Oregairu Vol 12, Chap 5

Oregairu V12 Chapter 5: As Expected Isshiki Iroha is the best Kouhai

Credit goodguytesla for translating the first half of this chapter.

===BEGIN PART 1===
A day after our conversation in the clubroom, the temperature was unexpectedly warmer than usual.

The wind had been strong since this morning, so much so that even after school had ended, the windows still continued to be beaten. The sun’s rays coming through the glass were enough to replace the function of the heater, which had been turned off soon afterwards.

Even the students in my class who had previously distorted their faces due to the coldness of winter and refused to leave the warmth of the classroom, began to leave as soon as they could.

Having stayed in the almost emptied classroom, I took my backpack that had nothing particularly in it and began to leave, in attempt to follow the others.

Suddenly someone tapped my shoulder. As I turned back, I could see Yuigahama who had already put up her coat.

Roughly aware of what she might want, I quickly stood up from my chair. Yuigahama tilted her head a little while she wrapped her scarf around her neck.

“Hikki-, what are you going to do today?”

“...Hmmm~”

Being asked by Yuigahama, I was a little bit at a loss of words. It was probably because she had asked me something slightly different from what I was expecting.

Unlike Yuigahama, who had promised to help as a friend whenever anything happens, I hadn’t really promised anything in particular. Nor did anyone ask me or request my confirmation on the subject, which meant that I didn’t have any work at the moment.

Until now I had kept attending, saying that “only if I have something that I absolutely have to do, I’d do it”. There wasn’t a single bit of a lie in it, and I’d probably keep this stance unchanged in the future. I had not yet accepted a favor or received any request, nor did I have any responsibility to take or any promise to fulfill, nor was I carrying any sins that I had to atone for.

Therefore, I did not need to go to that classroom at all.

Strangely it had taken me some time to reach that conclusion, to which I found myself showing a bitter smile without myself noticing it.

“No, I’m heading home.”

When I said that, I realized I had no idea why I even said “no”. Despite so, I decided to swallow back what I was about to say, and said something else instead.

“You?”

Yuigahama fiddled with the scarf around her neck while taking a brief moment to think.

“Hmm.... I’m also going home....”

“I see.”

“Yep.”

Yuigahama nodded, almost burying her face in the wool scarf. The conversation stopped in that instant.

Although it had only been a brief moment, there certainly was a moment of silence. I probably wasn’t the only one noticing and bothered by it. Not really much evidence but I thought so because both Yuigahama and I accidentally made eye contact that crossed over for a couple times.

… What is this!? What is happening now!?

I grew anxious, so I began to think that I had to say something else, but I couldn’t really come up with anything. In an attempt to cover it up, I re-adjusted my backpack, which wasn’t even particularly heavy.

“...See ya.”

“Oh, yeah. See ya.”

Yuigahama gently waved her hand after saying goodbye. I nodded at her words and started walking, when I could hear the sound of hurried footsteps behind me.

I turned slightly back and with a glance, I saw that Yuigahama had jumped towards Miura.

“It looks like I don’t have any club activities today, so let’s go together~”

“Hmm.... Eh!? Eh!? You are coming, Yui? That’s great! Darn, I haven’t planned anything yet. Darn, where should we go?”

Miura had been twirling the tips of her hair while she was tapping her smartphone screen, then perhaps because she had received unexpected words from Yuigahama, looked at Yuigahama twice in surprise, and soon cast her eyes to Ebina-san, who then smiled gently after noticing it.

“You decide, Yumiko. In any case, it’ll be in Chiba, right? Well, can’t say for sure.”
“Huh? If you let me decide, the only choice would be Kushiya Monogatari though.” (TL: Kushiya Monogatari is a restaurant chain in Japan that sells various kinds of food hooked in skewers. Typically the foods on skewers are deep-fried, which are called Kushi-age.)

“Ohhh, fried fried it is~”

As if her panicked reaction from earlier had been a lie, Miura for some reason put on a pretentious face, to whom Ebina-san clapped her hands while attempting to follow up Miura’s words in a stupidly proper fashion. Seeing their exchange, Yuigahama appeared to be happy about it, “Kushiage? Kushiage? Seriously?--” she exclaimed happily with innocence. What is up with Kushiya Monogatari…? A place where everyone tells stories about Kushi-age? Kushi-age Discussion? Looks like they are going to have a fight on whether they should watch from the top or from the bottom… (TL: Kushi-age Discussion, or Kushiage Katari in Japanese, sounds a little bit similar to Uchiage Hanabi, which is the Japanese title for Shinbou’s movie Fireworks. The full title of the movie is “Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?”)

Whatever, it seemed that Yuigahama just decided her plans after school.

On the other hand, I had no plans afterwards. Thinking about what I should do next, I left the classroom and walked silently down the hallway.

Thanks to the previous long holidays, I already consumed all the recorded TV programs that had been stacked up, and I also finished reading most of my books in the spare time I spent in the clubroom. In that case, pretty much the only thing left was to finish the games I had accumulated… I had to refrain from playing my TV console because Komachi had to prepare for her exams at that time. As I walked down the stairs thinking that I could finally chill as a couch potato playing games, I grew quite excited. Even more so, if there’s an official continuation of some big numbered games, I’d easily stay up for at least three nights… Apparently it was time again for the hero 8man to save the world. (TL: ‘Numbered games’ refers to big game franchises that have numbers in their titles, such as Monster Hunter and Sakura Wars.)

Just imagining it got me so restlessly happy, that I almost felt like jumping a few stairs.

