Kawakami

Ren thought for a moment. People at school knew that he hung out with Ann, Makoto, and Haru, as many rumors had spread around about them already. They might think he had planned with them beforehand. If he was going to call any of them up, he’d have to use someone else first. As for Futaba, he thought that putting her up on a stage in front of lots of people wouldn’t be good for her social anxiety. As fun as it might be, he decided to leave her alone for now as well.

He looked around and luckily, nobody other than Ann who was in his homeroom class was present in the audience. He decided that his most logical course of action was to hypnotize Ms. Kawakami first so that the other girls in his group would be more open to the idea of volunteering. On top of that, there wouldn’t be as many accusations about pre-planning if a teacher was involved.

“Ms. Kawakami, how about you?” Ren offered.

She briefly had a shocked expression on her face that he’d even suggest such a thing. However after encouragement from her surrounding coworkers, she decided to bite the bullet and walk up onto the stage as she received applause from nearly everyone in the room.

“I ask that you all hold your applause until after the act. I don’t want any potential interruptions or mishaps. Also, I ask that you all turn your phones on vibrate and disable the flashes on your cameras.” Ren explained.

“So how does this work, exactly?” she asked him.

“Just sit down in the chair here and let me work my magic.” he teased back.

Kawakami groaned, but she complied as Ren let a pocket watch hang down in front of her face.

“Keep your eyes on the watch, Ms. Kawakami,” he commanded. “Watch it swing back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.”

She did as he said, her eyes staring firmly at the shiny golden trinket in front of her.

“Okay, now what?” She asked him.

“Shhhh....” he replied. “Don’t focus on talking right now, Ms. Kawakami. There are only two things you need to focus on. Your eyes should be focusing on the watch, and your ears should be focusing on my voice. You shouldn’t be worrying about anything else right now.”

“The watch...and...your voice...?” she repeated, her eyes and body starting to droop slightly.

Ren smiled, as he could tell it was working already. He answered, “That’s right. If you’re having a hard time focusing on the watch and my voice, that might be because you’ve been thinking too much.”

Kawakami started drooling a bit as her posture started to worsen. She was almost there, Ren could feel it.

“I have a solution though. Let my words do the thinking for you,” he suggested. “If my words do the thinking for you, you’ll be able to focus on the watch more. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“....yeah....” Kawakami replied, barely able to keep her eyes open. Still, her eyes remained glued on the watch.

“Alright. If I’m doing the thinking for you, that means when I snap my fingers and say the word sleep, you’ll fall asleep into a deep trance. Understand?”

“...trance....” she repeated.

“Good. *snap* Sleep.”

Kawakami slouched over in an instant, her body nearly falling off the chair. She was out like a light. Gasps started to emerge from the audience, but Ren held up his hand, signaling them to stop.

Now that Ms. Kawakami was in a trance, Ren decided to...