#52: Masquerade / ep.4
“Ahhh! I missed Kotone’s speech!”
Rinko came rushing into the hall, only to find the guests already deep in conversation. She stood there at a loss.
Hotel Maverick. The Grand Reception Hall, main venue.
Classical music played at a volume low enough not to interfere with the guests’ conversations. Rinko glanced at the watch on her wrist. It was a little after seven. She had made it in time for the opening of the dance party, but there was hardly any time left before the main event.
“Kotone’s speech was the only thing I was looking forward to…”
Leaning against the wall beside the entrance, Rinko rubbed her exhausted, trembling legs.
Rinko had dutifully followed Shandy’s instructions. Immediately after Kotone’s ritual was over, she had gone to Kuzé Fumika and begged her to teach her as many steps as possible besides those four. Even after Rinko explained the circumstances, Fumika had simply asked, “Why?” in that detached manner of hers, but she had agreed to the lesson.
As a result, Rinko had somehow managed to learn three additional steps in the tiny amount of time available, but—
“This is all that woman’s fault! And where the hell did she go, anyway!?”
Otherwise, all her effort would have been for nothing.
Rinko looked around the hall, but there were far too many guests. And after running here at full speed, she was already out of breath, her unfamiliar dance steps making her legs stumble.
I’ll rest for a bit first.
She leaned against the wall and waited for her breathing to settle.
That was when a woman in a nurse’s uniform, who looked completely out of place at the venue, called out to her.
“Found you, Shirai-san!”
“Huh?”
Rinko looked up.
The woman standing there was Yanase Toko.
＊
“…That’s about what I expected. It’s not normal for the number of invited guests to suddenly increase at the last minute.”
Toko led Rinko into a small waiting room beside the hall.
Behind a door marked Staff Only, Yanase Sanae was sitting cross-legged on a chair, greedily eating a Cocoa Cigarette while staring at a tablet.
For some reason, she was wearing a bunny-girl costume.
Her obvious displeasure was impossible to miss.
Disgruntled Bunny-chan, Rinko decided privately.
“Do you have a thing for cosplay…?”
“I’m not wearing this because I want to.”
“I’m wearing mine because I want to!”
While Toko, dressed as a nurse, was practically bouncing with excitement, Sanae glared at Rinko with the silent pressure of Don’t you dare mention it.
Rinko wondered if she had done something wrong.
Then she remembered that she had infiltrated the party as Seta Maria.
Sanae was on Hibiya’s side.
Which meant she had been found out.
“Ah, no, I’m not Shirai Rinko. I’m Seta Maria!”
“Either way is fine, but this is a great help. If you’re here, that means she must have infiltrated the venue too.”
“She?”
Rinko and Toko leaned over the tablet Sanae had brought with her.
The screen showed footage from inside the venue. The guests’ faces were clearly visible.
Sanae was also issuing instructions on her phone.
“Iida-kun, please make another complete circuit of the venue and film everything.”
After a short delay, the footage began moving.
Apparently the person Sanae had called Iida was filming his way around the hall.
“A live feed? Why are you showing me this…?”
“I’ll get straight to the point. Find Charlotte Gabriel.”
Sanae’s leap in logic was so enormous that Rinko couldn’t understand what she was getting at.
The important thing was that she absolutely couldn’t let Hibiya find out about their infiltration.
“Wait, what!?”
“We were informed that two additional guests had been invited at the last minute. One of them is you, whose name isn’t on the guest list. That means the other must be someone with a connection to either Maverick or Hibiya, and someone with a reason to pull something like this.”
Sanae’s reasoning was so perfectly logical that there was no opening to exploit.
“She’s disguised herself, hasn’t she? We’ve already searched the venue, but we haven’t found any blonde woman who resembles Charlotte. That leaves only the person who helped Charlotte infiltrate the venue, Seta Maria… No, Shirai Rinko-san. You’re our only lead.”
She knew.
Completely.
