Amagi Brilliant Park: Volume 7

by Shouji Gatou

  Prologue

  In the greenroom of Elementario (formerly Aquario)—

  “Guys, guys! Awful news!” cried the Spirit of Water, Muse. She ran up to her three companions—Salama, Kobory, and Sylphie—who were taking a break between performances.

  “What’s wrong? Last I saw you, you were rummaging around in the back warehouse...” said the Spirit of Fire, Salama. She had been lazily messing around with her smartphone, but now she looked at Muse, brow furrowing.

  “Um, um...” Muse was acting strangely, trembling, as if she’d just just learned something life-changing. Her eyes were full of tears. It was like she’d just reached the final stages of a complex plamodel, only to realize that she’d read the instructions wrong. Her entire manner seemed to scream, I’ve done something that can’t be taken back. “O-Okay,” she began. “I... I was sorting through our old materials, and...”

  “Wow, during lunch break?” Salama asked. “You sure are into this whole ‘job’ thing...”

  “I was bored!” Muse said defensively. “The storage area has been a mess for so long, and I thought I might stumble onto something interesting...”

  “Fine, whatever. So what happened?”

  “So then... then... way in the back of this set of drawers, where you’d never think to look... I found these!” Muse held out a wad of cloth, a few washcloths’ worth in size. The material was thin and wrinkly, a basic beige that more or less matched the girls’ skin tone.

  “......? What’s that?” Salama asked curiously. “Tights?”

  “Yes!” Muse wailed. “Tights!” They were full body stockings, the kind that provided coverage all the way from the neck to the toes. They seemed to be in women’s sizes, too.

  “So, what about them?” asked the Spirit of Earth, Kobory.

  “These things came out of our costume area.”

  “Huh. So... wait. Wait a minute. You’re saying...” The insightful Kobory seemed to have made the connection already.

  “Yes. That’s right.” Muse looked at the ground. Her shoulders, laid bare by her revealing stage costume, were trembling. “...Do you remember what happened when we first took over this job?” she asked.

  “Sure I do... It was right after the last girls in the roles quit, right? Boy, that was rough...” Salama said, with a nostalgic air. “We didn’t even know what kind of dances they did.”

  “Right,” Muse agreed. “And they didn’t tell us about their costumes, either.”

  “Yeah. But... we had some blurry pictures of them, and they’d left the costumes in the lockers... and since we’d just met each other, we collectively assumed it was okay to just wear them as-is, and... um... wait, are you saying...” Salama hugged her own outfit—the bust portion, specifically. It was a very revealing costume, the back of which was open to reveal just a hint of bare bottom.

  “Yes! Exactly!” Muse cried out, her voice breaking. “Because nobody told us... we’ve been under the wrong impression this whole time! These tights!” Muse brandished the bundle of wrinkly beige tights. “I just realized that the original dancers in this theater—our predecessors—wore these body stockings under our costumes!”

  “?!”

  “!!”

  “......?”

  The reactions of the other three were widely varied. Salama and Kobory went pale, while the Spirit of Wind Sylphie just tilted her head in confusion, indifferent to the atmosphere as usual.

  “W... Wait a minute,” Salama whispered, voice trembling. “Are you... are you telling me... we’ve been parading around this whole time, half-naked, thinking, ‘I don’t really get it, but it is what it is’...”

  “We’re exhibitionists!!” Kobory screamed, her voice breaking with tears. “Exhibitionists! I knew it! I always thought it was strange! Thighs, belly buttons, and cleavage out there for everyone to see! I knew it wasn’t right for an amusement park! Children and mothers come to see us! They can’t want this kind of sex shoved in their faces! They must hate us!”

  “Hey, calm down, Kobory...” tried Muse.

