Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 11 - Chapter 6.1

Chapter 6:

Summer18

IN THE MIRROR, high school Shima-chan looked the same as ever:

“Sleepy.” 

My eyes were so droopy, it was hard to tell if they were open at all. Perhaps I was meant to feel shame that I presented myself to the world like this on a regular basis. Did Adachi ever judge me for it? 

She never lashed out at me; she only ever touched me with trepidation. Well, except for whenever the trepidation meter maxed out—then she’d explode and tackle me. And she was bigger than me, so I had to brace myself if I wanted to catch her. Was I really that scary, though? Personally, I felt I was a lot friendlier than junior high Shima-chan ever was. Love’s just complicated, I guess. 

On a whim, my gaze drifted to the chirping of the cicadas that seemed to rise up from the back of my neck, as if on tiptoe, trying to peek over the wall. This was the final summer break of my high school career, and if I tried to count my remaining time on my fingers, I’d end up graduating before I was done. 

Funny—part of me thought that I’d be in high school forever, that these days would never end. This was a sentiment I’d never felt in junior high, and it was a weird misapprehension to have. Perhaps it was proof of just how fulfilled my life was these days.

“So maybe try to look like you’re having fun.” 

I squished my face all around and made myself laugh, then walked away from the bathroom sink. On my way back to my bedroom, my parched throat started to bother me, so I changed course to the kitchen instead—and just as I turned, a streak of light shot over the top of my head.

“I sense Shimamura-san’s presence.”

“The rest of me is here, too, you know.” 

I snatched the gremlin that had suddenly manifested on my head and lightly flung her into the air. When she turned and landed gracefully on her feet, I saw that she was dressed as a penguin. That was all well and good, but she was wearing a SHAVED ICE banner, like the kind a cafe would display out front, across her tummy.

“What’s with that?”

“Is it hoity-toity?” 

“Hmmm…” I prodded her stomach as she thrust it out proudly in my direction. “Fancy-schmancy.” I guess. 

“Yaaay!”

She seemed happy, so I let it go. Together, the fancy penguin and I headed for the kitchen. 

“It appears Mama-san is not here.”

“Yeah, she’s usually at the gym around this time.”

“Good to know,” Yashiro chuckled behind her beak. 

Tangentially related, I always felt like she peeked out from the wrong part of the animal’s face. It looked like she was being swallowed whole. Then again, I didn’t exactly have a better suggestion. For that matter, where did she keep getting these onesie pajamas, anyway? I realized recently that her choice of animals was a perfect match for the ones found in my sister’s encyclopedias, but beyond that, I couldn’t begin to fathom the inner workings of an alien mind. 

The instant I opened the fridge, the penguin zoomed up to take a look, and I had to physically stop her from getting in. Then my sister walked into the kitchen, her exposed skin now sun-kissed brown with little pale tan lines peeking out from under her sleeves.

“Well, if it isn’t Little!” The penguin turned and waddled over to greet her.

“Hi, Yachi. I see you’re…um…Happy Feet today.”

“Am I hoity-toity?”

“What’s that?”

“She doesn’t know! Ha ha ha!”

“Why do you gotta be rude about it?!” 

As my sister amused herself by tugging Yashiro’s cheeks in all directions, I poured myself some barley tea. Instead of heading back to my room, I sat down at the table and watched the kids at play. Then I got back to my feet, poured two more cups of tea, and handed them over. “Here.”

“Whoa. Nee-chan’s actually being considerate for once.”

“Get that nose out of the air.” I pinched (what I imagined to be) her haughtily raised nose and made her squeal.

“Much obliged,” the penguin replied as she took her cup. Her word choice was jarringly self-serious compared to the dopey grin on her face.

“You know, I’ve always wondered: where do you learn that stuff?” 

“From watching the television with Papa-san, of course.”