That said, Sanae might simply be fishing.
Rinko was desperately searching for something to say when Toko placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay. Just tell Sanae!”
“Rest assured. We’re on your side.”
“O-okay…”
Rinko told Sanae and Toko everything that had happened without hiding a thing.
How she had followed Shandy’s persuasion to the hotel, nearly been turned away at the entrance, and eventually secured invitations by bombarding the Secretarial Division with enormous lies.
“…I see. I understand. So you naturally kept this from the Secretarial Division, and you kept it from Kurosu-san because she can’t lie.”
Even Rinko’s clumsy explanation was enough for Sanae to understand almost instantly.
Disgruntled Bunny-chan really is much sharper than I expected.
She was nothing like Rinko, whose temper was much quicker than her wits.
“Yeah… But is Mikoto-san okay!?”
“She’s safe for now. Iida-kun, film Kurosu-san. Try not to let her notice.”
The footage swung around.
The camera shake was bad enough to make Rinko feel seasick, but the tablet eventually showed Mikoto sitting in one of the chairs along the wall.
She was wearing a tuxedo.
More importantly, Rinko immediately recognised the woman sitting beside her.
“That woman’s here!?”
“Charlotte? Which one?”
“The black-haired woman beside her. Her name is Riddle Smith!”
“Riddle… You mean that was a lie? To think our Secretarial Division could be fooled by such an obvious false name. They’re practically worthless…”
Sanae toyed with the bunny ears of her costume as she continued.
“Did Charlotte say anything else?”
“Anything…? She just did her usual annoying laugh and said things like, ‘What do you think?’”
“I agree that her attitude is infuriating. But was there anything else?”
Rinko remembered what Shandy had told her to do before Kotone had dragged her away.
“Oh! She told me to learn dancing from Kuzé-san! Even though there was no time to dance, she told me to learn as many steps as possible besides the Natural something-or-other!”
“You mean besides the Natural Spin Turn, Reverse Turn, Whisk and Chassé from PP?”
“Y-yeah…”
“…I see. I understand Charlotte’s intentions.”
“Huh?”
Sanae told Iida over the phone to keep Riddle Smith under observation, then stood up.
The eyes that had been filled with nothing but irritation now seemed to burn with energy.
Perhaps this was the moment when Disgruntled Bunny-chan truly came into her own.
“Toko, let’s go.”
“Okay! Time to give the bad girls their injections!”
“Wait! Where are you going!? What did you figure out!?”
Sanae placed a hand on the doorknob and smiled ominously.
“You dance with Kurosu-san. In the end, that will save her.”
“Why!? How!?”
“Leave the Secretarial Division and Akazawa to us. We’re going after Kosugi.”
With that, Sanae and Toko left the waiting room in their bizarre costumes.
Left alone, Rinko stared at the images of Mikoto and Riddle Smith, Charlotte Gabriel, on the tablet and clutched her head.
“What the hell are you thinking, Charlotte…?”
＊
Inside the party venue.
At Kuzé Fumika’s announcement, the guests parted from the centre of the hall as though reenacting the Exodus.
An improvised dance floor appeared.
The spectators formed a wall around it, phones and handheld cameras poised in their hands.
The dance party was about to begin.
This might be my turn.
Mikoto swallowed hard and waited for her name to be called.
Not that she actually wanted it to be.
She checked her phone.
Still no response from Shandy.
“…It’s not… Ms Kurosu’s… turn yet…………”
“Is that so?”
Riddle Smith, who had said she didn’t like being alone because she didn’t want people to think she had no friends, was still sitting beside Mikoto.
“First… the debutants… the new members of society… dance…”
“You know a lot about this, Ms Smith.”
“…I’ve… done it… too…………”
That made sense. As an invited guest, Smith was presumably a member of high society herself.
Though with that personality, surviving in high society must have been difficult.
The next moment, the hall erupted into applause.
A group of young men and women entered through the doors wearing matching outfits.
