Chapter 168
"Let Ritsuka handle the remaining ones - she is still at the LLAS concert. We have to wait until the encore is over before we can pick up the idols there." Kirshtalia sat in the car and moved to another location behind the idols she picked up this time. "The first girl will arrive at the villa soon. Even if there is no script, it can be filmed as a highlight."
At the same time, in the "5 Centimeters Away" camp villa——
On the fourth floor, in the rooftop garden, a man with dark blue hair was busy tending to potted plants; in the clothing studio on the second floor, a man with short hair fading from pink to purple was drawing designs while humming a song; and their luggage was leaning against the dining table on the first floor, waiting to be carried upstairs after everyone had arrived.
Although she set out a little later than the idol she had been assigned to, Kirshtalia still managed to complete the preliminary preparations for the villa shoot before the idol arrived, and set up various equipment just like the gate of the villa on the other side - in fact, when Fujimaru Ritsuka was preparing the location for the training camp planned by both parties, he not only chose the same area, but also chose two villas with similar internal layouts.
Just to match the performers and the atmosphere of the show, Chaldea also made some changes to the use of the rooms inside the villa. For example, the kitchen and freezer in "Apron boy & Spoon Girl" were renovated and added by Da Vinci and his team. Some rooms here were also made to suit the atmosphere of a romance variety show, but this is not something that should be revealed before the guests have gathered.
Sitting behind the surveillance camera, Kirshtalia saw a girl with short pink hair that curled inwards, dragging a grass-green suitcase towards the villa - just like the nameless flowers that would always bloom under the feet of the two Merlins, cherry blossoms and mimosas bloomed one after another beside the girl as she walked, and this scene was completely captured by the camera.
"The people you chose are all quite interesting." Kirshtalia, who had already picked up three people at the villa and was filming the scene, sent a message to Fujimaru Ritsuka who was at the concert, "Although we have seen many people of this type in Chaldea and Heroes, if it is in the name of a love variety show, there will be an unexpected sense of love atmosphere."
"I just tried to choose some people from groups I haven't chosen and those who I intuitively think will be interesting." Fujimaru Ritsuka watched the performance in front of him and sent a pertinent reply to Kirschtalia, "Emiya-senpai didn't choose a member of the school idol, so there is a member of the school idol here; and as you know, in the first draft of the guest list, I screened it out because one of the male guests was on the other team."
"But Mikaze Aoi..."
"This is the candidate I intuitively feel will be interesting." Ritsuka Fujimaru, who felt the atmosphere of a vast future in the song, replied to Kirschtalia happily, "My intuition strongly told me that it would be interesting to have him participate - I was indeed giving priority to the members of ST☆RISH and HE★VENS."
"Okay." Kirshtalia sighed helplessly and ended the communication with Fujimaru Ritsuka.
But Fujimaru Ritsuka did not stop sending messages - she sent a message to the guests' off-get off work schedule, asking Dion, who had participated in the Shining Masterpiece Show Phase II, to go to the exhibition hall to pick up the last male guest who had worked with Chaldea before.
On the other side, the first female guest had already entered the villa carrying her suitcase.
"An empty villa." Roman saw the situation in Kirshtalia through Chaldea's system sharing and subconsciously compared the situation in "Apron Boy & Spoon Girl" with "5 Centimeters Away". "It's really deserted here. Have two male guests really arrived?"
"I saw them go in with my own eyes, Dr. Roman." Kirshtalia shrugged helplessly, "And it's already afternoon - I really can't think of any other activity besides eating that would make a group of strangers who participated in the training camp need to get together."
“…You’re right. Such activities don’t really exist in our common sense.” Roman glanced at Marinette beside him and agreed with Kirshtalia’s words on the other end of the line. “But for ordinary people…no. Or you can ask Pepe directly—he may provide many such activity options.”
"Then let's go ask Pepe after today's filming is over." Kirshtalia thought for a moment and refocused her attention on the monitor screen. "Mr. Tsukioka is in the rooftop garden on the fourth floor, Mr. Amura is in the studio on the second floor... ah, Miss Kitaoji also put her suitcase together with the other two suitcases."
"Ritsuka is much more aware of this than we are." Olgamari looked at the three suitcases of different colors on the screen and remembered the time she accompanied Fujimaru Ritsuka in the studio yesterday to shoot the idols' individual self-introductions. "No one thought of doing something with the suitcases before."
