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Chapter 45: Girliness, Boyishness

I walked all the way home with question marks flooding my head.

I have no clue what’s going on. Here’s what I thought before I scanned Saeki: I thought that after returning to Japan from being summoned, Saeki wished to meet Ayako-chan whom he held an unrequited feeling for, but on a sudden impulse, he cloned her, a crime with the motive of wanting to bring her home. After cutting her in half, though, he started feeling guilty and he ended up leaving her be and running away.

But it turned out that he’s not a summoned hero. He’s completely innocent. That obviously means that the culprit is another person, but then another question appeared: why would they go so far as to clone the only daughter of a bookstore owner? It’s an incident where the culprit only targets people who excels at certain things, or should I say, geniuses, yet Ayako-chan became one of their targets. If the reason is not illicit love, then what? Could Ayako-chan perhaps has a talent that even I don’t know about? Maybe she had accomplished a great feat somewhere and that was the reason?

I suppose there are still a lot of things I need to ask her.

With that in mind, I opened the door to my room.

“Welcome back.”

As I did, the girl of mystery, Ayako-chan, greeted me. It startled me that the person I had in my mind suddenly popped up in real life. Not being able to get used to Ayako-chan being in my house sure doesn’t help.

“I uh…I’m back…”

Ayako-chan is wearing my apron on top of her pajama top. Pretty sure she’s taking charge of the meal as I left them a message saying “go ahead and make something for breakfast” on a piece of paper before I went out. As I turned towards the living room, I saw Angelica, standing by in front of the table.

Locking the door, I apologized to Ayako-chan.

“Sorry for leaving without preparing breakfast. There was something I was really concerned about.”

I left the house right after waking up this morning. Thinking that I would solve the incident just by meeting Saeki made me restless.

“I don’t mind…I’m a freeloader after all. I would rather feel sorry to bother you” she said, gently smiling.

Meanwhile her fellow freeloader Angelica is slumped down on the table, whimpering “I’m hungry~” like a second daughter spoiled rotten by the eldest.

“Are you going to eat, Nakamoto-san?”

“I’m good. I bought bread from the convenience store and ate it on the way.”

“…then you’re not hungry?”

She looked disappointed. Why does she look like she wants me to eat her food that badly?

“Hmm, I can always eat some more.”

“…you don’t have to force yourself…”

“If anything, I’m a bit hungry now. I walked quite a bit.”

“Really?”

Then let’s all eat together, said Ayako-chan, clasping her hands together, complete with a blinding smile for the full set. If we discount who she is on the inside, on the outside, she only looks like a family-oriented girl.

It got me questioning again if she is truly someone a summoned hero would target.

“Hey, Ayako-chan?”

“What is it? You can rest over there and wait.”

“Have you ever gotten any great awards or something?”

“…huh?”

“No, I mean, the cloning incident only happened to sports athletes, young shogi champions and scholars, right? You know, people that are considered geniuses by the society. That’s why I wondered if you have such achievements too.”

Ayako-chan twists the knob of the gas stove and lit the fire.

“…I don’t really have any outstanding achievements. Nothing people would say I should be proud about.”

“Really?”

“I’ve always been bad with sports since long ago, and I struggled to graduate middle school…science subjects went right into one ear and out the other, even though dad told me it’s something that would be taught in university too. It’s shameful, right?”

It’s a complex of mine, she said, tying up her hair with a hair tie. She collected her hair on the back of her head into a ponytail, obviously since she was about to cook.

It vexes me a bit since our conversation is cut in the middle.

Lifting her hair exposes her pale white nape, and I could see that mole of her once again.

After she was done with her hair, I asked her another question.

“Did you have some sort of accomplishment? Like something that awarded you public recognition?”

“…I attended an abacus class during elementary school from my father’s suggestion, but I wasn’t really into it.”

“How about club activities?”

As Ayako-chan inserted the ingredients into the pot, she slowly started talking.

She joined the Wind Instrument club in her middle school, but she feels felt that it’s also not for her. Just remembering which parts she had to play were consuming her. Once she went up to high school, she became the proud member of the go-home club, spending every day after school attending the bookstore.

This much is fine for me, she said in self-deprecation after describing how she had spent half of her life.

“…I’m no genius…um…also it’s hard for me to cook while being watched so…can we end it here?”

I don’t really like talking about my past, she continued, averting her eyes. Being interrogated from early in the morning is definitely not something she wanted, so I ended the conversation and went to the living room.

I sat down in my usual place, the place where I can see the television best, and in that moment, Angelica suddenly sprung up.

“Daddy’s here!” I thought about what she was doing but it turns out that she was just waiting for her favorite seat to arrive. “Welcome baack~”

“You’re a lot closer than usual aren’t you.”

“I’m tired of waiting in vain you know?” she said, invading my personal space as if she owns the place.

She’s soft and she smells nice, a sort of loveliness that can easily get to you, and she’s expressing her affection openly like Westerners.

On the other hand, Ayako-chan is Japanese inside out. She shows her dejectedness as easily as she showed her beaming smile. I can never understand what she’s thinking, so she could be mysterious in that way.

“What were you two talking about while I was away?”

“Huh? Ah, well, we’re both girls so it’s something like that?”

“Really? Ah, can you grab the remote for me?”

“Okaay~”

Angelica stretched forward to take the remote with her arse still planted on top of me. Taking the remote from her with a lazy posture, exhausted, I turned on the TV and switched to the news channel, hoping to find new information on the cloning incident.

“…It’s nothing but adulteries between celebrities.”

There should be more than this you know. Isn’t this precisely why your ratings are dropping?

Thinking like a director for a bit, I changed the channel, but unfortunately, there’s nothing better on other programs as well. It’s just the same things with different faces. Looks like I won’t get anything more with this.

