Chapter 33: Chapter 3.2
The daily routine of proxy detective Alicia
The next day.
"All right, let's go!"
A young girl pointed briskly down a broad downtown avenue, then set off.
Meanwhile, I followed my new employer, my shoulders hunched from awkwardness.
"Come on, step lively!" "You're stepping too lively." "Huh?"
Don't 'Huh?' me. And don't tilt your head and look adorably confused.
"That outfit."
Alicia was dressed in a costume that screamed "ace detective": an austere trench coat and deerstalker hat. In addition, she had a traditional Japanese kiseru pipe between her lips...well, really a candy with a long, thin stick that she was using as a substitute.
"I know they say to dress for the job you want, but this is ridiculous." "But these are hand-me-downs from Siesta."
Et tu, Siesta? Didn't know the ace detective had a past.
"You're really going for this proxy detective thing, huh?"
"Of course!" Alicia planted her hands on her hips triumphantly.
After we'd talked things over yesterday, Alicia had ultimately agreed to take over as detective for the injured Siesta in exchange for clothing, room, and board.
For the moment, we were looking for the "sapphire eye" Ms. Fuubi had told us about. We didn't know any of the details, but the two of us had decided to start by putting in some legwork and conducting a field
investigation.
"Let's move out!" Alicia declared, then immediately vanished. "Huh? ...Hey, wait!"
The next thing I knew, Alicia was sprinting over the pavement for all she was worth. I hastily took off after her and ended up running more than a hundred meters before I finally caught up with her.
"...Hff...hff, why were you sprinting...?"
Alicia didn't care about my problems. "Running is fun!"
She was as hyper as a kid on her first trip to the beach. Her smile was as dazzling as the summer sun, and that was great and all...but can't she spare a thought for the guy who has to keep up with her?
"Listen, you don't even remember who you are. You're basically from Wonderland. Being curious is fine, but listen to what I tell you, too." I couldn't even pretend to smile as I dropped a hand lightly onto Alicia's head. "Besides, remember what that red-headed police officer said? This area isn't very safe right now. No wandering around by yourself."
According to Siesta's deduction, Hel was probably still here in London, covertly attacking its residents in Cerberus's place. There was no telling when she'd target Siesta and me again. If Alicia was going around with us, she needed to be careful.
"All right, I get it! Don't treat me like a kid."
That is exactly what a stereotypical kid would say. "Okay. Good girl. Let's go, then."
"Uh-huh... Hey, why did you take my hand?! You were so smooth about it that you almost tricked me again!"
"Come on, Alicia, raise your hand while we're in the crosswalk."
"What exactly do you picture when you think 'thirteen-year-old'?! I mean, seventeen! ...Probably." She sounded less and less certain, most likely because of the memory loss.
"Hmm, I'm pretty sure I was about that age, but..."
When we'd finished crossing at the light, Alicia ran up to a show window and examined her reflection in it. She pulled at her marshmallow-soft cheeks, then tilted her head in puzzlement.
"C'mon, let's go. If she finds out we've been dawdling, Siesta's going to take my butt again and... Uh."
"...What about your butt? 'Again'? What exactly do you two do,
normally?"
As we enjoyed our little conversation, the first destination we reached was, for some reason, a jewelry shop.
It hadn't been my idea, of course. According to our new ace detective, this was the only possible place to find sapphires. Elementary, indeed.
The second we entered the shop, Alicia was off. The way she pounced on shiny things reminded me of a cat.
"Kimizuka! I found it!" Alicia shouted to me excitedly. I really wished she wouldn't; people were giggling at us.
"...Oh. Yeah."
The jewel, which shone as blue as the ocean, cost a whole two zeroes more than I'd thought it would.
"Case closed!" Alicia flashed a peace sign pose, then spoke to one of the clerks: "This one! Cash, one payment."
"Whoa, whoa! Are you planning to make me buy that?!" "You won't?"
"I can't!"
"...Are you poor, Kimizuka?"
Shut up, all right? And don't give me that pitying look.
"Besides, this is just a jewel. What we're looking for is more... Probably something more 'underground,' say."
"Underground... Okay, got it!"
Alicia flew out of the shop, pulling me by the hand.
"You don't get it! I'm positive you don't get it, so stop, please..."
