My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 3 Read online

  There was a debate which had raged for ever and ever, without even a lull, among Japanese literary circles.

  The eternal struggle of non blood-related little sister vs. blood-related little sister, i.e. gimai vs. jitsumai.

  Advocates for either camp would make their case toward the other side, but there was no end to this dispute in sight.

  It even went beyond the literary world. If one were to look back upon the history of Japan, even within the world of politics the argument over gimai and jitsumai refused to go away. Let me describe for you an example.

  In the year 2170, when the very first 2D prime minister Kurumi-chan took office, it was said that the greatest fault-line in Japanese politics was whether or not to have her official character description be as a gimai or a jitsumai. It came to be known as the “2170 What Should We Do About Kurumi-chan Problem.”

  In the end, the gimai wing won out, and Kurumi-chan became “The People’s Little Sister (Non blood-related)”, but there was such fierce debate and protest from the jitsumai wing that a number of politicians ended up coughing up blood and dying in fits of furious anger.

  The current 2D prime minister Nyamo-chan was officially a jitsumai, but it could be said that the persistent call of “Remember 2170!” from the jitsumai wing had ended up changing the balance of power in government.

  Personally I was a member of the gimai wing, but it wasn’t as if I hated characters who were jitsumai. With gimai, you have the benefit of being able to marry them, but there’s something special about the love between an older brother and his blood-related little sister... I believed that each one had its own merits. All little sisters were worthy to my eye.

  That being said, my favorite genre of literature was gimai books, and the author I most respected, Odaira-sensei, was 100% for gimai, and my actual little sisters were all gimai, so it wasn’t like my life was particularly influenced at all by any “blood-related” little sisters.

  Or so it should have been.

  If you are wondering why I am speaking in such a roundabout fashion, it’s because I had been contacted by my blood-related little sister.

  Thinking back on that day, it was right after the end of the rainy season, on a Saturday afternoon right before school was about to go on summer break. I still had no clue about the existence of my jitsumai, and my head was, as usual, filled with ideas for my novels.

  Chapter 1 - Write-On-The-Body

  I was in my room, sitting at my desk, staring at my PC’s monitor. The screen was showing me a website where people could post their novels, and there were many fascinating comments displayed on the page.

  What were these comments about, you might ask? They were reactions to my novel. Here are some examples:

  ・I DONT GET IT◎

  ・2MANY SYMBOLS! BAD WORK OF DUMDUMMY☆

  ・MAKE MAINCHAR PERSON IDIOT

  “Ahaha, it’s a bloodbath...”

  After repeatedly entering my novels into the Newcomer’s Prize and failing to be selected, I had decided to upload my latest novel to this website. I wanted to get some unvarnished criticism and reactions from readers who weren’t my close relatives.

  And the result was, well... You’ve seen it for yourself.

  I let out a bitter chuckle, and spun around in my desk chair. Standing immediately behind me were two girls.

  One of them was my elder little sister Kuroha, whose well-constructed facial features gave her an adult look. The other was Yuzu-san, who had a beauty akin to fine art, and gave off an aura of friendliness.

  Both my sister Kuroha and my friend Yuzu-san, who had come from the 21st century, were currently living together in the same house as myself. The three of us were often together in my room like this.

  “Kuroha, Yuzu-san, take a look at the reactions to my latest work,” I said.

  The two of them looked past me to the monitor and read the comments on display.

  “Onii-chan...”

  “Oh, my...”

  Both of them got a troubled look on their faces.

  “Um, Gin-san? Don’t let it get you down, okay?” said Yuzu-san.

  “Ah, this isn’t anything to be worried about, trust me,” added Kuroha.

  Honestly speaking, I was a little depressed about it. But I was already used to people saying that they couldn’t understand my novels.

  “I mean, if they were going to take the time to post a comment, the least they could have done was put in some concrete suggestions,” continued Kuroha. “With just this, how are you supposed to know how to make it any better, Onii-chan?”

  “Well, I’m just glad people read it and gave their opinion,” I said.

  “But...”

  “Yeah... I made the pair of talking pantyhose the main character, but he didn’t seem to really resonate with the readers. Maybe making his favorite food daikon radish was a little too boring?”

  “Onii-chan, I don’t think that’s what made the difference,” sighed Kuroha.

  “But I really liked the image of a pair of black pantyhose wrapping itself around the long white daikon and just munching it down, you know. Isn’t that cool?” I asked.

  Kuroha took a moment to respond. “I think that kind of sensibility is quite... unique. And the way you wrote about the pantyhose and the daikon were very much in your style. It’s ‘■＝→▷,’ right?”

  “Yes, that’s the part.”

  That’s a very “me” style of prose, don’t you think? I felt proud about my work and puffed up my chest.

  “I really think the second half where the main character awakens his love of his little sister isn’t half-bad,” added Kuroha. “But the problem with your novels, Onii-chan, is that the hurdles people have to jump through to get there are just too high.”

  “You’re just ahead of your time, Gin-san,” consoled Yuzu-san.

  You think so?

  As I muttered to myself, “Ahead of the times...” Kuroha’s expression changed.

