Sasami-san @ Ganbaranai Vol 2 Chapter 10

VOLUME 2

PART 2: YATA NO KAGAMI

Chapter 10: Blindfolded Tag

Two weeks pa.s.sed by quickly.

And I found myself in a wholly unwanted situation.

I had expected that in around three days, I would’ve learned skills like how to be a good friend and how to be a normal high school girl. I would begin to give off the impression of being a cheerful girl, and by a week in I would’ve shaken off the label of being a girl who was supposed to be pitied.

After that, it should’ve been quick work to make friends other than Kagami, and then I could live a wonderful life and experience things I never could’ve experienced before as a shut-in.

Well, things just didn’t always go how you wanted them to go.

It was natural that things wouldn’t always work out in my life, especially since I had chosen not to misuse the power of the Supreme G.o.d.

There was only a bit more than a week left in my first year in high school, and I began to count the days left until closing ceremony. Bur rather than being panicked, I was a bit bewildered.

Huh?

What?

Shouldn’t it have gone a bit better than this…?

I should’ve been happier… should’ve been having more fun…

This was strange. Just strange. Also, pretty irritating.

Compared to my little room at home, where every little thing went exactly how I wanted it to, this was just a completely different experience.

It was pretty natural that not everything would work out as planned.

But still, I was just astonished.

Was this reality? Was this what it meant to live a “real” life?

I see. I guess I underestimated this “real life” stuff a bit.

Ehehe, my bad.

I’ll just give it time, try to learn from my mistakes, and once I get used to this stuff a bit more…

Then everything will work out, right?

“Kagami.”

I was optimistic. Or maybe I was just averting my eyes from reality. Either way, because of that, I didn’t try hard.

What would happen would happen.

With time and experience, I would become able to accomplish my goals too.

I believed in that so much that I just ceased all thought and didn’t try to get better.

Or maybe I was just afraid.

Afraid of a reality that wouldn’t listen to a single little thing I said.

“Um, Kagami.”

It was after school.

Someone had sloppily written “closing ceremony, 6 days left!” on the board under where the date had been written. Those words pierced through my chest.

When you went up a year, all the cla.s.ses changed around. In other words, we had less than a week before we wouldn’t be able to see all these same people in the same cla.s.sroom anymore. Because of that, a sense of end-of-the-year loneliness drifted through the room.

But I wasn’t really feeling the same way as everyone else.

By this point, I was supposed to have stopped being an outsider…

I was supposed to have taken a step forwards, have reached out to the other students, and have found my voice.

But I guess that was just all a delusion? Maybe… I was only pretending to try hard?

Could it be that I hadn’t changed at all?

“Funyaa.”

When I shook her by the shoulder, Kagami looked wearily up at me. As usual, she had been sleeping.

“Sasami-san, what is it?”

She really didn’t look like she wanted to be talking with me.

I see. She was tired of playing along with this friends.h.i.+p thing, wasn’t she? Sorry…

I gave a bit of a start at her words and just looked at her. I had completely lost confidence in myself.

Even after that day I had found her completely bloodied and collapsed, after she had told me off with her cold words, her att.i.tude towards me had not changed.

If I spoke to her, she would respond normally.

But I felt there was a sense of distance between us, and my attempts to socialize with her became more and more awkward.

No, that’s not right.

We were friends.

Even if it was only at school, Kagami was my friend. So…

“Um, here.”

If I just put more effort into being friendly with her, if I tried my best, then I’m sure I would be able to find happiness.

But, I didn’t know in what way I should try my best.

“I-I won some movie tickets from this magazine contest…”

It was from a shoujo manga magazine that I had always read.

Maybe it was because of the power of the Supreme G.o.d, but I often won things like this.

“If you want, maybe today… we can go together?”

“………”

Kagami yawned, and stared at the tickets I was handing out to her.

There was a bit of a silence before Kagami began to mutter a response, her face not showing an ounce of emotion.

“I apologize. I already have plans today.”

“Ah, I see.”

That’s kind of what I was expecting her hrespones would be.

But I wouldn’t give up.

“Well, when do you think you’ll be free? Do you want to hang out somewhere? Even I fit’s not a movie, I don’t really know my way around town very well yet, so maybe you can show me-“

“I apologize. Can you please stop asking me these things for a while?”

Kagami’s emotionless voice knocked right into me, and I felt myself tearing up.

“Um… am I… annoying you?”

She really looked like she was tired of me.

That’s what I thought.

I see.

I had gone out of my way to force Kagami to be my friend.

I had told her it was just temporary, that I was just using her as a filler friend, that this was just practice… but all of that was just me hiding my embarra.s.sment. And even then, I had to wring out every ounce of my courage to ask her that.

