#13: Triple Passion / ep.1
The stage today wasn’t the girls’ bar Antiqua, tucked away on the edge of Roppongi — no.
Yokohama, around Minato Mirai.
Mikoto was sipping a morning blend at the café they’d agreed to meet at when she appeared.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mikoto-san.”
Shandy’s look today was the relaxed, off-duty kind. A cable-knit sweater paired with shorts, blonde hair swaying at her shoulders. Mikoto, too, had gone with a simple, grown-up outfit of her own — trousers, nothing fussy.
Both of them off the clock this morning. A rendezvous in plain clothes.
“Caught staring at a different side of me today?”
“Yes — at how adorable it is. The mystery’s only deepened.”
“Then today, I suppose you’ll finally get to solve it.”
Laughing lightly, eyes bright with competitive spirit, she took a sip of Mikoto’s coffee.
It had all started the night before.
—Why not go on a date in your hometown, Mikoto-san? Yokohama?
The reward for winning the Aroma Trap match: a date outside the shop with Shandy.
Faced with this sudden, unheard-of turn of events, what Mikoto had felt was pure certainty of victory.
Because at Antiqua, Mikoto was always on the away team’s side of the field — cursed ground where she got served cocktails and humiliation in equal measure, night after night.
But Yokohama, Mikoto’s hometown? Every spot she’d ever gone with friends, every date spot where some now-half-forgotten ex had once whispered sweet nothings — all of it lived in her head. Home-field advantage ought to boost her odds considerably.
—I’ll unmask Shandy’s mystery, out here, away from the shop.
And so Mikoto had come armed with a meticulous plan. Digging through memory and the internet, she’d stayed up the whole night working it out — and yet her head felt razor-sharp. Adrenaline, athlete-before-the-big-match style, was keeping her eyelids propped wide open.
“I’ve been thinking about you so much, you even showed up in my dreams.”
“Ha. Funny, I had a dream about you too, this morning.”
Toying with the straw in her ordered ginger ale, Shandy let her eyes curve.
“You’d lost a game and were on the verge of tears. ‘I can’t beat you, Shandy-san’ — like some adorable little kid.”
She put on an exaggerated impression of Mikoto, amber eyes shining with competitive glee.
Clearly, she had no intention of losing today either.
“What a coincidence. I had a dream about you too, Shandy-san. Sulking like a spoiled little kid.”
“Like this?”
Shandy screwed her face into a comically exaggerated grimace. Blatant provocation. The arrogance of someone used to winning — it wasn’t an exaggeration to say she was underestimating today’s contest entirely.
“That composure won’t last much longer. I’m going to strip away every mystery you’ve got wrapped around you.”
“Finally getting to see me bare, am I?”
“Yes. Stripped completely bare.”
The man seated at the next table let out an apologetic little cough. Too absorbed in their own back-and-forth, they’d both forgotten — this wasn’t Antiqua. Talking like their usual selves out here just made them look like an embarrassing pair of weirdos.
Shandy flashed a sly smile and leaned in close to Mikoto’s ear. Her breath brushed against it — and so did her lips, deliberately.
“Shall we find somewhere quieter?”
Reading exactly what she meant, Mikoto shook her head.
Unlike Antiqua’s comfortable dim light, everything out here was bright. No hiding anything.
“Sightseeing first, like normal people.”
Their destination lay past the great gate visible from the café — Yokohama’s Chinatown, a battlefield dressed in gold and vermillion, thick with the mouthwatering scent of street food. After a light stroll through the streets and a stop at the Kanteibyō temple to pray for victory, Shandy finally spoke up.
“Now then. What kind of game have you prepared for me?”
“Today’s a best-of-three, set right here in Yokohama. If I take even one round, I win.”
“Rather unfair, don’t you think? I can’t afford to lose even a single one.”
“Oh? Someone of your caliber can’t win without a handicap?”
Provoked, Shandy smiled, unbothered. Her amber eyes glinted, more dangerous than before.
“You’ve gotten bold, haven’t you. And the reward?”
“Whatever you’d like.”
