Chikasugiru Karera no, Juunanasai no Tooi Kankei [LN] V2 Chapter 1.2

Chapter 1 - After The End Of The Rainy Season

The door to the house was still locked. It seemed that Izumi had not returned home yet. I unlocked the door, entered the house, and went upstairs to my room.

I put my luggage on the floor and fell into my own bed. While feeling the cool sensation of the sheets, I strangely noticed that I would not have classes for more than a month from now. Starting tomorrow, I won't have to get up early every morning. With untouched summer vacation now before me, a month from now, when the second semester begins, seems like an eternity away. Suddenly, I felt as if I had been thrown into boundless space.

I rolled over on my bed, stretched out my hand, took a file from the bag under the bed, and looked again at the report card tucked in it. On a scale of one to ten, the columns were mostly occupied by sevens and eights. Not bad, but my school is not a high-level preparatory school, so if I wanted to go on to college, I would have to study harder. I hear that the summer of the second year of high school is very precious, and thinking about my career path makes me feel a little melancholy.

I put the report card back in the file and let out a sigh. Then, my cell phone shakes in my pocket. When I picked it up and looked at the screen, I saw that it was a text message from my mother (she uses e-mail, not SNS, to contact me).

When I read it, it asked me to attend the neighborhood association meeting at 7:30 p.m. as a representative. I thought to myself, That's troublesome......, but she said all I had to do was attend the meeting, listen to what was being said, and bring back the handout, so I replied, "Okay." When I looked at my watch, it was already past 7:00 p.m. I had no time to waste. I got off the bed, changed out of my uniform into chino pants and a T-shirt, and went outside. It took me only five minutes to get to my destination, the community center, by bicycle.

Today was a very clear day. The sun's rays were still lingering, dyeing the heavy-looking cumulonimbus clouds in the sky with a pale red color.

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As my mother had said, it was fine to just sit through the meeting. The neighborhood head explained the preparations for the summer festival by reading from a handout that was mixed with chitchat, and after an hour or so, the meeting was dismissed.

It was only that long, but it was hard to stay because there were hardly any people I knew.

I got up from my seat, thinking I could finally leave, and walked briskly toward the doorway of the community center, where the voices of elderly people chatting and laughing echoed. There was a protected forest nearby, and as I stepped outside, the smell of summer grass wafted through the air. The sun was already setting and it was dark.

As I pedaled my bicycle toward home, I spotted Izumi walking down the dimly lit street.

She was dressed in her school uniform, with a bag slung over her shoulder and a supermarket bag in one hand. Her legs stretched out slenderly, and they looked even whiter than usual in the darkness of the night, bathed in the light of the nearby street lamps.

"Izumi."

I called out to her from behind. "Ah," She looked up and gave me a small smile.

"I'm back."

"Welcome back. Did you stop by somewhere?"

"Shopping for dinner. Aunty emailed me the list a while ago."

Izumi replied, lifting the plastic bag a little.

"---I'll carry the luggage."

When I said so, Izumi held still and said, "Eh, but...," and showed a sign of hesitation. 

"I'll put it in the basket," I said. "Oh, I see," she said, and with that, she handed me the plastic bag. I slowly put it in the front basket.

"Kenichi-kun, are you on your way back?"

"Yeah. Mom asked me to attend the neighborhood association meeting in her place. ---It seems we were divided up to help her. I went to the meeting, and Izumi did the shopping." 

"As expected from a manager," Izumi said, not quite understanding what she meant.

"What were you doing at the meeting?"

"Here's the description. Do you want to read it?"

I handed Izumi the handout I had received.

"---Summer festival?"

Read only at Musubi Novel

Izumi said as she dropped her gaze to the paper.

"Yeah. It looks like we're going to have to help with the preparations or cleanup, too,"

When I said this in a tired mood, Izumi blurted out, "Sounds like fun."

"No, it sounds like a hassle. It's also hot."

