Chapter 23: Chapter 1.1
Nothing beats a (mixed) bath after a hijacking
"No way. I don't want to be your assistant."
In the bathroom of my run-down apartment, I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the shampoo out of them and once again vetoed the screwball proposal that had been pitched to me multiple times now.
"Huh? What? I couldn't hear you."
However, this particular pitcher didn't seem the least bit disturbed by my criticism. I suspected she wouldn't give up until I said yes.
"Yes, you definitely can," I complained to the person on the other side of the door, raising my volume a couple notches. My low voice bounced off the walls of the small room into a multilayered echo.
"Now, now, calm down. You're supposed to relax in the bath, you know." "Yes, and I can't, thanks to somebody." I finished rinsing off the shampoo,
then got into the cramped bathtub. "Shall I wash your back for you?" "No thanks."
"Maybe I'll walk in there wearing nothing but a towel." "...No thanks."
"Certainly took you a moment, though."
Dammit, what kind of dastardly trap was she setting for a teenage guy?
Actually, more importantly...
"Why are you in my apartment—Siesta?" I asked the girl standing in the dressing room.
Her code name was Siesta—a girl of indeterminate nationality, with pale silver hair and blue eyes.
Just a week ago, I'd met her on a passenger jet at ten thousand meters. She'd called herself an "ace detective," and the two of us had resolved a certain incident together. But for me, the incident hadn't ended there...
"Listen, Siesta, you can't just walk into people's houses uninvited. And don't try to get into the bathroom."
"Well, you aren't listening to what I have to say." There it was again.
Immediately after the hijacking was over and done with, she'd started making ridiculous demands: "I want you to fly around the world with me as my assistant." I had no idea what was going through her mind.
Of course, the proposal was absolute nonsense, and I'd turned her down. However, Siesta showed no sign of folding. We'd been at it for a week now.
"You're awfully stubborn. Breaking in was no walk in the park, all right?" "The hell? Why do you sound so proud of that? Am I the bad guy here?"
"I am the hero, after all. Going against me automatically makes you the bad guy."
What hero would use that ridiculous logic?
"Actually, I distinctly remember locking the door, so...?"
"Oh, that. I opened it with my master key. It's one of my Seven Tools; there's no lock this key can't open."
"Wow, almost sounds like it was a walk in the park." "Hmm, that's rather annoying."
"Not as annoying as invading my privacy." Seriously, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack when I heard her voice through my bathroom door out of nowhere.
"So, we'd decided that I was going to wash your back, correct?"
"Look, quit trying to get in the bath with me at every opportunity." We'd only met a week ago, and she was already in my face. The future was looking bleak indeed...
"And? Why are you so against being my assistant?" Once again, Siesta asked me that question through the thin door. Good grief, she still wasn't giving up.
"'Cause I wanna be normal." In the narrow bathtub, I splashed hot water over my face. "I told you earlier, remember? I get dragged into stuff. It's never brought me anything but trouble. All I want is to live in peace. Like a nice, tepid bath that won't burn me."
"And you're saying you won't be able to live that life if you're with me?" "Well, not after you showed me a thing like that."
I was thinking about the fight with the pseudohuman that had broken out at ten thousand meters.
A plain old hijacking wouldn't have been so bad. I mean, it certainly
wouldn't have been good, but after what I'd seen, I wasn't gonna complain. But that thing was out of the question. If I got involved with whatever the hell that was, I wouldn't survive it no matter how many lives I had.
"But I'm the only one who can do this job," Siesta snapped. It was sharper than I'd ever heard her speak.
"Is there any point in dragging me into something only you can do?" "Well... Oh, that's right."
"You're literally making something up as we speak, aren't you?" "The truth is, I fell in love with you at first sight, and—"
"Except the one time we actually agreed to meet up, you didn't recognize me, remember?"
"Your face is so bland that I forget it if I don't see you for a couple of days.
It's perfect for undercover operations."
"Enough with the backhanded compliments. And don't give me jobs when I haven't even agreed to assist you yet."
"...You really won't be my assistant?" Siesta's voice suddenly lowered.
Yeah. That's what I've been telling you this whole time. Why do you sound kinda depressed about it?
I swear. This was barely even a conversation, not that any of her attempts before were much better. It's all because Siesta won't say what she's actually thinking. She tries to get her way without offering anything to persuade me, so these discussions always come to nothing.
Even that hijacking. It had technically been resolved at one point, and yet Siesta had used her overwhelming fighting skills and dynamism to force the hijacker into submission. If that was how things were going to be, I saw no future in this.
"If you're trying to negotiate, start by telling me what's in it for me," I said, handing her commonsense advice instead.
...Don't get the wrong idea, though. I only did it so I could turn her down after we'd done the negotiations right. I didn't want this to drag on and on.
