Suddenly, but allow me to introduce (brag about) the size of my house.
My house is a ridiculously luxurious 5LDK. On top of that, we have a garden about 3 tsubo (roughly six tatami mats), and parking space for three cars. The bathroom is spacious enough for two adults to bathe comfortably — three if you squeeze.
This isn’t because my dad earns a massive salary...
There’s another reason.
To clarify about my dad’s salary: he works at an NPO. Contrary to what many Japanese believe, working at an NPO doesn’t mean you're an unpaid volunteer. You do get paid. It’s not a huge salary, but still, a decent one.
So then why are we able to live in such a big house? There are two main reasons.
First: because we live in the countryside.
We live in what’s called a “research and academic city” — a city where higher education institutions like universities and graduate schools, as well as research organizations and corporate labs, are concentrated. By legally lowering taxes related to education and research, the area attracts businesses and people. In other words, this land used to be full of empty plots and wilderness — plenty of space to invite those institutions. My dad was just lucky to buy land here before the prices skyrocketed, once the infrastructure was complete.
Recently, a direct train line to the city center was built, making it more convenient, but before that, it was apparently a real pain to get around.
As for the three parking spaces — that's because around here, at least one car per household is a must, and ideally, one per person.
Second: this house was originally designed as a two-family home.
Because Dad was often away for work, us siblings originally lived with our mother, maternal grandfather, and grandmother. The bathroom was designed to be large enough to accommodate future care for the elderly.
Unfortunately, that generation — our mom, grandpa, and grandma — passed away in a traffic accident when I was in elementary school.
Because of all that, even though we’re four siblings, we each got our own room growing up — a pretty exceptional arrangement. But it comes with a major downside: cleaning is a huge pain.
So, we made a rule: in addition to keeping our own areas tidy, we do a medium-level cleaning at least once a month, and a major cleaning in summer.
Why summer and not year-end?
Hah. That’s the kind of thing only amateurs ask. Cleaning requires water. Why would anyone want to clean in the freezing cold when the water is icy and everything dries slowly? From a logical standpoint, big cleanings should be done in the summer.
Which is why I headed out to the garden — now an overgrown jungle — first thing in the morning.
...Up until two years ago, we had enough energy to keep it neat with flowers and a small vegetable garden, but when Mika-nee moved into the dorms in April, she was no longer able to help. Then I disappeared in June, and with just Ryou-nee and Hina left, they couldn’t keep up. The garden became completely wild.
That was my fault, so I’m the one who has to take care of it.
Needless to say, Mika-nee and Hina also have their own cleaning duties elsewhere.
The exception is Ryou-nee. She’s not slacking off — she just had other tasks assigned.
By the way, for my weeding outfit: even though it’s technically girls' clothing, I was wearing a full tracksuit set, a sun visor, and gardening gloves — something that felt mentally tolerable for me.
As for underwear... let’s not talk about it. That’s a cursed item I can’t remove from my equipment slot. Nothing I can do about that.
...Regrettably, though, in terms of performance, this cursed underwear is way more suited to me now than what I wore in the other world or standard men's underwear here.
As expected of cursed gear. Like in RPGs, there are drawbacks, but the stats are better than normal equipment.
“Man~ I checked the garden earlier, and it looks so much cleaner now.”
Lunch was a summer classic — sōmen. By the way, my personal style is to add a splash of ponzu to the dipping sauce.
“You say ‘cleaner,’ but wasn’t it neat during winter?”
“Well, weird stuff had started growing again, and I didn’t even know what it was.”
“Don’t send someone into a magic zone like that just to pull weeds.”
Slurp. Yum. Yeah, nothing beats this in summer.
“So, I’m done with the weeding — what should I clean next?”
“Could you take care of the bathroom? I’m working on tidying the storage room, but it’s taking way more time than I expected...”
“I’m almost done with Dad’s room, so when I’m finished, I’ll go help Hina.”
“Thanks, Mika-nee. Aah~, if only we could just cast a spell and have the cleaning be done instantly…”
“...At least in the other world I was sent to, magic wasn’t that convenient.”
“Then what could magic do over there?”
“If you had a clear intention, a specific goal, and a detailed mental image — including the steps to get there — you could do pretty much anything.”
You also needed magic power, but I’d found a workaround for that, so it wasn’t a big deal.
“If you could do anything, then why not cleaning?”
“Because the ‘specific mental image’ part is where people always get stuck.”
Saying that, I got up, grabbed a pen and paper, and came back to the table.
“Try drawing the exact scene of a room right after it’s magically cleaned. Think about where everything goes, down to the smallest detail. If you can do that, you can clean with magic.”
As expected, they both failed to draw it properly. That’s no surprise. A vague image is easy, but being specific is hard.