  “...Oh, what’s this? Look, there’s someone who is praising it, Onii-chan!”

  ・WOW! GENIUS! THIS WORK THE FUTURE! NOVEL OF FUTURE!

  Among the harsh critics was a single person who’d praised the novel. This person said that there was a deep meaning behind me making the main character a pair of pantyhose.

  ・PANTIES/PANTYHOSE PAY ATTENTION!

  She was trying to point out the relationship between panties and pantyhose, it seemed.

  First off, there is the fact that panties are the symbol of the orthodox literary style. All 80 million citizens of Japan know that, without a doubt. And then there’s the fact that pantyhose wrap around panties. The main character is the pantyhose who wraps the panties inside... The commenter was saying that the novel was a metaphor for an “Encapsulation of orthodox literature.”

  “I can’t believe that the pantyhose I wrote contained such a deep meaning!” I exclaimed. It was an interpretation so deep I could have never imagined it.

  This person said that my novel encapsulated the orthodox style and that it didn’t cater to the tastes of the current-day, but rather was a work that looked toward the future. This person wrote angrily about how wonderful my work was and that those who criticized it just couldn’t see the qualities that made it great.

  “Man, this is almost embarrassing to read...” I blushed.

  “It looks like you’re happy about this person reading things into your novel that weren’t there, but are you sure that’s a good thing?” asked Kuroha. “They’re totally interpreting it wrong, you know? I wouldn’t be happy about that, myself.”

  “It’s fine. The moment an author publishes their work, it becomes the readers’ to do wit
h as they wish.”

  “This person looks up to you a lot like you look up to Odaira-sensei, Gin-san,” said Yuzu-san.

  “Yuzu-san, to even be considered in the same breath as Odaira-sensei is so far beyond the pale... But, it makes me a little happy,” I responded.

  It was probably the first time in my life that someone had praised my novels like that.

  Oh, how about I try emailing them?

  “Let me just check their address... Oh, it’s not public,” I said, disappointed.

  Unfortunately it didn’t look like I’d be able to make contact. I double checked their profile, but there wasn’t a single entry that was public. They didn’t even have a username.

  “I wonder... if I uploaded another work, would this person comment again?” I asked.

  “Good question. If they were so impressed with your previous work, they’d probably read it, don’t you think?” responded Kuroha.

  “Yeah!” I could feel the motivation welling up from within me. I wanted this person to read more of my stories! “Only the main character was a pair of pantyhose this time, but I think for my next work I’ll make every character a pair of pantyhose. It’ll be a full house of ’hose! And I’ll make sure there are even more symbols than before!”

  Kuroha gave me a disapproving look. “Wait a second, Onii-chan. It’s true that your work might have some merit among the avant-garde, but I think you should at least attempt to think about the feelings of the vast majority of normal people out there in the world.”

  “Normal people?” I asked. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I mean, wouldn’t it be better to write something that was a little more universally appealing?”

  ...Sometimes Kuroha’s level-headedness frustrates me.

  “Your novels are really amazing and really difficult, Gin-san,” added Yuzu-san. “With all those symbols everywhere, my eyes start blinking just from looking at it. You could make money selling eyedrops!”

  “You honor me!” I cried. “I’m going to fill your entire field of vision with symbols!”

  Yuzu-san smiled and laughed, but then her expression got a little serious. “Why is it that you use so many symbols when writing novels, Gin-san?”

  “Oh it’s just his whim, that’s all. Whatever strikes his fancy. There’s no special story behind it.” answered Kuroha, shrugging her shoulders like she was brushing it off.

  “No, there’s a story,” I said definitively.

  I was not lying. There was indeed a specific reason why the novels that I wrote had so many symbols in them.

  “And what is that reason, then?” asked Yuzu-san.

  “Kuroha.”

  “What?! Me?!” cried Kuroha, her face suddenly getting flustered. “Wh-What did I do, exactly?!”

  “Oh, my... Now I’m really curious. If you don’t mind, will you tell me the story?” asked Yuzu-san.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  I began to tell the story of the origin of my prose writing to Kuroha and Yuzu-san...

  ......——

  The water in the tub went splish.

  It was back when we were little, and Kuroha and I were taking a bath together. We were facing each other with the water up to our shoulders. I could see Kuroha’s young body through the bathwater. Her chest and stomach were as flat as the wide open plains.

  We used to take baths together until we entered elementary school. It was also usually with Mom or Dad, but sometimes it would just be the two of us.

  I could see that Kuroha was getting really flushed.

  “Uuuhh...” she groaned, her eyebrows showing her discomfort. There was clearly something weird about how she was acting.

  I was curious about what her deal was, but I decided to have fun by myself in the bathtub.

  First, I made a letter “V” with my pointer and middle finger, and floated them on the surface of the water. Then, I started to move them up and down kind of like how a person would when swimming. The water splashed up...

  “The lower body of a beautiful girl is as energetic as ever!” I announced, pronouncing each word individually and clearly. The “V” I made with my fingers was supposed to be the legs and waist of a girl. “Take this! And that!” I cried, moving my fingers more and more violently. “And how about this?! And some of that!”

