Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 10 (section)

===Record 77: I Will Tell You Everything===

'''08/17/1998

'''21:30

It was awful. Nights weren’t meant to be so hot. Stupid summer season.

The Boss and I were soaking our feet in a washbasin in the sweltering Officers’ living room and Lady had stopped moving over on the windowsill.

Why was this happening? The A/C was broken.

It had suddenly stopped working during the morning and hadn’t started back up since.

There was nothing to be done about it, so the Boss and I were watching TV. The current program was talking about the Battle of Babel being held in Osaka. The student news competition over who got to use Babel first was reaching its second half and the representatives were competing in a number of media. I even saw a familiar face among those students.

“I thought I hadn’t seen him in a while.”

“What, is a friend of yours competing?”

“I doubt he remembers me since I was always running behind him. But you never know what people are going to do, do you? He was always #1, but he must have seen things differently.”

“Could you say the same thing about Senpai?” asked the Boss.

I raised my head. He looked the same as always thanks to his sunglasses, so I relaxed my shoulders.

“He’ll be fine. He has someone by his side.”

The Boss simply nodded and looked back to the TV. The reporter said the students would start providing support for Babel while it was under construction, but didn’t that mean they were providing free construction labor?

“Eh, that’s more useful than boiling alive in here.”

My comment earned a response from Lady who was still sitting on the windowsill.

“But this is our job, so- oh.”

“What happened? Something joyfully thrilling?”

“No. A mosquito bit me.”

She brushed back her hair and got down from the windowsill. She showed me the inside of her right arm and there was indeed a small red mark on her skin.

“I’m not supposed to scratch it, am I? Do you have any itch cream?”

“Only an awful kind the Professor made. It directly transfers the scratching sensation to your brain, so it feels like having a monkey clawing inside your head. Letting it heal naturally is the only path to survival.”

“Let me guess, he called it something like the Itchy Ape.”

“Close but no cigar. It’s called Dangerous Itchcraft.”

“I don’t want it no matter what it’s called. Do you have any normal medicine?”

“What counts as normal? Besides, why would we have mosquito medicine in a room that normally has the window closed to keep the cool air-conditioned air inside?”

She groaned in thought, her hand reaching toward the mosquito bite before she quickly pulled it back.

“O-oh, no. It’s starting to feel funny.”

“And you’re starting to act funny.”

That earned me several punches from behind. In front of me, the Boss nodded in an exasperated way.

“Fine. Then I’ll scratch it for you.”

“Stay back! Don’t you dare touch me!”

“Oh, c’mon. This is a form of sketchy spiritual treatment where you cast out the itchiness through another person’s intervention.”

“Don’t call it sketchy yourself. Really, me punching the itchiness out would be better than- oh, yeah.”

I turned toward Lady and held up my clenched fist for her to see. She realized what I meant.

“Y-you mean, you’re going to punch me?”

“It’ll only last a moment, so bear with it please.”

She held out her right arm and squeezed her eyes shut.

This felt weird, but I readied my fist all the same.

“I’m here to take over for the night shif- what the hell are you doing!?”

I turned around to see Snowy standing in the newly opened door with her sword drawn. Great, another excessive heat source.

'''Author Comment:

More air conditioner stuff.

I quite like washbasins. They cool you off different from an air conditioner.

The problem is how I always end up splashing the water around for fun.

This is also an unusual one where the protagonist reveals something about his past. Is this something he can only do under the very restrictive circumstances of being with a boy his own age who’s having some trouble?