Watame, a face you can trust
766hololive's Tsunomaki Watame makes faces.
Original stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShpEaJVaPew
@TsunomakiWatame
Two months had passed since Blue-eyes White Dragon, Officer Oozora’s goldfish, had died. The day she flushed him down the toilet was the saddest day of her life. And when she closed the lid of the loo, she closed the door to her heart. Gone was her gusto for law enforcement. Her once beloved Yu-Gi-Oh cards lay scattered across the floor of her room like the pale skeletons of sand dollars. She drifted through life like a ghost. Sometimes she even passed through solid walls, so great was her grief. On her darkest days, she wished it had been her that was flushed down that toilet.
Officer Oozora, tucked into her grey trench coat like a troubled protagonist from an Albert Camus novel, had no recollection of wandering into this part of town. It had been her habit since the incident to haunt graveyards and abandoned churches. Imagine her surprise, then, when she found herself standing before a buzzing pink neon marquis that read ‘Koyori’s Experimental Pet Emporium’. In the window, like the Golden Fleece of myth, was a sheep radiating pale sunlight and good vibes in general. One smile from the lambchop on display and Officer Oozora was inside the store, screaming for the cashier and throwing the contents of her wallet on the counter.
From the back of the store, a pink-haired coyote wearing a jetpack, knee pads, elbow pads, and welder’s goggles, came waddling out. “Welcome to Koyori’s Experimental Pet Emporium!”
“That sheep!” gasped Officer Oozora. “Please. I’ll pay anything. I’ll GIVE anything. Just…” Her voice cracked and she choked down the lump in her throat. “I need some sunshine in my life.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said the coyote. She reached out an put a hand on one of Officer Oozora’s. “You can have her.” She lifted her goggles and smiled. “On one condition.”
“What condition?”
“You have to watch me do a sick flip. I built a homemade loop-de-loop in the lot behind the building. I’m really good at skateboarding but no one believes me.” Her face lit up and she bared her fangs in a manic grin. “Will you witness me?”
Officer Oozora wasn’t sure if she was serious. But when she saw the plywood and pig iron monstrosity lurking out back, she knew she was serious. “How easily do you think an ambulance could get back here?”
The coyote, having just finished pasting flame decals onto her helmet, gave her a quizzical look. “That’s a strange question. What does an ambulance have to do with rocket-propelled skateboarding on a home-made loop-de-loop?”
“What if you get hurt?”
The coyote scoffed. “I’m wearing kneepads.”
There was nothing Officer Oozora could say to that.
“Okay, time to test some hypotheses!” The coyote lowered the visor of her helmet over her goggles. “Premise number one: Check this shit out.” She stomped on the end of her skateboard, and it jumped up and cracked against the side of her knee where there was no padding. “Oh, God!” she screamed, going down in a heap. “My knee!”
Officer Oozora rushed over and knelt by her. “Are you okay?”
“Call an ambulance!” wailed the coyote.
Officer Oozora jumped to her feet and fumbled for her phone. Before she punched in the number, her fingers froze. Her eyes slid down on the shopkeeper. “What about our deal?”
“Deal?”
“Do I still get the sheep?”
“Did you see me do a flip!?”
“No.”
“Then no sheep!”
Officer Oozora’s face darkened. She let down the phone.
“What’re you doing?” cried the coyote, shrieking like a mandrake root pried from the soil. “My patella is in pieces! I need medical attention!”
An itch on the back of her neck brought Officer Oozora’s head around. Standing in the doorway of the rear entrance to the shop was the sheep. She smiled at the Officer. The Officer smiled back. “You said it yourself,” she said, turning to look down on the coyote. “All I need is to see you do a flip.”
Immediately, the coyote stopped caterwauling. She went perfectly still like a fawn trying to hide from a bear. When the Officer lunged for her, she screamed and tried to scamper away on her hands and knees. In the space of a moment, the Officer was on her like an eagle on a turtle. Despite the thrashing, clawing, and rolling of the melee, she managed to flip the ignition switch of the jet pack. Twin blue flames gushed from the nozzles with a crackling woosh. The coyote was rocketed out from under her, scraping the concrete with her helmet, creating a rooster tail of sparks. She hit the ramp at Mach 5, completed the loop in the blink of an eye and was launched into the featureless blue sky. The Officer watched and listened as her high-pitched scream became little more than the buzzing of a mosquito, then nothing.
She turned around. The sheep was watching. Smiling.
Always smiling.
https://ko-fi.com/mapleleaftranslations