Chapter 2: What If You Were Kicked into a Pond by Your Mother-in-Law

The young woman, who reminded him of white cherry blossoms, didn’t express her opinion on aliens or people from the future.

She led Minamoto Kiyomoto out of the library and they walked north.

Following behind her, Minamoto Kiyomoto noticed her waist was incredibly slender.

In the sunlight, her long, straight black hair had a faint bluish tint, making it even more beautiful than he had first thought.

The two of them entered a grove of trees, treading on the dappled light that spilled across the stone path, and arrived at the edge of Sanshiro Pond.

“Are there yokai here?” Minamoto Kiyomoto scanned the surroundings.

The pond’s water reflected the blue sky and white clouds, and it was surrounded by lush chinquapin trees.

The branches of the chinquapin trees grew wild, extending from high above down to the pond’s surface. Colorful carp swam back and forth in the shade of the trees.

A young woman about Minamoto Kiyomoto’s age was sketching under a chinquapin tree on the opposite side of the pond.

“There are no yokai, but there are ‘spirits’,” the young woman answered.

Minamoto Kiyomoto’s gaze shifted from the other side of the pond to her soft lips. He felt that there wasn’t a single part of this woman that wasn’t beautiful.

Even though she was a delusional patient with great strength, she was indeed the perfect candidate for a mother-in-law.

He still didn’t believe there were yokai in the world.

“‘Spirits’?”

“Look at the carp in the pond.” As she said this, Minamoto Kiyomoto felt a gentle breeze brush his face, but not even the lightest strand of his hair moved.

He dismissed it as an illusion, turned his head, and looked at the carp in the pond.

It was a very ordinary school of carp—red, white, red-and-white, pure black, transparent…

“Transparent?” Minamoto Kiyomoto was dumbfounded.

That carp actually had color, but at the same time, it was transparent.

It led the school of fish, swimming back and forth in the pond, like a person who didn’t know they were already dead, going to and from work the next day as usual.

Just then, the transparent carp seemed to have discovered something. It wagged its tail and swam cheerfully towards them, and the living carp hurriedly followed.

It stopped at the edge of the pond, its small, round eyes looking happily at the two of them.

Being transparent was one thing, but it could actually express emotions?
The wind blew, the green leaves rustled, and Minamoto Kiyomoto forgot to even breathe.

“This is a ‘spirit,’ the weakest kind of ‘spirit.’ My ‘shikigami’,” the mysterious young woman said, looking down at the school of carp.

The next moment, the transparent carp vanished from Minamoto Kiyomoto’s sight, leaving only the living carp still looking at them from the water.

“What are spirits? A type of yokai?” Minamoto Kiyomoto completely pushed Spanish out of his mind.

“‘Spirits’ are the spirits of all things. I was originally planning to take you to the main gate of the Faculty of Agriculture to see the ‘spirit’ of Hachiko, but he’s not here today. He went to Shibuya.”

“Hachiko the loyal dog? The Akita owned by Hidesaburo Ueno?” Minamoto Kiyomoto asked in surprise.

The real-life basis for the movie “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” was Hidesaburo Ueno from this university’s Faculty of Agriculture, and the Akita dog he brought from his hometown.

At Shibuya Station, there was a statue of Hachiko waiting for his master. At the main gate of the university’s Faculty of Agriculture, there was a statue of the man and dog finally reunited.

The young woman didn’t speak. She found a clean rock by the pond, sat down, and started reading her book.

Minamoto Kiyomoto stared at her in confusion, then looked around. There was no one else.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

But no matter how much he asked, the young woman remained silent, just reading her book there as if she were sunbathing.

To ask and not be answered, over time, would make anyone angry.

If the other side of the world hadn’t just been revealed before his eyes, no matter how beautiful this woman was, Minamoto Kiyomoto would have turned and walked away, returning to the library to continue studying his Spanish.

But now, forget Spanish, the entire country of Spain wasn’t as important as she was.

Minamoto Kiyomoto walked out from between the branches into the bright sunlight, came to the edge of the pond, and began to study the carp.

He tried reaching out to touch them, then took out his phone to take a picture. As expected, he couldn’t touch anything, and the transparent carp wasn’t in the photo.

“It is Hidesaburo Ueno’s Akita dog.”

Just as he was thinking about whether he should go borrow an infrared thermal imager, the young woman’s pleasant voice came from behind him.

“Was someone monitoring us just now?” Minamoto Kiyomoto turned around, his anger already gone.

He considered himself a very magnanimous person. Only when others hit him first would he return the favor tenfold.

“No.” The young woman closed her book. “Unlike ‘spirits,’ yokai have physical bodies. They are enormous, and even their simple daily activities can cause massive destruction to humans.”

“Why did you suddenly stop talking just now?”

