Ch.441IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (138)

I felt happy. I couldn’t feel any other emotion.

Even though my memories must have been painful for them, I was happy they remembered me. Just as I hadn’t forgotten them, I was simply glad these children had remembered me too.

But at the same time, I felt guilty.

That wasn’t much different from being happy about hurting these children.

I somehow managed to suppress the smile forming on my lips and turned my head in another direction.

I thought childhood memories were quite vivid, but seeing everything again, it did feel somewhat unfamiliar.

Yes. Especially the heights of objects differed from my memory.

I parted with these children before even graduating elementary school, and I grew quite a bit afterward, so this house felt a bit smaller than I remembered, and objects seemed smaller than in my memory.

Somehow, everything felt narrower than I remembered.

Of course, the absolute size was still spacious, befitting a wealthy household. The fact that the sense of discomfort wasn’t too great was probably due to that absolute spaciousness.

“Ah, the video player.”

I said that with a smile.

It was still there under the TV. Though the TV itself had changed. It wasn’t yet the era of flat-screen TVs, but it had definitely grown larger than I remembered.

When did video players completely disappear?

If I remember correctly, they probably didn’t have much life left. In less than 10 years, movie media would completely shift to DVDs, and not long after that, to discs with larger capacity, and then to the streaming market.

Maybe because I knew that, the videos inside the cabinet under the TV felt nostalgic.

They hadn’t increased beyond what I knew. I’m sure Harumi had said something like “I want to watch something more grown-up now.”

“…”

Ah.

Suddenly, memories from that time came flooding back.

I liked anime since my previous life. Of course, the type of anime I liked wasn’t magical girl shows, but because I had such a hobby, I could watch the anime Harumi showed me without much resistance.

It was a bit embarrassing, and when Harumi would recite transformation spells next to me, it felt somewhat mortifying, but including that ticklish embarrassment, they were all memories.

When Harumi played, I played alongside her. The wand Harumi gave me was from that time.

Harumi thought I absolutely loved that anime.

Yes.

In my memory, I’m pretty sure they had been put away in storage. I even remember receiving several episodes. Seeing that the numbers weren’t missing in between, it seemed that the goldfish wasn’t the only thing Harumi had taken from our house.

“Oh, do you want to watch? Should I show you?”

“…No. It’s okay.”

I shook my head.

My memories were hazy now, and if I started watching, I’d probably end up watching from beginning to end.

…Harumi doesn’t know that the wand broke. She doesn’t even know that it was that wand I first stabbed my neck with.

Though it broke, I couldn’t let go of my attachment and still kept it deep in my desk drawer. Even through several moves, I always kept it with me.

It felt like evidence of my childhood that had been cut short.

These things Harumi had kept might have been memories of a lost friend.

A child who was always cheerful and loved to run around excitedly, but who also had a sensitive side deep in her heart that carefully considered others’ feelings.

“Come on, come on, have a seat. I have some snacks in the kitchen, I’ll bring them.”

At Harumi’s words, the four of us found our seats.

“Wow…”

Koko, who had seemed overwhelmed since entering the house, looked up and carefully examined Harumi’s home.

Well, that makes sense.

The “homes” Koko had seen until now were just a worn-out single room in a Japanese-style apartment and our house. And even if she visited other houses, they were all roughly similar in size.

But Harumi’s house… how should I put it, it wasn’t just spacious. The design looked like it could be used as a drama set.

“Kotone, Kotone.”

Koko, sitting next to me, pulled on my sleeve and called me.

“Is Harumi rich?”

“Well, I wonder.”

Harumi’s house… well, they are rich, I suppose.

I wasn’t sure if it was okay for me to say that. It felt like I might be judging Harumi strangely.

“Why? Do you want to live in this house?”

“No?”

Hmm.

I asked thinking she might hesitate a bit, but Koko answered firmly.

She tilted her head, but her serious expression was a bit scary.

Is this what I look like?

“Kotone.”

“Yes?”

“What did you play with Harumi?”

I wondered what she was going to ask, but it seemed she was curious about what we played when we were young.

“We caught things like dragonflies and cicadas.”

“Oh, really?”

Mako seemed a bit surprised at my words.

“Why?”

“Well, um.”

Mako’s expression showed she was debating whether to say this or not. It was exactly the kind of expression I had when worrying about whether it was okay to say if Harumi was rich or not.

“It’s just… after meeting Harumi and Yuu, we never played like that.”

“…That’s obvious.”

Yuu said with an incredulous look.

“Have you ever seen middle schoolers playing by catching insects?”

That’s true.

When I was in middle school… well, I don’t think I played by catching dragonflies.

“I-I see…”

Mako’s face turned slightly red with embarrassment.

Does she want to do it?

I think we sometimes played like that when Mako and I hung out. If those were precious memories, she might want to try it again sometimes.

But Yuu doesn’t look like she wants to do that at all.

Why is it that insects we caught so well as children suddenly seem gross when we become adults? It wasn’t like that for me, but some of my friends who grew up in the city felt that way.

“Hey, hey, what are you talking about?”

Harumi asked as she arrived with a tray piled high with bread and snacks.

“Just talking about what we used to play.”

Suddenly remembering, I murmured, “Ah.”

“I learned goldfish scooping from Harumi.”

“Oh, really?”

Yuu looked at Harumi in surprise.

“Hehe.”

For some reason, Harumi seemed to like that surprised expression, and she scratched her head shyly as she sat down.

Koko picked up a piece of bread without any hesitation and opened the wrapper.

Harumi sat next to Koko and hugged her tightly, like embracing a doll. Koko paid no attention to Harumi and ate the bread diligently like a hamster.

“Ah, she’s really cute. Honestly, I think she’s cuter than the cat I saw earlier.”

Harumi said that and then looked at me.

“Can’t I just keep her?”

“Only if you can win a fight against our mom.”

After saying that, I felt a bit strange. I’ve never seen Kagami physically compete with anyone.

Wondering why I thought Kagami would be that strong, I realized it might be because Kagami had always been our protector.

Because she’s a mother. To a child, a mother always seems like the strongest person in the world.

…From that young age, Kagami was the one who struggled to feed me.

Plus, Kagami was tall for a woman. Her figure was curvy, so she didn’t look weak.

“Well, that’s impossible then~”

Harumi said with an expression that made it hard to tell if she was being polite or sincere.

Her arms remained wrapped around Koko.

“…No, and Koko looks exactly like Kotone. How is it any different from taking Kotone to raise?”

Yuu said something a bit rude.

But thinking about it, the young Harumi might have thought of me that way. Right after we became friends, she always wanted to take me everywhere.

There were times when I would try to go home after playing at Harumi’s house, and she would burst into tears.

The Harumi from the time before Yuu knew her.

Would Harumi remember that too?

When our eyes met, Harumi slightly averted her gaze.

Looks like she remembers. She didn’t say anything, but it seems she recalled the same thing after hearing Yuu’s words.

“How about it, Koko? If you stay at our house, you can eat delicious things like this every day!”

“I’m going to live with Kotone.”

Koko flatly refused while still diligently eating the bread.

Well done, Koko. She was perfectly remembering and practicing the “Number 1 Rule for Not Getting Kidnapped” that Kagami, Dad, and I had drilled into her every time we faced each other.

…Or maybe she was just being sincere.

No, I was certain it was definitely that.

“Aww. I always wanted a little sister.”

“What are you thinking, trying to steal someone else’s sister?”

“Haha…”

Yuu scolded Harumi, and Mako awkwardly laughed from the side.

The atmosphere was… good.

It wasn’t like when we were young, but definitely.

We were still friends.