To Call It Is to Name It (6)
"Ahem... and so, with that, I hereby open the first plenary meeting of Operation: Shutang's Crash-Bang Proposal."
"No, no, what kind of name is that?! And hold on—there's going to be a second one?!"
"Depending on how this meeting goes, it looks like we could run as far as a seventh—."
"You're joking, right, Aki-senpai?!"
The group call turned into an uproar from the very first breath.
On the line, to start with, were the two currently making the biggest fuss: the first generation's representative sandbag, and the second generation's.
First generation. The shrine maiden, Rokumondera Aki. Real name, Natsugahara Hina.
Second generation. The vampire, Mary Tepes. Real name, Ninomae Hitomi.
And besides those two, six more were in attendance.
"Honestly, I thought Shion would be the one preparing the proposal."
"Well, she does give off that impression, I'll grant you."
Second generation. The werewolf, Charlotte Lupus. Real name, Tsunashi Tenka.
Second generation. The demon, Komori Sae. Real name, Bansei Marin.
"Khh... and I loved you, Hitomi-chan!"
"And there you go talking nonsense again, Senjoji."
Second generation. The witch, Serena Razania. Real name, Senjoji Chiyo.
Second generation. The holy knight, Amairo Tsubasa. Real name, Hyakurenno Yuri.
"Ha. How about you turn off the local broadcast."
"I rather like it noisy."
First generation. The bakeneko, Yugure Tama. Real name, Akaba Akane.
First generation. The serpent god, Tachibana Rin. Real name, Guroyuki Sui.
"Anyway... thank you all for gathering."
Hitomi dipped her head in a bow, even knowing full well the gesture would never make it past the microphone.
Of Anathema Production's nine members, everyone was present except Kitayama Maya—Sakuragi Oka—who had begged off for a family dinner.
"What's there to thank us for? We're your colleagues. At least let us help with this much."
"I really am grateful, Bansei."
"Honestly, this girl. I told you, this isn't something to be thanked for."
Even so, gratitude of that sort was hardly unpleasant, and Bansei chuckled as she said it. From somewhere else on the line—impossible to tell whose—another warm laugh came drifting through.
"Well... if I'm honest, I'm only saying it because I doubt I'll be much help. It's a little embarrassing at my age, but I've never had the slightest connection to this sort of thing..."
"I wouldn't worry about that part, Bansei-chan."
The voice that cut across Bansei's was Guroyuki's, flat and dry.
"The one here with the most dating experience is Ninomae-chan anyway."
And at that, the whole assembly sank into silence.
It hadn't been a simple observation that the rest of them probably knew less about romance than Hitomi, and so might not be of much use. The point of the remark was that, for Ninomae Hitomi, Han Seoyeon was her first lover.
"M-my lovers are the viewers?!"
"You just haven't put your mind to it. If you actually tried, you could have as many as you wanted."
"Would it be all right if I said that, unluckily, I simply haven't met my destined person yet...?"
Yes. Setting Hitomi aside, the romantic experience of the other seven came, in total, to zero. To put it without adding or subtracting a thing, this was a gathering composed entirely of lifelong singles.
"Even so, aren't we all thoroughly solid on the theory?"
"......"
Yuri said it with perfect confidence, but aside from Yuri herself, not one of them took the slightest comfort in it.
"B-but more heads are better than one, aren't they? I believe all of you can come up with a perfectly good answer, or rather—even if it isn't any help, I'm just happy you gathered, or rather..."
"Ninomae-chan. Stop. That has the opposite effect on these people."
"The kindness—the kindness hurts...!"
Guroyuki shut Hitomi down before she could finish trying to encourage them. Consideration, in a moment like this, was liable to be salt in the wound. ...Even if the one who had first carpet-bombed everyone with an indiscriminate area attack was Guroyuki herself.
"Well, she's right. If you want to lament being washed out of the dating market, do it alone later. If you've got the spare energy for that now, try thinking of a decent idea."
Akane followed, blunt as ever, and Bansei opened her mouth with care.
"A fundamental question, first... is there any chance the other one is preparing a proposal of her own?"
With an ordinary couple, one could more or less treat it as custom for the man to do the preparing. Hitomi and Han Seoyeon, though, were a same-sex couple. There wasn't even an unspoken agreement about which of them was meant to stage the event. As for the question same-sex couples sometimes got thrown at them—so which of you plays the man?—that was a prejudiced remark, and therefore out of bounds.
"Well... it's worth thinking about. Shion-chan does have a curious habit of trying to take the lead."
Senjoji Chiyo murmured it on a thoughtful hum.
Aside from Hitomi, she was the one here who had seen Han Seoyeon most often. Her older sister's commissions had sent her traipsing around on one site survey after another.
"But I don't think that's likely."
And, measuring it against the Han Seoyeon she knew, she shook her head.
"Honestly, romance aside, she's someone who sits at an odd remove from ordinary common sense. And she knows it herself."
Having lived so long outside the everyday, there were considerable gaps in her knowledge of ordinary life. Han Seoyeon was aware of those gaps, however, and when she came to something she didn't know, she was quick to seek other people's wisdom.
"None of us got a consultation, did we? There's no way Shion-chan would half-prepare an event for Hitomi-chan, so she would have asked someone for advice at least once."
