Evidence? What kind of evidence? Is she going to cart out someone more captivating than even I am before he got these guys’ treatment or whatever?
Come on. This isn’t a late-night ad for some diet plan. It’s not like they could show me some before/after pictures.
As I pondered this, the door closed as Kido disappeared into the room.
Kano was beaming as always. Presumably he was waiting for Kido to bring someone (?) out from the room.
I decided to wait with him, wondering what I should be expecting.
…But, after more than a minute of silence, Kido failed to return.
I turned my eyes toward the cuckoo clock on the wall, then a modern digital one nearby. Really, there’s nothing that makes time go slower than waiting for something when you have no idea what it is.
His smile nailed to his face, Kano began reading a magazine as if nothing was amiss. The door stubbornly stayed shut. What was I even doing here?
“Um, could I—Ahhhhh!!”
I had just turned to Kano, ready to ask him what we were waiting for, when an unbelievable sight shook a scream out of me.
Next to Kano, as he flipped through the pages, was Kido, sitting just as she was before.
There was nothing she could have hid behind between us and the door. I didn’t move out of my seat the whole time.
“Wh…wha…huh? W-why? When did you…?!”
I had leaped out of the sofa, almost sending both it and myself toppling backward. Kido looked at me coldly, telling me with her eyes that I was a tad out of line.
“Well, there you have it! Quite a surprise, huh?”
Kano, watching me grip the sofa’s backrest tightly, looked like he couldn’t be enjoying this more.
Kido sighed. “That was kind of over-the-top, wasn’t it? Stop looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“That wouldn’t be far from the truth, though—oww!”
Kano’s smile held steady against yet another punch in the side. It made me wonder if he took pride or something in his ability to keep a smile painted on at all times.
“So…so what was that?”
Sitting back down on the sofa, I asked about the phenomenon I had just seen.
To be honest, the sense of lingering fear made me reluctant to look directly at Kido.
“Well, Kido…You know, she’s the same as you. Okay, more like the exact opposite, but her thing was that, ever since she was a kid, she couldn’t ‘get’ anyone to look at her.”
I listened to Kano’s explanation in sheer disbelief.
“I think you probably get the picture, but you, like, totally didn’t notice her, right? It’s kind of like she can keep that going forever.”
She had completely escaped my notice.
It was as if I had averted my gaze for one moment, and suddenly, she was there.
It felt like some kind of Houdini-style magic trick.
“Somewhere along the line she started training herself to control it, and that’s where we are today. So, like, that’s why I think we can help you maybe take control of your own traits a little more, so—”
I shot upward, my palms slamming against the table.
“I’ll do it! I’m staying here! If…if you need any chores done, I’ll do anything you need! And that…uh, “operation”? Lemme help you with that, too! So…please, please let me into the Mekameka-dan!!”
There’s always hope left in the world, I guess.
I had to go through a lot of bad situations with this body of mine, but never in my life had my heart been so full of hope and excitement for the future.
If I stay here, I know they can cure me.
I can go out shopping like a normal girl, I can talk to people like a normal girl, I can even make friends like a normal girl!
“Oh, uh…well, great! Super! By the way, it’s Mekakushi-dan. That’s kind of important.”
“Mekakushi-dan! Yes!! I’m ready!!”
“I really wish you’d stop using that stupid name. It’s not like you’re gonna have a chance to tell the general public.”
Kido’s muttered interjection stopped Kano and me in our tracks. I realized that my pulse had quickened in the excitement.
“Eesh, Kido, way to pee on our parade…But anyway! Welcome to the group, Kisaragi.”
“Th-thank you!”
“Pretty momentous occasion, huh? Or at least it would be if the boss wasn’t here to mess it all up for—ow! Hey, that hurt!”
I was reasonably certain his arm wasn’t supposed to bend that way. But he was still smiling!
Kano must really be proud of that…habit. Or whatever.
I cracked a smile as I watched the exchange. It hadn’t taken me long to get used to their antics. As I smiled, the rightmost door on the far wall suddenly opened.
In it appeared a small girl, her hair white as snow, almost as if she had just stepped out of a picture-book world.
“Mm? Oh, look who finally came out! Hey, Marie…”
The girl turned toward us as her name was called. She jumped slightly, like she had seen a monster, before scurrying back into the room she came from.
“…Figures.”
“Just like you’d expect, huh? Marie’s so easy to predict sometimes.”
“Uh, sorry about that. That was Marie just now. I’d like to get you acquainted as soon as we can, but…”
“Um…Did I do something to make her hate me?”
I was used to people looking at me with furtive, prying eyes, but that reaction was enough to make even me feel ashamed of myself.
“Nah. Don’t worry about it. She’s that way around everyone. Kano, could you try to get her in here for me?”
“Whaaa? No way, man. I don’t wanna deal with you-know-what if I end up pissing her off.”
“Well, it’s your own fault she’s in a snit like that in the first place. Just because she was wearing different socks than usual doesn’t give you the right to laugh in her face.”
