“Besides, I’m your sister; shouldn’t you be closer to me?! You’re ignoring me and having snu-snu with another girl; it doesn’t make sense!”
If anything, it was her perspective that didn’t make sense!
For better or worse, though, there was no one around with the common sense to tell her this.
In the first place, despite her vast amounts of knowledge, Pamil was utterly lacking common sense. She was like a kindergartener declaring she’d marry their big brother once they grew up.
Regardless.
“Oh?”
There were many people watching her curiously—she was somewhat of a celebrity in the area—but none felt like chasing or calling after the sprinting girl.
...Excluding one attention seeker, who very much did feel like it. “Huh, it’s Pamil-chan. Heeyyy, Paaamiiiil-chaaan?”
The tone of his voice sounded like he was about to add an overenthusiastic request to play... and the guy calling to her was honestly the most likely to do something like that.
It was Mizuhito Hibiki.
Incidentally, as ever, he had his guitar on his back to draw attention, and his usual tattoo on his face, but there was more to him today—he was astride a granny bike that had a nameplate attached to it with the name of a Buddhist bodhisattva: Skanda.
The bike’s basket had a shopping bag with a lamé—it had probably been custom-ordered to stand out even more—as well as radishes and spring onions hanging out of it. He must have been on his way back from shopping. The partial ‘average Joe’ or family-oriented impression had ruined the test, but he didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Hmm?!” Pamil exclaimed as she ran, looking to the side. “Oh, it’s you, Mizuhito.”
“Yup, I’m your friendly neighbor Mizuhito!” Even as he pedaled away on his bike, he raised a hand in a salute. (Doing this while riding is dangerous, so don’t try this at home). “Where are you rushing off to, Pamil-chan?”
Normally, a person would have questioned needing the bike to keep up with Pamil’s running speed, but for better or worse, this boy was not normal, of course.
“Home,” Pamil answered. If she had left it there, things may have gone differently, but Pamil wasn’t in her normal frame of mind, and her idea of common sense and shame was significantly different than the norm, therefore... “I’m going to stop Kyouhei and Sanae from having snu-snu!” she declared.
That she did.
“Snu-snu...” Mizuhito said, folding his arms in thought as he cycled. (This is dangerous while riding, so don’t try... etc.). “Oh, the staircase to adulthood?!” he finally said, clapping his hands in realization and nodding. (This is dangerous, so... etc.).
“Hm?! The staircase of adulthood?!” Pamil asked as she ran.
Incidentally, there was a car that was shocked at them rushing down the middle of the road which hit the guardrail between the road and the pavement in an attempt to avoid them. Of course, though, the two didn’t pay it any mind.
“When a guy,” Mizuhito almost sang, looking into the distance. (It’s dangerous, etc.). “...has snu-snu with a girl, they become an adult. It’s farewell boyhood days. Now, with all of my heart...” he said before narrowing his eyes and raising his hands. (It’s dangerous etc.). He then yelled: “Kyouhei, you bastard, it’s not fair! Getting it on your own is so fishy—I mean, reserved!”
“Hmm?!”
“I haven’t even done it yet!” he declared, beating his handlebar.
Surprisingly, despite his punk rocker looks which would make you think he’d long since had his first time, he was fairly innocent with girls it seemed.
“You haven’t?!”
“I haven’t! Every time I suggest doing it on a roof and charging spectators so we stand out, they slap me.”
...Or apparently not. He might just be a simple pervert.
Ignoring that though.
“I haven’t either!” Pamil declared too.
“Oh, what a coincidence!”
“Indeed!”
Who knew what they were talking about at this point, but the two of them didn’t have an ounce... (you get the idea).
And what with the two of them yelling everything as they raced through the shopping district, they’d left sanity far behind.
“Looks like we’re in agreement, Pamil-chan!”
“Indeed!”
“Let’s work together to stop Kyouhei from climbing the staircase of adulthood!”
“Oh! You’ll help, Mizuhito?!”
“Yeah! You thinking the same way is perfect! Kyouhei, aren’t we friends?! I ain’t gonna let you go ahead alone!”
...Things had gone wrong all over the place with them, but the two showed no sign of care. They left behind the people watching on—who were beyond astounded at this point—and burst into the warehouse district.
● ● ●
In the end, Kyouhei and Sanae hadn’t been tortured.
Despite the colonel’s threats, modern intelligence doctrine held that torture was not to be relied upon. The answer someone gave under torture wasn’t guaranteed to be the truth. Rather than it being an active lie, many answered with what the torturer wanted to hear.
Plus, if Kyouhei’s read on the situation that they held more value as hostages was true, then the colonel might be concerned that treating them roughly could just send Pamil into a rage. Thus, they were tied to a pillar, two guns constantly pointed at them.
It looked like only the colonel spoke Japanese. Kyouhei had tried speaking to their captors several times, but they had absolutely no response to either torrents of abuse or persuasion.
So...
“Sorry, Murata-san,” he said, starting Sanae.