Han Seoyeon's connections on the surface side of the world were quite narrow. With only a little exaggeration, one could say that people tied to Anathema were the whole of them.
"If she went looking for an adviser on the hidden side, I couldn't say..."
"Couldn't Ninomae-chan just check that part later?"
"Yes. I'll ask next time."
She could probably just put the question to the email that had come in Sarah Groothuizen's name after the last incident. Hitomi nodded to herself at the thought.
"All right! Then let's proceed on the assumption that she isn't preparing a proposal on her end."
Hina, having said so, looked just a little worked up.
"Shall we start with the safe options?"
"A surprise at a restaurant is the most universal approach, isn't it?"
"Oh, there are definitely a lot of those. You arrange it with the restaurant ahead of time and have them play music, that sort of thing."
"That sounds nice. Shall I lend you one of our restaurants?"
"Waaah, this junior's sense of scale really is terrifying..."
Someone's offhand remark did send someone else into shock, but the meeting proceeded smoothly enough all the same.
"Wouldn't it be romantic to have them play a proposal video at a movie theater you went to together?"
"That's nice too. I can arrange a venue for that as well."
"Personally, I think it would be incredibly romantic if you opened a door and the whole space was packed with flowers..."
"A bit busy, that. ...Well, it's not as if I don't get the feeling."
"Come to think of it, a bouquet would be nice no matter where we do it. I'll put in a request later to have a good one made."
"No, seriously—what subsidiary do you not own?"
For a group that had opened by going on about how they were all lifelong singles, once the discussion properly began, the ideas came in surprising variety.
"Candles! What about making a heart out of candles, or spelling a confession with them?"
"With candles, I really do think there's a high chance Shion would smell them and catch on beforehand..."
"Then, in a perfectly sealed space..."
"And you'd light a fire in there? Are you trying to cause an accident?"
"What about fireworks?"
"Hah. I can see where this is going without watching. You own a fireworks factory too, don't you."
"I do, but... if we're going to make that much of a racket anyway, wouldn't an air show be better?"
"Scary. The Hyakurenno scale is genuinely scary..."
They never actually reached a conclusion, though. The talk only stretched on and on.
Which was only natural. There is no ranking of better and worse when it comes to the manner of a proposal. The same kind of event might be compared on quality, but choosing one from among entirely different events was nothing but a matter of taste. And since any method at all became realizable the moment they pulled out the cheat key known as Hyakurenno, choosing grew harder still.
"In the end, Ninomae-chan's the one who decides. Nothing going ping?"
"Mmm... they all sound so good that picking just one is really hard..."
At Tenka's question, Hitomi let out a suffering groan. This one looked good, and that one looked good, and she simply could not settle.
"Then all of them..."
"No, Yuri-chan? Even so, I don't think that's it. That much I can say for certain."
"If the goal is to exhaust her until she drops, it'd be effective enough."
Of all people, the final decision-maker had come down with a full case of choice paralysis, so there was no way a conclusion was forthcoming. Doing every single one of them had, of course, been off the table from the start.
"What about thinking of an event Shion would like? Choosing by the other person's tastes."
"...I feel like she'd like whatever I did."
"...That is true."
If it came from Hitomi, this was a person who would beam with joy and file the thing away even if it were a crumpled scrap of paper, presented with the words, This is trash I crumpled with all my heart.
"Is it a problem when the other person is too easy...?"
"So in the end, the only way is for Hitomi-chan to choose."
In short, Han Seoyeon's point of view was of no help whatsoever in selecting a method of proposal. It didn't take ten seconds for everyone to agree.
"...Something from the moment you first met, maybe."
"Eh? Akaba, what do you mean by that?"
"I'm saying, what about a method that calls back the moments that stuck with you. All the time you've spent with that girl."
Hitomi seized on the words Akane had let fall, almost under her breath. When she asked what they meant, Akane seemed to think for a moment, then chose her words and explained simply.
"The moment you first met. The time you fell for her. The place where you were confessed to. Those would all be options, wouldn't they? If you think it through from there, doesn't something come up?"
"...Oh. You're more of a romantic than I expected, Akaba-senpai."
"Akane-chan looks cold, but she's surprisingly good at ideas like this."
"You shut your mouth and stop talking nonsense, Tenka."
"A confession..."
Hitomi let out a low sound.
"...Thinking of it that way, there's really only one option."
"Hm? Aren't there a few more? I thought you'd been together for some years."
"We first met in a university lecture hall... the confession was in a truck, and the first time our bodies overlapped was in a bathroom, so... it's, um, a long way from romantic..."
"Th-the first time, in a bathroom... young people these days really are, well... yes. I see."
"Ngh! N-no, I mean, that was...!"
She had been talking without much thought, and only once the words were out did Hitomi realize she had said more than she needed to. Her face went red. Even as she flailed at the murmurs of so it was a bathroom..., she forced her attention off them and pressed on with the original thread.
"A-anyway... they weren't romantic places, surprisingly. Of course the situations themselves—most of them made me incredibly happy—but..."
"You're saying that if someone told you to set the mood in those same places again, you honestly doubt it would work."
"Yes. That's what I mean."
So, thought of that way, there was only one option left.
"So I think this is the way to do it after all."
That single remaining choice felt, to her, like a revelation the world itself had held out. And Hitomi nodded, wearing an oddly confident expression.