Chapter 674 661: Conjugate Father and Daughter

"I can't sleep..."

In the four-person room of Kessoku Band, Nijika tossed and turned, finding it difficult to fall asleep.

"Is Nijika-senpai awake too?" Kita Ikuyo sat up and asked.

"Should I say it's nervousness, or some other reason? Anyway, I just can't sleep..." Nijika said helplessly: "By contrast, Ryo is..."

Yamada Ryo: "Snoooze..."

"Ryo-senpai's sleeping face is so great and cute! Speaking of which, shouldn't normal sleeping sounds be ZZZ?"

"Isn't that from manga? Stop blurring fiction and reality."

Nijika retorted and then looked toward Hitori on the other side.

The other girl was staring blankly at her.

Gaze completely vacant.

"...Bocchi-chan, are you okay?" Nijika couldn't help asking with concern.

Although she hadn't heard the full conversation between her and Asakura earlier, looking at her now, Bocchi-chan was clearly affected to a considerable extent.

"Ah... I'm fine," Hitori shook her head, "I already have a bit of insomnia anyway, so I had long planned to just stay awake all the way until after the live performance is over."

"No, no, no, no matter how you think about it, that won't do! There are still at least 18 hours left until the live show, you know?" Nijika, who was just worrying about being unable to sleep herself, now turned around to worry about Hitori instead: "Were you really affected by what Asakura-kun said?"

"N-N-No, there's no such thing!"

Hitori went into vibration mode from being overly embarrassed, "I-I-I'll go to sleep right away!"

Saying that, she slammed herself heavily into her bedding and stayed motionless. The force was so great that Nijika even worried if she had knocked herself unconscious.

"If Ijichi-senpai really can't sleep, why not try listening to those ASMR tracks for sleep?"

At this moment, Kita Ikuyo suggested.

"Oh right, white noise, huh... I'll give it a try..."

Nijika pulled out her earphones—as someone in a band, carrying a pair of earphones everywhere is totally reasonable, right?—stuffed them into her ears, opened her phone to search a bit, and started playing a white noise track claiming 'falls asleep in three minutes'.

A short while later.

"Did you fall asleep?" Kita Ikuyo asked in a small voice, looking at Nijika who looked as if she was 'dead to the world'.

"Not at all."

Nijika opened her bloodshot eyes, giving her a jump.

"Did the white noise have no effect?" Kita Ikuyo asked.

"...When I realized that the bird chirping inside cycled every set interval, I started counting the beats and couldn't sleep at all." Nijika lamented.

Kita Ikuyo gave a bitter smile.

The curse of studying music.

"Sigh, if this continues, what on earth should we do about tomorrow's live..." Nijika scratched her head.

"How about trying ear cleaning?" Hitori spoke up unexpectedly out of nowhere.

"Bocchi-chan, you're actually not asleep?"

Nijika looked at Hitori, who had suddenly opened her mouth to speak.

"Almost, almost. More importantly, does Nijika really not want to try it? Ear cleaning."

Hitori dug out a complete set of ear cleaning tools from somewhere—as someone playing music, carrying a set of ear cleaning tools around is totally reasonable, right?—and then looked at Nijika expectantly.

But as soon as Nijika recalled Hitori trembling earlier, she really lacked the courage to let her stick ear-cleaning tools into her ears: who knew what sentence spoken by whom later might trigger Bocchi-chan's vibration mode, and she would be the unlucky one when that happened...

"Kita, can you help out a bit?" Nijika cast a pleading look toward Kita Ikuyo.

But Kita Ikuyo made an 'X' across her chest with her hands and shook her head frantically: "Muri muri (Impossible, impossible), I don't dare stick those long, thin things into someone else's ears."

"Then let's try asking that Kawaragi-san..." Nijika attempted to recruit a new helper.

"...I just saw Momoka-san heading into her room holding a pile of beer and cocktails. Ijichi-senpai, are you sure you want to entrust your sense of hearing to someone with an unknown amount of alcohol intake?" Kita Ikuyo asked with some concern.

"Well, we can't exactly pull Ryo out of bed, right?" Nijika said in distress.

"I-In that case..." Hitori pulled out her phone and asked Nijika at the same time: "Should we ask Kuma-kun to help?"