But Kagami didn’t know any of that.

She had agreed to be my friend just because she felt a sense of duty to protect me.

I didn’t want that… I felt tears begin to flow out my eyes.

I was like a baby throwing a tantrum.

What the h.e.l.l was this…?

“No.”

Kagami didn’t even twitch.

“Whether Sasami-san is there or not makes no different to me. Your existence has absolutely no bearing on my daily life. Perhaps you’re being a bit overly sensitive, Sasami-san?”

Kagami’s slow, leisurely words sucked my life right out as she stood up.

She took her schoolbag in one hand, and pa.s.sed by my side as I began to sob, not a single hint of lingering affection on her face.

“……”

She stopped there and seemed to hesitate, opening and shutting her mouth a few times.

But then she just looked down at the ground and just mumbled indifferently.

“Well then, until tomorrow.”

“… I don’t care…”

I screamed out in desperate.

“I don’t care anymore!”

Exactly who was I yelling at, and what did I mean?

I rubbed my eyes as I thrust Kagami away from me and flew out of the cla.s.sroom.

I ran and ran and ran, my breath growing heavier and heavier, but I never got anywhere at all.

I had run way more than I had in a long time, so I suddenly felt too exhausted to go home and went to rest a bit in the Production Club cla.s.sroom.

I took out my cell phone and called my brother, but he told me that today of all days he was stuck in a staff meeting and would be a bit late, so I spent the next few minutes showering him with abuse to relieve stress.

My brother seemed a bit worried and offered to slip out of his meeting to go home with me, but I didn’t want him to get fired either, so I mustered my strength to go home alone.

The lights had been turned off already to conserve energy, so I just weakly shuffled across the dark hallway.

Konohana Sakuya Academy wasn’t known for having a lot of active clubs, so there weren’t many people around at this time. I began to change out of my school shoes near the building entrance when I suddenly noticed something.

Kagami was there.

She was walking along with a cla.s.smate of ours who I had seen before.

Now that I remembered, she did say that she had other plans.

I had thought that she had had some really important plans.

But what the h.e.l.l? She was just walking along with another cla.s.smate, and didn’t seem to be in a rush at all.

I felt my mind cloud over.

Everything went white, I saw sparks flicker in front of my eyes, and my breathing became labored.

“… Nnghh…”

I had just a.s.sumed…

I had just a.s.sumed that Kagami had no friends.

That she was like me.

That it would be easy to make friends with her. But all of that had been wishful thinking.

Kagami had her own plans from day to day, probably had fun with her own friends every day, and I was just interfering with all that. Kagami was just trying her best to put up with me.

“… can’t take this anymore…”

I had stopped being a shut-in, tried my best, and ventured outside.

I decided to live a normal life, to stand on my own two feet, and to become happy someday… without any real reason, I believed I would be able to do all that.

But, I had been wrong.

I had made a big mistake.

“I can’t… take this anymore… not anymore…”

At some point, Kagami and the other girl had disappeared.

I slowed down my breathing and hurried home as fast as possible, trying to avoid looking at anybody.

I was breaking down.

For outside observers, that probably was a pretty pathetic story.

I wasn’t wounded at all.

It’s not like I had been fatally stabbed or anything, and I was living a pretty convenient life.

Everyone around me was nice to me, and I lived in a prosperous country free of war.

It would be selfish of me to claim I was unlucky.

But, I still hated this.

I had been protected and coddled my entire life, so this tiniest of setbacks was enough to break my heart.

All it took to push me to my limit was to get rejected by Kagami and have some cold words thrown at me.

I was acting like no more than a spoiled child.

Tears streaked down my face as I walked.

Walked home alone.

If I had gone home like that, and had gone back to my room with its familiar warmth and peacefulness, then I might’ve decided to never try hard again, and then… I might’ve shut myself in once again.

But I was a spoiled child.

When I was in trouble or depressed, there was always someone who came to my aid.

–

“Kyahahahaha~~!”

–

Before I realized it, I was walking next to the park near my house.

The sun had almost set already, but there were still some neighborhood elementary schoolers playing happily in the park.

They had left their backpacks on the ground and were running around and a round.

In the middle of that group was Tama – the third Yagami Sister, whose height allowed her to tower over all the other kids.

Tama had such a nice body that it was very difficult to imagine that she was an elementary schooler. To add to that, she was wearing light clothing even though it was winter, and for some reason was also blindfolded, making everything seem all the more sketchy.

“Oni, oni, I’m over here~~!” (1)

“I’m snapping my fingers~~! Follow me~~!”

“Waaiii~~! Where are you all? Tama is the oni! Are you over here? Tama is going to eat you~~!”

