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Chapter 80: Chapter 13

January 1st (Friday) – Asamura Yuuta

Thus, a new year arrived—Despite my wish, my awakening in the new year was neither peaceful nor relaxing. After returning from our shrine visit last night, I took a bath to warm my chilled bones and snuggled deep into my futon, and I didn\'t even remember when I fell asleep. I did have a good sleep, but the first thing that greeted me after waking up was severe pain all over my body. My calves especially were screaming in agony.

If you walk down a mountain path late at night with your legs one step away from slipping for a whole two kilometers, anyone in your situation will end up like this. There\'s no exception. I ended up this way, so let\'s just accept this hell as the expected result.

"Yuu-chan, breakfast is ready!"

The sliding screen swung open, and Takumi stormed into the room. He\'s brimming with energy even this early in the morning. That\'s a young and healthy child for you. Takumi leapt into the air and slammed his body onto me.

"Breakfast!"

"Gah! So cold!"

"If you don\'t eat, it\'ll be gone!"

"I get it, I get it! Tell them I\'ll be right there."

"Okieee!"

He ran away without closing the sliding screen. What an innocent brat he is. I\'m just glad he jumped onto my futon and not Ayase-san\'s. Oh yeah, where even is Ayase-san? I realized that I was the only one left in the room. All the other futons had been neatly stacked together in the corner of the room. Wasn\'t Ayase-san really tired? She\'ll really do anything to not show me her face right after waking up, huh? I finished changing and headed to the banquet hall.

"Good morning," I said and looked around the room.

This was still the same room we had the party last night, but now the low tables were piled high with breakfast. The furthest seat away from the entrance was where my grandfather sat, and the closest was Takumi and Mika. My old man sat between them. As for an open seat…There\'s the one next to my old man and across from him, but Akiko-san is probably going to sit next to him anyway, so I opted to sit down across from him… But then I realized why Akiko-san and the rest weren\'t present yet, so I lifted the hip I had just begun to lower.

At around the same time, my grandmother came back to the room. Behind her were the female squad, carrying today\'s main focus of our breakfast—zouni, which was basically soup that contained rice cakes and vegetables, on a tray and towards the table. They probably prepared this last, as leaving it standing around for too long would ruin the food.

"You can sit down. You\'d only be in the way if you stood around."

Or so my grandmother said—And Ayase-san placed a bowl of zouni in front of me.

"She\'s right, Nii-san. Have a seat."

"Ah, okay."

Her gaze made me shut up and I obediently sat down on the floor cushion. I guess I overslept a bit too much, huh? I\'ve gotta be careful tomorrow.

"If we need more, we can always prepare it, and if you wanna eat some while it\'s grilled, then just say so."

Everyone responded to my grandmother\'s words and breakfast began. The shape of the rice cakes for the zouni varies depending on where they\'re from. In Japan, in the Asamura main family, we keep it simple and straightforward. I put my mouth to the bowl, using my chopsticks to keep the rice cakes and shiitake mushrooms away to enjoy the soup. The scent of Japanese parsley tickled my tongue. The liquid filled my body and warmed me up from the inside. It felt like I was washing away the exhaustion from our shrine trip last night.

During the entire breakfast, there is one thing that made me curious. It didn\'t look like Ayase-san\'s chopsticks were moving much. When we all began eating, she didn\'t seem too different, but now that I\'m getting a better look at her, her gaze was on the ground, and she was sighing pretty regularly. After we finished breakfast and cleaned up everything, I decided to call out to her as she sat on the porch.

"Can I sit next to you?"

"Go ahead."

Now that I had permission, I sat down next to Ayase-san. My legs were turned towards the garden, so I kicked them up and down a bit. After that, I carefully built up a conversation. I said that she seemed a bit down during breakfast. It might have just been my imagination. But even so, I was curious how she felt. I wanted to know if she was okay. After all, it wasn\'t just Akiko-san here anymore. She must be feeling a bit alienated.

"Not at all," she said.

I expected that response. But I kept looking at her. She narrowed her eyes.

"I was just thinking that the start of the new year didn\'t go too well."

"Huh? Are you talking about the fortune slip?"

She nodded. I was honestly surprised. I had always seen Ayase-san as the type of person who wasn\'t shaken by such spiritual tellings.

"It\'s not that I have absolute faith in it. There\'s no way some paper like that would have the power to turn my life around."

"So you\'re bothered by it to the point you have to act strong about it."

