MEMORIES OF THE SUMMER

[AUGUST 31 (1)]

August 31, 2095 AD—the last day of summer vacation for magic high school students.

Their vacation was about the average length for high schools. Most technical and liberal arts schools had already started the new term, while many art schools and physical education schools would be on break until mid-September. The Nine School Competition had, incidentally, been held from August 3 to August 12, but the representative members didn’t get the special privilege of an extended break.

Even in the twenty-first century, long breaks came with assignments (homework). And all across Japan, one could observe the signs of the season: students nearly crying—or actually crying—on this last day of their break as they stared at piles of worksheets or electronic documents containing only a title. Still, not all students were that irresponsible (?). There was certainly no shortage of boys and girls like the sibling freshmen enrolled at the National Magic University Affiliated First High School who would be spending this last day relaxing at home.

Though the refined manner in which they spent it—eating tea biscuits and amusing themselves through conversation—could have been unusual.

“Miyuki, it’s finished.”

“Thank you. Please excuse me, Tatsuya. I didn’t want to busy you with trifles such as these…”

Tatsuya had to smile at his sister’s display of gratitude, rather overdone as it was. “Making crushed ice is no trouble at all,” he said, placing the ice pick on the dining room table.

Drawn by that smile, Miyuki gave a graceful one in response. In her hands was a coffeepot made of heat-resistant glass, liquid shaking around inside.

She had actually created a block of ice using magic (made by freezing water bottom-up in a container and letting out the gas), then Tatsuya had made crushed ice out of it with an ice pick, not by using magic (if he had tried, it would have gotten smashed into a snow cone). He poured it into the thick coffee.

A sweet fragrance spread through the room.

In order to encapsulate the scent, Miyuki placed a film of cold air over the top of the large, rounded cup, then picked up the tray. It had both their iced coffees on it.

Tatsuya’s eyes narrowed into a musing smile at the advanced technique, so casually performed.

Miyuki smiled bashfully when she noticed him, before turning around with a spring in her step.

Miyuki placed the tray back down on a small table, in a first-floor room that faced their small yard. It had originally been used as a guest bedroom, but the bed had been removed, so now it was a perfectly empty room. After opening all the windows and the sliding glass door, Tatsuya and Miyuki settled down to enjoy a coffee break, at least able to feel as though they were on an open terrace at a resort.

Of course, Miyuki was so busy briskly waiting on Tatsuya that she had no time to warm her own seat, but she found it fun, so it would be uncouth for a third party to say anything about it.

Still, eventually satisfied, she took off the modestly frilly white apron and sat down—not across from Tatsuya at the round table but next to him.

She wore a light dress under the apron, one with wide shoulder straps joined around her neck and exposing her fair arms. Tatsuya remembered that breezy polka-dot dress.

Her sharp eyes read his expression, and before he could speak, she glanced away shyly and asked, “You noticed?”

“Of course. It looks very good on you.”

Tatsuya’s praise didn’t contain the slightest bit of jest, and Miyuki’s cheeks reddened a little. “Oh, that’s all you ever say, Tatsuya.”

“Because I really think that way. That’s what I’ve been saying since the beginning. Besides, I wouldn’t have given you a gift I didn’t think looked good on you.”

With a cool, collected expression (at least by general, common knowledge), he tossed these loaded words that seemed inappropriate for one’s younger sister, and this time Miyuki’s cheeks became extremely flushed. “Um, well…thank you.”

As she blushed, but still looked up at him with happy, searching eyes, Tatsuya remembered the day he’d bought it for her.

She made this same expression then, too.

[AUGUST 14 (1)]

August 14—two days after the Nine School Competition. Tatsuya and Miyuki had come to a shopping tower in the city.

They were both high school students currently on summer break. They hadn’t necessarily needed to come all the way to the city on a Sunday just to go shopping, but they had a reason, of course. From tomorrow, the fifteenth, to the eighteenth, Tatsuya would have to appear at meetings at Four Leaves Technology’s R & D Section 3 regarding the commercialization of the flight device. Next week, he planned to attend field training and meetings with the Independent Magic Battalion on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. If his weekends were the only days he had free either way, Tatsuya decided he shouldn’t leave this until too much later.

But what didn’t he want to leave until later? Tatsuya wanted to buy Miyuki something nice as a reward for her victory in Mirage Bat. Miyuki had gotten strangely sulky at the term reward rather than present, but she seemed happy to receive a gift regardless of what he called it, so she was in a great mood as she walked alongside him.

Of course, she wasn’t as happy to be receiving a gift as she was to be getting one from Tatsuya. It was a small yet profound difference, and not something Tatsuya was capable of understanding.

Miyuki’s outfit for the day was a light-colored blouse with see-through sleeves, a long off-white skirt, and sandals. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head. As they were going out in private, she could have exposed more skin and been completely fine, but her fashion habits were, outside the house, conservative as always.

Meanwhile, Tatsuya wore a T-shirt under a button-down vest in place of a jacket, along with conspicuous synthetic-fiber pants of high elasticity. They looked tight, but they were made out of a great, breathable material for summer. They covered everything right down to his ankles, but weren’t as hot as they looked. Still, aside from his neck up and wrists down, no part of him was exposed to the air, very much like his sister.

Women’s affinity for shopping was one tendency that hadn’t changed, and was still a common mind-set. Yes, even in the last decade of the twenty-first century, young girls especially loved to shop. There seemed, however, to be three different behavioral patterns when it came to girls shopping.

The first was getting what they need right away.

The second was getting what they need last of all.

The third, and seemingly the most common, was keeping what they need in mind but getting distracted by other things, coming and going elsewhere as they please.

Miyuki fell into the first group. When Tatsuya had asked her the day before if there was anything she wanted, she thought for a moment, then answered, “A summer dress.” It might have been due to the one Mayumi had shown off on the bus on the way to and from the Nine School Competition piquing her interest. At least, that was what Tatsuya thought when they arrived at their destination. After all, the boutique in the fashion building Miyuki dragged him to had mostly dresses like that on display. Their designs went in a considerably different direction from the one she was wearing now, but as Tatsuya looked at a mannequin wearing a more revealing summer dress, he decided it was fine for his sister to be adventurous once in a while.

Meanwhile, as Miyuki looked at the same dress, she appeared to wince slightly. Well, she wasn’t looking at the exact same thing, but the price tag.

“You don’t have to hold back, Miyuki. You know my income.”

Price tags, unlike a century ago, were now all virtual ones that used augmented reality to display the price. It was necessary to use an AR app on an information terminal—one that everyone had as a matter of course—to check the price, so there was no way for Miyuki to hide where she was looking from Tatsuya.

Tatsuya had already booted up his AR app and checked the virtual tag. The price on it didn’t surprise him.

Miyuki liked this store. Therefore, none of the clothing would be cheap.

And he hadn’t been trying to act tough at all. The things in here were expensive, but they were still just ready-made clothing for young adults and teens. The costs weren’t as outrageous as a haute couture boutique. For one half of Taurus Silver, these prices couldn’t even be called a drop in the bucket.

