Declaration (5)
Korea has an immortal catchphrase, loved without ever fading for more than ten years.
As long as it's not me!
Tae-il used to shout it often enough when he was out fooling around with his friends. This was exactly one of those times. True to form as a Korean, he deployed a textbook not my problem at Kizuka's proposal and declared it with brimming confidence.
"I—I'm in favor!"
"Hey!?"
Iris's payback landed at once, a sharp smack across his back.
"Guh—!"
Tae-il folded.
Iris clutched herself and recoiled in horror.
"Y-you pervert...!?"
"Mm."
Unlike the horrified Iris, Kizuka stood alone with his arms folded, nodding in solemn gravity.
"A man, indeed."
"A man, all right..."
Sarina agreed, a bitter smile on her face.
A maid outfit. The clothes themselves were neat and cute, sure—but the notion of a pretty girl devotedly waiting on you was a scenario any ordinary boy might dream of. Tae-il, of course, who had never even taken Sakuya to a maid café, objected that the whole thing was ridiculous.
"No, it's not that I'm a pervert...!"
"It's not?"
Iris cocked her head and stared at him sidelong, as if to say he was welcome to try an excuse.
Carefully, Tae-il tested the air and mumbled.
"Just... don't get mad, and hear me out?"
"Fine. I won't get mad, so go on."
"If Iris is the only one who sacrifices herself here, then every member can be hap—!"
"Hey!"
"Aagh! You said you wouldn't get mad!"
"I never said I wouldn't hit you!"
Thump. Thump. A hand packed with savage anger pounded his shoulder and back without mercy.
"Ugh! Ah—!"
"Hnn. Hnn.... You are seriously the worst!"
Iris's palm mashed into Tae-il's face, and it warped uglier by the second. Her own face was scarlet, plainly from embarrassment.
"Absolutely! I'm not wearing it! Absolutely! Never! Not even if I die...!"
"No way..."
Tae-il looked to Kizuka with eyes that asked, What do we do?
Iris turned his head—aimed at Kizuka—back toward herself.
"How about he wears it instead of me!?"
She pointed straight at Tae-il.
"Me!?"
The harder he thrashed, the more naturally she pressed in and pinned him. They touched. Tae-il froze stiff.
"Young lady, have you lost your mind?"
Mercifully, Iris hadn't noticed. In the span her attention was elsewhere, Kizuka's face twisted in open disgust.
"Who in the world would want to see a man in a maid outfit...!"
"Are you insane? That's rich, coming from you!"
"I am a maid warrior! I exist on an entirely different plane from that limp noodle!"
At Iris's accusing finger, Kizuka flexed a bulging muscle and asserted just how exceptional he was.
"Says the crossdressing pervert...!"
"Now, now! Pervert is a misunderstanding! Crossdressing, I'll have you know, is one of the manliest acts in the world—something only a man can do!"
"What kind of garbage is that, like saying dressing as a man is the most womanly thing there is!?"
"Verily, it is so!"
Kizuka struck a bizarre pose. His eyes flashed.
"Which is to say, an otokonoko may be considered exceedingly manly as well!"
"Gyaaah!"
Iris shrieked at the sheer shamelessness of it.
"Sarina! Don't just stand there watching—please say something to that weird old man...!"
"Taichi's... maid outfit..."
"Master!?"
Tae-il jolted. Why was she blushing over that?
"Ah."
Caught mid-fantasy, Sarina spun around in a fluster and hid her face. Kizuka nodded, arms still crossed.
"Mm-hm. A maiden's heart, drawn toward the forbidden...!"
That was fine too! He shot a thumbs-up.
Tae-il rounded on him.
"A second ago you were asking who would want to see a guy in a maid outfit! Why'd your story suddenly change!"
"No, well, what's the word..."
Backed into a corner, Kizuka scratched his cheek and shrugged.
"Women and men can see things differently, that's all. Am I wrong?"
"Don't make excuses! You just want to see a cute girl in a maid outfit!"
"Correct, boy! The maid outfit is truth! Even the Dragon Knight—fallen, yet still the one who left us an immortal masterpiece—has already acknowledged as much!"
