We continued to play the game with gusto. And after we saw the first ending of the game, it was already getting light outside.
By the way, when we got to the H-scenes, I felt just as incredibly awkward as I had expected, but when I looked at Naruko I saw that she was still fully focused on the text. I said it myself before, but she was a girl who just wasn't bothered very much by things like H-scenes like I was.
Ugh… let me sleep… at this rate, this is going to go down as an all-nighter, isn't it… suddenly taking a glance at my sister's face, I saw her eyes filled with emotion.
"Argh… this ending… it's just too sad…"
"Well, it'd be weird if they just showed you a happy ending right off the bat, right? They also want to motivate you to play the next scenario."
"I can't believe you… how can you sit there and act like everything's fine…?" Blinking the tears from her reddened eyes, Naruko began to find fault with my composure.
As for me, I didn't know how she could have so much empathy for the game characters. Was the game that good? Really? Also, little sister games just didn't sit well with me, so it's not like I could judge the game fairly in the first place.
"And I mean, it's not like one of them died or something. Can't they just call each other or something?"
"You don't get it at all!"
"W-what the hell? It's not something to get so angry over."
She was giving me a fierce glare and looked incredibly pissed off, so I instinctively cowered and shook. Naruko seemed to be looking hard for the right words to say, before squeezed out a response.
"Even though you wanted to die after only three weeks that time. Even though you looked so pathetic, and had no idea what to do that time."
I really couldn't come up with a comeback for that! Also, I'm sure not everyone gets the reference, so let me give a brief recap. What Naruko was griping about was the time I broke out into tears after Weiss refused to talk with me for three weeks straight. And certainly, at that time, just calling her wouldn't have solved the issue.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. If you think about it like that, this really is a pretty sad ending. Got it. Ignore what I said."
"… Fine. As long as you understand."
Naruko sure seemed to be in a foul mood when she muttered that. A gloomy atmosphere permeated the room after that exchange.
… Well, this was probably a good time. More aware than ever of the sunlight peeking through the gaps in the curtains, I briskly stood up.
"… Well, that's a good place to stop, so I'm heading back to my room and sleeping for twenty minutes. That way, I can get out before Mom wakes up."
"W-wait just a second!"
Naruko sounded flustered as she called me to a stop, so I looked down at her with a questioning gaze.
"What? Still got something to say?"
"L-life counseling! I… I need life counseling!"
"I need life counseling." Stopped in my tracks by those words, I gave out an exasperated sigh.
"Come on… you definitely said earlier that this was going to be the last time, and I did manage to buy that eroge for you, didn't I?"
"W-who in the world said that was the last time?"
"That's just… well, fine. Whatever."
What I wanted to ask her is exactly how many "last life counseling sessions" she was planning to dump on me. She had definitely said it was going to be the last one. And at this rate, wouldn't the same thing just happen over and over again? This is the last of the last life counseling sessions! This is honestly going to be the last life counseling session! Wouldn't she just say stuff like that?
Haah… well, whatever. Whatever. Whaaaaaaatever.
Well, it is what it is what it is. And at any rate, we were brother and sister, so we would be living together for a long time. It's not like I ever thought I would be able to escape from my sister that easily.
Trying hard to prevent a sarcastic smile from appearing on my face, I urged Naruko onwards.
"So, what is it? Just spit it out."
"… A-alright." Naruko nodded meekly and stood up.
She walked over to her bookshelf and gripped one of the edges. Now that I got a good look at it, I saw that her bookshelf had become rather empty. That might have been because it would have been a bother to move a heavy bookshelf every time she needed access to her secret stash, so she moved all her books elsewhere.
It had been months since I had seen this sight, but… Naruko shifted the bookcase to the side, revealing a secret hiding place filled with eroge and other otaku goods. If you slid the bookshelf to the side, you could find a fusuma. And if you split open the fusuma, you would find a countless number of otaku goods behind it. Her collection seemed to have gotten even larger compared to the last time she showed it to me.
… She's buying too much.
I scowled and surveyed that mountain of eroge and anime DVDs… but then my attention was drawn to a certain item.
"Oh… this is…"
"Ah, yeah, that's the thing I got earlier." Naruko responded to my reaction and picked up her Azutan Figure.
