Dancing Very Merry Christmas

by Shouji Gatou

  “Yes.”

  Sousuke fell silent. He felt uncertain, because that was the day of the school’s make-up trip. He’d just finished declaring that he’d take all measures necessary to ensure the class’s safety.

  Then again, he also didn’t get many chances to deepen his friendship with Tessa, who was typically a very busy person. These last few months, he’d vaguely become aware of her affection for him; it might be cruel to dismiss her invitation out of hand.

  She spoke into the silence. “I suppose you’re too busy with school?”

  “No, it’s not that... It’s just a bit...” As Sousuke struggled to form a response, he suddenly heard hurried footsteps in the corridor outside.

  “Hey, hey!” Sounding panicked, Mao burst into the mess. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been using her laptop to investigate something, so he assumed it must be related to that.

  “What is it, Mao?” Sousuke asked.

  “Sousuke! You speak Persian, right?”

  “A bit,” he told her. “The Afghani dialect, anyway... What about it?”

  For some reason, Sousuke’s response caused Mao to groan. “Then why didn’t you catch on sooner?! Sheesh!”

  Sousuke tilted his head questioningly.

  “That ‘badam’ thing you mentioned... I’ve been looking into it,” Mao explained impatiently. “I was running it through various languages Gauron might know, given what we know about his history. Do you know what the word romanized as ‘badame’ means in English?”

  Sousuke was a bit taken aback by the suddenness of the question, but he did offer a word he knew, “I think it means... almond?”

  “No, that’s B-A-D-A-M. What if you add an ‘e’ at the end?”

  “I don’t know,” Sousuke admitted, feeling a bit bad about his answer. When he’d lived in Afghanistan, he’d used Tajik and Farsi—the Afghani dialect of Persian—daily. He also knew some conversational Pakistani Pashto. Afghanistan was a country of diverse cultures, after all.

  The reason Sousuke knew so many languages wasn’t due to any particular talent in that regard; he’d just lived in that region during the age when the brain was open to learning such things, and he’d just naturally picked them up. Still, his Farsi had gotten very rusty by now, and he’d never been able to read or write it. He could only write in English, Japanese, and a tiny bit of Russian.

  “So, what does it mean if it’s ‘badame’?” Sousuke asked suspiciously. Tessa, who could speak close to ten languages fluently but didn’t appear to know Persian, stared at Mao as well. She mainly looked hurt about the fact that her dinnertime had been so rudely interrupted.

  “Chrysalis,” Mao burst out. “It means chrysalis!”

  “Hmm?” Sousuke asked.

  21 December, 1537 hours (Japan Standard Time)

  Jindai High School, Tokyo

  “Hey, Sagara-kun.” After school was over for the day, Sousuke’s classmate Tokiwa Kyoko approached him. “Did you know that Kana-chan’s birthday is the 24th?” Her question was met with silence. “Hello? Earth to Sousuke!”

  “Oh, that’s... right,” Sousuke responded awkwardly. He wasn’t in the habit of celebrating birthdays, so even though he’d seen Kaname’s noted in her profile prior to his infiltration of the school, it had completely slipped his mind. He’d also ended up making plans with Mithril for that day.

  Ignoring Sousuke’s sudden discomfort about his oversight, Kyoko continued. “You’re coming on that cruise with us, right? I figured we’d put together a big surprise for Kana-chan, to wish her a happy birthday.” She cast a glance at Kaname, who was on the other side of the classroom, clapping erasers out the window. “See, I think she’s not expecting to get anything this year, so the timing is perfect. I was thinking we’d all buy her flowers. You want to chip in?”

  “Chip in?” Sousuke questioned.

  “You don’t know what that means? Um, it means we all put in a little money for the whole,” Kyoko explained. “In this case, 300 yen each. Please?”

  “I see. I’ll pay the money,” Sousuke promised. “But...”

  “But...?”

  Sousuke hesitated, gripping his wallet. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be going on the cruise. Something else came up.”

  “You won’t be coming?” Kyoko asked in shock. “But you were all worked up about it! You said you were gonna come loaded for bear this time!”

