#49: Masquerade / ep.1
The day of the showdown.
Mikoto stood in the lobby of the luxurious first-class Hotel Maverick, the venue for the annual social gathering organised by Hibiya Trading’s Secretarial Division, the Regular Social Gathering.
“I never thought I’d have to come back here…”
For Mikoto, Maverick was no three-star hotel worthy of admiration. It was the place where she had infiltrated under a false name in order to corner the person who had stolen her project, eventually emerging victorious from their feud.
She looked around the venue.
The Maverick hotel staff were busily preparing the room, though they did so with the composed elegance of people who were never truly flustered. Both the men and women were strikingly attractive, which Mikoto privately decided was only to be expected of a first-class hotel.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Kurosu-san.”
Mikoto turned at the sound of her name.
It was Sanae, accompanied by her subordinate Iida instead of her wife, Toko. The paper bag in her hand presumably contained a dress and shoes for dancing.
Mikoto had not seen Sanae in person since their ballroom-dancing lesson the previous week. Since Sanae had only apologised over the phone two days ago, Mikoto bowed her head again.
“I’m sorry about the other day. I lost my composure.”
“It was understandable. What happened with her afterwards?”
Sanae’s resolute eyes stirred something inside Mikoto.
She had not spoken to Shandy even once since then.
Not by phone.
Not across the counter at antiqua.
She had not even gone back to Kyodo.
“I… haven’t.”
“I see. That woman really is stubborn…”
Mikoto already knew from Sanae’s phone call that she had spoken with Shandy. She also knew about the uncharacteristic reaction Shandy had shown during that conversation.
Even so, Mikoto couldn’t bring herself to make the first move.
She wanted to reconcile, yet couldn’t bring herself to say so.
Because doing that would mean begging Shandy to take her back.
She wanted to trust the woman who had tested her love, yet couldn’t trust her.
And so they had simply drifted apart.
Sadness, anger and loneliness churned her heart into a mess.
I don’t want to keep talking about this.
Mikoto changed the subject and confirmed what she was expected to do today.
“What should I do today? Am I simply supposed to dance?”
Sanae looked as though she was about to say something, but switched into work mode.
“Kurosu-san’s role is host. In other words, as an employee representing Hibiya, your purpose is to participate in the dance party and use feminine charm to maintain relationships between people. I apologise for forcing you to participate in the sort of vulgar, antiquated social strategy the Secretarial Division would devise.”
“Please don’t worry about it. I have a personal grudge against Akazawa myself. The bunny-girl incident, for one…”
There was no end to the list of things Akazawa had done to Mikoto.
Not only had she suddenly stolen a kiss from her, she had also threatened her using photographs of her with Shandy while pretending the woman in them was Kotone.
As a result, Mikoto had been publicly exposed across the length and breadth of Japan in a bunny-girl outfit.
Of all of it, the bunny-girl incident was the one she could forgive least.
Akazawa, I will never forgive you.
“Our enemy is the same. This party is a trap set by the Secretarial Division, but conversely, if we seize control of the party, we can destroy their advantage. If we demonstrate that employees from General Affairs can excel in a social setting, the Secretarial Division will lose the last vestige of authority they possess.”
“So I just need to dance well…”
Naturally, Mikoto hadn’t taken a single dance lesson since then.
Her one-room flat in Machida was too cramped to practise steps properly, and the more she danced, the more Shandy’s face and warmth came flooding back into her mind, making it impossible to concentrate.
While Mikoto dreaded the dancing that was about to begin, Sanae leaned towards her and whispered:
“But be careful. Our enemies aren’t a single united front.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Secretarial Division’s overall objective and Akazawa’s objective are different. As I mentioned before, the person behind Akazawa is former Planning Division Director Kosugi. We still have no clear idea why she follows Kosugi’s orders.”
“Perhaps she’s repaying the favour of having been hired through connections?”
“I don’t think Akazawa is the sort of person who would be that loyal out of gratitude. It would be better to assume she has an entirely different motive.”
Sanae took a small breath and touched the ring on her ring finger.
Even someone normally as calm and resolute as Sanae might be nervous.
“I brought Iida-kun along for security and as a messenger. Toko has already infiltrated Maverick.”
“You really have thought of everything…”
“It’s my job. Iida-kun, proceed as planned.”
“Are we seriously doing this?” Iida asked in a terribly miserable voice as he trudged off towards the venue.
His rounded shoulders radiated melancholy.
The balance of power between Sanae and Iida at work was abundantly clear.
“Shall we head in too?”
