Little moments in Hailar: drunken antics and quitting smoking

"Geto, Ieiri, and you... Please, come with me, both of you." Yoshihara still had no idea whether his students were colluding with a group of curse users, but he knew that if he angered Kano and Miss Slit-Mouthed Woman here, he probably wouldn't make it back to Japan in one piece.

"Do you have something arranged, Mr. Yoshihara?" Kano asked with a smile.

"Uh... yes," Yoshihara said quickly. "That's right. I'm responsible for arranging Geto and Ieiri's meals and accommodations, after all, and it's just about time for breakfast."

"Neither of you has eaten yet, have you? Would you care to join us for a simple meal? My treat."

Kano figured that since the man had humbled himself this much, he ought to accept.

As for Slit-Mouthed Woman... she had only come out to take a stroll with her boy. She didn't care where they had breakfast, or even whether they ate at all.

At first, Yoshihara had intended to take Geto and Shoko in the Mercedes-Benz S600 he had arranged. That car certainly made an impressive statement.

But once Geto and Shoko discovered that Kano had a car too, they decided not to trouble Mr. Yoshihara and got straight into Kano's Crown instead.

Yoshihara's face nearly turned black. His own Jujutsu High students were so close with a curse user and a special grade cursed spirit! How was he supposed to explain this when he reported back?

"Would you like to join us too, Mr. Yoshihara?" Shoichi Kano asked tentatively.

After a fierce internal struggle, Kazuo Yoshihara resolutely climbed into the Crown car's front passenger seat, looking like a man prepared to face death. "I'll give you directions."

Shoichi Kano couldn't understand why the man made getting into a car look like venturing into a death trap.

The seating in the back was quickly settled as well. Geto and Slit-Mouthed Woman sat on either side, sandwiching the relatively petite Shoko Ieiri between them.

"Off we go." Once everyone was aboard, Shoichi Kano casually turned the key, shifted into drive, and eased the car out of the parking lot.

Yoshihara had initially worried that the young curse user would drive like he was rampaging through San Andreas. But once the Crown car merged onto the main road, Kano drove remarkably smoothly. He didn't shove them back into their seats when accelerating, pitch them forward when braking, or swing the rear end out when turning. He even used his indicators before changing lanes.

The only flaw was that he didn't have a driver's license.

The restaurant Yoshihara had picked looked rather upscale too. Judging by the practiced ease with which he got out and spoke to the reception staff in fluent Chinese, he had clearly made a reservation here well in advance.

Now, he only needed to add two seats.

Something else happened as they got out of the car that left Yoshihara quite shocked.

Ordinarily, people without an aptitude for jujutsu couldn't see cursed spirits. Yet he noticed that this masked Miss Cursed Spirit could interact perfectly naturally with the people around her. When she picked up a ball that a little boy had rolled to her feet, she even received a "Thank you, ma'am."

The five of them filed into the restaurant. Since their party had grown, Yoshihara upgraded his reserved seats in the main dining area to a small private room.

Small as the room was, its round table could seat about eight people comfortably, so there were bound to be gaps with only five of them seated.

Even so, Yoshihara deliberately put some distance between himself and Kano, Geto, and the others, making sure the four of them could sit near the seat of honor while he occupied a corner by the door.

He could rack his brains all day and still not understand what was going on. Kazuo Yoshihara wasn't particularly accomplished as a jujutsu sorcerer, but he was certain he hadn't misjudged her. That body was unmistakably constructed around negative emotions, an unmistakable characteristic of a cursed spirit. There was no doubt about it.

"Excuse me..." In the end, Kazuo Yoshihara's curiosity overcame his fear. She seemed to be an intelligent, high-level cursed spirit, so she probably wouldn't start slaughtering people for no reason. "Ma'am, there's something I'd like to ask you."

Slit-Mouthed Woman fixed her dark gray eyes on him, her expression neutral. "Ask."

Kazuo Yoshihara felt a crushing weight settle on his shoulders, as though he had suddenly become a farmer hauling hundreds of pounds of wheat through the mountains, sweating with every step.

"Well... given your rather... unusual nature, why can ordinary people..." His question was muddled, but Slit-Mouthed Woman seemed to understand.

Because she offered a single answer: "Cursed tool."

Yoshihara understood and asked no more.

The timing was a little awkward too. It was past ten in the morning, too late for breakfast but a little too early for lunch.

Shoko offered a suggestion outright. "Why don't we just have brunch? That takes care of breakfast and lunch. What do you think, Geto?"

Suguru Geto was still brooding over the loss of more than half his stock of cursed spirits and his failure to capture the Chúgǒu cursed spirit he had coveted. He couldn't be bothered to think of a suitable alternative, so he surrendered his say in the matter. "Anything's fine. I don't mind."

Her Japanese-accented English sounded a little odd, but it was still understandable.