"Ah," Ayase-san raised a bewildered voice. "Yeah, I guess so…"

"Well, I can understand how it might drag you down. This is part of the reason fortune-telling is still a thing."

"Not just that… I think. Say, Asa—Nii-san."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever thought about something that would definitely not happen when you were given a fortune?"

"Something that would definitely not happen?"

"For example, if it said that tomorrow you\'d wake up and find out you\'ve turned into a woman."

"That\'s an interesting idea, but… I don\'t think I would live my life any differently."

"Right? But look at it from the opposite side of the same coin. What if you felt like it could actually come true?"

Basically, she\'s saying that, taking our relationship into consideration, this "terrible fortune" could very well happen. Honestly, it\'d be easy to just scoff at her worries and move on. I could say it was just a random fortune slip, and that tying it to the rope basically nullified it, and whatnot. But what would happen if I were that nonchalant about it? A shrine fortune slip really doesn\'t matter much. It\'s just a means to show fortune. The thing that makes you decide to believe in that vague fortune-telling, the thing that causes you to see things that aren\'t really there—that\'s your own heart. So I started thinking.

"Wanna head out for a walk?" I continued as Ayase-san raised her head. "I know just the spot around here."

"A recommendation from Asamura-kun… I\'d like to see that."

After we both put on our coats, we left the house.

We didn\'t walk too far. Some snow had accumulated already, but it had already been compacted into the ground by other people, and the path was flat. But I still didn\'t want her to feel tired, so I told her to tell me when she couldn\'t walk anymore. But when I looked at her face, she seemed to be doing fine. We made our way up a slight hill with thickets to the left and right. Since this was a regular road, we had enough space to walk on the sides. Once we reached a place with a cliff to the left, we turned right. After making our way through the thickets, the scenery in front of us was—

"Whoa… A lake." Ayase-san swallowed her breath.

Past the thicket, there was a beautiful lake.

"Let\'s get a bit closer. Right over here."

We went down several stairs that had been freed from the snow already. Farther down was a small hut. I don\'t know what use it has now, or ever had, but it\'s been there since I was a young child. Going down towards the lake, we reached the edge of the thicket. Beyond it was untouched snow, and roughly ten more steps would get us to the water\'s surface.

"We can\'t go any further than this or we might slip."

"Yeah… But wow. The frozen surface looks like a mirror."

The blue sky above us looked like it had been copied and pasted down onto the ground, surrounded by snowy white clouds. There was no breeze, either, so the frozen lake was smooth and solid.

"Nice, right?"

"Yeah…"

"I like to come here during the winter. I think I\'ve only been here two times during the summer, and once when it was fall and all brownish-red everywhere. But honestly, I never get tired of this sight. Depending on the season, the scenery in the lake\'s reflection changes."

"Like the leaves turning red?"

"In fall, yeah. In summer, there are cumulonimbus clouds, and cirrocumulus clouds when it turns to fall. At night, you can see the moon and stars. On windy days, it creates waves that distort the sight like you\'re looking at it through tinted glass."

"I see. This is wonderful. You found a wonderful place. Is this area famous?"

"Not exactly. This isn\'t a tourist attraction or anything."

"So you found it yourself."

"It was just pure luck. When I was still young, there was barely anything here. As a child, you\'d get bored immediately. Having Kousuke-san with me was fine and all, but he couldn\'t be with me 24/7—"

Yep, it was just a coincidence. When the other adults got together, I didn\'t want to see my mother and didn\'t care about the rest of them, so I just walked around randomly and stumbled upon this place. She put on a fake smile whenever she interacted with our relatives, but I could see through it clearly. She was way different from the mother I knew at home. Especially her voice and expression.

"Well, that allowed me to find a great place like this, where I could just relax and stay away from all the trouble. It\'s not all bad, in the end. It\'s all about turning misfortune into fortune, y\'know."

"Asamura-kun…"

"So, about that terrible fortune of yours—"

I don\'t know if these words will help her to cheer up. But I had to say them.

"Are you having fun right now, Ayase-san?"

"Right now…? Are you not talking about today or yesterday?"

"I\'m just… asking in general, I guess?"

Ayase-san started thinking like she was taking a deep dive into her own heart, and responded after a brief break.

"Yeah. I\'m having fun… I think."

"Same here."

She gasped and looked at me in surprise.

