Vol 1 Chapter 5 – The Contemporary Culture Club

A few minutes after Kajiwara Ichirou finished his introduction, successfully submitted his club application form, and was dismissed from the club room for the day.

That’s when the conflict abruptly began.

“WRAAAAAAGH, die, Takahashi Chihiro! I’m sending your ass to the graveyard!!”

“What was that, you bitch?! You die, Toudou Hatsune! SHAAAAAA!”

They were fighting.

As in, physically trading blows.

More thwap, thwap than wham, wham.

We are, after all, just weak nerds from the bottom of the social food chain; we possess no real strength with which to hurt anyone.

It was an ugly catfight—a brawl between two she-cats—and it wasn’t particularly interesting to watch.

A petty squabble between the glasses-wearing, bob-cut-sporting, huge-chested shorty, Club President Takahashi, and the flat-chested, straight-banged, princess-cut-rocking, tall, black-haired Toudou.

It was the start of a match no one particularly wanted to see.

“If you’re going to bring a boy, you should have said you were bringing a boy!”

“I did tell you, and you guys just didn’t believe me! It’s not my fault! It’s your fault for not believing me!!”

It was hard to say who was right.

From my perspective—that of Segawa Ryoune—I couldn’t judge who was at fault.

Was it President Takahashi, for not explaining properly?

Or was it us, for not listening seriously?

Really, it was impossible to tell.

There’s no doubt the conversation would have just gone in circles, so maybe resorting to physical force was inevitable.

“If I had known a boy was coming, I would have wanted to… brush my blazer, and fix my hair so there were no split ends in this messy mop… and now it’s too late! It’s all too late!! His first impression of me is now set in stone as this mess rushing to finish a doujin manuscript!! Oh, what have I done… what have I done!!”

“Ha-ha, sucks to be you. Suuuucks to be yooouuuuu!!”

Seeing Toudou collapse in despair, President Takahashi jeered, cackling at her misery.

What a truly wonderful personality she has.

Is she a barbarian from the early Heisei era?

I hear card gamers from the old days were a savage bunch.

That was the kind of personality President Takahashi had.

And she was the leader of our little four-woman band of otaku.

“…Where did you even drag him from, that boy? Kajiwara-kun, you said.”

We weren’t getting anywhere.

Reluctantly, I spoke up.

Reluctantly.

“Oh? You wanna know? You wanna hear the story of how we met?”

Hmph, President Takahashi snorted, the pipsqueak煽ing me as she looked up from below.

This is exactly why I didn’t want to ask.

I really want to kill her.

I’ll rip off those uselessly huge tits.

Though I guess mine are pretty big, too.

“…Please answer simply and clearly.”

I said it calmly.

Calmly.

I placed my hands on President Takahashi’s shoulders.

“Please stop trying to choke me with murderous intent. I didn’t do anything that bad…”

“…Oh, my mistake. Sorry about that.”

President Takahashi whimpered, sounding genuinely troubled.

It seems I was a little irritated.

I released my hands from her neck.

“He was standing in front of a card game specialty shop. I struck up a conversation, found out he was an otaku, and recruited him for the club. That is all.”

Thwip. President Takahashi answered with a military-style salute.

She really did keep it brief.

Well, that sounded about right.

He didn’t seem like President Takahashi’s boyfriend, and besides, that would only happen if heaven and earth were turned upside down.

There’s no way nerds like us could suddenly get boyfriends.

Not suddenly, not even slowly.

That’s why.

“…Well done, President Takahashi. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Ehehe.”

President Takahashi puffed out her uselessly huge chest.

I suppose she really did do a good job.

“For my sake… I, Segawa Ryoune, offer you my heartfelt thanks.”

“It’s not for you!? I didn’t bring him here for you, Segawa-chan!?”

Thank you.

Thank you so much, President Takahashi.

Your purpose is now fulfilled.

I said it as if I were pushing her off a cliff.

“And from here, a love story between myself, Segawa Ryoune, and him may or may not begin…”

I let my imagination run wild.

I wanted to embrace the start of a wonderful youth (Aoharu) between myself and the boy our kind President Takahashi brought to us, but.

“I don’t think it’s gonna begin, you know? Can you even talk to boys, Segawa-chan?”

Just like that, President Takahashi thwarted me at the very outset.

…I can’t.

“…I’ve never talked to one.”

I was stunned.

I, Segawa Ryoune, despite being sixteen years old, was suffering from a distinct lack of interaction with the male species.

Come to think of it, I don’t even have a memory of a perfunctory conversation, like picking up an eraser that the boy next to me dropped.

“In elementary and middle school, I was basically an artificial insemination girl from an all-boys-absent class…”

“I was in a similar boat, but I still put in the effort, you know?”

It was a lot of work bringing Kajiwara-kun here.

President Takahashi nodded to herself, mmhmm.

“I worked up the courage to talk to him. Isn’t it a bit wrong for you to just swoop in and snatch the fruits of my labor?”

She had a point.

That was a sound argument.

But setting that aside.

“…It’s not like he belongs to you or anything, right?”

“That’s true! I’m sure he doesn’t think of me as anything special! He just came to our club looking for otaku friends! Like me!!”

Thwip. President Takahashi shouted, pointing a finger at herself.

I loved this about her.

This is the part of her that won us over, why the three of us have stuck together and followed her lead.

