Public Morals Committee (3)
They had just come from a last stop at home to say their goodbyes before leaving for the dorms.
Noah eyed Chise — who had shown up empty-handed — and asked, puzzled.
"You didn't bring any luggage?"
"Nope. I'll buy whatever I need. What about you, Noah? Is that one thing really all you've got?"
"Same as you."
"Just don't get caught."
"I know."
Noah popped the gun out of its case like it was nothing and slung it over her shoulder. She loaded the empty case into the back seat like a passenger, shut the door, and gave the car a couple of pats. It rolled off and was gone.
"...Noah?"
"What?"
"Shouldn't you hide that?"
Chise glanced around in a panic. Fortunately, class was in session; the grounds around the dorms were empty.
"You really don't know how the world works, Chise."
Even in a world this insane, you still got arrested for walking around with a gun. Assuming, of course, that the gun was real.
Noah fished something from her pocket and jammed it into Ea's muzzle. An orange plug.
"Like this, everybody thinks it's a toy."
"...You're kidding."
"What, you don't believe me?"
"It's not that. Even so, Ea is a real g—"
"And what business do you have here at this hour?"
A severe-looking woman in glasses had appeared. Nakamura, the dormitory warden.
Chise froze solid. Noah, face blank, pointed at the armband on her left arm.
"The Public Morals Committee? Ah. So you weren't sitting in on classes because of organizational matters."
Nakamura pushed her glasses up.
"However. No matter how busy student council work may be, shouldn't you still attend class?"
What's this smell? She's got the stink of a washed-up rookie platoon leader.
A teacher was allowed to say that much. Noah more or less accepted it and ducked behind Chise. Annoying work was Chise's problem.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. We'll just drop our things off and head straight to class."
"And what is that toy gun?"
Chise flinched. Noah answered like she was discussing the weather.
"Hobby."
"Hmm. Not a suitable hobby for a high school girl. I'll be issuing demerits."
"Excuse me?!"
"Saints Academy regulations. A violation of dignity. Is there a problem?"
"N-no. Nothing at all."
It wasn't the demerits that had stunned Chise.
She actually thinks it's a toy gun...!
Chise was genuinely shocked. She hadn't known. Having spent her whole life at the Minamoto clan's side, she had never learned what ordinary common sense looked like.
A normal person saw a high school girl walking around with a gun and thought, Cosplay?Oh, it's a toy.That's cute. Especially if the thing had pink parts and a blob of orange rubber stuck on the muzzle.
Noah, for the record, was currently crouched behind Chise with her wariness on full burn.
A hundred percent. That's a washed-up face. The type that works her ass off for nothing and never gets a single result.
Saints Academy split each grade into classes A, B, C, and D. Students were numbered according to three factors — influence, wealth, and ability. Twenty-five to a class, with whoever was left dumped into D. Draw number fifty-one and you landed in C. That was the idea.
Chise was number one.
Noah was number twelve. A Minamoto maneuver. The clan disliked putting itself on display.
The number was printed on an electronic student ID and updated after every exam. Classes were reshuffled each semester to match. There was no discrimination — Saints was not that cheap a school. The quality of instruction and the curriculum, however, did change from class to class. Tailored lessons. Some students even asked to be demoted because they couldn't keep up, which was why the numbers shifted so often.
Noah's number, for the record, would not change until graduation. If anyone else took twelve, innocent students would start dropping like flies — and would keep dropping until Noah was twelve again. The Saints board knew that, and they did not push their luck. They didn't hand her any special favors either.
"I lost my student ID."
"Noah. Come on. Be a little more careful."
"I'll just get it reissued."
So that's Minamoto Noah.
There was a distinguished personage hiding behind a wall, watching them in secret.
Ichinose Yuria. Third-year, Asano Middle School, Yokohama.
She had one goal today: find a flaw in Minamoto, then use it to stand up and declare, You have no right to sit in that seat! She had even skipped class for this.
That's a face that's never suffered once in her life.
First time seeing her, and Noah's score was already scraping the floor.
I don't like her.
She looked terribly frail. Small, too. The Saints Public Morals Committee actually went out and caught real criminals. Someone that skinny, that pale, that adorab— anyway. She would only get in the way.
So this is what you get for being one of Japan's Four Great Clans? I'll give her this — she's got presence.
Even set beside Fujiwara, who screamed aristocrat just by standing there, she didn't lose. With the two of them walking together, even the air around them felt like it belonged to a different world.
That's so coo—
No. No, no, no.
Yuria whipped her head from side to side. She could not keep finding good points. She strained, gritted her teeth, and hunted for a flaw.
Right. The face.
That dumb-looking face...
The face...
The face...
...was cute.
No. Cute has nothing to do with the Public Morals Committee.
She steeled herself. Did criminals go easy on you because you were cute?
More than that, it was a problem with the Minamoto clan itself. It was a little funny, her of all people saying so — she had no clan power whatsoever — but a chair's strength was the members' strength. And the Public Morals Committee chair usually held the post all three years.
If not now, there would be no chance.
They're on the move.
Yuria slipped from cover to cover and tailed them. They were headed somewhere. Lunch hour, so probably food.
