#102: Eternal Force Blizzard / ep.3

The water began to fall like warm rain from the shower. The spacious bathroom was wreathed in steam from the shower and the water collected in the bathtub.

“I’m getting in.”

I sat facing Rinko in a bathtub a size larger than the sort found in an ordinary home. Aside from family and lovers, I could count on one hand the number of times I had ever bathed alone with another woman.
It was an absurd situation, sharing a naked body-to-body intimacy with a woman I had rejected. I knew perfectly well that it was being disloyal to Shandy, but I wanted to take refuge in the excuse Rinko had given me.

“You’re nervous, Mikoto-san?”
“Of course I am. It’s cheating…”
“Ahaha. So that means you see me as a woman, too?”

Rinko leaned towards me, her large breasts swaying. However you looked at her, she was obviously a woman, but the meaning of woman in her question was naturally something else.

“I’m not doing it, you know?”

I made sure to say it, putting down a marker. Not for Rinko, but for myself.
If I let the anxiety covering my heart be wrapped up in a moment of kindness, I might be swept away.
Instead of answering, Rinko brought the fingertips she had raised to my ear down to caress my cheek.

“You really have become beautiful.”
“Flirting won’t work.”
“If you could be swept away that easily, you’d never be able to make that woman happy.”
“So you’re testing me?”
“Yep. Don’t worry about my feelings. Love your own feelings properly.”

My own feelings meant loving Shandy alone. I wanted to look only at her, without being swayed by women, men, or anyone else.
But I couldn’t use Rinko as a stepping stone to give myself the courage to take that decisive step.

“This is such a cruel way of doing it, Rinko-san…”

I understood what Rinko was trying to accomplish.
She was willing to hurt herself in order to make me, who feared hurting other people, commit myself. She was testing me with the very same sort of Game that the woman she hated so much had used, trying to force me to make up my mind.
Rinko rested her chin on the edge of the bathtub as though she were exasperated.

“You’re such a hopelessly kind person. Even though you don’t have to care about me.”
“I do care. You should take better care of yourself, Rinko-san.”
“I’m happy with the relationship we have now.”
“That’s exactly what I mean!”
“Don’t look at my face! Turn around!”

Rinko grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around in the bath. She hugged me from behind, and the heat of her body seared my back, hotter even than the warmth of the water.
Now I couldn’t see the expression on her face as she spoke to me from behind.

“You’re my friend, Mikoto-san. We sorted that out before, remember?”

Friendship or love. Looking back, it seemed absurdly childish, but we had gone through that whole sorting process, arguing over things and drawing a line between us. Ever since then, except when she spoke jokingly, she had carefully made sure never to step across that line.

“We did, but…”
“Then it’s fine. Friends can take a bath together.”
“Hmm…”

It was a difficult one. When I was a child, I could have done it without a second thought, but it depended on the time, the place, and the person. At a public bath or hot-spring resort, perhaps it would be no problem, but this was where we were. And this was who I was with.
Thinking that far, I realised that I was the one worrying about my relationship with Rinko. After everything she had done to meet me halfway, it felt terrible that I was still suspicious of her.

“Yeah. I suppose friends can take a bath together…”
“Exactly. Isn’t friendship being able to hurt each other and still forgive each other?”
“Yeah, but…”

Even so, I was reluctant. I couldn’t bring myself to trample on her kindness. My indecisive true feelings were beginning to show themselves again.

“I can see why that little sister of yours has you wrapped around her finger. If I’d had a big sister like you, I’d have leaned on you too.”

Rinko gave a wry laugh. Then, apparently having given up, she climbed out of the bath. She used the provided bath net to whip up a huge mass of thick body-soap foam.

“Mikoto-san, sit there?”

I did as I was told, climbed out of the bath and sat down on the bath chair. I tensed, wondering what was about to happen, only for Rinko to start rubbing the mound of foam all over me.

