葛 馮虚 (コペンハーゲン・スター)
"Oi boss, can I borrow a thousand yen?"
A mechanical pencil (Staedtler Mars Fineline, 0.5mm lead) was placed down onto the table with a metallic ring. Indigo eyes glanced up from a page on differential calculus to gaze at the questioner with a hint of quiet exasperation. The aforementioned 'boss' reached into her pocket with a pale left hand, materialising the requested thousand yen bill from its dark depths. It was a scene one could expect to see in the backroom of a small business that was doomed to lose its customers to the supermarket chain that had just opened across the road, with a rough-and-tumble worker asking a favour from their employer in the form of a financial loan.
However, the setting for the scene was not some small business, but the bedroom of a high school girl on the second storey of a house.
The reality of the supposed 'worker' was even further from what had been expected, mostly because few workers (even in Japan, where the average female height was five foot two) were small enough to fit in the palm of a child's hand or moulted at regular intervals during the year. This miniscule fairy girl was also technically unemployed, meaning that she wouldn't have been working in a small business in the first place ... which was a really good explanation for why she was attempting to leech money off Katsura Hyoukyo, third-year at East Umitori High School and class representative of Class 3-G.
"Awright, thanks a bunch bos-"
The fairy had reached out to grab the note dangling towards her, only for her hands to grab empty air as the money disappeared from her sight.
Her outrage was instantaneous. "Oi, what was that for?!"
"Only if you explain why to me you want this money first," replied the purple-haired girl chidingly, tapping the note softly against the alloyed surface of her table. "Have you been hoarding funds for your peculiar little collection again, Kanaria?"
The fairy huffed, an action which Hyoukyo had to admit was rather adorable to observe, particularly given the presence of the cute little pigtails and googly goggles being worn by her accomplice. Unfortunately, any of the charms that Kanaria could have possessed had long degraded thanks to the unseemly personality she possessed, and not even the frilly dress nabbed from one of the high schooler's old dollhouses could bring it back.
"I wanna buy something from a vending machine," she muttered, crossing her arms. "It's not like you're even going out, so why I can't chill boss? And why are you ditching your patrol today anyway? That's pretty lazy of you!"
You may wish to speak for yourself.
Hyoukyo's expression didn't change, but she immediately reached for her smartphone, switching on the screen and opening up the Twitter application. Her own Twitter page was remarkably dearth of information, but that was not the goal of her foray onto social networks during what should have been her homework time (or her patrol time). What she was looking for was something different to her boring net footprint, and she immediately placed her phone down in front of her to show the fairy the page the very moment it had been found.
"You follow your own fan Twitter? Wow, talk about an ego."
"The fan Twitter for this district provides useful information for my purposes," she corrected, thumbing down to show a map of magical girl sightings in the local area. "Self-aggrandisement is something that would be more befitting your domain."
"That doesn't explain anything, boss," grumbled the fairy, Hyoukyo's insult having flown over her head. "What, so there's a shitton of magical girls around? That doesn't mean you can slack off all the time!"
"Of course not, but given the density of girls present in this district, there is little that a Negari can do before being immediately subdued," Hyoukyo replied smoothly as she handed over the thousand yen note (much to Kanaria's surprise). "It may even be possible that any girl whose routes intersect with mine could act with greater efficiency without my 'disruptive' presence in their 'territory'."
The stars in Kanaria's eyes flickered out as she looked up from the note she was hugging to her chest. "That just sounds like an excuse boss."
"Admittedly, there are scarcely any attempts at studying the magical girl subculture in any depth, but nevertheless my 'no-show' will likely change little today. The others are likely skilled enough to hold their own, and in the case that there is difficulty, I will answer the duty. Otherwise, I shall make use of this time to study for the upcoming maths test."
"You study a lot boss."
"Unfortunately, this final year of high school is a particularly taxing time, particularly as we close in on the university entrance exams. It is most essential that I succeed in those."
"To get into that Todai place, yeah? What difference is there anyway? It's not like Tokyo's gonna be too different from Umitori."
"You would be surprised," said the teenaged girl casually, drumming her pale fingers against the metal of her table. She glanced towards the clock hanging on the wall, noting the time. Over an hour of revising differential calculus had taken place. "Although, I do believe I could take a break now ... you wished to eat something, correct?"
Kanaria blinked in surprise. "Huh? Um, yeah?"
"A vending machine will not provide anything filling," said Hyoukyo as she stood up and stretched her arms out, taking care not to cut herself on the sharp desk. "I'll buy you something from the convenience store instead. Come along, Kanaria. Remember to grab your coat."
"Ooh, can we get those sausage things again? Fucking love those."
It was almost cute seeing the fairy's greed in action. Almost.
"We'll see, Kanaria."
Plank Sinatra,
Onarax