Epi.13-1: Ghost Café — Want to Try It?

One day, Yuka was called to a certain café.
The opening preparations had mostly settled down, and from the kitchen she could hear the staff chatting and laughing.

Sitting across from Yuka was a single man.
The man suggested to Yuka, “Ghost Café — want to try it?” and Yuka accepted without hesitation; she had now been called in for that very meeting.

The man who called himself Furuta was a project coordinator for a famous streamer.
This time, the consultation was about wanting to pull a prank on the streamer himself.

“Like—I can’t really do anything, you know?”
Yuka answered honestly; she had wanted to try a Ghost Café, but when it came to a prank project, she wasn’t confident she could pull it off well.

“It’s all right.
All we need is for you, Yuka-san, to produce the Ghost Café.
The concept this time is: ‘What if, one day, your shop suddenly became a Ghost Café?’
To be honest, none of us know anything about ghosts at all—so we were looking for someone knowledgeable.”
Furuta explained the concept with a smile.

He was a streamer so famous that even Yuka—who had no interest outside of paranormal content—had heard his name.
A channel with over 300,000 subscribers reaching out to collaborate with a small channel of around 1,000 subscribers—there was no way it wasn’t suspicious.
And yet, Yuka jumped at the opportunity immediately.
After all, it meant she could finally make her long-held dream of a “Ghost Café” come true.

“Leave it to me!
A Ghost Café has been my dream for years!”
Bang!—Yuka slammed her hands on the table and leaned forward, and Furuta instinctively pulled back.
“Oh—was that so?”

Regaining his composure, Furuta began to speak.
“We’ll provide the staff on our end.
If there’s anything special you’d like to do regarding the menu, please consult with us.
As for the interior and costumes, we’ll accommodate what we can within reasonable limits.
That said, given the nature of this being a prank, the setup will be rushed, so there will be things we can do and things we can’t—please understand.”

“Also, if additional staff are needed, you’ll be the one hiring them on your side, Yuka-san. Is that all right?”
The gentle smile faded, but Yuka didn’t notice; she answered with a smile of her own, “O-kay!”

“Also, since this is a prank project, please don’t tell anyone about it at all.
From the afternoon of the first day onward, you’re free to promote it as much as you like.”
With a gentle smile on his face, Furuta said this, and Yuka replied reflexively, “Leave it to me!”
Her mind was already completely filled with thoughts of the Ghost Café.