by Shouji Gatou
“Just get ready to move out, okay?! Moffle, you stand guard here, got it?!”
“Hmm. Not sure how I feel about being treated as an errand boy, but... fine, fumo.” Moffle nodded reluctantly, perhaps realizing that Seiya must have a good reason for all this.
“Okay, let’s go! Darn it... it’s going to be a disaster if we’re late...”
With Isuzu following, Seiya ran out of the room.
●
Really... why would you give something so stressful to the head of the PR department? Tricen, sitting in the conference room before a line of men in suits, let out a long sigh. He was wearing his Lalapatch Charm, so he looked like an ordinary mortal to them, but that wasn’t the reason he was so tense.
From left to right sat: a section chief and branch manager from a real estate company, a branch manager of a major bank, the new representative and company director of Amagi Development, and a clerk from a third party agency. It was a set that would make him nervous at the best of times, but on top of that, they were joined by a line of executives and managers from Malmart Stores.
Malmart Stores! That great American superstore! Worldwide sales over thirty trillion yen! The meeting was a contract negotiation with Malmart’s Japanese branch.
Tricen had known that Kanie Seiya, Sento Isuzu, Ashe and a few others had been holding secret meetings and sending emails about something or other, but he hadn’t known exactly what it was. Now that he knew—well, he didn’t know what kind of magic they had used to get this far, but the scale of it was simply too enormous. A worldwide superstore chain coming to our backwater amusement park? he thought in amazement. What have these young people accomplished?!
Tricen thought back to earlier in the day: “Unbelievable. Outrageous! I can’t lead negotiations with those big-shots! I’m a Japanese lit major; I can’t speak English! I, Tricen, am compelled to hunch over from severe stomach pain!” That had been Tricen’s argument that morning when Seiya instructed him to attend the meeting.
“A high schooler like me can’t lead negotiations,” Seiya had insisted. “So we have to present you as a vice president. Just be frivolous and inoffensive, and Sento and I will work things out as your secretaries.”
When he’d put it that way, Tricen could hardly have refused.
The meeting had been due to start at 4:00 PM, but it was already ten minutes past. They’d led off with a business card exchange marathon (which had been surprisingly nerve-wracking by itself, and had taken most of Tricen’s mental energy), and now he was making small talk about tomorrow’s weather, his teeth gritted in a smile.
The guests looked uniformly unhappy. Some seemed confused as to why they were even there.
“...So, erm. I believe that a low pressure system will bring rain to eastern Japan tomorrow. It’ll be cloudy skies in the morning, with an 80% chance of precipitation in the afternoon. If you’re going out, don’t forget your umbrellas. ...Now, regarding the temperature. Though today was mild, it will drop about eight degrees on average tomorrow, so dress like you would for mid-March—”
“We’ve heard enough about the weather, Toride-san,” the president of Amagi Development said (“Toride” was Tricen’s Japanese name), cutting off Tricen’s vapid spiel.
The president of Amagi Development was a man on the brink of 70, with sunken bulldog eyes and long, shaggy eyebrows. He had been an MLIT bureaucrat before taking his present position.
Amagi Development had long been a hostile force towards their park, and the president was among those who wanted to turn it into a golf course. He wasn’t being particularly aggressive about it at the moment, though; he seemed to think that if he left Amagi Brilliant Park to its own devices, he could simply crush it next year. In the meantime, he was satisfied enough collecting his eight-figure “executive compensation” for coming into the office a few times a week, sipping tea and playing computer mahjong—In other words, he was your typical ex-government bureaucrat in corporate leadership.
The old bulldog continued in annoyance: “We’ve given you this precious time out of our days, and all you’ve done is talk about the weather. It’s time we got to the matter at hand.”
“Ah, yes, you’re quite right to point that out. But I don’t have all the documentation on hand, so... er, the acting manager... that is, my secretary should be bringing it by soon...”
Kanie Seiya, the person most crucial to the negotiations, hadn’t shown up yet. Tricen had called him several times since before the meeting started, but the calls hadn’t gotten through. He couldn’t contact Sento Isuzu either, though he had seen them working away in the office that morning... Where could they have gone off to?
He cast a pleading glance at Ashe, who was sitting at the table with him, but all she did was shrug. “We can prepare the documentation later. This is a major proposal, so we should probably move on from small talk.”
“Y-Yes, of course! W-Well then... let me explain what makes our park special. I’d like to give you all an in-depth pitch—”
“We don’t need to hear that,” the President of Amagi Development said flatly. “We know it’s not special.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” Tricen protested. “It’s a very good park!”
“Toride-san... are you toying with us?”
“C-Certainly not, ah, er...”
The executives’ expressions had passed from annoyance into total coldness. Tricen’s own face had gone stark white. Pushed to desperation, he was just about to start talking about his favorite idols, when the door of the conference room opened with a bang.
“Sorry we’re late!”
Kanie Seiya and Sento Isuzu entered. They were both wearing suits, shoulders heaving, and carrying documents and tablets at their sides.
“I’m sorry we’re late, Vice President Toride. We have the documents you requested. Please confirm the contents.” They sat on either side of Tricen and pressed the files into his hands.