"I heard from Akeno that you were the one who picked this for me."
"… Yeah, sure."
"But seriously, I was really happy." Naruko gave me a little chuckle.
God, what is she saying now, all of a sudden?
"… Is that right…?" Feeling my face heat up, it took all my energy to manage to squeak out that response.
"Please thank those two for me too."
"What? Just tell them yourself. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it."
"Yeah? Mmm, yeah, probably."
Naruko put the figure back in its original position, put her hands to her chest, and took a few deep breaths. I felt a wave of déjà vu wash over me at those actions. When Naruko had first told me about her hobby, she had definitely acted in a similar way.
"… It's been a long time since then."
Naruko had her back turned towards me, but she looked back and gave me a bright smile.
"Do you still remember that first time?"
"Yeah, I guess. You asked me if I was going to make fun of you, and I acted really cool and told you something like 'I definitely won't.'"
"Yeah… so, then? After that… what did I say?"
"Hmm?"
Did she say something? Naruko probably saw my puzzled expression, and she tightened her hands into fists.
"Come ooonn, I definitely said it. That I wouldn't show you anything past a certain point."
"Ahh. Yeah, you told me that there were some embarrassing things in there. I remember that now."
She also told me that she didn't trust me yet, so she wouldn't show me any more. And I remember trembling in fear at the thought that there were things in there that were even more horrifying. I mean, considering she was bragging so proudly about "Loving My Little Sister" I just couldn't imagine what kinds of things would actually make her blush and hesitate.
"So, I mean… well… you've been keeping it a secret so far… and you haven't made fun of me… and you've helped me out a few times…"
U-umm… this… I have a feeling that I know where this is going…
"It's a bit embarrassing… but I'll show you."
Pass! Not interested!
… And I almost said that out loud too. Man, I must say, I have more restraint than I would've thought. These were embarrassing things that my sister had kept hidden from me.
I had a bad feeling about all this. I mean, I had no idea what terrible, absurd things would come flying out at me. My fear of the unknown trumped my own curiosity here. However, it's not like I could refuse to see what she wanted to show me. It was all part of these "life counseling" sessions, after all.
"So… that means… you trust me now?"
Hearing my question, Naruko gave me a firm nod.
"Yeah… I thought about it… I think it's okay for you to look at these now…"
"… Hmm."
Is it just me, or was she implying that I actually wanted to see what she was hiding? I honestly didn't.
"W-well… here we go…" Naruko sounded nervous… and she slid the fusuma… towards the opposite direction that she usually slid it in.
Krrschhh. Plop.
"… Hm? Something… fell down…"
Before I could get a good look at Naruko's forbidden zone, I casually picked up the thing that had fallen to the floor. But I completely forgot. These things that were sealed in there… these were such crazy things that my sister had been unwilling to show them to me until now.
"Ah… that one." Naruko spoke hesitantly. But she was a step too late. I had already seen the cover illustration and the title on the box.
The cover illustration was of a cute little sister character, whose lower half was completely naked and who was sticking her butt out at us… and the title was "Scatological Sisters."
God… this was crazy…
Outwardly, I remained emotionless as I blinked repeatedly, and then rubbed my eyes. Afterwards, I once again looked back and forth between my sister's face and the package. And then, I murmured quietly, "You… you have ass fetish or something?"
"What the hell?! Of course not!"
The incoming Attack of Regret bore into my face. It was such a hard slap, I could have sworn my head was going to fly off my body.
Naruko didn't calm down, and her breathing was ragged. "W-w-w-w-what t-t-the hell….. o-of all the damn things… what the hell did you just ask me?! You're horrible! Horrible!"
But, come on! Why the hell did you have something like this then?! "Scatological Sisters" was obviously an eroge made especially for people with certain, crazy fetishes, wasn't it?! Having evidence like this right in front of my nose made her denial about as persuasive as my own insistence that I didn't have masochists tendency.
Well, so that's why she was embarrassed by this. To think that I would be unearthing this huge of a bomb today…
"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, dammit!" Seeming to sense what I was thinking, Naruko began to explain. "I-I didn't know! That… you know… whatever that s-scato-whatever thing was, I had no idea! And then! And then! The artist who did that game, I really liked that artist, so I bought it because of that! And then I saw the back of the package after! And there was…"
"… Stop right there! Don't say another word! Alright? Okay?"
