Chapter 22: Family Skit

Watching the ramen shop owner's performance, Ma En couldn't help thinking that Asuka herself probably had no idea he followed urban legends on the side. Not that it was hard to understand — the age gap between them was obvious. The owner likely wanted to preserve his authority as an adult. If he put his own fascination with urban legends on the table and then lectured Asuka about hers, he'd have no leg to stand on.

By extension, Ma En figured he probably wouldn't display all his personal interests in front of younger people either. He went back to eating with his head down, same as the owner — both of them wearing the face of men who'd been discussing nothing at all.

Asuka carried a document bag to the bar counter. Ma En had just lifted his bowl and drained the broth in one long swallow. When he set it down, the bag had already been placed heavily in front of him. The clear plastic was swollen, emphasizing the sheer volume of files inside. It surprised him. He hadn't expected Asuka to have put in this much effort. He didn't fully understand what a manga artist's work entailed — if it was just drawing, did the prep need to go this far? Or had Asuka herself already fallen deep into Room 4's urban legend? If she truly had, that was a dangerous signal.

The ramen shop owner's repeated warnings were clearly not without cause. Asuka had only just graduated high school. Kids her age — boys and girls alike — threw themselves at whatever caught their interest, eager to try everything. If they found pleasure in it, the pull to go deeper was irresistible. Urban legends, taken purely as stories, held undeniable appeal. That was why they survived. Chasing the narrative was harmless enough. But if you brushed up against the parts that were real, it started to feel risky.

After all, most urban legends were stories that bred from the worst in human nature.

Ma En didn't take the bag. He looked up at Asuka first. Her face gave away nothing. Her eyes offered no clue about what she'd been thinking when she assembled all this.

"Thank you," Ma En said.

"Don't mention it." Asuka paused. She seemed to have something more to say, but she glanced at the owner bustling behind her before raising her voice: "Ma En-san, I don't mind giving you the materials, but I'd like to ask a favor in return."

Deliberately raising her voice so the owner hears?

Ma En registered this, and answered without hurry: "Sure. Let's hear it." He didn't think Asuka's little performance was leading toward anything the owner would object to.

"Ma En-san, you're currently living in Room 4, correct?"

"Correct."

"And Ma En-san is interested in Room 4's legend."

"That's right."

"So Ma En-san has definitely looked into the legend himself."

"I have."

"Then let's exchange information." Asuka pressed her palms together and, for the first time, showed a pleading, cute smile. "I won't go to Room 4. But surely it's fine to just listen to whatever Ma En-san has gathered?"

The smile was the kind only a girl her age could pull off fully — the kind that made you want to indulge her on instinct. Calculated, yes. Ma En had never seen girls her age back in the motherland deliberately put on this sort of face. Seeing it now made it feel even more contrived — and yet the contrivance wasn't aimed at him. It was aimed at the ramen shop owner, like a teenager in her rebellious phase doing things specifically designed to provoke the adults around her.

Still, one thing held: even calculated, it was genuinely cute. A face playing sweet would always sit better with people than a face playing cold.

So Ma En answered without hesitation: "Sure, no problem. Just exchanging information, listening to stories — perfectly fine. Boss, is that all right with you?"

"Hm? What are you two talking about?" The owner turned around with the air of someone who hadn't heard a word. But neither of them had been whispering. Asuka had deliberately turned up the volume. Claiming he hadn't heard was fooling no one. Even Asuka pressed a hand to her forehead and shrank to the side, face creased with awkwardness.

Ma En repeated, expression unchanged: "Asuka wants to exchange Room 4 information with me. I think it's fine, but I wanted your approval first. You'd rather she didn't get too involved with this stuff, right?"

"Well, it's not that I like it or dislike it..." The owner clearly hadn't expected Ma En to lay it out so bluntly. His expression went stiff for a moment, then collapsed into resignation. "I just worry she's getting too obsessed. It's only manga, after all. The subject matter doesn't really matter, does it? The biggest thing in girls' manga right now is magical girls and the like, isn't it? Waving wands around, spinning, cute outfits."

"Exactly, exactly." A customer who'd been eavesdropping with full concentration finally broke his silence, nodding vigorously. "Sailor Moon — the manga, the anime — massive sales. They made tons of merchandise too. I heard the shops selling that stuff made a killing, and they're supposedly good for another ten years."

"And apparently the artist is a beauty herself," another customer chimed in. "If Asuka drew something like that, she might get called 'the once-in-two-thousand-years beautiful manga artist' or something. Asuka's already cute. She doesn't need to draw scary stuff."

Asuka had retreated to the side, and the more she heard, the lower her head drooped — as if she wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Ma En could only glimpse part of her face through the curtain of hair. It had gone completely red. But her back seemed to radiate a dark aura, something between fury and mortification.

"Right, right — that's exactly what I think. Ghost story manga is all doom and gloom. A good girl like her — whether it's work or hobbies, cute is best." The owner was warming to the subject now. "That Sailor Moon costume is pretty, isn't it? I was passing through Akihabara the other day and saw a shop selling them. A bunch of girls were buying them. I overheard them say girls her age love that sort of thing. So I bought one too — figured she'd be happy. Got lectured instead."

"That's your fault, Asuka." The customer joined the prosecution. "Even if you don't like the outfit, you should consider the feelings your dad had when he went out and bought it for you. Isn't that behavior that deserves encouragement? How could you lecture an adult?"

