Perfect Autumn Blossom
I sighed, removing my face-mask and resting my waist against the desk’s edge. I glared down at the person sitting before me, his hands steepled in front of him as a devious grin was plastered all over his mug.
“This job pays well?” I asked.
He nodded. Shuffling through his desk, he pulled out a document and handed it to me. It was a contract. I took it from his hands and glanced at it once over. It was full of a lot of big words and phrases that I didn’t really understand. Among the few words that I did recognize were “costume” and “entertain”. I turned the page over as my eyes were beginning to glaze over the walls of words before a big number written at the bottom caught my attention. I brought the paper closer to my eyes to make sure I was seeing if it had the right amount of 0s.
I gulped.
“I…I’ll do it.”
“M-Miko Miko Nyan Nyan!”
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing, nor what the appeal of this was, but I knew one thing.
It was embarrassing as absolute hell.
“That’s it! You got the technique down, potential part-timer!” The girl standing in front of me said, clapping her hands together. She was dressed in traditional miko shrine maiden garb with her long black hair tied into a ponytail. More importantly, she had cat ears. I knew kemonomimi girls existed in Kivotos of course, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to interact much with them. Squad was all humans after all, as is most of Trinity.
“You’ll be a BIG hit with the customers! Yep yep!”
“R-Really?” I asked, clearing my throat. Somehow hearing this didn’t make me very happy. I sighed, closing my eyes as I began to think about the situation I was currently in.
Ever since leaving Squad, I drifted from odd-job to odd-job on the black market. Problem is, since I didn’t get much of an education beyond…what Madame and the teachers taught us at Arius, my reading comprehension and critical thinking skills were…lacking, or so I hear. I’ve been tricked numerous times by shady dealers, shady contracts, and shady environments for the past few weeks on the black market.
I didn’t mind it though. Little by little I began to understand the world more and more, and I knew that whenever I fell for another scam, I knew I wouldn’t fall prey to it next time.
I used to think that all life was in vanity. Vanitas Vanitatum. I lived by those words for so long.
After seeing her however, my viewpoint began to change. Perhaps, if I began to live life my way, without anyone telling me what to do, I might find the same happiness that she found.
It was a dream, and I didn’t know if it was okay for me to dream. Especially not after everything I did.
But I need to understand what she understood. I need to see what she saw. I need to feel what she felt.
I didn’t care that I fell for these scams, or was swindled out of credits again, or that a bunch of dogs sent me on a suicide mission. I was living life the way I wanted. Making my own decisions, falling to scams of my own volition. This feeling of freedom, of uncertainty, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I was determined to experience it as much as I could so that the next time I saw her, she and I would speak not as enemies or as squad members, but as students.
“See Serika? I told you she’d be a natural.” A voice said. I opened my eyes, having finished my thoughts and looked at the direction of the voice. It was Sensei, of course.
“With everything you’ve pulled, you can’t expect me to not be a little suspicious of everything you do.” Serika said, looking prickly. Sensei simply chuckled and walked over to her, ruffling her hair and ears, earning some strange sounds that I imagine Hime would’ve found adorable. His hands were slapped away by Serika as she turned away with an exaggerated “hmph” and a pout. Upon seeing that, Sensei turned to face me.
“Well? You got the approval of the cutest shrine maiden in all of Kivotos.”
I could tell Serika twitched when hearing that comment.
“Do you still wanna take this job or do you want to try out one of the other ones I have laying around?”
All the other jobs Sensei described to me sounded a lot more dangerous than this one. Normally, I would thrive in danger and combat, but I think to understand what she felt, I had to take up…normal jobs like this. I think.
“I’ll take this job.” I said. Sensei flashed a huge grin, as he somehow produced an identical shrine maiden outfit from…somewhere.
“Hey, where did you get that!?” Serika shouted, turning around and stomping over.
“Let’s not worry about the small details. What’s important is that you,” Sensei began, walking over to me with Serika in tow. “Put this on!”
I took a step back. Sensei had a scary look in his eyes. A different scary look from the one I saw him make back during the Eden Treaty debacle.
“I’ve already measured your sizes Saori, so this should fit perfectly.”
“...When did you do that?” I asked, regaining my composure.
“I’m not wearing these glasses for nothing, you know.” Sensei pushed up his glasses with his index finger. Somehow any and all traces of the bags under his eyes were gone.
“Uwaa...Gross...” Serika said, backing away from Sensei.
I sighed, taking the uniform from Sensei’s hands. He shot his arms up in joy like a kid. “I’ll be waiting outside, Serika, you help her get dressed!” Sensei said, practically skipping out of the temple and closing the sliding door behind him. Serika waited until he was gone before she looked at me with a mix of pity and amusement.
