The Crimson Spumoni and the Weight of Leadership
Under Miru's sharp grilling, Hina couldn't even keep an excuse going. She rose with her lips pushed out in a pout, sneaking wary little glances at Miru.
"You gonna scram or not? Move it before I kick your ass out the door!"
Miru jabbed a finger toward the entrance and snapped the words out short.
Hina let her disappointment show for a beat—then, as if she'd never been sulking at all, she turned my way and tossed me a bright wink.
"Oppa, I'll definitely come back later!"
The moment she vanished outside with that cheerful goodbye, Miru finally let out a short sigh and stepped into the bar. She trudged over and dropped heavily into the chair in front of the counter where I stood. Hands shoved deep in her pockets, she crossed her legs in a delinquent slouch—miniskirt or not—and tapped one foot in the air.
"Haa... seriously, I can't take my eyes off her. I'm raising a kid here. A whole damn kid."
The razor edge she'd worn while glaring at Hina like she meant to eat her alive was gone without a trace. Exhaustion written all over her face, Miru let her upper body collapse onto the counter. Her red hair caught the soft light and spilled in a messy scatter across the wood. Still face-down, she turned her head just enough to look up at me—eyes that usually flashed with wariness, now plainly worn out.
"You've had a rough one. Want a drink to take the edge off? Miss Shinano said not to serve alcohol unless you're transformed, but the bar just got a fresh remodel, so something non-alcoholic—or at least low-proof—ought to be fine."
Miru stayed draped over the counter and stared straight up at me. Her languid gaze drifted slowly across the ornate European lighting and the display cases of the newly refined bar.
"Doesn't even run the place, and she's still cracking the whip that hard..."
She grumbled under her breath and shifted in her seat. Half-buried in the arms she'd stretched across the counter, her voice came out muffled.
"Well, since you went and redid the place anyway, I'll have a drink. Something low-proof. And not bitter like an execution draught..."
The bitterness of that last ristretto triple shot must have been branded into her memory; she stressed it again like a warning. Then she cracked her stiff neck from side to side and let out a small groan.
"Haa, for real. I don't get why every last one of my teammates only grabs a ranged weapon. That Hina brat sprays her brainless minigun and wanders off somewhere else, and the rest of them just cause wrecks from the back. Me running around up front covering for all of them—that's not a one- or two-day thing."
Miru spilled her complaints, folded both arms on the counter, and rested her chin on them. The weariness of a leader dragging along teammates who never stopped making trouble clung to every languid breath she took.
"Right. One drink for our tired leader... and a little something to go with it."
This time, instead of a shaker, I took out a tall highball glass and filled it with ice. I poured the crimson-tinged Campari first, added grapefruit juice, and stirred gently with a bar spoon so the ice wouldn't clink. Last, I poured the tonic water slowly so the carbonation wouldn't escape, then sank the spoon all the way to the bottom of the glass and mixed it with a light hand.
For the side, I arranged cheese cubes and cream cheese, fresh green grapes, and crackers neatly on a small plate, and set it down beside the glass.
"A Spumoni and a platter. The Spumoni... in other places, it's been voted the number-one cocktail women love most."
Miru's gaze settled on the crimson liquid in the highball glass. As she quietly looked down at the Spumoni glittering under the lights, the faintest blush spread across her cheeks. The words the cocktail women love most seemed to tickle her ear; her shoulders gave a small twitch.
"Th-the cocktail women love most...? Ha. You looked at the wrong person. You think this body of mine would fall for the tastes of those fluttery, ordinary girls?"
She grumbled as if snapping at me, and yet her hand had already closed carefully around the glass. She turned the pretty drink—so like her own red hair—this way and that in the light, then brought it cautiously to her lips.
The moment Miru took a sip, her face suddenly scrunched. She hurriedly grabbed a cracker thick with cream cheese and a single green grape from the platter I'd set out, and popped them into her mouth. The fruit's sweetness and the cheese's savory richness gently covered the Campari's distinctive bitter bite, and only then did her rigid shoulders slowly loosen. She chewed, then cleared her throat with a little ahem.
