“You can knock them down...” Sylphie sighed.
“Th-The dominoes?”
“Yeah,” she told me. “You can knock them down. I won’t get mad!”
I was glad to hear that, but I didn’t want to knock them down! If I fell out of the hammock, it would be a tragedy! There were stoppers, so it wouldn’t take down all the dominoes in the apartment, but it would still be eliminating a couple days’ worth of Sylphie’s hard work!
Sylphie stared at me with tear-filled eyes. I didn’t know what to do. “Hammocks... are good,” she said.
“Um... right.”
“Hammocks... are great.”
“Um... sure,” I agreed awkwardly.
We stayed locked in position for another minute or so. I had a growing fear that if I left her like this, she might knock over all the dominoes in a fit of ritual suicide. Well, I didn’t really think Sylphie was that kind of girl... But I was starting to feel like taking her up on the offer. She had her weird points, sure, but she was genuinely a good person.
“Ah......... okay. I’ll sleep here,” I conceded. “I might... end up liking the hammock, you know?”
“Yes!!!” Sylphie jumped for joy. The impact of the landing knocked down around 500 dominoes. Thankfully, the stoppers kept damage to a minimum. “It’s okay! It’s okay! All good! All good!”
“Sorry, though...”
“It’s all good!” she insisted, as if no damage had been done at all. But it seemed like she still wanted to stay up late into the night lining up dominoes, so I went to sleep first, in the hammock.
“Sedam bira nal mafsa basilano menu yageh...” It was the middle of the night. Sylphie was reciting some kind of chant as she lined up the dominoes, one by one. I lay in the swaying hammock, working hard to sleep suspended in the air.
“Edo larnum...”
It was really distracting. Who could sleep, hanging feet off the ground, listening to someone talk like that?! ...Me, as it turned out, and surprisingly easy.
The hammock also turned out fine. I got my best sleep of the past few days, as a matter of fact. Swinging. Swaying. The rhythm had me drifting off immediately.
Hammocks are really something! Don’t mess with hammocks! They’re the most comfortable thing in the world!
Of course, when I woke up in the morning, still half-asleep, I ended up dropping out of the hammock, dealing a fatal blow to the dominoes below me. I think I took out a few hundred.
Sylphie didn’t breathe a word of complaint, though; she just said, “I’ll put them back up!” and smiled. (I did catch tears in her eyes, though.)
You’re a good person, Sylphie, I thought. But don’t invite me over while you’re doing a domino challenge!
“Want to stay with me again tonight?!” she asked. Of course, this time, I had to turn her down.
The hammock had helped me recover a lot of my sleep debt, but I still took half the day off. I had to look for a new place. I’d been searching the Internet for the past few days and managed to put together some likely sites, so now all I had to do was call up a real estate company and see them in person.
I saw about five in central Amagi City: one-bedroom apartments, some with a separate living room, in the 60,000 to 70,000 per month price range. They all seemed good, but none of them quite felt “right.” I didn’t like being on the first floor, and the one on the second floor had a landlord that seemed annoying, and the one on the fifth floor was in an old building with no elevator—it was all that kind of thing. As I headed back to AmaBri for that evening’s performance, I made up my mind to go back to square one and do more looking around next week.
As I entered the greenroom, I ran into Muse first.
“Ah...” There was an awkward silence between us. Things had been like this since she’d turned down my request the other night. We’d kept conversation and greetings to a bare minimum—Muse would try to talk to me, and I’d shut her down.
Childish, you say? Well, excuse me! I’m kind of sulking, here! It was awkward for me, too, and I just didn’t know how to talk to her!
“S-Salama,” Muse stuttered. “Did you go to the real estate office? How did the viewings go?”
“Meh,” I shrugged. “Not great, I guess...”
“I see... so you don’t have a place yet?”
“Nah. I’m gonna do some more searches and look around again next week.” I played around on my smartphone (though I didn’t have much to do) while I answered. At times like these, my smartphone was the perfect tool for feigning disinterest; just moving my thumbs around on the screen felt relaxing somehow. I know it’s rude and all, but still...
“Salama... L-Look... I looked around for apartments, too,” Muse told me. “There’s a pretty good one the next town over...”
Her offer annoyed me. “I said I’m fine.”
“But... but...”
“I’m not a kid,” I said shortly. “I can find my own apartment.”
“Ah... right.” Muse fell silent.
I knew I was being petty. But in that moment, here’s how it felt: You’re freaking out, watching me struggle to find a place to stay. You just want to find me something as soon as possible, so you can clear your own conscience. Well, forget you. I can’t deal with your two-faced “friendship” right now. I came close to actually telling her that, but fortunately, that’s when Kobory and Sylphie entered the greenroom, ending our conversation. As for the performance after that—most customers probably didn’t notice, but we were kind of out of sync.
Around closing time, Latifah-sama visited us in the greenroom. Moffle-senpai and Isuzu-chan were with her.
“I heard everything, Salama-san!” the princess said, her fists clenched. “That your home was set ablaze... If I had known earlier, surely I could have come to your aid. How could no one have informed me? I can hardly believe it...”
“Huh?” I said awkwardly. “Ah... yeah.”
“Then, you have no place to stay?” Latifah-sama demanded. “You must come and stay with me, then. Ah, do not worry! You may stay as many days, as many months as you like!” The princess was blind, so she wasn’t meeting my gaze, but her expression was determined.
Latifah-sama was a crazy nice person. She was also Maple Land royalty and lived in a beautiful room in the castle. It was a pretty natural offer for her to make, after hearing that my apartment burned down; the only thing stopping me from accepting was the hesitance on the faces of Moffle-senpai and Isuzu-chan. If I had to guess, I’d say they were the ones who’d been keeping the news about my apartment from her.
“Salama. Come here a minute, fumo. Just come on, fumo.” I did as Moffle-senpai asked and left the room. Once we were alone in the hallway, he said: “Sorry to ask this, but would you mind turning her down, fumo?”
“Huh?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t mind, but why?”
“Because it’ll start a chain reaction, fumo.”
“......?” I waited for him to explain.
“Latifah’s a nice person. She won’t stand idly by when she sees someone in trouble; she likely even meant it when she said she’d let you stay with her for months, fumo.”
That sounded accurate. She really was a good person.
“But that won’t be the end of it,” Moffle went on. “If we set a precedent about letting Latifah humor sob stories, things will start to spiral.”
“Huh? I’m not gonna take advantage of her...” I protested.
“Right. I know that, fumo. But worse people than you might—”
“Mii!” Just then, Tiramii-senpai walked in. “Latifah-sama! My house is ruined from water damage, mii! Can I stay with you? Don’t worry, mii! I won’t ask you to rub my tummy!”
“Ah? Um, well...” Latifah-sama looked troubled.
Macaron-senpai arrived next, shouting, “I’m in trouble too, ron! The rumors that I can’t pay my rent because of my child support are highly exaggerated! But it’s still hard to keep up the utilities, ron! Latifah-sama! Please let me stay with you too, ron!”
“Ah? Er, well...” As Latifah-sama dithered, now Wanipii-senpai approached.
“I heard, pii! I heard there was a great apartment where we could live rent-free with a loli royal girl! Is this where we sign up, pii?!”
“Er, ah...” Latifah flailed. “I do not...”
“Please help my poor sad self, mii!”
“If you’ll help me with my rent, I’ll leave, ron!”
“I just want to sleep near you, pii!”