"..."
It took Tsuna and the Crew Cut Guy opposite him about ten minutes to go from complimenting each other to chatting about their daily lives.
"Miyamura-sensei, should we get straight to today's topic?" Finally, the woman beside them couldn't bear it anymore and interrupted with a smile.
The Crew Cut Guy didn't speak again. In these ten minutes, he realized how difficult the other party was and silently withdrew his immature thoughts from just now…
"Mm."
Tsuna nodded. He could see that the woman was the one in charge, and the Crew Cut Guy opposite him was just a newly hired…
The person opposite him was only a year or two older than Jun, but he looked relatively 'mature'.
As for how he knew, it was because the other party had almost revealed all his background just now.
"Ahem…" The Crew Cut Guy lightly coughed, cleared his throat, and asked:
"Miyamura-sensei, do you have any thoughts on adapting 'The Flower We Saw That Day' into an anime?"
"..."
As soon as he said that, the atmosphere became quiet. Finally, Jun broke the silence with a laugh. At the same time, Tsuna felt a hint of speechlessness.
If he didn't have that idea, why would he be sitting here? Was he really just here to chat about daily life?
For the next thirty-plus minutes, under Jun's skilled 'Talk No Jutsu,' the matter wasn't successfully negotiated. The Crew Cut Guy and his companion hinted that they would come back to talk after seeing the sales of the next volume.
They also expressed that if Tsuna wanted to adapt it into an anime, they hoped he would prioritize their anime company.
Tsuna nodded politely, watching the two leave the conference room.
"Tsuna, aren't you nervous at all?" After the two left with Jun, Shouko seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and eagerly began to ask.
"It's alright." Tsuna shrugged, took a candy from his pocket, and handed it to her. "I never expected the first conversation to be successful, so I wasn't nervous. Besides, I'm the one selling the copyright to them, so they should be the ones who are nervous.
If I were nervous, wouldn't it all go awry? To put it more bluntly, it's really not much different from chatting about daily life."
For a moment, she actually felt that it made some sense…
"Let's go." Tsuna stood up. "We'll ride our bikes to Akihabara now. Send me the agreed-upon address; I'll take a look."
"Don't we need to wait for Jun to come back?"
Tsuna shook the phone in his hand. "She still has things to do. If we see her when we go out, we'll say hello. If not, I'll just text her on my phone."
Hearing this, Shouko didn't say anything more. She slipped her hand back into his warm palm and walked out of the conference room beside him.
When they took the elevator downstairs, they didn't see Jun, so Tsuna just sent her a message on his phone:
"Jun, Shouko and I have something to do, so we're leaving first."
He didn't get a response, but he didn't mind. He looked at the address Shouko had sent him and set up the route on the navigation.
"Tsuna, do you think the person who arranged the offline meeting at the Maid Cafe will be male or female?" On the way, Shouko felt the strong wind and shouted loudly.
Tsuna didn't respond. Instead, he stopped the car at an intersection, took off his helmet, and looked back at her, guessing, "Probably a male, since they're arranging a meeting at a Maid Cafe."
"Mm…" Shouko nodded, feeling it made sense. As for why he stopped the car and looked back at her, she also knew the reason…
After a brief exchange, the two continued cycling. It took them over an hour to reach the place Shouko had agreed upon with the other party, which included issues like the streets being too winding and the navigation suddenly freezing.
"Tsuna, will you talk to him then?" Shouko looked at the bustling Maid Cafe not far ahead, made lively by the arrival of summer vacation, and felt a bit like retreating.
"Nope!" Tsuna took off his helmet and crossed his arms in an X. "Shouko, this is your own battlefield. I can't always be with you, but you can learn how to face it when I'm here."
"..." Shouko hesitated repeatedly, forcefully suppressing the strange emotions in her heart, and slowly nodded. "Mm."
The neon lights on Akihabara's main street were dazzlingly bright by four in the afternoon. Not far away, a girl was being pushed forward by high school girls carrying 'ita-bags' in the crowd.
Tsuna encouraged Shouko a few times, then looked up and saw the three-story building covered in anime posters.
A giant cat ear was drawn on the pink fluorescent sign, half-human-sized gashapon machines were stacked in the glass display window, and a Miss Maid in a black-and-white lace dress was tiptoeing to hand out flyers to passing otaku, the bows on her skirt bouncing with her movements.
"Does it look good, Tsuna?"
Shouko's indifferent question rang in his ear at this moment.
"It's alright, but I'd rather see you wear it." Tsuna commented seriously.
Shouko slapped him without hesitation, while not forgetting to take a deep look at the style of the clothes on the Miss Maid.
When Tsuna pushed open the door with Shouko, the cat bells overhead jingled "ding-dong" wildly, and cold air mixed with the scent of fried chicken hit their faces.
The thirty-square-meter store was packed. The mint-green walls were covered with instant photos, every table had a tablecloth with cat paw prints, and string lights hanging from the ceiling were playing Hatsune Miku's manager humming off-key songs.
"Welcome back, Master!" Three Miss Maids with glowing cat ears suddenly popped out from behind the counter, startling Shouko so much that she almost bumped into the gashapon machine.
A round-faced girl with twin pigtails scurried over, two markers tucked into the pocket of her lace apron: "Would the two of you like a healing seat by the window?"
The menu she handed over had a moving cat drawn on its cover, and inside it was full of 'Moe Recommendations' highlighted with fluorescent pens.
She was already used to couples coming to the Maid Cafe, and there was no rule prohibiting couples from entering.
"Three people." Shouko mustered her courage and walked to Tsuna, taking the menu handed to her by the Miss Maid.
Then, under her guidance, they walked to the four-person seat by the window on the far left.
"We have another friend who hasn't arrived yet. We'll order when he gets here," Tsuna said softly.
"Feel free to command us." The other party nodded, left a sentence, and then turned to leave.
"Shouko, send a message to the client and tell him where we're sitting now."
"Mm-hm."
Shouko nodded and began to take out her phone to do as he said. Tsuna also took the opportunity to look around the Maid Cafe.
At the next table, an uncle in an 'ita-shirt' was playing rock-paper-scissors with a Miss Maid. The loser had to have cartoon stickers put on them, and he already had five Pikachus on his forehead.
Behind them, three JK girls were holding up their phones to record, and a Miss Maid in a pink Lolita dress was teaching them how to make heart gestures, with background noise full of "Kawaii—" screams.
Before their chairs were even warm, the Miss Maid chief with rabbit ear headbands shouted into a microphone: "Table number three's guest birthday benefit time has arrived!"
He suddenly felt his head ache from the noise. As for admiring those cute cat-eared girls, he had no such thoughts at all, especially since Shouko was still staring at him from beside him…