#98: Vintage Wine / ep.3
The Kinugawa Stroll Game, in which I was only allowed to say “It’s not”, had already seen the first answer guessed. I had no idea why Shandy hadn’t simply declared it at the time. By now, even that was starting to feel like a bluff, and the more I thought about it, the deeper I seemed to dig myself into a hole.
“Hehe. This is fun.”
Oblivious to Mikoto’s internal struggle, Shandy walked through the sparsely populated Kinugawa hot-spring district, her geta making a cheerful, rhythmic clatter.
A Western woman in a yukata with an arrow-feather pattern, her loose blonde hair swaying in the breeze. She looked almost out of place amid the faded hot-spring town, yet that was precisely why she drew the eye.
“Are you staring at me?”
“It’s not.”
“You love me, don’t you?”
“It’s not.”
“What!? But you said I was the only one for you!”
“It’s not.”
And then she turned it around and teased me with it.
I didn’t mind if she was enjoying herself, but I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty about betraying her, even if only in the smallest way. She was someone who had such deep distrust of people.
“I’m disappointed in you. We’re finished as of today.”
“P-please don’t. Even as a joke, that’s too much…”
“Then give me the second hint?”
“That’s such an unfair exchange…”
“But you’ve turned yourself into this dreadful robot. It makes me want to tell a dreadful joke or two myself.”
She puffed out her cheeks and glared at me, and I had no choice but to surrender.
She was crafty yet fragile, smiling yet leaving no opening whatsoever.
The weakness of being in love was entirely in Shandy’s hands. I thought I had a weakness of hers in my hands too.
Even when she was roundabout, hard to understand, and incapable of being straightforward, the Game was her way of expressing affection.
“…All right. I’ll give you a hint, so cheer up?”
“I’m cheerful now.”
She matter-of-factly deflated her puffed-out cheeks and gazed at me with eyes sparkling with delight.
What a troublesome gamer.
“The second hint is, it’s something you wear.”
“Oh, erotic underwear.”
“Th-that’s…!”
She sank a flawless three-pointer right in front of me, and I choked.
Even if it was a bluff, there should have been a little more back-and-forth first.
“Toko-san likes cosplay. When you say something you wear, the first thing that comes to mind is a costume. And there are only so many things that could fit in that little box. From there, all I have to do is think about what sort of thing Mikoto would want to hide.”
“Uaaah!”
I could only crouch down and yell like a child.
Of the three presents, the two I most desperately didn’t want her to know about had already been exposed.
What had been the point of this Game?
I wanted to die.
“Oh dear. So the reason you were so determined not to let me know was because you thought I was going to make you wear it and drink it? Do I really look like the sort of person who would do that?”
“You look like you would! That’s why I hated the idea!”
I felt her lips against my cheek as I crouched there.
The gentle scent of orange and alcohol drifted over me.
“Have I ever done something you didn’t want me to do, even once?”
I stopped and thought about it.
Over the past year, the Games Shandy had sprung on me had invariably ended with me being put through some sort of embarrassing ordeal.
But I had learned how she felt through those Games. And, setting the past aside, we had come to know each other.
Shandy had always been kind.
She had never done anything I disliked—
“No, you have!”
—
Actually, she had done it quite a few times.
She had always made amends afterwards, but there were things I could never forget even if I wanted to, like the time she had shaken me senseless during that ballroom-dancing Game.
“I forgot.”
“You just forget things that are inconvenient for you…”
“If only I could forget.”
Suddenly, the warmth vanished from her voice.
I tried to read her expression, but the light was behind her, leaving only a faint orange outline.
“Er…?”
“Anyway, I’m not going to give you some boring order like ‘put it on’ or ‘drink it’. I promise you that much.”
Shandy helped me to my feet, and I glared into her amber eyes.
Her expression at such close range was unusually serious.
Just seeing that face was enough to make me believe her and melt, and I felt a little pathetic for it.
“Hey, Mikoto? It’s not that I want to turn you into a puppet.”
Her serious expression, her voice, burned themselves into my eyes and ears.
“Loving a soulless doll is nothing more than self-satisfying masturbation.”
It was a strong choice of words.
The vocabulary was so unlike the woman who was always so careful about what she said that I couldn’t even understand what she was trying to tell me.
The veil surrounding her mystery was simply too thick. I couldn’t see through it.
