The Guest Who Came for Her Dark History, and the Gothic Lolita Girl
The next day.
I came down to the first floor as I always did and opened the windows. The moment the cold morning air of the mountains poured into the café, it felt as though the space that had been thick with liquor and laughter the night before was being washed clean.
Once the place had aired out, I swept the floor, wiped the counter, and cleared away the empty glasses I'd stacked the day before. Then I spent the morning making snacks for the magical girls to eat.
Shinano still hadn't arrived, and thanks to that I could finally change the music drifting from the speakers. In place of idol songs from ten years ago, I put on quiet jazz that suited the café's wooden floors and the view of the lake. As the piano began to fill the room at an unhurried pace, the space seemed, at last, to breathe the way it ought to.
If Shinano found out she would certainly have something to say about it, but I decided I would worry about that when she got here.
The jazz compilation had just about come full circle when a sound reached me from the entrance. It was not Shinano's leisurely tread. Two sets of footsteps, and two voices. One belonged to the magical girl who had made her dark history in this café yesterday and fled. The other was a bright, bouncing tone I had never heard before.
When the sanctuary door opened, the first thing to catch my eye was a girl I had never seen. She wore a doll-like dress, and her silver twin tails swayed lightly with every step she took. Skin so pale it seemed never to have known sunlight, eyes that drew the gaze in a strange way, and a gothic lolita outfit fitted perfectly to her body. Simply by setting foot inside, she seized the atmosphere of the café in a single breath.
A splendor that was also a lethal kind of cute—was that the way to put it? Her presence ran in an entirely different direction from Katsune's.
And beside her stood Katsune, who yesterday had been sprawled over the bar table in a pure-white shrine maiden's robe, searching for a demon. Unlike last night she was in street clothes, a flashy black jacket over a crop top, but the magical girl who performed in front of cameras was nowhere to be found. She kept sneaking glances at me, hovering awkwardly in the doorway. No matter how I looked at her, it was hard to believe this was the same person who had strode in on the first day with her heels ringing against the floor.
"Ah, ahaha... H-hello... Yesterday I was just really on edge because of my schedule..."
Katsune's face had gone bright red as she laughed awkwardly, but her eyes were locked, desperately, on one corner of the table—toward the designer handbag she had flung aside and abandoned when she fled yesterday. A tearful smile, doing everything it could to paper over a dark history pickled in last night's alcohol.
I inclined my head lightly from behind the counter.
"Welcome. I've kept your handbag safe."
I saw Katsune's shoulders draw in, ever so slightly.
Beside her, the gothic lolita girl—who had been looking around the sanctuary as if everything in it were fascinating—opened her mouth in that bright, bouncing voice.
"Wooow, this really is the middle of nowhere in the mountains, huh?"
Her silver twin tails swayed every time she turned her head.
"Katsune-senpai begged and begged me to come with her, so I did, but this isn't so much a sanctuary as a café with a seriously amazing atmosphere!"
The girl looked over the wooden floor, the counter, and the lake beyond the window, then nodded as if satisfied.
"Hehe~ I thought it'd be all gloomy, but the backdrop actually goes pretty well with Hina's fashion sense, doesn't it?"
A gothic lolita outfit, silver twin tails, and that confident way of speaking on top of it all. I didn't need to look any further to guess this magical girl's personality.
"Anyway, Bartender Oppa, you're pretty handsome, aren't you?"
And the corner of her mouth curled up, full of mischief.
"Senpai said she drank some killer liquor here yesterday and cried her eyes out. Is that truuue?"
The air in the café froze for an instant.
"H-Hina!!"
Katsune yelped and clamped both hands over Hina's mouth.
"Will you be quiet?! When did I ever cry!"
But Hina lightly shook her hands off and giggled. The quiet mountain sanctuary, where gentle jazz had been flowing, grew noisy in an instant with the arrival of the two magical girls.