“Duly noted. Don’t come crying to me later.”
“I’ll be the one making you regret it. Starting right here, right now!”
Mikoto stopped in front of a particular storefront and made her declaration. Shandy blinked, puzzled, before quickly catching on and breaking into a knowing grin.
“…I see. Clever. A fortune teller?”
“Yes. The first game: can you keep your true feelings hidden? This shop has a fortune teller with a reputation for reading minds. Whoever has their true feelings exposed loses.”
“Just what I was hoping for.”
Barely a moment after making their reservation, the two of them were shown into a private room and settled in side by side. A fortune teller soon appeared, face veiled beneath a thin cloth.
She carried herself with all the right mystical atmosphere — right up until she opened her mouth with startling casualness.
“‘kay, before we get started, names, ages, birthdays? Let’s start with you, the sharp-looking one.”
Whatever weighty reputation had preceded her promptly evaporated. The fortune teller’s manner had all the energy of someone phoning in a shift.
Could a game even hold up under someone this slapdash? A flicker of doubt crept into Mikoto.
“Kurosu Mikoto. Twenty-six. Birthday March 2nd.”
“Kay. Next, blondie.”
Personal information — the essential raw material of fortune-telling. To take part, Shandy would have to give up whatever secrets she’d been so carefully hiding.
This was the trap Mikoto had set. Holding back a smile at how perfectly things were going, Mikoto waited for Shandy’s answer.
But—
“Magical Girl Shandy. Fourteen years old. Birthday: the night of the Sabbath.”
The fortune teller’s eyes went wide.
“Uh, no, if you’re gonna lie, at least make it a decent one…”
“Well, this whole approach is a bit underhanded, isn’t it? Trying to pry out my secrets with a method like this.”
Puffing out her cheeks, Shandy put on a show of indignation. Apparently deciding that had gone too far—
“I’ve got my reasons for staying anonymous, but let’s say ‘Shandy’ for now. Date of birth, undisclosed. Weight, roughly three apples’ worth. Not enough to work with?”
“Yep, yep, that’s fine. So, what’re we reading? Work, love, money, health, life, all that stuff?”
“Then, Shandy-san’s overall life fortune, if you would—”
Before she could finish, Shandy cut in.
“Could you read our compatibility together instead? We’re a couple, you see.”
“Shandy-san?!”
Caught with no time to object to something so unexpected, all Mikoto could manage was calling out her name. The fortune teller looked briefly startled, then apparently accepted it with a knowing “gotcha” — flipping over twenty-two tarot cards face-down and lining them up in a row.
“Wai— wait a moment, what I actually wanted was—”
“Don’t be shy now. Sorry, my girlfriend here’s a bit slow on the uptake, always getting flustered. Isn’t it just adorable? Right, Mikoto?”
“Ohh, I feel that. So fresh and innocent, love it!”
Made fun of by both Shandy and now the fortune teller too, Mikoto lost her ability to form words entirely. Punishment, presumably, for resorting to underhanded tactics — in the space of a single moment, Shandy had seized total control, and now selected her tarot cards exactly as instructed.
“Go on, Mikoto, pick some too. Apparently we need seven.”
“Ugh…”
No wonder Mikoto was flustered. Her real plan had been to have only Shandy’s life fortune read, securing a one-sided win. She’d never once accounted for becoming a subject of the reading herself.
And the reading had already begun. There was no turning back now.
Following instructions, they alternated picking cards, laying them face-down across a cloth printed with a hexagram. The moment the final card landed at the hexagram’s center, the fortune teller’s loose, breezy expression sharpened at once.
“Kay, let’s begin.”
She flipped the first card.
The most feared card in the Major Arcana, reversed: The Tower.
“Ohh, yikes. You’ve had some kind of major failure in your past, huh? Like, lose-everything-and-end-up-homeless level of bad. Ring any bells?”
“Well, I did struggle a fair bit opening my shop. And Mikoto’s in a pretty dire situation right now too, isn’t she? Present tense.”
“…I suppose so.”