“Ugh, you watch too much TV…” 

These days I’d often spot her in the living room at night, sitting in front of the TV next to my father. Evidently he’d gotten used to having her around—so much so that whenever he brought home treats, he’d always have an extra for her. And just the other day he was happily telling me: “Apparently, she’s an alien! First one I’ve ever seen.” All I could say to that was “No kidding.”

Put nicely, the Shimamura family was open-minded; or, less charitably, none of us cared too much. And that included me.

“What do you wanna do today?”

“I humbly request a sweetie treatie.”

Based on her word choice, I could feel my mother’s influence at work.

“If you ask really nicely, Nee-chan, we could even let you join us.”

“Look here, kid, I’m in super study mode right now. I’ve got colleges to apply to.” 

No joke—I was genuinely taking this pretty seriously. After I started my third year of high school, I thought about it offhandedly and decided I’d pursue higher education. And when I asked my parents if they were cool with it, they said yes.

“Nee-chan, are you really going to…college?” my sister asked, staring at the floor.

“That’s the plan.” Assuming I get accepted.

“Ho ho… Harvard, perhaps?”

“You’ve heard of Harvard?”

“The birthplace of Harvardi cheese!”

“I think you mean Havarti…”

The penguin smiled wistfully, as if recalling the taste, so I decided to let her be. Meanwhile, my sister steered the conversation back on track: “Does that mean…you’re gonna move out?” 

It was the first piercing question she’d ever asked me. Her eyes wavered with uncertainty, reminiscent of the days she used to address me with actual respect. And here I thought she didn’t love me anymore… Well now. 

“No, I’m gonna enroll somewhere close to home.” If I tried to live on my own, I could already tell my life would fall apart, and who knows what would happen after that.

“Hmmm. Okay then.” She looked up at me with a feeble smile that suggested only half of her concerns had been allayed.

“Oh, I get it. You’re scared you’re gonna miss me!” I teased.

“Am not!” She kicked my shin under the table. 

“I know just what to do. I’ll relieve some of that loneliness with a nice massage!”

“Mmfffmmghh!” 

I pinched her cheeks and stretched them in all directions, just as she was doing to Yashiro earlier. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that we would eventually have to part ways someday, and then I started getting a little sentimental. 

Deep down, I was fond of living in this house. Now that I had survived the greater part of puberty, with junior high Shima-chan’s rebellious phase in the middle, I was ready to admit it. Perhaps that was why my mother never gave me a hard time aside from a little teasing now and then—because she could sense it, even though I never said it outright. She’s so flexible, it’s probably unhealthy.

“Oh?” Just then, Yashiro’s smile vanished, and she glanced over at the kitchen wall. “It appears your phone has beeped, Shimamura-san.”

“Wait, really?” If so, I didn’t hear it. But this alien could sense things on an entirely different level from the rest of us, so I decided to trust in her and go see. “Make sure your penguin stays out of the fridge,” I instructed my sister on the way out. Sure enough, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her physically restrain the penguin as she flailed desperately for freedom.

Life with a pet penguin… Fancy-schmancy indeed. 

I walked down the sticky-humid hallway and returned to my room. For a moment I stood there, trying to remember where I put my phone. Oh, that’s right; I had plugged it in to charge. I grabbed it where it lay.

“Huh, I do have a message. From Adachi.” 

Nice going, penguin. Not only could she hear distant phone sounds, she could also somehow detect whenever someone was arriving at the house. If I tried asking her about it, she would only laugh in response, so I’d given up and accepted it as a fact of life.

“Go ahead and call… Message sent… Aaand she’s calling.” 

Every time this happened, I always found myself thinking it’d be more efficient if I was the one who initiated the phone call—but part of me was opposed to prioritizing efficiency in this relationship. Not like she ever took efficiency into consideration. Besides, the only relationships she really had were with me and her mother… On second thought, maybe her mom doesn’t count. 

“Hell—”

“Hellooooo?” I cut in before Hell-Adachi could finish, then waited for her reaction.

