#7: Yes and No / ep.1
“Ah, Kurosu-san, Kurosu-san. Sorry to bother you at work, but got a moment?”
Mikoto, deep in a low groan trying to wring some new proposal out of thin air, looked up. The door to the office — which resembled nothing so much as a faculty room out of some Shōwa-era drama — had opened, and the kindly old managing director stood there, waving her over with a playful little beckon.
Some vague sense of dread crept up on her, but the worry turned out to be misplaced. If anything, this was a stroke of good fortune for the Next-Generation Flagship Product Development Project.
“Since I figured running this whole project solo would be rough on you, I’ve gone ahead and had Shirai-san join in as well.”
“It’ll only be in the spare moments between my regular clerical work, but I’ll do my best!”
Meiji Stationery’s office clerk, Shirai Rinko, gave a small bow.
“Believe it or not, she actually volunteered herself for it. Didn’t you, Shirai-san?”
“M-managing Director! I asked you to keep that part quiet…!”
The kindly old man broke into his signature deeply-creased smile and let out a soft, wheezy chuckle.
Rinko was twenty-seven — the same age as Mikoto. But where Mikoto was a fifth-year company veteran, Rinko was only in her second year, having joined mid-career. Still, as a graduate of a two-year college, Rinko actually had more total years of work experience under her belt.
Which made her, in a strange way, both Mikoto’s junior at the company and her senior in the working world.
“Ha, well, the president took quite a shine to your recent proposal, you know. Seems like all sorts of little accommodations are opening up for you now. Look at you go, Chief!”
“That’s a relief to hear. Though it’s also a bit of pressure…”
“Ha, sorry, sorry! There should be one more person joining soon, too. Anyway, keep up the good work!”
It seemed Mikoto had, quite suddenly, become the boss of two people. Whether that counted as a blessing or a headache, she honestly couldn’t say — but there was no denying the project was a battlefield desperate enough for any extra hands it could get. She could only feel grateful toward Rinko, who’d volunteered for this mess with full knowledge of what she was signing up for.
“Thank you so much, Shirai-san.”
“Oh, not at all! I actually did something similar at my previous job.”
“In that case, I’ve probably been showing you nothing but my rough edges so far… Is there anything you’ve noticed that I might be overlooking? Please, don’t hold back.”
“Well, um, in that case — I hope this doesn’t come across as overstepping, but—”
Hesitantly prefacing her suggestion, Rinko proposed a user awareness survey. These days, thanks to the internet, market research had become far easier to run. There was the downside of losing out on hearing real, unfiltered voices directly, but it saved an enormous amount of labor compared to doing it in-house from scratch.
Listening to the clean, well-reasoned logic behind the proposal, Mikoto found herself convinced Rinko really did have genuine project experience. Having a task she’d been quietly putting off pointed out to her stung a little — but Rinko was already a fellow casualty of this mess now, not an outsider.
There was no way Mikoto was letting a cute little duck that had wandered in carrying its own hot pot and green onions just walk back out the door. She grabbed Rinko firmly by both shoulders.
“Would you be willing to take point on that market research, Shirai-san?!”
“If it’ll help you out, Kurosu-san, I’d be delighted to!”
＊
“So that’s why Kurosu-sama is in such a good mood tonight.”
Roppongi’s girls’ bar Antiqua.
The moment Mikoto had told the bartender Shandy, who’d opened with “Did something good happen?”, about the day’s events at work.
“Well, she volunteered even knowing how busy things are! And on top of that, she’s taking over research I hadn’t even had time to get to!”
“So — you’re saying you’re happy, Kurosu-sama, to have grown closer to this person?”
The instant the topic turned to Rinko, a teammate, Shandy fixed her with a damp, faintly resentful stare. Her amber eyes had shifted into a waning crescent.
Mikoto realized, belatedly, that she might have gone a little overboard singing Rinko’s praises and soured Shandy’s mood in the process. She scrambled for something to smooth things back over.
“You’re the only one for me, Shandy-san.”
“Mm-hm, sure. Classic cheater’s line. Not buying it.”
“No, I really mean it.”
“Then, can you kiss me?”
“…Ngh.”
The memory of last time flashed back, and Mikoto found herself thrown off balance.
In their previous match, Shandy had ended up ordering three refills of Kiss Me Quick. And what she’d been served wasn’t just the cocktail — it included the thing that wasn’t even a cocktail to begin with. She’d lost, after all. There’d been no helping it.
“See? Can’t do it, which means you’re not exactly ‘only for me,’ are you? Cheater.”
“No, well. I just think a kiss is something better shared once two people really know each other properly. I wouldn’t want to hurt you with some throwaway kiss for play, Shandy-san.”
