The name of this place was Café☆Blue Moon. To get here, you would go out the north side of Kichijoji Station, take the street behind the Yodobashi store, then walk past a bunch of love hotels. It was only a five minute walk from the station, but it still had the feeling of a secret hideout. At night it was a bar, but during the day it was a café.
The place had an exotic, Oriental atmosphere, due to all the items around the café that the owner had personally purchased on his travels around the world. Of course, an “exotic, Oriental atmosphere” sounded good in theory, but none of the tables and chairs matched at all, and it was a little bewildering to look at. Rococo-style chairs were lined up next to ones made from wicker, and there was a little Japanese-style room filled with cushions shaped like chocolate pies.
What was he going for with all this?
But there were two reasons I liked this place. First, other students almost never came here. And second, it had a grown-up atmosphere.
Also, you could sit here for hours without ordering anything but water, and he wouldn’t get mad or kick you out. That was nice, too.
I leaned back in the wicker sofa, then turned toward the owner and raised my empty glass.
“Master Izumin, may I have some more water?”
“Oh, jeez, you’re working me to the bone, honey.”
His real name was Kohei Izumi, and he was 43 years old. His nickname was Izumin. That’s what he’d told me to call him. His high-pitched, effeminate manner of speaking, his soft bearing, and the fact that he always wore makeup might lead you to make certain assumptions, but according to him none of those assumptions were true.
He mumbled some complaints to himself as he poured me a new glass of water. I took it and turned back to my laptop.
“Wait, Gamota, shouldn’t you be at school?”
“There’s no school today.”
“Oh, is it? Oh dear. Oh my stars! I’ve lost track of what day it is!”
My school, Seimei High, was about 20 minutes away on foot. For what it was worth, that was also about the same distance to my house. In other words, Kichijoji was my hometown. And on my days off, instead of staying at home, I always went outside to avoid living the traditional NEET lifestyle.
I was more of an active NEET.
“You know, Gamota, I saw that Kirikiri Barber site, or whatever it’s called. I have to say, if you keep making fun of ghosts, you’re going to regret it. The occult is real. And don’t come running to little old Izumin when you need somebody to save you! ‘Cause I won’t!”
“I laugh at your curses! I lol at them! There are no such things as ghosts.”
I didn’t believe in the occult at all. That was Kirikiri Basara’s official stance. Of course, in a horror movie, whoever said that was always the first to die.
“You know, Master Izumin. Kirikiri Basara isn’t just your typical aggregator site. It’s a site where we take all the world’s occult phenomena and go, ‘Haha! I’ll prove you wrong!’”
The name had come from the words “kiri” or “cut,” and “basara,” which meant “to not hold back.” It’s just a silly name I made up one day when I’d gotten mad at something, but I don’t regret it. The Basariters who commented on my site were even more brutal about this stuff than I was, after all. I actually think I was pretty lucky to come up with it.
Of course, as an individual, I wasn’t sure how I thought about that. It put me in a bad position as site admin, after all. But whenever one of the Basariters commented, it always meant a lot of hits. Since my goal was to make a living off my affiliate links, I couldn’t chase them out.
The door opened, and a girl I instantly recognized came spinning in like a ballet dancer.
“Gamotan! ♪ Gamotan goes ♪♪ Ribbit-ribbit-ribbit like a frog! ♪”
“I do not.”
Her steps were beautiful and fluid, even if her song was out of tune. She hopped a few times, spun around, and then swayed. There was no logic to her movement. She was in thrall to the impulses that came from deep within her.
And damned if her boobs weren’t bouncing! Her gigantic, watermelon-sized boobs!
“Gamotan! ♪”
YES! I wanted to make a video and watch it every night before bed. I didn’t even bother saying anything about her weird dance, opting instead to pump my fist in joy where no one could see it.
But damn, if I watched any more, I was going to get a nosebleed.
“Stop! Okay, okay! Stop dancing!” I turned toward the dancing boob-angel, clapping my hands and shouting, like a choreographer on one of those reality TV shows.
“Poyaya?”
“Don’t say ‘poyaya,’ Ryotasu.” Ryotasu was what I called her. More precisely, Ryotasu was what she called herself, and I simply took it from her.
Of course, it was just a nickname. Her real name was Ryoka Narusawa. She was a year younger than me, and went to Seimei High, just like I did.
She was one of my few friends in the real world, and also helped as an employee of Kirikiri Basara.
I considered myself extremely lucky to be friends with a younger girl like her. At school, I was a weirdo who wasn’t part of anybody’s social group, and online I was so disliked that I got mocked by eggs on Twitter. But that didn’t matter, did it?
Just the fact that Ryotasu was here made me far superior to my classmates who spent all their time in school clubs, or the unemployed thirty-somethings who spent all their time on the internet all day. I was practically normal.
In other words, Ryotasu’s role within the party was to give me a major status buff. She was cute, she had huge tits, and—
“You know, your real job isn’t dancing. It’s working for Kirikiri Basara. Help me deal with these stupid eggs...”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo? If you want an egg, go to a hen! ♪ If you want a meal, go to a rooster! ♪ Cock-a-doodle-doo! ♪”
—and she was also a little... odd.
When she finished her song, she spun around toward Master Izumin and took a bow. The wonderful show had come to an end.
Ryotasu did whatever Ryotasu wanted. There were times when she’d just burst into song for no reason other than that she felt like it. What she was doing a moment ago, or what she might be doing a moment later, didn’t matter in the slightest.
Ryotasu spun around once more to face me, and then leaned her face in close. It was so close I almost flinched back.
“You know, the whole point of Kirikiri Basara is to make you rich, right Gamotan? But I don’t get any money, right?”
She stared straight into my eyes. She was staring too deeply! I was going to fall in love!
“O-Okay, when I get the money from the affiliate links, I’ll buy you some suta-don. I recommend the soy-garlic flavor. Oh, or would you prefer salt and garlic?”
That was my way of paying her. A bowl of suta-don was a cheap price to pay.
“Hmm... I’d rather have some frozen yogurt from Woodberrys.”
“W-Woodberrys?”
“It’s a frozen yogurt shop near the station!”
“H-Huh...”
I’d lived in Kichijoji for years, but I’d never gone to any fancy places like that. I deliberately avoided them, in fact.
“All right, that works.”
“Yay! I’ll do my best, then!”
Ryotasu leapt up to express her joy.
I couldn’t stop my eyes from following the bouncing breasts in front of me.
Up, then down.
And then up again.
An infinite loop.
“Amazing.”
“Hmm? What is?”
“Never change!”
“Aye-aye, sir!”