“I placed a ‘curse’ on myself,” the young woman said, her hand gently stroking the pure white magnolia on her sleeve, her gaze fixed on the small island in the center of the pond. “Within ten minutes, I can only say five sentences to the same person.”

Minamoto Kiyomoto sized her up, wondering why she would place such a curse on herself. Was it a form of training, like a vow of silence?
He only wondered in his heart and didn’t ask out loud.

“What is a ‘curse’?” he asked curiously.

“It is both power and restraint.” The young woman shifted her gaze back to Minamoto Kiyomoto. “The simplest ‘curse’ in the world is the name of a thing, for example, your name.”

A name is a curse—with this concept, Minamoto Kiyomoto gained a rough understanding of ‘a curse is both power and restraint.’

Within the ten-minute window, the young woman had one last sentence left.

He thought for a moment and asked, “What is your purpose in seeking me out?”

“I want you to be my teammate,” the young woman said frankly. “You are special.”

“…” The two looked at each other.

“You could have just said it all at once. A single sentence can be very long,” Minamoto Kiyomoto sighed.

The wind blew, and the young woman tucked her flying hair behind her ear, revealing a faint smile.

She seemed to be trying to show an annoying smile, but unfortunately, because she was too beautiful, it only made people find it attractive.

Minamoto Kiyomoto understood the malice in her smile. This was revenge for his nonsense earlier—about marrying her daughter and claiming to be a student from the Faculty of Letters.

He nodded, as if to say: You win.

On that afternoon in April when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, the two of them stood foolishly by Sanshiro Pond for ten minutes.

The carp stayed at the edge of the pond closest to them, and the woman painting on the opposite side would glance at them from time to time.

“While we were waiting, I reflected on the past twenty years,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said after ten minutes had passed. “Other than getting a perfect score on all subjects in the university entrance exam, there is nothing special about me.”

“When I say special, I’m referring to the fact that you have an outstanding appearance, yet you haven’t had a girlfriend in twenty years.”

Minamoto Kiyomoto looked at the young woman, and she looked back at him. They just looked at each other for three seconds.

“I like women, and there’s nothing wrong with my body,” Minamoto Kiyomoto felt that some things had to be explained clearly, even if he could only speak five sentences in ten minutes.

“The reason isn’t important—”

“It is very important,” he interrupted her. “I don’t look for a girlfriend because now is the time to work hard. Once I have enough status and money, I plan to marry a pure, cute girl who is much younger than me.”

The young woman remembered how Minamoto Kiyomoto had just claimed he wanted to marry her daughter.

“I placed a curse on myself to only say five sentences to the same person in ten minutes because I cannot have emotional attachments to people,” she explained.

So that’s why she sought him out, someone who was clearly excellent and good-looking, but hadn’t had a girlfriend in twenty years?

“I see,” Minamoto Kiyomoto nodded. “Although I like all beautiful women, you are a bit too old. There’s no problem with you looking for me, please rest assured. By the way, I’m fine, but you should be careful not to fall in love with me.”

“…” The young woman continued, “Also, you are a genius. Although I don’t know if you are a genius in cultivating divine power, at least your brain isn’t slow.”

“Romantische Ironie,” a rare term came out of Minamoto Kiyomoto’s mouth. “Do you know what that means?”

“Don’t you say anything, I’ll explain!” he quickly added.

The young woman just wanted to tell him to stop talking about these irrelevant things.

But if she opened her mouth, this man would surely say “this is very important” again and then explain a whole bunch.

She put on an expression that said she had no interest in knowing and listened to Minamoto Kiyomoto speak.

“This is an idea proposed by the German ‘Schlegel.’ It roughly means: anyone who is called a genius must live a leisurely life all day, with no goals and no effort.”

After explaining, Minamoto Kiyomoto concluded, “I have goals, I work very hard, I am not a genius.”

“Let’s just say that’s the case,” this was the young woman’s fifth sentence.

In her view, this was just Minamoto Kiyomoto showing off his messy knowledge.

Actually, it wasn’t.

Suddenly stepping from a peaceful daily life into a mysterious world, Minamoto Kiyomoto was inevitably excited and eager to show what he could do.

Plus, the young woman looked like his future wife’s mother—very beautiful—so he became talkative.

At this moment, the young woman flipped the book in her hand to the first page and handed it to Minamoto Kiyomoto.

Minamoto Kiyomoto took it with some confusion, and the young woman pointed to a sentence.

It read:

“To claim that one is an ordinary, honest, and frank person is a way of reminding oneself to conceal the truth.”

Was this to mock him for saying he wasn’t a genius just now, implying that he was a hypocrite?
“Talent, I may have a little, but it’s more because of my persistent and focused effort.”

Minamoto Kiyomoto returned the book to her.

“My effort surpasses that of ordinary people. In the ten minutes we were just standing foolishly, I recited the Spanish example sentences I learned this morning, reviewed yesterday’s medical notes, and carefully pondered every frame since you appeared.”

