Waking Dream 1

Keito: ......

...Mm? Oh, it’s you, transfer student.

I’ve just been so exhausted lately... I sat down in this flower bed for a little rest, but I must have fallen asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

This is bad; I almost slept through the whole thing. I’m glad you woke me up.

...Though it seems you’ve been acting quite rebelliously toward the student council.

Wouldn’t it have been more convenient to you to have let me be?

Today is Flower Fest, after all.

If the leader of Akatsuki had overslept and missed the event, the main axis would disappear... and the whole thing would collapse.

There would be a crack in Akatsuki’s... the student council’s authority right before the S1. Not a fatal blow, but it would be effective nonetheless.

Or do you intend to put me in your debt and have me completely at your mercy?

...You don’t seem to be thinking that much into it, though.

You won’t be able to survive at Yumenosaki Academy—to say nothing of the entertainment industry at large—without the savvy to get ahead. But I will say, your honesty may just be a virtue.

Hmph. You want the Dream Fest to be a success? And you say that as a producer.

That’s a lot of confidence for someone in your social standing. Well, I do like that attitude.

Keito: It seems I owe you one, transfer student.

I ought to show my thanks to you somehow. I prefer to settle my debts as soon as possible.

Hm... it looks like you’ve been walking around selling things.

You’ve got a basket in your arms. What are you, the little match girl?^[1]

So you’re selling flowers, huh? Yeah, I suppose flowers would be an essential part of Flower Fest.

We’re working with a florist downtown to send us huge quantities of flowers so we can line the streets with them.

Fresh flowers start to wilt pretty quickly, so the crew must have been rushing around since early this morning to get them out.

I guess you’ve been working hard, then. You look just as exhausted as I feel.

You should have learned in class: if you press down on this pressure point here, it can relieve some of your drowsiness. Yep, just keep holding it.

That aside. This is what’s known as “hyakka ryouran”: hundreds of flowers of all kinds decorating the streets downtown... passersby carrying bouquets as they shop.^[2]

That’s what the concept of Flower Fest was based on.

The idol performances are here to liven things up, sure, but we’re more of a bonus feature. We won’t be the main attraction here...

But we do serve a purpose to draw in a mass of guests who want to see us specifically.

Once those guests are here, they’ll spend their money in the local stores, which benefits the economy of the area around Yumenosaki. In a broad sense, it’s a prior investment for our own personal profit.

Of course, this does require them to buy merchandise from our school’s booth... if they don’t, there’s no direct benefit to us.