"No! You're still not getting it, are you?! Are you?! Come on, my dignity and image are on the line here, so listen to me through!"
As if your image could get any worse than it already was! After all, what kind of fifteen years old girl played eroge?!
"N-no, I got it! So it's not like you're into this kind of stuff. I got that, so it's alright!"
"You're being serious? You're not just saying that?"
She doesn't believe me at all, does she? Granted, I sympathized… if I were standing where she was right now, I would probably feel the same way.
"I said I understood, didn't I? So, you bought the game because you liked the art, and it was completely not what you expected, so you haven't touched the actual game. Sound about right?"
"W-well, I did beat the whole thing…"
"So you did play it?!"
Even if you had to lie, just answer yes to that question! Then we could just drop the whole thing! Why was she so bad at lying on the fly?
"I mean, I bought it, so it would be rude not to play it! A-and, let me just say, it was a world I completely didn't understand! I wasn't getting into it at all! A-and then, you might want to know why I just left the game here… w-well, I mean, I was a fan of the illustrator, so it's not like I can just throw it away, and I hate selling games to used game shops. So I just sealed it up in here… alright?! Got it?!"
"… G-got it."
"… Really really?"
"Really really. Absolutely, absolutely… but, seriously, you're really quite something, you know that?"
No matter how much conviction I had, I couldn't see myself having the courage or energy to play a scat game and to actually clear it. It was crazy even for my sister… to the point where I could almost respect her for doing it.
"I-I see. Alright, can we get on with the conversation then?"
"A-ahh. Yeah… a-alright, let's move on."
Those were words meant to divert the conversation into less dangerous waters, but I didn't realize what I had just done.
When I said "let's move on," it meant she would be showing me more of her forbidden collection…
"Alright. Well, really, what I'm going to show you now is what we came here for…"
What the hell did that mean? You could almost interpret that as her saying "Scatological Sisters? Hmph, compared to what else I have in there, that's not a big deal at all."
… Y-you can't be serious. I gulped as I watched Naruko take Pandora's cardboard box out from her secret compartment. Naruko plopped the box down in the middle of the room.
"… Just going to ask this in advance, but what's in the box?"
"Mm, this and that…"
As if completely oblivious to how terrified I was, Naruko quickly and casually opened the lid of the box. I felt my heart give a tremendous jump. Not in a pleasant way, of course. And… then there were the contents. At a quick glance, there didn't seem to be anything too horrible.
There was a mountain of doujinshi piled up, and next to that there were paper bags with anime artwork printed on them, along with eroge boxes. But my eyes were drawn to the iPod that was sitting on top of all those books.
"It's… more ordinary than I had expected…"
No. That wasn't it. That was definitely not it. My sister's collection should have been anything but ordinary.
Alright, Haruto. You're going to expect the worst. Think about the absolutely most horrifying thing that Naruko could bring out and show you. Alright? Ready? Okay… do you have something in mind?
Well then, let me tell you what I think. What Naruko was about to bring out was several times worse than what you just imagined. I've been her brother for fifteen years, so I should know. For example, just look… that doujinshi, that one at the top… doesn't it look awfully similar to the stuff you saw back then? The characters hugging on the cover… don't they both look awfully a lot like guys? Granted, I didn't have the courage to check.
… Gulp.
And look, right under all those doujinshi… what is that really thick, big book stacked there? It looked like an album. I had a bad feeling about that album… what was it? We already saw homos, and scat… so next was…
I just can't… that album was probably the thing I had to watch out for the most… but it was so frightening that I couldn't ask about it. So, having no other option, I decided to wait and see what would happen, and asked about something else.
"Hey…"
"W-what…?"
"Naruko… I just wanted to know… what's in that iPod?"
If it was just music… then that might not be too bad.
"Huh? Oh, that?"
But, having been asked about the contents of that iPod, Naruko blinked with surprise and seemed flustered. She was the one who dragged this box out, and now she's acting like this… There was no doubt in my mind. The music in there must be incredibly dangerous.
"Y-you want to know?"
"A-ah… n-not really…"
"A-ahh… I see…"
… She seems… relieved…? S-so… as I thought…
I was getting more and more frightened by the second. After all, all the things in this box were shady goods comparable to "Scatological Sisters", right?
