| Syu | So whaddya wanna talk 'bout? |
| Chikage | Our star playwright has been in a slump because of what you said. |
| Syu | Heh. But well, anyone'd be concerned if they're told such a thing directly. |
| Chikage | Well, someone named Chigasaki in our troupe also mentioned that a flexible youngster like Tsuzuru shouldn't mind the sense of someone who is stuck in the past like Syu-san. |
| Syu | Don't indirectly treat someone like a geezer. |
| Chikage | I just plan to get some hints to get him out of the vicious cycle. |
| Syu | So you mean you're spying on me… Did you forget we're enemies? |
| Chikage | Do you mean to say that if Tsuzuru has a writer's block and can't produce a script, it'll be favorable for you? |
| Syu | ...Hmph. If he's done for, then that's that. |
| Chikage | In that case… we will stop at nothing too. |
| Syu | ...Yer one dangerous fellow, aren't ya? |
| Chikage | Anyone will be hell-bent on doing something to protect their family. |
| Syu | Family, huh... |
| Y'know, in the past I used to think of 'em as my family too. But so much time has passed since we drifted apart. I hardly kept in touch with 'em. |
| The bond you have in a theater troupe is just a bond that's set for a limited time. |
| Chikage | ...Why do you pay for our bills? |
| Syu | It's just the course of events. |
| Because we ended up building a meaninglessly nice dorm for the troupe members, we could barely keep the business going for a while. |
| We couldn't even pay the monthly bills until we'd received the profits from our shows. |
| So I figured I’d just pay the bills for them. I was the only one who didn't have any problems with money after Reiji left, after all. |
| Chikage | Between the time after you left your house and before you joined the troupe, you learned how to manage your assets and built a fortune while moving from one friend's house to another, right? |
| Syu | Damn, how did ya even know that... |
| Chikage | Do you have any reasons why you’ve kept on helping with the bills after Yukio-san disappeared? |
| Syu | I've told you, it's just the course of events. It's only a small sum, anyway. |
| Chikage | Is that really all? |
| Are you sure it's not because you want to make sure you won't lose your connection with the troupe, given that you’re thinking about its future? |
| Syu | What makes you say that? |
| Chikage | I suppose I’d do that if I were in your shoes. |
| Syu | ...Hmph. My friends ain't in that troupe anymore, and it ain't like I'm seekin' a connection with the new members. |
| ...But I might have assumed that those guys would come back someday. |
| Chikage | I think you'll be the great-grandpa. |
| Syu | Haah? |
| Chikage | The Spring Troupe members treat me as the grandpa, so Syu-san is the great-grandpa. |
| Syu | The hell? |
| Chikage | Can you give me some hints for the sake of your adorable grandchildren? |
| Syu | … |
| Chikage | I've checked a lot of things about you… |
| After you became the second chairman, it appears you have performed Hakkaku-san's works that he wrote before he joined MANKAI Company. |
| You also paid the fee to the Ikaruga family every time you did that. |
| Syu | So what? |
| Chikage | Given how much you respect Hakkaku-san, I understand why you compare him with Tsuzuru. |
| But at the end of the day, Tsuzuru and Hakkaku-san are different scriptwriters. |
| Even you, no, you all the more should know best that there's no one who can replace Hakkaku-san. |
| Syu | … |
| Chikage | I want to know what it is that you're fixated on, and how we can make you accept our play. |
| Syu | ...Go check out Hakkaku-san's debut days. It should be easy for you. |
| Chikage | ...I see. |
| Syu | If you're done, then get outta here. I ain't that free. |
| Chikage | Despite saying that, you gave me a hint. You're surprisingly sweet, no, warmhearted, aren't you? |
| Syu | Look who's talkin'. |
| |
| Sakuya | … |
| Citron | Give me the password! Man! |
| Sakuya | Kai! |
| Citron | You should've put in some jokes! You have no sense of humor, Sakuya! |
| Sakuya | Eeeh!? |
| Citron | It can't be helped, then. I'll let you in. |
| Sakuya | Sorry… |
| |
| Izumi | Sakuya-kun, welcome back. |
| Itaru | Now that everyone's here, shall I give my report first? |
| |
| Sakuya | Sticking to his own style or challenging the style Hakkaku-san's good at head-on, huh… |
| Izumi | It's a pretty tough decision. |
| Masumi | It's not like there's only one correct answer. |
| Itaru | Hence he's stuck now. |
| Citron | I'm currently doing something for the change of mice[1] too, but it'll take a little bit more time until I’m done. |
| Chikage | I'll go next, then. I met Syu-san. |
| Sakuya | How did it go? |
| Chikage | He told me to look into Hakkaku-san's debut days. |
| From what I found, his debut work won the award for theater screenplay and he instantly attracted lots of attention as an up-and-coming playwright. |
| He received calls from various theater troupes and published works energetically. |
| Each one of his plays was a hit, but the assessment of him completely changed after a few years. He got compared to other scriptwriters and was criticized for using the same literary style over and over again. |
| Around that time, he didn't publish new works as often as before. It also appears he had fallen into a slump as he couldn't decide whether he should change his style. |
| Citron | It's just like Tsuzuru right now. |
| Izumi | Maybe it's something that everyone experiences once in their lives... |
| Sakuya | What did Hakkaku-san do after that? |
| Chikage | For his first work in a long while, he decided to keep the literary style he used during his debut days. |
| As a result, his work was greatly received by the critics and even won a screenplay award. It was his second time receiving that. |
| Masumi | In other words…? |
| Chikage | I suppose he's telling Tsuzuru to stick to his own style without minding what others have to say. |
| Masumi | Then why did he even bother saying all of those things? |
| Citron | I got it! It's called the whiplash sensation! |
| Sakuya | Maybe he's just the type who expresses tough love like Yuzo-san. |
| Itaru | Are the first-gen members all like that? |
| Izumi | I wonder if there's any point in playing the villain like that. |
| Chikage | Since that person is kind of a tsundere, I think he just finds it impossible to talk about it. |
| Masumi | So troublesome. |
| Sakuya | In that case, if we tell this to Tsuzuru-kun right now--. |
| Chikage | I've thought about that too, but I feel like we are only gonna make him even more puzzled if we tell him that. Especially when he's already conscious of Hakkaku-san. |
| There's a chance he'll think that doing the same thing as Hakkaku-san will help him get out of his slump. |
| Itaru | Makes sense… |
| Izumi | Then, putting any talk about Hakkaku-san aside--. |
| I hope we can encourage Tsuzuru-kun to have some confidence and to compete using his own literary style. |
| Citron | Nice idea you have there! |
| Sakuya | But what should we do… |
| Izumi | It'll be nice if the stories that he has been writing up until now are able to make him gain confidence… |
| Something that will make him believe in himself as a scriptwriter again… |
| Sakuya | --I know! |
| I have an idea! |
