“That’s a piece of cake,” said Aya.
The group had begun their discussion promptly, but making Kuroba Eru, of all people, eat her words was no easy feat. If they came up with a subpar plan, all that awaited them was a brusque refutation. Kai could hear it now:
‘Oh dear, are you messing with me?’
‘Oh dear, can you shut up?’
‘Oh dear, what’s this senseless chatter in my ear?’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...’
“Let’s start by talking it out with everyone other than Eru,” had been Nanaka’s suggestion. As a result, Aya had been called out from her lazy routine of rolling the gacha under an AC unit to join the rest of the club at the family restaurant. Once she’d heard the story, the first thing out of Aya’s mouth was a bored proclamation that the problem was simple to solve.
“A-Ah-chan,” Nanaka asked, clearly taken aback, “do you have an idea?”
“Basically,” Aya summarized, “we need to make that massive moron squeal, right?”
“That’s right!” Aina cut in excitedly. “You really get me! ♪”
“But,” Kai interjected, “isn’t that the hardest part?”
“What are you talking about, senpai?” Aya asked lazily. “She’s super straightforward when it comes to the quality of a character’s art. If we can get her to froth at the mouth like a beached crab, it’ll be our victory.”
“Hold up,” he protested, “this isn’t about winning or—”
“It’s fine as long as we win,” Aya continued. “Or do you have a problem with completely and thoroughly beating her down?”
“Ah-chan...” Nanaka spoke for everyone present when she quietly pointed out, “You’re really hard on Eru, aren’t you?”
Aya scrunched up her face into an unreserved scowl. With her easy-going nature, she was always smiling—sometimes alongside a hearty laugh, and other times in spite of her exasperation—so this was a rare sight. “Well... how do I put this?” she asked with some consideration. “I’ve said this to Nana-sen before, but I hate people who lie to themselves. The reason Kuroba is such trash is because she knows she’s lying to herself, and does it anyway: everything is ‘Nana-sen this’ or ‘Nana-sen that.’ Kuroba is just someone who loves the crap out of drawing, and everyone can see it.”
“...Ah-chan,” Nanaka muttered, heartbroken.
“Ngh!” Aya croaked like a frog that had been stepped on to make her displeasure known. “I’ll pass on getting wrapped up in all this youth. And with Kuroba?! That sends a chill down my spine!”
“Pft,” Aina chuckled. “Are you getting embarrassed?”
“Aye-aye, you must not want me to help with the plan,” Aya mused threateningly. “You know you can’t put it into action without me, right?”
“In the first place,” Kai asked, “what is your plan?”
“You still don’t get it?” Aya replied in exasperation. Kai felt that it wasn’t exactly obvious, considering that she hadn’t even given a hint yet. “We just need to get her mouth foaming,” Aya said again. “And there’s only one thing that’ll make that idiot blow bubbles.”
In a moment of epiphany, Kai muttered, “...Her own artwork.”
Aya didn’t nod, but her lips twisted into a smug grin. “We’ve got the perfect starting point right here,” she said, knocking on the sheet of paper lying on the table. “Plus, we’ve got Nana-sen and Aye-aye, and you’ve even got me. I’m a teensy bit good at programming, you know? You know what they say: ‘I can develop a little!’”
Kai found himself cornered by an almost hateful level of Aya’s smugness. He didn’t quite know what she was planning, but there was nothing more reliable than a serious Aya. “...Am I supposed to reply, ‘I completely understand,’ here?” he wanted to know.
Kai ignored Aya as she burst out into laughter so that he could explain what had just happened to Nanaka and Aina, who had turned to each other when they could no longer keep up. Essentially, there was a Japanese programming in-joke stemming from the fact that the creator of a world-famous operating system had once worn a shirt that said he could ‘develop a little.’ As a result, Kai’s line about ‘completely understanding’ had been a second joke, based around the idea that he knew nothing about programming. After his explanation, the group had to wait for Aya’s laughter to die down before they could hear out the details of her plan.