All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 20

I’ve once again found myself escorting Minami to her residence, walking through streets only lit by yellow streetlamps, the cold air held at bay merely by the warm grasp of her hand on mine.

And I’m so euphoric at it, at our parting kiss, that her warmth remains on me until I enter my own home, my head swimming in images of a bashful, not quite irate redhead every step of the way.

Which may explain my utter lack of defenses in entering my living room without taking any kind of precaution just to find my sister glaring at me while sipping a cup of tea and sitting at the small, extendable table set to hopefully entertain guests by parents who never quite understood what kind of children they had unwittingly brought into an unsuspecting world.

“So. You had fun,” she accuses.

And I feel the blood drain from my face.

“I… thought you weren’t home?” I ask with what one may mistake for hope, yet it is no more than the frail shield of self-delusion.

“… Do you even realize just how long you two were loudly going at it?”

This can’t be happening.

‘I agree. This is merely a nightmare conjured by the darkest corners of your mind, likely the same ones that hold prisoner Inner Yukinoshita. And thus, as it is a nightmare, my presence isn’t required. Good luck!’

Inner Hachiman! You bastard!

‘Praise me more.’

“I… Sister, I never intended for you to—”

“Yeah, no shit. I left as soon as I heard your fuckbuddy keening like a pig being spit—”

“She’s my girlfriend!”

“Of course she is, and congrats on that and losing the damn V card, but we need to implement some kind of sock protocol, because I don’t want to come back to that anytime soon. Seriously, either she’s extraordinarily vocal, or your years of image training have really paid off.”

“I… don’t feel comfortable talking about—” I start to say as I subtly retreat to my quarters.

“Tough shit. I’m scarred for life, and so will you,” she ominously states with a glare that goes from me to the chair on the other side of the small, square wooden table.

Our living room is furnished with plenty of things in soft tones. The exposed wood is pine, I think, but one treated so as not to yellow and give off an almost creamy—

“Sit. Down,” she orders.

Damn it.

With the resigned sigh of little brothers everywhere, I pull out the chair in front of her.

She glares.

I sit.

Damn it.

“So… What was it that you wanted to talk about?” I say, valorously plunging ahead into the unknown.

Like a moron.

“I take it you found the answer to your question?” she asks me in turn after a slight pause that has her deposit the teacup on its saucer with a barely audible clicking sound.

“My… Ah. Yes. Yes, I did,” I answer, looking at her with a rueful smile, remembering our conversation the day before yesterday, when she… helped me set my course.

She stares back at me, her face empty of emotion for a moment before she takes off her glasses and folds them before carefully depositing them beside her tea.

And then she stands up.

Uh…

“Sister?” I ask, trying to hide my wariness.

“Shut up. Don’t ruin this for me,” she answers with far too familiar words.

And then, very unfamiliarly, she rushes to my side of the table and hugs me tightly as she violently ruffles my hair.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

“You did it! You grew a pair, chased her, and got the girl! You did it, Yoshi!” she says in an almost watery, and very loud, voice.

“I—I don’t—what the Hell’s—”

“Shut up! Shut up and let me be proud and happy for you before you ruin it all with your dumb mouth!”

“Sister!” I protest.

“Yoshi!” she answers, apparently happier than I’ve ever seen her.

…

Fine, I shall allow it.

‘As if you had any say on this whole thing.’

Shut up, coward.

***

After enduring my sister’s effusive affection for a stretch of time that pays heed to her earlier admonition about scarring me for life, I’m allowed to flee to my room as she enters the kitchen, to, and I quote, “Cook a feast worthy of the occasion.”

I’ve never seen her cook. Anything.

…

I’m scared.

‘I think you broke her brain.’

I don’t even know if that makes her more dangerous or less so.

‘Yeah, me either. Now, stop stalling.’

… Yeah, I guess I should do that.

Because there was a reason I was in such a hurry to get back after escorting Minami, and that was… to fulfill her wishes.

To ‘win this.’

No, ‘to crush them all.’

… Must she always be so warlike?

‘Of course she does. And you’d freak out if she wasn’t.’

Mayhaps. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy her bouts of mellow affection—ah! No daydreaming! I have a novel to write!

‘Yup. So, birds. What’s it about?’

I have no fucking clue.

‘Of course you don’t. Now, focus.’

That’s easier said than done.

Because I’m sitting at my desk, my laptop opened in front of me, the word processor’s white page glaringly blinking in its terrible void, and I just don’t know where to start.

So I lean back on my swiveling chair, the very one where mere hours ago Minami decided to give me her own special reward, and I can’t help but miss her, to wish she were here so I could bounce ideas off her. I could tell her more about the world, about the hidden, underground cult to the ancestor raptors whose remains are naught but stone, about the magic wielded by a main character who learned about falconry only to find himself understanding his new companions in ways both instinctive and intrusive. I could tell her about hidden plots, about conspiracies, about daring escapes.

