#94: Impossible / ep.8
“What am I going to do with you?”
Mikoto kept her head bowed as she listened to Shandy. No, “listened” didn’t quite cover it. She was pinned to every word, waiting for the verdict as though she had been nailed to a cross.
It felt like an eternity. If Shandy handed her a three-line divorce notice, she was sure to end up out on the streets. She barely had any savings, and wouldn’t even be able to support herself with food, clothing, and shelter. But more than any of that—
“I’m sorry I betrayed you after saying I was devoted to you, Shandy-san!”
—what terrified her most was losing Shandy.
She would never be able to set foot in Kyodo again, nor at Antiqua, where she had gone so often. She needed Shandy, whose presence had sunk deep into her heart and taken root there, to remain by her side.
“You only realised what I was worth when you were about to lose me?”
“Yes…”
“Even though you lost my trust long ago?”
Mikoto had no answer.
“Did you betray me knowing that I’m incapable of trusting other people?”
“I’m… sorry.”
“Yes or no. Are you aware that you tripped up someone who had finally found the courage to try trusting another person again?”
“N-no…”
“But what was the result? This is a moral education lesson. Put yourself in my shoes.”
Shandy was determined to make her say yes. Naturally, Mikoto couldn’t answer, and didn’t want to. That would only inflict an injury on the woman who had finally managed to rise above her distrust of others, one that might never heal.
“P-please forgive me…”
So all Mikoto could do was ignore the question and give the only answer she could. She bowed so deeply that her forehead nearly scraped the floor. She didn’t care who was watching. She wanted to dig a hole and bury herself in it.
“I’ll do anything as punishment!”
“You always end up doing anything you’re asked to, and that’s how you got yourself into this mess in the first place. You silly girl.”
The counterattack came straight for her throat. There was no way Mikoto could win against Shandy today. Even if Shandy challenged her to a game, she was certain to lose.
“Oh, yes. I like punishment games, but I dislike punishment. Do you know why?”
“…………”
“When you punish people, they foolishly convince themselves that they’ve been forgiven. Don’t you think it’s better not to punish them at all?”
“Oh. I see…”
Michelle, for some reason, seemed thoroughly convinced. Mikoto, meanwhile, was frozen stiff. She was taller than anyone else in the room, yet she wanted to shrink herself down to the size of a nanometre.
“You’re willing to accept punishment because you want to be forgiven, aren’t you? You haven’t spared a thought for how I feel. You’re apologising simply to forget your own guilt. Am I wrong?”
Even Mikoto had to admit there was something to that. She herself had barely apologised at all during the ball.
“And right now, you’re probably thinking, ‘You didn’t exactly apologise properly yourself.’ Am I mistaken?”
“I-I’m not!”
Shandy had read her thoughts and cut off her escape route. The startled squeak in her voice made her true feelings painfully obvious.
“Lies are my speciality. As you can see just by looking at me, you don’t turn into a very good person by telling lies all the time.”
“I… won’t lie anymore…”
“You didn’t deny that I’m a good-for-nothing, though.”
And then she picked apart Mikoto’s words and twisted the conversation around. Completely overwhelmed by the verbal assault, Mikoto had no choice but to curse her own stupidity.
“Shandy-san is… a paragon of virtue…”
“Is that all?”
“You’re beautiful, and cute, and charming…”
“What is it you like about me?”
“You can be aggressive, but you’re actually very kind… You protected me, and raised me…”
“And?”
“I love you, and I… don’t want to leave you…”
“Heehee. One more.”
Somewhere along the way, the interrogation had changed. There was the faintest trace of amusement in Shandy’s voice. Perhaps she was simply teasing her. Even so, Mikoto couldn’t resist.
“Because… I wanted to spend the rest of my life making you happy…”
She felt as though she might die from embarrassment, guilt, and humiliation.
“So you were willing to give your body for a job offer?”
“N-no! My body…!”
“It’s much the same thing. At least I’m not so thoughtless that I’d give my lips to someone I didn’t love.”
With a heavy sigh, Shandy continued.
“You committed two crimes today. The first was betraying me. The second was meddling with the heart of that little thief—oh, pardon me. That lovely young lady over there.”
“Eek…!”
Michelle’s squeak was only natural. Shandy was pretending to sympathise with the victim while making quite sure to put her in her place.
“Of course work is important. But is it really worth resorting to a honey trap? Surely what matters most is the trust you place in each other?”
