Afternoon Lasagna (3)
She slipped a small box out from inside her apron and handed it to the gentleman.
“We don’t exactly have a surplus in stock.”
“Ah, that’s a shame.”
The gentleman raised a syringe high, angling it into the moonlight.
“Impressive work. I can barely detect a trace of impurity.”
After studying the syringe for a good long while, he slid it back into the box and closed it, then offered the box out to me once more.
“That said, we already have an arrangement with a certain partner, you see. But surely there’s such a thing as honor among colleagues.”
They already had a buyer.
In other words, he’d just confirmed that his organization was the one originally scheduled to receive the drug supply.
So I’ve reeled in the real thing.
It was still too early to celebrate. For now, all I’d done was lightly test whether the pack’s leader would stick his head into the net.
Bagging this one gentleman alone couldn’t be called a complete purge.
The performance had to go on a while longer yet.
“And is that reason enough for you not to do business with us?”
Narcotics were in desperately short supply across the Magic City, no matter what.
Dealing with both parties simultaneously would pose no problem at all.
Both of them knew it, too. So then, the reason for his lukewarm response was—
“The price is not negotiable.”
“Moljin, Skar, Barsy.”
“Who?”
What the hell is he on about now?
Turned out he was referring to some friends of his currently enjoying a lively group meeting with the Bureau agents in a certain basement.
Well, of course he’s suspicious.
Quite a lot of time had passed since the supply source was raided.
More than enough for the rest of the gang to notice that something had gone wrong with their supply line.
And then, out of nowhere, some maid cafe starts selling Upper?
Naturally, they’d feel their skin crawl.
You didn’t hijack the original supplier’s product just to pocket the margin for yourselves, did you?
That was the question the gentleman was silently asking me with his eyes.
Whatever the case, there was only one response I needed to give here.
“Not at all.”
What are you going to do if I play dumb to the very end?
If it bothers you that much, go ahead and drag those friends of yours over here right now.
“Those friends of ours claim they’re the only ones capable of producing ‘Upper.’”
“Is that so? Well, ours is produced in-house, as it happens.”
Truly.
Even at this very moment, Zaki was hard at work cooking the stuff beneath the cathedral.
“And you needn’t bother returning the goods.”
I slowly pushed his hand away.
“You’re our very first customer, after all. Consider that a sample, free of charge.”
“A hard sell, I imagine, to earn a favorable answer?”
Smile here.
I dipped my head slightly and curled one corner of my mouth upward.
“Then yes. I suppose it comes down to exactly that, doesn’t it.”
“Hm.”
At my provocation, the gentleman’s brow furrowed.
He clicked his tongue briefly, then jammed the box into an inner pocket of his tailcoat.
“We’ll be seeing each other again before long, I expect.”
For a moment, his gaze swept up and down me, appraising, as one might inspect a product on display. Then, with a faintly fishy smile, the gentleman pulled his boater hat down low and walked off into the darkness.
“Do pray it’s merchandise worthy of that pride of yours.”
His parting words sounded less like an effort to seal the deal, and more like a promise to come hunt down whoever had dared to deceive him.
“Welcome home, Master. Nyaa.”
“Ohohoho, hard at work, I see. Do keep up the good effort.”
She snapped open a fan she must have picked up goodness knows where and hid her mouth behind it.
Today’s RP appeared to be Villainess.
Doesn’t this girl have anything else to do?
Like getting a head start on previewing her Academy coursework.
Or leisurely touring the Magic City.
Or dragging her newly made dorm friends around to all the trendy eateries.
She certainly hadn’t come to the Magic City two weeks early just to haunt a maid cafe this often.
“I’ll show you to table six. Master with no friends, nyaa.”
“……Very well, sharp-tongued maid. Do show me, by all means.”
Besides, Afternoon Lasagna wasn’t even located near Eretz Academy.
It was a good thirty minutes’ walk away, yet Charlotte kept turning up at the shop with suspicious frequency, and I eyed her with narrowed, frosty suspicion.
“Ready to take your order. Nyaa.”
“…Um, it’s a little scary when you keep glaring at me like that.”
Thump.
“Your order, nyaa.”
“F, fine, I’ll have… this.”
“One Breezy Wind cheese sandwich, coming right up. Nyaa.”
We were still in pre-opening prep, on break time. I shot the manager a subtle look, and a nod of permission came back at once.
I had the kitchen prepare two sandwiches, set them down on the table, and took the seat across from Charlotte.
Instead of diving straight into her sandwich as usual, Charlotte hesitated for a moment, then seemed to steel herself and spoke up.
“So, yesterday… I met Miss Salvia.”
“I see.”
The girl had been the top scorer among all the incoming freshmen, after all.
She, too, must have arrived a little earlier than the other students to help prepare for the entrance ceremony.
I mused on this vaguely as I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed.
“She was really friendly at first, but the moment you came up, her whole expression changed.”
“I’d imagine so.”
Hardly a surprise.
I’d warned her in advance that we didn’t get along.
Obviously, if someone you’d just met for the first time today suddenly brought up a person they disliked mid-conversation, they were going to scowl.
“After that, no matter how I tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t engage at all—”
“How awful.”
It wasn’t as if listening to her complaints let me actually do anything about it.
After all, I’d long since passed the level of being merely ignored; I was well into the stage of being actively loathed.
