Chapter 3

It’s been a week, I can finally hug Yuuta-kun…!

Guh—Aniki, can you maybe not fly at me full force?

But if you’d been just a few seconds slower, my Yuuta-kun Gauge would’ve dropped to zero and I’d have been all out of battery. So forgive me?

…Hug hug ☆

…… (puts his arms around Hinata)

Huh?! You’re actually hugging me back…? Wh–what’s that for?!

I’m surveying my enemy?

So you weren’t even doing it out of love?! Man, and you said such a disturbing thing like it was no big deal…

(…He’s probably been doing a little muscle training. But I don’t think his body mass has changed at all.)

(I doubt I’ll see much change over the course of a week, though. I’ll have to keep this feeling in mind for next week.)

…Okay, fully charged. Anyway, sorry to keep you waiting Anzu-san.

You look kind of surprised, Anzu-san. Sorry, I’m sure I’d be surprised if I saw us hug out of nowhere, too.

That’s not it? You’re more surprised it’s been a week since we saw each other?

Oh, we haven’t told you everything that’s going on recently, have we? We’ve actually been training separately…

But we still see each other at school and in the dorms and stuff even though it’s been a week—We’re doing work together, too.

It’s not like we’re fighting or anything… But we’re doing our own thing with training, so we’ve been keeping our distance. That’s all it is, so you don’t have to worry.

Yep yep. And we’ve been sharing our opinions and agreeing with each other too. We’re doing our best out here so we can keep growing. So everything’s peachy, Anzu-san.

That said, we asked you to meet here today because we’ve got a favor to ask you…

We hate to ask you to make our costumes for Chocolat Fes, but at the same time, we thought it’d be better if we got help from the people around us.

Trying to talk about this on our own just ended up as a flop every time… If we hit any more roadblocks, I don’t think we’ll make it in time for Chocolat Fes.

Oh yeah, by “getting help,” we mean in regards to our plans for Chocolat Fes.

So long story short, we still haven’t figured everything out. So we were hoping you’d take on the role of mediator and help us?

I sent you the note Aniki made with all the ideas we’ve had up to now, so if you could take a look at that…

Mm yeah, we’ve got the VP’s permission to use this equipment on stage. I think we can reuse it for both Chocolat Fests at school and at ES—

Wow~ Check this out, Yuuta-kun. Anzu-san’s taking all our ideas and mashing them into one.

…We won’t have to pick between them—we can get some use out of each of our ideas. I should be taking notes on this.

Anzu-san asked so many questions about why we came up with the ideas we did…

And then she incorporated bits of what we talked about in our answers and stuff. That’s a producer for you, seriously.

…Oh, is it hard for you to work when I’m peeking too much? Sorry Anzu-san, I was just curious.

You’ve done such impressive work on this, we couldn’t help wanting to stare.

You think we should have come to you sooner if we were stuck?

I mean, yeah… Communicate, contact, and consult are the three C’s of business, after all.¹

Hm? You were already prepared for this? What does that mean?

Whoa, what’s this? A plan for producing ES idols…?

Does that mean you’ve already thought about how you want to produce us? But like, you’re always so busy—When the heck did you get the time to make something like this?

In the middle of SS… Oh, that makes sense. You must have been planning it all out when you were with Gatekeeper, huh?

Even when you were stuck with Mr. Scary Face, you did your best for us… You’re so cool, Anzu-san. I think I’m falling in love ♪

Sorry you couldn’t talk about it with us even though you had it all ready. But we’d still love to hear whatever you came up with for 2wink—

…? You want to see what we come up with this time?

You’ve got that big smile on your face, so I’m guessing that means you’re looking forward to what we come up with…

That’s a lot to live up to though, right Yuuta-kun? It means she wants to see progress on the decisions we made on the issues that came up.

It’s all up to us from here on, then. Everything will depend on whether our choices were good or bad.

The pressure’s on…

But we’re totally gonna live it up at our Chocolat Fes performance, right?

That goes without saying. Anzu-san did such a good job putting things together, so we have to make sure to follow through.

The other problem areas are… Well, they’re fine for right now. I’m sure there’ll be things we need to talk to you about again, like production and stuff…

But for now, I’m just glad we could rely on you today. Now that we’re finally making decisions, I can concentrate more and more on my lessons.

It really is a lifesaver to have someone you can depend on and talk to. Then you’ve got people there to listen to you and lend you a hand.

That’s a pretty realistic way to put it. Where’d that come from?

Fu fu fu. It’s all thanks to the help of my super strong and super talented trainer—I’ve been making huge headway!

Once Chocolat Fes hits, I’m gonna be a brand new me for sure—

Wait, I shouldn’t be spilling the deets just yet ♪

You’re doing this on purpose. You just think you’ll get something out of me if you dangle that out in front of me.

I mean, Anzu-san wants to hear all about it too ☆

Don’t team up against me. Ugh, whatever…

I think I’m getting a lot tougher now, thanks to… a certain good-for-nothing.

I’m trying not to let his dirty language and sharp tongue affect me, but other than that I’ve actually been having a lot of fun.

Huh? Are you actually safe with a person like that? What’s this about dirty language? Should I be worried here?!

I dunno, maybe he’ll even tempt me over to the dark side or something~

Huh?! No no no, absolutely not! If that happens, Onii-chan is gonna come down there and tell off both you and that guy for real!

Ahaha, did that piss you off, Aniki? This is actually kinda fun… ♪