Creeeak—
Leaving behind the door as it opened and shut with an unpleasant sound, I pressed the light switch the way my body remembered.
—Click!
Then the familiar shape of the shop I had seen countless times came into view.
Café Eclipse.
And not the luxurious café newly built in Jewelry Academia, but the shabby basement one I had received from the Silverdan several months ago to celebrate Amber’s promotion to executive.
“……”
I had only been away for a few days, yet dust had already settled here and there around the shop, giving it a desolate air.
Did a place really get this dirty when no one managed it?
‘This is…’
When I lowered my gaze slightly to the floor, I found a few small footprints marked in the dust. Whoever it was, someone must have stopped by this shop recently.
Was it Amber, or someone from the Silverdan? I couldn’t narrow down their identity from footprints alone.
“Phew.”
I roughly brushed the dust off a nearby chair and leaned back against it.
It wasn’t as if I had anything in particular to do here. I had only chosen this place because I needed somewhere to talk without being overheard.
There was also the record of that maid named Ruri, who served Dia, breaking into my house, so aside from home, this was probably the only safe place.
After being kidnapped by her, I had barely managed to return to my original daily life with Amber’s help.
But even that daily life had a future waiting for me in which I had to serve countless customers—
‘My arms still hurt.’
Just how much coffee and black tea had I brewed? Thanks to that, I was still tasting the damage-over-time of muscle pain.
In the end, to put an end to this unprecedented coffee, black tea, and dessert boom, I arrived at the idea of starting another trend, but…
‘Is there still about an hour left?’
I checked the time on the wall-mounted pendulum clock.
The promised time was 2 p.m. Since it was around 1 right now, there was still plenty of time.
She was a diligent one, so not only would she not be late, she probably wouldn’t arrive earlier than the appointed time either.
“…Should I clean first?”
I couldn’t receive a guest in this state. The stale air had been making me feel like coughing for a while now.
First, I wiped the dust off the tables and chairs, then cleaned the floor, alternating between a broom and a wet mop.
It was a method you could almost call textbook. Though when it came to cleaning my room, I tended to find it annoying and put it off until later.
‘I heard that in this world, if your magic power is outstanding, you can clean with magic.’
But for me, this was by far the method I was used to. It was the way I had done it for nearly twenty years.
After about forty minutes passed like that, the café had returned to its original appearance.
Looking around the now-clean interior again, I felt a fresh wave of emotion. As if it were the first time I had received this shop.
Was I missing life here? Those idle days when Amber and I would chat casually without distance between us.
If I had to answer, no particular feeling of longing came to mind. At first, I had fallen into a world where I had no ties and suffered all kinds of discrimination simply because I had no magic power.
After Lapis, the boss of the Silverdan, took me in, I met Amber, and somehow or other a year passed, bringing me to the present.
‘Looking back, it went by in an instant.’
Compared to that, recent days had been quite noisy.
Learning the identities of not one but two magical girls who protected the world, opening a shop in the prestigious Jewelry Academia, getting kidnapped by that famous young lady of Brilliant…
Well, every single one of them had been nothing but dangerous incidents.
It seemed I no longer had time to be lost in reminiscence. The appointed hour was drawing near.
Clatter—
No sooner had that thought ended than a red-haired girl opened the old wooden door and appeared.
Needless to say, it was Rabi, whom it was starting to feel awkward to keep calling a magical girl.
“Hello, Jade!”
“…Yeah.”
I immediately set out a cup of cappuccino and guided her to a seat.
I didn’t want to have my time stolen by pointless small talk. There was a mountain of things to discuss.
“You know the gist of it, right? There’s something I want to ask of you.”
“Yes! It’s about the cosmetics advertisement, right?”
Since I had already explained the general flow over the phone, the conversation progressed at a surprisingly fast pace. Though I hadn’t imagined she would agree this readily.
“That should be about it. Ask that company for the rest.”
“By the way, to think even Lady Dia has started paying attention to you, Jade. You’re a sinful man.”
Once the negotiations were more or less over, she smiled seductively and changed the subject.
“I don’t really have any awareness of having done anything.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, you know? It’s a good thing that everyone recognizes your charms.”
“…I wonder.”
She seemed to adore me, but I had never felt any possessiveness from her until now.
If anything, there had even been a period when she deliberately avoided contacting me and kept her distance.
