Chapter 5: The Long Holiday

                                    

                                          

The Long Holiday
From the second I woke up, I had the feeling that something was off.
I opened my eyes and turned to look at the clock next to my pillow. The display showed 7:00, and next to it was an indicator reading Sunday.
I felt none of the light-headed grogginess that usually accompanied a rude awakening. The slightest bit of drowsiness remained in my head, but I didn't feel like going back to sleep. I slowly struggled to roll over face-down in my bed and then did what was essentially a pushup to raise myself up.
The strange thing was what happened when I let down my legs from the side of the bed. As I stared at the morning light seeping through the crack in the curtains, I started to mutter to myself in disbelief.
"I feel good."
Both in body and in spirit, absolutely nothing was amiss.
That's not to say I was used to constantly being in some kind of bad bodily condition. In that sense, rather than saying I was in good condition, it'd probably be more appropriate to say that, today, I felt perfectly full of energy. So much that it even crossed my mind that I might even need to do something completely pointless to lower my energy reserves back to normal levels. Moments like these didn't come often.
I went to the kitchen and peered into the refrigerator. We had bacon, maitake mushrooms, and mustard spinach, so I took them out and cut them into large pieces. I put a slice of bread into the toaster and then beat some eggs in a small bowl. As I did so, I haphazardly added some processed cheese, milk, and a little bit later, some curry powder to the mix. Of the two burners, I used one to fry the bacon mix and the other to cook the eggs. Shoot... I didn't have enough room to heat the water up, so my coffee would have to wait.
I brought my meal with me to the living room. Spreading nothing on the toast, it was fluffy as I stuffed it into my mouth. I heard the sound of someone descending down the stairs. My parents are both away on a business trip, so it had to be my older sister. The sound of footsteps continued towards the kitchen.
"Wow, there's breakfast!"
She has a lot of energy this morning.
"Did you make this, Houtarou?"
"Who knows? For all we know it might've been a burglar."
"It's still hot, too. He must still be close... Don't give me any of that sass."
Without responding, I took a bit of the bacon dish and put it on top of the toast. My sister started talking again.
"Can I have some?"
My mouth was full, so I simply nodded. There's no way she'd see it all the way from the kitchen, but she'd still take some even if I said no, so there wasn't any point in asking. Besides, I made enough for her portion as well.
"Hey, it's actually not bad!" she said. She sure didn't waste any time when it came to being rude.
"Get yourself a plate."
"What's with this taste? Did you put something in this?"
She probably had a bite of the eggs. The jar of curry power was left on the kitchen counter, and I had enough faith in her that she'd figure it out herself, so I continued to eat without saying a word. Sure enough...
"Oh, this, huh?" she asked. "It's not like it's anything complicated, but it's still pretty above and beyond you. What going on, Houtarou? Did anything happen?"
Sharp as always. I took a sip of milk and said, "I feel good."
Just as I imagined would be the case, she returned a single, dubious "What?"