by Shouji Gatou
Seiya had been against the renovation originally. Yet now, he was running calculations around it as their headlining attraction, and making exorbitant demands. The audacity of it had Moffle enraged.
No... It would be a lie to say that he didn’t admire the audacity of the young man, from time to time. But this order was a bridge too far. “You can’t be serious, fumo. I can’t do it, fumo.”
“Oh, you can do it,” Seiya argued. “You need to do it.”
“......!” Moffle stormed out.
“Ah, Moffle-san...” Muse, who was sitting next to him, tried to stop him, but Moffle moved too quickly.
Just before he slammed the door, he heard Seiya say, “Just let him go.”
He was feeling so annoyed that he left work early, doing only the most cursory of maintenance at the House of Sweets. Still, by the time he arrived at Amagi Station, it was already past eleven at night.
He’d intended to go right home, but he caught a glimpse of the Suzuran Shopping Street sign, and decided he might stop by his favorite yakitori bar. By that, he meant Savage— The bar’s unofficial last call was 1:00 AM, so they would probably let him get in a drink or two, at least. He hadn’t been around much of late, after all. But when he arrived, Savage was already closing down.
“Oh? Moffle-san?” It was the part-time worker Takami, who was packing up the sandwich board out front.
“Moffu. Closing already?”
“Sorry. It is Sunday, after all...”
“Ah... that’s right, fumo.” Most drinking establishments, including Savage, closed early on Sunday. Moffle knew that, but due to his lifestyle, he tended to lose track of days throughout the week. Since he’d had an especially rough day today, the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. “It completely slipped my mind, fumo. Well, see you another time.”
“Ah, wait!” Takami called to him as he turned to leave. “I just got off work, too. You want to hang out a little?”
“Moffu?” It was a surprising invitation. He and Takami knew each other on sight, but only as customer and waitstaff. They’d never spent time together after closing. “I don’t mind,” he said, “but... are you sure your boss won’t get mad?”
It was a yakitori bar, after all. The owner might say “That’s not the kind of business I’m running” and come down on him for it.
“Ah, good point. I’ll ask.” Takami walked into the back of the shop, then returned right away. “He says it’s fine,” she said.
Her boss poked his head out from the back and waved. “Hey there, Moffle-san! Just don’t tell the other customers. Show her a good time!” He sounded like a parent talking about his child.
“Moffu.” To be honest, Moffle found this kind of annoying. Takami was a nice kid, and the shop owner was a good man, but he hated being mixed up in secrets and obligations. Tiramii was attracted to Takami (as he was to most women), so if he or any other coworkers found out about it, it would be a recipe for misunderstandings. Still, he didn’t really want to drink alone right now, either. Well, why not? he decided.
“Here I am!” Takami came out after finishing the last of the closing up. She was wearing jeans and a printed T-shirt. It was just her usual outfit sans the apron, but for some reason, it felt strange to see her like this. “Yay! Our first date!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, fumo. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Haha,” she teased. “Moffle-san, are you shy?”
“For heaven’s sake...” he grumbled.
They left the shopping street behind and made it to a small bar closer to the residential district. Moffle had known the owner there for a long time— He was a quiet, older gentleman who never pried into his customers’ lives. Unless the customers struck up conversation, he generally left them alone. Moffle had been here a few times with Macaron, but he preferred it as a place to come alone.
Moffle ordered a straight bourbon. Takami’s order—“I don’t know much about Western liquor, so just give me something refreshing”—earned her a mojito, a refreshing cocktail made from rum with lime and mint. Takami seemed to like it, and ordered a second right away.
“Are you sure you should be drinking that much, fumo?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I can hold my alcohol.”
“The people who say that tend to be the biggest troublemakers,” Moffle observed.
“Tell me about it. I see it a lot with our customers,” Takami said with a giggle. She spent a little while gossiping about Savage’s more unusual clientele. Then, abruptly, she let out a sigh. “...I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to laugh like this.”
“Where’d that come from, fumo?”