"Well... the color's decent enough, I guess. Tch. A hundred times better than that pitch-black coffee that tasted like poison last time."
Whether the Spumoni had grown on her or not, Miru put her lips to the glass again. This time she didn't startle; she sipped it down smoothly, little by little. Low alcohol, and the grapefruit's brightness cutting the bitterness—just the thing for worn-out fatigue. She picked up another green grape and propped her chin on the counter.
"Seriously, if it weren't for me cleaning up after them, I don't know how any of them would stay alive..."
She kept pouring rough complaints at her teammates, and yet every time a colleague's name left her mouth, a leader's deep affection and sense of responsibility showed through in her voice. Miru leaned back comfortably against the chair.
"Is that so? Hina told me today about what happened at the theater... maybe that's why she was a little more emotional, shall we say?"
At my words, Miru set the Spumoni glass down on the counter with a sharp clack. She tapped the cold droplets beading on the glass with a fingertip, then let out a long, deep sigh.
"Haa... she went and said that kind of thing to you, too? A theater. What is she, some tragic actress now?"
Miru clicked her tongue as if she couldn't believe it, pulled back the hand she'd been reaching toward a cracker, and stared into empty air with her chin on the counter.
"Yeah. That girl Hina swings harder than a stage character. So just like that stupidly huge minigun of hers, the more her emotions run wild, the insanely stronger the firepower she puts out."
Miru's voice dropped a little.
"But she gets that much more dangerous, too. She pulls the trigger without even knowing where the muzzle's pointed, or how her own body's coming apart. Pretty much a truck with the brakes cut, I'd say."
She tapped the counter lightly with her short nails.
"We've got people who can't control themselves posted in the back. Without a shield up front to cover them, our team would've been torn to pieces a long time ago. Somebody has to stand at the very front and split the attacks coming at them. That's the job this body of mine has to do."
It was a complaint spat out bluntly, but I could hear, soaked all through it, the heart of a steadfast older sister—genuinely worried for Hina, sunk in a swamp of emotion and spraying that minigun without restraint.
"Really? So every magical girl has a different way of getting stronger. Mana, the Power of Support... and?"
I let the question trail off carefully, and she shrugged as if I'd asked something obvious.
"Obviously. On the surface we all use mana the same way, but the trigger that makes it explode is different for every person."
Miru bit into a green grape sitting on a cracker and went on.
"Some of them make a contract with a familiar and borrow power that way. Others suddenly get stronger under some specific condition, like the hero of a boys' manga."
She lifted an empty hand and pointed at herself with her thumb. The delinquent slouch straightened a little.
"I'm the exact opposite of that idiot. I don't swing back and forth on a single emotional line. The more teammates I've got watching my back, the stronger I get."
Miru's gaze drifted toward the door Hina had been chased out of earlier. She gave a short laugh, then brought what remained of the Spumoni to her lips.
"Oh... so that's another side of magical girls. Light and shadow existing together... does that make them even cooler?"
The way starlight takes a long time to reach us across the night sky, I felt as if I'd glimpsed another face of the magical girls who shine at the center of the world. At the honest impression that left my mouth, Miru's shoulders jerked. I watched her cheeks flush a faint red, like the grapefruit juice.
"Wh-what kind of cringey crap is that! Light? What light—don't make it gross..."
Miru whipped her gaze away and snapped back bluntly. She took a big swallow of the melting Spumoni, then cleared her throat with a rough cough.
"Well... still, saying we're cooler isn't bad. Hmph. I mean, I am pretty dependable and cool, aren't I."
She pushed the empty glass across the counter, then cracked her neck lightly left and right to loosen the stiff muscle.
"Anyway, all of us are weirdos who strain ourselves shining by leaning on someone, or on something. Like Hina—her emotions have to explode in that brainless way before the minigun really spins. Like Yui—her head has to be packed full of purity before the magic comes blasting hard out of a magical girl's wand. And me—I need the teammates with ranged weapons standing firm behind me."
Miru rose from the chair and shoved both hands back into her pockets.