"They do say that whatever wrong you commit while drunk is acquitted once morning comes."
I went on, a soft smile at my lips.
"And... I happen to be very good at keeping my mouth shut."
At those words, Katsune's tightly drawn shoulders dropped as if by magic.
"Haaaa..."
A sigh of relief, as if drawn up from the depths of her soul, slipped long between her lips. The cold sweat on her brow smoothed away. Then, as if she had never been tense at all, she straightened her back and cleared her throat.
"S-see! Hina! You heard that loud and clear, right?! As if I'd cry!"
Katsune turned toward the girl beside her.
"I just... that's right! Those damn shikigami wore me out a tiiiny bit, so I was lying politely face-down on the table, that's all! I'm a star magical girl, you know. There's no way I'd make a drunken scene!"
The person who, moments ago, had been trembling like an aspen and watching my every reaction was gone. Katsune quickly put the strength back into her voice and snatched up her flashy handbag with perfect confidence. At that shameless, and yet somehow pitiful, change of stance, I could only swallow a bitter smile. The image of her crawling across the table yesterday, wailing Demon, pleaaase take my soul, rose vivid in my mind—but I had promised, and I kept my mouth firmly shut.
Hina, on the other hand, had been bursting with anticipation, and now she puffed her cheeks out round and voiced her dissatisfaction.
"Eeeh~ What the heck. Totally boring. Hina climbed this awful mountain path in heels because she was expecting Senpai to crawl around on the floor writing her dark history, you know!"
She tapped her chin with a finger, looking disappointed. But her eyes soon sparkled with curiosity again, and she began to look around the café—the quiet jazz, the wooden counter, the lake beyond the window—until her gaze came back to me, standing behind the counter.
Hina approached with light steps and hopped up onto a stool at the counter. She crossed her smooth legs beneath her frilled skirt, propped her chin in both hands, and looked up at me.
"Well, fine! I'm glad you're the type who keeps his mouth shut. Hina absolutely cannot stand a man who runs his mouth."
Her eyes were shining with curiosity.
"Then, tight-lipped, kind Bartender Oppa! Will you make something super cute and sweet for Hina too? Something that totally suits Hina, and looks pretty in photos!"
Only then did Katsune come over with a noticeably lighter step and plop down in the seat beside her.
"Haa... this exhausting girl..."
After a deep sigh, she turned toward me.
"Bartender Oppa, I'd like something sweet too. Not with alcohol in it like last night—something actually normal and pretty. A dessert."
I looked at the two magical girls sitting side by side at the counter. Silver twin tails over a gothic lolita dress, and long black hair over a black jacket, hanging down together. Something cute and sweet, and something normal and pretty. I turned toward the espresso machine behind the counter and began thinking through the menu.
"Yes... I'll prepare something flashy and pretty for the two of you. And something worthy of commemorating this meeting."
I turned slightly toward the display case and took out two cocktail glasses. A bartender pulling glasses in broad daylight—both of their expressions turned subtly strange at once. I could see the same question rise over both pairs of eyes: Is he giving us alcohol already?
I offered a light smile and got to work. For a base I took lime juice with a flavor reminiscent of tequila. Once the lime was laid in each glass, I mixed cranberry into one and grapefruit into the other. On the cranberry side a deep, rich red settled; on the grapefruit side a bright, refreshing orange spread. To finish, I garnished the rim of each glass with thin slices of grapefruit and cranberry.
And one thing more. From among the desserts I had baked that morning, I chose a lemon pound cake that would gently soften the lime's bitterness, sliced it into easy bites, and set the pieces side by side on a plate.
I carefully slid the two glasses—layered with care so the red and the orange formed a beautiful gradient—across the counter. The cheerful sound of clear ice clinking inside them rang pleasantly through the quiet café. Cold droplets beaded on the glass and glittered under the lights, and the fresh, sweet butter scent of the just-baked lemon pound cake mingled with the lime and brushed pleasantly past the tip of my nose.
