Ch.413IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (110)

I was a bit worried about how to arrange our accommodations, but I thought it would be better for all of us to stay together rather than in a hotel.

Near the beach, there was a place that rented out renovated houses. That’s where we ended up staying.

Although there were eight of us in total, we were basically composed of two families and two individuals who came separately, so dividing the rooms wasn’t too difficult.

“I’ll sleep in the living room. It’ll be cooler and nicer there anyway.”

Yuka offered to give one room to our family and said she’d sleep in the living room.

“Then, me too.”

Surprisingly, Nanami didn’t insist on sleeping next to Souta. Perhaps because there wasn’t a serious rival like in the original story yet?

As for Kagami, well… she’s a married woman. Everyone except me, Yuka, and Koko would definitely see Kagami as an ordinary married woman. So from Nanami’s perspective, Kagami wasn’t a harem competitor. I thought so too.

…If there’s any chance she might actually get involved with Souta, I plan to prevent it with all my might. Fortunately, Kagami doesn’t seem to care much about that sort of thing.

So Yuka and Nanami, who came separately, ended up sleeping in the living room, while I shared a room with Koko, Kagami, and Dad, and Shii shared a room with Souta. It was a fair division.

Dad had his own room at home, but I didn’t feel the need to be uncomfortable around him in a place like this. Besides, Dad wouldn’t have any strange thoughts about us anyway.

Still, it would be a bit embarrassing to sleep in Mom’s arms in front of Dad, so I thought I might sleep a little distance away tonight.

*

Dad and Kagami watched us from a distance with smiles on their faces while we enjoyed ourselves.

As in the novel, Nanami was originally popular with other children, regardless of gender. Perhaps that’s why she brought lots of things for everyone to play with.

We sat together playing board games, and when we got bored, we talked about our schools, then about dramas… basically the usual conversations friends have when they get together. When we got tired of talking, we picked up cards and played board games again.

No one really seemed to care who won.

It was clearly different from going on trips as adults. When busy adults finally make time to go out together, there’s always talk about how difficult real life is. And some people try to give me advice for no reason.

That doesn’t happen among students. There’s just an atmosphere of laughing and chatting, as if everyone is simply happy to be able to stay up all night together.

…Yes, I liked this atmosphere.

I occasionally glanced over at Kagami. Whenever our eyes met, she would give me a gentle smile. That alone somehow put me at ease.

After chatting for a while, Shii started nodding off shortly after midnight. Being a good kid who usually maintained a proper lifestyle, staying up this late was probably a bit difficult for her. Plus, we had played in the water during the day.

From then on, we started preparing for bed and each went to our rooms.

I was actually a bit tired too. For the first time in a while, I had been moving around energetically purely for fun, not to fight yokai.

Being conscious of Dad’s presence, I didn’t burrow into Kagami’s arms as usual, but I did stick close to her side.

“Kotone,” Kagami whispered.

“Did you have fun today?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

Kagami smiled slightly at my response.

Soon, without further conversation, we quietly fell asleep.

*

I woke up because of a strange sense of unease.

At first, I thought I was just thirsty. When I got up, I could see my family in the gentle moonlight coming through the window.

Dad was sleeping deeply, lying straight even on the futon, and Kagami was holding Koko tightly in her arms as she slept.

I had only thought about how difficult it was for me to sleep without Kagami, but seeing this, I wondered if Kagami also found it difficult to sleep without me or Koko.

She had lived that way for almost her entire life.

“…”

They looked so peaceful sleeping together that I couldn’t help but smile.

I carefully made my way downstairs, trying not to make any noise. Although the house was old, it was well-maintained for guest use, so the stairs didn’t make much noise as I went down.

I went to the kitchen and took out a water bottle from the refrigerator.

“…Hmm?”

Hearing my noise, Yuka stirred and slightly raised herself up.

Then she rubbed her eyes and looked in my direction.

The Yuka I usually saw took very good care of herself. She looked like a model student, though in a different way from Shii.

Of course, that didn’t mean she lacked human qualities.

When woken up in the middle of the night like this, her hair was naturally sticking out in different directions and her eyes were half-closed.