“Nanbu-senpai...” she answered in a quavering voice, probably feeling hopeless.
“Sorry you got caught up in something so strange.”
“Y-You did too, didn’t you...?”
“Nah, it’s a bit different,” Kyouhei grumbled.
If Pamil was the real princess like the colonel claimed, then Shuuhei had been involved in getting them out of the country. He’d said that he’d negotiated to take some of their trash instead of the outstanding payment... But if the royal family had planned to disguise themselves as their doubles, then they wouldn’t have arranged for such a dangerous destination for the coffins with themselves inside.
Taking the general junk would have been a plan readied before the revolution, and it would make sense that Shuuhei would help with it. Besides, Shuuhei would have been fairly close to the royal family after his cousin married into it. In that case, considering his normal smuggling habits, he was the perfect assistant to help them flee the country.
“My old man’s an idiot, and there’s no way I’ll escape the messes he causes...”
It really was too late to be finding that out, and he couldn’t honestly call it a shocking revelation.
However...
“...So Pamil-chan really was a princess...” Sanae suddenly murmured.
“Apparently so.”
Even those strange powers made more sense as ‘superpowers’ than her being an android. Her coming out of that mechanical coffin, with the steam along with her own claims, had just kept the word android stuck in his mind...
“A princess... huh?” he muttered, the word bringing the image of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl at the side of a castle to mind. Until Sanae’s confession, this had been the extent of his frivolous relationships with girls for Kyouhei. “... No way, right?”
Shuuhei had a connection with the Bergmann royal family.
Pamil was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess.
These two facts connecting in Kyouhei’s mind and his comparison of them brought a single possibility to mind.
“No no no no no no no!” Kyouhei exclaimed, shaking his head frantically.
“S-Senpai?”
“It’s nothing, absolutely nothing. Hahahaha hahaha,” he insisted, trying to laugh it off.
But...
“...Senpai,” Sanae said, suddenly remembering something, “um... could you... give me your answer?”
“My answer? What?” he asked, before finally realizing that he had given no answer to her confession. “Ah... I mean, um, I don’t think it’s quite the situation for it.” As he spoke, he watched the muzzles pointing at them out of the corner of his eyes.
Walser might intend to use them as hostages, but a hostage didn’t need to be whole and hale. They were currently on what may as well have been a crumbling precipice—if they weren’t careful, there could be fire spitting from those muzzles.
However...
“It’s because... of the situation,” Sanae said, her eyes downcast. “I mean... we might not... make it out alive, mightn’t we...?”
At that, Kyouhei couldn’t find a rebuttal.
It’s not like I dislike her... Kyouhei thought.
She might have one or two odd hobbies, but it was all in moderation. Well, compared to Pamil, so were most people’s.
He actually thought she was pretty cute. She was wholehearted, earnest, and honest.
But...
It would have been simple to just give the okay to cheer her up, but Kyouhei hesitated to say such heartless words—or to even consider doing so—to Sanae.
“...I thought not... You... couldn’t like me, could you...?” Sanae murmured, her mood gradually darkening. Well, that was her normal behavior, to be fair.
“No, that’s not it. I just honestly hadn’t thought about it before,” Kyouhei admitted with a sigh. “I’ve only been able to keep up with myself. My dad’s absurd, and I don’t even know my mom. I’ve been dragged across the world ever since I was a kid... I’ve only ever been focused on trying to be able to live a calm, normal life. I’ve really just thought about having an ordinary life—not romance or anything.”
“...Oh, haven’t you...?” Sanae asked, an expression of surprise on her face.
Now that he thought about it, Kyouhei realized that he hadn’t really spoken about his past with his schoolmate.
“But, Senpai... you’re really strong when it comes down to it,” she told him.
“Huh? I am?”
“Even now...”
She wasn’t exactly wrong. Normal people might well be in utter disarray and unable to even think in their situation.
“Well...” he temporized.
“It was the same when Pamil-chan was kidnapped...” she said with a slight smile. “You get angry at things... but you’re always yourself.”
“Huh?”
What did she mean by that? he wondered. Obviously Kyouhei would always be himself; he couldn’t be anyone else.
“Ah... I mean,” she explained, avoiding his gaze as her cheeks pinkened, “normally, when someone’s pushed into a corner, their personality changes. They act strangely in ways they never normally would.”
Actually... Sanae being this talkative was different than usual, and she gave a slightly different impression. Considering her reserved nature, her being so assertive in conversation was in some way her being at her wit’s end, or acting differently in an extreme situation.
“But you really don’t change at your core—you’re always and ever yourself...”
“Well,” he began, not sure whether to be happy about that or not, never having been told that before. She had probably said it out of admiration, but if people ‘normally’ lost themselves in those situations, that meant she was basically pointing out that he wasn’t normal.
“And I...” she murmured, her face growing steadily redder, “really love that about you.”
“Er... Umm...” he sputtered, unable to find a reply.
The embarrassment led to him being unable to look at her, though.
A long silence fell.