The Casino's Time Bombs
"Shine on the Beach... sunshine on the shore! Kyahaha! Now that is a name done to perfection! Just the thing for the great Crystal, conqueror of the mighty seas!"
Crystal smiled, thoroughly pleased with herself, and twirled the paper umbrella in her glass with one fingertip while she drew the fruit juice up through the straw in bright, cheerful pulls.
Grace, who had been watching in silence, turned her head toward me.
"Hoh... Shine on the Beach."
The faintest thread of amusement clung to the end of her tidy voice. Someone as exacting and meticulous as Grace could not possibly have failed to know the original name of that famous tropical cocktail. If I had called it straight, that pirate captain—who had not a shred of resistance to a dirty joke—would be scarlet to the ears by now, hopping until the whole lobby shook.
"You have my thanks for your thoughtful consideration, Acting Bartender. Thanks to you, this morning may pass quietly, without any further noise pollution."
"Hey, Grace! Did you just say noise pollution?! Since when is this captain's hearty laugh noise!"
"Captain Crystal, please just play quietly with that paper umbrella..."
Whether she heard or not, Crystal set down the glass she had drained to the bottom and let out a long, satisfied breath.
"Haaah, now I feel alive! Mornings only work if you drink something this sweet and cold. That's what gets the brain turning properly~"
She flicked the paper umbrella still stuck in the empty glass and grinned at me.
"Hey, bartender! Good work. From here on, see that you serve the great Crystal with proper devotion—and often!"
"Haha... Then how do you plan to spend the morning?"
At the question, Crystal bit down on the straw and sucked up what little drink remained in a single pull. She set the empty glass on the counter with a sharp clack and threw both arms overhead in a vigorous stretch.
"The morning? A pirate captain's morning schedule is obvious! This great captain will personally go forth and conquer the grand bath, the pride of this hot-spring resort! I'll sink into that steaming water and wash yesterday's land-sickness clean away!"
Crystal shot up from her seat, loosening her limbs as she went on.
"Once I've worked the stiffness out, I'll have to raid the arcade and the casino lounge too. Every treasure and every amusement hidden on this island belongs to Crystal! Kyahaha!"
Her booming laugh scattered far down the hall. Morning sunlight glittered across her bronzed skin and deep-blue hair, only sharpening the vitality pouring off her.
"The casino...? Doesn't a casino need a bit of a crowd before it really gets going?"
At that, Grace let out a deep sigh.
"Haaah..."
She shook her head, weariness plain on her face.
"The manager here insisted a resort was worthless without a gambling hall and had one built whether anyone wanted it or not. Aside from Captain Crystal, and Miss Yui when she happens to drop by, it has no popularity to speak of. More often than not, the Familiars are the ones running the games, staking their own snacks."
"The Familiars... gamble?"
"Yes. Watching the cats roll chips around with their front paws, I can feel my lifespan being shaved away."
A casino where Familiars gathered to gamble—I could not even picture it. Crystal, far from being appalled, was sparkling like a child who had just found someone to play with.
"So what! Cat or rabbit, if there's a stake on the table, a great pirate doesn't run from a contest! Every snack those little things have stockpiled is going to be Captain Crystal's spoils today! Kyahaha!"
"Please... refrain from cleaning out even the Familiars' snacks. When they start wailing and raising a fuss afterward, soothing them and cleaning up the mess falls to me in the end."
Grace delivered the warning with a chilly look.
"Hmph! The world of contests is cruel! Of course the loser cries!"
The captain let the scolding slide right past her ear. Humming to herself, she slung a towel over one shoulder and strode off toward the grand bath with vigorous steps.
"Then... I'll keep watch here through the morning."
"Do take care, Acting Bartender."
Grace vanished down the corridor as well, and the uproar that had raged like a storm since yesterday receded like the tide. A single day here had driven the lesson into my bones: stick your neck out and start something, and you would not come out of it looking good. So I resolved to do nothing at all. I drew out the chair behind the counter and sat.
A rare, unhurried morning peace. Chin propped on my hand, I gazed at the empty lobby and savored the idleness.
But peace did not last long.
Rustle. Rustle.
A cautious presence stirred at the foot of the counter. When I looked down, several balls of fur were peering up at me: a cat Familiar balancing a little tray on its head, and rabbit Familiars clutching cleaning brooms. Their eyes were fixed not on my face, but on the bottles of peach and cranberry juice sitting forlornly atop the counter—the very juices I had just spent so lavishly on Crystal. Only now, it seemed, had they realized that their precious emergency rations had vanished at my hands. Drooping ears and wide, trembling eyes were full of a blank despair, as if the world had ended. Meeting those pitiful gazes, something pricked at a corner of my chest. In the end my resolve softened. I sighed and picked up the bottle where the remaining juice still sloshed, just about to pour a little into a paper cup for them.
