Let's Dance with Ghost Stories, and You Dance on the Stairs Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Boys of the Tanuki Shrine

TLed by: TanoshiKara

"Wahahahahahaha!" Hiroyuki and Tooru exploded in laughter.

"Sounds like you had it rough. But, you know, I sure was shocked when my perverted book returned to my bookshelf before I had even realized it!"

"Better than it being found by your parents, right? Mine was discovered by my little sister. She looked at me like I am trash you knowww!"

"Aiinn't that fine, I am extremely envious just by the fact that you can get called 'Big Bro' by a little sister with twin tails"

"Listen here, Little Sisters are not girls! Blood relatives of the opposite gender are basically enemies I say, enemies! That jealousy of yours is just the delusion of people without a little sister!"

"But you said that you stole your little sister's underwear, right!? You said it before, said it before!"

"I am telling you, I did not!!"

" "Wahahaha, wahahaha" "

Just lewd talk with my trusted friends.

We were having a funny conversation today by pure coincidence, but we usually talk about more negative topics: "Got no money", "Got nothing interesting", "Parents are annoying", "Decided your path?", "Entrance exams are such a botherrrr...", "Lend me that game", "Lending that to someone else", "...There are no interesting games recently huhh..."; These kinds of topics.

That is why we run out of topics again after we laugh half-heartedly among ourselves, and that same sort of atmosphere returns once again.

The three of us do not go home immediately after school. This is because what awaits us at home is only the nagging from our parents to study. That is why, ever since who knows when, it has become our daily routine to stop by this Tanuki Shrine after school and pass the time by talking until it turns dark.

Tanuki Shrine is, of course, its popularized name. There is no mistaking that it actually has a prestigious name like 'Something Shrine'. However, almost no one calls it by its rightful name.

The Tanuki that became the origin of the name 'Tanuki Shrine' is probably the Tanuki play equipment that I am straddling right now; Commonly installed at parks, it is an animal installation that only children straddle and play with.

It is a mystery to me as to why such a thing is even on the grounds of a place like a shrine, one that, presumably, houses a Deity but I never bothered to investigate. This is because it is just a makeshift shrine.

Speaking of shrines, one would have the impression that they are on a small hill, up flights upon flights of stone steps, and through a grand Torii1 gate...but Tanuki Shrine is vastly different.

That is because the plot of land Tanuki Shrine is on is, literally, really tiny. Furthermore, it is located within an old, crowded residential district, squeezed between two houses, and even now, is looking like it is about to get squashed.

The branches of the unmaintained trees in the gardens of the two houses jut out, entangling with the unsightly power lines hanging in the air.

The shrine also has something that resembles a Torii gate, but it is shorter than the loop of a basketball court and looks cheap. It does also have something resembling a shrine and an offering box, but they look so cheap that they barely meet the minimum requirements for a shrine.

It is such a makeshift shrine that no one even visits to pray.

That is why it is the blind spot of the residential district, and just the right hangout spot for people who are strays, like us.

As usual, we run out of topics abruptly and look up listlessly at the sky, filled with power lines. Most of the time, the nature of our conversations turns gloomy when we become like this.

"How was the mock exam the other day?" or something, "I fell below the passing line for the school of my choice" or something; It becomes that sort of conversation.

...Nobody wants that, so there is no doubt that everyone is racking their brains, finding a way to rid us of this gap with no conversation.

Amidst this, Hiroyuki gets up all of a sudden. He has a foxy expression on his face, seemingly having thought of something interesting.

"Say, Tomohiro, can you check to see if no one is on the pathway?"

"...Uh-huh? I can though?"

Telling me to check to see if nobody is there is like advance notice that some mischief is about to be carried out. However, we who are bored require that level of thrill.

I look down the pathway; No one there.

"There's no one..."

"Hey Hiroyuki, isn't stealing donations bad...!"

I knew what was about to start from that one line alone.

"Hiroyuki...isn't stealing donations bad? Ain't it bad if we got divine retribution!"

"If we were to get divine retribution, we would have gotten it long ago. Even Tomohiro had that time when he pissed at the Torii gate, right? Tooru vandalized the shrine as well, no?"

"Well, even so, stealing donations is bad riigghtt!"

"Ah...this one's got a number lock."

The back of the offering box has something like a drawer to retrieve its contents and is locked by something resembling a padlock. However, it is not one with a keyhole; Instead, it is a three-digit number lock that unlocks when the numbers match the preset number.

"Three digits means......How many tries do we need?"

"If it's zero to nine, then it's ten to the third power so, a thousand, right?"

"Isn't a thousand tries lesser than expected?"

I wouldn't want to get divine retribution for this, or so we said to one another, on the surface.

However, everyone was, in fact, overjoyed that we found a new game.

Hiroyuki turns all three of the numbers to 'Zero' and tries to pull the lock. ...It, of course, does not open. This time, he tries increasing the ones place by one, to the number 'Zero, Zero, One' before pulling again...

From that day on, the act of finding the number to crack this offering box's lock became our new game.

As being Donation Thieves sounded like it would incur divine retribution, and had a miserly air to it, I came up with a story...one that gives off the atmosphere that we are spies, trying to open a safe containing military secrets; This is because the atmosphere is important when it comes to this kind of thing.

Also, a thousand tries was just the right amount as we were bored out of our minds. We would have been against the idea if it were ten thousand, but a thousand tries gave us the feeling that we would eventually be able to open it if we went at it regularly.

We would get scolded if we were found out, but it would not get us sent to the police station. That level of riskless thrill was the perfect stimulation for our generation, who end up shoddy regardless of what we do.

It will be nice if there's a lot of money inside, or so we murmured to one another, but we knew, through the weight from shaking it, that there was no hope of this by any standard.

In the first place, even we, who gather at the Tanuki Shrine, have never once seen anyone donating money. However, such a thing did not matter; We had no interest in its contents in the first place. The act of unlocking it was the objective after all.

That is why I will not become an Donation Thief—the excuse I tell myself, which made me think that I am probably the most cowardly of my friends...

1 - A traditional Japanese gate usually found at the entrance of Shinto Shrines or within its grounds. You can find out more here.

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Note that the copyright of the image in the chapter belongs to its respective owners and was uploaded to ensure that readers experience the translation as they would if they were reading the chapter in the book itself.

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Feel free to comment/pm me if you find any mistakes. A chapter to end off/start a month! Thank you very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed yourself.