The ah attack continued from Reona and Riona, and I wanted out, so I proposed a different stall.
“I’m getting tired of just eating — how about that shooting-gallery stall over there?”
“Oh, that looks fun.”
“I want to try.”
“Locked in.”
Both of them latched on, so we headed for the stall. Almost no one there — we could start right away. Within minutes our turn came up and we got the rules briefing.
Points are scored by knocking targets over, and prizes depend on the total score, but higher-point targets are smaller and harder to hit.
“Oh — fun idea, want to make it a competition?”
“Then I want the winner to have the right to issue one command of their choice to the losers.”
“Aw, that’s a bit—”
There was no telling what kind of demand they’d make. If I won I’d be safe, but if either of Reona or Riona won I’d be in command-execution mode. The math was against me.
“Of course, if Ryouya-kun wins, we’ll do whatever you say.”
“I’ll listen even if it’s lewd.”
My resolve cracked. Sadly, even I am a teenage boy who gets hooked by an offer like that.
“All right, looks like Ryouya-kun is on board. Let’s go.”
“Hey — I did not say I was on board.”
“If you weren’t on board you’d have refused; not refusing is the same as agreeing.”
”…Damn it.”
Hooked by the lewd-offer-bait, I had been signed up for a competition. Even if I hadn’t been hooked the outcome probably would’ve been the same.
So my path to salvation was to win. We paid up, picked up the cork rifles, and started shooting.
“Yeah, the corks don’t go where I aim…”
I was running the safe-strategy of grinding low-point targets to accumulate the score, but the corks would not fly straight. Reona was struggling in the same way, fighting her own corks.
Riona, meanwhile, had picked up a cork and raised her rifle but had not fired a single shot. What’s her plan, I was wondering when she finally took her first shot.
“You knocked over that one?!”
“Riona, amazing.”
Riona’s cork had flown straight and clean and toppled the smallest target. A fluke, probably, but I really needed it not to repeat — except her second and third shots also flew straight and took down the highest-value targets. At that point my chance of winning evaporated. Needless to say I went into full surrender mode.
She continued to drop every cork with one-hundred-percent accuracy and finished with a score that demolished both me and Reona. Afterward we collected our prizes from the stall and sat down on a bench.
”…How did you do that? Most of your corks flew straight.”
“That cannot have been a coincidence.”
“The trick was this.”
Riona, in response to mine and Reona’s questions, pulled something out of her drawstring bag. A tube of women’s hand cream.
“Corks don’t fly straight because of surface bumps. I used the cream to fill the bumps.”
“Oh — that’s clever.”
“You — you can do that…?”
A method I never would have thought of. So that was why she hadn’t fired right away. Riona kept going.
“Also: I loaded the cork after pulling the lever. More compression that way, better flight.”
“Riona, that’s incredible.”
“We were losing before the contest even started.”
“Information wins competitions.”
I was just now learning, painfully, how important information is in competition. Reona aside, I will not be able to beat Riona at anything ever.
“So as winner, I get the right to one command of choice. I haven’t thought of one yet, will save it.”
“Be gentle.”
“Please make it a kind one.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
Reona had used the same phrase before, and I knew that’s the verbal package someone uses when they’re going to do whatever they want.