CH 68

Showtime

Translated by HamletJr

Edited by

I sent a message on my phone to my band mates, who should be at the venue, and Suzuki, and called them for a meeting.

The members who saw the message gathered one by one in this unused waiting room.

I explained the situation to them and bowed my head.

“Please, help me for Shiorin and her friends’ sake…!”

As soon as I said that, I could hear everyone sighing.

“You know, Shion-kun. Personia isn’t supposed to be here. Me and the rest of us are going to be fine, but you’d be put under suspicion, Shion.”

“That’s right. Since you’re from the same school as them, it’d be inevitable for people to think that you came just to watch them.”

“I don’t really mind if my true identity gets exposed… For Shion’s sake…”

“Shion, weren’t you insistent on keeping your true identity hidden, no matter what? After all, you said that you didn’t want to cause trouble for your family and your cute imouto.”

I raised my head at Xylem’s question.

Then, I stared back at the serious gazes of all my bandmates.

“Yeah, but… I want to help Shiorin and her friends! I don’t know if this is the right thing to do… But still!”

Before I could finish, Xylem started roughly patting me on the head.

“You fool. You don’t have to worry about being “wrong” or anything.”

“We were the ones… who were wrong…”

“Yeah. Besides, that was how you brought us to where we belong (Personia), right Shion?”

“Similarly, you want to protect where they belong as well, right? We’ll help you. It’s a wonderful trait of yours, Shion-kun, being unable to leave people in trouble alone.”

“You guys…! Thank you!”

I desperately fought back tears as I asked Suzuki.

“You have our masks and costumes, right?”

“Yeah, they’re in the car outside, so I can bring them right over. I had them in there for the rehearsal later, after all.”

“But Shion… your hair is all ruffled up…”

“It’s okay, I have my hair wax with me. I don’t know how to use it though.”

“Whoa! You’ve finally awakened to the importance of your sex appeal! Here, I’ll give you a quick grooming at that sink over there!”

Xylem then proceeded to fix my hair up in about 5 minutes.

We all put on our masks, and with that, Personia was ready to go.

We then exited the waiting room.

The staff of the venue were surprised to see us suddenly appear from the waiting room.

We simply told them, “We’re going to perform,” and had a quick meeting with the sound and lighting staff.

Some of the stage crew had worked with us once before, so they readily believed that we were the real Personia.

All of the staff were in awe as they rushed to get ready.

When the stage was set, I shouted offstage.

“Alright, it’s showtime!”