30. [4:00 pm]
30. [4:00 pm]
".....Fuck."
Thwack.
She kicked the blanket.
"Fucking bastard."
Thwack. Thump.
She kicked the blanket repeatedly.
She saw a bit of cotton poking out.
"What, he think he's something? Fuck. Got nothing going for him, pathetic, a loser, and his stats are total shit compared to mine!"
Thwaaaaaack!
A blanket-kick delivered with all her strength.
Any ordinary blanket would have torn clean through, but for better or worse, this was a specially made blanket—aside from a bit of cotton coming loose, it was perfectly fine.
"Huuuuu... fuck...!"
Mars flopped down, hurling her body onto the blanket.
Then she curled up and rolled back and forth.
[Let's hang out on Saturday]
"..........."
A voice that suddenly spread through her head.
That guy's voice. That bastard's eyes.
Looking at me, like he was handling a kid weaker than him, like back when I was little and Mama used to look after me...
...No, it was a little different from that.
"Ooh... y-y-you asshole...!!"
What's wrong with you, you crazy heart.
It's been ages since I finished my workout, so why're you suddenly trying to race again?
'Ah, maybe it's that?'
That the more I thought about it, the angrier I got?
Thinking that way actually made sense.
That bastard was so fucking annoying.
Every single thing he did was pathetic, ridiculous, and so utterly absurd that, really—
I was so pissed off that I even remembered exactly what clothes that bastard wore when he first knocked me down—well, not exactly...
Truth was, I'd forgotten a few parts...
...But still, I prided myself on remembering most of it.
'And yet I get people's names mixed up.'
Still, that... what was it?
"Yu.... Utopia?"
That bastard stuck next to that sly bitch Minerva.
And the shorty stuck next to him.
Truthfully, she still didn't know most of the names of the kids in her class.
By that standard, remembering Yuno's or Chrono's names was quite the exception.
And in Chrono's case, well, how should she put it...
".....Uuuuu.."
First off, a total dumbass.
A pushover bastard.
A shiiiiit bastard.
...A really, really really bad bastard.
".....Heuhet."
Just thinking about him—
"Heu.... no, I shouldn't be like this.... heuhet..."
—made the corners of her lips loosen against her will.
"........Hup!"
Sssssmack!
She slapped both cheeks with her palms.
A sharp, spicy sting. Thanks to that, the tension seemed to return to her slacking facial muscles.
'This is... all because I'm lying down.'
They say when the body gets comfortable, the mind tries to get comfortable too—this was happening because she'd settled her body down comfortably.
She got up from her spot and leaned her back against the wall.
Let's not lie down. Let's not lie down, she told herself.
"Hmm......"
She stared blankly around the room.
Above the desk that didn't have a single book on it
sat Tosuni and Jjikjjiki, placed there all alone.
"......Those."
Chrono gave them to me, didn't he.
".............."
Only to me. Two of them.
Only me. Special treatment.
".....Heuhet.."
Ah, seriously.
Please, you goddamn bitch.
She got up from her spot and turned her head away completely.
"Huuuuu... okay."
If the things around her bothered her, then she could just look at the wall.
Admiring her own genius idea, she praised her own brain and sank back into thought.
"............."
But actually staring at the wall just made her feel stuffy.
Just what did she want to do?
Friday evening.
Late at night.
She needed to plan for tomorrow, for what was ahead—
"...But usually, isn't the guy supposed to handle this kind of thing?"
A doubt that suddenly surfaced.
Why was she trying to plan out a date course?
Well, what? She hadn't exactly called it a date, had she?
And in the first place, she wasn't going into this with the mindset of dating that bastard, was she?
There wasn't even a single, tiny, microscopic shred of her trying to look good or anything like that, was theeeeeere?
"You stupid bitch. This is the path you chose."
Regrettably, she'd handed over the ticket herself.
A game she'd applied for first. There was no choice but to see it through to the end with sheer grit and tenacity.
Well, for the great Mars, this trifling thing was easier than whipping up a 3-minute meal.
"I've done plenty of dates with Papa."
So, you know.
What you'd call a date, well...
