#100: Eternal Force Blizzard / ep.1
“…I see. You want a signature attraction for antiqua?”
A few days after their two-day, one-night trip, Mikoto was visiting the Special Investigations Unit office. The subject of their informal lunch meeting, held under the pretence of handing souvenirs to Sanae and the other three, was something Shandy had asked her advice about.
“They’re going to have a feature on the bar, so apparently she wants something that sets us apart from the other places.”
“I would have thought the existence of that woman was distinction enough.”
“No, no, that’s not right. Discrimination is bad. No bullying!”
Even Iida, who had been listening in silence, did not bother to point out how spectacularly Michelle had missed the point. Perhaps this was simply business as usual in the Special Investigations Unit.
It all began the previous evening.
＊
“Would you allow us to interview you?”
The interior of antiqua was dim, lit by orange indirect lighting.
Mikoto had been watching the bartender at work from her usual premium seat when a female customer sitting two places away suddenly spoke up.
“An ambush?” Shandy giggled, accepting the business card, then came over to sit opposite Mikoto. Mikoto was mildly interested herself, so she glanced at the card and saw the logo for Tokyo Navigate.
“We’d very much like to feature antiqua in Tokyo Navigate, which our company publishes.”
It was a lifestyle and food magazine that navigated every corner of Tokyo, from upmarket Minato with its high-society sheen to glittering Shinjuku, Shimokitazawa, one of the three great meccas of subculture, and the deep spots of Kitasenju, Kamata and Akabane, all the way out to liveable western Tokyo, and even Okutama and the Izu Islands. Mikoto had read it several times herself.
“So that’s what she says. Have you heard of it, Mikoto?”
Why are you asking me? Mikoto wondered, but the owner-bartender of antiqua was distrustful of people. Even with the faintest smile on her face, she never let down her guard around female journalists. She probably hated the media, too.
“It’s a magazine that really gives you a good idea of just how chaotic Tokyo is.”
“Thank you. That’s our selling point.”
The journalist moved over to the empty seat beside them, and Mikoto ended up receiving a business card as well.
Editor: Miyashita Kanade. Large earrings swayed from her ears, peeking out from beneath her undercut bob. She had competent female editor written all over her.
They exchanged cards, and it turned out Kanade had watched some of Kotone’s videos. She was thrilled to meet a celebrity, practically bursting with excitement. Typical editor, Mikoto thought. She certainly knew how to keep her antennae tuned in.
After exchanging a few words, Kanade began explaining the purpose of the feature.
“Actually, we’re planning to introduce twenty bars around Tokyo under the heading ‘Twenty Adult Hideaways’.”
The tablet Kanade produced displayed a provisional layout. Antiqua would apparently receive a digest-style feature in the latter half of an eight-page article.
“Aww. So we’re not number one?”
Just like Shandy, who pursed her lips in disappointment, Mikoto was annoyed that antiqua had been given such a lowly position. But one glance at the photographs of the other establishments made her understand.
“They’re all wonderful places.”
“Wow. They’re so stylish…”
Every remaining bar was an adult hideaway that was every bit as good as antiqua, if not better. Although Mikoto did wonder whether somewhere could still be called a hideaway after being featured in a magazine and swarmed with customers. Then again, a genuine hideaway probably wouldn’t allow journalists in the first place. Maybe the important thing was the feeling of being hidden away.
“Well, if you want to put us in it, go ahead.”
“You don’t have to put it quite like that…”
Shandy really did hate the media. She was sticking to her strong, uncompromising style, like a ramen chef with extremely particular standards. Kanade, meanwhile, was bowing and scraping and thanking her. It was almost as though we were the villains.
“There is, however, one thing I’d like to ask of you.”
Kanade handed over a few sheets of photocopied information and explained the details. Among the various stipulations, including the fact that the establishment would not be asked to bear any financial costs, was a request to “introduce an original signature cocktail”.
“Did we have one?”
Shandy groaned thoughtfully.
“We have the Mikoto, I suppose, but that one’s exclusive to Mikoto.”
“Please keep it that way…”
The Mikoto. An arranged cocktail based on the Shooting Star, created at some point in the past. It was an ironic jab at Kurosu Mikoto, the embarrassingly earnest woman who had spouted so many cringe-inducingly romantic lines during a Game, in the form of a bright-red maraschino cherry.