"Heh-heh! You're nicer than I thought, Kimi."
"You're overestimating me, then. Don't read between the lines."
"Come to think of it, I ordered a pizza a few minutes back; was that all right?"
"Don't immediately take advantage of people's kindness! Call in and cancel that right now!"
"This is just a conjecture, but I get the feeling that a year from now, we'll probably be getting along just fine like this."
"What about this is 'getting along just fine'?! What about me? I've been stressed out this whole time!"
I'm exhausted. Seriously, dealing with Siesta wears me out... It's just as I thought: There is nothing she could offer me that would convince me to be her assistant.
"Well?" she said. "Go on and talk."
"No, I didn't mean me. You were going to tell me what was in this for me, remember?"
However, as always, Siesta was acting as though she'd seen through everything. "You've got something worrying you, don't you?" she asked, through the door. "I can clear that up for you. That's a service I can provide." "You're telling me to become your assistant, and in exchange, you'll solve
my problem?"
"I may have said that, yes."
If I asked Siesta how she knew I was worrying about something, she probably wouldn't tell me. She was an ace detective who was only interested in results.
"...The thing is, there's some trouble at my middle school right now." And so, after I got out of the bathtub, I said:
"Apparently they've had a mass outbreak of Miss Hanakos of the Toilet."
As I dried myself off with a towel, I told the detective about that weird school mystery.
"I see. Sounds like I'll need to listen to that story carefully, over pizza." "...Yeah. You can have pizza, so hurry up and shut that door again."
Pizza, soda, foreign TV shows, and occasionally Miss Hanako of the Toilet
Miss Hanako of the Toilet is one of those "seven school wonders" that everyone's heard about at least once.
It goes like this: If you go into the girls' bathroom on the third floor of the old school building at three in the morning and knock three times on the door of the third stall in, a girl in a red jumper skirt will appear and drag you into
the toilet...or something to that effect. It's the kind of outdated, garden- variety urban legend that wouldn't normally even be worth talking about. However—
"You're saying things are a little different at your school?" Siesta asked over her shoulder.
When I got out of the bathroom, Siesta was stuffing her face with pizza in the cramped, traditional, nine-square-meter tatami living room, her eyes on the foreign drama that was playing on the little TV. At some point after breaking into my home, she'd changed into the T-shirt I usually wore around the house and shifted completely into relaxation mode.
"So you barge into the apartment of a guy you've just met, borrow his clothes, and watch foreign dramas while you eat pizza. What are you, my live-in girlfriend?"
"Huh? Uh, no?"
"I know you're not. That's why I'm complaining." With the towel still draped over my head, I sat down near Siesta and reached for the pizza.
"Oh, the cheese half is mine, so don't eat any of it." "You're the one who ordered it! How is that fair?" "You can have the double-pickle kind."
"Don't make me dispose of your leftovers. Also, apologize to every pickle fan in the country."
"I really appreciate the fact that you're still eating it as you say that. You should continue to develop that trait."
"What do you mean, 'continue to develop it'? Why are you trying to mentor me? Who do you think you are?"
This was no good; the conversation was going nowhere. What had we been talking about, anyway?
"Hanako, right?"
"Oh yeah... But it's Miss Hanako. She's not your friend."
"And? You're saying this Miss Hanako is multiplying at your middle school?" Siesta reached for another piece of pizza.
"Yeah. From what I hear, at my school, students who run into Miss Hanako
end up becoming Miss Hanakos themselves."
"Ah. Like the way people who get bitten by zombies turn into zombies." "Exactly. It's a rumor straight out of a B movie."
"Except it isn't just a rumor, and that's why you're telling me about it.
Right?"
...Well, yes, that's about the size of it. Although I don't particularly want to admit it.
"Right now, a bunch of students have suddenly stopped coming to school, mainly from the track team, and the number's growing. The teachers won't give us any details...but I hear some of them have actually run away, instead of just skipping school."
One kid in my class had started staying home, and I knew of at least twenty or so more as a whole. Several of those were runaways, so the police were already involved.
"Has the track club had any internal trouble?"
"No idea. There haven't been any rumors of a falling out."
"I see... It may be an external factor, then. The sort of thing that would have a big, chain-reaction effect on an entire group." Her expression grave, Siesta chewed her pizza, then swallowed. "But you're saying the rumor at your school is that Miss Hanako may have dragged all the missing students into the girls' toilet?"
"Yeah. And since the number of missing kids is growing faster and faster, they're wondering whether the number of Miss Hanakos is growing, too."
That was why the mind-numbing rumor about a "mass outbreak of Miss Hanakos" was spreading through the school.
"Do you believe it, too, Kimi?"