She couldn’t exactly say the current situation was the disaster in question. Probably meant Mikoto’s work troubles. Answering vaguely, Mikoto waited as the fortune teller flipped the second card.
The Lovers, upright.
“That’s a good one to pull!” Shandy said, delighted, while Mikoto gave a noncommittal reply. The fortune teller’s interpretation went in one ear and out the other.
“So, card one, the Tower, means hitting rock bottom — but reversed, it means realizing there’s nowhere lower to fall, and turning that into resolve. Which means card two, the Lovers, means you two being together is a genuine plus for your lives. Nice, right?”
“Couldn’t agree more. Mikoto’s indispensable to me.”
“Oh, get a room! Pfft!”
The fortune teller let out a raspy, veteran-comedian sort of cackle. A lot of personality packed into this one.
Even so, Mikoto thought, how does Shandy just keep churning out lie after lie like this? The whole “we’re a couple” premise was already a fabrication — what was even going through her head?
The eccentric fortune teller flipped the third card.
The Chariot, upright.
“This one means drive, moving forward, conviction. Basically, in the not-too-distant future, you two’ll be supporting each other, personally and professionally both. Like the Chariot’s two wheels, moving straight ahead together, side by side. Might even end up working together someday.”
“Manufacturing and bartending, together…?”
“Well, from these first three we get your past, present, and future. And yeah, you two are seriously compatible. Kinda surprising, honestly.”
No way. She’s just making things up. Mikoto had thrown good money down the drain for this.
Regretting the whole thing already, Mikoto watched the fourth card turn over.
Temperance, reversed.
“…Buuut. Someone’s spending a little too freely, huh? And maybe putting on airs a bit? Like trying to win someone over with money or stuff, or stretching yourself thin trying to match up to them. From the outside it’s kinda sweet to watch, not gonna lie, but there’s not much restraint there. Ah — maybe that’s why things haven’t really moved forward, huh?”
Right after denying it, this. Struck a little too close to home, Mikoto held her breath.
Promising, night after night, to spend money at Antiqua — that was Mikoto’s own idea of putting on a grown-up front, her own particular way of stretching herself thin.
Shandy said nothing, only smiling faintly with a hand pressed to her mouth.
“Well anyway, just try taking it easy, you know — kind of a ‘Let it go…’ vibe. Maybe you’ll get to know each other better that way.”
“She’s not wrong, is she, Mikoto?”
“No, not at all?”
This fortune-telling game — whoever had their true feelings exposed by the reader lost. Mikoto did her best to hold her composure together.
What was genuinely frightening was the fortune teller herself. Her premise was completely wrong, and yet she kept landing eerily close to the mark. That “reputation online” tagline probably wasn’t just about her strong personality after all. She went on.
“Next two cards, we actually use these to guess what each of you is really thinking deep down. Which side do you want?”
“I’ll take this one.”
Shandy chose the left. Which left Mikoto the right, by default.
The fortune teller flipped the right-hand card first — the one representing Mikoto’s true feelings.
The Magician, reversed.
“Ahh, called it — you’re the one putting on airs here, huh.”
“Wh— what?!”
While Mikoto floundered, Shandy laughed softly beside her.
“The Magician reversed means indecisive, kinda inexperienced, likes to act tougher than she is. So you don’t wanna look childish in front of blondie here, right? I mean, if you’re newly together, that’s totally understandable, I get it, I get it.”
“Th-that’s absolutely not it!”
“Oh yeah? I was pretty confident about that one.”
The fortune teller moved on to flip the left-hand card — the one representing Shandy’s true feelings.
The Hierophant, upright.
“Ahh, yep, got it, completely understood now. Blondie’s mental age is, like, ancient. The Hierophant’s a generous, compassionate teacher type. My guess is, whatever you ask for, she’ll give it to you — the type who devotes herself even at her own expense.”
“Yes, spot on.”
“Absolutely not true!”
Fortune-telling, all superstition. Mikoto called it out, remembering every last humiliation and torment she’d endured up to now.
There was no way Shandy — that Shandy — was some kind of nurturing earth-mother figure. If anything she belonged somewhere in the neighborhood of the Devil, Death, the Hanged Man — that sort of card.
