Extra 4: They Know It’s Christmas
Shin had trouble getting the cue cards together, and when he stepped into the production control room later than usual, he shouted, “Waaah!” and took a step backwards.
“What is this!?”
“What? Today’s the eve of the eve, you know?” said the audio engineer wearing a red hat.
“It’s a national holiday. So we should at least feel Christmas in our spirits—was what we were told,” said the sound effects mixer wearing a red hat.
“And Shitara-san brought a huge bunch of them,” said the lighting technician wearing a red hat.
A large number of Santa Clauses filled the cramped space of the control room—although from the neck down, they were wearing regular clothes.
“Huh? Should we really be doin’ this…?”
Just as he was thinking, It ain’t like it’ll show up on TV anyway, maybe it’s fine, he was called out from behind.
“Hey, Nawada, perfect timing.”
“Oh, you’re wearin’ one too, Shitara-san…”
“Of course. And here, this is yours for today.”
“Huh…?”
Shin took one look at the item and shook his head vehemently.
“W-Why am I a bunny!?”
It wasn’t red or triangular-shaped. It was a headband with long white ears attached to it.
“It dun match anyone at all!!”
“Oh, but it’s a proper Santa, you know? See?”
In between the ears, there was a poor excuse of a Santa hat the size of a credit card that decorated the headband, but no matter how he looked at it, the first impression was that of a bunny.
“Why’m I the only one like this!?”
“This was all they had at Daiso~ The part-timers already took the cat ears. You came too late, Nawada.”
There was no way he could accept that.
“I can’t do it. Please at least let me wear the same ones that the control room staff and the camera operators are wearin’. I’m workin’ the floor, right? If I wear those bobbin’ things on my head, they’ll accidentally show up on camera.”
Shin would let him have 100 steps, no, 1000 steps. At least with a regular Santa hat, he could fold the top over when he wore it, which was better than the alternative.
“But you can’t let them show up on camera.”
Even if ya say that with a serious face, what’m I supposed to do ’bout it?
“Why don’t you pretend today that you’ve become 190 centimeters tall?1 It can be another form of training.”
“Ain’t the intent of this different from before?”
Where did the spirit of Christmas go?
“All right, everyone, let’s do our best today~”
There was no use arguing about it, and Shin was forced to wear the bunny ears. Before the broadcast, Tatsuki walked into the studio and exclaimed, “Wow, I love the look behind the scenes today!”
He was incredibly excited. “It’s Santa Day! I want to wear one too!”
Shin would love to switch places with him. But wait, he didn’t want to go in front of the camera.
“You can do it in your private time,” Shitara said dryly.
“Hmm, there’s a bunny mixed in with the Santas.”
“Ya dun needta comment ’bout me.”
And so for the eve of the eve, Shin placed his headset over the rabbit ears headband (complete with Santa hat) and tackled the broadcast. Not only did he have to pay more attention to the cameras than usual, but as he carefully maneuvered his body to dodge them, the ears would be bobbing and swaying, and he could hear the studio snickering and giggling around him. Even Tatsuki cried out, “Oh my god, I can’t hold it in anymore!” and erupted into laughter whenever there was a commercial. It was horrible. Couldn’t this be grounds for harassment?
The show felt longer and more grueling than usual, but it finally approached the end of the show. They went live to the Christmas light displays around the country and finished with a dialog in the studio.
Yesss, it’s finally over.
Shin issued the cue card for 30 seconds left of the show, feeling massively relieved, but maybe that loosening of his concentration had caused him to turn around at the sound of the studio door opening.
He locked eyes with Sakae, who had entered the studio.
“Huh?”
Why was he here? Shin straightened his back without thinking, and a voice yelled “Hey!” over the headset.
“Your ears! They’re in the shot!”
Ahhh, crap, I screwed up. I hadna made any mistakes ’til now, an’ it hadta be in front o’ Souma-san too (if he ain’t a hallucination).
Shin frantically crouched down to the floor, and overhead, Asou started speaking calmly.
“Our very sincere apologies. A pair of bunbun ears appeared on camera just now. …With the holidays, sometimes unforeseen events like this can happen. Please pardon the little fumble.”
The fact that it was a holiday did not actually explain the slip-up, but then Asou ended the show with a “Goodbye for tonight.”
As voices around the studio shouted “Good work tonight!” Shin fell to his knees to bow his head to the floor and apologized, “I am so very sorry!”
“Sakae, what are you here for?”
“We’re using the special report you aired earlier as an upload on our channel. Give me the fine edits.”
“I’ll spit the version we broadcasted on a tape for you, and you can have that. If you start playing around with it, it’ll turn into a whole different beast.”
“Why not? It’s fine.”
“It’s not, it’s not.”
Shin raised his head to look over his shoulder and met Sakae’s eyes again. He rushed to press down on the extra ears that he was wearing.
“If you’re trying to hide them, you should take the whole thing off. They’re not even hidden.”
“Y-Yes, sir…”
Sakae had given him the jab in a very normal tone of voice, and Shin was so embarrassed that he could die.
“Nacchan, your face is all red.”
“Shuddup!”
He threw the headband at Tatsuki for his teasing.
“If I had known you would come today, I would have prepared a hat for you too, Sakae.”
“Give me the reason why you think I would wear it.”
“Because it suits you?”
“Get your eyes checked. If it had happened during a heavy news story, you’d be seeing some outrage, you know.”
“Give me some credit. I gave some thought to the show’s contents beforehand when I decided to plan this. There was no pressing news today, and nothing happened, so I didn’t waste all the hats that I had bought.”
“Don’t make broadcasting a toy.”
“Why not? Broadcasting is basically a toy though?”
“…Your personal toy?”
“Of course not. It’s everyone’s toy. It’s on public airwaves after all. It’s a toy that’s great fun, barely scraping by under the rules.”
“Heh, so you say.”
“Want to stay over tonight?”
“If you take off that perky hat, I’ll think about it.”
“Oh~ #bunbunearsappearedoncamera is trending~ …Yeah, it was quite professional how he could say ‘bunbun ears’ with a straight face on camera there~ Instead of ‘rabbit ears.’ Obviously people would take the bait. Kunieda-san won’t take it lying down though~ He’s going to have to find something with a punch~”
“They’re not competing over something like that.”
The Asahi TV crew~
Poor Shin, lololol. Screwing up and and wearing bunny ears in front of his old boss. xDDD
And we have the Gleefully loves scraping by Producer living up to his name, lololol.
Shitara-saaaan!!! Hahaha you can’t predict what he’ll do really.. and Shin is trending wow I wanna see that xD i really hope it will get an anime soon tho haha this would be so cute halp ❤❤ (I wonder what Kei did on this ahahaha) i wanna see Kei and Sakae interact so bad hnnggghhh
Thank you so much for the chapter!!!~ 🙇🙇🙇🙇🙇🙇
Shitara can be such a goofball, hahaha. But there’s no way that Shin can win against him. xD
(Hehehe, there’s a pseudo-epilogue to this short story coming next 😋)
You mean you want to see them interact fully as themselves, and not just as Kunieda-san and one of the producers? hehehe
But yes, I would love a full anime series for all of the couples. T_T
NEVER HAVE I IMAGINED THERE WILL COME A DAY ASOU SAYS “BUNBUN”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It was too great!!🤣