“What is this?”
“I’m just washing your body for you.”

I was just beginning to relax when Rinko’s fingers began creeping over my foam-covered body. Her fingertips were unbelievably practised, travelling from the nape of my neck to my collarbone, from my side to my navel, then up around my chest. It had gone beyond mere ticklishness.

“N-no… That’s a bit…”
“If you don’t like it, just say so properly, okay? If you don’t tell me to stop, I won’t.”

Rinko gave a quiet chuckle behind me. Her voice was bright and matter-of-fact, yet it stirred something masochistic in me. Perhaps this was the seduction of a woman of the night, making me want to be teased, making me entertain the desire to be toyed with.

“Come on, do your best, Mikoto-san. Reject me. Hurt me.”

This was no longer anything as innocent as washing each other.
It was an outright sexual game.
The problem was that rejecting her would hurt Rinko. That was why I didn’t want to refuse her directly, and found myself searching for words that would let me evade the issue.

“If we’re friends, then…”
“Even friends wash each other’s bodies, don’t they?”
“Th-there are parts of me I’m embarrassed to have touched…”
“Where? Tell me.”

She whispered into my ear. This time, the embarrassment was entirely gratuitous.

“If you won’t tell me, I’ll ask your body.”
“That’s why—!”

I desperately swallowed the cry that was about to escape me. But there was no way an amateur could stand against a former professional with this much experience.

“Your neck, your shoulder blades, between my fingers. And your left nipple, and—”

I somehow managed to catch her soapy fingertips as they reached down between my thighs.

“…Stop. I didn’t get into the bath because I wanted to do this sort of thing.”

Rinko came around to face me. She had deliberately moved somewhere I could see her face, surely to test whether I could say the same thing while looking her in the eye.
She was utterly ruthless, without the slightest regard for how I felt.

“Do you like me? Or do you hate me?”
“…If you do things like this, I’ll end up hating you.”

Rinko laughed and said, “What a shame,” before turning the shower on me. The rain washed the foam away.

“And that’s fine. There’s no point in worrying about hurting Rinko. Say it.”
“I can’t say that.”
“Then I’ll keep going until I cover you in foam again.”
“There’s no point in worrying about hurting Rinko! I love Shandy-san!”

I had practically been forced to say it. The words hurt my heart as soon as they left my mouth.
That didn’t mean I should hurt her. I had no talent for playing the hated one, not with the indecisive spirit of someone who had spent her entire life constantly watching other people’s faces.

“Don’t make me say things like that…”
“See? We’re not so fragile that something like this can break us, are we?”

Perhaps she meant to prove it through her own actions, but to me it was an unbearably painful ordeal. The tears that spilled from my eyes ran down my body and disappeared into the drain.

　＊

Wrapped in bathrobes after our bath, Rinko and I sat watching television. Perhaps she had grown tired of the satellite adult channel, because she had switched to a channel specialising in Western films.
We had started watching halfway through, and I had no energy to keep up with the subtitles. The heroic exploits of the protagonist battling an evil organisation went in one ear and out the other.

“Hey, Mikoto.”

When Rinko suddenly spoke, her voice was the exact opposite of mine: utterly calm. There wasn’t the slightest tremor in it. She was treating me with the comfortable distance of a friend.

“Did something happen to you, a long time ago?”

I didn’t understand what she meant. Nor did I have the energy to answer, or even want to. Once someone stepped into my heart, I lost all sense of the proper distance between us.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”
“…Why go that far?”
“Because I like you, right? As a friend.”

Rinko smiled as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. I had rejected her, and then cried in front of her, yet she acted as though none of it mattered, as though it had never happened.

“That woman is bound by her past.”
“You don’t know anything about her.”
“I do. Though I’d rather not know.”

I couldn’t imagine Shandy telling Rinko her secrets. There was no way she could know, and yet I was angry that Rinko would say something like that.
The truth about Alice was something you could work out if you imagined hard enough. Rinko had also been betrayed over and over, but at least Shandy had never pried this deeply into her.

