by Shouji Gatou
Isuzu stood at the center of the practice area, shoulders heaving, and breathing raggedly. The hired dancers were huddled in a corner of the room, trembling.
“...I thought you were practicing for the parade,” Seiya said accusingly. “Where’s Moffle?”
“I don’t rightly know. I’m told he noticed the commotion and tried to stop it, but... ah, I see him. Over there,” security chief Okuro said, as he glanced out a broken window. Moffle was dangling from a branch of one of the cherry trees outside, and appeared to be unconscious.
“...... So, what happened here?” Seiya asked, knowing full well that the three of them must have been teasing Isuzu again.
“Payback...” came Isuzu’s immediate response. “They fed me a druth nut, and they were plotting to ask me vulgar questions...”
“Vulgar questions?” he inquired.
“Like how many times a week I jaster—hmmmmmmmgh!!” Isuzu clamped her mouth shut and pinched her nose. She looked like she was trying to pop her ears.
“Sento...?” Seiya looked concerned.
“I-I’m fine...” she heaved. “I went to school today. Though it seemed pointless at first to go without you, I decided that I should at least earn some attendance days. And I felt awkward about seeing you after the strange dream that I—hmmmmmmmgh!”
“......? Look, whatever. I’m just glad the mess was kept backstage,” Seiya told her. “It would be a disaster if the guests had seen it. Now, wake up those idiots, then head for the administration building. Interviews start at 1:00 pm.”
“I-Interviews?!” Isuzu went ramrod straight, her eyes wide.
“What, do you have a problem with that?”
“Yes, I do have a problem with that,” Isuzu blurted out. “I’m spilling out everything on my mind, right now. I don’t know what I might say during an interview. I might disclose the park’s money troubles, or its horrible working conditions, or any number of other things that would discourage the applicants. And then there’s the strange feelings I seem to have developed for—hmmmmmmgh!” She trailed off into a strange moaning noise as she covered her nose and mouth again with all her strength.
“...Are you okay?” Seiya asked, after a while.
“No, I am not okay,” Isuzu managed to say. “I need sick leave. I need to go home and go to bed. I’m going to end up causing trouble for you if I don’t. Not as the mortal chosen by the revelation, but as someone that I—hmmmmmmgh!”
“What the hell is that ‘hmmgh’ thing you keep doing?” he wanted to know.
“I’m telling you, the druth nut—hmmmmgh!!”
This is nonsense, Seiya thought. Deciding it must be some form of hay fever, he turned, then started to walk away. “I’m not going to give you sick leave for a little backstage tantrum. Don’t be late, all right?”
“But you must let me take leave—” Isuzu protested.
“No,” he said firmly. “Besides, you’re the one who screened the applicants. We can’t do the interviews without you.”
“But—”
“Enough! You have to be there! If you try to skip out, you’re fired!” he fumed. “Fired!” Seiya strode swiftly out the door.
Even during brief breaks like these, Seiya was constantly monitoring the state of the park: Last week, he’d routed the feed from the security cameras to display on his laptop via LAN. The security center crew were unanimously technologically illiterate, so Seiya had had to handle the access settings and such himself. He had been hoping to find a way to access the cameras from anywhere—as in, at school and from home—but his attempts kept resulting in strange errors he couldn’t fix, and after realizing he couldn’t guarantee security on his smartphone browser, he eventually gave it up. Seiya wished he could have just one engineer to handle basic tasks like these, but of course, they didn’t have the funds to hire one.
It was a weekday, so the cameras showed a nearly deserted park. This was understandable, of course—every amusement park in Japan faced a slump at this time in April—but the cast all seemed to be slacking off, too. He had to do something about this quickly. Within the next few days, if possible...
“I guess reaching out to those senior organizations was a good choice,” Seiya muttered to Moffle after lunch was over. They’d run into each other in the hall at the administration building, and had started up a conversation.
“Moffu. Well... I can’t say you’re wrong, fumo.”
