Vol 2 Chapter 11 – Did You Two Forget About the School Festival?【Volume 2: The Flirting-All-Over-the-Place Second Semester Arc】

With Christmas to look forward to next month, November drifted by in an unremarkable blur.

In the middle of it all, things at school began to change as well.

Sandai and Shino had decided to act completely natural around each other on campus, too — the better to make their relationship common knowledge.

The reaction, naturally, was immediate.

Students who’d caught wind of things through Shino’s circle of friends started saying, “So it was actually true…” while those who’d somehow missed it entirely let out strangled cries of “No way——!”

“Here’s today’s lunch.”

“Thanks.”

The two of them had started eating together at noon as well.

They’d always eaten separately before, but there was no longer any reason to.

Shino had taken it upon herself to bring homemade lunches.

“Today I tried making a heart shape out of sakura denbu~.”

“Oh, nice.”

“And actually, I was trying to express how I feel, and the heart almost didn’t fit… My feelings for you are too big to fit inside the container, you know?”

“Even if it overflows, I’ll catch every last bit.”

The saccharine atmosphere the two of them produced sent every nearby student’s head drooping in unison.

The girls were white-knuckling it through the secondhand embarrassment. The boys were fighting back tears of pure frustration.

As a side note —

This fully confirmed, campus-wide romance between the gorgeous gyaru and the lone wolf would later be passed down as one of the school’s seven great mysteries for generations to come — but that is a story for another time.

☆

In any case.

Another ordinary day was drawing to a close, and Sandai and Shino were heading out of the classroom together when it happened.

A male student with a neat center-parted hairstyle and glasses stepped out and planted himself in their path, arms spread wide.

If Sandai remembered right, this was the class representative.

“Hold it right there! Your relationship has not escaped my attention. You are a couple, correct? Romantically involved? I have no intention of interfering with that. However, the two of you are so caught up in each other that you have forgotten something important. Look around you!”

Told to look around, both of them turned to scan the room in either direction.

Students everywhere were making signboards, putting together decorations, working away at all manner of things.

“— Do you understand now?! The school festival! You two have done absolutely nothing to participate! It’s one week away!”

The words landed, and both Sandai and Shino finally registered the situation. They glanced at each other, cold sweat forming, and each offered their reason for not participating.

“W-Well, I’ve been so busy with the part-time job that I haven’t really had the bandwidth… and I’ve got a shift again today, sooo…”

“I’m fundamentally more of a solitary, background-type person — a loner, you might say. My understanding was that the school festival was the kind of event you just… skip.”

Hearing this, the class representative clenched both fists and began to tremble.

“I have several objections to Fujiwara-kun’s reasoning — but I will swallow the for now. I understand that you both have your circumstances, but… I would ask that you participate to whatever extent you’re able. Since you haven’t been listening to any of the class announcements, you likely don’t even know what our class is doing — we’re running a café.”

With that, the class representative lowered himself to his knees on the floor and, in one smooth, practiced motion, pressed his forehead to the ground.

“I’m not going to force you, and you’re more than welcome to go home for today. Any day that works for you going forward will be fine. …Realistically, yes, the festival would probably run just as smoothly without the two of you. But then it wouldn’t be a memory of everyone working hard together. As class representative, I simply cannot let that stand.”

Sandai and Shino exchanged a look.

Being on the receiving end of a full-on prostration — combined with the righteous cause of shared memories with the whole class — suddenly made it feel quite difficult just to walk away.

“I beseech you!”

The class representative’s final, desperate plea rang out.

Both of them slumped their shoulders slightly, then nodded.

Fine. What choice do we have?

Vol 2 Chapter 12 – Lending a Hand【Volume 2: The Flirting-All-Over-the-Place Second Semester Arc】

The clock had just ticked past nine in the evening.

Shino and Sandai were sitting together in the apartment, looking back on the day.

“I’ve never actually seen someone do a full bow-down like that before.”