There was no way she was letting that become the bar’s signature attraction.
“We’ll come back for the interview at a later date. If there’s a cocktail you’d particularly like to promote, we’d be grateful if you could prepare it for us.”
＊
“Oh! So we just have to come up with an unusual cocktail?”
Once Mikoto explained the difference between distinction and discrimination, Michelle somehow managed to understand. Mikoto had never expected to find herself having to explain something like that.
“Any ideas? Like, ‘I’d like to drink something like this’, or things about the appearance or flavour?”
“Hmm. I want something sweet, but fizzy and sparkly, and something that makes you go all floooaaffy.”
Even Michelle’s fluffy little description represented valuable information about customer needs. Mikoto made a note of it, but everyone in the Special Investigations Unit apart from Michelle was spectacularly incapable of holding their drink.
She tried asking Iida as well, despite the fact that he had been left out of the girls’ conversation, but he was the same sort of person as Sanae. The Special Investigations Unit was a department with absolutely no potential for drinking and bonding over alcohol.
“Maybe creating an original cocktail really is difficult…”
“I don’t really understand why you were put in charge of cocktail creation in the first place.”
“Well… everyone else seems busy. And I am technically a planner.”
“In that case, how about reconnaissance? A complete copy would presumably be unacceptable, but it might give you some ideas.”
“That’s true!”
It had completely slipped her mind. Mikoto had never been to a bar other than antiqua, so she had no idea what other bars were actually like.
For that matter, antiqua only pretended to be an authentic bar. It was actually a girls’ bar. Normal bartenders didn’t take instant photos with their customers or dress up in cosplay on the fourteenth of every month.
“Yeah! I wanna go together! A commemorative drinking party for the Special Investigations Unit! Right, Sanae?”
“Unnecessary. It would be a waste of time.”
“But I wanna get to know everyone better…”
Michelle shrank into herself with a disappointed little look.
Sanae basically only ever talked about work. How on earth had someone with that personality managed to win over Toko so thoroughly? One of the seven mysteries of the Yanase family.
“Well, I’ll think about it.”
Mikoto left the Special Investigations Unit office and thought about it as she made her way back to the Planning Department.
An original cocktail for antiqua. That counted as planning too, in its own way.
When would someone want to drink a cocktail?
As she pondered that question, Mikoto remembered her first visit to antiqua the previous winter.
She had failed at work, missed the last train, taken a tumble, and suffered one disaster after another. She had cursed the heavens and spat at the sky, only to end up pushing over a bartender as beautiful as a doll. Feeling guilty, she had let herself be led by the hand, been treated to a Shandy Gaff at antiqua, and before she knew it, she had become hopelessly addicted to Shandy Gaffs and was still here.
Her days with cocktails had been long and short all at once.
“Wait, wait…”
At some point, she had stopped reminiscing about cocktails and started reminiscing about how she had met the bartender who made them. She shook her head, snapping herself out of her happy delusion.
For now, she needed to work. She was bound to find some kind of inspiration eventually.
Putting off the signature-cocktail problem she could not think of an answer to, Mikoto returned to work.
＊
Mikoto was standing stock-still in front of the wedding and funeral section of a bookshop inside Shimbashi Station.
She had come to the bookshop looking for inspiration for the original cocktail, but she had not moved an inch from the wedding magazines that had caught her eye.
There was no need to agonise over it. She could just buy one. She wanted to buy it quickly and get back to searching for cocktail ideas.
“Uaaaah…”
The cover was a happy wash of pastel pink. A bride in a wedding dress smiled directly at the camera, beneath huge headlines reading I Want a Wedding Abroad Like This! and The Ultimate Guide to Adult Weddings.
It was that famous hint-hint magazine.
A weapon for delivering the final ultimatum of Marriage or Die to some useless layabout who could never quite bring himself to take the plunge, then driving him towards the edge of a cliff like a detective in a two-hour TV drama cornering the culprit. It was a double-edged sword, though, because if it failed, both parties could end up grievously wounded.
That was not what Mikoto was worried about.