Although he’d been knocked out during the brawl earlier, Moffle’s wounds seemed to be minor. He’d rested up in the health center for thirty minutes. Then, after eating some snack croquettes (his favorite food), he had risen like the Phoenix and hurried to the administration building to serve on the interview panel.
“It’s true that a lot of our guests lately have been old-timers, fumo,” Moffle admitted in an unhappy whisper.
During this period—right after the new school term started but before Golden Week began—students and professionals were mainly focused on adjusting to their new schedules. Not many of them were able to go out with friends and family, especially if it meant rocking the boat by taking a weekday off to play around. Therefore, the most likely weekday customers for this time of year were people who didn’t like waiting in line. (Incidentally, you can even get into a certain whip-wielding archaeologist’s attraction with less than a five-minute wait during this period—although some say this hasn’t been the case lately, so be careful.)
Because of this, Seiya had decided to go after seniors; the people most unfettered by the shackles of the new fiscal year.
Last month—right after he’d decided to stay on as acting manager, following the events of March—Seiya had started pushing their services to senior organizations and old folks’ homes. He gave out coupons, established group discounts, and had the snack corners prepare mild rice ball flavors, miso soup, warabimochi and houjicha.
As a result, AmaBri was maintaining higher numbers than it usually did during the April dry spell, though it was coming nowhere near the numbers they had achieved during their 30 yen campaign in March.
“Seniors are still guests,” Seiya said adamantly. “Stop grumbling and be grateful.”
“I know I should, fumo,” Moffle admitted. “But, it’s just... it’s so hard to have a conversation with them.”
“Yeah...” Seiya could certainly sympathize there.
Last year, during summer vacation, he had taken a solo trip to Gunma to do some wandering. At a bus station in an obscure hot springs town, he’d gotten into a conversation with an old woman that had gone absolutely nowhere. He’d say “I came here from Tokyo,” and she’d say “My, that’s a fine profession.” He’d say “I hear this village is going to be submerged when they build the dam,” and she’d say, shyly, “Oh, you flirt...” They were just talking over each other. Why was it so hard for the young and the old to reach an understanding?
“It’d be one thing if it was just a communication issue. They also complain a lot, fumo. They stumble once at an attraction, and it’s all ‘I nearly died; you’ll pay for this.’ We’ve had a few lawsuits filed over minor sprains, fumo.”
“Hmm...” Seiya pondered the conundrum.
“Then, there are the old perverts who see Muse dancing around in that costume of hers, tell her to come over and start putting the moves on her, fumo. They throw their cigarette butts on the ground; they cut in line. The elderly these days are out of control, fumo.”
“Oh, really?” Seiya was intrigued despite himself.
“Now, there are decent seniors out there too, fumo. But I tell you from experience: old people these days are up to no good. Particularly those baby boomers—”
“All right, that’s enough. Stop now.” Seiya waved his hand, stopping Moffle before he could say anything too controversial.
“All right, fumo. ...So? What department are we interviewing for today?”
“All of them.”
“Moffu?”
“I put out want ads for each sector, but I
got fewer applicants than I was hoping for,” Seiya explained. “So while I’d planned to do interviews over three days... we only got enough to fill one day.”
“That’s disappointing, fumo.”
“C’mon, don’t let that be what gets you down,” Seiya said. “We’ll keep the want ads up through next week, too.”
The interviews were to be held in the 3rd conference room on the third floor of the administration building. Seiya and Moffle took their seats facing away from the window, then spread out the copies of resumes that Isuzu had sent them. Isuzu entered a bit later; she was wearing a a plain dark gray suit jacket with a tight skirt.
“You’re late, Sento,” said Seiya.
“I took a shower and changed my clothes. I decided that I should wear something secretarial, and I wasted ten minutes debating what that should be. More specifically, I was uncertain as to whether I should wear pants, or whether I should show off my legs with a tight miniskirt. I decided to go with the miniskirt; not for the applicants, but to invite your—hmmmmmgh!!!” Isuzu clamped a hand over her mouth and pitched forward.
