Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 2-2

Status: Incomplete

30/40 pages completed

   

2. Past: 27 Days Ago

It was a lazy morning.

I had stayed up fairly late the previous night. It wasn’t like I was doing anything in particular, but because I had no school the next day, I ended up aimlessly reading and watching TV for a long time.

I had sluggishly woken up in the late morning and saw that there was no one in the living room. I knew that my dad was away for work, but I had no idea what my sister was up to. She might be somewhere in the house, or she might be somewhere outside of Japan. As I unabashedly let out a big yawn, I plopped down onto the sofa.

The remote control was sitting on the low table in front of me. I figured I’d at least turn it on and see what was showing, but there wasn’t really anything interesting, even after changing the channel a couple times. I was still drowsy so the television actually ended up being a little annoying. I had brought the paperback I was reading from my room, so I sank into the couch and opened the pages.

Before reading even a single line, I looked up from the print and muttered to myself.

“It’s kind of dark.”

The curtains were closed. Naturally I would have preferred them to be open, but because I was so comfortably deep in the couch, getting up would be too troublesome. I put aside the book and reached for the remote once more. On top of the table was an ashtray and a lucky cat figure.

This lucky cat was a strange little thing. I couldn’t tell if it was poorly made or if it was purposely designed like this, but the cat almost looked like it was grinning at you. It was holding a large coin like any other lucky cat would, except instead of the usual assortment of bold phrases that might be written on it, like “great happiness,” “fantastic fortune,” or “exceeding wealth,” it only contained a single word—“lucky.” Of course, the only person who would have bought something this half-assed was my sister, but even then, I wondered where she could have possibly bought it.

The inside was hollow, and its arm was spring-loaded so you could move it in an up-and-down beckoning motion. My sister had made some alterations to add onto that feature. She tried making it so that it would shoot an infrared beam. Even though you couldn’t see it in the first place, she had still purposely rigged it so that the beam would specifically come from the eyes.

“If a cat’s going to shoot lasers, then it has to be from the eyes.”

When she told me this, I was speechless, but thinking about it more rationally it’s not like it was all that strange. After all, the remote also used infrared beams. She had essentially just put a remote inside the lucky cat.

Its receiver was connected to the fluorescent light on the ceiling. When you moved its arm to invite good fortune, an infrared beam would fly from its eyes and either illuminate or darken the room. As a result, you could take the string off the ceiling lamp and rejoice over the newly spacious surroundings. Except now, as you had to constantly keep the lucky cat there instead of the string, it just got in the way no matter which way you cut it. At least have the common decency to use a cat that was actually lovable.

The lucky cat currently sat on the other end of the table, so I reached towards it. That was the reason I even picked up the remote in the first place. In place of a stick, I used it to try and move the lucky cat’s arm. It looked like I should have been able to reach it, but I couldn’t. Had I lifted myself a bit I would have probably been able to reach it, but at that point I might as well be standing. As I tried my hardest to use only my arms while avoiding moving the rest of my body like the plague, a voice called out from behind me.

“Are you finally trying to fully master the art of laziness or something?”

The road to fully mastering energy-preservation was endless; I haven’t yet even seen the heights of its perfection. I turned around and saw my sister. It looked like she had taken an afternoon bath because of the bath towel tightly wrapped around the top of her head. She walked into the kitchen and asked, “Want some coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then pour me some as well while you’re at it.”

She wasn’t going to do it herself? Then why did she even go to the kitchen in the first place?

Because I had gotten so in the mood for coffee, all of the determination and effort that I had previously put into not standing up instantly fizzled away. I slapped my knees to give me the energy I needed to stand up, and then went over to the kitchen to start boiling some water. My sister had her back to me as she stared into the refrigerator and eventually found a sandwich to eat. I had no idea why there was a sandwich in the fridge to begin with. Over the years, I had seen all sorts of things being cooled in that fridge, from bee larvae tsukudani to kangaroo burgers. Compared to those, at least a sandwich wasn’t too far removed from normalcy.

“Either dry your hair or eat your food. Don’t do both.”

I said this bitterly towards her as she still had the towel wrapped around her head, but she ignored me. She took out a single egg and spun it in the sink like a top. The egg quickly lost its balance and toppled over.

“Oh come on, it’s raw?”

As she sighed, I figured she must have mistaken the raw egg for a hard-boiled one. It was true that I had made some the evening before, but I ended up eating them myself later that night. I thought it was strange that she even knew I made some in the first place, but who knows. Maybe she saw something like leftover dishes after I finished.

