IT WAS ALREADY evening when debriefing was over. After a simple press conference, the two astronauts left the Space Lab by taxi.
“Hey, are you those two astronauts? Yukari and Matsuri, was it?” the driver asked.
They both nodded.
“Neat! Those your space suits? Do you always wear those?”
“No. Today is kind of…special.” Yukari explained what had happened. The driver’s face in the rearview mirror looked surprised.
“Well, it must be tough flying around up there so fast!”
“Yeah, and it’s too cramped to bring a change of clothes. That’s where we’re going now—to get new things to wear.”
“Downtown, right?”
“Yeah. If you could head into the shopping district from one of the side streets. We kind of stick out in these.”
“No problem. Leave it to me.”
“Oh, I should ask, can we use American Express for this?”
“No problem.”
The survival kit they were supplied with held a roll of U.S. ten-dollar bills and an American Express card. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough in emergencies. This, Yukari had already decided, was an emergency—and buying civilian clothes in the department store counted as survival in the broadest sense of the word.
The taxi was entering the streets of downtown Yokohama. Matsuri was glued to the window, staring at the unfamiliar sights outside.
“What a busy place!”
Matsuri was practically leaning out of the car as they waited for a light to change. Yukari dragged her back inside.
“C’mon, we stand out bad enough as it is.”
“But they love us!”
Matsuri waved her hands vigorously at people on the street. A group of high school students stopped, their mouths hanging open.
“Will you knock that off?”
They were in the shopping district now.
“How’s this?” the driver asked.
“One more block. There. Right behind that building.”
They got out of the taxi, crossed over one wide street, and went straight into a boutique on the other side of the intersection. Yukari had been going there since she was in junior high. She used to stop by on her way to school.
“Hiya!”
“Hello…hey! Yukari! Long time no see! How are you?” The owner, a tall man with a touch of hair on his chin, came out. He checked the girls out from head to toe.
“I like the threads! Takes a little bit of courage to wear those in broad daylight, but I approve!”
“Well, I don’t,” Yukari said. “We basically came here straight from the Space Lab up in Sagamihara. You think you can find something for us to wear?”
“Can I ever! What are you in the mood for?”
“I was thinking maybe a simple dress with something on top—or is that not cool these days?”
“Honey, it’s all in the coordination. Just you watch and see.”
“Great, well, whatever works.”
“Leave it to me! What about shoes? I think I might have some sandals in here somewhere.”
“Great, thanks!”
The owner flitted about picking out items until Yukari was holding a miniskirt dress and a short-sleeved cardigan. For her feet, she had platinum white sandals.
“And your name is Matsuri, right? What sort of look are we aiming for here?”
“Hoi! I want something like that!” Matsuri said, pointing at the mannequin in the shop window.
“Showing a bit of skin in the middle, then? Perfect! That will look great on you.”
While he was gathering Matsuri’s outfit, Yukari went into the dressing room to change.
First, she had to take off the adapter ring around her neck. Between the adapter ring and her neck was a thin rubber membrane, which served to keep the air in her helmet separate from the air inside her suit. A special adhesive was used between the membrane and the skin of her neck, which made taking it off a little like peeling back a Band-Aid—painful.
The space suit was one solid piece, and in order to remove it, she had to undo the airtight fasteners from her throat all the way down to her crotch. She peeled the suit off her arms and legs like a rubber glove, leaving the outfit inside out.
The suit was made out of a miracle fabric that was airtight, pressurized, and insulated, yet it also wicked away sweat, allowing the skin to maintain its own temperature.
In a sense, the skintight space suits were like a second skin, specially adapted for space. There was no room underneath them even for underwear. The owner of the shop was right. It did take a bit of courage to wear the suits outdoors.
Yukari finished changing and left the dressing room.
The owner took a look at the space suit hanging from her arm limply like a deflated doll. “Say, you don’t think you could sell me one of those? I’d love to put it up in my shop window.”
“Well, they’re seventeen million yen a pop.”
“Yikes! For real?”
“These are actual flight models, yep. Apparently, even that is pretty cheap as far as space suits go. But I’m afraid I can’t sell it anyway—the design is top-secret. We’re discouraged from even taking them off when we’re not on base.”
“I see, I see,” the owner said, clearly giving up. “Well, do you think I could at least advertise that you came here? It’s not every shop in Yokohama that gets visits from astronauts. I could put up a picture of you two.”
“Sure, no problem,” Yukari said, smiling. “I could even sign the picture for you if you like.”
“Ooh, that’d be great! Thanks!”
A few moments later, Matsuri came out of the other dressing room. “Hoi! What do you think?”
Matsuri was wearing a bikini top with a sleeveless shirt over it and skimpy bikini bottoms under a pair of hip huggers.
“It’s practically a swimsuit—though you look completely natural in that, I’ll admit.”
“A perfect fit, if you ask me,” the owner beamed. “Now for the final touch.” He picked out a pair of sunglasses and propped them up on Matsuri’s head. “There! Splendid! Quick, let’s take a photo!”
The owner brought out a camera, had the two girls stand in one corner of the shop, and started clicking away.
They paid with the emergency credit card, and shoving their space suits in the bottom of a shopping bag, emerged onto the busy streets.
“Hey!”
“Hoi?”
Yukari was staring at a sign for a beauty parlor across the street. Her head started itching. “Let’s go in there.”
“A beauty salon? What do they do there?”
“We can get our hair washed and even put on a little makeup.”
“Sounds like fun!”
The two dashed into the store.
“Can I get a wash and a cut, just even the sides up. Oh, and a little foundation.”
“Absolutely,” the beautician crisply replied.
Now that’s service, Yukari thought. There was a big difference between a beauty salon in the middle of Yokohama and the dingy shack that passed for a salon back on Maltide.
“What’s that?” Matsuri asked, looking around the shop while a hairdresser tried desperately to keep her bangs straight.