Sibon's Donkey (6)
"Want to step out for a bit?"
Tsunashi Tenka only brought it up after they had unpacked at the inn and finished the lunch the place had served them.
Ninomae, who had been watching a staff member clear the low table, tilted her head. A faint dusting of powder from the wagashi served for dessert clung to the corner of her mouth.
"Go out? ...Mmph."
"From what I saw, town's only a short walk from here."
Tenka answered as she wiped that corner of her mouth with her sleeve.
"I can wipe it myself, you know."
Leaving the quietly grumbling Ninomae to it, she held up her phone. A map of the surrounding area was open on the screen.
"We've got time until evening anyway. We take an easy walk and come back. Might be nice to pick up a souvenir or something."
How about it? She asked, bright and easy in her smile.
The mention of evening was almost certainly on account of the stream. Coming all the way to a hot-spring inn and soaking first thing was certainly one way to enjoy the trip, but unfortunately it was not an option the two of them welcomed. It was no exaggeration to call the bathing broadcast the main event of this project, which meant the schedule had naturally been set for the evening hours, when the greatest number of viewers could tune in.
Nothing, of course, said they couldn't enter the baths twice in a single day. Even so, the two of them were of one mind: what went out on stream was better as the vivid, unspoiled reaction of a first time.
...Well. There did seem to be someone who had already gone off to soak, as if none of that were any of her concern.
"All right. Let's go out."
Ninomae answered with as wide a smile as she could manage.
Ask whether she was the indoor type or the outdoor type and Ninomae fell squarely with the former, but even she did not prefer shutting herself in her room once she was already somewhere worth seeing. She pulled on a beige cardigan, and Tsunashi a dark gray coat. Heated rooms were one thing. Outside, it was late autumn now, chilly even in the middle of the day.
In case something went wrong, they told the others where they were headed and left the inn. Yuri asked whether she ought to lend them a car, but they were in the mood to walk a little, and so they declined.
"I-I still don't have the nerve to ride around the middle of town in a car like that."
The greatest reason was precisely the one Ninomae had just given.
A woman drawing every eye as she stepped down out of a limousine? What kind of new humiliation play was that supposed to be?
At any rate, the two of them came outside and walked side by side.
"Anyway, what are you looking at so hard?"
"Oh, this?"
One hand tucked in her coat pocket, Tenka was working the phone with only her right. Ninomae, finding the sight curious, had asked.
"Just putting up a tweet."
So saying, she lifted the corner of her mouth and smoothly held out the screen.
"...A d-date?"
"Well. Close enough, isn't it?"
A smile so refreshing it was almost enviable. Looking at it, Mary let out a sigh.
"I bet plenty of people got the wrong idea about you, back in your prime. Honestly, you had a fan club in high school, didn't you?"
"Huh? How'd you know? Pretty sure I've never told anyone that."
Did she hear it from Akane-chan? Tenka sank into genuine thought.
"No. You can just tell by looking."
Even on ordinary days the girl had a natural, half-unconscious ditz streak about her. Today alone, how many times had it already happened? She would take the curb side as if it were nothing, or hold out a hand as a matter of course when they came down a tall step.
It was all too easy to picture her giving any number of girls the wrong idea at an all-girls' school, and making any number of them cry besides. Girl or not, she must have received a great many love letters.
"How do I put it... What I mean is, it's the sort of thing innocent girls fall for."
"Then maybe Ninomae-chan likes that kind of thing too?"
"Hwah?! How did this even turn into that conversation...?!"
Ninomae startled and flailed her arms. She could not begin to follow the circuitry of this person's thoughts.
It was not as if, being a girl herself, she felt no yearning at all for the sorts of things that happened in shoujo manga...
"I've never seen a girl as kind and pure as Ninomae-chan."
"I-I'm not a nice girl, you know?"
"Saying it like that only scores you extra points."
Watching Ninomae push her lips out in a pout, Tenka laughed under her breath. The girl herself insisted she was a hypocrite, but to anyone else she was simply cute.
"Ugh..."
That look, laid over Mary Tepes, self-proclaimed ruler of all evil, only made Tenka laugh again.
"...Emphasize that we're sharing a room, too. It's a chance to push Charmea."
"Ahaha. As you command."
Being a pure-hearted saint did not mean she was any less devoted to business. Even in the middle of complaining, Ninomae seemed to have finished her calculations, and said as much.
"Want me to post everyone else's room assignments while I'm at it?"
"Well... that might be nice, too. Honestly, even I think it's an unusual combination."
Tap, tap. Tenka's thumb drummed across the screen once more. Even one-handed, the motion was remarkably quick.
Ninomae had been staring at her when she sensed someone coming their way and turned her head. Tenka lifted her eyes from the phone at once as well, so she had noticed the approach. Well, she was a werewolf. There was no chance she would miss something even Ninomae's senses had caught.
Two young men. One of them had brown hair with dark roots showing, as if he had dyed it.
...Mm. I think I already know what they're after.
Cheerful, you might have called it—or flighty, pushed all the way to frivolous. Their whole air left Ninomae certain. Intuition born of experience, you could say.
"H-hey, ladies. You free?"
How did they manage to open with a line that stale? Faced with a situation she knew all too well, Ninomae sighed and prepared to turn them down with something suitably vague.
