Lock and Loaded

Do you think girls come falling down out of the sky?

That’s what happened in the movie I saw yesterday. Well, that sort of thing might make a great introduction for a movie or comic book—a prologue in which something mysterious and unusual occurs. The protagonist is your would-be hero of justice, setting forth on a big adventure.

“Man, I want a girl to come falling down out of the sky!”

It’s actually a rather foolish thing to say. I mean, there’s no way a girl like that is normal. Being drawn into a bizarre world and made to play the part of some hero of justice—in real life, such a turn of events is bound to be full of danger and more trouble than it’s worth.

I don’t know about everyone else, but that’s why I, Kinji Tohyama, don’t need any girls falling out of the sky. I want to lead a normal, peaceful life. So the first thing I’m going to do is transfer out of this school. This utterly absurd school…

Ding-dong.

I woke up to a single chime of the doorbell. Not good.

It would seem that I fell asleep wearing nothing but my trunks. Turning towards the cell phone at the head of my bed, I learned that it was seven in the morning.

Who in the world is ringing my doorbell at this time of the morning? Maybe I’ll just pretend not to be here.

But there was something about that single chime that gave me a sense of foreboding. After sluggishly slipping on a dress shirt and putting on my school pants, I proceeded to make my way through this apartment, which was needlessly spacious for a single occupant, and looked outside via the spy hole. It was as I expected.

“…Ngh.”

There stood Shirayuki. She was dressed in a pure white blouse with a dark red collar and a dark red skirt. In that spotless Butei High school uniform, Shirayuki held a lacquered compact mirror in one hand while she busily tidied up her bangs.

What is she doing here? Shirayuki proceeded to take a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

I can’t ever figure her out, I thought to myself as I opened the door.

“Shirayuki.”

As I opened the door, Shirayuki hastily closed her mirror and hid it behind her back.

“Kin-chan!” said Shirayuki perking up and calling me by my nickname from childhood.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop calling me that?”

“Oops. S-sorry about that. Kin-chan, I was thinking about you just now, so when I saw you, I couldn’t help but—Oops, I called you Kin-chan again. Sorry, Kin-chan. Oops…”

Shirayuki’s complexion visibly paled, and she covered her mouth with her hand in a state of panic. Seeing her reaction, I lost the will to protest any further. The reason that Shirayuki calls me, Kin-chan stems from the fact that the two of us are childhood friends. As Shirayuki’s name suggested, she had snow-white skin, and the bangs of her glossy black hair were cut at a perfectly straight angle, just as they had always been since she was a child. She had kind and gentle eyes, with beautiful, long eyelashes. One could expect no less from a person who comes from a long line of shrine maidens of Hotogi Shrine. As always, she was an example of the ideal Japanese woman.

“More to the point, this is a men’s dormitory. You shouldn’t just come waltzing into a place like this.”

“U-um, up until yesterday, I was staying at Ise Shrine for training, so I wasn’t able to look after you.”

“I told you, you don’t need to.”

“B-but…” said Shirayuki starting to snivel.

“Okay, okay! It’s no big deal.” With no better solution, I decided to let Shirayuki, whose eyes had become moist with tears, into my apartment.

“T-thanks for letting me visit.” Shirayuki bowed at nearly a ninety-degree angle before crossing the threshold and slipping off her black shoes, which she placed neatly by the door.

“So? What did you want?” It was too much trouble to gather at the dining table, so I just sat down on the floor by the coffee table.

“I-I wanted to give you this.” Shirayuki lightly sat down in the proper Japanese fashion with her legs folded underneath her and untied a bundle wrapped in a cloth.

From the bundle, Shirayuki presented multi-layered lacquer boxes, which she placed in front of me and removed the lid, also adorned with a gold lacquer design. Inside the boxes were soft and fluffy looking Japanese omelets, salted and sweetened boiled shrimp all perfectly lined up, silver salmon, and Saijou persimmons. And amongst all of these luxurious ingredients was a glistening helping of white rice.

“You…must have gone through a lot of trouble making this, didn’t you?” I said as Shirayuki handed me a pair of lacquered chopsticks.

“N-no, I just woke up early is all. Besides, Kin-chan, I figured that during spring break, you were only eating pre-made meals from the convenience store again, so I was kind of worried…”

“That’s nothing for you to be concerned about.” The fact was I had eaten nothing but pre-made meals from the convenience store during spring break and gratefully accepted the delicious looking breakfast Shirayuki prepared.

I had to admit that Shirayuki’s cooking, especially Japanese cuisine, was absolutely exquisite. Shirayuki, still sitting in the same manner, had a hint of cherry blossom-color on her cheeks, and started to peel the skin off of a tangerine. Seeing as how she carefully removed all the pith from the fruit and placed it on a white plate, it was apparent that the tangerine was meant for me.

I suppose I should thank her at least.

With my stomach now full and a tangerine in my mouth, I turned towards Shirayuki.

“Um…thanks for always helping me out like this.” “Hm? Oh, thank you too, Kin-chan…thank you very much.”