[My daughter, how about some sparring for the first time in a while?]
[Uryaaaaaah!!]
When they first met, they'd share blades warmly.
[Keu...! Nothing beats sundae-guk after a good sweat!]
[Yeah! It's delicious!]
After it was all over, they'd knock back a hot bowl of gukbap.
[My daughter, it's about time to change your bandages, yeah?]
[Papa... you're so good at this!]
Lightly check over weapons or equipment condition.
[My daughter, you know Papa always loves you, right?]
[Good night, Papa! I love you!]
A kiss on the cheek before bed.
".....Huh?"
Was something... a bit off?
Something was juuuust a little...
She got the feeling that something was juuuuuust a tiny little bit off...
"............."
She slowly opened her phone.
Normally, she'd curse SNS as stuff for the weak, something for flocking meerkats to do—
[How to date]
".....Hieeeeek...!"
But apparently, when it came to male-female relationships—
"This shit is... a date?"
—she seemed to be about the level of a mealworm, beneath even a meerkat.
Meerkat. A mealworm, lower than that.
She was. Mealworm.
Wriggle wriggle.
Crunchy and crisp.
Bursting with juices.
"....Shit."
Mealworm.
She was a mealworm.
A mealworm crawling on the ground.
"Fuh... no, I'm phucked."
Mars's self-objectification concluded in an instant.
At this rate, the only future awaiting her was one where she'd show Chrono mealworm twerking.
To somehow escape mealworm status and become at least a meerkat with some rouge on its eyes, she began frantically searching for information.
[Dating — Do This and You'll Succeed!]
"...For real?"
She watched dating lectures.
[I... love you.]
"Ohhh....."
She watched a bit of a romance drama.
[And so, when you insert it like this, the G-spot gets stimulated and—]
".....Gulp."
She, well, dabbled with a bit of finger-work.
...
..
.
"......Hieeeeek?!"
6:00 AM.
She'd pulled an all-nighter straight through.
Wha... what to do?
Neotube Love Master [Nurse Fairy☆Nurse] had said that you absolutely must get good sleep the night before a date?
"N... no. It's fine."
Sure. Of course it was fine.
After all, she had pretty good skin, didn't she?
Athletic skin, tempered by exercise, didn't die easily.
If she could somehow cover it up with makeup— wait, what, she didn't even know how to put on makeup...!
"Wh-what do I do? Even to Papa...."
No.
That, at least, she couldn't do.
The hand holding the phone just froze—stopped dead.
There was only one reason.
"...Double-barrel shotgun."
If she said she wanted to somehow put on makeup to meet Chrono, he'd instantly grab a double-barrel shotgun and blow a huge hole through Chrono's stomach.
Even if it wasn't that, knowing how much he loved her, she sensed instinctively that the moment she said one wrong word, Chrono's life would get sliced like K/r/o/n/o.
'That guy. He's more of a dumbass than you'd think.'
She'd said he could die just from the strength of her grip.
Papa could probably kill him with just the tip of his fingernail.
"Then.... Mama, I guess?"
Right. Mama, at least, would take my side....
[Mars, listen to your mother—]
[Forget it! Mama... I hate Mama most in the world!]
[Mars!!!]
".....Hik..!"
...Take her side, my ass.
Before leaving for the Academy, she'd thrown away all the things Mama had packed for her like a dog and stormed out, ruining their relationship entirely.
She'd practically hurled half the stuff and left, hadn't she?
Thinking back on it now, she was just a dumb, dumb idiot, a total mess.
'Back then... I should've taken all that stuff...!'
The cosmetics, the perfumes, the clothes dripping with feminine charm—
Mama had tried so hard to pack them for her, but she was the one who'd rejected it all, saying she didn't want any of it.
"..........Ha."
Was there a separate word for utter, dog-like annihilation?
She plopped down right there and blamed her past self.
"Like a stupid bitch... no, you're just stupid...."
Stupid...
Even when given, incapable of being fed—this stupid mealworm grand bitch...!
"....Huuuuuuu."
About 10 minutes of self-blame.
Mars slowly got up and made a resolution.
"If I'm late, then I'm late."
