Chương 497: 236.Debt of Gratitude 1

"Shimo." Maki called to me from the edge of the yard. I'd only just stood up. My shoulder still felt faintly warm, my palm still remembered the texture of that interface casing at the back of Irena's neck. I turned.

"We can't just send her home like this." Her tone stayed even.

"Have her stay. Eat with us before she leaves." I paused half a second. Then I opened my mouth.

"... Huh?" I did my best to look extremely sincere, and served up the first reaction in my head with zero editing.

"She came here to start something."

"Mm."

"And then I beat her."

"Mm."

"And now I have to feed her?"

"Mm."

"I might as well open a restaurant." I spread my hands.

"Come fight me first, eat after. House special is the Knuckle Sandwich Combo, comes with a complimentary 22 Platinum Bridge Street backyard experience." Behind me, Jess let out an entirely unrestrained snort of laughter. That laugh had zero manners and zero sense of the room. Lan turned around at once and threw her three words with nothing but a look. Hold it in. Jess's laugh froze mid-air, collapsing in one second into a dry smile around a mouthful of cookie.

She muttered something like I didn't even do anything yet, and, showing rare good sense, shut her mouth. Maki didn't laugh. She didn't argue with me either. She just took two steps closer—close enough that the next line was for my ears only.

"She's useful," she said, quietly. My first reaction was: oh. My second was: so what you're telling me, President, is that this woman just got beaten in my backyard, scared D into full regression, and got publicly declared "you made a girl cry" by Jess—and none of that is the point. The point is, she's useful. My third reaction was: of course it is. Since when did Kushima Maki look at anyone any other way. I glanced up and followed her line of sight. Irena was still standing in the yard.

She'd just barely gotten herself upright and was now painstakingly straightening her Upper House uniform, now missing one plate of armor. Her movements were slow and stubborn—every inch of her broadcasting I can manage this myself. Her eyes were still red, but her chin had already returned to the angle an Upper House Anchor was supposed to hold. I watched her for three seconds before turning back.

"... She does have talent," I said, keeping my voice low.

"Those blocks earlier wouldn't have looked that clean otherwise."

"That's not what I mean," Maki said.

"No?"

"House Dubois." I paused.

"The Dubois family?"

"Medical biotech conglomerate," Maki said.

"Their relationship with House Kushima isn't warm, but it isn't hostile either. There's a gap in the middle—the kind not worth writing into any official record."

"So you're saying?"

"If this is a chance to open a line," Maki said, "we open it." Oh. A different kind of useful. I translated that sentence in my head. It came out roughly as: this woman had just watched one of her own get cut, watched her house get challenged, watched a teammate get scared into hiding behind her—and she'd registered all of it. But none of that stopped her from calculating, in the same breath, exactly where this person's family sat on the map, and whether that map held any value for House Kushima. She wasn't cruel.

She was just always working. Looking at her profile, I suddenly thought this woman was, genuinely... Very good at her job.

"Fine." I spread my hands.

"Your call. I won't say another word." I did the math on tonight's table. Me, Maki, Hedwig, Lan, Roy, D, Jess, plus Irena—eight.

"Should be enough food," I said.

"Akari's staying at the sports complex tonight. She won't be back." Maki gave a short nod. Brief, satisfied—like she'd just mentally checked off tonight's portions on some internal list. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled something out. The back armor plate Irena had lost in the yard. She'd already wiped it clean, though a trace of yard dust still clung to the edge. She held it out to me.

"This."

"Mm."

"Take it to Harvey later," Maki said.

"See if it can be reattached." I took the plate. Lighter than I expected, and more intricate. At the break, a short length of extremely fine neural-simulation wire showed, the cut clean and even—not something I'd snapped. It was designed to detach past a certain stress threshold, protecting the primary structure underneath. A thoroughly disrespectful thought surfaced. Huh. Dubois hardware. Genuinely impressive. I closed my hand around it and looked back at Maki.

"President."

"Mm?" Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"When you say have her stay, eat with us before she leaves," I said, "why does that sound exactly like stay for dinner while I get a proper read on your family background?" The corner of Maki's mouth moved. Barely. For her, that already counted as a smile.

"You understand perfectly," she said.

"... I refuse to be proud of understanding that."

