[After thanking Gallagher, he went off to handle his own business.]
"Thanks for helping me earlier! Otherwise I might have really been…" The girl paused, "…taken away."
[The girl introduced herself as Firefly, a local of Penacony — a performer from the Iris Family. She was currently working as a temporary actress. Since there was no performance today, she came out to stroll around and unexpectedly got mistaken for a stowaway.]
[Firefly proactively offered to be Stelle's tour guide and show her around. As they spoke, Stelle noticed Firefly lowering her eyelashes and glancing around, especially paying attention to the noisy crowd, as if something was hiding there. But soon, she restrained her emotions and returned her gaze to Stelle.]
[Stelle figured she did need a local guide, so she accepted Firefly's suggestion and followed her to tour all of Penacony.]
——
Kaguya-sama: Love is War.
Inside the Shinomiya family residence, the girls were staring intently at the scene of Firefly and Stelle wandering through Penacony.
"This is definitely a date!" Kaguya sat on the bed, hugging her pillow tightly. "Activating Stelle's protective instincts through a cry for help, then creating an opportunity to be alone with her through repayment… Calling it a tour guide is actually a date. This woman… uses such sophisticated methods."
Truly unfathomable.
Ai Hayasaka silently sipped the red tea in her cup: "If Milady could learn Firefly's methods, she would have already taken down the President a hundred times."
"M-Milady!" Kaguya's face instantly turned red like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "How can the President be compared to Stelle? Stelle is a girl! Love tactics against girls…" Her voice gradually weakened as her fingers unconsciously twisted the lace on her clothes. "…are useless against someone like the President…"
Ai Hayasaka put down her teacup, the porcelain clinking crisply against the silver tray: "Kaguya-sama, if you want to win someone over, you only need to remember one thing — the most cunning hunters often appear in the form of prey."
"Perhaps you could also consider creating an opportunity to be alone with President Shirogane?" Ai Hayasaka picked up her phone and started looking through recent school schedules. "Oh, right, Kaguya-sama. The school is organizing a choir competition soon, and student council members must participate. Why don't you use this chance to ask the President to give you private guidance in the music classroom?"
"Sunset, empty classroom, boy and girl alone, guidance…" Ai Hayasaka was very satisfied with this plan and gave the girl a thumbs up. "You'll also get to enjoy the President's singing voice all to yourself."
"T-This kind of cheap trick…" Kaguya buried her face in the velvet pillow, her muffled voice coming through. "The President will definitely see through it immediately…"
"So what? Can he refuse? Look at Stelle in the Celestial Screen — did she refuse Firefly's little trick? Even if she might not have noticed it for a moment… it doesn't matter. At least Firefly successfully gained the chance to be alone with Stelle."
Ai Hayasaka smiled slightly: "Trust me, Milady. At that time… you just need to go on the offensive and conquer."
——
[While strolling, Firefly brought Stelle to the entrance of a restaurant.]
["This is the place. Have you heard this saying? — In dreams, hunger is the most precious spice." Firefly led Stelle to the restaurant. "This place has most of Penacony's delicacies. Pick whatever you want, I'll treat you!" The girl patted her chest boldly.]
["My consumption level is a bit high…" Stelle turned her head and glanced at her.]
[This glance immediately made the girl lose her confidence: "I-It should be fine, right? I still have some savings…"]
[With that, she handed over all her remaining private savings to Stelle — a total of twenty thousand credits.]
[Stelle discovered that ordering one of every food item in the store came to exactly twenty thousand credits. Wasn't this perfect? So she bought everything without hesitation.]
[Firefly's voice started trembling: "Ah, t-this…"]
[But things had already reached this point, so Firefly could only force a smile: "Have you finished ordering? You… have really good taste! Haha… Then I-I'll pay…"]
——
MYGO.
"Stelle, this girl…! S-She's really going too far!"
Riki subconsciously gripped the cloth she was using to wipe cups tighter, staring fixedly at Firefly's forced smile on the Celestial Screen. Her brows were tightly furrowed, and her lower lip had a shallow tooth mark from biting.
Seeing Firefly, who was also working part-time, have the money she worked so hard to save spent by Stelle in just a few seconds, sympathy made her chest tighten.
"Does Stelle know how hard it is to save money from part-time work?! At times like this, she should be more frugal!"
Anon noticed Riki's wiping motions becoming faster and heavier, and quietly reminded her: "Rikki, don't break the cup. Be careful not to cut your hand…"
But Riki seemed not to hear and only grew angrier.
"I actually think there's no need to mind it. That Miss Firefly… seems to have a very unusual attitude toward Stelle." Tomori elegantly took a sip of red tea.
"What do you mean no need to mind? Is it because it wasn't your money that you don't need to mind?" Riki glared at Tomori.
"Heh…" Tomori lowered her eyelids, her thick lashes casting a shadow on her face that perfectly hid the fleeting displeasure in her eyes. The corners of her mouth still held a smile, but the fingertips gripping the cup handle had turned white.
"Riki, making such arbitrary judgments isn't very appropriate." Tomori gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "As soon as she saw Stelle, this Miss Firefly recognized her as a Trailblazer. As a local of Penacony and an ordinary performer from the Iris Family… isn't her insight a bit too good?"
"What does that prove?"
Tomori put down her teacup, the bottom clinking against the tray with a slightly heavier crisp sound than usual: "What I'm saying is that their meeting may not have been accidental, but a long-planned inevitability. Miss Firefly probably has some other intentions toward Stelle."
"Huh? Intentions? Aren't you thinking too badly of her?"
Riki didn't understand. This Miss Firefly clearly looked like a harmless ordinary girl, yet in Tomori's mouth she sounded like a scheming conspirator.
"Rikki, intentions don't necessarily have to be bad intentions, right?"
Anon smiled and stepped in to mediate, seemingly easing the tense atmosphere between the two: "Maybe… um… Firefly just likes Stelle? Think about it. A pretty girl from the Iris Family who doesn't want to be bound by Penacony's prosperity, dreams of the stars and sea outside, and decides to join the Astral Express through this carefully planned encounter, Trailblazing while dating Stelle! That kind of development isn't bad either, right?"