13. DIVE
Due to the polar bear, the car's speed dropped to a third of what it had been.
But the addition of this massive, adorable creature in the back brought a fresh breeze to what was becoming a monotonous drive, infusing it with a lively, buoyant energy.
As the speed decreased, the intense headwind we'd been ignoring subsided, and the oppressive heat returned. Sweat beaded on my skin, and exhaustion hit me hard, so I asked Jinri to take over.
"Can you drive for a bit?"
"Sure, got it," she replied.
As she gripped the steering wheel, Jinri looked at me with concern.
"You okay?"
I managed a wry smile but couldn't bring myself to say "I'm fine."
It would've been a lie.
Humanoid robots can't lie.
If we do, a massive electromagnetic noise would give us away to everyone around. In a humanoid robot society that values truth and curiosity above all, going against the truth risks exclusion. Not that I had any intention of lying anyway.
I tried to say honestly, "I have a bit of a headache," but before I could get the words out, a sharp pain stabbed through my head. Wondering why this was happening, I realized my scarf was no longer around my neck.
A chill ran through me.
Had it been blown out of the car while I was zoning out? Panicked, I looked around and, thankfully, found it still inside. More precisely, the polar bear had wrapped it around its own neck.
I glared at the bear, my headache too severe to speak, so my eyes did the talking. The bear, looking flustered, hurriedly scribbled on its sketchbook and held it up.
"Oh, sorry! You looked hot and uncomfortable, so I took it off for you!"
"…"
The headache was so intense that I was half-shut down, only able to stare at the bear. Misinterpreting my gaze as anger, it quickly flipped to a new page and wrote again.
"I mean, I'm naked, so it's embarrassing, right?"
Now you bring that up? I thought, but the thought alone worsened my headache, and I collapsed.
"Yura-kun!"
Jinri, shocked—no, outright panicked—tossed the steering wheel to the bear and rushed to my side to support me.
"The scarf…"
I barely managed to croak out the words. Jinri nodded firmly, snatched the scarf back from the bear, and swiftly wrapped it around my neck again.
But the headache didn't subside. Meanwhile, I felt the car shaking strangely. Looking up, I saw it veering out of its lane, swaying violently side to side. The polar bear, its white fur drenched in what was clearly nervous sweat, was gripping the wheel desperately.
"Hey, don't you have a license?!" Jinri snapped at the bear.
For the first time, the bear spoke directly.
"I'm a paper driver!"
"So that's why you were drinking Dr Pepper!"
"That's unrelated!"
The moment the bear shouted, the car veered off the road, careening toward the edge of the elevated highway.
It crashed hard into the guardrail, then slid off like a ski jumper, launching into the void.
The car was hurled into the air at tremendous speed, giving the sensation of flying.
Thanks to the panic and intense wind pressure, my headache eased momentarily, but the car soon began to plummet.
Being an open-top convertible, all three of us—Jinri, the bear, and I—were flung out of the car, tossed into the air.
As I fell backward toward a swirling corner of Tropical Night City's neon lights, I caught a glimpse of the polar bear writing something on its sketchbook mid-fall.
"DRIVE (×), DIVE (〇)"