Epi.5-2: The Woman and the Doll

"Misaki-saaaan! Look, look!"

Sayuri burst through the door with her usual energy and swept straight into the room.

Misaki paused with her drink and flicked her eyes over.
"What is it?"

"It's the doll-san."
Holding Rin carefully in her arms, Shinobu smiled and settled herself right beside Misaki.

"Oh, it's an Ichimatsu doll. What is it?"
With that, Misaki lifted her sake to her lips again.

Sayuri floated up lightly and murmured a single line.
"It was abandoned."

"It was not abandoned!"

Rin shot back immediately.

"Whoa! The doll is tal—my sakeeee!"
Misaki hurriedly wiped up the spilled sake and lifted her head.

Sayuri, floating in the air, was covering her mouth and giggling.
She looked quite pleased that her little scheme had worked.

"Sayuri, come down and sit right there."

Misaki fixed her eyes on Sayuri and said it with a straight face.

"...Yes."
Sayuri, looking crestfallen, obediently sat in seiza.

—What on earth is this?
Rin stared at the scene in a daze.

She worried more about her sake than a talking doll, and scolded a floating ghost.
That dogeza man had been strange enough, but this woman was on an entirely different level.

—So that was it.

Something clicked in Rin’s mind.
"Shinobu. Is this woman a drunk?"

"I'm not! How rude!"
Rin flinched—quite unlike her—when Misaki suddenly turned her firm words toward her.

Once the scolding was over, Misaki smiled at Sayuri.

"So? Did you have fun?"
"Yeah!"

Sayuri answered with a beaming smile.

"I see, that's good. But make sure you don’t overdo it."
After that, Misaki turned her eyes toward Rin.

"A doll that talks—how surprising."
She stared at Rin intently.

"Rin-chan can move, you know."
Looking delighted, Shinobu shifted her hold on Rin as if lifting her up.

"So your name is Rin. I'm Misaki—nice to meet you."
Misaki offered a gentle smile and quietly held out her hand.

Rin couldn’t make sense of Misaki’s behavior at all.
But from the hand extended toward her, she felt no hint of hostility whatsoever.
Before she knew it, she was reaching out her own hand as well.

"...Why don’t you fear me?"

Even her former owner, who had cared for her so kindly, had gone half-hysterical the moment she moved even a little.
So she couldn’t believe that a human she had just met would treat her so normally like this.

"I spilled my sake because you startled me."
Misaki gave her a gentle smile.

"And besides, since Shinobu is holding you so normally, I trust that at the very least you're not dangerous."

—Is that really how it works?
…Even the one she’s trusting is a ghost.
To still believe that—it’s absurd.

Rin suddenly recalled the face of the antique-shop owner who had cared for her for so long.
If it had been him, would he have spoken to her like this even if she talked?
…Not that there’s any way to know now.

She might as well ask, just in case.

"...Are you drunk?"

"I'm not!"

No sooner had she said that than Misaki took another swig of her sake.

Watching that, Rin quietly concluded in her heart:

—She’s probably not a bad person.
But she is absolutely a drunk.