Kurara's just trying to get through the night, but Darumi's not letting her get away so easily. The two talk, if only for a moment.
Just what is Darumi looking for? Oosuzuki, or Kurara?
“Alright! Gimme ten!”
“Do you even know how to play blackjack!?”
“Nnnnnope. But, I’ve played a lot of casino-aesthetic games, so it can’t be that hard?”
“Who let an incompetent past the bouncer, anyways…?” Kurara sighed, shuffling the stack of cards before setting them aside. The casino calmed down for the evening, attention and excitement concentrated towards a scant few tables. Some of the regulars began to argue (did those two guys always come by just to argue?) pulling attention away from Kurara and giving her a moment to breathe.
If only.
If only—she hadn’t been accosted by this annoying woman who acted as though she wandered into Disneyland. The ripe stench of second hand smoke drove off most regular people.
She clearly wasn’t regular, with the gaudy makeup and odd clothes she donned in contrast to the more uptight-casual dress of the late night crowd.
Kurara frowned, looking down. At her job she couldn’t wear her mask, so her red flush was on full display—not because she was shy, obviously not, but because she just couldn’t deal with this freak of nature at the end of her shift, of all times!
Darumi perched on a stool, kicking her legs back and forth as she leaned over Kurara’s table. “So, what’cha doing?”
“My job,” Kurara spat.
She laughed, leaning forward; Kurara leaned back. “Nooooo,” Darumi cooed, lips curling into a smile tinted with danger, “I mean, what’s a cute girl like you doing in a scary place like this? You’re not afraid a bunch of strangers are gonna gang up on you and have your—”
Kurara threw her cards in Darumi’s face. “Shut it or I’m gonna call security!”
“Oh!? The cute girl’s got some backbone!? Even though her face’s half melted!?”
“Stop—calling me cute!”
Kurara shouldn’t do anything that makes her stand out. She had connections and privileges abound, but that didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted. Especially if it got anyone in trouble.
Or if it painted a target on her back.
Luckily, Kurara didn’t think things through too often. She reached into her sleeve and aimed a gun at Darumi, who put her hands up as if under arrest.
“Cute girl’s got backbone?” Darumi said, punctuated with a laugh. “I don’t know much about guns, but yours looks kinda weird. Where’d you get it from?”
Now Kurara smiled.
“If you’re stupid enough not to know,” she said, biting her inner cheek to maintain a semblance of composure, “I’m Kurara Oosuzuki, heir to the Oosuzuki Conglomerate. We hold contracts with militaries all over the world, producing their weapons and holding them to our whims. Making a gun or a bomb is like baking bread to me. I learned to reassemble and disassemble them when I was five; I studied bomb recipes before I was ten.”
A bang sounded from a few tables over. The guys there started throwing each other over tables again. “So?” Kurara said, Darumi’s gaze fixed on her. “You still think I’m cute? I’m higher than you—you’re just a dog in a stupid costume.”
Darumi stared. Empty of fear, or at least the kind of fear Kurara was used to seeing whenever she drove off strangers.
Ah—ah, no, it really wouldn’t be that simple.
Something about this woman seemed different. Kurara grew up around private tutors and socializing parties, finding her own way to navigate through her problems until her parents demanded she grew up and stopped using stupid toys to interface with the world. Talking was no problem, so long as she mustered up the confidence. And with her new job she’d been getting better at it.
It was scary, working late nights and dealing with unruly customers and drunks who did everything in their power to break her down. But she never relented.
Because she was an Oosuzuki, of course. She was supposed to be strong. Unflinching, demanding, focused.
These qualities were not things that came with birth, but ones which required cultivation. Even if her younger siblings seemed to handle people better than she ever could.
She just had to…
Fix herself.
But this woman. Most guests wanted something of Kurara, or of Oosuzuki. Two colored plates laid over one another to form a murky, indistinct human being. Even those who didn’t care for Oosuzuki only wanted the surface level bits and bobs of Kurara.