“I hope Sensei doesn’t always give you this much trouble.” She said, unfolding the uniform.
“I don’t mind.” I said, taking off my jacket before moving onto my crop top and pants. Soon, I was standing in nothing more than my underwear. Serika’s face had a slight red tinge to it as she examined me up and down.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
“Ah, no no! Sorry, it’s just…You have such a beautiful mature figure.” She said, particularly staring at my breasts. She looked down at her own, and then back at mine.
“...We all grow at different rates.” I said. This wasn’t the first time I had this sort of interaction. In fact it was a pretty common occurrence within Squad, particularly with Hime.
Serika helped put the shrine maiden outfit on me. It took a while since I wasn’t used to wearing clothes like this, and Serika seemed a little preoccupied and not fully there.
After about five minutes of awkward shuffling, I was in uniform. I kneeled down to grab my cap to put it back on before being stopped by Serika.
“Ah ah, no hats here. Also, here.” Serika began, holding her hand out. I looked down and saw a hair tie. “Wear your hair in a ponytail here.”
I silently nodded, putting my cap back down on the pile of my folded clothes and did as she asked. I pushed my hair through the tie and moved my head around, getting used to the feeling of the ponytail. I always wore my hair down so I wasn’t used to having my hair being tied up. Hime practiced some hairstyles using mine before but I’ve never had other people see me like that.
Serika nodded, a bright smile on her face. “You really are super pretty, Saori.”
I instinctively reached up to grab the brim of my cap to hide my face, before realizing. I felt a little embarrassed, earning a giggle from Serika. “Heeey, Sensei! You can come back now!” Serika shouted.
The sliding door practically flew open as Sensei ran in, observing me from head to toe. His gaze felt very intense, like a predator hunting their prey.
“Hmmmm……”
“Hmmmm….”
“Hmm…..”
After what felt like an eternity, Sensei stood back up. He closed his eyes and put his hand to his chin, making an exaggerated thinking pose. “I’m feeling…Yes, a perfect 10!” Sensei said, looking back at me and giving me a thumbs up.
“...Are you done here?” Serika said, completely unamused.
“Yep! Now, I really wish I could stay and help teach Saori about the wonderful world of shrine maidens, but if I don’t get back to SCHALE right now, Rin and Momoka will absolutely murder me, so…” Sensei looked at Serika and motioned for her to come over. She complied before Sensei leaned in real close to her ears, whispering. Upon hearing whatever Sensei had to say to her, her cat ears perked up, wiggling. Before she could give a response, Sensei backed out and waved goodbye.
“Good luck Saori! Don’t cause Serika too much trouble!”
I gave a small wave before I noticed Serika was pulling her phone out, and a flash temporarily blinded me.
“S-Sorry Saori! I’ll split the money with you later! Ooh, wait, stay like that for a bit!”
Click!
The shrine was packed. I basically never saw this many people outside of major metropolitan areas like downtown. They were all crammed into this tiny shrine like sardines in a can.
“Ah, Saori! Another person is asking for your blessing!”
I rushed over, doing the whole song and dance of initiating a blessing before ending with the Miko Miko Nyan Nyan!
Every time I did it, it got a bit easier, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
Me and Serika worked throughout the day as shrine-goers began to trickle down before the only company we had was the falling of leaves from the autumn trees. We spent a few quiet moments sweeping up the leaves before I noticed footsteps approaching the shrine. A shadow entered into my vision as I looked to see who it was.
“Yo.” Sensei said.
“Sensei.”
“How was your first day? Serika work you like a dog?”
Sensei came over and began examining my outfit again. “Did she teach you about spell cards yet?”
“Don’t talk to Saori about weird things!” Serika shouted, jogging over. Sensei laughed, looking at the two of us before looking down at his watch.
“I should be able to make some time…” I heard Sensei mutter to himself. “Okay, you two finish up here, I’ll take you both out for some food.”
“Really? That’s grea—” Serika interrupted herself. “What are you planning this time, Sensei?”
“Ah, you wound me, madam! Must you bethink the worst of me!?”
“Yes.”
“Ahaha, well, I don’t have anything up my sleeve. I just want to go out for dinner with my two students, and you two can get to know each other better as well. How’s that sound, Saori?”
Sensei looked at me with a warm smile. I felt guilty inside. I didn’t deserve this warmth and kindness from him, and I never have and never will understand why he always treats me like this. Especially after everything I did to him.
“Saori,” Serika began. I looked over, and was met by a smile that felt just as warm as Sensei’s. She held out her hand to me.
I wish I was still wearing my hat.