The act of flashing his wallet was one that would make certain people disgusted, but it seemed to help Miyuki make up her mind. Maybe she decided holding back would actually be rude to her brother. Her face now free of hesitation, she began giving a careful look to the dresses displayed on the mannequins and hangers.

The simple fact that actual clothing was on display, and not 3-D images, marked this as a high-class store. In mainstay boutiques and shops whose draw was selling mass-produced items at low prices, common practice was to display their products using 3-D imaging technology. In most shops, you simply got a synthesized image of yourself in a piece of clothing and that was it. You couldn’t feel the fabric on your skin, but that was considered in the return policy. This store, however, was a rare sight these days—you could actually try on sample clothing.

After taking a look around inside, Miyuki called over an employee and pointed at three different dresses, requesting to try them on. The employee smiled widely and nodded. The smile didn’t seem to stop at a plain old businesslike one; Tatsuya mused to himself that she might have secretly wanted to use Miyuki for the store’s PR.

It wasn’t uncommon for such ulterior motives when Miyuki was involved. And it wasn’t something he could agree to. Even if the advertisement would only be broadcast on a strictly local basis, he couldn’t let Miyuki be a model for them, since the actual reason was that he didn’t want to risk exposing her to an unknown number of evil eyes.

But in keeping with a (relatively) high-class shop of this variety, the employee wasn’t brazen enough to suddenly suggest something like that. She withdrew into the stockroom, still smiling, and promptly came back out with the clothing samples for Miyuki to try on. Every time the clothes went back in there they were automatically washed and disinfected, so she had no qualms taking them in hand. Now carrying the samples, Miyuki let the employee guide her to the changing room.

Tatsuya decided to wait for her to be done on a bench inside the store. If she needed something, she would call an employee—and even if she didn’t, if something were to happen to Miyuki, Tatsuya would know immediately.

Now on time-killing duty, Tatsuya popped open a reading website. But he couldn’t pick out the lines of characters on his information terminal. Right after he’d opened the site, he noticed the employee from before staring at him, standing in front of him and slightly to the side.

“What is it?”

He could have waited for her to say something first, but an employee properly trained in courtesy toward customers would have found it difficult to address a customer (more accurately, a customer’s escort) while he clearly appeared to be waiting for his companion. So instead he had decided to try to draw her out.

“Sir, I had something to ask…”

“Should we go somewhere else?” Tatsuya thought it might be private, but he was thinking too much.

“No, if I could just have a moment of your time…”

Tatsuya nodded to acknowledge her request, and the tension in her face loosened. “If it is quite all right, about the dress your companion has bought…”

“We haven’t decided to buy one yet,” interrupted Tatsuya brusquely to the somewhat hasty suggestion.

“Oh, of course! I simply mean that if you were to purchase one of our store’s products.”

“I do, of course, plan on buying it if my sister likes it.”

“Thank you very much!”

Tatsuya wasn’t particularly trying to bully the employee or anything. He thought he’d been giving natural responses, but he felt like she was overreacting. She might have had some unrelated reason for doing so, but that wasn’t an issue right now. “In any case, what did you need?” Though he’d been the one to push the conversation off course, he urged her back to the topic with an air of nonchalance.

“Oh, yes.” The employee didn’t show any distaste in her expression. Maybe that was the result of training to work in a boutique like this. Or maybe she was just toying around with him. “If our store’s products have piqued her interest, would she be willing to wear one that she purchased right away?”

All that aside, the employee’s question was a strange one at first thought. Not that there was anything particularly strange about the request itself. She was looking at a sleeveless summer dress—a ready-made one, and one that didn’t even need much altering. Wearing the clothing right out of the store wasn’t an unusual thing, at least for stores that had inventory rooms in the back like this. The strange part was the employee asking for it.

“Do you mean you’d like her to walk around in one of the store’s dresses?” Tatsuya didn’t ask the reason why—he immediately knew what she, or rather the boutique, was up to. They wanted to make her into a walking advertisement.

“Yes, sir. In exchange for your help, we can offer you a discount.”

The employee also appeared to realize Tatsuya knew what they wanted, quickly bringing out talk of lowering the price. Despite her young age, she seemed like a very good salesperson.

The discount wasn’t all that attractive to Tatsuya, but he held an interest in her request for another reason.

“Will that really be all? I won’t let you take pictures.”

“No, of course not. We would never do anything to harm the privacy of one of our customers.”

“Could you show me a few pieces of clothing in the window that aren’t for sale?”

“Yes, gladly.”

Not bad, he thought.

Right as he and the employee reached an agreement regarding her question, another employee came to Tatsuya to tell him Miyuki was calling for him. Without showing any annoyance, he smoothly stood up. He had expected this, and even if he hadn’t, there was no reason to be annoyed.

“Tatsuya, how does this look…?”

The changing room door was open as Miyuki shyly asked him the question, with a person-sized three-sided mirror to let her see her back. (Places like this didn’t have cameras, to prevent hidden photography.) She wore a gray-toned jumper.

“The elegant design looks good on you. But I think you could go a little showier.” The simple design that reached below her knees was a good match for Miyuki’s refined beauty, but Tatsuya felt that it was a little more modest than it needed to be.

“Do you think so…? Then please wait a moment,” she bowed slightly, shutting the door.

There were soft sounds of rustling fabric. The silence that followed must have been her tidying her sleeves and hair.

“Sorry to make you wait. How does this one look?”

This time, her face was less shy and more just clearly embarrassed as she asked his opinion, not meeting his eye. She must be more embarrassed because it’s so different from what she usually wears out of the house.

This time she wore a checkered camisole dress. Everything from the bottom of her neck to her shoulders was exposed. The skirt was pretty short, too, ending two inches above her knees. Even while appearing innocent, the clothes gave her an almost dizzyingly seductive air.

“Yeah, I like it. I can barely take my eyes off you.”

“That isn’t…” Miyuki’s cheeks flushed at Tatsuya’s blunt appraisal.

He understood that, but the employee was blushing far harder than Miyuki. Was it because of her bewitching figure or Tatsuya’s wording being too honest?

“Didn’t you have another one? Did you not like it?”

“No, that’s not it… Shall I show you that one as well?”

She repeated the process of changing clothes.

The summer dress she came out with this time was in the middle of the other two dresses in terms of exposure. However, it also had a design that came in at the waist to emphasize her chest and hip lines.

“Well…how is this one?”

Despite exposing less skin than the second dress, this one had more in terms of sex appeal. She’d probably realized that after putting it on; that must have been why she seemed so embarrassed.

Without a rounded, voluminous chest or hips, the dress’s design would have been ungainly. But it fit her surprisingly well. Tatsuya was well aware that her body was maturing—he saw her in her underwear every week for her CAD adjustments—but after applying such an objective (?) measure to her, he realized she was much more of an adult than he’d thought. There was an unbalanced charm exuding from this dress—one different than the camisole dress before, and probably unique to her current age.

“That’s troubling. Even I might lose my sense of reason.”

“……” Miyuki’s face grew even redder at Tatsuya’s blatant praise as she silently went back into the changing room and shut the door.