  “How can I calm down?! I’ve been showing off my panties! I-I mean, it probably looks pretty cute from behind, right?! But from the front... it’s just all out there! I’m an exhibitionist!” Kobory’s costume was a pristine design of green and white. Inch for inch, it wasn’t as revealing as others, but the front was outrageous: the dress split in two right around the solar plexus to reveal her belly button, as well as her white underwear beneath. It also left her legs completely exposed. Naturally, men’s eyes tended to be drawn to her lower half; the fact that it was so demure from other angles just amplified the sexiness. Whoever designed this costume was a bit of a pervert. “I knew it was strange! I knew it was strange! Wh-Wh-What am I going to do?!” She started nervously shifting her weight back and forth.

  Muse and Salama rushed to calm her down. “Chill out, Kobory. Your embarrassment just makes it sexier!”

  “I’m not trying to! I swear, I’m not trying to!” If she’d been wearing the body stocking, it would look more like a figure skater’s costume; she wouldn’t have had to worry about how bold it looked from the front. “What about you, Salama-san?” she challenged. “How can you be okay with it?!”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean... it shows your whole back! You can almost see your bum! And it’s strapless! Your breasts could pop out at any minute!” Kobory pointed out. “Doesn’t it scare you? How brave are you?!”

  “H-Huh? I t-take precautions, that’s all! I think of it as a leotard! I don’t... I don’t really...” Despite her words, Salama hid her chest and backside with her hands, fidgeting.

  “Look at you!” Kobory said accusingly. “You’re shaken, I can tell!”

  “Nggh...” Salama gritted her teeth, tears forming in her eyes.

  “Wh-What about you, Sylphie?” Kobory asked. “Don’t you mind?”

  “I’m just fiiine!” Sylphie beamed, sticking out her ample chest; indeed, she didn’t seem to mind at all. She wore shorts on her lower half, and the top was a flimsy cloth number designed to accentuate her bust. Her costume was certainly the most revealing of the four, but she genuinely seemed comfortable with it.

  “Yeah... I figured,” Muse sighed.

  “You’re so strong, Sylphie,” said Salama, sounding envious.

  “I bet she’d go on a nude survival reality show...” Kobory finished. After three weeks on a desert island, Sylphie’d not only come back alive, but she would probably even gain weight.

  “Yeah! I’ll do my best!” Sylphie cheered.

  You don’t really have to, though... The other three thought simultaneously, but decided not to say anything. It would just invite trouble.

  “...So? What do we do, Leader?”

  “Huh?” Muse’s eyes widened at Salama’s question.

  “The tights. We’re going to wear them from now on, right?”

  “Well... yeah! We have to, right?” Muse insisted. “We want to, right? I mean, these outfits are way too revealing, right?!”

  “Yes. We’re exhibitionists,” Kobory said again. “Let’s put them on right away. ASAP. You agree, right, Sylphie?”

  “Don’t care either way!” Sylphie sang breezily.

  “...I see,” Muse replied. “So you’re fine with wearing them?”

  “Roger!”

  “Okay, so no objections. It’s decided, then, right? Well...” Muse then fell silent.

  “What’s wrong?” Salama asked.

  “Well... Now that I think about it, it isn’t just our decision,” Muse said slowly. “Do you remember that stack of documents Kanie-san sent us for the new fiscal year? Contract renewals and such?”

  “Oh, hey, that’s right,” Salama
remembered. “I didn’t really read them, though.”

  “It had a lot of clarification about rights and such. Picture and video rights, character rights... I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and it came with a slight pay increase, so I thought it was a good deal, but...” Kobory added.

  “I signed it with all my might, wielding my Yotsubishi Haiyuni!” Sylphie declared.

  In other words, all four had signed the contract.

  “Right. But, um... there was... there was this.” Muse used her smartphone to call up a PDF of the contract she’d put on the cloud. “Um, clause 16, item two. ‘Any change in stage costumes or character appearance must be discussed with party the first (cast) and party the second (park). If an agreement cannot be reached, presentation will remain as heretofore established,’” she recited.

  “That’s pretty technical,” Salama observed. “What does it mean?”

  “It means we need park management’s consent to change our costumes,” Kobory said.

  “Kanie-kun’s, then?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  “Then let’s go ask him.”

