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Section 1
## Chapter 1: Lily and Her Cheerful Companions
Proofread by: @ttsupori
But the things that matter always slip away on their own, off to somewhere no one can find.
––––
Late March. The air was clear, carrying the scent of flowers and green grass.
Perhaps it was because he had lived so long in a city packed with asphalt and buildings, but the air felt even fresher now.
Threaded through the breath of spring was a trace of the sea. That was a feeling belonging only to this land.
Without meaning to, he drew in a deep breath, then, the instant he noticed, let it all out again. This was no moment for a leisurely inhale.
He carried the sports bag in through the open door and set it on the floor.
“That’s everything moved, right?”
Yoshihide, his uncle, who had helped bring the cardboard boxes, glanced over the luggage piled by the entrance as he checked.
“Yeah. It’s all here.”
Uminami Daichi nodded firmly. He knew himself there wasn’t much luggage, though that didn’t mean more would have been better.
Two sports bags, two cardboard boxes, and several paper bags: only a week’s changes of clothes and daily necessities, plus the school supplies and uniform he would need in April. In the paper bags were things that kept easily—curry powder, cup noodles, and the like.
And a bicycle parked outside the door. Unlike the city where he had always lived, even the convenience store was far from here, so a bicycle was a necessity.
The furniture and cookware ought to be ready already. Nothing to worry about. If he found something hadn’t been prepared, he could go buy it then…
## Chapter 2: The Entrance Ceremony
That day was his parents’ wedding anniversary. The two of them meant to go see a movie and leave Daichi at Yoshihide’s house to be looked after for a while.
Back then the two families were still close. Aunt Misako would welcome Daichi with a beaming smile, and on Yoshihide and Misako’s anniversary they would leave his cousin at Daichi’s house in return. His father, Wataru, had no brothers, and by the time Daichi was born his grandparents were long gone, so for Daichi the only relatives were his mother’s younger brother and that brother’s family.
“Daichi, want to come see the movie?”
His father asked before they went out. But Daichi did not nod. It wasn’t that he was being considerate of his parents’ feelings or anything like that.
“Is it a Pokémon movie?”
“No. It’s a foreign car-chase action movie. The cars are really cool.”
“Ehh— I don’t want to see it. I’m not going.”
Daichi answered with a sour face. His father smiled wryly, nudged him with an elbow, and said he was a little brat. Hearing his father say that only made Daichi more stubborn. He simply did not want to go.
Daichi in those days was still ordinary, a little cocky the way other kids were. When it came to movies, he cared only for tokusatsu hero shows and the theatrical versions of children’s anime. And more than anything, playing somewhere with Yoshihide’s family—a pool, an amusement park—appealed to him far more than going to see some movie he didn’t even know.
That day Yoshihide took Daichi to the zoo as well. He and his cousin played their fill there, even tried riding a horse in the animal-encounter plaza, and he lost count of how many photos they took. After dark they rode home, and his cousin was so tired she fell asleep in the car…
## Chapter 3: The Perfumer of Memory
The first Sunday after the entrance ceremony.
The weather had stayed clear since April began, and today was sunny and warm as well.
On this day Daichi called the tsukumogami into the living room for a final confirmation.
“So, listen. It’s almost the time we agreed on, so everyone keep quiet and stand by. Especially you, Akitsu and Tamakaze. You two seem to be the targets this time.”
“I understand. Leave it to me.”
Akitsu slapped her chest and answered full of spirit. She did not look as if she had reflected at all on being the reason things had come to this. When Daichi told her someone had called her a zashiki-warashi, she had laughed ha-ha-ha and said, “I don’t have any power to bring good luck, you know.”
(*Note: In folklore, a zashiki-warashi brings luck to those who see it, and a household with one grows prosperous. Some beliefs hold that the zashiki-warashi resembles a god of fortune, a guardian spirit who governs a family’s rise and fall.)
It ought to be all right, and yet their attitude was so careless that Daichi felt a little uneasy. The tsukumogami all seemed to have no sense of crisis, taking in only half of what he said.
“Don’t worry, Daichi. Back when you couldn’t see us, we stuck our tongues out and made faces right in front of you, and you never noticed, right?”
“You actually did things like that?”
“No, we didn’t. It was only a figure of speech.”
