#42: Kamikaze / ep.3
On the outskirts of Roppongi, at antiqua.
They were playing a game with the Yanase wives: the first person to make her partner cry wins. Toko, Mikoto, and Sanae had each taken their turns. Now it was Shandy’s turn, as the game’s host.
“I will come over there too.”
With that, Shandy left the bartender’s sacred territory and came to stand behind Mikoto at the wall-side counter seat. Mikoto thought perhaps she wanted her to shift over so they could sit together.
Instead, Shandy embraced Mikoto from behind, wrapping her arms around her.
“There it is! The Asunaro hug!”
“What is that…?”
The Asunaro hug was a gesture from a classic drama Kotone had watched for research: a back hug in which the protagonist embraced the heroine from behind. It had aired the year Mikoto was born and become a social phenomenon. Toko, whose mind was always fixed on romance, reacted at once. Sanae, on the other hand, looked as though she could not care less.
More importantly, Shandy’s breath against Mikoto’s neck was hot. The soft weight of Shandy’s arms around her collarbones made Mikoto’s heart jump. By now, that excitement was pleasant.
“Now then, shall I tell you what I would like Mikoto-san to change?”
The aggressive, breathy tone behind her tickled Mikoto’s ear.
She braced herself. But what Shandy began to say was entirely unexpected.
“Mikoto-san is a little too perfect. There is simply no opening to get at her, is there not?”
Shandy had said a tremendous lie, the sort that made Mikoto want to ask exactly what part of her was perfect. Mikoto could not read the face behind her, though even if she could, she would never know Shandy’s true meaning.
“Calling me perfect is questionable, but I seem to be above average at work. I am not as twisted in personality as you are.”
“When you love someone, you cannot see her faults. I get it. Besides, Kurosu-san has a beautiful face too!”
Shandy’s lie prompted both Sanae and Toko to start praising Mikoto. Still flustered and unable to understand what they were trying to achieve, Mikoto heard a whisper at her left ear, concealed from the Yanase wives’ view.
“…Mikoto, as I say: stretch yourself.”
“Er…”
That mischievous, breath-laden voice shook her eardrum.
This was supposed to be a sadistic game, where making one’s partner cry was the goal. Yet Shandy was only praising Mikoto. She could not grasp the intent.
“Hehe, perhaps I am simply looking at the woman I love through rose-coloured glasses. I am so captivated by Mikoto-san that I lose my objectivity. Just holding her like this makes me happy. Do you not think it is wonderful?”
Mikoto wondered how Shandy could speak such unbearably sugary words without the slightest embarrassment. The words Shandy gave her made Mikoto feel more embarrassed than if she had spoken them herself.
“…If you do not want Sanae-san and Toko-san to see your childish side, stretch yourself.”
But Shandy was right. Mikoto was humiliated constantly at antiqua. Kotone seeing her had been unavoidable, but she could not reveal her true self to Sanae and Toko, whom she had only just begun to feel she could relax around at her secondment.
“To put it plainly, your words are not trustworthy. I hear you have not even told Kurosu-san your real name. Do you not feel sorry for Kurosu-san, whom you have deceived all this time?”
“No, I have not told her. But Mikoto-san does not try to draw it out of me. She loves me for the lies I tell… no, she loves me including those lies. She is very broad-minded, a woman with great generosity and capacity.”
“That’s right, Sanae! Not pointing out the lies means Kurosu-san is really kind! In other words, it looks like Sha-Miko, but it is actually Miko-Sha!”
With Mikoto sitting right there, Shandy and both Yanase wives began elevating her all at once.
It felt itchy and uncomfortable. If she tried to correct them carelessly, she would only make a terrible fool of herself in front of both women. She had to endure it.
And then, Mikoto finally understood.
Shandy’s aim in this game was not to make Mikoto cry.
It was to praise her to death.
“Yes, exactly as Toko-san says. I am always being pursued at night. Mikoto-san is extremely skilled.”
Shandy told another enormous lie. To somehow maintain her composure, Mikoto closed her eyes, which were darting about like a tuna’s.
“Yes! I really want to hear about that!”
“It is impolite to pry into other people’s affairs, Toko.”
“Hehe, please do not hold back. It is rare to find people I can discuss such matters with.”
“Um, Shandy-san… Could you perhaps…?”
“It is my turn now. Until I have finished speaking, the rules say you must listen quietly, Mikoto-san.”
The loosely established rule of the game was that interrupting someone against their wishes was prohibited. Shandy had picked up on the game’s unwritten law from the flow of play and added it as an explicit rule.
Which of them, exactly, was too perfect to leave an opening? With her eyes still closed, Mikoto desperately willed herself to calm down, trying to send the blood gathering in her face back down into the rest of her body.
But Shandy’s torment did not end. Hot breath touched Mikoto’s earlobe, and Mikoto swallowed the sound threatening to escape.
“…Your voice nearly came out, but you endured it well. Hehe.”