“…Helloooo…”

“You know, I say this a lot, but I really like that about you.” 

Adorably pathetic, one might call it. Then again, pathetic was a little too harsh. After all, she was a lot stronger than I was—and in this case, by strong, I meant she fought to keep herself from devolving into weird giggles when she was flustered. On the other hand, if she ever completely stopped getting awkward around me, I’d probably start to miss it. Selfish, I know.

“So what’s up? Just wanna chat?”

“I do want to chat, so…”

“So?”

“Is it okay if I come over right now?”

“To my house? Sure, but it’s probably really hot in here.” 

The former storage-room-turned-study-room on the second floor did technically have an AC unit, but lately it was undeniably on its last legs. I could only survive the summer by using it in conjunction with an electric fan. So why would Adachi want to go out of her way to visit? 

To see me, duh, I realized, and quietly smiled like an idiot. 

“Well, I haven’t seen you at all lately…”

“Uh…y-you sure about that…?” I counted on my fingers to double-check. Yeah, it’s only been, like, three days. “Didn’t we just go on a date three days ago?” 

Our date destination: the mall. Seriously, there was virtually nowhere else we could go around here. Plus, the mall had basically everything we could ever want, so really, it was no surprise the parking lot was full every day.

“Yeah. Three whole days.” I could practically hear her pouting through the phone, and it made me chuckle.

“Three days of hell for you, huh?” Hell for Hell-Adachi, I joked to myself.

“Every second without you is the same as, like, a hundred years…or something. It’s a long time.”

“Oh, Adachi, you’re such a poet.” 

Every now and then, her love for me seemed so overblown, it made me question whether I truly deserved it. Nothing about it was a criticism of me, and yet…it was so grand in scale, it cast a shadow over me, and I was forced to take a harder look at myself. Suddenly it felt like torture to keep standing while on the phone, so I flopped down on the pile of folded-up blankets, using them as a cushion as I stared blankly up at the ceiling. 

“Oh, I know. We could—what if we…studied…together?” 

Classic Adachi, stumbling weakly over her words. “Sure, let’s have a study party.” It was something I’d never done before, and the prospect sounded exciting. Frankly, I rarely went to any sort of party. Last one was probably…something to do with Girl Scouts. “Okay, I’ll be here. Take your time and don’t rush, or you might hurt yourself.”

“Okaybye.” She answered so quickly, and ended the call so abruptly, I could tell she hadn’t listened to a word I said. 

For a moment I set my phone down and spread my arms out. But I could tell I was in danger of falling asleep if I kept lying there, so I swung myself into an upright position. In the past I would have closed my eyes and fed myself a line about how I needed to “think for a while,” so clearly some part of me was different now. 

Indeed, a lot had changed since I met Adachi. And when I summed it all up, it gave me the motivation I needed. She was my energy—and it was pretty amazing. Now that I understood what I had been living without all this time, I had a newfound respect for that little fireball.

But anyway, uh…not to ruin the whole “motivation” thing I was just talking about, but…a study party…at my house…with Adachi…

“Hmm.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, is it? 

I sat in front of the electric fan, watching a penguin float in midair right in front of me. It was a testament to summer’s devastation that I couldn’t even find the energy to be shocked. Though I will say, it was pretty surreal when she did it as a jellyfish. 

One time, when I asked her how she did it, she actually gave me an answer. To be totally honest, it was so complex, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. All I could recall was that she said she wasn’t technically floating, just…rewriting her positionals, or something to that effect. It made me think perhaps this alien was actually galaxy-brained and beneath her usual veneer of innocence was a cunning monster watching vigilantly for her opportunity to take over the world. So I brought her a bag of Sakuyama Chocojirou, and she ate them with the same old dopey smile. And that was the story of how I saved Planet Earth…maybe. But I digress.

I listened closely, hoping I could develop a special skill, too. But I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be sensing, so the most I could do was wiggle my ears. The longer I sat there in silence, the more I began to focus solely on my own slow heartbeat. 

