Oh, hello. I’m the Spirit of Water, Muse.
When you work at an amusement park, Monday night is a bit like Saturday night. Tuesday typically has our lowest attendance rates, and it’s when several attractions close for maintenance, so we don’t have to do as many performances.
I sometimes wondered if the whole park couldn’t just take a day off... but our (acting) manager Kanie-san refused to let it happen. “No days off! No matter what!” he barked at us during a meeting when it was brought up. “We need every single guest we can get! I’d run the place 24/7 if I could!”
Of course, we couldn’t possibly be in business 24 hours a day, but... well, the renovations had helped in getting us a lot more customers than before. We’d already exceeded last year’s attendance, so we’d assumed we were in the clear, but Kanie-san still seemed very stressed out about it. I sometimes wondered if there was something going on that he wasn’t telling us. I’d tried asking his secretary Isuzu-san about it (we’re pretty close, after all), but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, either.
Anyway, this all started one particular Monday night in September. We’d finished our final performance of the day, and I proposed doing our usual “Elementario girls hit the town!” outing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good time for the other three.
Salama said, “Sorry, I have a lot of unpacking to do since the move...”
Kobory said, “I’m sorry, I have a lot of pages to draw for my hobby...”
Sylphie said, “I have a class in Tsukiji tonight...” Of all the excuses, “class in Tsukiji” seemed the most confusing, but I’d long since stopped letting myself be bothered about every little thing Sylphie said and did. She wasn’t the kind of girl who’d just lie, so if she said she had a class in Tsukiji, she probably did.
At any rate, what it amounted to was that the others didn’t have time to hang out. I was still free, though so... hmm, what should I get up to? I wondered. As I walked through the employee gate, I tossed around the idea of going straight home and brainstorming new performance ideas. But as I arrived at the bus stop...
“Oh, it’s Muse, fumo,” Moffle-senpai called out to me. He was a fluffy, plush fairy who served as the park’s most popular mascot. But because he was currently wearing his Lalapatch Charm, he would look like a normal person to mortal eyes.
“Done for the day, pii?” Wanipii-senpai said to me, as well. He was standing with Moffle-senpai, and also wearing a Lalapatch Charm. Wanipii-senpai was an alligator. He was a minor character in the park, but he did have some niche appeal. He often skipped out on work, too.
“Are you on your way home?” our head of finances, Ashe-san, asked in a kind voice. She had dark brown skin and blonde hair, and looked very smart in her glasses and business suit. She had a beautiful face and a dynamite body; she looked a little like a dark elf or a succubus. She normally had horns and pointed ears, but outside the park, she looked like an ordinary mortal.
“Ah, yes,” I told them all. “Are you all heading home?”
“Moffu. Actually, the three of us were talking about hitting up the yakitori bar, fumo.”
“Do you mean that ‘Savage’ place?” I checked.
“Yes, pii. Muse-chan, want to join us, pii?”
It was an unusual grouping. Moffle-senpai usually went out drinking with Tiramii-senpai and Macaron-senpai—I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “soul brothers,” but they really were close. Wanipii-senpai usually didn’t go to drinking parties at all; he almost always refused invitations, and kept a respectful distance from headliner mascots like Moffle-senpai. As for Ashe-san... I don’t know her well. She doesn’t usually visit the attractions, and I don’t see her otherwise except for during meetings or in passing in the general affairs building. I’ve always thought she was an amazing person, but we’ve never had a real conversation before.
Now, these three wanted me to join them at Savage, the yakitori bar? I wondered if it would be awkward, with them all being older than me... Wanipii-senpai aside (sorry), Moffle-senpai and Ashe-san were considered some of AmaBri’s most powerful people. As leader of Elementario, I couldn’t exactly decline.
Yes, it’s politics! It’s all about politics! I should put on my biggest smile and wheedle out some information to improve my attraction, right?! That would help us to solve the costume problem that’s been giving us so much trouble lately, right?! (Who would that benefit, you ask? Us, of course! I’m terrified of how accustomed to those costumes we’ve gotten! I mean, I’m totally fine with it now! And I’m not fine with the fact that I’m fine with it!)
