A Secret First Shrine Visit

“Even so… haah…”
“A sigh this early into the new year, really, Gin?”
“And whose fault do you think that is…”

When your childhood friend, and the relative who bills herself as said friend’s “partner,” spring a prank like that on you, a sigh is going to slip out no matter what. I’d let them both have a piece of my mind the moment the whole thing came to light, but it still didn’t feel like anywhere near enough. Anything I said now would only rehash what I’d already said, though, so I bit it back.

“Anyway, what even made you decide to do a whole year-in-review thing?”

And Yuuka, Ayu’s relative, had been sitting right there beside her the whole time, no less. Well, no. In a case like this, Yuuka, planted next to the one actually on the call, is if anything the odd one out. How long had she even been there, anyway? Don’t tell me she’d been at it since one of the three calls before mine. No way, right?

“Mmm… how do I put it, I just wanted to tell everyone thanks, y’know.”
“Thanks?”
“Yep! A ‘thanks for all the fun memories up till now’… kind of thing!”
“What is this, a series finale or something?”
“Well, in the sense that a year’s coming to an end, it kind of is a finale.”

Nobody asked her to be clever. Though, actually… here’s the thing. Going out of her way to do this one by one with each of her four closest friends, taking her sweet time over it…

“Isn’t that kinda raising a death flag?”
“What a thing to say, Gin!”

◆◆◆

“…Well, we made it safely across into the new year, so I’ll hang up soon.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“What’s the right thing to say in a situation like this, I wonder… ‘Have a good year’?”
“That’s a before-the-year-turns thing… can’t you just go with the usual ‘Happy New Year, and here’s to another good year together’?”
“You’ve got a point. All right then…”
“Happy New Year, and here’s to another good year together!”

There she goes again, butting in. For someone so dutifully keeping quiet the whole time, why does she jump in on things like this? Or is it that, precisely because she’s so dutiful, she’s trying to at least get the bare-minimum courtesies out of the way? Actually, going by how neatly she’d caught exactly what I was saying, that self-proclaimed partner had definitely been listening in on speaker.

“All right then, night~”
“Goodnight to you, Ginko, you jerk.”
“The hell’d you say, you jerk… ah, they hung up.”

Missed my chance to say goodnight. Well, whatever.

With the call over, I looked at the phone screen and found a whole pile-up of notifications, HNY messages and stickers, every one timestamped to the exact moment the year had turned over. I fired back my own belated replies, messages and stickers, but when I pictured how those three, the ones who’d talked with Ayu before me, could see right through exactly why I was running late, I felt a little embarrassed.

“…Phew.”

Replies done, I flopped down onto the bed. Somehow, right at the very end… no, the opposite, right as the new year had begun, I’d worked myself up in that strange way all over again, and now I was a little worn out. Before I headed down to give the family my New Year’s greetings, I’d space out and rest, just for a bit.

Isn’t that kinda raising a death flag?

“…”

Calmly, I turned the conversation I’d just had with Ayu back over in my mind, and all of a sudden my own remark came floating back to me. Come to think of it… hadn’t Ayu died in a traffic accident in her past life? And on top of that, right now she was off in some far-off mountains, and I was fairly sure she’d said they’d driven out there in her parents’ car…

“…”

I bolted upright and made for my big brother’s room. He stays up late as a matter of course anyway, and over the New Year’s stretch he was absolutely bound to still be awake.

“Big bro—”

— Knock, knock.

“What’s up, sister mine?”
“Let’s go for our first shrine visit of the year.”
“Huh, right now? Isn’t that the kind of thing you do before the year turns, or in the morning at the earliest…”
“Just come on.”

My brother balked at the invitation. Well, that’s the natural reaction; if Ayu sprang the same thing on me, I’d balk too, or flat-out refuse. But still… after saying what I’d said to Ayu earlier, it had left a bad taste, or rather, I had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to sleep with a clear conscience…

“C’mon, hurry up and get up, dumbass big bro.”
“That’s hardly the attitude of someone asking a favor, is it?”
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine — I’ll just go by myself.”
“…Fine, fine! You want me to go, I’ll go, okay?!”

Good, good. If this hadn’t worked, I’d have had to go ask my parents next, and if that fell through, worst case I’d have ended up negotiating with this brother of mine all over again. Glad I saved myself the hassle. New Year’s or not, wandering around alone at this hour isn’t the kind of thing a person should be doing.

“Honestly…”
“Come on, let’s get moving.”
“Yeah, yeah… got something you’re that desperate to pray to the gods for?”
“…Not really.”

It’s just that I had this vague sense I’d gone and said something ominous, that’s all. It’s not as if this was something I absolutely had to do this very second, and Ayu wasn’t coming back anytime soon either, so honestly it would have been fine to wait until morning; that would even have made more sense, really, but…

“…Ah, so that’s it. This is about Ayuri, right? Your call earlier, the voices carried out into the hall…”
“…”

— Glare.

(So I’m right… my kid sister really is an open book…)

Get there quick, get back quick.

Going for a reason like this is embarrassing, so… I’ll keep it a secret from my friends.