Hayate no Gotoku! Ch. 298

The show begins!

In the previous chapter we came to the knowledge that Luca was an idol, and that her concert was about to begin. This chapter, therefore, focused on her concert.

An overdose of Luca.

As such, there was so much Luca in this chapter. She was in different clothes and different poses, and there were three or four pages with nothing else but Luca. One thing becomes perfectly clear: This chapter was a Luca “show-off”, and the whole event looked more like a fashion show than a concert. Well, for a singer these are one in the same.

Judging by the big crowd of audience and the big advertisement outside the venue, it seemed that Luca was indeed a very famous singer, and yet Hayate did not know her. Well, perhaps what Hayate lacked was not delicacy, but common sense…

If Luca was indeed that popular, it might explain why she appeared in different disguises at the Doujinshi events. The fact that a popular singer was drawing doujinshis might destroy her image – Just imagine Robbie Williams being an Otaku. Even if she did not care herself, her manager and company did. The bottom-line might be that she could not enter Doujinshi Conventions in her true identity.

A.k.a. "the person who outshines me in this arc".

If that was true, then what I couldn’t get was Nagi’s reaction when she imagined Luca being her rival – It might just be me, but I sensed a feeling of inferiority in Nagi’s monologue. In their Doujinshi competition, I couldn’t see Luca trying to gain the upper hand by using her fame as an idol. Rather, she would enter the competition as “Fly Dolphin”, and in every sense she would be on equal grounds with Nagi. There was nothing for Nagi to think she was inferior, unless she thought she was inferior to Luca as a person.

Typical Hayate. All he cared about was a taxi.

Everybody, including Hayate, would imagine that a singer with Luca’s popularity would earn a lot of money, so she should have more than enough money to take a taxi. Well, we all know that he should compare her situation to himself, as he was a butler who was supposed to be earning good money, but he was always in a lack of it. The money Luca earned might simply be used solely to repay her debt. 150M yen was quite a big sum, even for a singer.

Speaking of Hayate, he was still in his maid dress, and was helping Luca with all the things at backstage, including helping her to “speed-change”. The act of “speed-change” was nothing new in itself, but rather an essential skill for all (female) singers. As Luca still thought Hayate was a girl, she found herself completely comfortable to undress and dress in front of him. Hayate, on the other hand, was not quite comfortable…

Welcome on board of the ship. Passengers should pray this is not the Titanic.

There was no doubt that Hayate had been very helpful. Luca felt a rush of gratitude towards him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. With that act Luca joined the long list of people who had directly kissed Hayate, which included Athena (lips), Izumi (lips), Nagi (cheek), Isumi (cheek) and Ayumu (cheek). With that, I began to think that perhaps it didn’t really mean anything, for if Hayate would fall for a girl who kissed him, then he would have fallen for a lot of girls already. Of course, we can never write off the chance that Hayate really would fall for Luca this time, so…

Luca said something quite interesting before kissing him, though. “It is great that you are such a nice girl.” It means that she was perfectly sure that Hayate was a girl when she kissed him. So… I don’t know, she didn’t have to be a lesbian to kiss a “girl”, but she still offered herself as a suspect.

Give it up, Hayate. To her you are a girl.

On the other hand, things might get more and more complicated for Hayate. He helped her changing her clothes with his eyes opened and received a kiss on the cheek from her, so it would be more and more embarrassing for him to reveal the truth that he was a boy.

Well, if the whole Hayate-Luca action was an one-off event, then it would be very easy for him to pretend that nothing happened, and both of them could carry on living a life without the other one. But the problem is that Luca was “destined” to meet Nagi, so she was also “destined” to meet Hayate again. So what would he do? Would he try to pretend that Maid Star and Ayasaki Hayate were two completely different people with absolutely no connection at all? Would he finally reveal to her, as a boy, that the “Maid Star” Luca met was in fact himself? These would remain to be answered in coming chapters.

What are the odds of him failing to recognize her?

More problems were coming for Hayate, though. Together with her new Getter Robo, Yozora – now in a mask – finally caught up with Hayate, and the first thing happened was that Hayate received a huge Getter Punch. Would that mean that Hayate and the robot were going to fight at the backstage? But then it would cause troubles for Luca’s concert, and Hayate – No, Maid Star – should do everything to stop that from happening. So, what would he do?

Let’s wait for the next chapter!