Ignoring Mikoto’s protest entirely, the fortune teller flipped the final card.
Wheel of Fortune, upright.
“Kay, wrapping up. You two are super compatible, future’s full of hope. Buuut, this one here’s putting on a bit of a front. Blondie’s kind, though, so probably she’s just waiting for her. Or — actually, wait, this might be more like purple—”
“Ha.”
Shandy’s smile, sharp with quiet pressure, cut the fortune teller’s words off mid-sentence.
“…Anyway. This last one, Wheel of Fortune, means opportunity’s rolling right toward you. Luck only has bangs, no hair in the back, so grab it while you can and don’t let go.”
“Yes, thank you very much.”
“Kay, that’s the reading. Actually, special treat, let me read one more — your most immediate challenge. Pick a card?”
“Go on, Mikoto, pick one.”
Not worth trusting, all of it just guesswork, Mikoto told herself.
She picked a card at random and flipped it over.
The Fool, reversed.
“…Hmm. You’re hesitating on something. I see the shadow of someone else. Makes sense the Magician-reversed lady over there would be hesitant, and blondie’s a generous Hierophant, so she’ll forgive you. Buuut, you know, even patience has its limits, right? If you wanna put her mind at ease, you gotta decide.”
＊
The eccentric fortune teller’s reading came to an end.
Stepping out of the fortune-telling shop, Mikoto hung her head, every last thing about her having been read with unsettling accuracy — while Shandy laughed, eyes curved into a waxing crescent.
“Ahh, that was fun. Almost satisfying how spot-on she was, wasn’t she, Mikoto-san?”
“…All of that was nonsense. Complete guesswork! The Barnum effect, that’s all it was!”
The fortune-telling round — whoever gets their true feelings read out loses — was about to be declared void, by Mikoto’s own reasoning. But Shandy spoke first.
“But my own true feelings got exposed too, didn’t they? Doesn’t that make this my loss?”
“Wha—?!”
For the first time, Shandy had actually conceded a loss. Which meant Mikoto had won.
But Mikoto reconsidered almost instantly. Because—
“N-no, absolutely not, that’s not what I actually feel, and I’m not accepting it! There’s no way you’re some generous, kind teacher type, Shandy-san! You’re just having fun teasing me!”
“Oh? Then I suppose the win goes to me after all. Since it means the fortune teller failed to expose my true feelings.”
“Th-the whole fortune-telling thing was fake to begin with! Void match!”
“Hmm? Though I distinctly heard her say you’re the one prone to putting on airs, Mikoto-san. Come to think of it, haven’t I heard something like that somewhere before?”
“Guh…! F-fine…! I give up!”
Mikoto threw both hands up. Total surrender. The white flag.
“…Fine, this one’s your win, Shandy-san!”
“Yes, well done.”
Having her head patted, Mikoto’s face flushed a color that could’ve blended right into the vermillion-painted streets around them.
Embarrassment, frustration, humiliation, and just the faintest trace of something pleased, all tangled together, made her turn away. She’d sulked far too childishly. She didn’t want to be seen like this.
“Mikoto-san.”
“…What.”
Shandy stepped out in front of the sulking Mikoto. And then, in a voice clear enough to cut through the crowd, she said:
“I’ll wait however long it takes. Until you’ve made up your mind.”
“…That’s not your true feelings, is it?”
“Ha.”
Shandy answered only with a smile. Then, clapping her hands together as if to say that’s that, she turned to Mikoto.
“I’m getting hungry too — let’s have lunch. Since we’re already in Chinatown, why not a Tsingtao beer?”
“Drinking in the middle of the day…”
“Drinking in the middle of the day is exactly the appeal. Guilt makes the best seasoning, doesn’t it?”
Shandy’s pale cheeks, laughing softly, seemed to carry the faintest flush of their own.
“Might I ask for your escort, Mikoto-san?”
She’d lost this round — but there were still two more to go.
And, having enjoyed herself more than she’d expected to, Mikoto answered with a wry smile of her own.
“…Understood, Shandy-san.”