Nothing else in fridge must have stood out. She closed the door by pushing it with her lower back and then asked a question from behind me as I was readying some coffee cups.

“Oh yeah, you’re cold’s gone now, isn’t it.”

“My cold?”

“Wasn’t it pretty bad?”

I thought for a little bit and then responded.

“When was this?”

It was true; I had actually caught a cold this month.

One day, Chitanda had contacted me, asking me for my help because the spring festival was understaffed. A lot of stuff happened, but long story short, I left to go help them and ended up having a pretty strange day. It was hard for even me to believe that all of that had happened within the span of a single day. I could still vividly recall that pretty scene, surrounded on all sides by the early-blooming cherry blossoms.

It was particularly chilly then, especially after the sun had set. Even thought I had been saying it was cold, Chitanda continued to insist that it wasn’t because it was already spring at that point. I’m not saying I caught it because of that, but from the next day on, I remained cooped up in my bed. Until my sister had returned late last night, I had been the only one in the house, so all of the chills, fevers, and hunger added up to make me a very miserable sight.

My sister was probably talking about that. But that had happened during spring break. I had all but recovered in around two days, so when I went to the opening ceremony I was completely normal.

“That was a month ago.”

“Really? To think already a month has passed. They grow up so fast.”

As she feigned ignorance, she lightly tapped my head. She started to toss around my hair and then said, “Fix your beadhead.”

I’ll do it later.

Someone had so graciously made coffee for her and yet she didn’t even so much as taste it. She suddenly said, “Oh, it’s time,” and returned to her room. I started to read the book I had left on the sofa, but after thirty minutes had passed, she came out of her room again.

“Hey, you aren’t going out today either, right?”

I didn’t have any plans, but I wasn’t too happy with how she said ‘either.’ I answered without looking away from the book.

“I’m not thinking of doing anything.”

“I wonder how much distance you’ve covered throughout your entire lifetime.”

“Siblings need to balance each other out.”

After I said this, she replied with a condescending tone.

“So you’re saying you’ve been resting up on my behalf. Aren’t you a kind one.”

My not leaving the house only compensated for her extravagant use of gasoline, airplane fuel, and other travel costs. As an energy-saving advocate, this was my apology to human civilization for the actions of my idiot sister.

“What a pitiful child.”

She had said something so cruel.

“Well, at any rate, continue doing nothing until 2:30.”

“You want me to watch the house?”

“Yeah. If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.”

I didn’t have any plans to go out in the first place, but just being told this made me feel uncomfortably restricted. As I continued reading the book, I spoke.

“Get me something.”

It looked like she was already putting her shoes on. Her voice rang from the house entrance.

“Then I’ll buy you some candles. You like those, right?”

Since when?

However, because she had mentioned the candles, I knew that she hadn’t forgotten what today was. It didn’t look like she was intending on celebrating it, though…

Sure enough, when I was a kid, I loved to blow out the candles in the cake.

Today was my birthday.

What could she have possibly meant by telling me to watch the house until 2:30? I put my book aside part-way, and threw myself face down on the sofa to think. It was sister. She was probably planning something unnecessary. She had told me to wait because something was probably coming, but what was it?

Having something celebratory arrive while I was here would be wonderfully considerate of her. Because it would be such a decent thing for her to do, I consequently knew that that wasn’t going to be the case. Tomoe Oreki wasn’t the kind of person that did things like that, and even if I was wrong, setting up the delivery time for 2:30 in the afternoon would be far too half-assed for her.

She had told me, “If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.” That meant that most likely someone would be coming rather than something. Someone who would come on my birthday… Actually, it could be incorrect to assume my birthday played into it at all. It could simply be someone like a bill collector or neighborhood information distributor that was coming. Maybe it was wrong of me to assume that she was setting this all up. Maybe I've been suspecting her too much.

Even as I said this to myself, however, I couldn’t get rid of the bad premonition lingering in my head. Because I was overly conscious of the time, it was only natural that the second hand seemed to move far too slowly.

I had lost the desire to eat, so I continued to wait without making myself lunch. I finally finished the book I had been reading, but I didn’t have enough time to get into a second one. I switched on the television and turned to a travel program. This was how I passed the time, watching complete strangers enjoying delicious-looking food in a first-class inn.

