It’s A Total Mess! – Hasegawa Souichi
“──Senpai, what’s the matter?”
The two of us had stopped by a park a short distance away from school on our way home.
My junior, Misuno Saki, tilted her head in confusion.
“Suddenly saying you want to talk like that…”
Amidst the deepening winter hues of the landscape, her short hair spilled over her cheeks.
Her perceptive eyes looked straight at me, and her thin lips were slightly pursed.
… Well of course she’d be confused.
After all, I suddenly told her, “I have something important to say to you”, after we finished our library duties…
──Today, I brought her here because I had something I needed to tell her no matter what. Something very important that she had been waiting for all this time.
It was an answer that would massively change the relationship between us.
The time for me to tell her had finally come!
“Sorry, Misuno. I made you wait quite a bit, but I finally figured out how I feel.”
“Wha…”
“When you told me you liked me, I was glad. I think I can finally give you my answer now.”
“S-so that means──”
“Yeah…”
Misuno’s eyes went wide and her lips started quivering.
It looked like she had finally realized what I was going to tell her.
──That’s right.
What I was about to do──was respond to her confession.
About a month ago, Misuno had confessed to me. She told me that she liked me. And… that if I ended up genuinely falling for her, she’d like to go out with me.
I was going to give her my answer to that now…!
I was going to tell her my honest feelings!
After letting out a small cough to clear my throat, I turned to face Misuno again.
And then I, with happiness and hope in my heart──
“I like you, Misuno.”
──told her that very clearly.
“Please go out with me!”
──Misuno stood there with her mouth agape.
I kind of expected this, but it seemed it would take some time for her to process those words.
While she was spacing out, images of the future kept floating around in my head.
I was sure the two of us would have a lot of fun. We’d go on dates together, hang out at each other’s houses… We could even hold birthday parties and Christmas parties together. To be honest, I had always wished to do those kinds of things…
… Well, it was my first time going out with a girl after all. And to be honest, I was also quite nervous.
Even so… with Misuno by my side, I felt like the two of us could overcome any trials that came our way. It was because I felt that way that I wanted to communicate my feelings to Misuno.
After a brief moment of silence──Misuno opened her mouth slightly,
“I’m sorry.”
She spoke in a murmuring voice that was typical of her.
“I see… thank you. Then, I’m looking forward to getting along with you.”
With a slight blush on my cheeks, I replied to her.
“Not as senior and junior members of the library committee, but as a boyfriend and girlfriend… Hm?”
… Huh, what?
… Somehow… wasn’t her response a little strange? It was a little different from what I was expecting…
“──I’m sorry.”
While I stood there confused, she looked straight at me, and in a very firm voice, she once again repeated those words.
Then, she clearly added──
“I can’t go out with you.”
──Those words helped me finally understand her answer.
“──Huhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
My cry echoed away into the winter sky.
*
“I’m… home…”
I returned home and opened the front door.
“Welcome back, Onii!”
As always, Nico replied from the living room.
Despite being my little sister, I still found her voice cute and somewhat joyful. She was probably in the middle of playing a game or something.
Normally, I’d answer her and head over there. If I was in the mood, I’d talk to her and play games with her, but──
“…”
Today, I wasn’t in the mood for that at all. I climbed the stairs silently and entered my room.
Then, I picked up the guitar from the corner of my room.
“──Ahh! Ahhhh~~!!”
──Following my emotions, I began to play violently!
“Aaaaargh! Why? How comeeeee!?”
──I was in despair.
After being unexpectedly rejected by Misuno, I had completely succumbed to despair.
Although I was probably being a nuisance for the neighbors, I couldn’t stop!
Using everything I had at hand, I tried to convey this painful feeling using sound.
“Uuurgh, Uuurrrghh~!”
Jimi Hendrix, Nile Rodgers, Tom Misch!
Lend me your strength!
Help me use the power of music to quell this feeling of sadness, even if it’s only a little bit…
“──W-whoa, what happened, Onii!?”
Nico burst into my room.
