PM 9:50.
STARRY was nearing its closing time. The remaining customers drinking in the store gradually left, and the band members on stage, holding their instruments, discussed their performance near the speakers, fighting off drowsiness.
Kurusu Akira, holding a broom, cleaned the traces left by guests in the chilly hall with Ijichi Seika.
Cold white light spilled onto the dark floor, refracting iridescent halos on the surface of several unfolded candy wrappers.
In such a night after the bustle, one feels an indescribable sense of idleness and boredom, lacking the energy to do anything, finding everything uninteresting. The room, where people had come and gone, felt particularly empty and silent.
"Do you find it hard?" Ijichi Seika always wore a cold face when speaking; the enthusiasm from their first meeting this afternoon seemed like a mere illusion—
In others' eyes, it truly was an illusion.
She always had a cold expression that kept people at bay.
However, Kurusu Akira, as a "Phantom Thief," was too sensitive to various emotions, and often directly caught the slightest hint of true feelings revealed by others' words and actions.
This was also one of the fundamental reasons for his unfailing intuition in finding villains.
Kurusu Akira swept away the candy wrappers and picked up an empty plastic bottle, throwing it into the nearby trash can, before answering Ijichi Seika's question, "Compared to an hourly wage of 1,800 yen and extra drink commissions, this kind of work should be quite easy."
Ijichi Seika picked up a speaker and moved towards the storage room, "You really aren't spoiled at all. High school students like you are rare nowadays."
From 5:15 PM, he had been serving customers non-stop for nearly five hours, during which he also had to answer a lot of troublesome questions about band performance times and setlists, and even occasionally deal with some difficult female customers...
The manager genuinely sighed, "The people who used to work here would panic and run to me for help when they encountered these situations. I didn't expect you to be able to handle it yourself."
"My memory has always been good; I can remember the performance schedule immediately. Rather, it's the heavily drunk customers who are more troublesome."
Kurusu Akira recalled how he had to attend to customers' moods and emotions while working as a waiter at the counter, as well as answer various boring questions about his personal information, and even help those women whose legs were weak from drunkenness book ride-sharing cars and provide life advice... 'Am I going to become a psychologist in the future?'
He felt that he indeed had great potential to be a psychologist.
Starting to gain experience interacting with emotionally unstable people at a young age, he would likely become a leading authority in the field of psychology in the future.
After watching "Jojo's bizarre adventure," he regretted not being able to learn more about the invincible Jotaro Kujo.
Kurusu Akira flicked the white baseball cap, which was standard employee attire, on his head.
Since he had transmigrated to a parallel world, it was time to become the second "invincible Jotaro"...
At this moment, Ijichi Seika, who had returned to the counter to tally sales, suddenly turned around and stared at him with a strange look.
"You brat, you're not thinking of becoming a male host, are you?"
Kurusu Akira's surging passion and grand ambitions froze in an instant.
Ijichi Seika continued to twist the knife, "Today you sold twenty-five bottles of champagne and forty-one bottles of beer, almost emptying the store's inventory... No wonder I saw so many more drunk girls at the ticket booth than before."
Kurusu Akira took two steps back, his hand trembling as he held his baseball cap, "Isn't this proof of my diligent work? These are real sales! Manager, look at the cash in the drawer!"
Ijichi Seika pulled open the drawer, revealing a thick stack of cash, more than STARRY's revenue on any previous day.
How could concert ticket sales compare to the speed of selling alcohol?
She was very sure that when STARRY reopened tomorrow, a group of women would come running to her to ask about the new waiter in the store... Just thinking about it felt troublesome.
So she sincerely sighed, "I suddenly want to say something a bit rude."
Kurusu Akira retreated again, looking as if he was about to flee the counter at any moment. "Then please don't say it."
Ijichi Seika picked up the stack of banknotes, not even counting them, but surprisingly, she just relied on her feeling to count out about one-third of the amount and patted it onto the table, making a muffled sound.
"Your share for today. Don't be surprised, although I verbally said 10%, based on your performance tonight, you deserve this much."
As soon as she finished speaking, Kurusu Akira immediately approached Ijichi Seika with an earnest expression, then bowed deeply, "Manager, I was being ignorant just now!"
Ijichi Seika's mouth twitched, and the hand holding the stack of Fukuzawa Yukichi bills retracted a bit. "Can you show me how you tricked so many women into buying alcohol? I don't mean anything else, I'm just genuinely curious... STARRY has never sold this many bottles of alcohol since it opened, though we've sold a lot of drinks like cola."
Kurusu Akira unhesitatingly brushed aside the messy hair on his forehead, then took off his glasses and clipped them to the top of his head to secure them, revealing his devastatingly handsome face. He then improvised a chest-bowing gesture of a London gentleman that he had seen in a Charlie Chaplin silent film in his previous life.
Just as he was about to further imitate the way those "shota butlers" in anime spoke, he saw the stack of banknotes suddenly handed to him.
