The Donkey of Shibon (3)

Eight of them, the Hyakurenno family driver excepted, had settled themselves into a black limousine. One was marveling at the ride, another lounged with the ease of long familiarity, and another, as ever, was drinking like a fish.

"Please don't feel the least bit burdened. You're quite welcome to treat this as your own home."

Yuri addressed the few who had gone subtly rigid before an interior that spent its luxury without restraint. Regrettably, there are never many people who can take a "don't feel burdened" at its word and simply obey. Had a single remark of that sort been enough to unwind them, they would have been sitting at ease already.

"How are you so calm? Didn't you say this was your first limousine too, Shion?"

"It wasn't a limousine, but I have ridden in a similar official car."

The body had not been stretched, and yet the vehicle carried bulletproofing and every other safety measure, down to an interior designed to favor the passenger far above the driver. She had, as it happened, ridden in a car furnished with all of it. The moment she said so, a faint flicker of betrayal crossed Ninomae's face. She had evidently been counting the two of them as comrades in this.

"You really are welcome to relax, though... ah. That's right."

Sensing that her words had been little comfort, Yuri fidgeted her legs beneath the table. And then—

With a solid thump she planted her feet on the tabletop and crossed her legs. The motion, it seemed, had been for the sake of getting her boots off. Legs sheathed in pitch-black stockings were laid bare before the whole company.

"If you find you need to, you're welcome to go even this far, you know?"

Certainly, it would be difficult to get any more comfortable than that. When the owner of the house—no, the owner of the car—demonstrated the absolute outer limit of a relaxed posture, the tension did ease, if only a little. After all, who could possibly manage to be ruder than that? On Yuri's side as well, it was surely a small piece of humor, offered in hope of precisely this response.

"Haaah. A noble young lady's pretty-girl pheromones, just pouring off those stockings..."

"...?!"

There was, however, one reaction that flew far wide of anything she had been aiming for. Senjoji Chiyo, of course. In an instant Yuri's ears burned a brilliant red. Her extended legs twitched, and her body curled in on itself of its own accord.

"Eheheee, our young laaady does smell a liiittle bit fragrant, she doesss."

The moment the maid's voice carried over from the front passenger seat, though, sheer stubbornness flared up in its place. Think it through: pheromones and all the rest aside, wasn't the heart of it a slander that her feet stank? To hear a thing like that and, flustered, put her feet down would wound her pride somehow.

A-and besides, if I yank my legs away in a hurry, won't everyone else decide my feet really do smell awful?

It was a judgment remote from reason on every count. Then again, a reasonable person does not fire a remark about pheromones directly into someone's face to begin with. Whether her sense of rebellion had surged that hard, Yuri feigned ignorance and, as if daring them to look, crossed her legs and began to wiggle her toes.

Yet Yuri herself was not the only one who reacted to Chiyo's comment. Naturally, every gaze in the car converged on the toes squirming inside Hyakurenno Yuri's stockings. The strongest reactions belonged, of course, to Tsunashi Tenka, the werewolf with a beast's senses, and to Han Seoyeon, whose nose went further still. Seoyeon's case was all the sharper for the simple fact that she was sitting immediately beside Yuri.

The moment she became conscious of it, her senses refused to be governed. A scent, strangely sweet-and-sour and yet honeyed, pricked at the tip of her nose. Whether it was nothing but a trick of the brain, or whether even the sweat of a meticulously kept noble daughter simply smelled like this, she could not have said. At that point Han Seoyeon turned her head the other way, and her eyes met those of Ninomae Hitomi, seated on her opposite side.

It was not only their eyes that met. From Hitomi, as always, there drifted a faint scent of peach—the fragrance she loved, worked into her shampoo, her body wash, all of it. It stirred Han Seoyeon's mind all over again. Close enough for a collar to brush a collar. Close enough that, with the sway of the chassis, skin might meet skin at any moment.

"......"

It was around then that Han Seoyeon sought the Lord in haste, meaning to ask for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a prayer that would set her heart at peace.

"Snff..."

Tenka, by contrast, had not even the power of prayer to call upon. And if one further reason were wanted for why her position was the worse: though her sense of smell itself might fall short of Seoyeon's, she possessed, as befitted a being other than human, sensory organs that answered pheromones in earnest. Because of that, Tenka sat with her eyes gone a little vacant, her gaze fixed on the legs atop the table. In truth, at this distance she still could not quite tell. Even so—no, precisely because of that—if she just buried her nose in them this instant and investigated properly...

"Ngh."

"Hey. What do you think you're doing? Carsick?"

The flick Akaba Akane delivered to the tip of her nose came in that very instant. At the unexpected pain, tears sprang to Tenka's eyes. Akane, however, seemed to have no intention of leaving her be. She caught the ambushed girl by the head and hauled her straight over. With a soft thump, pitch-black hair came to rest on the thigh Akane had left bare beneath her shorts.

The cabin felt strangely warm. Or were they actually running the heater? On its account, the body-scents of several people wandered the narrow interior. However roomy a limousine is said to be, the thing it is roomy beside is still a car; measure the space alone, and one might well suspect it amounted to a studio apartment. Tangle that many smells together, and it could hardly be called a pleasant environment for a werewolf.

"A-Akane-chan?"

"If you're carsick, lie down and go to sleep. Don't you dare throw up and dirty a car like this."