I can't do this. I seriously can't do this. This was completely beyond me. I feel like I can understand how the Z Fighters felt when they came across the Androids.
Naruko reached her hands deeper into the cardboard box… "S-so! I-I wanted to show you this album next…"
"W-wait just a second!" Wasn't that the most dangerous thing in the entire box?! Give me a break, dammit!
"I think I get the picture! You don't have explain any more! So… so let's just leave it here today! Yeah, next time… just show me next time, alright?! I'm sleepy now. Too sleepy. Okay?"
I begged her just as desperately as I had begged that guy before for his bike. I got the feeling that if I saw what was in that album, it would be the end of something. And that feeling, that conviction, was all that I could think about.
"… A-alright."
Naruko seemed saddened for some reason and looked down. But she seemed to recover quickly. This time, she took out an eroge box (I think it was, at least) and held it out to me.
"Well, at least take a look at this!"
"Just this…?"
What exactly was this girl trying to accomplish by showing me this "Lovely Sister Angel" box?
I'm sure that at that moment, I looked completely confused.
"… Fine. I will." I had no idea what was going on, but if she went that far to ask me, then there's no reason for me to refuse. Naruko saw me agree.
"Okay." She nodded, seeming conflicted. It was strange how she didn't look too happy, even though she was the one who had wanted to show this to me.
And then, I opened the "Lovely Sister Angel" box. What I found inside was neither a game disk nor a game manual. What I found… umm, how should I describe it… it looked like a cookie tin? A square cookie tin. That kind of container was inside the game box. A tin with a drawing of some character painted on top of the lid.
"Hm? This wasn't an eroge box?"
"No, it is. There used to be 'Sister Angel' things inside that box, but those things are being displayed somewhere else now. You saw it earlier, right? That thing that was next to the Azutan figure."
Like I would remember something like that. Although, yeah, I seem to recall that there were a bunch of dolls and things around there.
"In other words, you used the empty box to store something else?"
It was like reusing an empty cookie container to hold other small things, for example.
"Y-yes… alright… here I go…"
Krrschh!
Naruko opened the lid of the box rather forcefully, and I geared myself for what was to come.
However, what I saw was nothing like the "Scatology Sisters" I saw before. What I saw was nothing I had expected.
There were a number of things in there, but the first thing I picked up was…
"… What's this… a report card?"
"Yeah, one from when I was in elementary and junior high school."
Why was something like this in here? I gave her a puzzled look, but she urged me to take a closer look, so I decided to do just that.
"There's something in there. It's why I started doing track."
"…"
As I listened to my little sister, I began to read her report card from top to bottom, starting from her first-year grades.
It was soon obvious to me which part she wanted me to look at. From her first year to her fourth year, Naruko's physical education marks read "Try harder." Even in her other subjects, her grades were fairly average. I would have expected Naruko's marks to all be "Outstanding," so I was pretty surprised at this information.
"Back then, I was pretty slow, you know. But… then… some reaaaally annoying things happened… and then I started practicing running."
Naruko gave me a fleeting glance.
Really annoying things… maybe she got made fun of because she was slow, or she just had some bad experiences because of it… that's what she probably meant.
I continued to read my sister's fifth-year marks. Her physical education grade was still "Try harder." But after that, her sixth-year mark was "Great", her first year mark in junior high school was "Outstanding". Her marks just got better and better as the years went on.
Her training was paying off.
I also saw that her grades in things other than physical education were increasing gradually as well.
"And here. This is a badge I won from a race at a sports festival." Naruko pointed at a badge with "Fourth Place" written on it.
Fourth Place, Third Place, Second Place… and her ranking just slowly improved from year to year.
"I've never told this to anyone else, because I didn't think it was like me and I thought it was really dorky of me… but when I felt sad, or when I fell into a slump, I would look in this cookie tin and just get really, really annoyed… and then, I would think, 'Don't mess with me, dammit!' and yeah…"
She would remember her hopes and dreams back then. And she would use her frustration as a spring. It was probably something like that.
Perhaps… just perhaps, this was pretty similar to that same sense of spite that Ruby had revealed before.
Don't mess with me, dammit!
