"Are you the boss? You look so young! Hello, I'm Kita, I wonder if Kawaragi-senpai told you about me?"
The red-haired girl greeted Asakura with an energy so sunny it could turn Bocchi-chan, whose lifestyle is closer to a vampire, into ash: "Please let me work here!"
"Hmm?" Asakura sized her up, feeling a bit conflicted.
It was true, just as Kawaragi Momoka had said, she seemed to have a good personality and didn't look like someone difficult to get along with.
But she was still a student, which meant her part-time hours wouldn't be much, and even scheduling regular shifts would be quite a hassle.
You should know that the back door of Usagi-ya is connected to the Round Table Hall. Unstable scheduling meant a higher chance of her accidentally seeing members of the Magic Club entering Usagi-ya through the back door, making it easier to expose the secrets behind it.
"Kita... um..." Asakura twitched his mouth with some doubt, "Wait a moment, is that your full name?"
"Humans are creatures that can live well in society as long as they know their surname..."
For some reason, the red-haired girl's expression became a bit weary.
"But it'll be a hassle when recording the work log, and there's personal income tax and stuff. If you really want to work here, you'd better tell me your full name." Asakura put on the serious air of a boss.
The red-haired girl agonized for a long time between 'working alongside her idol' and 'telling someone her full name' before she finally said unwillingly: "Kita Ikuyo."
"...Is that a pun?" Asakura was stunned.
"I knew that would be the reaction! Anyway, my name is just like a pun..." Kita Ikuyo slumped over the bar counter without any tears, and the sunny atmosphere she had just now suddenly became miserable.
"Don't mind it, it's just a homophone. Isn't it much better than some of those intentionally strange names?" Asakura comforted her: "I've even heard of someone whose name is written as Cosmos but read as NASA."
"NASA? Like the one that builds rockets?"
"Yes."
"I can already imagine how that kid would be teased at school..." Kita Ikuyo muttered, feeling a sense of empathy.
"The hourly wage for part-time work is 1200 yen, is that acceptable?" Asakura asked nonchalantly.
"Convenience store level..." Kita Ikuyo snapped back to her senses.
The minimum hourly wage in the Tokyo area is regulated at 1163 yen. The wage Asakura quoted was essentially scraping the bottom.
Generally, working at a convenience store pays more than this, and the service industry in restaurants is actually more troublesome than in convenience stores.
In a sense, this was Asakura's way of indirectly refusing her for the job.
After all, the girl's appearance was quite outstanding. Although it was clear she had applied makeup carefully, in Asakura's eyes, even if she were bare-faced, she definitely wouldn't be ugly—the kind that's a guaranteed 8 points.
For a beautiful girl like this, working at a maid cafe or similar places would easily earn her three to five thousand yen an hour, not to mention extra tips and commissions. Why come to his obscure little dessert shop?
"Because the shop just opened today, the landlord doesn't have any surplus grain." Asakura pulled out his pockets to show he was very poor, completely empty.
Kawaragi Momoka actually knew Asakura wasn't as poor as he acted, but as a qualified worker, she didn't intend to backstab the boss. She just very professionally stood behind the bar using a rag to wipe a tall glass.
Not sure why a dessert shop would prepare tall glasses...
"Well, that's fine. Then I'll be in your care!"
But to Asakura's surprise, Kita Ikuyo only thought for a moment before nodding and agreeing.
"Even though it feels strange for me to ask this..." He couldn't help but ask: "Are you really okay with such a low hourly wage?"
"Money or whatever doesn't matter—of course, if it could be more, that would naturally be better—mainly I want to work with Miss Kawaragi!" Kita Ikuyo said excitedly: "Ever since I saw Miss Kawaragi's performance on the roadside last time, I've already become your fan! The super-loving kind!"
Purely a fangirl brain? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Asakura felt a bit troubled.
Forget it, since such cheap labor has delivered itself to the door, it would be a waste not to take it.
"Let me state this first, working is not playing, all tasks must be completed properly." Kawaragi Momoka, who had looked a bit shiftless yesterday, now spoke with the air of a senior employee: "Even if we work together, I'm afraid you won't be able to see the scenes you want to see."
"About that..."
Kita Ikuyo, who had been acting quite bold just now, suddenly became a bit fidgety.
"What's wrong?" Asakura asked: "Do you want an advance on your salary? That'll be a '9 out, 13 back' interest rate."
"Isn't that just plain usury?" The red-haired girl complained: "I was thinking, if Miss Kawaragi has free time, could she give me a little pointer on my guitar skills?"
"You also like playing guitar?" Kawaragi Momoka asked.
"It's not that I like it..."
Kita Ikuyo hesitated for a moment, but then explained what had happened before: "Actually, before I met Miss Kawaragi, I was a guitarist in a band."
"Really? That's great then." Kawaragi Momoka said happily.
"The problem is, I don't know how to play the guitar at all."
"Huh?" Both Asakura and Kawaragi Momoka were shocked.
"Every practice before, I found ways to fake it, but now that the band has qualified for a formal stage performance, I feel like I won't be able to hide it anymore." Kita Ikuyo said dejectedly.
"So in the end, the band fell apart because you crashed?" Asakura nodded, feeling his guess was about 80 to 90 percent correct.
"No, I ran away before going on stage." Kita Ikuyo lowered her head and whispered: "I haven't gone back even until now."
"..."
She clearly looks like an ordinary normie on the outside, but her behavior pattern is quite extreme.
"So even if it's just to go back to that band and apologize to the people I lied to, I have to practice the guitar well first!" Kita Ikuyo said.
"Even if you want to learn guitar, you don't have to come all the way here to work, right? Wouldn't self-study work?" Asakura asked.
"Not really, I self-studied for a long time and still can't play it well. The sound is only that very low 'boing-boing' sound."
"Is that a bass?"
"But a bass only has four strings, doesn't it? Mine has six! It's definitely a guitar, a guitar!" The girl argued with full confidence.
"Basses also have six-string versions, the six-string bass."
"Eh? Ehhhh? Really?" After Asakura and Kawaragi Momoka nodded in sync, Kita Ikuyo's eyes gradually became hollow: "How can this be... to buy that, I even asked my dad for an advance on a lot of pocket money..."
Well, it seems someone's reason for working part-time has increased by one.