She looked incredibly startled when she saw me,
“Why are you crying!?”
“… I got rejected.”
“Huh!?”
“Misuno turned me doooooown!”
“What!?”
“──Aaaaah! Waaaaaaah!”
I screamed and strummed my guitar even harder.
I wanted to stay like this forever!
Just playing my guitar and being submerged in the sound it produced!
However──
“──Wait, stop, stop!”
──Nico pulled the guitar’s shielded cable out of the audio interface.
The sound of the guitar was suddenly cut off.
A painful silence descended upon my room.
“Uuugh…”
“Why did she reject you!?”
Nico asked me as I groaned involuntarily.
“No clue.”
“You confessed to her right!? You told her you love her, without using any weird phrasing, right!?”
“Yeah…”
“And you told her what you wanted in an easy to understand way!? Like telling her you wanted to go out with her!?”
“I did…”
“And yet she turned you down!?”
“Yeah…”
When I nodded, Nico seemed even more confused.
“… Why? The two of you were getting along so well recently!”
Right──which was why this was such a mystery.
Why did I get rejected… and why didn’t she accept my confession.
“I seriously have no clue. Why did this happen. Why did I get rejected…”
To be honest… I never expected this would happen.
It had been one month since Misuno’s confession. A lot happened, but the two of us had always remained on good terms. I didn’t think for even a second that I’d get rejected…
If anything… I thought she’d be happy. If I confessed to her, I thought Misuno would definitely be happy…
“What should I do from now on…”
Seriously, how should I behave from now on.
As long as I didn’t understand why this had happened, I couldn’t take any risky actions. But if I just left things as they were, next week I’d still meet with Misuno as a library committee member… What on earth should I do…
“… I see. What an unexpected development. And I’m guessing you have no ideas on what happened, huh.”
Nico let out a sigh and sat down on the bed with a determined look.
Then, she crossed her arms and looked at me──
“Okay, guess there’s no helping it. There’s no point crying about it. First things first, let’s properly find out the reason why.”
“The reason why?”
When I asked, Nico nodded firmly.
“Let’s find out why Misuno rejected you. And why she doesn’t want to go out with you, despite telling you she likes you. If we understand the reason behind that, then we can do something about it.”
──To me, those words were like a beacon shining in the dark.
“…You’ll help me out!? You’ll think about it with me!?”
“I suppose. After all, if I left you alone, I’d probably have to listen to you lamenting while playing guitar every night.”
Nico looked away from me as if she were embarrassed.
But when she looked at me again, it was with a wry smile, as if she were troubled,
“Since we’ve already come this far, I might as well help you out a little longer.”
“… Nico~~”
Without thinking, I called her name in a pitiful voice.
Ah, geez… what a kind sister I had!
Unlike me, who was somewhat dull, Nico’s intuition was sharp.
She had helped me out many times in the past, and deep down inside, I respected her.
That’s why, hearing her say that she’d help me out… I was grateful from the bottom of my heart.
Seriously, she was too good of a sister for me…!
I couldn’t help but hug her…
“Okay okay…”
Although she laughed in apparent disbelief, Nico also didn’t seem entirely opposed to the hug.
Then, she gently cleared her throat, stretching her back out onto the bed.
“Well, for starters… Let’s try remembering everything that’s happened so far!”
*
──The relationship between Misuno and I was that of a junior and a senior library committee member.
Because we were both assigned to Wednesdays, we’d work together every week… Yeah. Although we weren’t on bad terms, we weren’t particularly close, either. It was a common relationship between an aloof junior and a carefree senior.
However, one night, I stumbled upon Misuno’s livestream, and things suddenly changed.
During the stream, she mentioned that she liked me, which led to a series of misunderstandings and conflicts…
At one point she even resolved to distance herself from me, but in the end, we resolved the problem.
And then──
“──Onii seriously fell in love with Misuno, and once again asked her out, right?”
“That’s about right.”
As the two of us went through Misuno’s past streams, I nodded in response to the conclusion Nico had drawn.
