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Section 1
## Illustrations
## 1–3
Translator: Yun Yingyi Part 1: Unchanged
Tiny eyes darted this way and that. Tiny hands were pressed together. The tiny senior sitting beside me opened that tiny, catlike mouth of hers.
"Between big oppai and small oppai, which do you like?"
Wow. Another pointless question, asked for no reason at all...
My preference is... well, big oppai, I suppose.
The things small oppai can never make up for, big oppai might just be able to head off.
And there's that line about how big can cover small as well, so I figure this opinion ought to win the support of the vast majority.
"........."
Even so, to this senior looking at me with a fearless smile on her face, that is something I absolutely cannot say.
One slip of the tongue and, in the end, that washboard would scrub my head like grated daikon, shk-shk.
"Hey, you. Don't tell me you're thinking something incredibly rude right now."
"Not at all."
"You're definitely fantasizing about this flat chest of mine like an idiot, aren't you."
"What are you talking about? I'm a pretty well-known flat-chest enthusiast at school, you know?"
"How does something like that even get famous? Well, whatever."
Senpai sat herself upright again in the deep seat.
Small as she was, she looked as if she might simply be swallowed up by it.
For a senior whose feet had left the floor entirely, a child's safety belt might even be called for.
...No. That's not right...
## 4–6
Part 4: Cat Ears
"Oh, come on, I'm not one of those so-called otaku, okay? I do like anime and manga and games and that sort of thing, and I'm interested in cosplay and want to try wearing those floaty, strangely wonderful outfits, but I'm not an otaku, okay?"
"These days, that's exactly the kind of person people call an otaku."
Morning on the Yamanote Line.
On the train heading for Akihabara, the senior—so worked up she could fairly be called completely unable to sit still—said as much.
—
"The word 'otaku,' no matter how you look at it, leaves people with a bad impression, doesn't it? If you say your hobby is surfing, it sounds refreshing, but if you say you're a surfing otaku, even though it's an outdoor sport it gives off an indoor feeling, doesn't it?"
"Mm, well, I kind of get it."
While we were having this conversation, the train arrived at Akihabara.
"Oh. Hey, we finally made it. Akihabara! It's Akihabara, hey! Man, the ground of Akihabara really is something else. This air my skin is feeling—doesn't it seem like it has Akihabara mixed into it? Don't you think so?"
No matter how you thought about it, this was not something a person who had just come from a neighboring stop on the Shinkansen ought to be saying.
At this rate, once we were through the ticket gates, was this person going to get so excited she'd die of the stimulation?
"Hey, hey! Look! There's an LCD screen buried in the pillar! What the hell is this! And the ads are changing! This is just way too amazing!?"
"Um, please don't do that..."
## 7–9
Part 7: Value
I opened the door. The interior was as antique in flavor as the exterior.
Ornaments of every kind were scattered all through the building: a café that was, in the good sense, quite old.
At several of the tables, many guests who had arrived earlier were already seated.
And what drew the eye were the maid ladies walking all around.
Every one of them, just like Cat-Ears, wore the same apron, swaying lightly as they took little steps here and there.
And the thing that ought to astonish you was that every one of the maids' oppai was huge.
Huh? Don't tell me this is heaven?
Have I arrived in heaven?
"It's Akihabara, nya."
Cat-Ears smiled with her lips pressed together, as if she had read my mind, then raised one hand toward the interior.
"Over here! Master and Young Miss are back, nya!"
Then the maids walking all around turned toward me and Senpai as one, caught both sides of their aprons, dipped their heads lightly, and called out together.
"""Welcome back, Master, Young Miss."""
An incredible sense of unity.
I could feel Senpai, clutching my clothes, give a violent start.
What has this person been afraid of since a while ago?
"Then allow me to show you to your seats, nya."
Senpai and I followed after Cat-Ears, making our way between the tables, the guests who had come earlier, and the maids.
Then, at a table for two, Senpai and I each sat down.
Did I say something that creepy?
"I don't know. But what kind of game they're asking us to play—that's the part worth being curious about, isn't it?"...
## 10–12
Part 10: Encounter
I like streets I have never known.
I especially enjoy the feeling of walking on land I have not yet grown used to.
An unfamiliar place is packed with all kinds of wonders.
When I entered high school, carrying that feeling and a bag, looking for a place to eat lunch, I wandered all over the school grounds during the noon break.
"...Hm?"
And then I saw a girl crouching in the shrubbery by the school building.
What on earth was she doing in a lonely place like this.
I had found the first wonder.
No, no—this was not the time to take it slow and think it over.
