Assembly and Arithmetic (Part 1)

I bludgeoned the slumbering Kunagisa awake, forced her to wash her face, and tied her hair up in pigtails for her. Then with her still half-asleep, and me half carrying her, we headed to the dining hall, where everyone else from the mansion was already gathered.

Round table, two empty seats.

I helped Kunagisa to her seat and then sat down next to her. As I settled in my chair, I took a quick look around the table at each person.

Out of the twelve people present, the most eye-catching person—and I'm not sure whether or not this goes without saying—was none other than the mistress of the house, Akagami Iria-san. The concept of beauty is wholly subjective, varying from one person to the next, so to say Iria-san was beautiful would probably be pointless. If I say she was beautiful, that was simply something I personally felt and nothing more. Besides, Akari-san - the maid, was way more up my alley, as long as we're talking about personal preferences. Uh, but none of that matters.

Seriously.

To give something more objective, Akagami Iria was a classy woman. She wore her pretty black hair in a roll, coupled with an expensive-looking dress. She was actually somewhat mismatched, but her excessive classiness more than made up for it. She seemed to be around the same age as me, still in her twenties, but man, upbringing, and lineage really do have their effects on people. Of course, there are always other factors as well, but those things are important for sure. That's always been the case.

Akagami Iria.

The black sheep granddaughter of the Akagami Foundation.

"Well then, now that Kunagisa-san is here, shall we commence with the best part of the day?" She put her hands together like a little kid. "Chow down." It seemed she was fairly immature emotionally. It was probably safe to say she wasn't the most worldly person out there, but it was probably just as well to her.

Incidentally, this island, where people were largely free to do as they wished, had a single rule: "We all eat dinner together." It was a simple rule that shouldn't have been hard for anyone to follow, but indeed, quite a few so-called geniuses had failed to do so and ended up leaving the island. There are a lot of similarities between a genius and a person with no common sense or decency.

Iria-san sat with two maids on either side of her. On her left were Teruko-san and Rei-san. On her right, Akari-san and Hikari-san. There was no way to distinguish between Akari-san and Hikari-san, so I couldn't tell which one was which. Theoretically, one would've been able to tell them apart by their facial expressions and gestures and such, but for the nonobservant type like myself, it was a challenge. Kunagisa seemed to be able to distinguish between the two (which was no mystery, since it was Kunagisa, after all), but depending on the conversation, she seemed to have trouble distinguishing who was Iria-san. Nobody seemed to mind.

"Now then, everyone, raise your glasses… Cheers!" she said almost as if singing, her glass raised high in the air. Everyone else, including myself, did likewise. But it bore mentioning that my glass and Kunagisa's glass were filled not with wine, but with juice.

After all, we were underage.

A number of dishes were set beautifully around the table. They were the proud masterpieces of chef extraordinaire Sashirono Yayoi-san. I'll start with the dish closest to me and go in that order:

Crowned lamb roast, cappuccino-based sweet potato soup, foie gras terrine with truffle gnocchi, steamed blue mussels, Belgian eel simmered in green sauce, pickled herring, whale meat sashimi, sauce-covered ravioli, ostrich meat carpaccio, fruit salad, potato salad with egg, and, finally, oil-sautéed mushrooms.

Yup, I was clueless.

Probably because Yayoi-san had created each dish specifically to cater to the respective tastes of each guest; but, even after hearing the names, I had no idea what I was eating. But that was neither here nor there. It's not like a name has that profound of an influence on the thing itself.

I think.

After all this, there was said to be dessert as well. If you thought about it, it was really a copious quantity of food. And with Yayoi-san being the culinary maestro she was, the food was so delicious that I entirely neglected to watch my weight. Granted, Yayoi-san had apparently factored that into her cooking.

"After factoring in the nutritional value, it's still this amazing. She really is a genius," I muttered to myself more than a couple of times.

Speaking of which, I had spoken to Yayoi-san a bit during lunch. When I had gone to the dining hall, she happened to be the only other person around, so I used the opportunity to inquire about the popular rumors about her.

In other words, what was this secret power that allowed her to make any dish better than any other chef?

That was the question.

Upon hearing it, Yayoi-san gave a curious smirk.

"I'm afraid reality doesn't quite live up to the legends. Unlike Himena-san, I don't have any sort of wild superpowers. Basically, it's just effort and discipline."

