The Bartender Fox's Salty Dog
"Puhahaha! Oh my god, I can't take this!"
Rin folded herself clean over the counter, clutching her stomach as the laughter burst out of her. One slender finger shot out, rigid, straight at Hina.
"Hey, Hina! Did you hear that?! Bartender oppa just put up a total wall against you! He's dumping salt all over that childish little game of yours! Ahahaha — I am officially done with stress for the day!"
At Rin's words, the eyes that had been watching me with such easy confidence a moment before lost their place and froze.
"Eh...? S-salt...? A wall...?"
For a magical girl who had only ever known dazzling spotlights and roaring cheers, a gentle, composed rejection coming back across the counter was clearly a situation she had never calculated for.
"That's so meeean! Hina looked at you all pretty like that, and what comes back is a wall crusted in salt!"
Hina puffed both cheeks out and seized the rocks glass sitting on the counter.
"Fine. Let's see just how salty it really is. If it tastes bad, I'm actually going to hate you."
She shot me one sulky glare, then set her lips to the rim where the white salt crystals clung. The coarse salt must have struck the tip of her tongue first — her face pinched — but the moment a cold, bright rush of grapefruit pushed through the gaps in the salt, thick and sweet, both her eyes flew wide.
"...Ah."
Hina drew the glass from her lips on a startled little breath. Across the white cheeks that had been swollen with grievance, a pleased flush began to spread.
"What the... You said you were putting up a wall, but in the end you made it this sweet for me."
She caught the salt glittering along her lip and licked it away with the tip of her tongue. Then she drew her upper body a little farther over the bar, and her gaze tangled with the space behind the counter again — more blatant than before. Past the gothic-lolita dress, the pretty curl of her mouth held a far deeper interest than it had a moment ago.
I wiped the small droplets scattered across the bar with a clean towel and answered in an even voice.
"Well. A Salty Dog is a cocktail you're meant to drink with salt on the rim. That's why it's called that. This 'salt countermeasure' you're talking about — I wouldn't know anything about that."
At my perfectly deadpan reply, the hand around the glass went still.
"Eeeeh?! L-liar! A second ago you were definitely teasing me about idioms and figures of speech!"
A full bloom of injustice rose over Hina's pale face.
"That's cheap! When I push, you put up a soft little wall, and the second I call you on it you slip away on cocktail trivia?! Oppa, you're a total fox!"
Her lips jutted in a pout, but her hand still clutched the Salty Dog I had mixed for her. The savory bite of coarse salt lingered at her mouth, and right behind it the thick sweetness of grapefruit softly wet the root of her tongue. She could pretend to push it away all she liked; the charm of salt and juice was apparently fatal enough that she couldn't deny a cocktail made exactly to her taste.
"So unfair... Oppa, you're really mean."
In the end she put her lips to the glass again and drank down the red juice. Under the grumbling, resentment had far less weight than a strange, restless curiosity. Through the clear glass, the eyes looking up at me chased the me behind the counter far more stubbornly than before.
"Hey, Hina! You hearing this?! You're tap-dancing right in the palm of Bartender oppa's hand! What are you gonna do? That precious hundred-point flirting of yours doesn't work on the owner of a little rest stop in the mountains?"
Rin needled her with obvious glee, tore a long strip from the salt bread I had set out, and popped it into her mouth.
"Mmm — wow, this bread is insane."
The crisp crust and the moist bloom of butter must have spread across her tongue; both of Rin's eyes sparkled with pleasure.
"Seriously, what is this café? The cocktails are crazy, and the desserts are this good too! I actually want to ditch my lodging and pay rent to live on the second floor."
While Rin, drunk on the salty, savory bread, rambled on with idle nonsense, the distance in front of the counter closed again. Ice clinked in the empty glass as Hina leaned her body tight toward me. The white of her, wrapped in the frills of that gothic-lolita dress, tipped precariously over the bar.
"...Fine. If you're going to play dumb and act like a fox, then Hina isn't giving up either."
She lightly wiped her red, wet lips with a slender finger. The orange eyes looking up at me didn't flinch; they caught my gaze head-on. A sweet breath threaded with fruit juice came close enough to reach behind the counter. Stripped of the forced cuteness, a magical girl's strange competitive fire showed plain on her face.
"You can sprinkle salt and slip away for now, but later I'm going to make you say it with your own mouth — that Hina is the sweetest. You ready for that?"
"I'll look forward to it, Hina."