“Why are you saying thanks? More importantly, don’t bow at me with your fingers on the ground. It looks like you’re kneeling down before me or something.”

“T-that’s because you were kind enough to eat the food I made, and then you thanked me so graciously…” said Shirayuki in a thin voice and lifted her face, gleaming with happiness and eyes glistening.

Look here, why are always so timid? You should stand tall, stick out your chest, and be confident in yourself. After all, you do have an amazingly large chest. As I was thinking this, just by chance, (it really was just by chance) I happened to catch a glimpse of Shirayuki’s chest. With the upper part of her body leaned forward in a bow, Shirayuki’s blouse was hanging loose around her breasts. Shirayuki’s impressively deep cleavage was clearly visible, as well as the black lacy bra enveloping it.

B-black?! Are you serious?

Flustered, I turned my eyes away from the scandalous garment unbefitting a high school student. Even so…

I could feel that dangerous sensation. It was like a surge of blood at the very core of my body. Don’t go there. I’m abstaining from that sort of thing.

“Thanks for the meal.” I jumped to my feet as if I were trying to run away from Shirayuki.

Phew. Looks like it’s gonna be okay.

Shirayuki cleared the table with the utmost efficiency and proceeded to bring me my Butei High school uniform, which had been spread out on the sofa.

“Kin-chan, as of today we’re starting our second year of school, aren’t we? Here’s your bulletproof uniform.”

After I put on the jacket, Shirayuki brought me the pistol that was sitting by the television.

“Today’s just the opening ceremony. I don’t need to bring my gun, do I?

“Of course you do, Kin-chan. It’s school regulation,” said Shirayuki immediately getting on her knees and attaching a holster to my belt in which she placed the pistol.

School regulations…

“All Butei High students are required to carry their pistol or sword with them while on school grounds.”

Yeah. Definitely not normal. The abnormality of Butei High is enough to make me sick to my stomach.

“Besides,” Shirayuki continued, “there’s always the possibility another ‘Butei killing’ could happen…” Still standing on her knees, Shirayuki cast an apprehensive upward glance at Kinji.

“Butei killing?” “You know, the serial murders that we were notified about by e-mail at the beginning of the year?

Oh, that’s right. There was an incident like that, wasn’t there? If I recall, a bomb was planted in the car or some other vehicle of a Butei, forcing the victims to keep driving. They had a radio-controlled helicopter armed with a machine gun following them around. In the end, they wind up plunging into the ocean. I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened.

“But they arrested the perpetrator, didn’t they?” I asked.

“B-but a copycat crime could always take place. And I divined your future this morning. It said you would have trouble with women. If anything were to happen to you, I… I…” said Shirayuki who began to snivel again.

Trouble with women, huh? You could say it was right on the money. I’ve had to deal with this person right at the start of my morning. She’s starting to tear up again. If I lose points on my student evaluation again for violating school regulations, my goal of transferring to a normal school is going to be that much harder to achieve. I guess I’ll do what she wants and arm myself at least.

“All right, all right. Look. You can be rest assured now, right? Come on, stop crying.” I let out a sigh and took a knife—a butterfly knife that was a memento from my older brother—off the shelf, which I then placed in my pocket.

For some reason or other Shirayuki was gazing at me with an enchanted look in her eyes and placed her hands on her cheeks.

“…Kin-chan, you’re so dashing. You really can tell that you’re from a family that’s been a ‘hero of justice’ for generations.”

“Please, stop. I’m not a kid,” I said disdainfully. All the while, Shirayuki, in high spirits, took out a black nametag and affixed it to the chest pocket of my jacket.

“Kinji Tohyama,” it read.

There was a rule at Butei High, which stated that all students must wear nametags during the first month of the semester. I intended to disregard that rule, but it would seem Shirayuki predicted as much and prepared a nametag for me. Just what you’d expect from a dependable superwoman who was the student body president, as well as the president of the horticulture club and handicraft club. Not to mention, she's the captain of the girls volleyball team, and has a student deviation value of seventy-five. For a loafer like me, that made associating with Shirayuki rather difficult.

“I’m gonna check my e-mail before I head out. You go on ahead,” I said.

“Oh, then while you’re doing that, I’ll take care of the laundry and the dishes and–” “Don’t worry about it.”

“O-okay. In that case…um…I’d appreciate it if you would text me later,” Shirayuki said hesitantly with a slight bow. When she got to the door, Shirayuki made another deep bow and left the apartment, just as she was told.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

What a hassle. She finally left.

I sank heavily into the chair in front of my computer and idly checked my e-mail and various web sites. As I idled away my time, before I knew it, the clock was approaching seven fifty-five.

Ah, crap. I wasted a bit too much time. I’m not gonna make the seven fifty-eight bus.

The rest of my life. That’s about how long I would regret missing the seven fifty-eight bus that day. The reason being because before long, a girl was going to come falling out of the sky—a girl by the name of Aria H. Kanzaki.