quiet talk #9: Yes and No -another side- / ep.1
The low table in front of the living room had instantly been transformed into an antiqua-style Game table. The alcohol and snacks that had been sitting there were gone, replaced by two empty shot glasses.
“What’s going on!? What are you doing!?”
Aoi, who had woken up at the commotion and emerged in her sweats, raised her voice excitedly when she saw Rinko and Kotone sitting opposite each other. The audience consisted of Aoi, Toko, Mikoto, and Queen Mimosa, curled up on Mikoto’s lap.
And presiding over the Game was Shandy, who had transformed herself into a bartender.
“…If I really win, you’re going to accept that ridiculous condition?”
“Mhm. I swear on my life as an actress. But if I win, you have to do what I say.”
“Don’t stake your acting career on something like this. What are you planning to make me do?”
“Something I can’t say here.”
From Shandy’s smile, Mikoto figured that whatever ridiculous condition she was referring to was bound to be nothing good, so she decided not to pry.
Across the table, Rinko and Kotone locked eyes.
Rinko was blatantly wary, while Kotone wore a triumphant smile. But Mikoto could see straight through to what was going on inside Kotone’s head.
This Game was a battle of wits and psychology. Kotone was trying to intimidate Rinko by acting utterly confident, but Rinko was not the sort of person intimidation worked on.
“You can make all the cool faces you want, I’m still going to win — sorry, can I take a photo before we start? You look way too good.”
“You really do like me, don’t you?”
“I love you more than anyone in the world. Your exterior, anyway.”
Rinko raised her SLR and proceeded to photograph Kotone mercilessly. Determined not to miss a single moment of brilliance, she had the camera set to continuous shooting. A rapid-fire barrage of shutter clicks filled the living room.
Rinko was straightforward to the very end. Just as she said, she really did love Kotone’s exterior. Which, conversely, was proof that she either had no interest whatsoever in what lay beneath it, or actively disliked it.
Toko, watching the contest from beside Mikoto, whispered in her ear.
“They seem really compatible, though, don’t they?”
From an outsider’s perspective, Mikoto had to admit that the two of them did not seem like a bad match.
Rinko brushing aside Kotone’s overbearing attitude.
Kotone trying to bend Rinko, who stubbornly insisted on being herself.
Two strong-willed people clashing personalities head-on.
“Kotone has issues as a person.”
“They’re both problematic, so they clash while being drawn to each other! I get it!”
“I can hear you two, you know.”
“Don’t drag me into insulting her too.”
Rinko and Kotone called them out almost simultaneously. Mikoto thought that, compatibility aside, the two really did get along rather well, but she decided to keep quiet and read the room.
“As I thought, Koto-nee and her manager are really close—”
But Aoi was the one person in the room with no intention whatsoever of reading the room.
She cheerfully announced it, only to receive a withering glare from Rinko. Aoi immediately hid behind Mikoto.
Then, holding up a bottle of alcohol to signal the beginning of the Game, Shandy spoke.
“It’s been a while since I’ve played a cocktail Game. I feel as though I’ve rediscovered my true calling.”
“You’re going to make us do something stupid again, aren’t you…?”
Shandy smiled at Rinko’s exasperated tone. Inside the shaker were brandy, a few drops of Cointreau, and egg white. Even dressed in her ordinary clothes, she was utterly serious as she shook it. In an instant, she had transformed back into the enigmatic, elegantly dressed bartender she had been before the closure order.
Today’s contestants, however, were not Mikoto and Shandy.
They were Rinko and Kotone.
“Allow me to present the magical cocktail Yes and No, famous for exposing the true feelings of a certain beautiful woman.”
Shandy winked at Mikoto.
Mikoto lowered her head. She could hear Toko snickering beside her, but ignored that too.
“The rules are simple. Rinko-san and Kotone-san will take turns asking each other questions that can be answered with either yes or no. The moment one of you can no longer answer, you lose. However, if you finish your Yes and No, you may pass on one question you do not wish to answer.”
“So basically, Kotone can’t pass because she’d be drink-driving. Which means I should drink hers for her, right?”
“Hehe. I suppose that’s how it works.”
With that, Rinko pulled Kotone’s Yes and No towards herself, placing it in front of her. Perhaps she meant to say she had two trump cards in her hand.
Naturally, Kotone objected.
“No, it’s fine. I can get Sis or Aoi to drive me.”
“I’m a learner, though. And Koto-nee’s car is huge. I’ll crash it.”