  “Ah. Well, I...” Sousuke dissembled.

  “Plus, it’s Kana-chan’s birthday!”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve made other plans.”

  “Jeez... Kana-chan’s gonna be crushed, y’know,” Kyoko told him.

  “It’s unavoidable,” Sousuke said shortly.

  “What’ll you be doing instead?”

  Of course, Kyoko didn’t know about Mithril—none of the students of Jindai High did. “I’m very sorry, but I can’t tell you.”

  Just then, Kaname strolled up to them. She lay down the erasers on the blackboard nearby, then started arranging the chalk. “What’s going on here?” she asked, casually.

  “Huh? Ah... nothing! Ahaha...”

  Kyoko’s protestations just made her more curious. “Seriously, what is it?”

  “N-Never mind. But did you hear, Kana-chan? Sagara-kun isn’t coming on the cruise! Sucks, huh?” Kyoko said, fists balled, as she forced a change of subject.

  This announcement caused Kaname to suddenly cease her chalk arrangements. “Oh, really?” she said coldly.

  “There are mitigating circumstances,” Sousuke said, trying to explain himself. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hmm... I wonder why you feel the need to apologize to me...” Kaname mused.

  Sousuke’s eyes opened in surprise. “Um, well, I—”

  “I mean, it sounds good to me,” she went on. “Things will be quieter with you gone, anyhow. I guess it’s some kind of mission or whatever, so merry Christmas and all that. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

  “Actually, I just—”

  “You just what?” The power of Kaname’s side-eye caused Sousuke to falter. He couldn’t bring up Mithril with Kyoko standing right there.

  “Wow,” she went on icily. “Something so important you can’t even tell me, huh? Well... I’m sure it’s none of my business, anyway. Bye, I guess. Don’t expect a souvenir, okay?” Then she strode out of the room.

  Kyoko, watching the exchange, let out a deep sigh. “I told you! See? You totally bummed her out!”

  “It does... appear that way,” Sousuke said, feeling greasy sweat rise on his temples. “But I don’t understand. Why was she so upset?”

  “Why do you think?” Kyoko retorted. “It’s her birthday. She’s sad that you won’t be coming. She just won’t admit it because she’s stubborn and full of herself. C’mon, it’s not that hard!”

  Sousuke understood every word in Kyoko’s statement, but its meaning as a whole remained elusive. “I don’t quite understand,” he admitted. “Are birthdays that important?”

  “Um, yes! And you’d better not forget it!”

  “Understood,” he said, acknowledging the point. “But regardless, I’m not free that day. I’m sorry.”

  Kyoko’s pigtails drooped. “Okay... got some party to go to, huh?”

  “Party... I suppose so,” Sousuke reflected. “It is a party, in a sense. My party plans became another kind of party.”

  Kyoko shot him a curious look.

  “Ah, it’s nothing,” he said hastily.

  After class, Kaname headed alone for the shopping street near Sengawa Station. She entered a teen-oriented shop that sold cute stuffed animals and such, and while she was hunting for Bonta-kun goods, a nearby man approached her. He looked like a white-collar worker. “Hello, my dear. Would you like to join me this evening?” the man asked, somewhat awkwardly.

  “Get lost, asshole.”

  “Don’t be like that. I’ll treat you to something nice.”

  This line, too, was said entirely without commitment
. It caused Kaname to snort in derision. But she still said, “Good, you remembered the password.”

  “Couldn’t you pick a less awkward line and location?” the man asked, his voice low.

  “This is fine,” Kaname told him. “It means I’ll never mistake you for someone else.”

  “But it’s so unnatural,” the man complained. “The things my bosses would say if they knew we were making contact like this...”

  “Don’t tell them,” Kaname suggested flippantly. “Then they won’t find out.” She cast another glance at the man, who was an agent with Mithril’s intelligence division. His codename was Wraith, and his mission was the monitoring and protection of Kaname (though she had her doubts about the ‘protection’ part).

  He seemed to be a master of disguise, and looked different each time she saw him: sometimes a well-to-do older woman; sometimes a young freelancer; sometimes a middle-aged white-collar worker; a 40-something housewife; a construction worker; an insurance salesman... anything you could imagine. Kaname didn’t even know for sure if “he” was really a man.