“Y-yes…”
“You’re still a long way from being an adult.”
Just as Mikoto managed to force the words through her choked-up throat, a hand stroked the back of her head. It was warm and soft. There was no anger, disappointment, or sadness in that touch. No doubt Shandy was simply taking care not to let Mikoto feel it.
Shandy was kind. Kind and sweet.
Mikoto was glad she had fallen in love with someone like that.
But—
“Why are you the one patting her head…?”
“Because, because Mikoto-san looks so sad…”
—now she understood why she couldn’t feel any anger, disappointment, or sadness.
Hirose Michelle had absolutely no sense of timing.
“Won’t you show me your face already, Mikoto?”
At last, Mikoto felt ready to look up. Hesitantly, she followed the legs of the jeans-clad woman standing before her, slowly raising her gaze. When she reached Shandy’s chest, she summoned up all her courage and somehow managed to look her directly in the face.
Shandy glared down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, and Mikoto instinctively looked away.
“Of course you can’t meet my eyes after behaving so dishonestly. Once trust has been cracked, it takes even longer to put the pieces back together.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t make me lecture you. Rinko-san is quite enough for the role of the scary woman.”
“Who are you calling scary?”
For some reason, Rinko and Kotone had appeared in the head office director’s room after Shandy. Following them was Toko, who had volunteered to run an errand for Sanae.
Before Mikoto could even begin to understand what was happening, Kotone switched to her bubbly on-camera voice and exclaimed at full volume.
“We finally found the secret room at Hibiya Trading! And look who we found inside! Making her video debut, it’s my very own big sister, Mikoto!”
“What are you doing here…?”
Kotone brought her face right up to Mikoto’s nose, then suddenly seemed to remember something.
“Oh, right! Big Sis works for Hibiya!”
“What? No, I haven’t even—”
“She’s only just started working there, right? Everyone, be sure to cheer her on, and oh, yes! If it’s a secret room, there must be treasure hidden somewhere! That cardboard box looks suspicious!”
Selfie stick in hand, Kotone headed straight for the cardboard box where Mikoto had hidden her proposal.
Kotone was filming, presumably. But this was the planning department, packed with confidential information, and the box contained proposal documents for ideas that might one day become lucrative products.
Even though Mikoto wasn’t technically an employee yet, words like information leakage and compliance flashed through her mind, sending a chill down her spine.
“Kotone, don’t film that box!”
“And here we have a proposal from Big Sis Mikoto! Oh, look at that. Potpourri made from pencil shavings. What a frugal idea. I love it.”
Despite Mikoto’s protests, Kotone pulled out both the proposal for the Pencil-Shaving Potpourri and its samples, arranging them in front of the camera. The way Rinko described each of the scents she had blended with such precision was a testament to her skill as a celebrity.
This was no time to admire her. Mikoto had to stop Kotone immediately.
“Okay, that’s enough! Stop!”
“And there you have it! Hibiya-san’s fifth floor has a secret room, and inside we’ve discovered new products that haven’t even been released yet! This has been Kotone Kurosu reporting live from the scene. Bye-bye!”
She finished speaking in a single breath and stopped recording. Then Kotone took a deep breath and smiled with smug satisfaction.
“There. One established fact, coming right up. The great Kotone Kurosu just gave you a free commercial, so you’d better be grateful.”
The goal of the plan Sanae had given them was to create an established fact. If Mikoto’s proposal somehow made its way into the competition and performed well, the personnel department would have no choice but to take action.
At last, Mikoto understood what Kotone had been trying to accomplish.
“Isn’t that basically cheating your way in through the back door…?”
“Haha. Never underestimate celebrity power.”
Kotone had introduced Mikoto as a Hibiya employee and, on top of that, advertised a product that hadn’t even been commercialised yet. Once the video went public to the entire world, Hibiya would have no choice but to act. Statements made by Hibiya’s advertising figurehead, Kotone Kurosu, would effectively become the company’s official position. Once the video spread, they couldn’t simply brush Mikoto aside.
It had all gone according to Sanae’s plan.
Somehow, despite Mikoto barely understanding what was happening, everything had worked out.
Though it had left one hell of a grudge behind.
“Well then. Let’s have a nice, long chat somewhere else.”
Shandy said this as she took Michelle’s hand. The moment their pale hands touched and clasped together, a faint crease appeared between Michelle’s brows.
