Traveling With a Beautiful Girl - Chapter 36: Drunkard OL

“Can I get a refill of sake?”

“Of course!”

Watching the OL-san and the cheerful server taking her order, I could only think of one thing: how did this happen?

Well, it happened because as soon as the OL-san saw us, she asked, “Would you like to join me?” and moved to our table.

Since the whole thing happened so naturally, we couldn’t refuse, and here we are now.

“We haven’t introduced ourselves yet.”

The OL-san adjusts her red-framed glasses. The contrast between her flushed face and the glasses is striking.

“I’m Kanade Shinoda, 27 years old, a capable salesman at a top-tier trading company and a black company OL at my limit. Feel free to call me Kanade-san.”

Should she really be calling herself top-tier and capable?

Anyway, she seems to have quite a contrasting set of titles.

I get the impression that the OL, now called Kanade-san, is quite a character.

“Uh, I’m Takahashi Sho. I’m a high school sophomore.”

“Nanase Riho. Takahashi-kun’s classmate.”

“Sho-kun and Riho-chan, nice to meet you!”

Kanade-san smiles warmly. It’s a smile that easily disarms anyone’s guard.

I see, whether she’s actually capable or not, I can understand why she’s a salesman.

If she weren’t clutching sake in one hand, I, being so simple-minded, might have been easily tricked into buying an expensive vase or something.

“Ah, no formal language, please. It feels like I’m talking to a subordinate, and it’ll trigger my black company disease.”

“Black company disease?”

“Please… at least in my private life, let me be just an ordinary person…”

She begs with a force that seems like she’s about to cry. What on earth happened to her?

“Ah, I got it.”

I reluctantly decided to speak casually.

“By the way, you two are from Tokyo, right?”

At Kanade-san’s question, my heart leaps.

How does she know?

I don’t know.

But her tone suggests that she’s sure of it.

“Uh…”

“Yes, we came from Tokyo.”

Nanase speaks up first. She’s quick-witted and seems to have decided it’s better to admit it.

“I knew it. That dialect-free tone of yours, you’re definitely city people.”

So that’s it.

She’s really good at observing people.

She must be a capable salesman after all (simple-minded).

“Today is Friday, but you’re not in school?”

“Yes, we have a school holiday today for the founding anniversary.”

Nanase smoothly makes up a story. It’s a relief.

“I see. So, a boy and a girl traveling alone, huh…”

Kanade-san raises her glasses again. What’s with that “I’ve figured everything out” aura?

“Sorry for the wait!”

Just then, the server brings more sake in a tokkuri. Kanade-san silently takes the tokkuri and gulps down the sake.

Is sake a low-alcohol drink?

I don’t know the details, but there’s one thing I can say for sure: don’t chug it.

“Can I get a refill?”

“Yes.”

Kanade-san returns the empty tokkuri to the server and, with her face redder than before, says:

“Young people are so lucky; the alcohol goes down so smoothly.”

“But there wasn’t a single smooth part in that conversation.”

“You can’t help but think there’s something going on when two healthy high school students, a boy and a girl, are traveling alone, right?”

“Don’t think that! We’re just friends!”

Well, I mean, sure, when you put it that way, it might be true.

But there’s a deep reason behind how things turned out that even a skilled salesman couldn’t predict. Since I can’t reveal it, I have no choice but to insist that we’re just friends. Speaking of which, I wonder if Nanase is okay. Being labeled with a baseless relationship was supposed to be a sore point for Nanase.

When I glance sideways to see if her blood vessels have burst, Nanase is muttering “friends” with a somewhat clenched expression. Wait, could it be that she doesn’t think we’re friends?

“Friends, huh… Well, I’ll let it be that way for you.”

Hasn’t this person been a bit too forward with us, complete strangers, since a while ago? I’ve heard of it. In some regions, it’s common to start talking to the person next to you while drinking, and before you know it, you’re drinking together! Kanade-san is probably a local who occasionally enjoys drinking with travelers like this.

With that in mind, I get excited about this once-in-a-lifetime encounter. This is it, the real thrill of traveling!

“Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m from Tokyo too. I came to Hamamatsu on a business trip.”

I take back what I said. She’s just a drunkard.

“You’re from the city, huh? Where do you live?”

“In Roppongi, a place smeared with desire and money, full of love and hate.”

Roppongi is dangerous, isn’t it? It’s a bourgeois neighborhood with an average income of over 10 million yen. But it makes sense if she’s a top salesperson for a leading trading company (I’ve already admitted it).

“Heh, Roppongi. I live in Ebisu, close, aren’t we?”

You lived in Ebisu, huh?!

By the way, Ebisu is also a fancy neighborhood that’s consistently in the top 5 of the most desirable places to live in Tokyo. It seems both of them have household incomes in a different league than ordinary folks like me.

“Where do you live, Sho-kun?”

“I live in Tabata!”

“Tabata! In Kita-ku, right? I went to a university in Bunkyo city, so we were neighbors.”

“Oh, really? If it’s a university in Bunkyo, then…”

Wait, could it be?

A certain ultra-famous university in Bunkyo comes to mind, but my brain denies it as impossible. After all, a drunk like her…

With a smile as if to say she’s a sinful woman, Kanade-san says:

“I think my aura already gave it away, but I’m a graduate of the University of Tokyo.”

“No one would’ve guessed that.”

I was actually thinking of the complete opposite.

I never would’ve imagined that a graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo, known as Japan’s top educational institution, would get drunk and mingle with high school students.

But, now that she mentioned it, I can sense a high level of intelligence in the way she speaks, and the aura she exudes does seem like that of a genius. It’s like… she’s incredibly smart, but there’s a sense of “madness” as if two or three screws in her head have come loose.

Her sensibilities are clearly different from mine. I feel that strongly from Kanade-san.

“So, as fellow city dwellers, let’s toast to our strange connection in Hamamatsu.”

Saying that, Kanade-san tilts the sake bottle over the small cup, but not a single drop comes out. She tilts her head, peeks into the bottle, and says:

“I drank it all earlier.”

Is she okay? Did she fake her educational background?

Nanase also cast a suspicious look, as if she were looking at a dubious self-help seminar instructor.