Outbreak Company: Volume 12

by Ichiro Sakaki

  “Please...!”

  I flinched as four faces drew close to mine. But the parents were still holding onto my hands, and I couldn’t get away. So:

  “L-Let me think about it, okay?”

  It was all I could manage to say.

  The next day. We had just finished breakfast when Matoba-san showed up.

  I made to move us all into the living room, but he waved a hand and said we were fine where we were, then took an open spot at the table. Myusel offered to bring him some breakfast, but he refused with a smile. Now he was sipping the tea she had poured for him.

  “Say, where is Koganuma-kun?” he asked, looking around the dining area.

  Myusel, Brooke, and Cerise were all absent, having left to go about their respective jobs now that breakfast was over. Elvia was gone, too, back to her room. Matoba-san was left talking to just me and Hikaru-san. Minori-san, our bodyguard, would normally have been with us, but...

  “Uhh... She hasn’t been feeling her best since yesterday. Sorry.”

  The truth was, Minori-san was still caught in the grip of a rampaging BL fever. Heck, she had somehow managed to turn the table and chairs into characters in a steamy romantic drama. Suffice to say, she was in bad shape. Worried that prolonged exposure to her would infect the rest of us with her “illness,” we had already bustled her off to her room before Matoba-san showed up.

  “You want me to go get her?” I asked.

  “I see. No, just the two of you will be fine.”

  “All right,” I said, and privately I was very relieved.

  “So—what brings you here today?” Hikaru-san asked. He took a sip of his tea, elegant as ever, and glanced at me before going on, “Does the Japanese government have something to say about this whole marriage kerfuffle?”

  My breath caught in my throat. My brain had been so full of the visit from Loek, Romilda, and their parents yesterday that I hadn’t even gotten around to thinking about my own government. But it made sense: Matoba-san had been there when Rubert had proposed to Petralka, and he must have told Japan about it. I couldn’t imagine Japan would just sit quietly by and watch something this politically important unfold.

  “Clever. Yes, that’s exactly why I’m here,” Matoba-san said with a smile.

  ............Uh-oh.

  I felt a chill. Why was I so worried? Because there was no greater sign of danger than a plain smile from Matoba-san. He was the quintessential bureaucrat, in the worst possible way. Smiling at someone as he stabbed them in the back was second nature to him. Sometimes it seemed like the only reason he ever smiled was to throw you off the trail.

  “Their opinion is that they very much want Shinichi-kun to be certain he has a firm hold on Her Majesty’s feelings.”

  “Wha...?”

  What was he talking about? I blinked stupidly as Matoba-san, with deliberate nonchalance, went on, “Frankly, there seems little question that Amutech’s current position in the Holy Eldant Empire, and by extension that of the Japanese government, is due in no small measure to the empress’s personal feelings for Shinichi-kun.”

  “No doubt.”

  I had lost the ability to speak, so this grinning answer came from Hikaru-san. The way his long, black hair cascaded down onto his shoulders... He wasn’t deliberately showing a lot of skin, yet it was weirdly alluring. Dammit, I didn’t think of myself as the least bit interested in guys, but every time I looked at him, it was like a door that nearly cracked open... But forget about that for now.

  “If Shinichi-kun were to lose the imperial affections... Well, in a worst-case scenario, we could be deprived of our base of operations within the Eldant Empire.”

  “I don’t have any imperial affections...! Wait, you really think it would be that big a deal?”

  Matoba-san’s tone was as mellow and nonthreatening as ever, but he was essentially saying that the very existence of Amutech, General Entertainment Company, could be at stake.

  “The Japanese government thinks so, at least.” Matoba-san shrugged. “After yesterday’s, ahem, events, I went back to Japan and reported what had happened. In the government’s view, Rubert’s proposal could be an attempt at checking Japanese influence.”

  “Checking? You mean, like, trying to stop us?”

  “He deliberately invited us to that audience, did he not?”

  “Oh...”

