As Iori and Imamura brawled on, the clothing situation was getting progressively worse.
Within moments, both of them were fighting in a state of near-complete undress.
"Since the room is more or less set up now — if you're planning to humiliate me, could you at least hurry it along? Should I go call Nanaka?"
Sebastian looked at the scene in his room, sighed, and turned to the two seniors who had been watching from the side the whole time.
"Nanaka? I actually rang her a little while ago. Seems she hasn't quite recovered from this morning — she wants some time to herself."
Kotobuki said this while enjoying the spectacle of the two still fighting on the floor.
Sebastian went completely rigid.
"Hold on. If she's not coming, then what was all of that preparation for? None of it was necessary?"
"More or less, yes. But you lot were all having such a good time, Tokita and I didn't want to interrupt."
Kotobuki said this with his arms folded, entirely matter-of-fact.
"You two are genuinely the most chaotic people in this room!" Sebastian turned on the two seniors with gritted teeth.
He swung back to the two undignified figures on the floor.
"Both of you — enough. This is my room. Nanaka isn't even coming. What are you still fighting about?"
"What?"
Iori, still grappling on the floor, stopped — then looked past Sebastian entirely and turned to Kotobuki and Tokita standing in the background.
"Is that true?"
"It is." Tokita replied, placid as ever.
"Outrageous! How can this be?! That means I'm the most humiliated person in the room for absolutely nothing?!"
Iori was beside himself. Distracted by grief, he left himself open, and Imamura landed a clean punch to his face out of nowhere.
"We already established Nanaka isn't coming — why are you still hitting me?!"
Iori shoved Imamura off, sat up in fury, and pointed at him.
"I don't care whether Nanaka comes or not! What I care about is that you dared to harm my Lalaco figure — the one I paid five hundred yen for! You, and eighteen generations of your descendants, will answer for this!"
"Five hundred yen? My eighteen generations of descendants are paying for five hundred yen?"
While the two of them glared at each other, teeth bared — Sebastian's door was thrown open from the outside with a loud bang.
"You lot are deafening! What on earth is going on in here?!"
Chisa stood in the doorway, tennis racket in hand, expression thunderous.
"Chisa? What are you doing here?"
Iori saw her and immediately retracted his fangs, replacing them with a strained, unconvincing smile.
"You people—"
Chisa stopped mid-sentence. It was only now that she properly took in the scene — Iori and Imamura tangled together on the floor, not entirely without clothing, but barely enough to count as wearing any. Kotobuki and Tokita standing to the side watching with completely unruffled expressions. And Sebastian crouched alone in a corner, wearing what Chisa could only read as a deeply suspicious smile, quietly filming on his phone.
The sight overloaded Chisa's brain in an instant.
"You — why are you two dressed like that?! I — I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come in without asking — I'm so sorry!"
Chisa stood frozen in the doorway, words coming out in pieces, face going crimson in an instant. She dropped her head and didn't dare look at the scene again.
"What's wrong, Chisa? You look strange. Do you want to come in and sit down?"
Iori was still puzzled — Chisa had been perfectly normal a moment ago, and had transformed into someone else in the space of a second.
Even Imamura, with a girl on the premises, decided further violence would be inappropriate. He huffed, settled back to sitting cross-legged on the floor, and simmered.
"No no no no — I'll stay out here, please carry on! Iori, I'm so sorry — I misunderstood you before. I wish you both every happiness——!!"
Face red enough to bleed, Chisa mumbled these words with her head down, then fled through the door without another moment's hesitation.
"Chisa, wait — what's going on with you today? You said all those strange things and ran off — did you misunderstand something?"
Iori stared after her retreating figure in complete bewilderment, unable to make sense of anything she'd said.
"Iori — take a look at yourself."
Sebastian, who had been filming contentedly from his corner, finally took pity and offered this small piece of guidance.
"What do you mean, look at myself — I'm just—"
Iori's sentence stopped when he looked down.
"Chisa — come back! It's not what you think, let me explain——!"
Iori's expression flipped entirely, his voice going up an octave from the shock. He scrambled for a demolished pair of trousers and bolted after her.
Left in the room, Sebastian tucked his phone away with deep satisfaction and turned to look at the other main character still sitting motionless on the floor.
"Hey, Imamura — aren't you going to go after them?"
"That sort of thing — that sort of thing isn't something I concern myself with. As long as I have Lalaco.... yes, as long as I have Lalaco, I'm fine. The three-dimensional world is simply too terrifying...."
The storm had passed, and Imamura had gone quiet — curled in on himself, arms wrapped around his knees, like a man in the grip of post-traumatic stress. The Lalaco figure was still clasped in his hands, and he was murmuring something under his breath on repeat.
"Well...."
Sebastian looked at Imamura — who seemed to have had his soul temporarily removed — and turned to the two seniors for help.
Kotobuki and Tokita both shook their heads with expressions of sincere helplessness.
Sebastian sighed again.
Nothing for it. He deleted the footage he'd just filmed, put his phone away, and walked quietly over to crouch beside Imamura.
"Hey, Imamura — Iori doesn't understand the emotional value these things carry. He didn't mean anything by it. Give it a few days and I'll drag him over to apologize properly. Then the three of us can go buy more figures together."
Imamura, who had been face-buried in his knees, cautiously raised his head a fraction to look at Sebastian.
"Really?"
"Really." Sebastian smiled and nodded.
At the confirmation, the tension gradually left Imamura's body.
"You're actually tolerable sometimes, you know," he muttered quietly, and a small smile surfaced on his face.
"What was that?" Sebastian's smile froze.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything. You must have misheard."
Imamura's face settled back into its usual vaguely human expression.