A girl that’s good at taking care of others and a boy that looked like he’d disappear if no one took care of him. She might have been too rash, but then again, it might be inevitable.
“…It’s probably my imagination, after all. I mean, there’s no way I could have been acquainted with any westerner… Ah.”
The Sister chose to focus on the problem at hand to get her mind off the problem tomorrow, while the boy muttered to himself then suddenly opened his eyes wide in surprise. For a moment, the Sister wondered what was up and looked at him intently. The boy gulped and then…
“…S-Sister, there’s a person I’d like you to meet!”
The boy quickly approached the Sister and held her hands.
“Don’t so casually touch our Sister!”
“Nygah!?!”
Monica appeared without anyone noticing it and hit Shinichi right on the head. The pain lasted only for a moment, but the boy still ended up crying from the pain. Reflexively, he let go of the Sister’s hands and crouched.
“M-Monica, that’s a bit…”
The Sister implied that she’d gone too far, but Monica just turned the other way and pouted.
“He’s in the wrong for daring to touch a nun. Consider it divine punishment.”
Despite saying that, she threw fleeting glances at the boy. Evidently, she was feeling apologetic for having hurt him a lot more than she’d intended to.
“As usual, she’s not honest with her feelings,” the Sister muttered to herself, “Just who does she take after?”
“Onii-chan, are you okay?”
“Moni-nee, that was too much!”
“Nee-chan, if you’re too violent, you’ll never get married.”
“Uu— Where did you even learn those words!?”
When the children found fault with her too, Monica understandably couldn’t stand it anymore, though she still found herself reflexively snapping back at those last words.
“Uu, gu, I-I couldn’t react again!?”
Meanwhile, the boy, who was hit, might have groaned from the pain, but at the same time, he was in shock.
“C-Can you stand up already!? A boy shouldn’t be feeling down just because a girl hit him!”
That made Monica all the more guiltier, so she grabbed him by the shoulders and forcefully brought him back up, only to make the surprise on the boy even worse. At that, the Sister couldn’t help but wonder if Monica was making his problem worse, but despite her docile face, she let it be because she found it amusing.
“Ah, she’s touching me again without me noticing! What are you!?”
To the children, he wore the face of a kind, older brother. To the Sister, he wore the face of a collected yet mischievous child. Yet to her, he just wore the face of someone venting his anger.
“What incomprehensible thing are you getting mad for!? M-More importantly, here.”
It was curious if she was merely trying to fool him, or that was the reason she came here for in the first place, but Monica held a gold pendant in her hands. The Sister could faintly see that it resembled a crescent moon.
“What!?”
The boy was shocked again, though in a different way than earlier, and he quickly checked his chest, only to realize that something that should have been there wasn’t, so he glared at the pendant in Monica’s hands.
“So this really was yours. These kids found it in the dressing room.”
Monica pointed to a group of kids different from the one Shinichi led. They appeared from behind her with a somewhat triumphant face. Apparently, they’d been playing tag when they noticed it on the ground, so thinking it belonged to Monica, they brought it to her. It was a simple accessory, but there was no one else here who wore such things.
“But I don’t remember having this accessory, so I figured it belonged to you since you were the last to use the dressing room,” Monica said.
“…I can’t believe I was that disoriented,” Shinichi said.
He shook his head – as though to dispel his surprise – before feebly smiling. But even that expression quickly vanished as he crouched down and smiled gently at the children.
“Thank you for finding it for me. It’s precious to me, so really… Thank you.”
Then with a voice filled with profound gratitude that even children could understand, they smiled back at him and returned his gratitude. Just their smile alone seemed to heal the boy, but when he stood up and was about to get the pendant from Monica, he—froze.
“Nu?”
“Oh, my?”
Apparently, it was only he and the Sister who noticed that. And though the Sister looked at the intruder with a smile, the sharp glare she wore suggested that she was on guard.
The boy immediately used his other hand to receive the thing thrown at him. When he looked at it, it was none other than a foster, a device that was both similar yet different from an iFoster.
“My foster?”
“─────Fu, fufu, you really are a piece of work, aren’t you?”
The intruder stood there by the entrance of the chapel, laughing with a voice that seemed to rise from the depths of the earth. From her posture that was reminiscent of a pitcher’s stance after a throw, this petite girl was most likely the one who had thrown that Foster at him. Her distinctive fox ears and tail revealed her species, while her fur standing on end revealed her emotions.
“I searched everywhere for you in this rain, and when I finally find you, I catch you having fun while holding hands with some beauty.”
“Eh?”
“Hah?”
Monica and Shinichi wondered what she was going on about and reflexively turned to their hands, only to find that the pendant was indeed positioned in a way that there was no way for her to see it, making it look as though they were holding hands.
The female intruder’s green eyes, which seemed to make even her pink hair stand on end, harbored emotions of anger, irritation, and vindictiveness.
“Not to mention, she’s even similar to me in terms of color… Fu, fufu!”
The girl who laughed softly indeed shared a similar hair and eye color with Monica. However, there was quite a difference in height and femininity. As a woman, Sister chose not to dwell on the specifics, but she nonetheless welcomed the disquieting – amusing – atmosphere that now filled the place.
“Die, sukekomashi (philanderer)!!”
“Where did you even learn that word!?”
Amidst the shouting, the girl kicked off against the floor, and the boy sprang to intercept her. But having anticipated that, the girl sent out a flying kick, only for it to be effortlessly caught, then the boy used the momentum from that to swing her around, hurling her into one of the pillars of the chapel.
Mid-flight, however, she managed to regain her posture and land on the pillar, allowing her to kick off again to send another kick toward the boy.
“Hey, think of where you are!”
“I don’t care! Icchi, you’re the one in the wrong!”
He intercepted the girl’s punch as she leaped at him like a projectile, and with a gentle motion, he tossed her aside, but with nimble movements, she landed on a bench.
“Well, most problems in the world are generally my fault…”
“If you’re aware, then let me hit you once!”