"Really?"

"Well, I suppose I can imagine what might have started such a rumor. My senses of taste and smell are a little, well, a lot stronger than the average person's."

She flicked out her tongue. "To give an anecdotal example, ah, okay, like Helen Keller. She was blind, but they say she could distinguish between people just by their smell. I'm a little bit like that. My sense of smell isn't quite that amazing, but, for example…"

She took my arm and, without warning, licked the palm of my hand. I never would have dreamed things would have ended up like this, and I nearly let out a yelp, though somehow I managed to suppress it.

With her tongue still out, she gave an Einsteinish grin. "You've got type AB blood, don't you?" she said. "Negative, right?"

Being so told, it occurred to me that she was right. A public health doctor once told me, "You have an extremely rare blood type." So Yayoi-san was right for sure, but…

"You can really tell all that just by licking my skin?"

"Well, by licking your sweat, to be specific. My tongue can distinguish between approximately twenty thousand flavors, dividing them into twenty levels of intensity. My sense of smell is probably around half that good, I suppose." She tilted her head thoughtfully. It was a cute mannerism. "I'm not smart like Sonoyama-san; I'm terrible at art, unlike Ibuki-san; I'm not particularly skilled with machines like Kunagisa-san; I certainly don't have special powers like Himena-san, and there's not much else I'm any good at, but I've had just this one strong gift since I was a kid. I figured becoming a chef was the only way to take advantage of it."

Perfect taste, they call it.

It's like the taste version of perfect pitch, except perfect taste isn't something you can acquire with training. In other words, Sashirono Yayoi-san was, to just come out and say it, one of the lucky few chosen by God. Among the highly skilled, there are two types of people: those who are chosen, and those who choose themselves—those who were born with it, and those who work for it. Of course, Yayoi-san had "discipline and effort," but she was evidently the former type.

So the path of a chef was not really something she had chosen. She had been born with this gift, and for that reason had gone on to study gastronomy, travel to the West, and polish her inborn talents even further.

The idea of flavor ultimately stems from each individual's ability to judge the taste. How well a person can utilize and take advantage of flavor as if it was their own possession—that was largely connected to one's skill as a cook, and well reflected in Yayoi-san's own cooking.

Well, that's the chopped logic of it, but it doesn't mean much practically. To put it a better way, Yayoi-san's cooking was damn good.

If you thought of the round table as a clock with Iria-san sitting at twelve o'clock, then Sashirono Yayoi-san was at three o'clock next to Teruko-san and Rei-san.

At four o'clock was Sakaki Shinya-san. As you would expect from the man who had long been employed as Kanami-san's caretaker, he looked not the least bit intimidated and was actually rather stately-looking.

Then next to him sat Ibuki Kanami-san at the five o'clock position. Behind her was her wheelchair, which she had likely used to come to the dining room. She didn't seem to be in a particularly bad mood, but she didn't look very cheerful either.

At six o'clock was Kunagisa. This meant she was sitting directly across from the mistress of the house, Akagami Iria-san. That was more than enough to make me nervous, but really that didn't matter; to Kunagisa, the word nervous didn't even exist in the Japanese language.

Then in lucky seat number seven sat me.

Next to me at eight o'clock sat Sonoyama Akane-san of the Seven Fools. She was completely immersed in the devouring of Yayoi-san's cuisine. She had much more of an appetite than you might expect. Of course, she was a human being before she was a scholar—whether or not she would admit it herself—and you can't live if you don't eat, but even if you disregarded that, she was a serious eater. Even I felt satisfied just watching her eat. It seemed to me that Yayoi-san must've been really proud to see her devouring her food so delightedly.

Next to Akane-san at nine o'clock sat the fortune-telling master, the one with ESP superpowers, Himena Maki-san. At some point, she had apparently changed clothes and was now adorned in an entirely different fashion than this morning. She wore a halter-neck striped shirt with a pale, pink cardigan and sheep-printed cropped pants. Her hair was up in twin ponytails. Possibly because she noticed me looking at her, she looked back at me with a strangely unpleasant sneer and sank her teeth into some roast lamb. It was an expression that said, "I know everything, but I'm not saying anything," and it made me wholly uncomfortable.

It never ends.