And those early hopes and dreams, those early hopes and dreams held by the track star Uzumaki Naruko, were much more crude than what people might expect from her now. They were incredibly normal, and maybe even incredibly human.
"That's pretty incredible."
"Eh?" Naruko raised her head at my unconscious muttering.
My eyes met hers. I didn't know what to say. It honestly would annoy me a bit if I just praised her outright, but there was no helping the fact that I was genuinely moved. I stayed silent for a while and looked for the right words…
"I guess I wouldn't be able to beat you in a race anymore."
And in the end, I settled on spitting out something entirely ordinary and boring.
At those words, Naruko's eyes widened for a moment, and she laughed lightheartedly.
"Haha… isn't that obvious? Who the hell do you think I am?" She puffed out her chest, filled from head to toe with confidence.
Looking at her now, there wasn't even a trace of the unathletic Naruko of the past. It didn't matter what her motives were for getting started; she spent over four years and, with her own strength, earned herself the confidence she could now show.
Being an average guy myself, I could appreciate how incredible that was. Ahh, she definitely had a reason to be cocky. A reason to look at me and go "Who the hell do you think I am?"
I had always wanted to spend my days peacefully and comfortably. Even now, that was still true. That had definitely not changed. However, I have to admit, I would be lying if I said that that was my only wish. And I have to admit that part of the blame lay with the fact that I had been imposing on Yasaka and her family, and using them as an excuse for my laziness. The one who had made me realize that was Naruko. That was the one thing I had to thank her for.
Well, whatever. Enough talk about my life and my future. I had no idea why my sister had decided to show me these things.
Naruko carefully tucked that important report card back into the cookie tin, and shut the lid on tightly. Next, she gestured towards the cardboard box and her hidden compartment, and spoke in a sincere tone. "Hey… this… all of this… it's really important to me."
"I know."
What the hell is she saying all of a sudden? Come on, I was the one who had protected your collection from our mother. And I was the one who cared enough about your feelings to go and face off with Akeno, remember?
Naruko seemed to be pretty worried as she chose her next words.
"I… said it back then, right? That I wanted your help to protect my collection."
"Yeah."
"So… from here on out… I still want that to be true."
What the hell was she saying? I had gone through so much pain and misfortune to protect her things, so how did it make sense to stop now?
I'm annoyed. Even if our life counseling sessions came to an end, of course I would at least take care of her collection.
At any rate, there would probably be many more "last life counseling sessions" after this one anyways.
"Yeah yeah I got it. I'm your brother, after all. So, I mean, how could I refuse to do that?"
"I see. Yeah, that's true."
"Exactly. Geez, what did I get myself into…" I gave her a smile. "So? That 'last life counseling session' or whatever… is that it?"
"Yeah."
What the hell? She made me go buy eroge for her, she made me play games with her, and then she showed me a part of her forbidden collection…
This last life counseling session was pretty similar to our first, except this time there was nothing else to do from here.
The first time I had gotten stopped by Naruko about life counseling, I could tell that what she really wanted was to make friends, because she didn't have anyone to talk to about her hobby, and that's why I could bring myself to run myself ragged for her sake. But this time, I still hadn't gotten a good grasp on what the point of her life counseling was.
So that's why. That's why I felt a bit uncomfortable with all this.
It's just as if… just as if I had picked the wrong choice at a decision point.
… Maybe I really should've just looked at her album. Judging from what happened, it probably wasn't something that weird. Well, whatever.
"You know, I haven't really done anything. Are you really alright with that?"
"Yeah… it's fine."
She really did seem pretty satisfied.
She looked just the same now as she did when I had protected her collection from our mother, or when she had been able to make up with Akeno. Even though I really hadn't done anything impressive this time.
Well, I have no idea then. Maybe I really did do something for her, even though I had no idea what it could be.
Naruko had been nodding the entire time, but now she smiled, standing there while keeping a strange distance away from me. "I really feel relieved."
Her teasing smile gave me a strange sense of nostalgia.
… Ah, right. When she was younger, she would laugh like this.
"I see." Once again, I turned heel, and left the room, giving her a wave of goodbye.
"Yeah. Good night."
"Mmm." Right before I closed the door, I heard my sister utter some last words.
"… Goodbye, Onii-chan."