Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume13 Chapter1 1

Offer and Plot.Part 1.

"What? My archaic dictionary?"

She turned around, feeling his gaze.

"Ah, yeah … no."

His inarticulate response matched the tedious expression on his face.

"Which is it?"

"Yeah" and "No" were complete opposites, like plus and minus. Well, it could make sense if the "no" was a correction of the earlier "yeah." Realizing this, Yumi reached for the archaic dictionary that he'd removed from between the bookends on her desk, but contrary to her expectations, Yuuki said, "Thank-you," and turned around. So then where was he going with that "no" at the end of his sentence?

"Yuuki."

Yumi called out to the figure in the white athletic singlet that was walking away. Having just returned from summer camp, her younger brother's skin was bronzed like he'd been to the beach. Supposedly, the camp was to prepare for their school festival, but it looked as though he'd had plenty of time to run around.

"Was there anything else you wanted to borrow?"

"No."

Well geez. Here's another "no." But why was he acting so indecisive? So Yumi waited for what he was about to say next, and, after his eyes seemed to swim for a while he said:

"Um, can I turn down the temperature on the air-con?"

"No way."

Naturally, Yumi rejected this instantly.

"The room's too hot."

"It's perfect. It's not good for you to have the temperature too low."

Men are typically said to be more sensitive to heat, and this statistic applied exactly to the Fukuzawa household. Her father and Yuuki were both sensitive to the heat and suffered in summer. Her mother and Yumi were both sensitive to the cold, so winter was harsh for them.

"So being too hot's good for the body then?"

Not giving up, Yuuki grabbed the front of his athletic singlet and fanned himself with it.

"I didn't say that. But if you lowered the temperature, then I'd be cold."

"Couldn't you put something on?"

"This is my room. Why don't you take something off?"

"What else could I take off?"

"…"

Indeed.

Short running pants. He was already bordering on being an intrusion in a young lady's room. Well, since he was already wearing so little, taking something off probably wouldn't cool him down all that much.

"You could go back to your own room."

Yumi said, a bit cruelly.

"I'm not leaving. My room's unbelievably bad."

"A burning hell?"

"Yeah. I'd get heatstroke in 15 minutes."

So he meekly lowered his head, imploring her to let him stay. Yumi agreed, saying, "There there." Then, for her cute little brother's sake, she lowered the temperature on the air-con by one degree. A warrior's compassion.

Beep.

The truth was that the air-con in her brother's room was currently broken.

No-one knew how long it had been playing up. But apparently it had been making strange noises for a while now. Then, last night when he got back from camp and switched it on, it made a single loud noise and wouldn't start, no matter what he tried.

According to Yuuki, "That was probably the air-con's death rattle." But it wasn't necessarily dead yet. There was a chance it could be repaired.

They'd called an electrician to repair it, but he seemed quite busy and couldn't come until the day after tomorrow. So Yuuki had been borrowing a corner of Yumi's room since this morning, doing his summer homework. He could go to the library if he wanted somewhere more comfortable, but so far it hadn't come to that.

He apparently preferred the shame of intruding in his older sister's room to going out on his bicycle in this heat.

(Huh? But.)

After Yumi swung her chair back to her desk, she suddenly realized that it shouldn't have been that hard for him to ask her to lower the air-con temperature.

What just happened … right, it was like there was something he had to say, but he thought the time wasn't right, which was what the "no" was referring to.

Spin, spin, spin.

She thought as her chair swung.

She left it alone for a while, but it nagged at her, so she turned to her younger brother who was leafing through the dictionary at her low, glass-topped table and called to him.

" … Yuuki?"

Then Yuuki raised his head and said loudly:

"Say, Yumi!"

"Wh-what?"

They weren't bloodshot, but there was strength in his eyes. Seeing his resolve, Yumi immediately put herself on guard.

"Well."

"Y-yes?"

She didn't know what he was going to say, but she would listen with dignity and maturity. Their age difference may be less than a year, but that didn't change the fact that she was the older sister.

"Will the Lillian's student council help out at the Hanadera school festival again this year?"

" … That's all you wanted to ask?"

So apparently the school festival was the topic for the conversation. But she still couldn't see the root of the problem.