"Eh? Ask Asakura-kun? No need, having him drive us all the way to Sendai was already very exhausting, let's not bother him..."

..." Nijika hurriedly refused.

"Ah... I've already sent a text message to Kuma-kun..."

"Why is Bocchi-chan's drive to action only this strong at times like this?!"

"Kuma-kun replied, he said okay."

"Instant reply?! Is Asakura-kun that free!?"

"At this point, refusing again would be a bit too rude..." Kita Ikuyo reminded her.

"Ugh..." Nijika wore an incomparably conflicted expression.

About ten minutes later.

"Domo, Ear Cleaning Hermit desu~" Asakura made a flashy entrance, showing a cheerful smile to the girls at their bedroom doorway.

"Why does Asakura-kun look like he's thoroughly enjoying this too..."

Nijika sighed, "We should obviously be thanking you for helping out, but Asakura-kun right now gives off a feeling of being in villain-prank mode, making it completely impossible to thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Although it's a bit sudden, don't many movies have similar lines?" Asakura said, "'You can only get my body like this, but you can't get my heart' or something like that."

"That really is super sudden! Though it indeed is quite a classic line..." Nijika complained.

"As far as I'm concerned, having the body is the best. Hearts and minds are way too troublesome; I don't want something so heavy." Asakura continued.

"Why did you suddenly start making weird villain speeches! Besides, does this topic have anything to do with the current situation?"

Nijika complained even more fiercely.

"Nice retort. Put your head over here."

Asakura sat cross-legged on the tatami mat—although this old, run-down small hotel was old, broken, and small, the hygiene aspect was done quite well, and the tatami mats in the room were cleaned very well so sitting directly on them didn't feel unpleasant—and then patted his own thigh.

Because there were four girls in total in the room, Nijika wasn't as guarded or reserved as she would be if left alone with a guy.

After a moment's hesitation, she lay down on Asakura's thigh.

"...I thought a boy's legs would be rock-hard, but they're surprisingly soft."

"Because the rock-hard part is somewhere else."

"Can you stop telling dirty jokes at a time like this? I'm going to regret lying down..."

"I was talking about bones, where did your mind wander off to?"

"..."

"Lie down obediently, I'm going to start cleaning your ears." Asakura confiscated the ear-cleaning tools from Hitori and then began carefully cleaning Nijika's ears.

At first, Nijika was a bit nervous, thinking it definitely wouldn't work—after all, the feeling of a foreign object inside her ear was very obvious, so only a ghost could fall asleep in a situation like this.

But as Asakura's movements gradually became more skillful and gentle, she inexplicably felt a touch of pleasant comfort.

——Even though he's a boy, his body scent smells really nice, and it even carries a bit of that sweet fragrance like Rabbit Dango; resting on his thigh is kind of comfortable too, and before I knew it I started enjoying the ear cleaning... Uh oh... my consciousness...

☆

The morning light seeped in from the edge of the paper-covered curtain, spreading a faint layer of white across the room; the air still carried the lingering cool from the night, mixed with the unique scent of a wooden inn.

Nijika frowned.

"...Mm..."

Her hand groped around subconsciously, as if trying to grab onto something familiar, but ended up only touching a lump of soft fabric and something subtly rock-hard.

She opened her eyes groggily, her vision not yet completely focused, the pattern on the ceiling looking a bit unfamiliar.

...Wait.

She froze for a second, her entire being suddenly waking up halfway.

"This place is..."

The memories from last night slowly reconnected——Sendai, the inn, the night before the live performance, Asakura, ear cleaning.

Immediately after, Asakura's face appeared right before her eyes.

"Yo, awake now?"

"A-Asakura-kun?! I... this is..."

Nijika bounced up from Asakura's thigh with a snap, as if her entire body were fitted with springs.

Right after, her face flushed deep red, and she subconsciously looked down at her hand, which seemed to have just grabbed something rock-hard, but not quite that hard, and even carried a subtle feeling of softness in a rod-like shape.

That strange touch felt as though it was still lingering on her hand: "I... that... sorry..."

"It's fine, the ruined sushi roll is still edible anyway."

"...Sushi roll?" Nijika didn't react right away.

"Yeah, since you wouldn't wake up, everyone who went out for breakfast brought back a sushi roll for me to tide me over for a bit."

Asakura showed her the crushed sushi roll.

