translation: Mirage of Blaze #20, Chapter 1 (first half)
Disclaimer: I can barely read my way out of a paper bag. So, while the translations for shorter sentences are, I hope, mostly accurate, with complex sentences all bets are off. I've done the best I can, but don't be surprised if you stumble across idioms and metaphors that have accidentally been rendered literally, or passages that just plain don't make sense. That said, I hope an inexpert translation's better than nothing. Although it might take me rather a long time to finish, I do plan to keep going on this until/unless someone else who's better at reading Japanese picks it up.
PS, the sex doesn't start for a few more chapters, so don't get your hopes up.


Mirage of Blaze #20: Embrace the Cross and Sleep
by Kuwabara Mizuna

Chapter 1: To the Town Where You Live

It seemed as though the rain had let up.

The trees along the road in front of the station began to glitter with the sunlight that shined down through the rift between the clouds.

Saturday afternoon, 2 o'clock.

From a seat by the second-floor window of a fast food restaurant, a girl was gazing at the roadside trees after the rain.

Her name was Kitahara Madoka. She was a second-year student at Southern Matsumoto Prefectural High School.

(Such a soft yellow-green)

Madoka had a strange habit. When she was very young, she'd been forced against her will to learn watercolor painting; unfortunately, even now, sometimes she still played at painting pictures in her head. In order to duplicate the color of those leaves, she readied the palette in her mind and used the painting tools inside her head to make the color. As a way to kill time, it was just right. She didn't draw anymore, but she couldn't stop playing this one game with herself. When she'd talked about it to a friend earlier, the friend had said "you're strange, you know," and laughed at her. That was far from odd.

She especially liked the green of May. It reminded Madoka of the skin of Yuusuke, her nephew, born last year to her older sister and her husband. Fresh and lively, and seeming flexible to the touch, May, even though it was in the middle of the year, was her favorite month.

(If only I didn't have to be clear-headed for midterms)

In the intersection, the traffic light was changing to green. In the crowd of passers-by, umbrellas withered and faded away like flowers.

Southern Matsumoto Prefectural High School was currently in the middle of midterm exams.

Because this year's test schedule was strange, the final day was scheduled for Monday of the following week. If midterms had ended on Saturday, no matter what the results were, right away the students would have felt refreshed and been able to spend the weekend going out, and Madoka's classmates were complaining. ...She agreed entirely.

Because of this, the high school student who still had one remaining day of tests came to this place to drink iced tea in a leisurely manner, not for the purpose of "playing at painting pictures". Madoka had an appointment with another person.

However, that person was already twenty minutes late.

(It can't be helped. I'll just study a little bit)

With that thought, Madoka reluctantly took out her notebook. The only subject left for the last day was the worst—physics.

She had some time ago gotten a copy of her friend's notes. Looking only at these, she scanned them over in preparation as she sucked up her iced tea.

Air came into the straw and made a weird noise at just that moment.

"Sorry I'm late."

The girl's voice that she was accustomed to hearing overlapped with the sound of the straw. When she looked up, the person she was supposed to meet was running up the stairs. It was one of her high school classmates.

Her name was Ougi Miya.

In contrast to Madoka, who was in ordinary clothes, Miya was still wearing her school uniform. Because a considerable amount of time had passed since school had let out, and because she'd thought that Miya had stopped by her house for a moment before coming here, Madoka was a little surprised.

"Did you come here directly from school?"

"I did go back home, but... I didn't have time to change clothes. After school, I got called in by a teacher." She giggled.

"Called in? You don't say! Was it about your part-time job, did they find out about it?"

"Oh, no, no. It was about the parent-teacher conference. So they could tell me that there's been a change in the date."

With relief, Madoka returned to her chair. "Was it next week....? That's unpleasant, isn't it. Right after midterms. And we've still only just entered the second year of high school. I want more time to think about my future. Our school does things hastily."

Parent-teacher conferences and things like that... they weren't middle-school students, she grumbled.

Oh yes, this. Pulling herself together, Madoka handed over the copy of the physics notes to Miya. "This is for you. Ah, Kogure's notebook, I've come to rely on it."

In truth, this was the purpose of their meeting. Miya was also very bad at physics. Gratefully, worshipfully, Miya took the copy. So long as she had this, she figured she'd be able to escape getting a failing grade in physics.

After handing over the copy, Madoka noticed a big blue paper bag beside Miya's satchel.

"What's that, Miya?"

