I guess she must have her own issues. I did not pry further.
The room she led me to was three times the size of my room at home. It had a bay window, and there was a thick, dark green carpet laid out. It was like a room that European nobles would live in.
“What a wonderful room. I’m really grateful, but... are you sure it’s okay?”
“It’s fine. I’m really glad that the place will become so lively.”
“But... What if your parents are against it?”
“Oh, didn’t I say something about that? My parents are overseas and won’t be coming back for a little while.”
This was the first I had heard about it. It seemed like Yuzu-san was living alone in this house at the moment. Her parents were living overseas for their work, and would not return for a number of years.
It was a very large mansion, so one would think there would be some staff like a butler or a maid, but from the looks of it, they didn’t employ a single person for help.
“With such a big house, I bet cleaning it all is hard. I’ll help out,” I offered.
“Thank you! But I actually really enjoy cleaning. I’ll make sure to clean your room, too, so don’t worry about a thing, Gin-san,” she said, smiling calmly. It was a smile that told me gently, I’m happy to be of service to you. Her maturity made me feel like a little child. I wonder if this is what it is like to have an older sister?
The thought reminded me that I didn’t know how old Yuzu-san was, or what she did every day. She looked a little bit older than me, but she was still young enough to be in school, I figured.
“Are you a student, Yuzu-san?”
“Yes, I am. Here, look at this,” she said, pointing at the breast of the jersey she was wearing. 白明学園 was embroidered there, but I couldn’t read the kanji.
“Ah, I’m sorry! This is the jersey of the high school I go to.”
I see, so she’s a high school student.
“I’m also in high school,” I replied.
“What year?”
“Second year.”
“Then you’re like my older brother.”
Was Yuzu-san a first-year, then? However in this era, perhaps the years of high school were different. I clarified, “I’ll be 17 this year. How old are you?”
“I’m 16. That makes you one year older than me.”
Whoops, she’s younger than me! Just goes to show you how mature she acts. All of my classmates and upperclassmen seemed like little kids compared to her. I guess Kuroha is similar, though. They’re both beautiful and seem a lot older than they really are.
Yuzu-san must have looked at my reaction as she puffed up her cheeks in a pout. “You just thought to yourself, ‘She looks older than her age,’ didn’t you?”
“That’s not it! I just thought you were really mature, is all...” But that didn’t seem to placate her. “I mean, beautiful people look younger as they get older, right?”
...Shoot. I might have just put my foot in my mouth. When I had said the same thing to Kuroha, she had gotten really mad. Was it really such a rude thing to say to a girl? But Yuzu-san’s reaction was different than Kuroha’s.
“B-Beautiful...?” She had trouble saying the word. It seemed like she was embarrassed by it. “Gin-san, you probably say that to everyone, right?”
“Oh, not at all. Honestly, I thought you would be used to being called beautiful, Yuzu-san.”
“Other than my older brother, no one has ever called me that before,” she admitted.
Really? But she’s so pretty... Maybe everyone other than her brother just had no eye for beauty.
Wait... “Yuzu-san, you have an older brother?”
“Ah...” she sighed softly, looking down, her shoulders slumping. “I had an older brother. Until three months ago.”
The air in the room suddenly felt heavy. Oh no, what have I done? Maybe her brother had had to move away, or in the worst case, maybe he had passed away... In any case, it was clearly something she was very sad about.
Yuzu-san didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then suddenly announced, “Um, I’m going to tend to the yard. Please make yourself at home!” She spun around and headed out to the hallway. Her steps echoed from the stairway on her way down.
I seems like the subject of her brother was taboo. I’d better be careful about that from now on.
I went over to the bay window and opened it up. Fresh air drifted into the room. The greenery I saw outside was peaceful and pastoral, and yet, this was supposed to still be in TOKYO. Yuzu-san had said we were in OKUTAMA.
In our era, the urban concentration had progressed, and in the places where people lived, the population density was very high. It had been generations since people’s houses had been surrounded by such nature. This scenery really made me feel like I had traveled through time.
I thought about this situation. Why did we come to this time period, I wonder? It was difficult to imagine that it was just some supernatural phenomenon. There had to be something that had triggered the event. I had to figure out what caused it. If I wanted to become an author, I had to return to the 23rd century.
I let the fresh air waft over me for a bit, and then shut the window. I went over to the bed and lay down on it. It was soft and comfortable. I felt like I could relax.
It was all thanks to Yuzu-san that I could rest worry-free in this era. I was truly grateful that she was the first person we had met in this time period. She was so kind to us.
She was the spitting image of Homyura from Oniaka, so being treated so kindly by her made my heart skip a beat. When I thought about Yuzu-san, I let out a sigh like “Uwah...”
A lot had happened today, and now that I felt safe, I suddenly felt extremely tired. Sleep overtook me as visions of Yuzu-san floated up behind my closed eyes...
One week had passed since we had come to the 21st century. In that week, we had relied completely on Yuzu-san. She prepared all our meals, and she handled all the small details.
But Yuzu-san was not a person with a lot of free time at all. She would go to school on weekdays from morning until evening, and she would deal with us in between. She was shouldering a lot of responsibility.
