I wondered if I was the only one who heard the crack that came from the space between them, like a log splitting in a bonfire.

“—”

Kuyoh slowly loosened her grip. Her fingers opened one by one like inchworms, and once she had fully released Kimidori’s arm, Kuyoh returned her hand to her lap.

“Thank you very much,” said Kimidori politely, still holding the coffee cups, and placing one in front of Kuyoh. As Kuyoh returned to maintaining her tin-soldier countenance, I sighed in relief.

“What are you doing here, Kimidori?” I asked her.

“It’s my part-time job.”

I could tell that by looking. Why would someone besides a waitress put on an apron and serve coffee? I wanted to know why she’d suddenly gotten a job—I was more interested in the answer to that question than I was in the location of the Romanov dynasty’s hidden gold bullion.

But Kimidori simply left the check on the table, whispering to me as she did so. “Please don’t tell the student council president about this. Students on the council aren’t allowed to have part-time jobs.”

But she didn’t care if Nagato knew? No, wait, that wasn’t the important thing.

“Enjoy your coffee,” she said, leaving our conversation unresolved as she took the tray and retreated. She seemed used to the work, as though she’d been doing it for three years. Had it always been her bringing us our water and taking our orders? Had we never noticed because crowd psychology had made her invisible to us, or had she used some kind of space-alien power on us? My guess was the latter. If Kuyoh could do that, it seemed likely that Kimidori could too.

“Who was that?” Sasaki asked.

“A senior at my school,” was all I could answer, as I compared Kuyoh’s conspicuous-yet-totally-unnoticed appearance with Kimidori’s, as she efficiently brought water to a customer who’d just arrived.

“Heh,” came a strangely stifled laugh from Fujiwara. “Hah. Now this’s something worth seeing. What a farce. You sure don’t see this every day,” he said, with a tone drenched in irony.

I wanted to dump my hot coffee on his head, but the time traveler seemed to be genuinely amused. His body shook with stifled laughter, as though if I hadn’t been there he would’ve been guffawing heartily.

Kyoko Tachibana’s expression shifted gradually from shock to resignation, shrugging as though openly admitting she couldn’t keep up with these events. Sasaki and I looked to each other, both of us wordlessly asking the other what Fujiwara had meant, but of course neither of us had any idea. Kuyoh’s pale face was faintly obscured by the steam rising from her cup.

Thanks to the sudden intrusion of Kimidori the unexpected part-timer, the trio of standard high schoolers (including me and excluding Kuyoh and Fujiwara) was totally dumbfounded, while the time traveler laughed like he was remembering something uncomfortable, and the android remained as quiet as a broken crystal radio, not touching her coffee. Just as I was thinking I was sick of this—

“—”

Without any warning, Kuyoh stood and walked smoothly toward the automatic door, moving more silently than a high-level ninja master. Despite the fact that people didn’t notice her, the door’s sensor did, and it opened. Kuyoh retrieved her convenience store umbrella and was gone. Perhaps she’d sensed the shift in mood among us. But what had she come along to accomplish?

“I should be going too,” said Kyoko Tachibana with a weak smile. “I wanted to talk a bit more, but I’m rather tired. Sasaki, I’ll talk to you later. Oh, and please leave the check to me. It’s fine. Thank you for coming.”

She spoke firmly, then stood and headed for the cashier. “A receipt too, please. And leave the name blank,” she said, finishing paying and heading out into the rain with her umbrella after giving us a small wave.

As I wanted at the very least to stop being mocked by the time traveler, I decided to take my leave. I needed to get back to my bedroom for a nap with Shamisen.

“See you later, Sasaki.”

“Sure,” said Sasaki solemnly. “I think I’ll be contacting you soon. I know it’ll be a bother. But Kyon, I honestly don’t want to drag this out too long. The next national mock exam is coming up, so we’ve got to settle things quickly.”

“You got that right,” I agreed heartily. She was every bit the Sasaki I knew from middle school.

Fujiwara had regained his arrogant expression as he listened to our conversation, but in the end said nothing, nor did he do anything to irritate me. While it felt as though Kimidori had shown up just to shock me, I could imagine that her goal had actually been to observe Kuyoh. If it had been Nagato facing Kuyoh, it seemed unlikely they could have accommodated each other, and I was just happy Asakura hadn’t come back to life. Even given my ridiculous life, I absolutely drew the line at getting stabbed again.

Having thus left the café, I don’t know what Sasaki and Fujiwara talked about.

And I didn’t want to know. Not then.