by Shouji Gatou
The sense of inferiority made him feel limp and deflated, like on hot, humid nights when his fur retained moisture.
An objective appraisal would prove that each person was really only going to two or three fun events per month. Sadly, that wasn’t how it looked to him. After the hundredth “Heading out!” tweet, he couldn’t help feeling like everyone else was going out on the town and having fun all the time. It created the illusion of a world filled with light, in which he alone suffered in grim, dull darkness day after day.
The most pathetic part of all was the way it tempted him to compete, to post bragging “I’m living a meaningful life!” tweets. Look at this wonderful guest we had today! Look at this wonderful experience I had! I may be facing setbacks, but I’m still giving it my all! —Of course, none of that was true.
My life is awful. Monday mornings are the worst. Someone kill me. I wished this packed train car would explode and a meteor would hit my workplace. I hope you all die.
But could he tweet those things? Of course he couldn’t.
Thus, as Moffle was not a mascot who tolerated deception, he had no choice but to remain silent.
It was around that time that part-time worker Takami brought him a bottle and a mug. “Here you are, Moffle-san. Your Black Hoppy!”
“...Moffu.”
“Can I get you something to eat?” Takami asked.
“Chilled tomatoes and cold tofu,” he told her. “Some yakitori, too. Your choice.”
“Got it!”
As Takami left the tatami room, Tiramii gazed after her. His sweet smile, his button eyes... A small sigh escaped his mouth.
“Takami-chan... I love that junk in her trunk, mii.”
“Don’t you dare, you stupid mutt!” Moffle and Macaron both groaned simultaneously.
“You always, always go there, fumo!”
“Hitting on the part-timer got us banned from the last place, ron!”
“I-I just like to say it, mii... Don’t glare at me like that, mii...”
2. The Mascots Are Awful With Customers
When he opened his eyes, it was morning, and he was home.
“Ugh...”
Seiya sat up in his bed. He was still wearing his street clothes, including his jacket.
When did I get here? How did I make it back from that amusement park? It was all a blank.
He looked at the clock; it was a little after 7:00 AM. He’d missed his scheduled Sunday night game (an online RTS), but there was nothing to do about that but send an email apologizing to his opponents before dragging his way to the bathroom. For now, he needed to get ready for school.
He could reflect on his situation rationally while he was showering off, he thought. Meeting that girl, Latifah, in that awful theme park; the bizarre request she’d made of him; the way she’d suddenly kissed him... Could that have all been a dream?
“Ugh... What the hell is going on here?”
After staggering his way to the bathroom door, he opened it, and— He found Sento Isuzu standing in the changing room, half-naked. Actually, as a matter of fact, she was almost entirely naked. The only thing she had on were her thigh-high stockings. Her back was to him, and she was in the middle of fitting a stripe-patterned bra over the not-quite-visible curve of her breasts.
Strange priorities in getting dressed... That was his first thought. Before “What a beautiful alabaster ass” or “Boy, she smells nice” or “Is she really into stripes?”, that was the first thought that floated into his mind.
She has strange priorities in getting dressed. Totally naked except stockings and a bra—what kind of person puts those on first? It’s utterly inscrutable.
Only after all of that did it occur to him to wonder: why was she in the changing room of his house, looking fresh out of the bath?
While Seiya wrestled with his silence, Isuzu glanced over her shoulder at him. Her gaze was surprisingly calm.
Before she could say anything, though, he swiftly slammed the door shut, threw himself back against the wall, and started shouting. He vaguely resembled one of those evil magistrates in a samurai drama calling for the guards.
“S-Sis! Aisu-san!”
There was a brief silence, and then Kyubu Aisu dragged herself out from her nearby bedroom.
“Mguh? ...What now?” she grumbled, “It’s first thing in the morning and I just got murdered by an all-nighter...”
He called her “Sis,” but Aisu was actually his aunt. She was 26 years old with short black hair, and wore a loose-fitting T-shirt over her very ample bosom. She was an editor for some publishing company, so she lived a highly irregular lifestyle, but though she smoked and drank a lot, her skin remained surprisingly young-looking and dewy.
“...Oh, Seiya,” she remarked. “You got yourself up, huh?”
“Sis, what the hell is she doing here?!” He jabbed his finger repeatedly at the door to the bathroom.
Aisu showed no sign of surprise. “She? Oh, Isuzu-chan? Did she take a bath?”
“Just answer my question!” Seiya demanded hysterically. “What’s she doing here?!”
“...She brought you here late last night,” Aisu told him. “She said something about you being on a date when you fell and hit your head? But it was probably just a concussion, so I thought I’d let you sleep it off. By then she’d missed the last train home, so I asked if she wanted to stay the night, and she was like, ‘sure.’”
Knowing Aisu, that was a fairly plausible series of events—she never paid any attention to anything besides her work, after all. She was the kind of person who, if a gang of foreign thieves showed up at two in the morning, rang the doorbell and said, “We’re the maid service,” would just respond, “Seiya must have called for you; go right in,” then fall back into bed.
