1.1
The classroom after school on the same day.
The main members of the group gathered. They were Satō, Matsushita, Mii-chan, and Maezono. The only thing they had in common was that they were the planners of the maid café.
And then there was me and Horikita, for a total of six. After the initial presentation, meetings related to the maid café were mainly held via cell phone in order to prevent information leaks. Given the concept and scale of the maid café, the outdoor idea was crossed out first. In other words, the location of the café - a classroom - was fixed from the beginning, but we were still unsure about the location of the stall.
Students from other grades and classes came to scout out potential stand locations on a daily basis. We were trying to find the best place to open our booth. It would be more effective to include boys such as Yōsuke in the meeting, but unfortunately, they were busy with club activities at the moment.
As soon as we started moving, Matsushita looked at Horikita and I and asked…
“Hasebe-san and Miyake-kun, what will you do about them?”
“What do you mean, ‘what will I do?’”
“They come to school every day, but they don't want to talk to anyone. It means they keep antagonizing us, the whole class.”
“I'm sure it does. Well, I guess they’re mainly against me.”
Having her best friend Airi expelled from school, Haruka put up a big wall. Although she was now coming to school, she hadn't broken down that barrier.
“I think Hasebe-san is going to try to do something to the class in the future.”
I don't think Haruka told Matsushita directly, nor was she told through a third party. But looking at Haruka now and sensing that atmosphere, a person like Matsushita would’ve guessed. “That may be so, but it's also true that, so far, I haven't seen any problematic behavior. She's even participated in the meetings for the festival.”
Haruka knew about the maid café opening because she initially proposed the idea of a maid café. There was no reason not to include her in the group.
“Are you saying you condone revenge?”
“Of course not. I understand why she’s angry, but that doesn't mean I don't mind trouble brewing in class without good reason.”
Disturbance without extenuating circumstances, such as unavoidable special exams, is treated as a complete evil.
Horikita and I both strongly hoped Haruka would not go on a rampage.
“Yeah. But we're not in a situation where that kind of logic would work. It shouldn't take this long for her to recover.”
Matsushita repeatedly directed her gaze at me. She seemed to be trying to get a word out of me while keeping the leader, Horikita, on her toes. However, I wouldn't give my own opinion and remained silent at the time. It’s clear that Haruka was planning to take revenge for the expulsion of her best friend, but right now she was attending school, taking tests normally, and not doing a single thing to cause trouble for the class.
Even if we didn't know what would happen next, we couldn't question her at this stage.
“There's very little we can do in advance,” Horikita said, looking off into the distance. “Preaching to them to stop taking revenge will only get on their nerves. Just…”
“Just what?”
“If she's really looking for an opportunity for revenge, she certainly won't put it off for months.”
I agreed with that opinion. It was hard to imagine that she would continue to live her school life maturely for the next six months or even a year. In other words, the most critical time to be on the lookout was...
“I can't deny the possibility that she will do something at the festival.”
Matsushita nodded quietly, probably wanting to hear those words.
“I've heard from Ayanokōji-kun that Hasebe-san has no intention of working as a maid. So, I gave her and Miyake-kun a general role while letting them know what was going on. If we withhold information or exclude her from the group, it would be a blatant statement that we’re suspicious of her.”
If, by any chance, Horikita and the others did something that showed contempt for Haruka, even if she had no intention of taking revenge, it would be possible that the extinguished spark would start smoldering again.
“So you're saying you'll consider certain people on your side, but you'll avoid giving them important roles.”
“Yes. I figured I should do that just in case.”
Of course, she probably didn't have a strong concern about things getting out of control during the cultural festival. Still, as a leader, it was important to be ahead of the curve.
At the festival, many guests would be coming. If Horikita’s class got a bad reputation among the guests, it wouldn’t be surprising if we were penalized in some way.
“I know you're probably wondering about Haruka and the others, but we're about to arrive.”
Matsushita was so engrossed in the conversation that she didn't seem to notice that we were getting close to our destination. Many of the classes were still wondering where to set up their stalls for the event. You never knew where an important piece of information might be picked up unintentionally.
There were a total of eight classrooms that could be opened in the special building, which has three floors. We were currently on the third floor of the building, and the closer you were to the stairs by the entrance, the higher the cost to set up a stall. The third floor was the farthest away from the main gate and had the advantage of being the most cost-effective. The third floor could be rented for between 1,000 and 13,000 points, while the first floor could be rented for a flat rate of 50,000 points. The nearly 40,000 point difference could be used to purchase food and other necessities. The class was given a finite number of points, and it was inevitable that they’d have to worry about how much to allocate the cost of the stall location and how to come up with the money.