  “But... I gotta say, this is another awesome disguise,” she told him. Kaname found Wraith’s disguise skills extremely impressive; he could even change his voice at will. “Why not ditch the whole ‘lonely spy’ racket?” she suggested. “I bet you could make real money in show business.”

  “Butt out.” Wraith slumped over, seemingly annoyed by her comment.

  “Ah, sorry if that struck a nerve.” Maybe he really had tried to make a life in show business at some point? But the world had proved too harsh a mistress, and his dreams had been shattered, and he’d been reduced to living the life of a spy for a shady organization. Kaname found herself imagining it, unprompted, and gave him a sympathetic look. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. Really...”

  The spy sized her up suspiciously. “Are you imagining something very offensive right now?”

  “Of course not,” Kaname protested. “Everyone has their circumstances. Cheer up!”

  “For some reason, I don’t like your tone...”

  “Besides, you get to do some artistic expression in this job, too,” Kaname nattered on.

  “I told you,” he finally burst out. “I don’t want to be in show business!” This was more or less how all of Kaname’s interactions with Wraith had gone lately. No matter who she was dealing with, be they mercenary or spy, she seemed to have a real talent for disrupting another person’s rhythm.

  Kaname called on Wraith whenever she wanted to know something, and sometimes just when she was bored. He and Sousuke hadn’t actually met yet; Wraith had stubbornly insisted against it, and they’d reached an agreement that she wouldn’t call him out when Sousuke was nearby. From the way each of them talked, Kaname had a vague idea that some bad blood existed between Wraith, of the intelligence division, and Sousuke, of the operations division.

  “So, did you look into it?” Kaname asked, broaching the subject she’d had in mind.

  “Somewhat. I’m not privy to everything that happens in the operations division, so I can’t be sure, but... the Tuatha de Danaan battle group currently have no operations scheduled around Christmas that we know of,” Wraith told her reluctantly. “Though they do appear to be preparing for a party of some kind.”

  “Hmm... I see.” Kaname’s mood plummeted. She’d thought maybe the reason Sousuke wasn’t coming on the cruise was because he had a mission with Mithril, but if there was nothing scheduled...

  Had he canceled their trip to go to some party with his squad, then? It was understandable that he’d prefer to spend his time with the people he faced danger with daily—and with her. She could have just questioned him about it, of course... but with their relationship in an awkward place right now, Kaname had found that she couldn’t lay into him as aggressively as she once had.

  “What kind of party is it, I wonder...” she mused, mostly to herself.

  “How should I know?” Wraith retorted, sounding surly. “You should be more concerned about this make-up class trip of yours.”

  “Did you look into that, too?” Kaname asked next.

  “Yes. According to our analysis, the ship should be safe,” Wraith confirmed. “Its background is clean. Though there’s no guarantee the enemy won’t try a repeat of Sunan...”

  “A seajacking, you mean?” she clarified.

  “Yes, but the chances of that are extremely low. I believe the enemy organization has learned its lesson about the incredible mobility, power, and covertness of the TDD. They probably won’t try to abduct you like that again. But the trade-off there is...” Wraith paused.

  “Is... what?”

  “Well... it means that you’re that much more likely to be targeted in your everyday life,” he admitted reluctantly.

  Kaname said nothing.

  “But they haven’t come after you yet,” Wraith went on. “So we can assume they’re biding their time. They may be confident that they can dispatch both myself and Uruz-7 any time they want to, and abduct you then.”

  “You seem very unconcerned about that,” Kaname observed.

  “I’m just stating the facts.”

  “You guys are biding your time with me too, right?”

  Wraith fell silent, as he always did when this subject came up.

  Trying to restrain her nervousness, Kaname spoke again, her words pointed. “If you ask me, you intelligence division guys are as shady as ‘the enemy.’ And outside of Sousuke and Tessa, the operations higher-ups seem pretty questionable, too.”

  “Your doubts are understandable, Chidori Kaname... I hope you can trust in my good faith, as well,” Wraith sighed. “I would be in deep trouble if the top brass knew I was contacting you one-on-one like this.”