"Too late." She turned and walked back into the house. I stood there, holding a piece of armor engineered to protect its own structure, and quietly added one more item to tonight's schedule. I walked back over to Irena. She'd managed to stand straight and was smoothing down the hem of her uniform. Her movements were still precise, still meticulous—she just couldn't quite bring herself to look at me. I didn't push.

"On your feet?"

"... Yes."

"The President says," I kept my tone flat, "stay. Eat with us before you go." Irena's chin lifted half a centimeter. She froze for two seconds. In those two seconds, she looked at me, then at the house Maki had disappeared into, then at the fallen plate in the corner of the yard.

"... Dinner?"

"Mm."

"... Why?"

"Because the President said so." I shrugged.

"That's the one sentence in this house that needs the least justification." Irena opened her mouth. She was probably reaching for that's not necessary, or I couldn't impose, or I have no reason to stay—I could guess most of it, because those were exactly the clean, polite, correct Upper House refusals an Anchor was supposed to produce. None of them came out.

Because she'd just been pinned to the ground in someone else's backyard, just been publicly declared you made a girl cry by one of the household, and just picked her own armor plate up in front of the opposing President. Any that's not necessary on top of all that risked becoming her second collapse of the evening. Her Upper House manners were working very hard to save her. In the end, she managed exactly two words.

"... Pardon the intrusion." Beautiful. This Anchor had just lost a fight in my backyard, but she held pardon the intrusion together without a crack. Upper House, through and through.

"No intrusion," I said, with a shrug.

"Just one more pair of chopsticks." I said it while already walking back inside. Irena followed, steps small and slow, moving like a young noblewoman who'd done something wrong—not the kind caught stealing, but the kind who'd accidentally knocked over the host's vase. I quietly said a farewell to her prospects on her behalf. The daughter of House Dubois, officially stepping tonight onto the private dinner table of House Kushima's heir. She probably hadn't registered yet how deep that step went. That was fine.

She'd understand once Maki started asking her questions. Back inside, the first thing I saw was the kitchen. Lan and Hedwig were already going at full speed. Lan moved like an assembly line—knife in one hand, pan in the other, sparing a glance at the timer between motions. She looked exactly like I have become this house's actual domestic command center. As for Hedwig. Her Highness was seasoning the soup. She tasted it in tiny sips, then added something small to the pot each time.

Her movements were graceful enough that for a second I thought I'd wandered onto the wrong set. That wasn't a kitchen. That was Imperial nobility performing a small private rite in her summer palace. She even had a white blouse on under the apron. Your Highness. Are you cooking dinner, or presiding over a sacrament. I pulled my eyes away. Second sight: the sofa. Roy sat there, hands folded on his knees, eyes locked on the television. The television was off. Black screen. He was watching it with total focus.

I looked at him for three seconds and decided not to call it out. Because I knew exactly what he was doing. He was pretending he'd seen nothing. He hadn't witnessed the fight in the yard. He hadn't witnessed Maki and me quietly discussing the Dubois family's political value off to the side. He hadn't heard D scream we should've had you as Anchor from the start at someone's back. Nothing had happened to him tonight.

He was just a man, sitting peacefully in his own living room, watching a television that happened to be off. Roy. I deeply respect this mode of existence. Please continue. Third sight: the dining area. D and Irena were already in the same frame. More precisely, D was in frame with his chair, Irena was in frame with hers, and two empty seats had been deliberately left between the two chairs. Their shared activity right now was staring at the tabletop. D's head was as low as it could physically go.

This nearly-two-meter man had folded his chin, neck, and spine into an angle that violated several laws of ergonomics, compressing himself into a shape that looked nothing like D. His gaze was locked onto a small wood-grain knot on the table, as if it held the single most classified document of his life.

"D." I walked past.

"..."

"D."

"... Yes."

"Your chin's going to go through the table if it drops any lower."

"... I don't dare look up."

"... Why not?"

"Because if I look up, I'll see her."

"She's right next to you."

"I know." His voice was edging toward a whine.

"That's exactly why I don't dare look up." I pressed a hand to my forehead. I genuinely never expected to see a nearly-two-meter man—one who'd smashed several training rigs during qualifiers—sitting at his own dinner table in the posture of a grade-schooler who'd done something wrong. I turned to Irena. Her posture was flawless. Back straight, shoulders level, chin tucked, hands folded on her lap. Still exactly the posture an Upper House Anchor was supposed to hold. But her eyes had gone empty. Not sad.

