CHAPTER 2

What Kind of Punishment Game?
Pair_Contract.

1

Mikoto Misaka was in front of a concert hall.

They’d agreed to meet at that location.

“…Where are they?”

Around her, friends and couples met up with one another and then exited the hall. Being the only one stuck waiting was wearing on her.

Mikoto still wore her Tokiwadai Middle School uniform. She had her cheap schoolbag and her violin case with her. They’d get in the way while doing things, but bringing them back to her dorm would be a pain in its own right. Normally she could go in and out as she pleased, but if she was unlucky and got caught by an R.A., she could end up in an interrogation regarding the objective of her outing.

Instead, she’d come to the meeting place purposely without going back to the dorm first so she wouldn’t be late. Of course, she had called up Kuroko Shirai, who was apparently nearby, to see if she could bring her things back for her.

“Why aren’t either of them coming…?” muttered Mikoto absently.

She’d initially wanted to foist her things off on Shirai and spend the rest of her free time in a café, but the backbone of her plan hadn’t arrived, so she’d been stuck standing around like this for a while.

She had put in so much effort to not be late, and yet Kamijou had no problems wasting her time. Why had she bothered trying to be so considerate? Mikoto sighed.

Still, she couldn’t go back and drop her things off at her dorm now, since it was already past their agreed time. She might end up missing him on her way out.

She sighed again and slumped. “When I think about it, I don’t know that idiot’s phone number…Calling him would be too annoying anyway.”

She was tired of standing now, too, so she squatted in place and put her bag and violin case on the ground. The bag’s value was obviously low, but the case by itself was probably worth something as an antique. She didn’t think about it much. A case just had to serve its purpose and nothing else.

As the young lady sat there with exhaustion emanating…

“There you are! You’re Mikoto Misaka, right?”

A girl’s bright voice called to her. Mikoto, hearing her name called, looked up in surprise.

She saw a middle school student standing there, smaller than her even. She had short black hair with a bunch of imitation flowers stuck in it, and she wore a sailor uniform. Mikoto thought she remembered the girl being part of the same Judgment branch as Kuroko Shirai. She usually hung around Shirai, though never directly talking to Mikoto.

“Oh…Kazari Uiharu, right?”

“Wow, you remembered!” Uiharu’s eyes sparkled.

Her expression was the very definition of envy. But she didn’t actually admire Mikoto the person, but rather Mikoto the upperclassman from the Tokiwadai Middle School she adored, a world of fancy and proper young ladies—so the way Uiharu’s eyes sparkled was somewhat different from the way Shirai’s did. This was purely a healthy level of respect.

Timidly, Uiharu said, “Um, I heard that Shirai was going to come here to carry your things, but…”

“Hmm?” Mikoto frowned.

Uiharu, staring at her schoolbag and violin case on the ground, said, “Um, well, Shirai is being forced to— Er, she’s doing her best on a Judgment job right now. She says she’ll be a little late. She really, really wants to come here, but since the timing didn’t quite work out, she sent me here in her place!”

So that was it. Mikoto was about to nod, but then she froze.

She and Shirai were (to put it in a way that didn’t evoke misunderstanding) familiar with each other, so Mikoto could ask her to do whatever. But Mikoto couldn’t leave the job of carrying things to such a helpless, tender girl. Besides, Uiharu didn’t even go to Tokiwadai. She wouldn’t be able to get into the dorm, so she would have to hand her things over to someone else to bring them to her room.

If that someone happened to be an R.A., it would be really bad.

The great and powerful R.A., an adult lady, would probably greet Uiharu with a smile and gladly oblige her request, but when Mikoto returned to the dorm, there would be a demonic queen of rage waiting for her.

So Mikoto waved her hand casually in denial. “It’s fine if Kuroko can’t make it. I can just drop them off in a checkroom in some hotel nearby. And I could get a room and just use it for that, too.”

“I see. I suppose you really can’t just leave it in a coin locker.” Uiharu was looking nervously at her violin case. Her body language was saying she had reservations handling something so valuable since she was only a regular person.

Mikoto waved her hand again. “No, no, no! I’m not doubting that you’ll take good care of it, so you don’t have to get all depressed!!”

