Gaming Pousse-Café Rainbow
"Are you close with Sister Clara and Yui?"
At my question, Hiyori turned her gaze toward the far end of the bar—the one stretch of the table that still held anything like its original shape. She picked her way around the wreckage, folded her long legs, and settled onto a stool. The wooden chair gave a small creak as her weight tipped into it.
"You find out whether you want to or not. That nun's been plastering the group chat since this morning with a confession long enough to be a book."
Seated, she propped her chin lightly on one hand and met me with those cool, sunken blue eyes. Her voice stayed low, the rise and fall of feeling barely there, but the breath she let out carried a fine thread of fatigue.
"Like I said earlier—bewitched by some poison with an obscene name, she smashed the sacred altar, so now she has to face an inquisition at once and do eternal penance, and on and on. The text was long enough you had to scroll three times. And right beside it, Yui was pulling aggro, going on about the world of adults or whatever."
She tapped the counter with a fingertip, light and idle.
"One skim and I had the read. Sister Clara isn't the sort who can lie. A party member trashed property inside a safe zone, so the party leader showing up to clean the mess is basic rules, isn't it? Before the admin steps in and slaps on an account ban... no. A disciplinary action."
Hiyori's eyes drifted to the bar.
I took a narrow, tall glass from the display case kept out of sight, set it down, and began the cocktail bartenders the world over truly dread. Brandy, Kahlúa, and the rest: a pousse-café rainbow, seven spirits stacked by the difference in their densities. I started with the densest, darkest liqueur and eased it carefully into the bottom of the glass, then pressed the back of a bar spoon flush to the inner wall. Holding my breath so the liquids would not mix, I let the next spirit trickle down by the finest degree of touch I had.
A single millimeter of tremor, the slightest hitch in my breathing, and the layers I had built with such care would collapse. It was that delicate a job.
Chin still propped in her hand, Hiyori never took her eyes off my fingertips. She watched the way someone watches a loading screen, and the vivid colors stacking one upon another reflected in her blue irises. As the liquors slowly rose, the glass began to look like one of those flashy backlit keyboards pro gamers favor—from a sharp red down to a deep blue, seven layers glowing inside it, perfectly separated, luminous and undisturbed.
Once the last layer floated cleanly into place, I took the narrow glass by its base and slid it carefully toward her.
"A pousse-café rainbow."
"This is... pure RGB."
Hiyori cupped the base in both hands and lifted it to eye level. She turned the glass this way and that, studying the seven layers catching the light inside the clear glass, and a soft smile spread across her lips.
"Didn't think anyone could build a hardware tune inside a glass. The color balance, the layer separation... this is high-end gaming gear."
She looked up from the glass and met my eyes. Her tone was still blunt, but the cool wariness she had worn when she first came through the door had melted clean away, like ice. Her gaze, noticeably softer now, traveled slowly between me and the glass.
"Overspec, for a reward to a party leader who only came to clean up. Thanks. ...I'll enjoy it."
Hiyori stared for a long while at the layers gleaming across the glass like pixels. Then she lifted it with care and set her thin lips to the rim.
She must have expected a taste as sweet and fantastical as the look. What followed was the real reason I had served her this notoriously fussy cocktail: the stabbing bitterness of raw, high-proof alcohol, then a wave of cloying sweetness right on its heels, and beneath both a confused assault of liqueurs that refused to harmonize, each one shouting only its own argument.
Hiyori's neat, cool expression crumpled in an instant. She yanked the glass from her lips and squeezed one eye shut.
I smiled at the reaction.
"Just like a gaming keyboard, isn't it? The kind that lights up beautifully and performs like nothing. Truth is, this cocktail is meant to be enjoyed with your eyes, not your tongue."
At the joke, she set the glass down on the table with an audible clack. As if trying to wipe away the strange, chaotic taste lingering at her mouth, she pressed the back of her hand hard against her lips and glared at me, thoroughly wronged.