“Again with the ‘hmmgh,’” he observed. “Seriously, what’s with you today?”
“K-Kanie-kun. Are you actually going to play out the obtuse love interest character tro—hmmmmgh!!”
“...? Ah, forget it. Do whatever you want.” Seiya looked at his watch, then clapped his hands together. “Okay, let’s get started. Call in the first applicant.”
A waiting member of the general affairs department cast nodded and left the conference room.
Seiya, Moffle, and Isuzu—two high school students and one mascot—were the ones running the interviews. It made for an odd-looking panel, but they didn’t have much of a choice. They really were the park’s most central figures.
“That reminds me...” Seiya began. “Moffle?”
“Yeah?” the mascot replied.
“Where’s that Lalapatch thing of yours?”
“Ah... I forgot it, fumo.”
“Hey!”
“I left it in my locker, fumo. Should I go and get it?”
The Lalapatch Charm was a mysterious magic item issued to the employees of AmaBri. It was a silver talisman about the size of a 500 yen coin, inscribed with the bust of a goddess. When residents of magical realms wore it, those around them would perceive them as ordinary mortals. As incredible as that was, it wasn’t actually a rare, difficult-to-find artifact; it was a basic consumer good, regularly sold at magical realm department stores. The cheapest of them cost the equivalent of about 980 yen, but these were manufactured in Chinese magical realms (whatever that meant) and had a tendency to explode from time to time. They were advised not to use those.
“We’re supposed to be running interviews,” Seiya said exasperatedly. “How are they going to take us seriously when we’re two high schoolers and a weird guy in a costume?”
“Ah, well, I wouldn’t worry, fumo. They’ll get used to it.”
“Hmm, I suppose, but...”
“We don’t have time, anyway. Let’s just get going, fumo.”
“I hope this will be all right...” Seiya worried.
While they were still talking, the conference room door opened; the person who entered was a college student with an easygoing air around her.
“Thank you very much for having me.” The woman gave a well-mannered bow, then sat down in the folding chair as directed.
She had long hair and eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, Seiya observed. She was wearing a rather ill-fitting suit that she probably hadn’t worn often; she had chosen a jacket one size too big to cover her ample bust, which resulted in odd wrinkles around her waist and arms.
She didn’t appear to be nervous, and had a pleasantly subdued smile. Plus two points, Seiya thought.
She didn’t seem particularly perturbed that one of her interviewers was a plush costumed creature, either. Completely unflappable? Plus one point, he decided again.
Moffle folded his arms and reclined. Isuzu was looking at the floor for some reason and blinking rapidly, as if she’d received some great shock. Seiya heard her whisper something like “Is my dream coming true?” but he didn’t know what she was talking about, so he just let it go.
“So, ah... Adachi Eiko-san,” Seiya said, looking back over her resume. It seemed he was the one who would be handling most of the questioning. “Thank you for applying to be part of our cast.”
“Oh, not at all,” she replied. “I’m the one who’s grateful.”
After this slightly silly exchange, Seiya looked at how she’d filled in her preferred departments. “So... your first choice was attraction cast, I see, and your second choice was entrance cast. Those are both important posts with a lot of guest interactions. Have you done work like this before?”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “I was with a talent agency until just last month.”
“Oh? And what agency would that be?”
“I’m sure you haven’t heard of them... they’re called Quattro Productions,” Eiko explained.
She was right; he hadn’t heard of them. Of course, there were hundreds of talent agencies out there; it was probably some kind of escort or model service. The agency had either failed to find her good jobs, or she wasn’t getting enough requests and they didn’t renew her contract. Either way, she’d gone back to being an ordinary person. It was a common enough situation.
Although if she was feeling touchy about it, there was a chance she might get into fights with her co-workers. Minus one point, Seiya decided.
