Chapter 177
Day 3 of the recording schedule for "Apron boy＆Spoon Girl" and "5 Centimeters Away from You".
8:00 PM
When the performers of "Apron boy & Spoon Girl" gathered in the living room to confirm tomorrow's topic, the guests of "5 Centimeters Away from You" had already returned to their rooms and found a pink gilded wax envelope prepared by the program team for tomorrow's date on the table.
"Aren't you worried that they will choose Shura Field or someone will be left alone?" Roman, who had just sent a message to Colles to drink Da Vinci's special energy potion to continue editing overtime, saw Fujimaru Ritsuka holding the letter that the other servants who served as staff members had taken back from the guests, "After all, you didn't give them any restrictions at all."
"Well... at this time, it's time to bet on tacit understanding." Fujimaru Ritsuka paused meaningfully, opened the envelope, and began to confirm the choices of each guest. "Although there were no obvious arrows in the content of the past two days, there are stable double arrows in today's material - even though neither of us knows it."
Time goes back to when the guests were holding envelopes and choosing the location for tomorrow's date.
"…
Love is war!
In order to create a beautiful love, reasoning, calculation, smoke bombs-all of these are necessary means.
therefore--
In order to meet your loved one, please carefully choose the date place for tomorrow from the following three places!
…………
Special note: Do not contact others, please make your choice alone.
Track 1
"Aquarium, cafe...ah, the last one is the concert hall." Artoria, who was wearing a white dress, stared at the concert hall for a long time, then reached out and picked up the gold and blue pen lying on the table. "I remember that there is a concert going on at Clover - so, besides the composers..."
"Who's going to the concert?"
"By the way, we have a composer here."
Black ink flowed from the tip of the pen, firmly circling the location of "Concert Hall" - a sharp look rarely seen in daily life appeared in Artoria's eyes, as if she had seen the figure of the person who would stand in front of her tomorrow through the handwriting printed on the letter paper.
Track 2
"So that's how it is. The purpose of this letter is to let us guess where the person we want to date will choose." Yicun Ransu sat on the bed and checked the contents of the envelope. He muttered to himself in a low voice to sort out the current situation, "But if this is the case, there is a chance that we will miss each other - in other words, it depends on luck..."
"Well, luckily the Emperor isn't here." Thinking of his teammates, Yicun smiled helplessly and reached out to grab the pencil that he usually used to draw designs on the folding table on the bed. "But relying on luck alone is not reliable - the dating location chosen by the program group must be in line with our characteristics, so the concert hall corresponds to Miss Maki, and the aquarium..."
"In terms of atmosphere, it should be the Tsumugi of the Mankai Theater Winter Group - that kind of quiet atmosphere."
"Then there's only the café - I hope I'm right."
On the pink letter paper, the address "café" was marked with a heart-shaped pattern drawn by Ransaku Amura.
Track 3
"…Artoria and Maki should be in the concert hall. Although the cafe seems to be a suitable place for everyone, but there is also an aquarium as a date location—" Mikaze Lan leaned against the window, listening to the accompaniment of "The Requiem of the Guilty" while deducing the answers of others, "Ransu and Sakura should not be in the aquarium. The probability of them going to the cafe is higher."
"But the most important question is - will that person choose the aquarium?"
"Over at the concert hall, the Clover team from Animusphia Agency AMP48 is performing. As a member of the same agency and a member of AMP48, Artoria must know about this. As for Maki...she should have received the invitation letter they sent to all composers, just like Haruka."
"Their choices should not change."
"It is possible to infer that the aquarium is not the one that corresponds to him. Just look at the suitcases that the program team prepared for everyone in advance and you can tell that the arrangement of ours will be somewhat related to our own colors. Among the six people, excluding Artoria, only my and Tsumugi's colors match the impression of the aquarium."
"...Forget it. I'm not interested in being a light bulb for others - it doesn't matter even if I'm left alone in the end."
A lavender highlighter, used to mark the contents of the script, fell on the letter paper and marked the location "Aquarium" with a neatly drawn five-pointed star.
Track 4
"Aquarium... I remember that the only two people in the villa who were clearly responsible for promoting the aquarium were me and Lan." Her eyes fell on the three place names printed on the pink letter paper, and Tsukioka's heart was instantly attracted to the aquarium. "As for Maki, μ's has no clear record of this. Instead, Aqours, as the younger generation, has relevant records..."
"Well, that concert hall was obviously chosen for Maki—but is it really that simple?"
