“So? Why aren't there any plates in front of me?”
“This is yours,” said Shirayuki with a voice as icy as the Antarctics and placed a bowl in front of Aria. In the bowl was a pair of wooden chopsticks standing in a lump of white rice. And the chopsticks hadn’t even been split apart.
“Why?!”
“If you have a problem with it, I'll dismiss you from being my bodyguard.”
Shirayuki coldly turned her back on Aria, and Aria, after a few moments of gritting her teeth, gobbled down her rice like a ravenous animal.
I, wanting to watch Sunday Western Movie Theater, and Aria, wanting to watch the two-hour special of Amazing Animals, were gripping each other’s faces as we fought over the TV remote when Shirayuki came into the living room with some sort of card game.
“Kin-chan, um ... these are called priestess tarot cards ...”
“Priestess tarot ... fortune-telling?”
“Yeah. I’ll read your fortune. You seemed to be worried about the future.”
“Oh? Let’s give it a try then.”
Shirayuki’s divinations often came true, so I had nothing to lose by listening. Since Aria was biologically female, she seemed to have an interest in that fortune-telling stuff and divinations, so after voicing her interest, she set the HDD recorder to record her animal show and joined us at the table.
If you don’t mind recording it, then stop being so stubborn and let me watch my show.
“Kin-chan, what kind of fortune do you want told? Love? Money? Romance? Health? Love affairs?”
“Hmm … Let’s go with my future. Tell me what I’m going to be doing in a few years.”
Upon hearing my request, Shirayuki clicked her tongue but quickly smiled like an angel and replied, “Sure thing.” She placed the cards face down in the shape of a star and then began turning some of them over.
So am I going to be able to become a respectable human being? Will I be able to transfer to a regular high school and get a job at an ordinary company or government office?
Even if it were just a divination, I wanted to know at least that much.
“Well?” asked Aria, and I saw a slightly stern expression on Shirayuki’s face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Huh? Ah ... nothing. You’re overall luck is very good. Isn’t that great, Kin-chan?”
“What? Is that it? Can’t you tell me something more concrete?”
“Ah, um, you’re going to marry someone with black hair. Wouldn’t that be something,” Shirayuki said with a smile that looked rather forced.
What was that all about? I wonder what she really saw. It’s really nagging at the back my bind.
“Okay, I’m next!” Aria, unable to restrain herself, nearly climbed onto the table, and from the looks of things, my turn had quickly come to an end. She gathered the cards together and pushed them towards Shirayuki, demanding that she hurry. “I don’t have to tell you my birthday or anything? I’m a Virgo.”
“Really? You don’t seem like one.”
Aria’s expression showed that she was quite peeved by the comment, but she sat in a proper Japanese fashion and waited for the results. With an extremely unwilling look on her face, Shirayuki lined up the cards and turned one over.
“Your overall luck can only be described as horrendous,” Shirayuki said as apathetically as possible and started gathering up the cards.
She obviously didn’t divine anything.
“Hey! Do it right! You’re a shrine maiden, aren't you?!”
“You’re complaining about my divination?! I won’t stand for this!”
“You wanna settle this by more physical means?”
The two of them began glaring at each other fiercely.
T-This is bad.
“If you want to go at it, that’s fine with me. I didn’t use it the last time because the Hotogi family forbids it, but I still have an ace up my sleeve,” said Shirayuki, knitting the brows under her perfectly straight bangs, and to this, Aria responded by standing up.
“I also have a ... two aces up my sleeve!”
“I have three!”
“Then I have four!”
“Five!”
“Tons!”
“For crying out ... would you two pipe down?! Why can’t the two of you just do one little divination peacefully?!”
In the future, it really should be the stance of nations to prevent war before it happens. I used my hands to physically separate them before the situation escalated into something I couldn’t handle.
“Bleeeah.” Aria pulled down her lower eyelid with her forefinger and stuck out her tongue. Then, sulking, she shut herself up in her room.
Beeep. Gagagaga.
The transceiver I borrowed from Connect the other day to make sure no suspicious radio waves were being transmitted around the apartment started to activate. Scratching the back of my head, I turned towards Shirayuki ... who was looking quite sullen as well.
“... I don’t mean to say bad things about Aria behind her back, but,” said Shirayuki, deftly gathering up the cards, “she’s cute but she’s annoying. And she doesn’t understand you at all. She’s always so rude to you. All the guys say Aria’s cute but ... I don’t like her.”
She said it all in one breath. It was the first time I had ever heard Shirayuki speak ill of another person. She cast a quick upward glance at me. In other words ... she was waiting for me to give my opinion of Aria.
“Aria ...?”
To tell the truth, I just made a little discovery about Aria and Shirayuki. I wasn’t sure whether or not I should mention it now though and put out some feelers.
“Say, do you really ... dislike Aria?”
“... Huh?”
“I mean ... how should I put this? You’re pretty straightforward with Aria, wouldn’t you say? When it’s me, you always act so suspiciously. Not only that ... well, I might be off the mark here but ... I don’t think I’ve ever seen you express your emotions so openly before.”
“...”
“It kind of seems like the way you act towards Aria is more like the real you than the way you act towards me and everyone else ... you know? Don’t get me wrong. I’d prefer if you didn’t fight with anyone. It’s just that, even when you two are fighting, there seems to be something between you guys that just clicks, don’t you think?”
As a rule, Shirayuki is the type of person who listens to others. And listening to others is a good thing. That’s how the world sees it. That’s why everyone regards Shirayuki so highly. Naturally, the teachers, who don't know anything about the Shirayuki that goes into armored priestess mode, are fond of her, and she’s relied upon by all the students—both guys and girls. But there’s also a problem with this personality that causes her to act so obediently in front of everyone. That’s what I think. Shirayuki might be acting obediently, but she isn’t expressing her true intentions. However, I get the feeling that when Aria is involved, Shirayuki engages her with her true intentions surging out all over the place. I could be misinterpreting the whole thing, of course.
There was a brief silence.
“... Kin-chan ...” said Shirayuki, tilting her head down slightly and lowering her eyes under those perfectly straight bangs, “you really do know me well, don’t you.”
“Well, you know. We’ve been together since we were kids. There were long periods of times we spent apart though.”
“You probably understand me better than I understand myself.”
Shirayuki’s voice had become softer than it was previously, and resituating herself, she inconspicuously moved closer to me.
“Aria ... came storming right into our private world—just like a bullet.”
Was there such a world?
... is what I was thinking, but I didn’t interject so as not to disrupt the flow of the conversation.
“I came at her with everything I had ... and she took it all head on without retreating a single step. It’s just like you said. I do dislike her, on the whole. But in a certain aspect ... I do think she’s an amazing girl.”
Hmm. As I thought, it isn’t that she simply dislikes Aria. The feelings she has towards her are more complex than that.
“But that’s exactly why ... I don’t want her to take you away from me. That girl has a certain charm about her.”
“... No one’s taking anyone anywhere. I said this before, but Aria and I are fellow buteis. When our job is done, we’re just going to say our goodbyes like regular teammates. Aria’s not a childhood friend like you are.”
“Childhood friend ... That’s right,” Shirayuki said with her face lighting up. She must have been using some kind of special movement because before I realized it, she had slid up right beside me without changing her posture at all.
Hold up, there. Our shoulders are practically touching. In fact, they are.
“You’ve known me for so long. That fact makes me so happy. I remember it all—all the way back to those days when I had never even left Hotogi Shrine before ...”
Shirayuki was rapt with memories as she spoke and tilted her head in my direction. Her black hair, glossy as strands of silk, fell against my arm. I could faintly smell the pleasant scent of sandalwood.