But... even so... Even so, it’s transparently nonsense! Come on! How could you just swallow that whole story?! Just as Seiya’s mind was focusing its ire on her, a strange thing happened.
«It’s about time Seiya started going on dates with girls. He’s really mellowed out, I guess... he used to be so hostile to any woman he met. I’m so happy! Speaking as his guardian, of course.» Aisu’s voice resonated in his mind.
Her mouth had been closed. Nevertheless, he had heard her voice, as clear as day. “What?”
Aisu, who had said nothing, responded only with a “Hmm?”
“Sis,” he asked suspiciously, “did you just talk in a weird way?”
“Huh?”
“Something about me mellowing out or something...”
Aisu started in surprise. “Wh-What? I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
“You just said a bunch of stuff with your mouth closed...” Seiya accused her. “Like that I had mellowed out, that I’m hostile to women, something about speaking as my guardian...”
The surprise on her face grew even more pronounced, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “What? I didn’t say anything. You know, you’re really creeping me out right now...”
“You’re the one creeping me out...” he told her angrily. “I don’t know if that was ventriloquism or what, but I don’t like people making fun of me.”
“Ventriloquism?” asked Aisu, obviously confused.
“That’s what it was, right?” Then he thought, of course, she’d never mentioned having a skill like that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about... Oh, I get it,” she said, realization dawning. “I’m probably half asleep. Yeah, alcohol’s not out of my system yet... Anyway, you’re awake, so that’s all behind us... I’m going back to bed now. Get yourself to school, okay? Later.”
Aisu rambled for a little while without giving him a word in edgewise, then withdrew into her bedroom. The door closed with a clack.
While Seiya was still staring blankly after her, the door to the bathroom opened.
“That’s interesting,” Isuzu remarked.
Seiya was surprised out of his stupor. “Huh?!”
Sento Isuzu was standing
there, already dressed in her school uniform. She showed no sign of being bothered that Seiya had seen her naked.
“I overheard your conversation with your aunt,” she said. “There was only a door between us, after all.”
“...So what?”
“I think I know what your ‘magic’ is.”
It was Monday morning, so they didn’t have any time to lose. He got himself dressed, had a simple breakfast with Isuzu (Chocowa cereal and milk) and headed for school. His aunt Aisu was fast asleep in her room, so she didn’t see them off.
“So, are you going to explain or not?” Seiya asked as they walked the road from his apartment complex to Yanokuchi Station. The rapid service train going in their direction would be arriving soon, so they ended up taking a fairly fast pace.
“Of course I will,” Isuzu responded. “I start feeling like I’ll drop dead if I get fewer than three baths a day. That’s one every eight hours, more or less. After spending the night at your house, I was starting to reach the limit of what I could stand. So I used your bathroom—regrettably, without permission.”
“...Um, that’s not the explanation I was looking for...”
“I see... What did you want me to explain, then?”
“About this magic stuff!” he exploded, “and about that Latifah girl, while you’re at it!”
“Oh, that...” She nodded. “You lost consciousness when the princess, Latifah-sama, bestowed magic upon you. It was getting late, and we couldn’t wake you up, so I called a taxi and brought you home.”
She was still dancing around the heart of his question. “I want you to tell me about this ‘magic,’” he tried again.
“Latifah-sama is the queen of the magical realm Maple Land,” Isuzu explained. “The women of Maple Land’s royal family have the power to bestow magical powers on ordinary human beings via mouth-to-mouth contact.”
“M-Mouth-to-mouth?” he spluttered.
“It means a kiss.”
“I know what it means...”
So it hadn’t been a dream. You rotten woman, give back my first kiss! ...Actually, he didn’t mind that part so much. He did wish he’d had a little more time to prepare, though... perhaps a slightly greater sense of accomplishment?
Yes, it was that same feeling of emptiness you get when you’re playing an RPG and a glitch lets you beat the final boss at level three, and then you don’t even get the ending screen. It stinks! It just stinks!
Isuzu ignored Seiya’s quiet huffing and continued on calmly, “What kind of magic the royal family’s kiss bestows will vary based on the person receiving it. They may gain the ability to fire beams from their eyes, to grow super-strong metal claws from their fingers, or to control storms.”
“Are those really magic?” he wanted to know. Weren’t those actually mutant powers or something? They all sounded familiar, at the very least...
“Those are just examples,” she told him. “In your case, the magic appears to let you read people’s minds. If you gaze at a person and wish for it, you can hear what they’re thinking. There are stories about this in the old Maple Land records. However—”
Dubiously, Seiya gazed at Isuzu and concentrated. As if realizing what he was going for, she closed her mouth and said nothing more.
He focused. He heard a voice. It was a strange resonance in his head that felt close, and yet far away.
Sento Isuzu’s thoughts read: «However—according to those records, you can only use the magic on a single person once, and you can only read their minds for a brief time. Does it work? If you can hear me, say something.»
The inner voice cut off. Isuzu stared right at him, waiting for him to respond.
“...Well,” he concluded, “It looks like it’s true. I definitely could hear your thoughts. You said I can only read each person once, and for a limited time?”