"If you've got time, wanna hang out with us?"
"Sorry. If it's a date you're after, I've already got plans."
"...Hueh?"
But Tenka moved before she could.
Tsunashi Tenka drew the hand from her pocket and swept that arm around Ninomae's shoulders, pulling her in. The move was so sudden that Ninomae never managed so much as a token of resistance before she was nestled, soft, against her chest.
"Uh... ladies, are you two, like, that way? Hitting on you gets kinda awkward, then."
"Forcing heterosexuality on someone in a modern society sensitive to LGBT issues, without so much as considering another person's sexual orientation. And you still call yourself an intellectual?"
"No, shit—hey! You're the one who said they were pretty and told me to go talk to them! ...Ah, anyway. Excuse us."
The man stalked off, snapping at the friend who had cut him loose without a single second of hesitation. Even so, seeing that he had not forgotten his manners, he did not seem like a man whose character was shallow all the way down.
Watching their backs recede, Tsunashi gave a wry smile.
"I was just going to brush them off with something witty, about already having someone to walk with. Looks like I planted a strange misunderstanding instead."
And she glanced down at the Ninomae gathered in her arms.
"...Ninomae-chan?"
"Hau, ah, uuu..."
To describe it with any precision: a broken Ninomae.
"Sorry. Did it bother you, me pulling you in all of a sudden?"
"...I don't know."
Only then did Tenka let her go, and Ninomae, putting distance between them at once, jerked her head aside. The ear showing through her brown hair was scarlet.
"A surprise attack is seriously against the rules."
That a layer of fat had hidden the pounding of her heart—Ninomae Hitomi considered that a true mercy.
"Okaaay— starting the stream, just like I previewed——."
"...You previewed it, nya?"
"I diiid. Five minutes ago. On Twitter."
Could you even call that a preview? At this rate it was a guerrilla stream in all but name. Akane—Yugure Tama—somehow swallowed the objection boiling up in her.
"Anyway, that's how it turned out, so just like the title says, viewers, this is a get-well visit."
"Well, long story short, it's a call stream with the demon kouhai who's stuck in the hospital, da-nya."
"She posted about it herself, but fortunately she seems all right, da-nya. They say so long as she just rests, there's no problem, da-nya."
Komori Sae, a second-generation member who had been forced to sit out the group project by a sudden hospitalization. It was already the third day since she had been admitted.
"But what's with a get-well stream, da-nya? Out of nowhere like this."
"No, it's obvious, isn't it? Tama-senpai, think about it."
Serena—Senjoji Chiyo—drew her brows faintly together and went on.
"Our genmate's in the hospital, and if the rest of Gen 2 runs off on a trip going kya-kya, ufufu, having the time of our lives, the picture starts to look weird. Somebody has to check in like this and confirm that Sae-chan's okay."
"That is... a pretty calculating thing to say, nya."
"It's calculating, which is exactly why it has to be me. The other Gen 2 girls already got in touch and checked that she was all right, but it never even occurred to them to show it off on stream."
"That does sound about right, da-nya."
Tama's avatar wore an inscrutable expression, and nodded all the same.
"So, connecting the call nooow."
"We already got permission for her to appear, so don't worry about that part, nya."
The connecting tone of a voice-chat app. On the screen, Komori Sae's nickname was up.
"Ah, hello. Sae-chan?"
A streaming voice from the very moment she picked up. They really did seem to have told her about the broadcast ahead of time.
"I called so we could show the viewers that Sae-chan's all right."
She seemed to be trying not to let it show, but Sae looked considerably pleased by the fact.
"Don't say things like that. A pretty girl's suffering is a loss to the world."
"You're saying that pretty much from the heart, not as a joke, aren't you, you trashy ghost, nya."
"Ufufu, about that..."
Serena put on a needlessly wicked face, and said it.
"A project to hunt down the dishonest children who never let it show, but worried about Sae-chan behind the scenes! How about it? Pretty good, right?"
"Mail, LINE, pasta messages, call logs... whatever it is, this is a stream where we air out every last time somebody asked how Sae-chan was doing."
"What—hold on. I never heard anything about that, nya!"
"Well, that's because I didn't tell Tama-senpai."
The corner of Serena's mouth curled.
"Oh my? What's the matter, senpai? Don't tell me you heard Sae-chan had been hospitalized, freaked right out, and left her some long get-well text?"
"Be quiet, nya!"
"Yeees, as you can see, our Anapro is rather well stocked with tsunderes who simply cannot be honest. I was thinking I'd take this chance and expose every last one of them."
"Maybe we pick a first-place winner and hand out a prize?"
Serena added it, grinning like a fool. Sae, whose whole concept was a cheeky little brat, seemed to decide this was something of an opportunity for her as well, and grinned from the far end of the call.
"Well then, since that's how it is, first we'll reveal Tama-senpai's messages..."
But in the very moment she meant to get properly started, a voice from the other end of the call cut in over her.
It was not Sae's voice. It came from a little farther off, and it was thoroughly without feeling.
The word that flashed through her head was broadcast accident.
"And what's with the loli voice? It's not as if you're streaming."
She—Tachibana Rin—asked it in a perfectly flat tone.
And then a crash. Before long, the call cut out.
"......First place looks like it's already decided, doesn't it?"
"Is now the time to be saying that, nya?"