Aug 02, 2026
Author's Commentary #16:
Time to talk about Chapter 16: Ides of March Part 1.
If you thought the cliffhanger at the end of the last chapter was bad, this one is even worse. Now Yuni's down her eyebrows and her hair and mind are in terrible shape. She even tried to mount a counterattack, but even that wasn't enough.
You might have noticed that time went by rather quickly this chapter. That is because this arc will feature events taking place simultaneously from one another. This chapter focused solely on Yuni, while the next chapter will focus on someone else.
Originally, this arc was much less dark, but still saw Yuni getting kidnapped by Fujiko and dragged to the salon. Back then, she was simply going to be chloroformed upon returning home, and wake up in the salon. To make matters worse for Yuni, Kurobane was even going to mandate she go to the salon to have Fujiko shave all her hair off as a sign of repentance for Bianka attacking Fujiko. To give some context, Bianka was originally going to come to the museum with Yuni and co, and leave to go after Fujiko. Mochi then would have blamed Yuni for giving the "order" to Bianka to leave, which would cause Kurobane to ultimately blame her for the incident and order her to get a makeover from Fujiko as punishment.
Ironically enough, I actually ended up toning down Yuni's torture scene drastically here compared to in the original and [Remake]. In those two, Fujiko actually shows up at Yuni's house after midnight and sleeps with her before subjecting her to the hellish makeover. Here, Yuni simply gets dragged to a mobile salon after leaving her place, though is still subjected to almost the same torture she was in the original and [Remake], minus the manicure and pedicure. Her mind also doesn't break as easily here.
One final thing I'll talk about is what Fujiko's theme song would be. It would likely be a menacing and slowed-down remix of Rossini's The Barber of Seville Overture. As for why, first I like classical music, second, I feel a menacing remix of Barber of Seville would fit Fujiko's character well considering she's an evil hair stylist. Perhaps the track would even be titled something like "Bald fetishist of Seville". However, if this novel ever were to get an anime adaptation, there would be a scene where the original Barber of Seville overture would be used as a soundtrack. As for what that scene is, I'll reveal that once it appears in the story.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
