Haruma-3
What do I do? I’m scaaared (cries).
My phone continued to shudder even as I was reading the message, and by the time I was halfway through, I was shuddering myself.
In total, I received over twenty messages, all likely from the same person. After I had initially blocked “JOHANNE ♡”, she changed her account to “JOHANNE ♪”, “JOHANNE ☆” and “JOHANNE 2”, slipping through my blocking manoeuvre with a manoeuvre of her own. Now I was on the receiving end of a bunch of messages. If I just let things be, she might have ended up warping into “JOHANNevolution” or “the end of genesis JOHANNevolution turbo type D”.
And don’t even get me started on the contents of the message itself.
Love hearts and symbols were all well and good. The writing also had a pleasant girly vibe. But you see, I really don’t think that casually beating someone over the head with their address, date of birth and blood type is a good idea. Just when did the Personal Information Protection Act get amended? Or was she exercising a right to know?
As I clenched my cell phone tighter, my sister peered at me with a mystified expression. “Something the matter?”
Everything is the matter with this sender. Sis, this is serious! was all I could think.
I coughed. “Amane-chan,” I called out to her.
“What?”
“When a girl says, ‘We have the same blood type,’ what does she mean?” I asked.
Amane-chan gnawed on her squid jerky and thought for a while.
“…It means she wants to have a blood transfusion.”
Wow, really? You learn something new every day. Just what you’d expect from a health teacher. I had no idea I was being invited to donate blood. Wait, hang on a second. My sister might have been saying that with a straight face, but she couldn’t have been serious…
Well, I’d always known my sis was a bit kooky, but this “Johanne” sender fit the bill as well. When you think about it logically, no one would send a giddy message like this if they were right in the head. My image of Chigusa Yuu didn’t quite match up with this psycho message, but seeing as it mentioned the events on the roof, I had no choice but to believe that this signature was hers.
When I thought about it, Chigusa Yuu did have the beauty of a jewel, physically speaking. She was a diamond among beauties. But you know, I have to say no to a Crazy Diamond.
As I was frantically blocking her, the intercom rang. Ding dong.
Amane-chan ignored it completely and went on guffawing at the TV. Meanwhile, the ringing continued. Ding dong. Ding dong.Damn it, what is it? Quit calling out to me so much. Are you Smile, you bastard (1)?
“…Haruma,” Amane-chan called out my name, clicking her tongue in irritation. Predictably enough, it seemed she was unable to stand the ringing any longer.
Well, that’s the way it goes. Between older sisters and younger brothers, you don’t even need to think about who tops the hierarchy. Younger brothers are equivalent to slaves. I mean, look at the proof. Don’t “brother” and “slave” sort of resemble each other in English? They don’t, do they.
Reluctantly, I stood up and peered at the monitor of the intercom, which was still ringing incessantly. But no one was there. Someone had to be there—that person just didn’t show up on the camera for some reason. It’s a strong trend among people trying to solicit or get money from you! Watch out, kids!
The way things were going, I had no choice but to actually go out to the entrance. I tried peering through the peephole just in case, but since the caller was predictably nowhere to be seen, I gave up and turned the knob.
When I opened the door warily, only just far enough to bring my head out, this peculiar character (presumably the visitor) stepped up and bowed.
“Good evening.”
“Er, right. Evening…” was all I could answer with.
Her manner was so elegant it would have sounded totally fitting if she had followed up her greeting with, “What a pleasant night this is.” As Chigusa Yuu flicked her glistening black hair over her shoulder, bathed in the glow from the street lights, an ethereal smile came over her face like a wintry crescent moon. Try as I might, I could not connect the person in front of me with the maniac who had been pressing away at the intercom.
“Um, this is my house,” I said with a hoarse voice. “So why—?”
“You said I could come talk to you anytime, so here I am,” Chigusa explained bashfully.
The way she blushed and glanced up at me from time to time through upturned eyes was very cute and all, but her explanation left something to be desired… The reason for her visit was a mystery, yes, but what I wanted to ask was not why she had come but more like why she knew where my house was. What, did this girl use a nineties Hello Pages? Did they disclose one’s personal residence that easily (2)?
“That’s not what I—”
“Ah, perhaps you still haven’t read my message?” She came to a startled realisation. “I’ll send it to you now, all right?”
She started pressing away at her smart phone. Right after that, my phone vibrated. There on the screen was the exact same message I had seen before. When I caught sight of the word “talk”, my eyes froze.
Come to think of it, I had indeed said come talk to me again.
But in Japanese, when you say “See you next time!” or “Let’s hang out again sometime!” it means you won’t meet again. “I’ll go if I’m able” means the same thing as “I won’t go” in Japanese. When you’re able to pay lip service to everyone that way, you can live the high life and become a total celeb.
“Mm. Um, when I said come talk to me, I didn’t mean that, I, um…”
“You don’t have time to spare for me?” Chigusa interrupted me with a hollow laugh, slipping her hands into her pockets.
All of a sudden, I caught myself smiling like a Japanese person when a foreigner talks to him in another language. Oh, sorry… I cannotto spikku foreign ranguage.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
(1) The Japanese onomatopoeia for a ringing doorbell is pronounced ‘pin pon’, which is the same as the word for ‘ping pong’. Smile is one of the main characters from the 2014 anime Ping Pong the Animation.
(2) The Hello Pages is a phone and address book distributed by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), similar to the White Pages. It lists private addresses, but only a very small number of them are listed on the Hello Pages these days.