“I’m definitely going to look heavy…”
She had already proposed to Shandy countless times. Not only in her gentleman mode, where she endlessly spouted cheesy lines, but also in her usual, painfully childish state. Shandy had nodded at both versions, so Mikoto supposed they were already engaged, technically.
—Engaged.
Despite the weight of the word, it was a vague, nebulous relationship, like trying to grasp a cloud. Shandy would say “yes” to a proposal, but she would never say, “Let’s get married.”
She was the sort of person who would make a pinky promise over a verbal engagement and, if Mikoto broke it, probably force her to drink Jägermeister until she vomited before she would forgive her.
Mikoto did not know why.
It was probably some trauma from her past, so she was prepared to wait until Shandy had sorted herself out emotionally. The possibility that there was someone else and Mikoto was merely being kept in reserve was difficult to imagine, though.
“No, but… surely it’s a bit late to worry about being too heavy now. And besides, I’m supposed to be thinking about cocktails…”
No matter how unlikely something might be, there were no absolutes in this world.
Just as rain could fall despite a zero per cent chance of precipitation, there was nothing to say that the distrustful bartender might not suddenly rekindle an old flame and get back together with Cheshire.
And then she would say:
“After all, if all you’re going to do is whisper sweet nothings, you could do that at a kindergarten play.”
“Aaaaaah…!”
Mikoto suddenly understood, painfully well, why women hurried to the municipal office.
An engagement based solely on a verbal promise was terrifying.
It was the worst kind of prolonged tease.
“Excuse me, ma’am? I really think you should reconsider the marriage.”
“Wah! You scared me… Rinko, are you on your way home?”
Rinko was smiling behind her.
When Mikoto asked, she learned that Rinko had just finished recording Hifumi’s music programme in Shiodome.
“I thought if I wandered around Shimbashi, maybe I’d run into you, Mikoto. You can really feel fate working its magic, can’t you?”
“I think we’re more like an old connection that refuses to die.”
Whether she had finally moved on or simply taken after her employer, Rinko laughed cheerfully.
When Shandy was not involved, she was calm and pleasant to deal with. When Kotone was not involved, she was kind and good-natured.
And when it came to romance, she was frighteningly perceptive.
“Have you finally made up your mind?”
“Well, I thought reading magazines like this might be educational.”
“You’re worried, aren’t you? You got engaged, but you can’t take things any further.”
She was so perceptive Mikoto felt as though her heart was about to leap out of her mouth.
“How are you so damn sharp…?”
“Anyone can tell what’s going on when they see a woman agonising over whether to buy a bridal magazine.”
“Yeah, fair enough.”
“Looks like they’re catering to people like us these days, too.”
Rinko picked up the magazine and flipped through it. There was only a small amount, but it did contain advice aimed at minority couples.
“…Have you ever thought about getting married?”
The question slipped out quietly.
Rinko groaned.
“I gave up on that from the start. If someone suddenly tells me, ‘Same-sex couples are welcome,’ I’m just like, ‘Oh. Okay.’”
Unlike Mikoto, Rinko was a woman who had always loved women and women alone. That was probably why marriage, wedding receptions and the like had never had anything to do with her. There was weight behind her words.
“Sorry. That was a weird thing to ask.”
“It wasn’t weird. It’s important. Because you want to get married, don’t you? To that blonde fucking bitch.”
“Blonde fucking bitch…”
Mikoto could not stop her face from twitching.
Whenever Shandy was involved, the fangs concealed beneath Rinko’s sweet, mild features came right out.
That was Shirai Rinko.
“What about you, then? You and Kotone?”
“Nope. No way.”
Rinko laughed as though it were nothing.
She probably really did have no desire to marry. Mikoto had never discussed it with Kotone, so she had no idea whether Kotone wanted to or not.
“Marriage doesn’t have to be the end goal, does it?”
“That’s true, but…”
What Rinko said made perfect sense. But if Mikoto were in the same position, she felt that even if their bond amounted to nothing more than a single sheet of paper, she would still have to cling to it.
In fact, she was terrified of having only a verbal engagement. She wanted a visible finish line.
“You really want to get married, don’t you, Mikoto? Cuuute.”
“Yeah, I guess I do…”
Even if it was a marriage that would be difficult for others to celebrate, even if there were people who opposed it…
She still wanted to wear white.