“But they just looked so, like, weird! Besides, Kido, you didn’t react to them at all. You sat there like a rock!”
“Well, that beats laughing maniacally at her, doesn’t it?! Better not to react at all than react like that.”
“Yeah, but Marie was looking for a reaction. That’s why she came out wearing those socks in the first place. Same difference, if you ask me…But this ain’t doing us any good. You go get her, okay? She’s a lot more likely to come out if you do it.”
“Kano, you have got to be—”
“Come on. I’m right, aren’t I? This job calls for a woman’s touch. Otherwise we’d be rocking the boat too much.”
“…Ugh. All right. But don’t blame me if something happens to you afterward.”
Kido stood up, traveled to the far end of the room, and opened the door the girl they called Marie had peeked out from earlier.
“Agh…?!”
The moment the door was open, there was a dull thud, followed by a short yelp of surprise. Beyond the door, I could see the girl from before, teary-eyed and holding her forehead.
She had apparently stayed right by the door after returning to her room, causing it to bang her in the head when Kido opened it. The boss, her back turned to us, pointed a thumb back toward where we were seated. After a quick peek, she shook her head, tears still welled around her eyes.
“Umm…She—she obviously hates me, so…”
“Nah, nah, she’s just…like, super shy around other people. Though it’s kinda worse than usual today.”
Kano returned to his magazine, rapidly flipping through the pages, apparently not too disturbed at the sight.
The door was still open, letting me hear bits of the muted conversation as Kido tried her best to coax the girl out of the room. I couldn’t decipher all of it, but the words I could make out from the girl—“scared” and “I can’t” being among them—all had negative connotations, each of which cut me to the quick.
“Um…if you think it’s not g
onna happen…”
The moment I started speaking to Kano, I heard the door slam shut.
In front of it were Kido with the girl they called Marie, still hiding behind her.
The white hair that came down to her hips looked soft and fluffy, like the fur of some creature from the snowfields. I could image how nice it would feel if I buried my face in it.
“Ooh, great job fishing her out of there, boss.”
Kano closed the magazine he was reading long enough to give Kido a light round of applause.
Kido returned to her original seat, the young girl sitting right in between her and Kano.
Up close like this, she looked like a doll come to life…Her eyes were a light shade of pink, her skin a paler white than even Kido’s, and her long, mesmerizing white hair gave her the air of a forlorn woodcutter’s daughter from a rustic folktale.
But she still tried to conceal her face from me, her eyes swiveling between random empty points on the table in front of her. She recited to herself “It’s okay…It’s okay…” over and over again like an incantation, and she must have known that I could hear it from here.
“Anyway, here’s Marie. Sorry it took a while to get her out here.”
The girl’s shoulders tensed up when her name was called. Gingerly, she looked up at me.
“Shy” wasn’t the half of it. As the new woman in town, I felt obliged to give the best first impression I could.
“G-good to meet you, Marie! I, uh, my name’s Kisaragi! I guess we’ll be living together for a little while, so…so I’ll try my best to help out, so, uh, thanks in advance!”
Her shoulders stiffened once more when I began to speak, but apparently the message came through, because by the time I had finished, her expression was notably less strained.
“…”
But she was still frozen in place.
“Uh…Ha-ha-ha! So, uh, that’s pretty much the story, so…”
To avoid diving headlong into silence, I made a feeble attempt at breaking the ice further. My lack of verbal skills made me all but defenseless whenever silence fell upon a conversation. I really need to buy a book on communication skills sometime…
Despite my expectations, however, the silence didn’t last long.
“My…My name is Marie…It’s, it’s nice to meet you…”
She spoke very, very softly. It took a moment to realize that she was attempting to introduce herself.
Her eyes began to swivel around again, her white skin turning a shade of red all the way to her ears.
“I, um, I’ll go make some tea!”
She had apparently reached her tolerance limit. Marie got up off the couch and hurriedly skipped over to the kitchen.
“Oh, um, no need to go to the trouble!”
Great. Just when I thought we had something going, she runs off on me.
“Man, look at Marie! What a trooper.”
“I’ll say. She’s never talked that much with a stranger before, has she?”
Both of them had nothing but kind words for Marie’s performance.
“R-really?!”
I couldn’t hide my surprise at that very unconversational conversation being so worthy of praise.
“Well, you know, you’re maybe the fourth person she’s ever spoken directly to, so you probably don’t know what the baseline is.”
“The fourth person?! W-what does Marie usually do, then…?”
“What’s she do? Hmm…Well, to put it in a modern way, she’s kind of…unemployed, I guess.”
Kano looked to Kido for support as he spoke.
“Yeah. Usually she never leaves her room at all, so maybe ‘shut-in’ is more appropriate.”
“Oh…I, I see.”
I suppose it was my fault for prying, but I felt a little sorry for Marie being freely called a shut-in by the very people she lived with.
“Though, you know, it’s probably about time Marie started, like, doing something, don’t you think? I mean, she’s in her second year of life as a full-time acrophobic.”
