Chapter 20 one

There is a folk saying: what people do on the occasion of New Year's Eve will be repeated in this year.When I was a child, because I was afraid of this legend, I was busy preparing for the senior high school entrance examination, but I only worked for a day on New Year's Eve.This distant memory... no, it can't be called distant yet.It was just the year before last. Now, my concern in the dark is, is there a version of that saying that "what people do on New Year's Day repeats itself throughout the year"?Some people say: the plan for a year is on New Year's Day.But just at the beginning of the first month, I suddenly encountered a disaster.This kind of thing happens once a year at most, and it will only happen once in a lifetime.I'm not superstitious, but if someone tells me "If you don't exorcise the evil, you will make the same mistakes again", maybe I will obediently obediently exorcise the evil.

When I talked about this with Chitanda, who has a deep heritage, she thought about it for a while and said, "How should I put it... I don't think there is such a thing. Otherwise, if you say, 'If you have a holiday in the first month, you will be closed all year round', That would be unreasonable." Accepting this statement, I breathed a sigh of relief.Then there's nothing to worry about.It feels so much easier. However, Chitanda, who couldn't see his expression clearly in the darkness, added in a very serious voice: "But Oreki-san, what I want to say is more important to me than the remaining 364 days." Care about the status quo."

I know that. It couldn't be more clear.But, Chitanda.It's okay to let me escape from reality a little bit, right? The cold wind blowing through the cracks in the wall made people's cheeks hurt, but a ray of light also flowed into the darkness.My eyes have gradually adjusted to the darkness. What I could see in front of me was a bamboo broom, a shovel, a long stick for filling coal, and a cardboard box that didn't know what was in it. In addition, Chitanda was wearing a kimono and looked a little distressed. In addition, there are four walls that surround us. Arakusu Shrine, even if you look at the entire Kamiyama City, the scale here is one of the best.Now, we are in the shrine courtyard—to be precise, it should be a corner of the courtyard that is hard to reach and unnoticed.There is a dilapidated hut built in this corner, and we are in it.

The problem is, this miscellaneous house is not as dilapidated as I thought. The only access here is a door that opens on one side.But now it's closed and bolted...and from the outside. On the night of January 1st, Chitanda and I were locked in a small room in a corner of the shrine. Obviously, the walls and roof have far exceeded their useful life, but there is only one place that is brand new and strong.Only the door, and only that door is made of aluminum alloy, which is very strong.From the perspective of anti-theft, this trick is very beautiful.No matter how hard I pushed or pulled, the door rattled a few times at most.

It was only now that I could squeeze out a complaint: "How could this be?" "That's right. Think about it..." In the darkness, Chitanda seemed to smile: "Could it be due to bad luck?" I sighed deeply: Is this really the case?