“Everyone’s bad at showing their wounds. We hide our weaknesses behind lies, and that just makes us suffer even more.”

I already knew that.
I didn’t want anyone to know about my own emptiness, about the way I had spent my life being carried along by indecision, without any great reason or motivation of my own. That was why I had no choice but to pretend to be bigger than I was.

“……”
“I’m tired of that sort of thing. There’s no point hiding your wounds or weaknesses. If there’s even one person who says they love you, that’s enough.”

How much easier would life be if I could be as unapologetic as Rinko? At work, with friends, sometimes even with family. And above all, with Shandy.

“I envy you, Rinko-san.”
“Wouldn’t it feel more like friendship if we called each other by our given names? We’re the same age.”

Even though we were the same age, Rinko seemed so much more grown-up than me that it made me melancholy. I found myself thinking simplistically that perhaps you could become an adult simply by learning not to care what other people thought. The childishness of even thinking that made it hurt all the more.

“…I can’t be as unapologetic as you, Rinko.”
“You don’t have to be. You have your own way of living, Mikoto.”
“Such as?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to work so hard, would I?”

Even though it was the most important thing of all, there was no answer.

“That’s awfully irresponsible…”
“Yep. You’re the one responsible for yourself. Not me.”

Rinko stated it firmly, then continued.

“There’s nothing I can do about it. Sorry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s something you have to think about yourself. So that you’re not anyone’s puppet, and you’re not living in someone else’s place.”

I understood Rinko’s words, and yet I didn’t. She was saying that independence mattered, I supposed, but if I watched her expression there was nothing to read, nothing to intuit. Strangely, I found myself seeing Shandy in her. She, too, was shrouded in mystery.

“You sound just like Shandy-san…”
“The problem is that woman only ever says things even someone like me could say.”

On our trip to Kinugawa, Shandy had told me that loving a puppet was boring. Presumably that was because she wanted me to exercise my own will.

“Your relationship isn’t progressing because neither of you is willing to step into the other’s territory.”

The words fell neatly into place.
The reason nothing had progressed in the year since I proposed was that we were both waiting for the other to broach the subject. Just as I was afraid to take that step because I didn’t want to be seen as a heavy woman, Shandy had a reason of her own for being unable to step forward.

“I’m scared…”
“Because you don’t want to hurt her? Or because you don’t want to be hurt?”
“…Both.”
“Then are you just going to live with that anxiety forever, wanting to say something but never being able to?”

I didn’t want that. I had no energy even to speak, and all I could manage was a feeble shake of my head.

“Something like that isn’t going to break you two. There’s no way that woman is going to let you go.”
“But…!”
“Even if it did end, the two Kurosu sisters can count on me to take them both in. I can handle two at once.”

Rinko was laughing. I tried to find some hidden meaning in that reassuring smile, then realised there probably wasn’t any.
She had no two faces. Unlike Shandy, she had no wounds or weaknesses she wanted to cover up. In exchange for not caring if other people hated her, she would plunge headlong into the lives of people she liked or who moved her, even if it meant resorting to a drastic cure.

“You’re nothing like Shandy-san.”

I had always thought that not intruding into someone’s heart was a form of kindness.

“See? I’m a better woman than she is, aren’t I?”

But sometimes, stepping in was kindness too.
Perhaps there was kindness in being willing to step into someone’s heart without fearing that you might get hurt, and then accepting them, just as Rinko did.

“I like Shandy-san more.”
“I’ve been rejected again.”

Rinko flopped down on the bed, laughing. I laughed along with her, and somehow ended up crying too. Even I didn’t know what I was feeling anymore.

“Want to try it?”
“No way.”
“You could assault me, if you want.”
“I’m not assaulting you.”
“Then would you rather be assaulted?”
“Friends don’t assault each other.”
“Maybe some friends do?”
“Then… I’d stop being your friend.”
“Good girl. You actually managed to say no.”