I thought she would go back to sleep soon, but surprisingly, Yuka got up and staggered toward me. I had seen her like this a few times before, both at her house and at ours.

I took out another cup and poured water.

Yuka mumbled a thank you and gulped down the water.

“Phew.”

I also drank my water refreshingly and put down the cup.

We both stood there silently for a moment.

The subtle feeling of unease didn’t easily disappear.

Was it because it had been so long since we’d gone on a trip like this?

Yuka also looked like she was fully awake now.

I walked slowly to the large glass window in the living room, opened it slightly, and went outside.

A humid, not entirely cold breeze was blowing.

It was summer.

For the first time in a long while, I truly felt it.

I sat down on the small porch right in front of the window and quietly gazed at the ocean stretching out before me. There were a few people at the beach, and I could hear them shouting and playing from here. They weren’t in the water though; it seemed like they were doing some kind of fireworks.

Maybe we should have bought some too?

“…I was a bit hesitant to bring this up,” Yuka, who had sat down beside me without my noticing, said while looking straight ahead just like me.

“I’ve been feeling strange all day.”

“Really?”

I hadn’t noticed because she had been laughing and chatting enthusiastically.

Well, she did occasionally make strange expressions. Expressions that suggested she was deeply contemplating something.

“…I received words of thanks from your mother.”

“Huh?”

From Kagami?

“Yes.”

Yuka hesitated again for a moment, then spoke as if she had made up her mind.

“She thanked me for not cutting down Koko.”

I couldn’t think of how to respond to that. I couldn’t quite imagine what emotions Yuka must have felt.

“You know what? It’s rare to be praised for something like that.”

“Yeah…”

I was somewhat aware of that.

When I was a firefighter, I received quite a lot of thanks. Oh, of course, I also heard words of resentment sometimes, and many people didn’t say anything at all. But it’s certain that I did hear words of gratitude.

However, yokai hunting… that job, which in some ways was much more dangerous than rushing into fires, was one where you didn’t even receive such small expressions of gratitude.

The agents didn’t try to have lengthy conversations with us, and the victims of yokai… well, they usually weren’t in a condition to say such things.

“But receiving thanks for not cutting someone down felt strange.”

If it was Kagami, she wouldn’t have been sarcastic or anything; she would have been completely sincere. Kagami always had the bad habit of taking blame upon herself.

She probably thought the situation with Koko was simply because she had left her behind.

“There’s nothing strange about it,” I said calmly.

“It really was thanks to you.”

If it hadn’t been for Yuka, I wouldn’t have gone there in the first place. Well, that’s just the result, and in reality, all sorts of variables intertwined to make it inevitable that I would end up there—

Still, if I hadn’t met Yuka, I wouldn’t have gone there at all. I wouldn’t even have known about Koko’s existence.

Yuka didn’t respond to my words.

Hmm.

The atmosphere was becoming a bit awkward.

Maybe I should share my own story.

Given the mood, it somehow feels like talking about my past life wouldn’t be strange. Japan has quite an established Buddhist culture, hasn’t it? Plus, the world we live in is close to fantasy.

Talking about past lives might not seem that strange?

…Well, I just thought about it.

No matter what, the moment I say it out loud, the story would become too complicated.

“I’m a little scared,” Yuka said after a long silence.

“Until now, I wasn’t afraid of wielding a sword. Rather, I was afraid of yokai. But now… I wonder if the things I’ve cut down were actually beings like Koko.”

“No,” I could say definitively to that.

It’s not that all yokai simply hate humans. I know there are yokai who aren’t like that from the novels I’ve read.

But such yokai are usually ones that Yuka would recognize by type.

Besides, in Koko’s case—

“Koko couldn’t immediately tell that we were yokai—”

I stopped mid-sentence.

“…Yuka.”

“…”

Yuka’s expression had hardened.

The sounds of the people making noise in the distance had stopped.

Why?

I finally realized the source of the unease I had been feeling all this time.

I felt goosebumps rising on my back, ever so slightly.

Something was slowly approaching us from far away.

“The ocean,” Yuka said.

“It’s coming from the ocean.”

I rose to my feet.