The Pink Twin-Tails That Open the Night
How long had passed like that?
Clack.
Shinano set her tablet down on the table. The screen went dark, and the café's ceiling lights glimmered faintly across the black glass.
She reached for the matcha espresso latte that had long since gone cold, caught the straw between her lips, and slowly drank what remained. I turned the speaker volume back up. As the gentle jazz began once more to fill the sanctuary's air, the shoulders of Shinano, seated at the table, sank in a way I couldn't miss. The spine she had held so rigidly loosened, and the great senior's sharp gaze slipped back into the languid eyes of a cat.
She turned the latte glass with her fingertips. Its four neat layers had muddied together into one.
"The ice all melted. It's gone completely bland, nya..."
She grumbled around the straw she was chewing, but the fatigue from earlier was gone from those green eyes.
"Still, a cold coffee was exactly what I needed, nya."
Shinano flicked the tablet dark with a finger and leaned her arms on the counter. Her tail began to sway again, lazy and unhurried.
"The situation's wrapped for now, nya. With Katsune's shikigami and Happy Trigger's brainless firepower, that Aberration should be smashed without a trace by now, nya."
She finished the last of the latte and looked up at me, chin propped on her hand.
"The problem is whether those bundles of energy go home quietly after they smash it, or climb back up to this corner of the mountain to finish that sticky little game of push and pull from earlier..."
Green eyes stared straight at me.
"Hard to say."
I gathered the empty glass as I answered.
"What those two need right this moment isn't a drink or a coffee. It's rest, with no one getting in the way."
Rin's worn-out face from yesterday and today rose in my mind—three days of nothing but chicken breast, harried by her shikigami's tantrums, filmed without a shred of defense by a crew her manager had dragged in and broadcast to the whole country. Hina was no different. The precarious tension laid beneath all that bouncing mischief had been visible even from my side of the counter. They might shine as magical girls in front of a camera, but what they truly needed, more than a cup of my coffee, was a soft bed and sleep that no one would interrupt.
At that plain answer, a smile spread across Shinano's lips where she rested her chin on the bar.
"Hehehe... At this point, that iron wall of yours is practically a work of art, nya."
Grinning, she pushed the empty glass across the counter.
"If you're going to go that far, there's nothing I can do, nya. A little cruel to the ones who'll smash an Aberration and come bounding up this mountain trail with their tails wagging, but..."
Shinano picked up the tablet again and switched the screen on.
"Katsune, Happy Trigger. Scene clearance confirmed, nya. Good work, nya."
Her fingers flew across the tablet.
"Both of you are to leave the area immediately and return to your own lodgings. Re-entry to the sanctuary is not permitted, nya. That is all."
A mischievous, catlike look lingered on her face as she pressed send.
"There. Those hyper little beagles are neatly blocked, nya."
She closed the tablet and lifted the corner of her mouth.
"Right about now they're probably checking their messages on-site, hopping mad and feeling terribly wronged, nya."
I could picture the two magical girls, triumphant after smashing the Aberration, just about to climb the mountain path—Rin running with her shrine-maiden robes fluttering, Hina with a minigun slung over her shoulder, already preparing a wink. I could even imagine their faces the moment they read the message, so I understood perfectly well why Shinano was enjoying herself.
She tucked the tablet into her clothes and rose lightly from the chair. The click of her heels threaded through the softly flowing jazz.
"This cat should head back around now too, nya. The coordination paperwork I have to process is piled like a mountain, nya."
Behind her, as she started for the door, came the small sound of me assembling a paper box.
"Of course. Get home safely."
Shinano's steps slowed, just a little.
"Oh, right. I don't think there'll be any more customers today, so please take this and have it while you work overtime."
I packed into the box the shortcake I had meant to give her today and missed the moment for. When the small handled box was held out past the counter, Shinano's steps—she had been about to open the sanctuary door—stopped dead. She turned and looked back and forth between the box in my hand and my face.
A brief silence passed. But the tail stretched long behind her was swishing left and right more fiercely, and more softly, than it ever had, so words weren't really necessary.
"Well, well..."
Shinano took the box with a bright smile.
"You used a four-shot americano as an excuse to push a splendid matcha latte on me, and now it's a box of sweet cake... Your sense of timing is annoyingly perfect every time I see it, nya."
She cradled the paper box carefully in one arm, as if it were a precious document case.
