What Was Clutched in the Evening (5)
There are, surprisingly, more than a few people who go through an entire life without ever once being dead drunk. Akaba Akane was one of them.
That was not to say she never drank. Her faith sometimes left her no choice but to put alcohol to her lips—nothing stronger than mild, low-proof sweet sake, but drink all the same—and even setting that aside, sit down to a meal with the people around her and cups had a way of appearing.
For all those occasions, Akane had never once had an experience she could honestly call being drunk. A stronger head for liquor than most played its part, no doubt, but the greater reason was simply that she held herself in check. A cup or two of the weak sweet sake served at the shrine was hardly going to intoxicate anyone, and whenever she did end up drinking with other people, she invariably found herself cast as the one looking after the drunks. No one had forced the duty on her. It was more that she felt it keenly: if she didn't watch these idiots and keep them in line, who would?
In any case, to repeat a conclusion already given, Akaba Akane had never been properly, thoroughly drunk. Which was to say she had no way of knowing what kind of drunk she was.
"……."
Akane quietly tipped her cup. She had never been the talkative sort, so the silence itself was nothing strange… but look closely, and her eyes had gone faintly unfocused. No—there was no need to look closely. She couldn't hold herself upright at all. Her head rested on the shoulder of Marbas beside her, and in that state she blankly put away one drink after another.
"…Control yourself."
Marbas caught her wrist with a short, hard tap, plucked the cup from her hand, and killed it in a single swallow. Akane stared dumbly down at the hand the cup had vanished from, then slowly lifted her head and looked at Marbas's face.
"…Drink."
"No. That's enough. You're already wasted."
"I'm not drunk."
"That's what every drunk says."
"……Then… am I drunk?"
"Nothing but nasal. You've turned into one big stuffed nose."
Akane hummed and examined herself. Realizing she could not actually see her own face with her own eyes, she grew oddly sad. Still, she kept herself so carefully in hand as a rule that it had been a long time since anyone fussed over her like this, and thinking of that, she felt a little glad.
"And get off me, for now."
She stayed leaned into Marbas's shoulder, purring. Watching her, Marbas narrowed her eyes a fraction. Everyone was staring in puzzlement, weren't they? Drunk or not, Akane almost never clung to another person like this. If one had to name an exception, there was Natsugahara—crippled by the most extreme aversion to other people imaginable—who would now and then glue fast to her back, but that was an entirely different matter.
"……Isn't this a good thing?"
That was all Akane murmured in reply.
"This was the plan from the start, wasn't it? To make it look like this?"
"…That… might be true, I suppose."
It wasn't entirely wrong, once she thought about it, and Marbas had no choice but to shut her mouth. Show a side of herself she never showed. Put an intimacy with someone else on display, and stir up jealousy. Marbas had been brought to this table for exactly that purpose, and though Akane was not doing any of it sober, the picture did satisfy both aims. By that measure, it was no setback.
While Marbas settled on that private judgment, Akane slowly shifted her gaze to check the reaction that mattered most—her childhood friend's.
"……."
And there sat Tsunashi Tenka, a tender smile on her face, chatting happily with the coworker in the next seat. Then, as if she had felt Akane's eyes, she turned her head this way for a moment and met them… smiled once, let her attention go, and turned back.
The instant Akane confirmed it, her expression stiffened. For a second it felt as if something in her head had snapped. Slowly she lifted the head she had been resting against Marbas. She had only slumped there because she felt like going slack; she was not so far gone that she couldn't sit up, or hold her own body. Then she spoke, low.
"Tsunashi."
In that moment a hush fell over the noisy interior of the restaurant.
It wasn't that her expression carried any grave air, or any anger. If anything the alcohol had flushed her skin and loosened her eyes, so that she looked milder than usual. Her voice had a faintly firm edge, but it wasn't loud, and with the nasal slur running through it, it didn't sound strong. Even so, a tension no one could quite name clung to the word. The finishing stroke was the name itself: not the familiar given name, but the surname alone, spoken flat and dry, nothing like the way she usually called her childhood friend.
Until a moment ago the people around them had been watching Akane and Marbas pressed oddly close, eyes full of oh my, oh my. Those eyes began to waver. Feeling that sudden sour chill against her skin, Akane blamed herself for throwing cold water over a perfectly good gathering. Contrary to the thought, her mouth would not stop.
"Tsunashi Tenka."
"…Akane-chan?"
"You. This really doesn't bother you? Not at all?"
By then even Tenka, dense as she was about things like this, had no choice but to notice that the situation had turned strange. Akane didn't care whether the reaction came late. She only snarled on.
Right. Hadn't she known from the start that this one was a blockhead—the sort who had eaten her own sense of a room, rice and all? And she had thought she could provoke jealousy in someone like that? Drop a hint, do something worth a second glance? Ridiculous. Wasn't it obvious from this alone? Maybe it had been foolish to believe a method this shabby would ever work.
"I'm hanging all over another woman, right here, and you mean to tell me it truly doesn't bother you one bit……."
Resignation and lament both packed into the words, Akane glared at her friend. She knew she was being unreasonable. She didn't particularly want to be saying any of this. And yet, somehow, this was the reaction that came out of her.
"Hey, did you hear that just now?"
"No—keep it down."
"Oh my. Oh my goodness……."
For some reason, though, the mood around them—frozen a moment ago—began to heat in an entirely different direction.
"……?"
Why are they all acting like that?
Akane, of course, hadn't the faintest guess as to the cause. Had she known what that last remark could be taken to mean, depending on the reading, she never would have opened her mouth.
