A Blue Moon Lit by the Sunset
Had it been a dream of a day when the spring wind came blowing in? Or a dream of some cold paradise, already lost? It was an evening when stories like those broke apart in memory and drifted off like foam.
I was putting the bottles in order in the newly raised café-bar. The ruins had looked so far gone that I'd thought it would be easier to tear them down and start over, and I still couldn't quite believe the little chick familiars had restored the place with their own hands. They had done more than put it back the way it was. Inside and out, the café-bar had been remade entirely — old-fashioned, European, as if it had always stood that way.
Shinano's parting words came back to me without warning.
"The materials ran up quite a bill, but how about paying it off little by little on a lifetime contract, nya?"
When she had asked it with that sly little grin, a chill raced up my spine. I had no choice but to tell myself it was only a mean joke.
"Oppaaa!"
The quiet musing of the evening shattered. The door flew open with a racket, and Hina came barreling straight for the counter. She was in a dark gothic-lolita dress again today. She closed the last of the distance and leaned her whole upper body in, twin tails swaying, a sweet perfume curling at the tip of my nose.
"I missed you, I really, really missed you! I came looking for days and days, and the building was all smashed up, and my senior had a bunch of chicks out saying it was under construction and wouldn't even let me in! Do you have any idea how sick with worry Hina was, thinking something had happened to you, Oppa?"
She pouted, the words spilling out without a pause. She stared a hole through my face, scanning me from top to bottom for any sign I'd been hurt, then whipped her gaze around the newly refined interior.
"Anyway, this place got so pretty! The lighting is seriously fancy! Oh — did you redo it to match my taste so we could have that moonlight date you promised last time? You did, right?"
She beamed and gripped the edge of the counter with both hands. Convinced this was a special space made just for her, Hina never let that relentless gaze leave me for a second. Her breath, leaning all the way across the counter, and the faint heat coming off her skin filled the precarious distance between us.
"Who knows...? I was surprised at first, too. Maybe the familiars are fans of yours, and that's why they built it like this?"
At that, Hina's eyes went round as a full moon. The head she had shoved across the counter drew back a little, and a bright, innocent laugh spilled from her lips.
"Ahaha! Wait, that was actually it? I knew it~!"
Thoroughly pleased with herself, she gave a little shrug and lightly twirled one twin tail around her finger.
"See? Hina's charm doesn't stop at humans — it reaches familiars, too! One look and they just know. They know exactly who's going to be the lady of this place!"
There wasn't a shred of doubt in it. She was utterly certain of her own popularity. Hina swept her eyes over the newly dressed bar as if it were already her own house, and the light of the chandelier, together with the elegant wallpaper, settled softly over her pale skin. Satisfied with the view, she planted both arms on the counter again and leaned in.
"But, Oppa."
Her voice had gone softer, sweeter. She crept her fingertips toward my hand where it rested on the counter and gently laid them over mine.
"Even if those tiny things are fans, they couldn't have decorated it this far into Hina's taste unless the owner of the place allowed it, right? I know everything~ You're just embarrassed, so you're making excuses!"
She was even taking the repairs — the place had been smashed to pieces because of Haru — and freely reading them as some shy little confession of affection aimed at her.
"Are you already setting the mood like this because of how romantic you're going to make our moonlight date later tonight? My heart's pounding so hard I want to throw myself into your arms right this second~"
At times like this, I really wished even one magical girl would show up to block that head-on charge of hers. Cruelly, the quiet bar held nothing but the sound of Hina's breathing and the sweet drift of her perfume.
I glanced out the window. The sun hadn't fully set yet. A sky staining itself red spilled over the newly dressed window frame and laid long shadows across the floor.
"Then... instead of the moon, how about we drink while we watch the sun go down? Slowly... I mean. What do you think?"
At the suggestion, Hina — who had been leaning hard over the counter — went perfectly still.
"The sunset?"