"Hell no." I snorted, washing down my pickle-covered pizza with cola. "Aw, look at you pretending to be omnipotent. Classic middle schooler." "Don't come for me like this." I got the feeling I'd never beat this detective
in an argument as long as I lived.
"...Still, they've stopped coming to school and gone missing, hmm?" Siesta said abruptly, her eyes still on the TV.
The program was an overseas drama set in an academy. In the current scene, there was a kid who'd stopped coming to class, and all of his classmates had gone to his house to pick him up. Wouldn't that make him want to come to school even less...?
"You're a nice person, aren't you?" Siesta turned to look at me. "You're still helping me pay for the pizza, all right?"
"That's not what I meant," she replied, then added, "And no, I'm not."
No, seriously. You need to pay me back.
"Naturally, the students who disappeared from school aren't your friends, are they? And yet you're worried about them enough to want to resolve the problem."
"'Naturally'? What makes you so sure I don't have friends?"
"Maybe it's because of that tendency to get dragged into things you mentioned. At the same time, saving people seems to be part of your DNA, too."
...Yet another type of DNA I don't need. Well, anyway.
"I like keeping my immediate surroundings peaceful and normal, you know? I mean, this is what my life is usually like," I said, smiling wryly as I looked around the apartment. "By the time I was old enough to notice, my parents had evaporated. I bounced around between different houses and care facilities for a while, and now, I'm living on my own at fourteen. That'll make you want a peaceful, average, stable environment."
Well, as long as I had this curse, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. Still, trying to resolve as many problems as I was capable of handling on my own in my quest for a mediocre, commonplace routine couldn't possibly be a crime.
"I see, so that's your—" Siesta put a fingertip to her chin, as if she was thinking hard about something. "Mm-hmm. I understand everything."
"But we've barely talked. That's kinda freaky."
"Yes, I see. You must be pretty lonely without any family or friends." "Look, did I ever say I didn't have friends? Could you stop making random
guesses?"
But she was right that I didn't have many. I also couldn't remember the last time I'd talked with a classmate. Still.
"All right. This weekend, let's go to that together."
Siesta was pointing at the TV. On the screen, a girl who seemed to be the heroine was taking the truant boy to a school festival.
"...Uh, what happened to the Miss Hanako thing?"
And now for the teen rom-com shenanigans
"I'm still kinda expecting this to turn into a mystery-horror story, all right?" Avoiding the weird middle schooler muttering to himself, students and
visitors streamed through the school gate.
It was some days later, a Saturday, and I was waiting for someone at the gate of my middle school. Even though it was a weekend morning, the gate was quite busy because today was the school's cultural festival...apparently.
It was weird, though; I didn't remember helping to get ready for it. With cultural festivals, didn't the whole class work together in advance to prepare their contribution? Had they gotten all that out of the way while I was too busy dealing with a string of problems to come to school? Why hadn't anybody told me about it?
"Haaah..." I sighed a lonely sigh for my dull and drab school life... "Sorry to keep you waiting," a girl said behind me.
The person I'd been waiting for had arrived. Grumbling that she was late, I turned around.
"You were the one who told me to come to this, and now you're la..." I froze.
No, it wasn't because I had the wrong person. The one in front of me was definitely the girl I'd made that promise with; there was no question about that. The issue was—
"Siesta, what are you wearing...?"
What had arrested my attention was a bright white sailor uniform. She must have shortened the skirt somehow; it let me see her knees and a little more. She had a school bag slung over her shoulder, and anyone would've pegged her as one of our students... It was so different from the chic dress she usually wore, and between that and how good it looked, I just—
"? Why did you suddenly turn your back?" Siesta leaned over, peering into my face.
"...Uh, no reason. Just, uh, had some trouble breathing..." "Does it hurt? Are you okay?"
I'm fine. I'm fine, so don't lean in so close, all right? And don't rub my back.
"...Why are you wearing our uniform?"
After I'd finally managed to calm down a bit, I asked her about that, squinting.
When I studied her more closely, I saw that she was wearing a red ribbon in her short, pale silver hair like a headband, as a fashion statement. Okay, if I'm not extremely careful, I might slip and say she's cute or something, and
that possibility is extremely...cute.
"You know, your eyes are meaner than usual."
Ignore it. I just need a little more courage before I can take in your entire sailor-suited self at once.
Yeah, I actually hadn't calmed down at all.
To be fair, I wasn't overreacting: All the people who passed us were slowing down, fascinated by Siesta.
She was a beautiful girl with white hair and blue eyes in a sailor uniform. I completely understood why people would involuntarily whip out their cell phones... But the pictures'll cost you two trillion yen.
"I don't normally dress like this, so I decided to throw in a ribbon, too.
