PA-ko swallowed the ice cream in her mouth and explained.
"Seika's with Nijika today — something about an event at her school."
"Nayotake-senpai's got her shift at the convenience store today."
Tsushima Kagami nodded.
Then he pointed at the sweat still clinging to their temples.
"So what's the story with this mascot-costume flyer job? In this weather, that can't be easy."
At that, Hiroi Kikuri's expression turned faintly complicated.
She set down her spoon, licked a bit of cream from the corner of her mouth, and put on a thoughtful look.
"Actually..."
She paused.
"It's because of what happened at the amusement park last time..."
"Hm?"
"You were there too, senpai, weren't you? At the amusement park."
Hiroi Kikuri's voice dropped without her meaning it to.
"We were wearing mascot costumes back then too... the bear ones."
PA-ko picked up the thread.
"After that, we just kind of felt... um..."
"How do I put it — a little addicted, maybe?"
Hiroi Kikuri nodded emphatically.
"Yes, yes! Exactly, addicted!"
"Once I put the costume on, the whole world felt different!"
Her eyes shone as she said it, like a kid showing off her favorite toy.
"Normally, when I'm walking down the street, I always feel like everyone's watching me..."
"That kind of... um... scrutiny?"
"Right, scrutiny."
Hiroi Kikuri struggled to find the words.
"But once I've got the costume on, it's completely different!"
"Nobody can see my face. All they see is the mascot."
"When they smile at me, when they play along, it's not because of who I am — it's because I'm a cute mascot!"
"Yeah."
PA-ko took over, her tone much lighter than Kikuri's.
"Ever since last time, it's just felt different somehow."
"So when Kikuri and I were looking for part-time work and saw this job posted, we took it again."
Once she'd said it, PA-ko smiled without quite meaning to.
But no sooner had she finished than both their expressions froze.
They exchanged a glance, then both turned to look at Tsushima Kagami at once.
There was a careful, apologetic look in their eyes.
They'd just remembered that the amusement-park incident probably wasn't a happy memory for Tsushima Kagami.
Even though the two of them, together with Nayotake-senpai, had actually had a pretty good time in their bear costumes selling things and playing with the kids.
"Um... senpai, we didn't mean to bring it up..."
"It's fine."
Tsushima Kagami cut off Hiroi Kikuri's apology.
That was in the past now, and honestly —
watching the three of them clumsily entertain the kids in their mascot costumes had actually been pretty entertaining.
It was just that the mood back then hadn't been great — too many things piled up at once — so he hadn't been able to properly enjoy it.
Seeing the apologetic looks the two of them gave him, Tsushima Kagami just smiled and said nothing more.
Hearing them explain it, Tsushima Kagami actually understood a little why they liked this kind of work.
Hiroi Kikuri was still something of a shut-in when it came to socializing.
Normally she couldn't even meet someone's eyes when talking to them, and in crowded places her shoulders would hunch up without her noticing.
If a conversation went on past three minutes, she'd start nervously twisting the hem of her shirt.
But once she put on the mascot costume, it was as if she'd donned a mask, and she relaxed completely.
She could interact with kids, strike all sorts of exaggerated poses, and even stop passersby to hand out flyers on her own initiative.
That feeling of being 'protected by a shell' was, for her, probably a rare kind of freedom.
The thought brought an image to Tsushima Kagami's mind, unbidden.
He genuinely couldn't imagine how she'd eventually evolve into that shameless, endlessly extroverted Hiroi Kikuri — the one who'd forever wear a loud, matronly dress with a jacket thrown over it and wooden geta, and who, even stone sober, would happily mooch food, drink, and bathwater off total strangers.
It was almost impossible to reconcile with the girl in front of him now, who couldn't even raise her voice.
He had no idea what she'd go through to pull off a transformation like that.
Tsushima Kagami mused on it quietly for a moment, then turned his attention to PA-ko.
He remembered that, in the original anime, her other identity was an inner performer.
So it made perfect sense that she'd taken a liking to this mascot-costume flyer job.
Wasn't this basically being a 'skin-suit' performer, in the physical sense?
One was a virtual avatar, the other a physical costume.
Fundamentally, they amounted to the same thing.
"So this job — you two found it yourselves?"
"Yep!"
Hiroi Kikuri looked up and nodded hard.
"We saw a mascot-costume flyer job and thought we'd give it a try."
"Then we completely forgot how hot Tokyo gets at the end of May..."
Her voice trailed off by the end, dwindling into a sheepish mutter.
