The Morning of the Last Day
Crystal's frantic excuses, Haeshin's arrogant provocations, and the soft words Junko slipped like a blade into every gap between them tangled together until the lobby bar was in ceaseless uproar. Just as Grace let out a deep, resigned sigh, what finally quieted that endless clamor was a pair of rabbit Familiars, come to announce that lunchtime had arrived.
"Kyu!"
A white rabbit-eared girl came bounding in from somewhere and latched her little teeth, adorably, onto the sleeve of Haeshin's ornate coat. From the other side, a rabbit girl with one ear folded tugged carefully at the hem of Crystal's jacket and held up an empty plate.
Grrrgle.
With exquisite timing, a loud rumble rolled out of Crystal's stomach.
"Has it gotten this late already? You can't put up a fight on an empty stomach!"
As if to blast away the faint flush still lingering on her face, she burst into that signature cheerful laugh of hers. The girl who had been melting over talk of romance only moments before vanished cleanly at a single chime of her stomach clock.
"Hey! Little rabbit! Lunch is meat, right?! If you want to satisfy the Captain, you're gonna need a mountain of the stuff!"
"Hmph. For a mere creature, you keep Our biological clock rather well."
Haeshin lightly peeled the rabbit girl from her sleeve and turned her gaze on me behind the counter.
"Attendant! We grow exceedingly hungry as well. Lead the way to the dining hall at once."
True to the woman who had once held a snack bag out for me to open, it was an arrogant command that treated waiting on her meals as a matter of course.
"My, what excellent timing."
Junko drew the last of her Virgin Bloody Mary—heavy with hot sauce—lightly up through the straw.
"Lunch taken after a sensation this sharp boasts the finest flavor of all. Shall we, Grace?"
"Haa... Yes. Understood."
"I beg of you... on the way to the dining hall, please do not break the furnishings, nor raise your voices at one another with shameful words. I earnestly ask that you walk there in peace."
With that sigh-laden plea, the three of them set off toward the dining hall under the Familiars' guidance.
"Enjoy your meal. As for me... hmm...?"
Now that I thought about it, the Familiars had seen to breakfast, and I hadn't spared a single thought for how I was meant to eat lunch. Perhaps she heard me murmuring to myself as I stood blankly at the bar; Grace, walking at the very rear, stopped and looked back.
"The temporary bartender's midday meal has been prepared in the staff dining room at the end of the corridor. Follow the Familiar with the broom, and you will be served."
She lifted a finger toward the narrow hall on the far side of the bar, but my peaceful lunch was cut short at once.
"Halt there, attendant!"
Haeshin, who had been leading the way into the grand dining hall, turned and strode toward me.
"An attendant, going off alone without waiting upon his king? For one who ought to remain at Our side and attend Us to take his meal apart, in so vulgar a fashion, is a breach of propriety. Follow behind Us at once!"
"By regulation, it is improper for staff to sit and dine with honored guests in the grand dining hall."
Grace drew a firm line, but Her Majesty snorted and ignored her entirely.
"Puhahaha! Just come with us! We all know Haeshin can't even pick up a piece of meat properly—she'll be flailing in no time!"
Crystal, watching from a distance, clutched her stomach and burst out laughing.
"S-silence! You dare slight Us?!"
A flush climbed all the way to Haeshin's throat. She coughed several times in succession, then glared at me again.
"My. For the peace of the dining hall, it would be better if the temporary bartender came along."
Junko hid her mouth behind her sleeve and smiled softly.
"Before Lady Haeshin breaks the plates and the tongs, her personal attendant will need to help her. Only then will this girl be able to swallow her rice with an easy heart."
And so I picked every bone from the fish set before Haeshin and poured her after-meal tea with care. Only after I had carried out every demand—whether, in the flight of her imagination, I was meant to be a wife or a personal attendant, I could not tell—was I at last allowed to lift my own spoon.
If there was a mercy in it, it was that afterward, instead of endlessly pouring drinks and brewing tea for these singular Magical Girls, I was dragged this way and that and got to enjoy the lavish facilities, if only at second hand. That night, of course, Haeshin issued the absurd command that I attend her at her bath as well, and Crystal very nearly went berserk and drew her weapon—a dizzying near-disaster.
