In the dim materials room, this drunken woman kissed the girl.
The woman was tall, needing to bend down to reach her lips.
As they kissed, Kirishima Ai could see her beautiful eyes clouded with mist, could see the wide expanse of skin exposed by her disheveled collar, and could smell the strong scent of alcohol on her.
Kirishima Ai’s mind went blank.
She stood frozen in place, not knowing why she hadn’t pulled away just now, or which emotion within her had been the stronger one.
She took a slightly trembling step back.
Even without seeing her own face, she knew it had probably already flushed completely red.
That just now… had been her first kiss.
Stolen away by a strange, drunken woman.
She unconsciously reached out and touched her slightly moist lips.
An indescribable, wondrous feeling welled up in her heart.
The woman languidly straightened up.
A faint smile touched her otherwise cold face, as if she was completely unaware of what she had just done.
After a moment, the tipsy woman seemed to sober up a little, and a few glimmers of light returned to her formerly hazy eyes.
The gray-haired woman pressed a hand to her forehead, as if she had a headache, and said groggily:
“Ah, sorry.
I’ve got this habit of kissing people at random once I’m drunk…”
Kirishima Ai blinked in confusion.
What a terrible habit…
Just now—this person must have been far too drunk.
Though she’d heard that some drunkards did all sorts of strange things when intoxicated, this was the first time she’d ever seen one who kissed people at random.
Then she noticed that the woman seemed to have a teacher’s badge hanging around her neck, though it was tucked beneath her coat.
So she really was a teacher?
But why had she never heard of such a beautiful teacher before?
And why would she be here, drinking herself into such a state?
“So, Kirishima, did you come here for something?”
The gray-haired woman called out her name once again.
As if she knew her.
Kirishima Ai wanted to ask why the woman knew who she was.
But asking such a question of someone this drunk seemed pointless.
“…I came to get an alcohol lamp.”
Facing this strange woman, Kirishima Ai lowered her head and spoke with a slight lack of confidence.
“An alcohol lamp?” The gray-haired woman blinked, then forced her eyes open with effort.
“I remember, mmm… I think it was put over there.
Let me go find it.”
With that, she staggered off in some direction, making one seriously worried she might bump into something.
The woman walked into the depths of the materials room, and only then did Kirishima Ai notice the floor littered with liquor bottles, making one wonder in astonishment just how much this person had drunk.
The gray-haired woman rummaged around groggily, muttering to herself:
“Can’t find it…”
“Am I just too drunk…?
Where’s my sobering-up water?”
Suddenly, her hand found a clear glass bottle sitting on the table, and she casually picked it up.
The woman’s lips lightly touched the mouth of the glass bottle, and the clear, transparent liquid inside slid down her throat.
Her beautiful neck bobbed up and down, and then…
The sound of gulping…
Kirishima Ai froze.
What the gray-haired woman had just been gulping down—that wasn’t sobering-up water, was it?
It looked more like…
The bottle for the alcohol lamp.
There was a label stuck on it: ninety-five-percent concentration alcohol.
Drinking that could kill a person, couldn’t it?
Then she watched the woman down the entire bottle of alcohol in one go, followed by a “hic.”
“Mmm… I feel a little more sober now.”
Kirishima Ai practically felt like she was dreaming.
She walked over too and confirmed that the bottle was indeed the alcohol lamp’s, still reeking of a powerful alcohol smell.
Fortunately, there was another one nearby that hadn’t been drunk yet.
She carefully moved this alcohol lamp aside first, in case this drunkard did something strange with it again.
She’d already been through enough strange things lately; one more wouldn’t make much difference.
Once she got the alcohol lamp, she should hurry and leave.
She gently cupped the alcohol lamp in both hands, ready to simply walk out like that.
Just then, the strange woman looked at her and suddenly said:
“You look like you’re in a bad mood.
Is something on your mind?”
Although the woman spoke coldly, Kirishima Ai still stopped in her tracks.
For some reason, she lingered where she stood.
…
Since she usually lived alone, with no one else sharing her home, Kirishima Ai didn’t have to worry about whether she returned early or late.
The sky had gradually dimmed, staining over with the color of night.
Kirishima Ai simply sat down on the floor, right beside the tipsy woman, and the woman crouched down there in the same way.
