Current-day Translation: 20th Century
かごとくしを もった おんなのこが います
なのはな つんでいます
おじょうさん あなたのおなまえを おしえてください
あなたの おうちが どこにあるか おしえてください
わたしは やまとを おさめるものです
どうか あなたのことを おしえてください
kago to kushi wo motta onna no ko ga imasu
nanohana tsundeimasu
ojousan anata no onamae wo oshiete kudasai
anata no ouchi ga doko ni aru ka oshiete kudasai
watashi wa yamato wo osamerumono desu
douka anata no koto wo oshietekudasai
THERE IS A GIRL WITH A BASKET AND A TROWEL
WHO IS PICKING FLOWERS
MISS WILL YOU TELL ME YOUR NAME
PLEASE TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE FROM
I AM THE ONE WHO RULES YAMATO
I ASK THAT YOU TELL ME WHO YOU ARE
“The translation this month is really stiff and forced. And there aren’t any symbols,” I said.
“Wait? Isn’t this...?”
“Looking at the accompanying article — Whoa, this is amazing. This translation came from a high school girl reader ‘K.I.-san.’ She was so angry with the translation in last month’s issue that she sent in her own version!”
“I-I see...”
“Man, what a nasty-sounding girl...” I added.
“Why is that?”
“She went out of her way to send in this boring translation after last month’s ‘masked translator’s’ amazing translation filled with fan service! Of course she’s got to have a terrible personality. I bet she’s totally unpopular.”
“Oh, shut up. Who cares whether you’re popular or not? It’s all so stupid. I couldn’t care less what the masses out there think. What’s important is what the person you love thinks about you!”
“Why are you getting so upset? I was talking about this ‘K.I.’ high school student.”
“I-I was just m-making a general statement.”
“Oh, okay. By the way, there’s something important I noticed, something that’s going to bug a lot of people.”
“Wh-What’s that?”
“Does this article have, like, a punch line?”
“......”
“......”
“Do you actually think that literary magazine articles usually add in a punchline?” she asked.
“...Touché.”
Chapter 4 - Come On Out!
Kuroha was drunk.
Well, when I said that, the professor yelled back angrily, “I told you already that it isn’t alcohol-noda!”
My apologies.
But the “WATER THAT MAKES YOU TIPSY” had the same effect as alcohol, and Kuroha was most definitely acting drunk. This was the first time I had ever seen Kuroha like this in my entire life.
“Onii-chan, tell me how this is read!”
Kuroha had her dictionary open and had started quizzing me. Or rather demanding that I read the words.
“Come on! Hurry up and read it! What, you can’t? Fine, then I’ll read it for you!”
“Hey, Kuroha...”
“Come on, Onii-chan! Don’t play dumb, say something! ...Why are you acting so cold to me? ...Do you hate me...?” Kuroha started to sniffle and get teary-eyed.
Sheesh, Kuroha...
“That’s a wall,” I told her.
“Whaahe?” Kuroha had mistaken an illustration on a wall of a person for me. The picture was of a bearded foreigner, but...
“Wait... Who’s this guy wearing the lame school uniform with a look on his face that screams, ‘I’m a dumb-as-bricks average joe’?”
O-Ouch, man...
Kuroha, with her face flushed red, took a closer look in my direction.
“Oh, it’s Onii-chan.”
Kuroha grabbed my cheeks with both hands.
“Why is it that once I realize you’re Onii-chan that you suddenly look like the coolest guy in the world?”
“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment...” I said. Kuroha would usually never say something like I was cool. Well, she’s drunk, so I can’t believe anything she says right now.
Kuroha pulled at me with her hands, bringing my face so close to hers, I felt our noses might touch.
“Onii-chaaan.”
“Wh-What is it?”
“— Let’s kiss.”
!
She might have been drunk, but going by the tone of her voice, she was serious.
“B-B-B...”
I didn’t know what to do. I was freaking out. Sweat broke out in strange places on my neck.
“Just kidding. I ain’t gonna do that!” Kuroha laughed merrily, then let go of my face. She then tilted her head down a little and pointed it at me.
“Instead, pet me like I’m a good girl.”
“U-Uh... Okay?”
I guess something like that isn’t so out of the ordinary for siblings... right?
I petted Kuroha along the grain of her hair a number of times.
“Ehehe...” Kuroha’s eyes narrowed, and she started purring like a cat.
...Kuroha is really acting odd right now. She’s gone completely off kilter.
“I’m always the one that’s hesitating, so it’s only fair that Onii-chan gets to experience that once in a while!” As Kuroha grabbed my arm, she let out a really happy laugh. Kuroha’s body was feminine and soft, and I ended up bumping against her breasts.
“Hey, that’s no fair to just pet Nee! Pet me, too!” said Miru.
“Sure thing. But I’ll do it instead of Gin-kun,” suggested Odaira-sensei.
As he reached his hand out to Miru’s head, she slapped it away without saying anything. Odaira-sensei let out a delighted, “Oho!”