“Well, before that happened, Misuno had told me ‘Please hurry up and fall in love with me’, and I had basically gotten to that point.”
“I also thought the two of you would start going out in the near future…”
Yeah, seriously, that’s what I thought.
How should I put it… it was more than a mutual crush, but less than a relationship.
We had the kind of atmosphere that would make the people surrounding us tell us, “Hurry up and go out with each other already”.
And yet, the end result was that I got rejected today…
In that case, the cause of the rejection must have been something that happened after that.
“So, it’s been a month since then. A lot happened, huh.”
“Right.”
While reminiscing about the past, I nodded at Nico.
“The biggest thing was… we started uploading our music online.”
“That might be the case.”
──Uploading our music.
Nico and I had formed a music unit as a sibling duo.
I was in charge of composing music and playing guitar, and Nico was in charge of singing.
Until now, I had been too scared to let other people listen to my songs… but because of an incident involving Misuno, we started uploading our music.
And, it seemed to be unexpectedly popular,
“Speaking of which, how many subscribers do we have right now?”
Nico leaned towards me and asked.
“It’s been about a month since we created the channel right?”
“Let’s see…”
While saying that, I walked to my computer and clicked the mouse a few times to pull up the page for our channel.
“… Ahh, seems we passed twenty thousand people, with around two hundred thousand total views. With four songs uploaded, that means we averaged fifty thousand views per song.”
“Oho, looks like it’s gone up. See, I told you plenty of people would listen to it!”
“You’re right. Although I’m a bit surprised we’ve come this far…”
Man, that was a real shock. Before we uploaded our music, I was expecting at most a hundred listeners, and around ten subscribers. But when we actually tried it out, we ended up getting a thousand times that amount.
The difference in magnitude was so massive, to be honest it hadn’t really settled in for me yet. Just how much was twenty thousand? Were there really that many people listening to my music?
In spite of that, the songwriting itself was going as good as ever,
“Oh right, I created another song again.”
Suddenly remembering that, I told Nico.
“Let’s record the song some day soon.”
“Okay. So, I guess that’s about all that’s changed on our side. And yet, when you gave her your long-awaited reply today, she turned you down, huh.”
“That’s right…”
“Hmm. As I thought, it’s a total mystery.”
Nico crossed her legs and placed her hand on her chin, making a pose like a detective.
“And you haven’t had any fights with Misuno-chan since then?”
“Nope, I haven’t. We do argue a little bit every week though.”
“That’s just flirting though. Then, maybe it really is because you made her wait too long. It’s been about a month since then, after all.”
“It’s true that I made her wait, but it didn’t feel like she was rushing me.”
“What about the radio stream? She told you to keep listening to it from now on, right?”
“Yeah. About her channel…”
While talking, I opened the list of channels I was subscribed to and selected Misuno’s channel.
The archives of her past streams were lined up neatly in a row. The frequency of those streams remained consistent: once a week, on the same day every week.
“Look. It’s the same as usual. I do listen to them each week, but I didn’t notice any major changes so far. She just talked about love stories and recent developments on her side. Things seem to be going well with the stream, and she keeps gaining fans.”
Misuno’s internet stream “Love Crosses the Night Sky” was a stream centered around romance as its main topic.
It seemed that because she fell for me, she started this stream so she could talk about love with other people. I then stumbled upon the stream by accident, which ended up being the moment my relationship with Misuno changed.
However, even after everything that had happened, she continued to stream, and she kept providing advice to listeners and talking about what she had been up to.
“Hmm. By the way, the next stream is tonight, right?”
“That’s right. It’s Wednesday after all.”
“In which case, I guess we have no choice but to go back to the basics.”
“Basics?”
“Yeah.”
Nico nodded.
After seeing her expression, I thought for a bit──
“Ahh, I see. I see what you mean.”
──I finally understood.
“You want me to listen to her stream and figure out how she’s feeling.”
Right, I did the same thing when I first discovered Misuno’s stream. I secretly listened to her stream and tried to understand what she was thinking.