"When this cat is buried in paperwork and about to explode, it'll make for excellent healing, nya. I'll take it gladly, nya."
She wore a pleased smile and gave a light nod. For the briefest moment, that face belonged neither to a senior with ten years on active duty nor to someone tormented by stacks of documents, but to an ordinary woman delighted to be given dessert.
"Then I'm really going, nya. See you tomorrow, nya."
The door closed, and Shinano was gone. In the pause while even the gently flowing jazz stopped to make way for the next track, I gave the empty bar a quick wipe and started drying the water around the sink.
By the time the lake was draped in the cloth of evening, the dazzling sunlight that had poured through the windows was gone, and the café's warm, soft yellow lights began to fill that emptiness one by one. The notion that no one would come was a story that belonged only to bright daylight. Once the sun set and darkness settled, this place transformed into another self, the way magical girls did.
I ended an afternoon's rest that had run about an hour longer than usual and changed into a well-pressed vest and tie. Coming back down to the first floor, I slowly slid aside the display case behind the counter. With a soft sound of rails, the coffee beans and tins of tea that had greeted customers through the day retreated, and whiskey and liqueur bottles with labels of every color took their place.
The hour when a languid café changed its face. I had set the playlist back to the calm first track and lightly dusted the bar, just finishing my preparations to receive guests, when—
Ding.
The sanctuary door opened on a cheerful bell. A magical girl whose hair was slightly mussed, as if she had only just finished a fight, stepped inside still in her transformed clothes.
What caught my eye first was a pair of swaying pink twin-tails. Beneath them, fresh frills puffed out in abundance, and with every step the dainty magical trinkets at her waist chimed prettily and glittered. She was nothing like the magical girls I had faced across the counter yesterday and today—the shrine-maiden robes with their peculiar air, the gothic lolita, the nun's habit. Anyone could see she looked as if she had just popped out of a cartoon on television: the very picture of a classic, adorable magical girl.
A faint dusting of dirt lay on her white cheeks, proof she had been through a fairly fierce battle until moments ago. But the eyes of the girl standing in the doorway and glancing around the bar held not a trace of fatigue. They sparkled with curiosity, like a child who had just come back from an amusement park.
I set down the glass I had been polishing and spoke, a little flustered.
"Wel... come?"
The pink-twin-tailed girl beamed and trotted toward the counter. With every step the little ornaments at her waist bumped together in a pleasant clatter, and the voice that followed was light as a feather and brimful of life.
"Hi~? Whoa, there was this super sweet smell and such nice singing outside that Yui came in like she was enchanted!"
She hopped up onto the high barstool in front of the counter, swung her dangling legs happily back and forth, and leaned her upper body in toward me.
"Yui just finished scolding a super huge Aberration on the way here! So Yui's all sweaty and super thirsty right now. First, can you give Yui something really cold and fizzy to drink?"
An outrageous gift for closing distance—introducing herself as Yui with a face that hadn't a single crease of trouble in it. She had only just come from a battle that crossed the line between life and death, and yet, instead of fatigue, a bright energy ready to burst with adrenaline dyed the sanctuary's air in an instant.
"At night we also have liquor, and drinks with alcohol in them. What would Yui like? A grown-up flavor? Or a fun flavor?"
I had chosen the words with care, thinking she would sulk if I called her a little kid. In that moment, the legs swinging back and forth on the stool stopped dead. Under the orange pin lights her eyes went round and stared at my face behind the counter, and then she burst into clear laughter.
"Pfft!"
"Whoa! A grown-up flavor! Yui's never heard anyone say that before!"
She seemed to like it quite a bit. Leaning across the bar, she closed the distance, and perhaps it was the softly laid jazz mixing with the calm air of the bar—a faint blush was spreading over Yui's fair cheeks as she looked up at me.
"Yui, you know. When Yui tries to think grown-up thoughts, sometimes Yui feels empty inside, like there's nothing there at all."
She lowered her gaze for a moment and fiddled with the handle of the magical gear hanging at her waist. Then she lifted her head and turned that uniquely bright look on me again.
"But today, somehow, Yui got curious about that grown-up flavor. Yui's a grown-up now too! Just, Yui doesn't want it so bitter she has to spit it out. Please make Yui one glass of a cool grown-up flavor that suits Yui perfectly, the way Oppa sees it!"