  “I appreciate it,” Kaname told him sincerely. “You should drop by my house sometime, by the way. I’ll whip up a little thank-you meal. You like hot pot?”

  “I love Korean hot pot... Wait, did you hear what I just said?!”

  “Yeah, yeah. ‘Don’t call unless it’s an emergency,’ et cetera. I get it, okay?”

  “Heaven’s sake...” Wraith let out another sigh. Then he turned and began to walk away from Kaname. But he paused once more on his way and said, “Anyway, be careful on the trip. I’ll be infiltrating the passenger roster just to be safe.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks,” Kaname said, while wondering what ‘he’ would be dressed up as this time. As she watched Wraith leave the shop, she tried to imagine the cruise without Sousuke. I guess he does find Mithril more important than me... Now in a melancholy mood, she left the shop without buying anything.

  The air outside was cold, and her breath came in white puffs. These were the shortest days of the year, and the sky was already pitch black, but the shopping street was still bustling. Christmas songs played, and the place was lively with chatter and laughter.

  “Ah...” she exclaimed softly, as she caught sight of Sousuke, standing in front of an old shoe store across the street from the shop she’d just left. He slowly walked toward her through the throng. Her first thought, rather than consider that he’d seen her meet with Wraith, was to wonder if he’d decided to go on the cruise after all.

  “Wh-what were you doing over there?” Her response came out curtly despite herself.

  “I was waiting for you to come out. A suspicious man entered the store and then left... but it appears you were unharmed,” Sousuke said.

  “O-of course I was,” she retorted. “Put that stupid gun away!”

  “Hmm...” Sousuke returned the gun he was holding, hidden behind his bag, to the holster under his jacket. He hadn’t recognized Wraith, then—or perhaps he had suspicions, but nothing more.

  Of course, Sousuke wasn’t stupid; Wraith’s disguises were just a cut above. Kaname had been getting the better of him lately, but he appeared to be quite an excellent agent otherwise. He really did seem to disappear into a crowd. Even Sousuke, who was very sensitive to hostile intent around him, seemed to have a duller an
tenna when Wraith wasn’t behaving with active malice.

  Kaname started walking, and Sousuke followed her from behind.

  “Chidori,” he began.

  “What?”

  “Are you hiding something from me?”

  “Um...”

  “Ever since Hong Kong, I’ve had the sense that... No, perhaps it’s my imagination.” Sousuke seemed to have a nebulous idea that Kaname was keeping something from him, and in fact, she was: both her meetings with Wraith and her encounter with the young man, Leonard, two months ago while he was gone.

  Kaname did intend to tell him about Wraith when she had the chance. She’d been halfway serious about her offer of hot pot earlier; she wanted to get Wraith and Sousuke to sit down together so she could show off her cooking. Wraith didn’t seem like a bad guy, and things could only get better if he and Sousuke would make peace.

  There was no way she could tell him about Leonard, though. She had explained about the assassin attacking her in the hotel district, and told him that someone else had finished the assassin off. She’d also brought up the robots she’d seen then. But what she and that “someone else” had talked about, and what he’d done to her... those were things that Kaname could never bring herself to say.

  So far, Sousuke hadn’t pressed her about it, either. Today was the first time he’d voiced his suspicions. The near-miss with Wraith might have really made him nervous.

  “You think I’m hiding something?” she asked innocently.

  “Well... perhaps it’s not hiding, exactly... but are you keeping something to yourself?”

  “No. You’re the one keeping something from me, right?” For some reason, Kaname couldn’t keep the comment from sounding barbed.

  “Me?” Sousuke asked.

  “About Christmas,” she clarified. “Why aren’t you going on the make-up trip?”

  “I have a mission.”

  You liar, Kaname thought. You’re going to a party with Mithril. You’ll all have fun while things get serious between you and that girl, right? I didn’t think you were such a liar... but I guess eight months living in Japan was time enough to learn how to be a snake... “Yeah, okay,” she said out loud. “A mission. Everything’s a mission. Why don’t you go marry Miss Mission, then?”