“Yes…”
There were still two hours before the party opened.
Mikoto finally forced herself to get moving, knowing she needed to change into her dress, do her make-up and take care of all the other preparations.
＊
“When you said we were infiltrating, I thought we were going in through the sewers or an air duct…”
“Fufu. This isn’t a film.”
On the way to Maverick, the venue for the party, Rinko sat beside Shandy in the car and complained.
Tonight, the two women looked completely different from usual.
Rinko wore a beautiful pink A-line dress, while her normally loose, permed black hair had been tied up at the back of her head.
She also wore a high-end perfume she rarely used, its sweet yet stimulating scent centred around jasmine and neroli.
Shandy, meanwhile, looked like an entirely different person.
A black wig.
Red contact lenses.
Make-up deliberately made to give her a sickly complexion.
And an absurd amount of padding stuffed into her chest.
There was no mistaking her.
Shandy did not look remotely like Charlotte Gabriel.
She was the spitting image of Alice Akutagawa, who had supposedly died four years ago.
“…Are you sure it’s okay to enter the venue looking like that?”
“If anyone notices, I’ll simply insist that I’m her lookalike. And my name is Riddle Smith. Do you remember the character setting?”
“Twenty-two-year-old third-generation Japanese American. Founder of an IT start-up. A genius with an IQ of 160 who has a stutter. Withdrawn, shy, not very active in conversation. And fluent in five languages, including Japanese. That about right?”
“Th-th… th-that’s… r-right…”
At once, Shandy began behaving as Riddle Smith.
The mere moment Rinko looked at her to gauge her expression, Shandy recoiled in apparent surprise. Her cheeks even coloured slightly.
“I really hate you… You can do anything effortlessly…”
“D-don’t… d-don’t say you hate me…! S-Seta Maria-san…!”
Riddle Smith advanced on her with tears in her eyes.
Shirai Rinko, also known as Seta Maria, responded with a heavy sigh overflowing with exasperation.
After the incident at antiqua, Rinko had heard Shandy’s plan for the dance party and the infiltration operation.
As irritating as Shandy was, if Mikoto was in trouble, of course Rinko would help her.
Shandy’s proposal was for them to infiltrate the party pretending to be fictional VIPs.
Since Maverick’s employees were running the event, Shandy had enough connections to get them inside.
For that purpose, Shandy had created character profiles, or “books”, for both herself and Rinko.
Rinko found hers utterly unacceptable.
It was the worst possible role.
“Listen… There’s absolutely no way I can pretend to be your lover.”
“B-but… we… w-we promised each other a future…”
“Stop that.”
“Eeh?”
Riddle Smith reverted to Charlotte Gabriel.
She pursed her lips in exaggerated displeasure, speaking in a deliberately irritating, coaxing voice.
“You’ve overdone the character setting so badly it’s embarrassing. Anyone would see through it immediately.”
“They won’t. What sort of person do you think I am?”
“Where does all that confidence come from…?”
“You just need to remember the days when you were Rin-chan. Right? Driver-san?”
“That’s so true! Ah, Ayuru-chan’s having more and more fun with this!”
The driver taking them to Maverick, Hiroo Ayuru, laughed cheerfully.
For the plan, they needed someone whose face was unknown to the Hibiya Secretarial Division, so Rinko had reluctantly contacted Ayuru.
She was grateful that Ayuru had agreed to help without hesitation, but she felt pathetic for having created another debt to someone she had sworn never to see again.
“We don’t have to be lovers, do we!?”
“Being lovers is more convenient. There are very few fools who would ask a woman out dancing when she already has a girlfriend. And if one does appear, we can simply embrace and make it obvious. They’ll tuck their tails between their legs and leave. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have them thrown out.”
“There’s no way I’m embracing you!”
“Oh? Then we don’t need the lovers’ setting. But in that case, Rinko-san, you’ll be approached by a great many men. Given your appearance.”
Rinko was aware of that herself.
She was more popular with men than women.
A cute face that apparently made her look ignorant and obedient.
A curvaceous figure with a larger-than-average chest.
Even simply walking down the street, she sometimes caught unpleasant looks.
“Well, if you’re secretly hoping to marry into money, I won’t stop you.”
“Men are out!”
“Then lovers it is. Or perhaps a married couple, like Sanae-san and her partner.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Don’t be so demanding. I don’t want to be paired with a woman like you either.”
“Can’t you come up with something else? Anything but you… Couldn’t I pretend I’m dating Mikoto?”
“Rejected. Her face is already known to the enemy.”