Whether he'd simply decided that, things being what they were, he might as well brazen it out, Kizuka pressed the attack with outrageous shamelessness.
"On the contrary—don't you want to see it too, boy...!"
He turned the tables, holding a fluttering maid outfit up against Iris to win Tae-il over. A cat-ear headband came with the deal. For a heartbeat, Tae-il's eyes wavered.
"I mean, it would suit her, but..."
"D-don't waver! You idiot! You don't even need something like th—!"
"Don't need?"
"Uh... anyway! Put that away!"
Iris snatched the maid outfit from Kizuka and flung it behind her.
"Young lady, I've brought the papers to sign and a pen... hm?"
The timing could not have been worse. The outfit came fluttering down onto the head of Kiriko, just returned to the meeting room.
"This is...?"
She identified the white object blocking her view.
"A maid outfit...?"
Then she took in the room. Tae-il sprawled on the sofa, and Iris—cat-ear headband and all—poised over him as if she'd pinned him there. Sarina hunched with her back turned. And, sprung from who knew where, a crossdressing slab of a maid radiating pure visual menace.
"Haa..."
A headache bloomed. Kiriko turned on her heel.
"I must be tired. I've been seeing hallucinations rather often lately. I'll be clocking out now, young lady."
"Wait! Snap out of it! This isn't a hallucination, Kiriko!"
Iris scrambled off the sofa and caught Kiriko, who was attempting to flee reality.
"Help me! They're telling me to put on a maid outfit!"
"Couldn't you simply wear it?"
"No way! How could even you, Kiriko...!"
Kiriko ran an incredulous look between Tae-il, pushing himself up off the sofa, and Iris.
"One glance, and it's obvious he'd love it. Wouldn't he?"
"Wh-what!?"
The instant the implication landed, Iris's face went the red of a boiled octopus.
"A superior retainer indeed! Your eye is exceptional as well! Coco-ttang is most impressed!"
"Coco Ball or whatever it is. Praise from you doesn't exactly thrill me. Anyway, the errand's finished, so I'll just be—"
"Where do you think you're running, you idiot!"
Not a single person in the room was on her side, and panic showed on Iris at once.
"R-right! Time! Time-out!"
"Time-out?"
"If—if someone other than me wore it...!"
"Oho? You mean there is another pretty girl fit to stand beside you?"
"Yes!"
"The photo, first."
Iris whipped out her phone and thrust a picture of Rena at him.
As long as it's not me.
Iris, it turned out, was already an excellent Korean-in-training.
"Ooh? No way—this is...! A real loli!?"
"Rena-chan's way cuter than me, right? Right?!"
"Whoa..."
At the sight of her mistress selling a friend out first thing, Kiriko went stony and inched backward.
"Mm. A blonde loli maid is a perfect fit for a tsundere, too."
"Right! Rena-chan is exactly like that!"
"Young lady Rena is a tsundere...?"
"Rena's a tsundere...?"
Kiriko and Tae-il, both well acquainted with Rena's temper, tilted their heads in unison.
"If Rena-chan isn't enough, there's Ayane too!"
"Ooh?"
Kizuka's eyes flew wide at the artist-profile photo of Ayane smiling shyly.
"This is...!"
Tae-il's ears pricked. The moment Ayane came up, he listened in while pretending not to, his interest quietly caught.
"This young lady certainly has the makings of a maid! That slender figure is splendid as well! She'll wear the fit of a graceful, orthodox maid beautifully!"
"Then...?"
"Since it's come to this, how about all of you wear maid outfits?"
"Damn it, I never should've shown you!"
At an answer she hadn't seen coming, Iris seethed and blew her top. The reaction was fresher than he'd dared hope, and Kizuka chuckled, thoroughly satisfied.
Once the industry had grown used to Libido Girls—and once their years in the trenches had stretched close to twenty—reactions like this had become a truly rare sight. It felt like being young again.
This is why I can never quit bands, or the fandom.
His body aged by the moment, but his heart alone stayed in that youthful prime. If anyone asked when the most brilliant, shining season of his life had been, he would answer without a shred of hesitation.
Right now.
"Well, everything until now was a joke. For the recording, you needn't wear maid outfits if you'd rather not."
"Really?"
