Your Grace and You, Together (1)
Han Seoyeon returned to the inn only after the small hours had passed and the sky was beginning to pale. Late autumn was steadily shortening the days, and by that measure the hour was very late indeed.
"You're only just getting back?"
"I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"
"No. I'm usually up around this time anyway."
She had done her best to slip in quietly, but the moment the paper door slid shut, the rustle of bedding answered her. A moment later Hyakurenno Yuri sat up, rubbing at her eyes.
"You must be exhausted, aren't you?"
"I'm fine. A prayer, and I'm good as new."
Yuri yawned, smoothing down her sleep-mussed hair.
"Are you sure you're all right? No matter how I think about it, those dark circles seem to come from exactly that."
Forcing a body that needed rest awake by doping it—wasn't that how a face ended up looking so worn down? That was what she was asking.
"My bodily functions recover completely. You may consider my health entirely unimpaired."
"And the dark circles?"
"Those have nothing to do with health, do they?"
They were a signal of fatigue, yes, but they did no harm to the body in themselves. If she wasn't actually tired, then surely a trace of that degree could remain without it being any sort of problem. I really am fine, though.
…And it was precisely that way of thinking, no doubt, that kept the dark circles from ever falling within the scope of what healing was meant to touch. Yuri seemed to have caught on; the smile she offered was a wry one.
"Anyway, if you're only getting back now, that means the work is finally finished, doesn't it?"
"Well, yes. I dumped most of it on Eru and the Church, but the cleanup dragged on considerably."
Natural enough, if one stopped to think about it. Even setting the shrine folk aside, more than ten people had been abducted by an anomaly. Most of them had likely lived their whole lives on the surface world alone, and once that was taken into account, the aftermath was bound to grow complicated.
"How nice it would be if there were a memory-erasing light, like the ones secret agents use in the movies."
Han Seoyeon murmured it like a lament. Something of the sort would have been a great help in settling the incident. Failing that, even a Hypnosis App of the kind that turns up only in erotic manga would have done.
"Hang in there. It's thanks to people like you, Miss Shion, that this country keeps running as it should."
"Even so, that's far too generous."
Passing Yuri, who was gathering the bedding up fold by fold, Han Seoyeon began to undress in the corner of the room. She set her hat—the Cappello Romano—down somewhere suitable, loosened the fascia at her waist, undid the ties, and parted the front of her black habit.
For a brief moment Yuri took the sight in. Then she cleared her throat and looked away. She had seen her far more bare than this at the hot spring, so why should this particular glimpse leave her feeling so strangely unsettled? A truly peculiar thing.
Fortunately, Seoyeon's change of clothes was quick. In a flash she had switched into the yukata the inn had provided for sleeping, and she stowed the weapons she carried away in her suitcase. Then she drew out a notebook and dropped down to sit in the corner.
"A report on yesterday. I already gave the Church a full account of the incident itself, but the investigation the professor assigned me has to be written up and submitted separately."
Yuri never opened her mouth to ask what she meant. Perhaps reading the curiosity in her gaze, Han Seoyeon had answered anyway.
"The professor—that's Miss Senjoji's older sister?"
"Yes. Senjoji Chihaya. She's the advising professor for Ninomae and me as well."
"The world really is small, looked at this way."
That genmates among VTubers should turn out to be acquaintances only one degree removed was remarkable in itself. Yuri marveled even as she stretched long and slow, working the stiffness from her body.
"You and Miss Ninomae met through a group project at university, didn't you?"
"Did you hear that from Miss Ninomae?"
"You could say so. Strictly speaking, from Lady Mary."
Meaning she had brought it up on stream.
"Yes. We happened to land in the same group, and that bond has simply continued to now. I never imagined this person would become my oshi."
Han Seoyeon added it with a faint smile.
"How should I put it. It's like a drama—the leads who met by chance in ordinary life, running into each other at work in a professional relationship."
Yuri answered with a soft laugh. A faint light of envy, though, lingered in her eyes.
"It really is romantic."
"Is it?"
"…At least, it's something that could never happen to me."
The smile soon spread into something bitter.
Han Seoyeon knew nothing of the life led by the woman called Hyakurenno Yuri. She didn't even know what her days at school were like, beyond the bare fact that she attended university. But she could not imagine that a daughter of the Hyakurenno—a house counted among the foremost in Japan, no, something that soared far past even that description—could ever live an ordinary university life.