After another round of involuntary sprinting (at least for me), we reached a shop that was literally underground, in the basement of an old mixed-use building that stood in an alley. I sensed something sketchy about the place, but I pushed open the heavy door anyway. Inside, the store's steel shelves held an array of dried plants and colorful incense. At the back of the store, a male clerk with several facial piercings was smoking a pipe.
"This is the place! There's no mistake!" "Except for all the ones in your head."
...Seriously, why are you so energetic? Do you understand the situation you're in?
Yesterday, when you learned you'd lost your memory, you were shaken. That I can understand. But now you're in full "ace detective" mode. You've
thrown yourself into your new identity. I mean, maybe that's better for your mental health than staying depressed, but still.
"Hmm, this looks sweet."
"Are you an idiot?! You'll never kick the habit!"
Hastily, I pulled her out and back up to street level. Felt like we'd been holding hands this whole time...
"Haaah, I'm exhausted."
This wasn't fieldwork; it was babysitting. But Alicia stalked forward confidently, completely oblivious to the stress I was under.
"You look like you're having fun."
"Yes, I am." She was beaming so bright that sarcasm seem pointless. "After all, it's been a long time since I got to go outside."
"Is that right?"
...A long time? What does she mean?
"Huh?" Alicia noticed the strangeness of her own remark and paused, frowning. "Wait, what made me think that?"
"Did you spend a whole lot of time in a room somewhere? Don't tell me it was a hospital..." Maybe she'd been hospitalized, then slipped out of her room and went wandering around the city until she collapsed?
If that was true, it would change the situation. Should we take her to see a doctor after all?
"Mm, I don't know... Whenever I try to think, my head starts to..."
She didn't seem to be lying. Maybe it would be better to just keep an eye on the situation for now.
"You don't have to force yourself to remember," I said.
In some cases, time resolved this sort of thing naturally. Besides, once her injuries were healed, Siesta would probably do a little investigating anyway.
"Oh!" Alicia trotted off to another point of interest, apparently headache- free again.
"What's up?"
It seemed to be a street stall. There was a mat spread on the paving stones, with handmade accessories displayed on it.
"This."
She was pointing at a ring set with a sapphire...well, a blue stone that loosely resembled one.
"It looks similar, but it's not quite the same thing."
I couldn't exactly say the word fake in front of the shop owner, so I vagued it up instead.
"I see. So it's not it..."
Alicia's shoulders drooped with obvious dejection. This girl didn't just wear her heart on her sleeve; she waved it on a flag.
"Well, you don't usually find these things right off the bat." I consoled her with a cliché remark.
But it was probably true: We wouldn't find the sapphire eye. More accurately, we didn't really need to find it in the first place.
Then why had Siesta assigned Alicia this job, you ask? To build a relationship based on that one percent of self-interest. So that Alicia would be able to depend on us without feeling like she was imposing. She'd probably just used the information Ms. Fuubi had brought in order to set up an equivalent exchange: Alicia would be provided with food, clothing, and shelter in return for searching for the sapphire eye. Siesta seemed unsympathetic, but she was considerate of others.
"We should probably head back soon... Wait, huh?"
Yet again, Alicia had vanished as soon as I took my eye off her. "Forget the sapphire. Finding her is gonna be a job and a half..."
When I glanced at the shop owner questioningly, they pointed toward my left.
"...Argh, I forgot."
It was just one damn thing after another. Apparently, this busy day wasn't over yet.
Underage alcohol and tobacco use is strictly prohibited by law
"All right, a toast to Siesta's full recovery. Cheers!"
Siesta, Alicia, and I clinked our glasses together in a pub full of lively music.
It had already been two weeks since our battle with Hel and our meeting with Alicia. The casts had been removed from Siesta's legs, and now, she could walk without any trouble. Today, we'd been partying since this afternoon, ostensibly to celebrate her recovery.
"...I don't even remember how many toasts that makes."
I was pretty sure this was the fourth place we'd been to since noon. My stomach was already filled to capacity, but the ace detectives still hadn't had enough to eat and were scrutinizing the menu seriously. I'd just assumed we were on our last drink, but maybe not.
"There's something I think you'd like, though, Kimi." "Oh yeah? Okay, just get me that, then."
Without even glancing at the menu, I left my order to Siesta, who was sitting across from me.
"Hmm, it's already nine, though... Don't get anything spicy, Siesta."
"Oh, you're right. Don't want to give myself a stomachache so that I can't sleep again."
"Spicy stuff always gives you the runs about three hours after." "Huh, I never noticed until you mentioned it to me. That's so weird." "Look, just take some antacids. You're not done eating yet, right?" "All right. I'll do that."