“What are you talking about?”
“I want you to live the way you want to, Mikoto… Though saying that makes it sound like another curse, doesn’t it?”
“Sorry, I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hehe. Isn’t that just like me?”
She slipped away from the subject in an instant, and Shandy took a swig from the local beer she had bought at the souvenir shop.
“Here’s to victory,” she said with a smile, looking nothing like the woman who had just used such powerful words.
“A mystery…”
“Yes, it certainly is. I really haven’t the faintest idea what the third one is.”
As though the conversation were over, she turned her attention to the local mascot keyrings hanging in the souvenir shop.
I wanted to ask her about those cryptic words, but even if I did, she probably wouldn’t answer.
Perhaps it was a past she didn’t want to talk about.
“Hey, Mikoto? What’s the third hint?”
“Actually, I don’t know either.”
“Oh? A bluff?”
Shandy grinned, and I shook my head vigorously.
“I couldn’t tell at a glance. It looked like some sort of little box, I think.”
She gave me a long, searching look, but apparently decided it was pointless and seemed satisfied.
The fact that I was so easy to read, that anyone with a discerning eye could tell when I was lying or telling the truth, was frightening.
“A little box? Perhaps she put some playing cards in it?”
“True, you do think of playing cards when you think of travelling. But the two of us playing cards…”
We wandered over to the toy section, looking at playing cards, UNO, and the like, pondering this way and that.
Even in a Game where neither of us knew the answer, Shandy was taking it seriously. She picked up a box of playing cards, examined it, shook it—
“I’m bored.”
—
She was bored.
She tossed the cards back onto the shelf, spun a toy pistol around, then picked up a yo-yo and got bored with that too.
“Shall we go back and check the answers? It’s nearly dinner time.”
“I don’t want to give up, though…”
Shandy glanced at the clock in the shop.
“My answer is aphrodisiac, lingerie, and playing cards. Don’t forget my reward for getting every question right.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
We walked back the way we had come, side by side, our conversation blossoming into yet more aimless chatter.
Those ordinary moments were precious to me.
When I squeezed her hand tightly, she squeezed back.
I was happy.
I really was.
But at the very least, I desperately hoped the playing cards were wrong.
＊
A banquet worthy of the finest hot-spring inn, almost absurdly lavish, appeared before Mikoto.
The young proprietress had apparently felt so genuinely sorry for ruining the surprise that she had given Shandy a bottle of beer on the house. Shandy had completely changed her tune.
“Such wonderful hospitality!”
She was positively delighted.
“Oh, this is delicious.”
I dipped some seasonal tara-no-me shoots in matcha salt and took a bite.
I washed away the distinctive bitterness and oily taste lingering in my mouth with cold beer.
Delicious.
I could eat these forever.
Having a meal served to you without having to worry about cooking or clearing up afterwards was a blissful luxury I hadn’t enjoyed in a long time.
But that only applied to Mikoto.
“Mikoto, what’s this?”
Shandy pointed at a mysterious white paste-like food and tried some.
It was probably ebi-shinjō.
“Prawn and fish paste, I think. Doesn’t look like there are any vegetables in it.”
“Then I approve.”
Mikoto’s job was the official taster.
Shandy, a Westerner who loudly proclaimed that you could live perfectly well without eating vegetables, which was probably true, simply refused to eat them.
I had tried every trick in the book to make her get over it, because surely it couldn’t be good for her health.
But she was such a committed picky eater that if I made beef stew, she would eat only the meat and potatoes; if I made curry, only the rice and roux; and with okonomiyaki, she would peel off and eat only the strips of pork belly.
She was an even fussier eater than Mimosa.
“Mikoto, I’ll eat your prawn tempura, so you have the tara-no-me tempura.”
“Ah! I was saving that!”
“Come now. I’ll give you the daikon garnish from the sashimi as a bonus.”
“The daikon garnish isn’t decoration. You really don’t eat vegetables, do you…”
“I eat rice, barley, and corn. And potatoes.”
“Those are grains and starches, not vegetables.”
“I eat avocado.”
“That’s a fruit.”
“Correct. As a reward, I’ll give you a tomato.”
“Tomatoes aren’t vegetables either. They’re fruit.”
“No, tomatoes are vegetables. Since you got it wrong, your punishment is that I confiscate your meat.”
“Ah!”
