The Orphanage and the Vending Machine
Lammis and Shui have joined the children for playtime. They’re innocent and childlike in a way to begin with, so they seem to have a good affinity with kids; Lammis won them over in a matter of minutes.
Right now, the children are running away from my pressure-washer sprinkler. I’ve lowered the power quite a bit, so there is no danger. Just in case, though, Lammis is the one controlling it.
After getting tired out, the kids, still soaking wet, try to go into the house, but when they see Miss Director standing in front of the door with her arms crossed and a scary smile on her face, they freeze.
“And just where did you think you were going, dripping wet?”
“M-Miss Director!”
“Take off your clothes right now, put them into this basket, and go get in the bath.”
“O-okay.”
Withering under the director’s gaze, the children begin to remove their wet clothes. Lammis and Shui strip as well— Hey, wait a minute. Maybe there’s nobody watching, but you’re still outdoors. This is indecent for a young woman—is what I wanted to warn them about, but it looks like I jumped the gun. They only take off their socks and shoes.
In that case, I’ll provide the bath towels.
“Thanks, Boxxo. Shui, here’s one for you.”
“Gee, Boxxo, you’re so considerate. If you were a person, you’d be super-popular!”
“He’s popular already just how he is.”
As if to hide my embarrassment at their praise, I form change into the coin-operated fully automatic washer-dryer combination. I’m happy to receive compliments, but when they send their raw feelings flying directly at me, I feel weird—and a little nervous.
“Oh, this is the washing one, right? I’ll bring you inside.”
Lammis takes me into her arms and sets me up in a corner near the front door. Then she throws the dirty clothes and underwear inside and starts the washer.
“What in the world…?”
“Boxxo is a mysterious magic item that can change into all sorts of shapes. Pretty cool, huh?”
Shui puffs out her chest and brags as though it were her personal accomplishment. Next to her, Lammis nods in an exaggerated manner. The children’s eyes sparkle as they peer inside the spinning washing machine.
“Oh my. I don’t quite understand it, but it certainly is amazing. Magic items these days are so helpful.”
Miss Director’s response reminds me of an old-fashioned mother faced with the latest electronic device. She doesn’t get it, but if nothing else, she knows it’s amazing. Er, not that I’m amazing but that Japanese technology really is impressive.
“It’ll be finished washing soon, so let’s all get into the bath before then. Come on, if you don’t hurry, I’ll catch you and slurp you all up!”
“Waaaaah!”
Shui, while sticking her tongue out and waggling it up and down, chases the children around. The children shriek and flee, but they seem like they’re having fun.
If Shui were a man, this would 100 percent be a crime. Actually, even a woman would be out of the question if the children felt uncomfortable.
“If we want to wash our underwear, too, I guess we should bring Boxxo near the bathroom.”
“Welcome.”
You’re right. I’ll finish drying them in just ten minutes, so it should be done while you’re in the bath.
“Oh, wait. He’s heavy, so I wonder if he’ll break the floor.”
“In that case, if you would be so kind as to bring him around the back, you can put him behind the bathroom. There’s a back door.”
“Okay, then I’ll go around the outside and come in that way.”
Lammis hoists me onto her back, and we go around the outside wall until a door comes into sight. That must be the back door.
After she puts me down with my back against the wall, she quietly opens the door. On the other side is the changing room for the bath, packed full of half-naked and fully naked children.
Are they all going to get in at once? If they are, it must be a considerably large bathtub.
“Hey now, don’t fight it. You’re all in for a wash!”
Shui, naked as the day she was born, lifts up a small child and disappears into the bathroom. She has short-cut hair and favors food more than romance, but I guess she really is a girl.
“Ahh! There’s no water in the bath!”
“My, my. Who was on bath duty today, I wonder?”
Miss Director, who came to the changing room to see, puts a finger to her cheek and tilts her head. As the children look around at one another, wondering who it could be, two girls raise their hands and step forward.
“W-we’re sorry. We were playing with Shui, and we forgot.”
As they try to make themselves look small, Miss Director gently places her hands on their heads. They give a start, then look back up and meet her gaze.
“It’s not good that you forgot your chores, but thank you for being honest. Everyone makes mistakes. What’s important is not to lie about them but to admit to them and learn from them.”
With so many parents always scolding their kids without giving them a chance to say anything for themselves, it seems to me like it’s more natural to admonish them properly—and not all that difficult, besides.
Even among my friends and relatives, some yelled at their kids so much that I felt sorry for them, and I’ve tried, on numerous occasions, to tell them they didn’t have to get so mad. They’re better than parents who don’t get angry at all and leave things be, but it seemed like they overdid it at times… Still, I guess this is nothing I can get so high and mighty about when I was a single man who didn’t know anything about the hardships of raising kids.
“But what will we do now? It will take time to collect water and heat it with firewood. We’ll have to give up on baths for today.”
If they’re not taking a bath after getting so chilled from playing in the water earlier, I worry that they’ll catch a cold. I wonder if there’s anything I can do for them. Is there a feature of some kind?
“Oh, it looks like Boxxo’s done washing. I’ll take the clothes out.”
