An Uninvited Guest Beneath the Moonlight
"Yeah? Before you ever got to see this view, how were you getting by?"
Instead of answering, Hina lifted her martini glass.
"I was always right in the center of the stage. The pretty lights, the sound of the applause—all of it belonged to Hina."
Her smooth fingers traced slow circles along the glass's slender stem.
"But the person I was actually waiting for wasn't anywhere in the audience. Day after day I played my part and put on pretty clothes, and still I was as lonely as an empty set. Because Hina's real prince never came to take me away."
She turned her gaze toward the lake beyond the window. In place of her usual bright, bouncing confidence, a voice gone a little languid and quiet filled the air of the bar.
"That was when it happened. A small, snow-white Familiar that looked just like me appeared right in front of my eyes. It pressed a minigun as big as I was into my hands, and it was as if it whispered that I should stop just waiting—that I ought to fire, and take what I wanted myself."
Hina turned her head and looked straight into my eyes. Her irises held the red of the sunset and glittered.
"If I became a Magical Girl and shone even brighter, if the whole world turned to look at Hina every time the guns went off... then my prince would recognize me in the end and come find me. That's what I believed. That's how I made it all the way here."
Her fingers crossed the back of my hand and slipped carefully between mine.
"And at last... that magic has come true."
The hand laced with mine tightened. Warmth traveled up from her interlaced fingers, and the faint scent of the violet cocktail drifted around the tip of my nose. Red sunset light shimmered across her collarbones where she leaned low over the counter.
Her perfume, and the distance closing between us, sent a flush creeping up my face before I knew it—and then, all at once, a shrill bell poured from the ceiling speakers.
Warning. Warning. Threat to personal safety.
The mechanical tone that shattered the mood dragged a hollow laugh out of me. Shinano had said the chicks had stuffed the place with a heap of useless functions, and this was clearly one of them. The air of the bar, which had been warming toward something romantic, froze cold in an instant, and Hina, who had come all the way up to my nose, froze with it. Her twin tails trembled.
"Oh, come on! Who was it?! Which clueless bird—no, which cat hung this stupid thing up!"
Hina slammed a fist on the counter and shouted. The voice that had been softly tickling my ear a moment ago was nowhere to be found; what spilled out instead was a yell thick with irritation.
"A threat to my safety?! Why is Hina's love a threat?! This isn't a threat, it's a fated close-contact stage, I'm telling you! I'm gonna smash that stupid machine to pieces!"
Huffing, she groped at her waist. A minigun nearly materialized at her fingertips—then she seemed to catch herself and shot a glance my way. Whether the flush on her cheeks came from the sunset, or from embarrassment and anger, was hard to say. She cleared her throat a few times, then seized my hand again in both of hers, and as if straining to hide the fierce momentum of a moment ago, she packed her voice with as much sweetness as it would hold.
"O-Oppa. Just ignore that broken piece-of-junk alarm, okay? Seriously, it wrecked the whole mood... We were doing so well just now. Our lips were this close to touching, I'm telling you."
Hina leaned even farther over the table and looked up at me. The red warning light was still blinking from the speaker, but she rubbed her cheek against the back of my hand and locked her eyes on mine with stubborn persistence.
"Can't we... pick up where we left off?"
Hina's breath reached the tip of my chin. Her slowly blinking eyes caught my face and held it. The distance was so precarious that the slightest tilt of my head would have brought our lips together.
That was when a blaring ringtone burst from Hina's phone.
"Eek!"
She startled, shoulders jumping, and took a step back. Irritation written all over her face, she checked the screen of the phone she had left on the table and clicked her tongue. The moment she answered—whether the person on the other end was a superior or a senior—she tossed off a few curt "Yes, yes" and hung up.
"Ugh. This is so annoying."
Hina dropped the phone onto the counter and grumbled.
"Out of nowhere they're going on about somebody wrecking the rest stop or whatever, and the mood is completely shot. I finally had some cozy time alone with Oppa, and we were just getting into it."
In the corner of the ceiling, the red warning light was still faintly blinking. The noisy alarm, and the phone call timed as if it had been waiting for the moment—were both of them just another useless function Shinano's chicks had installed? And yet, thanks to those petty little functions, I had been a breath away from sinking deep into the swamp called Hina, and only by clinging to the flutter of those chicks' wings had I barely managed to climb back out.
Hina's thoroughly irritated voice circled the empty bar. Face full of complaint, she tapped the counter with a fingertip.