By the time they had finished, Mikoto’s tray had taken on a distinctly vegetarian hue, while Shandy’s had transformed into a feast rich in protein, fat, and carbohydrates.
This was Shandy’s version of dieting.
It had worked, too. She had lost weight.
“I’ll give you the grilled fish instead.”
With that, what appeared before me, plate and all, was a salt-grilled ayu.
“You just don’t want to deal with the little bones.”
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE CHOPSTICKS.”
“What are you saying now, after all this time…”
In addition to taste-testing, removing little bones from fish was another one of Mikoto’s jobs.
For Shandy, who would sulk if even a single bone remained, I carefully picked them all out.
“You do it for me even while complaining. Does that mean you love me?”
“I just happened to have a little sister who wouldn’t eat fish unless I did this.”
“What a troublesome woman.”
“Tell me about it.”
Kotone had been almost as picky an eater in childhood as Shandy was.
With nothing more than a packet of furikake, she had dodged attacks from the stir-fried peppers and beef, oden, hotpot, and whatever else was on the table, until Mum scolded her and she burst into tears.
She had been so cute back then.
“But she changed after becoming an actress. She said she couldn’t build a role if she didn’t know what things tasted like. These days she’ll even eat things like larvae and frog meat.”
“What an adventurous palate. Then again, she is the sort of woman who would make a move on someone like that.”
“No comment.”
I returned the carefully deboned fish to Shandy and, as a bonus, added a tomato.
“Come on, Shandy-chan. Eat your tomato and grow up to be a fine, serious acting bartender, okay?”
“I do not accept food harassment.”
“Just eat it.”
“Boo.”
In the end, Shandy swallowed the sliced tomato whole without chewing, then washed it down with beer.
What sort of upbringing had the mother in Alice’s story given her?
I wanted to see what her parents looked like, but if that story was true, I would never get the chance.
Shandy was completely alone in the world.
Aside from Mimosa, Mikoto was her only family.
Perhaps she had never had meals like this with anyone before.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
I started to ask about her past, then stopped myself.
Perhaps she would tell me now.
I had a feeling she might.
But I couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if she didn’t answer me honestly.
“No, it’s just… I’m happy we get to have a meal together again after so long.”
“Hehe. What’s happened to you? Were you always the sort of person to whisper words of love so openly?”
“Just one of those days when I feel like whispering them. Apparently, this is the only way to make someone who isn’t straightforward believe me.”
After dinner, I whispered into Shandy’s ear.
When I held her from behind, her slender body was incredibly warm.
Under her spring cardigan and yukata, she wore nothing but underwear. A black strap peeked through the gap in her collar.
“It’s still too early, you know? We haven’t even enjoyed our bath.”
“I want to savour you first.”
“You’re terribly impatient.”
There was a clatter.
The young proprietress, still wearing her new-hire marker, had come to clear away the meal and was now clutching her lower back in unmistakable panic.
“Hehe. Since we’re here, shall we put on a little show?”
Faced with Shandy’s smile, as though she had just turned the tables completely, I could say nothing.
This young proprietress really had no sense of hospitality…
＊
“Hm? You’ve got the mint going? That’s unusual.”
“It’s your fault…”
The aroma diffuser in Rinko’s room was belching out clouds of peppermint mist, presumably to help with her blocked nose.
One of the rooms in the four-bedroom flat in Minato Mirai had become Rinko’s besieged fortress.
She had never let Kotone into the room before, nor had she intended to.
But she had finally surrendered because of the unusual visitor now striding around the room as though she owned the place.
“Why did you let the cat out of the cage!?”
“Because it’s cruel to lock her up in a tiny cage.”
“And you don’t feel sorry for me, who’s been locked up here because of her!?”
“You’ve got me, Rinko-chan.”
The reason Rinko had agreed to let Kotone into her room was because Kotone had thrown a tantrum, insisting that work meetings had to be held face-to-face.
The worst part for Rinko was that the cat was now spreading its allergen around every corner of the room.
“How long is that woman going to keep tormenting me!?”
“Well, at least it got me into Rinko-chan’s room.”
“And knowing she’s probably relaxing at the hot spring right now makes me even angrier!”
Because of Mimosa, Rinko and Kotone could now only meet face-to-face in her bedroom.
And Kotone, whom she had reluctantly allowed inside, was wearing pyjamas and had brought canned beer and snacks with her.