"And the cafe... If I were in the dormitory, I would run into Marie-kun most of the time when I went to the cafe." Tsukioka frowned and leaned on the ladder to the bed, thinking, "Smoke bomb - the cafe is a place that everyone may go to, but the direction of the music hall is too obvious..."
As he turned to pick up the pen, Tsukioka's mind flashed through several scenes from his past life - the overpass on a snowy night, the vast sea sparkling under the bright moonlight on a winter night, and finally the time when the troupe was threatened to disband during a performance, and the supervisor announced a temporary postponement of the performance to protect the members, and the lights in the theater dimmed one by one.
——"After all, aren't you living there to start a new encounter?"
The words that Yu Jinran said during the day once again rang in Tsukioka Tsumugi's ears.
"...Indeed, what Cheng said is right." Tsukioka picked up the pen on the table and smiled softly, as if she suddenly understood something. "Also, about the smoke bomb incident - I roughly guessed what the program crew was thinking. After all, this is a love variety show, not a mystery variety show, right?"
"A smoke bomb is only a smoke bomb when we think about it deliberately."
On the pink letter paper, the three words "Aquarium" were framed by a neat rectangle, indicating that Tsukioka Tsumugi had completed her choice of the date location.
Track 5
Kitaoji Sakura sat on the bed, replying to messages from teammates while checking the date locations for tomorrow. The choice of the music hall was skipped directly, and apparently everyone thought that this location was prepared by the program team for Nishikino Maki. As for the cafe and aquarium, not only was she hesitating about who would choose, but Kitaoji Sakura herself had no clear preference between the two locations.
At this moment, new news appeared in Soft Pudding's group chat -
"Arisugawa Otome: Sakura-tan, Shion-tan! After the joint concert is over, let's go out for dessert!"
"Kamiya Shion: Indeed, since we came here, the daily dessert exploration activities of Soft Pudding have stopped - if everyone can get together in their free time, let's go out together."
"Then... maybe a cafe would be a better choice."
After circling the three words "café" on the letter paper, Kitaoji Sakura replied to the messages sent by her two seniors in the group.
"Kitaoji Sakura: Yes, Otome-sama and Shion-sama, I am always available."
Track 6
"Concert halls, cafes, and aquariums." Nishikino Maki sat on a chair and reached out to pull out a beige envelope with the wax cut off and a gold-stamped pattern from the bookshelf on the table. "So that's how it is. Clover sent invitation letters to all composers. The program team is aware of this."
"It just happens that the two things overlap - and the concert hall can also serve as a clear symbol to help others narrow down their choices." Maki Nishikino chuckled at the words "Allow one companion" printed on the invitation, "The program team is still lenient. However, at least I don't have to worry about disturbing other people's dates, or -"
"I will never see anyone here who doesn't have a crush on me."
"Okay, now it's time to prepare for night practice." Nishikino Maki put her sports jacket on her shoulders, threw the pink letter paper with the spot marked on it on the table, put on her headphones and started playing the songs included in the finalized playlist for μ's performance in the United Concert*. "Tomorrow we're not just going to the concert, we've got a date too..."
"Looks like I'll have to get up early tomorrow to pick out clothes."
10:00 PM
Corles sent some of the edited content back to the three people squatting at the shooting site for confirmation. The confirmation work was transferred from Roman, who received the video, to Kirshtalia. On the other side of the director's cabin, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was staring at the monitor screen, confirmed that the members in the two villas had left the practice room and returned to their rooms. While biting on the special midnight snack sent from Chaldea, he instructed Roman to use the radio to add new requirements for the next day's mission to "Apron boy & Spoon Girl" -
"I went out to open a shop, and when the couples I was dating in "5 Centimeters Away" appeared, I pretended to be a normal NPC. 】
"It's too troublesome that there are no NPCs in this type of special point." Fujimaru Ritsuka swallowed the last bite of his midnight snack and complained to the two people beside him with a pout, "Also notify the Heroic Seat and tell them to fill the audience seats for tomorrow's concert. This is Clover's official debut performance. At least try to prove that we have more than one pure male group that can perform at a male idol concert."
“Hahaha.” Roman smiled and kindly proposed a plan to Fujimaru Ritsuka, “Ritsuka, if you really can’t find anyone, you can actually let King Gilgamesh and Merlin come out to do the business together—of course, if you want to make it a whole, I can sing and dance with them.”
"...Doctor, hold back, hold back - how did those two offend you!?"