Volume 2 - CH 4.2

I got into the kotatsu with Izumi and continued watching that program for a while.

The man named Yoshioka-san, who might be Izumi's father, is just in our parents' generation in terms of age, and his name is a little unusual, so I think the probability is pretty high.

A quick search on the Internet gave me a rough idea of his background. He had been a marathon runner since his school days, and had been a member of an organization that competed in international competitions for many years after that.

"Can you run fast, izumi?"

I suddenly thought that if she was related to him by blood, she might have inherited such abilities, so I asked her about it,

Izumi shook her head.

"No. I've always been bad at running......."

"What about the marathon?"

"I like to run slowly outside, but my marathon positions were always faster counting from the back......"

He replied with a wry smile. The TV screen showed a group of college students dashing around the track and Yoshioka watching them with his arms folded.

......After all, maybe he's not her father. After a while, that person, Yoshioka-san, started talking again. Izumi watched it, while pouring green tea into a mug and eating little bits of the little cookies on the kotatsu. I gradually lost interest in the program and watched the day's news on my phone.

"Strange."

Izumi said to herself.

"About what?"

I asked back, keeping my eyes on the screen of my phone.

"I guess the depth of people's connection isn't the depth of their blood ties."

Izumi turned her eyes from the screen to me and smiled bitterly.

"Even if this man were really my father, Kenichi-kun and his family would be more like family to me."

I looked up in shock. Izumi was looking at me with a casual expression.

The lively background music of TV commercials was echoing through the house. I noticed that the wind, which had been roaring, had, by the way, quieted down. I hear the sound of rain, which had previously been drowned out.

"Somehow, the wind has stopped," Izumi muttered.

"......Yeah."

I ruminated over what Izumi had just said. Who is she to me? What kind of relationship does she have with me? What kind of relationship do I want to have with her? I have been thinking about this since the summer.

What she just said in a casual tone of voice has gradually sunk deep into my heart. If she really felt that way, I felt very happy.

After living with her for almost six months, I now know deeply what kind of person she is. She is no longer a stranger to me. She is also not just a distant relative.

Now, I felt I could call her more naturally than before.

Her name, "Rina," spilled out of my mouth. It melted and seeped into the silence of this house.

She shook her shoulders as if she were shocked and said, "Y-Yes......," straightening her back. She looked at me with somewhat nervous eyes. When our eyes met, as expected, a little bit of embarrassment came to the surface.

"Ah, sorry so suddenly. I didn't have any particular reason for calling you, but we live together.......If we are family, I thought it would be better to call you by your given name. I felt like we were like a stranger when we used surnames. And I don't think it's a good thing for our relationship. Though it's a little late for that."

She remained silent for a while with a nervous expression on her face, as if she was pondering something. But after that,

"I guess so. I think it's better that way, too."

She said and nodded with a smile. Her tone was calm. Somehow, I got the feeling that she already understood what I meant by the way I called her.

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The first few times, I was still embarrassed. But the embarrassment of calling her by her name gradually faded each time I called her "Rina" after that.

As time went on, Rina, who had grown bored with the program and started to take her eyes off the TV and fiddle with her phone, brightened her expression as if she had a good idea and said, "Hey, Kenichi-kun, can I take a picture?"

"Eh, of what?"

"This house and Kenichi-kun. As Aunty said, I think it's better to keep a lot of memories in various forms."

While I was wondering what part of the house she was going to capture in the photo, Izumi stood up and sat down beside me, and leaned in close to my face.

While I was taken aback, she said, "I'll take the picture," then snapped a quick picture and quickly pulled her face away.

"Thank you. I haven't had many pictures of my family. Next time I'll take one with Aunty."

"Ah, okay......."

Leaving only a soft scent in the air, Rina went back to her chair again, and I remembered that I had always been told that my expression was gloomy and that I was not good in photos.

......Photos, I'm not good at it, but suddenly she took a picture of the two of us.......I wonder what I looked like in the picture. I'm curious, but it's hard to ask her to show me......

She then went to the bath. The sound of her hair drying with a hair dryer over a long period of time leaked out from the changing room. Wearing loose-fitting loungewear with a light blue and pink border, Izumi returned to the living room, sat down at the dining table to drink mineral water for a while, and then went back into the kotatsu. Her straight black hair reflected the white light of the electric lamp.

The TV was still on, and the news program was showing information about the heavy rain. Once it had calmed down, but a short while ago, the rain and wind had begun to intensify again.

On the side of the river that is about to flood, a reporter exclaims, "This is a very dangerous situation!" The people listening to the report in the studio listened to the exclamation mysteriously, frowning with furrowed brows.

"That's dangerous, isn't it?" Rina said.

"Yeah."

"I wonder if it's safe over here."

"This area is far away from the river. There's no information about evacuation, so we'll probably be okay."

Rina soon brought her study materials from her room, and with a marker, she flipped through her textbook. I brewed a fresh pot of hot tea and kept the news program on while we spent the rest of the evening amid the sounds of wind and rain, talking from time to time.

☆ ☆ ☆

The rain did not stop, and soon, the date changed.

Rina was usually supposed to be in bed at this time. But she still showed no sign of returning to her room. She had already stopped eating sweets, saying that she would gain weight if she ate after this time, but she was still reading her textbook with a marker pen in one hand and occasionally fiddling with her phone, which was kept in a notebook case.

"You're not sleepy?" I asked. Rina looked up from her textbook and replied.

"I'm a little sleepy, but just a little more. I want to sleep as soon as I get back to my room, so I'll push myself to the limit," she said.

The TV, which had been left on, turned to a sports program. Highlights from the European soccer league were playing.

Rina suddenly stopped and looked at the screen and muttered, "Oh. They are playing soccer."

"Since I came to this house, I've become much more well-informed about soccer. I can recognize some famous players now," Rina said.

"Since Rina came, I study more at home than before," I said.

"Does that have anything to do with me?" Rina tilted her head.

"Well, how should I put it, Rina's diligence has been transferre---I mean, I've learned from you....... I've come to think that I have to do it."

"You were just about to say transferred to you, right?"

Saying that, Rina pouted a little. I immediately brought up another topic of conversation.

"Speaking of which, have you found anything you want to do?"

"Hmm. I kind of like Western clothes and sundries, and I'm starting to think vaguely that it would be nice to have a job in those fields. But I don't think my life is all about what I decide now, so I'm going to take my time and think about it," she replied.

Rina and I talked about our career paths, examinations, and how we have been living. Rina seemed to be enjoying her time with her Aunty. I talked about what my father was like and how my brother was in middle and high school.

It was almost 2 a.m. when we finally returned to our own rooms.