"I stopped by somewhere. To go shopping. A while ago."

"If you'd told me, I would've come with you."

"Yeah. But it seemed like it was going to take a long time."

It was a bag from a discount household appliance shop. The store was a brand-new one, located along the national highway some distance from the city.

"Did your part-time job go all right today?"

"Yeah. Because I'm in the middle of exams, they let me have the day off."

The truth was, for three months, Miya had been working a secret after-school job that she was hiding from the school. Madoka's mother worked as a waitress in the inn at Azama Hot Springs, which happened to have been recruiting for evening waitstaff. Because Miya had just been looking for a part-time job, Madoka's mother had told her about the job, and she'd stealthily slipped in. Southern Matsumoto High School, which Miya attended, banned students from working part-time jobs as a general rule.

"My mother, she says good things about you. She says you do really good work and that you're a big help."

"Really?" She laughed. "I try my best. I learned how to put on a kimono by myself, too."

"Is that so. Oh, you have to wear Japanese clothes at a hot springs, don't you."

It was Miya's first experience having a part-time job, but it seemed fulfilling in and of itself. When things were busy, there were times when she returned home past eleven, but those times, on returning, she could get in the bath and find enjoyment even in the midst of exhaustion.

"But, honestly, it's better not to have a job. Because you just got this month's salary, and accomplished your goal."

"Goal, you say? Possibly."

Seeming happy, Miya lifted up the bag as if to say "this".

The thing that Miya had bought with the money she'd saved up from her part-time job was a cellular phone.

Many of their friends had pagers but, as expected, almost none of them had cell phones.
And yet, as for the wrapping, a ribbon signifying a present had been affixed to it.

"Wait a second, Miya. Who are you giving it to? Don't tell me you've secretly gotten a boyfriend you've been hiding from me!"

"No, it's not a boyfriend."

Suddenly a thought hit, and the look on Madoka's face turned serious. "Maybe..." she asked in a little voice, and Miya nodded in agreement.

"My part-time job... the truth is I did it just so that I could buy this. A pager would have been good too, but, uh, unreliable. So, since today everything cleared up and I finally bought this, it's really okay if I have to quit."

"Miyaaaa...."

"But a cell phone means a phone bill and things like that, and that costs a lot. Right now I'm thinking I'll save up a little bit more money, and I've decided to try and continue until the end of summer break. Part-time jobs are forbidden, and everything, but everyone else has done it okay, right?"

Madoka called herself Miya's close friend. She also knew all about Miya's household situation.

Her expression growing worried, she looked at Miya, who was drinking cola.

Miya spoke as though nothing were wrong, but...

"Madoka. Would it be bad if I didn't go back home now?"

"N...no."

"There's only one more day of exams. Want to go shopping for clothes or something? I'll go with you."

*

She hadn't gone shopping with Miya since spring break. Saturdays had been eaten up by Miya's part-time job, so they hadn't been able to hang out. They left the restaurant, and the two of them wasted up to two hours shopping. They looked at a variety of things, but the only things they eventually bought were one blouse and earrings with little bears on them.

Because the time they had together was more than half over, the two of them for some reason or another went for a walk along the Metoba River. Because of a coffee shop that Miya liked, they crossed the Akai Bridge and stopped by Yohashira Shrine. Miya approached the main building of the shrine, tossed a five-yen coin into the offertory box, and said a prayer.

"What did you pray for? That you wouldn't get a failing grade?"

When Madoka asked the question, Miya turned around and laughed jokingly. "Ehehe. No, that I could get a boyfriend."

Tired from walking, the pair sat down on a bench. Madoka was preoccupied with the bag at Miya's feet. Since some time ago, Miya had been in strangely high spirits, but whenever there was a pause in the conversation she let out a tired sigh, so Madoka knew that the high spirits were merely for show.

Madoka made a guess as to the reason.

She dared to ask the question.

"You still haven't heard from your brother yet?"

Miya bowed her head in assent.

"That means you haven't had any contact with him for three months."

"...It's been four months, now." Her legs dangling heavily from the bench, Miya spoke in a gloomy voice. "The last time I heard his voice was at the end of January... He always contacts me once a month, without fail."

"And right now, you have no idea where he is?"

Silently, she nodded.

It seemed as though he was living alone. "Seemed" because he hadn't told her his address or anything. For a while, he'd apparently lived with his ex-classmate Chiaki Shuuhei (Miya had heard that from Chiaki himself), but what was he doing now? She knew that he'd said he was in Tokyo, but he hadn't been clear on the details.

