Spin-off: Four Demonly Kings
Part 1 of: Photo Contest arc
Just before Kaguya left for the PPC, he had some troubles with his university club. Since this is a backstory segment, Kaguya has short bobbed hair.
One, Kaguya's university hadn't the facilities needed for a tea ceremony club, and after so many years, he saw that his horizons needed an urgent broadening. Two, his mother had forsaken the modelling career that she had before been painstakingly working towards just so he could exist, he reasoned. Armed with the beauty inherited from her and the knowledge she had taught, he made it his raison d'être to accomplish what she could not, to not let her dream go to waste. Three, his mother's side of the family lived in France. Should he become famous, a tad more travel opportunities would be present to him; visiting them would be all too easy.
It was a matter of course, then, that he chose to enter his university's modelling club.
On Kaguya's last session of club activity before he departed for the PPC later that day, the club had a new president. This student was an admirable creature, so said many other members with unhidden admiration. Having grown up in a kimono crafting family in Kyoto and then interned as a photographer in Hollywood, the student had partaken in the best of both worlds – and indeed, a glorious aura seemed to cloak him as he entered the studio, as he glanced round at the plebeians that were his club members.
Then, much to Kaguya's confusion, the new president had kept him behind after the club session had wrapped up. In the studio then empty but for Kaguya and the president, the latter said, "I need to have a word with you. You're Hazama, as in that Hazama? The one that owns the luxury hotel chain? You do seem to possess the airs of a well-to-do high-society gentleman."
"Yes, I am," Kaguya replied.
"Just as I expected. They have a hotel in Kyoto as well. Tell me, why are you wearing a kimono? Since building image is essential for a model, are you looking to build an image of some kind?"
"I enjoy traditional culture; I've studied tea ceremony. I'm, in fact, looking to reach the ideal lifestyle of a yamato nadeshiko."
"I'm afraid I must stop you there," the president said. "You're not a yamato nadeshiko. You're barely even a human. You appear refined, you dress well, you seem well-versed in maintaining your beauty, but that's where it ends. You have no soul, no flavour, a waste of those good clothes you're wearing; you're so profoundly incompetent that throughout the club session, I was holding back from yelling my throat raw at you.
"Your first name is Kaguya, is it not? There is a reason Princess Kaguya of myth is a yamato nadeshiko, while you're not. Underneath her apparent delicateness, she is a belle dame sans merci, a beautiful woman of no mercy. She has power and command; she sends men to their deaths out of duty to her homeland. A true yamato nadeshiko is a powerful, fearsome person; they don't merely don a kimono and behave gently. They must have a heart and a commanding presence, they must be able to conquer despite a delicate exterior. Those things are needed to be a model as well. You on the other hand are toothless and useless; a pampered doll in a glass case. How do you hope to be a yamato nadeshiko or a model?"
Kaguya was stunned in place, as though roots had grown from his feet. The president, clearly not awaiting an answer, said as he opened the door, "Good day, and either learn to be less infuriating next time, or get yourself out of my club."
Kaguya replied, "Thank you for your insightful teaching; it has been a learning experience."