"Standing under the sun in a mascot costume, I felt like a walking steamer basket."
PA-ko burst out laughing beside her.
"What steamer basket — you were basically a roasted sweet potato."
"PA-ko, that's so mean!"
Hiroi Kikuri puffed out her cheeks in mock anger.
"How do I look anything like a sweet potato!"
"Round, plump, and steaming — you don't think so?"
"Wah..."
The three of them ate their ice cream quietly for a while.
Hiroi Kikuri finished fastest, demolishing her parfait in no time flat.
In the end she even scraped the chocolate sauce off the sides of the glass with her spoon.
She set the spoon down, content, and patted her stomach.
"Ahh... I feel like I've come back to life."
"Thank you for the treat, senpai."
PA-ko said with a smile.
Watching them, Tsushima Kagami suddenly asked.
"You two are working this hard — is there something specific you're saving up for?"
The question made Hiroi Kikuri's expression change in an instant.
"Ah! Right!"
She suddenly bent down, digging through the tote bag at her feet.
"Wait, senpai, hang on..."
The tote bag was stuffed with unfinished flyers and a scatter of personal odds and ends.
A wallet, a phone, a sweat towel, a packet of tissues.
Hiroi Kikuri rummaged for quite a while before pulling a neatly folded flyer out from the very bottom.
She held it out to Tsushima Kagami as if presenting a treasure.
"Look at this, senpai!"
Tsushima Kagami took it and unfolded it.
It was a color-printed flyer, clearly handled many times over — the fold lines had gone pale from wear.
The heading on the flyer read:
Tokyo Livehouse Touring Competition — Summer Round!
Below it were printed the competition's dates, venue, and entry rules,
along with the prizes and cash awards for the winners.
"Tokyo Livehouse Touring Competition?"
Tsushima Kagami read it aloud.
"Yeah!"
Hiroi Kikuri nodded vigorously.
"We're going to enter this competition!"
Saying it, she seemed to become an entirely different person.
The usual soft-spoken, easily-flustered shut-in was nowhere to be seen.
In her face now was a resolve Tsushima Kagami had never seen there before.
"So the reason you're working part-time is..."
PA-ko, beside her, picked up the thread.
"We want to save up enough to replace some parts on our instruments."
Hiroi Kikuri added quietly.
"And there's the venue fee, transportation, and so on — added up, it's actually quite a bit short..."
Her voice trailed off again as she spoke, as if she worried saying so much would come across as a burden.
Tsushima Kagami looked at the flyer in his hand, then folded it back up and handed it to Hiroi Kikuri.
"That's good."
He leaned back against the sofa, looking at the two of them.
"A band with a goal like that, all pulling in the same direction — that's youth for you!"
"Senpai, please don't talk like some old man."
PA-ko said with a laugh.
"...?"
"Did that just now sound like an old man?"
Tsushima Kagami turned a questioning look on Hiroi Kikuri.
She ducked her head a little and pinched two fingers together, just slightly apart.
"Just a little, maybe."
"Well then, this old man is going to work you two into the ground!"
"Hiroi Kikuri!"
"Present!"
Hiroi Kikuri shot to her feet, standing at rigid attention.
"How many songs have you written so far?"
"Quite a f—"
Hiroi Kikuri glanced instinctively at PA-ko beside her.
PA-ko only pressed a hand to her mouth and laughed softly.
"Ahaha."
"It's just that lately I've spent all my time on the part-time job, so—"
"You haven't even written any songs — what competition do you think you're entering!"
Tsushima Kagami suddenly barked, sharp and stern.
Huh — was scolding a junior this satisfying?
Especially one with this particular shut-in temperament.
Hiroi Kikuri immediately hunched her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut,
not daring to say another word.
Tsushima Kagami glanced at PA-ko, then his expression softened into an easy smile.
"All right — if you run into trouble with the songwriting, come find me anytime."
"As for funding, I'm sure Shizuka will help out, so I won't worry about that."
"Really?!"
Hiroi Kikuri's eyes, squeezed shut like an ostrich's a moment ago, snapped open wide,
as if she'd just heard the most tremendous news.
"Yeah, really."
"Senpai, you're the best! Such a good person! Best senpai ever!"
Hiroi Kikuri got so excited she nearly bounced off the sofa, until PA-ko grabbed her by the shoulder and held her down.
"Calm down, Kikuri — we're in public."
PA-ko murmured a reminder.
"But I can't help it!"