A storm of camera flashes swept through the room, nearly drowning out the light classical music playing in the background.
“They dance… in front of their parents… or their fiancé’s parents… and people like that…”
“Like a school sports day?”
“…Yes………… It’s… pathetic… and funny…”
Smith gave a little “fuhihi” laugh, though it was difficult to tell whether she actually found it funny.
Something about that laugh caught Mikoto’s attention.
There was something familiar about the way she found amusement in such a cynical, detached manner.
“…Ms Kurosu… why are you… here…………?”
There must be countless people in the world with that sort of cynical sense of humour.
Mikoto dismissed the impossible possibility and answered Smith’s question.
“It’s a company order. There were some circumstances, and I was asked to participate in the dance party. For some reason, I’m dancing the men’s side, though.”
“…Perhaps… because Ms Kurosu… is beautiful…………?”
“I’m flattered, but it isn’t all good news. Someone I know told me it was a rather luxurious problem to have.”
“…Your phone… is that… the person you know…………?”
“Hm?”
“…You’ve been… looking at it… the whole time…………”
Smith was observing Mikoto far more closely than she had realised.
In truth, throughout the time they had been sitting together, Mikoto had been staring at her phone.
Checking whether her LINE messages had been read.
Checking her social-media DMs.
Checking missed calls over and over again.
“Oh, this is just…”
“…Someone… important to you…………?”
Smith looked up at empty space as she spoke.
Under the harsh ceiling lights, her unhealthy complexion looked almost blue-white.
Mikoto’s attention instinctively drifted towards the ring finger of her left hand.
Perhaps Sanae’s habit had rubbed off on her.
The platinum ring she had removed because she could no longer trust Shandy now rested in its original place, gleaming in the light.
“Well, something like that. We had a fight.”
“…Me too……”
Smith gave a small sigh.
Her already frail, stooped body curled in on itself even further, leaving her looking utterly miserable.
There was a ring on her slender, supple finger too.
A plain, narrow band similar to the one Mikoto had given Shandy.
Of course, Smith was a member of high society. She presumably wouldn’t wear something as cheap as the silver ring Mikoto had given Shandy.
“So that’s why you don’t like being alone?”
“…Mm. My lover… is here… in this room…………”
“Is it all right for you to be talking to me? If they find you, it might cause even more trouble.”
“…It’s… okay. Right now… I want to talk… with Ms Kurosu……”
On the dance floor, the debutants began their dance.
Like a choreographed mass game, the first-year members of society stood in alternating rows of men and women, repeating a sequence of routines while changing partners.
“…Ms Kurosu… why…? You had a fight… too…………?”
“Ah, well…”
Smith, who had initially seemed so shy around people, had gradually opened up over the course of their conversation and was now asking about Mikoto’s circumstances.
Mikoto didn’t particularly want to answer, but Smith was a guest while Mikoto was the host.
It wouldn’t do to brush her off and spoil her guest’s mood.
“…If you… don’t want to answer… it’s okay……”
“No, I don’t mind. I’d actually been thinking that I wanted to talk to someone about it…”
“…Thank… you……”
Mikoto unravelled the threads of her memories, slowly looking back over how she had come to lose faith in Shandy, and began talking to Smith.
“As you’ve guessed, I’m fighting with my lover. The reason itself was rather trivial, but somehow that trivial thing made me lose my trust in her…”
“…I don’t… think that’s… trivial……”
Smith was right.
Losing faith in Shandy could hardly be called trivial.
Mikoto was glad that Smith sympathised with her, but it also made her remember something.
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. But my lover has always had a tendency to behave like that…”
“…How…?”
“Will you listen without laughing?”
“…Of… course……”
From the moment Mikoto had first met her, Shandy had never changed.
“My lover likes teasing me. She calls it a game, and stakes all sorts of things on the outcome. I’ve spent most of my time losing. I can count the number of times I’ve beaten her on one hand…”
“…Mm……”
“In those games, my lover often tests me. She asks, ‘Do you really love me?’ Naturally, I do… but saying that I love her outright is far too embarrassing.”
