The Captain's Shine on the Beach
I kept Momiji quiet company until she left, nothing more than a partner for her talk. Through the gentle thread of our conversation, I only hoped the weight of the warrior she carried had grown a little lighter. Once she rose to seek sleep, I set the bar neatly to rights and returned to my room for a short rest.
The next morning, the North was bustling and yet orderly. I made quick work of the simple breakfast the little familiars had laid out as they scurried about, then stepped out to the counter to open the lobby bar again.
I was dusting the display case and checking over the spirits when a cautious presence stirred just beyond the corner of the counter. On any other day, this magical girl would have bellowed loud enough to shake the lobby: Aqua Crystal has arrived! This morning, though, she hid half her body behind a pillar and only stole glances my way. The captain who, since yesterday morning, had gotten thoroughly drunk on rum cocktails and left behind a magnificent disaster was hovering near the counter, fidgeting.
The moment our eyes met, Crystal's bronze cheeks flushed red. Realizing she had missed her chance to flee, she jammed both hands into the pockets of her shorts and came up to the counter with a stiff gait.
"Uh, um...! H-hey! Bartender! Good morning, I say! Ky-kyahaha...!"
Her mouth produced a hearty laugh, but her gaze couldn't meet my face and wandered through the empty air. Listening closely, I heard her voice tremble, just barely. She cleared her throat a few times, then began tapping the counter with a finger and pouring out excuses.
"S-so, listen. Yesterday I... right! The great captain got a terrible case of land-sickness! The ground kept rocking, so my stomach churned, and my brain shook right along with it, and nonsense just popped out!"
She flailed both hands in the air and pressed on desperately.
"I didn't have a single millimeter of those indecent thoughts about a man and a woman in one room! Really! It wasn't that my heart pounded because I thought you were going to do something to me, or that you were making a move! It was just—just land-sickness!"
Crystal fired off things no one had even asked, the way a guilty conscience does, then panted for breath. A pirate captain who loosed broadsides at sea, reduced to this over a single night of drinking. Watching her, face ripe red, reading my mood, I quietly set the bottle I had been inspecting back on the shelf.
"Of course. Yesterday's memories were swept away by the northern blizzard and the waves."
I offered a light smile and answered as if the incident had already been blown to the far side of memory. The moment the words left me, Crystal's rigidly set shoulders sagged in plain relief. She looked at me with a startled flicker, then swept a hand over her chest and let out a deep sigh. The heat burning her cheeks and the nape of her neck seemed to break at last.
"O-oh! Right! As expected of the bartender—you actually get it!"
She cleared her throat a couple more times and dropped into the chair before the counter. Flinging her jacket collar open with spirit, she tried once more to play the usual hearty pirate captain.
"That's right! Memories that trivial only get in the way of a great voyage! The northern blizzard froze every last one of them! Kyahaha!"
Her bright laugh rang through the morning lobby lounge. The flustered waving of a moment ago was gone. As if she had never been embarrassed at all, she slapped the counter with her palm.
"Whew, that bad land-sickness yesterday left my throat bone-dry! Pour the captain something cool and sweet! Keep the alcohol to an absolute minimum!"
She declared it grandly, drawing a V with her fingers. Whether yesterday's hangover still hadn't fully cleared, or she was afraid of saying something shameful again under the influence, I couldn't tell.
Around the time she was drumming the empty counter and urging me for juice, neat footsteps sounded from the quiet corridor.
"The lobby is terribly noisy for morning."
It was Grace, violet hair neatly tied back over a tidy kimono. She tucked the folder in her hand under her arm and regarded Crystal with a cool gaze.
"Lady Aqua Crystal. That you downed rum one glass after another in this lobby last night and made a spectacle of yourself is something my broom remembers quite clearly. Not the blizzard."
At Grace's sharp strike, the heartily laughing Crystal went mute, as if she had swallowed her tongue.
"G-Grace! Why are you digging up someone else's shame first thing in the morning? You don't know a sailor's romance at all!"
"Thanks to that romance, I nearly threw my back out hauling you to your bed."
Grace adjusted her grip on the folder and went on without a waver.
"If you've come to the hot springs, you might simply soak in peace, rather than putting the temporary bartender in a difficult position."
"It's all right, Grace. Drinking first thing in the morning isn't good for the body anyway. Shall I make you something cool and non-alcoholic?"
