The Boy and the Balloon
As usual, I was walking home with Hasumin, chatting about our exams and whatever videos we’d seen online, when we reached the ginkgo-lined path.
“Hey, what’s going on with that kid? He looks like he’s about to cry.”
“Did something happen, maybe?”
We came across a little boy who looked like he was on the verge of tears.
“I’m going to talk to him real quick.”
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Hasumin hurried over to the boy.
“Hey there, what’s wrong?”
She crouched down to meet his eyes and asked gently.
“Um, well… my balloon got stuck in the tree…”
“Your balloon? In the tree? Oh—there it is.”
Following the boy’s gaze, we looked up at the tall ginkgo tree nearby and saw a single balloon tangled in the branches, about six meters high.
“Onee-chan, do you think you could get it down for me?”
“Hmm… let’s see… that’s a little too high, I think…”
Hasumin murmured apologetically in response to the boy’s hopeful plea.
The ginkgo tree didn’t have any branches low enough to grab—nothing until around six meters up—so there was nowhere to get a foothold or handhold on the way up.
Climbing the tree to get the balloon looked pretty much impossible.
“So it really is hopeless…?”
“Ah, um… I wonder if there’s a ladder nearby? Though… probably not…”
Hasumin looked a little flustered.
“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”
I decided to get the balloon down myself.
“Ehh!? No way, there’s no way you can! That thing’s, like, twice as high as a basketball hoop!”
“That’s why I’m doing it this way. Mind holding my bag for a sec?”
“Uh, sure. I don’t mind, but…”
I handed my school bag over to Hasumin and—
“O goddess Athena, grant me the power of the hero who vanquishes evil—‘Goddess’s Blessing [Goddess Breath]’…”
I whispered the words softly and activated the hero skill Goddess’s Blessing [Goddess Breath].
As I felt the divine power flow through my body, I crouched and leapt high toward the ginkgo tree.
Midair, I kicked off the tree trunk and launched even higher with a triangle jump.
Keeping the momentum, I grabbed the balloon caught in the branch and landed lightly back on the ground.
“Hweh…?”
Hasumin blinked in surprise, stunned by how quickly it all happened.
“There you go, all yours. Don’t let go of it again, alright?”
“Thank you, Onii-chan! And you too, Onee-chan! Bye-bye!”
Clutching the balloon string with a huge grin, the boy took off running.
“Well, let’s head home. Thanks for holding my bag.”
“No, no, no, no—‘let’s head home’!? ” Hasumin sputtered. “Wait, wasn’t that just insane? You jumped, like, five meters!”
She kept glancing back and forth between me and the spot where the balloon had been stuck.
“Haha, come on, there’s no way a regular person could jump that high. I got extra height by kicking off the tree trunk.”
“Ehh, but can someone really pull that off so cleanly?”
“Well, I already did, didn’t I? And hey, I’m just glad it worked and we got the balloon back.”
Naturally, I kept the part about using a hero skill to myself.
Honestly, if I’d just used the skill normally, I could’ve jumped straight up and grabbed the balloon without needing the triangle jump—but I went out of my way to kick the trunk so I’d have an excuse ready.
I mean, there’s no way even an Olympic athlete could pull off something like that unaided.
Of course, I didn’t hesitate to use the hero skill if it meant helping a kid in trouble.
…Even if it did make Hasumin start giving me the side-eye.
“Fwaaah, I guess that’s just Shuhei-kun for you. You can even reach somewhere that high. That’s seriously amazing!”
And just like that, Hasumin completely bought my explanation.
“Haha, thanks.”
(To think she’d believe something that ridiculous so easily… It really feels like Hasumin’s opinion of me has gone way up lately.)