This was really imposing too much, so we convinced Yuzu-san to let us help as much as we could with the housework. This was primarily cleaning the mansion and tending to the garden. We were prepared to work hard, but with the four of us splitting up the duties, cleaning was over in no time.
During the day we had nothing else to do, so we each did what we liked.
Odaira-sensei was writing a new novel. Even travelling through time could not stop him from practicing his profession. He was writing using his usual current-day Japanese, but on the occasion when he couldn’t think of any ideas, he would sometimes write in the old-fashioned modern Japanese to clear his mind.
Miru was sketching the scenery. She had been absorbed in that for two or three days, but after a week, it seemed like she’d gotten bored. She was always changing her interests like that.
If you had to ask what Kuroha and I were doing, well... we watched TV, basically.
The first time we turned on the TV, we were shocked at what we saw. Right off the bat there were a ton of actual, real people! They were all something called “TV personalities,” we gathered.
In this era, the amount of anime on TV was completely dwarfed by the number of these programs where these TV personalities would perform.
Can they actually get ratings using real people?
In our time period, news and variety programs would all feature 2D characters, so it was a new experience for us.
One thing to be thankful about was that we could pretty much understand what these TV personalities were talking about. The writing style was different, but the spoken language used in this era was not so different from ours. According to Kuroha, spoken Japanese had not changed much since the Meiji era.
Unfortunately, as I could not read kanji, I wasn’t able to learn the names
of these TV personalities when they were shown on the screen. The only ones I could read were “Eno●nta,” “E●rikazuki,” and “Tsuno●☆hiro.” I liked the last person because he used symbols in his name, like Odaira-sensei’s books.
Some things were interesting since we knew about the future. For example, about books. According to the news on TV, the number of ebooks was beginning to grow rapidly, and it was only a matter of time until printed books became relics of history.
This was totally off. In the 23rd century, printed books were still what everyone used. According to what Odaira-sensei told me, there had been a time when ebooks had taken over, but that in turn had caused paper prices to plummet, and printed books had made a comeback afterward.
Just watching TV every day was really fun. I enjoyed watching the dramas and variety programs, but I enjoyed watching the anime the most, by far. An incredible number of episodes were stored on the digital recorder and on optical discs.
It was the first time I had watched Heisei era anime, but there were many shows which were very literary and to my taste. It was like my Orthodox style literature had been made into TV programs: A boy entering an all-girls’ academy, or an alien girl suddenly making herself at home in a boy’s house, etc...
Also, in the anime, I saw something that surprised me. When a girl would get naked, her dangerous bits would be covered by beams of light or steam.
Light beams shining in the dark! Steam billowing from absolutely nowhere! How incredibly ridiculous it all was. Truly this was the origin of the Orthodox style!
I was so happy with it all, I couldn’t keep still. When people are glad, they naturally want to keep active. When there was a scene with a panty flash, I clapped, and when there was a nude scene, I clasped my hands together in prayer. For some reason, Kuroha would stare at me coldly.
One Sunday, I called out to Yuzu-san in the hallway. I wanted to thank her for showing me all the anime. She was wearing her katyusha on her head and had on a jersey. When she was in the house, this was how she always dressed. She must have really been fond of it.
“Thank you so much for the anime,” I told her.
“You enjoyed it?”
“Yes. There were some excellent panty flashes,” I replied.
“Well, I’m glad about that,” she said, smiling broadly.
She’s so cute... Whenever I looked at Yuzu-san’s smile, I felt like my heart would beat itself out of my chest.
“Actually, what do mean by ‘excellent panty flashes’?” she added.
Hoho... I bet she wants me to go on in detail about which series and which scene. I began to describe them to her in as much detail as I could.
“Uh... Um...” Yuzu-san seemed hesitant for some reason, as if my description wasn’t very good. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t watched any of those.”
“You haven’t?”
“It is my brother’s anime collection.”
Aha, so that’s why!
“Then you don’t usually watch anime?”
“Right. Actually, I’ve hardly seen any at all,” Yuzu-san explained.
You don’t watch anime?! Such a statement would be unbelievable, were it not the 21st century. Common sense in this era must have been completely different.
“Actually, about that, there is something I need some help with,” continued Yuzu-san.
“What is it?”
“I need to buy a piece of merchandise from an anime called Magical Girl Super Sadie.”
“Magical Girl Super Sadie? Do you mean that Sadie?” I replied, but she gave me back a blank stare.
A magical girl statue had been excavated in the 23rd century which was worth 50 billion yen. My memory was hazy, but I was pretty sure it had come from a show called Sadie.
“I’m sorry, I don’t really know very much about anime...” she said.
“I’m the one who should apologize. It seems like something important, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is something very important,” said Yuzu-san. “But I don’t have any idea how to buy something like that.”
“What about using the internet?”
“My brother used it all the time, but since I didn’t understand it, I canceled the contract.”
“What about your local shops?”
“I asked the people at the supermarket where I buy groceries if they had the item that I had written down, but they broke out in laughter. They told me they didn’t sell things like that.”