Although this woman was strange, she’d already met plenty of strange people lately.
And besides, saying a few odd things to a drunk person shouldn’t matter much.
At first she didn’t quite know where to begin, but after talking for a while, Kirishima Ai found she could open her heart and speak freely—though she had no idea whether the woman was actually taking any of it in.
The gray-haired woman was very patient, sitting there quietly the whole time, listening to her pour out her feelings, occasionally replying, though somewhat coldly.
Perhaps it was just her imagination, but this cold tone inexplicably reminded Kirishima Ai of Teacher Haibara.
The gray-haired woman turned her head and calmly regarded Kirishima Ai.
“You don’t like your teacher?”
There was no fluctuation of emotion in her words; she simply asked it plainly.
The gray-haired woman was probably referring to Teacher Haibara.
Kirishima Ai wasn’t sure whether she should say such things to another teacher.
She lowered her head, looking at her two hands clasped together, fingertips lightly pressed against one another.
She said softly:
“…I don’t really know, but Teacher Haibara isn’t quite what I imagined.”
Teacher Haibara was a somewhat irresponsible, lousy teacher—exactly the kind of person she disliked most.
But for some reason, she didn’t actually hate this teacher as much as she’d imagined she would.
The woman had no particular reaction, merely propping up her cheek with one hand.
“If you hate being scolded by your teacher so much, then why be a magical girl at all?”
The drunken woman had accepted the fact that she was a magical girl quite easily.
This question sounded a bit odd to Kirishima Ai.
One was being scolded by a teacher; the other was saving the world as a magical girl.
Between the two, anyone would choose the latter.
Just as she felt wronged whenever Teacher Haibara scolded her.
Kirishima Ai lowered her head, burying it against her knees, and said with a somewhat downcast expression:
“I’m clearly helping other people… fighting so hard, and yet I have to be talked to like that by a teacher.
Isn’t that just too strange…?”
Every time a monster appeared, she was usually the first to rush to the scene.
Had she arrived any later, people might well have been hurt.
Though all of this was of her own free will, and everyone was grateful to the magical girl Silver Feather, in reality she sometimes couldn’t help feeling a bit sad and wronged.
The gray-haired woman said nothing, only hugging that half-emptied liquor bottle.
Her long, curly gray hair spilled down from her brow all the way to the floor, obscuring her expression.
She took a few gulps, then wiped her mouth and held the bottle out toward Kirishima Ai.
“Life is often full of terrible things like this, you know.
At times like these, if you drink a little, you’ll forget all those terrible things clean away…”
The gray-haired woman gave a drunken little laugh, then suddenly smacked her own forehead.
“Oh, right… you’re underage.”
She quickly pulled the bottle back and gulped it all down herself.
This woman really was strange.
She was a teacher, yet here she was drinking alone in a place like this, and drunk to such a state.
“If you can’t drink, then how should I comfort you…?
Oh, I know—come here for a moment.”
She set the emptied bottle aside and looked at Kirishima Ai.
What was this woman going to do this time…?
Kirishima Ai hesitated, then tentatively leaned in a little closer.
In no time, a cold, slender arm wrapped around her and pulled her into the woman’s embrace, her chin resting against the woman’s bare shoulder.
She could smell the alcohol along with the indescribable scent of a mature woman.
She couldn’t say whether it smelled good or not, but she found herself somewhat intoxicated by it all the same.
She was held gently in the woman’s arms, and heard her say:
“Does this comfort you?
Are you feeling a little better?”
The gray-haired woman’s embrace was slightly cold, but after being held for a while, it began to feel warm.
Kirishima Ai leaned against the crook of her neck, dazed for a moment, yet she didn’t break free.
Being held like this by a stranger was honestly a bit absurd.
But since the woman was drunk right now, indulging herself a little in return… should be fine, right?
Some of her earlier gloom was swept away by this embrace.
“……”
Kirishima Ai’s face went a little red as she silently nodded.
This gray-haired teacher, though a bit strange, was so gentle.
Just like an angel…
In the quiet materials room, the two of them embraced like that for a while, until the gray-haired woman suddenly said softly:
“Looks like the buzz is about to wear off…”
For some reason, as she said this, the gray-haired woman revealed a flicker of sorrow for the very first time.