“The boss has been having trouble for a while. The finances aren’t working out,” she admitted. “He’s thinking he might need to close the place soon.”
This was the first Moffle had heard of it; as far as he’d seen, Savage was always packed. He couldn’t imagine it being on hard times. “Moffu. But you get plenty of customers, fumo...”
“Yeah, we do. But apparently supply is getting more expensive... The farm he usually deals with had a change of leadership... They’re changing a lot about how they do things.”
“Hmm...”
“And you know how yakitori bars are,” Takami went on. “The turnover rate isn’t great, you know? The place can seem packed all night, but that doesn’t mean we’re making money... We can raise prices or buy cheaper supplies, but he doesn’t seem to want to do either.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want the quality to drop, fumo.”
“Right? He raised prices a few years ago, and he swore it would be the last time. Plus, he’s got his own circumstances, and he can’t work as well as he used to.”
“Hmm...”
Moffle found it hard to just nod along with this. But Takami wasn’t asking him for a solution; she was clearly just tipsy and wanted to vent about her work situation. And Moffle didn’t know anything about running a restaurant, so it wasn’t as if he could offer any real advice, anyway.
“I’ll be graduating next year, too,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh, are you a student, fumo?”
“Yeah. Fourth year of college. Didn’t I tell you?”
“I never knew, fumo.” He’d assumed she was just a perpetual part-timer.
“Aw, so mean,” she sulked. “I’ve told you that before... But well, you were getting sloshed with your friends at the time. I forgive you.”
“Moffu.”
Takami downed her fourth mojito, then began twirling the ice in the glass with a finger. “...So at the end of this year, it’ll be ‘bye-bye Savage’ for me. He should probably be hiring a successor for me to train right about now... But I guess he doesn’t have the money for it.”
“Do you know where you’ll be working?” Moffle asked.
“Public service, if you can believe it! The Amagi City government office.”
“Oh-ho. That’s unexpected, but seems somehow right for you, fumo.” Takami was kind, hard-working, and good with customers. Watching her at work day in and day out, he’d seen glints of a surprisingly earnest and reliable personality. If she was a student, he bet she got good grades, too.
“You’re the second one who’s told me that. It’s kind of flattering...” Takami laughed and ordered a rum and ginger ale.
“Moffu. Who was the first?”
“My little brother.”
“Ah, you have a brother?”
“Yes. He’s still in middle school, but he doesn’t fit in so he’s stopped going. I don’t know what to do about it...” she admitted.
“I see... that’s difficult, fumo.”
“Yeah. I’m not that worried, though... At least he still leaves the house every day. I was kind of the same way at that age.”
“Takami?” Moffle asked in shock. “You stopped going to school?”
“Yes. Is that surprising?”
“Moffu,” he affirmed. “But, well... I guess life takes you places.”
“Hmm?�
� she asked. “You’re not going to pry?”
“I would if you wanted me to. But I don’t think you do, fumo.”
“Hee hee.” Takami giggled, then gazed at Moffle. Her laugh was pleasantly melodic. “Moffle-san, you’re so kind.”
“Why would you say that, fumo?” Moffle fidgeted in his seat, suddenly feeling uneasy. Right, he told himself. Let’s get back to the issue at hand...
“...Well, you know,” he whispered after a while. “I’d say I understand where your boss at Savage is coming from, fumo. There’s nothing easy about lowering your standards. But living in reality means making compromises, and shutting the bar down is the last thing anyone wants, fumo.”
“You think so?” Takami asked wistfully. “Well, I guess that’s true...”
“It’s a tough decision, fumo.” Moffle drank the last of his bourbon and fell into thought. A tough decision, eh? Here he was lecturing her, but what about himself? Was he making concessions to reality? He knew what the park’s situation was, didn’t he? He tried to imagine how the owner of Savage felt. Why was he so insistent on maintaining his yakitori’s quality? Was it pride in his craft? Or was he afraid of something? Yes, that must be it...
