Epi.9-1: Rin’s Secret Delight

Misaki was, as usual, savoring sake in her room.
Then, without a sound, the door opened, and an ichimatsu doll peeked its face inside.

“Oh, isn’t that Rin? What’s wrong?”

When Misaki spoke gently, Rin replied with a troubled expression still on her face.
“Misaki… are you drunk again today?”

“I’m not drunk! How rude.
Come on, I’ll brush your hair, so come here.”

As Misaki stood up to go get the tools, Rin quietly closed the door and ran over to the table.

“Your kimono has gotten pretty dirty.”

She brushed off the dust overall with a brush and wiped the face with a dry cloth.
After that, while brushing the hair, Misaki spoke.
Rin did not reply, but judging by the way she was moving her hands and feet rhythmically, she seemed pleased.

“We’ll have to get you a new kimono.”

Once things had settled down, Misaki operated her smartphone and showed the screen to Rin.
Displayed there were kimonos for ichimatsu dolls.

“This one you’re wearing is fine too, but how about this one? I think it would suit you.”

Rin stared at the screen in silence, then shifted her gaze to Misaki and replied curtly, “…I don’t want it…”

“So you’re attached to that kimono. Then I’ll send it to be cleaned, and I’ll buy something similar for you to wear in the meantime.”

There was nothing she could really call an attachment, but since there was no need to go out of her way to explain it, she stayed silent.
Whether she failed to notice Rin’s cold gaze or simply did not care, Misaki kept cheerfully choosing kimonos.
—Even going so far as to stop drinking.

“Why do you bother?”

—It wasn’t a question of “why” at all; she had come here of her own accord. To have her hair brushed.
That was what she thought, but the words had already slipped out.

“Hm? I was just thinking this is what it might be like if I had a daughter.”
Misaki smiled at her gently.

“…Even though I’m a doll?”

“Plenty of people dote on dolls. And besides, you can talk like this, and I can touch you—so you’re pretty close to being human.”

—Was that really so?
Looking back on her own past, Rin could not recall a single human like that.
There were many times when she had been cast aside for nothing more than moving a little, or uttering a small sound—just that alone.

“If only I could touch Sayuri and Shinobu too…”
The expression Misaki wore as she said that looked lonely to Rin.

“…The blue one from earlier… that one’s fine.”

She murmured it quietly.

“Oh, is that so? I think it would suit you.
And what about something like a hair ornament?”

“I don’t need that… not yet…”

Why had she added “yet”?
Rin herself did not know.

“Then, when you start to feel interested.”
Misaki was in a good mood as she worked her smartphone.

“Misaki… have you gotten used to supernatural beings yet?”

She herself thought it was a line that didn’t sound like her.
Caring about someone else was something unimaginable for who she used to be.

“Maybe Sayuri’s been telling everyone? I hardly ever run into them. I see them now and then in the entrance, but maybe they’re being considerate—because they disappear right away.”

She smiled faintly, but that smile soon turned into a self-deprecating one.

“But, you know, sometimes I wonder if my living here is actually forcing inconvenience on them…”

Rin understood.
Misaki wanted the other supernatural beings to be able to live freely as well.
She wasn’t the kind of person who thought only of herself.
That was why she treated even a doll like Rin in this way.

“…I see. Then I’ll tell them they don’t need to be considerate.”

“That’s not it.”
She fixed Rin with a look from which all expression had vanished.

…What was she talking about?
Just a moment ago, she had been worrying about making them be considerate.
And yet now, she was saying the exact opposite.

Rin was certain.
—After all, this woman was drunk.