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V7 Story II – Part 01

I have a new name now.

It’s the name of a flower.

I’m Hirugao now.

Yusuke’s Hirugao.

Yusuke tells me I don’t need to do anything. “You must be tired,” he says, “so just take it slow.” He’s like me, doing nothing too.

He sleeps a lot. Sometimes he just stares at the floor without moving. But when I talk to him, he smiles. I like Yusuke’s smile. At first, I didn’t get him, and I still don’t, but I really like his smile.

Yusuke tells me I’m free to do anything.

But I don’t know what freedom is.

When I said that, Yusuke said he didn’t know either.

During those times, we both just stare off into space.

I laze around, eat when we’re hungry, and sleep a lot.

That’s probably the first time I feel free, he says.

But I don’t think I can be really free, like Yusuke says.

No matter what, I don’t think I can ever truly be free.

There are things he doesn’t know.

There are also things I forgot.

But I won’t tell him. So he will never, ever know.

Actually…

It’s my secret.

“Odagiri is here!”

“Aaaahh!”

As I opened the office door, a sudden weight came hurtling towards me like a bullet. I nearly lost my footing but managed to steady myself just in time.

Hirugao was dangling from my neck with laughter, flailing her legs wildly.

She was thin, but I couldn’t support the weight of a teenage girl. Staggering, I lifted her up and carefully set her back down on the floor.

“H-Hirugao, please stop doing that,” I begged. “I might fall over.”

“Yusuke! Yusuke! Odagiri is here!”

But she was already off, running back inside the office. A large ribbon bobbed atop her gray hair, and she stepped on her oversized pants with her bare feet. She was wearing Yusuke’s clothes.

The sleeves and cuffs were rolled up, as they were too long for her. She didn’t seem to want her own clothes.

I asked before if she needed new clothes…

“Well, she likes it, so I don’t see the problem.”

“It’s so baggy. So comfy and warm!”

“Right?”

“Yeah!”

…and that was how they responded.

And so today, too, Hirugao was stepping on the hem of her pants. Yusuke’s clothes were gradually deteriorating, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I followed Hirugao into the living room, and froze.

Mayuzumi was staring at me with a scornful gaze.

Origami animals filled the headdress adorning her head. There was even a chain between the pack of dogs. She looked like a Christmas tree.

“Odagiri-kun,” she said. “I’m docking your pay.”

“Is that really the first thing that comes out of your mouth?! Please don’t!” I implored.

Mayuzumi ignored my plea and sighed. Her half-closed eyes glinted with rage.

Yusuke was lying on the floor, with Hirugao clinging to his leg like a kitten. They were looking at me.

“Oh, it’s Odagiri-san,” Yusuke said. “‘Sup! He’s really here.”

“I told you!” Hirugao smiled brightly, flapping her legs.

She was supposed to be sixteen years old, but she looked to be around twelve, and she behaved in a manner of someone even younger. They seemed like siblings years apart.

Heaving a sigh, I pulled Yusuke and Hirugao up, sitting them on the floor.

“Listen here, Yusuke. Hirugao is one thing, but you shouldn’t be lazing around. Don’t sleep on the floor. You might catch a cold. Use the couch.”

“There you go again, acting like a mother. Hirugao jumps around on the couch. I don’t want it getting dirty. Besides, I lie on the floor at home all the time, and I never catch a cold.”

“You should look out for Hirugao too!” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Also, please be mindful of Mayu-san’s mood.”

They might get banned from the office if they kept this up.

I turned to Hirugao and stroked her gray head. “And you need to calm down a bit. Don’t be too loud, okay?”

“Okay! I won’t be loud. I’ll be quiet, quiet, quiet,” she repeated so she wouldn’t forget.

If you asked her something very carefully, she would usually listen. An order would probably be most reliable, but I didn’t want to do that.

I turned my attention back to Mayuzumi. She was removing the annoying ornaments on her head.

“So, Yusuke-kun. What are you here for?” Mayuzumi asked. “I let you into the apartment because you said there was something you wanted to talk about. You didn’t come here just to scatter origami all over the place, did you?”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot. I wanted to talk to Odagiri-san about something.” Yusuke lifted Hirugao up and sat her down. “Be a good girl now.”

He then sprang to his feet, grabbed my arm, and dragged me to the kitchen. Hirugao, following instructions, said nothing. Yusuke stopped in front of the fridge and turned to face me with a grave look.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

This was the first time I saw a stern look on his face since Hirugao arrived. It made me uneasy.

Yusuke cast a quick glance at the living room and whispered, “It’s about Hirugao. Apparently, she’s missing some of her memories.”

I frowned at the unexpected words. Hirugao’s innocent smile flashed before my eyes.

No one knew anything about her past, but I never imagined that she had lost her own memories.

“Missing some of her memories? Like an amnesia?”

“Seems like it. Before she went to the butterfly mansion, she underwent various forms of training, but it’s all very vague. I don’t think she’s lying; she just seems to have completely forgotten. She remembers recent events, but she doesn’t want to talk about what happened after she fled from that place… Maybe it was something awful.”

The fact that Hirugao had no memories of her past filled me with unease.

Deep emotional wounds could cause people to lose their memories. Her youthful demeanor only served to heighten my suspicion of her tragic circumstance. It was understandable why she refused to talk about recent events. After all, she had beheaded her master in that very house.

Hirugao was smiling brightly. Yusuke’s skull-like grin came to my mind. But no matter how broken she was from the start, it could not have been easy for her.

“If that’s the case, we shouldn’t force her to talk about it,” I suggested. “She’s doing fine, right? I think that’s enough. There’s no need to dig up the past.”

“I agree. That’s why I came here today. To ask you not to touch the subject carelessly. We don’t want to flip some kind of trauma switch.”

Apparently, that was the point he was getting at. And so came to a decision on how to interact with Hirugao. She would be allowed to do anything she wanted until she settled into her new environment. Eventually, we would have to find a way to help her reintegrate into society.

“This takes me back,” Yusuke said, wearing a serious look. “It’s been a while since I’ve thought about others like this.” An embarrassed smile appeared on his face.

He once had a stepmother and stepsister. He must have smiled and laughed like a normal kid before they hung themselves. I hoped that his current expression was close to how he was before the tragedy.

That this was Saga Yusuke’s face before he broke.

“Odagiri, Yusuke?” called a barely audible voice.

We quickly turned our gazes to the direction of the voice to find Hirugao standing there, fiddling with the bottom of her shirt. Her big eyes flickered.

“Um, should I have not called you?” she asked anxiously.

Her voice was soft, probably because she was asked to be quiet. Yusuke strode toward her and hugged her frail body tight.

“It’s okay,” he said tenderly, patting her back. “Call us when you want to. So, what’s up?”

Hirugao happily hung onto Yusuke’s neck before turning to me. “Odagiri, Mayu-san wants to see you.”

So she came here to call for me. Right before I could thank her, she continued.

“She said Asato wants to see you!”