Chapter 35 - The Birth of a Fool! And Then...
The brawl I started became known as the "Kirishima Bloodshed Incident" and was talked about for a long time.
Since then, the Otaku Princess didn’t try anything, and it seemed like her followers had decided that "hanging around this guy is dangerous," so the otaku group dissolved.
I went to Ta-kun’s house with some sablé in hand, and said
"I'm sorry I punched you in the nose. I won’t do it again. As long as you don't make any more mistakes."
He apologized too.
"I'm sorry. Please, no more punches. I’m really sorry."
Thus, both sides were at fault. After talking, it turned out Futo was a pretty good guy.
I wonder if he liked the sablé.
And as I mentioned last time, Marimo started to change.
"No, Kou-chan! The swimming stroke based on biomechanics goes like this! You need to submerge your face in the water! Ready, go!!"
"Gurgle gurgle gurgle! Blub blub blub!!"
Back then, I was terrible at swimming, and I was dreading the upcoming summer.
That anxiety must have been picked up by Marimo, and she dragged me to a heated pool.
She said, "I’ll help you, Kou-chan!"
Thanks to her Spartan coaching and something she called biomechanics, I nearly drowned.
My vision blurred, and I saw a hallucination of my grandma waving to me in a beautiful flower field.
By the way, my grandma’s still alive.
"Kou-chan, you’re smart, but your handwriting is terrible! That’s why you need this!"
"What’s this pen?"
"Now, put this paper on the mat, and try writing your name!"
"Alright, alright… KIRISHIMA!!"
Another time, she got all fired up about fixing my poor penmanship, handing me some kind of ridiculously heavy ballpoint pen and a rock-hard mat in her room, turning it into an impromptu calligraphy class.
I still don't know how it worked, but apparently, if I wrote poorly, electricity coursed through my body like a torture device, making me pass out several times.
While slipping in and out of consciousness, I saw another vision—this time of my grandpa beckoning to me from across the river.
My grandpa’s still alive too.
In this way, Marimo began to focus her genius on me, for my sake.
As a result, I became one of the top swimmers in my grade, and my bad handwriting completely disappeared.
That was the first major change.
And the second one—here it comes.
"Myaaa! Kou-chan, help meee!"
Marimo called me on my new cell phone, which I had just gotten at the time.
"What? What happened?"
My response was so serious. How nostalgic. Back then, I used to genuinely worry every time she called.
"Well, I thought I could fit my body through a tennis racket!"
"So I tried it!"
"And now my butt is stuck, and I can't get out!"
I couldn’t help but shout into the phone.
"Are you stupid!?"
I added:
"Only Esper Ito and a handful of people can pull that off!"
By the way, after two hours of trial and error, I successfully dismantled the racket with a coping saw, freeing her.
This was my first experience rescuing Marimo.
And it was the first time she showed her true foolishness so openly.
A genius giving birth to a genius-sized catastrophe.
Thus, the birth of the fool.
Once Marimo’s foolish mode came out, it appeared repeatedly, like mushrooms after rain.
But back in elementary school, it was still cute.
The frequency was about once a week, like attending a Kumon class.
So even I, as an elementary schooler, could handle it.
But once we became middle schoolers, both the frequency and difficulty skyrocketed.
One time:
"Kou-chan! I’ve figured out how you can theoretically run on water! Let’s prove it!"
She had me place a mat on a nearby river and run across it.
As expected, I sank immediately, but I was thankful that I had mastered swimming in elementary school.
I considered complaining that she was inspired by Baki's Retsu Kaioh, but then realized, "This would only make things worse," so I stopped myself—proof that I was maturing too.
Another time:
"Kou-chan! I’ve figured out how to drink water while doing a handstand!"
"Hey, Marimo, it's 5 AM..."
"You see, the throat muscles—well, technically, the esophageal muscles—"
"Yeah, but the sun isn't even up yet..."
"There are vertical muscles and ring-like muscles in the esophagus!"
"…Alright, I’m coming."
So, I went to her room, where she greeted me in her pajamas.
By then, we were in our second year of middle school. Normally, such a scenario might make a guy’s heart race.
But I had discarded such delicate emotions when I graduated from elementary school.
I didn’t even have a third of my pure, innocent feelings left.
Anyway, about the experiment.
I couldn’t exactly make Marimo do a handstand, so I ended up doing it myself and trying to drink the water.
The result?
Water shot painfully out of my nose.
But she seemed happy. Hey, God, look at me!
"Kou-chan! Your throat muscle control is so bad!"
I thought about responding with something witty like, "I'm not in a club!" but the intense sleepiness got the better of me, and I went home.
When it was decided that Marimo would give the representative speech at our middle school graduation, I was so nervous that I couldn’t sleep.
So on the day, I hid inside the podium.
When she got to the line, "Thinking of soaring into the future fills my heart with excitement," my danger sense kicked in.
"My heart is filled with... muramura—"
"Whoa, wait!!"
"Myaaa!"
"It's wakuwaku with excitement, not muramura!!"
"Oh yeah, right! Thanks, Kou-chan!"
From then on, I kept slapping her thigh whenever she messed up during the ceremony.
Apparently, there’s some tradition about the second button at middle school graduations, but I know nothing about it.
My only memory from that day is Marimo's thighs.
Also, my lower back pain.
Oh, and the fact that she stole my second button, saying she was going to research metal polishing.
That’s about it.
And so, we entered Hanamatsuri Academy.
Of course, since I went to the entrance ceremony with Marimo, things didn’t go smoothly.
On the way, we somehow stumbled upon a freshly committed locked-room murder mystery.
Marimo, standing amidst the crowd, said,
"I think it was probably a wire trick! See, if you twirl the wire like this around the gutter, you can lock the door on the second floor from the outside!"
Before I could react, the victim’s stepson, who had been in the crowd, suddenly shouted and broke down, confessing, "I couldn’t help it!!"
When the police secured the culprit, I quickly grabbed Marimo and dashed away.
To the classic line, "You couldn’t possibly understand how I feel!" that the criminal spat out, I replied respectfully,
"Nope, I don’t get it!!"
Nice, me.
And so, I’ve been dragged along by this fool ever since.
…But, to be honest, I didn’t mind.
Being relied on by her made me happy.
That’s why, no matter how impossible the task, I worked hard to keep up with her genius.
I absorbed everything—studying, trivia, specialized knowledge.
Where did I go wrong?
How did I end up making her cry?
The one person I swore I’d never make cry.
And now, we’re back to the present.
In a dimly lit room, under the faint glow of a nightlight, a pathetic guy is sitting.
I realized I had a responsibility to face reality.