Chương 402: 184.Christmas Eve Dinner for Two 1

The cold wind funneled down the road. I gripped the handlebars, staring at the blue line projected by the navigation, and decided that what I'd just said wasn't a slip of the tongue. It was my language center choosing to publicly betray me after prolonged mental exhaustion. Maki was quiet behind me. Normally, that kind of quiet wasn't strange. She was never the type to initiate small talk on a ride anyway, and today of all days, we'd both been working since before dawn.

Managing to safely transport ourselves out of the school gates already counted as fulfilling our obligations to civilized society. The problem was— She'd said that line. Good. That word on its own isn't a crime. It's safe. Safe as a standard-issue response. But it was exactly because it was so safe that it was suspicious. If she really hadn't thought anything of it, she would have just said "Mm" or ignored me entirely. But she said Good.

The terrifying part of that response was that it felt like she had quietly accepted a premise I never should have introduced, and then handed back an answer that looked normal on the surface but absolutely wasn't. The more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt. And the more wrong it felt, the less I dared to ask. Human instinct is probably just like that. The real danger isn't an explosion; it's suspecting something might explode, but having to pretend it's just normal roadside infrastructure.

I rode in front, Maki sat in back. Between us lay the winter night, thick coats, helmets, streetlights, cold air, and a "we'll never need it" that I wanted to strangle myself for saying. Perfect. On the outer ring road of a military academy on Christmas Eve, I had successfully driven myself into an exceptionally premium tier of awkwardness. Maybe I'd been quiet for too long, because the person on the back seat finally spoke.

"You're riding slow." My shoulders stiffened.

"There's thin snow on the road," I answered without missing a beat.

"Safety first."

"Is that right?"

"... What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Maki's voice came through the helmet and the wind, flat, leaving zero leverage.

"I just thought that when I regret something, my throttle control tends to be less steady." My hand almost slipped, nearly sending the front wheel into the adjacent left-turn lane.

"Maki." I gritted my teeth and corrected the handlebars.

"If you know I'm regretting it, that means you were thinking about it."

"I never said what I was thinking about."

"That's exactly what's terrifying." Maki was quiet behind me for two seconds. And then she actually laughed, very softly. It wasn't a laugh you could clearly hear. More like her breath trembled slightly in the cold air and was quickly drawn back. If my nerves hadn't been in a state of hyper-vigilance all day, I probably wouldn't have caught it at all. But I did catch it. Which was very bad. It wasn't that Maki Kushima couldn't laugh. She could.

It was just that most of her laughs were too faint, too brief, like casually dropping a period at the end of a sentence, making it very hard to accuse her of doing it on purpose. But precisely because of that, once she actually showed a hint of human looseness, the lethality was much higher than usual. I suddenly felt profound regret that I hadn't chosen to play dead all the way through.

"Shimo."

"... What."

"You did say that sentence very smoothly." I sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.

"Maki, are you currently pushing someone who already wants to jump into the sea to check the water temperature?"

"I'm just stating a fact."

"Stating facts is sometimes more damaging than an insult."

"Which means you know it yourself."

"Of course I know!" I lowered my voice, practically squeezing the words through my teeth.

"What I don't need right now is you repeating it for me." Maki didn't answer immediately. The light at the intersection turned red, so I had to slowly bring the bike to a stop. The signal reflected off the edge of the snow, a clean red, so clean it created the illusion that I was undergoing some kind of public trial. Once the bike stopped, the world suddenly grew quieter. There was no continuous wind from moving forward, no engine revving to give me an excuse to pretend I was too busy to think.

Only the sound of a few cars passing in the distance, and an unreasonably brief blank space under the red light. I didn't look back. She didn't touch me. But I knew Maki was right behind me. That sense of distance was distinct; it didn't require touch or words. Just knowing she was there was enough to keep that "we'll never need it" looping in my head like a broken broadcast. A few seconds later, Maki spoke, calmly.

"I didn't mean anything else by it." Oh. That sentence was supposed to be a rescue. The problem was, coming from Maki Kushima, it didn't sound like a simple rescue at all. It sounded more like she had calmly observed me nearly overthinking myself to death, and, out of concern for efficiency and public order, decided to temporarily drag me back from internal mental collapse. But the more she said that, the more I felt it was impossible for her to have meant nothing by it.

I held back for two seconds, but ultimately couldn't hold it.

"... Then what did your 'Good' mean?" The light hadn't turned green yet. Asking this kind of question at a time like this felt a lot like deciding life wasn't complicated enough and voluntarily opening up a new side quest. But Maki actually answered.