“If I drive you home, how exactly am I supposed to get back from Yokohama…?”
“You’ve got loads of taxi vouchers. Just call a taxi.”
“Mikoto-san, drink your alcohol right now!”
“You’re on a diet. No drinking!”
Attacked from both sides at once, Mikoto hung her head.
If she drank, she would effectively be siding with Rinko. If she abstained, she would be siding with Kotone.
Mikoto decided it was all too much trouble and stopped thinking about it. She picked up the highball Toko had been drinking and downed it in one go, drowning her thoughts in alcohol.
“Aww, whose side are you on, Sis…?”
“Ahaha! Look at you go, Mikoto-san! Another one!”
“Please. And one for Aoi-chan too.”
“Yay!”
Perhaps this was what it meant to be a full-time housewife, but Toko had slipped effortlessly into the kitchen in Kyōdō. Highballs were relatively low in calories, so there was less guilt involved even while dieting.
That settled it. Everyone present who possessed a driving licence now had a convenient excuse for not driving.
Kotone furrowed her brow in dismay, and Rinko moved to cut off her last avenue of escape.
“By the way, no designated driver service. An actress calling a chauffeur service would be a scandal.”
“Everyone does it. What’s the big deal?”
“No. I get two passes. If you won’t accept those conditions, I’m not playing. Fair enough, right?”
Rinko left the decision to Shandy. Shandy giggled and nodded.
“Indeed, Rinko-san needs a handicap. She seems quite unsuited to both logical and psychological warfare.”
“You mean you think I’m stupid, but I’ll allow it because it gives me an advantage!”
“That’s not fair, Shandy-nee. I mean, isn’t this supposed to be fair play?”
“I am always on the side of the weak.”
The moment Rinko realised that Shandy was actually on her side, she snorted and leaned towards Kotone.
“Oh, really? The hugely popular actress Kurosu Kotone is scared of losing to me?”
“That was terrible acting. If you’re going to provoke me, at least do it properly.”
“Fine. I’ll provoke you properly.”
Rinko grinned wickedly.
“You want to make me yours anyway, don’t you? If you think you can bring me down, then go ahead and try, Kotone-chan. You can only manage childish romance, after all.”
“…You’ve got some nerve.”
Kotone took the bait, and bought the provocation at a premium.
Kotone, who could not pass, against Rinko, who still had two passes in reserve.
Invisible sparks seemed to crackle in the air between their locked gazes.
At some point, Toko had taken possession of Rinko’s SLR and was now snapping away furiously, taking photo after photo of the Game. There was no doubt that, like Shandy, she was thoroughly enjoying the situation.
Aoi, who had been watching from behind, leaned close to Mikoto’s ear.
“Miko-nee, what does romance mean? They’re both women, aren’t they?”
Despite staying as a lodger in Kyōdō, Aoi remained ignorant of quite a lot.
Perhaps Shandy was being considerate with a third party present, because the nightly activities that had once taken place had been conspicuously absent lately.
Aoi did not know.
She did not know that most of the people gathered here had romantic sensibilities that deviated ever so slightly from the majority view.
Mikoto could hardly explain that herself, though, so she pretended not to hear and covered her face with Mimosa.
When in trouble, leave it to Her Majesty.
“Man, Tokyo really is advanced…”
Mikoto ignored Aoi’s comment too. Eyes still closed, she concentrated on the progress of the Game.
“Now then. In this Yes and No Game, the person who can no longer answer loses. Kotone-san, please begin.”
For Kotone, it was a game of romance.
For Rinko, it was nothing more than a bit of fun.
And so the battle began.
＊
Yes and No.
It was the name of a cocktail, but also a romance Game in which the players parried each other’s questions with a simple yes or no, countering any question they could not answer with one of their own.
As the first player, Kotone thought for a moment before looking Rinko straight in the eyes and posing her first question.
“Rinko-chan, you’ve realised how I feel about you, haven’t you?”
A probing question right from the start.
The more one tried to decipher what Kotone had packed into the word feelings, the deeper the trap became.
Having fallen into the same trap herself before, Mikoto listened closely to Rinko’s answer.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to ask.”
But Rinko somehow dodged the question in an entirely unexpected direction.
Her tone was not so much angry as confused and unsettled, as though she genuinely could not understand what she was being asked.
By completely ignoring the rule requiring her to answer the question, Rinko earned an admonishment not only from Kotone, but from the referee herself.
“Rinko-san. As I explained, those are the rules of the Game. Please answer Kotone-san’s question with yes or no, or drink the Yes and No.”
