turned out to be someone like this.

I remembered how Kurata-kun invited me to go with him tomorrow as well. It was already too late to take it back now, but that didn’t bother me.

Farewell, Kurata-kun. Farewell, my love.

But still, for the person I fell in love with to be someone like him, I really was unfortunate. I spent what little pocket money I had left on impulse buys, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

“?”

I felt someone’s eyes on my back and stole a glance behind me.

He’s still here…

It was a boy wearing a uniform from another school. It felt like he had been there since I left the school. The uniform wasn’t one that I usually saw on my way to and from school, so it stuck out. That’s why I remembered it.

He walked behind me the entire time and even sat a little distance away from me in the same train compartment.

I had a bad feeling and stopped to pretend to use my phone. When I did that, he also stopped walking as if he were looking at something.

A coincidence? But he was always behind me like that.

Maybe it was just my imagination that I was being followed.

I could call someone. But then it would be embarra.s.sing if I were wrong.

I headed towards the ticket gate entrance while I tried to figure out what to do. He started following after me again.

I feigned pa.s.sing through the gate and deliberately did not enter.

The alarm rang, and I stopped moving.

Even though he already inserted his ticket and should have pa.s.sed through the gate, the person following me stopped halfway and looked at me.

I knew it. He was following me.

I took a deep breath and glared at him.

“…what do you want?”

“…what do you want?”

She was glaring at me with suspicion in her eye. I must have been openly looking at her too much.

“Ah, you see…”

“You were also at the shop, weren’t you?”

Thinking about it now, I bet it was because I was wearing a uniform from a completely different high school at the shop and on her train home. I probably stuck out like a sore thumb.

Not only did I get off at the same stop she did, I also waited until she came out of the restroom before going through the ticket gate. That would have made me look all the more suspicious if she had noticed me before.

She wasn’t saying it outright, but I definitely looked like a stalker right now.

Toujou-san looked towards the station employees when I didn’t respond.

Not good.

“Here!”

I quickly took out the student handbook I had in my pocket.

“I found this on the ground and thought it belonged to you. I should have returned it right away, but I was having a little trouble telling if you were really the person in the picture.”

“Ah, that’s my…”

She was a little less suspicious of me now.

“I dropped it on my way to school yesterday and was looking for it…but where did you find it?”

“Oh, near your school…”

“Is that so? Thank you, I appreciate it. But why what brought you near the school in the first place?”

She stared at my uniform and school bag. It was true that my school was nowhere near the one she attended. Saying that I happened to be pa.s.sing by would sound like a lie.

“Ah, well, you see, the truth is, I work part time at a place that’s kinda like a general store. The store you went to has a similar atmosphere to the one I work at, so I go to visit it sometimes. I bet it’s strange for a guy like me to visit shops like that, huh.”

I was running my mouth trying to find something to talk about.

“Really? Yeah, that store’s really good; I also go there a lot. Don’t see why there would be a problem with guys going there either.”

Her suspicion completely disappeared after I praised her favorite shop.

That made things easier. I continued the conversation without letting my relief show on my face. I couldn’t let this chance escape me.

“That bangle’s cute isn’t it? Did you buy there?”

“Oh, this? No, I got it from somewhere else. It’s a lucky bangle.”

“Could you let me see it for a second?”

I took her hand and stared at the bangle.

Due to the poor lighting. , I couldn’t see much when I tried to peer into the stone.

I looked at her to ask if she could take it off and let me look at it more carefully when…

“………”

She somewhat embarra.s.sedly looked away from me.

Her gaze then turned to her own left hand.

That’s when I realized that I was gripping her hands with all my strength.

“S-sorry.”

I panicked and let go of her. She didn’t complain and only quietly muttered that it was okay.

“Are you interested in things like this?”

“Eh, ah, yeah. I was thinking about making something like it at my shop as well. That’s why I’m looking at various shops for research.”

“You’re saying that employees at that store make things themselves?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“You can do stuff like that at a part time job? Woah.”

“Well, it’s still just something I was thinking of doing, you know.”

For now I was franticly thinking of what to do next while keeping up with the conversation.

—

“Heey.”

“Welcome back, Tokiya-sa….”

Saki, who came out as she usually did, froze mid-sentence.

“Ohh, so this is where you work, Kurusu-kun. How strange and interesting.”

There was no doubt that Saki recognized the person coming in after me as Toujou-san.

“Tokiya, come here for a second.”

Saki gestured for me to come over to her with her finger. I excused myself from Toujou-san and obediently went over to her.

“What is this?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, so…”

“Make it brief.”

“Yes ma’am.”

I meekly relayed to Saki how I went to Toujou’s school to follow her, and getting easily exposed, which resulted in me taking her to the shop.