“Ah, yes. Goodness, what trouble. You kept everyone waiting, you know? Now, let’s see... yes, yes...” He reclined self-righteously and opened the file Seiya had given him: there was nothing inside but some supermarket flyers.
What am I supposed to do with this?! he was about to cry, but Seiya clamped a hand over Tricen’s mouth, then smiled congenially to the various representatives present.
“Everyone, I’m quite sorry to have kept you all waiting. If you will allow it, I would like to go over a few details on Vice President Toride’s behalf. Is that acceptable?”
The rest of the watching group nodded, seemingly ready to hear him out.
The strangest aspect, to Tricen, was that nobody in the room seemed to be meeting Seiya for the first time. He and Isuzu hadn’t even had to introduce themselves. What’s going on here? he wondered. Can you handle this, Kanie-san?!
“I appreciate it. Then... let us commence final negotiations for the sale of the second park lot of Amagi Brilliant Park.”
Tricen almost cried out in shock, but this time it was Isuzu who silenced him.
Seiya had called them negotiations, but since nearly everything had been worked out over the course of the last few weeks, this was really just a final meeting to confirm the contents of the contract.
Amagi Development had been putting up resistance, but Malmart Stores was enthusiastic about the proposal. They were the largest supermarket chain in North America, but their latest attempt to enter the Japanese market had ended in painful failure. Thanks to a new trade agreement about to be signed, though, they were planning to give a Japanese expansion another try.
This time, their plan was to open up large shopping malls that would be filled with various brand stores. But to do that, they’d need a lot of land.
“I see...” thought Isuzu, “but how do you know about their plan?” Three weeks before, when Seiya had told her about his plan to sell the land, Isuzu had asked the natural question. He may be their acting manager, but Seiya was still in high school, and had no real connections in the financ
ial world.
“I wasn’t after Malmart at first,” Seiya had explained to her. “I just wanted to find someone, anyone, willing to buy the second park’s land. If worst came to worst, I’d let Amagi Development make it into a golf course like they wanted—but I was hoping to find a better deal, preferably a facility that would bring in big crowds. So I started reaching out.”
He went on to explain the touch-and-go nature of the process: he’d started with a major discount goods chain, heading right to their headquarters in the city and speaking to a secretary. Then, he’d worked his way up the ladder to the subsection chief, section chief, department head, and company director, feeling out whether or not they would be willing to buy the land.
“Did you use that magic of yours?” Isuzu had wanted to know.
“Of course I did,” Seiya had replied. “There was no way I could get that far with negotiations alone. First, I saw who the secretary was cheating with, and used that to get an in with a subsection chief. Then I used the same method on him to get an in with the section chief. Then I found out about the section chief’s insider trading hobby to move up to the department head. The department head frequented S&M clubs, and let me tell you, that was a hard read to get...”
“Understood. You worked your way up via blackmail, then.” Isuzu was taken aback by Seiya’s initiative and brazenness. It occurred to her how right she’d been to make him use his mind-reading magic on her the day after he’d gotten it. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be able to work with him for constant worrying.
“Blackmail is an ugly word,” he’d protested. “I just got a little dirt on them and asked for their assistance.”
“Most would call that blackmail,” she’d pointed out.
“...Okay, fine. At any rate, what I learned is that blackmailing a few individuals isn’t enough to sway the direction of a huge conglomerate. The first home goods store I went to just had no interest in opening new stores, so I gave up on them.” Still, for some reason, the president had decided he liked Seiya, and had taken him for ginger pork at a local restaurant.
“I’m glad he was so understanding...” Isuzu had commented.
“Yeah. He said, ‘come work for us once you’re out of college.’ After that, I tried the same trick on company after company. There were more than a few cases where I used my magic at the wrong time, or I wasn’t able to exploit what I learned to move up to the next rung on the ladder... I felt a little like a struggling student on a job hunt,” he’d admitted.
“What happened then?” Isuzu had prompted him.
“I walked all around before ending up at a major domestic shopping mall company. You know the one. A branch in every region—”
“Ah, yes. I’m aware of it.”
“They’d been struggling lately, and had no intention of opening new branches,” Seiya had sighed. “They were in the middle of plans to downsize, actually...”
But then, halfway through the discussion, Seiya had realized that the man he was talking to thought he was a spy from a rival company.
“And the rival company was Malmart’s Japanese affiliate?” Isuzu had questioned.
“Yeah. There were rumors flying on the management level that Malmart was trying to expand into the Japanese market again. It was a great tip, so I went right from there to Malmart’s Shinjuku HQ.”
He then explained how he’d worked things out from there; Malmart had been looking for good locations in the Tokyo suburbs. They had quite a few candidates, but they all had their issues: too expensive, too isolated, too far from the city, too much pushback from the local merchants...
“Meanwhile, although AmaBri is a crummy amusement park, it’s got a good location,” Seiya had explained. “It’s less than an hour by train or bus to Shinjuku, and a mere ten-minute drive from the highway. There are undeveloped hills all around, no residential or shopping districts nearby... Actually, it’s an ideal location for a large shopping mall.”