I hugged Rinko. Not out of love, but friendship. I wanted, if only for a moment, to close the wounds in Rinko’s heart. Perhaps it would only tear them wider instead, but I wanted to do it because it was what I wanted.

“What a troublesome sort of kindness you have, Mikoto-onee-chan.”

I didn’t want to say anything. I simply held Rinko until morning.

　＊

I woke to light filtering through a gap in the curtains. A room in a love hotel. The lethargy of having fallen asleep just like that, the unpleasant feeling of having forgotten to brush my teeth, and the lingering scars of my hangover all weighed down my eyelids as I forced them open.

“Ooh, you’re awake.”

The woman sleeping beside me wasn’t Rinko, but a woman who looked a lot like me.
Kotone.

“W-why is Kotone here…?”
“Hey, hey? So, what’s it like sleeping with someone else’s woman? Tell me, will you? If I don’t turn it into material for my acting, I’m gonna start feeling like punching you.”

She knew. Just like that.
I desperately tried to find some excuse as I looked at Kotone, her hair practically standing on end with rage, but no coherent words would come out.

“I-I didn’t… We didn’t…”
“So if you didn’t, that makes it okay, huh? Oh, I see. Then that means I can borrow Shandy-onee-chan for a night, right?”
“That’s not what happened…”

Just as I was reduced to stammering, a pillow hit Kotone square in the face.

“Don’t be a pervert, Neko.”
“You won’t know till you try, will ya?”
“I know. A ridiculously easy woman whose entire body is an erogenous zone like you could be reduced to a rag doll by an elementary-schooler.”
“Whose fault do you think that is…?”

My sister’s expression of embarrassment was so unprecedented that I decided this had to be a dream. I closed my eyes again, only for Kotone’s “Don’t go back to sleep!” to ring out.

“I already explained. Nothing happened with Mikoto.”
“Why are you calling her Mikoto now? That’s practically a euphemism for having done it!”
“If we had, I’d say we had! And if I could, I’d love to!”
“What did you just say, you little—”
“Would you two stop it first thing in the morning?!”

I couldn’t listen to any more of it, so I interrupted their painfully realistic lovers’ quarrel.
Apparently, after that phone call, Kotone had actually hired a designated driver and come all the way to Akihabara to pick us up. We had been left alone for a while afterwards, but once I had fallen asleep, Rinko had called her to come and get us.
Naturally, she had already explained the circumstances.
In other words—

“Ta-da! One little prank, all wrapped up. So, what do you think of a sisterly showdown? Entertaining?”
“Not even slightly…”

Kotone had understood the situation perfectly and had nevertheless decided to pull a truly malicious prank. After spending the night away from home and letting the whole thing develop into a little game of its own, I couldn’t even summon enough indignation to get properly angry. For the moment, I simply contacted work and told them I was taking a day of paid leave.

“Well, I get how you feel, Sis. My woman won’t go along with me either.”
“I won’t forgive you if you put a woman before your work.”
“Isn’t it usually the other way round? ‘Which is more important, me or your work?’”
“There isn’t a woman more important than work for you.”

No matter how much Kotone grumbled, Rinko refused to budge. Some relationships were like theirs, two strong-willed people constantly butting heads. Others were like Sanae and Toko, more like the devoted good-wife-and-mother type, one person following closely at the other’s side.

“Hmm. I’m off today. Wanna go somewhere? How about checking out a wedding venue?”
“Come to think of it, I’m playing a bride in my next film, aren’t I? If it’s for character research, we could probably put it on expenses…”

Rinko and Kotone looked at each other, then turned towards me in perfect unison.
They were both smiling.

“N-no, no… Isn’t that a little premature?”
“It’s already late! I’m making the reservation.”
“This’ll be funny, so I’ll invite Toko-nee too.”