The breath in Shandy’s sadistic smile was much more pronounced than usual. It was all the more potent because she was whispering. Mikoto’s left ear grew so sensitive that she could almost believe Shandy had begun speaking into it solely as an excuse to breathe against her ear.
“Then, though it is a little embarrassing… Shall I tell them about what happens at night? Is that all right, Mikoto-san?”
“I-I would prefer to keep our secrets between us.”
“Oh? Are you embarrassed, perhaps? Even though you pursue me so fiercely in bed?”
Mikoto was at a loss for words. Everything Shandy described was a lie, from beginning to end.
Shandy absolutely did not think Mikoto perfect. If anything, she found every weakness she could and played with Mikoto mercilessly, exactly as she was doing now. And it was no different in bed. Mikoto’s left ear, which Shandy was so insistently breathing against, was like a switch that made Mikoto lose herself.
Which meant that Mikoto, already—
“…You are feeling naughty, aren’t you, Mikoto?”
—was completely primed. Her desire was like a balloon about to burst, and Mikoto was certain that if Shandy touched her even lightly, her façade would fall away in an instant.
“So, so, what sort of things does Miko-Sha do?”
“Forgive her. Our Toko has no resistance at all to this sort of conversation…”
“It is all right,” Shandy prefaced, before continuing.
“When I ask her for a kiss, Mikoto-san tests me. She says, ‘Tell me you love me.’ But saying it once is not enough to earn a kiss. So I repeat that I love her, enough to be embarrassed, but even then she will not kiss me.”
“Kurosu-san has a sadistic side…! But it does kind of fit my image of her!”
“That is surprising. I thought she was more of a hopeless case.”
Exactly as Sanae’s assessment described, Mikoto felt as though she would die from embarrassment.
And worse, Shandy’s account was not entirely false. The positions were simply reversed. Mikoto was the one who asked for kisses, and Shandy was the one who teased and withheld them.
“Yes, Mikoto-san is not hopeless at all. She teases me, and when she finally kisses me, it is so intense… I feel as though I might melt from kisses alone.”
After laughing softly, Shandy whispered in Mikoto’s ear again.
“…You have been trained by me, have you not?”
“Ghh…!”
Mikoto bit down, trying to hold herself together, but a sound escaped. Yet with the other two women there, she could not simply cry out. She was embarrassed enough to die, but her body wanted Shandy. No, it had been made to want Shandy.
Shandy intended, through and through, to make Mikoto grow.
“I am almost melting, yet Mikoto-san attacks my weak places. Like this.”
“Ah!?”
She could not endure it, and her voice escaped. Shandy gently bit the upper rim of Mikoto’s left ear. It was a place that Mikoto had been trained into becoming weak, a place she had been made sensitive.
“Hehe. I win.”
Win? It took Mikoto a moment to gather the tangled threads of thought, burning with embarrassment and desire, and remember that this was a game: the first person to make her partner cry won.
“Wait. How is Kurosu-san crying out a victory for you? Was not your game about hurling harsh words at your partner to make her cry?”
“I only said the person who makes her partner cry wins. Whispering sweet words and working on her weak places are perfectly respectable ways to make someone cry out.”
“Do you mean not tears, but that kind of…?”
“Hehe.”
This had been Shandy’s intention from the start. She had told massive lies under the theme of “things I want you to change,” praised Mikoto to death, whispered in her ear over and over until she had put her in the mood, then made Mikoto cry out through caresses.
Before the other two, Shandy had re-enacted their nights. Unable to bear it, Mikoto collapsed face-first onto the counter.
“But what I said is true, you know? Mikoto-san is always pursuing me, so I only thought I should pursue her occasionally.”
Shandy intended to maintain the lie before the Yanase wives until the end. She made up the story with such a magnificent stream of nonsense that they had no room to question it.
“Huh? So we lost? At least we established it is Miko-Sha.”
“…Is that really so?”
Beside Toko, who had nearly accepted the outcome, Sanae raised an objection. Her voice, usually calm and without emotion, had acquired an edge. It sounded like the voice she had used while cornering Kosugi, the hound of General Affairs.
“Oh? Do you object to the ruling?”
“No. You disregard the premise, but you have fulfilled the victory condition. I do not object to the result. We can accept the loss; I cannot drink anyway.”
Ignoring Toko’s cry of, “But I want to drink!”, Sanae continued.
“There is something that bothers me. Would someone as secretive as you speak of what happens at night? It is deeply private, a guide to your lovemaking, yet you speak of it at length without shame. It is very strange.”
“Hehe. And? Would you care to share your deduction, great detective?”
Mikoto could not possibly ask Sanae not to expose Shandy’s lies. She had no choice but to listen to the reasoning of the woman beside her.
“The first possible reason is that you wanted to defeat us at all costs. You dislike me, and I dislike you. We might call our relationship one of mutual dislike.”
