“I mean, seriously, what is that?”
“…”
From the classroom entrance, Masachika’s face twitched as he witnessed the overwhelming presence by the window. In front of him, Alisa stood utterly speechless as well. Their eyes were fixed on what appeared to be a mountain of presents—easily more than twenty—stacked on Alisa’s desk by the window. “Appeared to be” because some of them lacked any wrapping or ribbons whatsoever.
“Oh, crap.”
“She’s already here.”
“Looks like we ran out of time.”
The voices quickly drew their gazes to three students at the blackboard using colorful chalk to draw party poppers, ribbons, what looked like was going to be cake, and large letters that read, Happy Birth.
“Wait. Is this for me?” Alisa mumbled inadvertently, seeing the presents on her desk along with the drawings and letters on the blackboard.
“Awww.” Her classmates chuckled immediately, including the three at the blackboard.
“When we got here this morning, we saw all those presents on your desk and noticed they said ‘Happy Birthday’ on them, so we thought we should at least do something…”
“Yeah… We didn’t finish in time, though…”
After two students at the blackboard explained what was going on, the third student set down his chalk and suddenly burst into applause.
“Happy birthday, Alisa!!”
Although it was obviously an attempt to bulldoze through the issue with pure enthusiasm, other classmates soon began to join in, until the entire class was clapping.
“Happy birthday!”
“Congratulations!”
“Happy b-day!”
“Happy birthday!”
“Happy birthday! Not sure today’s even your birthday, though!”
“How does a single one of you not know?! Her birthday was two days ago!” Masachika said jokingly, and noticed Alisa seemed torn—as if she didn’t know whether to be happy or to point out that today wasn’t her birthday.
“Congratulations! Happy belated birthday!”
“Don’t pretend like you knew, Maruyama! Your enthusiasm isn’t fooling anyone,” Masachika quipped once more as the boy who started the applause began clapping even louder. Their banter sparked laughter throughout the room while the applause only grew louder, some students even beginning to whistle with their fingers.
“Happy two-days-ago birthday!”
“Yeah, happy birthday!”
“Congrats, girl!”
Suddenly, a flurry of congratulations erupted in the classroom while Alisa, looking utterly bewildered, wore an uncertain yet unmistakably pleased smile.
“Thank you… Thank you all so much…,” she muttered, covering her mouth slightly with her hand.
“““…!!”””
The usually composed, extraordinarily beautiful girl was obviously trying to hide her embarrassment, and her expression pierced the hearts of both male and female classmates. The applause and finger-whistling continued to swell in volume until students from nearby classes began peeking in from the hallway, drawn by the noise.
“What the…? It’s her birthday today?”
“Whoa! Look at all those presents.”
“She have a fan club or something…?”
“I have no idea what’s going on, but happy birthday!”
“Again, it was two days ago!”
The excitement was escalating, so Masachika attempted to defuse the situation with a few humorous comments, but the classroom was clearly never going to settle down with Alisa bashfully blushing behind him. The circle of applause and well wishes continued to explode, drawing in even more people who had no idea what was happening when—
“What is going on in here?”
However, the commotion subsided somewhat when a disciplinary committee member, attracted by the noise, made her appearance. It was none other than Sayaka Taniyama, the first-year rising star of the disciplinary committee. Her glasses glinted beneath a set of blunt bangs as her piercing, unperturbed gaze forced the overly excited students to cower and lower their hands.
“Alisa…? Good morning. What’s going on?”
“Hey, Sayaka. I’m actually not sure myself… It was like this when I got here.”
Sayaka pushed up her glasses, noticing the writing on the blackboard and the presents on the desk.
“Are those birthday gifts…? I thought your birthday was two days ago. Why now?”
“Probably because we didn’t have school. I’m guessing one or two people must have brought her a birthday present today, and when others started noticing the pile, they quickly went out and bought something as well…and here we are,” Masachika presumed, before suddenly furrowing his brow.
“…Hold up. Who was the first person to leave a present?”
He turned his attention back to the pile of presents. While they were calling it a pile of gifts, it wasn’t like the towering pyramids of enormous gift boxes you would see in anime or manga. There was only one large box. The other gifts were thinly wrapped packages or small, palm-sized gift boxes. Scattered across the desk were snacks, drinks, and stationery that had obviously been purchased at the school shop as well.
“I mean, it’s obvious the stationery and drinks here are presents from people in our class.”
As Masachika’s eyes swept across the room, his classmates suddenly all wore identical sheepish expressions as if to say, “Guilty as charged.”
“Yeah, we couldn’t just sit here and get her nothing.”
“Like, I feel bad we couldn’t get her something better, but we figured it was better than nothing…”
“Oh, don’t feel bad. You have no idea how happy I am. If anything, I feel bad for not getting you all anything for your birthdays. Thank you so much. That said…I can’t help but notice all the cans of sweet red bean soup…”
A quick glance revealed over five cans of sweet red bean soup, drawing a somewhat conflicted look from Alisa. Without missing a beat, the entire class shifted their eyes toward Masachika, as if he were to blame. Feeling uncomfortable at suddenly being in the spotlight, he cleared his throat awkwardly and muttered:
“Yeah, well, uh… Let’s organize this stuff… How about we put all of it on my desk for now?”
Masachika then slid his desk alongside Alisa’s, and together they organized the non-wrapped presents: snacks, juice, and stationery. What remained were numerous carefully wrapped presents, presumably placed there by someone other than their classmates. They examined each one, checking the back and sides, but there weren’t any cards or really anything to identify who the gifts were from. There was only a single ribboned sticker with Happy Birthday!! written on it, which at least made it clear they were birthday gifts. However…