Even now, she'd do her best.
The meeting time was around 2 PM anyway.
Whether Chrono intended it or not, there was enough time to buy various clothes and cosmetics.
"F-first... first of all....."
Let's go outside.
Go outside, and after leaving the Academy?
"Cosmetics. Clothes. Hair."
She knew herself that trying to also handle nails, earrings, and accessories was too much.
If she tried to handle all that, she'd probably achieve neither and end in ruin.
Selection and concentration.
Right.
"Selection and concentration."
The nurse had said so.
Life is selection and concentration, and dates are also selection and concentration, she'd said.
If you can't have it, be bold and give it up.
The parts you can seize, seize them with certainty.
Mars got up immediately and ran out of the Academy wearing just her training clothes.
That time was around 6:20 AM.
After literally running out without even wiping the sleep from her eyes—
[8:00 AM Store Open]
"Ah, fuck....!"
Regrettably, the stores opened at 8.
Even the fastest one was 8 AM.
Most opened at 9, and some even at 10.
"What the hell's so leisurely about this?"
You hate making money or what? Be a little quick about it! Hey! Live diligently, dammit!
Ultimately, she spent an hour just shaking her legs and spitting curses, waiting.
"Customer... is that you?"
"You're here!"
"Eep."
When someone who looked like the store manager approached, she immediately grabbed them by the shoulder and asked.
"Makeup!"
"Excuse me?"
"Please do my makeup!"
"......Eeeh..."
Of course, they were flustered at first.
"I... have to go on a date.... but I don't know how to do makeup...!"
".......Is that so."
[Nurse] had said.
If you lack feminine power, honestly admit it and seek help.
Since they dealt with cosmetics, the store manager would surely be sincere about makeup.
Before the lion with overwhelming feminine power, Mars—a mere mealworm—bowed her head.
What she gained from doing so was—
"This... is me...?"
"For payment, I'll just take the cost of the cosmetics."
A full makeup setup that began while there were no customers around.
Soon, as if having grasped the situation already, the store manager spoke to Mars.
"You see that intersection over there? If you turn left and keep going straight, you'll see a bakery, right? Turn right there and there's a hair salon that does really good work."
"....Thank you, master!"
A strange sense of kinship.
So this was—'feminine power'?
Mars immediately stormed into the hair salon and went through the exact same steps as before.
"I have to go on a date! Please save me!"
"Customer? Did you have a reservation, by chance?"
There was a small hiccup along the way.
"I'm an Academy Student Cadet!"
"....Please come this way."
Brushing off something like that effortlessly was the position of a Student Cadet.
And soon, even her hair got a full setting.
"You see the big building behind us? If you go up to the 3rd floor, there's a women's clothing store."
"Thank you, master!"
She followed the mannequin in the clothing store and dressed exactly the same, and the result was—
[11:30 am]
"....Hoo."
By the time she arrived at the Academy,
there was more than two hours of spare time left until the meeting time.
"This is what you call a human triumph."
Mars learned many things today.
She learned 'feminine power,'
she learned the importance of 'makeup,' 'clothes,' 'accessories,'
and she also learned how beautiful she could become when she took care of herself....
"....I'm hungry."
After casually emptying a bowl of ramen into her starved stomach, having skipped breakfast—
"Augh.... sleepy...."
Sleep crept in, partly from having pulled an all-nighter.
Truthfully, getting up in the morning was hard enough that she skipped morning workouts every time, so moving around like this—how to put it—it was like succumbing inexorably before gravity.
"Just... juuust, 1 hour only....."
Ultimately, unable to overcome the exhaustion and fatigue, she closed her eyes.
"....Nn.... mm..."
When she suddenly came to, she felt so refreshed,
her mind clear, and she had the feeling of having slept extremely well.
"................"
She'd just woken up and had no thoughts yet,
but right when a peculiar feeling of 'I'm fucked' began to fill her—
".........Ah."
Mars looked at the clock.
[4:00 pm]
"Fuck."
4:00 PM.
[6 Missed Calls]
[12 Unread Messages]
"I'm phucked."
Two hours past the meeting time.
A lateness for which no excuse could be made.