She continued to try on clothes (read: put on a fashion show) after that. Each and every time, Tatsuya would give her blunt praise that made it seem like he wasn’t aware he was embarrassing her, and every time she would get embarrassed enough for the both of them. And yet she still kept trying more on to hear what he had to say. Doubtless she enjoyed her brother’s praise so much that the stress on her heart and her face’s blood vessels weren’t enough to dissuade her from it.

Miyuki had no modeling experience. Although she had the beauty to make the world’s top models run away with their tails between their legs, she had no professional modeling skill. She hadn’t acquired the art of changing clothes quickly.

Basically, what he was trying to get at was that a lot of time was passing as she continued trying on new clothes. He couldn’t obviously look inside the changing room while the door was closed, but when she came out to show her clothes to Tatsuya, she could be seen from the shop’s display space as well. Every once in a while, Tatsuya would request that she do a little twirl, or turn, or strike a pose, and eventually a small crowd of people started to form around the changing room.

They weren’t being overt about it and piling up in a group to watch her. Tatsuya wouldn’t have kept quiet in that case, and the employee would probably ask them politely to leave before he did anything anyway. Instead, some young people had made a distant ring so they could glance over. They walked slowly, too, pretending to look at the mannequins but actually totally unable to tear their eyes from the spectacle.

The young people weren’t all male. There were some guys, but in terms of numbers, the girls clearly had the upper hand. Which was understandable—the store was awkward for male customers to enter alone. They made up about one-third of the people there, and all were college students or entrepreneur-looking people the young women had brought with them. Tatsuya was probably the only male high school student here…though he doubted many people had enough power of insight to see that.

The women who came by themselves and in groups containing only women would look at Miyuki with a mix of praise and envy in their eyes, then quickly look away. Then when the changing room door closed, they would breathe a sigh of relief—and as if drawn by the sound of the door opening again, they would discreetly steal a glance her way with faces hiding trepidation.

On the other hand, those escorted by men—or ones they dragged along with them—might have been in a somewhat better mental state. When their boyfriends (though what kind of boyfriend varied, depending on the person) looked at Miyuki, enraptured by her appearance, their partners would step on their feet, elbow them in the gut, or pinch them.

On the other hand, the young women would also stare in jealousy at Tatsuya as he stood there constantly praising Miyuki with no embarrassment or hesitation, then give their male companions critical looks. Thus, needlessly making their significant others panic. Basically, they were using the men near them to vent, thus maintaining a proper emotional balance.

Tatsuya obviously caught on to all the furtive glances at him and his sister. At this point, he automatically and nearly unconsciously distinguished between harmful stares and harmless ones, pushing the latter out of his mind; meanwhile, Miyuki was ignoring all the eyes on her naturally—she wouldn’t be able to walk the streets if she couldn’t—so it wasn’t a major-enough reason for them to stop their shopping.

He never gave anything but words of praise every time, but he never said the same thing twice. Miyuki was so happy about her monopoly over her brother that she almost seemed inebriated, but she never let the tiny differences in nuance her brother used get past her. Once she’d tried on over twenty dresses, she took the slim, polka-dot dress she’d been keeping in the changing room. It was a sleeveless summer dress that ended above the knees like a camisole dress. The wide shoulder straps were lined with frilled lace, with the upper chest and skirt hem also decorated with plenty of the same. Despite how revealing it was, it had an elegant feel to it, and the rainbow of small polka dots all across the ivory-colored fabric also imparted a kind of cuteness befitting her age.

“Tatsuya, I think I want this one…”

“I think that one fits you best, too. It’s really cute.”

She’d chosen this one because it garnered the highest ratings from her brother, but upon Tatsuya saying again that it was cute, her resolve stiffened to the point where not even a hair on her head had any hesitation. “Then…shall we go buy this?”

Miyuki wasn’t trying to be reserved at this point. Instead, she simply coaxed him into it, with a huge, lovely smile—one that was, in her mind, appropriate for receiving a gift from her brother.

“But of course.”

On the other hand, in Tatsuya’s mind, he didn’t feel like he’d been coaxed into it—or forced to do so. Maybe he always thought the best use of his money was to buy his sister things she liked. Leaving aside whether he was actually aware of that, anyway…

The men who saw Miyuki’s lovely “coaxing” found their minds freezing.

The women who saw Tatsuya’s natural dapperness sighed with jealousy.

“We’ll take this dress, as well as number two and number seventeen. She’ll wear this one home, so could you deliver those clothes along with the other products?”

“Yes, of course. We’ll be waiting for you to come again.”

And the employee, who had unexpectedly good customers today, nodded, very pleased.

[AUGUST 31 (2)]

“Still, I hadn’t thought you would buy three dresses. They were rather expensive, too.”

Miyuki was thinking back on it, too, with a happy smile, though a mischievous tease was slipping into her tone.

“I would have been fine with just this one. Tatsuya? Are you spoiling me?”

“I didn’t let you try on twenty-one dresses for nothing. It’s summer break, but I can’t go out shopping with you very much. Or was it unnecessary of me?”

“Oh, no, never!” Miyuki had simply pretended to criticize the act as useless spending, but with the tables turned, she immediately held up the white flag. “I was, well…I was happy about it.”

On the surface, it would appear that Miyuki had been talked down by Tatsuya, but she didn’t find it displeasing. In fact, the distance between them—her looking up at her brother bashfully, and him looking down at her—had gotten even shorter than before.

Tatsuya smiled, satisfied, as he watched his sister give him the good-natured apology. “We don’t get chances like that very often, after all.” Then his face clouded before he bitterly said, “I would have liked to let you take a leisurely look at the yukatas and other summer items, too, but…”

“…It wasn’t your responsibility, Tatsuya,” whispered Miyuki gently, placing her palm on the back of the hand Tatsuya had on the table.

[AUGUST 14 (2)]

Picking out clothes had taken substantial time, but nonetheless, it was still before noon. Going home now, after getting to be alone with Tatsuya, would have been a waste—a truly unthinkable act for Miyuki.

Fortunately, Tatsuya wasn’t the type to stay indoors, either. Plus, he’d cleared his schedule for today precisely to care for his family (aka his little sister). They continued to idle the time away without disagreeing very much, and it looked like they’d keep doing so until evening.

Right now, they were in a fashion building aimed toward young women. Its fourteen floors of lined-up shops dealt not only in clothing but in such things as shoes, hats, accessories, yukatas, and swimsuits. All the eateries catered to the same crowd, offering light snacks and sweets. The atmosphere in here made it a little awkward for men to go in, but it was a different story if they were coupled with a lady—even if that lady was his sister. (Nobody would be able to tell.)

Nobody, in fact, would have pinned them as siblings without hearing the words they exchanged. Actually, even if they listened in, they still would have been clueless until they heard Miyuki call him her brother.

No matter how you saw it, Miyuki snuggling up happily to Tatsuya, her arm in his, made her look like a girl fawning over her boyfriend. The most someone would do was say to themselves with a tinge of envy that they weren’t “right for each other.” And that was probably only the young men, too—who would then be chastised by the girls they were with for ogling another woman. In a way, it was just how the world worked.