"The literal meaning."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your problem."

"Maki, answering like that makes subordinates lose basic trust in the organization."

"It won't," she said.

"You never had any basic trust in the organization to begin with." Great, no counterargument. The light turned green, and I hit the throttle, letting the bike glide forward again. In a way, mobility really is a great invention. As long as the vehicle is moving, you can pretend the conversation is just part of the scenery, rather than a social abrasion severe enough to be replayed repeatedly in the future. Maki didn't press the issue, either. She knew boundaries.

That was probably her most dangerous trait—she wouldn't push someone to the point of a complete public breakdown, but she was incredibly adept at finding the exact spot you least wanted touched, tapping it precisely when you thought you were holding it together, and then stopping. Leaving you to spiral on your own. And I was currently spiraling very thoroughly. The navigation led us into the commercial district.

At this hour, most ordinary restaurants had long since started closing up; the ones still lit were either chains or 24-hour places. The street-side Christmas decorations hadn't been taken down yet, and the rings of LED strips in the windows reflected softer in the night than they had during the day. If someone hadn't just escaped a twelve-hour labor camp, a normal person might actually feel a bit of holiday spirit right now.

Unfortunately, the most vivid holiday memory in my head right now was a box of ultra-thins being handed over by a blushing Lan. And my own "we'll never need it." No, the more I think about it, the more embarrassing it gets.

"We're here," Maki reminded me from behind. I snapped back, realizing the bike had already glided to a stop in front of the destination. The storefront wasn't large, but the signboard was polished bright. Outside hung a slightly retro lightbox that read: Sushi Naniwamaru Beneath it, bravely displayed, was the promotional slogan: Dunan's No. 1 Aquaculture Supplier, Perfectly Recreating Earth-Era Fish. I parked the bike and stared at that line for two seconds.

"Every time I read that slogan, it really sounds like a threat." Maki took off her helmet, exhaling a puff of white breath.

"At least it's honest."

"So honest it makes you afraid to ask how they perfectly recreate them."

"You've been exposed to too much institutional darkness today. Suppress your desire to investigate the source of your ingredients for now."

"Maki, that sentence does not make me feel any safer." When we walked to the entrance together, the automatic doors slid open, and a wave of warm air carrying the scent of rice, hot tea, and grilled food rushed over us. I almost wanted to bow to human culinary civilization on the spot. Inside, it was exactly the chain-store style: bright lighting, neat seating, electronic menus hanging on the walls, and a few semi-transparent 3D projections slowly cycling through today's recommendations overhead.

A service robot glided past a corner of the aisle, appropriately sporting a Santa Claus magnet on its chest. The whole space had an atmosphere of trying hard to create a "holiday and family" vibe, while essentially remaining a precise commercial system. Honestly, it fit today perfectly. Surface festivities, internal machinery, all supported by labor.

"Welcome—table for two?" The staff member at the front desk looked up. Maki nodded. I stood to the side, still trying to pull myself out of that premium awkwardness from earlier, while checking whether I could still function as a normal human being. The answer was probably a "barely," with slightly less precision than usual. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The staff led us to a booth further inside.

Not a private room, just a semi-partitioned booth, quiet enough to make me realize that from dawn until now, Maki and I hadn't really stopped to sit down properly all day. Once I sat down, I realized my shoulders had been tense the whole time. The moment I relaxed, it felt like twenty percent of my structural support had been extracted from my bones. Maki pulled the menu over, poured hot tea first, and pushed one of the cups in front of me.

"Drink first." I took the cup, the heat radiating against my fingers, finally feeling a real sense that today was almost over.

"I suddenly have a very complicated feeling," I said.

"What feeling?"

"From standing since past six this morning until just now, I originally thought the most terrifying things today were parents, vendors, and the holiday duty system." I cupped the tea, looking at her.

"Now it seems like that's not the case." Maki looked up.

"What is it then?" I paused for a second. Then answered honestly.

"It's my own mouth." Maki was quiet for half a second. Then she laughed again. This time a little more obvious than before. Still brief, still faint, but enough for me to confirm: this person's mood today was definitely not as flat as it appeared. I narrowed my eyes immediately.

"Maki, are you actually in a good mood today?"

"No."

"You denied that too fast."

"Because you asked too slowly."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," she lowered her head to flip through the menu, tone returning to that infuriatingly calm state, "if you really cared that much about that sentence, you should have asked a second time while we were waiting at the red light." I almost choked on my hot tea.

"... Maki Kushima."

"Hm."

"Do you know that sometimes you are really good at taking something that could have quietly passed and making sure it doesn't."