"I asked him but he wouldn't tell me. Sometimes he calls me, but it's just to say that he's healthy, he won't tell me where he is or what he's doing."

Miya looked at the blue bag at her feet. The cellular phone was for getting in touch with her brother, and she intended to send it to him as a present.

(So I can hear his voice anytime...)

Madoka occasionally heard things about Miya's older brother, Ougi Takaya.

Before failing to graduate high school, he had moved completely out of the house, and now he was apparently working in Tokyo. But no matter what reason he hadn't told Miya his contact address, even if she wanted to get in touch with him from here, it seemed she didn't even know where he was.

At the high school Takaya had attended, he had been branded a "dropout." Here his two-year absence from school had been regarded as a temporary absence, but because he'd expressed no will to return to school and he hadn't been living at home, his father had notified the school he wouldn't be coming back.

"As long as he's healthy, isn't it okay?"

Miya was watching a votive picture sway in the wind, but before long her gaze dropped. "But why would he go to Tokyo like that before graduating? He said that he'd at least graduate high school."

(Continuing to live in this town, was it unpleasant for him?)

Miya didn't hate Matsumoto. Although there were things she disliked about it, she had many friends here, and it was the town where she'd been born and raised. It was on the coast, but you could see castles and the mountains of the Northern Alps from the window, and she thought it was very pretty. But it seemed that her brother wasn't the same.

While looking at Miya's face in profile, Madoka remembered a rumor that she'd once heard from a friend.

Miya's big brother was arrested by the police in the company of a former yakuza, the friend had said.

Had it already been five years since the case in Matsumoto in which a high school student had been selling narcotics to high school and middle school students? Madoka also had an older sister, and she remembered the case well because there'd been an uproar over whether or not there had been among her sister's classmates people who had turned their hands to drugs. It seemed that Miya's brother had also been arrested by the police in that incident. He'd only been in middle school, but at any rate, through the common practice of stabbing people through blackmail, rumors of unknown origin and unknown destination flew about that he'd been acknowledged as the leader of the plot.

At the time when Miya's brother had stopped going to school, too, the people around him had thought nothing but things like "It's because he's that Ougi" and "It's only natural."

In Tokyo, it seems like he'll do extreme things.

Certainly Miya had heard cruel rumors too.

Brother, that was very bad, you know.

Before, Miya had said that.

It seems that the strange rumors and things are spreading. No matter where I go and what I do, someone will certainly be looking at me. That's very bad.

No matter where he ran in this little town, he'd said.

Miya thought that was why her brother had gone to Tokyo, it seemed.

Without even waiting for graduation...

"What about your father?" Madoka asked. "Your father didn't say anything? About your brother?"

"A little while before, he tried to meet with him and talk, but.... in some respects there were places where they both exercised restraint but that was just more awkward than fighting and so it ended. And Father can't be hard on him. It's because he always lost his temper that his child turned out bad."

Because there was a drawback, in regards to Takaya.

The thought that he hadn't forgiven his parents, it seemed to be somewhere.

"So... you're saying that your parents let him go?"

"'Let him go', you say..." While staring at a pigeon as it approached their feet, Miya spoke sadly. "It's difficult, you know. My brother, he had memories that were so painful he couldn't talk about them in words. Really horrible things were done to him. Father was no good. That's it, to put it simply."

Takaya had received more of the abuse than Miya had. It was because they were father and son. By the time he reached puberty, the injuries he bore in his heart were immeasurable.

The worsened father-son relationship from that time had left a strain that still remained to this day. For example, even if Takaya had been able to forgive him a little, until they were able to have a heart-to-heart talk, time was still valuable.

But, only five years had passed yet...

"But even so, he's not the kind of brother who'd forget about us or anything. I think he'd certainly have a reason for not being in contact. But this time seems different."

"When you say 'different', what do you mean?"

"The day before yesterday Narita-san's mother came to the house."

"Narita?"

"My brother's close friend."

"Ah. You mean the dentist's son. You said he's attending college in Tokyo now, or something." Madoka watched as Miya's fist, which rested in her lap, shook faintly. "Did something happen?"

"She said her son didn't come back to his apartment. Ever since, it's as though the house is open."

"What does that mean?"

"She doesn't know where he is." Miya spoke in a low voice. "She said he didn't come back, as though he'd gone somewhere. Even when the new semester started he didn't come back to school, and he wasn't at home. Because that was strange, his parents began to make a fuss and called the police. Apparently they searched all over, but they still don't know anything."

