When I Brought The Lost Little Girl To Her House, The One Who Came Out Of The Front Door Was The Most Beautiful Girl In The Grade.

“Alright, now let’s decide the members of the cultural festival planning committee. Does anyone want to volunteer?”

They were trying to use homeroom time to decide the committee members. However, as expected, it wasn’t going well. Well, this was pretty much what I anticipated. In fact, it was going exactly as I thought it would.

“Wh-What should we do, teacher…”

“Is there really no one?”

In this situation, it was either the teacher deciding arbitrarily or drawing lots since no one was volunteering.

“Let’s decide by drawing lots!”

There it was. My prediction came true, and it felt like something out of an anime. That’s how I felt.

I had a strange feeling that I might be picked, but I turned out to be wrong. In other words, I didn’t have to be on the committee.

Two executive committee members will be selected. It was decided that one would be Souta and the other would be Shirasaka.

It seems that he exchanged his losing lottery with the person who won the lottery.

He’s truly a good guy. Almost too good, to the point of being scary.

“Souta, do your best!”

“Well, since I got picked, I’ll do it, but…”

“Hey, Souta, guess what? I have some good news for you.”

“What is it?”

Mimura looked at us with a mischievous grin. It was irritating for some reason. I took a deep breath to calm myself.

“Well, it turns out, Shirakawa-san is also on the committee!”

“That’s… only Kuroda is special.”

“Why do I have to come up in this context?”

“Well, you like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do, but there are other guys who would be happy too, you know.”

Sigh. Souta looked at Mimura and then turned his gaze toward me. It was as if he was saying, “Here we go again.” And indeed, I had been feeling recently that I was too much of a coward.

Maybe I had a cooler personality when I was in elementary school… Ugh, my heart hurts…

“Well, if you need help with anything, just let me know.”

“No, say ‘us.’ Otherwise, it sounds like I won’t help.”

“Yeah, if things get tough, I might rely on you, but with Shirasaka as my partner, I might not need to.” With a smile, Souta said that while pointedly avoiding the issue that was apparent to everyone.

“Souta… If you say that, I might lose my motivation to help. Oh, but there might not be anything for me to do anyway.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere became heavy.

“Just let me know if you want help.”

“Yeah.”

Souta and I exchanged glances and chuckled awkwardly.

***

After school, Mimura and I were at a fast-food restaurant, snacking on fries and chatting.

“So, what do you want to do after all?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean the cultural festival! Bunkasai!”

“Oh, well, I’m fine with doing any behind-the-scenes work, so basically, anything is fine.”

“Huh? You’re such a boring guy.”

Being called boring hit me hard. On the other hand, what does it even mean for the cultural festival to be fun?

“Well, isn’t it enough if you find it enjoyable?”

“Well, yeah, that’s true. But I think you should be a bit more adventurous, you know?”

“Adventurous?”

Mimura said something intriguing, so I asked with interest.

“For example, let’s say we set up a maid cafe.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And you become a maid there!”

“What? Why? Why would I, a guy, become a maid?”

“Well, you don’t have to take it so seriously…”

I couldn’t understand why it had to be me, and why not one of the girls in our class.

“Are you saying none of the girls in our class can do it?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You dress up as a girl and become a maid.”

“I don’t have such a hobby.”

“Who knows, you might actually enjoy it this time.”

I highly doubt that. But as humans, we can’t predict what might happen, so I couldn’t definitively say, “I won’t.”

“By the way, what do you want to do, Mimura?”

“I already told you, a maid cafe.”

“Oh, right.”

“But you know, considering the enthusiasm of the girls, it’ll probably end up being a play this time.”

According to Mimura, he wanted to do a play where Shirasaka would play the prince or something like that.

I felt a bit sorry for Shirasaka, who seemed like he wouldn’t have much say in the matter. Even if it’s a role he doesn’t want to play, I can imagine him still doing it.

“But Shirasaka is on the organizing committee, so it might be difficult for him to take on a major role in the play.”

“Yeah, you might be right.”

If they were going to do a play, there would be rehearsals and stuff, and since Shirasaka was on the committee, he might not be able to show up in class as often.

Considering that, it might be challenging for Shirasaka to take on a role with many lines.

“However, challenging doesn’t mean impossible.”

“Yeah, you’re right. If it’s Shirasaka, he might say something like, ‘I’ll do my best with a smile.'”

“He’s a guy who doesn’t know how to refuse.”

Mimura is angry at Shirasaka, who’s not here, saying, “He should take better care of himself.”

In situations like this, instead of showing it to me, a guy, I think it would be better to show it to someone who’s a girl, and we could get along a bit better. However, if I were to say that to the person directly, they might get carried away, so I’ll refrain.

“By the way, it’s too bad you didn’t become a committee member. If you did, you could have been with Shirasaka.”

Saying this, he pats me on the shoulder as if sympathizing. I don’t recall doing anything to deserve sympathy. Not at all.

“No, no, no. It’s not like it was a guarantee that I would become one.”

“You think so? I’m pretty sure there was some potential there.”

“I wonder if there really was potential.”

“If it weren’t for that, you wouldn’t stand a chance with anyone else.”

Well, maybe? I didn’t know what to say, but I felt somehow uplifted by Mimura’s words, so I treated myself to a burger on my way back home.

Walking along the dimly lit street after parting ways with Mimura, I arrived home to find a familiar pair of shoes lined up by the entrance.

“I’m home.”

“Welcome back!”

“Ohh… nee-chan.”

“What’s with the surprise?”