Thinking back on it, the way she had specifically stated “if they don’t come” meant that it didn’t necessarily mean that they were going to come at 2:30. She wasn’t indicating an arrival time, but rather an arrival period. For example, had I told Satoshi, using the same exact phrasing, “If I don’t come by 2:30, do whatever you want,” I would be saying something along the lines of, “I should actually be arriving earlier, but there’s a possibility that I’ll be late. If I’m not there by 2:30, just assume I won’t be coming.”

That was why, when I heard the doorbell chime at around 5 minutes to 2:00, I assumed that it wasn’t related to the guest that my sister was having me wait for. ‘I wonder if it's a demon. Perhaps it's a snake.’ For some reason, that feeling started to well up inside of me. I put on a pair of slippers and stepped down into the entrance area, taking a peek through the door’s peephole.

It wasn’t a demon, nor was it a snake. Neither was it a bill collector or a neighborhood information distributor.

“Ah, shit. So that’s what it was.”

It slipped from my mouth before I realized it.

Four individuals stood outside: Satoshi, Chitanda, Ibara, and Ōhinata.

As if sensing my presence, Satoshi returned my gaze through the peephole. He showed me a revolting smile and then held up his hand. For all of the various problems she had caused me, there was one thing I was thankful to my sister for.

She had told me to fix my bedhead ahead of time.

There was no helping it. It wasn’t like I could send them away.

At any rate, I took them to the living room and had them sit around the low table. Chitanda and Ōhinata sat on the sofa while Satoshi and Ibara sat on floor cushions.

Satoshi wore a polo shirt and cargo pants. Ibara wore a gray parka and shorts. Chitanda had on a knitted peach-colored sweater and a skirt that reached below her knees. Ōhinata wore a graphic tee and jeans. Staring at this unfamiliarly dressed ensemble around me, I started to grumble.

“Gentlemen, what on earth is this goose before me?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Even as Ibara sat with such well-mannered form, her speech remained unsurprisingly foul. Neglecting Ōhinata as she responded with, “Oh, that’s Sakutarō,” Satoshi started to laugh.

“Are you perhaps wondering what foul wind could have possibly blown us your way?”

I nodded wordlessly.

There was no doubt that they came to celebrate my birthday. After all, Ōhinata was carrying a box tied with a ribbon and featuring the logo of a cake shop that even I knew on the side. So I couldn’t exactly ask them why they had come.

The thing was, however, that Satoshi and I had known each other for 3 years now and not once had we celebrated each other’s birthday. Even had he decided to do this as some kind of joke, there’s no way he’d think to bring the rest of the Classics Club. We just weren’t that kind of group.

Sure we had come together once, purely on a collective whim, to write the anthology. But we weren’t so close as to randomly hang out at someone’s house to kill time. That’s what I had thought, and I was pretty sure the other members felt the same way. As if to suddenly close that distance, something perplexing ended up happening.

“I thought that we’d be a bother if we came so suddenly, but…”

Chitanda’s words were full of consideration. I wasn’t really bothered, but rather…

“I was surprised.”

“I figured you’d be.”

Satoshi shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m equally as surprised. Talking about it is one thing, but I never imagined this would actually happen in reality.”

There were two things I wanted to ask.

“How did you guys know about today, and whose idea was it to come here?”

“Well, it’s a long story…”

Chitanda tilted her head as if trying to decide where to start.

“When Ōhinata asked us if we had ever done something like a party with the entire club, I told her about the culture festival after-party, but then she asked me if we had done anything aside from that, and I told her that I couldn’t think of anything else really, so she…”

It did look like it was shaping up to be a long story. At that moment, however, Ibara cut in and swiftly said, “When I mentioned that your birthday was coming up, Ōhinata said that we should throw you a birthday party.”

“You knew when my birthday was?”

“Only that it was in April. That’s the kind of thing you’d normally remember about someone in your class.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“That’s because you’re an inconsiderate human being.”

Thinking about it, Ibara has had plenty of chances to learn my birthday up until now. We had been in the same class all throughout elementary and middle school, and especially in elementary school, they often had those “Who has a birthday this month?” posters. If she had remembered my birthday was in April, it’d be easy for her to check the old class anthologies to find my actual birthday.

Without the motive, however, she wouldn’t have done it. In other words, the culprit was Ōhinata.

“So you were the one that came up with it, huh?”

I stared holes into Ōhinata. Her eyes were darting around the living room, but when they finally met mine, she smiled without a hint of trepidation.

“Friends need to be celebrated.”

That motto’s correctness aside, there were ways to celebrate that involved being alone and undisturbed.

“And there’s no one that could be in a bad mood after having been celebrated.”