At ten and eleven o'clock sat Akari-san and Hikari-san. Teruko-san was completely silent and mostly expressionless. She just placed food in her mouth like it was a mechanical process. For someone to be able to eat this food without any sort of reaction, it made you wonder if she had any sense of taste. In the face of the three sisters' air of youthfulness, Rei-san, in contrast, had the look of a mature, uptight career woman. I hadn't heard her talk much, but judging from her appearance, she seemed to be the strict type, and I had heard the corroborating sob stories of Hikari-san several times by now.

So there you have it.

That's all twelve people.

Lucky number?

With a face like this?

Just babbling again. What kind of meaning lay in things like that? I was very obviously standing out here. You could even call me the black sheep. Then again, there had never been a place where I didn't stand out. Not Kobe, not Houston, not Kyoto, and not even on this island.

In this wide world, there's only one me.

Eh, whatever.

I like loneliness.

No bluff.

Even if I was bluffing.

"Oh by the way, if I can change the subject…" Iria-san said, bringing the individual conversations that had been developing up to now to an immediate halt. The power to direct the table conversation lay in Iria-san's hands alone. It was the selfish privilege befitting an upper-class girl. She continued, raising her voice. "It seems there are already rumors floating around, so I'll go ahead and make the announcement. This is about the next guest. The latest genius to grace this house."

All eyes were on Iria-san. Well, all except for Kunagisa, who continued to chow down on whale meat. To deliberately try and capture that girl's attention was quite a difficult task.

"I'd like to emphasize that our new guest is the possessor of such extraordinary, glorious talent that it even bears comparison to you all. I'd like very much to welcome this person, so please cooperate, okay?"

Each person gave a personalized reaction. The part about bearing comparison to everyone seemed to really shake things up. With everyone seemingly restraining themselves, only the very ordinary Shinya-san dared speak up.

"Question. Just who is this person? I don't really know a whole lot just from the rumors I've heard, but they say it's a real jack-of-all-trades. Is that right?"

"You could say that. We've only met once before, but, yeah, once was enough. This person is my hero." She gazed up, evidently deep in thought. "A truly heroic existence, to me. Like a detective in a mystery novel or a monster in a monster movie."

A monster?

I could feel my eyebrows raise of their own accord. Iria-san had just dropped a reference to monster movies, but was that really an accurate description of this person? That wasn't the kind of vocabulary you typically used to describe a person, and even if you did, it definitely wasn't a compliment.

"That's quite the hard sell. Sounds like we can expect quite a bit from this individual," Shinya-san said with a boisterous chuckle. "I hear this person can do all sorts of things… Such as paint wonderfully and so on?"

"I've never seen it, but I wouldn't be surprised. I imagine something as simple as painting a picture shouldn't be a challenge."

As you'd expect, this seemed to have wounded Kanami-san's pride. She looked a little bit—by which I mean ridiculously—miffed.

"Might we possibly be graced with knowing the name of this superior specimen, Iria-san?" Kanami-san asked. Her tone had a bite to it.

I had thought of this that morning as well, but Kanami-san really did have a lot of pride. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not strictly a good thing either. Far be it for me to cast aspersions about the way Kanami-san chose to live, but to say the least, I knew I could never live like that.

Iria-san's expression suggested that she didn't understand why Kanami-san was so mad (and in reality that probably was the case), and she answered plainly, "Aikawa-san."

Pure dumbfoundedness.

At this point, Kanami-san seemed like the stupid one.

"Owing to an extremely busy schedule, Aikawa-san will only be staying here for three days, but everyone, please be friendly. Aikawa-san is a big deal to me. You could even call it love."

Iria-san's cheeks turned bright red. Seeing that childish mannerism, her audience was thrown even further into bewilderment. It felt like she could've made any demand, however bossy, and everyone would've forgiven it. She innately had that sort of air about her.

Probably her lineage to blame again.

"Even still, Aikawa…"

I'd never heard the name, ignorant as I was. I looked over at Kunagisa to see her reaction, but she was still eating. When that girl was focused on something, she was always like that. More incorrigible than a child and harder to handle than an animal. Well, then again, at least she knew how to sit in a chair.

"Oh, I'm so looking forward to it. To think Aikawa-san is coming again. I've asked so many times. It's like a dream. Oh, what if it really was a dream?" she said as if in a daze. Judging from her current state, Iria-san must have been pretty head-over-heels for this Aikawa guy. It was like she was talking about the man she had been in love with for years and years.