“That’s not the only reason, is it?”
“Fufu. Who can say?”
“Stop doing that!”
Shandy giggled.
Though she protested verbally, she was clearly enjoying herself.
Not the idea of being Rinko’s lover, but the situation itself.
She was taking genuine pleasure in watching Rinko desperately object to the character setting.
She really is the worst.
“As observers of the venue, we absolutely cannot interfere. If we’re lovers, we can simply become wallflowers and survey the entire room. There’s no helping it. You being my partner is divine punishment for the way I hurt Mikoto. Karma. A desperate measure. A bitter sacrifice. Like cutting down Ma Su with tears in one’s eyes…”
“Stop treating me like a punishment game!”
“Please make up your mind already. Unlike Mikoto-san, I’m not devoted enough to wait patiently for you to find your resolve.”
Dance with a man, or pretend to be Shandy’s lover.
Both choices were equally horrifying.
But at last, the scales in Rinko’s mind tipped towards the latter.
“Fine! I’m Maria, Riddle’s lover!”
“Fufu. Then please remember that, as the kitten, I’ve been repeatedly embraced by you, the tachi, Riddle.”
“…R-right. We… promised each other a future… didn’t we?”
“Th-that’s r-right… I… I’m… loved by… Maria-san… so I… feel… safe…”
“F-fufu. Th-then tonight, how shall I l-love… love…”
“What’s wrong…? M-Maria-san…?”
“This is absolutely impossible!”
Rinko’s tremendous scream reverberated through the tiny Ayuru-chan car.
＊
At reception, where they had gone to register and confirm their identities, Mikoto and Sanae came face-to-face with a familiar hotel employee.
“Welcome, Kurosu-sama. Yanase-sama.”
Kuzé Fumika.
Hotel employee and dancer.
The dance instructor who had lent them her studio.
Shandy’s former partner.
And possibly the Cheshire Cat.
Mikoto instinctively hid her true feelings.
She wanted to hate Fumika and keep her distance, but she concealed everything beneath a polite surface and bowed her head.
“Thank you for having us. And I’m sorry about the other day. You were kind enough to lend us your studio…”
“Please don’t worry about it. Here you are.”
Fumika handed them the information for the regular gathering.
The event would begin at seven in the evening.
The Grand Reception Hall would be used for dancing, while a standing buffet would take place simultaneously in the adjoining room.
The map also showed the location of the changing rooms.
Apparently they would be using the dressing rooms of the theatre attached to the hotel.
“You may use the dressing rooms in the adjoining theatre to change. At this time of day, they should still be empty.”
“…Thank you.”
Was Fumika speaking so formally because she was busy?
Or was she subtly warning Mikoto, Shandy’s current lover, to keep her distance?
Once suspicion had taken root, even something as trivial as word choice could turn Mikoto’s mind into chaos.
Sanae spoke up.
“I was told there was a package for me.”
“Yes, here it is. The Secretarial Division asked us to give these to you and Kurosu-sama.”
“There’s one for me too…?”
Fumika brought out a wrapped box.
It was roughly the size of a small suitcase, made of paper and decorated with the logo of a high-end brand.
Fumika beckoned the two women closer and whispered into their ears.
“…I haven’t looked inside, but I believe these are today’s dresses and shoes.”
“We brought dresses with us. Both Kurosu-san and I.”
“Presumably there is a dress code for the hosts. They likely thought it would look unattractive if members of the Secretarial Division happened to be wearing similar outfits when standing together.”
In other words, the Secretarial Division had gone to considerable effort to prepare their dresses and didn’t want to risk accidentally matching with the others.
We’d rather die than have you twin with us.
That was essentially the message.
“What troublesome women…”
“That is the nature of social occasions. If you like, I can take the luggage you brought with you.”
Reluctantly, Mikoto and Sanae handed their luggage to Fumika and accepted the boxes containing the specified outfits.
But they couldn’t ask Fumika what they really wanted to know while she was so busy working.
So they left reception and headed for the theatre dressing rooms as indicated on the map.
“It certainly smells like a trap…”
“It’s infuriating. They bought all this useless rubbish with company expenses.”
“That’s where your anger is directed…?”
Despite herself, Mikoto found herself slightly envious of Sanae, who devoted herself completely to the company.
The epitome of corporate servitude, the Hound of General Affairs.
Mikoto could never match that level of devotion to the company.
“But we’re not going to lose without a fight. We have a move of our own.”
“A move?”
“Talking about me?”
A woman in a bright red dress suddenly appeared before them.