"You brought it up first."

"I'm starting to suspect that the real thing needing a risk assessment tonight isn't the night shift—it's dinner."

"Are you still eating sushi, then?" I looked at her. She looked at the menu. Completely normal, head to toe. So normal it was as if she hadn't just slipped that knife in, as if she hadn't been the one causing my brain to skid out on the road earlier. But I knew perfectly well that she knew everything. I let out a long breath and finally resigned myself to pulling the menu over.

"I'm eating," I said.

"Since you've backed me into this corner, not eating would just make my defeat lack nutritional value." Maki nodded.

"Makes sense."

"Don't agree with me in that tone that sounds like you're approving a proposal on meeting minutes."

"Then I'll change it." She looked up at me, picked up her teacup, and lightly tapped its rim against mine.

"Good work today, Shimo." I froze. Just for a moment. But that one moment made the fatigue, resentment, amusement, absurdity, and all the messy things not suitable to think too much about at the school gate—which had been accumulating since dawn—suddenly quiet down a bit. I looked down at the slightly swaying surface of the tea, coughing softly after a while.

"... That's cheating."

"How so?"

"Acting like a normal boss right when someone is about to burn out."

"Is that not how you usually perceive me?"

"You usually feel more like the system putting on a coat and personally going on patrol." Maki actually nodded.

"Sounds good."

"How is that good." And so we started ordering. Outside the window, it was cold, the snow glow still lingering. Inside, it was warm, and so was the tea. Today was supposed to be just duty, handover, going home, and finding a random place to eat to end the day. Instead, it had been twisted by a box of ultra-thins, a slip of the tongue, and a road conversation that wasn't exactly honest but was definitely deliberate, into something with a restless tail. But somehow, that tail wasn't annoying. Enough is enough.

— The staff set down two electronic menus and refilled our hot tea, their movements so practiced it was as if they'd long since grown accustomed to office workers who'd been thoroughly beaten down by society on the eve of a holiday, ultimately relying on vinegared rice and hot water to barely piece themselves back into human form. I cupped my teacup, letting the steam warm my face first, before finally feeling a part of my soul slowly returning from the school gate.

"Let's order first." I pulled the menu closer to my side.

"While I still have the ability to recognize pictures of food." Maki sat across from me, looking down and flipping through the menu, her movements steady as ever. Even though she'd stood with me at the school gate all day, handling parents, official business, and vendors all the way to the evening handover, her mental depletion shouldn't have been much less than mine. Yet this person had the ability to store her fatigue so perfectly that "falling apart" didn't even seem to exist as an option in her system.

Every time I saw her like this, I really wanted to suspect if she actually belonged to the normal human metabolic system.

"Aren't you going to look at the recommendations first?" I asked.

"Recommendations are usually what they want to clear from inventory first," Maki said. I paused, looking up at her.

"Maki, that sentence is dangerous."

"How is it dangerous?"

"It made me unable to tell for a split second whether you were looking at a sushi restaurant menu or the Seitokai's annual budget." Maki didn't even lift her head.

"The essence is about the same."

"..." This restaurant was your standard upgraded chain sushi place. The ordering tablet could call the back kitchen directly, and the screen displayed ingredient sourcing, suggested pairings, today's specials, and was even considerate enough to list calorie and protein ratios for every item—looking very suitable for humans who wanted to maintain the illusion of self-discipline while eating dinner. Unfortunately, I did not belong to that category today.

Right now, I was more the kind of organism that, as soon as food hit the table, would first confirm if it was hot, if it was edible, and if eating it would let me temporarily forget how much crap I'd dealt with today. I scrolled down quickly, muttering as I looked.

"Tuna, salmon, red sea bream, seared flounder fin, tamago, gunkan, chawanmushi... looking at a menu at this hour really feels like picking out funeral colors for fatigue."

"Your metaphors are getting darker lately," Maki said.

"Because I stood at the school gate for twelve hours today." I tapped two plates of seared salmon.

"For a normal person working until this hour, being a little dark is a basic human right."

"You look like you're just lacking sugar right now."

"Today I'm lacking human rights, rest, and civilization. Sugar is further down the list." Maki finally looked up at me, her gaze sweeping lightly over my selections.

"You're ordering greasy."

"This is called reasonable compensation after a disaster."

"And this?" She tapped the fried shrimp roll I'd just casually added.

"Also compensation?"

"Mental distress compensation for the Federation's holiday system." Maki looked at me, quiet for half a second, and actually nodded.

"Makes sense."