One way or another, nothing further went wrong, and at last the morning of the final day dawned. Beyond the window, the snowfields of the north glittered white in the morning sun. As usual, I tidied the lobby bar and made ready for my last duties here, and while I checked the spirits and set the tools I had used back in neat order, a familiar, noisy click of heels rang across the marble floor.
"Attendant. Present the tea of awakening that rouses a king's morning."
Haeshin came walking in all her imposing splendor and dropped into the chair before the bar—her reserved seat in all but name. The razor edge of killing intent she had given off when she first appeared here was gone without a trace. If anything, grown used to my attendance over these past days, her face wore an ease that was utterly matter-of-fact, and thoroughly arrogant, where I was concerned.
"Today as well, you will open the confection wrappers yourself and offer them up. We have no wish to waste Our energy on that shoddy vinyl rubbish from the very morning."
Just as I was about to look beneath the shelf in case a teacup might be there, Grace—neatly dressed, broom in hand—approached the bar.
"Temporary bartender. As of today, the three-day dispatch ordered by Senior Shinano comes to an end. Once breakfast is finished, please prepare to return to the sanctuary."
She spoke in her usual dry voice. But the fingers Haeshin had been tapping idly against the table went still, and her eyes moved from me behind the counter to Grace with her broom, and back again.
"Return...? Where does Our personal attendant mean to go, abandoning Us?"
"As I told you before... I've been working at a sanctuary about an hour from the Capital."
My calm answer settled over the bar, and Haeshin's shoulders jerked. The fingers that had been lightly drumming the table froze stiff in midair.
"S-such a remote mountain corner—We cannot abandon Our right hand there!"
She shot up from her seat, voice cracking into a shout. Her coat flared wide, but the cry she forced out trembled, ever so slightly.
"You have already sworn your loyalty to Us with a Golden Cadillac! We shall annex that so-called resting place into Our domain at once! No—We shall appoint you Chief Attendant, so make ready to follow behind Us this very moment!"
"That is impossible, Lady Haeshin."
It was Grace who coldly severed Her Majesty's unreasonable order of conscription.
"The temporary bartender is personnel dispatched strictly under Lady Shinano's direct authority."
"That cat dares steal Our consort—no, Our attendant?!"
Haeshin slapped the correction onto the end of her sentence in a rush, and the tips of her ears flushed pink.
"No one is stealing him. He is simply being returned to his proper place..."
"Don't you have plenty of other attendants...? There must be many capable people besides me..."
A Magical Girl charged with the Capital would naturally have followers, and other Magical Girls, attending her.
"Hm... A sound argument."
At last our sovereign seemed to recover the wits that had gone soft in this place. She straightened her coat and returned to the stern figure I had first seen.
"The Capital overflows with talent that carries out Our will. These past three days you have served admirably as Our right hand. We value that merit highly."
Words truly worthy of a king's place... benevolent... and... dignified. And yet her eyes, for some reason, had lost anywhere to go, and drifted in faint circles through the empty air.
"However..."
Haeshin cleared her throat and took one discreet step closer.
"In tending Our royal person, and in handling the miscellaneous... implements of the common world, few are as quick to read a room, or as precise of hand, as you. This We specially acknowledge, so do not sorrow overmuch. Should you wish it, We shall exceptionally extend Our mercy, and grant you the chance to display that skill at Our side..."
"Preparations for departure are complete, temporary bartender."
Once again Grace cut Haeshin's words off at a stroke.
"Senior has ordered the swift return of dispatched personnel. You may leave now."
"Grace! We had not yet finished speaking!"
"Lady Haeshin's checkout time is drawing near as well. Please see to your luggage. I have already put the packaged refreshments in your bag."
At that iron notice, Haeshin's lips parted as if to argue—but in the end she found no words that would serve. She turned her head with a prim little air and shut her mouth.
I quietly removed my apron, folded it neat, and set it on the counter. I would tie on another apron and make coffee and cocktails somewhere else, but the work would not change: giving comfort to Magical Girls, and receiving their worn hearts and their fatigue in return.
If the god they believed in truly existed, then let that god keep their laughter from vanishing today, as well.