Lady Kotobuki. Who is Lady Kotobuki?

“Did you want a lift home?”

Chika walks just a bit ahead, she’s now standing in between me and the very large and well-dressed driver.

I can’t tell if this guy is a chauffeur or a bodyguard; it’s as if I can see his pectoral muscles through his suit jacket – or more like, they can see me.

They’re staring at me, watching my every move.

“Oh, don’t mind Tetsuo – he can be a little intimidating at first.”

Chika reassures me about the large pec-

I mean, large man. I guess knowing his name now I could even call him a large Tetsuo. Not that there are any Tetsuo’s that I’m close with, so maybe the ‘large’ differentiator isn’t applicable.

Just Tetsuo it is!

Speaking of Tetsuo, his look is indicatively glum after Chika made the comment about him being intimidating. Right now, he’s just staring at the floor in soulful silence.

I didn’t mean to be afraid of you, Tetsuo! Don’t be sad like that, she didn’t mean it in a bad way, I promise.

Chika is nice.

Speaking of Chika…

“Who is Lady Kotobuki?”

My focus on the driver with the very large pectoral muscles, of whom I have said the name too many times in succession, completely tore me away from my previous musings about the name he had called out.

“Lady Kotobuki is my mother.”

At this, Tetsuo starts to lift up a finger in protest, but as Chika continues, he lowers his hand.

“I am Chika Kotobuki, this is my driver, Tetsuo and this is our car. Would you like a lift home?”

Is this really happening?

Even I am not thick-headed enough to have thought that none of this had to do with Chika, but there was a suspension of belief for a second there. It would seem that my mind gravitates towards notions that it can easily accept and understand, sometimes to the detriment of the truth.

The truth, in this case, being that this maid most likely has maids of her own.

This maid is not really a maid, an impostor if you will – someone sitting behind enemy lines, a double agent.

A double agent that, in fact, will be helping me get home.

“I’d appreciate it, I don’t know what would happen to a pretty boy like me out in the city, late at night.”

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Despite another painful attempt at humour from yours truly, Chika giggles gleefully as she gets in the back of the car, moving over a space so that I can do the same.

“You wouldn’t last a second out there alone.”

You’re not supposed to agree with that, I’m very independent!

Don’t let the fact that I’m getting a friend that I’ve known for a day to drive me home undermine that – that is neither here nor there!

Following Chika, I hop into the car, if you can even call such a beast just a mere car. The insides were fitted with smooth leather, which had a cooling effect as my skin touched it – a difference I noticed all the more when blasted with the vehicle’s warm heater.

Compared to the conventional seats going horizontal across the car, these seats run vertically and horizontally all along the sides of the limousine.

It’s basically all just one big seat!

Ah, the rich have it nice.

As I go to reach out for the car door in order to close it, my hand is met with some resistance.

Glancing up I see Tetsuo towering over me, his eyes staring daggers deep into my soul, his face half shrouded in darkness and his menacing smile sending shivers down my spine.

I let go of the door handle and see that Tetsuo is trying to transform his glare into a pleasant smile – there’s something gleeful and oddly terrifying about it. As he shuts the door for me, I can see part of his arm shaking.

In that moment, I feel a twitch of solidarity with my socially stunted companion.

You’re trying really hard, aren’t you buddy?

“Thank you.”

I hope Tetsuo feels appreciated, even if his aura is more terrifying than Koi’s when she’s in the heat of battle.

I’d like to see a face-off between those two. Aura vs aura.

“You really can’t take your mind off her, can you?”

As I turn around, I can see Chika analysing my face, as if she’s studying it for an essay she’s going to write later. There is a whimsical curiosity in her eyes - the sparkle of knowledge.

“What I can't take my mind off is how scary that ability of yours is!”

Being able to read people is one thing, but knowing exactly what they’re thinking about in a given situation is a totally different thing!

“And what ability would that be?”

Chika stops analysing me as she responds, sitting back in her leather seat like the heiress to a massive fortune.

Which I can only assume, she probably is.

“The one where you know I’m thinking about Koi.”

“I wasn’t entirely positive about my conjecture before, but you could say I am now.”

She got me to sign a full confession. This agent is good, she’s damn good.

The impostor maid crosses her legs and lifts her chin in triumph; her stockings become visible as she does so.

“She pops into my head from time to time.”

At this point it feels more like a sickness than anything; I haven’t felt right since I last saw her and with every day it seems to be getting worse and worse. Even the things I would usually do to relieve stress like watching Mayu only seem to remind me of her and further the illness.

Chika is a breath of fresh air, a double agent maid, an impostor and ultimately someone really fun to be around.

“Then I would suggest you do something about it then.”

That’s easy for you to say as a prospective onlooker to the situation, but if there was something I could do, I think I would’ve figured that out by now.

“Isn’t this just a waiting game for me?”

“I thought I said this before, if you just wait around and don’t try to understand Koi or the situation better then you’re not going to get anywhere when she does reach out to you.”

Despite remembering her words previously, I thought it would be more of a passive thing that I engaged with. Like, the next time I talked to her I would try and understand her more. I never figured she wanted me to take action now.

Wait, what was that last part?

“You said when she reaches out to me? Like you know it’s going to happen…”

The very wise Chika in front of me smiles.

“Well of course, I wouldn’t be helping you here if I didn’t know that it’s going to happen sometime.”

I’m not sure if Chika knows something I don’t. She probably does, it seems everyone seems to know something I don’t.

It’s as if there’s some glaring reality that is very obvious to everyone but me.

“Now, let's finally get going. Where do you live?”