【Interlude】Ryuto Hoshiji and Risui Tanzawa【Past Arc】

The chime signaling the end of the morning classes rings out.

Maybe it sounds unusually bright and cheerful because my heart is practically soaring now that I'm free from class.

"Hey, Ryuto. Got a moment?"

"What is it, Tanzawa?"

I was trying to decide where to eat the lunch I'd made myself when he approached me.

Risui Tanzawa. He's one of my classmates and one of my closest friends.

"Well, it's about your little sister, of all things..."

"What about Sorane?"

"I was wondering whether you're really fine with things staying as they are. Or perhaps we should consider reducing the amount of time she spends studying."

"...Don't tell me you've gotten tired of tutoring her for free?"

Tanzawa's grades are ridiculously good, and he doesn't even attend a cram school or anything like that.

Since he seemed to have plenty of free time, I'd asked him to tutor my younger sister, Sorane, who was often unable to attend school because of her illness.

As it turned out, he really likes video games, and before I knew it, I'd often find him playing one.

When I asked him how he could maintain such good grades while spending so much time gaming, his answer was, "That's what school classes are for, isn't it? If you listen to them once, that's more than enough to handle a high school test."

I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Absolutely not. Something like this is no burden at all, and I enjoy spending time with you and your sister. ...However, Sorane-kun is... well... she isn't going to live for very long, is she?"

"...Yeah. ...That's right."

Tanzawa was right.

My sister wasn't going to live for very long. She suffered from an incurable disease that couldn't be treated by modern medicine.

"Then shouldn't she spend her time doing the things she likes instead of letting her studies take it away? Perhaps it's not my place to say, seeing as I'm not family."

"What are you talking about? It's rarer for you not to come to my house than for you to come. You're there more often than Mom is. At this point, you're practically family. At the very least, I don't mind you sticking your nose into anything concerning my sister."

And in fact, since I'd asked him to be her tutor, Tanzawa was basically always at my house.

Meanwhile, Mom had to work late to raise the two of us on her own, and it wasn't unusual for her to be unable to come home at all. So we'd somehow ended up in the bizarre situation where Tanzawa spent more time at our house than she did.

"So, you're saying we should cut down on her study time. I thought the same thing. But that's what Sorane wants."

"And what exactly does she want?"

I'd asked Sorane the same thing because I'd had the exact same thought as Tanzawa.

But Sorane wanted to keep studying. The reason was...

"She's... well... not exactly normal, you know?"

"...If you'll excuse my bluntness and allow me to state the objective facts, then yes. She isn't. She herself is an ordinary girl, but the illness she carries is what makes her special. That's an unavoidable fact."

This was another thing I liked about the guy.

I hadn't asked him to tutor Sorane simply because he was smart.

Tanzawa was capable of bluntly pointing out things that were difficult to bring up, and that was another quality I liked about him. Sorane felt the same way.

Sometimes, being treated with more consideration than necessary can actually become a burden.

"That's exactly why she wants to be 'normal' in every way except for her illness. She wants to spend the same amount of time studying as the other kids her age spend learning at school."

"...I see."

That's right. That's what Sorane wanted.

For a while, Mom had been deeply tormented by the fact that she'd given birth to Sorane with that condition. No, even now, though she never shows it, I know she's still hurting over it.

Maybe that's precisely why.

My little sister was probably trying to tell her, "I'm not unhappy," "I'm no different from ordinary kids," and "Thank you for giving birth to me."

If that's what she wanted, then as her older brother, I had to support her with everything I had.

"Besides, you're the one person who should've been able to figure this out, right? You can see through people's true feelings and personalities so easily."

Tanzawa's powers of deduction were downright abnormal. He was basically the kind of detective you'd see in a manga brought to life.

He possessed knowledge of all sorts of fields I couldn't even begin to understand, psychology and whatnot, and could easily deduce hidden truths.

"True. I'm good at deduction. I have confidence in my abilities. But deduction is still just deduction. It's not infallible."

"What do you mean?"

"The relationship I have with you and your sister is important to me. Precisely because of that, I don't want to misread the situation and destroy it. Besides, you two aren't suspects. You're my friends. So it wouldn't be right for me to interact with you based solely on a deduction I've reached in my own head. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I see..."

"Actually, you're the one who taught me that."

"Huh? Did I really say something that cool?"

I had absolutely no memory of it.

"You didn't say a single word. I simply learned it from the two of you."

"What the hell does that even mean? I don't get it."

"Ha ha, I suppose not. And that's fine."

As usual, I really didn't understand this guy.

But he was fun to be around.

"If you approached people like that, you'd probably make quite a few friends, you know? You look good, you're tall, you're smart, you're athletic, and you can even talk about games... Are you seriously perfect? What the hell, are you picking a fight with me?"

"Please stop getting angry over your own statement... Although it is an undeniable fact that I am perfect."

"All right. Get outside."

"Do you really think you can beat me? I'm quite good at fighting too. I've mastered my own personalized version of Neo-Bartitsu."

"...I see. I didn't really know what Neo-Bartitsu was, but the guy really was strong.

I'll let him off the hook for today.

"...Anyway, putting the jokes aside."

"You ran away from that one."

"Shut up. Back to the topic. I've never seen you getting along with anyone besides me. Do you actually have any friends?"

This guy was basically always with me. Even at school.

I'd never seen Tanzawa having a friendly conversation with anyone else. My general impression was that he was always getting into some kind of argument with other people.

With his specialty in deduction, he'd expose all sorts of things people normally kept hidden. Then, after rattling them with some cryptic remark, he'd finish things off by saying something like, "It is not yet time to speak of that," and leave them completely bewildered.

Yeah, there was no way anyone could become friends with him like that.

"...Hmm. The only people I would consider friends are you and Sorane-kun."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Apparently, my friend's social circle was even smaller than I'd expected.

Why am I even able to be friends with this guy...?

I'm supposed to be a perfectly ordinary person overflowing with common sense...

"...Well, whatever. So, can you tutor her again today?"

"Of course. I'll take a look at your studies while I'm at it. The midterms are coming up soon."

"Ugh."

This is the story of a certain day, long ago.