"Oh, that's right, I forgot. Yui and your daughter Yukino are good friends, Kiyuki. I forgot to say hello to her earlier."
The fruit wine wasn't strong, but cup after small cup had gone down, and soaking in the warm, steamy pool on top of it had Yuigahama Emi flushed to the ears, her pretty face red and her mind a little hazy. When Yukinoshita Kiyuki said that, it suddenly hit her.
She hadn't been here long, but it all felt like a dream.
It had been an ordinary day. She'd done a few easy household chores around the house, and with none of the other wives inviting her out for afternoon tea, she'd lain on the sofa watching a drama, taken a nap when she got tired of it, and woken up to find it was already time to start dinner.
Her daughter Yui had said she was staying over at a friend's place tonight and that Emi didn't need to cook for her, so she wasn't in a hurry. She'd planned to take a bath first and then fix herself something to eat.
But after she'd washed and sunk into the tub full of hot water, her mind had suddenly gone blurry, and the next thing she knew she was in this wondrous place.
The moment she stepped in, she felt refreshed, comfortable from head to toe.
There was all kinds of delicious food to eat as much of as she liked, and plenty of beautiful, elegant women gathered together laughing and chatting, and there was even something like an Empathy Collar...
"Why is my face hot again? Typical of youth, wasting it like this... Hm? Kasumi, what are you splashing me for!"
"Hahaha! Mira, you've turned your empathy off, so why are you still hung up on Hachiman! If you really want to keep going, call Nina and Yuna and go over together. You can teach them the ropes while you're at it."
"Take Little Sayuri and the others over yourself. You're the one who's hungriest of all."
"Stop, stop, stop. If you want to sell your daughters, do it on your own time. Don't drop hints at us here. Hmm, come to think of it, is Hikigaya really that good? Enough to turn you lot straight into sl*..."
"What sl*ts? We only like Hikigaya, okay? Didn't you read the Club member perks? It says this Magical Girl Talent Awakening Ritual feels so good you transform into a magical girl!"
"Magical girls, at your age? Magical aunties is more like it!"
"Hehe, Sakuraka, Akina and Hiyoko only wanted to watch at first, too, but after trying it they're all hopelessly hooked. Go ask them if you don't believe me."
"Like you're any better! Who was it that kept saying no and then wouldn't come down?"
Hmm... Even though the topics were all so bold... just hearing them was enough to make her blush.
Yuigahama Emi looked at the wives horsing around not far off, Tsubakihara Mira, Takamine Kasumi, Minami Hiyoko, Katsura Manami, Tachibana Kyouka and the rest, who kept letting loose shocking remarks. Red-faced, she looked away, sipped her fruit wine, and gazed up at the curtain of light above the open-air hot spring.
The light screen was amazing. There wasn't a single camera on the scene, yet it could switch between all kinds of shots at any moment, first-person, third-person.
Even when things over there were chaotic, it reproduced every movement and sound from that side perfectly and without error over here.
Black-stockinged legs hanging limp and weak, the sound of white pantyhose tearing, clamped down on Hachiman and refusing to let go...
The wives sat on this side soaking in the hot spring and chatting as if they were watching a movie in a theater, offering the occasional comment on how their daughters' generation was performing.
So this was the high society she'd heard about?
She had only known that high society might go beyond her imagination, but she'd never thought it would be so, so...
Yuigahama Emi found it absurd, and she kind of wanted to run away, but with everyone watching and talking, how could she possibly stay out of it?
Right now no one could leave the Service Inn. If she didn't stick with the clique and wandered off on her own, she might actually get dragged over to join the fun, so all she could do was keep following everyone and watch the only male lead of the Cosplay Game.
This boy was called Hachiman, the president of the Service Club that Yui always talked about.
Not long ago Yui had told her about a friend who had run into a womanizing scumbag. She'd even given a little advice back then, but advice like hers was probably no use at all against a Hikigaya who was this far beyond ordinary...
Yui had said it was a friend, but Yui had just turned up here with the Yukinoshita family's second daughter, and who knew when Yui might show up on the light screen above, flashing a peace sign...
"Emi, how about you and Yui play with us when the time comes?"
Irisviel, in a pointed witch's hat, suddenly wrapped her arms around Yuigahama Emi from behind and coaxed her with a beaming smile.
"P-play with you, meaning...?"
Yuigahama Emi, already blushing furiously, jumped at Irisviel's embrace, and even her delicate earlobes went bright red.
However innocent she was, after hearing all that talk from the wives next to her she must already have understood what the Service Game was about, and it wasn't as if she knew nothing about that sort of thing, either.
"You and Yui can go in cosplay, and I'll go with Illya and Chloe. Of course, Illya and the others and I will go first to show you how it's done, Emi, and you and Yui can follow behind and take it slow."
Irisviel smiled sweetly at Yuigahama Emi's flushed face, which looked so much like her daughter Yuigahama Yui's.
The Yuigahama family, just like the Yukinoshita family before them, was slow to make progress. It was hard to say whether that was caution or overthinking.
Without actually experiencing it once, there was no way to understand how they really felt.
Some things couldn't be experienced through empathy alone.
But that was fine. She would help speed things up!
"Huh? Cosplay? I think I'll pass. I don't know anything about it, and I don't have a costume, either."
Yuigahama Emi hesitated for a moment. She didn't refuse right away, but declined as gently as she could.
Everyone in this club seemed so impressive, and Irisviel seemed to be an especially impressive magical girl.
"It'll be fine. The Club has lots of spare costumes, and you don't need to worry about sizes. The costumes adjust to our figures on their own. It's settled, then. When the time comes, I'll take you along to play with Darling."
"With me there, I'll definitely get you through on the first try, Emi. You'll become a magical girl right away!"
Irisviel puffed out her chest, brooking no argument, and promised with full confidence.
Magical girl awakening depends on duration. The longer it lasts, the higher your talent and the stronger your power, but looked at the other way around, the higher the talent, the longer the awakening takes, and if there isn't enough time, you can't awaken.
In theory, someone with poor aptitude could awaken quickly, but how many people with poor aptitude were there among those who got pulled into the Service Club?
So once too many people were receiving aid at the same time, the average time per person ran short, and some might not make it to awakening in time... Even now, some of the Club members had already served Hachiman and still hadn't become magical girls.
By the time they won another chance to serve and became magical girls, they'd already fallen a little behind the ones who had become magical girls earlier.
In the Service Club, talent alone wasn't enough, and even being on good terms with people didn't help. Only the bold and decisive, the ones who grabbed more than their share, could stay at the front with a magical girl's strength.
Yui, for example, clearly wasn't proactive enough and hadn't even really started awakening yet. But Irisviel would fight for Emi.
Anyway, Illya and Chloe were in no hurry to become magical girls.