As stated earlier, the building was filled with stores aimed at women. Men wouldn’t be interested in coming here unless they had a particular goal—which seemed mostly to be paying tribute to their girlfriends via gifts, or female friends they wanted to be their girlfriends. If you were a young man with that constantly on your mind, then leaving aside how enjoyable it was, it might have been an efficient use of time. Though, at the very least, Tatsuya didn’t fall into that group.

However, not once did he look displeased as Miyuki took her sweet time window-shopping. Her eyes would glitter in front of one display case, then scowl in dissatisfaction at the next. It put a smile on his face. Whether through nature or nurture, whether acquired from others or self-created, everywhere, city or mountains, was the same to him as long as she was there.

She was the one thing he was really able to want. With her by his side, no other conditions were relevant. It made sense, as anyone who knew him could tell you. Between Tatsuya and Miyuki, Tatsuya was perhaps the one truly dependent on the other.

Of course, if you asked them something like that, they’d probably say, It’s none of your business in unison. A punishment worse than a horse kick would be waiting for you.

And that—the worse punishment—wasn’t reserved only for outspoken questioners.

It applied to rude gate-crashers as well.

As they ate a slightly early lunch at a pasta house, the siblings had directed unhappy stares at the young man standing at the table next to them.

Tatsuya and Miyuki had entered the restaurant completely by coincidence, entirely on a whim.

When they ate out, they almost never chose stores with layouts such as this one had: ones with nothing to block incoming stares. Usually they chose places with individual rooms or partitions between tables. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to eat with all the attention on them—well, the attention on Miyuki, anyway.

Given the location, most of the diners here today were either women or the men accompanying them. He’d thought nothing too terrible would happen, but, well, that idea seemed to have been naive.

Unfortunately, as soon as Miyuki followed Tatsuya into the restaurant, the hustle and bustle immediately silenced. Even the employees—unusual for a casual place like this, they were waiters rather than waitresses—couldn’t help but gasp and stand there. Even Tatsuya hadn’t expected to get such an overreaction. He figured a stylish place like this would have some resistance to Miyuki’s good looks. But it was actually because it was a stylish place that people found raw beauty like hers a rare sight.

Just before Tatsuya could turn on his heel to leave, the waiter snapped out of it. More accurately, he felt confusion at his attempt to do so, and used the chance to come back to his right mind. Tatsuya couldn’t quite tell if that made his attitude professional or not, but the man did succeed in keeping the two customers there.

Even if they had been picky, he guessed other places would have reacted the same way. He obediently followed the waiter to their seats. Miyuki, for her part, was used to the constant attention on her. As long as Tatsuya was with her, though, all other things were trivial in comparison.

The two-person table wasn’t a fixed booth but a wooden (at least, on the surface) one with wooden chairs. Tatsuya stopped the waiter before he could pull out the chair and went around behind Miyuki to do it himself. Bashful, she turned around, bowed a little bit, and then sat down. Tatsuya sat across from her and glanced at the waiter, who quickly handed them menus. After responding generously to the waiter’s haste, Tatsuya let him leave.

His acting was filled with dignity unsuited to his age, and the waiter who had been treated poorly didn’t show any sign of distaste. The eyes of the other guests on Miyuki just for a moment went to Tatsuya. Most of them were women, but their slight confusion was replaced by acceptance. They had been thinking they weren’t right for each other, that the man must have bad habits, in compensation for the sense of defeat they felt toward the rival woman. Now, though, their impression had changed—they were a good couple, and so the onlookers could accept their unilateral defeat.

Hostility abandoned, the jealous stares turned into admiring ones. Now, among the heterosexual couples, the men instead looked to be the ones feeling envy-like doubts and anxiety. Not many of the boyfriends perfectly understood their girlfriends’ expressions, but unconsciously—perhaps instinctually—they knew that what had stolen the attentions of their girlfriends (or future girlfriends) was not only the surreal, beautiful girl, but also the boy sitting across from her. They were like a pair of walking marital vows.

It was as Tatsuya finished ordering for both of them under these covert stares that a new actor entered the stage.

She was an exceptionally pretty girl.

Looking to be around twenty, she was equipped with both the vivacity of a woman just exiting her teens and a magnificent complexion, like a chokingly aromatic rose bouquet.

Wherever she was, whenever it was, her beauty would not fail to draw attention.

This beauty’s owner understood that well, and moved as if she were showing her assets off. The show was clearly something she was used to but didn’t allow those watching to feel any distaste toward it. She had probably been tempered by others watching her, and honed herself while watching back. That was the sort of career it felt like this woman had.

Behind her followed a young man who appeared several years older, like an empress’s gentleman-in-waiting. Perhaps she was a celebrity—an actress, maybe. In 2095 AD, the position of “idol” had been mostly supplanted by realistic 3DCG, but an actress was still a job for a real-life human. And this woman had a kind of natural aura about her; if someone had introduced her as a famous actress, anyone would have believed it.

Tatsuya could only speculate as to why she had come to such a casual establishment. It could have just been a simple whim, or it could have been a preliminary inspection of a filming location. The one thing he could say for sure was that if she were to set foot in an eatery filled with all these “normal people,” she would draw stares from all over the shop.

That was her own prediction as well. Neither conceit nor self-esteem was part of it. It was a prediction based on her experience, of repeating this dozens and dozens of times, until her experience had sublimated into a steadfast rule. She put her attractiveness on full display, so that anyone could look at her from any angle, with a skill of acting that had already become second nature to her.

However, her guess was wrong. There were no rules without exceptions: That, in and of itself, was a golden rule. And the laws her experience had taught her to expect now ran right up against one of those exceptions.

The employee who had welcomed her had looked surprised and gave her a compliment, but it was a more subdued reaction than she thought it would be. In her experience, it was rare that a mere waiter would be able to stay straight-faced at her beauty. The normal people, who took up 80 percent of the seats, did turn to look at the slight disturbance at the entrance, and men and women alike acknowledged her beauty with expressions of surprise. But they soon lost interest, their eyes returning to the store’s interior and a certain table by the wall.

Sure enough, given her appearance, she was indeed an actor. She had made her debut five years ago, and in that time she had built for herself a firm position as a celebrity. The slow-witted could not survive show business. CG technology had improved with the years, and beauty of form was steadily losing the absolute advantage it once had. Not only did she have that beauty, but she also had a mind with sharper emotions than most. That was how she’d become a star with incredible acting abilities despite her age.

Of course, she might not have needed especially sharp emotions to come to her next conclusion; a normal level of sensitivity would have sufficed. She realized someone else in this restaurant was being paid more attention than she was. She didn’t find that very pleasing. In fact, you could say it made her unhappy. It was only natural she started to wonder what kind of person could draw all the attention when she was in the room.

Her pride as a star, however, wouldn’t let her do something so civilian as steal glances every once in a while. As the waiter was leading her to her table, she made a point of not looking at where the other guests were.

But by accident or coincidence, the table she was led to was near the table everyone was looking at—diagonally in front of her, in fact. When she went to sit down, she feigned nonchalance and gave their table a glance. There was a young couple sitting there. The boy was facing her, and while he certainly wasn’t ugly, he wasn’t the type she’d think girls would be into. At the very least, he wasn’t handsome enough to warrant all the restaurant’s attention. Which meant the normal people were paying all their attention to the girl sitting facing away from her.