“Your words are awfully sincere, considering how much kissing you’ve already done to me.”
“Th-that was only because you ordered it, Shandy-san.”
“Ha.”
Unable to hold it back at the sight of Mikoto’s flustering, Shandy let out a breath of laughter. The tense air hanging over Antiqua shifted at once under the light, rolling sound of it.
“I’m joking. Just teasing you a little.”
“You really are a wicked one…”
“But it’s true that I got jealous, hearing you talk about someone else, you know?”
Leaning her weight forward against the counter, Shandy closed the distance until she was right in front of Mikoto. Even in the dim light of the shop, the sharp outline of those amber eyes was unmistakable.
“Here at Antiqua, I’d like you to love only me.”
“I’d never do anything to make you sad, Shandy-san.”
“…I’ll give that a sixty out of a hundred. Good enough, I suppose.”
With that, she offered Mikoto a refill on the snacks. Bracing herself internally against the fear of being handed an XYZ, Mikoto drained the last of her first Shandy Gaff and savored the prosciutto pairing to the fullest.
Adding another snack to the counter, though, could only mean one thing—
“So, as a small apology, allow me to offer you a second round.”
“Ha. Seems like you’re starting to understand me a little.”
“Yes, that was the idea…”
Mikoto couldn’t quite bring herself to finish that sentence with full confidence.
Because the truth was, she still barely knew anything about Shandy.
She’d already pushed open Antiqua’s door more times than she could count on one hand, and yet she had almost no real information about her — a genuinely serious research failure. All she really knew was that Shandy loved the Shandy Gaff, and that she chose her customers.
That pale, porcelain skin that had first made Mikoto wonder if she was some kind of bisque doll, wonder even if foreign blood ran in her veins; those amber eyes; that similarly-toned hair — all of it remained a mystery.
Why had she decided to open Antiqua in the first place? Why a girls’ bar of all things?
And beneath the stage name “Shandy,” concealing her real self — who was she, really?
She was a woman full of mysteries. And it was precisely because of that, that Mikoto wanted to unravel them.
“…That’s right, Shandy-san. I have a proposal for tonight’s game.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“I’ll leave the actual contest up to you. But — how about this: whoever loses has to answer any question, honestly, no matter what it is.”
“Ha. So curious about me, are you?”
“I’ve been on a losing streak this whole time. I figure I’m owed at least one or two of your secrets, just to even the scales a little.”
“Now, I wonder what you’ll end up asking?”
“That’s a surprise for after you’ve lost.”
Shandy’s eyes shifted into a waxing crescent — a sign, probably, of accepting the challenge.
She seemed to be turning the shape of tonight’s contest over in her mind, hands stilled for a moment. Then, with a small smile, she set the shaker she’d been holding down on the counter.
“Let’s do it this way, then. I’ll turn Kurosu-sama’s own proposal into tonight’s game itself.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“Well, first, there’s the second cocktail of the night. I wonder if Kurosu-sama can guess it?”
Before Mikoto, still puzzling over the question mark hanging in the air, Shandy laid out tonight’s ingredients.
A raw egg.
“Wait, you’re using egg?”
“Yes. You don’t have any allergy concerns, do you?”
“I’m fine, but — how exactly does that work…”
Running back through her half-baked cocktail knowledge, Mikoto came up completely blank on any cocktail that used egg. She leaned in, watching Shandy’s slender fingers closely.
Splitting the egg cleanly into two half-shells, Shandy passed the yolk back and forth between them, left to right. Her slender fingers moved with practiced ease, separating the yolk from the white with perfect precision.
“Hint number one. This cocktail uses egg whites. Have you ever done any baking, Kurosu-sama?”
“I’m embarrassed to admit it’s about home-ec-class level. Egg whites — does that mean meringue?”
“Yes. Kurosu-sama does seem to have a taste for things with a pleasant texture on the tongue.”
“A kiss, for instance,” she added with a laugh, and set about whipping the egg whites with a hand blender. The whir of the motor joined the aria playing over the wired radio. Fortunately, Antiqua was in its usual state of being open in name only tonight — there wasn’t a single customer around to be bothered by the noise.
After several minutes of whipping the whites into a meringue, she folded in granulated sugar to finish it off. The meringue in the bowl had taken on a glossy sheen, ballooning up like drifts of soft, powdery snow.
“Now then, hint number two. This cocktail is brandy-based — or rather, it’s practically nothing but brandy.”
The classic base spirits for cocktails, of course, were gin and vodka. The Gin and Tonic, the Martini, the Moscow Mule, the Balalaika — most standard cocktails belonged to that lineage.