“Oh, my...” said Yuzu-san, with a slightly worried look on her face. “What will I do if Gin-san is enamored with Kuroha-san after seeing her in a different light like this?”
“Kuro-chan, you’re like a completely different person-noda!” said the professor, enjoying herself. But Kuroha glared back.
“You’re dangerous, Professor. You’re young-looking and cute... Don’t get near my Onii-chan!”
“Kuro-chan, you’re really beautiful, and I don’t think you look that old-noda,” the professor said.
“Ahhhh! You said it! You just said I looked old!”
Kuroha continued to clutch onto my arm and started bawling, but thankfully that also meant she stopped toying with me. I somehow felt relieved.
“Kuro-chan, you’re totally all over Imose-kun-noda. What do you actually think of him-noda?” the professor asked.
“I am also curious to hear the answer. I suspect that in her current state, she could say what she really feels,” added Yuzu-san.
What do you mean, what does Kuroha actually think of me? What’s the point of asking something like that?
“Huh? You wanna know what I think of Onii-chan?” Kuroha’s eyes went still. “That’s stupid. I ain’t gonna tell!”
“But even so, we would like to hear-noda.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to hear about the relationship of a different brother and sister.”
“Oh. Fine then, I’ll tell you. Hold on a sec...” Kuroha said, and flipped through the pages of the dictionary on the table.
愛 (Love)
“This, obviously!” she declared.
The professor lowered the goggles on her head and looked at the dictionary.
“So you love him-noda!”
When the professor said that, I was taken aback.
“Onii-chan’s an idiot, so I worry about him, and since he’s an idiot, I can look at him and he makes me feel better, and he’s an idiot so he makes me freak out a lot...”
For some reason I started to feel like I was the stupidest person in the world.
“If he’s not
together with me, see, Onii-chan is no good!” Kuroha cried.
What, are you like my legal guardian or something?
“You see, I think about Onii-chan more in a day than I do myself. Half my brain is filled with Onii-chan. If I didn’t love ‘im, then what else would it be?”
“Why do you think about Imose-kun so much-noda?”
“For someone that people call a genius you sure are dense. I’m his little sister, duh! I love him because I’m his little sister!”
“......”
In other words, the “love” that Kuroha felt was the love for family. There was no other strange connotation.
And yet...
The last time I had heard Kuroha tell Yuzu-san that she “loved” me, and this time as well, I had known that she meant familial love. But for some reason my heart always beat faster.
Wait, could it be? I thought to myself.
Hold on a second. Kuroha is my little sister. Sure, in orthodox style literature, it’s basically a given that the little sister and older brother have a romantic relationship, but Kuroha and I are flesh and blood, 3D people. T-To get excited about my little sister in that way... I think there’s something wrong with that.
Kuroha was muttering something to herself, and then she suddenly swung the dictionary around.
“It’s love!” she yelled out, and fell on the table with a splat.
“...snore.”
She’s passed out!
“I guess that’s the end of Kuroha Theater for now,” said Odaira-sensei, his shoulders slumping.
But then a single piece of paper fluttered down on the table. After Kuroha had swung the dictionary around, the piece of paper that she had placed in it had flown out.
The professor caught it and started to read it. She got a surprised look on her face. As she took the googles off again, she began to look back and forth between Kuroha and me like she was looking at some rare species.
“What was written on it?” I asked.
“Nothing particularly important. But it’s not something I could tell you without Kuro-chan’s permission-noda.”
The professor put the paper back in the dictionary. I was curious, but it would be wrong for me to look at it without Kuroha’s permission.
“Imose-kun, do you love Kuro-chan, too?” Yuzu-san asked.
“Well, it’s embarrassing to say that I love her, but she is my sister...”
“... I guess there are siblings like that, too-noda!”
“Are you trying to say that it’s something rare?” I asked.
“No, not that it’s rare, it’s just very different from the relationship between me and my brother-noda.” The professor got a look on her face like she was thinking back to the past.
“I don’t have any feelings of love for my brother-noda. I always thought that was just how brothers and sisters were, so when I saw how you and Kuroha act, I was surprised-noda. You two just get along so well... And you both trust each other implicitly-noda!”
“I also had a deep relationship of trust with my brother. We played together all the time.” Yuzu-san went on to explain her relationship with her brother to the professor. She talked excitedly about how they used to play “little piggy” and how she would tie him up.
“Y-Yeah... I think in your case, Yuzu-san, it was not as innocent as a ‘relationship of trust’-noda,” the professor said.
“Oh, my...” Perhaps Yuzu-san didn’t get the reaction she had expected, and she seemed a little unsatisfied.
“Did something happen between you two in the past, Imose-kun?” the professor asked me.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Well, it’s just...” The professor glanced over at the dictionary sitting on the table.
“Nothing in particular happened. We were a pretty normal brother and sister.”
I was adopted, and Kuroha worried about me because of that. But I didn’t think the reality of that situation had any special effect on our relationship. I felt like we were the kind of siblings you could find anywhere.
But if you had to ask me for one thing that set us apart from other brothers and sisters...
My little sister can read kanji.
