I Shall Come Forth as Gold (4)
Cherry blossoms were in bloom, and already beginning to fall. The days had warmed enough that anyone who ran hot was out in short sleeves.
Ninomae had not quite reached that point. In a navy cardigan over her blouse, she opened the door of the truck and hopped down.
Her low heels met the ground with a bright little tap. She straightened the black brimmed hat sitting slightly askew—the one she had been given as a birthday present—and slammed the door shut.
"Mmm..."
A thin veil of dust rose with the impact of her landing. Her eyes went to it for a moment, and then she looked around.
The tractor-trailer was, as expected, far too conspicuous. Driving it along an ordinary road was one thing; arriving in it for a class observation felt badly out of place. The athletic field, opened as parking for visiting parents, did hold the occasional van or truck, but those were in an entirely different weight class from this.
...Or perhaps it was simply that she looked far too young to be anyone's parent, and that was what kept drawing stares.
"Is something worrying you?"
"Ah—no. I was just looking around at the school."
Han Seoyeon had spoken from behind her. She was in an ordinary suit, with a hat much like Ninomae's; as school-visit fashion for a parent, it probably counted as unremarkable.
...If one insisted on nitpicking, the clothes read more like a father's, and set against her face they made her look, no matter the angle, like someone playing boss in some corner of the underworld. Ninomae decided she would not be pointing any of that out.
It was hardly a fresh observation, for one thing. And besides—
Shion-san in a suit...!
She was already halfway sunk in it. Far from a critique, it was a mercy if she managed not to shower her with praise.
"Ninomae-chan!"
"Huh...? Ah! Tsunashi-san? And Akaba-san!"
Someone had called her name. Ninomae turned with a question mark all but floating over her head, and a moment later she was smiling brightly. Tsunashi Tenka and Akaba Akane were standing there.
"Been a while."
"Yes. It's been a while, Tenka-san."
Dressed quite casually, a black choker at her throat, Tenka lifted her right hand.
"Akaba-san, though... I did see you this morning."
"Well... we ate breakfast together, so."
They were staying under the same roof, but Akane had left the house ahead of the others, saying she would meet up with Tenka. Ninomae had caught a glimpse of her then; even so, she looked the outfit over once more, from collar to hem. Denim below, and above it a leather jacket worn flung open, as if the zipper were nothing but ornament.
...She had a temper about her, too, and in a way unlike Han Seoyeon she looked like someone from the other side.
And Ninomae, without a shred of hesitation, said the very thing that had struck her the moment she saw them.
"Never mind that, though... why is Sakuragi-san here with you?"
Right. The ones who had come out to meet Ninomae and Han Seoyeon were not only Tenka and Akane.
Beside the two of them stood a woman a full head taller. The pair were already a little over five foot seven, so one head was about the measure of it; had Ninomae stood at her side, the difference would have been closer to two.
She could hardly have misread the face, and even granting that she had, there was no mistaking the person. As far as Ninomae knew, only one woman was that tall.
Sakuragi Oka. Or, of the first generation, Kitayama Maya. She was looking their way with the same beaming expression as always. ...In truth her eyes were barely open, so it was difficult to tell where her gaze actually fell, but she was probably looking at them.
"Well, if you've come to sit in on class at a girls' school, yeah? Obviously you came to see your daughter."
"D-daughter?! Sakuragi-san, you have a daughter?! No, before that—you're married...?"
"Ignore her. She's talking nonsense. And you—why'd you go and fall for that again?"
Ninomae's eyes went perfectly round at the reply, but Akane was already glaring at Oka and setting her straight.
"Not a daughter. A little sister. Way I hear it, this one's got a little sister going here too."
"Boooring."
"Imagine hearing, out of nowhere, that someone you know has a high-school daughter. What's so great about scaring the girl?"
"Buuut Ninomae-chan's reaction was just plain cute~"
Well, thinking about it, it was obvious. A story about having a child in one's twenties—and a high-school daughter, at that—could only be a lie.
Were this the hidden world, she could not swear there was absolutely no vanishingly thin chance of such a thing. But according to Han Seoyeon, at least, Oka was a human of the surface. An oni somewhere among her ancestors, and—whether atavism or mutation—a strong dose of those traits presumed to have come down to her; even so, she was someone who had not yet touched the hidden world.
"Haa... you really startled me. Please don't joke like that."
"Yeah, yeah, I get iiit. I just couldn't help myself. Thought Ninomae-chan's reaction would be fun."
Had she actually taken it in? Faced with a manner that went past easygoing and into something faintly slick, Ninomae could only sigh.