When I stepped in with a light smile, Grace sighed softly, still displeased, but she stopped needling Crystal.
"W-what! You're just going to plop down one juice and call it done?! No, no! I heard you stuck to that king or whatever—that smug great demon lord—all day yesterday and waited on her hand and foot!"
Crystal tapped the counter lightly with both hands and raised her voice. The shame of a moment ago was gone. Now she was acting like a child throwing a tantrum.
"The great pirate captain is the one who deserves the finest treatment! Serve me the coolest, sweetest tropical juice in the world, right now! And peel the fruit to go with it, every last bit! Feeding it straight into my mouth wouldn't be bad either! Kyahaha!"
Hands on her hips, Crystal crowed in triumph, and Grace's gaze, beside her, sank coolly, as if she were looking at something pathetic.
"Lady Crystal. Lady Haeshin possesses such hopeless life skills that she cannot even open a bag of snacks with her own hands, so the temporary bartender had no choice but to attend her."
Grace's pale-violet eyes fixed straight on Crystal.
"Have your hands and feet degenerated overnight as well? Or are you admitting you are on the level of a newborn?"
"S-shut up! A great captain's romance is having the crew spoon-feed her and look after her! A truly fine pirate ship is one that sails even if the captain doesn't lift a finger!"
When Crystal raised her voice without yielding, Grace sighed as if she couldn't believe her ears.
"Haa... You're only talking as if the ship's sailing straight into a mountain. If you insist, shall I peel the fruit with this broom myself and shove it into your mouth?"
"Eek! Why are you saying things so viciously first thing in the morning?! I asked the bartender!"
Crystal dodged Grace's gaze and leaned toward the counter.
"Hurry! This captain is thirsty! Make it a service way more incredible than what you did for that king yesterday!"
"Yes. I'll pour you something special—something I didn't serve the king."
Instead of the spirits on display, I opened the refrigerator and began taking out juice bottles. Cranberry, orange, and peach came to hand in turn. A few of them bore sticky notes shaped like cat paws or rabbit ears, the familiars marking their territory, but for the time remaining here, I was master of this place. I decided to lightly ignore any guilt about using what they had claimed for themselves.
I filled a glass with ice, poured peach juice and cranberry in turn, and finished with orange. A beautiful red-and-gold gradient formed, like a sunset. For the finish, for a captain who loved flash, I added a thin slice of orange and a cute little paper umbrella I rarely used. It was a sweet mocktail that felt thoroughly of the southern seas, though almost no actual tropical fruit had gone into it. A drink that, if I spoke its true name, might send this innocent pirate captain fleeing back to her room—Virgin Sex on the Beach was complete.
"A mocktail in a southern-seas style."
Crystal's eyes sparkled in an instant. The layered red-and-gold gradient and the paper umbrella seemed to have struck her cheerful pirate-captain concept dead center.
"Ooh...! Look at those colors! And that umbrella is just perfect!"
She carefully lifted the glass, then crowed triumphantly at Grace beside her.
"See, Grace? Once you're on Lady Crystal's level, fantastic treatment just rolls in even if you sit still! I bet that stuck-up great demon lord from yesterday never even got to drink something this flashy! Kyahaha!"
"Yes. A truly excellent mixture of fruit juices. Seeing you so delighted over a single paper umbrella, you are indeed the great captain who commands the seas."
When Grace answered in a dry voice, Crystal snorted.
"Hmph! Your problem is you don't have enough romance!"
Crystal bit the straw with spirit. At the crisp sweetness that blew away the morning thirst and the faint leftover hangover, a pleasant color rose in her face.
"Wow, this is really good! There's not a drop of alcohol, but I feel like I'm floating!"
In high spirits, she leaned out over the counter. Her face still faintly flushed, she shone with curious eyes.
"Hey, bartender! What's the name of this incredible drink? This captain will specially memorize it!"
"It's Shine on the Beach. For people at a party who can't drink... a kind of non-alcoholic party drink."
Changing a single word was no stain on a bartender's conscience. Even in bars back in the ordinary world, guests embarrassed by a drink's blunt wording often called it by a slightly altered first word. Rather than honestly telling her the original name and watching this innocent pirate captain turn scarlet, scream loud enough to empty the lobby, and flee to her room, this was a peaceful ending a hundred—a thousand—times over.