An impromptu pyjama party.
“Let’s relax too. You said you wanted to see everything about Kotone, remember?”
With a wicked grin, Kotone undid the buttons of her shirt one by one from the top.
There was absolutely no atmosphere to it.
Rinko immediately looked away from the glimpse of cleavage.
“You’re terrible at seduction. And using alcohol as an excuse is just pathetic.”
“Oh, come on. If we blame it on the alcohol, at least we’ve got an excuse, right?”
Kotone had propositioned her countless times.
Changing tactics every time, sometimes making it sound like pure romance, sometimes trying to force the issue.
Rinko had rejected every single attempt.
Unlike Kotone, who wandered around the room naked without a care, Rinko had never even shown her own underwear.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“When will you be?”
“Ask my libido.”
“There you go. Your oshi in the nude. ‘I’d really like to get closer to Rinko-san,’ says me.”
“Stop. You’re corrupting my oshi. That’s completely against my interpretation.”
“I’ve been a Kurosu Kotone fan for twenty-four years, you know. I’m hardly a novice.”
Kotone’s foul-mouthed provocations were nothing unusual.
She was apparently more sexually driven than most, considering she wasn’t even afraid of scandals and had gone so far as to visit sex establishments.
At home, in the car while travelling, in the station’s dressing rooms, or at deserted filming locations, she was forever making advances.
She would touch Rinko’s bottom, whisper in her ear, bite her shoulder, dig her nails into the back of her neck, anything to get her in the mood.
“Do you hate me?”
But when she asked, the answer was always the same.
“I told you before.”
“Say it properly.”
Kotone desperately needed things put into words.
She had the emotional mentality of an elementary-school boy, so straightforward affection was the only kind she could understand.
“Fine, fine. I like you, I love you.”
“Then why?”
Her stupidity was so infuriating that Rinko could barely stand it.
But she couldn’t keep pushing her away forever.
She had decided to face this idiot.
She had decided to be with her.
Then she would say what needed saying and make things clear.
That was how relationships were built.
“Enough already. I want you to stop linking love with sex.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Playing at being platonic now?”
Having worked as an escort, Rinko had no particular resistance to sex.
If someone wanted it, then doing it was simply what you did. There was no emotion involved.
Like pouring boiling water into a cup noodle.
Like microwaving frozen rice.
Sexual desire could be warmed up easily, instantly.
But now it wasn’t an impulse that could be warmed with boiling water or a microwave.
This wasn’t an instant relationship.
And she didn’t want to build one.
“I want to cherish you.”
“Your oshi?”
“Everything.”
She didn’t want sex that could be performed as effortlessly as a chore.
She didn’t want to consume Kotone carelessly.
Because once she became accustomed to an instant relationship, she felt she might eventually come to see Kotone as little more than another customer.
“Even if you say that, I don’t get it.”
“Then learn to understand.”
“That’s completely unreasonable!”
“Exactly. Unfortunately for you, the woman you fell in love with is an unreasonable one. At least it’s good material for your acting.”
What she wanted now wasn’t sex, nor a lovey-dovey relationship, nor even the contract represented by a single sheet of paper beyond that.
A relationship that wasn’t instant.
A relationship where they could get their own way.
A relationship where they could be themselves.
“Just cherish me as best you can. You’re a lighthouse, after all.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Her wish had been granted, so Rinko indulged her a little.
She ordered her libido, which had warmed to roughly halfway-thawed, to stay frozen, and held Kotone’s four limbs in her arms.
“Heh—Achoo!”
“Oh. I was holding Mimosa until just now.”
“You can’t hold me covered in cat hair. Take it off.”
“I thought you wanted to cherish me.”
“Weren’t you going to show me everything about Kotone?”
Rinko still wasn’t giving herself to her.
But she would give her what she wanted.
If surface-level pleasure carried through the skin was enough to satisfy her, then Rinko would show her every trick she had.
Because Kotone still didn’t know.
Beneath the skin, at the depths of the breasts, beyond the cracks.
At the deepest place of all, where pleasure from the shallows was nothing by comparison, there was a pleasure that came from the heart.
“Really, you’re beautiful.”
Kotone’s unadorned form was reflected in the full-length mirror in the room.
Rinko moved behind her and showed her love where she could see it clearly.
To a woman who loved herself dearly, she would show Kotone the true form that Kotone herself wanted to see.