"Hahaha... Guess we'll have to let tonight slide, huh? We've got plenty of time, don't we? The blue moon isn't a loner, and it isn't lonely, either."
At the gentle comfort that left my mouth, the finger Hina had been tapping irritably against the counter stopped dead. She had been hanging her head and grumbling; slowly, she lifted it. Outside the window the sunset had lost its edge and was staining itself a deep indigo, and that light settled quietly over her twin tails.
"Our time... slowly..."
Hina echoed my words under her breath. Her face, blooming bright in an instant, was so radiant it was hard to believe that a moment ago she had been about to pull a minigun and smash the ceiling.
"Heh... Oppa, do you realize you just said something incredibly sweet?"
She carefully cupped the martini glass on the counter in both hands.
"The blue moon isn't a loner, and it isn't lonely... I'll never have to stand guard over an empty stage all by myself again."
The blue cocktail left in the glass swayed pleasantly with her movement, and a sweet scent lingered at the corner of her red lips. She leaned forward and brought her face right up to mine.
"Fine. Since Oppa went that far, just for today Hina will be the bigger person and let it go. The clueless cats and the stick-in-the-muds butting in—I'm putting up with it for your face."
She reached out and lightly caught my wrist.
"But you did say it clearly, with your own mouth, right? That we've got plenty of time."
Hina's eyes, bright with mischief, met mine head-on.
"I'm taking that to mean I get to monopolize Oppa day and night from now on. Got it?"
Her persistent, honeyed words warmed the air of the bar. She looked ready to reach straight across the counter and throw herself into my arms, so I pulled out a bottle of Blue Moon—the beer that shared the cocktail's name—and held it up for her to see.
"We can't keep standing here with a martini glass forever. How about we move to the window and drink there?"
Hina's gaze went to the blue-labeled bottle in my hand. A pleased laugh slipped out between the lips that had been fixed on it.
"Ahaha! What a smooth operator! A Blue Moon cocktail and a Blue Moon beer. Oppa, you pulled that out on purpose so it'd match as a couple set with Hina, right?"
She carefully slid the martini glass to one side of the counter and hopped lightly down from the tall bar stool. The tips of her heels touched the floor with a small, soft sound. Humming to herself, she came around the counter and pressed close against my side.
"A window-seat date! I am completely on board. We're watching it stuck right together, yeah?"
She linked arms with me as if it were the most natural thing in the world, lightly stole the beer bottle from my hand, and rested her head on my shoulder. Through the place where our arms touched, her sweet perfume and warm body heat came through whole.
"Come on, Oppa. Before the sun's all the way gone we'll watch the pretty sunset, and until the moon comes up I'm sticking right to your side and not letting go."
Hina gave my arm a light tug and led me toward the seats by the window. The blue beer bottle in her hand swayed gently, the red-stained lake at its back.
Beyond the window frame, the red light slowly melted away. The two of us sat side by side and, without a word, watched the sunset soak down into the lake and the moon rise above it. The blue moon that could never be fulfilled was held in our hands, but the moon that had risen into tonight's sky was one that could.
Hina stayed quietly against my shoulder—so quietly it was hard to believe that, only a little while ago, she had been charging in without a brake, like she might cause a wreck. Feeling her easy breathing and the warmth traveling through my shoulder, I leaned back into the chair as well.
By the time the moon had filled the night sky, and both Hina's glass and my beer bottle had shown their bottoms, footsteps approached from outside the terrace.
The moment Miru stepped into the moonlight, Hina peeled away from me as if nothing had happened. She startled, lifted her shoulder off mine, and in an instant retreated to the far end of the seat and sat bolt upright.
"Haa... You weren't picking up, so I figured you'd slipped off somewhere."
Miru stood beyond the window with both hands shoved in her pockets, looking in at us. Her eyes moved back and forth between the two empty glasses and the two of us, sitting at an awkward distance.
"Hey, Hina. You didn't forget you've got a night schedule today, did you? There's training first thing tomorrow, too."
Hina hurriedly looked away, as if scrambling for an excuse.
"Ah, I know! I was just about to head out! I was only gonna rest for a second, I'm telling you!"
Her flustered voice circled the empty air. Miru clicked her tongue, then tapped the glass lightly with a finger and shifted her gaze toward me. Hina's resentful stare—her whole evening wrecked by the uninvited guest—and Miru's sharp glare poured onto me at the same time.