C20: A Dizzying Ride Home

C20: Driving Too Fast Makes You Carsick!

After a journey by sea, the two young women finally returned to Nanami’s family port.

Feeling solid ground beneath her feet once more, Shion exhaled a sigh of profound relief.

Then, a gust of icy sea breeze swept past, causing Shion to involuntarily let out a booming sneeze, and her nose began to feel uncomfortably congested.

“So, so cold!” Shion quickly crouched down, her thin attire proving utterly inadequate against the biting coastal wind.

“Who was it just now who claimed they were perfectly warm?” Nanami hastily draped the blanket Shion had previously worn over Shion’s shoulders. “Don’t try to be tough!”

“One of us was bound to catch a cold today, either you or I,” Shion quipped, a laugh escaping her despite the nascent symptoms of her impending illness. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me for catching it instead of you?”

Nanami wrapped the blanket more snugly around Shion, trying her best to keep her warm. “So, how about it? Want to sleep over at my place tonight? My house is right nearby, and dinner should be ready by now.”

Shion quickly shook her head, pulling out her phone to confirm it was still functional and that Ayane hadn’t yet barraged her with messages. “My sister is still at home, wailing for food,” she explained. “I fear if I only return tomorrow, I’ll find nothing but a starved demon.”

“At the very least, come to my place to change, then? Your clothes are completely soaked through; even if they dry, you’ll still feel chilled,” Nanami pressed on.

Shion persisted in shaking her head. ‘Having already hugged and been hugged, kissed and been kissed, going to Nanami’s house to change clothes would surely mean she wouldn’t be leaving Nanami’s home tonight…’

“Alright then,” Nanami sighed, before taking Shion’s phone from her hand and, with her own phone, began to operate them.

“Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing!” Shion quickly tried to reclaim her phone.

Nanami swiftly completed her task, slipping the phone back into Shion’s hand before Shion could pounce. Shion glanced at it, noticing a new contact in her list: a profile picture of a deep blue ocean, with the name “Kazama Nanami” in the notes.

“There, now if you ever have any trouble, you can come to me,” Nanami said, her voice dropping. “Consider today… consider it me owing you a favor. But, but it was clearly *me* who saved *you*!”

“I didn’t even want to go on a boat today! You were the one who dragged me along!” Shion pouted discontentedly. “Why are you blaming me now!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll get you back home quickly,” Nanami conceded, pulling Shion along as they headed out the door.

“How… how are we getting back?” Shion asked, a hint of panic in her voice.

Stepping out of the warehouse, they found Nanami’s black motorcycle parked right at the entrance.

Shion felt a bead of sweat trickle down her back. At sea, if the boat capsized, at least she’d be in the water, able to float for a while and react. But this motorcycle… if it crashed, she’d truly become a ‘Ghost Rider Youth’ (TL Note: A Chinese slang term referring to reckless young motorcyclists, often associated with modified bikes and dangerous driving), or rather, a ‘Ghost Rider Girl’! A crash like this would be instant game over!

“Can I refuse?” Shion managed to ask, biting back the sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue.

“Then you won’t make it back in time to cook for your sister,” Nanami stated simply.

Humans, truly, are such peculiar creatures. Sometimes, to escape a few nagging words from their younger sister, they’ll do the most outrageous things.

Such as riding on Kazama Nanami’s motorcycle!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…”

Along the small town roads, Nanami was tearing through with Shion. Nanami’s riding skills were exceptional; she weaved through traffic with effortless grace, easily bypassing pedestrians while maintaining a remarkably safe distance.

Of course, the pedestrians were invariably startled out of their wits…

Shion felt herself growing dizzy from the relentless wind, the surrounding scenery blurring into a rapid kaleidoscope. She clung tightly to Nanami’s waist, simultaneously experiencing the world spinning around her and chastising herself for having been too proud to ask for a child-seat harness—at least then she’d feel psychologically safer. Though Nanami had provided her with a motorcycle helmet, Shion couldn’t shake the feeling that its sole purpose might be to ensure her head could be found intact should she be thrown off later…

“Nanami, slow down…” When Shion opened her helmet visor to speak, she could barely hear her own words over the roaring wind in her ears. A slight tilt of her head to the side, away from Nanami’s wind-breaking form, left her lips flapping uncontrollably, producing only an indistinct babble.

“What? What did you say!” Nanami yelled from the front seat. Still wearing her helmet with the visor down, she couldn’t discern a single word Shion was saying.

“I said…” Just then, a powerful wave of nausea surged through her.

Shion quickly clapped a hand over her mouth, pressing it against the visor. Otherwise, she risked soiling Nanami’s helmet and her own clothes, or worse… Good heavens, the image was too horrifyingly vivid for Shion to even contemplate.

“Oh, by the way, Hoshimori-san! Are you carsick?!” Nanami shouted from the front.

Shion was already seized by an overwhelming urge to murder Nanami. Here she was, valiantly fighting the urge to vomit in the back, and Nanami was still asking if she was carsick! Truly unbelievable!

“I… you… just slow down!” Shion’s words were now slurred, barely coherent. She could feel the bile rising in her throat, forcing herself to suppress the powerful urge to retch with sheer willpower.

“Oh, slow down, you say? We’re already here.”

Before Nanami’s words had even finished echoing, she slammed on the brakes, sending Shion pitching forward against her back. Shion lifted her head to survey their surroundings: the woods at the foot of the shrine mountain, with the steep flight of stairs leading up to the temple directly before her. Had the stairs not been so precipitous, Shion suspected Nanami would have undoubtedly attempted to drive the motorcycle up them too.

But there was no time to spare; Shion scrambled off the motorcycle, practically tumbling into the nearby woods, where she tore off her helmet. Nanami, still in the driver’s seat, hadn’t even fully registered what was happening, only hearing Shion’s repeated sounds of retching.

“Hoshimori-san, you get carsick?” Nanami asked, walking over to Shion and patting her back. “You just needed to tell me next time.”

“I—I—I did tell you! Are you completely deaf, you idiot?!” Shion cried out, pounding her chest.

“Ah, you did? My apologies, I didn’t hear a thing…” Nanami mumbled, scratching her head sheepishly.

“You really are incredibly oblivious… Alright, well, thanks for the ride home. Just… don’t bother next time…”

****

After bidding Nanami farewell, Shion headed back towards the shrine. It appeared Ayane hadn’t returned yet. She seemed to have been busy until quite late today; were school matters truly so demanding?

……

“Big Sister, I’m home!” Ayane skipped into the living room, her school uniform bearing faint smudges of dirt, suggesting her cleaning efforts today had indeed been considerable.

“Welcome home. Dinner is ready,” Shion announced, having changed into her miko (TL Note: A shrine maiden, a female attendant at a Shinto shrine) attire, as she carried a plate of cooked meat patties towards the living room. “Remember to wash your hands.”

Ayane walked over, skillfully launching herself into Shion’s embrace, giving her a big hug.

“Big Sister, you went out to play today, didn’t you?”

“Eh?” Shion responded, a touch of surprise in her voice.

“Big Sister smells of the ocean. And, Big Sister seems to have caught a cold.”