Even with magic, things like “unleash overwhelming firepower” or “summon a raging storm to flatten buildings” are easy to imagine — and lots of people can do that. But stuff like “light exactly ten candlesticks in a room with a gentle flame” or “create a breeze that’s just strong enough to be pleasant in summer” is surprisingly difficult. You usually either lose control and overdo it, or nothing happens at all.
“Hey, Yuu-chan, didn’t you say before that there’s no such thing as infinite magic power? But the way you’re talking now, sounds like you did use magic, right?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t use it at first, but by the end, I’d mastered it to the point they gave me the title ‘Master of Magic’. Not that I can use it here in this world, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because the other world was filled with magic power. But this world doesn’t have any. Magic needs fuel, and if there’s no magic power to draw from, then you can’t use it.”
It’s like the relationship between combustion and oxygen. In that world, oxygen is in the air, so you can burn things. In this world, there’s no oxygen, so nothing burns.
For magic, just substitute oxygen with magic power, and combustion with spells.
While chatting about that over lunch, we spent the rest of the day finishing our grand summer cleaning.
Then, in the evening, the car that Ryou-nee had taken out in the morning returned home.
The three of us headed to the entrance to greet the “two” people who had arrived.
“Welcome back!”
“I’m home...”
It was the first time in a while that a man entered our house.
From his perspective, there was one unfamiliar girl — me — someone he’d never seen before.
“You look really different, but... are you Yuuji?”
“Yeah. I’m Yuuji, Dad.”
Real Name: Tachibana Tsukasa
Our father, who spends more than half the year overseas and is a weirdo who's devoted his life to helping others.
"How should I put it... isn't your reaction kinda flat?"
I was surprised at how little reaction I got from Dad.
"Well, yeah. When Ryouka contacted me the day before yesterday and told me you were alive and that you'd become a girl, I was shocked—and happy, of course. I even tried negotiating with all sorts of people to see if I could return home even a day earlier. But taking a day in between helped me calm down. That said, when Ryouka picked me up today and we talked in the car, something hit me kinda hard."
Needless to say, the reason Ryou-nee was gone all morning was because she went to pick up Dad at the airport.
If you use public trains or buses from the airport to get here, you have to go way out of the way, and the transfers are terrible, so it takes nearly four hours. By car, it's just over two hours one way. So of course a good child would go pick up their travel-weary father.
"What was so shocking?"
I immediately regretted asking. Dad had always been kind of partial to me, the lone boy in a house full of women.
Even two years ago, he'd said things like, “You're the only one in this house who's on my side, as my son,” and “Once you turn twenty, let's go out drinking, just the two of us.”
"It’s just... to confirm you were really Yuuji, Ryouka, Mika, and Hina all asked you about private memories and details, right? But I, your father, didn’t have anything like that. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t have those kinds of personal memories with any of you—Ryouka, Mika, or Hina either. That kind of hit me just now, and honestly, it stings."
"..."
So that’s it. Yeah, now that he says it, I don’t really have many strong memories with Dad either.
"Well, no point dwelling on what’s already happened. If we don’t have memories, we can just make some from now on."
"Making them is fine, but how long are you staying in Japan? If we don’t have the time, we won’t be able to make anything."
"With all the stuff that’s happened to you, I’m planning to use up a mountain of saved-up vacation time. I won’t be working for a month, and I plan to stay in Japan for the rest of the year."
I see. So at the very least, he's planning to be in Japan for about four months.
"In any case, it’s been a long time since the whole family’s been together. On a day like this, we should celebrate with some good old Japanese beer."
"I figured you’d say that, so I’ve already chilled some."
That was Mika-nee.
"Mika, you really think ahead. So, will you join me for a drink?"
"...I don’t like it, but I’ll have one for the sake of my poor, pitiful dad."
Mika-nee hardly ever drinks. She says it’s unnecessary for someone like her who’s all about sports.
By the way, the reason Ryou-nee isn’t being asked is not because she’s a lightweight, but simply because she doesn’t like alcohol and refuses to drink.
She says she got disillusioned after seeing some upperclassmen go completely off the rails during college drinking parties. As a true alcohol-hater, Ryou-nee walked toward me with a cheerful smile that sent a chill down my spine. I had a really bad feeling. (For the second time.)
"Hey, Yuuji. Sorry to spring this on you, but which of these do you find more sexually exciting?"
She pulled out two photo books: one of bikini models and one of handsome male idols.
"I figured you'd ask that eventually. Neither really does it for me, but if I had to choose, the gravure idol one. I don’t get the appeal of the guys. I mean, I’m not gay."
"I see..."
Ryou-nee started muttering to herself.
I have no idea what she’s thinking, but I hope nothing bad comes of it...
No comments:
Post a Comment