It looks like even the drying is finished. As Lammis takes the clean laundry out, I skim through my features list.
Nothing to do with baths, huh? Let’s see, it’ll take time to heat the water, so hot water… Oh, right. I could do that.
After making sure there’s no laundry left inside me, I do my third form change of the day—into a hot-spring vending machine.
As its name would suggest, this machine can automatically sell you a hot spring. It says so right here on my quadrangular prism body in Japanese: HOT-SPRING VENDING MACHINE. A hose comes out of the side, and it’s set up to give hot-spring water for two minutes for a hundred yen.
I’ve seen this vending machine once in a blue moon at hot-spring locations, and while I’ve used it before, the water cools off before getting back home, so you need to reheat it.
“That’s another shape I’ve never seen, Boxxo. How many different forms could you possibly have?”
I wonder how many there are. I’ve never taken the time to count, but I think just the ones I can change into number close to twenty.
“Um, this long thing is… If it’s like how the other things work, something comes out of here, right? And in this situation… I got it!”
Lately, most of the figuring out of how to use machines has fallen on Hulemy, but Lammis’s intuition is also quite impressive.
Hulemy tries to figure out my abilities based on the situation and my shape, but with Lammis, it’s like she reads my mind to understand—as though making assumptions based on my personality.
I honestly couldn’t be more grateful to Lammis for being so earnest with a mere vending machine.
She throws open the bathroom door and sticks the hose in the tub. Then she glances back at me with a wink— Is that a signal? All right, I’ll release all the spring water.
The hot water rushes out, and possibly thanks to my speed stat, it fills the tub within moments.
“Wow, awesome!”
“It’s a bath; it’s a bath!”
“Jump in!”
“Hey! It’s bath time, not playtime!”
The voices of the children and of Shui scolding them echo through the bathroom. I’ve finished my job of supplying the hot water, so I decide to change back into a washing machine and finish the rest of the laundry.
Lammis takes off all her clothes, too, and, from the sound of it, helps wash everyone in the bath.
“You’re Mr. Boxxo, correct? Thank you very much for this. You’ve helped us in so many ways.”
The next thing I know, Miss Director is standing right next to me.
I’m still not sure exactly how she feels about me, but she does bow her head deeply to a vending machine.
“Welcome.”
“Um, that’s an affirmative, right? I’ve been worried about Shui. She’s been brooding over something recently, but seeing her like this today puts me at ease. Please continue to take good care of her.”
What a benevolent person, to thank a mere vending machine and find it in herself to entrust Shui’s well-being to me. Although she’s acting nice, I’m really not used to situations like this—if I had a body, I’d be cringing.
Anyway, what could Shui be worried about when she has such a warm place to come home to? It probably takes a lot of funding to maintain an orphanage, so maybe she’s after money. Hmm. It would be rude to pry in a situation like this.
After laundry and baths, I end up treating everyone to dinner. Figuring everyone would like foods they’ve never had before, I provide frozen meal sets and cup ramen. The nutritional balance bothers me, though, so for dessert I give them fruits and crepes.
The floors in the cafeteria as well as the rooms are still of dubious durability, so they decide to keep me next to the front door of the orphanage. It’d be too risky to have me on the floorboards, after all.
I thought I’d have a moment to myself to relax while the kids ate, but they said I’d be lonely by myself, so they ended up bringing the chairs and tables outside to eat in the yard.
There are a lot of empty houses around this orphanage. They probably wouldn’t get that many complaints, even if they were rowdy. Immediately upon putting a forkful of food in their mouths, they shout their praise to the heavens.
“Don’t eat so fast, guys. The food’s not going anywhere.”
Shui briskly takes care of the kids’ needs. She’s playing the responsible older-sister role. I know how much of a heavy eater she is, but she’s putting her own meal last and prioritizing the kids.
The children’s clothing is all rather plain… No, I’m being too ambiguous. They’re all wearing shoddy clothing, and not one of them has much in the way of fat. Still, I can’t see any overly skinny ones, either, so it seems like they’re managing to eat enough food to survive.
Maybe I’ll give them some underwear, T-shirts, and towels later.
I could also donate money, but would it be right to accept charity from a vending machine? At times like this, I don’t know how much I should really be getting involved or how much to give. If I had the ability to talk normally, could I give aid without rubbing anyone the wrong way?
I’ve been thinking only of accumulating money in order to gain points, but when I look at these kids seeming so happy despite being in poverty, I start to feel like a bit of a lowlife.
“Your lights are blinking. Is something on your mind? Boxxo, you can just be Boxxo. You can afford to give everyone food for free and put smiles on their faces, right? You should be more confident in yourself.”
At some point, Lammis came over to stand next to me, and she offers me words that get right to the heart of what I was feeling concerned about as she smiles sweetly.
Lammis is incredible. She takes the time to understand what a mere vending machine who can’t speak is thinking, and she’s so considerate. I’m truly glad she was the one who found me.
And she’s right. I am me—and nothing more. I don’t intend to stop saving up money for points, but from now on, I’ll spare a thought for the world around me as well.
