Uh, Sure, Dessler Does Look Like He’d Be Good at Billiards – Part 02

“So yeah, even now, I still do the guard, guard, guard, cancel, cancel routine before choosing fight. Old habits from Dragon Quest 3, you know?”

The boys around Haruna—an unquestionably pretty girl—looked confused, unable to follow her nerdy rambling.

Yeah, that little prep session had been a bust after all.

One boy laughed. “What are you even talking about?”

Haruna delivered a karate chop to his head. “Shut it! It’s common knowledge.” Her merciless attack left him teary-eyed.

“You get it, right?”

The horned owl hooted in response. Maybe to Haruna, the bird nodding and hooting beside her looked like it was backing her up.

The boys, not to be outdone, chimed in desperately, clearly just wanting to get closer to the pretty girl. No way anyone was taking her home tonight.

I glanced around to see how the other groups were doing.

Orito and Mihara were together, just eating pizza and salad. There were a few boys and girls with them, but the conversation wasn’t flowing.

“You ever think the McDonald’s arches look like a pair of spread legs?” Orito asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“All right, show of hands. Who thinks huge milkers start with E cups?”

No one responded.

Come on, that’s not a question you ask girls.

Orito was floundering too. Next up… Eu and Hiramatsu, just the two of them.

Their match had already moved into the midgame. When Eu played her seventy-fourth move, Hiramatsu gasped.

Realizing something, Hiramatsu froze. “No… way.”

Eu handed her a note. “You’re good.”

What? Eu won? After that, the two moved their pieces like commentators running through variations, playing fast. It stopped looking like shogi and more like a rapid-fire game of Speed.

And then, Eu won.

“Whew.” Hiramatsu exhaled, took off her shoes, and sat formally on the chair. “Could I have one more match?”

Her eyes burned with an intensity I’d never seen before. It looked like she’d flipped the switch into serious mode.

“Gladly.”

And so, the second match began. With neither of them saying a word as they moved their pieces, no one dared break in. They were in another world at this point.

Basically, I was left on my own. Well, since there were games around, maybe I should try one.

I slipped past the noisy tables toward the back, where two billiard tables stood. Anderson and his entourage were there.

Being a regular, Anderson was really good. By the time his turn came up, he cleared everything, leaving no game at all. Billiards really was an advanced sport.

The way he rubbed the tip of his cue, the angle of his elbow, the spread of his feet—it almost made me suspect he was a real hustler.

But more than his skill, what impressed me was how he smiled through the ear-splitting shrieks of the girls around him. To keep focus even with girls screaming at his ear was something.

Just then, Haruna and the guys chasing her showed up.

“He’s like… like Dessler.”^[1]

Haruna watched with wide eyes, like the crew of Yamato staring at their nemesis.

“Uh, sure, Dessler does look like he’d be good at billiards.”

So she mixed up hustler with Dessler, huh?

The horned owl hooted, like it was impressed. Amazing how much emotion it could pack into a single hoot.

“Wanna give it a try?” Anderson held out a cue to Haruna, who stood beside the table with the owl in her arms.

“All right, hit me!” Haruna grabbed the cue ball and readied her cue.

She looked like some demon coach from hell, about to put the baseball team through a thousand swings. Why was she the one yelling hit me?

“Wait, what are you doing?!” I exclaimed. “You just saw how to play!”

“Wuh?”

Clack! She nailed the cue ball dead-center, sent it flying, and then the owl caught it midair with its sharp talons. That stunned me more than the clean hit.

“Wow! One more. Let’s do it again!” Haruna said.

“Hoo-kay.”

“Don’t you dare!” I said. “Wait, did the owl just say OK?”

Hoot? The owl tilted its head, like “What’re you on about?” One thing was clear: it understood human speech.

I knew trying to stop Haruna was pointless, so instead I tried to snatch the cue from her by force.

But Anderson moved quicker. He took Haruna’s hand.

“Want me to show you how it’s done?”

A sweet breath from a handsome face. Thanks to the height difference, he was leaning over her, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, I scowled at the sight.

“Shut up! Don’t talk like I don’t know what I’m doing, ‘kay?!”

Even with a drop-dead gorgeous guy, Haruna treated them the same way. Like a vacuum with unchanging suction, she never budged.

My phone buzzed hard. The vibration indicated a call. I figured it was Big Teach, so I answered without checking.

“Hello. Are you almost here?” I asked.

“Hm? What nonsense are you spouting?”

The aggressive voice belonged to Saras. Crap. That was careless of me.

“Uh… no, well…”

“What are you doing? Weren’t you in the restroom?”

“Ah, well… I was just… dealing with a Megalo.”

“Megalo?”

“What you Vampire Ninjas call yokai. I just went and exterminated one, yeah.”

“I see. Sorry, I doubted you a little. Want me to help?”

“Huh? Wait, are you done on your end?”

“Yeah, the meeting’s over.”

“That’s unfortunate. You went out of your way to invite me, and all. I hope you invite me again next time.”

“My shitty darling. You’re not planning to watch my concert?”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Did I forget to tell you? After the meeting, we’re holding a concert to celebrate the chief’s return.”

Nobody told me a thing. Still, I ditched halfway through, so I felt a little guilty toward Saras for inviting me.

“Of course I’ll come. When and where?”

I walked over to Eu, took a sheet from her notepad, wrote down the address and time, and stuck it in my pocket. Five p.m., at a live music club.

“You better come, my darling.”

“Yeah, promise. I’ll definitely be there.”

“Ah, this is the first time we’ve made a promise. I’m delighted.”

The call ended, and just as I slipped my phone away, it started buzzing again. I sighed and answered.

It happens all the time, realizing you forgot something right after hanging up, and calling back. But when the timing was this bad, all I could do was groan.

“What is it?” I growled, then immediately regretted it. Before she could say anything, I said, “Sorry. I sounded a little rude there.”

I heard a chuckle.

“You’re kinda adorable sometimes, you know that?”

“B-Big Teach! Uh, I didn’t mean to…”

“I’m thinking of heading over now. Could you give me the coordinates?”

Sharp as ever. She noticed I was embarrassed, but didn’t press, and went straight to the main point. Real mature. If it were Haruna or Tomonori, they’d laugh for three minutes straight and tease me with a “Hey, what was that? What was that just now?”

“Just a moment.”

I moved from the billiards table to the quieter counter, asked the clerk for the address, and relayed it to Big Teach.

“Got it. See you soon!”

The moment the call ended, the door to the establishment opened.

“Hello!”

That was fast!

Big Teach showed up like she had already been on her way during the call. She wasn’t in her usual lab coat today, but a cute casual outfit.

Beside her stood Kyouko. The first time we met, her hair was tied in bunches, but now it was left down, longer than Haruna’s. She wore a simple dress, but on her arm was a bracelet engraved with something like runes. It looked more like shackles.

A chair scraped loudly behind me. I turned to see Eu, who had been playing shogi with Hiramatsu, standing up in shock despite her blank face. Haruna, gripping a cue, trembled all over.

Right, I never explained that Kyouko was coming.

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1. Abelt Dessler is the main antagonist of the first season of the anime Space Battleship Yamato. ↩