She had dreamed about it at least a little as a child. It happened only once in a lifetime. She wanted to capture the most beautiful and happiest moment of her life and preserve it forever.
“You know a good place. Standing around here is awkward, so why don’t you tell me all about your troubles? You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”
“Really? Thanks! You’re wonderful, Rinko!”
“Your bestest friend, right?”
“The best!”
“Can I add ‘with benefits’?”
Mikoto ignored the half-serious joke Rinko tossed out as a last-ditch effort.
＊
A few stops from Shimbashi on the Yamanote Line.
Akihabara, the mecca of subculture, the otaku capital of the world.
Mikoto followed Rinko’s lead, passing people dressed in such exaggeratedly stereotypical otaku fashions that she had not believed they actually existed.
“I come here sometimes when my carnal desire is getting worked up. I use it quite a lot for out-of-home activities.”
“Oh…”
The appearance of the establishment was so unlike anything Mikoto associated with Rinko that she was taken aback.
The European-style tavern, Village, had an interior designed like a Western fantasy adventurers’ pub, perfectly suited to the otaku capital. It looked almost exactly like the world of that monster-hunting game Kotone used to play, the one where you hunted monsters and stripped them of everything they owned.
But the thing that immediately drew the most attention was—
“Quest complete, adventurer!”
“Table for two. Do you have room?”
“Yeees! Right this way!”
Every member of the floor staff was a maid.
Their revealing costumes emphasised their chests, and sensuality practically poured from every gap in the fabric. Mikoto had assumed the clientele would consist almost entirely of men, but there were quite a few women too.
Cute girls were easy on the eyes, after all.
And they really were cute, so there was nothing to be done about that.
It was only then that Mikoto finally understood what Rinko had meant by “carnal desire”.
“So that’s what you meant.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Mikoto sat on a deliberately rough-looking, sturdy chair and looked around.
The maids bustling around the restaurant certainly were easy on the eyes. Even for someone as exceptionally picky about appearances as Rinko, there were plenty of faces and figures well within her strike zone.
But what really caught Mikoto’s attention was—
“Table three, the Hero has completed their extermination quest!”
One of the maids was whipping up the atmosphere with a microphone in hand, drawing applause and cheers from the entire restaurant.
Her professional dedication to playing an entertainer whose job was to amuse customers in the non-everyday world of Village was genuinely impressive.
This place was the same as antiqua, just with a different level of energy.
Both entertained their customers by providing an authentic-feeling escape from ordinary life. Her prejudice had been blown away.
“Have you decided what you’d like to order?”
“Let’s start with the Emperor’s Favourite Salad, the Minotaur’s Special Roast, and the Jack-o’-Lantern Potage Soup.”
While Mikoto was staring around the restaurant in fascination, a young maid came over to take their order.
Her name tag read “Yuki”. She looked to be around twenty, with fine, radiant skin and substantial thighs.
She was completely different from slender, delicate Shandy.
“Mikoto?”
“Huh?”
“What are you having to drink? Have a look at the menu.”
Mikoto had absorbed absolutely nothing from the earlier order or the menu.
The salad and potage were full of incomprehensible names, while the cocktail section listed things like Kiss of the Succubus and Tears of the Cyclops.
And instead of prices in yen, everything was listed in Gold, tax included.
What on earth was this place planning to serve?
Overloaded by the combination of the non-everyday, another-world fantasy, maids and thighs, Mikoto closed her eyes and pointed at the menu at random.
“Oh, maid! This is her first time here, so could you do that for her?”
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘do that’?”
Rinko was grinning foolishly.
The maid ran off with a cheerful, “Certainly!”
Mikoto could not even ask her what was going on, so she glared at Rinko with undisguised resentment.
“It’s nothing weird, so relax.”
“You know there’s someone incredibly perceptive and jealous involved here. Cut me some slack…”
“Don’t worry. I know her very well.”
If you know her so well, then please stop.
For Rinko, this was probably revenge for everything she was subjected to on a regular basis, but why did Mikoto have to be dragged into it?
She let her shoulders slump.
“Oh, right. Thanks for the souvenir. It was really good. Nice and light.”
“Good. I’m glad you liked it.”