She blinked. She worked her lips as if a little disappointed, then broke into a bright smile.
"What's this, Oppa? You promised we'd drink romantically under the moonlight! Hina's been waiting days and days just for tonight."
The complaint was in her voice, but her face was soaked in a joy she couldn't hide. She reached out from where her hand braced the counter, caught the end of my shirt sleeve, and fiddled with my collar, teasing.
"But... if you can't even stand waiting until night~ then there's nothing to be done! That means you want to drink alone with Hina right now, doesn't it?"
In the end, she interpreted the offer exactly the way she wanted to. Her body came another handspan over the counter.
"Fine. We'll keep drinking together the whooole time, from when the sun sets until the moon comes up? No running away in the middle, okay?"
She gave my sleeve a little tug.
"Come on, then — hurry and make a special glass just for Hina. The sweetest one. The one that suits this pretty place the mooost~."
"A special, pretty drink that suits you... Got it."
I took down the dry gin, the violet-tinted crème de violette, and the lemon juice from the refrigerator. Ice went into the shaker in a generous heap, then the dry gin and the crème de violette. It wasn't night yet, so I held back a little on the lemon compared to usual, shook it light and easy, and strained it into a martini glass. A cocktail of uncanny blue spilled down into the bowl.
"Once in a Blue Moon. A wish that can never come true — and sweeter for it. That's a blue moon."
Hina's gaze went to the blue liquid swaying inside the martini glass. Red sunset light seeping in from outside passed through the clear glass and dyed the surface of the cocktail a strange violet. As if she were admiring a glittering jewel, she rested her chin on her hand and lightly traced the rim with a fingertip.
"A wish that can never come true..."
Her lips moved, turning over the meaning of the cocktail I had given her. Carefully, she lifted the glass and brought it to her mouth.
"It's good. Really sweet... and so, so pretty."
When she licked the cocktail from her lips with the tip of her tongue, those red lips caught the sunset and shone even wetter. Arms braced on the counter, she thrust her upper body forward and closed the distance.
"But Oppa, you know what?"
Something she couldn't hide seemed to seep through that soft voice.
"Hina's dictionary doesn't have anything like a wish that can't come true. If Hina wants it badly enough — whether it's that sun out there or the moonlight in the night sky — I'll make it mine, no matter what."
Her gaze snared my eyes and held them fast.
"So your heart was Hina's from the very beginning, too. You understand, right?"
The face smiling so innocently was as bright as any ordinary girl in love, but the eyes that held me glittered with a hunter's persistence.
"I... is that so? How about taking the setting sun instead of me?"
I pressed a button on the remote. The vertical blinds drawn over the window slowly rolled up, and a beautiful sunset sinking toward the lakeshore appeared beyond the glass.
"You don't get views like this in the city where you are, do you?"
With the small hum of the motor, the shadow stretched across the floor slowly retreated. A red afterglow shot through with orange began to fill the European-styled bar with warmth. Hina's twin tails, the marble counter — all of it soaked in the red light of the sunset.
Chin propped on her hand, she quietly watched the lake outside. The red sun was dipping its edge into the gently rippling water.
"Wooow..."
A small gasp slipped from her lips. For a while she took the view in without a word. Then she slowly turned her head and met my eyes again.
"You're right. Where Hina is, even when night comes it's always flashing and all closed in. I look at nothing but a forest of buildings every single day, and then I see a view this open... it feels strange."
She hummed under her breath, almost as if she were singing to herself, and tapped the thin stem of the martini glass with a fingertip.
"But, Oppa."
When her body came another handspan closer over the counter, the sweet perfume rode the red sunset light and grew thicker still.
"The view is really pretty, and I like it... but what matters most to Hina is who showed her something this pretty."
She gently laid her fingers over the back of my hand on the counter. From where our skin met, a soft, warm heat came through.
"That you raised the blinds just for me, and gave me this view as a present. That's the part that drives Hina the craziest, you know?"