She spoke his name with great reverence.

"Ah, speaking of which, Kunagisa-san," she said, turning the conversation toward Kunagisa. "You were going to leave before then, isn't that right?"

"Hmm? Oh, yup yup," she responded. She never stopped moving the chopsticks she held in her hands. The fact that she was holding a chopstick in each hand was enough of a testament to her bad table manners. "Yup, four more days."

"That's really too bad. It's going to be such a great opportunity. I'd really like you to meet Aikawa-san. There's really no way?"

"Afraid not. I'm from a world where once you've planned something, you can't change it. They even call me the Living Time Table. Ii-chan, too, of course."

Don't drag me into this, I thought. Coming to this island in the first place was never part of my "time table."

Iria-san nodded with a truly disappointed look on her face. "Is that so? Say, could it be that you're not having a good time here? It doesn't seem like you've left your room much."

"I'm from a world where people don't leave their rooms much. But no, I'm having fun. Lots of fun. I can have fun anywhere, anytime, all the way."

Her words made me stiffen a bit. There was no exaggeration in what she said. For someone who's so completely immersed in their own world, there's never a time that isn't fun. And what of all other emotions? How tragic must it be to always be having fun, no matter where you are?

That was something I already knew the answer to.

"Ah, is that so?" Iria-san shrugged. "But Kunagisa-san, surely even you would find some value in meeting Aikawa-san. Meeting a person like that, you're bound to find some inspiration."

As if she had been waiting for the perfect timing, Kanami-san broke into the conversation. "Being influenced by another person is proof of one's mediocrity. Of one's impotence. How ridiculous. I don't know what kind of person this Aikawa is, but I sincerely doubt there's any need to meet him."

"Now now, is that a fact?" Playing devil's advocate with Kanami-san was the obvious choice, Sonoyama Akane. "I spent several years surrounded by the finest minds in the world, and I know for a fact that if I hadn��t had that experience, I wouldn't be where I am today. You can better yourself just by spending time with brilliant people."

"The ER3? What a joke. You must be stupid. Why would anyone ever want to bind themselves to such an organization?" Kanami sneered.

"I don't consider that I'm binding myself. Everyone is free to move about as they please and help hone one another's skills."

"'Free?' Don't just throw that word around. An organization with no restrictions isn't an organization at all. In the end, even you were just a member of the hierarchy, isn't that right? What a crock. I've been here on this island with you for a while now, but I certainly don't feel as if I've become any more refined. If anything, my worth is decreasing."

They glared at each other. To act this way in front of a whole group of people, they really were childish. I was a little bit appalled.

The maids tried their best to mediate, but Iria-san had a look of pure delight on her face as she watched the dueling pair, so they retrained from stepping in. This kind of situation wasn't really my cup of tea. Meanwhile, Yayoi-san looked fairly indifferent as well, while Maki-san looked entirely unimpressed, and Shinya-san seemed to have written the whole dispute off as an everyday occurrence. It was amazing that not a single person there could stop them.

Ah, wait, there was someone.

Just one person.

"After all, Ibuki-san, humans are a colonial species. People such as yourself who act like bums and expect special treatment all ought to rethink their lifestyle, if you ask me," I said.

"I suppose that means you can't function without being surrounded by other people. People aren't migratory fish, you know. And I don't expect special treatment. I just don't put myself down. I live honestly, and assess things as they really are," Kanami snapped.

"Hmm, I wonder."

"'Hmm, I wonder'? Ah, more vague questions. You think you look clever by taking an ambiguous stance without ever clearly stating your opinion? Yeah, real clever. 'I wonder,'" Kanami said.

"This is a little hard to listen to."

A voice.

It was Kunagisa.

She pouted her lips out like a sulky kid and looked at Kanami-san.

"This is hurting my ears, Kanami-chan, Akane-chan."

In an instant, she had drawn everyone's attention. Nobody had expected Kunagisa, of all people, to say that.

I'd had quite a few experiences with Kunagisa in the past, so it wasn't beyond imaginable. Kunagisa Tomo hated watching people fight quite a bit. Considering her usual happy-go-lucky attitude, it might have been a little unexpected, but it did make some sense. She was a fun-loving girl, which meant she didn't like situations that weren't fun. The logic was as simple as that.

