Crossover anime, Hachiman's childhood friend's growth diary

"what?"

Perhaps because she was in a hurry to answer the phone, the girl ignored Hachiman's furtive behavior at the door and walked to a corner where she whispered something.

He glanced into the dance studio, then moved slightly toward the girl. A moment later, he heard her aggrieved voice drift over.

It seems that the person dropped out of high school and came to Tokyo to make a living before being spotted by a talent scout from this company and becoming an artist in the agency. However, because the company's signing fee was not enough, the person had to ask their parents back home for living expenses.

The voice on the phone seemed to be advising the girl to give up training and go back to her hometown to work, but the girl hung up the phone immediately and soon squatted on the ground crying.

What's going on here...?

Hachiman was dumbfounded by the various situations, and the girl's crying attracted the attention of others. Before Hachiman could react, he was caught on the spot by a staff member.

"You brat, who let you in? Get out of here right now! This isn't a place for you!"

The man had a very loud voice and didn't care about Hachiman's age at all when he spoke. If it were an ordinary child, he would probably have been scared to tears by now.

Hachiman simply nodded and pretended to be lost as he walked out.

"Excuse me, actually I went to the wrong place."

"what's the situation?"

Having apparently heard the commotion in the dance studio, a young man in a suit walked out of the office on the other side.

"Um, Mr. Koenji, this kid from who-knows-where says he's lost."

The staff roughly pushed Hachiman in front of the man.

Koenji Temple?

The familiar name reminded Hachiman of the man he had seen at the family restaurant a few days ago, but unfortunately, the man's face did not match the man in his memory.

"He's just a kid, just kick him out, do I have to teach you such a small thing?"

After saying that, the man named Koenji grabbed Hachiman by the collar without any mercy and kicked him out of the company like an animal.

Hachiman did not resist; he simply stared blankly at the other person from outside the glass door.

After finishing these actions, Koenji clapped his hands and said rather rudely to the two girls in the dance studio:

"There's a swimsuit event coming up later, so you guys need to hurry up and rehearse. I'll have someone take you there after you're done."

“But Mr. Koenji, our dance rehearsal is not finished yet.”

"Whose fault is that? You guys are rehearsing so slowly. If you don't finish your scheduled work, who's going to pay you!"

"Yes..."

The two girls seemed aggrieved, but for the sake of their meager income and their unattainable dreams, they had no choice but to convince themselves to accept the arrangement.

Hachiman, who hadn't left yet, witnessed this entire scene, and a somewhat bitter expression appeared on his face.

This is definitely not right...

Although he didn't know much about firms or similar companies, the facilities and the attitude of the staff here were far from those of a normal company.

If I had to put it in words, it's somewhat like a not-so-good institution.

130 Countermeasures

"Why aren't you leaving, you brat? Believe me or I'll beat you to death!"

Seeing that the little brat was still dawdling on the stairs and refusing to come down, Koenji clicked his tongue in annoyance, then walked towards the door with his fist the size of a sandbag raised.

When Hachiman saw the other person exclaiming in a fierce expression while pretending to breathe on their fist, he tensed his stomach and strained his whole body to barely suppress his laughter.

Come on, it's not like you're folding a paper airplane. What's the point of breathing on your fist?

Although Hachiman didn't think the other party would bother with a child like him, having witnessed the darkness of adults before, he dared not be careless. Moreover, if he really wanted to get beaten up, he would have to choose a suitable time.

With that in mind, Hachiman slowly turned around and walked down the stairs.

"Strange little brat."

After scaring away Hikigaya, Koenji straightened his perfectly neat collar. When he turned around, he found his employee standing in front of him, her fairly pretty face marked with obvious tear stains.

"Excuse me, Mr. Koenji, have we not received any performance offers yet? It's been almost half a year..."

"Oh, don't worry, we've already contacted a film company. Normally, you'll not only get a song, but you might even get a chance to enter the entertainment industry."

"really?"

Upon hearing this news, the girl who was almost about to give up on Wu immediately broke into a bright smile.

"Of course it's true... Oh right, don't forget to pay your training fee this month. We've hired a vocal coach from a renowned academy to teach you how to sing."

"Yes, yes, I will definitely raise the money, Mr. Koenji, please rest assured!"

"Okay, I have to go now."

...

On the stairs, Hachiman turned off the recorder. Although he hadn't recorded any useful information, this investigation had made him absolutely certain of one thing—this company definitely had problems.

If he's not mistaken, the man named Koenji probably used the name Ichigo Production to set up a fake company, thereby attracting naive young people to join.

The company makes money through its substantial training fees.

Although the company itself also has to pay a certain so-called signing fee, the cost is ultimately borne by the customer; the higher the signing fee, the more training fees will be required.

First, they lure the other party into signing a contract with the promise of debut, and then use some insignificant announcements as a pretext to continuously exploit their value.

Perhaps the artists below will realize the boss's thoughts after a while, but they just won't give up. To put it bluntly, they are too confident in their own abilities and believe that they definitely have a chance to debut.

But the more you think this way, the more you fall into the trap. As the sunk costs increase, you will start to deceive yourself into believing that the company is really trying to help you.

This classic scam tactic really works every time...

Back on the first floor, Ms. Koba saw Hikigaya looking thoughtful and slowly walked over with a puzzled expression.

"What's the matter?"

"Ah, I just feel so lucky to have a boss like Mr. Koba."

Thinking about how to deal with the Strawberry Agency, Hachiman looked up and said something without thinking.

"..."