"This is a total... junk item that failed its balance patch."
The blunt, guarded voice from a moment ago was nowhere to be found.
"Every point dumped into looks, and the actual performance is trash. A skin built to scam the player looks exactly like this."
She pouted, but she was not truly angry with me. If anything, the tension that had kept her spine rigid—the tension of a party leader on duty—seemed to have been washed clean away by one absurdly awful sip. Hiyori clicked her tongue softly and nudged the brilliantly glowing glass aside with a fingertip.
"I should've clocked it the moment you used the admin as an excuse to open a hidden map. This NPC is meaner than I thought..."
"I simply saw you and knew I had to serve it once. This time I'll make you something with actual performance, so cleanse your palate with a cookie while you wait."
At that she let out a small sigh, then—pretending she was only giving in—picked up a cookie stamped with a cherry blossom from the plate I had offered. A crisp crunch rang through the quiet bar. As the sweet cookie covered the unpleasant aftertaste of the cocktail, the sharp set of her shoulders eased and settled.
This time I stepped to the espresso machine, intent on making something that would suit her. The machine whirred, and a deep brown shot of espresso fell in a smooth ribbon into a small cup. I packed a glass with ice, poured in bright lemon tea, and let cold sparkling water run carefully over the top. It hissed. Bubbles climbed through the clear soda as if they were dancing.
When I added the fresh, dark espresso last, black coffee spread like a cloud across the clear lemon-colored drink and drew a layer all its own. A thin slice of lemon finished the process.
The new drink had barely touched the table before Hiyori stopped chewing and studied the bubbles rising inside the glass.
"A coffee that tastes like the energy drink gamers treat as lifeblood. It's called a mazagran—a traditional Algerian drink."
She lifted the glass with a suspicious look and took a careful sip. In that moment, her eyes flickered.
"...Yeah. Definitely."
A quiet liveliness had entered her voice as she set the glass down.
"Way better performance than that junk item that was all shiny skin. Debuff cleanse and stamina recovery... excellent."
She wiped the moisture from her lips with the back of her hand and fiddled with the outside of the glass.
"Feels like the mental stat I lost cleaning up my party's mess just got a little restored. I'll give you that one."
"Thank you. I heard the Exchange Tournament is coming up soon. Will you be entering as well, Hiyori? On a team? Or... solo?"
I tossed the question lightly toward her as she worked through the glass. In truth, I had no particular interest in the tournament itself, and I barely knew the rules or how it was run. Not everyone on earth glues themselves to a television just because the Olympics are on, and a major event for magical girls was, to me, a story from some far-off country. Before I started working at this sanctuary, a magical girl had been nothing more than a guardian who protected people. I had not known their names one by one, let alone their private circumstances.
At my perfectly calm question, Hiyori's eyes went round, as if she could not quite believe what she was hearing. Someone who knew none of the rules of the magical-girl world—a world baptized daily by cameras and the public's attention—must have struck her as genuinely strange.
"Am I entering? Obviously. It's a forced-participation event. For a top ranker like me, it's also a ranked match. You have to jump in and defend your tier."
She went on, tracing the surface of the mazagran glass with a finger.
"You asked if I'm on a team? I'm solo to the bone. Babysitting party members who can't match my tempo is the one thing I can't stand."
"Is that so? Hina was here earlier. Is she that type as well?"
At the name, the corner of Hiyori's mouth twisted.
"That one just hoses a minigun like a brute and drags aggro in every direction. Pure poison for team play. She dumps bullets however she feels, and the party balance gets obliterated."
Having delivered that deadpan critique of Hina's playstyle, she suddenly tipped her chin up at me.
"Anyway. You... looks like Hina's got a hard lock on you. You'd better watch yourself."
She gave her loose white jacket a light straightening.
"Not that it's a main storyline that has anything to do with me. If you've got time tomorrow, leave a broadcast on. I'll show you how a ranker carries."