These thoughts were born mostly of her trying to act tough. The level to which she did so marked her as no normal woman. She had actually known the very moment she got a split-second glance of the girl’s profile. She probably would have understood even just from her view of her back. This girl was special.

She’d never felt this way before. If she had to put it into words, it was like a jealousy that could never be overcome. She didn’t think of herself as someone chosen by the gods. She was proud of how she clinched her current position. Sure, she was born with a somewhat pretty face, but she didn’t rest on her laurels. She strictly followed life habits that would make her even more beautiful, researched the kind of behavior that would display her beauty, and greedily studied every acting skill she could.

But this girl was different. Whether she was beloved by the gods or made a deal with the devil, she wasn’t normal. She wasn’t in a world one could reach through effort.

It isn’t fair, she thought. This girl didn’t have to work at all to monopolize the admiration of all these people.

The actress felt that made all her efforts thus far meaningless. An impulse arose within her, an urge to prove that becoming a star wasn’t something one could accomplish through natural appearance alone.

She waved the young man sitting across from her forward and leaned over the table herself, whispering something in his ear.

As the young man brought his face toward the beauty gesturing to him from the other side of the table, he had a different woman on his mind.

No, perhaps this should be corrected: another girl on his mind.

The girl, sitting behind him to the side, was more dazzling than any he’d ever seen, and that was what was occupying his mind.

For him, beautiful women were products, toys, accessories. As the third president of a huge entertainment production company, he had placed several sought-after actresses under his support, and had made dozens of as-yet-unknown actresses his own. It was only natural for him—he didn’t feel a scrap of guilt about it. That went for the woman in front of him, too. Sure, she was a star actress now, one who walked with a pompous swagger. But before, she was a terrible actor with nothing going for her aside from her pretty face. He was fairly sure she’d only attained her current position because he’d been looking after her since she was just starting out. Having a good time with her was the proper reward for all the hard work he’d put in, and she’d been benefiting from this as much as him. He thought a show of gratitude was in order.

He’d brought her to a plebeian shop such as this because he wanted to show her off and watch the plebs stare in envy at her. Accessories were pointless but to show them off. He knew it was a base hobby, but the professional entertainment world was a base trade already, wasn’t it? He didn’t know anything of his predecessors’ struggles through the wars, during the hard winter of entertainment. The seat of president of production was nothing more than a way to casually satisfy oneself with short-lived vanity.

He’d brought his favorite accessory of the moment here today, under the guise of scouting out a new filming location. Her earnings weren’t at the top of the company’s, but her appearance was first among his women. Now that he’d managed to befriend a first-rate actress, imperfect though she may have been, he couldn’t take her around places as lightly as he could when she was unknown. But that only served to feed his superiority complex all the more. In the eyes of others, the actress was the master here, and the man only an attachment—but looking at himself that objectively was likely impossible for him, given his status and age.

He thought of her as a kind of large diamond bead, cut and polished by the hands of a master craftsman. He’d stocked up on gemstones, had them polished by a craftsman in his employ, and cut them. That was production’s job, and the finished jewel was a product called an “actress.” She was certainly a creation he had processed and created, the fruit of his labor—but even if she had been wrought by a craftsman from another company, she would be nothing more than an article for sale, and one that could be bought.

But he could tell at a glance. Unlike her, that girl wasn’t the sort of thing that could be bought with money at all. If the woman in front of him was a huge diamond worth several dozen million yen at current market value, that girl was like the priceless Great Star of Africa. That was how large the difference between them felt.

Fortunately, she was with a mere child who had a slightly haughty attitude.

The president ardently desired to add her to his own collection, but an actress from his company was with him now. If she’d been one of the many others, that would be one thing. But he had enough reason left to calculate that angering a product that had made him so much money would be a bad thing.

So when the woman in front of him was the one to suggest they scout the girl for the new movie, it was a godsend to him. He pretended to mull it over for a few moments, and then stood up from his seat, pretending like he was only going along with his talent’s willfulness.

For a little while now, Tatsuya had been sensing a sulking stare (in the childish sense) of hostility on him. He’d decided it wasn’t the type to cause harm to Miyuki, so he’d left it be, but it wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Just as he was thinking that, its origin—the now-standing young man at the table diagonally in front of him (and diagonally behind Miyuki)—walked over to the siblings’ table.

The two of them gave him a displeased look as he stood beside their table. People stealing glances was one thing, but it was only natural to be unhappy with a complete and total stranger unreservedly staring from up close.

“My mistake for interrupting.”

His way of speaking, too, was unreserved. He did seem to be trying, at least, considering his apology, but his tone was overly familiar.

Tatsuya lost all intention of handling this young man amicably.

Meanwhile, a cold light glinted in Miyuki’s eyes before she very naturally turned away.

Undiscouraged by the clear rejection, the young man, still with an insincere smile on, took out a business card from a case and offered it to Miyuki. “Here’s my card.”

It was an old-fashioned business card, made only of paper, without a chip embedded in it. No micro-patterns were printed on it, either. It really was a classic, cheap paper card. Without a choice, Miyuki took it, skimmed over it, and handed it to Tatsuya.

The last name and first part of the business name on the card had the same characters in them, and the man’s title was “president.” The latter half of the business name said production. Tatsuya guessed he was a professional in the entertainment world.

“Are you interested in movies?”

Miyuki didn’t look at the man.

“I have the perfect role for you…”

Her attitude was the very picture of indifference, but still the man failed to yield.

“Could you tell me your name?” he asked, crouching a little to bring himself nearer to Miyuki’s face. He completely ignored the obvious air of rejection coming from her. His denseness and mental toughness were the right stuff for a salesman, and as he watched, Tatsuya felt a little impressed.

Of course, he was feeling a lot more irritated.

Eventually, Miyuki brought her averted eyes to the young president.

They hadn’t softened at all, though.

The cold light in them…the harsh stare, criticizing the lack of etiquette…

For a moment, the young professional winced. It didn’t last very long, though, before he returned to his seemingly insincere—no, actually insincere—smile and engaged in the brutish act of reaching a hand out to her.

It was probably his pride as an entertainment professional at work. He was the president of production, and he treated pretty and beautiful women as products. An amateur’s beauty overwhelming him seemed to have wounded his pride.

But that, too, was a hasty act. The kind young people with important positions tended to make, the bad habit of letting one’s emotions get out of control when faced with someone in a weaker position than them. The young man seemed to have it, too.

He was trying to either grab her hand or touch her face. Whichever the case, Tatsuya wasn’t about to let such foolish behavior pass.

Suddenly he was standing, his hand latched on to the man’s arm as it reached for Miyuki.

“Wha…?!”

The young man’s selfish gasp of resistance changed to a yelp midway through, and then even that faded. He couldn’t say anything as he was stricken with intense pain he’d never felt before.

“I’m going to ask you to leave.”

Tatsuya’s words probably didn’t reach the young man’s mind. He was twisting his hand upward, his fingers digging into a pressure point in his wrist that could give extreme pain if held at the right angle. The pain was blinding, and it had complete hold over the man.