Asuka's head snapped up. The shame and anger burning across her face had spread to her ears. She seemed to have nowhere to put it, stamping her feet and crying out in a voice pitched high with indignation: "That's not something normal girls wear! You buy something like that to collect — wearing it would be mortifying! And that skirt was so short — did Dad even look at it?"

"Was it? I actually think high school girls' skirts have been getting too long lately. Bit unfashionable." The owner propped his chin on his hand and appeared to give this serious thought. "Your mom and I have actually been a little worried. I hear manga artists don't dress well. If you're always frumpy, how are you going to find a husband someday?"

"A manga artist's clothes need to allow free movement — even if ink gets on them, it doesn't matter. And where am I frumpy?" Asuka slapped the owner's arm hard enough to produce a sharp crack. She was clearly at the end of her rope. The owner, however, didn't flinch.

"Your mom offered to teach you makeup recently. You gave her grief about that too," he said.

"Because Mom is just bad at makeup. Her style isn't even in fashion anymore." Asuka's voice had gone deflated, the fight leaking out of it.

"Really? I think it's great. That's the look she was wearing when she reeled me in." The owner's face glowed with open pride.

"Stop showing off in front of customers, you idiot!" Asuka covered her face in defeat. "Mom already told me everything. You chased her shamelessly, and you beat up her childhood friend. She got blamed for it. They didn't speak a single word to each other — even after she moved away."

"Ooh, boss — got some moves! Nice work!" The customers erupted immediately.

"Not at all. I was too impulsive back then." The owner had gone a bit sheepish himself. Fortunately, new customers walked in just then and gave him an exit.

Ma En sat to the side without making a sound, watching with great interest. The back-and-forth between them played out like a skit — but like the ramen settling in his stomach, there was a warmth that radiated from somewhere inside.

New customers came in. The hecklers stopped, settled their tabs. Everyone in the shop seemed to hit an invisible switch — instantly professional. Even Asuka, ears still faintly pink, hung a business smile on her face and went to greet the newcomers.

Ma En ordered a second bowl. The little drama had done wonders for both his mood and his appetite. While the owner attended to the new arrivals, he opened the document bag and pulled out the top few reports. Every character was handwritten. The stroke arcs and spacing were slightly more exaggerated than printed text, but also very neat — obviously a girl's handwriting. The characters weren't deliberately small, which was probably why she'd used so many pages. Ma En read through them once and found that a fair amount of the information overlapped with what he already had.

Asuka's channels for gathering urban legend intelligence probably weren't as extensive as his. But the overlapping portions were actually useful starting points — the more frequently something came up, the more likely it pointed to a genuine thread. Of course, it was equally possible that everyone's interest in the legend concentrated on the same points, and those points happened to be the most fictional. Sanchoumoku Park, mentioned repeatedly before, showed up again and again in the files. No matter how he looked at it, the place demanded investigation.

Should I head over there shortly?

Ma En calculated the distance, checking whether he could make it back to the apartment in time for the scheduled lock change. To properly investigate Sanchoumoku Park's suspicious features, today's window was clearly insufficient. But at least he could scout the route. If his luck was good — though Ma En quickly plucked that thought from his head. His luck, past and present, had only ever been average.

Asuka had already set the second bowl in front of him. As he reached for it, she leaned in and said quietly: "Wait outside the door after you leave."

Ma En fixed her with a suspicious look, but she went back to washing dishes without a change of expression.

Ma En finished the second bowl in under a minute. The speed was enough to widen the eyes of the girl who'd been watching from across the counter. She picked up her own pace, arranged the bowls and plates more efficiently than usual, called out to the owner — "I'm heading home!" — and bolted toward the back.

This time it was the owner's turn to sweep Ma En with a bewildered look, leaning over to ask softly: "What's going on?"

"She asked me to meet outside the door," Ma En answered honestly.

"...Don't take her anywhere weird!" The owner's face went fierce, his voice a low growl.

"Don't worry." Ma En paused, then asked: "She might want to go to Sanchoumoku Park? I noticed she'd circled it several times in the materials."

"She's already been there a few times." The owner's expression eased. The business smile returned. "Come again!" he called out brightly.

"I will." Ma En nodded earnestly, grabbed his hat, black umbrella, and the document bag, and stepped outside.

Sure enough, he hadn't been waiting long before Asuka slipped out from the side alley next to the ramen shop. She'd already shed her work clothes and changed into a youthful dress and a denim jacket, a light backpack on her shoulders. Like a thief making her getaway, she waved at Ma En.

Ma En walked over. "The boss definitely already knows."

"So what?" Asuka wrinkled her nose, clearly unwilling to pursue the topic.

"All right. What's your plan? Find somewhere to sit and listen to me tell stories?"

"No — we'll talk while we walk. I need to buy some reference magazines anyway. Consider it payment for those materials." She said this, then seemed to remember something and added: "Ma En-san, you don't have anything else today, right? No work?"

"Work-wise, I'm still waiting on news. But I need to be back at the apartment this afternoon for the lock change."

"What happened?" Asuka looked surprised.

"I accidentally kicked the door in," Ma En said, keeping it brief.

"Kicked a door? You don't seem like the rough type, Ma En-san." Asuka seemed worried for a moment, glancing at his face. Her slightly tense expression relaxed again. "Don't say things that give people the wrong idea."

No, you've got exactly the right idea. It was absolutely rough.

Ma En thought this but didn't say it aloud. He didn't want the girl any more nervous than necessary.

"Let's go," he said. "Where to? You lead the way."