“Me neither…”

“That said — according to the class rep, the festival is in about a week. By this point, most groups have probably already figured out their timeline for finishing up. …Are there even any spots that would want our help?”

“Hmm… if we ask around, there’s probably something? With so little time left, some people might actually be scrambling. I’ve got tomorrow off from work, so let’s look together.”

“Sounds good.”

They both yawned at the same time.

Lately, Shino and Sandai had been falling into sync more and more.

It was often said that couples gradually start to resemble each other the longer they’re together — apparently, that was true.

Though even so.

Even with how close they’d grown, there were still moments where a faint, hairline gap could be glimpsed between them.

But that gap — somewhere beneath their notice — was quietly, steadily closing with every passing day.

After all, the quiet accumulation of ordinary moments was pointing them right toward each other.

☆

The next day.

Sandai and Shino went around asking their classmates whether anyone needed help.

The responses, however, were not particularly encouraging.

“Nah, we’re fine… and honestly, even if we were swamped, the last thing I want is to breathe in that lovey-dovey air while I work. Hard pass.”

That was the answer from the boys.

“…A couple offering to help? Are you picking a fight with someone whose age equals the number of years she’s been single?”

That was the answer from the girls.

Rejected again and again — but refusing to give up, they kept making the rounds until they finally found someone who wanted them.

It turned out to be a request tied to a group of Shino’s more striking-looking friends.

The ask: could Shino come out for a shift on the day of the festival, dressed in something a little on the daring side, as part of their crowd-drawing strategy?

But that particular request was shot down when Shino flatly said she wasn’t going to show off that kind of look to anyone other than her boyfriend, and the matter was dropped.

“…Guess that’s a no.”

“When she pulls the boyfriend card, there’s nothing left to argue. …Though honestly, we have this habit of trying to use Shino as bait for these kinds of schemes, and I think we need to do some self-reflection on that. Like — we had this whole plan to lure guys in through a mixer, get their contacts, bring them to the festival, and get closer to them from there. And the whole thing was basically built around Shino being the draw.”

One of Shino’s friends let that slip almost casually.

He’d heard there was a plan to reel in guys using Shino as the lure — but apparently the plan extended well beyond that.

“…If you’re looking to find a boyfriend, it seems like you could just look inside the school. There are probably decent guys around without having to go outside.”

“I think they were aiming for college guys. Boys their own age probably don’t register on their radar at all. A lot of girls have a thing for older guys.”

That made a certain kind of sense. Wanting someone older wasn’t hard to understand.

Boys went through the same thing — plenty of them had their phase of pining after an older girl.

Whenever the topic of actresses or gravure idols came up, a glance at their ages usually revealed they were somewhere around twenty, give or take — a little older than high school.

This was probably just the same thing, from the other side.

☆

A little while passed.

Sandai and Shino had ended up sitting side by side on the back stairs behind the gym.

“…Turns out there really wasn’t anywhere that needed us.”

“Yeah…”

They heaved matching sighs to the distant sound of crows calling — caw, caw — when a shadow fell over them.

They looked up. It was the class representative.

“…I hear you’ve been going around asking if anyone needed help. I’m glad to see you’ve taken this seriously.”

“Everyone turned us down, though,” Sandai said with a shrug.

The class representative adjusted his glasses with a small push, then pointed toward a particular wing of the school building.

The home economics room.

“No one needs help? That’s not quite accurate. There’s a student in there practicing the food we’ll be serving at the café. I’d like you to go and assist her.”

Someone needed help after all.

From the way the class representative said it, this sounded like the one place they were unlikely to be turned away.

“Yuizaki-kun can cook, can’t she? You’ve been bringing those sickeningly adorable lunches, after all.”

Sandai chose to let the pointed undertone in the class representative’s voice go without comment.

At any rate — out of nowhere, the task of helping a girl who was struggling with her cooking practice had landed squarely in their laps.