“Excuse me.” Bowing to the lady, I sat. Kurashima was in front of me, and I hesitated on how to speak to him. It’s been a while?— no, that’s not it. What were you doing all this time? I probably shouldn’t go all high handed and interrogate him like that.
“Hitomi-chan, just eat for now,” he advised. “All we have is sweets, though.” Calmly, Kurashima slid the ceramic plate over my way.
Wrapped in the light coming from the window, Kurashima had an angelic beauty to him: he had feminine long hair with gentle good looks, and he was still in his all-black riding suit from yesterday. Compared to us, who’ve been through hell and look appropriately haggard for it, he’s somehow calm. He seems otherworldly.
He is an actor... Oh, that’s right, he was this kind of person. This is the face Kurashima always has. Somehow satisfied, I bow my head in greeting, saying, “Hello.”
It’s true that I’m starving. Saying my prayers, I put my hands together before reaching over to the plate and putting one of the marshmallow-like things into my mouth. It wasn’t as sweet as it looked; it was like mochi. Normally, I wouldn’t want to put something in my mouth if I didn’t know what it was. But I can’t fight against survival instinct— I need to put some nutrition in me so I can keep living.
“This place looked like a restaurant, so we were looking for stuff to eat,” he explained, “but we couldn’t really find anything, so basically, this was all we could manage. Please, eat up, have your fill.” Kurashima looked at me pleasantly, like I was a small animal. “You can’t fight on an empty stomach, after all.”
“I don’t plan to fight at all,” I retorted. “I don’t even know what I would be fighting, or how to fight in the first place. I’m so sick of all this... Kurashima-san,” I went on, “I haven’t seen you since forever. Where have you been, and what have you been doing all this time?” Deciding I should find this out if I could, I asked him.
Never dropping his smile, Kurashima acted as I expected, shrugging his shoulders like a true performer. “I was looking around here and there,” he said vaguely, “just like Kousuke-kun— Sorry we couldn’t act together, I heard that yesterday was quite harsh.”
“That’s right, we ran into some awful stuff. I’m so happy that you came back, Yuudai-kun.” Utena replied instead of me, before taking a handful of imitation marshmallows and throwing them in her mouth like she was stress eating. Her chewing was audible. “I already hate this place...” she lamented. “I want to go back home. Let’s get out of here already, even one second earlier.” Putting her arm on the table so she could rest her cheek in her palms, Utena sighed listlessly.
It made me want to pat her head a little. It probably wouldn’t be proper to act that familiarly— so with a sigh of my own, I said, “Agreed. Umm, this...food? May I bring some over to Torii-san?” She would also need to eat, I thought. She’ll need even more nutrition since she’s recovering. “Actually,” I continued, “someone should still be keeping watch over the gift shop. What if there’s another fire? ... Kurashima-san?”
“Ah, sorry.” For some reason, he was looking out the window, all distracted and restless. Kurashima flashed a wry smile. “I think it’ll be fine, even if you aren’t that cautious, though. We can see the gift shop from here, too. If something happens, we’d be able to get there right away.”
Well, it looks like they haven’t forgotten about it, at least. Kurashima must have been hit somewhere strange as his mind doesn’t seem very calm— his behavior indicated his restlessness, even though yesterday he was pretty calm.
“This food, well... Go and give it to her. I wonder if Torii-chan can eat food yet, though?” he wondered. “It really wouldn’t be proper if I was to just walk up to sleeping girls, so I’ve been outside the whole time and don’t know much about her condition. Is she alright?”
“For now, she’s out of the woods,” I told him. “But she’s still seriously wounded, and it looks like she can’t move on her own. At the very least, though, I think she won’t suddenly die on us.”
“Hmm, is that so? Well that’s...great.” Kurashima didn’t look like he was really interested for some reason.