“You’re probably the only person who’d make an actress do something like this, Rinko-chan.”
“You wanted this, didn’t you?”
She whispered into Kotone’s ear, exhaled softly.
She bit.
With nothing but the tip of her tongue and her fingertips, she conveyed her love.
Made her understand it.
“Feels good?”
“Never gonna say.”
“Good.”
If Kotone behaved herself and obeyed, an even greater reward awaited her.
She was a woman who spouted nonsense at every opportunity, so Rinko would carve the truth into a body that could not lie.
Disciplining a bad actress was the manager’s job.
And it was what Rinko wanted to do more than anything.
＊
“At last, the ceremony of opening the presents.”
We sat side by side on the futons, drinking post-bath beer—how many glasses had Shandy had today, anyway?
Perhaps the young proprietress had sensed what was coming.
The futons had been laid directly beside one another, and there was even a box of tissues beside the pillows.
She had been far too considerate in entirely the wrong direction.
Her hospitality had gone berserk.
“I didn’t want to open them…”
“You were the one who made it into a Game. If you want someone to blame, blame yourself from several hours ago.”
“Ugh…”
I was miserable.
I already knew what two of the three presents were.
I opened Toko’s present box, and—
As expected, the contents were exactly what we had predicted.
Reluctantly, I laid them out in front of Shandy.
“First. A drink that says Seduction.”
“That is unmistakably an aphrodisiac.”
“Second. See-through underwear.”
“My, how naughty.”
“Third—”
I looked away from the brown little bottle and black lingerie and stared into the depths of the box.
The little box was card-sized, just slightly larger than a business card.
Its thickness made Shandy’s theory about playing cards seem increasingly likely.
“Some kind of box. That’s all!”
“Shall we open it?”
Still in high spirits, Shandy opened the little box and took out its contents.
The chequered pattern on the backs made it immediately obvious that they were playing cards.
The Kinugawa Stroll Game.
Mikoto had lost.
“Hehe, Mikoto?”
I already knew what Shandy was going to say.
“I know, I lost! Boil me, roast me, do whatever you like!”
“No. It seems I lost.”
“What? They’re not playing cards?”
I reached out to check, but she kept them face-down and began shuffling.
Their appearance, and the way she shuffled them, were unmistakably those of playing cards.
“But they seem not to have been ordinary playing cards. Since I couldn’t guess that, I lost. And since I lost, the Game begins with the dealer’s shuffle.”
“The dealer?”
“Let’s play Jiji-nuki1. I’ll remove one card.”
With half the randomly dealt cards that weren’t quite cards in her hands, Shandy began discarding matching pairs.
I didn’t really understand what was happening, but Shandy had lost the Kinugawa Stroll Game.
Perhaps she intended to vent her frustration by winning at Jiji-nuki.
“Well, if that’s how it is, I certainly won’t lose.”
“Please don’t.”
Jiji-nuki was fine.
Unlike Baba-nuki, where players pass around the Joker, you never know which card is the odd one out until the very end.
And if you didn’t know which card was the odd one out, even if Shandy turned it into a battle of wits, I had a chance.
Because neither of us knew the answer.
I started discarding the matching pairs from my hand—
“What kind of playing cards are these!?”
I was speechless.
Each card had handwritten words on it in addition to its suit and number.
The words on the cards left in Mikoto’s hand were:
“Name the body part you like most, then lick it.”
“Please confess in a way that makes my brain melt.”
“Tell me an embarrassing secret you can’t tell anyone. Embarrassing Secret!”
“Cosplay sex.”
“Th-this is…”
“Homemade eighteen-plus playing cards. As expected of Toko-san, she’s naturally completely unhinged. Hehe.”
“Why did she make something like this!?”
Shandy had three cards in her hand.
That meant one of the cards in Mikoto’s four-card hand was a Joker more powerful than any ordinary Joker.
She didn’t want any of them to remain.
Whether she won or lost, a hell of embarrassment awaited her.
And yet the troublesome gamer before her had eyes sparkling with delight.
“Shall we begin? Toko-san presents: the Forbidden Game.”
-
Jiji-nuki - a modified version of Baba-nuki, which is the Japanese variant of old maid. One random card is secretly removed from the deck before dealing, so there is no Joker; players eliminate matching pairs and try not to be left with the unmatched card. ↩