Naturally, plenty of cocktails were built on other bases too. Shandy’s beloved Shandy Gaff used beer; the Leonardo Mikoto had once had used sparkling wine.
Mikoto did know, at least as a fact, that brandy-based cocktails existed — but the meringue was the real sticking point. Nothing about it rang any bells at all.
“I’m sorry, I really have no idea.”
“Well, it is a bit of a niche one, admittedly.”
Having finished measuring the brandy into the shaker, Shandy poured in a spoonful of white curaçao from a now-familiar square bottle. From there, ice went in quickly, chilling the spirits while rounding off their sharp edges as she shook.
She poured the finished cocktail evenly into two shot glasses, then floated the meringue on top of each. Atop the tea-brown liquid, pure white meringue drifted, gently swaying.
“Here you are. A Yes and No. A special recipe, using meringue, made just for you, Kurosu-sama.”
“Yes and No…?”
Shandy smiled at Mikoto, who’d simply echoed the name back, and propped her elbows on the counter. Before each of them sat a shot glass of Yes and No.
“Tonight’s game uses this cocktail — one that’s both yes and no at once — to trade questions back and forth. Whoever runs out of an answer first loses. But — drain your Yes and No, and you can strike a question from the record entirely.”
“I see, so the Yes and No is a one-time-only trump card.”
“Exactly that.”
Amber eyes shifted to a waxing crescent as Shandy nodded.
This round of the game, Yes and No, was, exactly as Shandy said, a battle of questions — the real key to winning would be how sharply cutting a question you could land on your opponent.
For Mikoto, desperate to crack open Shandy’s mysteries, this was a golden opportunity. Because in this particular contest, win or lose, she’d still get to throw a question at Shandy either way.
“Are you sure about this? I might end up stripping away every last one of your beautiful mysteries, laying you bare.”
“The answer to that is yes. Please, ask me as many questions as you like. Though—”
Shandy lifted her glass — the signal, presumably, to start the match with a toast.
Lifting her own glass in kind, Mikoto watched as Shandy laughed, light and rolling.
“Don’t forget, I’ll be asking you questions too, Mikoto-san.”
“Yes.”
“Ha, seems like you’ve got the rules of the game down perfectly already.”
“Indeed. Shall we begin, then, Shandy-san?”
“Yes, let’s.”
Their shot glasses touched in a small toast.
The Yes and No match had begun.
“Well then, by rights, I suppose I’ll go first. It’d be no fun if this ended too quickly, so let’s take our time and enjoy it.”
“That wasn’t a question, was it?” Mikoto pointed out. Shandy pressed a finger to her lips, striking a thoughtful pose. Then, unhurried, she opened her mouth and asked, smiling.
“Kurosu-sama, here’s my question. Do you intend to beat me?”
“Yes. And you don’t intend to lose either, do you?”
“Naturally, yes.”
Her amber eyes shone, brimming with confidence. Meeting that gaze, Mikoto felt something stir in her own chest too — a genuine desire to unravel the mystery and come out on top.
Mikoto, of course, had no intention of losing to Shandy either. This was a real contest.
“Have you come to like this place, Antiqua?”
“Yes. I get to enjoy delicious drinks and a beautiful bartender.”
“Ha, thank you very much. Now, it’s Kurosu-sama’s turn.”
“Let’s see… In that case — am I a good customer, to you, Shandy-san?”
“Yes. It’s dull whenever Kurosu-sama doesn’t come by. And how about you — how do you find me?”
“Yes. I always find myself soothed by you, Shandy-san. Though it’s a bit rough on my wallet.”
“I’m grateful you see that much value in me.”
Shandy was a fine actress. Subtly shifting her expression and tone, she was clearly gauging Mikoto’s reactions the whole time. A tension more pleasant than their usual back-and-forth sparring sent Mikoto’s heart racing.
They could have gone on like this — trading sweet, surface-level lines back and forth at this same easy pace. But an exchange this shallow would never reach anywhere near the depths of Shandy’s real mystery.
Which meant it was time to actually make a move. Mikoto pressed forward with a sharper question.
“May I ask something a bit more probing?”
“Ha, yes. Eager, aren’t you? Oh, and that one counted as a question.”
“Yes. Will you answer honestly, without lying?”
“Now, I wonder.”
“Please, answer the question. No lies, no dodging. I want to know the real you, Shandy-san.”
“Then let’s say — yes. On the condition that Kurosu-sama promises the same, and won’t lie either. How about it?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I want.”
Shandy had given her word not to lie.
From here, it was Mikoto’s turn. Determined to catch her off guard for once — this woman who kept tossing off casual, unbothered questions with total ease — Mikoto steeled herself and pushed further in.
“…Do you have someone you’re seeing, Shandy-san?”