He had confidence in his effort, without a doubt.

The young woman ignored him and continued to read her book.

Minamoto Kiyomoto took out his phone and opened the music player.

“Do you mind if I play it out loud?” he turned his head to look at the young woman’s beautiful profile in the shade of the trees. “I didn’t bring headphones.”

The young woman didn’t look at him, and naturally, didn’t speak.

Minamoto Kiyomoto lowered the volume, dragged the progress bar to the beginning, and pressed play.

That April, he was still working hard on his Spanish, and the songs he listened to were all in Spanish.

“No queda más que tú” (Only you are left)

“no queda más que yo” (Only I am left)

“en este extraño salón” (in this strange salon)
“sin nadie que nos diga dónde cómo” (with no one to tell us where, how)
“y cuándo nos besamos” (and when to kiss)
The lyrics were just a coincidence.

The girl painting on the opposite side seemed to have painted the two of them into her picture—her eyes were fixed on them as she painted.

Ten minutes were up. Minamoto Kiyomoto pressed the pause button.

“If you can only say five sentences in ten minutes, can you write or send a Line message?” he asked the young woman.

“To restrain yourself, and then find excuses to escape the restraint, what’s the point of deceiving yourself like that?” the young woman replied.

“That makes sense,” Minamoto Kiyomoto agreed, then returned to the matter he cared about. “You mentioned cultivating divine power just now. Can you teach me? As long as it’s not illegal, I’ll do anything.”

“By becoming my teammate, do you have any intention of getting close to me?” the young woman asked in return.

“Didn’t I just say it? You’re too old, you could be my mother—mother-in-law, I mean, don’t misunderstand. Also, now that I know there are yokai and that I can cultivate, my goal is to first become the strongest in Tokyo. We can talk about women later.”

“The strongest in Tokyo?”

“As long as I work hard,” Minamoto Kiyomoto nodded.

“To think that you can do anything just by working hard is the greatest arrogance in the world,” the young woman handed him a note she had prepared earlier. “Come to this place tomorrow.”

“Didn’t you say you can’t deceive yourself? How come you can write now? Also, you used the words in the book to mock me just now. Actually, you just do whatever is convenient for you, whatever—”

The young woman reached out and took the notes, letter, and book from Minamoto Kiyomoto’s hands.

“What?” Minamoto Kiyomoto looked at her in confusion.

Before he could react, the young woman suddenly twisted her slender waist and kicked him into the pond.

“Splash!”

The pond was shallow. If you accidentally stepped in near the edge, your pant legs would probably get wet, but the water really couldn’t be called clean.

Minamoto Kiyomoto fell in headfirst, his front completely soaked.

The carp that had been gathered at the edge of the pond scattered in all directions, then regrouped in the center of the pond.

“What are you doing?!”

Minamoto Kiyomoto stood up from the pond, wiping the water from his face with his left hand, completely soaked, and looked at the young woman angrily.

This woman really didn’t want to have any emotional attachments to people. He really disliked her right now.

The girl painting on the opposite side of the pond was peeking at them from behind her drawing board, probably thinking it was a lovers’ quarrel and concluding that Minamoto Kiyomoto was a treacherous scumbag.

The young woman glanced at Minamoto Kiyomoto’s right hand.

That hand was holding the piece of paper with the address. Even when he was suddenly kicked into the pond, he still held that hand up, not letting the paper get wet.

When she kicked Minamoto Kiyomoto, she had already decided to give up on him, intentionally trying to get the paper wet.

Whether the paper got wet or not didn’t really matter; the writing wouldn’t disappear just by touching water.

Getting the paper wet was just a physical manifestation of her thought to ‘give up on Minamoto Kiyomoto.’

Now, seeing Minamoto Kiyomoto standing in the pond, not letting his right hand holding the paper touch the water, she suddenly felt that besides being very smart, this person’s reactions and determination also had their merits.

If he could get rid of the five points of ‘always getting hung up on boring things,’ ‘being self-righteous,’ ‘interrupting others,’ ‘calling her old,’ and ‘being arrogant,’ she would be more satisfied.

However, disliking each other might allow them to maintain their distance, which might be a good thing.

She placed Minamoto Kiyomoto’s book, the letter to his family, and his medical notes neatly on the rock she had been sitting on. Before turning to leave, she smiled at Minamoto Kiyomoto for the second time.

Minamoto Kiyomoto understood her meaning: I’ve been putting up with you for a long time. And also, a little bit of satisfaction?

“Hey,” Minamoto Kiyomoto called out to her. “What’s your name?”

“Kamibayashi Miko.” The young woman’s elegant and pleasant voice drifted over from behind the corner of the woods. She was already out of sight.

Minamoto Kiyomoto wiped the pond water from his face and looked down at the note in his hand:

“Hakusan Shrine (Bunkyo Ward), the thickest tree, 9:00”

(End of Chapter)