“But…,” Uiharu stammered. But she didn’t continue and instead changed the topic. “Still, Tokiwadai Middle School really is amazing. It’s not normal to use violins in school classes!”

“You think so? It’s not really that difficult once you try it out.” Mikoto noticed a subtle hint of envy in Uiharu’s eyes as she stared at the violin. “Um, are you one of the types who worship our school?”

“N-no, no, not at all! I’m not like that!!” The way she lost her cool made it easy to understand. “A normal, average citizen like me would never be able to set foot in a place with so many proper young ladies!!”

“Well, I mean, if you have the talent, you can get as much financial assistance as you want. Our school appreciates what’s inside more than what’s outside. And I heard they flat out failed some royal girl once.”

“I-if they cut off royalty, then that makes it even more of a super-hard zone to get into…Besides, I’ve never even held a violin before. It would be cool to be able to play it well, though…”

“I think it’s like you’re hating it without even trying…” Mikoto picked up the violin case from the ground. “Okay. Why not have a go?”

“Huh?! You’re going to play for me?”

“No, you are.”

“Bweehh?!” Uiharu looked at Mikoto in surprise, but the young lady from Tokiwadai quickly undid the case’s clasps and took out the violin, which had an old, antique sheen to it, while also drawing out the bow needed to play the stringed instrument.

“Here, take it.”

“Pfft?! P-please don’t throw it!!”

She gingerly grasped the item she couldn’t begin to imagine the value of. It didn’t have to break—wouldn’t its value go down just by getting sweat on it? Uiharu was frozen.

Mikoto stepped up next to her and started naming different parts of the violin. “Okay, try to do it like I said. You hold the violin with your left hand and hold that stick thing in your right. Place the butt of the violin between your jaw and your collarbone so it doesn’t move. It’s a cheap violin, so don’t worry too much about being gentle with it.”

So she said, but cheap meant cheap in a high-class lady sort of way. Uiharu wanted to shove the bomb in her hands back to Mikoto and run away, but if the violin cracked or something when she did, Uiharu was pretty sure it’d stick with her the rest of her life. She couldn’t do something so bold.

Mikoto watched Uiharu, who had frozen up and wasn’t even moving a finger, giving the girl a questioning stare. “Sorry, sorry. I guess it’s hard to understand just from me telling you.”

“Y-yes, it is.”

“Then I’ll teach you with my hands. You do it like this.”

“Wehh?!” cried Uiharu. Mikoto had gently put her arms around Uiharu’s back and taken the violin. It was like a mother gently teaching her young child how to play.

Uiharu seized up even more intensely at her sudden proximity, but Mikoto, pressed up against her back, didn’t mind at all. Whether by coincidence or not, Uiharu could feel Mikoto’s breath on her ear as she began her lecture.

“It’s important to hold down the strings with your left fingers, but first comes learning to use the bow. It might look hard, but you just have to remember what angles produce which sounds and it’s easy.”

Mikoto’s graceful hands, which had joined Uiharu’s from above, began to move. The result was a single drawn-out, weak-sounding note, the kind you might hear when tuning an instrument.

Uiharu, who happened to be red-faced and dizzy-eyed, hadn’t heard much of Mikoto’s instructions, but Mikoto, in her own way, was completely unaware of that. As long as it wasn’t someone like Shirai, Mikoto was generally very kind to girls.

“You play the violin differently depending on how you use your left hand. Pizzicato, glissando, flagioletto. There’s a bunch, but none of them are very hard, so we’ll try each of them. Don’t even sweat it. You’ll get used to it in no time. You’ll be fine.”

The warmth particular to a human’s skin traveled to Uiharu’s back; she felt a sweet breath at her ears and the fingers of two hands wrapped gently around her own… Th-this must be the young lady hierarchy thing Shirai is so absorbed with!!

Finally, Mikoto realized Uiharu had grown completely stiff. In an attempt to soothe the young girl’s nerves, she said, “It’s all right. This is a big hall, and there are no restrictions on giving performances. You don’t have to worry about people paying attention to you if you’re playing an instrument.”

“N-no, that’s not…Wait, a performance?! Hyaa, all of a sudden there’s a whole crowd here, and I feel like the center of attention…”

Uiharu paused midway through her surprised cry.