Am I doing it right? Maybe I should think about Adachi a little more… 

As idle thoughts shook the darkness in my heart, the penguin gently landed next to me, then pointed a wing stiffly in the direction of the hall. “Adachi-san is approaching.”

“…Man, I couldn’t tell at all…” 

I really wanted to perceive her arrival like Yashiro could, but it just wasn’t possible. Maybe if she was out there singing as loud as the cicadas or something. Too bad it wasn’t a matter of simply sensing her love, because in that case, I could probably feel it from the dark side of the moon. No, yeah, definitely. 

That said, love didn’t have one specific feeling assigned to it, so what the heck was it, anyway? I wanted to figure out a non-scientific answer eventually. It certainly wasn’t going to happen if my only hope was some alien’s mystery organ. But I kinda suspected Adachi might just find it one day.

“You’ve got some weird talents for a kid who can’t even wash the dishes.”

“Ha ha ha! If you can’t feel it, then simply go and wait for her outside.”

“Mrgh… I can never tell if the things you say are deep or not. Now go find my sister.” 

I gave the penguin a little push from behind, and she ran off down the hallway. Why had this bizarre creature decided to live with a family that was mostly ordinary, save for my mother’s extreme open-mindedness? She could have chosen Hino’s house, where there was a big backyard and plenty of room for an alien or two. So why here? Was her beloved “destiny” involved? 

In pursuit of my own destiny, I headed for the front door. My old basketball was still sitting on the shelf like a decoration, gathering dust; I ran my hand over it, then put it back in the corner. Whenever I touched it, it felt like I was in junior high all over again.

Before she could ring the doorbell, I unlocked the door—and when I stepped outside, I was greeted by sunshine and the shadow of a bicycle. 

“…Shimamura?”

“Yup, that’s me. And you are Adachi Sakura.”

Adachi stared at me, eyes wide, as she stood beside her bike. Wow, she really is here, I thought, impressed by the alien’s superpower. 

“Wh…um…were you just waiting there the whole time…?” 

Her eyes sparkled hopefully, like two miniature suns. If the roles were reversed and I was going over to her house, she’d probably wait at her front door for me in the exact same way. Not that she ever invited me! I once jokingly hinted that I’d like to see her room, and in response, she shook her head vigorously. What exactly was she hiding in there? A Shimamura shrine she prayed to every night? 

“Well, I kinda sensed that…someone was telling me you were here.” I started to tell a lazy lie, then fumbled my way through it. Now I sounded like a crazy person…and yet Adachi’s face lit up with a beautiful smile. 

“That’s…kind of amazing!”

If we were in each other’s shoes, I’d ask if she was hallucinating. But evidently, she didn’t even consider the possibility.

“Ha ha ha!” 

It was too late to tell her I hadn’t actually sensed anything, so now I was starting to feel pretty guilty. Nevertheless, I grabbed her bookbag out of her bike basket and brought her into the house with me. There, I struck a cheerful pose.

“It’s me, high school Shima-chan!”

“Uhhhhhhhhh…what?” She gave it a moment of thought but ultimately didn’t get it. It was so funny to watch the question marks sprout up over her head. 

“I just felt like I needed to say it. And also this.”

I started to walk past her—to the closed front door. No clue where I thought I was going. But before I could pass her, she slid in front of me, blocking my path. No missed connection happening today, apparently. 

“And so our story began.”

The question marks filled her eyes next. “Sorry, Shimamura. I’m having trouble keeping up with you today.”

“That’s okay. Some days are like that.” And since she was usually the one operating at full throttle, I deserved a turn now and then. “Anyway, welcome! I’ll show you to the second floor, like always.”

“Thanks for having me… Oh, what about your mom?”

“She’s at the gym, so we don’t need to go say hi.” I glanced down at the porcelain skin peeking out from under her skirt, then headed up the stairs.