  Come to think of it, Petralka did say that the ambassador from Zwelberich had specifically asked for us to be there. And yet neither Rubert nor any of his attendants had really spoken to us at all. I’d assumed that was because of all the chaos on the Eldant side, followed by having to get ready for the big welcome banquet, but...

  “Some of my bosses believe that Rubert’s choosing this juncture to propose marriage could be a means of preventing Japan from usurping Zwelberich’s position in the Eldant Empire’s priorities. And if so, once he and Her Majesty are wed, the next step could be Japan’s forcible expulsion from the country.”

  “Gosh...” It certainly made sense.

  “Even if such political considerations aren’t at the top of his mind,” Matoba-san said, setting down his tea cup, “his feelings as a man, as a person, can’t be ignored. It would surely not be to his liking for his wife to be too cozy with another man. How many stories are there in our own history of a patroness who became very... well acquainted... with an artist she was supporting?”

  “Well, sure, but...”

  “And if Her Majesty the Empress should entertain a dalliance with you, Shinichi-kun...”

  “D-Dalliance?” My voice went up an octave. Why was he using soap-opera language like that?! Look, I still hadn’t had my first kiss, let alone my first time!

  “Her husband Rubert would become a laughingstock. An unbearable outcome for a person of such status.”

  “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. So?”

  “The simplest way for Prince Rubert to guard against such a turn of events would be for him to get rid of you, Shinichi-kun, as quickly as possible—and ideally all of Amutech with you.”

  I didn’t respond immediately. When he put it that way... well, I couldn’t say he was wrong.

  “It’s true... You do have to wonder why he would propose now,” Hikaru-san said, his chin in his hand. “The age of majority in the Eldant Empire is sixteen, right?”

  “Er, yeah,” I said. That was part of why Petralka had been so ticked off when I gave her the loli treatment at our first meeting. She was already an adult by then.

  “Assuming the marriage age is the same, then if Zwelberich had been planning this all along, you would have expected them to raise the possibility as soon as the empress turned sixteen. For that matter, royal marriages are often arranged a lot earlier than that.”

  Age of majority or no, an agreement between the highest powers in Eldant and Zwelberich could trump the law itself. It wasn’t even impossible that the empress could have been married off before sixteen, on the grounds that imperial family members were a special case. In short, there had been every opportunity for the Kingdom of Zwelberich—for Prince Rubert—to propose marriage to Petralka long before this. But they hadn’t. So why now? It had to be because circumstances had changed somehow. Such as...

  “Because I came here...?”

  “That would make the most sense,” Hikaru-san said.

  “Agreed,” Matoba-san said with a nod.

  “Arrgh... Why’s everyone got to come to me about this?” I groaned, resisting the urge to grab my temples.

  “‘Everyone’...?” Matoba-san raised an eyebrow.

  Oops. Had I said that out loud?

  Hikaru-san spoke up before I had the chance. “Romilda-san and Loek-kun and their parents showed up yesterday.” Then he went on to explain the meeting with the adults and the request they had made of me. All about the competing factions in the Eldant government, the threat to the elvish and dwarven counsellors—and what they wanted me to do about it.

  “Hmm... In o
ther words, just about the same thing Japan wants,” Matoba-san said, tapping a finger against his chin. “Shinichi-kun, you yourself have a fair amount to lose if Amutech goes under, don’t you? Though perhaps not enough to lose sleep over.”

  “It just...” I let out a deep sigh. “Rubs me the wrong way.”

  This wasn’t about marrying someone because you were in love with them. It was about an individual doing something purely to benefit his or her country, or to prevent harm to that country. The feelings of the people involved didn’t matter. Only the state. The institution of marriage was being used to serve political, organizational ends.

  “I hate the feeling that Petralka’s and Garius-san’s feelings are being treated as incidental. Like they don’t matter, or don’t even exist.”

  “That’s how it goes for royals and nobles, a lot of the time.” Hikaru-san shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve seen this in movies and books and stuff.”

  “Those are fiction. They aren’t real. At the very least, I want to save Petralka from being used as a political tool.”