“…Did you… dislike… the games…………?”
“No. I like playing games with my lover. I’ve grown through them, and they’ve helped us understand each other.”
“…So… that’s why… you fell in love…………?”
“That was part of it. Being told she loved me during those games eventually wore me down, I suppose…”
“…I understand… I can almost… picture it…………”
“Ah, no. Please don’t imagine it! It’s embarrassing enough just remembering it.”
Mikoto hurriedly corrected herself, but Smith was wearing a wicked expression as she laughed.
“Fuhihi.”
“…Was that game… the cause of your fight…………?”
“Yes.”
Shandy had never changed.
Even that vicious dance with Kuzé Fumika, who might be the Cheshire Cat, had been part of one of her games.
“The games are how my lover tests whether I love her. Normally, they’re just an extension of harmless pranks, but… the game she played on the day we fought went too far.”
Smith fell silent.
She seemed to be trying to say something, but the words caught in her throat.
The sound of the debutants’ feet striking the floor filled the silence.
After waiting for a while without hearing anything from Smith, Mikoto continued.
“…During that game, I lost faith in my lover. She ignored all the affection I had tried so hard to give her and tested me using a horrible method.”
Mikoto had told Shandy countless times that she loved her.
She had said it.
She had kissed her.
She thought of Shandy every day, every few hours, perhaps even every few minutes.
They had shared their bodies countless times.
There was almost nothing left that Mikoto could give her.
And yet Shandy not only failed to trust Mikoto’s feelings, she continued to doubt them.
“Sometimes I even wonder whether I really matter to her at all.”
“That’s not tru—!”
“Ms Smith?”
Smith had finally opened her mouth.
She hesitated, then whispered in a voice so faint it was almost inaudible.
“…I don’t… think that’s true. That person……”
Smith looked directly at Mikoto.
A pale-skinned blonde woman with black hair.
Red eyes visible through the two holes in the masquerade mask.
“…That person… may not… be able to trust… anyone’s love…………”
Mikoto felt something click into place.
The truth behind why Shandy repeatedly devised games to test her love.
“Yes. I think so too. She never tells me anything, but I’m sure my lover carries a complicated past.”
“…Don’t… you want to know…? Her past… Don’t you… ask her to tell you…………?”
Shandy’s meaningful smile flashed through Mikoto’s mind.
She missed those amber eyes, the crescent moon and waxing-moon eyes she had not seen for some time, and she found herself smiling.
“Fufu… Yes. Even if I asked, she wouldn’t tell me. She’s a complicated person. She seems so capable, yet she’s terribly awkward, twisted, stubborn, and far too obstinate.”
“Mm…”
For some reason, a faint glimmer of anger appeared in Smith’s eyes.
Mikoto interpreted it as Smith being angry on her behalf at the bad woman who was Shandy.
“Yes, she’s a bad person. She even says horrible things to my friends. But she never crosses the line, and she’ll even try to repair friendships when they’re damaged. Deep down, she’s a very kind person.”
“…Uu……”
“So I’m not interested in my lover’s past. Besides…”
“Besides…?”
Simply thinking about Shandy made Mikoto smile without realising it.
“If there’s a past she doesn’t want to talk about, she doesn’t have to. I want to love the person she is now.”
“Huh…………”
“I understand that she doesn’t want me to see her past because that’s what she wants. So I want to respect that.”
Smith curled in on herself.
She lowered her face and stared downwards.
“I know that sounds cool. But right now she won’t even talk to me, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“…I see…………”
Smith remained hunched over, her body trembling slightly.
Mikoto assumed she was desperately suppressing laughter at Mikoto’s magnificent self-deprecating joke.
A muffled sound, almost like a sob, escaped her.
Thinking about it made Mikoto terribly embarrassed.
