It’s different if you have a straightforward goal like with baseball, soccer, or rugby, such as Koshien, nationals, or Hanazono, but unfortunately, I’ve never heard of anything like an “Advice Consultation World Championship.”
I remembered before, when we were preparing for the Christmas event and I’d run into Kaori Orimoto, she’d burst out laughing, and I repeated what she’d told me then. “If you say ‘We’re the Service Club,’ it’s just like…‘What does that club do?’”
“Hmm… Yeah, our activities are one thing, but there’s a lot of other things, too…,” Komachi said with a wry smile, then nodded and took us back to the beginning of this talk. “Well, what we do is kind of annoying and kinda unique, so I think it might be okay not to push canvassing. When you don’t fit in, you just quit, right? Like you with your part-time jobs,” she said, sticking up her index finger and wagging it.
“Y-yeah… Well, that’s true…” Using me as an example was a convincing argument. Once you get to be a golden flaker-outer of my level, you just need to make one application phone call to pick up on the atmosphere of the workplace and then flake out of the interview.
Plus, people flaking out is rampant even with part-time jobs you can get paid for, so with a club where you work for free, I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped out in seconds.
We could work our butts off canvassing, but if they just quit anyway, we’d wind up right back where we started. In fact, we’d even be out the cost of advertising.
We couldn’t just aimlessly canvass. We also had to put in some effort to keep people from quitting.
I hear these days, all the corporate slaves are working hard to keep new employees from quitting… And when they train the new employees, they get directions from HR saying not to upset the newbies. But really, shouldn’t reevaluating the system of employment and wages come first? If they worked four days a week for a generous ten-million-yen salary, they’d never quit, you know?
But it wasn’t the time for me to be thinking about my future. This was about the future of the Service Club.
It was too uncertain whether a total outsider would be able to fit in with this incomprehensible club. It would be faster to go scout someone who’d fit in from the start, best we could tell. This is what you’d call head-hunting.
“What about your friends?” I asked her. “Nobody wanting to offer some service?”
“Huhhh…? That sounds like you’re looking for a maid… And it’s not like Komachi wants to do any service work…” She twisted up her lips like eugh.
What a coincidence, I don’t have even a sliver of service spirit, either. If neither the club captain nor the members have any interest in service, then…what does this club do?
As I momentarily pondered this, Komachi put a hand to her jaw. “Hmm, well, I think my friends probably won’t want to. They’re either already in clubs, or they’ve decided they weren’t going to join any.”
“Huhhh… Yeah, by this time, I guess they would already be in one,” I said.
Komachi shrugged with a wry smile. “Basically.”
It had been about one month since the start of the year.
The period for trying out clubs would soon be over, and those first-years with the motivation would be focusing their efforts in the clubs they had aspirations for.
But nobody had shown up to join as a temporary member or sit in on the Service Club, which brought us to the present.
Part of why we hadn’t done anything to secure new members was that we’d all been busy since the joint prom, so I was forced to admit there was nothing we could do. We hadn’t even expected the Service Club would keep going in the first place, so we hadn’t made any preparations.
I racked my brain. Should we start doing something now, mayhap…?
But Komachi was the one at the center of this, and she didn’t seem to care. “Well, there’s no point in rushing it. It’ll be okay for a while like this. Komachi’ll think about members later.”
“Yeah?” I said with full skepticism.
Komachi nodded. “Yeah… Besides, it’s not so bad for Komachi to get this room to herself.” A nasty smirk rose on her face.
“Ohhh… Like, hearing you put it that way, now I’m kinda jealous…”
“Right, right? It’s like my own private room at school. I’m a VIP.” She chuckled smugly, with silly gestures as if she was about to break into a cheery little dance.
But my brain couldn’t help but pull up that scene I’d imagined before, and I found a touch of sadness in that smile.
I didn’t know what Komachi was really thinking behind those words.
But she was the one who had rebooted the Service Club, and she was in charge. I would be leaving in less than a year, so maybe it wasn’t something I should be cutting in on.
Just…if it’s possible…
I was unconsciously looking at the door.
If possible, if someone would appear like on that day without knocking, flinging open that rattly door…
It was a terribly selfish desire.
But then suddenly, that door shuddered and clunked. Komachi noticed it, too, and looked over as it slowly opened.
A warm but refreshing summer breeze blew from the window into the hallway. The wind swished through the visitor’s pale hair and ribbon at her chest.
Without asking permission, she marched into the room like she owned the place—Iroha Isshiki.
“Heeeey, guys.” Closing the rattling and creaking door behind her, she stuck up two fingers in a yo sort of wave.
When Komachi saw her, a smile appeared as if she was too exhausted to stop it.