“But I don’t know what she’s asking. What does she mean by my feelings? She needs to be specific if she wants me to answer, doesn’t she?”
“Not even a hint of subtext? After all the perfume and aromatherapy you’ve used to hint at things.”
“I like nice smells, but I hate hinting. Back then, I only dropped those hints because I thought some useless woman was trying to seduce Mikoto-san.”
Rinko was the exact opposite of Shandy.
If Shandy’s speciality was luring people in through oblique remarks that stirred up their imagination and fantasies, Rinko was a bare-knuckle fighter who charged straight in with no guard whatsoever.
A romance Game was a battle of wits devised by Shandy, the queen of indirect tactics.
With Rinko relying entirely on brute force, she seemed overwhelmingly disadvantaged.
“Just answer already, Rinko-chan.”
“I’m not answering as long as you keep making suggestive comments. I’m telling you my honest feelings, so you need to lay your cards on the table and speak plainly too. I don’t particularly want to know what you’re really thinking, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
“Shandy-nee, look what she’s doing! This isn’t even a Game anymore, is it?”
At Kotone’s sulky complaint, Shandy touched a fingertip to her lips and said, “Hmm, let me think.”
She looked as though she were considering a solution, but in reality, she was not thinking about how to solve the problem at all.
She was thinking only about one thing.
How could she make what was happening right in front of her even more entertaining?
“…I’ve got it. Hehe.”
Shandy narrowed her amber eyes into crescent moons.
This had nothing to do with her. It was someone else’s business.
And yet a chill ran down Mikoto’s spine.
“Special rule. From now on, you may ask about the intention behind each other’s questions. In this case, Rinko-san did not understand what Kotone-san meant by my feelings. Kotone-san therefore has a responsibility to explain the question in a way that Rinko-san finds satisfactory.”
“Whaaat…!? Hang on, Shandy-nee! That’s embarrassing!”
“Isn’t it more fun because it’s embarrassing? Hehe.”
Mikoto remembered the side of Shandy she had almost forgotten.
“Now then, Kotone-san? Please explain exactly what your feelings towards Rinko-san are, so that everyone here can understand.”
“That’s right! Explain!”
Rinko shot Shandy a knowing glance and smiled defiantly.
She probably trusted Shandy completely by now, convinced that she was on her side.
And considering Shandy had given her the chance to embarrass Kotone, it was hardly surprising that Rinko had fallen for it.
Kotone clutched her head, then slowly opened her mouth.
“What I’m trying to say is… you’ve realised that I like you, Rinko-chan, haven’t you?”
“Who likes me? Is this something you can’t say in front of everyone? Come on, tell us. I want to hear it.”
“Exactly. Why don’t you confess properly? Kotone-chan?”
“Not Kotone-chan. More like Kotone-kun, right? The way she’s so clumsy at romance. Like an elementary-school boy.”
“God, you two…!”
Rinko was thoroughly egging Kotone on with Shandy at her side, but Mikoto had already figured it out.
Shandy was not on either of their sides.
She simply intended to toy with both of them and enjoy herself.
Which meant that if Rinko said something careless, Shandy would pull the rug out from under her and put her in an even worse position.
Or perhaps she would do so even if Rinko managed not to say anything careless.
Kotone’s cheeks flushed slightly before she cried out in a clear voice.
“I like Shirai Rinko. Romantically! That’s what I mean! I’m asking whether Rinko-chan has realised that I have romantic feelings for her! There! I explained it clearly enough for you, so answer me!”
“Hehe. Thank you for the wonderfully clear explanation. Now then, Rinko-san. Please answer with yes, no, or by drinking the cocktail.”
Rinko drew a deep breath.
“Yes! Of course I’ve realised. But no!”
“Oh my. That’s quite the spectacular heartbreak, isn’t it?”
“Shut up!”
With the alcohol in their systems as well, at least Rinko and Shandy seemed to be having a wonderful time.
Kotone, meanwhile, was the one being thoroughly toyed with, and while she deserved some sympathy, her usual behaviour did rather undermine her case.
“This is getting really fun, Mikoto-san!”
Shandy had shown a gentler side of herself a lot lately, but at heart she was, by her own admission and everyone else’s, a thoroughly wicked woman.
A bartender who treated people like playthings, stood above them, and watched with the satisfied air of someone who had already devoured them.
“This is Shandy-san in her element…”
From the very first question, Yes and No had descended into complete chaos.
And now it was Rinko’s turn.