Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko:Volume2 Chapter8

Chapter 8 — The E.T's Workplace

Why? For what reason? I questioned the ridiculous arrangement of a certain giant existence.

Did you just send me all your problems?

“Alright~ If you don't hurry up, the sun will make us old! Ugah~! I'm aging~! My skin is growing older every seven seconds~ It hurts! Sore! Muscles~!”

“Could you at least stop flailing around?”

While scolding the thirty-nine-plus-one years old person hugging my waist from behind, I tried speeding up according to her request: “Faster, faster, faster!”

My youth had burned and crashed; Meme-san's happiness point, however, looked like it was shooting toward the sky!

Why does it have to be her behind me all the time? Oba-chan's frequent visit is making me think that it's destiny — the unfortunate kind. My fate is being drained by something. I want to know what, not that it'd make a different.

Four days had passed since the beach-rocket event. It's the first of July — not having a schedule right after school could have been the cause of my downfall. Meme-san was waiting for me in front of the school.

“Hi~” She even waved once she saw me. If someone passing by asked me 'You into older ones?' I'm going to start, right then and there, my life as a hermit.

The black stray-dog roaming around the parking lot barked loudly at Meme-san from a distance. You sure are sharp. I complemented in my mind.

“...Why did you come here?”

I muttered quietly by the gate. I don't mind you popping out of nowhere, but at least know where to show up.

“Heheh.” She laughed mysterious for a bit, then raised her finger:

“Today is 'date with Oba-san' day!”

“Sounds like 'date with mom' day diluted 2000 times.”

I choked the bicycle grips and hoped to reach home earlier. Yet, she already circled behind the bike, moved the backpack and sat down on the rack.

“Alright, Oba-san is going to guide you hand-by-hand on how to be my hand.”

Hey, get you arms off me. Stop blowing into my ear. And don't change our position.

“Why is she the only one who's ever sat there...”

“With just three Happiness points, Meme-chan can pre-order the backseat.”

“I am seriously lost.” For me, it simply sounds like curse points.

Because of this, I was on a date with Oba-san after school.

The sun shone down, yet my heart was pitch black. Sure is amazing how it didn't pour. If it ever did, the umbrellas will be destroyed.

The destination: Tamura Shop. We were headed to peep on how Erio is doing:

“It's not fair that only Mako-kun can go in. I'm going to see Erio under the same condition too ~”

“Now that's bold, not trying to change your ways at all.”

Meme-san drags others down to make them see things the same way. But that's ok.

I noticed midway that the sun was shifting season: the light that weakened the moisture of rain heated the road and skin, creating a terrible dryness. The Sweat and lingering dampness — it was the season that people will fully realize how annoying perspiration really is.

My back, on which Meme-san squeezed tightly onto, naturally became the bed of heat and suffocation.

“…...”

So what happened?

No one told me the results of shooting those rockets at the beach. Meme-san, the space stalker/Maekawa-san fan, and even Tamura Obaa-san were there, but I still don't know what the rocket's explosion has cleared up.

Meme-san didn't look any different. She might take it for another meaning if I tell her; I cannot predict whether she will be pleased or not.

We arrived at the Tamura Shop. Backing up by kicking, I stopped in the front.

There wasn't a single rocket on our way here. Has it finished?

“Mako-kun is so cute; you're complaining, but still you hung out with me~”

“Am I to thank your happiness point for you being the only person to ever say that to me?”

Complaining as I did, when I turned her face was right there, and her embracing hands moved up. My heart sped up. Ok, I'm done. I'm a Obacon (snaps).

Letting Meme-san down first, I parked the bicycle. I left the backpack sitting in the basket after locking up and circled into the shop's entrance. Together, we stood by the bench and looked into the store.

“Mako-kun has been real friendly with Erio!” Meme-san, head peeking in, quietly asked.

“I don't think so.”

“When do you plan on becoming my honey?”

“When you're sourer.”

I pulled the properly-installed door open slightly to hear better.

In there, Touwa Erio held her fists tight, her voice trembling.

Amazingly, Tamura Obaa-san was in the store as well, perilously kneeling behind the register. From what I know, this was a first.

Meme-san stared at Obaa-san; she drew a sharp breath. She almost choked on her tongue.

Then she exhaled. Hah… Hah… Something buried under her heart followed her shaking breath.

I looked away from Meme-san's face and back into the store. I wonder: was she crying?

In a store with no customers played the voice lesson guided by Tamura Obaa-san.

“Wel...come...” The interior sucked Erio's tiny voice away.

“Unacceptable. One more time.” Tamura Obaa-san pointed out just where she was dissatisfied with and urged her to restart.

“Wel! ...come…” Erio burst and fell into pieces.

“That's not how people talk. Again.”

“Welcome...” As if poked with a needle, the end of her sentence deflated weakly.

“Ugh… Put more energy into it! Again!”

“Welcome…!”

Tamura Obaa-san finally pinpointed something abstract. She's still louder though.

Regardless, Erio was able to speak loudly in front of others now. On the path back to society, she took a firm step on the smooth road. Even though she needed a thousand steps just to stand back up; even though her speed is so slow it's hard to point out any progress, witnessing her growth was, because of so, so much more satisfying.

Erio's road back to society has just begun. Can this E.T successfully adapt to Earth?

“Listen well, Erio: if you can greet without any coma or period, I will give you double the salary.”

“Mm, I'll try. W...Welcome!”

“And before my throat dies.”

I sensed Tamura Obaa-san's shift in focus to solve the problem. So something did change on that beach? Perhaps that's why Meme-san was running around everywhere.

As I stared at Erio and Tamura Obaa-san, Oba-san silently hugged me from the side. Arms circling my left arm, she pressed onto me.

A-again… I almost froze. Upon sensing the air, however, I changed my attitude.

It was neither an embrace, nor an act of grovel — she merely leaned for support. Her face buried deep into my armpit, and her hair hung low with gravity; heels down from toes, she stood firm on the floor.

When Meme-san hid her face, her wrinkles, her everything. When she did all that, she looked just like a young girl.

“Happiness is the best!”

As though with teeth clamped, she uttered choppily.

The voice of a girl on her way back to a smooth, normal life echoed from the store, drowning those words. Following it was the sound of an old lady whose wrinkles were not wrinkling.

There seemed to be a cicada starting to cry on a tree far away.

Noises that were the breath of this town resonated, rippling continuously in my mind.

I thought I was restless; in fact, I felt goosebumps.

A feeling that was about to burst from the ground assaulted me.

As if to witness how the sensation was going to fly, I looked into the sky. From the crack on the ceiling, I saw the blue sky in which nothing flew by.

Cumulonimbus clouds stretched from faraway, waiting to devour the sun.

Since it was Meme-san to my side, my youth won't be lighted.

However.

Nonetheless.

“Yeah.” I muttered back.

How surprising.

I have come to accept this not-so-buggy fact.

The human will live on in this town of the aliens.

He will never find a UFO, and will keep looking at the sky.

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