Not embarrassed. Not angry. Crashed. Her focus had fixed on some coordinate in empty space. My guess was that coordinate sat somewhere deep in her cyberframe's core processor. She was probably running a full self-diagnostic right now—repair, reboot, reorganize. Her frame was a machine built close to human. And for something built that close to human, getting made to cry, then kept for dinner, then seated beside the person who made her cry—crashing was an entirely reasonable response. I respected her crash.

So I left her alone. I turned my eyes to the corner of the dining room. And there, I found tonight's actual main event. Jess. Tied up with rope. Kneeling on the floor. A placard hanging from her neck. On it, in extremely beautiful, extremely formal, extremely Imperial script, a line of the Imperial tongue: Ich bin die Keksdiebin. (I am the Cookie Thief.) The lettering was exquisite. The spacing was precise. The layout was solemn.

The craftsmanship was good enough that I genuinely suspected Her Highness had written it herself. I stared at the placard for three seconds. Then at Hedwig for three seconds. Her Highness had her back to me, still very gracefully seasoning the soup. She didn't turn around. But I would swear her shoulders gave one extremely faint tremor during those three seconds.

"... Your Highness," I tried.

"Yes, Shimo?" Her voice stayed steady as a news anchor's, back still turned.

"This sign..."

"Which sign?"

"The one on her chest."

"Oh." Her Highness said.

"That one."

"..."

"Jess stole four of my cookies this afternoon." Her tone stayed perfectly even.

"I felt she should remember this."

"..."

"So," Her Highness said, "I used my best hand, and made her a keepsake."

"..."

"You're welcome." God. She was the most terrifying person in this house. She even made punishment elegant. She even cared about layout while carrying out an execution. I moved my eyes off the sign as fast as I could, because two more seconds and I'd have laughed, and the current atmosphere clearly did not permit laughing. I looked at Jess. She was kneeling with great seriousness, head straight, back upright. It looked less like punishment and more like an award ceremony. She was even humming.

"... Jess."

"Mm?"

"Why do you look so—" I searched for the word— "happy?"

"Because Her Highness's handwriting is beautiful," Jess said.

"..."

"I'm framing it later."

"... Jess."

"Mm?"

"You have completely missed the point."

"What point?"

"You're currently tied up."

"Oh." Realization dawned.

"Right." She gave me a smile that was far too bright, and clearly not operating at full capacity. That was when Maki came back through. She swept her eyes over the dining room. Paused on D for a second, on Irena for two, on Jess for half a second, and on the placard for the briefest instant. Her eyes didn't smile, but I could tell she'd noticed. She didn't call Hedwig out. She just walked to the table, settled into her President's posture, and spoke.

"Everyone." One word, and the whole table went instantly quiet. Maki always had that effect.

"Let's eat first," she said.

"Everything else after." D's head finally came up an inch. Irena's eyes finally refocused. Jess stopped humming. As for Roy—Roy finally decided to turn the television on for real. Lan carried the last dish to the table. Hedwig ladled the soup, setting a bowl in front of each of us with real grace. I sat down, set Irena's armor plate beside my dish, and mentally flagged it for Harvey after the meal. I looked up and swept my eyes across the table. Lan was untying Jess—couldn't very well eat bound.

The second the rope came loose, Jess lunged for the nearest dish and got her hand slapped away. Hedwig sat and poured herself half a cup of tea, the motion light as a line of poetry. Roy finally dropped the I saw nothing act and started eating normally. D forced himself to look up, worked up the courage to glance sideways at Irena, then snapped his eyes straight back down, like he'd been hit by a flashbulb. Maki took her seat at the head of the table, lifted her cup, and drank slowly.

Irena was the last to move her chopsticks. She picked them up with great care, selected a bite with great care, and brought it to her mouth with great care. She chewed slowly—slowly enough that I started to wonder if her frame was running a compositional analysis on the dish. Three seconds. Then something in her eyes lit, very faintly. Not surprise. Not emotion. Nothing exaggerated. Just something simple and honest. This is good. I saw it. I said nothing, just picked up my own chopsticks.

And quietly said one more farewell on her behalf. Classmate Dubois. After this meal, you're probably not getting away. Not from House Kushima. From the cooking at this address. Welcome to 22 Platinum Bridge Street.