Editing Maria Sama Ga Miteru:Volume12 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

<!-- page 108 -->
Sachiko-sama remained cloistered in her room until around evening.

Yumi was bored, so bored,  and even though she wasn't yet grasping for things to do to the point that she must rouse onee-sama from her rest, returning to her room couldn't be helped, and she tried doing such things as moving the luggage from one place to another, and meaninglessly hopping up and down on the bed.

If she had been allowed to, something like clearing away lunch would have probably passed the time, but sure enough, that had been rejected by Kiyo-san.

When she also got tired of exploring the inside of the room, Yumi gazed out the window. The house was standing in the middle of the trees looking like they were encircling it to the extent that the force of their outstretched branches would appear almost sufficient to crack the window glass. 

"If it's going to be like this, I wonder if I should have at least brought a crossword puzzle…"

Initially, she was going to bring a small guidebook, but…. She had been so happy about coming here that before leaving she had read it until she was tired of reading it. Besides, in the room by herself,  looking for a page about a noteworthy spot around here would be somewhat useless. With that said, Yumi was not familiar with the area and it would probably be too reckless for her to do such things as heading out by herself relying on the guidebook. First off, she was starting from the middle of these woods, and even if there were a place she could walk to, whether could she get to a lively sight-seeing area, she really had no idea.  At best, the outcome would be her becoming a "lost child."

<!-- page 109 -->
It was quiet enough to hear herself sighing greatly.

She turned her head about after feeling like she was being watched, and there was something -- a small animal and it's eyes. At first, she thought, ''a long tailed rabbit?'', but with the ears being short...

"Squirrel…?"

It was Squirrel-like in the way squirrels are always depicted, and while not having a vertical-stripe pattern at all, it was unmistakably a squirrel. Larger than a chipmunk, it was merely just a brown-looking squirrel. The squirrel was on the branches near the window staring her way motionlessly.

"Come here, come here ."

She tried, reaching  out her hand, but, of course a wild squirrel wasn't going to be drawn closer with something like that. As if coldly disregarding Yumi, it scampered off toward the thick tree trunk.

"He mustn't like me…"

Boring.

''It would be good if onee-sama woke up soon'', she thought.


<!-- page 110 -->
Sachiko-sama came downstairs just before dinner, and arrived at the dinner table with glazed over eyes. Sachiko-sama was said to be bad about having low-blood pressure when waking up in the morning. As expected, it really was the case that she might be listless for an unrelated period of time after having slept.  

Dinner's menu was a full complement of blessing from the mountain.

The main course was grilled salted ayu<ref>鮎(Ayu)  -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayu </ref>. All kinds of mushroom tempura. Local vegetable aemono<ref>和え物  -- a blanched and dressed vegetable side dish.</ref>.  After that, hand-made yosedofu<ref> 寄せ豆腐 -- a creamy tofu made by adding nigari (magnesium chloride) to unsweetened soy milk.</ref>.  All of it looked delicious, but... having eaten plenty of scones and sandwiches, she should've been more anxious to take the initiative to eat sparingly from the start.

"Please have seconds."

Kiyo-san placed a steaming rice bowl on the table. 

That's right, she mustn't forget. The rice was the Uonuma produced Koshihikari that had been sent from the Fukuzawa household, and there was okoge<ref> お焦げ, the crispy rice that forms at the bottom of the cooking pan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okoge_(food) </ref>.  Sachiko-sama's grandfather liked rice cooked on a traditional stove, and she'd heard that when the kitchen was renovated, the only thing to remain was the traditional stove.

As two of them began their meal sitting facing each other at the six-seater table, Sachiko-sama asked,

"What did Yumi do while I was sleeping?"

"Umm. Organizing the luggage and such, lying down for a bit…, ah, after that I also saw a squirrel from the window."

"That so. There's a lot of nature that remains here. Don't you think it's nice and quiet?"

"Ah, yeah."

<!-- page 111 -->
After nodding agreement, Yumi added,

"But, onee-sama wasn't there and I was a bit lonely."

''If there's something you want to say, please say it'', were the words she'd heard Sachiko-sama say previously.

"Oh"

Sachiko-sama smiled a bit.

"Well then, in the evening shall we play some games or something?"

"Is that ok?"

Yumi asked searchingly.

"Of course"

Was the agreeable reply.

"Hurray!"

Joy surged through her body and without thinking she had stood up from the chair.

"Yumi. Don't stand up in the middle of the meal."

"...yes."

Though cautioned, it didn't halve her joy at all. That's because her happiness was already at ten fold or a hundred fold.

That aside, playing games wasn't the reason that she was so happy. Simply, it was that she would be together with her onee-sama.  And, onee-sama would be using that time for her. That was what had made Yumi happy.

<!-- page 112 -->
Yumi, resuscitated, consumed all the side dishes. After all, rather than the delicious highland air, it seems that onee-sama's single word became a stimulant for her appetite.



After the meal as promised, they played games.

Unfortunately, the holiday house  only had playing cards, chess, and Go<ref> 囲碁http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) </ref>, but doing things such as hasami-shogi<ref> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasami_shogi </ref> with the chess board and Othello<ref> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi  </ref> with the Go board, it was sufficiently fulfilling. 

Kiyo-san, who finished tidying up after the meal, and Gensuke-san, who disliked it, were dragged into doing card games such as "Old Maid" and even "Sevens". Since the Sawamura couple didn't know the rules for games such as "Daihinmin<ref> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daifugō </ref>" and "Page One<ref> http://www.pagat.com/inflation/page_one.html </ref>", they had to repeat doing those two card games, but even with that it wasn't at all tiresome.

With the classical records and the sometimes mixing in of a "ji ji ji" noise, it was at some points a nostalgic feeling night.

''I want to keep staying up late like this forever'', Yumi thought.

<br />