Epilogue 2

Rinne: And so! To make sure everyone knows that Crazy:B is besties with everyone’s favorite 2winks—

We’re having a joint live together so even the dumbasses of the world can get it through their thick heads... ☆

Niki: Oh, that’s what this was all about...? In that case, can I go home already? I don’t like doing lives, they make me sooo hungry.

And like, they said if you put two or more people together, that counts as a unit, right? So it doesn’t matter if I’m here or not. Sooo yep, bye-bye~ ♪

Rinne: Nuh-uh, get back here. If you try to leave I’ll kill you.

Niki: Noooo, he said he’s gonna kill meee! Someone hurry and arrest this guy! He’s abusing his power!

Kohaku: Ahaha, you oughta stick around. We’ve been hurtin’ for work since we near fell apart at the MDM.

We ain’t even been able to get on stage all four of us.

Even at the MDM we didn’t know one iota what it meant to perform with other people, so we were sort of all over the place.

And before that, we were more like suicide bombers ordered around by our superiors to attack whoever else...

So this really is the first time we get to be on stage together as a team, with our own willpower.

I’m pretty darn happy I get to be up here. Ain’t you, Niki-han?

I don’t have any right to stop you, but it’d be pretty lonely without you... Won’t you join us?

Niki: Ough, stop that! Don’t look at me with those big, watery eyes! I’m so weak to that sorta thing! Argh, when I first found Rinne-kun and picked him up—

Rinne: Heh? You tryna say I was begging you all pathetic like that?

Aww, c’moooon Niki... Let’s do it all together! I can’t do this without you—

Niki: Lalalalala! I can’t hear youuuuu! You’re a coward y’know, for trying to pluck my heartstrings like this!

Rinne: Hmm? Then what about a physical reward...?

You get on stage with us now, and after we’re done I’ll buy you dinner here ♪ You can eat as muuuuch as you want, ‘kay? How’s about it?

Niki: Well why didn’t you say so! I’d do anything for some food. What did you want, Rinne-kun?! I could lick your shoes?

Rinne: Whatever. Yanno Niki, sometimes I get real depressed thinking you think food is more important than me.

HiMERU: —Fufu. As always, this conversation has devolved into utter nonsense entirely unfit for idols.

Rinne: Yo, didn’t I already tell you this place has nothing to do with ES?

This is a stage where we have total freedom from ES’s arbitrary rules about what idols should be, or any of that other shit!

HiMERU: So it seems. On the way here, and while we were talking earlier, HiMERU used his intelligence network to look into things...

Supposedly, this club refuses to accept L$ and intends to operate completely independently of ES.

It is a reckless, knee-jerk reaction to ES.

Rinne: Yep, it’s nothing but reckless stupidity. But yanno, not everyone thinks too highly of ES—that should be obvious.

Some just don’t fit in, some missed their shot, some are exiles.

This club prided itself on serving some damn good sake. But idols can’t drink...

The bulk of them’s a whole buncha kiddies still in school, so you can’t just let that sweet smell of booze waft through the town unchecked.

—Or so says that self-righteous group ES loves to prop up.

So the local politicians who wanna suss ES out tightened up the laws around alcohol. Total kiss-ass move.

ES is the golden goose, the head honcho of a massive local industry they’re so proud of...

Doesn’t seem to me they’re taking bribes or anything, but it’s just the natural course of action to stay in ES’s good graces, right?

But in this area, this world, where ES has become the center of everything, there’s still people who’ve gotten the short end of the stick thanks to “the great flow of things.”

Same goes for this club and all the people in it.

There’s plenty of guys out there who aren’t satisfied with ES and the way it influences that “flow.”

To them, this club that doesn’t bend a knee to ES, doesn’t use L$, and doesn’t care about the alcohol ordinances...

Crazy:B, who, well, more or less exploded at the end there, but who still went toe-to-toe with ES and gave a voice to their discontent—

We became heroes, embodying their hopes and dreams with their banner flying high.

That’s our context, how they’ve been talking about Crazy:B. All those outcasts who don’t fit in and fell to the wayside...

The ones burning with hate and discontent deep in their guts—those are our best customers.

We’re the only ones who value their feelings, and we’re the only ones who comfort and vindicate them.

The ones pushed into the dark, who the pure, beautiful “real idols” never even notice, we love ‘em.

And as long as there’s just one person, one single fan out there, we have a duty to keep being idols.

Well, that’s what all my chirping little kouhais had the nerve to remind me of at the MDM.

That we, Crazy:B, will become a star to guide all the rogues and outcasts of the world.

We’re the only ones who’ll love and validate all those who disagree with the majority on what a “real star” is.

The fact that we exist at all proves that they’re not wrong and that they don’t deserve to be criticized or ridiculed.

We can only drown our sorrows in the drink for so long. Even so, that’s exactly why the world needs it.

So let’s have a round of the finest mead you’ve got ♪

For everyone who’s in so much pain they got no choice but to turn to booze—

And for the damned, suffering all the more for the rejection of those who shame them for that drink! Gyahahahaha ☆