"I'm sorry. I went too far." Somewhat surprisingly, it was Kanami-san who apologized first. In turn, Akane-san couldn't help but acknowledge that Kanami-san, too, was a prominent woman of respectable status.

"I was wrong, too," she said, awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

They both hung their heads and stared at the floor. Though the atmosphere was still distinctly awkward, at least the fiasco seemed to be over.

Until Maki-san ruined it completely.

"This is gonna get worse before it gets better," she muttered with an icy voice and audacious grin. Just what was this fortune-teller chick trying to butt in with, now that things had finally settled down? Meanwhile, Iria-san's eyes were twinkling with excitement.

"Is that a prophecy?" she asked. "What do you mean it's going to get worse before it gets better? This is so fascinating. Will you tell us?"

"I won't. I'm not saying anything. Nope." As she spoke, she cast a sideways glance in Kunagisa's direction. "I'm not quite so arrogant as to get the rest of the world involved."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I protested without thinking. As for Kunagisa, she had already turned her full attention back to nutritional intake. It was as though this really was nothing more than a simple annoyance to her. "Maki-san, what do you mean by that?"

"There's no meaning. Just like there's no meaning in your actions. You know, you're, wow, so you're the kind of guy who'll get angry for the sake of a complete stranger, huh? That's not a very good thing. It's not bad, per se, but it's not good either."

"Oh my, and why is that?" Iria-san asked, stepping into our conversation. Or rather, maybe I was the one on the sideline. "I think it's wonderful to be able to get angry on behalf of a stranger. That's not so common in the world nowadays."

"That's because people who can expose their emotions for the sake of someone else are the same people who blame things on others when something goes wrong. I despise people like you."

It had to be the first time in quite a while that someone had spoken that harshly right to my face. Slowly, she brought her glaring gaze to meet my eyes.

"You just let yourself get carried along by other people. You're the type of person who ignores traffic lights just because everyone else is doing it. You're an abominable excuse for a human being. They often say 'harmonize without agreeing,' but in your case, young man, it's like you're agreeing without harmonizing. I won't say that's bad. I won't say anything as to that. One's identity and one's worth are not always connected. A train that runs along a track is better than a train that doesn't. So I won't say anything as to that. But I hate people like you. I despise them. People like you always blame things on others, never acknowledging their own responsibility."

Just carried along with the flow.

To be sure, that is how I lived.

However…

"I don't recall…"

I hated it.

Meeting Kunagisa, I had grown thoroughly repulsed by it.

"I don't recall you telling me that, Himena Maki-san."

"Oh, are you angry? Gee, your boiling point's a lot lower than I expected. Are you the type who has mood swings all the time?"

"Ii…"

Eat me.

Go screw yourself.

Go screw yourself go screw yourself go screw yourself…

Go screw yourself, bitch…

"Ii-chan."

Tug.

Kunagisa yanked on my sleeve.

"This isn't worth getting angry about."

Kunagisa Tomo.

"Okay."

I felt a chill go through my body. The power drained from my body. It was beyond weakness, closer to exhaustion. I slumped in my chair.

"Sorry. I was just joking, 'kay?" Maki-san said to Kunagisa with a terribly sweet smile.

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And so dinner that day was a bit of a disaster. Of course, the two days prior hadn't exactly gone off without a hitch either, but the intelligence of this jack-of-all-trades seemed to have shattered something. This Aikawa-san's coming visit to the island was becoming something to dread. Granted, I wouldn't be there when it happened, so I didn't really have much to do with it.

Nevertheless, I had no idea why Maki-san was digging into me so much. Certainly, I hadn't made a great first impression on her, but that couldn't have been the only reason at this point. It was obvious that she hated me, but that wasn't reason enough to be harping on me so aggressively like this.

The opposite of affection is not animosity, but apathy. If she just didn't like me, she wouldn't go so far out of her way to pick on me like this. Why, out of this entire group of brilliant people, would Himena Maki specifically target a boring, ordinary person like me? We didn't have anything to do with each other.

It was strange.

Brooding over the subject in my mind, I didn't think for a moment about Maki-san's prophecy of the "worsening of things." If I had given it some thought, it's not likely that anything would've gone differently anyway, but looking back, I can't help but regret that a little.

I guess there was nothing I could have done about that, though.

After all, only Maki-san could have regretted things before they happened.