Kana didn’t know why Ruri had forced her to come along to that strange café, and that made her fearful. Ruri and her boyfriend, though, were chatting casually as if they didn’t mind her being there. Kana didn’t feel like she could join in that conversation anyway.
They were saying that the tea was really pricey. That it was really good for the body and mind, and even helped with weight loss. Recently, the availability on the market had dropped drastically, driving the price higher up than ever before, which might put customers off buying it so often. They needed more customers to keep the sales at the same level. Ruri’s two friends were regulars at her boyfriend’s café, as were other girls their age, including some from other schools…
“Kyouko, I invited you here today because I’d like you to join our little tea club… We may have started off with some misunderstandings, but I want to put it all behind us and be friends from now on.”
Kana hated the look in Ruri’s eyes. The pretty face and lovely smile did nothing to hide the reptilian coldness of her gaze. But maybe Kana’s deep-seated hate for Ruri made her see her that way.
Unable to stand Ruri’s gaze, Kana looked away, as it happened, at Ruri’s teacup. It was empty, but how could that be? She was sure she’d only seen Ruri take one sip of it. Had she drank it all in one go when Kana wasn’t looking? No matter how thirsty you were, you wouldn’t drink a whole cup of hot tea in one go on a hot summer evening.
On the other hand, Kadowaki had been bringing the cup to his lips many times while they talked, but his cup still had the exact same amount of tea in it as Kana’s…which meant he hadn’t drunk any.
Something was wrong. Kana was suddenly seized by the same kind of fear she felt when there was a sudden earthquake.
“What do you say, Kyouko? Will you join our tea club?”
“I… I don’t really…”
“Oh, I know what it is. Are you worried about that photo? Tell you what, I’ll delete it. Will that make things good between us?”
Ruri smiled ear to ear.
The whole situation was bizarre. Ruri wasn’t the sort of person to have a change of heart and treat Kana to anything. She only ever had her own interests in mind and wouldn’t just let go of something that gave her an advantage, surely…
“I really want us to be friends, Kana.”
It was a trap. Kana didn’t know exactly how, but Ruri was trying to take advantage of her. She shook her head.
“I…can’t do this… You said…this tea’s expensive… I…I can’t afford it…”
Ruri smiled menacingly.
“Aah!”
Kadowaki suddenly leaned over and gathered up Kana’s bangs in his hand.
“Sorry! Mind if I take a better look at you?”
He was asking for permission but didn’t wait for it, lifting Kana’s hair off her face and staring at her up close.
“Hey, you’re prettier than Ruri said. Real cute. Go to a beautician and learn how to put on makeup… No, on second thought, it’s better like this. This childlike look is good… Real cute.”
Kana was scared, but confusingly, she also felt a strange rush at having a man who wasn’t a family member praise her for her looks.
“Kyouko, join the tea club. No need to worry about any fees. You’re actually going to earn some money from it.”
“…What?”
“Especially for your first time. It’ll be a nice side hustle.”
Not understanding, Kana looked toward Ruri, who desperately tried to get the last drops of herbal tea from the empty teapot into her cup. She got maybe two teaspoonfuls of it, which she lapped up greedily, with a look of delight…no, ecstasy, on her face.
At that moment, Kana knew she had to get away. Fast.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to stay out so long. I have to go.”
She quickly stood up and picked up her bag from the floor.
“It’s ten thousand yen,” Kadowaki said in a different, cold voice. “That’s how much that cup of tea was. Pay before leaving, okay? Running away without paying really isn’t a good idea. I’d have to call up your school.”
Anger welled up inside Kana. She glared at Kadowaki and spoke through clenched teeth, “I—I haven’t drunk any of it. I was just pretending.”
Kadowaki looked into her cup.
“Ah, that’s why…” He paused to scratch his head. “Still, drink or not, you’ve gotta pay for your tea.”
“I didn’t ask for it! You just served it to me! I didn’t want it!”
“That doesn’t matter; you still gotta pay. Service charge… You don’t understand what it is, do you? Look, you pay for being here, no matter what you do. If you don’t pay, that makes you a criminal, you know?”
Her, a criminal? They were the criminals!
“I can let you go without paying if you join the tea club, at least for a bit. Deal?”
“Come on, Kyouko. Don’t be upset. Let’s all be friends! The tea club is so much fun.”
Ruri reached into her bag and got her phone out. She was going to show Kana that photo again. Kana instinctively reached into her own bag.
Was this it? Should she do it then and there? Was it time?
But if she did, she’d have to include someone who wasn’t on her list.
