My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 3

by Takashi Kajii

  Hahaha! She really is quite the handful.

  As I laughed together with Amaneko-chan, Kuroha spoke from beside me.

  “Onii-chan, thank you...”

  “No prob.”

  “I was thinking to myself, if I had to rely on someone like that to become a translator, maybe it was better if I didn’t...” she said.

  “That would be such a waste, though,” I said. “You’ve gotta grab on to every chance you get.” It was just a feeling, but I didn’t think that Amaneko-chan’s grandfather was really such a bad person.

  “Yeah...” replied Kuroha, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

  “Hey, don’t cry,” I said. “You’re not a crybaby like this, come on.”

  “Yeah... but...” Kuroha wiped the corner of her eyes. For some reason she was staring off into the sky. Amaneko-chan noticed this as well and also started looking up into the sky.

  “Ahh!”

  What? I followed their gaze and there I saw it — the holographic display was back.

  The settings must have changed after the strong shock I’d given it. A whole bunch of words began to appear on it.

  Novel titles like I Want to Have Onii-chan’s Baby and KIRARIN! PANTYS SKYBLUE... Miru, Yuzu-san, Amaneko-chan, Odaira-sensei, Professor Choumabayashi, Dad, Mom, Mr. Bedhead, Sugawara-kun... Their names were there, too. Even the “Meguro Tentacle Museum” that I hadn’t been to yet was there.

  But among those countless words was one that far outnumbered the others... 90% of the words displayed were one name...

  Kuroha.

  Man, this is kinda embarrassing...

  “...I know it’s just a snapshot in time, but...” said Kuroha, her voice quivering. “Onii-chan, I thought you were just a lit-geek, that you had nothing in your head except literature. But you do think of me, even if it’s just a little...”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I’m your big brother, after all!”

  Kuroha looked me in the face, and said almost in a whisper, “I’m glad...”

  “That’s nice.”

  Kuroha looked at me as if in a dream. “Onii-chan, I understand perfectly now. I can’t keep it in any longer...”

  You understand perfectly? Can’t keep it in? There was only one thing she could be talking about.

  “Number One?” I inquired.

  “Idiot,” she snapped.

  “Oh, so Number Two, huh?”

  “Big idiot.”

  Seems I’ve had my idiot upgraded.

  Kuroha started to chuckle despite herself. She was crying and laughing at the same time.

  “...I... ...have to say it... ...or he’ll never...” she muttered in a whisper, but I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  Amaneko-chan strolled up to the laughing Kuroha. “Kuroha-san! What you see on the display is just a moment in time-nodesu. We haven’t settled this yet, and don’t you forget it-nodesu!”

  Kuroha was still on cloud nine, and didn’t respond. Amaneko-chan let out a frustrated groan and spun around to face me.

  “Nii-sama, I apologize for all of this-nodesu. Maybe it’s because of me being like this that you don’t think of me as seriously as you do Kuroha-san here, but my feelings for you, Nii-sama, are...” Amaneko-chan spoke as if proclaiming to the gods. “...very real-nodesu.”

  She seemed so earnest, I wasn’t able to respond right away. I felt like I had a responsibility to say something appropriate. I ended up just nodding with a, “Yeah...” and Amaneko-chan broke out into a large smile.

  And then once again, a gust of wind blew. Both Kuroha and Amaneko-chan’s hair were flowing in the wind. I lifted up my head and gazed up at the blue summer sky and pure white clouds.

  I took off the helmet, and said to myself once again...

  This time... everything is finally settled.

  *

  One day in the 23rd century, Kuroha’s room.

  “Kuroha, Yuzu-san, Odaira-sensei has started a column in Literary Gal introducing vocabulary from modern Japanese!” I yelled excitedly.

  “Oh, that sounds interesting,” said Yuzu-san.

  “...I hope he actually defines the meanings properly for the readers...” said Kuroha, suspiciously.

  Special Feature Literary Gal August 2202

  “Gai Odaira’s Modern Japanese Vocabulary Lessons”

  [高校生] (koukousei - High School Student)

  That which has strayed far from one’s personal taste.

  Example Sentence: “At my age, greasy foods are high school students to me.”

  [ランドセル] (randoseru)

  Something very precious.

  Example Sentence: “They used to call black truffles ‘black diamonds’ back in the day. But in Japan they call them ‘black randoseru.’”

  [処女] (shojo - Virgin)

  That which is a given. That which must be.

  Example Sentence: “If you are Japanese, then the fact you follow the laws of Japan is a virgin.”

  [子ども会] (kodomokai - Children’s Group)

  Something you can’t help but join in with.

  Example Sentence: “I had no plans to show up at the party put on by the publisher, but it ended up a children’s group.”

  [小学校] (shougakkou - Elementary School)

  Paradise.

  Example Sentence: “They call Guam the elementary school of the south seas.”

  [パンツ] (pantsu - panties)

  The soul.

  Example Sentence: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Panties.”

  [ロリコン] (lolicon)

  Life. Gai Odaira.

  Example Sentence: “As we are elderly, so are we lolicons. Lolicons Banzai!

