Amber-Colored Game of Love
The last train pulled away right in front of her.
Just past one in the morning, Roppongi.
Kurosu Mikoto turned from the ticket gate she’d just sprinted past, shoulders sagging.
“Unbelievable…”
The words she muttered aloud echoed through the nearly empty underpass.
Today had been a cursed day for Mikoto.
She’d walked into a presentation and made the rookie mistake of forgetting to print the handouts. The client rep had fixed her with the kind of leering stare only a certain breed of dirty old man could manage. The heels she’d worn to psych herself up had rubbed her feet raw. And now, on top of it all, she’d missed the last train.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
Thinking back over her bad luck only made her angrier. If there really was some god up there dictating fate, she wanted to give him a piece of her mind. Stop stacking the misfortune all in one place. Balance it out, spread the bad luck evenly so it all nets out to zero against the good.
She spat her curse up at the heavens in her heart. The gods, apparently, answered prayers shaped like curses fast — her heel promptly caught in a storm grate. She pitched forward with the momentum and tore her stockings on the asphalt. A run, straight up the calf.
“Unbelievable…”
She’d lost count of how many times today she’d spat that particular curse, and rubbed at her aching hip.
Misfortune was a strange thing, Mikoto thought. Once you decided the world was against you, everything in it started to look that way. The taxi stand she limped to had a line stretching out of sight. Every cab that passed had its light off. The internet café was full up. Some drunk idiot who couldn’t read the room was making a racket, oblivious to anyone else. Smoke drifted out past the boundary of the designated smoking area. Her palm was scraped raw. Her earring felt cold against her skin.
Right now, she was practically a walking collection of minor miseries.
So absorbed was she in cataloguing every misfortune that had befallen her that Mikoto failed to notice the tout standing directly in front of her.
“Oh — sorry!”
Snapping back to herself, Mikoto found the tout sprawled on the ground before her. She’d walked straight into her.
A woman. Pale, slender ankles extended from beneath a knee-length long coat, caught in the orange glow of the streetlight.
Mikoto crouched down at once, looking her over. Pocket tissues lay scattered around the fallen woman — probably what she’d been handing out. The flyers tucked inside advertised a girls’ bar in bold print.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes, I’m sturdier than I look. I’m fine.”
As she said this, Mikoto reached out to hand back the tissues she’d gathered up. It was only then that their eyes met.
“Ah—”
The woman’s presence felt out of place against the Roppongi streetscape, almost otherworldly.
What caught Mikoto’s eye first were her irises — round as a full moon, luminous, an amber so clear it looked like a single frozen instant of a falling droplet of water. Combined with her pale skin, it lifted her out of the world of human beings entirely and into some realm of pure aesthetics.
She was beautiful.
Not beautiful the way a person is, a spirit pressed into an organic body — but beautiful the way a doll is, an inorganic frame stuffed to bursting with every virtue beauty could hold.
“Like a doll…”
Mikoto blurted the thought aloud before she could stop herself, and hastily tried to correct it. But the woman didn’t so much as flinch — she only softened her full-moon eyes into a gentle curve.
“I get that a lot. Do you like dolls?”
“Oh — no. I mean, I’m neutral on them.”
“Same, honestly. I’m neutral on myself too. No soul in here.”
Mikoto, flustered by the woman’s beauty, had said something that didn’t quite make sense. That, too, she supposed, counted as one more misfortune on the pile.
She held out a hand and helped the woman to her feet — and yes, standing, she looked every bit as doll-like as advertised.
Into that small frame, whoever had made her — bloodline or deity, whichever applied here — had crammed an almost excessive amount of aesthetic intention. The pale skin, the mid-toned dyed blonde hair, the wrists and ankles emerging from the hem of the long coat — every part of her seemed arranged according to some law of beauty Mikoto couldn’t name.
She was perfect. To Mikoto’s eyes, there was no other word for her.
“I know it’s a little shameless to pitch you right after this, but — may I?”
“Wh— what is it?”
The woman held out the very tissue packet she’d just picked back up off the ground, smiling at Mikoto again.
“How about a girls’ bar?”
The flyer tucked into the tissue packet advertised a girls’ bar, open late into the night. The all-you-can-drink price for staying until morning ran higher than just holing up at a nearby karaoke box or family restaurant until dawn.
“Um…”
But what stuck in Mikoto’s mind was what had just happened.
She’d knocked this beautiful, doll-like tout clean off her feet. That she hadn’t been hurt was the one lucky break in an otherwise unlucky collision — but the fault had been Mikoto’s own carelessness. The woman had laughed it off and forgiven her; surely she owed her some small compensation for that.
That prick of conscience warred with the contents of her wallet.
If she accepted the invitation, her conscience would stop bothering her.