They shared a few more drinks and then left. By that time, Takami was quite inebriated. Her legs were unsteady, and she was clinging tightly to Moffle’s plush arm.
“Hey,” he told her gruffly. “Get a grip, fumo.”
“Mm... sorry about that,” she yawned. “I’m just sleepy...”
“I’ll get you home, fumo. Where do you live?”
“Mmgh... glugh...”
“For heaven’s sake. I knew this would happen, fumo...” He shouldered Takami’s weight to keep her from passing out in the middle of the sleepy shopping district.
As they walked along, Moffle noticed another member of the park’s cast staggering towards them; he must have been out drinking somewhere else. It was a short, stout cat mascot. Despite the early summer season, he wore a heavy coat reminiscent of a Russian soldier. “Moffu,” he said by way of greeting. “Is that you, Nyathan?”
Nyathan wasn’t born in Maple Land—he was a citizen of a hostile nation, the UPSR. But various circumstances had come together in a way that had ended with him running a shop in the park. He was fond of drinking, so they would run into each other like this from time to time.
“Wh... What the nya...” Nyathan stopped in his tracks, gazing at Moffle and Takami in surprise.
Moffle had a drunken college student on his arm, and he seemed to be leading her somewhere. Someone might—no, they almost certainly would get the wrong idea.
“Moffle... is this a knock at me, because I’m bad with the ladies?” Nyathan asked.
“No, fumo,” Moffle protested. “Nyathan, this is just...”
“Filthy bourgeois! I’ll see you purged some day, nya!”
“Wait,” Moffle called forlornly.
“Nyaaaaah!” Nyathan ran away, weeping loudly.
“Ugh... well, I’ll be hearing about that later,” Moffle said with a groan.
“Does he work at your office?” Takami asked.
“Yeah. Well, something like that, fumo.”
“No big deal... we’re just showing him our looove...” Takami teased.
“We’re not in love, fumo.”
“Aww... c’mon...”
“It’s not a thing to joke about,” Moffle told her abruptly. “People might believe you. Enough.”
“*hic*... I’m not... not joking,” she said.
“Moffu. Sorry, but I’m going to have to take out your student ID. I don’t know where you live.”
“Blahhh...” she told him.
Moffle reached into Takami’s bag and pulled out her pass sleeve. Fortunately, she lived in Amagi City, about a ten minute taxi ride away. Looking at her ID was the first time he’d ever seen Takami’s full name—“Seno Takami,” it was.
“Seno...?” Moffle furrowed his brow.
He brought Takami to her house. Her mother answered the door— Her father worked a night shift at a factory, it seemed, so he was never home at this hour. It was a small, free-standing house of the sort that was common enough in Amagi City. Annoyingly, a dog across the street wouldn’t stop barking at him the whole time.
“Ahh... I’m sorry, so sorry,” her mother apologized on her daughter’s behalf. “Really... Takami! Get it together!”
“Ungh... but I’m so tired...” Ignoring her mother’s scolding, Takami slumped down in the entryway. “Mmgh...”
“Oh, you silly girl...” her mother lamented. “I’m so very sorry, er...”
“Moffle, fumo,” he said, finally remembering to introduce himself. “I’m a regular customer at her yakitori bar.”
“Yes, Moffle-san. Thank you so very much for your help.” Takami’s mother showed no sign of surprise at his statement; thanks to the Lalapatch Charm that Moffle wore, she perceived him as an ordinary mortal man. Even “Moffle” probably sounded like an ordinary Japanese name to her. “Er, how much was the taxi?” she asked anxiously. “We can pay for that, at least...”
“No, it was on my way anyway, fumo. Don’t worry about it.”
“But we really must compensate you...” Takami’s mother insisted.
“Seriously, it’s fine, fumo. ...Although, can you get her to her room? I think she’s passed out...” Moffle looked down at Takami, who was sitting on her butt in the entrance, sleeping soundly.
When he pointed it out, Takami’s mother became openly flustered. “Ahh... I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Oh, what should I do? Her room is on the second floor... I suppose she’ll be well enough there, but...”