I could.

I could even call her just to do so.

I won’t.

Because… I have a world. I have characters.

What I don’t have… is a story.

I push myself back and forth with my feet firmly planted on the floor, the sliding of the chair’s little wheels something akin enough to a rocking chair as to be almost relaxing.

It isn’t. It’s just a nervous habit, something I came up with long ago in the deluded belief that it would count as exercising while idly sitting in front of my computer, and something that I often go back to when I feel particularly restless. It’s useless. A waste.

Like this whole—

‘Don’t. You promised her.’

I… actually didn’t.

‘Not with words. But you can’t tell me today wasn’t a promise far more solid than anything you could have told her.’

…

I sigh.

I wish I was writing with pen and paper, because this would be the perfect time to twirl my writing implement between quick fingers.

Except I never learned to do that, and the pen always flies off, so… Yeah. I’ll just keep ‘exercising’ with my chair.

And thinking about what I lack.

***

This is ridiculous.

It’s an interesting setting. The aesthetics write themselves, and just a quick search on Google gives me plenty of ideas for characters varied and unique enough to give Fate a run for its (vast amounts of) money. This should write itself.

And… maybe it would.

It would if I was satisfied with writing some inconsequential adventure, a mere vehicle to showcase the unique parts of this world and its characters. It would be simple, straightforward, easy.

But… would it be mine?

Because that’s the actual problem, isn’t it? I can write trite, formulaic prose without any issue. I can make this something that’s at least on par with any other trashy light novel. I know enough about the genre to unconsciously replicate the beats, to organically introduce the harem cast while displaying the charm points of each of them, to introduce a vast plot that is no more than smoke and mirrors to be hopefully developed at a later time.

I can… produce something.

It just would be… A copy. A derivative thing that…

‘Nothing’s truly original. Not like that. Everything’s based on something that’s already been written millennia ago. Heck, take Fate itself and how it’s based on myths—’

I know!

‘Of course you do: I am you.’

And thou art I. I’m not in the mood for Persona—

‘Blasphemy!’

… You’re infuriating.

I stand up and start pacing around the room. Maybe I could pick up my weights and do a couple of sets, just… just to focus on something else, something that doesn’t have my shoulders screaming at me in bloody murder with each new second of renewed tension.

I could…

With a rueful smile, I get into a boxing stance I only know through reading manga and throw a few light jabs at the air. I always wanted to have a punching bag in my room, but mom said it would be just a waste of space. I suspect she just didn’t want to listen to me screaming in pain whenever I hit it too hard.

Not an unreasonable approach to parenting, truth be told…

But… It sure feels like it would help relieve some of this awful pain at the moment, and I don’t even know what to do about this. I could imagine a shadowy enemy (that is what shadowboxing actually entails, isn’t it?), but I…

I drop out of my stance and pick up my weights.

I wrapped the handles in tennis tape when I noticed I was getting the start of some callouses on my fingers, so it’s easy to grip them, and I start doing alternating bicep curls, slowly pumping my arms up and down. I’m not quite proud of my strength because this was meant to help me lose weight rather than bulk up, but I can’t help a small grin whenever I remember just how easily I can pick up Minami’s light weight and—

And I promised.

So I carefully set the weights down and go back to my desk.

And stare at the blank page on my computer screen.

It glares back at me.

…

I still don’t know what to write.

Because… a story is not just a string of events. It’s not about things happening. A story is about an idea taking a life of its own, being displayed through action and reaction, through characters who embody parts of it interacting with one another to make up the greater whole of it. A story is about… something.

At its core, in the most simple of terms, a story is about something.

Love, revenge, justice, hope, heroism… Any of them, on their own or combined, make up the greatest stories. So what is the something I can tell the whole world about, the one thing that matters enough to Yoshiteru Zaimokuza that he will claim as his, that he will proclaimas his?

What can I tell to the world that is mine?

My phone chimes, and, in my state of agitation, I almost send it to the ground when I try to pick it up.

‘You can do it, Yoshiteru,’ Minami says from the other end of the screen.

And I smile.

And start writing.

***

It all begins with a call. Not with an awkward, distant request in the school halls in front of mocking faces, not with anxiously pacing back and forth in my room, not with hesitating about asking my sister for advice.

No. It starts with a call. A call to my best friend.

He’s caustic and caring in that unique way he has of being both at once, and he gives me some sincere advice, and through it, I manage to offer a beautiful girl a date she enjoys despite herself.

Through the same advice, I manage to reject her when she crosses a line I feel she shouldn’t have crossed.

And then she pursues me.

And that’s when my sister calls me down to have dinner.