Ms. Koba frowned, unsure whether Hikigaya was praising or scolding her.

"I'm not your boss, I'm your teacher, don't get that wrong." She whispered a reminder, then turned around. "If there's nothing else, we should head back."

"Ah."

The two took the tram back the way they came. When they arrived at the room where they had started, the shogi club's competition had already ended. Of all the participants, only Fang Huyuan had qualified to advance to the next round.

Hongxia maintained a record of two wins and three losses, and was just one step away from qualifying for the next round.

The child had originally planned to have a good talk with Hachiman after the match, but when he saw the other's serious expression, he swallowed his words.

"Hachiman, why didn't we see you during the match?"

"Hey, shouldn't you be focusing on the game?"

Hikigaya forced himself to move away from the Strawberry Agency incident and focus his attention on Nijika as much as possible.

"Seriously, there are breaks in between. How could you possibly play five matches in one go? You'd be exhausted."

Hongxia stuck out her tongue in disgust.

In fact, high-intensity, continuous matches are commonplace for professional players, and Shogi is a relatively time-consuming board game. I've even heard of a record of a match lasting more than 30 hours straight.

Well, that has nothing to do with amateur students like them.

After staring at Hachiman for a while, Nijika finally couldn't help but ask:

"So, Hachiman just went to investigate the company your sister is going to, right? Did you get any good news?"

"To be honest, I don't know if this is good news or not. If I had to say, it would be both good and bad news."

"Huh, what's with that strange statement?" Nijika pouted, indicating that she didn't understand what Hachiman meant at all. "Well, it's okay if Hachiman doesn't want to say it now, but you have to tell me properly later."

"Well, I'm sorry, I didn't do anything useful."

"No, no, I'm already very happy just to have you come with me."

Hongxia smiled happily.

After all the students returned to the assembly point, no one lingered. On the way back, they took the same two minibuses they had taken in the morning. Because there was an extra teacher, all the seats were filled, and Hachiman was forced to sit next to Nijika.

With a bright smile, Hongxia's little mouth never stopped moving the whole way, it seemed that the child had completely returned to her usual lively and cheerful state.

When they returned to school, it was just the end of lunch break. Teacher Xiaoba gave them an extra class break. After a quick lunch in the cafeteria, they went back to the classroom together.

During the few minutes between classes, Yamada Ryo from the next class heard that the two had gone to Tokyo that morning because of club activities, and rushed into the classroom.

"How dare she! Nijika secretly took Hachiman to play outside!"

"Oh, we didn't go out to play."

Hongxia quickly offered an explanation and vividly described the tense atmosphere of the competition, but unfortunately, the idiot wouldn't listen at all. After all, in the eyes of an elementary school student, simply being able to leave school legally during school hours is a very interesting thing in itself.

"Hongxia, how will you make up for my wounded heart?"

"Idiot, why should I compensate you?" Hongxia muttered to herself, then sighed, "How about I treat you to a drink this afternoon?"

"Deal! Hongxia, you're the best!"

Yamada Ryo clung to the blonde girl like a koala, while Nishimiya Shoko stood beside them, grinning foolishly at the two of them.

Hikigaya, who had been staring blankly at his seat, glanced at the student council office and then looked away. As soon as the school bell rang, he rushed to the student council office.

131 Garbage editors and garbage companies

Hibari Hohara doesn't seem to be in the office; it looks like he has other things to deal with besides being the student council president.

Hachiman looked around the room, then his gaze settled on the desk in front of him, where the other student council members were chatting and slacking off with all sorts of snacks.

Hey, what a damn atmosphere! Is the student council actually just a so-called tea-drinking club?

Hikigaya silently muttered a complaint to himself.

Although he had long understood this, the chances of these playful kids working properly without anyone to discipline them were almost zero.

Ultimately, this student council is completely meaningless!

Thinking this, Hachiman cast a disdainful glance at him.

For some reason, after he entered, the student council members immediately abandoned their initial carefree attitude and even put all the snacks into their backpacks.

"Hachiman, don't get me wrong, school's over now, so what we're doing isn't against the rules."

"Well, whatever you do is none of my business... By the way, can I borrow the office computer?"

"Of course, use it however you want!"

Whether out of guilt or something else, the group of elementary school students packed their bags and left the student council office looking disheveled.

A few seconds later, a burst of noisy complaints filled the once quiet corridor.

"I really don't understand why Senior Hokhara would take in such a weird guy!"

"Exactly, I really don't want to be around those violent guys."

"You lot, shut up! Be careful he hears you, or you'll all be in trouble!"

Hikigaya listened to the conversation outside the door with a blank expression, then gently closed the student council room door, shutting out the noise.

Sigh, time to get back to work.

As per the previous plan, Bikiguchi found a user-friendly editing software on the website and downloaded a dance video from a popular video website.

He spent an hour doing some basic editing on the video, and then watched it using the computer's built-in media player.

The image shows a girl in a school uniform standing in an empty park. Her face is blurred, so no matter how you look at it, you can't see her face clearly.

She set up her camera on the stool, and after confirming that no one was around, she slowly backed away.

Immediately afterwards, the other person performed a series of clumsy but clearly well-intentioned dance moves in front of the camera, reminiscent of old-school otaku dance.

In today's dance scene, videos that are completely covered up and have no memorable elements probably wouldn't be well-received. However, what Hachiman wanted was precisely this unadorned and simple effect.

The video was about one minute long. After it finished playing, Hikigaya sent the edited video to Ichigo Production's official website and the email address printed on Koenji's business card.