If she declined, she could get through the night cheaply.
In the end, Mikoto weighed the price of a girls’ bar against a one-way taxi fare.
“All right, I’ll take you up on it. I’ve got no train home anyway.”
“It’s a bit much, paying you back with more trouble, I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be silly. If anything, I’m the one who—”
“You didn’t just walk off after knocking me down. That’s plenty of a favor already.”
She said this baring her teeth in a smile. Combined with her pale-tinted lips, her face looked, if anything, even more like a girl-doll’s than before.
“A favor, is it?”
“Yes. Right this way — table for one.”
Led by the doll-like young woman, Mikoto vanished into the back alleys of Roppongi.
Just this once, the orange streetlights and the garish neon signs looked as radiant as jewels.
＊
Whatever cheap, seedy image the words “girls’ bar” might conjure, this place had nothing to do with it.
In lighting kept just barely above the legal minimum, it was hard even to make out the expression of the customer seated beside you.
No — more accurately, the shop had been designed so you’d never have to think about the person next to you at all. A soft pink spotlight picked out the glass in your hand with perfect clarity, while the bartender who should have been standing across the counter dissolved into the dim light beyond it.
The interior matched — though again, you had to look closely to notice — built to evoke a carefully maintained grotto. A hideaway for adults, you might call it: a deeply calm kind of space.
“Bet you’re surprised. Not very girls’-bar-like, is it?”
The doll-like young woman’s voice came drifting out of the darkness. Her tone was composed, she laughed, a light, rolling sound like a bell.
“Yes. I expected somewhere louder — no, somewhere more… youthful.”
“That’s the usual reaction. This place used to be an authentic bar, though.”
“Authentic?”
“It means old-school. A proper bar, whiskey and brandy.”
What was set before her with a “here you are” turned out to be nuts, prosciutto, and chocolate — the kind of tasteful little touch you’d expect from an izakaya’s otoshi, and it made Mikoto’s stomach drop with fear that this alone would blow past the flat rate printed on the flyer.
“It’s complimentary, don’t worry. Though I suppose it was tactless of me to guess you were worrying about that.”
“Ah — ha.”
Caught out, Mikoto laughed vaguely. The woman let out a light, rippling laugh of her own and held out a business card.
“I’m your bartender. Shandy.”
“Are you from overseas?”
“Hmm, now which do you think? Which would you prefer, I wonder?”
Mikoto found herself at a loss for an answer — not because a question had been turned back on her, but because of what the question actually was.
It sounded like the innocent curiosity of a young girl, and yet it carried the probing weight of an adult sizing her up. You could call it a cheeky, needling sort of attitude and leave it there. But Mikoto’s attention, strangely, was drawn all the more toward her — toward Shandy, there in the half-light.
“…How should I answer that?”
“Ha. Turning my question back on me, are you?”
“That makes us even.”
“So it does.”
A soft laugh slipped out, like a breath of wind passing through. Filling the space were the classical music, Shandy’s voice, and the clink of ice from a glass at a distant table.
A clink — the sound of a glass being drained — followed by the sound of someone leaving their seat.
“If you’ll excuse me a moment.”
Shandy said this and went off to settle the departing customer’s bill.
It was quiet. In the dim light, Mikoto studied the business card left on the counter before her.
Besides the shop’s name, Antiqua, only Shandy’s name appeared on it. The back held nothing more than the shop’s address and a simple map.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. Just the two of us now.”
Having finished the bill, Shandy stood once more across the counter.
Who was this woman, with her testing, probing way of speaking? Not the doll Mikoto had met out on the street, but a woman carrying the air of a girl and yet the allure of something far more mature.
Bit by bit, Mikoto felt her heart being drawn into this woman’s presence.
“About that question earlier — may I answer it? The one about which I’d prefer?”
“Go right ahead. Shall I give you a hint?”
Mikoto thought it over a moment, then gave a small shake of her head. “No.”
“I think it doesn’t matter either way.”
“So you’re saying you don’t care about me at all?”
Shandy puffed out her cheeks and propped her chin on her hand against the counter. Lit by the pink spotlight, her eyes glared at Mikoto with something like resentment.
Mikoto realized she’d phrased it badly and corrected herself at once.
“That’s not it. It’s just — at first, I thought you were a doll.”
“Ah, right, you did. So I was a pretty little doll to you.”
“But now I’m starting to think that’s not quite right either.”
Shandy, with her doll-perfect face, wore different expressions here in the shop — sometimes a young girl’s, sometimes a lady’s. There’d been another face entirely when she was settling the departed customer’s bill. She probably had countless faces like that.
