After tidying up the room that had previously been used to store odds and ends, a room fit for sleeping was freed up.
Then, taking out the quilt and pillow that had originally been prepared for Kiriori, she laid a simple pallet on the floor, and just like that, a place for Sakaki Chika to sleep tonight was ready.
Afterward, Haibara set about preparing her lessons.
But not long after she’d started, she remembered something and gave a certain villain female executive a call.
Shaqina’s voice came from the other end of the line:
“Miss Haibara?
What do you need from me so late at night?”
“One of my students has run into some trouble at home.
Could I ask you Black Death Cult folks to help take care of it?”
After careful thought, Haibara figured that for this sort of thing, asking the Black Death Cult was the more reliable option—and repaying the favor later would be relatively convenient too.
“Huh?
We don’t do stuff like extorting minors, that’s a bit…”
Shaqina felt this was a bit of a stretch.
“It’s not about extorting a minor.
It’s a little troublesome to explain, but it goes something like this…”
Haibara pressed the spot between her brows, thought about how to put it, then slowly told Shaqina about Sakaki Chika’s situation.
Shaqina answered with a string of “oh, oh”s on her end—she seemed to more or less get the gist.
“So, could you find a psychiatric hospital and have that man locked up?
The kind where they schedule a few rounds of electroshock therapy every day.”
“Oh, that?
No problem at all, leave it to me!
We’ve got plenty of shady operations like that under the Black Death Cult.
We’ll just send a few Weirdos to grab him and toss him inside.”
It seemed there was nothing to worry about.
As expected of a villain organization—unreliable as they were when fighting magical girls, they could still be counted on at times like this.
Haibara thought a bit more:
“Oh, right.
Doesn’t the Black Death Cult also have that Weirdo group—what were they called, the Jī Tóu Sì?
Set him up with them too, if you would.”
“Sure, sure~”
After finishing her request to the villain executive lady, Haibara went back to preparing her lessons—then noticed Sakaki Chika, who had finished her homework and was now spacing out in the room.
The little girl seemed not quite used to staying at her place yet.
Maybe because she was a teacher, the girl felt too shy to play on her phone?
“Come to think of it, don’t you have any lighter pajamas?
You’re wearing long sleeves even at home?”
Haibara looked at Sakaki Chika’s current outfit.
It was the sort of getup she could walk right out the door in without a problem—convenient, sure, but the room Sakaki Chika was in had no air conditioning, and summer nights could get a little hot.
“At my house…
we don’t really have the habit of wearing pajamas.”
Sakaki Chika blinked.
“Hmm…” Haibara pinched her chin in thought.
Then she went into Sakaki Chika’s room, rummaged around for a bit, and soon found several sets of pajamas.
These were ones Kiriori used to wear, though later Kiriori grew too tall to fit into them anymore.
“I’ll leave these clothes here for now.
If you feel hot in the middle of the night, you can change into them—they’ve all been washed.”
It seemed that a couple of days ago she’d meant to wash a few sets of clothes for Kiriori, and had ended up washing some from years back along with them without thinking.
Sakaki Chika walked over curiously, then saw the size of the clothes—roughly a bit larger than hers, but wearable.
Were the clothes a teacher wore really this small? Visit g.com for the full chapter.
She glanced at Haibara and made a comparison.
Ms.
Haibara was very tall—most of the boys in class probably weren’t even as tall as she was.
By Sakaki Chika’s own estimate, maybe a little over one meter seventy?
Sakaki Chika herself hadn’t even reached one meter sixty yet, and these clothes were only slightly bigger than her size…
“Oh, these are my daughter’s old clothes.”
Seeing Sakaki Chika’s puzzled expression, Haibara offered a bit of explanation.
And then, Sakaki Chika froze.
“Eh?”
Her once-bright eyes suddenly went hollow, her mouth opening slightly, as though she’d sunk into a stupor.
Sakaki Chika thought she must have misheard.
When she realized she hadn’t misheard, she looked again at the clothes in Haibara’s hands, and an indescribably gloomy feeling welled up inside her.
Ms.
Haibara…
already had a daughter?
At first she thought it seemed unlikely, since Ms.
Haibara looked so young.
But Ms.