So saying, Akane pressed and pressed upon Tenka's head. She seemed to be roughly mussing the hair, and yet Tsunashi Tenka had the distinct feeling that the same hand was stroking her. Innumerable smells were filtered away, until only the scent of the childhood friend right in front of her filled her nose. It was not so much stimulating as somehow longed-for—a smell that laid the heart at ease.

"And while I'm at it. You there, miss?"

Once she had confirmed that Tenka's breathing had steadied, Akane turned her gaze, her hand still resting on that head. What she looked at was, of course, Hyakurenno Yuri beyond the table.

"Everything else is fine, yeah? But if you hike your legs up like that in a skirt, from this angle we can see underneath."

"Hngh?! I-I'm so sorry!"

Only at that did Yuri startle and yank her legs down in a flurry. In truth, not a damn thing had been visible. She had made Yuri herself believe otherwise, though, and so the result was no different.

"......"

"......"

And when that strange, uncanny commotion finally ended, the cabin sank into an awkward silence. A belated crash into sage time, washing over every one of them at once—one might as well call it that.

"W-well... we've still got time before we arrive. Shall we turn a stream on?"

"Oh... that is a very good idea!"

In the end they agreed to abandon any hope of enduring the awkwardness, and to take refuge in business.

The proposal to go live had come out in a rush, yet the broadcast itself did not begin all at once. A stream required at least a minimal setup inside the car, and while they saw to it they posted a notice by tweet, heralding the broadcast ahead of time. Thanks to that, by the time they went live a fair number of viewers had gathered, morning hour or not.

The channel that lit up belonged to Amairo Tsubasa. To Yuri. In truth, the revenue split for this collaboration had already been settled, so it hardly mattered whose channel they used. If one insisted, it might help a little with the inflow of viewers and subscribers. Even so, it was not wholly without benefit, and for the present they had left it to Yuri, who held the merit of having provided the car.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I am Amairo Tsubasa of Anathema's Second Generation."

"We did post a notice, so I'm sure you all already know, but starting today, for three days, I'll be traveling with my fellow Second Generation members. Or should I say, we're already on our way."

The screen looked down on the table from above. No one was in frame; a hand had to be reached out on purpose before the camera would catch it. It bears adding that the itinerary, one night and two days by the original plan, had become two nights and three largely on Tsubasa's account. To be specific, let it simply be said that any financial problem set before her evaporated if she did no more than breathe.

"Yes. Correct. We're riding in a limousine right now."

"Anyway, let's begin with introductions."

Tsubasa cleared her throat with a small ahem and carried the talk forward. Anathema Production's VTubers were a menagerie of monsters to begin with, and yet each generation numbered among them one character whose concept stood starkly apart. Not a monster, but a human meant to answer the monsters. So it had been with Rokumondera Aki, the shrine maiden of the First Generation, and so it was with Amairo Tsubasa, the holy knight of the Second Generation. A position that conspicuous might become a flimsy concept, dogpiled by the monsters—which is to say, by the other VTubers—or it might become the part of a leader who kept those monsters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in hand and in line. If Aki stood closer to the former, Tsubasa was, if one had to choose, a character closer to the latter. Even then, more often than not she stopped at being a simple host rather than a leader proper.

"Con-Mary! Someday, this world..."

"Nya-hello. Anathema First Generation's..."

"Bonjour. Charlotte, of the Second Generation..."

"Con-Sere—"

The greetings of four VTubers burst out one after another. Tsubasa listened without a word, then passed the baton to the party who were not on stream.

"And though they aren't VTubers, three people are joining us ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on this trip. Come, please say hello to the viewers as well."

"Um... if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't... I'm Sister. Shuttang's real-life acquaintance."

"Hiii... heheh, I'm Tsubasa-sama's maaaid— hic."

"Wait, three people? Then that includes me? ...A-ahem. I'm Hatsuna Miho, the manager in charge of the Second Generation. Thank you for having me."

Once the slightly flustered manager had finished her greeting, the spotlight passed back to Tsubasa.

"We've turned the stream on, granted. What should we do now?"

"Shouldn't the channel owner have thought of that, nya?"

"No, well. It isn't as if we planned this carefully and then went live."

"Thaaat's riiight—"

The maid, her tongue tangled at the ends in its usual way, giggled and wedged herself in.

"Y'see, talk started up that a lewd female scent was comin' off our young lady's stockings, and the mood got all awkward, so she flipped the stream on to try'n lovey-dovey her way out of it somehow, riiight?"

"Ngh— you, what are you..."

Tsubasa's thoroughly flustered voice was caught on the microphone.

"If you blurt that out, so much for changing the subject! ...Hello?"

"Kuuu..."

"Damn it. She said her piece and fell asleep again!"

"Whoa. The chat is going incredible..."

It was Mary who murmured it, almost as if the matter belonged to someone else. There had surely been no malice in it.

"Haha... I-I mean, it absolutely wasn't a bad smell, though..."

"Don't pour oil on the fire, nya, you idiot wolf."

"Eep."

With a smack, Akane—Yugure Tama—struck the back of Charlotte's head with her open palm.

"Haaah..."

Yuri, as Tsubasa, breathed out long and let her heart settle. Yes. If she regarded this, too, as a kind of spiritual discipline, then comparatively—

"Well, once the stream's over, the footjob doujin count is only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going to climb. Good for you, Tsubasa-chan."

"Please shut that mouth."

At last a cushion went flying at Serena Razania, who had driven the blow home. It was the heart-shaped cushion that came with the sofa.