Even if we sometimes trade blows and insults.

We’re close enough to speak our minds completely, so frankly, it was only natural.

“First impressions…”

I hear that ninety percent of a person’s image is based on the first impression.

Toudou was still moaning, apparently worried about that.

That being said, how long was she going to stay depressed?

“Get up! Hatsune!!”

Thwack. The president landed a kick.

Toudou let out a groan.

She slowly, sluggishly, raised her nearly 170 cm frame.

“Ugh. How can I recover my image from here?”

“Why not just give up?”

“How could you say something so cruel? He’s a boy. A mountain cherry blossom blooming in this dark, suffocating club room!”

Toudou cried out, shaking her head and sending her long, princess-cut hair flying.

“At the very least, I don’t want him to hate me!”

Well, that’s also true.

But President Takahashi tilted her head.

“…I don’t think Kajiwara-kun is the type of person to dislike or hate someone based on their appearance. I bet he’d smile and talk to a sweaty, overweight dude.”

Does a guy like that really exist?

From what I’ve heard, men are creatures who evaluate people on a point-deduction system, finding fault with every little thing—your hair, your looks, your etiquette, your attentiveness.

They never, ever hand out kindness indiscriminately.

From a young age, we’re taught that kindness is what makes girls mistakenly think, This guy might be into me, huh?

“Kajiwara-kun is a really good kid. I mean, I’ve only known him for a few hours, but still. He’s a really good kid. I don’t think he’s the type to dock points for minor things or look down on us. I really think he came to our club just because he wants otaku friends.”

In the first place, none of us knew enough about men to say anything.

The only one who knew him, even a little, was President Takahashi.

“So, please be nice to him, okay? Everyone.”

Of course.

We all nodded as if to say, “Aye-aye, ma’am.”

Otaku are kind to other otaku.

A poster with that phrase written in calligraphy hung on the wall.

We were all kindred spirits in misery.

“…So what’s the plan? Are we going to submit the application to become an official club?”

I asked President Takahashi quietly.

Our club activities are recognized, and we have a room.

But we’re technically classified as an association, so we don’t get much of a budget.

However, with a fifth member, Kajiwara-kun, we could be promoted to an official club.

“Hmm, let’s wait and see for about a month.”

President Takahashi tilted her head like a doll, looking a bit troubled.

“Yeah, we should probably wait and see. He might quit right away.”

The one to voice the thought none of us wanted to consider was our fourth member, a girl with silky blonde hair.

Her genes were a mix from a sperm bank and her mother’s own Caucasian ancestry, giving her the fittingly half-Japanese name of Takakura Emma.

Not that blonde hair is all that rare in our country now, with the rise of sperm banks.

“I don’t think he’ll quit that easily… but we are an all-girl group.”

“Interpreting that as ‘it would be unwise to get flirty,’ am I correct?”

It was what everyone was thinking.

Emma said it without hesitation.

“Is it wrong to wish for a boy-and-girl youth (Aoharu)? I’m not saying I want him to be my boyfriend. But to hope for just a few memories… um, well, you know, like walking home from school together, holding hands. Just that much… is it wrong to hope for that?”

Poke, poke. Emma touched her index fingers together.

She was asking what all of us wanted to know.

President Takahashi thought for a moment before answering.

“I won’t say it’s wrong. But we absolutely cannot destroy his hope. See, I don’t want to nullify Kajiwara-kun’s wish. He wants otaku friends, friends to enjoy card games, TRPGs, and creative projects with. I understand that desire so painfully well.”

It’s the same for all of us.

And probably the same for President Takahashi, too.

The bond between us otaku was strong.

“So… what I mean is, it’s fine to hope. I’m not issuing a ban on youth (Aoharu). But you can’t do anything impulsive. We’re being sought out as otaku friends, and that’s what he wants, too.”

Understood.

In short: don’t you dare try to act all feminine and sidle up to him.

It was more than understood.

“Don’t worry. In the first place, there’s no one here who’s skilled enough to pull off a move like that.”

Emma stated it as a fact.

Well, she’s not wrong.

Every last one of us was a nerd.

I heard that even the silky-blonde-haired Emma spent her middle school breaks pretending to be asleep with her face on her desk.

All of our middle school years were lonely.

If it weren’t for the proactive and courageous President Takahashi, who walked around handing out flyers that read, “Contemporary Culture Club, recruiting members. Otaku only,” we would have spent high school in much the same way.

That’s why we all love President Takahashi.

“Good. Then I’m counting on you! Whatever you do, don’t disappoint him!!”

We probably wouldn’t make any sort of feminine move on him, anyway.

Welcoming him as just another otaku was the most we were capable of, and we could probably only manage a proper conversation through the lens of otaku topics.

That’s why. That’s why.

“For now, since conversation is difficult for us, we’ll make our requests through you, President. Is it okay to make him a salesperson at the doujinshi convention?”

Emma asked.

For us, whose club budget was funded by doujinshi sales, it was a necessary request.

“Don’t just immediately try to use him and disappoint him like that! I was planning to go to a card game tournament with him, you know? Even that takes courage, so you should ask him yourselves!!”

President Takahashi yelled.

The room was filled with a clamor of voices.

In the end, she grumbled that she would at least try to talk to him about it in some way.

Reluctantly, President Takahashi gave in to our demands.