"Stop agreeing with me in that tone that sounds like you're approving official documents."

"Because your claims usually need to be filed." This person was really annoying. Not the kind that makes you want to flip a table. The kind where she could always take your complaint and, with the same bland tone, process it into a written record that seemed reasonable but was actually much more embarrassing. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and continued ordering.

"What about you? You said you wanted sushi, but you've only added three things so far. Red sea bream, akami, and—" I narrowed my eyes at her screen, "conger eel?"

"Mm."

"Your order looks like a retired bureaucrat's dinner."

"Is that a compliment?"

"No." I said honestly.

"It's just that your taste really seems like you'd eat while casually reviewing the school bylaws." Maki's finger paused on the screen, and she gave me a faint look.

"And your menu looks like it just evacuated from a disaster zone."

"At least that proves we came off the same battlefield today."

"I didn't deny that." She said it flatly, but for some reason, my hand paused. Not because the content was so ambiguous—honestly, the sentence couldn't have been more normal. But once she used a word like "we" so naturally, my brain would unhelpfully recall the slip at the school gate, followed by her light "Good." Great. I'd almost managed to bury it, and now she'd poked it again from a completely harmless angle.

Maki didn't seem to notice my pause at all, or maybe she noticed but couldn't be bothered to point it out, and just calmly continued scrolling.

"Miso soup?" I snapped back.

"Yes. A large bowl. If they have a version that can directly boil away today's daytime memories, even better."

"They don't have that item." She pressed miso soup, then added chawanmushi.

"But this is closer." I watched her fingers ordering on the screen and had a very practical thought.

"Maki."

"Hm."

"Are you very used to taking care of people who are about to die?" Maki paused, finally looking up.

"Are you exercising your mentoring responsibilities right now, or accusing me?"

"I'm stating a phenomenon." I cupped my teacup, saying sincerely, "From the morning coffee to the miso soup now, your support supplies today have been deployed systematically."

"Because your malfunctions today have also been systematic."

"When you talk like that, it really makes it hard to tell for a moment whether you actually have a conscience."

"So, have you figured it out?"

"... Still under review." She gave me a look, didn't reply, and just pressed the last item—sweet shrimp—into the cart, then pushed the ordering panel to the center of the table.

"Is this enough?" I looked down. Two plates of seared salmon, akami, red sea bream, conger eel, sweet shrimp, fried shrimp roll, tamago, gunkan, miso soup, chawanmushi, plus a serving of grilled horse mackerel and a small dish of pickled radish. I evaluated it seriously.

"For two people who have been standing from morning till night, it's conservative."

"Then add more."

"That sounded a lot like the budget committee finally loosening its grip."

"Because in your current state, a veto could easily cause operational risk."

"Maki, if you keep this up, I'm really going to start thinking I'm some kind of critical equipment waiting for repairs."

"You're overthinking it."

"Oh, then I'm relieved. I'm just regular equipment."

"No." Maki picked up her teacup, tone calm as if making a final classification.

"You're more like a high-attrition type." I glared at her. She drank her tea. In the end, I was the one who conceded, adding two more plates of salmon roe gunkan. After the order was sent, the small projection at the edge of the table lit up, displaying "Order received, estimated delivery in 4 minutes." Watching that countdown, I suddenly had the illusion that my life was also waiting for a supply drop. During those few minutes, the restaurant was quiet.

Not completely silent, but that specific quiet of a holiday evening. At the next table, a family of three; the parents kept their voices low, and the child, already half-slumped in the chair from exhaustion, still tried hard to stare at the conveyor belt. A little further away, two young people who looked like they'd just met up after work were eating while complaining about whose elders had abruptly changed their year-end plans.

Overhead, the projection ads rotated through today's limited-edition tuna belly, while service robots glided silently down the aisles, occasionally emitting soft chimes. I pressed my hands against the outside of the teacup, suddenly feeling that this temperature was dangerous. Not hot. Just right. So right that it would make nerves stretched taut all day start to loosen, loosen to the point where you almost thought today was going to pass like this, and the world could pretty much call a truce for the night.

"Are you still thinking about that sentence from earlier?" Maki suddenly asked. My fingers twitched, almost spilling the tea.

"... Maki, could you not remind me right when I'm about to forget."

"So you were about to forget."

"I wasn't. I was trying hard to look like someone who could still eat dinner normally."

"Then you were trying pretty well."

"Is that comfort or an observation report?"

"Half and half."