People would draw near harboring ulterior motives, or else be too frightened to draw near at all. And even if someone did come to her with nothing but sincerity, Yuri could not simply be glad of it. Without meaning to, she had acquired the bad habit of doubting first.
"That's why I truly like my colleagues at Anathema. I met these people with nothing to do with Hyakurenno."
They hadn't approached her with an agenda. She had been the one to approach first. Choosing this company, of all places, had been entirely Yuri's own decision. What's more, they had learned who she really was only after a relationship of sorts had already formed on the virtual side.
"I'm sorry. For forcing my way along on your trip, Miss Shion. When I thought of it as a chance to go out with everyone from my generation, I just couldn't hold myself back."
"Not at all. The noise made it more enjoyable, if anything. …Hm. That came out like the sort of thing one says when a trip is ending."
"Fufu… Yes. There's still a day left."
There was still time left in which to enjoy herself.
"Thanks to you, Miss Hyakurenno. It was meant to be one night and two days, so by all rights I ought to be heading back now, having spent the whole of it cleaning up."
It was Yuri who had lengthened the schedule by a day out of her own pocket. Han Seoyeon paused midway through writing in her notebook to offer that thanks.
"Hearing you say so makes me happy, even if it's only a polite lie."
"It wasn't a lie."
She wasn't the sort of person to offer one, even by her own reckoning. At those words Yuri smiled, bright and easy.
"I know. That's why it makes me even happier."
Perhaps she hadn't expected to be met that way; Han Seoyeon's eyes widened for a moment. Before long she returned her gaze to the notebook, and yet.
The reaction had been faint. But perhaps, for someone whose shows of feeling ran so thin, that had been her own version of shyness. Hyakurenno Yuri indulged herself in a daydream that pleased her.
"Let's go to the beach! Swimsuits!"
"Are you serious? In this weather?"
No one would have packed a swimsuit in the first place. Akaba Akane answered flatly, laying talismans out across the floor.
The one who had proposed it, Senjoji Chiyo, dropped to her knees as if struck by grief. Regrettably, it was November. The air was nowhere near warm enough for getting into the sea.
"Besides, if what you want is skin, you saw plenty of that at the hot spring."
"There's no ranking between naked and a swimsuit. They just have different flavors."
"Damn it. Sorry for trying serious logic on you."
Smack. Akane struck her own forehead and groaned.
"The sea… I wish we'd come in the summer."
The swimsuit could have gone either way, but it seemed she had wanted them all to swim together; Ninomae murmured it under her breath.
"Then let's travel together again. Next time, in the summer."
Yuri's answer followed, and a smile with it. At that reply Ninomae smiled brightly as well.
The group had gathered in a single room to talk over the day's plans. …Not all of them, strictly speaking. So the manager, a human of the surface world, wouldn't be caught up in the anomaly, the maid—Chisa—had put her down with drink. Whether the hangover still clung to her, Manager Hatsuna was groaning her way through today as well.
"Nnngh…!"
The very person who had thrown the drinking party, meanwhile, was still tipping vodka straight from the bottle, as if it weren't nearly enough.
"So. Anyone got an idea that isn't the beach?"
"Mmm. It's not exactly an idea, but."
Ninomae raised her hand, careful about it.
"What if we spent today resting properly here at the inn?"
People often came to a hot-spring inn not for lodging on the way to sightseeing, but with the springs themselves as the point. Passing a leisurely stretch of time in the room, taking in the view beyond the window, was certainly one way to spend it. Not a bad idea, but…
Akane caught the faint presence of a personal motive in it.
"This about Sister? She had a rough time yesterday, so let her rest?"
To call it a personal motive was almost unfair. It was goodwill of the purest kind.
"Ehehe… Th-that's not it at all?"
"Really?"
"It isn't… is it?"
And then she simply laughed, looking sheepish. An exceedingly pure smile, and an exceedingly cunning one. No one could refuse a proposal from a person who wore that face with that intent.
"If this is out of consideration for me, there's really no need—mmph."
The only one who might have produced something resembling an objection found the words stopped in her mouth. In the most literal sense. Ninomae reached out and clapped a hand clean over Han Seoyeon's lips.
"Miss Shion, who kept me waiting until late last night, has no right to speak! Do you know how worried I was?"
Seoyeon squinted at her, half-lidded, as if to ask what she thought she was doing, and Ninomae said it with a bright little smile.
…And the one who took the call yesterday was Miss Ninomae, wasn't it.