  ●

  “There’s no way I’m approving that,” Kanie Seiya said, turning them down flat. They were in his office in the general affairs building. “We just spent a chunk of money renovating Elementario. We advertised it, too. You’ve captured the hearts of the fathers, and we have regulars who come here, over and over, to see you guys. Now you want to add body stockings? Are you nuts? You want to dance around in the kind of far-infrared tights worn by menopausal women in winter? Who’s going to like that?”

  “Um, us?” Muse suggested.

  “And exactly no one else!” Seiya’s words were scathing. “Let me—Let me explain something, in case you have the wrong idea. You seem to think the reason you have the fourth most popular attraction in the park is because of your dancing, or the quality of your show!”

  “But... but we’re working so hard!”

  “Everyone’s working hard! We all are!” Seiya snapped. “Right. Okay, I’ll admit it: Your dancing isn’t bad. Muse has a charm that draws people in; people like the quiet affection Salama shows for her teammates; they appreciate Kobory’s hard work; and Sylphie’s wildness and vivacity are well received. ...But! But! Your dancing alone still isn’t enough. It only matters to about one person in ten, and that’s a problem, because to bring in audiences, we need mass appeal. Which means that until you can reach a new level in performance quality, you’re being carried by your sex appeal! That’s the main reason anyone cares about you!”

  “B-But... the mothers and children...”

  “I’m aware of that issue,” he said. “Costumes that men appreciate drive away the women—that was going to be the trade-off from the start. But! From what I’ve seen in practice over the past few months, it hasn’t actually been that major a problem. Some women do dislike you, but most just laugh it off, most likely due to your awkwardness and charm. Now, how will most guests take it if you started wearing body stockings now?!”

  “......!”

  “That’s right! They’ll think you’re stiffing them! When you stop offering something you previously gave out for free, you lose good will! It’s like a restaurant that’s been offering free gyoza with fried rice then suddenly stops. It’s no good for anyone! No matter how good the rice is... you still disappoint the customers!”

  “Ugh... ngh...”

  “Get it? We need to keep offering the gyoza set,” Seiya insisted. “That’s why I can’t approve the idea. Give it up and go onstage; your customers are waiting. Dismissed,” he said with finality and went back to his documents.

  ●

  They left the general affairs building and stalked to a corner of the underground passage.

  “That jerk! How could he do this to us?!” Salama huffed.

  “But we couldn’t argue with him, could we?” Kobory said, slumping over.

  “And he’s still only in high school. I shudder to think about what he might become,” Muse said gloomily, with a slight shudder.

  “Gyoza pose!” Sylphie declared and struck a baffling yoga pose in the corner.

  “But if Kanie-san insists, we’ll just have to keep wearing the old costumes, I guess...” Muse sighed.

  “Our only other choice would be to quit,” Salama said flatly.

  “I really... don’t want to quit,” Kobory muttered.

  They didn’t want to quit. That was one thing they all agreed on. They’d worked hard to get as far as they had. They had been a terrible team at first, with sloppy dancing and disparate personalities, four people who would never associate under normal circumstances, forced to stand on the stage together in an empty theater.

  In promotional material for amusement parks and tourist sites, you usually see pictures of girls having fun together. But if you look closely at the images, there’s always an air of desperation about them. It’s because in reality, these girls were strangers, models dispatched by their agencies, who had probably just met on the day of the shoot—and yet, they were supposed to smile into the camera like best friends who had known each other for years. The Elementario girls had once had that same sense of tension to them.

  But it was different now. They’d shared joy and hardship. Their dancing had become more in sync, and they could perform their wire stunts without crashing into each other. They were united in purpose. It was hard to imagine going somewhere else, now, and dancing with new girls they didn’t know.

  “I feel the same way. I don’t want to quit...” Muse said.

  “Ditto!” Sylphie chimed in.

  Salama smiled wryly and grabbed onto her costume’s frilly, revealing miniskirt. “Okay, so it’s decided. We keep at it?”

  “Yes,” Muse agreed. “Kanie-san was right, after all...”