"Of course. I'll be wearing one regardless!"
Kizuka's even teeth flashed a brilliant white, and Iris's face went dead serious on the spot.
"Then we'll wear them, so please don't. I'm begging you."
"Hm?"
In her own way, Iris was desperate. Five songs. Recording every track Tae-il had put forward could take days upon days, and that would be nothing strange.
You expect me to stare at that musclebound maid outfit the entire time?
She would die. Die, in the spiritual sense. She could want to focus on the singing all she liked; she wouldn't be able to. Better to be the one embarrassed. A major debut was life or death for her, too.
Iris leaned into Tae-il and slid down against him as if collapsing, then whined, spent.
"Shin Tae-il, that person wears me out..."
"Haha."
He smiled wryly, and still his hand never stopped stroking her hair.
"So. Will you wear it?"
"I'll weaaar it.... You damned maid gorilla."
"Kahahaha!"
Kizuka drank in a roar of victory. Tae-il was grinning too, as if he'd been picturing it while pretending not to—until Iris pinched his thigh, and he corrected his face in a hurry.
"Ahem! How long are you thinking for the work period?"
"Mm..."
Kizuka started running the numbers. Recording, by its nature, was work where even a veteran couldn't say how long it would take; it depended entirely on temperament. And the clients here were a complete novice school band, with hardly any real recording experience.
No matter how good the studio gear is...
For a true live-band recording, blocking out at least a week was the safe bet. The trouble was that they were students, and minors, which piled on far too many constraints of time.
Take out the commute to school and the travel...
All-nighters went without saying, and any schedule that would strain their studies was, for an adult, deeply uncomfortable to recommend.
If our luck is bad, this could hold us for a month.
There were differences of opinion about the sound, too. Older people were no picnic either, but they had experience, so a constructive conversation was at least possible. The artistic egos of the young, however, brooked no rival. Kizuka aimed for as open a mind as he could manage, but a collision might already be written in.
"I'm looking at a month, at most."
"A—a month!?"
Tae-il looked calm, as if he'd roughly expected it. Sarina, beside him, startled far harder. Kizuka scratched his head.
"Mm. Borrowing the company studio for a whole month would be difficult, I suppose?"
"Y-yeah.... I'd feel like I was imposing. And we're not even signed there, so it would be shameless of us, too."
"Then two weeks?"
"I-if we really try, somehow...?"
Sarina nodded, strained. And in the same moment, he understood. For Sarina, simply making a request like this of her company took a courage that was anything but ordinary.
With a personality this shy, how on earth does she manage idol work...?
Master, how do you even do the idol thing...?
A question like that rose right alongside the first.
"So basically, two weeks is the longest we can borrow Winner's studio?"
"Right. If we could use a studio with gear exactly identical to this place, we could pick the work up somewhere else without any trouble, but..."
Had they been recording under a Sony label from the very start, perhaps. The odds of that at some other studio, or at a small or mid-size label, were vanishingly small.
"And I'm a salesman besides. I'm not free all the time. Some days I'm away on business."
Realistically, he couldn't spare Tales Tale any special length of attention. He didn't have that kind of loyalty in him, either.
"I'll do what I can, but in the end, when it comes to mixing and mastering, the recording stage matters most. No argument there."
"I know."
"Give it everything you have. Taichi, was it? That goes for you as well. I'll teach you everything I'm able to teach."
"Yes!"
A bright, energetic voice. Kizuka grinned before he realized he was doing it.
"A good answer. I'll be expecting great things, boy."
"Yes, sir!"
The two shook hands. Watching them, Iris murmured as if turning something over.
"Recording time..."
Kiriko, who had stood by the door the whole while watching the conversation, muttered to herself.
"What a ridiculously funny picture..."
A hulking maid and a high school boy locked in a heated exchange, observed by a working band vocalist and a vocalist-to-be. A scene this surreal was a first even for Kiriko, in all her years employed by the Arisugawa family.
At any rate, the long meeting with the hulking maid had finally reached its end.
When I get back, I'm purifying my eyes first thing.
Kiriko made a deep, private vow: once she clocked out, she would watch some male-idol videos and cleanse her eyes, if nothing else.