“I’ll carry her, fumo.”
“Ah! Really, I can’t ask you to do that...”
“I told you, it’s fine.” Moffle picked Takami’s body up easily. He had been strong enough to carry Seiya from the scene of the arson, after all, and she was even lighter than he was. He climbed to the second floor and put Takami in her bed. Her mother may have gone to fetch some water, perhaps, because she left Moffle alone in the room for a while.
“Moffle-san... I’m sorry,” Takami mumbled sleepily. It seemed she wasn’t completely out just yet.
“Moffu. Ah, I’m the one who should apologize, fumo. I think I embarrassed you to your family... Maybe I should have let you stay at my place instead,” he said, jokingly.
In response, Takami buried her face in her pillow. “You should have. You really suck...”
“Oh, come on,” he protested.
“You can go now. I’m gonna sleep,” she muttered. “Thanks for everything...”
“Sure thing. I’ll see you again sometime. I had fun tonight, fumo.”
“Liar,” she said accusingly.
“It’s true, fumo.”
“You stink, Moffle-san.”
“It mean it,” he said. “I hope we can go out again, Takami.”
As Moffle left the room, he ran into a boy in the hall. It was Takami’s little brother— Maybe he was going to the bathroom, or maybe he had heard all the commotion. Moffle recognized him as Seno Koji, the boy he had met that afternoon. The regular customer who had suffered heat stroke at Moffle’s House of Sweets was the same school-skipping little brother that Takami had told him about. “Oh, you’re...” Moffle trailed off in recognition.
The boy said nothing. Thanks to the Lalapatch Charm, he didn’t recognize him as the Moffle from that afternoon. He probably just perceived him as some old man bringing his sister home.
“Ah,” Moffle apologized hastily, “sorry about the trouble, fumo.”
“......” The little brother snorted and stomped his way to the second floor bathroom. The sound of him slamming the door echoed across the hall.
“Koji!” his mother—finally back on her way up the stairs—admonished him, but received no response. “Ah, I’m so sorry. That boy of ours...”
“Now, it’s no trouble at all. Well, I should be going, fumo.” Moffle bowed politely, and he was about
to exit through the front door. But then he stopped, and turned back to the mother who was watching him go. “Er, excuse me, ma’am. About your son...”
“Yes?” she inquired.
What kind of life does he have? Moffle wondered. What kinds of troubles does he face? What kind of comfort does he receive from going to the House of Sweets all the time? Is it really my work ethic that fuels his dedication?
“Um...?” she said.
“Oh... Nothing, fumo. Never mind.” Moffle had wanted to ask her all of those things, but had eventually decided against it; it was rude to pry. The fact that he was a customer, and a passionate fan of Moffle’s, made it even more so. “I’ll be going now. Goodbye.” He bowed, then got into the taxi that was waiting outside.
The next morning, Moffle went straight to the acting manager’s office. “I’ll do it, fumo.” he told Kanie Seiya.
“Oh?” Seiya looked surprised. It was probably because the change of heart had come about so quickly, and without any explanation.
“But let me just shorten the playtime to 70%, fumo.”
“What?” Seiya protested. “But that won’t have any effect on—”
“It’ll work, fumo.” Moffle tossed some documents he’d brought onto Seiya’s desk. It was a breakdown he’d made of the score and play time taken for each guest at Moffle’s House of Sweets. “Under the current system, the higher a player scores, the longer they take to make it through, fumo. That’s because defeating high-difficulty enemies causes more enemies to appear. In reality, it’s these core users that are ballooning the average play time, fumo.” The longer you lasted, the higher your score. Then if a guest wanted a high score, it was obvious how they’d act. “So we’re going to add speed to the score calculation, fumo.”
“Speed, eh?” Seiya questioned.
“Moffu. The faster you finish, the higher your score goes, fumo. That’ll encourage core users to try to beat the game faster,” Moffle explained. “Meanwhile, we’ll only have to slightly reduce the playtime for light users.”