"What about you, Miss Miyano?" Shoko asked, smiling toward Slit-Mouthed Woman.

Slit-Mouthed Woman had already removed her mask so she could sip the restaurant's lemon water and moisten her throat. "Whatever you like."

"Could we trouble you to order, Mr. Yoshihara?" Kano looked toward Kazuo Yoshihara, who sat alone in the corner.

"Of course!" Kazuo Yoshihara sprang to his feet as though his shoes had springs. "Does anyone have any dietary restrictions?"

After asking everyone, Kazuo Yoshihara was about to call a server over for menus when Shoko spoke up. "Please have them bring an ashtray too."

Sure enough, Shoko, already a seasoned chain-smoker at her tender age, intended to fill the private room with smoke.

Yoshihara naturally didn't dare neglect these exalted jujutsu sorcerers who outranked him. With speed rivaling Thunderclap and Flash, he fetched an ashtray and a server to take their order.

Acting as though no one else was there, Shoko took a cigarette pack from her pocket and drew out a slim capsule cigarette. She leisurely crushed the capsule in the filter with her fingernail, then placed the cigarette between her lips. First, she took an unlit drag to sample the capsule's flavoring, and only then did she light it and smoke.

The whole sequence flowed smoothly. She clearly treated smoking as a pleasure to be savored.

Suguru Geto, however, was rather unfortunate. The room's window was open, with only a mesh screen to keep mosquitoes out, so the breeze could easily blow in.

As he was sitting downwind of Shoko, every gust through the window delivered her secondhand smoke straight to him without fail.

He could barely tolerate it once or twice. By the third or fourth time, his expression had become a mask of agony.

Kano was afraid this might be what finally broke him. The Star Plasma Vessel Incident hadn't turned him to the dark side, nor had their long talk in the restroom on the grassland, nor had losing more than half his cursed spirits fighting Chúgǒu. If his classmate's secondhand smoke was what finally did it, where was the justice in that?

"I really think you should quit smoking." Suguru Geto's tone was serious. He didn't sound as though he was joking.

"Huh?" With her cigarette hanging crookedly from her lips, Shoko turned to look at him, her eyes blank.

"I said, you really ought to quit smoking."

"I'm always quitting," Shoko said dismissively. "I quit every day."

A server arrived with a tray and brought their dishes into the room in an orderly fashion.

"Who ordered alcohol?" Shoichi Kano asked, puzzled. He remembered ordering only some orange juice.

As Shoko stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, she grinned and raised a hand.

Well, then... already mastering both smoking and drinking at such a young age. What a bright future she had.

After several rounds, Shoko was clearly feeling the alcohol. And because she had misjudged the strength of the local liquor, quite a bit remained unfinished.

So Geto, Slit-Mouthed Woman, and Kano helped her out, sharing the fiery local baijiu.

Kano knew something was wrong as soon as he downed a mouthful. The restaurant's house-made bulk baijiu must have contained Chinese medicinal herbs. Not only did it leave a fiery kick, it also had a faint medicinal flavor, like drinking slightly diluted Huoxiang Zhengqi tonic. It went to his head more easily than ordinary liquor.

Once Geto had drunk his fill, he silently collapsed into his chair. His topknot came undone, his hair spilling over his face. He looked utterly despondent, like some gloomy female ghost.

Thanks to her cursed spirit constitution, Slit-Mouthed Woman was constantly using cursed energy to break down the alcohol, so she simply drank the baijiu like a soft drink.

Kano felt himself approaching his limit, so he made an excuse to leave the table and went to stick his fingers down his throat. Sure enough, after throwing up in the restroom, he felt considerably refreshed.

Shoko Ieiri had already locked horns with Slit-Mouthed Woman. The two began competing, one using reverse cursed technique to restore herself, the other expending cursed energy to counteract the alcohol's effects. They were evenly matched, and the empty bottles piled up around them.

Finally, Shoko got completely carried away and smashed an empty bottle against the private room's floor. The sound of shattering glass made Mr. Yoshihara jump three feet into the air.

"The world shouldn't be like this!!!!" She grabbed another bottle, flipped it upside down, and held it like a microphone as she stood on the round table, her face flushed. "Why should we jujutsu sorcerers be tools for the higher-ups!!!!"

"Have those rotten higher-ups ever spared a thought for us!!!! They've never gone on a single mission! They just rely on their seniority and bloodlines, flap their mouths, and make us work ourselves to death for them!"

"Why should we!"

Yoshihara was numb. Please, young lady, settle down. Is this really something you can say out loud?

He wanted to get up and coax Shoko down, but he didn't dare move, because Shoichi Kano was watching him with an ambiguous smile.

Slit-Mouthed Woman was clearly a little tipsy too, and was applauding Shoko sporadically.

After a long, hesitant struggle, Yoshihara finally sat back down in silence, huddling alone in the corner and sulking.