“Er, well, it sounds like you haven’t heard of them,” Eiko-san said with a giggle. It didn’t sound like a self-deprecating laugh; she just seemed to be trying to smooth things over after perceiving that he wasn’t sure how to respond. She was solicitous, then. Another plus two points, he thought, bumping up her score.
“Ah, forgive me. I’m not well educated in that field,” Seiya apologized. “Just what kind of agency are they? Modeling, escorts...”
“Ah. They produce videos, actually,” Eiko told him.
“Oh?” he asked. “Videos, eh? What kind?”
With a mild-mannered smile, she responded: “They were AVs.”
“............what?”
“............er?”
“............fumo?”
“AVs,” Eiko said again.
There was a prolonged silence. All three interviewers scooted back simultaneously, their chairs clattering from the force. Eiko-san remained as serene as ever.
“Um...” Seiya stuttered. “Th-th-that is an... i-i-impressive l-line of work... r-r-really... impressive...”
“Thank you,” Eiko said with a beaming smile.
“W-W-Well... er...” he floundered, “J-j-just to be sure, y-you did say... AVs?”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “I made about ten of them.”
“T-Ten?!” Despite his long history as an actor, Seiya couldn’t keep his mouth from gaping, nor his voice from cracking. What? he thought incredulously. Is she serious?
AVs? Not “advanced vehicles,” right? This sweet young lady, with her mysterious aura that makes even me feel warm and fuzzy inside? This prim and polished “big sister next door” type that every man has fantasized about at least once in his life? No way, thought Seiya.
A woman like her. Making those kinds of videos?
Impossible, he told himself. It just can’t be. What is wrong with this universe?! Seiya could feel his worldview crumbling to pieces around him.
Isuzu had frozen up, her eyes wide as saucers, while Moffle poked Seiya in the side with his paw and hissed in a low whisper: “Seiya... Seiya!”
“Wh-What?” Seiya whispered back.
“Ask her stage name, fumo. I’m curious, fumo.”
“I can’t ask her that!” Seiya responded in a strangled voice. He then returned to his senses and gave Eiko-san a stiff smile. “Y-Yes, um... forgive me. Th-That is quite a-an unusual history... it c-c-caught me a little bit off g-guard...”<
br />
“I see,” she said apologetically. “I hear that quite often...” This time, there was a faint sorrow in her smile. That expression was trouble; there was something vaguely erotic about the vulnerability it projected. It inspired a faint desire to protect her, and then to ask for various things in exchange. “Oh, but don’t worry... I’m used to it.”
“Th-Thank you,” Seiya replied.
Then he heard Moffle whisper in his ear again: “Seiya.”
“Wh-What?!”
“Get a grip, fumo. You’re the interviewer. Don’t thank her, fumo!”
“B-But...” Seiya tried to defend himself.
“You need to push her on this, fumo,” Moffle advised him urgently. “Get her name and debut work already, fumo!”
“You shut up!” Even so, Seiya didn’t know what to ask her next; anything that he needed to know for work could easily be interpreted as sexual harassment. For instance...
Example one:
“So you’re in college right now, right?”
→ “And what do your classmates think of you, eh? I bet they’re always undressing you with their eyes... Heh heh heh...”
Example two:
“Your wage starts at 750 yen while you’re training, is that all right?”
→ “I know it sounds low, but I bet you could earn a few bonuses here and there... Heh heh heh...”
Example three:
“Do you enjoy riding horses?”
→ “Yeah, baby. I bet you like to ‘ride,’ don’t you? I’m a stallion myself. Want to go on a run some time? Heh heh heh.”
Dammit! he thought. I’m completely locked down! A single bead of sweat trailed down Seiya’s temple.
Eiko-san continued to wait, calmly, for his next question. Time passed in awkward silence.
What should I do? I—I know, I’ll let Sento Isuzu handle it, Seiya decided. She’s a woman, she’s always composed, and she’ll ask all the right questions in defiance of the stupid men around her. He turned to look over at Isuzu.
“............” Her face was pale, her hand clamped over her mouth, her shoulders trembling.