Episode 31: OG Fan vs. Newcomer?
“Fufu, Ruri-chan, you’re just so cute. I saw the cheki limit’s five per visit, but if I pay this ‘session fee’ thing, doesn’t that reset the count? Instead of waiting the full ninety minutes, could I just pay for, like, ten sessions all at once? Would that get me fifty photos?”
After school.
Hara-san had been waiting outside Sweet Stella before opening, and walked in the moment the doors unlocked.
“Um, Hara-san… the session fee resets every ninety minutes, it’s not really a system where paying all at once gets you unlimited chekis…”
“Ruri-chan. Here, don’t call me ‘Hara-chan’ — call me ‘Kanako-chan’ instead, okay?”
“…Kanako-chan.”
“I love how that sounds. Ruri-chan, besides the cheki limit, is there any other way I can spoil you? I looked it up online, but you don’t do cast drinks or anything here?”
“Ah, we don’t really do that kind of thing here.”
I see, Hara-san nodded, looking a little disappointed. Apparently she’d spent her whole wait outside researching maid cafés thoroughly.
“Kanako-chan, um… thank you for coming.”
I honestly hadn’t expected her to show up the very same day, let alone this fast.
And not just that — Hara-san had also gone around explaining to the other classmates just how wholesome and legitimate the shop I work at actually is. Being in the debate club clearly paid off; her persuasion skills were genuinely impressive.
“N-no, thank you for being born into this world. I’m looping here until closing today, however long it takes.”
Hara-san eagerly pulled out an elegant designer wallet.
Inside, of course, was a gleaming black card.
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“Ruriiii-chaaan, I came to see youuu…”
Akane-san showed up today too, right around last order as usual.
“Welcome home, Akane-san! Great work today too!”
“Ehe, thanks… actually, once I get home I have more work to finish. But seeing Ruri-chan is so healing.”
Smiling warmly, Akane-san took her seat.
By coincidence, her seat happened to be right next to Hara-san’s.
Just as she’d declared, Hara-san had kept paying for session after session, staying seated in that same spot all the way until now.
“Ruri-chan’s cute again today. Seriously, such a treat for the eyes, so healing… honestly, at this point I feel like I’m basically working for Ruri-chan’s sake.”
“Thank you so much. But please take care of yourself too, okay? Um, don’t drink too many energy drinks, alright?”
“Eh, w-wait, does that mean Ruri-chan actually looks at my social media!?”
“Yes. I do look at it.”
Akane-san had made a dedicated social media account just for me — one that only follows me and any Sweet Stella cast member who might post photos of me.
The account also documents her overworked-corporate-slave lifestyle, and lately, it’s mentioned her drinking energy drinks pretty frequently.
“R-Ruri-chan actually thinks about me, ehe…”
“I always keep an eye on it, so health comes first, okay!”
The instant I said it cutely, I felt a piercing gaze stab into me from behind. Without a doubt, Hara-san.
Whenever customers who’re specifically here for me end up seated near each other, it gets a little awkward…!
Of course I need to focus on whoever I’m talking to, but I can’t help getting a little conscious of the other one too. If I’m nearby, naturally, whichever customer’s rooting for me is going to be watching me.
I took their orders and stepped away from Akane-san’s table for a moment. In that instant, Akane-san and Hara-san’s eyes met.
It’s not exactly that fans of the same person are drawn to each other — but fans of the same person definitely notice each other.
In a small shop like this, if you’re both watching the same target, of course you’ll notice one another eventually.
The two of them stared each other down in silence for a while, then, almost in perfect unison, both pulled out their chekis of me.
Neither said a word, but they were clearly angling their chekis toward each other, showing them off deliberately.
Wait, could it be… are they flexing at each other with my own chekis!?
Each cheki has a comment written on it. I want to give everyone the same level of service, but naturally, the comments for someone I’ve known a long time end up different from the ones for someone whose relationship with me is shallower.
Akane-san, my most veteran customer of all, versus Hara-san, not exactly close as a classmate, but someone with a long-standing connection to me regardless.
Both, from different angles, probably had comments that could function as a flex.
“Excuse me!!”
Both of them raised their hands at exactly the same moment. And the next words out of their mouths landed in perfect unison too.
“I don’t care what it is, just let me order literally anything else right now!!”
It seemed the great cheki-flexing standoff between the two of them had ended, and the battlefield had shifted straight to their wallets.