  “Oh ho...?” Hikaru-san’s blink was so exaggerated you could almost hear it. “Finally starting to realize, at this late date?”

  “Huh? Realize what?”

  “...Never mind.”

  I didn’t know what he was getting at, but he looked away from me and gave a theatrical sigh.

  Aw, what? Had I done something wrong?

  “Ahem. In any event,” Matoba-san said, “the Japanese government objects to the empress’s marriage. Let me reiterate: Amutech and all the Japanese efforts here exist only thanks to Her Majesty’s good graces. If and when she loses or is deprived of interest in you, Shinichi-kun, we may suddenly find the tide against us.”

  “But Petralka— She’s the one person who wouldn’t—”

  Just turn her back on me like that, I wanted to say. I thought it was true. Let Prince Rubert be jealous of me—I still didn’t think she would just fold Amutech up and kick us out.

  Hikaru-san, though, shook his head, a strained look on his face. It was almost like he could read my thoughts. “Happens all the time. A girl gets a boyfriend, suddenly she’s not so close to her other male friends. Maybe you think she wouldn’t do that, but we won’t really know until it happens, will we?”

  “You really think so...?”

  “Uh-huh.” Hikaru-san nodded with, I thought, an unwarranted amount of confidence. For him to be so firm about this—maybe he was speaking from experience. Come to think of it, I didn’t really know what his life had been like before he came to Eldant. Just because he dressed up like a girl, that didn’t mean he had to like guys. Maybe he’d had some friends who were girls—or more to the point, some girlfriends.

  As for me—someone who had hardly had any friends who were girls, except for that old friend of mine, and who had certainly never had a girlfriend—I didn’t have any way of knowing what the truth was.

  “So, Shinichi-san.” Suddenly, Hikaru-san turned toward me. He didn’t just look at me—he shifted so his entire body was facing me. “This is the moment.”

  “Uh... Which moment?

  “The moment where, if you want to keep being friends with Her Majesty, you have to find out how you feel about each other.”

  “Look, I told you...”

  “In fact, let’s face it: friends isn’t going to be enough. You at least have to make it to boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “You really think that’s the only way?!” I wailed. “I can’t—I can’t do it! It’s impossible!”

  “Why is it impossible? You don’t hate Her Majesty, do you? In fact, I’d say...”

  “But I don’t even know how Petralka feels about me...!”

  “Her Majesty... Shinichi-sama, she... seems to... l-love you...”

  Myusel’s words came back to me with a shattering reality.

  Well, heck! I’m a guy! If a girl that cute really loved me, that would make me very happy! If there were no politics involved, if she just confessed to me like any girl anywhere, I’d go out with her in a flash!

  (Long pause.)

  Imagine the scene: the shadow of a tall tree stretching through a twilit evening. No one around. No sound but the gentle susurrus of the wind in the leaves.

  “Shinichi...” she says, her voice threatening to scratch. She clasps her pale hands together in front of the chest of her sailor suit, as if grasping something precious. Then she takes a slow, deep breath. “Listen well. Because we are only going to say this once.”

  “Huh? What’s up, Petralka? You still—”

  “We have wanted and wanted to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “But we simply could not find the courage. We waited, in hopes that you might notice, that you might sense something, but at last we must admit that you are simply too dense. We are afraid we would graduate before you got it through that thick skull of yours.”

  “Seriously, what are you talking about?”

  “Shinichi—” She looks at me, resolution clear on her face. Her eyes are like great gleaming jewels—and is it just me, or are they starting to brim?

  “We love you. We love you with all our heart.”

  “Wha...?”

  I stand there, shocked, as she throws herself at me. All I can do is take her delicate body in my arms...

  For a long moment neither of us say anything. Until finally...

  “Shinichi-san?”

  “Er, yeah, I’m here.”

  Hikaru-san’s voice brought me back to reality. “I think I have a good guess what you were fantasizing about, but we need you in the real world right now,” he said.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” I was at risk of losing my right to laugh at Minori-san.