Nodding in agreement, Siesta swallowed the medicine. In the meantime, I raised a hand, calling a waiter.
"Um, you're synched so well, it's kinda scary." For reasons unknown, Alicia was glowering at me across the table. "What's this telepathy thing you've got going? You let Siesta decide everything for you, and when you're the one who tells her something, she listens..."
I see. To a bystander, that exchange had looked peculiar. But I mean, we'd spent a full three years together. We naturally let the other person set the criteria for whether or not we were going to do something. In other words—
"We each trust the other more than we trust ourselves," I murmured absently.
"...So basically, you're one of those sappy coup—" "Excuse me, I'd like to place an additional order."
Siesta clapped a hand sharply over Alicia's mouth. Alicia kept on mumbling unintelligibly (and in pain) while Siesta coolly told the waiter what she wanted. That's an ace detective for you: Even with kids, she shows no mercy.
Before long, Siesta finished her order and released Alicia.
"Haah." Alicia panted. "That hurt... I thought I was going to die..." "It's your own fault for making fun of adults."
"For an adult, you're really bad at adulting! ...Haah, I'm thirsty." Alicia drained the glass that was closest to her and opened the drink menu. Guess she was still thirsty. "Hey, Kimizuka? What's this 'Cinderella' thing?"
"Hmm? Oh, it's a cocktail. It's non-alcoholic, so even kids can have it." "Except I'm seventeen, not a kid."
"Seventeen-year-olds aren't allowed to drink, either."
"Then I'll have the Cinderella! Excuse me!" Alicia called, waving a waiter over again... Sheesh, her emotions were a roller coaster.
For the past two weeks, I'd gone all over London with proxy detective Alicia, taking a variety of cases. None of the incidents had been anything major, but I'd been partnered with Alicia, who did whatever her emotions dictated. The work had been littered with hardships that were nothing like what I ran into when Siesta was my partner. Looking back over these two weeks, it felt as if we'd spent every day causing a hundred issues in order to solve one problem.
"What's the matter?" Before long, Alicia noticed me watching her and tilted her head.
"Nothing. I was just thinking how glad I am we found you a place to go home to for a bit."
The trials and tribulations of these two weeks had not been completely fruitless—we'd decided that Alicia would leave the apartment where Siesta and I lived and stay at a certain church. The church ran a charity that took in orphans, and since Alicia had no relatives, they'd agreed to accept her.
"Well, it's only a temporary measure. Until we know about Alicia's memories and identity, we haven't fundamentally resolved the issue," said Siesta, her knife and fork pausing over her roast.
Apparently the fact that she hadn't actually completed the job yet bothered her, but she'd been too injured to do much. She'd negotiated with the church behind the scenes; that was more than enough.
"I went to the church yesterday, and it was a lot of fun," Alicia said to Siesta, maybe sensing her discomfort. "I got to play with some other kids who didn't have families there. It kinda felt like school." Alicia grinned and flashed a peace sign at us.
Apparently even Siesta couldn't argue with a face like that; her lips softened. "School, huh? ...I haven't been there in quite a while, either."
My last memory of it was that cultural festival, back in the second year of
junior high. Come to think of it, Siesta had yanked me around quite a lot back then, too.
"And why are you looking at me?" Siesta asked, narrowing her eyes unhappily. "The crepes and the takoyaki were delicious, weren't they?"
"All I remember is my stomachache."
"Yes, you did hole up in the bathroom, didn't you." "Come to think of it, you peeped on me..."
"And you got scared in the haunted house."
Some memories are better left buried, okay? Also, what was it... If I remembered right, we'd ended up cosplaying a wedding ceremony... No, that wasn't something I wanted to actively remember, either. My dark past.
"Well, the ribbon did look good on you, I guess." I recalled that red-ribbon headband and how it had looked on Siesta.
"You certainly did seem captivated."
"I wasn't captivated. I was just...a little captivated, that's all."
"Assistant. English," Siesta retorted and dabbed at her lips briskly with a napkin.
Hmm? Had I said something weird?
"A ribbon. Lucky..." Alicia was swinging her legs lazily. Apparently, the girl from Wonderland was at an age where she wanted to dress up.
"I'll give you one later," said Siesta. "Really?! Yay!"
