Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume23 Chapter2 2

The Whole Year. Part 2

"Dad, dad, mom, Yuuki, dad, me, mom."

She was reading aloud as she moved her arm when Yuuki quietly said:

"… It seems like every year I tell you to sort them silently."

"But it just comes out, no matter what I do."

"I'm sure you wouldn't say it out loud if you thought it'd cause a bomb to go off in the house."

That's about what it would take. Exasperated, Yumi stopped for a bit then took a pocky stick from the cake dish and stuck it between her lips. Like it was a cigarette, although she'd never smoked. This way was much better than thinking about something dangerous like a bomb. If she opened her mouth the chocolate would fall out, so she had to be careful.

That morning, she'd been awoken by her mother calling out, "Wake up everyone," at 7am.

She got out of bed enthusiastically, even though she'd only had five hours sleep, and not just to avoid the curse of, "It'll be like that the whole year."

The New Year's cards were coming. Thinking this, she smartly declined her warm futon's invitation to go back to sleep.

Of course. The Fukuzawa family assembled and greeted one another, then ate the traditional New Year's zouni broth together. So the severe scolding she'd receive if she lazed around in bed was another reason to get up.

Now then, on to the New Year's cards.

The two children split the cards into four lots, with Yumi's and Yuuki's stacks looking a bit thicker than usual. Even though the number they'd sent hadn't really changed. What was going on?

"Who's this?"

Yumi mumbled. She couldn't recognize the sender's name, even though it was addressed to her. And it wasn't just one or two. Plus they were New Year's cards, so all that was written in a lot of them was "Happy New Year" or "Best Wishes for the Year Ahead" or "New Year's Greetings," which made things hard because it didn't give any hints as to who the sender was or how they knew each other.

And yet they couldn't have been complete strangers, because they knew her home address. Lillian's was particularly strict about how they handled that sort of information.

"Huh? This looks like a boy's name … ?"

She hadn't noticed immediately because the first couple of names had been gender neutral. But then she saw a couple that ended in X-rou or similar, which were more likely to be masculine names. On the subject of X-rou, she'd also spotted the manly name Arisugawa Kintarou, but that card got put in the "known" pile because it was her friend "Alice" from Hanadera Academy.

"Me too."

Yuuki muttered beside her, checking his New Year's cards.

"I got some from people I don't know too. Even from girls."

"Huh?"

Yumi reacted more to hearing about her brother getting cards from unknown women than from getting cards from unknown men. Was she a bro-con?

"Not Yoshino-san or Shimako-san?"

"No."

"… I guess not."

Amongst the cards Yumi had checked were ones from Yoshino-san and Shimako-san, and it was as though they'd coordinated their messages, because they'd written, "Give my regards to Yuuki-kun," and, "Give my regards to Yuuki-san," respectively. There would have been no need to include that in their notes if they'd sent one to him themselves.

"Who is it?"

There weren't really any privacy concerns since the recipient didn't know who the sender was. Yumi looked at the card in her brother's hand while Yuuki looked at his sister's "unknown" pile. And then:

"Ah!"

They both cried out almost simultaneously.

"From my class!"

Then they heard each other and said, "Huh?" Yumi tapped on the sender's name and said to Yuuki:

"This girl's my classmate."

"Same here."

As she listened to her brother, Yumi flipped over her pile of cards. Next, next. It turned out that girl hadn't even sent one to her classmate Yumi.

"How did it get here?"

"Well, they'd get our home address from the class network. And since we're siblings, they'd know we live together."

"Not that. How did I get a card from your classmate?"

Yumi asked, but it was thrown straight back at her.

"What do you think? Why did I get a card from your classmate?"

"… She must have seen you at the school festival."

And fallen for him. No, it didn't have to go that far, she may have just been interested in him.

"Don't you think it would be just the same for you?"

Neither of them knew how to react, but they both laughed and patted each other on the shoulder, saying, "You're popular." After this brotherly/sisterly show of conceit, Yumi reflected and thought that it was either conceit, or a display of sisterly idiocy. There had been some gossip about Yuuki amongst her classmates immediately after Lillian's school festival, so she thought that it might apply to him. But in her case, she thought it was a bit different.

"Anyway, let's write our replies."

"Yeah. I wonder if I've got enough cards left."

Returning to her room she took out the cards she'd set aside for this, but even that wasn't enough so she had to get some more from her mother and the last ones were just ordinary postcards that she wrote "Happy New Year" on.

There was no New Year's card from Touko-chan in her stack.

Since Touko-chan probably would have started writing her New Year's cards before the closing ceremony, she thought there was a chance one might arrive if it had been mailed before their harsh parting.

Because that's what Yumi had done.

Last year she'd almost forgotten and mailed them out in a panic, so this year she'd allowed plenty of time to write them. Although she'd done this alongside knitting Sachiko-sama's Christmas present, so she'd been really busy.

Oh, that's right. The card that Sachiko-sama had requested from her on the day of the closing ceremony was the only one that she'd sent out afterward. So Yumi was a bit worried about whether or not it would arrive on New Year's day. Since she was going to Sachiko-sama's house on the 2nd, it would be a bit funny if she arrived before her New Year's card. In that case, she would have been better off bringing it with her.

Sachiko-sama had sent her a card, just like she'd said. But Yumi didn't immediately recognize that it was from her. Because last year's New Year's card had made such an impression.

Indeed. Last year's had been a delicate India ink painting with deep black calligraphy, that was so delicate it was hard to imagine it was done by a high school student.

But, still.

"I wonder what happened."

A change in her mental state? This year's looked to be a colorful, computer generated, pop piece. On top of that.

"Mmm … "

She thought that she'd seen a New Year's card very similar to this one at some point, but she couldn't remember.

It hadn't been exactly the same. But it had given off the same vibe. They'd been similar, but Sachiko-sama's had a better use of color and composition.

"I'm sure I've seen something like this before – "

But no matter how she tried, she couldn't retrieve it from its drawer in her memory.

There was nothing like it when she looked through the cards she'd received this year. Yuuki even let her look through his but that was a miss too. She thought about it some more and realized it hadn't been from this year. Much earlier. Right, probably from one year ago.

Casting her mind back, she realized with an, "Ah."

"My New Year's card from last year … right."

Oh, geez, onee-sama. Muttering this, Yumi grinned on her own.