Kai couldn’t decide if he should be happy or sad when it seemed that his classmates realized he wasn’t anything all that special, due to his mess of an introduction. At first, he was bombarded with all sorts of questions about Tokyo and his old school during every single break, but by the time lunch ended and afternoon classes were in session, the questions had stopped.
His classmates made their own little groups with clubmates or friends they knew from last year. Of course, Kai didn’t have anyone like that. He quietly played social games at his desk, and the school day was over before he knew it.
He’d planned on going straight home, but Haimura called him over as soon as he stood up, so off to the teacher’s lounge he went. “I almost forgot to give you one a’ these,” he said, handing Kai a single slip of paper. “It’s a club registration form.”
“I don’t plan to join any—” Kai tried to object.
“That’s a crying shame. Hohoho,” the old teacher said with a laugh. “All of our students have to join a club unless they’re in the honors program.”
“I... see,” said Kai, with great difficulty. Classes A through C were considered honors classes at Meikun High for each grade level, and only included students with good grades. Classes were re-sorted at the end of every semester exam and students who fell through would automatically be sent to class D or lower. Being in class D, Kai had no choice but to join a club.
“Don’t scowl like that, boy,” Haimura lectured him. “This is your only shot at youth! Your sweat, your tears—”
“Sensei, I brought the class journal!” said a voice from behind Kai, accidentally cutting Haimura off mid-lecture. The girl took a surprised step back, and her short, sandy blonde hair swayed softly. The eyes just below her bangs were large and round. Her nose and mouth were more reserved, but still came together very well. To put it bluntly, she had a cute face, and what’s more, she seemed bright and cheerful.
“Ahh, Aoi,” Haimura said cheerfully. “You came at the perfect time.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’ve got something I need to ask of you. Here,” he said, slapping Kai on the back.
Aoi looked at him curiously. No matter how much she stared, it wasn’t as if Kai understood the situation himself. All he could do was act confused alongside her.
“Wouldja mind showing him around?” Haimura requested.
“Around the school, sir?”
“Nope. I wantcha to show him our clubs.”
“Ohh, I see.”
“Alright, I’ll leave ya to it,” said Haimura, who seemed to have no further intention of looking after Kai. Instead, he pulled out a desk chair and began to sip at his tea. Kai silently exchanged looks with the girl, the sound of Haimura slurping tea ringing out in between them.
“Okay, Shiraseki-kun,” Aoi told him. “I guess we better get going.”
“A-Alright...” Kai found himself agreeing automatically. Then he said, “Wait, how do you know my name?”
“Huh? That’s because... Oh, right! I haven’t introduced myself. Let me go ahead and do that,” she said, and then laughed. “I’m Aoi Nanaka. I’m in your class! I hope we can get along!”
✦ ✦ ✦
So bright. Kai wasn’t thinking about the light of the setting sun when he thought this. For him, the existence of someone like Aoi Nanaka was simply too bright.
Nanaka had dutifully shown him around every single club that Meikun High School had to offer. She didn’t just stop at showing him the outside of each clubroom, but went as far as to prepare a small tour for every club and participated in those tours with him.
Think about that for a second: every single club. Even if he had another three—no, another thousand attempts to relive his life—Kai figured he would never have enough friends to be able to go to every club and say, “Hey, I know this is really sudden, but...” No, in fact, he knew that it’d never happen. He was sure of it.
Nanaka could do just that, though. They lived in different worlds, and she was clearly in a bright, sunny place. Despite the fact that a teacher had forced this whole exercise onto her out of nowhere, she was bright, cheerful, and didn’t look upset at all. Compared to someone who stared down at his phone whenever he had time to spare, she was different in every single way.
“The literature club we just visited was the last one,” she told him with a slightly nervous expression. “Was there any club you’d be interested in?”
“...There wasn’t,” he had to admit, all but screaming on the inside. He didn’t want to make trouble for her. What to do? To be honest, there wasn’t much he could do.
“...R-Right. I figured.”
“.........I’m sorry,” said Kai, apologizing profusely. The gloomy back-and-forth just served to further dampen his mood. I’m sorry for everything! He wanted to just lay everything out on the table and apologize so he could be done with it. She went out of her way to spare precious time for him, but as they pointed out in their conversation, he still couldn’t find a club that interested him.
He had absolutely no talent for physical activity, so athletic clubs were doomed to begin with. He was tone deaf, so music clubs were out. He couldn’t draw, couldn’t write. There was nothing, nothing that he could do. The entire time they’d spent looking around only served to beat that point into him.
At some point on their tour, Kai wanted to start crying, but he figured even Nanaka would be troubled if a new student in her care suddenly burst into tears. He used that thought to just barely hold it in. He’d left the one thing he did every day behind at his old school; perhaps this was an obvious outcome. Nevertheless, he was already causing Nanaka trouble, and he wanted to keep it to a minimum.
“Ah!” Nanaka suddenly stopped, clapping her hands together in front of her chest as if she were about to start eating. She coupled that gesture with a twirl to look back at Kai, and he found himself charmed by how oddly cute it was. “I forgot to ask an important question,” she declared. “Were you in a club at your old high school?”
“Yes, but— Well, no, I was in the... go home club,” he told her, making something up on the spot.
“O-Oh, I see... But schools with mandatory club membership are really rare these days!” Nanaka said cheerfully. Seeing her try to force the conversation along made Kai feel more and more apologetic. To make matters worse, he’d lied to her!
At that moment, an abrupt blipping sound came out of Kai’s pocket. In his mind, he was surprised enough to jump up and stick his head through the ceiling, but somehow he managed to keep his cool on the outside.
“The teachers will get mad if you don’t put it on silent, you know?” Nanaka advised him.
“Sorry.”
“I forget all the time too. Depending on the teacher, they might even take up your phone, so it’s a big hassle.”
The origin of the sound was Kai’s smartphone which, apparently, he’d forgotten to switch to silent mode earlier in the day. He pulled it out now and saw several push notifications from different social games. They were all notifications for new gacha events. The evening is a great time to play on your phone, especially around the time that everyone goes home from school and work. Naturally, that leads to a bunch of different game notifications overlapping during this time frame.
There was no need to look through the notifications immediately, so he put it back in his pocket. But as he did, he noticed Nanaka was in an excited frenzy in front of him. Her beige hair flopped up and down as if to emphasize how frantic she was.
“Um, um, um! I didn’t mean to peek, it just happened to come into view!” She beamed with so much excitement that her eyes appeared to be shining. “Do you like playing games on your smartphone?!”