When Tatsuya let go, the man stumbled back a few steps, then fell onto his rear end. The face looking down at him wasn’t a scornful one—in fact, it was completely expressionless. He felt such a chill of terror up his spine that he forgot he was in pain. If it had been a derisive stare, he could have burned his pride and gotten angry—even if it was slightly, just for an instant, like a toy firework. But this stare had no emotion in it, only the message You’re in the way. He couldn’t even feel antipathy toward him.

The young man was instantly scared stiff. He couldn’t pry his eyes away from Tatsuya’s glare; he backed up even as he staggered to his feet. But even when confronted with the glare—which stated that Tatsuya would have no hesitation getting violent after imparting such docile pain in comparison—he had enough grit to stand back up. Someone weaker of heart probably would have soiled themselves in this situation.

The woman the man had brought with him, however, didn’t seem to agree. Tatsuya heard the sound of chair legs scraping against the floor. When he turned to look, he saw the beauty in question quickly exiting the restaurant, puffed up with arrogance, her heeled sandals clacking as she went. The man didn’t even glance at her.

Then the rest of the patrons started moving again. Two waiters hurried over, taking care not to let their footsteps be too loud. Not to Tatsuya—but to the man. One of them, his demeanor polite, whispered something to the company president, and the man’s face reddened.

Tatsuya didn’t hear any of what the man said in return; he seemed to still have the faculties not to start ranting and raving. Tatsuya only made out some of the louder bits, like “think I am” and “ridiculous.” He wasn’t about to force it out of him, though. Despite not being physically restrained, the man had been psychologically overwhelmed by the waiters on either side of him. After Tatsuya saw him leave the establishment, he returned to his seat.

As though waiting for the moment he settled down, a forty-year-old man in a white cooking uniform came over to the table. After introducing himself as the shopkeeper and chef here, he bowed deeply to Tatsuya and Miyuki.

“I have no words to express my apologies for the offense you just experienced.”

“No, I apologize for making trouble and making a scene.”

Despite being only sixteen, Tatsuya had been trained quite a bit in the presence of adults. If the other person was being courteous, then he was entirely capable of reacting sensibly. The shopkeeper’s eyes softened a bit at Tatsuya’s newfound calm, probably thinking he seemed mature for his age.

“Please, don’t mention it. He was the one who made a scene, not you. He got another customer involved in it; that was all.”

Even at the end of the twenty-first century, the bad habit of both parties in a fight being to blame was still deeply ingrained in society. The shopkeeper didn’t appear to be the sort that appreciated the bad habit of letting the blame remain indefinite.

“I’m grateful you think that way.” The man’s attitude was black-and-white, something Tatsuya found likable. He bowed naturally in return, feeling no particular need to keep up appearances.

“This happened because our employees were slow to react. If you like, you may feel free to enjoy our food. Without charge, of course.”

The man turned and went back into the kitchen before Tatsuya could argue the point.

Despite the casual appearance of the store, the food tasted sublime. The soup that came after the appetizer as well as the main pasta dish that followed presented themselves as plain challenges of taste to the customers, no tricks or traps involved. They were reminiscent of the shopkeeper’s stubbornly frank personality, and had Tatsuya and Miyuki licking their lips.

Dessert came last, and this in particular had Miyuki almost in delirium. It was a light ice-cream cake, about eight inches in diameter. It was light on the toppings decorating it, too. It was enveloped in the rich scent of a thick vanilla flavor—another plain and simple work. Neither too firm nor too fluffy, the cool texture melted in their mouths. It seemed like something a more high-class restaurant easily could have served.

The flavor and texture weren’t the only things delighting Miyuki about it. One of the waiters, a young one—a little older than them, and probably the leader of them—had brought only one, with two spoons and no smaller plates. The spoon handles were unnaturally long, and appeared unsuited for one person eating his or her own food.

After placing the dish and spoons in the middle of the table, the waiter whispered to them both, his voice conspiratorial. “A splendid boy for a pretty girl, and a pretty girl for a splendid boy. And a moment of sweetness for the fitting couple.”

It had to have been a line they’d written to go along with the sort of place this was. Miyuki, though, seemed to have taken it rather seriously. Her face had reddened and she had smiled with bliss as she’d scooped up some of the ice cream and brought it toward Tatsuya’s mouth.

After their dessert scene, which had seemed purposely embarrassing, and with their food finished, Tatsuya took the promised no-charge receipt and gave it to one of the waiters along with a one-time-use money card rather than an electronic wallet. Then he beat a hasty retreat from the restaurant, not giving the waiter any time to argue.

Though his lunch had left him in an unexpectedly refreshed mood (with just a little bit of embarrassment mixed in), nothing ever ended so simply. They were about to walk down the escalator leading out of the restaurant area and into the shopping one when Tatsuya scowled. Miyuki, too, frowned in revulsion, half hiding behind her brother.

The young entertainment professional from the restaurant before was standing there. His female companion was absent. She’d probably left him and gone home. Instead, he had four extra people with him, each appearing to be the opposite of both his looks and physique (in other words, their looks were bad and physiques good).

“You humiliated me in there.”

He was controlling his voice for the moment, but the sullenness was clear. Who knew when he’d start screaming?

The kind of stereotypical line meant for a full-on small-fry , thought Tatsuya to himself in disbelief. But he didn’t intend to be the one to throw down the gloves first. At least, not yet. “I said this earlier. I’m going to ask you to leave.”

Still, if he didn’t want to pick a fight, then he might have wanted to say something else. Tatsuya wasn’t feeling particularly peaceable, either. He certainly didn’t tell the man that his woman ran away because he had no stones, but he didn’t try to hide the contempt in his voice. He didn’t want to pick the fight, but maybe he was ready to take the man up on one. If he was, then what he’d said had been truly effective.

“…If you want to get on your knees and beg forgiveness, now’s your chance.”

“You’re going to make a scene out here?”

His words and attitude made it pretty clear he was serious, but Tatsuya couldn’t believe he’d commit acts of violence in front of all these people. He’d asked the question, actually worried about the man’s societal standing.

“Shut it. Damn magicians. You’re a mockery of human beings.”

Unfortunately, that abuse was enough to get rid of the restraint and hesitation Tatsuya had. He shifted, hiding Miyuki completely from the young man’s eyes. The emotion vanished from his expression, and his eyes narrowed into slits.

He didn’t know how the man had misunderstood the change in Tatsuya’s attitude, but he smiled scornfully, satisfied. “Yeah, I knew I’d seen you somewhere before. That broadcast of the Nine School whatever it was. I thought I’d spotted an amazing raw find, but it turned out to be a terrible imitation.”

The young man seemed to believe the misinformation that magicians were artificially created humans, made through genetic manipulation. There weren’t many believers, but Tatsuya had both the knowledge and experience of observing such obstinately blind people, so the man’s words didn’t come as a surprise, in and of themselves.

Instead, he noticed the shameless lie that lay within them. “You’re lying,” he said. “Today’s the first time you’ve ever seen either of us. If you’d seen my sister during the Nine School Competition, even on video, vermin like you wouldn’t dare to stand before her.”

A chill began to descend upon them. It wasn’t the sort of chill that would create snow or ice, but one like a steel blade without a single tarnish or speck on it.