“Red. Rice,” I tell her in my best deadpan as I stare at our two bowls filled with the traditional dish to celebrate momentous occasions she has set on a festively festooned dining table.

There are balloons. And streamers.

There’s not a big banner proclaiming the reason for such decorations, but I’m pretty sure that’s only because of the lack of time to set one up.

“Yoshi, you just lost your virginity, and I’ll be damned if you don’t celebrate properly.”

“I really, reallyhope you didn’t prepare the same thing for mom and dad,” I tell her, already thinking about how long it will take me to clean the whole thing up and whether or not any of my parents will get back before I’m done.

I should eat in a hurry.

“Of course not. I’m saving this for when we all have a meal together,” she says something horrifying with utter cheer and careless disregard for my wishes.

Ah. So she’s still her, despite her earlier show of affection. Thank the Heavens, I was worried for a while.

… Wait, what?

“Anyway! Enjoy, it’s not that often that one loses his virginity!” she tells me, excitedly gesturing for me to sit down and eat her offerings.

“I would think ‘once’ is the upper limit on such an occurrence?” I can’t help but inquire as I pull out the chair before sitting down across from her.

“Ah! To be so young and naïve once again…” she lets out in (what I hope is) an affected sigh.

“I refuse to inquire for further elaboration.”

“They grow up so fast.”

“You’re mortifying.”

“And so bold!”

With my own affected sigh, I lift my glasses up and rub the bridge of my nose slowly and deliberately enough I can feel a modicum of relief.

“By the way,” she sweetly says just as the pound on my temples lessens, “you wouldn’t happen to know who this Shigeru who’s been blowing up my phone may be, right?”

…

‘Dude, you’re on your own.’

I despise you.

***

The red rice is surprisingly tasty, and Sister’s comments about Shigeru’s insistent approach to romantic conquest not that hair-whitening, so the dinner is, overall, an enjoyable experience.

Though, as soon as I feel it polite to, I rush to take down the decorations and—

“You in any hurry?” she asks, an elegant eyebrow poised above the black rim of her glasses, a steaming cup of green tea garnished with a mint sprig in her hands.

“Ah… Minami… my girlfriendwants me to enter a writing contest.”

Sister stops, the tea midway to her lips, and she then slowly looks up at me.

“She has read anythingyou’ve written?”

“Yes?”

“And still had sex with you?”

“Yes…”

“Is she a masochist?”

I glare at her.

“OK, OK, no need to get all macho defensive about it, I just—wait. What did she read?”

I pause, something tight on my chest not wanting me to speak my next words.

“The compass story…” I finally murmur.

Deliberately, Sister sets her teacup down on the white tablecloth and stands up, her chair not even a whisper over the floor.

Then she walks and stands in front of me, one warm hand on my right shoulder, another on my chin, gently forcing me to look straight at her as colorful streamers hang from my suddenly limp grasp.

And she just stares, her dark eyes on mine for far longer than they have been in recent memory.

And then… she hugs me.

Not boisterously, not in a joking manner like she did earlier, just… something soft and warm that brings back memories from too many years ago, when we weren’t that set on whatever it is that our current relationship is. She just surrounds me with slender arms and pulls me to her, a dexterous hand traveling up the back of my head to cradle me above her shoulder.

Her breathing deepens, slows down.

And then, in a frail voice I rarely hear from her, she whispers in my ear:

“Go write. I’ll take care of this.”

***

It continued with friendship. That very same friend berating me for not taking a chance just because I was too mindful of him, but how could I ever not be, after what he had always unwittingly meant to me, after he had… saved me?

Because I had always been alone. Alone in ways hard to express, hard to understand, in ways that will show through the text as I go over it, hidden in farce, and jokes, and sarcasm until I’m ready to face it, and…

“Zaimokuza? May I see what it is that has you so enthralled and isn’t, at all, what I just wrote on the blackboard?” Miss Hiratsuka asks.

And cold sweat flows down my back as the fierce, likely yakuza, Christmas Cake member of Hachiman’s Battle Harem imperiously strides toward me.

And she takes the pages of my manuscript from limp fingers, likely expecting me to have been writing yet another piece of trite—

She’s smiling.

She just stands there, in the middle of her Japanese class, reading my pages, and smiling.

And my heart beats.

Not at the gentle, beautiful quirk of her lips, or the softening of far too often harsh eyes, but... at the fact she’s smiling at something I’ve written.

I could get used to this—no, that is a lie. I’ll never get used to this, no matter how long I live and how much I write over said life.

Especially when she finishes and looks brightly at me before patting my head as she sets down the pages on my desk.

“Don’t let the other teachers catch you,” she says as she turns around and goes back to teaching her class.

***

It continues when she chases me.

“Can’t you tell me anything about it?” Minami insists, her arms crossed over her lunchbox and below her bust.