As the wedding-venue visit began proceeding without my consent, I buried my face in my hands. And yet, the anxiety that had been weighing so heavily on me felt a little lighter.
A wedding-venue tour was an even more blatant hint than a bridal magazine could ever be. They would surely think I was being terribly heavy-handed, but all I needed to do was take home a single pamphlet, and my intentions would be unmistakable.

“Sis, have you made up your mind?”

If my shy fiancée couldn’t take the plunge, then I would meet her halfway. I had promised to stay by her side, so now I would act on that promise.
I had already made up my mind countless times.
Then there was only one thing left to do.
Throw caution to the wind.

“…I’m going!”

I hurriedly got ready and climbed into the red SUV.

　＊

Antiqua was packed to the rafters again that evening. Now that the period of closure was over, the customers who had gathered, yearning for their favourite bar, all seemed uniformly happy. Their blissful faces made me feel, more than anything, that my very existence had been acknowledged.
But the one person whose acknowledgement I wanted most did not appear that evening.
My fiancée had abruptly vanished after her last message saying she was drinking with Peach Lady. Something might have happened to her. She could have been caught up in an accident or incident. Or perhaps Peach Lady had broken the mutually agreed non-aggression pact between us without a word.
I was anxious. Not only because I couldn’t trust Peach Lady, but because I was worried about the fiancée I had sworn to trust.

“Shandy-san, the usual.”
“Hmm. If you’re going to play the regular customer, I’d prefer you to come in at least once a week first.”

Even while putting on my usual stylish performance, my heart was full of anxiety.
Suspicion breeds suspicion. I couldn’t understand how ordinary people managed to trust others so easily when trusting someone seemed so utterly terrifying.
And yet, if nothing else, I wanted to trust her.
I had thrown away my old vows and sworn to trust her, so however frightening trust might be, I wanted to face it.

Because that was what she wanted me to do.

Just as I set the cocktail I had made countless times down on its coaster, I heard the heavy door opening.
Perhaps it was the woman I wanted to see more than anyone.
I checked the available seats at the counter and tables, then stepped into the darkness before the entrance.

“Welcome. Welcome to Anti—”

No.
It wasn’t Mikoto.

“Long time no see, Sharl.”

A woman the same height as Mikoto stood out in the darkness rather than blending into it. Her gentle, enveloping low alto was utterly gentlemanly, carrying the sort of breadth of spirit that seemed capable of accepting even the most self-abasing of people.
And above all, there was that unchanged scent of cigarettes.
Marlboro Menthol.

“Hehe. Surely you have me mistaken for someone else? I’m Shandy, the adorable bartender here at Antiqua.”
“So you’re calling yourself Shandy now. Running a place all by yourself? Impressive.”
“I’m afraid we’re fully booked tonight. We hope you’ll visit again another time.”
“Haha. I’m glad to see you’ve learned how to lie to me. It makes me happy to see how much you’ve grown from the girl who used to obediently do as she was told.”
“I’ve already told you that you have me mistaken for someone else. You are being awfully forceful. Please leave.”

I didn’t want to see this woman.
Of all people, I didn’t want to see her.
I couldn’t allow her to cross the threshold of my precious shop, nor the threshold of the life I shared with Mikoto.

“Kurosu Mikoto. Planning Department, Hibiya Trading.”

How had she found out?
I thought it through, and understood.
That reporter was a spy.
This was exactly why I hated the media.

“Imagine my surprise, coming to see you after four years, only to discover you’ve been cheating on me with another woman.”
“Are you an acquaintance of Kurosu-sama’s? She is certainly one of our regular customers, but…”

This woman had never listened to anyone else.
She took control of the pace and swallowed you up in conversation. If you went on the defensive, you lost.

“I’ve had a little trouble with Hibiya. That said, I’ve cultivated a rather close relationship with them. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Kurosu-kun’s future with the company is in the palm of my hand.”