  I was absorbed in my play and completely forgot about how odd Kuroha was looking.

  “O-Onii-chan,” she stammered.

  “Huh?” I said, looking up at Kuroha, and I saw that her cheeks were redder than I’d ever seen them before. “Whoa... What’s the matter?”

  Kuroha stayed silent, but she kind of groaned in agony.

  “I’m not gonna know unless you tell me,” I pried.

  “......ee.”

  “What?”

  “...pee,” Kuroha said, sinking her head down a little in embarrassment. “O-Onii-chan, will you come with me...?”

  When Kuroha was three years old, there had been an accident when the lock on the door to the toilet room had broken and she had been trapped inside. It had been really traumatic for her, and she hadn’t been able to go to the bathroom by herself anymore. That was why it wasn’t a surprise that she would bug me to come with her, but...

  “I won’t,” I replied.

  “D-Don’t be mean...”

  “I’m not being mean. We have to count to 100 pairs of black stockings before we get out of the bath, remember?”

  Back then, Dad had told us that we had to count “one pair of stockings, two pairs of stockings...” all the way up to 100 pairs of stockings before we could get out of the bath.

  “We can do that later, ’kay... Please, come with me...” Kuroha begged.

  “No way. We have to follow Dad’s rule.”

  Kuroha shot back with a “You big idiot!” and glared at me like she was trying to curse me or something.

  You look like you’re about to cry, you know... I mean, I want to go with you, I do, but we’ve gotta follow the rules.

  Oh, I know!

  Dad had said that if counting all the way to a hundred was too boring, that we could do “something fun” instead. As long as we did that, we could get out of the bath. I suspected that he’d been trying to nurture our childish creativity.

  “Kuroha, let’s hurry and do something fun! That’ll be faster than counting to a hundred!”

  “W-What are you...?” she asked. When I explained what Dad had said, she nodded in agreement. “Then, what should we do?”

  “Hmm, let me think...” I said, craning my neck. “How about we play write-on-the-body?”

  “Write-on-the-body?”

  “We’ll write letters on each others’ bodies,” I said. I was thinking I wanted to do something I’d seen in an educational anime. There was a famous scene where the main character tells his big sister, “You’re going to be my manuscript paper,” and writes sentences on her as she slowly relaxes.

  “I’ll go first,” I said. “Come on Kuroha, turn around.”

  Kuroha scrunched her hips around and turned her back to me. Kuroha’s white back wavered through the water. If I don’t hurry up, Kuroha’s gonna have an accident, so let’s start playing write-on-the-body right away.

  When I put my pointer finger on her back...

  “Th-That tickles...” said Kuroha, her whole body shivering, making waves in the water.

  I wrote hiragana and katakana characters on her back just like the main character of that anime, but Kuroha was so ticklish that I didn’t get the reaction I was looking for. Dad had said we needed to do something “fun” before getting out of the bath, so if Kuroha wasn’t having fun, then our mission wasn’t complete.

  “Hurry up, Onii-chan,” whined Kuroha.

  I’m trying, but it’s hard to come up with something...

  “I-I don’t think I-I’m gonna make it...”

  “B-Be strong, Kuroha!”

  Come on, think, Gin Imose! I’ve got to write something fun quickly, or...

 
...Ah! Eureka! This is it! I can write this and it’ll be fun right off the bat!

  I wrote a character quickly with my finger on Kuroha’s back.

  “Onii-chan, what’s the crooked arrow mean?”

  “Life itself,” I replied.

  “Life?!”

  “You try and move forward, but you run into a wall and move sideways off in a different direction, and after a while you end up in a far different place than you intended. That’s the way life is.”

  “...Onii-chan, I don’t really get it...” said Kuroha, squirming her little butt somewhat violently in the bath...

  This is bad... She’s reaching her limit!

  “But... I guess I thought it was kind of funny...” she admitted.

  Yes! She said it was funny! That’s close enough!

  I was overcome with the feeling of a divine revelation. Rather than writing a string of boring letters, just writing one really impactful symbol could give people happiness!

  “All right! Then next, I’ll do...”

  “I gotta pee first!”

  “Thank you for the request! You want me to write a character that represents going to the bathroom, yes? Let me think for a sec...”

  “O-Onii-chan...!”

  ......——

  “I was really happy when Kuroha told me she thought it was funny. Ever since then, I’ve thought that it’s better to use symbols if you want to give people happiness.”

  That was the reason why I used some many symbols in my novels, but didn’t when writing normal sentences.

  “Oh, my... That’s such a wonderful reason you have behind your very ‘unique’ writing style, Gin-san!” gushed Yuzu-san.

  “Yeah... I guess his writing is all my fault...” said Kuroha, her cheeks ever-so-slightly pink.

  “Not all ‘your fault’! It’s all ‘thanks to you’! And why are you blushing? Is it because you ended up ammonia ah-ing in the bath after that?” I asked.

  Kuroha twitched.

  “It was just like that scene in that famous work of orthodox literature, DRINK PEEBATH OF LILSIS,” I explained, but Kuroha had already taken out the dictionary she was carrying under her arm, holding it up at the ready...

  ...and she swung it sideways trying to mow me down.