Working at the Ladies’ School

“Wait, wait, hold on a second, Kaede-chan.”

“I’m not waiting.”

“Please, just hear me out. I know it’s presumptuous coming from a pet like me, but don’t I have any say in choosing my workplace…?”

“No. You’re working here. You signed the contract, didn’t you?”

Kaede-chan thrust the contract at me. My name was clearly written on it.

I should have read the contract properly, but even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have had the right to refuse anyway.

“Besides, I checked with you, didn’t I? I asked if you had anything you wanted to do.

And you said you didn’t, right? So it’s fine for me to decide your job, isn’t it?”

“Urgh…”

It was true that I had nothing, and I had promised to let Kaede-chan introduce me to a job. For someone like me to demand a say in the workplace would be out of line. She had properly arranged a job for me, so I should be grateful. I should be grateful, but…

“Kaede-chan, can I ask you one question?”

“No.”

“Please… Kaede-chan.”

“Geez, you’re such a handful.”

Kaede-chan stared at me with half-lidded eyes while twirling her hair with her finger; the gesture was incredibly cute, but I was way too on edge right now to get flustered every time.

“…Um, are there any male staff members at this school…?”

“Nope. You’re the only man.”

She said it with a beaming, full-faced smile. It was an incredibly cute smile, yet it somehow put even more pressure on me.

“No, wait, am I seriously getting hired at this school!?”

“Seriously. Super seriously.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. This is such a prestigious school, so the hiring standards for staff must be ridiculously strict. And in a place with only women, there’s no way they’d hire a man. So how did one signature…!?”

“I talked to the staff, and they gave the okay.”

“Why!? How does just you talking to them get an okay!?”

“Well, I’m the student council president, after all.”

“You’re the student council president, Kaede-chan…!?”

“Yeah. I worked really hard to become a super top student.”

Kaede-chan made a smug face as she let her soft, flowing long hair sway.

It was impressive that she had worked so hard to become student council president, but!

“No, the student council president doesn’t have authority over personnel hiring, right!?”

“Actually, she does.”

For real… Did Kaede-chan hold that much power even at this school… She had said she got the okay from the staff, but in reality, she had probably forced the okay out of them.

I had known she was the daughter of a major corporation, but I hadn’t realized she was this influential… This was a world I couldn’t comprehend at all…

Just the other day, I had been barreling straight toward the rock bottom of life, and now, for some reason, I was going to work at a prestigious ladies’ school.

Well, finding a new job was honestly something to be happy about, but I had countless anxieties too.

Before morning homeroom started, Kaede-chan had brought me behind the school building.

“Here you go!”

What Kaede-chan handed me was a broom and a dustpan.

“Th-This is…?”

“You’re going to start by doing odd jobs around the school! Today, I’ll have you work as a janitor!”

“A j-janitor…”

“Yeah, you said you enjoyed cleaning, right, Ryoma-kun? So this is perfect.”

“Y-Yeah, well…”

“What? You don’t seem thrilled, Ryoma-kun.”

“No, that’s not it…”

“You’re not thinking that you’d get some high-paying job right away, are you?”

“No! I’m not!”

“Good. Then I’m off to class, so do your best with the cleaning.”

“Got it.”

Kaede-chan left. I was all alone.

It was time for morning homeroom, so there were no students around. I felt even lonelier than before.

…I guessed I should just do my best at cleaning, like she said…

But where and how was I supposed to clean the school? No one had explained anything. Maybe I should have asked Kaede-chan properly… But she was busy at school too, and I didn’t want to take up too much of her time…

For now, I would just do it however I liked.

Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep.

There were lots of fallen leaves, so I cleaned them up.

I would keep cleaning until the end of the school day. There was probably no lunch break either. But I would push through.

Murmur, murmur…

Whisper, whisper…

? What was that… voices…

Oh, there were a few female students around now. When did they… Right, the first period had just ended, so it was break time.

And I was drawing intense stares. No matter how painful the gazes were, I kept cleaning without paying them any mind.

…No, I couldn’t ignore it. The stares clearly carried negative feelings. They were subtly damaging me.

“Ew… what’s with that guy…”

“I heard he’s a new janitor starting work at this school today.”

“Eh, a janitor?”

I could hear the female students whispering. It seemed Kaede-chan had told them about me. Otherwise, I would have been reported as a pervert by now.

“That guy looks young, but he’s doing janitor work? Lame…”

“A young person being a janitor is so bottom-tier.”

“Pfft… poor thing~”

Hey, I could hear you. It stabbed right into me. I was going to cry.

Bottom-tier, huh… I got dumped, I got fired, and I had nothing to say back. I didn’t think janitor work was bottom-tier at all, but I was— no doubt about it. The feelings of someone like me wouldn’t be understood by these high-class ladies. And on top of that, I was even a high school girl’s pet. How about that—convinced?

…Of course not… Sigh, this was making me sad.

“Hey, you know, weren’t you just badmouthing him?”

Hm!? That was Kaede-chan’s voice.

When I turned toward the sound, Kaede-chan appeared and was striding right up to the two girls who had been laughing at me earlier.

“Wh-Wh-What, President Nakajo!?”

“Could you stop badmouthing him? If you think I didn’t hear that, you’re dead wrong.”

“Th-That’s not it, we weren’t saying anything bad~”

“Huh? Are you saying my ears are playing tricks on me?”

“No, that’s not… S-Sorry!”

The two girls fled from Kaede-chan. They ran away at an amazing speed.

Well, I could understand. Kaede-chan was seriously scary. As expected of the student council president—her presence was intimidating as hell.

After chasing off the two girls, Kaede-chan approached me with a refreshing smile. Even the refreshing smile was a little scary.

“Were you okay, Ryoma-kun?”

“I’m fine; nothing even happened to me… What those girls said was true anyway, so you didn’t have to scare them like that, right? But still, you got mad for my sake—thanks, Kaede-chan.”

“Hee hee, you’re welcome. I really wanted to punch those kinds of people. I absolutely won’t forgive anyone who makes fun of you, Ryoma-kun.”

“Kaede-chan…”

She was so reliable… I felt like tearing up.

“You’re the only one allowed to insult Ryoma-kun.”

“…………I see.”

Was I supposed to be happy about that… Well, whatever.