"I guess she used her idol points to order a batch of suitcases with the Chaldea logo or our combined logo as souvenirs for this trip." Kirshtalia smiled at the three suitcases placed together in the picture. "Although we hardly need the suitcases, there will always be a time when we need them."
Kitaoji Sakura, wearing the uniform of Seikou Academy, also went upstairs and found a library on the third floor with deep red velvet curtains with gold edges. When the first three guests consciously entered a state of solitude, Dion, who accepted the commission of Fujimaru Ritsuka, also met Mikaze Ai, who came out of the staff passage dragging a lavender suitcase with the silver logo of the QUARTET☆NIGHT group.
"There are new guests coming." After receiving the news that Dion had already left with Mikaze Ai, Fujimaru Ritsuka sent a message to Kirshtalia who was squatting in the villa area, "My concert is about to enter the encore time - I will go to the backstage lounge to wait for people, and let the cameramen start filming from the end of the encore when they leave the stage."
"Understood." Kirshtalia synchronized the situation of the villa to Fujimaru Ritsuka, "There are three guests, and now no one is meeting with others - do you want to think of a solution?"
"I'm thinking about something now." Fujimaru Ritsuka sat on the sofa in the backstage lounge with a serious look on his face and replied to Kirshtalia, "Could it be that none of the six guests I picked can cook? Although cooking is not important for a romance variety show, and we don't have a script, but - we can't let them use the place next door as a take-out store, right?"
"...That's not the case. Some of the guests have written that they are good at cooking in their personal information." Kirshtalia tried to comfort Fujimaru Ritsuka and proposed a possibility quite optimistically, "In fact, they may just need to prevent Miss Artoria from entering the kitchen."
"…That makes sense. It would be a disaster for anyone who enters the kitchen except Gareth and Bedivere." Fujimaru Ritsuka gritted his teeth as he typed this reply. He stood up and pushed the coral pink suitcase with the handle already pulled out to the door of the lounge. "From the sound, we are almost done here. I will talk about the rest when I come back."
Mikaze Ai, whom Dion was responsible for picking up, arrived earlier than the female campus idol that Fujimaru Ritsuka was responsible for picking up, and appeared in the camera as the fourth guest to arrive at the villa - the tall aqua-haired male idol dragged a lavender suitcase and stood on the steps in front of the villa. The side of the suitcase with the silver combination logo was facing the camera, showing his identity on his behalf before his front was officially photographed.
After entering the villa, Meifeng Lan put her suitcase together with others. After confirming that there was no one on the first floor, she went upstairs and began to look for other members. This scene made the staff outside the villa feel relieved. They finally didn't have to worry about the terrible development that the guests had not seen each other even once at the end of the first day of shooting.
"Excuse me." In the studio on the second floor, Mikaze Ai finally met the first guest in this villa. "I am Mikaze Ai from QUARTET☆NIGHT. Please give me your guidance during this period of time."
"Hello! I'm Ransui Amura from Fling Posse!" Ransui Amura, holding a lollipop in his mouth, put down his sketchbook, jumped off the chair, ran to the door of the studio with a smile, and responded to Mikaze Lan's visit, "But I'm mainly here as a designer - please take care of me during this period of time, Lan!"
While Mikaze Ai was looking for someone room by room, Fujimaru Ritsuka followed the school idol who had just finished a concert to the villa. At a distance from the camera, Fujimaru Ritsuka got out of the car first and ran to find Kirshtalia. The school idol took a coral pink suitcase with a red group logo out of the trunk and began to wait for the program crew to give the order to start filming.
The red-haired, purple-eyed girl was still wearing a T-shirt supporting the encore song at the concert, and her face was still covered in sequins and glitter from her makeup for the concert performance. The atmosphere of the teenage idol rushing to the villa after work was completely captured in the footage captured by the camera.
When she opened the door of the villa, Mei Fenglan, who had been searching the rooms in the villa for someone, came downstairs with the other guests who had already arrived - everyone was almost there, and it was getting late, so it was time to get together and listen to what tricks the program crew could come up with to torment them.
——Although, the fact that we informed them yesterday that there was no script at all and they had to perform freely was also absurd.
"Hello everyone, I'm Maki Nishikino from μ's." Maki Nishikino pulled her suitcase into the villa, stood at the door and bowed to everyone, introducing herself, "I just finished performing on Day 2 of the Love Live All Star concert - I hope everyone will take good care of me during the time we live together."