There wasn't a trace of self-doubt in her. And having said that, she planned on making me one of those happy individuals. Yay.

Unfortunately for her however, not a single person had said “Happy Birthday” to me yet.

“That aside, I’m surprised everyone is actually here.”

No matter how hard Ōhinata might’ve tried to push the idea of having a party, it was almost unbelievable that everyone had gone along with it. Chitanda might have simply wanted to make the new recruit happy, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine a scenario in which Ibara agreed. As if hearing what I was thinking, the girl in question spoke bluntly.

“I'm going to be watching a movie in the evening, so this is just to kill some time before then. Two hours is all I’ll spare for your celebration.”

Are you a mind-reader?

“We bought drinks so go get some cups.”

You should have bought paper cups too then… I saw Satoshi had brought a paper bag full of snacks. Instead of eating them from the bag, it was probably best if I brought out a tray to stick them on. If I remembered correctly, the wooden tray was in the cupboard. Also, if there was a cake in Ōhinata’s box, then I should pull out a knife and some plates for later. I wonder if we had enough plates to go around. Of course we’ll need spoons as well. Having forks might also not be a bad idea.

As I stood up from my chair and went to the kitchen to search for this and that, a doubt suddenly crossed my mind.

If this was a birthday celebration, then I had the main role.

And yet, why was I the only one up and moving around?

When I had brought the utensils and dishes back to the living room, I noticed that the ashtray, the book I had finished reading, and the television remote had all been cleaned up and placed on top of the sideboard. Only the lucky cat had remained—still enshrined in its corner of the table—continuing to expose its unlovable grin.

The snacks that Satoshi had bought turned out to be some fairly fashionable biscuit cookies. Chitanda had mentioned, “They look like they’d be good with jam,” so I also prepared a smaller plate in addition to the larger one for the snacks and brought out some summer mandarin jam from the refrigerator. Upon seeing the jar, Ōhinata exclaimed with joy.

“Oh! That’s ‘MilleFleur’ jam isn’t it!”

Looking at the label, I could see the word “MilleFleur” written on it. Had I not heard the correct way to say it, I probably would have pronounced it something like “Mile Flew.” Making sure I didn’t reveal this thought of mine, I responded, “Yeah,” with my chest puffed out.

“To think you would pull out something like ‘MilleFleur’ so casually, what a classy upperclassman you are, jeez.”

This smiling Ōhinata was a good, honest girl, but there also happened to be a not-so-honest girl in the vicinity. Clearly suspicious, Ibara started to question me.

“Do you even know what that is?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Then why were you acting like it?!”

“I wanted to look cool. My bad.”

I apologized and asked Ōhinata from the start.

“What is it?”

After learning the truth about my childish vanity, Ōhinata looked at me with unbelievably cold eyes, but she recovered quickly enough and picked up the jar of jam.

“It’s a jam specialty shop. It’s really well-known. I once bought one myself a while back, and, as expected, the taste befits its high price.”

“So it’s expensive, huh?”

I muttered without thinking as I looked at the jar.

“Well, not really. Expensive as jams go, at least.”

I couldn’t imagine this tanned, lightly-dressed Ōhinata doing something like going to a specialty shop to buy jam. I know it’s bad of me to judge a book by its cover, but still…

“I wonder if it’s a bit of a waste to eat good jam like this with simple biscuit cookies.”

As Satoshi voiced his concerns, however, Chitanda responded with a small smile.

“It should be fine, right?”

And with that, it became fine.

Ōhinata mentioned that she had brought a lighter, so I could only assume it was to be used in lighting birthday candles for the cake. The preparations were ready, but cake would probably happen a little later on.

The drink that Ibara had prepared was carbonated white peach juice that not only resembled champagne, but came in a similar bottle as well.

“Now come on Hōtarō, certainly you have something a little more sophisticated.”

Spurred into the kitchen once more by Satoshi’s comment, I pulled out several unused glasses intended for guest-use that hadn’t even been taken out of the box they initially came in. They were short and had no stem. The design etched into it shined as if it were crystal.

“What were these called again?”

Ibara asked this while tilting her head.

“It’s a cup,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening, as per usual.

“It’s not a tumbler glass, nor is it a goblet…”

“Is it a Kiriko glass?”

Ōhinata had proposed this, but it appeared like it wasn’t the case.

“That’s just a decorative variety. No, that’s not it, what was this shape of glass called again?”

“It said whiskey glass on the box.”