If she wasn't feeling well, I ought to speak to her... something like that. At the time I really did think that, and so I spoke to her.
"Are you all right?"
"Wah."
She let out a tiny cry, and her body sprang about one centimeter into the air.
She scared far too easily.
Her.
Because her tie was red, I knew she was an upperclassman.
But she was extremely petite.
Elementary school... it wasn't quite to that extent, but she really didn't look like a high school student.
From within that silk-smooth, straight black hair, the gaze fixed straight on me plainly showed a timid look.
Just as I was wondering what I ought to do in this situation, I noticed a cat crouched beside her.
She opened the package, tore it into small pieces, and held them out to the cat. Once the cat caught the scent, it bit down at once.
I had certainly heard of a place like this... but only as words on the page, not as the thing itself...
## 13–15
Part 13: Cause
"Time limit, two hours! Hurry, hurry up and go look, nya."
We were half-forcibly driven out of the shop by Cat-Ears.
Senpai and I walked slowly through the dense cluster of little shops crammed with electronic parts.
"Mm, this is so boring."
"You're in a bad mood." [The original is ご機嫌斜めですね, which is why the next line takes it literally as "tilted."]
"Tilted so far you could already call it vertical. No need to wait until we hit the ground. That cat-ears... if she knew the way back or whatever, she's definitely treating us like children, figuring we don't even remember the way we came, and messing with us."
So this is what she's angry about.
"Hey, we're taking the train back. I've got an adult's brain. The way back and all—I remember it perfectly clearly."
—
But we never reached Akihabara Station.
We should have been heading back the opposite way from the road we had come with Cat-Ears, and yet somehow we returned again to the Akihabara maid café.
And we repeated this three times.
This was not Senpai, who keeps her word, playing the straight man.
It was clearly an abnormal situation.
"Mm... hey, I know I'm only saying this now, but I've got a really bad feeling about this."
"What a coincidence, Senpai. My alarm bells have been ringing since a while ago too."
Senpai and I have explored, set foot in, and traveled all sorts of places up to now.
And in the places we arrived at, we went through all kinds of inexplicable experiences...
"Even among those, this is a pretty dangerous kind, is what I think..."
## 16–18
Part 16: Contemplation
"Finding a thing, I think, is just going to look for what is missing."
After that, about an hour passed.
Better to walk around than to keep standing still, so Senpai and I darted this way and that along the streets of Akihabara.
But it was still the same. No matter what we did, we could not find "the thing we were supposed to look for."
To begin with, we could not even form a guess.
Ignoring me, inwardly quite restless, Senpai began to speak, little by little.
"We search because we want. We search because we do not have. We search because we need. We search because we are unsatisfied. We search because we have lost. We search because we lack. Sweet chiffon cake seeks bitter coffee. Bitter coffee seeks sweet chiffon cake."
A voice calm the whole way through, arms folded behind her, chest thrust out with pride, as if surveying everything in the world, Senpai walked ahead of me, taking her tiny steps slowly, one by one, surely, solidly, treading the ground, striding, walking.
What's missing... huh.
I am not confident enough to say that nothing is missing, no matter how you put it, but even so I cannot come up with what is missing right this moment.
Does Senpai know what I need, and what she herself needs?
"But bitter coffee might choose sugar, or milk. And without a doubt, there are all kinds of preferences; what counts as correct is different for everyone. So, though this is only what I think, this..."
## Afterword
If you do not put it into words, it cannot be conveyed. That sort of thing is only natural. If you stay silent, you cannot convey your will to anyone. Setting aside so-called friends who understand each other to the bone, or people possessed of extraordinary insight, for the most part we cannot really grasp the other person's will.
Even so, there are also things that even words cannot convey. Even if you are thinking "what a bastard~," if you do not say it, the other person will not know. Oh dear, oh dear, what a fool~—if that is what you are thinking, it is still better to say it aloud. You can think that, and yet if you do not know, from what position or in what circumstances, what myriad tangled elements are caught up in it, you cannot simply come out and say it.
With a feeling like that, you can get through safely, and at times like the present you think, so this is society. Safe as that may be, it is not very good for one's mental health. So then, confide in someone. But I always feel that, with an audience like that, I grow too self-conscious, and only about thirty percent of the meaning gets across.
Setting complaints aside, if gratitude and positive things are the same way, that is truly troublesome. Thank you very much—even just that makes me shy. Whatever I say, I am clumsy with my mouth. Ah, talking really is difficult. So if you ask me which side I am on, I am better at conveying things in writing after all. Ah, I really envy people who can just come out and say it.
This work was written by "I," fidgeting and hesitant. Without putting it into words, it cannot be conveyed. ...