What do you think?"
"If you want my impressions, I've already given enough to fill a page or so of a manuscript."
"Huh? When? I didn't hear it." "More important...ahem."
"Oh, you mean why am I wearing a uniform?" Siesta twirled around once on her tiptoes. The wind made her skirt flare out, baring her thighs for a moment. I stared in spite of myself as Siesta leaned forward slightly, batting her lashes.
"I mean, don't you think a cultural festival date in school uniforms sounds like fun?"
She turned that smile and its hundred million watts of adorable on me. "...Come to think of it, do I need a contract to become your assistant? Oh,
and maybe a personal seal, to sign it..."
"Easy there, slow down. I shouldn't be the one saying this, but there are proper steps to follow. We still have some dialogue left when I'll try to talk you around, so hold on for a little while."
The school was bustling with local students, their parents and guardians, and students from other schools, and every classroom had been turned into a mock shop that sold things like crepes or takoyaki.
"All right, where should we start?" I asked Siesta for input, studying a flyer somebody in a full-body rabbit costume had handed me in the corridor. According to the flyer, they had a planetarium and a haunted house in addition to the festival stalls. And the haunted house was big—it took up a whole floor of the old school building, which wasn't normally used. It seemed pretty promising.
"That one's a must," she said.
"Yeah. We'll have to keep an eye on the schedule, though."
According to the flyer, the haunted house shut down for fifteen minutes every hour, probably so the staff could take breaks.
"Does that mean they won't accept customers outside those times?" Siesta asked the kid in the rabbit suit, although the answer seemed pretty obvious.
The bunny tilted its big head to the side, as if to say, "What are you even asking me?" I assumed it was trying to stay in character, which struck me as really professional. Well, the running shoes kinda killed the effect, but I guess it cared more about being able to walk easily.
"Hey, Siesta. It's written right here. They break for fifteen minutes." "But according to the ideal route I just plotted in my head—" "What, in that split second?"
"I don't think we'll be able to get to the old school building during the times written on this flyer." Apparently, Siesta's schedule had other priorities. "It would be better to fortify ourselves with some food first, you know?"
"So that's your goal, huh?"
"Like an hour-long, gigantamongous-portion eating challenge, maybe." "Yeah, they're not going to be doing anything like that at a middle school
cultural festival."
"And so," Siesta said, putting on her very best smile, "we'll be visiting
outside regular hours, but please accommodate us anyway."
That was an unreasonable request for the bunny-suited student.
"Oh, there's a crepe stand!" As if to say her business was finished, Siesta set off toward one of the stalls up ahead.
"Siesta, listen, if you're gonna be unfair and dump work on people, at least dump it on me." I sighed, even as I caught up with her and bought a banana crepe on the spot.
"...? I didn't say anything, and you bought it for me anyway." Siesta seemed bewildered, but when I held the crepe out, she took a petite little bite. "You got mad at me earlier when I ordered the pizza. What happened?"
"Well, times change."
"Huh? But it's been barely any time at all. What's changed?"
Geez, she's not going to get it if I don't say it straight out, huh? Here goes nothing.
I turned to Siesta, who was staring at me, and I told her:
"I'll take the cultural festival in front of me over a Miss Hanako who doesn't even exist."
Mystery-horror? That stuff's not in style. The times call for—teen romantic comedy.
I put on the coolest expression I'd ever worn in my life.
"Haaah. Well, I'd never date you in a million years, so I'm not sure you could call this 'romantic comedy,' but..."
However, Siesta was not reacting the way I expected at all... "Hmm?"
"Hmm?"
Although the school grounds were still bustling and lively, the world around me was suddenly very quiet. We stood there for a little while, gazing at each other, then tilted our heads in confusion.
Ah. Okay. Yes, okay, I get it.
"Huh? What? Kimi, you didn't think 'date' meant I was going to be your girlfriend, did you?"
Nope, not at all. Not by a single millimeter. Not the tiniest bit. I didn't, uh, think that. At all...
"Are you stupid, Kimi?"
"...Can we just erase the last paragraph or so from history?"
Hopefully I won't have to watch this scene again in a few years—I'd probably be writhing on the floor in embarrassment. Look, I'm a middle schooler, okay? Future me, have a heart and cut a guy some slack. Although I doubt that particular fear is something I'll ever have to worry about.
"Well, I prefer that version of you. It's easier to work with." Polishing off the crepe I was still holding, she said, "Let's go get some takoyaki next."
Taking my hand, she started off through the crowd.
"...You're gonna give some people the wrong idea, you know." "Did you say something?"
"I said don't just walk into people's bathrooms."
"The only bathroom I invade without asking is yours."
"You're not gonna get me with that 'You're the only person I show this side of myself to' crap."
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