"Huh? But if it's Akane-chan doing it, why would I…?"
The trouble was that one more person here had failed to understand the crowd. Akane, at least, could be excused as drunk, her judgment gone soft. This one was obliviousness on a catastrophic scale. No—if she had been blind to the room in every direction at once, the result might actually have been kinder.
"…For now, let's step outside and talk."
Tenka had grasped that whatever the reason, this was not the air of an ordinary situation. Of all the things to notice. So she meant to move them, rather than impose on people who were happily chatting. …In this particular case, that only drove the people around them past any hope of keeping their heads.
At the offer Akane nodded quietly, took the hand held out to her, and stepped outside the restaurant. Needless to say, a gesture that seemed to drive the last nail into the speculation of a moment before only set the crowd buzzing harder.
…This is a problem.
Marbas twitched an eyebrow at the looks that had begun, none too subtly, to gather on her. From Akane's words alone, it would not be difficult to guess that the two of them had been stuck together on purpose, to flaunt it in front of Tenka. In which case, even if none of it had been on the schedule, ending up at this company dinner on President Gyokichi's invitation was bound to look suspiciously convenient. Anyone watching would take her for someone sent in with a part to play, arranged with the president ahead of time. The truly awkward part was that, strictly speaking, this was not so far from the truth.
No—if they hadn't caught the intent, that was worse. Then what on earth did all these converging stares mean? Nothing less, obviously, than a pitiful demon who had gone so far as to beg the president, tagged along to the dinner, tried something—anything—with Akane, been shot down, and lost her to that werewolf.
And Anathema Production, so far as Marbas had seen it, was fish-stinking lunatics from the top of the ladder to the bottom, every last one of them a petit Philotanuss. However the matter fell out, there would be more than one or two lunging at her on the spot to demand she spill every detail.
Nothing for it. Sorry, but I'll have to dump the whole mess on that fish-man of a president and run.
So Marbas resolved. The President of the Hell Council, of all beings, flung into the middle of gossip and left to suffer—did that even bear saying aloud? She did feel a little sorry for Nakabashi Gyokichi, who would catch every eye the moment she left, but it couldn't be helped. An unavoidable sacrifice, if one wanted a phrase for it.
Rising to make her escape, she decided that as a final courtesy she would look upon her sacrificial lamb and offer a gaze of sympathy.
"……?"
Only then did she realize.
Th-this bastard already bolted…?!
President Gyokichi was already gone. Only the chair he had been sitting in at the start remained, holding his place in perfect emptiness. She had no idea when, but he had gotten the jump on her. People said that these days humans were worse than demons. This was precisely that.
"Damn it……."
In Anathema Production, where schemes ran thick, the clumsy did not survive. A great many stares promptly closed in on Marbas and the shock written across her face.
The season had by now crossed unmistakably from summer into autumn, and once evening came on there was even a thin chill past mere coolness.
"Akane-chan."
Feeling that wind against her skin, Tsunashi Tenka spoke. She had come out into the space behind the restaurant, and stepping into the open air she had hidden her ears and tail once more.
"What on earth's the matter? Did I do something wrong? If I did, I'll apologize."
"Even in the middle of this, you fucking……."
It was, however one looked at it, close to a model response—deeply gentle, and unmistakably set on solving the problem. Seeing it, Akane muttered as if the sight only irritated her. The words didn't last. Even she could tell she was being unreasonable. The other party hadn't understood the situation to begin with; demanding to know why she couldn't conduct herself properly was sending the complaint to the wrong address.
…But then what was she supposed to do with this snarled feeling? The sour heat of the alcohol had left a bed of coals in her throat and her stomach, and together with that emotion it set her chest to a furious boil.
What the hell do I have to do before this damned idiot will so much as register me as a biological woman?
By now it had tipped over into pure obstinacy—the kind that, once the drink wore off, would have her driving a fist into a wall again and again out of shame and regret. And there is surely no one quicker to act on impulse than a person moved by pride like that.
"…?!"
Akane seized her childhood friend by the collar and hauled her in, right up to her own face. Close enough for their breath to mingle. From that point-blank nearness she glared into Tenka's eyes, as if she meant to check, mirror-like, the self reflected in those pupils.
"Tsunashi Tenka."
The real purpose, if one had to name it, was the opposite.
Look. Clearly. I may have grown up hearing I was no better than some boy, but do you actually take me for a man? Not once since middle school has anyone mistaken my face for a man's. If you have eyes, use them. You're a wolf. It's not as if you're night-blind.
That was the act, and that was the gaze, loaded with every one of those feelings.
"……."
But sharing breath at such close range, even Akane—drunk, with irritation risen clear to the crown of her head—began to get a little of her reason back. It had been far too sudden, and rude besides. Framed like this, she looked ready to commit to one of two things: a kiss, or a headbutt. And having done something that senseless, she couldn't even claim it would work. If Tenka smiled gently and eased her off, saying this wasn't a thing to decide while drunk, that would almost have been getting off lightly. Tenka would likely do much the same if any other woman tried it. If the one doing it was Akane, the picture was painfully clear: a short snort of a laugh, and the whole thing waved off as a joke.
And so.
For Tsunashi Tenka, who had far greater strength, not to push her away at all—but to squeeze her eyes shut, lift her chin, and shiver there in meek submission—was plainly outside anything Akane had expected.
"……What?"
In the end the hunger was the same on both sides. Each of them had been yearning for the other to answer her as a woman. Akane, of course, had no way of knowing that. The shock knocked the drink clean out of her, and still her mind went and crashed.