‘I had this image of her barging in every day to check whether some other woman had latched onto me, but she doesn’t react much even when I’m always with Amber.’
Jealousy, an emotion one would naturally feel toward the person they loved. Why couldn’t I catch even a glimpse of it?
“Ah, Jade. Do you believe in fate?”
“…Fate?”
It was a sudden and philosophical question at the same time. It wasn’t exactly a topic one would bring up in a situation like this.
However, from the atmosphere, I could tell that this question was precisely related to the conversation we were about to have.
Fate, huh. If I remembered correctly, it was the way of thinking that everything in this world flowed according to predetermined cause and effect.
I had definitely read something about quantum mechanics and whatnot before, but it had already been years, so I couldn’t remember it properly.
In that case, I had no choice but to give the honest answer I could give now.
“If fate exists, does that mean the fact that we met like this was also an outcome decided in advance?”
“That’s how it would be.”
Everything is predetermined—
At those words, a conversation I had once had with Lapis flashed through my mind.
‘That’s not it… In the first place, you were fated to die a long time ago. Since several months ago, in fact.’
‘Fated to die?’
I had already once been hit by a large truck. I was a human who should have died at that moment.
But I couldn’t die. When I opened my eyes, I had fallen into a world where magic existed.
Perhaps my living in this world was some kind of mistake, something that went against fate.
Since I had experienced danger over and over again after that, I could roughly guess as much. It was to the point that things seemed to move as if some will were trying to eliminate me, an unsettling element.
‘If Rabi hadn’t forcibly hugged me and given me magic power…’
According to Lapis, I would continue to face incidents like this where my life hung in the balance.
“Whether I believe in fate or not—was that your question? Unfortunately, I don’t believe in it at all.”
When I spoke as if making a declaration, Rabi’s eyes trembled for an instant.
She knew my fate. More precisely, she had delayed my death by giving me magic power.
I didn’t know the method, but perhaps, like Lapis, she had realized this strange fate through her unique magic.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for her to hand over such an enormous amount of magic power to me.
There was only one answer to give Rabi here.
“I don’t believe in fate. It’s much more interesting if something like that doesn’t exist.”
“…I thought that if it were you, Jade, you would definitely say that.”
She gave a wistful smile and nodded faintly, as if to say she had not been wrong.
***
Several days later.
[ Magical Girl Ruby’s favorite Makeup Rose Edition! Please try it at stores nationwide! ]
I was brewing coffee while watching the cosmetics advertisement playing on TV.
“Wow~ Just like you said, Senior, all the people really cleared out.”
“I didn’t think it would work this well either.”
The only customers in the shop were regulars like Amber and Sophia, or a few female students who stopped by because they had time to spare.
Everyone must have been lured in by the cosmetics promoted by the global company Brilliant, so they probably didn’t even have cafés in their eyes.
Trends could be created. And not by luck, but through a thoroughly calculated method.
Even now, by connecting Brilliant and Magical Girl Ruby, I had succeeded in reducing interest in Café Eclipse, so perhaps this was what you would call a win-win.
“…It feels like I did something bad. Making that Magical Girl Ruby take on an advertisement.”
The very person who had caused this situation timidly tossed out those words.
“Well, she accepted it herself, so there shouldn’t be any problem.”
“Is that so… Ah, one more chiffon cake!”
She was still a big eater. Just when I thought I could finally rest, she had immediately planted herself in the shop and was doing this again.
After emptying all the plates, Dia wiped her mouth with a wet towel and suddenly spoke to me.
“Um, Amber’s boyfriend?”
“Call me whatever you’re comfortable with. Jade is fine.”
“Then Jade it is! I’m sorry about last time. For, well… acting so selfishly.”
Seeing her apologize with a reddened face, I made a small gesture to say it was fine.
More importantly, was she not going to apologize for clinging to my pants and soaking them with tears? That had been more embarrassing than being kidnapped.
“Now you can eat dessert whenever you want, right? That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Jade, you really are a person without greed. You don’t seem very moved by money either.”
“……”
I couldn’t say it. That I had, in fact, felt it was a bit of a waste and bought some Brilliant stock.
“…I really do want you. Right now, Amber is here, so it won’t work, but if I ever get the chance, I definitely will.”
I flinched at those blue eyes staring straight at me and found my gaze stolen.
Since I didn’t want to be kidnapped a second time, should I ask her to forgive me with one cup of black tea?