Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume12 Chapter4 1

The Rich Princes and Princesses. Part 1

Wednesday.

As usual, Sachiko-sama spent the morning reading. Yumi copied her, with the complete works of Natsume Soseki open on her lap, silently turning the pages. But at some point she couldn't take it any more and let out a deep sigh.

"What's the matter?" Sachiko-sama asked.

"Oh, nothing, it's just the book," Yumi answered.

Her spirits had been dampened from reading the part of "Kokoro" where the protagonist discussed his betrayal of his close friend. Plus, she felt those melancholic feelings had been spurred on by the fact that she was just sitting still, repeatedly running down line after line of text.

But then an unexpected visitor arrived at the summer house.

"Hey, Yumi."

Standing in the entrance, grinning and waving with his left hand, was a raccoon-faced figure wearing a familiar dungaree shirt.

"Yuuki. What are you doing here. . . ?"

For there was no doubting that it was her younger brother standing there in the entrance.

"I told you, right? We're having our meeting out here."

"Well you did say that, but—" Yumi started, but finished in thought, "I had no idea you'd come and visit." Although she had imagined they might run into each other around town.

"My, Yuuki-san. It's been a while. Please, come inside." Sachiko-sama appeared and invited him in, probably having been informed of Yuuki's arrival by Kyo-san.

"No, I have to get going, I only came to give my sister something she forgot."

Yuuki held out his right hand, which he'd been hiding behind his back, revealing her white parasol.

"You left it on the back seat of dad's car. You can't start your fun vacation without it, right?"

"Hey, you didn't have to say that, Yuuki."

When she reached out and grabbed the parasol, Sachiko-sama's rebuke was stinging.

"Yumi. That's not the way you should accept something. You're brother and sister, after all."

". . . Yes, onee-sama."

While she had become accustomed to being scolded, she didn't like that her onee-sama was sticking up for her real-life younger brother.

"But honestly, Yuuki-san, do come inside. It's almost lunch time, so why don't we all eat together?"

"I really would like to do that, but I'm supposed to meet up with the rest of the guys."

Yuuki looked at his watch. Sachiko-sama asked, "Where?" and he responded with the name of the sightseeing area / famous local shopping district.

"We just got here, so we were checking out the town together. I slipped away to come here, but if I'm gone for too long they'll start to worry."

"Wha? You're going to Main Street?"

She was so envious of Yuuki that she spoke without thinking. Consequently, her longing was probably showing clearly on her face.

"What, you haven't been yet? Then why don't you come along too?"

"Uh."

Yumi was stumped by this unexpected development. But there was no way she could say, "Yes." Sachiko-sama was watching.

However.

"That should be fine."

Sachiko-sama said.

"I won't have to worry if you're with Yuuki-san. You should go with him, Yumi."

"Uh. . ."

"You could come too, Sachiko-san," Yuuki extended the invitation.

However, "I've been there before, and I can't handle the crowds all that well."

As Yumi had expected, Sachiko-sama didn't want to go. She said she couldn't handle the crowds. But what about their Valentine's Day date around K Station? That had been on a Sunday, so the place had been packed.

Yumi started to worry that Sachiko-sama might be peeved, but sadly, her onee-sama didn't let her emotions show on her face as readily as Yumi did.

"So don't hold back on my account."

Even though she'd been told this, Yumi had to hold back. Since Sachiko-sama had invited her to stay at her family's villa, there was no way she could leave Sachiko-sama here and go out.

But still, she wanted to go because the chances of Sachiko-sama taking her there were now pretty much zero.

On one hand she had Sachiko-sama, and on the other she had Yuuki. As she was puzzling over which way to go, Yuuki took her by the arm and spoke to Sachiko-sama.

"I'm going to borrow my sister for a little while. I'll make sure she gets back here safely."

"Ah, Yuuki."

He quickly bowed and then steadily walked off, pulling Yumi along.

"Why'd you do that?"

"Because you couldn't make up your mind."

After passing the low stone wall that marked the property boundary, Yuuki stopped and turned to face her. "Don't you think it'd be rude to Sachiko-san if you refrained from going on her account, even though you wanted to go?"

"But—"

"But nothing. Even if you had decided not to go, the fact that you wanted to go was written all over your face," He said in an unusually strict tone, after letting go of Yumi's arm.

". . . It was showing on my face?"

Yumi's gaze idly traced over the characters on a white nameplate casually stuck into the ground. There was a street number, followed by something that looked like a name. The letters were faded, so she could just barely make out "SAWA" but she couldn't tell if it was from "OGASAWARA" or from "SAWAMURA."

"Yeah, it was really obvious. But then you got all gloomy for some reason. So I thought it'd be better for you to let those feelings out, and forced you to come along. I think this is best for Sachiko-san too."

Yuuki started walking slowly.

"This is best for Sachiko-sama?"

Yumi continued to follow along behind her brother, even though he'd stopped holding her arm.

"Right. You'd just cause problems for everyone around you if you were depressed."

"That's horrible."

"I'm just saying you're better when you're happy."

So that's it, she was better when she was happy.

But it was tough to be happy all the time.

After walking for a little while, they bid farewell to the woods. Yumi held her hand out to shield her eyes from the dazzling sunlight.