  Chapter 7 - ♥

  —Everything was not finally settled.

  What follows is a description of what happened over the next few days.

  It turned out that the reason Odaira-sensei had stopped the publication of my book by the Future Creation Company was not just because Miru had asked him to. The Future Creation Company was a publisher that defrauded hopeful authors.

  That person who called himself Takahashi was planning to take advantage of Amaneko-chan’s wish to get my book published and get me to pay a lot of money. I didn’t have much, just being a high schooler, but he’d planned on me begging my parents for the money, I suspected.

  The Future Creation Company case was handed over to the police, and they were shut down. And of course, there wasn’t any other publisher which would be interested in publishing my book. In other words, after all that trouble and excitement... Man, it’s embarrassing just thinking about it...

  ...I was not able to debut as an author.

  Of course, I was totally down in the dumps. I was in such a state of shock that I slept in my room for an entire day.

  Man, what a terrible ending! Things just never go my way...

  Unlike me, Kuroha was scheduled to make her worldwide debut as a translator just as planned.

  “Looks like you’ve got a lead on me,” I told her.

  “You’ll catch up, right? I’m waiting for you,” replied Kuroha. I was happy that she didn’t try to awkwardly console me.

  By the way, Amaneko-chan apologized to me so many times that I started to feel bad for her, proclaiming, “Do with me what you want for the rest of my life-nodesu!” and “I belong to you completely, Nii-sama!”

  I decided to accept her sentiment, but nothing else. Let’s talk more about Amaneko-chan...

  Amaneko-chan had been forbidden from seeing me again by her grandfather, but she would often send me emails or call me on the phone, and she said that she was always looking out for a chance to slip away and meet again. It seemed like she was as hyped as ever to “create new words” with me.

  “Your novels are the future itself-nodesu. That is what I feel, and that will never change as long as I live-nodesu,” she would say each time we talked. Her future forward self was unshakable.

  I had thought that her attit
ude stemmed from rebelling against the Special Cultural District and her grandfather. I was not wrong, exactly, but there was another reason for it. When we parted ways, Amaneko-chan had said something that none of us expected...

  ......——

  We had all descended from the Tower of Culture and were saying our goodbyes to Amaneko-chan. We surrounded her in a circle.

  “I hate to say this, but... Nii-sama, I will be returning home now,” she said.

  I could see a car with her grandfather in it, awaiting her in the distance.

  “Oh, yes... Is it okay if I tell Mother and Father about you, Nii-sama?” she asked.

  “Sure. Give them my best regards,” I said.

  My birth parents... I wonder what they’re like?

  “Maybe they told you about me, Amaneko-chan, because they hoped that something like this could happen.”

  It would only be natural for them to want their daughter to meet their son. But then Amaneko-chan said something surprising.

  “No, I didn’t learn about your existence from Mother and Father.”

  “Huh? Then was it your grandfather?” I asked.

  “Of course not. There’s no way that he would have ever spoken about you-nodesu.”

  “Then... who was it?”

  “Let’s see...” Amaneko-chan made a face like she was lost in memories for a moment. “It was the ‘messenger of God.’”

  I went silent.

  “I— received a revelation from the ‘messenger of God,’” she went on.

  She said that a number of years ago she had encountered this messenger of God in her backyard. It was from that messenger that she had learned, “You have a long-lost older brother.” In shock, she had confronted her parents, and they had admitted to my existence. That was how she had learned about me.

  “Then, if this messenger of God or whoever hadn’t shown up...” I said slowly.

  “I do not think I would ever have known about you,” she said.

  “What was this messenger of God like? A person?”

  “No, it was a black cloth,” she said.

  “Cloth?”

  “That’s right! A black cloth with a golden glow.”

  What the hell? I didn’t know what to make of this at all. Everyone else was reacting in pretty much the same way, except for the professor, who seemed quite shaken up.

  “Jitsumai-chan...” started the professor. “Did you really see such a thing? It wasn’t just a dream?”

  “It was not a dream! It was real!” she cried.

  This messenger of God had taught her other things, as well.

  That Japanese was a language borrowed from other countries.

  That for Japanese independence, it should create its own, new words.

  That these new words should recreate the world.

  It seemed that her divine revelation had been what had really influenced her desires. When she had told Kuroha and me that “pretty soon we will even be able to travel through time,” it had been because the messenger of God had informed her of this.

  When I heard all this, finally everything made sense to me. That off feeling I’d had when talking with Amaneko-chan hadn’t just been because of her narrow-mindedness. And this explained why Amaneko-chan had had such a strange dream of trying to create new words. It hadn’t just been rebelling against her grandfather or the Special Cultural District. Perhaps this would be putting it a little harshly, but...

  Amaneko-chan was prone to having delusions of things that weren’t real.

  That was what I decided on.

  After she left, we were all still talking about what we’d just heard. Miru said, “See, I told you she was a weirdo,” and Yuzu-san laughed, saying “If cloth could talk, I kind of wish that rope could talk, too...”

  None of us took Amaneko-chan’s story seriously, except for the professor.