Madoka turned pale.

(He hasn't.... disappeared?)

In regards to the investigation, no more news had come since the middle of February. He hadn't turned in an advance notification to his part-time job that he'd be taking time off. When his friends from college called him about their circle's spring training camp, too, they all got his answering machine, and eventually because they hadn't been able to get in touch he became a non-participating member. Because when Yuzuru had come home at New Year's, he'd talked about working at a ski place, his parents thought that surely he'd gone to do that, so it seemed they hadn't worried until the new semester started.

"So then, she came to your house?"

"Yeah. Because my brother was close to him, wouldn't he know something, she said on the phone." She spoke disinterestedly, but her hands were shaking. "I told her that since he hadn't been in touch with me, I didn't know, and I couldn't give her any other answer at that time. Then the other night, Narita-san's mother came to our house crying..." Miya couldn't help but hang her head in shame. "'Bring him back, please,' she said. 'Our child, bring him back.' Because there's no mistaking the fact that my brother's had an influence on him. 'He's doing bad things in Tokyo,' she said. 'Please don't involve our child in it too.'"

"Who said those things...?"

"Narita-san's aunt, even though she's a really nice person. She believed the strange rumors, and blamed it on my brother. She was crying and clinging to my father..."

Maybe it was understandable.

Her only son had gone missing in Tokyo. It was impossible for his mother to behave calmly. She chased after him and created chaos. No, unexpectedly there were possibly hidden motives.

After all, afterwards Yuzuru's mother soothed the husband who came running to her and was embraced by him. Both Miya and her father, wordlessly, did nothing but wait and see. Since then, her father had been moping too.

"Me, I don't know what to do. And I can't believe it. I'm too preoccupied to even think about exams. In the middle of the bustle a person who looked like a detective showed up. What should I do?"

"Miya."

A single tear fell onto the hand that rested in her lap. "But it hasn't necessarily been decided that my brother had anything to do with it, right? We don't know yet."

"'Strange,' they said... it's strange."

Miya said with many sobs in her voice, "My brother said he was working in Tokyo, but I don't know. It's been strange the whole time. Because it seems like he's hiding something, and he won't talk to me at all about what he's doing."

"Miyaaa..."

"On top of that, Narita-san disappeared. It's strange. It's too weird. I know nothing about what's going on with my brother. Why... why are these things happening?"

To cheer her up, Madoka put her arms around Miya's shoulders. "It's okay, Miya. It's unrelated. Your brother has nothing to do with it."

"Nothing to do with it, you say...."

"That friend's situation is different. Your brother was picked on by accident because he happened to say he's in Tokyo, but there's no basis or anything to say they're together. Tokyo is a huge place. Besides, it isn't necessarily the case that people who leave school in the middle of a term to work and people who recklessly play around while being a college student would continue to meet."

"But Narita-san isn't that kind of person..."

"Miya, if you don't believe in your brother, who will?"

Madoka knew well how much Takaya was Miya's "dear brother".

Miya's wish had finally come true with an upperclassman she'd had an unrequited love for, and she'd become able to go out with him, but just as that happened her brother left home and, because she was so worried, she eventually ended up breaking up with the upperclassman.

"Your brother has his own thoughts, and maybe he's not keeping in touch with you on purpose. Until he's settled down with his job, for example, or until some kind of decision is made... I think it's pointless to speculate about what he's thinking and what he's doing. That he had no intention of even graduating high school, for instance. Your brother, Miya, he's thinking about many things, and right now he might be frantic. He really might be working hard, you know."

"Madoka..."

"It's bad to think negatively. Believe in him, okay? Okay?"

Miya looked at Madoka with a feeling of irritation. How could she convey this to Madoka?

This uncomfortable feeling...

This unnaturalness...

But she also knew that Madoka was trying desperately to console her. Half giving up, Miya pretended she agreed.

"Yes, you're right... Madoka." Miya wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry. I made you worry, didn't I...? But I'm okay."

"Miya..."

"Really, I'm okay."

She didn't seem okay at all.

"A-ah. It's good that the exams end soon." Miya stood up and lifted her eyes to the sky, which was dyed the color of madder, above the shrine's blue roof.

From the direction of Matsumoto Castle, she could hear the broadcast of the closing announcement in the gardens.

(Brother...)

The silhouette of the remaining snow on the Northern Alps was on the other side of the road...