Mika raised his eyebrows.
“Takina is being strange?”
After they closed the café for the day, Chisato finally confessed to him what had been bugging her recently. Takina had left early that day to go to a medical checkup, giving Chisato a rare chance to talk to Mika without Takina there.
Mika stopped doing the dishes and came over to the counter. Chisato was sitting on the other side of it.
“In what way is she being strange?”
“She’s always been strange,” interjected Mizuki.
There was still work to do tidying up, but Mizuki had already gotten a bottle of booze for herself. Kurumi, who was lying on the tatami floor, watching something on her laptop, nodded in agreement.
Mika half-smiled.
“I think you’d struggle to find a Lycoris who wasn’t at least a bit strange. I can only imagine one who could pass for a perfectly ordinary girl. She comes here sometimes… Sakura Otome, that’s her name.”
Having been a Lycoris instructor in the past, Mika probably had a good idea of what he was talking about.
“Oh, come on, I don’t mean it that way. She vaguely mentioned something to me the other day… Um… I don’t remember exactly what she said, though. It was that day I was late for work.”
“When I stumbled and spilled coffee on her?” asked Kurumi.
“Yeah!”
Mizuki took a big sip of the clear liquid from her glass.
“So, anyway, what was it Takina told you?” she asked.
“She seems to be thinking about Mr. Doi a lot.”
The atmosphere in the café changed, as if someone had flipped a switch. Everyone other than Chisato tensed up. Mizuki, glass in hand, and Kurumi quickly moved to sit next to Chisato at the counter. They brought their faces closer and started spinning their theories in hushed voices.
“Is it the money, do you think?”
“Nah, Takina’s not a gold digger.”
“Takina’s been thinking about him, huh..?.” Mika joined in. “That’s a surprise. Not to be rude, of course. Well… The heart knows no master.”
“Guys, sorry, I should’ve been clearer. She’s not into him. She’s just worried about the guy because he’s always looking so depressed.”
“In this day and age, it’s pretty much the norm for men to look depressed.”
“We have other moody customers, like that writer, Yoneoka.”
The writer Kurumi named was a man in his forties who was somehow making ends meet, but his life seemed to be a precarious balancing act. Seven out of ten times, he was in good spirits when visiting the café, but the rest of the time, he’d appear in the morning terribly frazzled and spend the entire day typing away on his laptop in desperation. When Chisato learned of a superstitious belief that cafés where writers liked to do their work quickly went out of business, Mr. Yoneoka’s presence caused the staff quite a lot of anxiety, but that was another story. Besides, at the time, Takina seemed unperturbed, adopting the “just let him be” stance.
“If it’s not money, it could be the age. Takina’s strike zone could be men in their fifties,” suggested Mizuki.
Mika rubbed his chin.
“Now that you mention it, we don’t have many regular customers that age… Mr. Gotou is past sixty. Mr. Yamadera is about forty-five.”
“Hey, hold on, are you telling me people can simply fall in love with someone because they’re a specific age?”
“They do, and they can go to hell! There are way too many shitty men who won’t even consider you for marriage if you’re past twenty-five! Just ask any matchmaking agency! They’ll tell you! Screw those guys!”
Chisato shrank away, realizing she had accidentally triggered Mizuki.
Mika folded his arms.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said. “People don’t fall in love just because someone fits their type—they become interested, not immediately lovesick. And sometimes your true love turns out to be someone completely different from your type.”
“Hmm… So, you still think love is the reason Takina’s been acting differently? Oh well. Let me see what I can find on this man.”
Kurumi sat down on the floor and started quickly typing on her laptop. Chisato peered at the screen, curious to see how Kurumi would get the data on Mr. Doi, but she couldn’t make much sense of the strings of commands and numbers.
“There we go. Yoshiharu Doi, fifty-five years old. He lives in an apartment block in Sumida. Never married. Used to own a few restaurants, but he sold them and retired three years ago. What else…? From what I can see in his records, he suddenly came into big money. From stocks, maybe? His current real estate assets are valued at about a hundred million yen, and he still has some money in stocks, too.”
Mizuki scowled at the hacker.
“You check people’s personal information the way normal people look up the weather…”
Kurumi smiled smugly in response.
“Honest taxpayers leave a long paper trail, which helps. Hmm… Nothing to write home about on his criminal record.”
Mizuki glanced at Kurumi’s screen and frowned. Just like Chisato earlier, she had no idea what she was looking at.
“Nothing to write home about isn’t the same as nothing at all. What crimes did he commit?”
“Oh, just parking violations and a few instances of speeding. He’s a Goody Two-shoes.”
Chisato had given up on trying to decipher the code on Kurumi’s screen and was staring at the ceiling with her arms crossed.
“So… He’s retired and rich with a clean past. Sounds like he should have no worries in life, so why’s he always so glum? Teach, did he tell you anything?”
“He never really spoke about himself to me, no. But, you know, some things come with age…”
“He’s only fifty-five! That’s not old! He’s young enough to go on a grand adventure and save a world or two! Right, Mizuki?”
“…Why are you asking me?”
“She probably thinks you’re around that age,” Kurumi quipped.