“What the hell? You into your sister or something?” jeered the man, smiling widely—his face pale and voice trembling.

Tatsuya didn’t answer the man’s ridicule. In fact, he ignored it completely and continued what he’d been saying. “You probably had those grunts of yours tell you, didn’t you?” His emotions weren’t delicate enough to be bothered by the barking of a cowardly dog raised indoors. Nor could he be asked to tolerate him—he was just a powerless mutt, after all. “Maybe it would be better to go home before making a mistake in front of everyone. Or maybe you need me to say before you wet yourself to understand.”

Tatsuya hadn’t been the one insulted. It had been Miyuki. He didn’t have the slightest inclination to settle things peacefully. He took a step toward the man. The hangers-on nervously showed themselves. He couldn’t sense the skill of professional bodyguards from them, but they’d probably seen their share of action. On a street-fight level, anyway. Their clothing didn’t match the job of gang members, but Tatsuya was pretty sure that was what they were. Even if the oft-heard stories of entertainment professionals and violent organizations holding hands weren’t always true, at the very least, they weren’t a complete lie, either.

“What are you so scared of?! Magicians can’t use magic in public. That’s how they’re made!”

The man appeared to have very easily swallowed the urban legends.

Magicians didn’t use magic in public because it was restricted by law, not because of any mind or machine control. They were simply warned not to use it without a very good reason: Magicians were encouraged to use magic for rescue purposes in times of accident or disaster, but using it in self-defense was also permitted by law.

The gang members following him didn’t seem to believe in the legends as innocently as the young president did. Their hands were behind their backs—they probably had folding knives in their pockets—as they regarded Tatsuya’s every motion with care.

Tatsuya took two steps and stopped, opening his hands and holding his chest out. He wasn’t acting as though he’d been held up. He waved his open hands a bit, making an appeal to the fact that he had no weapons.

The gang members took that as mockery. They didn’t know what kinds of CADs there were or how to control them, but they did know magicians had to use small devices to use magic. They interpreted the act as a declaration—that he didn’t need magic to take them on.

And they were right. Tatsuya was, in fact, provoking them: He didn’t need magic to take them on.

The provocation had immediate effects. The men were lower members anyway—no more than hoodlums. Nothing more than a handful of pieces to throw the young president’s way when he called in the emergency. And as was usual for hoodlums, they had a low boiling point.

They all took out their folding knives and leaped at Tatsuya en masse.

It was normal for violent organizations to train their members in group combat. Even normal city-goers were probably part of self-defense groups these days. These people might have been professionals of violence, but without the ability to coordinate, they couldn’t make anything out of it.

Two came from the left and right—a knife attack in waves, leaving intervals between.

A young girl shrieked.

It wasn’t Miyuki. She actually looked quite relaxed as she stared at Tatsuya’s back, silently and without changing her expression. What she had was an absolute faith in her brother’s ability.

That faith would never betray her.

Four little attacks. One per person. His fist ripped exactly into their vital spots, sending the gang members to the floor, crawling.

Tatsuya started moving forward again. He advanced one step, and the young president retreated two.

And then the man stopped. He’d run into something, and before he realized it, both his arms were grabbed and he was thrown to his knees. He frantically looked behind him and saw who had jumped in: officers in uniform.

They were a team of eight in total. Two held down the president, four placed handcuffs on the gang members on the floor, and the other two looked at Tatsuya.

Miyuki walked right up behind Tatsuya. The officers glanced between the two of them, and then one stammered, “Err, we’d like to hear what you have to say, if that’s all right. Would you mind accompanying us to the station?”

Tatsuya couldn’t help but be surprised at how unexpectedly inferior the officer sounded. It was self-defense, yes, but it was still an act of violence in public. He wouldn’t have been surprised to be arrested in flagrante delicto.

He looked more closely and saw one of the officers with a bangle-shaped CAD on his left wrist. He was a magician. Maybe he’d realized they were magicians and thought of them as members of the same group. Still, the slightly nervous attitude the officer had concerned him.

“Well, you see, that is…”

The second officer that had come over to them tried to speak, but had trouble and stopped before actually saying anything. This one had a handgun-shaped CAD on his waist.

He brought one hand behind him. Was he getting out handcuffs? Tatsuya could sense Miyuki’s eyebrows raising without turning around to look. He gestured for her to be prudent.

The officer’s hand came back out in front of them. Or rather, both of their hands. In front of Miyuki. They both held small notebooks. They didn’t look like police memos, though. They were probably for personal use.

“…You’re Ms. Miyuki Shiba, right? You were in the Nine School Competition this year. We’re actually all graduates of First High, so…if it’s okay with you, would you mind…giving us your autograph?”

The other officer was holding out a classic ballpoint pen, rare in this day and age.

Tatsuya and Miyuki exchanged glances, then Miyuki turned to the two officers and grinned.

[AUGUST 31 (3)]

“I never would have thought we’d meet alumni in a place like that,” giggled Miyuki, remembering what had transpired that day. Tatsuya, too, let a laugh slip out recalling it all, as if to make up for the laughs he couldn’t have at the time. She went on, “Though upon thinking about it, it wasn’t that surprising. First High is the only magic high school in Kanto, so most magicians in Tokyo who become police officers would be graduates.”

“Yeah. Either way, the fact that they were your fans kept us from being held at the police station for a long time…which means you’re to thank. You really helped out.”

“You’re very welcome. All I want is to be helpful to you, Tatsuya.”

“Of course, when they invited us for tea after that, I didn’t know what to do. It was pretty hard to turn them down.”

“Well, I never! That was not my fault.”

They exchanged glances, then smiled broadly again. Miyuki put the straw in her mouth and emptied her glass. The contents of Tatsuya’s glass had vanished moments ago as well, leaving only ice behind. After his sister’s mouth left the straw and she shifted her attention to him, he got up out of his chair.

“The banks are open now, so we should be going.”

“Yes. I will return after cleaning up the glasses, so could you wait for a moment, Tatsuya?”

“No, I’ll help you clean up,” said Tatsuya.

Not a word of argument left Miyuki’s lips as she quickly swept up the tray. It appeared a rough action, but they didn’t even hear the sounds of ice crashing and clinking together inside the glasses. Though she looked a little dissatisfied, she let her true feelings show in her light step as she followed after Tatsuya into the kitchen.

They went to the bank, though not to withdraw cash. Electronic wallets and money cards, evolved forms of personal checks, had spread throughout the country to replace physical wallets. Cash money now saw very limited use. Still, there was no reason to go to a bank to deposit paychecks, or to balance one’s checkbook, either. Paychecks and transaction records had mostly been converted to online systems, so using a brick-and-mortar bank for those things only happened in special cases.

What had Tatsuya come here for, then? He had to update the identification card he needed to use those online services. There was no set interval for renewing IDs. You could use the services without problems just with the initial settings on one, without updating at all. The ID was important, not renewing it. The act of renewing one was part of a larger security-level control system, and updating your identification data had to be done in person at an actual bank, not online. It was a way to strengthen security.

Tatsuya made a point of renewing his ID once every three months. On average, people renewed them every half a year, so every three months was on the more frequent side. Some of the sample included highly strung users who would renew theirs every week, though, and compared to them, it wasn’t that uncommon.

