There was a repeated trend of problems cropping up just as the café was about to close for the day.
The veil of night had just settled over the city, and the Café LycoReco staff were preparing to close up when…she arrived. The bell at the door chimed as a woman in a light hoodie entered—it was Itou, the thirty-something regular who worked as a manga artist.
“Welcome!” Takina greeted her, stealing a look at the clock. They were closing in thirty-one minutes.
Like other cafés, LycoReco stopped taking orders about half an hour before closing time. There was more leeway on board game nights, but there was no such event that day. They hadn’t yet flipped the OPEN sign on the door, but just to be sure, Takina looked to Mika for guidance. He gave her a slight nod.
“Please take a seat.”
Itou would always choose either one of the tables in the tatami area or, if they were all taken, a table on the second floor. She treated the café as an extension of her office, bringing in notebooks, pens, and other stationery or a tablet, so she needed quite a lot of space. Surprisingly, she went to sit at the counter. None of her usual supplies seemed to be accompanying her.
Takina discreetly looked at Itou’s face while handing her the menu. The manga artist was visibly exhausted. Maybe she had come in just for a break, tired from work.
“We’re closing soon, so this will be last call for orders. Is that okay?”
Itou nodded slightly, yet she wasn’t opening the menu.
“Erm…,” Takina trailed off.
Chisato looked in from the staff room.
“Oh! Hello, Ms. Itou! Welcome to LycoReco! We never see you this late! What happened? Do tell! Are you stuck with work?”
The arrival of a customer lured Chisato out. She walked over to Itou like a bored puppy finally finding someone to play with. You could easily imagine an invisible tail wagging behind her.
“Work… Yeah… Work…”
Chisato could tell Itou wasn’t herself, so without changing her chipper expression, she slipped behind Itou and began massaging her shoulders.
“Wow, so many knots! You’ve been working hard!”
“Yes, I have been…”
Itou wasn’t perking up at all. This was serious. Chisato looked to Takina for support.
Without knowing what exactly was troubling their customer, there was pretty much only one thing Takina could do. She opened the menu in front of Itou and asked, “What can I get you?”
Her mind raced. Coffee would provide a shot of caffeine and could help with fatigue, but she also wanted to recommend something sweet. What did they have…? Right, of course, they had that new limited-time dessert.
“Today’s special is—”
“I need your help.”
Itou was a regular, but like most of their customers, she only knew Chisato and Takina as waitresses. The only help she could possibly want from them would have to be something regarding the café’s offerings…but Itou spoke in a gravelly tone with urgency in her eyes…
This wasn’t normal. Takina involuntarily tensed up. Chisato, though, didn’t even change the pace at which she was pressing Itou’s shoulders. She was still smiling just like before.
“You need our help? Sure! What can we do for you?”
“Chisato…you know how to use a gun?”
At that, even Chisato froze. Her face turned serious.
“Um… Why do you ask…?”
“She wants you to model for her manga. What else?” said Kurumi, who’d just come into the room. She shot Chisato a look, saying, “Don’t be dumb.” She was carrying her laptop, so her plan was most likely to sit in the tatami area and work on some project of hers.
But neither Chisato nor Itou turned to look at Kurumi. Itou continued, her expression humorless, “I need a teenage liquidator skilled in assassination.”
“Assassination?! Wait, what are you talking about? When did I ever—?”
“Please, Chisato! There’s no one else I can turn to. I need you to shoot a girl dead from a certain megacorp.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Itou, but I couldn’t possibly—”
“Kindhearted as always, Chisato… That’s precisely why I’ve come to you.”
“Oh…”
“It is for a manga, right?!” shouted Kurumi.
“…That’s the vibe of the story I’m working on,” Itou finished sweetly.
“Oh, phew!” Chisato said, laughing. She glanced over at Kurumi, who muttered grumpily, and lay down on her tummy on the tatami mats and opened her laptop.
“So you want me to model for your manga? Sure, sure!”
“Thanks… And yes, it’s for a manga. I’d like to model a character after you. Or rather, I’ve already created this one character inspired by you, and I’m now belatedly asking for permission…”
That’s not very fair, thought Takina. Artists should seek permission prior to using someone for their work. But perhaps she didn’t know enough about the reality of the manga industry. What was common sense to one person wasn’t necessarily universal. Takina learned that firsthand when she left the DA to join Café LycoReco. The men’s underwear incident the other day was a perfect example. Takina was confident in her training to blend in with society, but once she actually started living among ordinary people, she began to realize there was so much she still didn’t know.
Walking around town not in uniform, choosing which stores to go into and what to buy, eating pancakes loaded with cream with a dizzying amount of sugar and fat while enjoying a pleasant spring breeze… Those were pleasures she could never have imagined back when she was at the DA.
Perhaps Chisato became the best First Lycoris in history because she knew about all sorts of things like that—because she had experienced them—and incorporated them into her daily life. And if so, then maybe what Commander Kusunoki wanted Takina to learn at Café LycoReco was in fact…
“And I would also need Takina.”
Hearing her name, Takina straightened her back.
“Yes? How can I help?”
“You’ll be the young lady with ties to a powerful business conglomerate. A high school student who secretly takes care of the corporation’s dirty business. Everybody in the underworld knows your nickname…Midnight Princess.”
“A depressingly uncool nickname,” Kurumi commented, earning a puzzled look from Takina, who didn’t think it was nearly that bad.
Chisato brought her index finger to her narrow chin, looking at Takina intently.
“Takina the Midnight Princess…,” she mused. “With a slick, detached aura and stylish looks, she’s the epitome of a cold beauty… A sophisticated lady well-versed in the secret workings of the criminal underworld…”
Takina shot her a flat look.
“The thing is,” said Itou, “there’s one problem with this job, which I’d like you to take into consideration when helping me today.”
“And that problem is…?”
“The deadline. It’s tonight.”
Everyone except Itou looked at the clock. Takina didn’t know the specifics of how manga artists worked, but she could tell from Chisato’s face that this was a hopeless situation.
“Sorry, I’m a little confused here. Your deadline’s tonight, and you’re only asking us to model for you now…? Oh, I get it! You’re working on a single piece of artwork, right?”
“No, it’s a thirty-six-page manga.”
A heavy silence fell over the café. Everyone was frozen except for Takina, who kept looking from one person to another, puzzled as to how much time it would normally take to illustrate a thirty-six-page manga.
Kurumi frowned and sat up with her legs crossed.
“No matter how you slice it, that’s physically impossible.”
“It’s doable. I’ve already finished most of the inking, and I have backgrounds ready, too. What’s left is the showdown between the two heroines… I just can’t come up with the right composition and facial expressions to really make them pop. That’s why I came to you…!”
“You want to model your heroines on us, with our natural charisma and beauty!”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Consider it done!”
“Thanks!”