“Thank you very much.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I had the feeling her head was bowed low.
“It’s okay if you call me Brother like you used to.”
“That’s a splendid idea. Your little sister will do anything for you, Brother.” Noel giggled. “Well, I’ll be going,” she said, then hung up.
We couldn’t just sit here feeling all gloomy, so I slapped my cheeks to psych myself up.
“…………”
“………Why are you giving me that look?”
Siesta was giving me a cold, exasperated stare. “No reason,” she said and stood up. “There’s something I need to do, so you take care of whatever you need to do as well, Kimi.”
“You’re as careless with your instructions as always,” I grumbled.
Siesta stopped in her tracks, then looked back at me. “Do you have a problem with that…dearest Brother?”
✦ ✦ ✦
After that, Siesta really did leave me and go off somewhere by herself.
That was how we’d always been, though. Putting a positive spin on it, it was proof that we trusted each other. While Siesta was away, I did the jobs that fell upon me to carry out. First and foremost, I had to let the people around me know about the Tuner hunt.
I managed to get in touch with Mia, Rill, and Saikawa straight away. Mia’s powers as the Oracle still hadn’t returned, and she felt guilty that she hadn’t managed to predict this crisis, while Rill apologized for not being able to help, having essentially retired as the Magical Girl. At this point, Saikawa had put some distance between herself and underworld situations like this and was focused on her work as an idol. None of them were directly opposing the Federation Government, and I didn’t want to think they’d be in danger after everything that had happened.
Still, Mia and Rill offered to help in any way they could, and Saikawa confidently declared that she’d protect our ordinary days so we could return to them at any time. She also delivered a message from Noches, who was currently working as a maid at the Saikawa residence. For some reason, Noches gave me the harshest scolding of anyone, saying that she wouldn’t forgive me if I lost while holding a detective’s hand in each of mine.
My calls went pretty much like that with all our companions, and I hashed out our plan of action with Noel while waiting for Siesta to come back.
About half a day later, Siesta contacted me to say she’d finished her errand. I told her I was in the bar of our hotel, then had some low-alcohol drinks at the counter while I waited for her.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
When the detective arrived, she was all dressed up. She was wearing a dress that showed off a little skin, along with earrings and a necklace, which she never usually wore. Her hair also seemed floatier and bouncier than normal, and her makeup was more sharply defined, making her look more like a woman than a young girl.
Asking her why she looked like that seemed a bit tactless, so instead, I asked who she’d been to see.
“Drachma,” Siesta said offhandedly, taking a seat beside me. “I thought I’d ask him to perform Stephen’s surgery. I didn’t even have to go meet him, actually; he was already on his way here.”
Ah. So Drachma had also been contacted, not just the Men in Black. I’d heard that he’d been working under Stephen, and apparently, that hadn’t changed.
“It sounds like it’s going to be a long operation.”
“So only a back-alley doctor could save another back-alley doctor?”
Drachma had originally been a scientist working as a researcher for SPES. I had mixed feelings about him, but some lives only he could save.
“…Still, why’d you have to get all dressed up to go see Drachma?”
Considering the sort of things the guy had done to Siesta and Nagisa in the lab a long time ago, Siesta couldn’t have been eager to see him.
“That’s exactly why I did it.” Siesta gave a faint smile. “To say, ‘I didn’t lose to you. I’ve grown up and look how beautiful I am now.’ I wanted to pick a fight with…not Drachma, really, but something much bigger than him. Maybe that was childish of me.” Siesta laughed, her blue eyes turning my way.
“No, not at all,” I said, gazing at her face. “You are beautiful.”
If nothing else, I thought I should put that properly into words.
Siesta’s eyes widened as if I’d surprised her a little, then she smiled softly. “Maybe I’ll have something to drink, too.”
“Something nonalcoholic.”
“I know already. Geez.” She ordered a drink, sounding a little disgruntled.
“So we won’t know the truth about what happened unless Stephen wakes up,” I said, bringing the conversation back to the Tuner hunt. If the Revolutionary and the Hero were also unconscious, they wouldn’t be able to tell us what happened, either.
“Yes. What concerns me is the fact that Stephen was trying to tell us something the day before the attack. It might have had something to do with this.”
That’s right. As we were leaving, he’d said there was something he needed to tell us, as the former Inventor. Had someone done this to make sure he couldn’t…?
“There was a plan for a town on his desk this morning, wasn’t there?” Siesta asked, raising her glass to her lips.
“Actually, yeah, I did see something like that. What about it?”
“I don’t have a specific ‘what’ for you yet, but that town was floating in the ocean.”
“Well…maybe it’s an island rather than a town.”
“…I guess. That might be one way to put it. But…” Siesta sunk into her thoughts, gazing at the rim of her glass. Was something still nagging at her? The answer seemed to be slow in coming, though. She gave up and raised the glass to her lips.
“Noel sent word a little while ago. Apparently, we’re cleared to go to the Mizoev Federation.”
While we were on the subject, I had her explain what she’d meant calling it a “fictional nation.” …Honestly, it wasn’t easy to process. It was a fact of the world I’d had no idea about. That said, the timing couldn’t have been better. I’d get to see the truth for myself.
“Also, it sounds like that’s where Nagisa and Ookami are headed. It seems like the signal’s bad out there, though. They’re taking a while to respond.”
“Really? In that case, maybe Charlie’s there as well.”
“Yeah. We might be able to settle everything there, including this incident.”
Even the Great Cataclysm, which had been going on for over a year now. Finally.
I knocked back the rest of my drink in one gulp.
“You always warn me about my tolerance for alcohol, Kimi, but you’re not much better.”
“It just looks like that. Sure, my face gets red, but I don’t actually get drunk.”
“Oh, really? But sometimes when you drink too much, your eyes go all soft and dreamy, and you keep calling out my name.”
…Had that really happened? Probably. Actually, it happened kind of a lot. In that case, was I the one who most needed to be banned from drinking?
Smiling, Siesta sipped her virgin cocktail. Her pale throat worked as she swallowed, and I caught myself staring at it.
“You sure have grown up, huh?”
“So have you, Kimi.”
Almost seven years had passed since Siesta first offered me her hand, up above the clouds.
“Though I guess we’ve still only known each other a third of our lives.”
“So far, maybe.”
“So far?”
“Someday it may be half, then two-thirds, then almost all of it.”
My heart leaped. Maybe I really had had too much to drink. “Siesta,” I said, smiling wryly on the inside. “When this case…or rather, when this whole thing is settled, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“That sounds like a huge death flag,” she retorted immediately.
We exchanged looks, then grinned.
“Just so I know, is it something important?”
“Probably important enough that I won’t be able to sleep the night before I bring it up.”
“I see,” Siesta said, tucking her hair behind her ear. She smiled, gazing at my face. “I look forward to it.”