“Hotogi shrine maidens are guardian shrine maidens. From the day we are born until the day we die, our bodies and our souls are not to leave Hotogi.” She seemed to be speaking to herself as she said it. “The truth is ... for generations, we as shrine maidens are supposed to spend our entire lives at Hotogi Shrine. That’s just how it is. Of course, we go to other shrines when we have duties to attend at them, and there’s compulsory education now as well ... but we have to keep things like that at a minimum. They were very much against the idea of me even coming to Butei High ...”
“But here you are. There’s no need for you to uphold those traditions so blindly. You can’t enjoy being a high school student if you’re always afraid of someone getting upset with you. What are you acting like a good little girl for?”
“...”
“You don’t have worry about making dinner today. Go meet up with those other girls and check out the latest fashions or whatever.”
“No, that’s okay. Besides ... I’m kind of ... afraid of being outside,” said Shirayuki with a depressed look in her lowered eyes.
“Afraid? Of Marui? It’s just a clothing department, you know?”
“But all throughout elementary and junior high school, I’ve never once left the priestess school ...”
Priestess school. It was a type of seminary and basically a boarding school attended by the daughters of wealthy, shrine-owning families.
“I would like to go out shopping and buying all sorts of foods once like everyone else does … but, I’m not confident enough to go out with others or have so many people around me.”
“...Confidence?”
“I don’t have the same kind of knowledge that everyone else has. Unless we’re talking about school, I can’t keep up a conversation ... I don’t even know what kind of clothes I should wear. Sweets, music, television ... I have no idea what’s popular. I can't relate with the others.”
“Shirauiki ...”
“But it’s okay. I have you. You understand me. You know who I really am and treat me normally, just like the way you always have. That’s why I don’t mind. I don’t need anything else.”
Shirayuki ... Shirayuki, that’s ... That’s no different from how you used to be back then. You’re so far away from Hotogi Shirine and yet ... you’re still a caged bird.
Night had fallen, and I was wiping myself off after stepping out of the shower. Putting on my pants, I turned off the light, and checked the clock with my back still bare. It was already ten o’clock.
Aria still hasn’t come back.
She had sent me an e-mail about going to Lezzad or something, so she was probably out searching for information on Durandal. Since becoming Shirayuki’s bodyguard, we hadn’t been able to do our training in the morning, but in exchange for that, Aria declared that she was going to be launching “surprise attacks” on me and does so on a regular basis. Naturally, I haven’t mastered the technique of catching a sword with my bare hands yet, so the lumps on my head continued to multiply. These were the thoughts running through my head as I dried my hair with a bath towel when I suddenly heard the sound of someone in slippers dashing down the hall. Judging from the footsteps, it sounded as if the person was in a panic.
“?”
What’s going on?
I looked towards the curtain that partitioned off the bathroom.
“Kin-chan?! What’s wrong?!”
The curtain flew completely open. It was Shirayuki in her priestess garbs. For some reason, her face was full of anxiety and her cute round eyes were wide open.
“W-Wha?!” I exclaimed, taken completely of guard and taking a step back.
Now that I think about, this situation … Normally—well, I’m not really sure what’s normal in a situation like this, but aren’t the gender roles switched here?!
For a quick moment, I was having such a hard time coping with the ordeal that this was the kind of inane analysis I made.
“W-What is it all of a sudden?!”
“Huh? You … On the phone, you ...”
“... Phone?”
“Y-You said to come right away and hung up suddenly, so ...”
“I didn’t call anyone!”
“But it was your voice! It was an unidentified call, but you said you were in the bathroom!”
That’s not possible. She must have been hearing things.
“How could I make a phone call when I was taking a shower?! That’s insane!”
“B-But the ph-ph-phooo …!”
It would seem that Shirayuki’s brain had finally finished processing the fact that I was naked from the waist up, and her eyes went from my face to my collarbone, chest, and ultimately my navel. Her face, which seconds ago had been nearly drained of color, became bright red from the bottom of her chin to the top of her forehead, just like some sort of meter. She then took a deep breath—almost as if she were meditating; only her face was nowhere as composed.