"Wait a second... everyone is..."

Only then did Nijika look around the room, only to discover that besides the two of them, the room was completely empty.

In other words, the sight of her sleeping like a log with her head resting on Asakura's lap earlier had already been seen by everyone.

It's over, my image.

The girl lamented in her heart.

Kita and Bocchi-chan are relatively pure and innocent so that's fine, but that fellow Ryo will definitely use this to tease me!

No, considering that girl's terrible personality, she might even use it as blackmail.

In the girl's head popped up the image of her best friend smirking villainously and saying, 'Keke, I'm going to hold this secret over you for the rest of your life'.

When that time comes, I'll just have to use drumsticks to see if I can successfully cast Memory Erasure (Physical).

Oh well, at least this embarrassing incident happened within Kessoku Band and wasn't seen by Miss Kawaragi, who counts as an outsider. That should count as a blessing in disguise.

"Seriously, I've said before that I don't really like natto. That fellow Kawaragi really doesn't understand the boss's heart; next time I'll dock her pay on the grounds of 'stepping her left foot into the shop first'." Asakura looked at the filling poking out of the sushi roll and couldn't help mumbling.

"Miss Kawaragi is way too pitied, hey... No, wait a second for me," Nijika realized something and stared at the sushi roll, saying, "Was this sushi roll brought over by Miss Kawaragi?"

"Yeah." Asakura answered while stuffing the sushi roll into his mouth.

"..."

"Why are you wearing a face that says 'the world might as well be destroyed', Nijika?"

"I'm just feeling a bit hopeless about how low my vigilance is." The girl sighed, "I clearly didn't plan on falling asleep, so why did I pass out all of a sudden back then..."

"Because of fatherly love?" Asakura speculated: "You can call me Father or Daddy, you know."

"Even if it's Asakura-kun saying that kind of thing, I'll still get mad." The yellow-haired girl said in annoyance while tidying up her somewhat messy long hair.

"Well, I can't exactly say my thighs are very comfortable, right?" Asakura spread his hands: "My well-exercised body is very solid, and my thigh muscles are rock-hard too, so there's no way it'd be comfortable."

"It feels like there's completely no trace of being 'well-exercised' though..." The girl subconsciously looked toward Asakura's thigh, and then discovered a distinct wet stain on the pants of his yukata, making her realize something: "Ah..."

Asakura followed her gaze toward his pants and also noticed the wet patch. After hesitating for three seconds, he said expressionlessly: "Don't mind it, I actually wet my pants."

"Don't tell that kind of lie... If anything, resting on that kind of thing would be an even bigger blow to me."

Nijika sighed heavily: "Sorry, I drooled."

"Understandable. After all, the expression on your face back then really looked quite happy. You even kept letting out cute sleep-talk like a little kid, as if you were seeing something great," Asakura nodded and comforted her, "By comparison, leaving just a bit of drool is completely within my acceptable range, so you don't need to take it to heart."

"...Asakura-kun, has anyone ever told you that you're not very good at comforting people?"

"Everyone says so." Asakura answered while licking a grain of rice off his hand.

"Why do you look so proud? People are definitely not praising you..."

Nijika wore a speechless, choked expression.

"At any rate," Asakura looked at the girl and flashed a smile: "How did you sleep? Did your energy recover?"

"I can roughly understand why Bocchi-chan got fooled by you." Nijika looked at Asakura's bright smile that made her heart beat slightly faster, and couldn't help sighing: "...Although I'm reluctant to admit it, I slept great and my spirits are lifted up."

She took a deep breath and clenched her fist tightly: "Yosh! So that my maiden's heart isn't wasted for nothing in a place like this! Today's live show must be a success!"

"Before that, there's still a very important matter I need your help with, Nijika." Asakura said with a solemn face.

"What is it?" The girl asked.

"Give me a hand," Asakura held out his hand: "My leg went numb, I can't even stand up right now."

"..."

Nijika sighed, and pulled Asakura up from the tatami mat. Although she looked a bit impatient, her movements were incomparably gentle.

"Nijika Mama!"

"Who's Mama! Don't rub against me! Why do both you and Bocchi-chan like rubbing up on people!"

"Hitori and I aren't fine with just anyone, it has to be Nijika Mama!"

"I'm completely——! Not happy about this at all!"