What did she write down, I wonder?
“...I wonder where I could buy it?” she continued.
“In the capital, Yuzu-kun.” The voice entered suddenly from the side. Turning my head, I saw Odaira-sensei standing there.
“In the capital? Aren’t we technically in Tokyo, though?” Yuzu-san didn’t seem to understand.
“Hahaha, it’s true that TOKYO is the capital of Japan. That hasn’t changed since your era. What I am talking about is the capital of something a little smaller, a little more cultural...”
I could almost see the question mark floating above Yuzu-san’s head.
I knew what Odaira-sensei was referring to when he said the “capital of culture.”
“Sensei, I think you are being a little unfair to Yuzu-san, using that kind of language,” I said knowingly. I was sure where Odaira-sensei was saying we should go, so I said the name aloud. “Akihabara.”
Yuzu-san looked at Odaira-sensei as she finally understood. He grabbed his twin-tails in his hands, and while pulling on them, he said, “Correct!”
That afternoon, the five of us headed to AKIHABARA. It would be the first time we had gone out of the house since coming to this time period.
We got on the train at OKUTAMA Station, and from there I gathered it would take more than two hours to get to AKIHABARA. Because the Heisei era trains were so slow, we had time to take in the scenery.
“Wow, look at that! Roof tiles!” I was impressed.
“It looks like there are still buildings left that were made of wood,” Kuroha added.
“Nii, there are lots of signs with kanji on them!” Miru said, excitedly.
Our eyes were all glued to the scenery passing by the train windows. As we got closer to the city center, more modern high-rise buildings began to come into view. The city buildings being slowly replaced by new structures was very Heisei-like. Viva la 21st century!
On the way there, we switched trains a number of times, and finally reached AKIHABARA. We passed through the “Akihabara Electric Town Exit” gates and took a look around.
Wait, this isn’t nearly as moe as I had imagined it. I figured it would be filled with pretty 2D girls, but I only saw a few billboards here and there. That’s it? Seriously? I felt cheated.
The thing that did impress me was how crowded it was. A huge number of people were coming and going, and I felt like if I wasn’t careful, I would bump into someone. The population of Japan had been over 120 million in this era, so it was no wonder that TOKYO was overflowing with people.
It was chaos the moment we exited the station. My eyes and ears were accosted by the amalgamation of electronic sounds coming from all around, by the people trying to call us into shops, by the colorful, bright lights of kanji-filled signs, and by the noise of the crowd. There was a spark to the city that wasn’t present in the tidy streets of the 23rd century, and it bowled me over.
If I were to write a novel set in this district, how would I ever describe it?
“So this is Akihabara... It’s my first time here,” said Yuzu-san happily. Yuzu-san had changed out of her jersey and was wearing her school uniform. She wore her school sweater over a white blouse on top with a pleated skirt below. It seemed like she always wore her school uniform when going out, and when I asked her, “Don’t you have any other clothes you like to wear outside of school?” she replied energetically, “Nope!”
“Hmm...” Odaira-sensei was scanning around with his eyes. He must have been checking out each area of AKIHABARA carefully. “There
are a lot of people, but hardly any little girls.”
“You’re enough of a little girl for this town, Sensei. Let’s start looking for this thing Yuzu-san wants to buy,” replied Kuroha.
Now, what was this item Yuzu-san was looking for? A Magical Girl Super Sadie Limited Edition Booby Mousepad. Neither myself nor Kuroha had any idea what a “Booby Mousepad” was, or had even heard the term.
When we asked Yuzu-san, she replied, “Hmm, I wonder what a ‘mousepad’ is?” unhelpfully.
It seems like Yuzu-san had written it down on a note as something she had to buy. Why she needed to get it was still a mystery, though.
Our last hope was Odaira-sensei, who was knowledgable about the culture and ways of the Heisei era. Fortunately, he knew what a “booby mousepad” was. He said that it was a mousepad with an illustration of the top half of a female character where the breast part was shaped like the character.
I knew we could count on you, Sensei!
With that, I figured it should be no problem to buy one, but Odaira-sensei didn’t know what kind of store would sell them.
“They are famous Heisei era works of art, after all...”
“Well if you don’t know, ask someone!” recommended Kuroha confidently.
Yup, well said.
The only issue was who to ask... In times like these, standard practice was to rely on the wisdom of elders.
As if on cue, an old lady came walking past. I’m gonna ask her!
“Pardon me. Do you happen to know where they sell Sadie booby mousepads?”
The old lady let out a “Huh?” and turned to look at me. “Booby?” she asked, surprised.
Is it so strange to ask about fine artwork? I became a little unsure of myself, but the look on the old lady’s face quickly softened and she began to smile peacefully.
“I’m sorry. I don’t much know about the things young people are into these days. I just change trains here is all.” She continued to explain that she would be getting on the SOBU LINE on her way to TSUDANUMA in CHIBA. I was unfamiliar with the place names.
“If you want to buy something, I’d say use Japan Shopping Network.”
“Japan Shopping Network?”
My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 1 Page 7