Ayanokōji SS: A Certain Chat on a Certain Day

It was a June afternoon, on a quiet day off.

With no intention of meeting anyone in particular, I found myself stepping into a café inside Keyaki Mall. Ever since transferring classes, I’d been constantly occupied with adapting to my new environment, and somewhere along the way, I’d started to miss the simple comfort of spending time alone.

Perhaps because it was still early, the café was relatively empty. I chose one of the small two-seat tables tucked away toward the back and settled into it. With nothing pressing to occupy my mind, I passed the next thirty minutes idly, sipping my coffee and letting the time drift by.

Little by little, the café began to fill.

Before I realized it, a group of four first-year boys arrived at the table next to mine. I hadn’t planned on paying them any attention, but judging by how lively they were even before sitting down, bursts of cheerful laughter kept breaking out.

“This school is seriously on another level,” one of them said. “I mean, I was genuinely hyped at the entrance ceremony.”

On another level?

Were they getting worked up over academics?

“You mean the Student Council President Horikita, right?” another continued. “The moment I saw her, I was like— there’s no way a student council president can be that cute! Except, there she is. And once I noticed that, it was over. Look left, look right, cute girls everywhere.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the others chimed in, nodding enthusiastically in agreement.

Apparently, it had absolutely nothing to do with academics; they were talking about the high level of appearance.

Well, perhaps that is a more student-like, especially boys-like, conversation.

I picked up my coffee cup, which was about half full. It had gone cold, but that brought its own delicious flavor.

About half the seats in the café were filled now. Still, considering it would only get busier as lunchtime approached, leaving in another thirty minutes would probably be the polite thing to do.

After that, I went back to scrolling through my phone. But something nagged at me, the first-years had gone unusually quiet. Curious, I glanced their way.

They'd leaned in close to one another, whispering in hushed voices. Despite the lowered volume, their excitement was unmistakable.

What all four of them shared was the direction of their gaze.

Following it, I saw the reason.

Ichinose, walking past the café, just beyond the glass.

“That's Ichinose-senpai… She's crazy cute.”

“She's my number one favourite. Seriously…. I wanna date her…”

“No way, man. You don't stand a chance.”

“Hey, but when I greeted her the other day, she gave me the sweetest smile. Like, seriously cute.”

“She does that with everyone. Being that cute and that nice, it's just not fair.”

Listening from the neighboring table, it was hard not to conclude that Ichinose’s popularity hadn’t changed in the slightest. Even now.

After stepping down from the student council, she’d clearly become less visible around campus. You didn’t see her nearly as often in the halls or at school events. And yet, her name still carried weight, passed along effortlessly.

While two of them kept riding the excitement, a third boy hesitantly raised his hand, as if asking permission to speak.

“Uh… actually, I’m an Ichinose-senpai fan too. She’s honestly on a whole different level than others…”

“Right?!”

Because they were seated right beside me, every word reached my ears with vivid clarity.

They were probably trying to keep their voices down at first, but as the topic grew more enjoyable, restraint slowly gave way.

“Like… she’s kind of an angel, you know?”

“An angel, that's it, that's the word. Angel-tier.”

Angel.

For someone like Ichinose, whose presence alone drew attention throughout her year, that first impression made sense.

She didn’t simply feel sympathy toward others, she acted on it, extending her hand without hesitation. There was no calculation behind it, no attempt to gain anything in return. Just a straightforward, almost stubborn desire to help people.

Of course, in a school built on class competition, continuing to act purely out of goodwill inevitably became a shackle. That much couldn’t be denied.

Either way, it seemed the new first-years had formed the same impression of Ichinose that I'd had when I first enrolled.

“It’s like… how do I put it… she’s got this mature allure. Totally different from girls our year.”

In terms of age, the difference was only two years. But within the narrow confines of student life, those two years created a surprisingly wide gap.

Three of the four boys continued to gush endlessly about Ichinose. The one who caught my attention, though, was the boy wearing glasses.

He’d nodded along or offered brief responses here and there, but he’d remained noticeably quiet. Even while the others were getting carried away, his expression barely changed.

“So we all agree, Ichinose-senpai is the top third-year?”

“No objections!”

“None here!”

The first-years had gone so far as to start ranking people on their own.

And that was when the boy with glasses finally moved.

If I remembered correctly from the OAA, his name was Maruo, from Class 1-C.

Maruo, who until now had neither strongly agreed nor disagreed, was about to cast his own stone into the water.

“…I'd have to disagree. Ichinose-senpai is cute, sure. But calling her the best? That shows a lack of taste.”

2

It seems there is an objection.

“Disagree? What do you mean, disagree?”

One of the boys folded his arms, turning a skeptical look toward him.

“My preferences don’t align with yours,” Maruo replied calmly. “No, if I’m being honest, I might even say your eyes are defective.”

As if he’d been waiting for this exact moment, he murmured those words, then slowly raised his thin right arm. With a faintly unsteady motion, he extended his index finger and pointed off into the distance.

The other three boys followed the direction of his finger all at once.

My own curiosity was stirred, and a beat later, I quietly traced their line of sight as well.

“She,” Maruo continued softly, “is the greatest woman at this school. No… the greatest woman I’ve encountered in my entire life.”

3

He said it with absolute conviction, as though the title of best belonged to her without question.

The girl Maruo had chosen as his example was, unexpectedly, Hiyori.

She was walking alongside Kaneda, a gentle smile playing on her lips as they spoke. Kaneda, too, seemed genuinely absorbed in their conversation; even from this distance, that much was obvious.