  “In any event, the only thing we can do now—is act!” Hikaru-san clenched his fist, a rather uncharacteristic gesture for him. Maybe it just went to show how much the Holy Eldant Empire, Amutech, and the life he was living now had come to mean to him. If he could have done something about this situation without me, I bet he would have. I bet he would have tried everything he could possibly think of.

  But...

  “I’m the guy who confessed to his oldest friend and got shot down on the spot, did you know that?” I could feel my own face fall. “I’m a completely hopeless otaku. I don’t have any idea what to do here. I don’t have the first clue how to get a girl to like me!”

  Hikaru-san and Matoba-san were silent. For some reason, they exchanged a long look. Finally, Hikaru-san turned back toward me, the edges of his lips twitching.

  Huh? Is he... mad?

  “I super want to hit you right now.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Huh?! Why?!”

  And why Matoba-san, too?!

  “God! There’s dense, and then there’s— Ahh, forget it.” Hikaru-san let out a long, disgusted sigh. Even Matoba-san was looking at me with open exasperation. That sort of obvious emotion was unusual for him.

  “C-Come on, isn’t Matoba-san usually the expert at these things?!”

  “Hm...?”

  “I mean, deep down, this is a political problem, isn’t it? Why have me get mixed up in it? Why not have Matoba-san or someone else from the government negotiate?”

  If the real goal was to nix the wedding between Petralka and Prince Rubert, there had to be some other way. Though I had to admit that by leaving it to Matoba-san and the Japanese government, I risked them taking some underhanded, unimaginably dark measure to get what they wanted.

  “I would love to do that, sincerely I would, but I’m afraid it isn’t an option,” Matoba-san said with a shrug. “You once said something about being given a nutrient drink with lizardman tail in it, did you not?”

  “Huh? Er, yeah.” I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject. Matoba-san was referring to a time Myusel had made me a drink to help keep my energy up when I had been burning the midnight oil. It was sweet, carbonated—and turned out to feature grilled, shaved lizard tail.
Though the drink was sweet, there was an unusual bitter undercurrent—not bad, but sort of strange.

  “The Japanese government found that story intriguing,” Matoba-san said, “and they had me bring some home to investigate.” Apparently, they had asked Myusel to make more of the drink with her leftover ingredients. “When we did so, we discovered that it did indeed possess the ability to relieve muscular fatigue.”

  “Huh? Really?” I said, eyes wide. Hikaru-san looked just as surprised as I was. Matoba-san nodded at us.

  Then again, Myusel had said that grilled lizardman tail helped beat fatigue or something. So it wasn’t just some kind of placebo effect, but actually had scientific validity.

  “Animal testing produced some results that have Japan very excited.”

  “About making people less tired?”

  “Don’t underestimate the value of fatigue reduction, Shinichi-kun.” Hearing this from Matoba-san, who seemed perpetually overworked, it somehow sounded especially true. “Long-term, there are even hopes that it might prove to have rejuvenating properties, anti-aging effects. Let’s just say the geriatric crowd are tripping over themselves to get a hold of it.”

  “Ah...” I assumed that the “crowd” he had in mind was parliamentarians—well, anyway, politicians.

  “If we could synthesize this ingredient, it could turn the medical field upside down, or so some people are claiming. Politics and economics themselves would not be immune from the effects.”

  “All that because of a lizardman’s tail?” Talk about unexpected turns of a conversation.

  “I came here to talk to you about the marriage affair—but as it happens, I have to go directly back to Japan. With a fresh sample, you see.”

  “You’re not planning to kidnap my gardener, are you?”

  “Nothing of the sort. Samples are being obtained by trade with lizardmen in the castle town. Don’t fret, it’s all above board.” He gave me a wry smile and made an “OK” gesture. Apparently they were actually paying for the bits of tail they were collecting. According to Brooke, the amount of tail used in a drink like that was hardly bigger than the tip of a pinky finger, and grew back in about a week. It might actually prove to be a nice side gig for the lizardmen.