An Unbreakable Heart (3)
The sliding door rattled open. Noah, dressed in a yukata, cracked her eyes into slits.
"Where's Chise?"
"Sh-she just said she was stepping out for a bit..."
Yuria had gone rigid down to her toes. Noah toddled over and sat down primly, and Yuria thought her heart might actually stop. She'd never noticed it when Noah always wore her hair loose, but seeing it braided and pinned up like this—she looked every bit the young lady, and it was devastatingly, heart-stoppingly cute.
...Honestly, I could.
Yuria shook her head hard, flinging the impious thought right out of her skull.
"Did she go see Mama...?"
M-Mama? Senpai, how old are you...!
Even her word choice was so cute that Yuria screamed on the inside. Outwardly, though, she didn't let a thing show. She cleared her throat and asked,
"When should I start the part-time job?"
"Right. Follow me."
Noah clambered up awkwardly and headed off somewhere. The yukata forced her steps into tiny little strides. Yuria clasped her hands behind her back and matched Noah's pace.
"Hm? Young miss!"
"Hey, Cha-cha."
Any yakuza they passed would turn right around at the sight of Noah and offer a proper yakuza bow. Yuria had taken it in stride at first, but her face was going paler by the second. Yakuza family or not, there were just too many of them.
"Young miss! Looks like you've grown a bit!"
"I haven't even grown a centimeter."
"I'm sorry!"
"Pipi. Quit kissing ass and go train."
"Yes, ma'am!"
And then Yuria realized something else.
"Hey, Toad."
"Hey, Snake."
"Hey, Skull."
Noah had every last one of those yakuza's names memorized. Granted, the names were all weird. Yuria looked at her with fresh eyes.
Minamoto-senpai... she's actually really sweet.
It felt like she was getting a glimpse of a whole new side of Noah.
"This way."
She slid open a door.
"...?"
A spacious room. All kinds of things were scattered everywhere.
...Parts?
All sorts of components painted pink. Judging by the shapes, they looked like firearms. The bullets rolling around on the floor confirmed it. The rest of the room was a mess of miscellaneous junk besides. The white bed, in particular, had black oil spilled right across it.
"What... is this place?"
"...My room."
Noah said it timidly.
"Excuse me?"
"This is the cleaning Ichi's supposed to do. Cleaning my room."
Yuria stared at her, speechless.
"Um, senpai? You're supposed to clean your own room."
"Hah? That's women's work."
"You're a girl too!"
"I am not!"
Noah denied it fiercely, covering her chest.
"I'm a real man..."
Yuria decided to stop thinking about it. She sighed and stepped into the room.
"Besides, Minamoto-senpai, you're rich. You could just hire a service for this. A hundred thousand yen would cover ten visits."
"No way."
Noah shut it down instantly.
"First off, only a woman can clean my room. And among women, almost nobody can reassemble this many gun parts."
"...Well, I guess that's true. Wait a second. Why is a high school girl's room packed with firearms?"
Noah picked up a part as if to say, why would you even ask that.
"Because I'm yakuza?"
"That's blatantly illegal!"
"It's not illegal. The Minamoto are allowed to own up to RPGs in Japan."
Yuria put a hand to her chin, her expression grave.
Conglomerates really are something else!
She had clearly gotten the wrong idea. Anyway, once Noah said it wasn't illegal, Yuria just accepted it.
"A woman who knows guns. And among those, someone who isn't scared of the yakuza. Ichi's the perfect fit. Ichi was clearly born to clean my room."
"Nobody is born for a reason like that!"
"Hah? So are you doing it or not? Don't if you don't want to."
Noah whipped her head away—but kept sneaking glances at Yuria. The truth was, she was pretty desperate.
Until now, Suzuki had been in charge of cleaning Noah's room. But panties kept going missing, socks kept vanishing, and it had gotten too creepy to keep using him. Chise would do it in his place, but even Noah couldn't bring herself to dump chores like this on Chise. ...Honestly, she'd tried a few times, gotten caught by Kako, and been chewed out spectacularly.
But Yuria's fine.
Yuria gets to make money, and Noah gets her room cleaned. Everybody wins.
"Ahem. A hundred thousand yen... that's definite, right?"
She asked!
Noah nodded rapidly.
"If it's spotless, I'll throw in another hundred thousand."
Yuria rolled up her sleeves.
Chise walked quickly, her face gloomy. She'd taken a shock so massive it had actually disrupted her daily life—unexpected, or rather, not unexpected at all—but she hadn't forgotten her objective. She had to tell Kako that the cleaning job was a no-go.
"Where did she go?"
"Ah, if you're looking for the little oyabun, she headed toward the inner rooms..."
After asking the nearby yakuza and tracking Noah down, Chise yanked the sliding door open. And there... Yuria was cleaning her heart out.
"Eh."
"Ah, Fujiwara-senpai."
And it wasn't just any cleaning—she was servicing firearms. Chise asked, her face blank.
"...When you said cleaning, did you mean... this?"
"Yes."
She let out a sigh of relief, even as the sheer absurdity of it hit her. ...Of course. No matter how bloodless and tearless Noah was, she would never have a middle schooler do that kind of "cleaning." Chise had believed that from the start. She really had.
"Where's Noah-chan?"
"Minamoto-senpai said she was going to see some creepy old guy."
"Ah, Uncle Genji."
"Uncle Genji?"
"Yeah. Noah's dad."
"......!"
Yuria was stunned. She called her mom Mama, but her dad was a creepy old guy...?