  “So they actually came to this time period, the bastards... I hope they aren’t controlling her mind...” muttered the professor, her face deadly serious.

  “They came?” I asked. “Who came?”

  “Oh, never mind,” brushed off the professor hastily.

  “Maybe it was a member of the Pantyhose Party?” asked Odaira-sensei, teasingly.

  “!”

  Odaira-sensei went on to show off his creative talents and told a crazy story that would rival even Amaneko-chan’s delusions...

  The black cloth with a golden glow was none other than a member of the Pantyhose Party from the 38th century that the professor had once mentioned. A member of the Pantyhose Party wasn’t someone who loved pantyhose, mind you, it was a pair of pantyhose itself.

  “Is it really so strange to think that someone from the 38th century might come back to this time, just as we went back to the 21st century to correct history?” Odaira-sensei asked. “Take this, for example. What if you and Jitsumai-kun meeting each other was a key turning point of history, so then the Pantyhose Party Member came to the present time and led her down that path...?”

  I see... When I thought about it, that also made the tradition of the Imose family to have all girls aged 15 years or older always wear black stockings or pantyhose seem quite suspicious. Those future Pantyhose Party Members must have traveled far back in time and planted that tradition. Why? Because in a household with a lot of black pantyhose, it would be easy for them to infiltrate...

  The Pantyhose Party Member would blend in to our daily lives, and silently observe us....

  “If you’re plotting something, then show yourself already!” I couldn’t stand it anymore and bellowed at the black stockings Kuroha was wearing. “We won’t become your pawns to do with as you please!”

  “What do you mean, I’m plotting something?” asked Kuroha.

  “Not you, Kuroha, those!” I said, pointing at her thighs, but I overshot and poked right into them.

  “Kyah!” she screamed, much more cutely than I had expected.

  Kuroha turned bright red after that, and the conversation took a different turn. “Pantyhose Party Member? Give me a break! Are you completely brain dead?!”

  “Hahaha, I was just joking,” I said.

  I obviously didn’t believe the story that Odaira-sensei had told us. I’d just been going along with the story and adding to the sci-fi mood. None of us really believed that Pantyhose Party Members from the 38th century really existed.

  Only the professor seemed to be deep in thought.

  She’s probably pondering tentacles again, I bet.

  ......——

  “Everyone sure was shocked when they heard what Amaneko-chan said, you know?” I said.

  “Yeah...” said Kuroha.

  “You didn’t believe it either, right, Kuroha?” I asked.

  “No...”

  It was currently 1 A.M. and I was with Kuroha in her room. She was intently focusing on her translation. Even when I talked to her, she would barely answer.

  I guess I shouldn’t bother her.

  I decided to read the Literary Gal I had in my hand. This issue had a special about little sister lit. There was an interview with Odaira-sensei and Haruka-sensei. In the article, Haruka-sensei said that in little sister literature, “In the middle of the night, after their parents are asleep, the main character and his little sister are in one of their rooms totally making out. That’s the best scene, always.”

  In the middle of the night.

  After our parents had gone to sleep.

  In one of our rooms.

  Together alone with my little sister.

  So far, the situation matched completely. The only thing missing was...

  “Totally making out...” I murmured.

  “What are you talking about?” Maybe my voice was too loud, because Kuroha immediately turned around to look at me.

  “Oh, it’s about this article. Read it.”

  She had come up alongside me, so I showed her the article from Literary Gal.

  “I was just thinking about how our situation is basically
exactly like what they describe here.”

  “Alone together with your little sister...” Kuroha then went quiet for a little bit and started to fidget with her long, black hair. That was a habit of hers when she was embarrassed.

  “...Hey... Hey, Onii-chan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When you spent the night together with her... did... anything happen?” she asked, not seeming to be able to stop fidgeting.

  “Her”? She must mean Amaneko-chan...

  It had been about a week ago, so it was strange that she’d ask me that now.

  “Nothing happened,” I said.

  “Really?” Kuroha seemed suspicious. “Um, you see, it’s not like it really bothers me or anything. It’s Miru and Yuzu-san, see. You know? They’re really concerned but they can’t ask you directly, so that’s why...”

  Kuroha’s hair twirling got ever more fierce.

  “So... You see... I want you to tell me everything that happened,” she said. “Just put it all out there. Then I’ll tell Miru and Yuzu-san. I mean, I’d rather not, but I kind of have to, you know?” added Kuroha all in one breath, then reaching for the glass of water on the table.

  Oh! Well in that case, I should tell her everything honestly.

  “We slept together,” I said.

  Kuroha spat out all the water in her mouth. “Wh-What did you just say?!”

  “After she basically confessed her love to me, she kissed me.”

  “Th-Th-Then what the hell was that ‘nothing’ supposed to mean?! That’s most definitely ‘something,’ if I ever heard it!”

  “Well, that was about it.”

  “‘That was about it,’ you say? Just like that? You kissed her!”

  “She kissed me,” I said. “On the bellybutton.”

  “...Bellybutton?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kuroha sat there, stunned.

  “She’s... got weird tastes. Well, if that’s all it was, then I guess...”

  “She might have a bellybutton fetish,” I said.