Aoba looked away as he answered, and Daichi narrowed his eyes and stared at him. Just then the doorbell rang.
“Sounds like they’re here. Dismissed!”
At Daichi’s command the tsukumogami vanished, returning each to their own “body”…
## Chapter 4: The Wooden Horse That Flies
By the time he stepped down from the small blue bus, the sun had already slanted west and the sky was dyed red.
From the station he could see the cliff with the graveyard on top of it. Daichi’s house lay below that cliff; down the slope and he would be home before long.
But Daichi walked slowly. It would be embarrassing if the tsukumogami saw his eyes swollen from crying.
Lily matched her pace to his. She called herself Daichi’s older sister, so of course this was what she ought to do.
If the tsukumogami at home saw his tear-swollen face, what would they say? They probably wouldn’t laugh. But they would worry. That much was certain.
What should he do? While Daichi was turning it over, he let out a small “ah” as he realized.
He had already wholly accepted the tsukumogami of the house, and he believed they would be there waiting for him to come home.
Even though he used to say he didn’t care whether they stayed on in the house or went off somewhere else.
Now, what if he opened the front door and did not hear “Welcome home”?
Imagining it felt like being scorched by a candle flame—a small pain in his chest. It was a pain Daichi had not felt in a long time. He was no longer used to it. He let out another long sigh.
He had forgotten how to handle feelings like this. And he could not fully trust that the person he was now could manage to do anything.
His school bag hung from his shoulder. Without thinking, Daichi closed his fingers tight around the strap.
He had always known. What he really wanted was to reach these hands out toward someone else.
But he could not bring himself to…
## Final Chapter
The mural on the old building of the elementary school vanishing overnight became the talk of the town.
It had already weathered badly, and then a few days of heavy rain washed it away. That was what everyone said.
The matter of preserving the mural had already been settled, but the mural could no longer be restored, so the preservation plan was canceled as well.
Yasuda Junko, the high school art teacher who had submitted the request to preserve it, retired too. The official reason was personal circumstances, but wasn’t it really that the mural she had poured so much of herself into had disappeared, and the blow had been too great? That was what most of the rumors said. The formal retirement procedures would still take some time, so for now she was on leave and no longer coming to school.
But Daichi knew. The truth was the exact opposite of the rumors.
After retiring, Yasuda had visited the Uminami house once. She said she had asked a friend from her student days to help her go to America, to study painting all over again.
Yasuda’s expression was bright, like a vigorous young person about to take on a new life.
In the end Yasuda bowed deeply and left. Watching her go, even Daichi’s mood was touched, and he felt much lighter. She had also left madeleine cakes as a gift. Akitsu and Tamakaze ate every last one of them and wore satisfied faces. It was fine to take that as the tsukumogami having forgiven her too.
The school was having a hard time finding an art teacher to take her place. But on the students’ side—especially the first-years who had only just enrolled—there was basically no effect. Life went on as calm as ever.
Compared to that…
## Afterword
How do you do. I’m Awaji Honoki. To those I haven’t seen in a long while, thank you, as always, for your support.
I feel deeply honored that, after the launch of Fujimi L Bunko, this work could be one of the first titles released. For those meeting me for the first time, a little about myself: I have long been writing light novels for Fujimi Fantasia Bunko.
After my previous series ended I kept thinking, “What should the next work be?” But over the course of half a year my editor changed twice, and every plan we discussed in that time ended up scrapped.
And now the editor newly in charge of me is the very editor who handled *The Lyric Poem of the Flower-Guarding Dragon* at Fantasia Bunko. Editors were replaced one after another, and in the end it felt as if I had come full circle back to the start.
I talked with this editor for a while about the next work I meant to keep publishing with Fantasia Bunko, but around the spring of 2013 he said to me, “We’re planning a line that sits between light novels and general fiction. Please write something for that bunko.”
Even told that, the drafts I could put forward right away had all been conceived as light novels, the new line had not yet been established, and I had no idea at all what it was supposed to feel like.
So I simply wrote the draft I happened to have on hand into a novel.
As for the result, it became “Then let’s call it L Bunko.” And that was wonderful.
I still haven’t figured out what direction L Bunko is meant to take, but I finished this book as pleasantly as I always do…