“Yes. I dislike girls with no charm. Is that the end of your equally charm-free deduction?”
Light entered Sanae’s usually controlled eyes. Shandy’s amber eyes, meanwhile, were crescent moons. Though she said she disliked Sanae, she almost seemed to be enjoying their exchange.
“That is precisely it. If you dislike me, you would want to hurt and humiliate me further. Especially as a sadist of such twisted character.”
“No, when Toko talked about your proposal, you seemed rather embarrassed—”
“I was not embarrassed.”
The interruption came so quickly that Mikoto fell silent. If Sanae said so, Mikoto decided she would accept it, at least for now.
“You are stubborn.”
“So are you.”
Invisible sparks flew between Shandy and Sanae. Just as Mikoto thought she should perhaps stop them, Sanae continued.
“My second point: you openly departed from the premise. The theme was to say what one wished one’s partner would change, yet you bombarded Kurosu-san with words close to praise-to-death. Why?”
“My, my. I told you, I am looking at the woman I love through rose-coloured glasses.”
“I do not believe that. You are a sadist. A person who enjoys tormenting her girlfriend does not praise someone to death so easily.”
“You really say things like that. It is remarkable you managed to marry without understanding a maiden’s heart.”
Shandy returned to the counter and rested her elbows before Sanae. They faced one another at close range.
This was perhaps the purest, most serious game antiqua had ever seen: one person lying, the other exposing the lie. Because they disliked each other, neither was sparing with her words.
“You and Toko are different people, naturally with different maiden’s hearts. Why did you praise Kurosu-san rather than deny her?”
“That is…”
For a moment, Shandy looked apologetic and dejected. It was an unusually uncomfortable expression. Mikoto had never seen it; Shandy almost never appeared sorry for anything.
It was surely an act.
“…Because I do not want Mikoto-san to hate me. Even I understand when it is time to retreat.”
Even knowing it was an act, Mikoto’s heart tightened at Shandy’s endearing expression. If she showed such an adorable face, perhaps Mikoto could behave as Shandy had described their nights. But reality was different.
“I thought your point of retreat lay further away. In any case, if you truly did not want her to hate you, you ordinarily would not think of telling everyone about your nights.”
“You have no charm at all, do you? I am a little startled. Toko-san, what do you see in such a wife?”
“Everything, obviously.”
“You have changed the subject. What was your intention?”
“Who knows? What do you think my intention was?”
They were at an impasse. antiqua’s classical music seemed to become a slightly heated argument. Toko, making no move to stop them, was no help.
“W-well, now… Let us have something to drink. I won, apparently, so I will buy drinks for Sanae-san and Toko-san…”
The hound was there indeed. For a moment, Sanae shot Mikoto a look that seemed to say, Do not interfere. But understanding that Mikoto was trying to defuse things, she gave her a small nod of thanks. Her anger had eased.
Toko, meanwhile, looked delighted.
“Sorry, Shandy-san. Could we order?”
“Certainly. Please wait a moment—”
At that moment, antiqua’s heavy door made a sound. The warped, wooden scraping signal that announced a customer’s arrival. Shandy left the bartender’s sanctuary and vanished into the darkness by the entrance.
Then, as she did, the familiar figure of a woman appeared.
“Hey. Sis, you doing all right?”
“…Kurosu Kotone.”
Mikoto remembered. Sanae had come to antiqua to investigate the matter involving Kotone. She had accepted the circumstances behind Kotone’s series of actions, but they had not discussed Kotone herself at all.
Mikoto needed, somehow, to make Kotone switch on her actress mode. A sponsor was watching.
“This is someone from Hibiya Trading, where I work.”
“Oh! My sister has caused you trouble. I am Kurosu Kotone, her younger sister. Hibiya, of course, helped with the filming of one of my commercials before. My sister and I are both looking forward to its broadcast.”
“Yes. We at the company are grateful to have you appearing in it.”
Mikoto managed to introduce Sanae and Toko before Kotone’s façade could come off. Kotone and Sanae’s first contact landed safely enough, but their hollow conversation made Mikoto’s spine go cold.
Still, Kotone made no move to chat with Sanae. She was looking outside, beyond the curtain dividing antiqua from its entrance. Had she brought someone?
“There are seats free. Since you came all this way, why not have a drink?”
Shandy appeared first from behind the curtain. Even in the dim light, she seemed unusually flustered. Perhaps the full counter had made her busy; she hurried, nearly breaking into a run, to Mikoto’s preferred seat by the wall and whispered to her.
“…What is the relationship between those two, Mikoto-san?”
“Those two? Kotone and whom?”
“Ah, no, forgive me. It is simply such a surprising combination.”
When Shandy whispered the identity of Kotone’s companion, Mikoto’s eyes widened.
Then, from beyond the curtain, the fifth customer appeared timidly.
“K-Kurosu-san… Good evening…”
Kotone’s companion was Shirai Rinko.