But Darumi—
“So that’s real? Did you make it?”
“Uh—” Kurara frowned, lowering the gun. If it didn’t have an effect, then she didn’t wanna risk getting caught by management and fired for threatening a customer (…again). “—Yes, of course I did. What heir would I be if I lacked knowledge on gun assembly.”
“Cool, cool!” Darumi threw a hand up. “Throw a party grenade too!”
“What’s a party grenade!? Are you stupid?”
“Like, one of those cute fake ones that explode into a cloud of confetti when you launch it! Maybe you can get a grenade launcher and send out tons! Bury the place! Besides, I heard rich girls loooove grenade launchers!”
“You’re just making that up and I know it!” Kurara really, really wanted to take out her gun again, but the cursing from the fight a few tables over made her realize it really wasn’t the time to be messing with weapons unless she wanted to get pulled into a mess. “Besides, there’s no way they’d let me—but that’s not the point!”
Darumi stuck a tongue out. “No, no, keep going! Lift up your skirt and show me your secret weapons stash!”
Kurara really should’ve called security by now. Darumi cackled and spun in her seat, Kurara’s finger inching under the table where a secret ‘panic button’ sat for any staff who felt uncomfortable or unsafe. Kurara mostly felt annoyed, but she weighed her options between the eternity it took security to show their asses versus just…having a conversation.
Something she hadn’t had in a long time. Why bother with something you’re not good at, anyways?
“Why are you here?” Kurara said. Darumi froze, kicking her legs back and forth as her face scrunched up in thought.
“Mmmmm…” Finally, Darumi shrugged. “Why else would I be here?”
“To lose your life savings!”
“No~ope!” She stuck a finger in the air. “I’ve already got my life savings reserved for hard-to-find old eroges!”
Kurara sighed. “Gross. So you’re here to bother me while I’m working?”
“Maybe?” Durara said. She leaned over the table again, and this time, Kurara didn’t move away. “But it’s not just that. You’re an adorable girl in a totally grimy place, but…
“You also seemed kinda lonely.”
Kurara swallowed a lump in her throat. Darumi smiled, not as part of a joke or to get under Kurara’s skin but with a touch of tenderness she hadn’t picked out until now.
“I…”
She shook her head. “You can’t just say that. It makes you sound creepy.”
In a flash the tenderness faded. Darumi cackled, banging her hands on the table. “Okay, okay, I just came to creep on you! It’s really boring around this time of night, and I kinda can’t be bothered to go home. My heating’s turned off again; if it’s super cozy in here, then why leave?”
“Freeloader.”
“That’s me!”
Kurara clicked her tongue. She searched for the spot of warmth Darumi displayed, but Kurara’s defensive response shut it away once more. Or maybe Darumi only said that to catch her off guard—ugh, she hated that. People who couldn’t be honest about anything…
Even now, Darumi seemed to be hiding something. The thought alone made Kurara feel as though bugs crawled under her skin. She went back to fiddling with her cards, if only to distract herself.
Until the sound of metal scraping wood snapped her out of it. Darumi hopped out of her seat, waving. “Eh, guess you’ve got no reason not to kick me out now, huh? I’ll get outta your hair and let someone else eat you up.”
“Huh? But—”
“See ya!” Darumi bolted away, melding into the quiet, dark, indistinct crowd before Kurara dared shout an objection. The fight a distance away finally seemed to calm down, the pair being dragged off by security as the white-haired man cursed all of humanity for…something or other. Kurara didn’t care. She just wanted to know where Darumi went.
Kurara left her desk behind and wandered around, but the strange woman disappeared as she arrived—suddenly and with a dose of irritation. Would Kurara ever see her again?
Did she want to?
…
Well, life wasn’t so kind. People graced your life for only a moment before they were no longer a part of it. Maybe Darumi was the same.
But…she could keep the memory of Darumi alive.
Maybe that’d be enough.