“Yup, I’m sure she’ll talk about what happened today. Maybe there’ll be a hint there.”
“You have a point, yeah…”
Rather than trying to talk to her in person, or trying to stake everything on a conversation when I end up meeting her next week, I was going to gather information first.
Certainly, that seemed like the best option.
As expected of Nico…!
If I were on my own, I’d probably have cried myself to sleep while playing guitar, so I was seriously grateful for the advice!
“Well then──let’s start with that.”
“Yeah, let’s go with that!”
After nodding to each other like that, it seemed that for the time being, we had decided on our next step──
*
Later that night, around midnight──
“──Hello, can you hear me? Has the stream started?”
A familiar voice flowed out of my phone. It had a mysterious sound, like the cute twinkle of a bell, but with a sophisticated huskiness mixed in.
“It started…!”
Even though I had listened to this stream before countless times, even though I had grown accustomed to the BGM and way she spoke… I was so surprised that I stopped lying down in bed and sat up straight.
“Now then, love is difficult to understand isn’t it. Good evening, Saki here. ‘Love Crosses The Night Sky’ will be running for about an hour tonight as well. I’d appreciate it if you kept me company.”
In the meantime, Saki, or rather, Misuno, continued talking.
In an instant, the number of viewers skyrocketed from around two hundred to about three hundred.
Everything so far… had been the same as usual. Her tone of voice and manner of speech were as calm as they normally were.
The comments were also the same as usual.
“Good evening~”
“I’ve been waiting for this!”
Comments like these kept streaming in.
──However.
“Now then, how has everyone been this past week? As for me… a lot happened. At school, yeah. A lot happened…”
“Huh? Somehow, she seems…”
“Well, some things were the same as usual. I went to class, ate lunch, did committee work, and things like that…”
The atmosphere around her was different from usual.
How should I put it… it felt like she was spacing out, or like her heart was someplace else.
The other viewers also began to notice that something was different from normal.
“What’s wrong?”
“Doesn’t she feel a bit different today?”
“Doesn’t she seem a little spaced out?”
Comments like that kept trickling in──
“──Eh!? I’m acting strange? It feels like I’m spacing out?”
Misuno raised her voice in a panic.
“──Ahh, I’m sorry. You’re right, I guess it’s obvious… The truth is, I’m a little flustered right now. Um…”
Then, after stumbling for words a little,
“… I was confessed to. By the Senpai I was talking about earlier.”
“!”
She brought up the topic so directly that I almost jumped out of my seat.
Well… I did think this might happen. I did think that she’d report what happened today to her listeners. But to think that she’d bring the topic up immediately after starting the stream…
That’s right──Misuno had been reporting on recent developments in the relationship between us.
She had been doing this ever since she first started streaming. If anything, you could say that it was the main topic of her stream.
What’s more, Misuno was aware that I was listening to this stream.
Nevertheless, hearing her talk about me like this was bad for my heart and made me strangely anxious…
By the way, after hearing about the confession, the listeners started celebrating,
“Ahh, thank you for all the comments everyone!”
Then, Misuno started reading out the comments.
“‘Finally!’ Yes, finally. ‘Good work, Haseriba’. Yup, he worked hard to convey his feelings to me. ‘I’m hoping for your happiness’. That’s right, it’d be great if we could be happy, but…”
“Of course everyone would react like that…”
Normally, you’d expect her to accept my confession. After all, she had been waiting for my reply for so long…
Also, are they really going to keep calling me “Haseriba”…
With great difficulty, Misuno tried to continue speaking.
And then, after having a hard time finding the right words──
“I… turned him down… Yeah. I rejected Senpai…”
“… Urgh.”
Hearing her say that again, I once again received immense mental damage.
Well, that was what actually happened though…
But as I thought, hearing those words come from her mouth still hurt…
Then, after a brief delay──the comment section exploded.
“Wha!?”
“Huh, why?”
“You rejected him!?”
“Sudden ☆ develop ☆ -ment.”