Actress Kurosu Kotone.
“Why the hell is Kotone here…?”
“She has a connection to Hibiya through her commercial appearances. So I negotiated with her agency and persuaded her to attend. Thank you for appearing without a fee.”
“Hey. I get to eat and drink good stuff just by talking for a bit and watching sis do her little bon dance, right? They’d be the ones in the wrong if they paid me. I’d rather pay them.”
“Go home. Now!”
“No. The more pieces we have on the board, the better.”
“Sanae-san, this woman isn’t someone who moves just because another person tells her to!”
“Well, actresses perform according to other people’s directions.”
“That’s true, but that’s not what I meant!”
“Anyway, what do you think? Doesn’t this outfit give off Queen of Hearts vibes?”
“Hehehe.”
Kotone spun around on the spot, looking slightly embarrassed.
Her long hair swayed like a fluttering skirt, just as it had when she appeared in the shampoo commercial.
She wore natural make-up that emphasised the translucent quality of her features, and a red-and-black two-tone dress with a boldly exposed shoulder.
You needed an extraordinary amount of confidence to pull off a dress like that.
The terrifying thing about Kotone was that she could actually make it look good.
“…Well, it suits you.”
“So it’d suit sis too. I even brought my personal make-up artist. Want me to have her do you up as though you were Kotone?”
“If there were two Kurosu Kotones at the venue, it’d be confusing.”
“Then we could make sis a bunny girl.”
“Like hell you could!”
“Anyway, please handle the speeches and so forth. We’re going to get ready.”
“Got it! Ah, wait a sec.”
Kotone stopped them as though she had just remembered something.
“What now…?”
“There was this old guy who mistook me for sis earlier and picked a fight. He said things like, ‘I won’t forgive you or Okamura,’ and ‘I’ll make you regret it.’ Has sis pissed someone off?”
There was only one person Mikoto could think of.
Kosugi, the former head of the Planning Division, who had been demoted to a subsidiary after his role in the project-stealing incident was exposed.
“Sanae-san, this man…”
“…It’s probably Kosugi. The Secretarial Division has no reason to invite a worthless employee who’s been demoted to a subsidiary. Whoever invited Kosugi was Akazawa.”
Sanae was right.
The party itself was still a trap, but the Secretarial Division’s intentions and Akazawa’s were almost certainly different.
But Mikoto was more concerned about Kotone’s safety than any of that.
“Were you okay, Kotone?”
“You’re worried about other people when you should be worrying about yourself?”
“You’re not ‘other people’. You’re my sister.”
“You worry about your little sister, but you won’t let your little sister worry about you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Shan-sis.”
“…………”
Mikoto hesitated.
Immediately after she had fled from the dance lesson, she had unfortunately run into Kotone by chance. Kotone had taken her to a café because she was worried, but Mikoto hadn’t been able to tell her anything.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Kotone.
She simply couldn’t organise her own feelings.
And those muddled feelings had continued to linger even after a week had passed.
“Get back together with her. Everyone’s worried about you.”
Mikoto’s thoughts were a mess, caught between guilt at making everyone worry and a faint irritation at being worried about for no reason.
She herself had never been so deeply troubled by something as simple as a relationship becoming complicated.
Whenever she had dated someone before, once a crack appeared in the relationship, no amount of explanation could make her feelings return.
If anything, the more the other person tried to explain, the less she trusted them.
If they didn’t explain themselves, her feelings simply cooled and the relationship fell apart.
That was how Mikoto’s romantic relationships had always ended.
But Shandy had left the crack exactly where it was and said nothing.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been another relationship destined to collapse.
But Mikoto’s feelings now were completely different.
“…Sorry. I don’t really want to talk about that.”
She was technically at work.
She couldn’t bring her private life into the workplace.
Right now, she was Kurosu Mikoto, an employee of Hibiya Trading on secondment.
She was not Kurosu Mikoto, Shandy’s lover.
She told herself that and forced a wry smile as she shook her head.
It was all she could manage.
“Well, whatever you decide, I’m on your side, sis. Let’s go out for food again sometime.”
“…Thanks.”
“Mm.”
With that, Kotone walked away towards what appeared to be the waiting rooms.
“…I imagine you have mixed feelings, but this is work. We should start preparing as well.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to have caused you concern.”
The haze covering Mikoto’s heart could not simply be brushed away.
Even so, she forced herself to think of work and followed Sanae towards the changing rooms.
It was immediately afterwards that the screams of two women could be heard from inside, where they had opened the boxes containing their outfits.