Molech and Fire (2)
Winter days are short. Even so, four in the afternoon ought to have been far too early for the sun to have gone down.
High as it still hung, the cold that bit into the skin was no different for it. Ninomae looked up at a sky washed in winter's own color — piercing, and somehow murky — and then hurried her steps again. She was making for the bus stop nearby. A cold day meant, put another way, that whoever stood waiting would be suffering every bit as much.
"Chiyo-san—!"
Catching sight of a familiar face already at the stop, Ninomae smiled and threw a hand high in the air. At the sound of her voice, the woman turned.
A puffer coat and a scarf, dressed warm against the weather. The impression overall was neat and tidy, and yet the eyes alone carried a strangely seductive air.
"You're early, Hitomi-chan."
Their eyes met, and she smiled with hers. Senjoji Chiyo — a fellow second-generation member of Anathema Production, and the very person Ninomae had called out for advice.
Chiyo lifted a hand toward her chest as if to answer the greeting, and had it caught at once.
"Uh, um? Hitomi-chan. Come on that bold, and a real-life girl-who-likes-girls like me might get the wrong idea without even meaning to..."
"—Kun. Come forth, ox of yellow bronze. I will sound no trumpet; cover the sinner in your hide."
"...Ah. I'm warm."
Chiyo's bewilderment at having both hands wrapped up the instant they met lasted only a moment. The second Ninomae murmured something like an incantation, warmth began to fold itself around her from head to toe, and only then, grasping the intent, did Chiyo laugh, a little abashed. The moment she'd seen her face, Hitomi had come scurrying over in a fluster, and all of it just to warm her because she might be cold. Faced with a heart like that, a smile had simply slipped out of her.
"Hitomi-chan, are you an angel? I feel like I could fall for you all over again. Marry me— ah, no. Sorry. That one slipped out."
"...You're welcome to treat me the way you usually do."
Chiyo, who had been about to let a flirtation pour out as smoothly as ever, shut her mouth in an awkward little hitch, as if she'd misspoken.
"No, the usual bit is a joke that only works if I'm getting shot down by a straight girl. It's that kind of thing, so..."
"Is that... how it is...?"
She didn't entirely follow, though perhaps Chiyo kept standards of her own. Even thinking so, Ninomae gave a quiet, wry smile. She was feeling it afresh: she had been found out. What Chiyo had just said was something that could never have left her mouth unless she took Ninomae for a woman who loved women.
A playful creature who tossed out flirtations at every opening — and yet this time her intuition had been remarkably sharp. Perhaps it was only that the road was one Chiyo herself had already walked.
"Anyway, shall we get inside somewhere? Thanks to you I'm not cold, but I'd still rather talk sitting down."
"Know a cafe around here?"
Ninomae thought for a brief moment before she answered.
"Yes. I know a place. Let's go there."
A shop had, in truth, come to mind at once — but it was the cafe owned by Guroyuki Sui, which was to say Tachibana Rin, the first-generation senior. Considering what she meant to consult about, she wanted the chance of running into an acquaintance kept as small as it could be. Chiyo could hardly have known any of that, but she nodded at once, and the two of them soon set off for a cafe nearby.
A gray coat worn open over a beige wool cardigan, and a warm-looking fur hat set on a chestnut bob. The woman crossed between the tables, came to a stop, and set her tray down.
Coffee sending up lazy curls of steam, and a mango smoothie beading with condensation inside its glass. Setting the latter down as her own, Ninomae Hitomi dropped into her seat.
"Isn't that too cold?"
"A cold drink, somewhere warm, in the middle of winter — that's supposed to taste the best of all."
"Hmm. One of those feelings I almost understand, and also don't..."
Something like blasting the air-conditioning in summer and then deliberately burrowing under a blanket. Chiyo decided to let it pass at that.
"You sure a place like this is all right, though? There's quite a crowd, quietly."
What the two of them had come to was a well-known chain coffee shop. Not what anyone would call packed shoulder to shoulder, but busy enough all the same.
"It's fine. Magic can handle this much... —Gen. Ash Wolf."
The moment Ninomae snapped her fingers, the murmur of the room seemed to thin, just a little.
"What was that just now?"
"If I had to name it... soundproofing, plus a touch of interference so people don't quite notice us. Something like that?"
"Isn't that ridiculously convenient? Seriously, maybe I ought to sign a contract with a demon myself."
"Please be careful saying things like that, even as a joke. I hear a real demon can come latch on if you do..."
Speak a thing, and it may take root. Proverb only, and yet the hidden world was full of matters where a little caution never hurt. In the old tales, gods and demons alike had a way of appearing the moment someone pronounced their names properly.
At the warning, Chiyo offered a sheepish smile and apologized. What she had meant was a grumble dressed up as a joke, not a genuine rite of summoning. She took a sip of her coffee and turned the talk aside.
"Anyway, Hitomi-chan. Something's been nagging at me. Mind if I ask just one thing?"
"Hm? What is it?"
"It's like this. When you work magic, sometimes you chant an incantation and sometimes you don't, right? I was wondering what the difference is."
"Ah... that."
Ninomae stirred her smoothie once with the straw for no particular reason, then answered.
"There isn't much of a reason. The demon simply likes it."
"...Uh. Um?"
It must have been a thoroughly unexpected answer. Chiyo's face went blank.
"Call it a spell or a chant, in the end it's a prayer offered up for the demon's sake. There's also the old faith that words themselves hold power... Put simply, faith gets produced on the side, separate from what I gather and pay over."
"Demons would... well, yeah. Of course they'd like that."
In effect, it meant paying a premium over the listed price. From a seller's point of view, there was no world in which that failed to please.
"If I buy that much goodwill in advance, then later, even when the faith I owe runs short, they'll advance it to me. That sort of thing..."