A slight show of vexation appeared on Ibara’s face.

I had personally thought that glasses with long stems would be more fitting, but it couldn’t be helped that there weren’t any in the house. There actually might’ve been some around, but if that was the case, I didn’t know where they were. To make matters worse, I could only find four whisky glasses, which meant…

“Wait, is Oreki-san the only person with a normal cup?”

…something like that ended up happening. No matter how you looked at it, this was a terrible way to treat today’s main character.

As the juice was passed around, Ōhinata spoke.

“Well then, someone should propose a toast.”

Satoshi and Ibara exchanged looks with each other and then looked over towards Chitanda, almost as if they had planned to do so ahead of time. Perhaps aware that she would be the one chosen, Chitanda picked up the glass without looking like she intended on refusing.

Wearing an ambiguous smile that suggested she had no idea how to go about this, Chitanda began her speech.

“Umm, today is Oreki-san’s birthday, so let’s celebrate it. I wish I could’ve given you a present, but because this was on such short notice, I have to apologize for not being able to bring one.”

“Your presence is present enough.”

The one who interjected with this statement wasn’t me. It was Satoshi. Having him fabricate people’s feeling for them was troubling.

“Hearing that makes me feel better.”

And having her feel better after hearing that fabrication was troubling as well.

“Out of all of us, you were the quickest to turn 17. So, umm… congratulations. Cheers.”

We held up the four whiskey glasses and one cup and lightly tapped them together. Although the birthday was supposedly being thrown for my sake, Ōhinata seemed to be the one who was exceptionally happy.

It was at this point that one of my worries had disappeared.

It wasn’t like I had specifically wanted to be told congratulations or anything, but rather, I was anxious that they might have only planned on eating and drinking, returning home immediately after. Now that they had completed the toast, I had been properly congratulated after all.

However, there was one other thing that I couldn’t say didn’t bug me.

It was the lucky cat.

Why was it still on the table? While I was getting the plates and silverware, they had cleaned up the table for me. They had put everything that was on it onto the nearby sideboard. And yet, only the lucky cat had remained.

I wonder if it was a coincidence. No, out of everything on the table, that was easily the thing most likely to get in the way. Even though they were planning on spreading the food around the table, they had to do so now while specifically avoiding the lucky cat in their way. Perhaps someone had been poking around at it to figure out why it had been sitting there?

I had already made a mistake. To think I had so thoughtlessly brought out this amazing summer mandarin jam without knowing just how truly impressive it actually was. Fortunately the conversation veered away from that at least.

I'd have to be careful from now on.

Satoshi’s biscuit cookies were just the slightest bit salty, and as a result, the jam worked really well with it. I’d always thought that I preferred sweet things, but the tartness of the summer mandarin jam proved to be quite refreshing; it was—how should I put this—something like comparing the épée to the foil.

“Fukube-senpai, you’ve come here to hang out before, right?”

As Ōhinata asked this, Satoshi turned to me.

“I don’t think so.”

“Nope.”

“I’ve been nearby before, but it was just us meeting up at some park in the area. I think I was borrowing something from him.”

I twisted my head. Just like he said, I had made Satoshi wait in a nearby park a while back while I went there from my house. However…

“Are you sure? I have a vague recollection that you were actually returning something.”

It had only been two years or so, and already I couldn’t remember it very well. Of course this vague memory wasn’t going to prove very trustworthy, but I couldn’t sit still while our views were diverging. Agreeing with that, Ōhinata then said, “Perhaps you came two times, once to borrow something and then once to return it.”

Of course, what a reasonable idea.

“Except you never once went all the way to his house, right?”

“I don’t think going to his house would impact our being able to do what we needed to do.”

Ōhinata muttered a dubious sound and brought the whiskey glass to her lips.

“That’s pretty straightforward of you. If it were me, I’d say something like ‘I’d only be a nuisance,’ but I guess it’s because you’re guys.”

Satoshi tilted his head.

“I wonder if that’s the case. I’m the type that keeps light acquaintance and is satisfied by that, so those kinds of general conceptions might not apply to me."

“Which kinds?”

“Every kind.”

I could agree with that.

“I see, I guess people like that exist.”

Ōhinata was deep in thought. Speaking as a guy, I personally didn’t think that Satoshi and I preferred ‘light acquaintance’ to any special degree. It was probably normal. If I had to name it, although Ōhinata was particularly tomboyish, it’s possible that there really weren’t any guys that could talk about these kinds of things easily.

Translator's Notes and References

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