Coward.

“How threatening. But it has nothing to do with me.”
“Come to think of it, I heard the National Tax Agency will be conducting an inspection before long. I wonder who Hibiya intends to use as its scapegoat this time.”

Coward. Coward. Coward.

“……”
“Oh? You’ve gone silent. Silence is proof of assent, after all. Is tonight’s Game over, Charlotte Gabriel?”
“…Go home. Whatever existed between us is over.”

I was going to lose.
When I was facing this woman, words never came easily enough to let me toy with her.

“Over? Haha. What an amusing joke. And yet you’re still living in that house.”
“I wasn’t waiting for you.”
“Good girl, Sharl. You looked after my house so faithfully while I was away.”

That was ridiculous. I wanted to say so, but there was another part of me that couldn’t.
If I hadn’t been waiting, I would have abandoned that cursed house long ago. I would have disposed of the ring and the documents years ago.

“Still, bringing two cats into the house was going a little too far. A bad girl needs to be punished.”
“…I’m not the girl who does whatever you tell her anymore.”
“‘Does whatever I tell her’? How cruelly you put it. I merely stayed one step ahead of your dreams.”
“Enough. Get out! Never appear in front of me again!”
“I have no objection. I’ll simply have the stray cat take your punishment for you.”

Coward.

“You can’t! Mikoto has nothing to do with this!”
“Then there are only two paths before you, Sharl. As promised four years ago, you can spend your life with me. Or you can reject me and lose the precious Kurosu Mikoto.”

No. No, no, no, no.
Why was this happening now?

“…There’s another path.”
“Oh? Intriguing. Do tell.”
“I’ll be happy with Mikoto. You stay away from us from this moment onwards.”
“Ku… kuku kuku…”

What was so funny?

“Forgive me. I find it unbearably amusing that a person as distrustful of others as you should have discovered ordinary love.”
“I’m not controlling Mikoto.”
“Can you honestly say that? You manipulated her with words and made her dance in the palm of your hand, didn’t you? With the Game I proposed to you.”
“That’s not true!”
“Come to think of it, I was shown a photograph of Kurosu-kun. I thought she looked rather like me in some ways. Was that merely my imagination?”
“Mikoto is nothing like you! Don’t compare her to yourself!”
“‘Nothing like me,’ you say. I seem to have become terribly disliked. How sad.”

Disappear.
Disappear.
Disappear from my sight, from my memories. Go somewhere far away and never come back.

“I hear Kurosu-kun also has a younger sister who is an actress.”

How rotten could this woman be?

“And she has quite a serious scandal hanging over her head. I wonder what the public reaction would be if a popular actress were revealed to be homosexual.”

How much was she planning to put on the scales?

“You are beautiful, and intelligent. I would have thought a simple Game like this would be easy enough for you to solve correctly.”

As I thought, I was no match for her.
Still that puppet from back then.
Four years ago.

“…What do you want?”
“As I’ve said from the beginning, Charlotte Gabriel. I don’t like to sound as though I’m demanding gratitude, but who was it who rescued you from your predicament?”

I didn’t want to say it.

“You’ve become a little more stubborn over these four years. Perhaps being left alone has made you rough around the edges. It pains me to see it.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“Rest assured. Those dreary days are over. From now on, I, Ashiya Chie, shall once again cherish you as my doll. Close down this shop and devote yourself to me.”

Ah.
Of course.
I couldn’t resist her.
My heart was chilled.
Cooled all the way down to absolute zero, my days with Mikoto began to freeze over. The warmth that had finally begun to burn, the sweetness of the trust I was only just beginning to understand and the bitterness lurking beneath it, all of it was pushed back once more beneath the tasteless, odourless past in which I simply did as I was told.

“I’ll come to collect you soon. After I’ve punished those stray cats who have been leading you astray.”

Please.
Someone, save me.
Mikoto—

#103: Scandal / ep.1 →