“W-where are we going…?”
“To the stage for a game. Kotone-san, might I ask you to drive us?”
Kotone gave them a thoroughly wicked grin.
The place of purification was Roppongi.
Here we are in Roppongi. At last, the seal on the forbidden garden known as the girls’ bar Antiqua, which had been firmly closed at the authorities’ behest, was broken with the heavy sound of its door opening. The embodiment of the government’s strict three Cs—closed spaces, crowded spaces, and close-contact situations—had finally been released.
“So, first of all, Mikoto’s punishment. I want you to make sure all our preventive measures are thoroughly implemented.”
“You said you didn’t believe in punishment…”
Under unusually bright lights, Mikoto began her punishment game with disinfectant spray in her right hand and a cleaning cloth in her left.
“Get to work, Sis.”
“Shandy-san, make me a drink! What about Rinko-san?”
“I’ll have the peach one!”
“Heehee. It’s been a while. I can feel my skills coming back.”
Antiqua would remain open without reducing its number of seats. However, an acrylic partition had been installed at the counter to prevent droplet transmission, while the table at the back where Kotone and the others were relaxing would have a limit on the number of people allowed to sit there.
As Mikoto followed instructions, setting up the partitions and disinfecting the fixtures that had somehow been prepared in advance, she couldn’t help worrying about Michelle, who sat uneasily in the prime seat.
Why had Shandy brought Michelle away from the office? Mikoto had no idea what was about to happen, and her mind was so preoccupied that she could barely make any progress with her work.
“…Here you are. The Shirley Temple is for Kotone-san, the Martini for Toko-san, and the Cassis Peach for Rinko-san.”
Shandy presented three glasses to Michelle and spoke. Trying to figure out what she meant, Michelle looked up at the bartender from across the counter.
“Huh…?”
“You don’t know which order goes to whom? What a troublesome waitress. Shall I teach you again?”
“W-waitress…?”
“It’s a small punishment for you.”
Shandy once again matched each cocktail with its customer, and Michelle finally seemed to understand, carrying the glasses over to the table. She still didn’t seem to understand what she had done to deserve the punishment, however. Question marks practically filled her face.
“Now then. What would you like to order?”
“Um… uh…”
Shandy gave a small sigh and glanced at Mikoto. She seemed perplexed. Resting a hand against her cheek, she thought for a moment, then slowly turned back to Michelle.
“You want someone to listen to you, don’t you? You’re not looking for the courage to talk that alcohol provides, are you?”
At last, Mikoto understood what lay behind Shandy’s enigmatic smile.
Shandy was offering to listen to what Michelle had been unable to tell Mikoto. To this girl who, despite the circumstances being beyond her control, was technically her affair partner, the very “thief of love” Shandy had called her.
“But, but… I’m a thief of love…”
“Be careful. That bartender over there enjoys asserting her dominance over romantic rivals.”
“She really is awful.”
“That’s what I like about her!”
The spectators at the table, happily treating the whole affair as someone else’s problem, were getting noisy. Mikoto particularly wanted to disinfect her little sister’s face with an alcohol spray, but one wrong move could cause catastrophic damage. Reluctantly, she returned to her infection-prevention duties.
“I won’t reveal your secrets. Unless, of course, they’re interesting enough to make me want to.”
As always, Shandy had to add that extra little barb. But for Michelle, it was presumably an offer she couldn’t refuse. When Shandy told her to order something first, Michelle timidly opened her mouth.
“Um… could you make a Gimlet?”
A Gimlet.
The recipe called for gin and lime juice shaken at a ratio of three to one, a cocktail said to have originated with the British Royal Navy. As the ratio suggests, nearly eighty per cent of it is gin, making it notoriously strong. The Gimlet also has a famous line associated with it from a celebrated novel.
“Isn’t it a little too early for a Gimlet?”
“You’ve read it?”
Michelle’s eyes lit up, and Shandy looked at her with upturned eyes.
Too early for a Gimlet.
It was a key phrase from Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled novel The Long Goodbye. In the scene where the characters discuss their unusually strong opinions on Gimlets, they even debate the recipe for a “real” Gimlet.
“Yes. I’ll make it according to the recipe in the book.”
“That’s amazing…!”
Perhaps because Michelle had been so genuinely impressed, Shandy seemed to grow just a little prouder.