Hiroi Kikuri's voice had gone up a pitch, brimming with excitement she couldn't hold back.
Well — when it came to songwriting, at least,
Hiroi Kikuri showed the faintest hint of extroversion after all.
PA-ko let out a helpless sigh, then turned to Tsushima Kagami with a faint smile on her lips.
"Thank you, senpai."
Tsushima Kagami waved a hand.
Just then —
a figure caught the edge of his vision.
Inside the café,
most of the booths along the window sat empty; only a scattering of customers occupied the corner seats against the wall.
A middle-aged office worker reading manga, a high school girl doing homework with headphones on, and one more...
Tsushima Kagami noticed him.
At first he hadn't paid much attention — just a glance from the corner of his eye told him the man's clothes looked a little... hmm... how to put it.
Not really the style you'd expect from a Japanese person.
The man sat three or four booths away, wearing a white T-shirt,
printed across the chest with some anime character Tsushima Kagami couldn't name.
He wore dark khaki cargo pants, with two large paper bags set by his feet.
Through the bags, one could clearly see them stuffed with doujinshi, anime merchandise, figures, wall scrolls —
a little of everything, nothing missing.
Beside the bags sat a backpack bulging at the seams.
Its zippers were hung with all manner of bishoujo charms,
at least a dozen of them, packed close together.
They'd probably jingle with a bright clatter whenever he walked.
The man himself was tall, easily one hundred eighty-five centimeters by the look of it,
broad-shouldered, his height and build obvious even seated.
His hair was a dark brown, faintly curled, falling loosely over his forehead.
He held a magazine in his hands, head bowed over it.
Tsushima Kagami looked away and thought nothing more of it.
In a place like Tokyo, you could run into all sorts of strange people.
A foreigner dressed like an otaku, buying doujinshi and merchandise here — nothing more normal than that.
He went ahead and ordered a steak and a slice of cake.
Since it was already mealtime anyway, he figured he might as well make it lunch too.
He'd already told Shizuka beforehand that he'd run into Hiroi Kikuri and PA-ko and planned to treat them to something to eat.
And so the three of them ate and chatted.
A few minutes later,
Tsushima Kagami noticed the man move.
He closed the magazine, picked up his drink, rose from his booth, and —
took an empty seat two booths away from them.
Tsushima Kagami's brow furrowed slightly.
Once seated, the man went back to reading his magazine, his expression unchanged.
His movements looked entirely natural, as if he'd simply changed seats for no particular reason.
Maybe the air conditioning wasn't cool enough over there, Tsushima Kagami thought.
Before long,
the man moved again.
He switched booths once more, closer this time,
leaving just one empty booth between them, diagonally across from Tsushima Kagami.
Tsushima Kagami began to feel something was off.
Using a moment when he bowed his head, he studied the man carefully out of the corner of his eye.
The man kept his eyes on the magazine, occasionally glancing up in their direction.
He's watching us.
Tsushima Kagami's read on it wasn't wrong.
The man was confirming something.
About two minutes later,
the man changed seats a third time.
This time he moved straight to the booth right beside Tsushima Kagami's.
Only a half-height partition separated the two booths — close enough to reach across.
Tsushima Kagami could clearly make out his sharply defined profile,
a high, straight nose, lashes tilted faintly upward, thin lips, a jawline cut with clean, angular lines.
Even behind sunglasses, it was plain he was a rather handsome Westerner.
Yes — the man was wearing sunglasses even indoors.
By now, Hiroi Kikuri and PA-ko had noticed too.
Hiroi Kikuri glanced at him first, curious,
then leaned in close to Tsushima Kagami and asked in a lowered voice.
"Senpai... hasn't that man been getting closer to us this whole time?"
"You noticed too?"
Tsushima Kagami asked.
"Yeah... I'm not great with people, but I can still tell when someone's staring at us."
Her voice grew smaller and smaller as she spoke, until it was barely more than a breath.
PA-ko said nothing, only watching the man silently, wariness in her eyes.
After all, it wasn't unusual for Tsushima Kagami to be recognized by fans on the street and suddenly asked for an autograph.
But she also knew that sometimes there were unpleasant anti-fans out there, the kind who'd do something hurtful or vile.
She'd seen plenty of that from anti-fans targeting bands at livehouses too.
Just then —
the man moved again.
He closed the magazine in his hands, stood, picked up his drink, and walked over to Tsushima Kagami's booth with perfect ease.
