Feeling like his heart had taken a critical hit, Tanaka Masao brought Eriri to the maid café he'd been yearning to visit for ages.
Right now, he desperately needed to replenish his cute maid energy.
To avoid drawing too much attention, the two of them had already taken off their face masks.
With their perfectly standard hardcore-otaku vibe, they actually looked pretty normal in this area.
"Welcome home, Master and Ojou-sama."
Eriri sat down and let out a helpless sigh, shaking her head.
"I seriously don't get why you guys like maids so much."
While she was complaining, Tanaka Masao was still staring at the menu, unsure what to order. Eriri, meanwhile, ordered with practiced ease.
"One strawberry cake, one juice. No delicious magic."
"Yes, Ojou-sama."
The maid wrote down Eriri's order, then turned to Tanaka Masao and spoke with an extremely gentle smile.
"Is this your first time here, Master? Would you like a recommendation?"
Tanaka Masao put down the menu and nodded. "Sure."
Maid cafés place a lot of importance on their reputation, so the staff had no intention of ripping him off. She recommended the classic heart-shaped omurice, plus a glass of orange juice.
Once the maid left, Eriri let out a soft chuckle.
"Heh, didn't expect you to be a first-timer. You were that nervous—what, did the cute maid-san totally captivate you?"
"The maid-san is pretty cute," Tanaka Masao nodded.
Probably because the owner ran a tight ship.
The maids here all had good looks—if ten was the max, they'd score around a solid seven.
Even so, Tanaka Masao wasn't exactly dazzled. After all, he was around beautiful girls every day.
In class, Kawasaki Saki sat in front of him. After school, there was Yukinoshita Yukino. On weekends, he had Eriri.
All three were at school-idol level—easily nines across the board.
Thinking about it like that, Tanaka Masao felt his current life was actually pretty damn great.
He continued,
"It's not like I'm completely enchanted. It's just… they're way too enthusiastic right from the start. Zero sense of personal distance—it's a bit hard to get used to."
Hearing that, Eriri looked at him like she'd just seen something unbelievable.
"You? You actually know what 'personal distance' is?"
"How could I not know about personal distance?"
"Heh~" Eriri snorted.
"If you really understood personal distance, then when we first met, you never should've talked to me. Then I wouldn't have to be hanging out with you now—I could be at home, peacefully enjoying my otaku life."
Tanaka Masao didn't care in the slightest about Eriri's disdain.
Classic tsundere behavior—just listen to it backwards. Translated, it meant:
[If you hadn't recognized me back then, I wouldn't be able to spend time with you like this now. I'm actually enjoying it a lot.]
…Okay, even if Eriri weren't a tsundere, she still wouldn't say something like that out loud.
You could only say Tanaka Masao had developed his own unique method of interpreting tsunderes.
...
Before long, their orders arrived.
The maid set everything neatly on the table.
"Ojou-sama, here is your cake and juice. Master, this is your omurice and juice."
After placing the dishes down, the maid didn't leave. Instead, she formed a heart shape with her hands over Tanaka Masao's omurice.
She swayed her body lightly and chanted,
"Oishiku na~re! Moe, moe, kyuun! (Become delicious! Moe moe kyun!)"
After finishing the delicious spell, the maid bowed deeply.
"Please enjoy your meal, Master and Ojou-sama."
Once the maid left, Eriri rested her cheek on one hand, eating her cake with a spoon in the other, and asked with interest,
"So? How was the delicious magic? Did the omurice get tastier?"
Tanaka Masao was still savoring what he'd just witnessed. Hearing her question, he replied,
"I don't know whether it actually became tastier, but after experiencing it firsthand… just that performance alone makes the money feel well spent."
For once, Eriri didn't argue.
"That's actually a fair point. Not just anyone can do something like that."
That kind of embarrassingly cute magic—Eriri knew she definitely couldn't pull it off herself.
As Tanaka Masao ate his omurice, he thought to himself:
[If Kawasaki wants to earn money for tutoring, with her looks she'd definitely be insanely popular as a maid.
I can't really imagine her looking all shy…
But her wearing that annoyed, done-with-this look would be pretty attractive too.]
Of course, the idea of making Kawasaki Saki wear a maid outfit would remain firmly in his imagination.
She might work as a normal waitress, but she'd never be the super-interactive, overly enthusiastic type of maid.
Seeing Tanaka Masao zoning out, Eriri couldn't help asking,
"What are you spacing out about? Don't tell me you're thinking up doujin plots again."
Tanaka Masao snapped back to reality, a mysterious smile forming on his lips.
"Take a guess."
Eriri snorted, utterly unimpressed.
"Hmph. You're definitely thinking about doujins. Seriously, you're in heat 24/7—a perverted fat otaku with nothing but yellow trash in your brain."
Probably because they were out in public and knew this wasn't a great topic, Eriri lowered her voice so only the two of them could hear.
Tanaka Masao shrugged helplessly and sighed.
"Man, Eriri… why does it feel like, in your head, I'm nothing but 'doujins' and nothing else?"
Eriri narrowed her eyes at the indignant Tanaka Masao.
"What, besides that, do you even have anything worth showing off?"
"Of course. I—"
Tanaka Masao was about to retort, but then realized that whether it was him or the original owner of this body, neither of them really had any special talents.
He didn't even draw doujins himself.
"I can't think of it right now, but I definitely have something."
Eriri stared at him with dead fish eyes. She didn't say a word, but the meaning was crystal clear.
[Pathetic trash.]
Tanaka Masao felt deeply wounded by that look, like he'd been judged as a total scrub. He clenched his fists and ground his teeth internally.
[I still have a talent: endless vitality, inexhaustible stamina. I wonder if Eriri would dare to try it.]
But since that was a system-given ability and not something he could casually show off, he couldn't exactly say it out loud.
[Don't get mad, don't get mad. Eriri's a tsundere—everything she does has to be interpreted in reverse.
Right now, she must be thinking I'm amazing and looking at me with pure admiration.]
…Yeah, no. Judging by Eriri's gaze, even Tanaka Masao couldn't fool himself this time.
He lowered his head and kept eating, but he had no intention of backing down completely. He spoke up again.
"So, Eriri, are you heading straight home after this?"
"Huh? Why, got something planned?"
"I'm thinking of stopping by the arcade for a bit. Thought I'd ask if you want to come along."
"An arcade…"
Eriri thought it over. "It has been a while. Sure, let's go together."
At school, she always maintained the image of a bright, refined Ojou-sama, so going to arcades wasn't really her thing.
Usually she was busy drawing doujins, and after falling out with Aoyama Eriri's former otaku friend (contextual note: likely referencing a canon fallout), she didn't have a gaming buddy anymore—so she rarely went alone.
Tanaka Masao, lowering his head as he ate, wore a grin of schemes successfully set in motion.
[Eriri… once we get to the arcade, I'll crush you so hard you won't even recognize yourself.]