And so, he had presented himself to someone who would talk to him and offered a reasonable price for the land. Of course, that didn’t mean everything had gone smoothly from there: there were doubts that it was too good to be true, and Seiya was at a disadvantage during price negotiations. He could only use his mind-reading power once per person, so he had to time its use carefully.
“At any rate,” he’d concluded, “the negotiations are coming together. Now we just have to get Amagi Development on board.”
As a large stockholder in the park, Amagi Development had a lot of say in what they did. They also wanted the park to close. Would they really give their permission to sell the second park?
When Isuzu pointed that problem out, Seiya had just shrugged.
“They’ll accept it,” he’d said simply. “They’ll make money if the sale goes through, too. I believe Amagi Development is in difficult financial straits, just like us.”
“If that Kurisu Takaya person is still with them,” Isuzu predicted, “he’ll never allow it.”
The perpetual thorn in their side—Kurisu Takaya, of Amagi Development—had disappeared abruptly since revealing his ‘true identity’ to them the other day. They didn’t know why he’d gone, but without him, Amagi Development had no particularly shrewd negotiators; they couldn’t move aggressively to crush them.
At any rate, he’d gotten the sales plan on track. With Isuzu’s help getting all the details ironed out, it would probably become a reality.
“But... are you certain that you want to do this?” Isuzu asked Seiya after they worked out the details in his office that night. “It may not be in use, but the second park is a part of AmaBri, and the land we’re selling includes the stadium that saved us last month. Don’t you...” Isuzu had trailed off hesitantly.
“Does it bother you?” he’d wanted to know. “Once final negotiations are done, but before it goes into effect, I’ll explain it to the cast. If they don’t accept it... too bad, I guess.”
She could find little to object to in Seiya’s words. To the contrary, it was a wonderful accomplishment that spoke well of his skills. At the same time, the land the second park was on was as large as the area of the current one. Selling it was like giving up half of the park itself.
“There are probably a lot of cast members thinking, subconsciously, ‘Once business gets back on track, maybe we can expand our attractions into the second park to make the best theme park in Japan,’” she’d finally said. “Won’t this be stealing that hope away from them?”
Moffle, in particular, was likely to get enraged. He’d shout: “How dare you! You’ll pay, fumo!” and lunge at Seiya before he had a chance to explain. That was likely why Seiya hadn’t told him about the sale.
“Expanding into the second park? Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was never going to happen,” Seiya had whispered resolutely. “It’s more likely that the park would shut down first. I’m sorry to repeat myself, but a drowning man can’t be picky about where he comes ashore.”
“True, but...”
“We’re never going to reach a point where our biggest problem is an inability to expand,” Seiya had insisted. “I promise you that.”
“I... suppose not,” Isuzu had reluctantly agreed with him.
“Besides, if the park manages to last into next year and the next, that’s when the sale will really pay off. Think about it,” he’d told her. “We’re going to have a huge shopping mall opening next door, right?”
He was talking about synergy. It was a powerful thing—families who shopped at the mall would also stop by the park, and guests cooling down after a day in the park would visit the shopping mall. Not a bad deal for Malmart, at all.
“Once that happens—I should say, if we manage to live that long—it will greatly prolong the life of the park. You could rest easy for a while even after I’m gone,” Seiya had explained. “So no regrets, okay?”
●
The final negotiations had been completed, and the official contract would be signed at the start of
next week.
Tricen and Ashe had acted surprised by the breezy way Seiya dealt with the stone-faced bigwigs, but it was easily explained. During his child actor days, he’d done countless auditions for eccentric directors and producers. If he messed up, his mother would scold him and smack him. Compared to the anxiety he’d felt back then, conferences like these were nothing.
The one wild card in all this—Amagi Development—had approved the talks, as well... But, getting their approval meant that the park now faced a new challenge: a spike in their required yearly attendance. It was a hard condition to swallow, but he had no choice but to take it.
That night, as closing time neared, Seiya headed for the rooftop garden of the towering Maple Castle at the center of the park. It was late April, close to Golden Week. A calm wind blew through the garden, stirring the flowers in full bloom.
“I have been awaiting your arrival, Kanie-sama.” Latifah Fleuranza was waiting for him, with the usual tea set on the usual garden table.
“Ah... right,” he stammered.
“Surely you have had a long day,” she said. “I was able to procure some very fine tea leaves today... I hope that they might help.”
“Mm... well, thanks, I guess.”
Latifah had lost her memory of everything before this month, and things had been awkward between them since then. While she treated him neither rudely nor coldly, she was definitely not the Latifah he knew: she didn’t know about his promise to her, or about his acrophobia. She probably didn’t know the full story about why he’d taken on the stressful duties of acting manager, either.
“You smell of earth today,” Latifah said, her small nose twitching. “Have you been working in the soil? The sun was very bright; I hope that you did not suffer heatstroke.”
“Ah... it was something like that, I guess. And we did have a few close shaves.” He said it rather jokingly, and she giggled. Then, she moved her face close to his chest. “Wh-What?” he asked.
“You smell like Isuzu-san,” Latifah observed. “Like her favorite shampoo...”