“Lol.”1
“Why though?”
The viewers’ comments flowed in with tremendous speed.
And for some reason, the number of viewers kept steadily increasing.
Misuno also seemed taken aback by this──
“W-woah, the comment section is really going wild. Everyone, please calm down a bit. Well, I’m sure this came as a big surprise to all of you though…”
Then, after taking some time to read the comments,
“… That makes sense. The main question seems to be why.”
Misuno said in a murmur.
“Yes, that was exactly what I was wondering! Why did I get rejected! Nice assist, comment section!”
“The reason why… about that, um… Even I don’t know myself.”
“… Huh!?”
She doesn’t even know herself!?
What is she talking about!?
“──You’re wrong! I was happy about it!”
On the other side of the smartphone, Misuno raised her voice.
What’s more, in a speed she had never demonstrated before, she said──
“When he confessed to me, I was super happy! My heart was pounding, my mouth was loosening into a smile so big it made my face look weird, and I felt like jumping up and down for joy! That’s why, I wanted to respond right away! I wanted to respond with, ‘Although I’m still inexperienced, I’m looking forward to being with you’…”
And then──she took a small breath.
And in a voice as if she had calmed back down, she said,
“Before I realized it… I had turned him down.”
“Why!?”
So she seriously doesn’t know why!
Based on what she said so far, it totally seemed like she’d accept the confession!
And then it’d all end with, “The two of them lived happily ever after, hurray!”
So how did it end up becoming “I’m sorry”!?
“However, since then, I’ve kept thinking about it…”
In a pensive tone, Misuno continued.
“There certainly was something I was hesitating on. For some reason, I had some resistance to the idea of going out like this.”
“Resistance? What kind?”
“That’s right, if I had to say.”
“If you had to say!?”
It seemed we were getting to the heart of the matter, so I unconsciously leaned closer towards the smartphone.
Then, after a few seconds of breathtaking silence──
“──Isn’t it a little too fast?”
“There’s no way it was too fast!”
──I cried out.
Without meaning to──I let out a loud voice.
“No, if anything, it was too slow! I kept Misuno waiting for quite a while!”
One month. I kept her waiting for a whole month you know!?
If her feelings changed during that time, then on some level I could accept it!
But to say that it was too fast, what does that even mean!?
The viewers seemed to share the same opinion, and the comments started coming in even faster.
“See, look! Even the viewers agree! ‘It’s not even a millisecond too fast, lmao.’ ‘If anything, hasn’t he kept you waiting for too long?’ ‘How does Haseriba feel about this?’ It’s a total mess! Seriously how did things end up like this!”
* (Misuno Saki)
──While watching the speed at which comments came in accelerate.
While watching the viewers comment up a storm in response to what I said, I let out a deep sigh.
“All of you are completely right… Even I can barely believe I turned him down…”
That’s right, to be honest, I didn’t intend to do that.
I had always been waiting for the day the two of us could go out with each other. Even today, when Senpai told me he had something to say to me, my heart skipped a beat. Could this be a confession? I wonder if he’s going to ask me out… I had expectations like that.
And yet… the words that left my mouth were “I’m sorry”.
Even I had a hard time processing my own feelings.
While I was in that state──I happened to read a comment that suddenly struck me.
“‘How are you going to face him tomorrow?’ Oh, that’s right! First, I need to figure that out! What kind of attitude should I treat him with tomorrow? Even though it’s completely my fault…”
That’s right, the two of us would be meeting alone next week as well.
As fellow library committee members, there was no way to avoid performing our duties together.
… In such a situation, where I rejected Senpai without a clear reason why…
Seriously, how should I face Senpai…
“Ah, geez…”
While facing the mic, as if I were talking to myself, I mumbled,
“What will happen to the two of us from now on…”
Translator Notes
1. The original Japanese line is “草”. 草 is the kanji for grass. The romanization of the Japanese word for laugh is “warau”, which starts with a w. When spamming w for laugh, wwwwwwww looks like blades of grass, hence the usage of 草 .
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