Which meant the question “are you from overseas?” was meaningless from the start. Answer Japanese, and you’d get a Japanese face back. Answer foreign, and you’d get a foreign one. Her true, ever-shifting face was something Mikoto could never actually find.
And it was only then that Mikoto realized something.
Why did she want to know Shandy’s true face so badly?
“So, not Japanese, not foreign, and not a doll either. Now that’s a problem.”
“Yes — I’m not sure what to talk about either, honestly. I’ve always been shy around new people.”
“Same here, then.”
Shandy said this and produced a narrow-stemmed glass. Silently, carefully, she poured in the drink and stirred.
The drink she served first was a pale amber, faintly carbonated. Beneath the lingering scent of cigar smoke in the air, a faint, crisp hop aroma cut through and reached Mikoto’s nose.
“It’s a one-drink-minimum place, so I took the liberty of making you something. Will you have it?”
“Um, what exactly is this? A cocktail?”
Shandy only laughed softly at the question.
“It’s me.”
“…What?”
“Ginger ale and beer, mixed. A Shandy Gaff.”
“Beer…”
Her voice caught, because she couldn’t drink beer.
To Mikoto, beer was nothing more than the thing she was forced to drink at company gatherings. These days there were whole magazine features on easy-drinking craft beers, and plenty of people genuinely liked them — but a trauma imprinted once didn’t paint over easily.
“Not a fan?”
“…No, I don’t have good memories of it. In my line of work, people are always pushing beer on me.”
“I get it. Bad people forcing it on you — that’ll do it, give you an aversion.”
“I suppose I was one of those bad people myself, then,” Shandy said, brows drawing together in apology, and reached to take the glass back.
But Mikoto’s hand shot out. Their fingers touched at the base of the glass. Remembering the flyer’s No Touching rule, Mikoto snatched her fingers back at once.
“S-sorry. I touched you.”
“Ha, it’s fine. There’s no one else here but us.”
“I’ll drink it after all. The Shandy Gaff.”
“…Really?”
Shandy put on an exaggeratedly serious, testing tone, playing it up.
It was a challenge aimed at Mikoto — not unlike the way an obnoxious drunk might tease someone for having a “child’s palate” over not liking beer, and force it on them anyway.
Which was exactly why she wanted to rise to it.
Somehow, it felt like unless she met Shandy’s challenge, she’d never get to see her true face.
“I can’t very well leave a drink with your name on it unfinished.”
“My, aren’t you smooth.”
With that, Mikoto brought the glass to her lips. The crackling burst of carbonation softened the smell of alcohol. What she tasted first was the caress of the bubbles — a pleasant tickle on her tongue, followed by a clear, sharp bite of ginger and a faintly sweet bitterness.
Sharp, yet sweet and gentle, and bitter all at once.
The Shandy Gaff changed its face moment to moment — like a sulking girl, then an adorable doll, then finally a woman who’d tasted both the sour and the sweet of life.
She understood, now, why the woman stood behind this bar under the name Shandy.
Swallowing down the pale amber liquid — the same color as Shandy’s eyes — Mikoto let out a sigh of relief at having solved the riddle.
“…I’ve got it. The answer to your question, from before.”
“Then let’s check your answer. Which me do you prefer?”
“The one I like is Shandy-san.”
Shandy went briefly still. It looked like surprise at an unexpected answer, and yet also relief that the answer had come exactly as expected — every feeling she might have felt, all mixed together, just like a Shandy Gaff itself.
“…This is my first time here, but — I think I might want to know more about you.”
“…Is that so…”
Mikoto was certain she’d won.
She’d cleared the trial Shandy had set for her with the Shandy Gaff and drawn out her true face. That was what she believed, at least—
“…Ha. Sounds like I’m being wooed.”
But the stillness lasted only a moment.
Shandy recovered her composed, adult expression at once. It would take more than that, far more, to find the true her hiding beneath the countless faces she wore.
“So, tell me — am I wooing you well?”
“Then let me teach you how I like to be wooed.”
Shandy said this and held out the drink menu. Inside the expensive-looking folded booklet, drinks priced separately from the course sat listed in rows.
“You’re quite the businesswoman.”
“Even if we’re to fall in love, money’s never a bad thing to have plenty of, is it?”
“Fair point.”
The two of them met each other’s eyes and laughed together.
This was a game — reading each other’s faces, probing each other’s hearts, searching through countless faces made of truth and fiction tangled together to find what lay beneath. Find the other’s heart first, pierce it, and win: a game of love.
Somewhere along the way, Mikoto’s purpose had shifted — from surviving the night to knowing this woman. But Mikoto herself had no idea that had happened yet.
She had learned a dangerous kind of game: the mysterious bartender Shandy.
“Will you savor it down to the very last drop?”
“I suppose I’ll have to wring out every last drop, then.”