Looking back, Ninomae had stayed awake that late waiting for her. There was no guarantee she had dropped off the moment Seoyeon reported that the situation was over. Having reached that conclusion, Han Seoyeon had no choice but to nod and give in. She herself was perfectly fine. She did not think Ninomae would be.
Now that she looked, even that hehe-ing face seemed unlike her usual self. True, Ninomae smiled through most of her chatter with Seoyeon, but today she was about twenty percent more loosely, dopily smiley. A little drunk on sleep, most likely.
"…Haah."
And then, as if to prove the point, Ninomae let out a small yawn, and Han Seoyeon set a hand on her shoulder without thinking.
"Go back in and sleep a little more, Miss Ninomae."
"No. The one who needs to rest is Miss Shion…"
She shook her head, laying her own hand over Seoyeon's.
"Both of you just go to the next room and sleep, you hopeless idiots."
"No, I'm fine, it's Miss Shion who…"
"I am a Holy Knight, for one thing, so…"
"Shut up. Hold hands, get in there, and sleep. Right now."
Eep. At Akane's icy bark, the two voices overlapped into one for once.
Han Seoyeon looked down at the bedding laid out side by side on the floor. The room assigned to Ninomae. Originally she and Tsunashi Tenka had been staying in it together, but now Han Seoyeon had come in.
"Stick these idiots in separately and they'll be crawling back out before long, saying they aren't tired."
It had been Akane's emergency measure. And in fact Seoyeon had been planning to pack Ninomae off to bed and then rejoin the rest of the group herself.
"So this is the futon the CharMary pair spent a night sharing, is it."
"…I think it would be all right if you were just a little less consistent, Miss Shion."
That was what came out of her not long after they entered the room, and so Ninomae could only mutter it, sounding dumbfounded. Being this consistent might be a talent in itself.
"Anyway, let's lie down. You look ready to collapse at any moment, Miss Ninomae."
"No. I keep telling you, I'm fi—"
Haahm. Another cute yawn slipped out of her. Ninomae quietly looked away.
As if to say she understood perfectly, Han Seoyeon pressed her shoulders and laid her down on the futon. Leave things there, and Ninomae would obviously stare up at her with sullen, dissatisfied eyes, so she lay down neatly beside her as well.
"Honestly. You're tired, aren't you?"
"…A little."
She turned slightly onto her side to look at Ninomae, and the other woman turned as well, as if she refused to be outdone. Their eyes met in the middle of the bedding. Looking into each other's faces, the two of them arrived at the same opinion. If anyone looked the more tired, it was Ninomae. She would probably be the first to fall asleep, too. Ninomae yawned again and mumbled.
"You're not going to leave after you put me to sleep, are you?"
"Mm… Yes. No."
It had struck dead center, but saying so outright seemed likely to earn her a considerable glare.
"Don't leave me here alone."
"……All right."
And one sentence was enough to shatter that wicked (?) plan. The voice, melted a little by drowsiness, sounded just slightly pitiful.
"Mmm……."
But Ninomae drew her brows together, just a fraction. Han Seoyeon had answered quite sincerely, and still it was as if words alone could not be trusted.
"Give me your arm."
Awake, she would never even have thought of it, but from a head gone soft and floating with sleep, it slipped out of her mouth far too easily.
"Not that arm. The other one. Let me use it as a pillow."
A triumphant smile. She was clearly pleased with herself, convinced that this way there would be absolutely no slipping away. Did she even realize what a shameless thing she had just asked for? Even with that thought in mind, Han Seoyeon couldn't refuse her beaming face.
"Ehehe."
In the end, Seoyeon did indeed offer up one arm to this wicked archvillain. If there was one fortunate point to name, it was that their faces weren't all that close. To be precise, that part was not a choice but a necessity. Because of the cushion situated upon Ninomae's chest, resting her head on anything above the elbow was physically impossible.
Whatever about it delighted her so, Ninomae laughed in that loose, dopey way and spoke again.
"Tell me what happened yesterday. I want to hear how cool you were, Miss Shion."
This was why they said never to negotiate with terrorists. Concede once, and the demands never end.
"…Well. Where ought I to begin."
But Han Seoyeon knew, deep down, that this was a fight she was never going to win. She let out one light sigh and began the story—the way a parent tells a child an old tale, or the way one boasts of one's deeds to a lover. She went on murmuring, voice kept small, until the other woman's breathing evened into the soft, steady sound of sleep.