“It's a lot farther than I thought it would be.”
Mii-chan's first impression was still about the distance. I think we could all agree on that.
“What do you think, Satō-san?” Mii-chan asked Satō, who had not spoken up so far today, but she didn’t immediately respond. “Satō-san?”
Once again, this time looking up at us, Satō hurriedly replied.
“Oh, um. I was thinking... yeah, I guess I think it’s a little far away too.”
“I don't think all of us will be able to make the trip here unless we have a pretty good show.”
We didn't stay on the third floor for long, which was a lower priority, probably because our opinions were generally the same. Then we all came down one floor lower, to the second floor.
“I guess the second floor is better than the third floor! More to the point, the first floor would be ideal,” Maezono muttered as she looked at the view outside the window.
“Yes, that's true. But I guess the first floor is still pretty tough in terms of price.” Mii-chan stared at her cell phone and made a sour face. “But we should make a decision soon. It's getting pretty full.”
Matsushita took a peek at Mii-chan's cell phone and said, “That's right. Two of the five places we picked up are now occupied... However, there are still candidates from the first to the third floor, which I’d say is a bit of a problem.”
Would you take convenience and pay a large amount of points, or would you abandon convenience and settle for a low payment of points?
“I still think it should be on the first floor. If we can't get people to come up to the second floor because they are distracted by other exhibits, it's that much more of a disadvantage.”
“I think it doesn't really matter if it's on the second or third floor, as long as it makes people want to come.”
Maezono, Mii-chan, and Matsushita discussed which floor they should purchase. Satō, who was always high-spirited and often speaks even when she’s not heard, had been rather quiet since this morning. Her friends occasionally looked at her as if they were concerned, but she looked as if her mind was somewhere else.
“Sato-san has been like that lately.” Matsushita, noticing my concern, whispered over to me.
“Come to think of it, Satō hasn’t been particularly energetic the last few days.”
“I was curious if Ayanokōji-kun would know anything about that, but I guess not.”
I wondered if Matsushita thought I was some kind of Satō whisperer or something. Or maybe she was anticipating Kei's closeness with Satō, but either way, I didn't know much.
“She doesn't seem to be in bad shape, and I asked her if she had any problems, but she didn't say anything definite.”
“Sometimes people just want to be left alone, don't they?”
“Yes, I guess. But what can I say, I don't think that's the case this time.”
“What do you mean?”
Matsushita, who was biting down on her lip, continued without cutting off the conversation, as if she had an idea of what she was talking about.
“It's like she wants to talk but can't. She's the type of person who keeps things inside.”
After a year and a half of friendship, I wondered how she could even tell that.
“You don't just keep it bottled up inside and that's the end of it, right?”
“That's, well... She can usually talk to me about it.”
“Then I guess we'll have to wait and see for a while longer. If your understanding is correct, I'm sure she’ll come to you for advice at some point.”
“Maybe when....”
Matsushita was a little unclear, but since this kind of long conversation was not possible in Satō's vicinity, Matsushita stopped talking. The fact that the sky's the limit was a bit of a concern, but for now, the priority was to decide where to open the stall.
It was time to finalize and move on to the next stage. Just as we were about to finish our inspection of the second floor and move on to the last floor, we were met by another group.
“Yo, Ayanokōji. Are you also looking for a place to open a stand for the festival?”
It was Hashimoto, a member of the 2nd-year Class A, who called out to us. Shortly thereafter, the leader of the group, Sakayanagi, along with Kamuro, also showed up. With all three of them moving at the same time, surely they weren’t just out for a light stroll.
“Well, I’m not sure. They may have already decided, or they may not have even decided whether to go indoors or outdoors.”
“No decision? That's an obvious lie. Are you telling me that you're taking Horikita all the way out to the special building to roam around for no reason? Please tell me what kind of show you're going to put on.”
Sakayanagi didn't join in the conversation, but watched on with a wry smile on her face.
“It's no use asking him. He's not in a position to know everything about the class.” Unable to listen in silence, Horikita intervened.
“Then you mean he's simply enjoying his harem?”
He pointed out that I’m the only male of the six and asked Kamuro to agree.
“You must be similar, Hashimoto-kun. Sakayanagi-san and Kamuro-san. You are the only boy, even if the number of people is different. I wonder if it's because you're aware of that that you're making strange comments?”
Horikita showed a relaxed response by daring to reply on the same level.
It was a form of getting one over on him, but that didn't help against Hashimoto.
Rather, he would change the subject as if the current conversation never took place.