“It’s not really about me and Kuroha, but Kuroha herself wasn’t really a normal kid,” I said.
“That’s interesting-noda. Could you tell me what Kuro-chan was like?”
I began to remember what Kuroha had been like when she was very little. Before starting her first day of elementary school, Kuroha’s hair had been similar to how it was today, long and straight, and she’d been wearing a beret with little cat ears. Since she hadn’t been tall, she’d looked almost doll-like.
Back then, Kuroha...
“She was a problem child.”
......——
—The whole family had gathered in the living room. My parents, myself, and also Kuroha. Miru hadn’t been born yet.
Kuroha was shouting at our parents, who were sitting beside each other on the couch.
“I’m not wrong! Everyone else is weird!” Kuroha wasn’t crying, but the look on her face said that she could cry at any moment. As for me, I was watching the back and forth between Kuroha and our parents nervously.
“Kuroha, you did it again, didn’t you?” asked Dad, with a strained smile on his face.
Kuroha jabbed a book at Dad. It was an old children’s book that used kanji.
“Low Angle is totally boring! This one’s way better!”
Low Angle was an anime that had been popular with kids at the time. It was filled to the brim with low angle shots of super young girls, and was considered a landmark work. It was based on a picture book for little kids.
Kuroha was trying as hard as she could to convince Mom and Dad that Low Angle was dumb and that old children’s books were way better.
How stubborn she is...
Kuroha had caused trouble like she always had, so Mom and Dad had called a family meeting. Here was what had happened: Kuroha had been reading a book in the park, and a number of other kids the same age had also been there in a group. The kids had seen a girl reading an ancient book all by herself and they’d said things like, “You’re reading something weird,” and then started to read the original picture book of Low Angle.
Kuroha had gotten extremely mad about having something she liked made fun of. It seemed she had yelled at them like crazy. After telling them why the book she was reading was good and why Low Angle was bad, she had challenged them with a “Now just try and tell me otherwise!”
The kids had all started to cry, and had run away.
It would have been fine if it had ended there, but the mother of one of the kids was a friend of our mom’s. And so that was how she heard about what had happened.
This wasn’t the first time that Kuroha had caused trouble. She’d constantly caused problems with other kids her age in the past.
“Low Angle doesn’t have any real story!” she complained.
“Isn’t that a good thing, Kuroha?” corrected Dad. “Who needs an unnecessary story? It might be made for kids, but the characters in Low Angle are great. Especially Kayla-chan. Her calves are so smooth, and that scene with her playing around with her pet dog really pulled me in. That’s totally up my alley.”
“You’ve always had thing for the lower body, dear!” Mom chuckled.
Mom and Dad smiled at each other. Kuroha stared at the two of them angrily. She didn’t show any signs of backing down. Dad continued on.
“Kuroha, is there anything I can do to convince you?”
“No.”
“You can understand kanji, so you read a lot of old books. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I’m not going to praise you if you use them to denigrate other things.”
“...Fine.”
Oh? That’s odd, Kuroha didn’t have a response to that.
“I know that saying anything to you two is pointless,” she continued.
“Kuroha! Why must you be so negative about everythin
g?! Learn a little from Gin!” When I heard Mom suddenly say my name, I was taken aback. I was just an outside observer to this mess, but now I was put right in the center of attention. Kuroha looked over to me with a look of spite.
Tears started to well up in her eyes.
“Gin is going to grow up to be just like me, an honest man who cares more about pretty girl’s lower bodies than upper bodies,” Dad said. “Kuroha, you need to think of things more simply.”
“Your father is right,” Mom agreed. “Gin, say something!”
With the conversation thrown to me, I said what I was thinking.
“I actually think that pantyhose are more attractive than bare legs.”
“...See that way of thinking? There’s no faltering to it, it’s easy and laid-back. Wonderful!” Dad seemed pleased.
“...I don’t get it,” Kuroha mumbled, like she was struggling. She scrunched up her face and big teardrops started flowing out. “I don’t get it at all!”
She ran out of the living room.
“Kuroha!” I tried to stop her, but my words just skirted off her back. I could hear her footsteps echo in my eardrums as she ran down the hallway.
I ran out into the hallway, chasing after her.
......——
“They’re a lot alike-noda!” the professor cried.
“They’re alike?” I asked. “Who are?”
“Kuro-chan and my brother-noda.”
“They are?”
“They are-noda. The way that they both like older books and are laughed at by those around them, and how they get angry about current-day things and are against them are exactly the same-noda. The same sort of thing happened with my brother-noda.”
“When Mr. Bedhead was made fun of by other people, did you not help him?”
“After I tried to help him, he stopped talking with me-noda.”
“Ah, I see.”
Clearly every person reacted differently when they were depressed. In the past, my heart had been healed by thinking about Homyura from Oniaka. And currently, I used writing novels as a way to forget about the bad things.
For Kuroha, it was reading. She would sink deep into some old book and feel better.
......——
“Kuroha, open the door already. We can apologize to Mom and Dad together, okay?” I knocked on the door, but there was no response.
My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 2 Page 8