What should she do…?
Kana clenched her teeth, her repressed anger boiling. She had to endure it. She had to. It wasn’t the right time yet. She had to wait patiently…
She fumbled inside her bag and got her hand into the hidden pocket where she felt crumpled thousand-yen notes. She pulled several of them out. She’d saved that money by skipping meals, by making do without buying anything…so that she’d be able to go to Café LycoReco.
She threw the notes, almost all of the money she had, onto the table.
Kadowaki let out a long sigh.
“Kids got money these days. Should’ve asked for more… Ruri, hey, you listening? What do we do now? I’ve already got a customer booked for her. What are we going to do with him? Can you deal with him, pretend it’s your first time?”
“Kyouko, hey, hey! We’re friends, aren’t we? Don’t say we’re not.”
Ruri giggled, quickly searching on her phone for the photo she’d used to blackmail Kana.
Kana wanted to be out of there before Ruri showed her that photo again.
“I paid the price you asked. Are you saying it was made up?”
“Tch! Fine, whatever. Go.”
Kana wanted to spit like a character in a foreign movie, but her throat felt terribly dry. She clutched her bag and quickly left Ruri and her boyfriend. She opened the one-way mirror-glass door…and had to cover her mouth with her hand not to scream.
More people had entered the café while she’d sat on the balcony. Junior high and high school girls she didn’t know and half-naked men who were groping them. There were pots of that herbal tea on the tables, along with cigarettes and syringes. There was a weird smell filling the room, which made Kana gag. She ran to the exit, kicked the slippers off her feet, picked up her shoes, and hurried to the elevator, carrying them in her hands. The elevator arrived as soon as she’d pressed the button, and the door opened.
“Whoa, whoa! What’s this? Kyouko! You came out to greet me?!”
Inside the elevator, a fat man reached for Kana, a golden watch gleaming on his wrist.
Kana instinctively took a step back.
“Kyouko! Wait!”
Ruri was calling her, standing in the open door of the “café.”
Kana cursed her shaking legs. She gave up on the elevator, opened the emergency door, and started running down the stairs, still in her socks. She kept running and running out of that building and into the night. When she finally stopped in some alley, hiding in the shadows, she threw up. It surprised her how much she managed to vomit. When that stopped, she started crying from maddening fear and disgust.
She’d seen and smelled something revolting, and those people wanted her to be part of that. That was what they’d intended all along.
They must have shown that photo of her naked to many people. Kadowaki had surely seen it, and that man in the elevator, too. Kana had suspected Ruri might have been showing that photo to others, but knowing it for sure was devastating. Kana couldn’t stop shaking and feeling like she’d be sick, but she wasn’t crying from humiliation—she was crying because she’d lost the money she’d painstakingly saved so that she could go to Café LycoReco. She’d had to sacrifice so much to save that much, going hungry, drinking only tap water from the restrooms, borrowing school supplies from classmates, or buying the cheapest things she could find from thrift stores. She hadn’t even bought a monthly commuter pass, taking the train only one way and walking back many kilometers, since it didn’t matter if she got home late…
She’d cut back on everything possible to save that money so that she could go to LycoReco, talk and laugh with the other regulars and Chisato, and drink delicious coffee. She needed that money to spend a little bit of time in the one place where she felt welcome and could be Kana, an ordinary girl.
And now it was all gone. That hurt her so much that the tears kept flowing. Maybe she shouldn’t have stopped herself earlier. Maybe it really had been the time to execute her plan. But she hadn’t reached for that, even though it was within her grasp. She hadn’t been thinking clearly at that moment, but she must have sensed that she couldn’t be so rash, or she wouldn’t finish what she intended to do. She’d stopped herself short with an enormous exertion of self-control. She’d done well…
“Um… Are you okay?”
Kana had been leaning with her forehead pressed to a wall, but she immediately straightened when she heard that voice. It was a voice she knew well. A voice she loved to hear, belonging to a person she desperately missed but was also the last person she wanted to see in her current state.
Why, why here, why now…?
Kana shakily turned toward a person outlined in the darkness by the street and store lights of Kinshicho. A girl in a school uniform. It was, of course, Chisato Nishikigi.
Kana squealed, hid her face, and ran away into the back alleys, jumping over or squeezing past bags of trash and air-conditioning condenser units like a stray cat running from people throwing rocks.
“Why…? Why…!”
She never wanted Chisato to see her when she wasn’t being Kana. When she was the pitiful, pathetic Kyouko. She couldn’t bear it and had to run away. That was the only thought in her head. Run away from everything.