"So it was an extremely businesslike reason..."
"From their side, it really is business."
The grimoire was named, from the very first, Belial's Catalog. Which was to say the other side treated the whole of it as a line of goods.
"Anyway, let's call curiosity hour finished around here..."
As if that had been answer enough, Chiyo nodded and went on.
"Shall we get to the actual point."
"...Yes. Let's."
Ninomae held quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod. That was, after all, why the two of them had met with nothing arranged beforehand.
"I don't think I'm wrong, but just in case, I'll check once. —Hitomi-chan has, to some degree, woken up to liking women. It's all right if I take it that way?"
"......Yes. That's how it comes out."
She could hardly deny it now. There was no reason to, and it would not have convinced anyone anyway.
"Doesn't seem like there was much warning beforehand... Realizing it out of nowhere, at your age — that has to mean there's someone you've fallen for."
Ninomae said nothing. A little ashamed, perhaps, she let her eyes slide away. Honestly, why is she this sharp today of all days?
"Someone from the company?"
"No. It isn't that..."
"Then it's Shion-chan."
"I-I never actually said that..."
"Oh? But you're an only child, aren't you, Hitomi-chan?"
"So would you please stop talking as if the entire range of my relationships is the company, Shion-san, or my family and nothing else?!"
Ninomae clutched the smoothie glass tight and all but shouted it. Had the magic not still been in place, she would certainly have drawn a fair share of stares.
"W-wait, I was wrong?"
"......You weren't! You weren't wrong!"
Of course, since it had been nothing but a plain statement of fact, she soon tucked her tail and shrank in on herself.
"And it is Shion-chan, right?"
"Yes......"
"You really do like her. Mm. Shion-chan is a seriously good person, I'll give her that."
Chiyo hummed as if satisfied and nodded along, over and over.
"Someone on Shion-chan's level is worthy of having you. If she weren't that capable, I'd be objecting from my side! I'm not handing Hitomi-chan off to just any nobody."
"No — before any handing-off, I am not your property, Chiyo-san...?"
"Well. Good is good, and we'll leave it there."
"Good is... good...?"
There was no shortage of places she wanted to object, but she decided to let them pass quietly for now.
"Anyway, so this is what's got you worrying?"
"Well... yes. It isn't exactly an ordinary preference... More than that, I only just realized it, so my feelings are a complete tangle, and... honestly, I don't even know what I'm supposed to do..."
Watching Ninomae trail off, Chiyo quietly lifted her coffee cup once more.
"Then shall we start by getting your own heart properly sorted?"
"My own heart?"
"Think about this first. Is it a question that comes before gender at all, simply because the person is Shion-chan — or have you always had this inclination, and only never noticed?"
"Mmm......"
Ninomae hesitated a moment, then carefully opened her mouth.
"If I had to choose, the latter... I think. Probably."
"Well. That's how it usually goes. Even the people who answer with the former are mostly the latter. They just haven't noticed it in themselves."
Put the other way, where self-awareness was concerned, Ninomae stood about a step ahead of most.
"Though if you're that clearly aware of it, there shouldn't be all that much left to agonize over..."
Chiyo scratched at her cheek as if turning something over. Then, as though a possibility had just occurred to her, she looked back at Ninomae.
"...Hitomi-chan. I'm only asking just in case, but which do you think you are — gay, or bi?"
"Uh... I've never really thought about it... But probably bisexual, wouldn't I be...?"
"Not exactly brimming with confidence."
Even as her tone pressed like an interrogation, Chiyo lifted the corner of her mouth in a grin. She seemed to have caught onto something in what Ninomae had said.
"It's only that there's never been a man you came to like. Right?"
It was an obvious thing to say. Had she ever liked some man, then the moment she also came to like a woman, she would have named herself bisexual. That she had not could only mean she had never liked a man at all.
"So that's why you've been so lost over your own heart."
"W-why is that?"
It was her own heart, and she could not read it. As if hunting for the answer there, Ninomae leaned forward a little and pressed her to go on.
"Not having known your own inclination until now means that even among women, there hasn't been anyone you've liked. Not until now."
"Th-that's true...?"
"Then of course your heart would be a mess. You wouldn't be used to it, either."
Chiyo traced a slow circle around the rim of her cup with one finger, then smiled, a soft breath of a laugh.
"I mean, this would make Shion-chan your first love. Of course your heart's going to be all in a flutter."
"......Huh?"
"Wait. Hold on. Does it actually come out that way...?"
Ninomae murmured it, dazed, and for a while her unsteady gaze flailed at the empty air.
"A fresh little maiden's heart. Before any business of gender this or gender that, it happened simply because it's a feeling you're having for the first time."
"Which is to say...?"
"Not a consultation on who you are, and not one on who you want. What's required is a perfectly ordinary love consultation. Stamp — approved. Something like that, for the summary?"
So saying, Chiyo folded her arms in high satisfaction and let out a proud little huff through her nose.
"For the record, I've been single since the day I was born, so I will be of no help — just so you know! Unless what you need is a ten-year-plus career playing adult games!"
"No. I don't need that— no, that's not the point. You're in your twenties, Chiyo-san?! A history of playing eighteen-plus games is not supposed to run past ten years!"
"Whoops. Busted. Nice bit of detective work, Hitomi-chan."
Ninomae pressed a hand to her forehead. She stayed like that for a while, and then, carefully, stole a glance at Chiyo's face.
"......Even so. Thank you for hearing me out. It helped."
"Eh. Wait. A shy little thank-you, in this situation? Hitomi-chan, you really might be an angel."
"No. Give me my gratitude back."
Regrettably, the other party was a wicked woman who did not accept returns on the grounds of a simple change of heart. Regrettably.