Chapter 50: Volume 2 - CH 2.3

My grandparents' house was in a town at the foot of a mountain in the Shikoku region. It was a town near the airport, so even though the distance was far, it did not seem that far if you took a plane. I took a bus from the airport to the city and walked a short distance to my grandparents' house.

When I rang the intercom, my brother, who had arrived earlier, opened the sliding door and came out. 

Wearing brown shorts and a slim T-shirt, my brother said flirtatiously, "Uisu,". Apparently, he had attended a conference at a university in Kyushu and was headed straight to my grandparents' house.

My grandparents' house was larger than mine, but much older. The hallway and stairs creaked as we walked. "Excuse me," I said with my mother as we walked up to the living room on the tatami mats. My grandparents were sitting on chairs in the living room. The LCD TV, the only thing that stood out from the rest of the old furniture, was on, showing the summer Koshien baseball game. A brass band and a man's voice were on the screen.

My grandfather said something like, "Oh, welcome," and we were seated at a low table. "Thank you for taking care of us," my mother said, and I said to my grandparents, "It's been a long time."

Since I was a small child, I had always met my grandparents only once or twice a year, so we didn't really talk to each other intimately, and I felt like a bit of a stranger. My brother and mother talked mostly with my grandparents, and I only responded occasionally when the topic was broached.

After a brief conversation about saying hello to my aunt and uncle who lived nearby, my brother and I went upstairs to an empty room. Ever since I was a little kid, my brother and I had always stayed in the room my father used to sleep in when we stayed at this house. My mother seemed to have an empty room next door, and we would carry our belongings there.

The air in my father's room was lukewarm. There was an air conditioner, but it had been broken for a long time and was not working.

I lay down on the tatami mats. It smelled dusty. I guessed that this room was hardly used anymore. In the corner of the room, I could see some gray cotton dust. As I remained quiet, I could hear the faint sound of a high school baseball game being broadcast from downstairs.

My father's room was simple, with only a wooden desk and a bookshelf. The bookshelf was not particularly large, but it was crammed with complete works of literature, paperbacks, and old comic books. My brother sat at a wooden desk by the window, booted up a laptop computer he had apparently brought with him, and began to work on something.

"Are you writing something?"

When I asked, my brother replied, still staring at the screen.

"A report for an academic conference. I have to write two reports, one for my professor and one for the university. Also, I'm going to talk about my presentation in next week's seminar, so I thought I'd make some slides for it."

"Sounds like you're busy."

"Well, I'm not that busy. It's not that much to write about."

The light sound of the keyboard's keystrokes was pleasant to my drowsy consciousness.

"How was your presentation?"

"I did well. There were a lot of students who turned blue because they couldn't reply to questions, but I didn't get any difficult questions, so it was easier than I thought it would be."

"I see. As expected."

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"Yeah. I got to meet some professors from other universities I wanted to talk to, and it was fun."

I stopped talking there, partly because I was getting sleepy from the long-distance travel and partly because I didn't want to interrupt him. Soon the sound of my brother's tapping on the keyboard began again.

There were convenience stores and video rental stores nearby, which are common in the Tokyo metropolitan area, so this town was not so different from the one I live in. However, the cicadas were much louder here. Even as my head began to grow fuzzy with sleepiness, the wrinkled sound of the cicadas lingered on the surface of my consciousness for a long time.

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"Kenichi, wake up. Dinner's ready. We're going to greet uncle and others."

I woke up to the sound of my brother's voice. I had dozed off and fallen asleep before I knew it. As soon as I regained consciousness, the high-pitched chirping of a cicada filled my ears. It took a little time for my foggy, sleep-wake brain to recognize the meaning of what my brother had said, but I said, "Yeah," and sat up. I was sweating all over because I had been sleeping in a hot and humid room with no air conditioner.

The sunlight shining through the polished glass window was red. The glittering, fine dust was dancing in a golden color. I looked at my watch and saw that it was already past five o'clock in the afternoon. I stood up, picked up the chest of my T-shirt, and moved it around, letting the air hit my skin a few times. There were red tatami mat marks on my arms.

I walked down the stairs, which were vibrating and creaking finely and making me a little nervous that it might break, to the living room, where my grandparents, my mother, and my aunt and uncle were sitting around the table.

My uncle was a businessman working for a machine manufacturer, and my aunt was a welfare worker. An elementary school boy and girl, who were my and my brother's cousins, were sitting away from the circle of adults with a portable game console in their hands. They glanced at me as I entered the living room and said, "Hello," I replied, "Hello," too. They immediately began playing quietly with their handhelds again.

"I woke him up."

My brother glanced at me, then said to no one in particular and sat cross-legged on the tatami mat. I sat down beside him.

on the tatami mat. I sat down beside him.

When my grandfather asked me, "Are you tired?" I answered, "No, I'm fine,". I also exchanged a few words of greeting with my aunts and uncles. On the table were several plates of food.

"Ryuuichi, you want a drink?" My uncle said and offered a can of beer to my brother.

"Thank you, Uncle."

My brother smiled, raised his glass, and took a gulp of the beer he had just poured. On the other side of the table, my mother and aunt were discussing the education of their children, including whether or not they should start cram school in the first grade, while my grandparents were watching a live professional baseball game that had switched from the Koshien Stadium.

I sat there and took a sip of water with some ice floating in it.

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