Ijichi Seika turned her head, her hand holding the banknotes extended straight forward, not daring to look at him again.
Then, she seemed to wave dismissively at Kurusu Akira, "So greasy at such a young age, where's the student look? It's getting late, hurry home."
Kurusu Akira felt as if he had been granted a great pardon. He took the money, thanked her again, and quickly fled.
"Guitar!" Ijichi Seika shouted behind him.
"I'll leave it at the store, I'll pick it up after school tomorrow," Kurusu Akira had already rushed up the stairwell.
About a few more minutes passed.
The door to the recording studio next to the counter opened, and Ijichi Nijika and Yamada Ryo walked out with their school bags.
Ijichi Seika took out her key and went to lock the recording studio.
"Have you finished your homework?"
"Yes, and we reviewed the key points from the geography book, as well as some English words. Ryo, right?" Ijichi Nijika looked at her best friend.
"Yes, like Abandon," Yamada Ryo echoed from the side.
Ijichi Seika shook her head, not bothering to expose their little lies, "Ryo, it's not safe to walk alone at night. Nijika and I will walk you home."
"Mmm-hmm," Yamada Ryo nodded.
Ijichi Nijika jogged to turn off the lights, "Have Ren and Sakiko left already?"
Ijichi Seika walked up the stairwell to wait for her, "Togawa went home at 7:30 PM, and Amamiya just left."
"Oh, I see. Onee-chan seems to be in a good mood tonight."
"Because the sales figures are excellent," Ijichi Seika locked the store door.
"Mmm! Mmm!" Ijichi Nijika was also happy about this; she really loved this Livehouse.
However, why were her sister's ears and face a bit red?...Was she catching a cold?
Under the light of the chandelier in the stairwell, she followed behind Ijichi Seika, wondering this.
----------------
Spring was almost over.
On the way back to Yongen-Jaya, Kurusu Akira looked at the scattered petals of night cherry blossoms and sighed.
It had to be said that Shimokitazawa and Yongen-Jaya were truly close.
Without the burden of the guitar, Kurusu Akira quickly returned to LeBlanc.
The neighbor's Siamese cat was crouching by the coffee shop's entrance at some unknown time, licking its paws.
When it saw Kurusu Akira approaching, instead of retreating like last time, it moved a few steps closer and tentatively meowed.
Kurusu Akira half-squatted down, slowly extending his hand towards its head.
The kitten, which seemed to be less than a year old judging by its size, docilely raised its neck and rubbed its head repeatedly into Kurusu Akira's palm.
After petting the cat for a while, Kurusu Akira took out his key, opened the door, and walked into LeBlanc.
The cat didn't follow him in; it just squatted outside the door, watching Kurusu Akira's back for a while, then quietly left.
----------------
Drinking coffee, working out, cleaning the shop, showering.
After completing these steps, Kurusu Akira finally lay down on the small bed in the attic at 11:30 PM.
So much had happened today.
He glanced at his Persona, Dioscuri, who was writing in a diary by the window.
He earned three thousand yen working at LeBlanc in the morning.
He earned about one hundred twenty thousand yen from STARRY in the evening.
What a fruitful day, he could buy a laptop now.
Kurusu Akira picked up his phone and scanned the class chat group, noticing that the chat box was moving down almost every second. Strange, what were they discussing so intensely...
Hmm?
A female student from Class 2-A was missing?!
No wonder Ito suddenly called all the students from Class 2-A back to the classroom during cooking class today.
Kurusu Akira glanced at the timestamp on his phone, clicked his tongue, and gave up the idea of investigating the situation late at night.
He had recently been involved in a very significant "loss of control incident." If he were caught on camera and questioned by the police, it would be very troublesome... It was 2022 now, not 2015 when he was in high school; high-definition cameras had long been popularized both inside and outside campuses.
He would just slowly inquire about it when he went to school tomorrow.
Kurusu Akira turned off the light, then pulled the covers over himself, ready to sleep.
He tossed and turned in bed but couldn't sleep; his mind seemed a bit too excited.
Was it because his depleted mental energy had recovered a bit?
'As expected of me, even after four consecutive days of high-intensity [Memory Reading], and then shortly after, wreaking havoc in the Mementos, my overdrawn mental energy recovered so quickly.'
Anyway, his academic ability was already sufficient to handle this semester's exams, so it was time to figure out how to make money... Upon closer thought, there were quite a few differences between the two worlds in terms of entertainment works.
Light novels? Songs? Manga?
Considering the efficiency of profit...
Then he would copy some light novels that were popular in Japan in his previous life and try to publish them.
He suddenly punched the bed board, then looked up at the Persona writing in a diary across from him.
"Dioscuri! Give me a cheat!"
"I want to [Read] 'No Game No Life'!"
The Persona dropped the diary and saluted Kurusu Akira.
Immediately after, a massive flood of text rushed into Kurusu Akira's mind.
His mental energy, which had just recovered a little, instantly bottomed out.
He let out a muffled groan and collapsed onto the bed, losing consciousness.
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