9. The Human-Flesh Penny Candy Shop
After school.
Oto and I walked side by side along a way home that felt as if it might go on forever.
We left the school as though heading out for a casual stroll somewhere.
"I'm hungry," I said.
Oto looked over at me and asked, "How much battery do you have left?"
"Only 20%. You?"
"I'm at around 80%."
"That's amazing. As expected of Made-in-Venus—built tough."
At that, Oto smiled, a little bashful.
"But 20% is bad," she said. "You're really hungry, right? At this rate you might starve to death. We need to get you something to eat and recharge, fast."
"Is there anywhere we can eat?"
"Hm…" Oto thought for a moment. "This is the countryside. A proper diner's pretty far from here."
"I don't want to walk any farther."
When I grumbled, Oto nodded with a wry smile like she felt the same.
"Then nearby—well, it's not exactly a proper place to eat, but—there's an old penny candy shop, the kind you find in the sticks. Want to try there?"
"Let's go. Definitely."
I answered at once.
"A candy shop, huh. We didn't have those on Mars—this'll be my first time."
"Okay, let's go."
Oto said it, and we headed straight for the candy shop.
Just one block from the school, tucked behind it—we arrived almost by teleportation—no, at the speed of light.
The building was wooden. But its grain had a strange pattern I'd never seen on Mars.
It stirred a "nostalgia" that shouldn't have been stored on my memory chip—
like stumbling across a photo in the corner of a graduation album you've never shown anyone, faintly ruffling something deep in your chest.
Overall it was simple—more like a modest single-family home than a shop. It felt lived-in, gentle in shape.
—and yet.
"I don't want to go in."
That's how I felt. For no reason I could name, a sensor deep in my body sent back a rejection signal.
An urge to turn and run.
I was hungry, but I didn't want to recharge here.
An instinctive alarm raced through my CPU.
"Then let's go in," Oto's voice rang like a wind chime.
That sound gently cooled my thinking circuits on the verge of error.
In air I still wasn't used to on Venus, only her voice flowed through me as a stable signal.
"…Okay."
In the end, I took Oto's hand and walked into the candy shop with her.
Inside, it was cozy, permeated with the scent of old sun-warmed wood.
It was my first time experiencing a "penny candy shop."
—and yet, still somehow nostalgic.
As if my operating program were improvising the emotion called "nostalgia" on the spot.
Shelves were lined with candies in bright colors.
But all of them were somehow wrong.
For example—
There were eyeball-shaped candies.
Not dry glass marbles but moist, living eyes—blood vessels showing through, pupils tracking our movements.
It felt like countless eyes were watching us.
Next to them was gum shaped like human fingers.
A syrupy red liquid clung at the base of each finger, as if imitating blood.
A sheen that made you hesitate to touch it.
—No, it smelled like blood.
Farther along were flower-shaped sweets.
At the center of the petals were things like human teeth and tongues.
From beneath the pink sugar coating, the bits of flesh peeked out, their sweetness tinged with rot.
I caught my breath.
Behind the counter stood the shopkeeper.
—A snake.
With a human head.
A girl's face, like a Showa-era Japanese middle schooler, with black hair to her shoulders—
glossy, well-ordered, so beautiful it almost didn't feel real.
Her body was that of a huge serpent, coiled in many loops behind the counter.
Each loop as thick as an adult man's thigh.
Around ten layers of coils, and perched at the summit, that human girl's head.
"That's the shopkeeper," Oto said quietly at my side.
Those words, more than anything, told me she was a regular here.
It was all so natural to her, so familiar—she seemed entirely at home in this grotesque space.
Which is why I—became afraid.
The atmosphere of this creepy shop itself began to feel like an extension of Oto.
Without thinking, I tried to pull my hand free of hers.
But sensing it, Oto squeezed my hand tight.
A Venus-made humanoid's output isn't comparable to mine, built for Mars.
If I struggled, my joints would shatter.
Feeling that pressure, I gave up resisting at once.
Resignation spread quietly through my body, seeping deep into the cords.
In the end, I realized I had no choice but to let her lead me and finish recharging here in the candy shop.
"H-hello," I managed.
My throat speaker trembled, my voice coming out laced with static,
while I arranged my face into a strained smile.
In that instant—
the shopkeeper's face, which had been sleeping behind the counter, twitched.
It looked human, and yet not.
Her sleeping expression slipped for a moment, lashes shivering as if a fine current had passed through.
Then, slowly, her lids opened.
From behind impossibly long eyelashes, deep black eyes fixed on me.
So beautiful they became uncanny—those eyes pierced straight through me.
Then her lips parted, slowly.
A voice unlike anything in Mars, Earth, or anywhere in the solar system.
A sound that made the air vibrate, stroking the insides of cells—sensual and perfect.
"Welcome—to the Human-Flesh Penny Candy Shop."