“Gyah, she caught me!”

“Hm hm… this smell… this must be Sacchin! Thanks for the meal~~!”

“Gyah?! Don’t really bite me, Tama-chan!”

“Ahh, Satou only?! That’s so not faaaaiirr~~.”

“Eat me too!”

“Tama-chan with a blindfold… Tama-chan with a blindfold…!!”

For some reason, they ended up ignoring the rules for blindfolded tag and all the boys began to just pile on top of the defenseless Tama.

“Howawawa…? What’s this? Ahh, don’t touch Tama there… ehehe, the oni lost! But Tama is the lowest oni around! Even if you beat Tama, there’s still the second and the third oni… kyahaha! Don’t eat that! Tama is the one who’s gonna eat you~~!”

Hm, Tama had such a nice body that I really couldn’t see this as anything more than elementary schoolers s.e.xually hara.s.sing a pretty older lady…

I think there was a novel about that kind of thing once…

“Hm? Oh? I smell Mamarin!”

As the prep.u.b.escent kids piled on Tama got more and more confused by this excitement they had never felt before, Tama energetically stood up and shook them all off.

She seemed to figure out where I was, and steadily jumped at me without removing her blindfold.

“Waaii~~! It’s Tama! Umm, Tama, you know, Tama is too good at normal tag so we played blindfolded tag! Tama is really fast! She’s the fastest in the cla.s.s!”

Tama continued to go on and on about herself while hugging me tight.

“Hmm~~? Mamarin, it’s you, right? Why isn’t Mamarin talking at all? Maybe this isn’t Mamarin…? Hmm, well… lick. No, this is Mamarin’s taste~~!”

Don’t lick me, dammit.

“Hm? Is Mamarin crying?”

Maybe I tasted a bit salty, but Tama seemed bewildered and then took off her blindfold in a hurry.

Both my eyes were red and my eyelids were swollen.

There was no way I could lie my way out of this one.

“Ah, sorry, I have plans,” I spurted out before trying to run away. But Tama held me back with her incredible arm strength.

“Wait, Mamarin! Wanna play with Tama?”

She sounded desperate.

It was almost scary.

“Tsurugi-nee told Tama… she told Tama that when you’re sad, it’s really dangerous. So let’s play? When you’re sad, you end up thinking about lots of things, right? And when Tama and Mamarin and other people like us think too much, then all the G.o.ds around us try to make us feel better and warp the world! So… so…!”

At this point, even Tama was close to tears, and she pleaded with me with all her might.

“When Mamarin cries, it makes Tama’s chest go all tight… and Tama is an idiot, so she doesn’t know what to do… but Tama likes it when Mamarin smiles, so…”

I hadn’t fallen far enough that I would forcibly reject this pure wish coming from Tama.

And so, I played with the elementary schoolers until the crows began to cry.

Before I realized it, the sun had already completely set.

The elementary schoolers all happily went their way back home, but unlike them I didn’t have a limitless store of energy, so I just collapsed exhausted onto a park bench.

I… really exerted myself a bit too much back there…

But it was the first time I’ve done something like that.

Tag. Hide-and-go-seek. The “kick-the-can” game…

They were really common ways to play.

But I didn’t have much experience, and you could say that I was even more of a child than the elementary schoolers.

But in any case.

I. Am. So. Tired.

“That was really fun, Mamarin~~.”

For some reason, Tama had stayed behind with me, and was sitting next to me flapping her feet.

She suddenly started staring at a cart selling stone-grilled yams with desire in her eyes, so I let her run and buy some.

Tama gripped the coins I had given her tightly and happily went on her journey, returning with a piping hot yam.

“Wai, waaiii~~. Mamarin is so nice~~. Yams, yams~~ yamajamayam~~.”

“Ahh, thanks Tama.”

As Tama began to enthusiastically sing her mysterious song, I suddenly felt like I wanted to tease her a bit. I took the bag with the yam in it and began to eat it all by myself.

“Hm, this is delicious.”

“…? …?”

Tama didn’t seem to understand that she was being teased, and just stared at me with eyes filled with hope.

Ugh, what a letdown.

It was starting to hurt getting stared at by those pure, large eyes, so I split the yam into two and crammed one half into Tama’s unnecessarily large mouth.

“Hng… chew chew chew. More please!”

“So fast! Sorry, Tama. The other half is mine… kyah! Don’t try to steal it right out of my mouth with yours! You might end up stealing something much more important than the yam!”

Tama began to inch closer and closer to my face with hers, while I tried to push her away with all my strength.

In the end, I just reluctantly gave the rest of the yam to Tama. “Eat it a bit more slowly this time,” I warned her.