“Satō, you've been spending a lot of time with people like Matsushita, Wang and Maezono.” Hashimoto turned his attention to the four maid café inventors.
The three of them were bracing themselves, but Matsushita stepped forward, looking the same as usual.
“Don't try to get anything out of us.”
“I hope you've understood by now.”
The two girls bit down hard on Hashimoto as Matsushita joined Horikita's glare.
“I didn't mean it like that. It's just...”
The others began to feel uneasy at the implied tone of his words.
“Oops, any more than that would be superfluous?” Grinning, Hashimoto looked at Sakayanagi for the first time since they had arrived.
You don't mind if I talk, do you? he seemed to be asking.
“You appear to want to say something, Hashimoto-kun.” Matsushita, who was standing there protecting the three girls, asked in a slightly irritated tone.
As if he’d been waiting for the question, his eloquent and verbose tone became more animated.
“I'm worried about your class, my friend. It seems that you have teamed up with... Ryūen for the sports festival, but do you think you can trust him forever?
“What do you mean?”
“I just thought you were going to team up with Ryūen again. If you are going to team up with him, be careful,” he said, as if he had the heart of an old woman.
Matsushita must have sensed the implications behind his words. She was tempted to ask him if he knew anything about it, but she held her ground.
“We're in a hurry, and I don't think we can play word games forever, you know? Everyone? ” She turned around and asked the girls and I.
“Right. Let's get going, we're wasting time talking to him here.”
“She doesn't like you, does she?” Kamuro said, playing with the bad atmosphere in the room. Hashimoto let out a deliberate sigh.
“Maybe. I'm just asking for some reasoning... Anyways, good luck with that.” In the end, Sakayanagi didn’t say anything and went into the class we watched earlier.
“That was a little scary...”
Mii-chan, relieved and patting her chest, murmured to Satō, who was standing to her left.
“Huh? Oh, um, yeah. A little bit.”
Whether she heard her or not, Satō's attitude was unnatural here as well.
“Anyway, let's move.”
“Nothing’s out of the ordinary. He pretended to be on our side, but he's not afraid to stab us in the back.”
“A sports festival is a sports festival, a cultural festival is a cultural festival. In the end, there are competitions in which our competitors are from other classes. Sakayanagi's class is an enemy to be defeated, as well as Ryūen's class. You wouldn't trust them, would you?”
If we stood around here, we would soon run into Class A again. We all wanted to avoid that, so we decided to look for another potential location.
“Hashimoto-kun said something earlier, did you guys catch it?” Maezono says crisply.
In the process of preparing for the maid café, Horikita and I informed only one member about the deal with Ryūen ahead of time. They must’ve felt uneasy after being shaken up.
“It's a certainty that we’ll cooperate with Ryūen-kun's class in the upcoming cultural festival, right?”
“Yes. When we cooperated with each other at the sports festival, we also talked about working together during the cultural festival.”
The content of the two classes' presentations shouldn’t be similar to each other. Avoid similar or competing stalls in terms of location. The two parties should be able to efficiently exchange staff, temporarily loan out staff, and follow up on each other's work. Agreements to prepare for unforeseen circumstances, even if they’re only minor arrangements.
“I didn't care so much about it during the sports festival because it went well, but when they said something like that, I couldn't help but feel uneasy... Are you sure you're okay with trusting them?”
“It's true that it's difficult to trust Ryūen-kun personally. That's why I put Katsuragi-kun in between the two of us. I'm sure It'll be fine.”
“I want to believe you too. But didn't Hashimoto-kun seem to know something?”
“Yes, I felt it too. Even if he doesn't betray you, isn't it conceivable that the cooperation was leaked?”
“The ones who know are myself and Ayanokōji-kun. Then there are the four of you who started the maid café. In Ryūen's class, there’s Katsuragi. He may have told other important classmates, but I don't see the benefit of leaking it.”
Horikita explained to them that it was improbable for the information to be leaked.
“I agree with Horikita. I don't think they expected Horikita and Ryūen to team up to beat Class A after the sports festival incident. I'm just wary that the next one will be like that. There may be similar contacts and probes in the future, but you shouldn't worry about it,” I casually followed up.
“Yeah, right. I understand.”
Maezono and Mii-chan nodded their heads, and Matsushita and Satō reassured me again.
Afterwards, we returned to the classroom and gathered to make a final decision.
“I think we're going to take a majority vote among the members here on where we're going to open the café. Is that okay?”
“What if the opinions are evenly split?”
“We'll figure that out then. Let's try it once first. Rock for first floor, paper for second floor, and scissors for third floor. Okay?”