“We’ve been through that a thousand times. You know how she clams up for a while whenever we bring it up.”
“Yeah, but…Hmm? Something up, Kisaragi?”
“Ah! N-no, no! It’s…nothing…”
All this talk about a two-year unemployed shut-in was hitting a bit close to home. Kano probably noticed it in my helpless-looking expression.
He looked a bit puzzled, but apparently decided against prying any further.
“You know, maybe Kisaragi joining up won’t be such a bad thing for her, huh?”
“Maybe. She seemed really excited about it.”
“Huh? Excited? In…what way, exactly?”
“Well, I mean, look. She’s gonna bring in two of her favorite teacups. She never lets us use those, so it’s gotta be for you, Kisaragi.”
Looking over toward the kitchen, I spotted Marie busily clinking and clanking away as she made a batch of hot tea. There were four white cups lined up on a nearby tray.
It was hard to tell if they were valuable at first sight, but two of them were plain, while the other two featured a fancy pattern of animal pictures.
“Ah…”
The sight honestly overjoyed me.
Here was Marie, a girl who wasn’t exactly a social butterfly by any measure, bringing out her favorite cups purely for my sake.
It was no doubt her way of welcoming me to the household.
I could feel a pang of gratitude somewhere around my chest.
Thinking about it, it seemed like ages since I had last spoken with a girl anywhere near my age.
Thanks to my odd work hours and my body’s unique “traits,” I almost never found myself in a one-on-one conversation at school.
“You know, I was kinda worried at first, but I think she’s really opening up to you. I just love seeing you girls interact with each other! It’s about time we got a little feminine glamour around this—”
Kano looked over to Kido as he spoke, only to be greeted by her sullen, petulant expression.
I immediately recognized the cause of it, just as Kano said “Oh…” to himself.
“You think so, huh? Well, you got me, okay? Absolutely nothing ladylike about me, so…you want me to apologize, or what?”
“Whoa! No, no, no! I know you change your hair conditioner sometimes, Kido, and you’ve got that really frilly skirt you pose in front of the mirror wearing—ow ow ow!!”
Kano had to have seen that one coming.
“By the way, Kisaragi, don’t you think you should contact the agency or your parents or something? We probably don’t want this blowing up too big.”
“Oh! Right, right! I totally forgot!”
“Ngh! Kido, get your hand off me first! I’m tapping out, I’m tapping out…!”
Without a twitch in her facial expression, Kido had clamped her vise grip around Kano’s arm.
I should start by calling my manager…Actually, forget that. Too scary. But maybe send a message, at least…
Plucking my phone out of my pocket, I saw that the flood of calls, texts, and voice messages had ballooned to an apocalyptic torrent.
My stomach churned in pain.
How should I tell them about this? Thinking about it, this has been a pretty bizarre turn of events.
I decided to just let the words flow as I composed my message.
“I’m currently in the hideout of a group called the Mekakushi-dan. I think they can cure this condition I have. Please don’t worry about me. Tell my family not to worry, either. I’m really sorr—”
—Getting this far into the message, I heaved the biggest sigh of the day so far.
My recipients would probably think I ingested some weird mushrooms or something.
Reading this out of context, this was plainly not a message a sane person would send.
“How do you think I should put this? This…situation?”
“Um…I don’t know. I’m sorry…”
I
turned toward Kido, hoping for some guidance, but all she did was sit there, looking distressed. Perhaps she felt indebted to me for accidentally taking me here.
“Mmm…Well, this message isn’t gonna cut it. There has to be some better way of putting it…”
“The tea’s all set to…Wa-a-a-ahhh!!”
Just as my eyes turned back to the phone screen to take another stab at my farewell message, tea rained down from above on my right.
A fairly sizable amount of liquid poured over my head and the phone.
“Yaahhhhhhh!!”
It was all so startling that, for the nth time today, I let out the loudest scream I could.
Getting splashed with all that tea was one reason, yes. The other major culprit was the “Sending…” window on my screen.
“Ahhh! Nooo! I, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!!”
“I-it’s fine! Just get something to wipe this up!”
In a panic, Kido pointed Marie, still sprawled on the floor, toward the kitchen.
I furiously tapped my finger on my phone’s “Cancel” button. No response.
Nothing could be done any longer. The phone completed the send, and then, as if wrapping up the final task of its cursed life, quietly breathed its last. What had this girl done to me…?
“Okay, here’s a—a-a-a-ahhh!”
This time, my head was draped with an unwringed, sopping-wet towel.
The bitterly cold liquid ran down my hair, pooling around my seat.
I looked around me, washcloth still atop my head.
There was Marie, white as a sheet, ready to cry at any minute—
and Kano, snickering, that smile still on his face—
and Kido, scratching her hair through her jacket hood, looking embarrassed.
—Man…What a pain. But, you know, it didn’t really matter.
I was beginning to feel like all of this was just too much fun.
I hadn’t felt this way in far too long.
This may be a bit (okay, more than a bit) of a twisted way of thinking,
but at that moment, I thought to myself: This must be what “youth” is like.
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