“…And that’s why I’ve been staring at my phone. Something happened just before that made me think I should trust her after all.”
“…………”
Smith whispered something so quietly that Mikoto couldn’t make it out.
Her voice sounded strangely distorted.
Mikoto assumed she was being prompted to continue.
“The thing that happened was tonight’s dance. She taught me—”
She stopped.
Now that she had reached the subject of dancing, Mikoto was tired of referring to Shandy as that person or my lover and deliberately obscuring her gender.
Smith was strangely perceptive.
She might already have figured everything out simply from the fact that Mikoto was wearing a tuxedo.
“She taught me the men’s side, the leader. If someone is ordered by their company to dance, normally they’d be taught the women’s side, the partner. But for some reason, she didn’t.”
Mikoto had just revealed that her lover was a woman, yet Smith showed no particular surprise.
She must have been an understanding person.
More than that, however, Mikoto was delighted that she had been able to openly call Shandy her lover.
“I’m not sure why… she taught you… the men’s side…………?”
Mikoto answered Smith’s question.
“When I realised it, I thought it was one of her usual pranks. Or perhaps she simply hated the idea of me dancing in a man’s arms. But now I can say with certainty that it wasn’t that. I can trust her.”
The truth behind why Shandy had taught Mikoto the men’s steps was simple.
“She was trying to protect me from my enemies and train me so that I could defeat them.”
“…………Ah…………”
Shandy was intelligent.
She had pieced together the small clues: Sanae’s conflict with the Secretarial Division, Akazawa’s attempts to corner Mikoto and the others on Kosugi’s orders.
She had reached the conclusion before anyone else.
Mikoto would be forced to dance the men’s side at the party.
So Shandy had acted in advance, ensuring that Mikoto wouldn’t fall into the enemy’s trap.
Shandy’s love was roundabout and difficult to understand.
Even while doubting the love Mikoto gave her, she was still giving Mikoto proof that she loved her.
“She never told me the truth until the very end. Perhaps she was embarrassed to tell me. Or perhaps she was enjoying a game in which she waited to see whether I would figure it out.”
“…I see…………”
“My lover is like that. A mischievous, bad woman. But there’s no doubt that she loves me. So I want to believe in her too.”
Silence fell.
The debutants’ dance had ended, and at some point a commemorative photograph was being taken.
Mikoto’s turn was approaching.
More importantly, she had been rambling to someone she had only just met about how she couldn’t trust her lover, how she could trust her now, and how much she loved her.
Mikoto was becoming embarrassed and hurriedly continued.
“…Er, that’s about all there is to my story. What about you, Ms Smith?”
“…Me… I’m… somewhat…………”
Mikoto listened carefully to Smith’s barely audible voice.
She thought she saw a faint flush spreading across the woman’s pale cheeks.
“…The fight………… I think… I went… too far…………”
“That happens sometimes.”
“…Do you… think… she’ll forgive… me…………?”
Mikoto wished with all her heart that her own lover would say those words.
So she answered with hope.
“If you apologise sincerely, I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”
“…Thank… you………… Ms Kurosu……”
Suddenly, the hall erupted in thunderous applause.
The debutants were leaving the venue, and Kuzé Fumika’s announcement came over the speakers.
“And now, we are pleased to announce the beginning of our regular dance party. We invite all our honoured guests to join us.”
At last, the main event.
Perhaps talking with Smith had lifted some of the weight from Mikoto’s heart. The pounding anxiety she had felt about dancing had eased somewhat.
Her gloom had disappeared too.
“I’m going to dance now. Oh, Ms Smith. Would you like to join me for a dance?”
“…I’m… well…………”
“Ah, please don’t feel obliged. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“…………”
“Wait! Hold that dance!”
The voice was familiar.
Mikoto raised her head from the respectful bow she had given and saw the woman standing before her.
“…Dance with me first, Kurosu-san.”
It was her colleague and friend. Shirai Rinko.