"I'm so glad I get mixed-type feedback even while eating." The corner of Maki's mouth seemed to twitch, but she quickly pulled it back. That barely-noticeable smile of hers was really annoying. Because once you caught it, it was hard not to care; but she'd calibrate the magnitude so precisely that you could never actually call her out on it. Just as I was about to say something else, the indicator light overhead chimed. The first round of sushi had arrived.

The conveyor belt slid out from the kitchen, stopping right by our table. At the very front was the seared salmon, its surface bearing a perfectly charred mark, the fat gleaming unreasonably under the light; next to it were the akami and red sea bream, neatly sliced, the rice temperature just right. A bowl of miso soup and a steadily steamed chawanmushi followed. The moment the steam drifted up, I almost wanted to bow my head in respect to the entire culinary logistics system.

"... Alright." I announced very seriously.

"I will forgive the world for five minutes today." Maki pushed the miso soup toward me.

"Drink this first." I lowered my head and took a sip. Salty, hot, ordinary, no miracles, no earth-shattering premium taste—but at this point in time, it was practically legally-certified mental repair fluid. The moment the heat slid down my throat, I felt as if the parts of me that had been frayed all day by parents, vendors, visitors, iron gates, logbooks, and the system had finally been smoothed out a little. I closed my eyes, staying quiet for two seconds. Then I gave an honest conclusion.

"... I take back part of my earlier complaints."

"Which part?"

"Chain restaurants are also civilization," I said.

"At least after a person has been busy from dawn till dusk, it looks more reliable than ideals and beliefs." Maki picked up a piece of red sea bream, her tone light.

"That sounds more human."

"Are you obsessed today with confirming whether I still resemble one?"

"Because there were a few stretches today where you didn't."

"Damn it, I actually know which ones you mean." I picked up my chopsticks, grabbed a piece of seared salmon, and put it in my mouth. The next second, I almost wanted to cry on the spot. Not because it was incredibly divine. It was still a chain restaurant, after all, and the salmon couldn't possibly bloom into a cosmic-level sensation.

But the combination of fat, warm rice, a slightly hot surface, and just the right amount of saltiness was completely lethal for someone who had run entirely on coffee and resentment today. I swallowed it, staring at the plate for two seconds.

"I suddenly feel that Dunan's No. 1 Aquaculture Supplier isn't that suspicious after all."

"Looks like you really are hungry," Maki said.

"Maki, when a person is hungry, scientific ethics and origin research take a back seat."

"Then your prioritization today is very correct." After she said that, she took a bite of conger eel. The movement was ordinary, even elegant—elegant enough that it looked less like eating dinner at a chain restaurant and more like evening socializing at some high-end ryotei that would get written up in an alumni quarterly. Yet she didn't eat slowly; there was no pretentious affectation of deliberately maintaining a posture. It was just plainly obvious that whatever she did, she did it steadily.

Chewing on my second piece of seared salmon, I couldn't help but speak up.

"Maki."

"Hm."

"You really belong in a more high-end world."

"For example?"

"At least not a world like today's." I pointed at myself, then at the sushi on the table.

"Not retreating from the school gate battlefield to eat chain sushi that perfectly recreates Earth-era fish." Hearing this, Maki actually thought about it.

"I don't mind," she said.

"High-end worlds are usually more trouble."

"... That answer is very Maki-style."

"Besides," she put down her chopsticks and looked at me, "the person standing there with me today was you. Not anyone else." I couldn't respond for a moment. She said it too plainly—so plainly she didn't even add any extra weight to the end of the sentence. But precisely because it was so plain, that sentence felt like a needle, dropping lightly, catching exactly in a spot I couldn't conveniently pretend I hadn't heard.

I lowered my head to grab some tamago, pretending to have suddenly developed a high degree of focus on sweet egg custard.

"... Maki."

"Hm."

"Are you very good at casually slipping a knife in right when someone is preparing to focus on eating."

"It wasn't a knife." Maki picked up her teacup, drinking slowly.

"Just stating a fact."

"Do you know that every time you say 'fact,' it really feels like you're using it as a legal blunt instrument."

"That means it's effective." I took a deep breath, then copied her, picking up my teacup.

"Fine, okay," I said.

"I won't argue with you today. The sushi arrived first—you're temporarily safe."

"Thank you for your magnanimity."

"You're welcome. I'm just afraid flipping the table now would waste food." This time she really smiled. Still faint, but clearer than before. Clear enough to make me suddenly feel that this entire day—standing from before dawn until dark, being dragged through the system, and finally catching a breath in a sushi restaurant—wasn't entirely just labor and fatigue. At least the table in front of me was real, the hot tea was real, and the first round of sushi was real.