CHAPTER 16
There’s a Reason She Doesn’t Look Like a Mother
First Friday of October
A membership sports gym, a short distance away from the hottest place in all Kanagawa Prefecture.
In a room where both the walls and ceilings were made of glass panes, the gym’s indoor pool looked like the typical rectangle found in high schools, albeit classier and more intricate. The clientele was fairly varied; ranging from athletes trying to shave 0.1 seconds off their time to fitness seekers to housewives taking swim lessons.
Misuzu Misaka was swimming in one of the lanes on the edge of the pool.
She looked like she was squarely in her twenties, but she was actually a mother with a fourteen-year-old daughter. Every day, after her university lectures ended, she swam in this pool. It was exercise at least—for the subtle reason that if she let down her guard, it would come back to bite her—but her pace was remarkably quick. Though a female athlete in the next lane over had gotten herself fired up like a rival and was desperately trying to keep up, she didn’t stand a chance with Misuzu slicing through the water with the force of a torpedo.
According to Misuzu, however…
…This sucks.
She pressed her hands against the edge of the pool, and then her face broke the water with a splash. Ignoring the instructors and others, who were speechless at the new speed record, she sighed, somewhat annoyed.
This swimsuit is so efficient there’s no point in using it. I’m exercising in the water because it has a lot of resistance, but I think the swimsuit isn’t helping…
Misuzu wasn’t wearing a swimsuit, really, so much as a black wet suit–type thing, the kind surfers liked to wear. The suit’s sleeves and legs were cleanly cut at the elbows and knees, and it emphasized her body much in the same way a one-piece would.
Anyway, she’d seen an advertisement saying it would let her swim faster, so she’d ordered it through the mail on a whim. Unfortunately, it was adjusting the water currents too efficiently. It would have been a grand success if she were competing in earnest, but it seemed the swimsuit wasn’t designed with gym goers like her in mind.
And then…
“Oh, why, hello. Are classes over?” came a voice from the poolside.
“Mrs. Kamijou? Hello!” answered Misuzu, leaning back against the course rope and waving from the water.
Mrs. Kamijou was a woman named Shiina Kamijou. It seemed she’d moved here recently and had become a bit of a celebrity in the neighborhood as the “Little Flying Lady” thanks to her motorized paraglider hobby.
Despite the “little lady” moniker, however, Shiina was a fine mother in her own right with a child in high school. Misuzu got the feeling that between the two of them, Shiina was actually older than she was, but her toned skin and the way water flicked off it was nothing to shake a stick at. Even now, she wore a graceful—well, it looked graceful, but there were spots on it here and there that were fairly aggressive—white one-piece bathing suit, and her arms and legs brimmed with the vitality of a teenager.
“At it again, Mrs. Kamijou?”
“Yes. You would be surprised at how much lung capacity you need for a hobby like mine.”
Misuzu, who was casually glancing at her upper arms, thighs, and so on, began to groan to herself at Shiina’s body—it was virtually impeccable.
…Ugh, that’s so frustrating. What kind of stretches do you need to do to look so fresh and vibrant?
Still, Misuzu was a beauty in her own right. She was right at home among the other students at university lectures. But she knew. She was fully aware of all the unspoken words people thought when they described her beauty or youthful looks: beautiful (at a glance, but actually, you see…), so young-looking (for someone with a child), the spitting image of a university student (even though she’s so much older)… She knew that the monster named “age” had opened its gaping mouth and was even now trying to swallow her whole as she madly dashed away from it!!
From Misuzu’s point of view, she had little choice but to be envious of what she saw in Shiina.
And because she put in all that effort, she understood another thing: Shiina Kamijou, despite being older than her, didn’t put in any effort like that whatsoever. The woman had unfading beauty to spare.
Even now, with a lighthearted “Here we go!” or some such thing, she simply drifted away, like a corpse in the water, her face under the surface with both hands gripping a kickboard all the while.