I myself wasn’t sure how the conversation ending up with me bringing Toujou-san to Tsuk.u.modo, so I could only reply vaguely. However, that was more or less what happened.

“So she caught you following her?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Let me guess. You mixed yourself in with the students as they left the school, and openly followed her wearing a uniform from a different school, didn’t you?”

“It’s exactly as you say.”

“You need to read this then.”

Saki handed me a how-to book t.i.tled “With This, Even You Can Become a Detective!”

I no longer thought about why she would even have something like this. She was too far gone.

“There’s more that I want to say, but let me tell you this first.”

“What is it?”

“You’ve been bringing too many girls to this shop recently.”

…Really? I didn’t think I brought that many over though.

“Hmm, I guess we could take this opportunity to turn them into customers. We might be able to add to our sales.”

“Don’t forget what our actual goal is, okay?”

“I know.”

“Because Towako-san’s away right now.”

“Seriously, of all time…what bad timing. Is she out buying stuff?”

“No, I don’t think so since she said she was going to only going to be away for a little bit.”

Oh well. I guess that meant the job of verifying if it was a Relic fell to me since I already knew about the pattern in the stone. I hadn’t planned on bringing her in the first place anyway; the original plan was to check it myself.

I couldn’t keep Toujou-san waiting for too long, so I went back to her.

“This shop has all sorts of things doesn’t it? Not just accessories.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda like a general store.”

All we had were fake Relics anyway.

“If you find something you like, you can have it. Nothing too expensive though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep. But if I had to ask for something in exchange, could you let me see that bangle for a little bit?”

“Sure.”

I properly borrowed the bangle from her this time and tried to look through the stone —

—and couldn’t see anything.

According to what Towako-san told me, I should have been able to tell what kind of bangle this was by looking at the pattern inside the stone.

What if this wasn’t a relic at all, but an ordinary bangle?

“What’s up?”

Toujou-san asked while I was staring at the stone.

“Ah, nothing much. I was just thinking that this is more elaborate than I first thought.”

“Do you want to make one like it?”

“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah. But I wonder if I’d be able to make one?”

I remembered the conversation we had earlier and nodded in a fl.u.s.ter while responding with the first thing that came to mind.

“The shop owner might give me some advice on how to make one if I asked her, but she’s away at the moment. Could you let me borrow this if she doesn’t show up soon?”

“Borrow the bangle?”

“Is that no good?”

I was going to ask her to wait until Towako-san came back or ask her to come back tomorrow if she said no, but Toujou-san easily agreed.

We then waited for another hour, but she didn’t return.

Actually, I thought that she might have returned but just didn’t come into the shop, but when I went to check her room and the underground warehouse, she was still nowhere to be found.

In the end, I decided to borrow the bangle.

“Could I ask you one last thing?”

I asked her a leading question as we separated.

“Do you know what Relics are?”

“Yeah. They’re like antiques right?”

Her tone was proof that she wasn’t aware of what they were.

—

“Looks like this bangle is the type that exchanges luck.”

That was Towako-san’s judgment when she looked at the bangle after returning to the store.

“But why couldn’t I see anything when I looked inside the stone?”

She must have seen through my implication that it could be similar to the fakes she always bought, but Towako-san raised one of her eyebrows and skillfully circled around me. Almost as if she were hugging me from behind, she held up the bangle in front of my eyes.

“Keep looking at it reeaally carefully.”

Towako-san slowly rotated the bangle and held it at different angles.

I stared at the stone just as she instructed while, very conscious of the fact that she was stuck to me. Then, I saw something that looked like a pattern in the stone where there was nothing before,

I unintentionally shouted a little and leaned forward, but then the pattern disappeared again.

“I told you, don’t move.”

Towako-san grabbed my head to fix it in place, and began moving the bangle around one more time.

The pattern reappeared again in the otherwise blank stone when after it was held at a specific angle.

“Can you see anything?”

“I can see…a cross”

Satisfied with my uncertain answer, Towako-san separated herself from me and looked down at me with a triumphant humph.

“Told you so.”

I didn’t know how long exactly, but I guess her many years of experience with Relics hadn’t been for show. Rather than any frustration, I felt a newfound admiration for her.

Not only that, she was also able to determine why type of Relic it was just by looking at the pattern in the stone.

“So this is the type that gives you greater luck in the future if you share your good fortune with people now?”

“Yep.”

I knew it. The lottery she won in the store was the result of her actions.

It didn’t look like she had shared her fortune while she waited for the traffic light, which meant that either winning the lottery was just a coincidence, or she already shared some of her luck and that was her reward.

But if that’s how it was, then the misfortune I had yesterday wasn’t because my luck was stolen. It was entirely because I just had awful luck. Somehow, that was another shock.

“Well, if that’s the way things are, there’s no need for us to worry about it.”