Kirishima Ai found it a little odd, but she pulled herself out of the embrace anyway and looked at the gray-haired woman.
“The feeling of being drunk always fades so quickly… how troublesome.”
Compared to before, the woman seemed a little more sober now.
She ran a hand through her disheveled gray hair, then stood up and looked toward the doorway.
“It’s very late now.
You should be heading off too, shouldn’t you?”
Kirishima Ai blinked, thinking about how long she’d just spent talking.
It must have gotten quite late outside.
Although she lived alone at home, walking the night roads too late wasn’t very safe, so she really ought to head back.
After talking with this gray-haired teacher for so long, her originally dreary mood had improved considerably.
So for today, she would bid her farewell for now.
“Um… excuse me…”
Kirishima Ai wanted to ask the gray-haired woman whether, the next time she was in a bad mood, she could come find her again.
But when she raised her head, the gray-haired woman was already gone.
The dim materials room was both empty and quiet, filled only with all sorts of odds and ends.
The door hung half-open, swaying back and forth, but the gray-haired woman was already gone, having left without so much as a sound or a trace.
And Kirishima Ai still sat on the floor, her legs drawn somewhat uneasily against her chest, the creases from the earlier embrace still lingering on her clothes, not yet fallen back into place.
“……”
Kirishima Ai stayed frozen for a while.
Everything just now had been like a dream.
That gentle angel of a teacher was as if she’d never existed at all.
Had she just been hallucinating?
But…
Her gaze fell back to the spot where the gray-haired woman had first appeared.
Liquor bottles still remained on the floor, and on the table sat the emptied bottle of the alcohol lamp.
She stroked her own lips.
It was as if she could still feel the softness and warmth from before.
It… wasn’t a dream, was it?
It was clearly the woman who had been drinking, and yet it felt as though she herself were the drunk one.
With some confusion, she rose from the floor, walked slowly to the table, and picked up the alcohol lamp.
Kirishima Ai stroked it lightly, then walked out of the materials room.
She hoped… she could see that teacher again next time.
Carrying the alcohol lamp, she stepped out of the materials room and gently closed the door.
But not long after she came out, she heard a series of footsteps.
Kirishima Ai tilted her head slightly and saw a figure in the hallway.
At first, her heart lifted with a bit of joy—she thought it must be the angel lady, who hadn’t gone far yet.
But once she looked more closely, she found it was someone she didn’t want to see.
It was a woman wearing glasses, looking somewhat gloomy, with a pale face and a cold expression.
It was her homeroom teacher, Teacher Haibara.
“…”
Kirishima Ai stopped where she stood, watching Teacher Haibara from a distance.
The teacher’s clothes seemed a little disheveled, so she was fastening the buttons at her chest.
After straightening everything back up, she turned her gaze to Kirishima Ai and said plainly:
“Kirishima, you still haven’t gone home at this hour?”
Her tone was as cold and indifferent as ever.
“Yes… I was getting the alcohol lamp for tomorrow’s chemistry class.”
Kirishima Ai lowered her head and explained.
“Is that so.
Then finish getting it now and hurry home.”
Teacher Haibara glanced at the already-darkened sky beyond the window, saying it offhandedly, then took a key out of her pocket, preparing to lock up the materials room.
Kirishima Ai didn’t want to stay around Teacher Haibara for too long either, so after a brief goodbye, she made to leave.
Perhaps it was just her imagination, but as Teacher Haibara drew closer, she caught a faint, not-quite-distinct whiff of alcohol.
Yet Teacher Haibara didn’t look like she’d been drinking at all.
It must have been because she’d spent so long with that gray-haired teacher just now, so she kept smelling alcohol everywhere.
Kirishima Ai didn’t dwell on it and simply left.
Thinking to herself as she went:
Next time…
When would she get to see that person again?
The setting sun finally sank away.
In the sky steeped in dusk, dark gray clouds blanketed the city, veiling the moonlight as well.
On the empty streets, only the lamplight remained, waiting to light the way for those who passed by.
Kirishima Ai pushed her bicycle alone through the city streets, leaving behind a single, cold, lonely, elongated shadow.