Still, I suppose I could offer some advice.
I swallowed the bite I’d been chewing.
“It’s simple.”
“Really?”
Doubt and hope bloomed across Charlotte’s face at the same time.
“If you know what’s causing the problem, then you just fix the cause.”
“Well, yes, that’s true, but—?”
That girl was only giving Charlotte the cold shoulder for associating with someone she despised. She bore no particular ill will toward Charlotte herself.
A first button sewn into the wrong hole just needs to be unpicked and sewn back on.
“Go and badmouth me.”
“I, what…?”
Friendships start with finding common ground, first and foremost.
If the two of you bonded over trashing a mutual enemy, you could build intimacy that much faster.
I’d call the operation something appropriately grand, like Yesterday’s Enemy Is Today’s Ally.
“That’s all you need to do.”
“……”
Despite receiving this masterful secret technique, Charlotte’s expression remained clouded.
Well, that was as much as I could do for her.
Whether to take the advice was Charlotte’s own choice to make.
“Rpi-nyaa! If you’re done eating, hurry up and get ready, nyaa!”
It was evening, and break time was drawing to a close. At the manager’s barking, timed as if on cue, I picked up the empty dishes and rose from my seat.
Tinkle.
At the chime of the doorbell, my head turned reflexively.
A customer who’d misjudged the time.
Or a guest blessed with miraculous vision who’d walked straight past the big notice sign hanging off the door handle.
Every now and then, someone really did wander in by mistake during break time.
“Please wait just a little longer, we’re still pre—”
A middle-aged gentleman in a boater hat.
A familiar face stood at the entrance.
At the very least, he didn’t appear to be showing any hostility.
“Point out the young lady to me.”
The gentleman’s face, his trembling hand thrust out to indicate me, was flushed rather red.
“Sir, please calm down first—”
“The omu, the omurice, was it? Whatever it’s called. Bring it to me.”
No, seriously, does our gentleman have no sense of the room whatsoever?
Every maid’s attention in the place was locked onto him, and still he stubbornly marched through his lines regardless.
“Rpi-nyaa?”
“Unnie?”
The manager and Charlotte were demanding an explanation with their eyes. I closed my eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Right. Dealing with the gentleman came first; clearing things up with those two could wait.
Should I dust him?
A wicked impulse flickered through me, but I didn’t act on it.
I settled my feelings, calmly filled a glass with cold water, and walked over.
“Sir.”
Glass in hand, I planted myself in front of him.
A height difference of roughly one head.
Lifting my chin just slightly, I raised my eyes to meet the gentleman’s face.
“Hahh.”
“Please, breathe.”
I took the hand of the gentleman, who had obediently fallen silent, and clasped it in both of mine, pressing a tightly folded paper—a receipt—into his palm alongside the water glass.
“Feeling calmer now?”
“…I caused a scene. My apologies.”
I’d worried he might still be in beast mode, deaf to human speech, but mercifully, the sincerity of my devotion to this gentleman seemed to have gotten through.
He drained the cold water in one gulp and handed the empty glass back to me.
“May you have a lovely day, Master.”
Having seen off the gentleman as he swayed toward the door, I turned around—only to be greeted by two pairs of eyes that had somehow closed the distance right up against my back.
Right. There was still a far more troublesome problem at hand.
“Unnie? What exactly is your relationship with that man?”
“Compensated dating is absolutely! Not allowed, nyaa!”
Compensated dating, my foot. Listening to them was giving me chills.
“It is absolutely nothing like that.”
“Oh, isn’t it?”
“……”
“Unnie!”
The more I refused to answer, the wilder their absurd misunderstandings grew, and I let out a small sigh as I watched them.
Once the shop closed for the night, I headed straight for the usual back alley.
“I’ll hear your explanation, at least.”
“Hmph.”
A good two packs’ worth.
The gentleman flung the cigarette he’d been smoking carelessly to the ground and ground it out under his heel.
“I’ll take it on faith, then, that you young ladies have no connection whatsoever to our previous supplier.”
“Er… is that all?”
My head tilted slightly sideways at the gentleman’s oddly abrupt remark.
That doesn’t explain you charging straight into the shop out of nowhere at all.
Just as I was concluding that he wasn’t here to apologize or explain himself, the gentleman suddenly bowed deep at the waist.
“No—it was discourteous of me to even compare you young ladies to that sort.”
If I were getting ambushed in the dead of night, or clubbed over the head on a dark street, fine. But this reaction from the gentleman was entirely outside my expectations.
What is this? Why is he suddenly so humble? Had he caught on to something? Realized something?
No—if he’d figured out I was with the Bureau, he wouldn’t be groveling apologies. He’d be running.
Then why?
“I grew anxious at the thought of letting you young ladies slip away, and my judgment suffered for it.”
“I see.”
No idea. None at all.
For now, string him along and make him cough up everything.
“Surely it isn’t too late already?”
“Of course not.”
All understanding, all patience—keeping that perfectly agreeable smile plastered on my face,
I was just about to wind the failed batch around my finger when it happened.
The gentleman, who had been fidgeting anxiously and studying my complexion all this while, finally looked somewhat relieved.
“So then—however did you manage to produce a top-grade product of such purity?”
Ah-ha.
The bait’s been taken.