“Yeah. Still, it’s a little concerning that there always has to be some compensation with these Relics.”

Towako-san took a breath as she handed the bangle back to me.

That was a relief for now. I decided I would return the bangle to Toujou-san tomorrow. There was one thing I wanted to confirm before that, though.

“Towako-san, did you actually want to keep this Relic?”

She was a Relic collector who often went to great lengths to buy them.

It didn’t seem like there were many she wanted, but maybe this was one of the few she did.

I asked her with those thoughts in mind.

“Nah, maybe I’d want it if it were something that granted my wishes as I imagined them, or if it were powerful enough to alter the effects of other Relics.”

“Oh. You want relics like those?”

“Eh? …Yeah. Well, it’s not like I need something vague that simply improves luck.

Towako-san certainly didn’t seem like someone who would depend on something vague like luck. She had a certain manly decisiveness about her.

“What is it?”

“Nothing much. I was just thinking of how manly you were.”

“You do realize that’s not a compliment right?”

“Of course.”

I jokingly laughed and finally put the bangle in my school bag—

“Uwaah!”

My eyes met with Saki who was peeking out from the sitting room with her face half hidden.

“Y-you scared me. What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Saki said that, but looked at me with cold eyes. There was a hint of dissatisfaction on her otherwise expressionless face. I somehow could guess what she wanted to say.

“…guess there’s no helping it.”

I circled around Saki just like Towako-san did for me, held up the bangle in front of her eyes, and slowly rotated it.

“H-hey…”

“Don’t move your head, it’ll disappear. Pay attention, can you see what’s inside the stone?”

Really, acting like this at her age just because she was left out.

I sighed to myself while Saki looked for the pattern inside the stone set into the lucky bangle.

After staying silent for a while, Saki took a small step back.

“Are you having trouble seeing it?”

“I’m OK. I’m looking at it carefully right now. So stay still.”

Putting it like that made it sound like I had a choice in the matter. I was also pulled down with her when she leaned forward.

“…are you done yet?”

“Just a little more…”

Saki seemed happy and continued staring into the stone.

Something really nice happened today. A guy called out to me on my way home from school.

Perhaps this was the start of my new love, a blessing from the heavens after my heartbreak.

He is, no doubt, my soulmate.

After all, he knows about Relics—

I updated the blog without writing the last sentence. The part about Relics was a secret between just the two of us.

I thought he gave off a creepy feeling when I thought he was following me, but when I talked to him, he was nothing like that at all. In fact, he seemed like he had a nice personality, and had a good looking face to boot.

He was also interested in my bangle.

There were also other people who had taken notice of it before, but they were only interested in it as an accessory.

He was the only person that understood what it really was.

But that’s because he was special.  If fated encounters really existed in the world, then surely this was one of them.

This is truly a lucky bangle. Not only did it bring me luck, it also brought me a new love.

But I needed to become even luckier so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of what happened with Kurata-kun.

That’s why I wouldn’t get too deeply involved with him right now.

I even lied a little to get away from him today.  It’s all for the sake of being as lucky as possible for our next meeting.

We made a promise to meet again.

That’s why I need to stockpile luck for the sake of that moment.

Even if I have to steal it from other people.

All for the sake of my happiness—

I went to Tsuk.u.modo right after school the next day and waited for Toujou-san. We agreed to meet after school yesterday, but never decided on a specific time. I eventually ended up waiting two hours in the shop wondering when she was going to arrive.

Since there was work to do at the store, I didn’t really have any problems waiting. In fact, there were many more customers than usual today, leaving me with little free time.

“Is it because of this?”

I carefully looked at the bangle on my wrist.

I wasn’t wearing it for any particular reason, but it seemed to be having some effect. Either that, or this was a complete coincidence.

…nah, there’s no way this shop would suddenly become busy through sheer coincidence. It was probably blessed with luck due to this bangle’s power. But quite frankly, I couldn’t say for sure that the store was doing better because of my luck. It wasn’t like winning the lottery or something where I could clearly say I was lucky.

“Thank you very much.”

I saw Saki thank some customers and finish dealing with them without any problems. It had been a long time since I saw her looking after any customers. She was still as expressionless as ever, of course, but still looked lively somehow.

“Ah, whatever.”

I took back what I thought about her before; that’s just how she was.

I didn’t think it would be appropriate to interfere with her work.

Leaving the customer service to Saki, I decided to use the internet on the laptop since the rental period was about to run out.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t checked Toujou-san’s blog since then. I pulled up her blog from the browser history—

“He is, no doubt, my soulmate.”

I heard a voice read the last line out loud and hid the laptop screen in a panic. But judging by Saki’s chilly gaze, it was clear she already knew whose blog I was looking at. I hadn’t even noticed her