Then, quite unabashedly, as naturally as could be, he sat down right beside Tsushima Kagami.
Hiroi Kikuri's eyes went wide, and she instinctively shrank closer to PA-ko.
PA-ko tensed slightly.
Tsushima Kagami, though, stayed calm.
He looked at the man, waiting for him to speak first.
The man set the magazine down.
Tsushima Kagami glanced at the cover and froze for a second.
It was AERA.
The person printed on the cover was himself —
the same photo from when AERA had interviewed him last time.
After setting the magazine down, the man reached up and took off his sunglasses.
Behind them was a pair of emerald-green eyes.
Those eyes were bright with amusement now, fixed on Tsushima Kagami.
Then the man spoke,
in Japanese, unhurried, his pronunciation as crisp and standard as an NHK announcer's.
"Excuse me — are you Mr. Tsushima?"
Tsushima Kagami didn't answer right away.
He looked at the man, then turned the question around.
"Sir, I don't recall having a friend of Western appearance."
Far from looking embarrassed at that, the man laughed.
His smile was genuine, the corners of his eyes crinkling, those emerald eyes brimming with mirth.
"You will soon."
With that, he reached over to the AERA magazine on the table and tapped his index finger against Tsushima Kagami's photo on the cover.
"I'm glad we're about to become friends."
The man smiled, gave a small shrug, and held out his hand.
"My name is Gaston."
"Gaston de Noailles."
Gaston de Noailles.
Twenty-seven years old.
A graduate of Oxford University's management program.
After graduating, he'd gone to work at France's most prestigious literary publisher — Éditions Gallimard,
one of Europe's three largest publishing houses.
Young as he looked, he was already the manager of Gallimard's rights and licensing department, and a senior editor besides.
He'd been a literature enthusiast since university.
His interest in Japanese literature had begun under the influence of a Japanese exchange-student roommate.
That roommate had been a true literary soul, and had led Gaston through plenty of modern and contemporary Japanese literature.
Gaston had fallen in love with it, and had even taught himself Japanese because of it.
Besides literature, his other passion was the ACG culture that had risen in Japan in recent years.
One of the main reasons for this trip to Japan was to negotiate with Shinchosha's rights department over European and North American publishing rights for the recently red-hot The Sound of Waves.
In recent years, as Japanese publishers had started setting up rights offices in Europe and North America, more and more excellent works had reached Western audiences — not only the well-known manga and anime, but pure literature and popular fiction as well.
Ever since Kodansha had pushed hard to launch Tsushima Kagami's Hear the Wind Sing trilogy overseas, it had done fairly well in Western markets.
Its distinctive prose style had given European and American readers something entirely new.
Tsushima Kagami himself had no idea his Hear the Wind Sing trilogy had already broken into the Western market.
More and more Western readers were coming to know this seventeen-year-old master of Eastern letters.
Gaston himself had noticed the book the moment it was released, and once he'd read it, he'd been unable to stop.
He'd looked into Tsushima Kagami's background and learned that the author also had major literary works to his name — The Setting Sun, No Longer Human, and Kokoro.
Eager, he'd gotten his hands on a French edition of The Setting Sun, licensed and published through Shinchosha.
He'd read through it frowning nearly the whole way, and afterward had gone out of his way to have someone mail him the original Japanese editions of The Setting Sun and several other works.
After finishing the Japanese edition of The Setting Sun, his first thought was that the French translation had been terrible.
It hadn't captured a shred of the original's style or feeling — honestly, a lot of the phrasing and word choices had made no sense at all.
That was probably part of why The Setting Sun hadn't sold well in Europe.
Once Shinchosha learned of this, they'd held off on licensing any further works for publication.
After all, they had no desire to see their own IP butchered like that.
Shinchosha and Kodansha were simply different kinds of companies.
Shinchosha had always focused on domestic distribution, while Kodansha had begun expanding overseas back in the 1990s and had built its own foreign headquarters.
One side could only license out to foreign publishers; the other had its own distribution arm, effectively developing its overseas IP in-house.
There was simply no comparison, whether in marketing muscle or fidelity of translation.
By the time Gaston had finished The Setting Sun, No Longer Human, Kokoro, and the latest, The Sound of Waves, all sent by his friend,
he'd seen the commercial value in this young man's work and could already picture the storm it would stir up in Europe and America.
So, as the manager of the rights department, he'd decided to come to Japan himself and hash out the licensing terms with Shinchosha in person.