Mii-chan recited it in a whisper, perhaps to avoid confusion, and then looked at her palm.
“Here we go.”
The six of us, including me, simultaneously expressed our desired floor with our hands. At first glance, it's a clear decision. The result was four “rocks”, two “papers”, and zero “scissors”.
The third floor was eliminated because of the time and effort required to move to the third floor. I chose paper in order to reduce the initial cost, but it would not be a bad choice to choose the first floor for its convenience. The other paper was Matsushita.
Anyway, this was a step forward as the application for the first floor had been decided.
“I'll apply right away. There are still a lot of classes that are waiting to see what happens, and it would be troublesome if they were taken.”
Using her cell phone, Horikita immediately began working on an application to hold the ground floor.
“So, are we done for the day?”
“No, I have something to tell you first.”
I had been gathering information about maid cafés until recently. I should probably mention that the main target of maid cafés is men. There were many families among the festival's guests, but basically, male customers were the main target.
“I don't think there won’t be any female customers, but in terms of ratio, there’ll be a considerable difference.”
This was what anyone would imagine, without having to do any research.
“I heard that there are butler cafés in the world, the opposite of maid cafés. The butler isn’t a girl, but a dressed up man.”
Matsushita and the others, perhaps not having heard this information before, were surprised and impressed.
“Maids and butlers are both a type of concept café.”
“You know a lot too, Horikita.”
“I'll at least gather information. You can decide if it's useful or not after you learn it.”
I should say that was as good as it gets.
“Then let's move on. The most important and indispensable thing is cleanliness. I think we should take that into consideration as well as the floors in holding the classes in the special building.”
Each classroom was used very differently compared to other rooms.
“Floors, walls, ceilings, and other chairs also vary a bit in damage due to age. I'd like you to check that as well so that you don't miss anything.”
“That's important. Even if we do some cleaning ourselves, there are some things we can't cover up. The cleaner it is, the better it will be for the store.”
Everyone here agreed and began looking around the classroom again. The consciousness that had previously been directed solely toward convenience and the outside landscape would begin to change.
“And also about the uniforms, we shouldn't push the eroticism too blatantly.” “Eh?! What did you say?” Horikita looked shocked.
“Eroticism. Eros and eroticism have been seen as important elements in art since ancient times. Showing underwear and the like is out of the question, but it’s important, however, not to refuse the hope that it might be visible.”
Horikita probably wasn’t able to get her head around that point.
“Ayanokōji-kun… Aren't you awfully knowledgeable?”
“Since I'm in charge of running the maid café, of course I can't cut corners. I studied to be as helpful as possible.”
It was also reassuring to know that there were several students in the class who were very knowledgeable about this kind of topic. Of course, I avoided mentioning that Horikita's class was going to have a maid café, and approached them on the assumption that I was personally interested. It was a little distressing, though, that some of the students who mistakenly thought I awakened as an otaku offered me an unusual degree of hospitality and instruction, saying that they wouldn’t mind receiving nothing in return if it would increase the number of like-minded people in the class.
“May I continue?”
“Umm, yes, go ahead...”
No one seemed to stop me, so I was allowed to talk about what it was like to be a maid for a while after that. It was important for those of us who actually wear maid's uniforms to understand this. It would also be possible to respond to customers in a conscious way.
“I also thought about a sales strategy. In addition to providing food and drinks, we’ll sell the right to take pictures, called Cheki. Using a specialized camera, the price would be 800 points for a photo of one maid. For a photo session with a customer, the price would be 1,200 points. In order to reduce costs, I suggested using a printer to print out the photos after taking them with a cell phone, but the Professor, who taught me this, rejected the idea. He said, ‘If you neglect quality for the sake of profit, no one will pay attention to you.’”
If we made the most of it, the photo sales could be as good as the food sales.
“But you have to worry about holding film inventory, don't you?”
“No, I'm bullish on the film. We have a plan to sell out. The condition, of course, is that we don't release the photos. Also, under Horikita's leadership, the boys have begun setting up a food stall, but the food here should also be linked to the maid café.”
When I finished speaking, Horikita coughed after a moment of silence.
“The competition for restaurants will inevitably be high as there are signs of multiple booths, including the other grades. So we'll specialize in snacks while keeping our prices low.”
“That won’t make us that much money, will it?”
“It’s essential we use it as a stepping stone to our main goal, the maid café. We can reduce the price of the tickets for one drink, which can then be used at the maid café for those who purchased said ticket.”
We needed to make people aware of the maid café and then get them to come to the special building when the time comes.
In short, it was an effective advertisement strategy.
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