After all sorts of twists and turns, the first day of the cultural festival came to a close. Mio’s less-than-authorized intrusion, in the end, wasn’t exposed as badly as I’d feared after all. Her disguise had apparently done its job; nobody who’d seen her had realized that she was, in fact, Mio Kuruma. It also helped that Makina got in touch with everyone who’d been in 2-A’s classroom during the Mio Incident and asked them to keep quiet about it. When all was said and done, nobody learned about my misdeeds.
Yuna and Rinka did let me know that they wished I’d at least said something to them, of course, but for some reason, they didn’t press me for more information on how or why I’d ended up tangled up in a bet revolving around their performance. In fact, they didn’t even bring it up at all!
In short, I ended up with an awful lot to feel relieved about. I won’t be getting expelled after all! Thank goodness!
And then the second day of the festival arrived! Our class’s project was over and done with, and most of the merch we’d made had already sold out the day before, so pretty much all of us were free to spend that second day doing whatever we felt like. That left me, Yotsuba Hazama (position in class: background loner), with a pressing dilemma: Should I, or should I not, wear our class’s festival T-shirt today?
“Oh, Yotsuba!” said Rinka. “You wore your uniform today? Why?”
And I completely guessed wrong!
Per our school’s cultural-festival rules, everyone was supposed to gather up in their classrooms each morning before things kicked off. I figured the idea was just to make taking attendance easier? Anyway, I headed straight for my classroom when I arrived...and stepped inside to find everyone except me wearing their class T-shirts!
“Wait, you’re all wearing them?!” I yelped.
“Well, of course we are!” said Yuna. “I mean, how many chances do you think we’ll get to wear these after the festival’s over?”
“That’s...a really good point, yeah,” I admitted. When she put it that way, as soon as the festival was over, that shirt would be doomed to spend the rest of its days in the pajama pile. What else would you even wear a class T-shirt for? A trip to the amusement park? I’d sure never heard of anyone using them for anything like that. In my defense, though, it did still feel a little wrong to wear those T-shirts on a day when our class wouldn’t even be doing anything for the festival!
“Plus, we spent all yesterday in our stage costumes,” Yuna continued. “We barely got to wear these at all in the end.”
“Very true,” said Rinka. “It would feel like a waste not to wear them, considering our classmates went to the trouble of making them for us.”
“Oh, right...” I said. Does that make this better for me? I’m really not sure.
“Good morning,” a voice rang out.
“Ah!” I exclaimed as Makina stepped into the classroom. Her arrival wasn’t what had me excited, though. No, my attention was drawn straight to what she was wearing! “You came in your uniform!”
I’m not alone! I have an ally after all!
“Oh! Good morning, you three,” Makina replied as she stepped over to us. She took a look around the classroom...then took a final, longer look at me. “I see everyone wore their T-shirts.”
“I know, right? It felt so awkward up till a second ago,” I replied with a beaming smile. Now that I had an outfit in common with at least one person, I felt much more comfortable again. Up until she’d shown up, I’d been completely isolated! It had felt like I was cheering for the wrong team!
“Why did you wear your uniform today, though?” asked Yuna.
“To be honest, I was so distracted yesterday that I threw my T-shirt into the laundry without thinking about it,” Makina explained. “I’m just glad I’m not the only one.”
“That’s not quite the same reason why Yotsuba left hers behind, though,” said Rinka.
“Oh, really?”
Ugh... In other words, Makina did know that she was supposed to show up in her T-shirt today. They should’ve just made an announcement or something! Put it in the official cultural-festival policy: Class T-shirts are to be worn across all days of the event!
And so, the curtain was raised (on a kinda inauspicious note) on the second day of the festival.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thanks for waiting, Yotsuba!”
“Aoi! And Sakura too! Did you have trouble finding your way here?”
“We’re not toddlers, Yotsuba. We can walk across town without getting lost,” Sakura said.
“Ha ha, fair enough!”
I met my sisters, both of whom were wearing their middle school uniforms, out front by the school gate. Outside visitors were allowed at the cultural festival on its second day, so they’d stopped by to hang out and see what it was all about. My class’s offering was already over and done with, of course, so we’d really just be walking around together and looking at everyone else’s.
“You’re looking around with your friends in the afternoon, right?” I asked Aoi.
“Yup!” Aoi replied. “And Sakura’s gonna be going around with hers too.”
“My friends and I are here to see the school just as much as the festival, though. Entrance exams are right around the corner and all,” Sakura added.
Basically no one from our middle school had tried to get into Eichou High back in my day, but apparently, a surprising number of students were now taking a shot at it. It wasn’t like the entrance exam had gotten easier or anything, so why was a bit of a mystery... But in any case, it was probably a good thing it hadn’t been that way back when I was applying. Going to a high school that none of my middle school classmates would end up at had sounded really appealing at the time, and if a bunch of other kids had signed up for the entrance exam, I probably wouldn’t have followed through with my accidental application and tried my luck on it.
“You’re looking around with Yuna and Rinka this afternoon, aren’t you?” said Aoi.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Sooo, does that mean you went out of your way to make time for us in the morning?”
“I sure did!”
“Yaaay! You’re the best!” Aoi exclaimed, clinging tightly to my arm.
Yup, yup! She’s adorable!
“Well, then, no time to waste! Let’s get a move on,” Aoi continued. “Your class already finished up yesterday, right?”
“Yeah, unfortunately,” I replied.
“No kidding! I would’ve done so much to see Yuna, Rinka, and Maki all up onstage together!”
“Okay, but you know how much trouble there would’ve been if they let the public in for that,” commented Sakura.
“Okay, then—I wanna go see Koganezaki’s class!” Aoi said as she flipped the festival’s pamphlet open and browsed through its offerings. Astonishingly enough, she’d picked the very same maid café I’d gone to with Mio the day before. “Can you imagine her working in a maid café?! It’s so not her style at all, but I’m sure she’ll look awesome in the outfit anyway!”
“I kind of want to see that too, actually,” Sakura added.
Aoi and Sakura had met Koganezaki the month before, when we all got together to model for Mukai’s illustration. Koganezaki had been in a relatively chill sort of mode at that time, and apparently, the two of them had come out of the encounter with the impression that she was a really nice person. Not that they were, like, wrong about that, or anything! It’s just that they didn’t know she could also be really strict and incredibly terrifying from time to time.
“Okay, then! Let’s go!”
Buuut, that said, I didn’t have any reason to turn them down. I could’ve stared at Koganezaki in a maid outfit all day without getting bored, after all! Plus, I knew that at the end of the day, she always went easy on her underclassmen. As long as I had Sakura and Aoi with me, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the sort of frigid reception she’d given me the day before!
Heh heh heh! Watch as the genius tactician Yotsuba Hazama uses her little sisters as human shields! This plan is a masterstroke! Koganezaki will be laid bare—or rather, laid out in a maid uniform—before me! Bwa ha ha ha haaa!