“Who even is she?” one of the boys muttered. “I mean, yeah, she’s insanely cute, but… isn’t she a bit too much of a dark horse?”

“That’s Shiina Hiyori-senpai,” Maruo replied smoothly. “She’s a third-year, like Ichinose-senpai. She loves books. If this were a video game, you could max out your surface-level affection meter just by visiting the library every day.”

“I don’t really get the analogy,” another boy said flatly, “but I do get that you’re into her.”

“But what if the guy walking next to her is her boyfriend? He kinda looks like the bookish type.”

For first-years who didn’t know their relationship, seeing a boy walking so comfortably at her side naturally planted that suspicion.

At that comment, Maruo slapped the table once with his palm.

“Ha! Don’t be ridiculous,” he said with a soft huff. “Shiina-senpai is pure and unsullied, the ultimate, perfect angel. There’s no way she’d be swept up in something as trivial as vulgar romance.”

Love is blind, and for him, there was apparently no room for doubt.

“That's just your wishful thinking…”

Before he could finish, another cut in.

“Maruo, I get that Shiina-senpai’s cute, but you’ve heard that saying, right? Girls like that, sometimes they turn out to be unexpectedly twisted. You think they’re angels, and then it turns out they’re devils.”

You can’t see a person’s true nature from their appearance alone.

Even someone like Ichinose, who projected herself openly and earnestly to the world, offered no absolute proof that her thoughts and personality were exactly as they appeared on the surface.

And when the subject is someone whose name you didn’t even know until now, those uncertainties would only grow stronger.

If the person Maruo believed to be pure turned out to be something else entirely… would Maruo be deeply hurt by that truth?

“...A devil, huh…”

Maruo murmured the word thinly, then closed his eyes as if savoring the sound of it. He nodded once— then again, and again— repeating the motion as if something were slowly sinking in.

“Shiina-senpai as a devil… heh.”

Rather than taking offense, he smiled at the suggestion that she might be a devil.

“H-hey, Maruo?”

The other three exchanged uneasy glances, all wearing the same ‘uh-oh’ expression.

“No, I think it was a fine observation,” Maruo continued. “Shiina-senpai is an angel— no, a great archangel, even. But the notion that she might not be an angel at all… that she could secretly be a devil, now that’s a blind spot. Yes. A perfect subversion of expectations. The kind that betrays the reader in the best possible way. That’s where catharsis is born. Excellent. Truly excellent.”

“That's it. He’s gone,” one of the boys muttered.

“Yeah. He’s slipped into another world again.”

“When he gets like this, he doesn’t come back for a while…”

“Wouldn’t you normally be crushed?” another asked hesitantly. “I mean… finding out the person you like is a devil and all?”

“Right?”

“That’s simply a lack of imagination,” Maruo replied smoothly. “Honestly, I’d like nothing more than to show you the devilish version of her that I’ve envisioned. Ah… adorable. Devil Shiina-senpai. If I asked her to insult me, she’d struggle so hard to come up with something mean, and in the end it wouldn’t even qualify as an insult. Her face would flush red, and I’d say, ‘It’s fine. You’re cute,’ and pull her into an embrace.”

“…That’s creepy.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but now I want to see it. Just once before I die, I want to see Shiina-senpai in a devil costume. I’ll add it to my life’s bucket list. She’ll become a devil just for me, right in front of my eyes.”

“Well, I kinda get where you’re coming from… I mean, I wanna see Ichinose-senpai in an angel costume too. Actually, at this point, I’d even settle for a devil one.”

“You too…? Well, I guess… me too.”

Each of the four drifted off into their own fantasies, imagining Ichinose and Hiyori clad in angelic and demonic costumes, basking quietly in the happiness those visions brought them.

As for me, I felt I had a reasonable grasp of cosplay by now.

After all, having been involved in running a maid café during last year’s cultural festival, it would be strange not to sympathize with them.

If Ichinose and Hiyori were ever to don costumes, angel and devil outfits might suit them far better than expected.

Of course, assigning Ichinose the role of angel and Hiyori that of devil, or vice versa, had nothing to do with their inner goodness or moral alignment. Those labels didn’t touch the substance of who they were. Which was precisely why the reverse pairing would work just as well.

Come to think of it… if they swapped costumes between morning and afternoon, showing off both angel and devil versions of each, the same customers might come back for a second visit.

Though in that case, differences in body type would make costume swapping impractical. Preparing duplicate outfits would double the cost, and whether that investment could be recouped would quickly become the central issue—

Well, any café operation would presumably have a few extra staff members on hand anyway…

Catching myself mentally crunching the numbers, I forced my thoughts to a halt.

There was no guarantee there would even be a cultural festival this year, and it seemed unlikely the school would repeat a special exam, or theme, like that again. The chances of another maid café happening were low. Continuing to indulge in these hypotheticals was pointless.

Still, I felt I hadn’t quite grasped the true essence of why cosplay captivated people so deeply.

Of course, I understood the surface appeal: cute outfits worn by cute girls. That much was obvious.

But I also knew that I didn’t fully understand it on a deeper level.

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to broaden my perspective a little more. To see whether I could ever reach the point where the desire to see someone cosplay would well up as strongly as it did for Maruo.

After an hour, just as planned, I stood up from my seat. The time alone had been quietly fulfilling, a proper rest.

One new thought etched itself into my mind that day:

I should try to understand the appeal of cosplay a little better.

And so it turned out to be a day with that kind of…. harvest?