"And think about it. The \'terrible fortune\' you pulled last night is reflecting on the current situation. Meaning that this enjoyable time is the worst possible outcome, right?"

"Huh? Um… Maybe?"

"That\'s at least how it works on paper. So, anyway, if this is already as low as it can get, then there\'s no need to be worried. After all, it won\'t get any worse. In fact, it\'s only gonna get better from now on."

"Erm…" Ayase-san looked at me in disbelief, like she was chewing on my words.

I don\'t blame her. I was half aware that I was just pulling stuff out of thin air. But then she looked at me and—Burst out laughing.

"Pfft… Ha… hahaha, that\'s a bit of a stretch, don\'t you think?"

"I mean, I think it\'s a perfectly logical deduction?"

"Ah… haha… I don\'t think you can use the word \'logical\' for that."

"But if you think about it that way, all your worries suddenly sound stupid, no? Basically, depending on your thought process, you can turn even a bad fortune into something positive."

"I… guess so. Haha." Ayase-san rubbed one eye.

I mean, I didn\'t think it\'d be funny enough to make her shed a tear.

"Yeah… Thanks. You were worried about me, right?"

"Well, yeah… I\'d always worry about the person I love."

The person I love, huh?

"Asamura-kun…"

"Personally, I don\'t want to see you forcing yourself to smile when we\'re here."

Like that person did.

"Yeah. I\'m glad I came here. And I got to see you interacting with your younger cousins Takumi-kun and Mika-chan."

"Me?"

"Yeah. It made me realize what a good older brother you are. Meanwhile, I couldn\'t do anything. I couldn\'t interact with them like you did. I can\'t remember how my parents or relatives treated me when I was their age."

This time, I was the one bewildered. I see. She\'s never dealt with relatives that much before. She made that obvious when she first brought Naraka-san over to my house.

\'What a happy family you are. Everyone\'s close and friendly.\'

That\'s what Ayase-san said. The \'Everyone\' part of the statement was much more important than I had thought it was at first. I had Kousuke-san, Takumi and Mika. I was always surrounded by friendly relatives. However, Ayase-san had nobody but Akiko-san.

"I don\'t know how to act or interact with those children. I\'ve never had an experience like that. So I was a bit scared."

"Then…" I spoke up. "You don\'t have to rush things. Taking things one step at a time is just as important."

"One step at a time…"

"I don\'t see any reason to panic. Even if you\'re not perfect right now, even if you\'re worried about us growing up into respectable adults or not. Let\'s just grow together?"

"Grow… together…"

"Yeah." I nodded and Ayase-san put her hands together in front of her chest, nodding back.

She gently caressed the bracelet shining on her wrist.

"That\'s a beautiful bracelet."

"Yeah… It\'s wonderful, isn\'t it?" She said and gently caressed her bracelet.

After that, Ayase-san and I just observed the surface of the lake in silence. As a breeze passed us by, we both headed back to the residence.

That evening, after we finished dinner, Ayase-san and I were once again playing a game with Takumi and Mika, which was a racing game where you try to obstruct other players using items. Ayase-san seemed to be doing much better with this game, and she even beat me several times. However, Takumi and Mika were even better than that, always at the top of the ranking. I figured that it wouldn\'t be nice to use too many items against Mika, so I left Takumi to battle her while I mainly fought against Ayase-san. If it was me, she\'d definitely have a chance.

Like this, time went on and we played for almost two hours, and the two of them ended up falling asleep. Children have what you\'d believe to be an endless reserve of energy, which they use up all at once and then fall asleep on the spot if they run out of it. That\'s the kind of creatures they are.

"My, my, they should at least head to their beds if they want to sleep." Aunt Kanae sighed.

"Yuuta and I will carry them over."

Kousuke-san grabbed Takumi, and I picked up Mika. Ayase-san offered to help out, but I said that she should at least let me handle all the physical babor, so she reluctantly stepped back.

"I\'ll go back to my room, then," she said and headed to the room the four of us were staying in for one more night.

After seeing her off, Kousuke-san smiled.

"She\'s a good girl."

"Yes. A little sister I can be proud of." I said without thinking too much about it.

We put the two children to bed, and Kousuke-san returned to the banquet hall. I headed to the kitchen since I was feeling a bit hungry. There\'s food in the banquet hall still, but going there would just get me captured and pulled into their conversations. On the way to the kitchen, I heard my grandparents and my old man talking.

"How are things with her?"