"What do you think you are doing."
A cold, decisive voice cut through the lobby air. It was Grace. The instant the words fell, the fur of the Familiars huddled beneath the counter stood on end. They snatched back the paws they had been carefully extending toward me, spun around in a panic, and shot off into a corner of the corridor. The space before the counter was suddenly bare. I froze with the juice bottle held awkwardly in midair.
A moment later she approached, her footsteps neat and measured. Grace followed the fleeing Familiars with a strict glare, then turned that gaze straight on me.
"You must not let yourself be taken in just because they put on a pitiful act, Acting Bartender."
She cautioned me while smoothing her sleeve into perfect order.
"Give them a snack once out of pity, and next time they will divert every supply in the lobby, and every refreshment meant for guests, into their own storeroom. Discipline here must be maintained strictly."
"Haha... I'm sorry. Come to think of it... Her Majesty is unusually quiet today, isn't she?"
I asked it lightly. The stillness felt exactly like the hush before a storm, and at the question Grace's shoulders seemed to sink a little heavier than usual.
"She fell for Captain Crystal's provocation in the grand bath and has gone off to the casino."
Grace explained the whole affair in a voice caked with fatigue.
"It seems Captain Crystal ran into Lady Haeshin in the grand bath a little while ago. Declaring that she could not allow a mere pirate to carry on arrogantly within a sovereign's domain, she proceeded at once to the casino lounge."
When she finished, she swallowed a deep sigh.
"The greatest problem is that Lady Haeshin cannot handle even ordinary tools. The same person who grew wrathful yesterday because she could not tear open a single refreshment wrapper—how could she possibly grip casino chips, or work a slot machine's lever properly?"
A chill ran down my spine the moment I heard it. Over in that casino, two enormous time bombs were sitting side by side, either of them ready to go off at any moment. One was a pirate who charged into any contest without a thought for fire or water. The other was a tyrant who styled herself a king. So that was it. The lobby had been unnaturally quiet because this really had been the eve of the storm.
"Haha... I don't know. When I first served Lady Haeshin a cocktail yesterday, she knew the history of classic cocktails inside and out. Perhaps she's only a little lacking in everyday practical skills?"
It was an optimistic guess, offered to lighten the heavy air somehow, but Grace shook her head firmly.
"Knowing a thing in one's head and carrying it out with one's own hands are entirely different realms, Acting Bartender."
An exhaustion she could not hide soaked through her voice.
"The history of classic cocktails is refined knowledge one may acquire readily enough through the finest books of cultivation, or through lessons in etiquette. But feeding a coin with one's own hand into a slot machine flashing garishly before one's eyes, or betting with crude plastic chips—such acts have no point of contact with that elegant education."
Grace set the broom she was holding down on the floor with a soft thud and glanced toward the end of the corridor.
"Furthermore, Lady Haeshin is the sort who would deem the machine itself guilty of lèse-majesté, demanding how a body destined for sovereignty could be expected to pull the lever of so base a device with her own hand. She will be thinking the machine ought to repay her royal grace by spitting the chips out of its own accord."
No sooner had she finished than the storm-eve stillness shattered.
BANG! Clatter-clatter-clatter!
From the distant casino lounge came the sound of some machine being shaken, and with it a clamorous crash, as if a heap of coins had poured across the floor and come rolling all the way into the lobby. Right after, a familiar, booming laugh came riding down the corridor.
"Kyahahaha! What's this? Calls herself a king, and she can't even handle one slot machine, so she's grabbing the whole cabinet and shaking it?! In front of the great Crystal, both her luck and her skill are at rock bottom!"
"You wretch! A vulgar pirate, and you dare slight Us?! This impudent lump of iron committed the outrage of failing to recognize Our majesty and refusing to vomit forth its chips, and so We personally meted out punishment! That is all!"
Crystal's mocking provocation and Haeshin's furious bellow overlapped, mercilessly smashing the resort's thin peace to pieces. Grace's shoulders trembled visibly. She seized the broom she had set on the floor in both hands, then shut her eyes tight and opened them again, as if resigned.
"Haaah... In the end, the disaster we feared has come to pass. Manager Junko will be asleep in her room, so I have no choice but to go and deal with it myself."
She turned her heavy steps and started down the corridor where the noise was erupting. A few paces on, Grace faltered and looked back at me.
"Please guard the lobby, Acting Bartender. The Familiars who fled earlier may seize the opening and go after the drinks."