Vol 2 Chapter 15 – The Interview and the Boy Who Looks Like a Girl【Volume 2: The Flirting-All-Over-the-Place Second Semester Arc】

It was after school on Friday — the day before the school festival.

Sandai had been on the lookout for a part-time job for a while. After seeing Shino off, he headed home and decided to reach out about his next application.

— Now hiring cleaning staff for a new mini aquarium opening on December 1st!

There was a reason he’d chosen this one, of course.

It wasn’t a random pick.

The first reason was the words new opening.

That meant no established social dynamics yet.

Everyone would be meeting for the first time, starting from zero — and that felt like a significant advantage to Sandai.

He’d spent so long as a loner that his social skills weren’t exactly his strongest suit.

He knew that about himself.

So a workplace where friend groups and hierarchies had already formed was somewhere he wanted to avoid. A brand-new opening was practically tailor-made for him.

The second reason was cleaning staff.

When it came down to it, cleaning was the kind of job where, if necessary, you could get through the whole shift on minimal conversation and just focus on the work. He figured that suited him.

Weighing all of that, Sandai made up his mind and applied.

☆

When he got in touch, they told him, “If you’re free, please come in for an interview now.” So Sandai got himself ready and headed to the address they’d given him.

When he arrived, it turned out to be the site of the facility itself — not yet open.

A large tarp was draped over the whole building, and it was clear that construction wasn’t fully finished.

An arrow near the entrance read Interview candidates, this way, so he followed it.

It led him to a door with a paper sign that said Interview Room.

Several chairs were lined up in front of the door, but the hallway was completely empty. No other applicants in sight.

He knocked to let them know he’d arrived.

No response.

“…The interviewer isn’t here yet. Well — they’re the ones who told me to come now. They know I’m coming, so they’ll show up eventually.”

Sandai sat down in one of the chairs and settled in to wait.

About twenty minutes passed.

Then a girl who looked to be around his age came walking up.

Slim build, a long-sleeved top, skinny jeans that fit close to her frame, and short-cropped hair. She had a boyish look about her.

She was glancing around uncertainly.

From the looks of it, she wasn’t the interviewer — she was here for the same reason he was.

“Um… hey…”

When she noticed Sandai, she greeted him in a voice that was distinctly husky and androgynous, and gave a small, cautious bow.

Sandai bowed back reflexively.

“Hey. …Looks like you’re here for the interview? Same here, actually — the interviewer hasn’t shown up yet, so I’ve been waiting.”

“Oh, I see. I’m here for the interview too… um, would it be okay if I sat next to you?”

She seemed to be leaning into the boyish look with her word choice too, using boku to refer to herself.

Sandai had never actually met a real-life boku girl before.

He felt a vague sense of wonder, like he’d encountered a cryptid.

“I’m… Hajime Saeki. Second year of high school.”

“What a coincidence — me too. Sandai Fujiwara.”

“Second year? Really? It’s nice to meet someone my age — oh, wait, s-sorry, I slipped into casual speech without asking…”

“I don’t mind, honestly. Same year means we can both just talk normally.”

“Y-Yeah! Nice to meet you, Fujiwara-kun.”

Hajime smiled — a bright, uncomplicated smile.

Then added:

“I’m glad, though. The first person I met here is the same gender as me. I’m not great with the opposite sex…”

“…Huh? Sorry, what was that?”

“Hm? I just said I’m glad the first person I ran into is the same gender as me.”

Sandai turned his face sharply away and pressed a hand over his mouth, eyes going wide.

He genuinely hadn’t considered, for even a second, that Hajime might be a boy.

Vol 2 Chapter 16 – The Boy Who Looks Like a Girl, feat. Cheongsam【Volume 2: The Flirting-All-Over-the-Place Second Semester Arc】

She was a girl — except she wasn’t.

In a situation like this, Sandai had absolutely no idea how to react.

Some socially gifted, fully-adjusted person might have landed on the right response in an instant — but Sandai had been a loner until just recently.

All he could do was flounder.

“Fujiwara-kun, why did you suddenly look away?”

“N-No reason…”

The conclusion he eventually wrung out of his brain: just let it go.

“…Weird Fujiwara-kun?”

Hajime tilted his head to the side with a small, curious look.

Whether he was aware of what he was doing or not, the gesture was disarmingly cute.

☆

The interviewer arrived roughly ten minutes after Sandai and Hajime had met.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”

The woman who appeared said this while wearing, for reasons that were not immediately obvious, a rubber wetsuit.

Sandai gave her a puzzled look. She picked up on it immediately.

“…The outfit is because I was just finishing up dolphin training.”

Sandai had assumed that a place billing itself as a mini aquarium probably wouldn’t be dealing with anything too large.

Apparently, there was a dolphin.

“Even calling it a mini aquarium, you still need some kind of draw to get visitors through the door, right? So it’s not every day, but we’re going to be doing a dolphin show.”

He’d read the job listing carefully — or so he’d thought — but there hadn’t been a single word about a dolphin show.

Then again, Sandai had applied specifically for the cleaning crew. Whatever creatures were on site had little bearing on the work itself, so whoever wrote the listing had presumably seen no reason to mention it.

“Alright, let’s get started. …First, could I see your résumés?”

At that, Sandai handed over the envelope he’d been holding at his side.

Hajime had his résumé ready, too, and passed it across.

The woman looked them over side by side.

“Both high schoolers? Well, you both look it. …And if I’m remembering right, you’re both applying for cleaning. Makes sense for you, Fujiwara-kun, going by the vibe — but Saeki-kun, it seems like a bit of a waste, with a face as pretty as yours.”

He was fairly sure that was a roundabout way of calling him plain, but he filed that away for later.

More to the point — Hajime had also applied for cleaning.

Somehow, that hadn’t been his expectation.

Given that Hajime looked so completely like a girl, it wouldn’t have been strange at all for him to have applied for a front-facing role. But…

Sandai glanced sideways at him.

Hajime had gone red to the ears and was staring at the floor.

“Um, well… at my last job, they made me wear… I didn’t have a choice in it… and it was really embarrassing. …They had me do table service in a girls’ cheongsam, and some of the customers were looking at me in this way that made me really uncomfortable…”

So there was a real reason he’d chosen cleaning — somewhere out of the public eye.

It must have been genuinely difficult.

Hajime looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“O-Oh, I see. I’m sorry — I probably shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“No, it’s my own fault for being so thin-skinned.”

Sandai knew it wasn’t polite, but for just a split second, he pictured Hajime in a cheongsam.

He’d actually look pretty cute — that was as far as the thought got before Shino appeared in his mind, completely uninvited.

A vision of Shino with her cheeks puffed out like a hamster, waving both hands furiously, charging in to erase the mental image.

(I wasn’t imagining it for any bad reason. I’m sorry, Shino…)

No one had actually caught him, but Sandai apologized inside his head anyway.