“I’m glad that you catch on so quickly.”
“Hmm. It seems hard to believe,” he admitted, “but I don’t think you could be faking it...”
All this talk about magic might have seemed like nonsense, but Seiya took it relatively in stride. Given the amount of strange phenomena he’d been experiencing these last two days, he’d given up on trying to find realistic, logical bases for everything he came across.
Magic that let him read minds, eh?
Fine. Let’s just say the power existed and that he had it. In that case, the first thing he had to do was test that power and get a feel for its limits.
Arguing with himself over every little thing wouldn’t get him anywhere; he had to face reality and get some information that he could use! Of course, he would have preferred magic that let him control gravity, or perfectly copy another person’s powers... but he opted not to voice those complaints.
So, he thought, let’s test it one more time! He stared at Isuzu once again, trying to peer into her mind. But no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t hear her voice again.
“......”
“It appears my suspicions were correct,” she said. “You can’t read my mind anymore, can you?”
“...How can you be so sure? Maybe I’m just pretending like I can’t.” He was saying it partly out of spite, but Isuzu wasn’t fazed.
“You’re not—” she denied confidently.
“Oh?”
“—because I was thinking something incredibly obscene just now.”
“Wh... What?” Obscene? What kind of obscene?!
“Just kidding,” Isuzu added.
“Rrgh...”
“But this does confirm it,” she finished thoughtfully. “You didn’t know that I was lying. In other words, you can only read each person once... That much is clear.”
“Grrr...”
So her tactics were impeccable; he’d have to be on his guard around her. There was their back-and-forth at the snack shop yesterday, too... He might have to keep a tight rein on his emotions around her from now on.
There was another way in which he regretted his carelessness, though.
He’d wasted his “one time only” magic on her already... If he’d timed it more carefully, he might have gotten some proper blackmail material.
“...Kanie-kun. You’re feeling disappointed that you couldn’t get blackmail material on me, aren’t you?”
“W-Wait... you don’t have that power too, do you?”
“No. It just seemed likely, given your behavior in our previous interactions.”
“Grr...”
I really hate acting, Seiya thought bitterly. It’s a little late for it now, but—
“F-Fine... Let me test it a little more.” Trying it on one person wasn’t positive proof.
He tried the power out on a middle-aged office worker walking beside them on his way to the station. It was just a man he’d seen around from time to time—it wouldn’t be a problem to never read his mind again.
He heard the man’s voice. «Ahh, I’m so tired. I got out of the house late, and I’ve probably missed my usual train... Which means I won’t see that pretty clerk today. She’s my one point of light in a hellish commute...»
Whatever. He then read the mind of a middle-aged woman in a suit, who was walking behind the man.
«...Did I program the DVR right? If I call now, maybe I can get Takeshi to check it before he goes to school. But Takeshi hates Korean dramas, which makes it so awkward to ask him... What will I do?»
Seriously whatever. He then tried an ordinary-looking boy behind her. He was dressed in a uniform for another school, his eyes glued to a notebook as he walked—
«...Congress of Vienna, 1914. Congress of Vienna, 1914. Congress of Vienna, 1914. Congress of Vienna, 1914...»
Not whatever at all! The Congress of Vienna was 1814 to 1815! It was a crucial conference between the nations of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars! How could you mistake it for 1914? That’s a century off! That’s World War I! He ground his teeth, longing to object. Longing to point out the boy’s mistake...
After choking down th
e urge, he tried using his “magic” once more on the same subjects—the office worker, the older woman, the student—but he couldn’t read any of their minds any more.
“...It seems you’re correct, Sento,” he finally admitted. “I only get one try per person, and I can only read their minds for a short time.”
“The Maple Land records speak of people in the past who had that sort of power,” she answered briefly.
“Hmm.” If he had learned one new thing from all this, it was that the power didn’t allow him to actually see people’s names. He didn’t know the kanji behind the woman’s (probable) son, Takeshi.
In other words, the magic didn’t let him literally “read” the person’s mind; he was just hearing their thoughts. And he only got one shot per person. With limitations like that, it would be a difficult power to abuse.
They were getting close to Yanokuchi Station; the area around it was badly run-down, with almost no shops. There was a cleaners and a green grocer, plus a pub and a yakitori bar aimed at the local men. To the south of the station was undeveloped mountain forest.
These were the outskirts of the Tokyo commuter town Amagi, right on the border of Kanagawa Prefecture. Although they were a mere 30 minute ride to Shinjuku, it would be a stretch to call it part of the city; It was a suburb.
After passing through the ticket gate, Seiya spoke up again. “I still have a lot of questions. What’s this ‘Maple Land’ thing?”
“It’s a magical realm that lies on the threshold between the sea and the land,” said Isuzu.
“So I’ve heard,” he replied pointedly. “Now tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth.”
She’s apparently going to insist on this whole ‘magical realm’ line, then. Fine, whatever.
“But all you need to worry about, for now, is coming back to Brilliant Park with me after school,” she said. “The fact that you passed out meant we weren’t able to discuss our plan of action.”