I let a light smile touch my mouth and gathered the glasses and plates the two of them had emptied. Turning, I lifted the faucet at the sink, and a cool stream poured down. I had just picked up the sponge to wash the white crust of salt clinging to the rim of the rocks glass, and the red grapefruit pooled at the bottom, when a clear bell rang from the entrance of the rest stop.
Right on its heels, the unhurried click of heeled shoes struck the floor — a sound that changed the air of this drowsy space all at once.
"...While this kitty was wrestling that damned pile of budget paperwork, this rest stop that ought to be quiet has gone completely pink."
It was Miss Shinano, in a jersey maid uniform without a speck of dust on it. She swayed her tail slowly behind her and swept a sharp look down the backs of the two magical girls pressed tight to the bar. The moment that cold presence touched them, Hina's shoulders — she had been stretched over the counter, winking at me — went rigid.
"Ah, huh...? S-Senior Shinano...?"
The bold momentum with which she had been trying to twist me around her finger evaporated in an instant. Hina hurriedly straightened and half-lifted herself off the chair. Her face said she had never once calculated on meeting the legendary great senior — the one who had already been flying through the sky back when Hina herself was a baby — in a lonely little mountain rest stop like this. Her round orange eyes wandered, with nowhere to land.
"Happy Trigger. Yesterday you said your mood was the worst, stuck chasing the tails of those tacky Aberrations. One sweet cocktail from the bartender, and the fatigue is gone without a trace, nyang?"
Miss Shinano strolled over at her ease, pulled out the chair beside the frozen Hina, and sank into it languidly.
"If you've got time to wag your tail in here, how about giving that noisy minigun of yours one more once-over, nyang? Every time I look at the ammunition receipts you file, I feel my spine bending, nyang."
"Eek...! I-if you'd just give me a chance to explain...!"
Hina flapped both hands, at a complete loss. The bold provocation — later she would make me say with my own mouth that she was the sweetest — shattered under a single cool jab from her great senior. And the sparks, as if it were only natural, jumped to Rin, who had been mumbling salt bread.
"And Katsune Rin."
The moment Miss Shinano's gaze turned on her, the jaw that had been chewing with puffed cheeks stopped dead.
"You pulled that nasty customer stunt yesterday, ran off, and crawled back up here again, nyang? Using your junior as a shield, no less, nyang. What a fine example of a senior, nyang."
"C-cough! N-no! A shield?!"
Rin thumped her chest and forced out a desperate excuse in a choking voice.
"Hina whined that she wanted to come, so I had no choice but to show her the way, I'm telling youuu!"
Even against the juniors' tearful excuses, Miss Shinano only gave a small snort and tapped the bar lightly with her fingertips.
"Well, fine, nyang. This place was made for tired magical girls to rest, anyway, nyang. I'll let it go, so long as you don't get noisy enough to ruin this kitty's peaceful break, nyang."
She leaned back against the chair with her posture still perfectly straight and turned her gaze toward me, standing at the sink behind the counter.
"You too — make this kitty a martini as wickedly cold as yesterday's, nyang. My neck's stiff from wrestling paperwork all morning, nyang."
"You know perfectly well we don't serve alcohol during the day, Miss Shinano. Those glasses Rin and Hina drank were only alcohol-free mocktails that copied the color."
At the calm answer I offered while drying my hands on a towel, the shoulders that had so confidently demanded a martini flinched.
"Tch."
Even the tail that had been swaying at its leisure behind her drooped limply beneath the chair.
"It's a rule this kitty made, so I can't even pick a fight over it, nyang."
Regret dripped from her voice. Miss Shinano tapped the bar with a slender finger and let out a thin sigh.
"Nothing for it, nyang. Then I'll have to pour caffeine into my veins instead of alcohol, nyang. Iced Americano, lots of ice, four extra shots, nyang."
It was while Miss Shinano was compromising with bitter reality and ordering a merciless dose of caffeine that, from the seat beside her, a girl's cry burst out — denying reality in an entirely different sense.
"Eeeeh?! W-wait a second! This really wasn't alcohol?!"
Hina's orange eyes went round with betrayal. The brilliant color, the convincing garnish, and a glass I had carefully mixed myself behind the counter — fruit juice and sparkling water — and pushed across to her. From her side of things, she had clearly been convinced it was a cocktail with alcohol in it.
"First you show me how salty it is, and now you've tricked Hina twice with fake liquor?!"
As if the injustice were too much to bear, she slapped the bar with both white palms.
"Hina was totally drunk on the mood, acting all cute for you!"