Peeling my eyes away from the screen, I talked to Angelica who was swinging her head side by side on top of my lap.

“I went to the house of the person who I thought was the summoned hero, but it was a bust. Kid’s just a normal person.”

“Mmm, I told you that you should’ve taken me with you.”

You could notice just with one scan, she said, pouting.

“If he’s really an evil person that goes around cutting people, he’d appear as a red icon…like demons…or Ayako-san.” Fully knowing the person she’s talking about is around, Angelica lowered her voice.

So Ayako-chan is red as a demon, huh. That person is currently in our kitchen, cooking our breakfast. I’m not sure how to feel about this.

“Ah, there are cases where their evilness is not detected by the system though. In that case I might not be able to help you.”

“…really? Wouldn’t you see criminals as red all the time?”

“There are people who do bad things for the greater good, aren’t there?”

“What do you mean?”

“People who are acting violently thinking they’re doing it for what is right. Like for example, a ruler who massacres their opposition thinking it’s for their country, or priests who hunt for heathens in the name of their religion. That person thinks that they’re doing something good from the bottom of their hearts, so they can be a criminal while being a good person. The Scan skill can’t detect that.”

Good intents always produce good results, said Angelica in a meek tone.

“…Would the culprit actually clone people with good intent? …no, it would make sense even. A summoned hero is someone who would even go out and save the world. If there was something wrong, wouldn’t he try to fix it in his own way.”

“Then that’s a problem. I’m pretty sure he won’t stop as long as he’s got that conviction.”

If that’s the case, then my provocation on TV should work. If it’s a fellow hero whose sense of justice turned warped, he wouldn’t just let me insult his justice on national TV like that.

As I continued thinking to myself, time flew by. Before long, a voice called out from the kitchen, saying; “It’s done”

Breakfast is ready.

Ayako-chan deftly lined up plates on the table, even going as far as putting rice on the bowls for us.

She’s doing this out of habit. Looks like she’s been helping with household chores in her home.

…who would’ve thought that a guy like me could have a girl preparing his meals at home. I gazed at Ayako-chan, moved by my emotions. It’s so weird; despite her weird disposition, I thought that her figure putting rice on the bowl with a rice scoop on one hand looks normally cute.

“…aren’t you looking awfully excited, dad?”

“That’s slander.”

“Aren’t you staring at Ayako-san and her only?”

“W-What are you talking about?”

How could I stare at another girl while having another girl sitting on my lap? Even if I do, it wasn’t because I have any ulterior motives. I just felt that the family-oriented side of her soothes me or something. Don’t you think any unmarried man would think that way? It’s true that I was staring at her just now, but it was an act of god.

Angelica gradually grew sullen from my barrage of excuses.

“…you really like girly women, huh dad. Like the type that are good at cooking or something.”

“I think you’re girly too though.”

That said, only her figure is girly though. Her personality is closer to that of a child. She’s not really the image of a calm, graceful woman.

“An indulging woman is fine right? That’s exactly who Ayako-san is, right? It’s a charm I don’t have, right? I’m just gonna be thrown away, right?”

“What do you mean indulging woman?”

“…Whatever.”

“You have your own good points.”

As I kept bickering with Angelica, Ayako-chan started to speak.

“By the way, I just remembered something.” She said, “Nakamoto-san, you wanted to know about Saeki-kun, right?”

“Huh? …aah, yeah, but it’s fine, he’s harmless anyways.”

“Is that so…then it’s fine.”

“But well, I guess I can hear you out. What’s with the timing though?”

“…You were talking about girliness with Angelica-san, right? I remembered something because of that…It was the reason behind his bullying.”

“Girliness? Saeki-kun’s a guy, right?”

I recalled his room that was cluttered with game consoles and the walls that were full of holes. The owner of that room was…girly?

“…Saeki-kun’s personality is…should I say, right in between boyish and girlish…The girls are more open towards that, but boys usually find that unpleasant, right?”

“You’re saying he’s like a girl?”

“Yes. I suppose he’s a bit different than boys to a certain degree. It really shows on the way he speaks. He’d be called a gay, and the boys would give him the stink eyes.”

I recalled the two rooms in Saeki’s household. One room was filled with pink, and the bed was filled with plush toys, while the other room looks like a mentally unstable boy is living there.

“…then…”

What if the pink room belongs to Saeki? If that’s the case, then despite his feminine behavior, he is mentally stable, while on the other hand, his little sister Saeki Kana is on the verge of exploding even as we speak, living her daily life blowing holes on her walls unable to control her destructive impulses.

“No way…I passed by Kana just out the front door…!”

I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Rio.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked.

There’s something I absolutely have to confirm.

“Thank you. I didn’t think you would want to talk to me again.”

“I told you I’m not angry anymore. Anyways, can you tell me something about Saeki Kana?”

“Why do you want to know? Do you like that girl?”

“That’s not why I’m asking. Anyways, tell me about her character.”

Waiting for her answer is making me impatient. It was merely several dozens of seconds, but it feels like forever.

“She’s really strong-minded. She’s got good reflexes and she’s the ace of the track-and-field club, that’s why she gets along with some flashy groups despite just looking like a normal girl.”

“Her older brother was a shut in, did she say anything about that?”

“Kana herself said she gets along with her brother.”

A girlish older brother and a boyish little sister. Even with their gender roles swapped, I wonder how they keep a good relationship with each other.

“Not really sure but I heard her brother’s a bit unusual, so she used to say dangerous stuff like she needs to protect her brother or that she’ll butcher everyone who bullies him.”

She’s someone with a strong sense of justice while putting her brother before anything else. The scattered pieces of the puzzle are clicking together.

“She said that she wished that the world would be filled with only outstanding and kind people or something.”