“I’m!”
“I’m”?
“I’m so sorry!!”
Shirayuki jumped back diagonally in a more peculiar way than I could have ever imagined. In midair, she bent her knees so that she was sitting in the proper Japanese fashion, and extending her arms in front of her, landed with her forehead touching the floor. It was the perfect dogeza.3
“I-I-I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Shirayuki bundled herself up, and her ears were so red I thought steam would be coming out of them. Shirayuki suddenly lifted her head, and she was so worked up that her eyes were swirling like whirlpools.
“... It’s because you were in the bathroom! It’s because you were naked that I was imagining you taking a shower! It's true! I-I was practicing kidou techniques but my heart wasn’t really into it! It’s all true!”
“I-I didn’t ask!”
“But then my imagination ... ! It was all woosh, and whoom! P-Please forgive me! I’m-I’m such a bad person! I’m just pretending to be a good girl, but the truth is I’m a bad girl who thinks of naughty things! I could be a Hollywood actress! I’m such a ... #$%&!”
This is bad.
“H-Hey ...”
At this rate, something was going to snap, and Shirayuki, who was a bit strange to begin with, might just go completely of the deep end. For the meantime, I put one knee on the floor and knelt in front of Shirayuki.
“C-Come on. Relax. Someone probably called the wrong number. It’s not something you need to apologize for,” I said, making my best effort to sound as calm as possible ... but approaching Shirayuki half naked proved to be a mistake. Shirayuki swiftly covered her eyes with both hands. I did have a feeling she was looking at my chest though the cracks between her fingers though ... And then ...
“We’ll call it even!” Shirayuki suddenly screamed incomprehensibly again. She stopped covering her face and it was completely red as if she had a fever. In truth, she really was burning up.
What are you, a stove?
“‘We’ll call it even’? What are you talking about?”
Shirayuki’s dysfunctional thought processor turned out an equally dysfunctional solution. “If you watch me while I change clothes, we’ll be even!”
“Say what?!”
Shirayuki grabbed the collar of her white kimono with her right hand and unraveled the belt of her hakama with the left. She rapidly began taking off her priestess garbs as if they had caught on fire!
“W-Wait! There’s no need to call anything even! That’s not what this is about! Stop undressing!” I pleaded as I grabbed Shirayuki’s clothes, trying to keep them on her.
“I’m undressing! I’ve made up my mind! I’m fine with this! If you’re the one watching, then it’s fine! In fact, it’s fine! So please, don’t worry about it!”
N-No way in hell I’m letting you get undressed!
If the day ever comes when I see those “battle panties” on Shirayuki, I can say without a single doubt in my mind that I’ll be on the fast track to hysteria mode. I was doing everything in my power to keep Shirayuki’s kimono and hakama on her body.
“Kin-chan, stop! Let go!” cried Shirayuki.
“Just do what I say!” I cried in return.
“I’m back,” announced Aria.
... ...
... Aria …?
Arai, coming back at the worst possible timing, dropped the paper bag she was carrying, and a Matsumotoya peach bun that fell out rolled along floor. It kept going until it rolled up against Shirayuki’s white socks as she continued to struggle with me. With the arrival of a third party, Shirayuki hastily began straightening up her priestess garbs. Her black eyes had tears in them, and her clothes were disheveled. ... And I, half naked, had a firm grip on those clothes. There was also the conversation we just had. “Kin-chan, stop!” “Just do what I say!”
“... W-Why ... youuuuuu …” came Aria’s voice, like the growling of a lion.
She plunged her small hands into the sides of her skirt. “Kinji, you idiot!!”
Blam! Blam!
A jet-black and a silver Government mercilessly fired .45 ACP cartridges in my direction!
“Whoa!” I cried out, noticing the bullet hole that appeared right next to my heel and jumped to my feet.