Inside the air-conditioned building, Tatsuya and Miyuki waited in line to be called, their shoulders pressed together. Not because they were cold, mind you; they’d been clinging together even out on the blazing-hot road leading from their cabinet station to the bank.

They did it to stop people from hitting on Miyuki. Clearly indiscreet boys of the same age didn’t usually try to get involved with Miyuki, perhaps thinking she wouldn’t pay attention to them from the start, but it was a huge pain to get those who did to give up. So when they were out in public, they purposely made themselves seem like a couple.

Rather than wanting to buy something, wanting to go somewhere, or wanting to see something, Miyuki’s main goal in wanting to leave the house might have been to be close to her brother like this. As evidence, despite the bank’s waiting lobby being a fairly boring room, she was in a very good mood.

It was a brother complex, and there was no room for excuses.

Be that as it may, because of their limited uses, modern banks didn’t keep as much cash on hand as they used to. They possessed plenty of money cards in place of that cash, but the ones issuing them could stop them from being used via their electronic systems. They weren’t signed and circulated like checks, so the only ones that would bother would be their holders. Those reasons added up to bank robberies turning into a rare sight on the level of endangered species.

At least, he’d thought they were.

“Looks like we came across something unusual…”

Now, the two of them were present at the scene hosting one of those endangered species.

No sooner had four men burst into the bank than they’d whipped out crude-looking modified pistols and threatened the bank clerks and customers. The knit ski masks hiding their features at the hottest part of summer were quite retro. They also wore slightly dirty jackets, and thrust a large leather travel bag onto the counter. They stuck to such a traditional style that Tatsuya almost thought they’d walked into a theme park attraction by mistake, but judging by the desperation in the teller’s voice as she groaned, this was a real-life bank robbery.

“What shall we do, Tatsuya?” asked Miyuki in her normal tone, looking up at the brother she clung to. “If you’d prefer, I will…” And, as usual, her voice implied she couldn’t let her brother be bothered with something so petty as this.

“No, there’s no need for us to get involved,” said Tatsuya with a smile, putting his arm around her shoulder, patting it a few times to calm her down. Miyuki happily leaned into Tatsuya’s chest.

It was incredibly clear from their attitudes that they were taking no notice whatsoever of the bank robbery, much less all the other customers, frozen with uneasy expressions. The heartwarming mood they exuded amid the wild situation, needless to say, stood out.

To explain Tatsuya’s thinking in an effort to preserve his honor (?): He hadn’t told his little sister to disregard the current happenings just so that he could flirt with her. The act had purely been to pacify her, since she was getting ahead of herself. Bank robberies had become a rare crime, but that didn’t mean banks had neglected defense systems. A bank robbery with mere modified pistols would never succeed.

Proof of that fact played out before the customers’ eyes. There were clear shields reaching down from the ceiling toward the counters anyway, and those couldn’t be crossed. The transparent shields slid down in front of the bank tellers inside them, closing up the open window portion in front.

The travel bag in the window was crushed, almost torn apart. If one of the robbers’ arms had been there, it might not have been severed, but there was enough force to easily imagine severe bone fractures.

One of the robbers fired at the shield. The bullet dug into the first shield layer and stopped. The outer, clear shield seemed to be made of a highly viscous, almost fluidlike substance. It was probably to prevent collateral damage from ricocheting bullets. Tatsuya was impressed—it was good forethought.

The robber spat out a few mumbled curses, then turned back to the lobby. Tatsuya, who had been watching the man, averted his eyes so they wouldn’t meet. Instead, he looked into Miyuki’s face. Personally feeling that she was suddenly being gazed at, she hastily looked down in embarrassment. Tatsuya’s hand remained on her shoulder.

The corner of the robber’s eye, mostly hidden behind the ski mask, could be seen rising. He’d momentarily forgotten the guests in the lobby—but despite the fear and the tension among them, the man couldn’t be called especially impatient. There was no doubt the robber was staring at the two of them.

Tatsuya was sensitive to malicious stares. He couldn’t serve as a bodyguard if he wasn’t. It was impossible for him to miss the hatefulness in the man’s glare. He also noticed a sadistic glint in his eyes.

Miyuki noticed the sadism in the robber’s gaze as well, and she hugged Tatsuya’s chest much more tightly. It made her look scared; the robber noticed that, too, and his lips curled up in a satisfied grin underneath the ski mask.

But she wasn’t feeling tense. Her expression of fear was only on the surface; underneath she was playfully chiding him. Tatsuya understood without even needing to think about it.

A dry smirk almost made its way onto his lips, but he trapped it under his steely poker face. Instead, he grasped Miyuki’s shoulder more firmly and gave off a look like he was trying his hardest to suppress his fear. He hoped it didn’t come off as feigned; it didn’t happen all the time, but he did have a tendency to get carried away.

All four bank robbers focused on them. Under the ski masks, their upturned lips could not be seen, but their eyes showed they were grinning. The pair’s little performance seemed to have stoked the fires of sadism inside them.

Tatsuya pretended, a little exaggeratedly, to shiver. I’m a terrible actor, if I do say so myself, he thought, but the robbers seemed to be quite happy with the gesture.

Their attention had turned away from the other customers now. Considering the fact that the store had even taken ricocheting bullets into account in their defense systems—there was no way the robbery countermeasures would end after only cutting the lobby off from the people behind the counter.

A moment after their attention focused on the couple, the latticework ceiling disappeared, leaving beams behind. At some point they’d swapped the ceiling panels with 3-D images. A person dropped down onto the robbers from one of those beams.

Burly police officers had the robbers arrested in mere moments.

Tatsuya watched it happen, feeling almost no surprise at all. A simple 3-D image screen was no obstacle for someone who could detect the presence of others. He knew the police officer was stationed overhead; that was why he decided to wait and watch.

The employees of the bank, of course, didn’t share his unique circumstances. When Miyuki buried her face in his chest, they naturally interpreted it as her breaking down from the tension and crying. Tatsuya putting his arm around her head only furthered the illusion. In reality, she was just trying to hide her relaxed expression of jubilation from the police officer and employees, who had just done a very serious job.

As Tatsuya cradled Miyuki’s head, the bank manager came out and bowed to them. After asking Tatsuya’s name, he offered a yearlong exemption from any extra fees in apology for the danger they had faced. Tatsuya wasn’t sure what expression he should make, so he kept his poker face on—which looked like a stiff, tense face to the bank manager—and accepted the proposal. After all, it was true. It had been a dangerous situation for normal people.

He told them he was there to renew his ID, and the manager called an employee to start the procedure for him. Tatsuya gently straightened Miyuki up. She let him lead her by the shoulder, hiding her expression with her long hair.

Renewals were conducted in a completely private room with a machine, with no worry of sneak photography or wiretapping. Once they entered, the need to be concerned about the eyes and ears of others was gone. The siblings exchanged glances and broke out into laughter, finally unable to endure it any longer.

The bank robbery they’d happened across was nothing more than a single panel in the comic of the slightly strange day they’d had. No doubt they’d already filed away these “incidents” on the last day of summer vacation as just a few more “memories of the summer.”