Alicia kicked her legs harder, as if she couldn't contain her excitement, and then—
"I want to wear that, too, and—!" Her voice suddenly lowered. "...And go to a real school," she said with a lonely smile.
Alicia claimed she'd lost her old memories, but that comment sounded as if she was subconsciously aware that she'd never been to school at all.
I couldn't find anything tactful to say to her. Meanwhile, Siesta's blue eyes were narrowed in thought.
"Kidding." However, that shadow only lasted a moment before Alicia energetically drained the contents of her glass. "I don't really care. I've got something else to do now."
"You mean the detective job?"
"Yeah. I don't have time to go to school." Alicia nodded.
"And yet I hear you haven't found the sapphire eye yet," Siesta interjected
with a slightly belligerent smile.
She was right. Over the past two weeks, Alicia and I had pulled off really simple requests, such as finding lost pets, but we still hadn't made any headway with the hunt for the sapphire eye.
But Siesta probably wasn't seriously trying to get Alicia to do anything about that. She'd only said that to lighten the mood before it could get too dark—or so I'd thought, but...
"—I—I know that. I just have to find it, right?" Alicia stood up, puffing out her cheeks indignantly. What are you, an instant water heater?
"Hey, whoa, you're heading out now?" "You don't have to come, Kimizuka."
"It's dark outside. There'll be monsters and stuff."
"...Maybe I'll go home first, then head out early tomorrow morning." Okay, that about-face was so quick that it was actually pretty cute. "...Ahem. Anyway, I am most definitely going to find it by tomorrow!"
Alicia pointed sharply at Siesta and me, then turned on her heel and left. "She didn't drink her cocktail."
Well, there were bound to be all sorts of other opportunities. I finished what was left in my glass with some relief.
"She's a pretty tricky girl to deal with, isn't she?" Siesta held a fresh glass out to me; no telling when she'd ordered it. "These past two weeks must have been rough."
"You said it... Even if you maybe shouldn't be the one saying it."
Siesta and Alicia's personalities and stances were complete opposites, but they were definitely both tiring people to be with.
"What are we going to do about her from now on, though?" Now that Alicia wasn't here, I chose that moment to ask. I kept the wording vague, but I knew Siesta would understand.
"Once I start a job, I never back out." "...I see."
If Siesta's injuries were healed, that meant we were ready to fight Hel again. In other words, parting ways with Alicia soon was inevitable.
However, Siesta had shaken her head. She'd chosen to help a lone girl in distress over defeating a great evil.
"I couldn't possibly back down before we've managed to help her learn her age, or where she came from, or even what her real name is. No matter what,
I won't let a client's request go unfulfilled." Siesta smiled.
And so our hectic yet peaceful routine was going to last a little longer. "Then we'll be staying in London for a while?"
"Yes, probably. Just the two of us in the apartment again." Siesta lifted her glass to her lips and swallowed audibly, her white throat working. The motion was rather bewitching.
"What?"
"...Nothing. I was just thinking this was kinda peaceful."
For close to three years, Siesta and I had lived through some turbulent times, pursuing SPES or being pursued by them. We'd walked through deserts without water, we'd slept out in the open during a hurricane, and I didn't have enough fingers to count all the times we'd had to do our business in a field. It had been a dizzying three years, sometimes fighting with pseudohumans, sometimes fighting the limits of human dignity. For me, those days were so—
"You're getting sentimental."
Siesta poked my cheek with a fingertip. She was wearing that expression that said she'd found prey that was worth teasing... I swear, she was as much of a mind-reader as ever. I really hate that side of you, you know.
"That's not it." I chugged the contents of the glass Siesta had set in front of me, and then—
"Bfft! —This is alcohol!"
Damn, it's bitter... That was the first liquor I'd ever had. "Hey, we're minors!"
"You think minors carry one of those around?" Siesta shot a glance at my waist.
Well, if she was going to bring that up, I mean...
"This is my party, remember? You're going to keep me company until I'm done," said Siesta, swirling her glass as if she'd been drinking red wine all her life.
"That's not something a minor should be saying." "What about you, Kimi? What are you having?" "No, I'm already..."
"You're going to make it up to me, aren't you?" Siesta's lips moved slightly.
Make what up to her? Is she talking about the apple pie incident?
"You'll do what I say, won't you?" Siesta tilted her head, delicately.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were faintly moist—maybe it was the alcohol. Somehow, she looked younger than usual.
"...Just one more drink."
After all, I couldn't say no to that, could I?
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