Kousuke did say that before he wandered into this dimension, he saw the two fighting while there was a fire raging, or something similar. But from Kurashima’s behavior, it felt more like they were complete strangers. It would be hard to delve deeper into this topic, though, so even if I wanted to ask I couldn’t. It would also be bad if this distracted us.
Still, this is somewhat of a disappointment, as Kurashima seems a little unreliable. No, he did prepare food for us, I reminded myself, and he’s trying his best. It wouldn’t do to rely on him for everything just because he’s the oldest, or because he’s a man. But I also shouldn’t blame him for being gone for so long, or hope for too much out of him.
Thinking that, I changed the topic a little. “I heard that Kousuke went out to investigate things as soon as you came back. Did he leave you anything?”
“Eh...?” Kurashima sounded surprised. “No, he didn’t say anything to me.”
Hrm. I thought he’d leave the smartbug again as a means of communication; maybe he forgot, this time. Or maybe he hesitated to give an item(or bug?) as precious as the smartbug was to Kurashima, instead of handing it directly to me? There might be other reasons, too, but I can’t think of any.
In my case, that was more convenient. I don’t want to touch that creepy smartbug, if possible, but...I felt a little lonely, not having a way to contact Kousuke.
“I see, Kousuke, is it—?” Utena, who cheekily emptied the plate that was set in front of me, laughed like a cat. “Fufu... I see, Kousuke, that rascal, is just a little bit different when it comes to Hitomi. He’s still just as blunt, but also kind, I guess is how you’d say it. I see, I see,” Utena chortled happily. “Fufufufu♪” I’m not sure what she’s talking about, but I get the feeling that it was pretty inconsequential.
So that’s how it is; Kousuke’s attitude towards me is a little different. Well, it’s true that Kousuke’s been putting on the mask of an obedient servant in front of Utena, so maybe it’s just her he was different in front of. It looks like he was kind to Torii too, after all.
“Well, you could say that there’s no point in trying to investigate this amusement park now, of all times,” I said. “It looks like there are actually regular exits, so let’s just leave through there.” I had just placed the topic that we needed to discuss on the chopping board. “I have no idea where Kousuke is or what he’s doing, but we should leave first. He said so, too. Kagamimori-san, are you okay with that?”
“Yeah,” she agreed easily. “I want to say goodbye already, to this confusing place.”
“Well, we haven’t actually made sure that if you leave through the exit, you actually leave yet, though,” I cautioned. “And the locations of the exits are a little vague in my mind, too.” I also don’t have the smartbug anymore, which would have had a map app on it, and had lost the map that Kousuke made when we escaped from the fire. I hadn’t had the wherewithal to pay attention to it in the middle of everything, so it was probably still underground in the control room. That map has probably burnt to ashes now.
Well, there is a giant creepy castle in the middle of the amusement park... As long as we head away from it, we should reach the edge of the park, I reasoned. And it looks like the entrances and exits to the park are all somewhere on the edge... Looking for an exit shouldn’t be that hard.
“It’ll be fine. In regards to that, leave it to me.” Kurashima raised his hand elegantly.
He did go out to investigate, maybe he found out where the exits are, I thought.
“Once we finish eating, let’s move,” I decided. “We’re going to get out of this amusement park.”
“Yeah! I’d be scared if I was alone, but I’ll be fine with Yuudai-kun and Hitomi with me!” Utena’s speech was bright, probably because we had a hope of leaving.
For some reason, she had a habit of pretending Torii didn’t exist, so I added something just in case: “Let’s carry Torii-san out too. It would be tough with just Kagamimori-san and I...can you help carry her, Kurashima-san?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Rather than help, well, I’ll just take care of her myself.” It felt a little like empty bravado, but Kurashima thumped his own chest when he took on the job. He’s a guy, so I guessed that he would be able to carry Torii by himself on his back, or something.
At the same time, a jaunty tune started playing across the park; apparently, they’ve opened. It wouldn’t be good if we got caught up in mysterious events again, so we need to move fast. Quickly stuffing my face with marshmallows, I stood up.