Her stomach growled.
I'm hungry...
She hadn't eaten a single meal today. Not just today — she hadn't eaten last night either. She was dirt poor. The only food she got was the free lunch at middle school. Skip class, and you starved until tomorrow.
A petty thing like that was not allowed to interfere with the operation. She forced the hunger down.
"Where should we eat today?"
"Outside."
"Hm? What about the bento?"
"Mama packed it. There's no meat."
"Ahaha. Being a picky eater isn't good for you."
"I'm not a goat."
Mama? She's not a little kid. And she can't even eat if there's no meat?
Yuria shot Noah a look. Complaining about side dishes when she didn't even know what it meant to go hungry. This was why the filthy rich...
Noah's already rock-bottom score plunged straight through the floor.
"So what should we eat..."
"Don't you want cake?"
"Cake for lunch is a little much, don't you think?"
"Don't you want cake?"
"...You want cake, don't you."
"Not really."
"W-well. I was just in the mood for some myself, actually. Let's just go with that today."
Cake at lunch...? Ha. Must be nice, young ladies.
Unimaginable for a dirt-poor girl like Yuria. And they were casually going out to eat before school was even over. Cake, of all things — the height of luxury.
Yuria ground her teeth, then realized they had pulled ahead and hurried after them.
What are those two doing?
They were just standing there at the crosswalk, staring blankly at the light.
"When's that signal going to change?"
"Must be broken."
It's not broken!
Yuria swallowed a scream. Of course it wouldn't change if you didn't press the button. Could they not see that big red button just begging to be pushed?
"Hmm... maybe we're supposed to press this button here?"
"Don't press it."
"Noah, do you know what that is?"
"Disabled-access button."
"Wow! Noah, you're so smart!"
Yuria took a cultural hit so hard she nearly blacked out. So ordinary people who used traffic lights were no different from the disabled?
She clenched her fists and trembled, dying to knock both their heads.
I have to tell these idiots.
She walked over in silence and pressed the button for them. The light changed at once.
"Oh. The light changed the second you pressed it."
"Coincidence."
"Right?"
"Yeah."
How is that a coincidence?!
Yuria already felt exhausted.
Noah and Chise went into a dessert shop. From the outside it looked extremely expensive. Yuria swallowed, dry.
Should I wait? No. I need more intel. ...I'll go in and order the cheapest thing.
It would be a little awkward, but she was not in a position to be picky. For Yuria, a normal life on the Public Morals Committee was a matter of survival.
"Welcome."
"Hmph. Spare me."
"...I'll show you to a table inside."
"No need. We already have a seat in mind."
Yuria took a table where she could just make out their voices. She skimmed the catalog the waiter set down and put her ears to work.
"By the way, when are you going to recruit members?"
"What a pain."
Noah cut a small bite of cake, popped it in her mouth, and chewed. The girl who had been expressionless the entire time broke into a radiant smile.
Yuria stared, dazed.
She's so cute...
A critical hit, straight through the heart. She had been stacking dislike this whole time, and that one smile melted every last point.
Yuria shook her head hard, trying to throw it off.
The waiter approached her table.
"Excuse me, miss? May I take your order?"
"I was just about to order, thank you. No need to rush me."
Yuria said it with her chin up and looked at the catalog. Then she flipped the pages, breaking into a cold sweat.
...This couldn't be real. What kind of shop charged prices like this? Nothing her wallet could even dream of touching.
A contemptuous voice drifted in from beside her.
"You can flip all you like. We don't have a cheap menu."
Yuria bit her lip.
So I've been flagged as a customer who can't pay.
The waiter had seen right through her. This was the moment you were supposed to say something cool like, I'll take one of everything — but that, unfortunately, was not an option. The wall of reality was a high one.
"...Water."
"Pardon?"
"W-water, please."
"Haa."
As if he had expected as much, the waiter pointed at the door.
"Would you kindly leave?"
"......"
Yuria's face burned with shame.
"Want some cake?"
"!"
When did she—?
Noah was standing in front of her, plate in hand. Fast enough that Yuria hadn't even registered the movement. The target had come to her.
Her heart nearly dropped out of her chest. She pretended it hadn't.
"I-I don't need it."
"That so?"
Noah chewed on cake for a while, then went back to her seat. Chise blinked toward Yuria, then gestured the waiter over and whispered something.
"Yes! Of course!"
The waiter came to Yuria and bowed at a perfect right angle.
"I am truly sorry! Please forgive my rudeness!"
"......"
"As an apology, everything on the menu is on the house today!"
Yuria lowered her gaze. A frayed skirt. Shabby shoes. Cheap athletic sneakers she had bought because she couldn't afford loafers — and even those were falling apart.
Being looked down on. Being pitied. Neither was surprising.
But even if she was a dirt-poor girl who couldn't buy a single slice of cake in a place like this — she had her pride.
"I don't need it."
Her voice was frost. She stood and walked out of the shop.
"...Did I mess up?"
Chise looked uneasy.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Chise. She's the idiot — too busy rolling around in her inferiority complex to take a freebie that fell in her lap."
Noah chewed her cake and stared for a long time at the door Yuria had gone through.