  “We’ve been wearing them for so long; it’s a little late to start acting embarrassed...” Kobory put in.

  “Mm. But... a gyoza set? Surely he could have found a better analogy...” Muse continued.

  “Yeah.” Huffed Kobory.

  “It sounded tasty, though!” Sylphie said happily.

  “Focused on food, as always...”

  The four of them came together in a long laugh. Then they sighed, before straightening up proudly. Let’s keep it up! I think we’re probably okay with this! was the thought they seemed to share. They all spontaneously took hands, and then—

  “Ron... What’s all the hubbub here, ron?” a member of the cast, Macaron, asked as he approached them. He was the Fairy of Music and the park’s second most popular mascot. He was probably taking a break after finishing up a performance at his own attraction.

  “Ah, Macaron-senpai. Actually...” Muse explained the situation to Macaron. They’d just been through an emotional wringer, so they probably wanted to tell somebody.

  “Hmm... that’s a very moving story, ron.” Macaron nodded deeply. “We’re all rooting for you guys, ron. And we all welcome your decision to stay in those costumes, ron.”

  “Thank... you?” Muse hazarded.

  “Yes, yes. It’s a good thing, ron. A very good thing, ron.”

  “Wait a minute!” Just as Macaron was about to leave, Salama stopped him.

  “Ron? What is it, ron?”

  “There’s something I’ve been wondering... When we first came to this park, you guys were already veterans, right? You’d been here a long time, right?”

  “Yeah. So what, ron?”

  “So you knew what out predecessors wore, right?” Salama continued.

  Macaron froze up. “......”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Ron,” he said innocently. “About what?”

  “Well, you knew, right?” she insisted. “Why didn’t you tell us ‘you’re wearing the costumes wrong’?” Muse and Kobory both caught on at the same time. (Sylphie just stared into space.)

  “Well...” Macaron hesitated, his back still turned.

  “Well?”

/>   “Ron. I... I’m sorry. I actually knew, ron! But, but... you put the costumes on like it was normal! Like it had to be that way, ron!”

  “...?” The girls waited for Macaron to explain himself.

  “Here’s the way we saw it, ron: ‘Wow, these girls are willing to put it all out there. They’re real exhibitionists. I wish them the best, ron. But they sure are exhibitionists!’” The four girls began to bear down on him, forcing him into a desperate defense. “But... it worked out for the best, ron! It’s the reason you got popular, right? It’s a good thing, ron! Though it probably sucks for you guys...”

  “What about the others?” Salama demanded. “Did they know?”

  “Yeah. We all agreed, ‘the new girls are real exhibitionists,’ ron.”

  Muse and Salama snapped and grabbed for Macaron’s throat. It took about three minutes for Kobory and Sylphie to pull them off of him. Between struggles for breath, Macaron made things more complicated by confessing that it was a specific person who had hid the tights in a place that would be difficult to find, and that this person was the Fairy of Flowers, Tiramii.

  The head of the secretarial department, Sento Isuzu, had come running. She punished Macaron and the others with her musket and warned him that Tiramii should come out of hiding. Because other members of the veteran cast who were complicit (such as Wanipii) defended Tiramii, Fairy of Sweets Moffle, who was returning home from a business trip, went on a rampage (nobody knew why), which Isuzu put down. But a stray shot killed Kanie Seiya (he was revived the next morning), and after all the chaos, the question of the girls’ costumes was left unsettled.

  Despite all this behind-the-scenes strife, the guests weren’t going anywhere. Muse and the others got up on stage in their usual outfits. They ran their usual program. But maybe a hint of their shame still leaked through, because that day, their performance got better reviews than usual.

  That Time the Spirit of Fire Got Back From Work and Found Her Apartment in Flames

  So, I got off the Nanbu Line at my usual station, and I knew right away that something was weird. I could hear fire trucks in the distance, and the avenue in front of the shopping district was packed, and there were middle-aged ladies on condo balconies turning their smartphone cameras in the direction of my apartment.