…I might as well have Mikoto recommend me a crazy health machine from Academy City or something. Wait, no. If I’m on a regular diet, the fat and stuff that makes my skin shine will go away, too, which would leave me all dried out…
Misuzu, incessantly muttering at the water’s surface, went along with Shiina to the poolside after the latter was fully satisfied with a round of what looked like pretending to drown.
“I gotta say,” said Misuzu, “it’s surprisingly carefree and easy living alone as a housewife, huh? Though I guess I only have the luxury of saying that because I know he’ll come back on a regular basis.”
“Oh, Mrs. Misaka, does your husband work abroad by himself?”
“Working abroad…though I’m not entirely sure what it is he does. I essentially have no idea where he is or what he’s up to right now.”
“My husband doesn’t work alone, but he does go on overseas business trips quite a lot. And every single time, he brings back these strange souvenirs he’s bought. There are times when I wonder if he actually ends up in mysterious, unexplored lands.”
Misuzu and Shiina shared a laugh.
…They didn’t know that, in reality, the two husbands they were talking about (plus Tanaka, a new employee, as well as others they’d met on their travels) really were running around the world getting themselves into heaps of trouble.
Wiping off with a long towel, Shiina abruptly said, “By the way, I’ve heard that the school my son goes to is canceling its midterm exams.”
“Hmm? Oh—yeah, now that you mention it, it’s the same for my Mikoto. I think she said their second-semester grades are going to depend entirely on their final exams. Still, I doubt she feels pressure from that, so I’m sure things will go the same as they always do.”
“As for my Touma, I’m sure that whether things are going the same or not, he’ll end up failing and needing to take supplementary classes.”
The two of them shared a laugh together, but then Misuzu suddenly realized something.
“…It looks like we certainly talk like mothers at least, huh?”
“Oh, but it would seem we are model housewives.”
A girl passing by, who looked like a student, gave them a confused look, but, well, that was how things usually went.
“Hmm…” Misuzu thought for a moment. “There has been one minor thing on my mind for a little while.”
“What is it?”
“Our children are studying over in Academy City, right? And they’re borrowing its top-of-the-line scientific technological expertise to nurture supernatural powers as well, right?”
“Yes, I believe so,” said Shiina, silently mouthing the words Though I’m not sure about Touma…
“I wonder what decides if you have the potential for supernatural abilities.”
“Oh, well, I must say, I don’t know much about those things… But I would assume it comes down to genetics, or DNA, or something like that, wouldn’t it?”
“Right, probably.” Misuzu nodded. “But that would mean…”
“Hmm?”
“Well. I was just wondering, if Mikoto was able to become Academy City’s third-ranked Level Five, then if I took the same kind of curriculum as her, maybe I’d have sparks and electricity coming out of my bangs, too.”
“Oh my!” cried out Shiina in elegant surprise.
Misuzu’s words continued to flow, perhaps because they were both parents who had left their children in Academy City’s care. “…Sometimes I wonder if people like that are all over the world. It gives me a strange feeling. Like, Mikoto might be in third place, but maybe there’s people with even better talents just hanging around somewhere and nobody would ever know…”
The last part of her sentence trailed off, like she was talking to herself.
Maybe there were people in the world who never realized their own talents and ended up living average housewife lives forever. Or maybe there were other people who had convinced themselves they were normal despite unconsciously using mysterious powers on a daily basis.
Maybe those powers weren’t the easily seen kind, like making fire come out of your hands or having lightning bolts shoot out of your bangs. Just little things that went unnoticed in day-to-day life—like people with better-than-average gut instincts or people who could write letters better than most, or people who looked a little younger than their actual age—silly, trivial anomalies like those. Maybe there was some kind of theory or rule set behind it all, and everyone lived with their very own special powers all the time.
“Oh, well!” said Shiina. “Why not enroll at an Academy City university and find out?”
“Hmm. That sounds like it would be fun, but at my age, I don’t think I could participate in an Ability Development curriculum,” said Misuzu with a laugh. “In the end, we’ll never know the truth. But maybe that’s what keeps the mystery in life, huh?”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login