The recipe in the novel calls for equal parts gin and lime juice. Compared with the standard recipe, it is considerably easier to drink and somewhat lower in alcohol.
It had been a long time since Mikoto had seen Shandy shake that silver cocktail shaker. She really did look the part when she was working as a bartender. Mikoto found herself staring in admiration, only for Shandy to shoot her a look that clearly said, Work.
Mikoto went back to peeling the film from the acrylic partitions.
“Here you are. One Gimlet. And let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a Long Goodbye.”
“Thank you.”
The moment Michelle lifted the glass, she drained it.
It happened so quickly that Mikoto couldn’t even process what she had seen. Cocktails were generally served in quantities of sixty to 120 millilitres, after all. It wasn’t impossible to drink one in a single mouthful, but still.
Michelle polished off a Gimlet with an alcohol content of around twenty per cent in a matter of seconds, yet remained perfectly composed. Immediately afterwards, she let out a hot, breathy sigh and looked up at Shandy, who was standing opposite her.
“It’s delicious!”
“Oh. Is that so?”
Shock and disbelief appeared on Shandy’s profile. When their eyes seemed about to meet, Mikoto turned her back and pretended not to notice.
Shandy had decided to take responsibility for Michelle. It was none of Mikoto’s business. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible and buried herself in her work.
“Um… can I have another? A Daiquiri, a Sledge Hammer, a Rising Sun, a Mamie Taylor… Oh, and do you have any sake?”
Mikoto couldn’t stay buried in her work.
The barrage of orders silenced even the previously noisy spectators. There was no classical music playing over the house speakers to fill the silence as there normally would have been during business hours.
“If Suigei is acceptable. Ah, but… looking at your selection, perhaps what you’re really after is a Last Samurai?”
“That’s it! And for chasers, a Gin and Tonic and a Moscow Mule.”
“You can drink all that?”
When Mikoto asked, Michelle smiled.
“I love cocktails most of all. I can drink loads of them, and I never get drunk. I haven’t been able to drink out lately, so I’ve really been craving it.”
“No, no, you must get drunk…”
“No, really! I’ve never been drunk. I often get taken out drinking by important people from all sorts of companies.”
“But?”
“Well… when I tell them I like drinking, they take me out for drinks, but nobody ever listens to what I have to say…”
Mikoto collapsed at the knees under the weight of this monumental misunderstanding.
It wasn’t just that Michelle’s listeners were forcing her into a box based on their first impressions.
She was simply too good at holding her liquor.
That was why nobody could keep her company to the end. By the time Michelle, who drained her glasses at a furious pace, started talking, the other person had already passed out.
She was a veritable booze demon.
“They don’t stop listening to you because they don’t want to. They’re getting completely plastered and becoming unable to listen to you.”
“Oh! That’s true. Heehee. Japanese is difficult.”
What had all that suffering been for?
While Mikoto hung her head, Shandy began rolling her shoulders and wrists. As though loosening up her whole body after a long stretch of staying home, she stretched deeply, working from her neck down through her back.
“…Mikoto. Do you want me to forgive you?”
Mikoto had a terrible feeling about where this was going, but there was no way she could answer anything other than yes. She had said she would do anything, after all, and it looked like she really was going to have to.
“I’ll do anything…”
“Could I ask you to run an errand? At this rate, she’s going to squeeze every last lime in the bar dry.”
“I like making my mouth really sour first, then drinking sweet cocktails.”
Apparently she still intended to drink. Shandy looked exasperated, while Michelle sat in the prime seat, delighted that every item on her order had been accepted.
“If you don’t mind me asking, do you have enough money with you?”
“Um… I wonder if I can use a card?”
“…Very well.”
Shandy cracked her neck and assumed a fighting stance. She glared at Michelle with such a terrifying smile that even Mikoto and the three spectators recoiled.
It made no difference how much Shandy hinted at whatever feelings lay beneath the surface. Michelle simply didn’t respond.
Hirose Michelle was a woman to whom social niceties and suggestive remarks meant nothing. She took words at face value and nothing more.
Shandy’s natural enemy.
“Let’s have a proper game, then. We’ll see whether you scream first, or my arms get torn off!”
“Yay!”
Shandy could make a killing now that Antiqua was finally open again. Michelle could enjoy getting gloriously drunk for the first time in ages.
They were both having a wonderful time, two monsters in their own right.
Convinced that was a good thing, Mikoto fled to the supermarket.