Mikoto had given Rinko the Kinugawa souvenir when she went to collect Mimosa.
Rinko had appeared at the front door carrying the cat’s cage, wearing a mask, goggles and rubber gloves so she would not wake sleeping-late Kotone.
Shandy had laughed herself silly, while Rinko had exploded in rage. Business as usual.
Rinko was still talking at length about all the trouble Mimosa had caused her when the maid returned, wheeling a trolley over to the table.
A silver dome, the sort one saw in proper restaurants.
She lifted it—
“Your Minotaur’s Special Roast.”
—and a gigantic hunk of roast beef gleamed on the plate beneath it.
The sheer unreality of it made Mikoto take a photograph without thinking.
The maid, however, she carefully made sure was outside the frame.
Mikoto did not want to be caught later and subjected to the embarrassment.
“Gets your carnality going, doesn’t it?”
“Oh. That kind of thing…”
It was nothing complicated.
She had simply wanted some meat.
The enormous joint was sliced thinly and served on the plate. Mikoto had always thought of roast beef as the dry stuff sold in supermarkets, but this was dripping with fat and overflowing with juices.
It was incredibly wild.
Maybe that was what made it feel like another world.
The Emperor’s Favourite Salad arrived next, which was just an ordinary Caesar salad, followed by the Jack-o’-Lantern Potage Soup, which was simply pumpkin potage.
Mikoto took photo after photo, squealing over the absurdity of it all, until their drinks arrived.
“This is the Enchanted Peach Paradise. And this one is the Eternal Force Blizzard.”
“Huh?”
“Eternal Force Blizzard. The opponent dies!”
The maid struck a triumphant pose with a smug look on her face.
Mikoto had forgotten what she had even ordered, so she checked the menu again.
Sure enough, it was right there in the cocktail section.
“Well, cheers!”
“Wait, what the hell is this!?”
“Like I said, Eternal For—”
“That’s not what I mean!”
It was a long, slender cylinder of a drink.
Bubbles rose through the Collins glass. It was semi-transparent and faintly blue, a long drink served over ice. Looking closely, Mikoto could see slices of lime frozen in the ice.
The rim was coated in salt, so if that were all she had to go on, she might have mistaken it for an arrangement of a Salty Dog.
But at the very bottom of the glass, a pool of intensely blue liquid, as though Blue No. 2 had been mixed into it, gently swayed.
Perhaps that was supposed to represent an eternal blizzard.
It looked cool and refreshing.
At least on the surface.
“Adventurer, we have a problem! An emergency quest has appeared!”
Suddenly, the lights in the restaurant went out.
Spotlights from all four directions illuminated Mikoto.
Rinko, sitting beside her, simply watched with a broad smile. She did not look remotely interested in helping.
“…Eternal Force Blizzard. The absolute-zero forbidden spell that will destroy the world, something that must never, ever be unsealed!”
The maid, microphone in hand, whipped up the excitement of every customer in the restaurant.
Her dramatic delivery genuinely made it feel like something happening in a fantasy world.
“The adventurer who takes possession of this forbidden spell must discover its true name! Otherwise, the world will be sealed within eternal ice!”
“Rinko, what is this!?”
“Good luck, adventurer.”
She had abandoned her.
Wasn’t that a little cruel?
“Now, adventurer! You must battle the forbidden cocktail, Eternal Force Blizzard! If you solve the seven mysteries contained within the forbidden spell, the world shall be saved!”
“I don’t really understand, but you mean I have to identify the cocktail?”
The maid said nothing, maintaining character, but nodded and gave Mikoto an OK sign with her fingers.
If it was a matter of identifying a cocktail, that made things simple.
Much easier than saving the world.
She had a tongue honed by her nightly visits to antiqua. And since she was already stuck for ideas for her own original cocktail, she was interested in seeing what an unusual bar had to offer.
This was to save the world from an ice age.
More importantly, it was for Shandy.
Mikoto looked at the pale-blue surface of the mysterious cocktail, bubbles gently rising through it, then at the dark blue liquid settled at the bottom.
Well, nine times out of ten, it was probably Blue Curaçao.
“Let’s do this!”
Mikoto took a sip of the cocktail.
It was even tastier than she had expected.