“Well, since I’m going to do it, I’m going to do my best. My class is going to be making pancakes, so I think it could turn out pretty fun depending on how we do it. If we make something that looks good on social media, it should attract a lot of girls, which will in turn attract a lot of boys.”
“Hmm, I see. Well, good luck with that.”
“You don’t seem to really care, Momo,” Kana said with a smirk.
“To be honest, I’m not really thinking about the school festival.”
“Ha ha ha... Well, I know how you feel. Actually...no, I don’t. I can’t imagine how it would feel to have my girlfriend’s older sister become my stepmother.” Kana laughed awkwardly and shrugged. “Seriously, what kind of star were you born under, Momo? What did you do wrong in your past life?”
“My sister said the same thing...”
I’d reported the mess that happened with Kisaki-san to Kana and Ura in a group text yesterday. Well, it was less like a report and more like a counseling session—and less like a counseling session and more like I was simply complaining.
“I’d love to support you, best friend of mine, but...I honestly have no idea how to do that.” Then, with a far-off look in his eyes, Kana sighed and said, “Goodness. I thought when you got a girlfriend, it would be fun to give you advice as your senior in romance. But every situation you bring up is more than a high schooler can handle.”
“...”
“I don’t think there’s a lot of high schoolers who have relationships like yours, Momo.”
“I’ll bet,” I said while smiling wryly at his sarcastic comment.
The situation really is getting crazy, I think. Up till a few months ago, I was your run-of-the-mill high school boy whose number of years without a girlfriend equaled their age.
“By the way, what happened to Ura?” I asked.
“Oh, it seems like his meeting is running long, but it should be about time for it—”
“I can’t believe that woman!”
Speak of the devil...
Suddenly, Ura entered the empty classroom, yelling in a booming voice. The look on his baby face was one of intense anger, sadness, and anxiety. “Ugh. Damn it! This is crap. Why do I have to have something so unfair happen to me?” He walked toward us with a complex expression on his face, a strange mixture of indignation and sadness.
“Wh-What’s the matter, Ura?” I asked, panicked.
“...I was made the class representative for the school festival!” he replied tearfully.
“Wh-What did you say?!” I was so shocked my voice trembled. “The class representative?! Y-You?”
“Yeah...”
“H-How did such a tragedy happen?”
Ura’s an introvert among introverts. You’d expect him to condemn an activity like a school festival with utter cynicism. A guy like this was somehow chosen to be his class’s representative?
“All of it... All of it is that woman’s fault!” Ura had tears in his eyes and his face was twisted with rage as he complained. “I was just trying to not stand out like always. I really think it’s stupid how those friggin’ extroverts get excited for dumb school events, but I’m not childish enough to get mad about it. I’d feel sorry for them if I didn’t tag along with them, so I thought I’d be generous and accept the work assigned to me.” Ura did his best to sound superior when talking about the usual practice during school festivals of “I did it because I was told to” that probably every average student in Japan was guilty of.
“So...what about ‘that woman’?”
“By ‘that woman,’ do you mean Ibusuki?”
“Yeah! That damn woman!” Apparently, Ibusuki was the cause. Lately, whenever Ura talked about a girl, it was Ibusuki Saki. “At first, she was chosen as the class representative. Then, when the time came to choose a guy representative...she turned to me and said, ‘Urano, let’s do it together. You’re free, aren’t you?’ all carelessly with that thoughtless look on her face, like she didn’t realize how much of a serious crime she was committing!”
“Oh, so that’s how it happened, huh...” I mused.
“Well, Saki-chan is probably a suitable person for class representative. She has a lot of friends, she’s cheerful, and she’s a leader,” Kana added.
Ura was at his wit’s end. “Damn that woman. Just what the hell is she thinking? Ugh, and the class’s reaction when I was nominated... It was like their eyes were saying, ‘Huh? Why this guy?’ Why do I have to be humiliated like this?!”
There was no end to Ura’s complaining. Well, I could imagine how he felt. Ibusuki probably didn’t have any bad intentions, but from Ura’s point of view, he must have felt like he was being publicly humiliated; when he saw everyone in the class making faces like “Wait, that guy’s in our class?” through the lens of his persecution complex, it’s only natural he’d feel like a laughingstock.
“What’s more, our class’s attraction is going to be...a maid café.”
A maid café, huh? It came up as a suggestion in my class too. I figured some class would definitely end up doing it.
“A maid café being done by a bunch of damn extroverts at a school festival is the height of stupidity. Even though they normally look down on otaku culture, when it comes to events like this, they suddenly flip the script and get all close to you. I guarantee that they’ll put on crappy cosplay and go, ‘Jeez, I’ll bet gross otaku get turned on by this stuff, don’t they? “Moe moe kyun,” right?’ as they look down on otaku.”
“W-Well, this is good in a way, isn’t it? Since it’s a maid café, you’ll be able to have a bit of an active role, won’t you? Ibusuki was probably expecting that when she chose you, after all.”
“That! That’s the most frustrating part!” Urano yelled. “Screw her thinking that I know all about maids and stuff just because I’m an otaku! Don’t just assume that every otaku likes maids! I haven’t even been to a maid café! I’m not that kind of otaku!”
Urano Izumi was a guy generally accepted as an introvert and an otaku. However, his love as an otaku wasn’t directed at moe culture, but rather things like games, figurines, and robot anime. It wasn’t that he hated so-called moe culture, but he wasn’t that familiar with it.
“S-Still...you know more about it than regular people, right? Some time ago you talked passionately about the history of maid uniforms, didn’t you?”
“I’m tormented by having incomplete knowledge, and I don’t want to show it off to anyone... If I’m going to do it, I don’t want it to be a simple cosplay cafe, but something that delves thoroughly into the cultural history of maids. However, I’m afraid that if I’m thorough my classmates will think, ‘Isn’t this guy annoying? What’s with the sudden enthusiasm?’”
God, he’s got such a difficult personality.
“Come on, calm down, Ura,” Kana said in a gentle voice. “I became a class representative too.”
“R-Really?!”
“If there’s a meeting or something, I’ll have your back.”
“I’m begging you! If there’s a meeting of the representatives or something, don’t ever leave me alone! Make sure you sit by me and don’t talk to anyone else!”
“I-I don’t know if I can promise that much.” Kana started to look put off as Ura began to completely rely on him. And then, that’s when it happened.
“Ah, I found you, Urano!” Ibusuki appeared, and when she caught sight of Ura, she quickly entered the empty classroom. “Jeez, you promised that we’d talk about the school festival during lunch, didn’t you? Why did you run away?”
“I-I’m not running away! And that promise was just you ordering me to do it!”
“Whatever, just come here.”
“Wh-Why? What about lunch?”
“We can talk while we eat.”
“Huh? Wh-Why do I have to have lunch alone with you?”
“...What are you so worried about?”
“I-I’m not worried about anything!”
“Oh man, you’re such a pain in the butt.” Ibusuki sounded utterly fed up as she grabbed Ura’s hand and pulled him away.
“Come on, we’re going.”
“L-Let go of me! Damn it! Kana! You better have my back! You too, Momo! Do your best to support my mental health until the school festival! If I stop coming to school, it’s you guys’ fault!” Ura was dragged away by Ibusuki as he whined and cried out.