Elio nodded her little head vigorously, her gaze drifting downward to stare at Hachiman. As she stared, her own face turned red, and the wicked little hand she had reached out toward Hachiman was reluctantly pulled back.
Although with the President's powerful assistance, they had long since stopped worrying about the mermaid transformation period.
Their desire for the President was growing stronger and stronger. The service time they could enjoy during the nightly service games was simply not enough.
"Don't rush. Elusi, Elio, you two get in the water first. I'll take a couple photos of you before we talk. As for Ayla... who exactly are you cosplaying?"
Hachiman looked at Elio and Elusi, who already had their dissatisfaction written all over their faces, and could only direct them into the crystal-clear pond beside them while turning to look at the golden-haired mermaid Ayla.
The pink-themed Sangonomiya Kokomi from Genshin Impact suited Elusi perfectly. A mermaid beauty with a natural, subtly sinister style. Though in his eyes, Elusi only had the style of a dissatisfied nymphomaniac.
Janus, the shipgirl from Azur Lane, a timid, weak blue-haired shipgirl little succubus, also fit Elio perfectly: outwardly introverted and shy, but actually secretly bold, the group's darling.
Both mermaids' choices matched their temperaments perfectly. It was Ayla's cosplay outfit that caught him off guard.
Originally, Ayla had a wheat-colored skin, golden-haired gal style. A relatively rare attribute in the Service Club. But today her skin was much paler, a huge difference from her usual look. He couldn't tell at a glance what character she was cosplaying.
"Vina from Arknights. Producer didn't recognize her? Her codename seems to be Siege."
She wore a white T-shirt on top and ultra-short hot pants below, revealing snowy, round thighs.
Ayla, who had been wondering why she was left alone, immediately grinned and planted a kiss on Hachiman's cheek upon hearing this.
This behavior made Elusi and Elio, who had just entered the water, almost want to climb back ashore and kiss him twice themselves.
"I couldn't find any character that suited the wheat-colored skin I had before, so I could only go back to my original look to find a cosplay. I think this Siege outfit isn't bad."
The three mermaids of the Mermaid Songstress group each had different styles.
The frail and petite Elio was naturally endearing. Not only was she the best singer among them, she also walked the group-darling route.
Elusi, with her fluffy pink long hair, went for the natural, soft, cute idol style.
Only Ayla, whose figure was outstandingly better than theirs but lacked a distinctive feature, had no choice but to take a different path, the gal style.
But in reality, she didn't naturally have wheat-colored skin. It was only to differentiate their styles and to lock in the dark-skinned gal aesthetic that she had deliberately tanned herself.
If it weren't intentional, how could they, as mermaids, develop wheat-colored skin? Though she herself quite liked the dark-skinned gal aesthetic.
For example, Leona, who had returned with Elf Princess Iris-sama, a wild, wheat-colored-skinned golden-haired elf, had also used magic to tan her skin wheat-colored. Otherwise, unless one were a dark elf, ordinary elves' snowy white skin simply couldn't be tanned dark.
"Ayla, hurry up and get down here!"
Seeing Ayla still chattering about this and that with Hachiman, Elusi was about to go crazy.
It wasn't anything important, couldn't she talk about it later?
The priority right now was taking cosplay photos.
Once they started taking cosplay photos, they could involuntarily, helplessly, inevitably, and naturally enter their cosplay state and beg the President to satisfy them, to eliminate the "favorability" that had accumulated inside them.
"I know, I know. Producer, aren't you getting in to take photos? Standing on the shore is inconvenient, right?"
Ayla waved her hand, pulled Hachiman to the edge of the pond, and suddenly couldn't resist kissing him on the cheek again.
This wasn't hogging him, it was just warming up for the cosplay photos.
"Yeah, Ayla, you're right. Let's get in the water to shoot."
Hachiman thought about it and nodded, taking his photo camera and entering the water with Ayla.
Elio and the others weren't unfamiliar little idols from an idol agency—he didn't need to worry about being too intimate with them. Taking some bold cosplay photos directly in the garden pond was no big deal.
"President, shoot me first, shoot me first!"
"Commander, Janus, Janus can too..."
Seeing that Hachiman was getting into the water to shoot with them instead of standing on the shore, Elusi, who had been angry at Ayla for hogging him, forgot about everything else and quickly swam to Hachiman's side along with Elio.
The Mermaid Songstress group was well-suited for pool and swimsuit photos. Their cosplays of the shipgirl Janus and the "Priestess of the Present God" Sangonomiya Kokomi also fit the scene well. Only Ayla's Siege Vina cosplay didn't quite match the pool theme, but few people cared about such a small problem.
Elusi and the others had just said it themselves, the photo camera made it easy for people to enter a shooting state and quickly consume stamina.
And the pond was already filled with waist-deep spring water gushing from the Moon Spring. Playing and frolicking in the Moon Spring water, which could restore magic, spirit, and stamina, actually made the shooting go better.
However, Hachiman had still underestimated the degree of suppression these three world-class super-popular idols were under.
He had only taken a few shots of Sangonomiya Kokomi, Janus, and Vina gathered around him, and hadn't even figured out more poses yet.
The always timid and weak Elio suddenly reached out a wicked little hand toward him, asking him to teach her how to shoot the water-soaked tight white stockings.
"C-Commander, Janus is fine with it... please don't hold back with Janus..."
Elusi, cosplaying Sangonomiya Kokomi, also suddenly revealed her mermaid form and tightly embraced Hachiman underwater.
"President, no, Producer, hello. I'm Elusi from AQUAMARINA, cosplaying Sangonomiya Kokomi."
"Today Kokomi's energy is completely depleted. Please help Kokomi, replenish her energy."
Ayla saw that both good spots in front of Hachiman underwater were taken by her companions, so she could only hug him from behind, gently bite his ear, and whisper with a laugh, "Producer, let's set an example for the idols behind us, let them know how real cosplay photos should be taken."
In the pool called a pond, cosplay photos turned into cosplay filming. The crystal-clear water even allowed one to see the swimming mermaid figures underwater. Waves of startled cries rose from the idol groups waiting for their photos.
Those who could be invited to the Service Club, invited to the Service Inn to participate in the hot spring doujin convention and cosplay performances, they all knew that the Service Club members' relationship with Hachiman was anything but ordinary.
They had also guessed that the world-class super-popular idol Mermaid Songstress group was different from them and couldn't possibly just be background decorations like them.
But they truly hadn't expected that the Mermaid Songstresses would be so unreserved, without a shred of idol decorum, doing it right in front of them.
And Elio, who looked like a timid, introverted cute little animal, was actually the first among the three mermaid songstresses to make a move, the boldest one.
———
Facing the mermaid songstresses who suddenly started acting out regardless of the occasion, the most shocked and embarrassed weren't the idols from the idol agencies.
It was Ijichi Nijika, who had brought her sister to the hot spring doujin convention today.
"Nijika... do you... normally do this kind of thing with Hachiman too...?"
"Of course not!"
Hearing the faint voice from behind, Ijichi Nijika instinctively denied it.
She would never do these things in public in front of everyone.
Only when helping Yumiko would she and Marin take the initiative. Other times, she basically had no choice due to circumstances.