The bus was pulling in to the stop, and I had to make a decision. “Sure thing! If I won’t be in the way, that is...” I said with a smile, while fighting butterflies in my stomach.
“All right then, fumo. Let’s get going!”
And so, we all got on the bus to Amagi Station.
“Moffu. Macaron had plans to see his daughter Lalapa, and Tiramii’s on another rendezvous with some MILF. I was feeling a little out in the cold, fumo,” Moffle-senpai told me as we strolled through the shopping district at night. “Now, I still didn’t have anything else to do tonight, so I thought I’d have a drink alone before heading home. But that’s when I ran into Ashe-san, fumo. She’s always staying past midnight because of the finances, see, so it’s rare I get to see her, fumo.”
“Yes,” Ashe-san affirmed. “I’d just sent some documents to Ikegami-sensei... so I had a little bit of free time.” Ikegami-sensei was the tax accountant for AmaBri; he was an attractive, middle-aged man who liked soccer. Apparently, a certain money-ignorant light novel writer has been giving him a lot of trouble lately. (I have no idea why I’m bringing that up.)
“So, given how rare it is to see her at all,” Moffle went on, “I asked Ashe-san to join me, fumo.”
“Ahh...” I said.
“A performer and an accountant. It might be one of your odder pairings, but I thought it would be a good chance to find some common ground, fumo. Right, Ashe-san?”
Ashe-san smiled awkwardly. “Well... I’m grateful for the sentiment, but surely we can refrain from talking about work tonight, Moffle-san?”
“Ah... that’s right. Sorry,” he said apologetically. “Anyway, that’s how it went down, fumo. I said, ‘Ashe-san, come join me for a drink for once.’”
“Yes. And Moffle-san is AmaBri’s breadwinner, after all...” I noticed a strange look in Ashe-san’s eyes as she said that. Was that... lust? As a fellow woman, I couldn’t miss it.
Oh! I don’t mean to say that Ashe-san was leering at Moffle-senpai or anything! It’s just... how to put it? There was that affection there, the kind you got from a fine specimen of womanhood watching a fine specimen of manhood. Interest, would you call it? Those weren’t the eyes of a woman placating some fussy old sexual harasser... even if he was a plush mouse. Did Ashe-san know about Moffle-senpai’s human form? I found myself strangely curious.
“Oh, come on...” Moffle-senpai said, slumping. He didn’t seem to notice Ashe-san’s interest at all, which made it all the more frustrating. “Then, well, once Ashe and I had decided we’d go out drinking, Wanipii showed up, fumo. So we had to invite him along, fumo.”
Wanipii-senpai’s umbrage was immediate. “How dare you, pii! I refused at first! Don’t make it sound like I was begging for it, pii!”
“Moffu,” Moffle said pointedly. “But if Ashe-san and I had just gone off into the city at night, you would’ve raised a stink. You remember the thing with Nyathan and Takami-chan recently, the way everyone talked about me? I’m not going through that again, fumo.”
“Well, it was suspicious, pii!” Waniipii-senpai protested. “I’m still not convinced that you didn’t take her home, pii!”
Takami-chan was a college student who worked part-time at Savage, the place we were going to now. AmaBri’s cast were regulars there, and Moffle-senpai had invited her out once after hours. They’d gotten drunk out in the city, and “indulged each other’s desires”... or so the rumors claimed. Moffle-san seemed too hard-nosed for that, so I had my doubts, but most people accepted it, insisting, “Moffle has his needs, too.”
Takami-chan was something of an idol among the AmaBri mascot cast, anyway, and while I can agree that she’s pretty and charming, I never understood why the men all put an unremarkable college student on such a pedestal, while ignoring the girls of AmaBri. (We have a lot of cute girls too!) Well, it is what it is. Maybe it’s hard to look at the girls you work with that way.