Your name is Mutsuko. You are 25 years old and by an assortment of circumstances involving being fired from your job, the death of your aunt, a trip across the country, and getting lost in Tokyo, you found yourself as the owner of a maid cafe/ hostess club in Akihabara: the Catscratch Cafe. Cafe in the front, hostess club in the back, open just in the afternoon and late into the night. You had never worked in the service industry, and weren't even good at cooking.
Luckily, the staff were all hired back when your aunt was alive and ran the shop long before you came here. Really, all you had to do on your first say in town was pick up the keys to your aunt's old appartment, move your stuff in, and say hello to your new employees.
They were all more than happy to meet you, giving nothing but praise about your aunt and expressing eagerness to start working together. At the time, the employee roster consisted of:
Kagari (27): the red-haired chef with a fiery personality, always trying new recipes, but a master at the classics. Fast friends with Mutsuko and Purin.
Purin (25): the brunette patissier who lives for sweets, gets along well with everyone, but especially Kagari, as they were both hired for the cafe at the same time.
Shione (17): purplish-black-haired dishwasher and general helper in the kitchen. Twin of Setsuna. Outgoing, and tends to socialize with the guests in her off time.
Izumi (23): blonde bartender and barista, in charge of making specialty drinks both in the front and back of house. Always has a joke ready for someone who asks.
Suzume (36): brunette manager, in charge of overseeing all the cafe's business affairs, and making sure nobody slacks off, you included. Though, she's quite motherly, and goes out of her way to take care of all the staff like she'd treat her family.
Haruki (22): The first of the maids, she's got black hair with a greenish sheen, and has been on staff the longest of all the maids.
Setsuna (17): also with purplish-black hair, she's Shione's twin but is much more shy than her sister, even wearing her hair covering one eye. It seems to work with a particular crowd, though, because she's got her own minor following.
There was another maid when you first arrived, but she left a while back, and you've hired a girl named Kate (16), since. She's a full foreigner, not a halfbreed like Izumi, and is in Japan for a foreign exchange program, looking to earn a bit of extra spending money at the cafe. Conveniently, she can speak Japanese fluently, and was a hit when you first hired her.
At first, everything was going well. Business was good, profitable, and everyone on staff got along well. Unfortunately, after about a year, things started to slip. Profits and attendance started to go down, customers choosing to go to other cafes or clubs, and the rise of gimmick and cosplay cafes only made it worse.
You've still been in the black for for the last year, but last month was your first time in the red. You've never spent much of the profits, so even if you're losing money for the next year or so it shouldn't be an issue, but all the same you'd rather that it never came to that...
It was on the first day of the following month when you found your answer to this problem. It was just after dinner on your day off when you checked your mailbox, finding inside an unmarked package. Bringing it inside, you laid it on your kotatsu, reading your other mail before settling your eyes on the final package. You don't remember ordering anything recently... it was pretty suspicious, but curiosity got the better of you and you opened it up to find a hardcover book with no title or author, only small, darkened figures on the spine and covers - all women in various stages of pregnancy and some with odd additions like wings, tails, and the like. You figure it's probably just some anatomy book, or maybe an art book, at least until you open the cover.
As you open it, holding it up with one hand and opening the cover with the other it feels like an energy runs through you and the book tingles in your hands. The first page is blank, but writing rapidly appears, looking to be penned right before your eyes.
"Hello Mutsuko. The possession of this book allows you to bring new life into your world, both figuratively and literally." The cursive words continue to scrawl themselves over the pages, writing down instructions for use, and what seems like an array of rules.
What do you do now?...
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