Chapter 41: One Thing After Another
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 41: One Thing After Another
After a long, hard deliberation, I asked.
"Do I really have to…"
"Yes. It's a rule at our café."
The black-haired maid standing beside me smiled sweetly as she spoke.
This is insane.
Stressed by the smiling, yet relentless pressure, I turned my head back to the front.
"Pfft."
Sasha, sitting in the chair across from me, was covering her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle her laughter.
Well, I guess the thought of a muscular giant over 180 cm tall making a heart with his hands and chanting something like "Moe Moe Kyun" is hilarious to imagine.
The problem was that I was the one who had to do it.
After some thought, I decided to just get it over with quickly and eat. It seemed better for my mental health to do it while there were fewer eyes on me.
I’d made up my mind, but when I actually tried to say it, the words wouldn't come out.
"Hoo, haa."
I took a deep breath to relax my tense body, and then, finally, I spoke the words.
"M-Moe Moe Kyun."
Kuaaaaaaaargh!
"You may begin your meal now."
Only then did the maid step back, a satisfied look on her face.
Feeling a deep sense of shame from the embarrassing memory I had just created in real-time, I managed to take a spoonful of the omurice. Just then, the maid picked up the other plate from the cart and placed it in front of Sasha, who was still trying her best not to laugh.
Clank!
"Ah."
Sasha's face went pale as she belatedly remembered that she had, without thinking, ordered the same thing as me.
Realizing her impending future, she shook her head frantically, her eyes pleading with the maid not to make her do it. But the maid, after slicing the omelet with a knife, formed a heart with her hands and uttered the dreaded words without fail.
"Now~ Repeat after me. Make it yummy~ make it yummy~ Moe Moe Kyun♥"
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Honestly, she brought this on herself.
*
Clatter- clatter-
"Nothing happened."
"…I know."
Having both created new, embarrassing memories in real-time, Sasha and I came to a silent agreement, avoiding eye contact as we quietly ate our omurice.
The cat maid, Hyoneko, was still on stage, passionately singing an anime song.
When is that going to end?
In any case, the omurice I was eating after all that mental anguish was, thankfully, delicious.
Food at maid cafés usually has a reputation for being expensive and tasteless, but it seemed the person cooking here was quite skilled. The donkotsu ramen I'd had earlier had long since been digested during the fight, so I scraped the plate clean, not leaving a single grain of rice.
After filling my stomach, though still feeling a little wanting, I was rinsing my mouth with orange juice when the 30 minutes must have finally passed. Hyoneko came running over, wiping the sweat from her brow.
"Master! How was Hyoneko's live performance, nyan!"
"Uh… it was great."
Sasha, who seemed to still be in shock from the earlier event, clapped and replied in a soulless voice.
Fortunately, Hyoneko didn't seem to notice.
"Wow~ I don't know how you knew Hyoneko loves to sing even though it's your first visit, but thank you so much for requesting me, nyan! I got to sing my heart out, nyan!"
Hyoneko was incredibly energetic, still excited from her performance. The fact that she never forgot to add "nyan" to the end of her sentences proved she was a true professional.
Without us even asking, Hyoneko started rambling on about her taste in music and her favorite singers, until she noticed our empty glasses and plates. "Oh my, where is my head, nyan," she muttered, clearing the dishes from the table.
Then, she returned with a deck of playing cards and a cat-ear headband on a tray.
"Normally, the 'play together' option is 1000 yen per 10 minutes, but the manager gave me special permission to do it as a service for today, nyan!"
She shuffled the deck with practiced skill, then dealt 17 cards to herself and 18 to each of us.
It looked like we were going to play Old Maid.
We discarded any pairs of the same number or letter from our hands onto the center of the table. The game would begin once all the remaining cards in our hands were different.
"Unyan-nyan."
With an exaggerated cat-like sound effect, Hyoneko drew a card from my hand. She must have gotten a pair, because she immediately discarded it along with a card from her hand.
The 8 of spades and the 8 of diamonds.
Now it was my turn to draw.
From the eight cards Sasha held out, I picked the one right next to the one that was sticking out the most.
"……."
Seriously? I drew the Joker right away?
But I didn't let it show on my face and quietly added it to my hand.
Next, Sasha drew from Hyoneko's hand and discarded a pair onto the table.
The 3 of spades and the 3 of clubs.
It was Hyoneko's turn again.
"By the way, there's a penalty for the loser, nyan."
She said this as she drew a card from my hand, then smiled meaningfully without discarding anything.