"The second semester's almost here and we haven't had a planning meeting yet."

"Oh, really?"

Yumi didn't really know the details, but Rei-sama was supposed to be their primary contact.

"And so, while we're just talking, would it be possible to have an introductory meeting beforehand … that sort of thing."

"Wha – !?"

Yumi's voice instinctively rose when she heard this unexpected request. Yuuki responded by hastily waving both his hands and saying:

"No, it's not like that. It's just that there are some things we have to prepare, and if we had the meeting a bit earlier than that would be a huge help to us … that's all I meant."

Mumbling unintelligibly.

"Frankly, to finalize our planning, we need to know how far the Lillian's assistants are prepared to go, you know … something like that."

"…"

She'd been listening silently, and Yuuki looked at her with upturned eyes and said, "So it's no good after all." So then, hmm, that was it then, he'd said it expecting to be turned down.

"Is that all?"

Yumi asked, arms folded.

"What do you mean, "Is that all?""

"You're not having any impure thoughts about it?"

"I-impure !? What's impure?"

This time his eyes looked down. Yumi stuck her index finger up and said:

"For example, say you wanted to kneel at the feet of the true princess Sachiko-sama. Or you wanted to get closer to the charming Shimako-san. Or perhaps you wanted to cross swords with the Takazura top-talent Rei-sama."

Yumi enthusiastically described the three beautiful Roses of Lillian's Girls Academy. But Yuuki suppressed a laugh, poking fun at his older sister's speech.

"Setting aside the first two, I wonder about that third one."

"Those are just examples. I told you that."

"Well, if it's an example."

With that confirmed, Yuuki's serious expression returned.

"I'm not going to say those sort of feelings don't exist. The Lillian's girls are an unknown world to the boys, so of course they're going to be interested … but I'll tell you right now no-one's going to confess their love or anything."

An unknown world. The boys. Interested. Just hearing it was enough to make her dizzy. These were the sort of phrases that must never be spoken in front of the man-hating Sachiko-sama.

"You're asking an awful lot, you know."

"Yeah. You're right. Sorry."

Yuuki looked a bit despondent. Poor boy. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, between his school friends and his older sister.

"So you're the gofer for your seniors? Just what kind of person is this year's Hanadera student council president?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"I guess."

No matter who it was, Yumi thought he had to be better than the Yuuki-ogling Kashiwagi-san. But if they were rude and worked him relentlessly, then that would also be a problem.

"You know, Yumi, this isn't an official request, so you can say no."

Yuuki was still acting so indecisive.

"Yeah."

Even as she was nodding, Yumi wondered whether it would be okay to deny the request based on her own judgment.

Certainly, it wasn't an official offer.

She'd only heard it because she and her brother lived under the same roof and both happened to have been thrust into their respective school's student councils.

But, what was that? For some reason, she put the brakes on before turning him down completely, as though something were telling her to hold on a minute.

Telling her to wait a minute and think about it.

"Hmm."

"Thinking about it, the only way to have it during summer vacation is as a voluntary meeting. It was asking too much, right from the start."

"Be quiet for a while, Yuuki."

Scolding her grumbling younger brother. Older sister needs to run her generally under-utilized gray matter at full speed for a while, so she can do without the interruption.

(If we do that, it'll turn out like so. But if we use this well, then maybe – )

Yuuki was watching her expression, but she ignored that and clapped her hands.

"Okay, I've got it!"

"Um … Yumi?"

"Let's put this on hold for now."

"Huh?"

"Can't you hear? Put it on hold. I'll have to consult with the other members."

"Huh!?"

For something that really wasn't all that shocking, Yuuki was completely taken aback, and came over as though to hug her.

"Yu-yu-yu-yumi. When did you become such a power player?"

"Don't be silly. I told you, I have to consult with them. At any rate, I can't say anything until I've talked to Rosa Foetida, Rei-sama."

Strike while the iron is hot. Yumi retrieved her student notebook from the drawer and checked the phone number.

"Rei-sama? Oh, not Sachiko-san?"

Yuuki looked confused as he fetched the phone handset for her, and Yumi nodded.

"Yeah. Well."

There was no way she could discuss what to do about Sachiko-sama with Sachiko-sama herself, was there?