When I told her so, she smiled, "Why?" with a girlish tension, as if she was joking around. A month has passed, and I no longer feel the awkwardness I felt when she moved in. The distance that had separated us like strangers, even though we were relatives, became much closer.

We turned one corner and entered the street where our house was located. Then a cat crossed the street. "Oh, a cat," Izumi muttered to herself, and followed the cat's path with her eyes until she could no longer see it. Nearby, moths danced around an old electric light that had not yet been replaced with an LED one.

We walked in silence for a while. I could hear the chain of the bicycle I was pushing by hand making a soft clinking sound. Then, suddenly, "Umm," Izumi started talking to me in a reserved tone.

"That reminds me, Mori-san said she'd like to come over next time......"

When Yuriko's name came up, I was a little startled. But I replied, trying not to let my uneasiness show.

"......Yeah. Yuriko also told me about it today."

When I said so, Izumi smiled softly and said, "I see."

"You and Yuriko have gotten along very well, haven't you?"

"Yeah. We've had a few phone calls and LINE.---But I'm sorry, things got that way......"

"No, it's nothing. Don't worry about it. Yuriko is the one who suggested it."

When I said it, after a short pause, Izumi said a single word, yes, and nodded.

I was surprised to realize that now that Yuriko and I had a complicated relationship, I felt more comfortable talking to Izumi.

---I had only known her for a little more than a month.

After returning home, I cooked a simple dinner and ate it with Izumi. Then she took a bath and I went back to my room.

During dinner, the topic of Yuriko's visit was still being talked about. Izumi asked me what kind of food Yuriko liked, whether she had many friends at school, and so on.

Even when I am alone in my room, my consciousness keeps dragging me back to Yuriko, and I think about that girl all the time. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

---Because that's how it is.

That's what Yuriko said at the time.

When did that girl start looking at me in that way? We never had that kind of relationship, but since when did it change?

I don't hate Yuriko. Or rather, I never thought that I liked or hated her. But---

When I was in junior high school, I was once interested in a girl in the same class as Yuriko, but not Yuriko. If that was a romantic feeling, I have never been conscious of such a thing about Yuriko. I never had any strange imaginations about Yuriko, and I felt that such a thing was something different from what I was used to.

I could not imagine having a relationship with Yuriko as a man and a woman. Even if I did, I didn't know what I should do. Should I hold her hand and walk with her? Have lunch together, or do something like that?

As I thought about this, I was overcome by a feeling of embarrassment that I did not know the reason for, and I wanted to wriggle around on the bed.

Then, my cell phone vibrated briefly. For some reason, I reflexively thought it might be from Yuriko and jolted, but it was Izumi.

On the talk screen of the SNS app, it said only, 《This is Rina,》I looked up. I could see the white wall of my room. Izumi was just a few meters away. If she walked a few steps, she could talk to me right away, but I wondered what was going on.

《What's wrong?》

《I've never sent you a message since we exchanged contact information, so I tried to send you one. I just finished my bath, so please take a bath. I put in the bathtub a bathing powder I bought at the aroma store when I went shopping with aunty the other day.》

《Got it,》I replied. Immediately, the phone shakes again.

When I saw the screen, my heart jumped. I had been caught off guard. This time, it was Yuriko.

《I'm thinking of going to Kenichi's house on the 28th. Please confirm with Izumi-san and auntie.》

I looked at the calendar hanging on the wall.

From that day, there were no club activities until the 30th. The next day, the 29th, was the summer festival of the neighborhood association. That probably meant that Yuriko would be going with us.

《Okay,》was all I wrote, and put down my phone.

Then I headed to the bathroom and the changing room was filled with the soft smell of bathing powder.

I take off my clothes, wash my body with soap, and soak in the bathtub. Softly, the warmth of the water and the soft fragrance envelop my body and mind. It feels gentle and soothing. This fragrance was the scent of Izumi. It was the same as the smell that wafted over me when I got close to her, and when I entered her room, there was a soft-smelling aromatic fragrance in the room.

I felt, her fragrance permeate my body along with the warmth of the water.

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