…I should have realized it then.
That something was wrong.
*
"This can't be."
After about 15 minutes of Old Maid, the loser was me.
Sasha must have had a lucky hand from the start, as she was the first to get rid of all her cards. From the midway point, it became a one-on-one match between me and Hyoneko, who perfectly avoided the Joker every time, as if she could see right through the cards.
As a result, I, who had been holding the Joker from the very beginning, automatically lost. I trembled with humiliation.
To think that I, a regular at the board game club, would lose without even being able to put up a proper fight.
"One more round. Just one more."
As I started gathering the scattered cards on the table, Hyoneko stopped me, saying there was something we had to do first. She picked up the headband that was on the tray.
"The loser must wear this cat-ear headband until the next game is over and make a cat sound at the end of every sentence, nyan."
With that, she stood on her tiptoes and placed the cat-ear headband on my head. She smiled at me and said.
"Go on, try saying something, nyan."
"…Aren't we starting the next game or what."
"I-It's definitely a cat sound, but it feels… different somehow, nyan!"
Grind!
If this is how it's going to be, I'm playing until I win.
I could tolerate other things, but I couldn't stand losing at a card game.
*
"Come again! Master!"
Jingle! Jingle!
"Ah~ That was fun~"
Sasha stretched and muttered with a satisfied look on her face.
It was another hour later when we finally left the maid café.
In the end, I couldn't win a single round, so I spent the entire hour wearing the cat-ear headband and making cat noises. If it weren't for the two-hour limit per table, I probably would have kept playing Old Maid until I won.
Looking back, I realize I did something incredibly embarrassing, but card games are a serious matter to me, so I couldn't help it.
Anyway, it was already 5 PM.
Most shops in Akihabara start preparing to close around this time, so there was nowhere else to go. It was too early for dinner, and since we'd already had omurice inside, the most we could manage was a snack.
"What do you want to do now? We have about two hours until the time we agreed on."
Hearing my question, Sasha tilted her head with a "Huh?" then exclaimed, "Ah~"
"Now that you mention it, that's right. I did ask you to protect me until 7 PM."
"You're the one who said it, and you forgot?"
"No, no, I just picked a time around sunset, that's all."
Sasha waved her hands dismissively, then looked up at me and asked.
"Is there a park or something around here? I've been sitting for so long, I feel all stiff and want to walk a bit."
"…There's one nearby. Follow me."
I led Sasha to Ueno Park, which was near Akihabara. By subway, Akihabara and Ueno are only one stop apart, so I'd often walked there for exercise.
Since it was getting late, there weren't many people strolling through Ueno Park.
As we walked along the deserted path, I asked her.
"So, how was it? Did you enjoy your tour of Akihabara today?"
Sasha glanced at my profile, then nodded.
"Thanks to you."
If I could, I would have shown her many more places, but we were short on time. I thought we'd just have a cup of tea at the maid café, but we somehow ended up spending two hours there.
Just then, Sasha, who had been walking with her hands behind her back, stopped and turned to me.
"Actually, I have something to confess."
Wondering what this was all about, I turned my head.
Sasha looked up at me with a serious expression.
"The people you fought on the street earlier… they were all bodyguards hired by my dad."
"…What?"
Hearing something so completely unexpected, my brain momentarily shut down.
Sasha bit her lip, then bowed deeply towards me.
"I'm sorry for lying to you from the start. I just wanted to do some sightseeing since I finally came to Japan, so I snuck out of the hotel. I didn't know things would get so out of hand."
Sasha kept her head bowed as she continued.
"So, it's okay for you to go back now. I'll contact the bodyguards and return to the hotel. Thank you so much for today."
With that, Sasha pulled a wad of bills from her handbag, pressed it into my hand, and started running towards Akihabara Station.
"W-Wait a minute!"
I stared blankly at her small, retreating back before hastily starting to chase after her.
It was at that very moment.
A sudden gust of wind blew, and a loud laugh echoed from above my head.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
I quickly looked up at the sky to see a black helicopter hovering over Ueno Park.
Sasha, who had been running towards the station, also looked up at the sky, just like me, and cried out in horror.
"Papa!"
At that exact moment, a black figure clinging to the helicopter leaped towards the ground.
He was completely bare, with no protective gear whatsoever.
BAAAAAAM!
The impact of his landing sent a massive cloud of dust rising from the ground.
Soon, a muscular, middle-aged man in a leopard-print coat slowly rose from within the dust. A ferocious smile spread across his face as he muttered.
"Found you at last."