“I… I would love to, but… It’s just this time. I promise the next thing I write, I’ll share with you through the process, but this time around… I just want you to read it when it’s over. Please?” I ask her with enough hope and appeasement in my tone she can’t help but be mollified by it.

‘You… sure turned out to be an optimist, didn’t you?’

I’m actually attempting to bend the rules of the known universe through the power of faith, so don’t distract me from my poor attempts at self-hypnosis.

“Fine…” she grumbles out, documenting for the first time in my life the success of one of my attempts at managing the arcane mysteries I’ve so often read about.

‘Quick! Buy lotto tickets!’

“But!” she interjects. “As soon as you’re finished, you’re calling me over. No one reads it before me!”

I smile, and nod, and assure her that I’ll do just as she asks.

She still glares at me, her arms imperiously crossed, and her head tilted to the side and backward.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Yet again, it continues with friendship.

“So, you are really writing a novel? A new one?” Saika curiously asks.

“Of course he is. If he didn’t desist after Yukino, nothing will stop the chuuni. Not even good sense—especially not good sense,” Hachiman acerbically interjects.

And Saika and I stare at him.

“… What?” my kinsman has the gall to ask.

“‘Yukino?’ Not Yukinoshita? Just her first name?” I point out.

And Hachiman reddens.

Which turns into about two hours of Saika and I mercilessly teasing the truth out of him to the frequent, delighted gasps of my gentle friend and the wails of vitriolic despair from my prickly friend.

Thankfully, that means they both forget to ask me about my novel.

I mean, seeing the state Hachiman’s currently in, I’d rather not share his oversharing fate.

Even if Saika is consolingly patting his head.

… Maybe particularlybecause Saika’s patting his head. I would rather not experience Minami’s justifiedjealousy.

***

It crests with discovery and sharing.

“I am nottelling you what she and I talked about,” the Lady Saotome’s voice harshly rebukes me from across the café table before she dismissively sniffs and raises her cup of hot chocolate to take a long sip of it, glaring at me all the while.

… I can see the family resemblance.

‘They are friends, not sisters.’

Sure. And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you on—

‘For the last time! They aren’t in a forbidden, yuri-yuri romance! They are just… whatever the Hell they currently are!’

Not even you can dissuade a man from his romance, Inner Hachiman.

‘She’s your girlfriend! You’re fantasizing about being netorared!’

I do believe the proper term is ‘netorase’…

“Well?” Saotome asks.

… I still have a hard time not superimposing red hair and a pigtail on her.

‘Stop turning her into doujin fodder! She’s the closest thing you have to a sister-in-law!’

Aha! I knew you also thought they were sisters!

‘… Fuck you.’

“Zaimokuza, I’m about to finish my chocolate, so you have precious little time to convince me.”

“I’ll buy you another,” I immediately reply, far too used to Minami’s customs to be fazed by such an obvious opening.

“… You have slightlymore time to convince me,” she reluctantly answers.

And I very carefully do not smirk.

And proceed to convince her.

I tell her of the task Minami set me on, the quest I have accepted, and about how I’ve decided to pursue it to the end.

She looks at me skeptically until I produce the few sheets of paper I’ve thoroughly edited over and over again.

They speak of a girl and an earring.

She takes them, still reluctantly, even as the waitress comes by with her second cup of hot chocolate.

And she reads.

And the chocolate cools.

Three times. She reads this one chapter three times, and, at the end of it, she angrily wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her uniform.

“Fine,” she pretends to grumble with a frail voice. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

And I pretend to gracefully and eagerly accept, all the while suppressing the urge to hug the strong, frail woman in front of me.

***

It… finishes.

With love.

With acceptance, with understanding, with something precious I’ll never be able to fully capture with mere words, not when a single one of her gestures, her looks, can be so eloquent, so devastatingly… her.

I’ll never be able to put Minami on a book and have it do her justice, not when she always strives to jump out of the page and throttle me for daring to attempt such an impudent, sacrilegious act.

But if even a shade of her, a mere sliver, manages to slip through the words… If I can grant even a fading glimpse of her to the reader…

It will be worth it.

All of it will be worth it.

But, to do that, I need to tell them about me. About the chuuni writer, the lonely boy, the weird… the weird everything. I need to tell them about who I was and who I became, because that’s part of the story, the story about how Minami changed me.

Because stories are about something, and this one…

This one is about love.

And it’s finished.

So, staring at the blinking cursor after the words have stopped flowing, I do the only thing I can do.

I pick up the phone, and call her number.

“I… Minami, it is done,” I blurt out before she can even greet me.

She squeals, swears she’s rushing out to my house, to read it with me, in front of me, and I can hear her rustling clothes, her door slamming shut, and Shigeru swearing in the background.

And I smile, close my eyes, and listen to her voice.