Now that Baldy’s finished his painting, we can go get lunch, I thought.
“Shingo, do you think now is a good time for lunch?” I asked Shingo, who was taking some photographs to use in the auction.
Shingo looked up from his terminal. “Buh hee, is it that time already? Okay, let’s get some lunch. Do you want to come with us, Mr. Baldy?”
Will he want to come along? I wondered. I’ve tried inviting him before, but I always got the feeling that he didn’t want to eat with me, so I stopped asking. Maybe this time it’ll be different.
“Hmm... Yeah, why not? Why don’t you let me treat you both? Order whatever you like.”
Ohh! He’s not avoiding me this time. He must have become more friendly now that he knows we have similar interests. I’ve always thought of Baldy as the type to constantly frown, but he really does look friendly today.
Hey, maybe Baldy will even tell us his name!
I tried asking as casually as possible. “Okay, let’s head to the cafeteria. So I guess that ‘Baldy’ is just a codename. What’s your real name?”
“My name? I don’t remember... If you really want to know, I doubt anyone could stop you from finding out for yourself. Though I’d rather you didn’t concern yourself with things like that. Mrs. Arakawa wouldn’t like it.” Baldy folded his arms and reverted back to his usual stern face.
“If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,” I said quickly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
Baldy nodded a few times as if he’d decided on something. “Do you know what job your dad, Shuuichi, had originally?”
“Yes.”
He explained anyway. “Shuuichi’s a former member of a secret unit of the United Nations Standing Army. I was in a similar unit in my home country, Russia.”
So he was assigned to some ridiculously highly skilled special forces unit just like Macho Man? That means he must be an elite soldier who’s just as battle-hardened as Clare or Cote.
I looked at Baldy with newfound respect and was about to ask him what kind of work he did, but Shingo spoke before I could.
“Buh hee... Was that internal? Or was it external?”
“You know about that sort of thing, Shingo? It was external.”
Shingo seemed to understand what Baldy meant by that. He turned around to face me and said, “Kouki, let’s stop talking about this.” He sounded as though he wouldn’t accept any objections. “If we wait any longer, the cafeteria will be too crowded. You shouldn’t ask someone who’s been in the special forces about their past.”
“Ha ha! Looks like I’ve made you both worry,” Baldy chuckled. “Thanks for your concern, Shingo. Let’s stop talking about it. All right! I’ll take back the tools we used while you two go and get us a table in the cafeteria.”
Baldy put the tools into a case and happily walked off towards the storeroom.
Did I say something I shouldn’t have? All of the military people I’ve met so far, mostly people in Macho Man’s unit, are proud of the work they’d done. I thought Baldy would be the same way... Maybe I was wrong.
I decided to ask Shingo. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have? For a moment there, Baldy was looking a little sad.”
“Maybe. He might be worried about what we’d think of him.”
“Why would he be worried?”
“Let’s get moving. We can talk on the way to the cafeteria.”
I picked up Kon and followed after Shingo.
Once I’d caught up to him, Shingo began using the terminal on his arm. Eventually he found the data he was looking for and sent it to me.
I told Kon to climb onto my neck so I could use both hands for my terminal. The information that Shingo had sent me was an excerpt from some information found online.
“Special forces unit attached to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs? External operations division... intelligence service... special operations... This is...”
“Yeah...” he said. “This is all just rumors, but it looks accurate based on the things it says about your dad.”
Now I understood why Shingo had put a stop to the discussion. Baldy hadn’t exactly been a military man. He had been more of a hitman working as a sort of intelligence officer. “Assassin” was probably a better way to put it.
Now I understood why he’d “forgotten” his name. He was one of those people who don’t officially exist.
So why is someone with that kind of exceptional skill taking care of me? I wondered.
I tried asking Shingo.
“This is just a guess,” he said, “but you need a counter sniper to take down enemy snipers. So if an assassin tried to snipe us, you’d need someone like Baldy there to deal with them, right? But let’s forget about that. How are you going to handle this?”
“What do you mean?”
“How are we going to act around Baldy? He’s probably worrying about that.”
“I’m not going to act any differently. He was risking his life for his country back then. And now he’s risking his life for us. I have to respect him for that.”
“Buh hee! You’re right,” said Shingo, sounding relieved. “I’m glad you feel the same way as I do! And from now on, he’s one of us.”
Shingo’s poker face turned into his usual smile, and he started talking to Kon about what they were going to eat for lunch. I watched them while remembering a novel I’d read in my past life.
It was about a lone assassin who’d had the world turn against him, yet somehow managed to identify the terrorists who were to blame. In my world, that was an old idea that had been used many times already, but here it would be a new type of story.
If my plan went well, I wanted to create a story where the main characters were people like Macho Man and Baldy who were always active in the darker corners of the world. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I wanted to raise the profile of the people doing that kind of dangerous work by telling the world that these people were risking their lives for the sake of world peace.