That's so sad!
The poor old guy's room.
Genji gazed steadily at his daughter. The apple of his eye. Every time he saw her, all he could do was marvel at how she'd grown up so beautiful. Two weeks of accumulated fatigue seemed to wash away on the spot.
"Daughter."
"What."
"The dormitory isn't too uncomfortable?"
Noah answered sulkily.
"Not really."
"I worry, you know."
"About what."
"I trust Chise will take good care of you, but you still can't even feed yourself on your own."
Noah's eyebrow twitched.
"I'm not a kid."
From a parent's perspective, nothing was cuter than a child insisting they weren't a child.
"Of course."
But his daughter had a ferocious pride, so he played along. Noah saw right through it and raised her voice a notch.
"Don't treat me like a kid."
"I won't."
Genji stroked Noah's hair.
"Don't be angry."
"...I'm not angry."
Noah settled down. Then she remembered why she'd come.
"Dad."
Genji met her eyes.
"Yes."
Noah said it with complete confidence.
"...Give me allowance."
"Allowance?"
His brow furrowed at the unexpected request. He'd been sure she was going to ask for a tank, or a fighter jet...
"What happened to what I gave you last month?"
"I spent it."
Genji's eyes went wide.
"On what?"
"Ugh, just give it to me without asking."
"Daughter."
Genji was a strict father.
"...I get my allowance from your mother too."
"...Huh?"
Noah was profoundly shocked. A yakuza, of all people... She scowled hard.
"A man has his pride. How do you let a woman take the lead? Dad, that's pathetic."
"...She's not just a woman. She's a Fujiwara."
Even with his own daughter, Genji believed there were things you said and things you didn't. Ordinarily he would have just given in, but this time he delivered the cold, hard truth.
"If you ever get married, who do you think will be managing the money?"
"Me, obviously."
"Daughter."
"Yeah?"
"The Fujiwara are not that easy."
"Hah. You're just a pushover, Dad."
"......!"
Genji was hurt.
Anyway, Noah narrowed her eyes and held out her hand.
"Please just give me my allowance."
Unlike her boldness a moment ago, she'd even switched to polite speech. She had to pay Yuria, and she'd already spent everything.
Truthfully, she wouldn't normally have cared this much. There was a money-printing machine sitting right next to her, after all. But...
If I lean on Chise too much, I'll just become her personal doormat.
Yesterday had been genuinely dangerous. Her heart had crumbled, and she'd nearly turned into a cheap bitch even in broad daylight. She couldn't give any more ground.
What matters is an unbreakable heart!
Her last, solid line of defense. This, at least, she would protect. And to do that, she had to solve the money problem first.
Noah's allowance wasn't particularly generous. Her card had no limit, but... Japan was still analog in a lot of ways. People used cash more often, and her cash allowance wasn't much. She needed it if she was going to pay Yuria.
"...Well, I don't have much money myself..."
Noah's brow furrowed. She'd thought Genji was a real man. Apparently not. A daughter this cute, this pretty, this lovable asks for a little allowance and he says no? What's "no" supposed to mean. Time to squeeze him harder.
"If I lose weight, it's your fault."
"N-no. Daughter. A Minamoto has to eat well for it to turn into nutrients."
"...What? That's how it works for regular people too."
"Anyway, don't even dream of it. You're already falling short of a bulk-up as it is. You think that makes any sense?"
Genji was visibly rattled—a rare sight. Noah seized the moment and held out her hand.
"Then give me allowance."
"......"
Looking grim, Genji stood. He pulled a wallet from somewhere, took out half the bills, and handed them to Noah.
"Here."
Reading Noah's expression, Genji pulled out the rest and pressed those into her hand as well. Noah let out a long sigh.
"Dad."
"......"
Genji couldn't even look his daughter in the eye. Noah looked at him like he was truly pathetic.
"Does it even make sense that Mama handles the money? What does Mama even know how to do."
"...Seventy percent of the Minamoto income comes from Kako."
Noah's mouth snapped shut.
Anyway, she'd gotten what she came for. She stood up. On her way out, having already scored the allowance, she figured she might as well throw in a little extra. Noah spun around with a little twirl and said, just a bit cutely,
Then, mortified, she bolted from the room.
Left alone, Genji stared blankly at the door. A thank-you. Was it even possible for those words to sound that adorable? Genji's heart ached. His daughter, in more ways than one, was hazardous to the heart.
"Dad's broke."
The wallet had held two hundred thousand yen in total. This wasn't some other family—this was the Minamoto. That amount was just embarrassing. You couldn't even buy candy with this.
She was planning to keep giving Yuria jobs and paying her for them, and this was nowhere near enough. ...A middle schooler so hard up she was working at a bar. Two hundred thousand yen wasn't going to make her quit.
...Do I have no choice but to rely on Chise?
She kept counting the money as she brooded. Some vacant part of her brain wondered if counting it over and over might make it multiply.
"Oh my, Noah-chan. What are you doing here?"
"Counting the money I took off Dad."
"I see. Was it enough?"
"No. Dad's pitiful. It's like Mama's got him completely under her thum—"
A terrible suspicion struck her, and Noah turned her head. Kako was standing there, smiling with her eyes.
"Hic."
She actually hiccuped. Noah said, her voice trembling,
"M-Mama, how are you here."
"Noah-chan."
Kako's eyes snapped open.
Scary!
Noah folded instantly. Kako held out her hand. Noah fidgeted, then handed over the money.