Haibara could cook, and she was so good at taking care of people…
“Ms.
Haibara…
you’re already married?”
she asked, a little sourly.
The rims of her eyes reddened slightly as she looked up at Haibara, who wore a blank expression:
“Huh?
Married?”
Then it clicked—this was probably about the fact that she had a daughter.
Did she really look that much like someone who was already married?
Besides, a gloomy, ordinary person like her—surely no one would have the free time to want to marry her.
“She’s just an adopted daughter.
I couldn’t handle giving birth to a child.”
Haibara shook her head.
And once she’d finished speaking, Sakaki Chika blinked, the light returning to her eyes as before, the messy tuft of hair atop her head even perking up a little.
For some reason, Haibara felt that Sakaki Chika suddenly seemed very happy.
Sakaki Chika curiously picked up the clothes, held them up against her own figure, and murmured softly:
“Then Sensei, if I wear your daughter’s clothes, won’t your daughter…
won’t she be angry?”
Because her voice was so faint, Haibara didn’t catch it clearly.
“All right, off to bed with you.
I’ll wake you when it’s time to get up tomorrow.”
…
In the dead of night, Haibara wasn’t asleep—instead, she stood on the little balcony, smoking.
She was the type who felt more awake at night than during the day.
On a night like this, she didn’t want to sleep too early—yet she had to be at work first thing in the morning.
Actually, Haibara had once considered whether there might be some suitable night-shift job, but later she gave up on all of that in order to look after her daughter.
She gazed at the dim, cold city, at the scattered stars in the sky.
The lights in the distant buildings went out one by one, giving way to deathly stillness, while now and then a ghostly vehicle drove down the street, off to who knows where.
Her two bare arms rested on the railing, her hair hanging loose and unkempt, her glasses off.
She flicked the cigarette in her hand, and the ash tumbled off from the burning end.
After that she idly held the cigarette between her lips, smoking leisurely.
In her cold eyes, the faint starlight of the night sky was reflected.
After a while, she heard footsteps coming from the quiet apartment.
Turning around, she found it was Sakaki Chika.
The little girl was dressed in somewhat oversized pajamas, the collar slipping down to her shoulder, exposing her fair, slender neck and shoulder, which looked slightly pale in the dim light.
Haibara had assumed she’d come out to use the bathroom, but then noticed she was walking her way.
“What’s wrong, can’t sleep?”
Haibara pinched the cigarette and stubbed out the butt.
Sakaki Chika simply clasped her hands behind her back and slowly walked toward Haibara.
Haibara watched in puzzlement as she came over, right up until the girl reached out her arms and wrapped them around her.
The light was dim, but a blush on Sakaki Chika’s face could still be made out.
Though she had no idea what was going on, Haibara patted her back all the same.
“Sensei, good night…”
she said softly.
“…”
Haibara had no idea why this bunch of little girls always liked to run over at night and hug her around the waist.
Still…
was this the girl coming to her for a little affection?
Fine—just for tonight, then.
Haibara gave her a gentle hug and said, calm and warm:
“All right.
Good night.”
…
“Mmm…
gale…
ace…
Transform…”
The student council president of Kaedehara High School, Kazama Kiriori, was once again falling asleep clutching her doggy plushie today, mumbling unintelligible sleep-talk.
As she slept on, perhaps having caught a slight chill, she woke up in the middle of the night and rubbed her eyes.
Looking at the room, empty and devoid of anyone but herself, she couldn’t help feeling a little lonely.
Suddenly, she sneezed.
“Achoo…”
The girl slowly rose from beneath her covers, letting out a soft snuffle through her nose.
Her black hair lay lazily disheveled, a few strands clinging gently to her fair skin, and her long, pretty eyes still carried a trace of drowsiness and haze.
Mm…
had she not tucked the covers in properly?
No, no, no…
Kazama Kiriori blinked her sleepy eyes, still a bit muddled, but going by a maiden’s intuition, this had to mean someone was missing her.
Mm…
Mommy must miss her a lot too.
She’d made up her mind: come this weekend, she’d sneak back home and give Mommy a surprise!
“Good night…”
Kazama Kiriori tucked herself back under the covers and began tonight’s fantasy time.