“So good, so good~~.”

Tama sat next to me, her face beaming, as I looked up at the night sky.

Today was about to become the worst day in my life, but because of Tama I felt much better.

I suddenly realized that I didn’t feel nearly as stressed as I had.

But, that didn’t mean anything was solved.

There was still the problem that my relations.h.i.+p with Kagami was still really awkward. And the blame for that most likely rested with me.

I had to change. I had to grow up.

But… I had no idea how.

“Let’s play sometime again, Mamarin. Tama and the others are always in the park.”

Nah, I played with you guys today because I got a bit too into it… but normally it’d be a bit embarra.s.sing for a girl my age to play with elementary schoolers.

But when I looked at Tama and saw the expression of a girl who couldn’t imagine in her wildest dreams that someone would reject her idea, I could only manage to say “Ahh… okay, if I feel like it then.”

I wiped Tama’s mouth with a handkerchief (all the while she kept on going “Nghh…” and “Nyahaha…” and making other annoying sounds).

“Hey, Tama…”

I felt a sense of powerlessness and a slight bit of envy filtering in and out of my chest.

“How do you make friends?”

I didn’t know.

Asking an elementary schooler to teach me that was a bit pathetic, but at this point I was prepared to rely on thin air if I had to.

There were mountains and mountains of worthless knowledge stored in textbooks and on the internet, but the important things in real life were like treasures that had to be hunted for by each and every person themselves. Reality’s difficulty level was way too high.

And sometimes, you just had to hold down your shame and ask people who were better than you for help.

Even if she was like that… Tama was a G.o.d, after all.

“Hm? Why are you asking Tama that?”

Tama seemed genuinely puzzled.

It was almost like she didn’t understand what my question meant.

I held back my embarra.s.sment as I stood up and bought two oolong teas at a nearby vending machine.

Eating these yams had clogged up my throat a bit.

“But Tama has so many friends. I have no friends… so I mean… it’s a bit weird but… I guess I’m jealous.”

“But Mamarin is Kagami-nee’s friend, isn’t she?”

My heart sped up.

Tama didn’t notice that I had stiffened, but just continued happily.

“When we eat dinner, Kagami-nee didn’t talk about anything before… but now she talks a lot about school! Talks about eating lunch together, getting teamed up with Mamarin in gym or English cla.s.s… Kagami-nee’s face never has any ee-moh-shuns on it, but she’s really happy! Tama knows!”

Happy…

She was?

“Kagami-nee said ‘I made a friend today’ two weeks ago, and she made us a feast, you know? Kagami-nee seems a bit sad now though, so Mamarin, take good care of her, ‘kay? Kagami-nee tries too hard sometimes and makes Tama worry.”

If Tama was worried about you, you were probably doing something horribly wrong…

So Kagami had made a friend…

Ah, so she really did think of me as a friend…

“Tama and the others are G.o.ds, so we’re always not sure.”

Tama looked right at me with that surprisingly beautiful face of hers.

“We’re G.o.ds, so sometimes if we want something we’ll alter the world so it’s better for us. Even if we didn’t mean to. Humans have low divinities, so if Tama wanted to, she could alter them and force them to be her friend. So it’s scary.”

Humans prayed to the G.o.ds.

They entrusted their wishes and hopes to them.

In that case, who exactly should the G.o.ds depend on when they were troubled?

Did they have to solve all their problems on their own?

In a sense, maybe the G.o.ds lived much stricter lives than humans.

“Even if Tama makes friends, and plays with them a lot, and they tell Tama that they love her… maybe that’s just because Tama made them say that. That’s scary… Tama is always scared… but Mamarin and Kagami-nee are both G.o.ds. So you two have to be true friends, not because of some power… Tama is jealous.”

When I handed her the oolong tea, Tama unscrewed the cap and gulped the tea down.

A little splash of tea flew through the air.

“Ahh… and you two are real friends, so sometimes you’re gonna hurt each other a lot. Kagami-nee also has been crying a lot and has been worrying about something. Tama is worried, but she’s also jealous.”

Tama walked over to me and gripped my hand softly.

And then, even though she was a G.o.d herself, she looked at me as if praying.

“Please take care of Kagami-nee.”

Her words got through to me… and I finally understood everything.

“Everything should be over soon. Just wait, or if you can go help her. Kagami-nee is trying her best… everything will be finished at latest by the end of the school year, she said. Tama and Tsurugi-nee wanted to help, but she said no. Sasami-san is my friend, so this is something that I have to do, she said…”

 

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Oni is a kind of demon from j.a.panese folklore, and is also the word used to indicate the person who’s “it” in a game of tag.