My grandfather spoke with a somewhat worried voice, bringing up the name of my mother. I was surprised and stopped in my tracks. Why would he ask that now, when things are going great with Akiko-san? My mother was good at keeping up appearances. On the surface, she was always smiling and laughing with grandfather. That\'s why both my grandparents were surprised by the divorce. My old man said that he was at fault for everything that had happened, but I can\'t agree with that. After all, she got married to the person she cheated on Dad with only half a year after their divorce. And since then, we haven\'t heard a peep from her.

My old man said that although he agreed to the remarriage, he said he was still not fully on safe land. Akiko-san seemed a lot more pleasant than my mother on the outside, but we learned that this wasn\'t everything. Logically, it made sense. When my old man introduced Akio-san as his marriage partner, I was worried that she might be deceiving him too. My mother seemed much more docile with nothing negative on the surface, only for things to suddenly come crashing down. Akiko-san definitely has more flashy looks and works at night in the big city, so it made sense for grandpa, who had no experience of life in Tokyo, to think that she doesn\'t seem as good of a partner as his previous wife.

Grandmother tried to soothe grandfather and his words, but he kept pressing my old man further. Plus, he said that Akiko-san\'s daughter Saki had her mother\'s flashy looks and seemed rather cold and blunt. That\'s why he seemed to be worried. However, that was something even my old man couldn\'t just let slide.

"It\'s okay. They are both wonderful people that you don\'t have to worry about, Dad." He said without a glimmer of hesitation.

Grandfather was a bit taken aback, but he was not stepping down.

"You say that, but what about Yuuta? He\'s in high school, and he\'s suddenly got himself a new mother and sister. Isn\'t that too much for him to handle?"

"That\'s not—"

"Can you truly say that, Taichi?"

"…"

My old man was at a loss for words. He probably didn\'t want to speak for his own son. I think it\'s this genuine care and seriousness that didn\'t make him a good fit with my mother, and that\'s what brought him and Akiko-san together. That\'s what I think, at least. I remembered his straightforward response to grandfather just now, and spoke up through the sliding door. The argument inside the hall stopped. I named myself and stepped in front of grandfather.

"I have absolutely no complaints about Dad\'s remarriage with Akiko-san." I declared.

"Yuuta…"

"And this also goes for Saki."

I couldn\'t afford to call her "Ayase-san" right now. I needed to set her on the stage as a single individual—and that I accepted her into my family.

"She\'s not the type of person you see her as, Grandpa. She may have a hard time interacting with people at times, but I\'m the same way. Saki is kind, sincere, and a truly hard-working person."

"Yuuta…" My old man looked at me with dampened eyes.

And now, my grandmother chimed in.

"Gintarou-san, don\'t you remember what Takumi said? He taught Saki-san how to play that whatsit game because she was so bad at it, but she was very earnest about listening to his advice."

I kept a straight face on the outside but couldn\'t stop myself from groaning mentally.

"It means she was doing her best with the help of someone else, right?"

"W-Well."

"Plus, you weren\'t exactly the most welcoming when it came to Saki-san either, remember?"

"Yeah, but with her hair dyed like that—"

"That much is normal nowadays. Did you already forget that Kanae dyed her hair red a long time ago?"

Receiving this follow-up attack from grandmother, grandfather had nothing else to say. He probably realized there was no winning this argument. Meanwhile, grandmother looked at me as she gently narrowed her eyes. Somehow, I feel itchy all over.

"Yeah, I see… Well, if you are that adamant about it. But to think our docile Yuuta would go this far…"

"Enough of this then, Gintarou-san?"

"Yeah, I won\'t say anything more for now. Yuuta, your birthday has already passed, right? How old are you?"

"I\'m 17 now."

"I see. Then you\'ll be an adult next year… And you could find a wife."

"A wife… That\'s still a bit too early for me."

"Well, Kousuke brought it up out of nowhere."

Since I couldn\'t comment on that, grandmother came to the rescue.

"Yes, yes, surely. But, that\'s enough, Gintarou-san."

"Yeah. Taichi, let\'s drink some more."

"Erm… I can\'t drink that much, I have to drive home tomorrow, remember?"

While the two headed back to the banquet hall, I opted to return to my own room. I laid down in my futon and reminisced about the incident just now. If… if our family found out about my relationship with Ayase-san… Then even if they won\'t accept us here any longer, I just have to stay resolute like my old man did.

Let\'s both do our best—Saki.