"An icebreaker, made with cranberry and grapefruit the very color of your eyes. A cocktail to commemorate our meeting."
I nudged the plate of pound cake a little closer beside the glasses.
"And this is a lemon pound cake, to gently soothe any bitterness in your mouth."
The two girls, who had flinched for a moment at the thought of being served alcohol in broad daylight, began to change expression in all sorts of ways.
"Wooow! It's so pretty!"
Hina's eyes sparkled as if they had turned into hearts. The moment she saw the cocktail glass holding the deep vermilion of grapefruit, she clasped her hands together and let out a cheer. True to a junior of an idol magical girl, the instinct of a girl who loved flashy, trendy things seemed thoroughly stirred.
"You matched it to our eye color? Bartender Oppa, your sense is seriously insane! I've gotta post this on my secret account right now, not the broadcast one~ Katsune-senpai, hurry and get your phone out! We have to take pictures!"
Hina laughed brightly, pulled a smartphone from her handbag in a flash, and began photographing the glasses and the cake from every angle.
Katsune's reaction, sitting beside her, was a little different in texture. She quietly looked down at the clear glass, where the color of cranberry—so like her own ruby eyes—spread in a soft glow.
"...You really do have a talent for embarrassing people."
Even as she pouted, Katsune couldn't hide the faint smile spreading at the corners of her mouth. The shoulders that had been drawn tight over yesterday's incident loosened, and over the face of the flashy magical girl rose the face of an ordinary, comfortable girl. She lightly took the stem of the glass and swallowed a sip.
"Ah..."
A short sigh escaped. Then she cut the lemon pound cake with her fork and put it in her mouth.
"It's... really good."
Instead of collapsing onto the table and wailing like yesterday, this time she sat properly at the counter, savoring the dessert with grace, and let out an honest impression.
Hina, too, quickly took a sip of the grapefruit cocktail, then opened her eyes round and licked her lips.
"It really is! Bartender Oppa, it's not just your face that's handsome—your skills are seriously the best! I think I finally get why Katsune-senpai staggered up the mountain path in high heels yesterday!"
"H-hey! Hina! Who crawled up here! And I did not stagger!"
When Katsune flushed and snapped again, Hina stabbed a piece of lemon pound cake with her fork, held it up to Katsune's mouth, and laughed playfully. Amid the gentle flow of jazz, the fresh scent of fruit and the girls' light back-and-forth warmed the morning air of the sanctuary.
Hina, who had been pleasantly sipping her grapefruit cocktail, licked a bit of fruit juice from her lips with the tip of her tongue and stared straight at me. Her eyes glittered strangely and intensely—like a predator that had found its prey, or a girl who had come face to face with the person fate had chosen for her. It was clearly a different kind of look from the bouncing playfulness of a moment ago.
She lifted her glass, leaned her upper body out over the counter, and closed the distance in an instant. As the eyes looking up at me through her silver twin tails drew near, a trace of perfume mixed in among the fruit and reached the tip of my nose.
"Ehehe, Oppa, you're the one who called it an icebreaker, right?"
Compared to the playful voice, her gaze was fixed on me.
"The ice is broken, so I want us to get a lot closer! You said there aren't many customers here anyway, right? So from now on, just call me Hina, nice and casual!"
As she lightly shook her silver twin tails and let out a sweet, nasal coo, the confidence of a flashy magical girl and the precarious look of a girl desperately hungry for affection were strangely mixed together. We had only just met, and yet Hina's charge straight ahead was like a sports car with the brakes cut.
At that blatant, unrestrained display of interest, Katsune—who had been quietly savoring her lemon pound cake beside her—nearly dropped her fork in shock.
"H-Hina?! What are you doing to a bartender oppa you just met! You're pulling that weird love-at-first-sight stunt again, aren't you?! N-no! If you cause a scene here, the Association President is going to take my head off right along with yours!"