"So then, what about you, Ninomae-chan? Aaah~ maybe you really did come to see your daughter? Showing up with Sister and all, it must be a kid the two of you were hiding!"
"Hyaah?! Th-there's no way that's true?! A-a child. That, between me and Shion-san, nn, huaa......"
Oka's follow-up blow sent Ninomae's face blazing red.
"Kufufu. Cute as ever, that reaction."
"Well, I get the vibe. Ninomae-chan, you're cute when you're flustered, too... ow."
"Quit the nonsense, idiot. Can't you see she's embarrassed?"
Tenka had tossed in a line of her own and promptly taken the back of Akane's hand across the bridge of her nose. She clutched it and grumbled under her breath.
"Auu... Sakuragi-chan was doing it too. Why only me?"
"The one who piles on from the side is always the worse of the two."
"No matter how I think about it, that seems unfair......"
Watching from beside them, Ninomae broke into a giggle. Only then did the embarrassment seem to ebb, and Akane let out a sigh no one was meant to hear.
She had not set out to run a comedy routine under their noses. If anything, her childhood friend's behavior had simply, for reasons she could not quite name, gotten on her nerves.
"Anyway. Let's head in. You're not planning to just stand here staring until class starts, are you?"
Still, if the result was a good one, then so much the better. Akane decided to let it pass at that.
"Sakuragi. You said your little sister's in Class B?"
"Prooobably?"
"Damn it. If even you aren't sure, who the hell is supposed to know?"
"Huh? Class B?"
Oka, still in no hurry at all, and Akane grumbling as if she meant to bite. Hearing the two of them, Ninomae's eyes went round.
"Shion-san. Didn't you say Mika Eru was in Class B as well?"
"......"
"Shion-san?"
"...Ah. Yes. What was it you said, Ninomae-san?"
The memory had felt a little uncertain, so she had turned to confirm it with Han Seoyeon. But Han Seoyeon was staring off somewhere with her focus askew, as if she had sunk into an entirely different thought. Judging by the reaction, something else had claimed her attention, and she had not properly heard a word.
"Were you thinking about something?"
"No. It's nothing. So, what was the question?"
"Sakuragi-san said her little sister is in Class B. Weren't we going to Class B as well?"
"Yes. That's right."
"What a curious coincidence. Anyway, let's hurry. At this rate class will start without us."
Han Seoyeon nodded and fell in behind the others.
Even as she walked, the thought she had been lost in a moment ago surfaced again.
...A child with Ninomae-san.
Now that she considered it, yes. To harbor romantic feelings for a person named Ninomae Hitomi—did that not mean, taken over the long term, that she wanted something exactly like that?
No. This was not a matter of the long term, or of anything else. ...Quite ordinarily, even in this very moment, that greed was creeping up through her.
Aware all over again of what she felt for Ninomae, Han Seoyeon set a hand to her cheek without thinking. There was a heat there. Uncharacteristically, it seemed her face had gone a little red.
"......Heh heh."
She did not notice.
Sakuragi Oka had her eyes half open, red pupils lit as if she had found something amusing—or like a beast with its prey set before it—and was grinning.
What.
Sasaki Kisaki of Goroneto Girls' High School, third-year Class B, was a vampire.
She was not, however, an ordinary vampire. If a vampire could even be called ordinary—but in any case, she was not.
To put it plainly, she was not a person who could hold her head up. That remained true even by the standards of the hidden world, where there was no need to conceal that one was a vampire.
For one thing, she was a minor on paper and a great deal older in fact. Attending high school was nothing more than the fulfillment of a clammy, furtive wish to pass her days among fresh, bright schoolgirls.
That alone already put her in line to be arrested for forging public records... but in truth she carried a darkness far larger than forgery.
Seriously. What.
Besides "student of Goroneto Girls' High," the other name she bore was Hermes Trismegistus—in short, the mastermind of Vampire Syndrome, which had kept Japan's hidden world in an uproar these past several years.
Not a mere collaborator. She was one of the organization's three heads; more precisely, the woman who had supplied the vampire samples behind the various incidents tied to Vampire Syndrome.
Damn it. Damn it. What the hell is this. What. Did they get me? No. Even so, it can't be that. Ah. What is this, really. Why. How did it end up like this.
And standing at her back was an Apostle.
None other than Bartholomew, dispatched by the Holy See to eradicate Vampire Syndrome.
"......"
"......"
Parent-interview week at Goroneto Girls' High. And within it, the single day of class observation that all but declared, outright, if at all possible, please come on this day.
Why is an Apostle actually here. Why, of all things.
Sasaki Kisaki wanted to forget the lesson and everything else and simply flee to the nurse's office.