Today, having finally settled the licensing terms, he hadn't stayed to sign the contract himself, leaving that to a colleague traveling with him instead.
Instead, he'd spent the day wandering Tokyo, buying up a fair pile of doujinshi, anime merchandise, and figures.
While picking up magazines at a convenience store, he'd grabbed a copy of AERA with Tsushima Kagami on the cover, almost as an afterthought.
Then, feeling tired, he'd found a manga café to rest in while reading the magazine's profile of Tsushima Kagami.
Quite by chance, he'd caught sight of a young man sitting nearby with two girls — and realized the boy looked remarkably like the man on the magazine's cover.
So he'd quietly slipped into an empty booth nearby, glancing between the boy and the magazine cover.
Hm. Very similar.
Then he'd moved to an even closer booth, checking again — the boy, the cover.
Hm. Extremely similar.
After switching booths several times like that, Gaston had ended up right beside Tsushima Kagami,
and, having finally confirmed it to his satisfaction, walked straight over to Tsushima Kagami's seat.
Oh, praise the Virgin Mary.
It really was him!
Tsushima Kagami looked at the overly familiar Frenchman before him, and at the hand held out to him.
Once he'd confirmed the man meant no harm,
he offered his own hand and gave it a polite shake.
"Hello, Mr. Gaston."
"May I ask what this is about?"
When their hands parted, Gaston seemed to suddenly remember something.
He reached into the deep pocket of his dark khaki cargo pants and pulled out a business-card case.
He opened it, drew out a card, and offered it to Tsushima Kagami with both hands.
Tsushima Kagami took it and glanced down.
The card stock was thick, with a slightly textured feel — the kind of quality paper you could tell wasn't cheap just by touch.
The text on the card was in French, the top line in slightly larger type reading "Éditions Gallimard."
Éditions Gallimard.
The name wasn't unfamiliar to Tsushima Kagami.
In his past life, it had been France's most illustrious literary publisher, founded in 1911, having published the works of countless Nobel Prize laureates in literature.
Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Camus's The Stranger, Sartre's Nausea...
These immortal masterpieces of literary history had all been published by Éditions Gallimard.
"Sorry, I haven't had a Japanese business card printed yet."
Gaston said, a touch apologetic, his tone sincere.
"I'm the manager of the rights department at Éditions Gallimard in France. The reason I've come to Japan is precisely to speak with you, Mr. Tsushima, about publishing your work in Europe and North America."
Tsushima Kagami put the card away and looked at Gaston.
His expression stayed calm, but his mind was already racing.
Éditions Gallimard, seeking him out about overseas publication?
He'd had no idea about any of this.
Kodansha's side... no, wait.
The Hear the Wind Sing trilogy had already been released overseas long ago, developed through Kodansha's own foreign branch.
That much he knew.
So this had to be about the works under Shinchosha.
He offered only a polite smile before speaking.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Gaston."
"If this is about overseas rights and licensing, please contact Shinchosha's rights department directly."
"They hold full authorization over my books' rights — you can take it up with them."
But Gaston showed no sign of disappointment or embarrassment at that.
Quite the opposite — his expression seemed to say, 'I knew you'd say that.'
"No, no, no — I think I haven't explained myself clearly."
Gaston leaned in slightly, his emerald eyes fixed directly on Tsushima Kagami.
"Actually, the licensing terms have already been settled today."
Tsushima Kagami's eyebrows rose slightly.
"Today?"
"Yes. This very morning, the person in charge at Shinchosha and I reached a preliminary agreement on the European and North American licensing of three works: No Longer Human, Kokoro, and the newest, The Sound of Waves."
As he said it, Gaston even looked a touch regretful.
Because The Setting Sun's rights were already spoken for — otherwise he could have secured the overseas rights to Tsushima Kagami's entire body of literary work.
He would surely have found the very best translators, delivering the works' full, unspoiled beauty to readers in Europe and America.
The regret on Gaston's face passed as quickly as it had come,
and he looked back at Tsushima Kagami again with that easy, distinctly French kind of smile.
"Now, besides being the rights department manager at Gallimard, I'm also an editor."
At that, he gave a small smile toward Tsushima Kagami, Hiroi Kikuri, and PA-ko, all three.
Tsushima Kagami, curious, asked.
"And what does that have to do with anything?"
Gaston seemed to have been waiting for exactly that question.
His expression turned suddenly earnest.
"I'd like to commission a manuscript from Mr. Dassai-ya, in my capacity as an editor at Éditions Gallimard."
____
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