Now that I thought about it, this was how I spent my free time before I started attending the Service Club.

After walking down the stairs, I headed towards the entrance of the building where the shoe boxes were.

At that moment, I spotted Yukinoshita holding her coat on one arm. Judging by the direction, she seemed be heading towards the student council. I hesitated to call out to her, as her footsteps made her seem to be in a hurry. In the end, I could only see her off at a distance.

Perhaps starting today, Yukinoshita and Isshiki began preparing for the prom together.

I didn’t know anything specific about it. Yukinoshita and I had no intersection in our lives other than through the Service Club, so I had no way to ask her anything about it if it wasn’t through our club activities. I, as someone enrolled in the Regular Curriculum, and Yukinoshita, who attends the International Curriculum, had no chance being in the same class, no matter if it’s a physical education class or a class involving experiments.

For that reason, even though by coincidence we could see each other, I chose not to force myself to ask her anything about the prom this time.

Of course I could also say that I didn’t have the opportunities to speak to her, but more importantly - as someone who wasn’t even helping her, I couldn’t just ask her things like “How’s it going?”, “Have you been working hard on it?”. Had I asked, I would have definitely been treated like ‘who do you think you are!’. I noticed that no matter what perspective or stance I took, I would look like a disgusting asshole in that regard. Hence I was afraid of and had refrained from talking to her. The moment that I was having this thought was already quite disgusting, right!? The real fear is one’s self-consciousness....

Etc etc, while I kept depressing myself, Yukinoshita had already turned the corner of the hallway.

Her steps didn’t seem to carry any doubt or hesitation.

Her back was beautiful, straightly poised, and her firm and majestic gaze pointed only forward. And each step she took was in an orderly fashion, while her long and glamorous black hair was waving in the air.

It was only until her silhouette completely disappeared from my sight that I finally remembered I was in the middle of returning home.

===BEGIN PART 2===

I stayed up night after night playing a game on my console, which I hadn’t been able to do for a long time. I scratched my heavy eyes as I headed towards school, only to continue playing when I returned home.

As the story of the game proceeded, I enjoyed it so much that I felt like I had exhausted all the fun that I could have in my lifetime, but when it came to an RPG, finally the moment that I had to stop befell to me.

The reason that I had to stop was because of leveling up and completing all the collections in the game. For the leveling up part, the game didn’t really make it impossibly hard to do so, but completing all collections was a habitual determination of mine. Especially as someone who had grown up playing Pokémon games, I had a particular OCD of spending time filling the blank spaces in the Pokedex, in the same way as a newly admitted university student killing himself by filling out and filling out his calendar for not having anything planned on his weekends.

There are things like trophies, titles, collections, the second playthrough, etc, that kidnap you in a way so as to finish the game.

However, just like a newly admitted college student who tried hard and managed to fit into college life, as a result of chilling and romping around over the summer break. When the school starts he would soon hear people talking behind his back like “Seriously, isn’t that guy trying too hard?”, “Honestly, he seems to be suffering sometimes”, “Just by looking at him he feels like a poor soul already.”, or “He really doesn’t look like someone that I’d get along with for sure.” etc. Soon after he then quietly fades himself out, and just like this, I also lost my momentum playing games… Hell, college students sure are scary.

In a nutshell, even hobbies and games are nothing different from a job when they become part of your daily routine and you begin to set up goals for yourself. It took me three days and nights after I had this realization, to which I found myself going to school already extremely tired.

I fell asleep through all my classes, which caused me a horrible back pain by the time school ended.

After homeroom which was the last class of the day had ended, I moaned in pain with my body creaking. I tried to lift my incredibly painful and shrieking hip by circling my waist. That was just like the Green Green that I had in my conversation with my dad someday. (TL: neta Green Green by The New Christy Minstrels. The sound of circling one’s waist in Japanese is somehow close to Green in its spelling.)

While pondering the happiness and sadness of living in this world because of the incredible pain in my hip and the sleepiness in my eyes, I left the classroom with my waist shaking and finally walked stumbling out of the classroom. (TL: ‘the happiness and sadness of living in this world’ comes from the Japanese version of the ‘Green Green’ lyrics)

Totsuka who had seemingly been watching from afar quickly hurried over to me.

“Hachiman, you’ve been asleep all day. Or, you have been like this for the past few days. Are you alright?”

Totsuka examined my face in worry as he stood next to me. His movement which was like that of a rabbit had made me smile involuntarily. At the same time, I began to feel guilty for making him worry in vain.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I just stayed up for three nights playing video games and that’s it.”

“I-I see…”

I spoke with high spirits deliberately, but for some reason Totsuka just retreated back by a few steps.  No, of course I do know the reason. Anyone would be shocked after hearing someone brag about not sleeping… Yes, I haven’t slept~~ I spent three nights playing video games without sleeping~~ Eh? Who did you hear from that I hadn’t been sleeping~? Who gave you that info~? etc. Facing someone who looked quite annoyingly gloomy in other people’s eyes, Tostuka put a hand on his hip as if regaining his spirit and puffed his cheeks. (TL: “Eh? Who did you hear from that I hadn’t been sleeping~? Who gave you that info~?” the reference comes from Jigoku No Misawa’s manga here: http://jigokuno.com/eid_245.html)

“Really you shouldn’t be doing such unhealthy things. Games are only meant to be played one hour a day!”

Totsuka pointed up his index finger - Let’s have a dual bearing the rules in mind! - as if advising me that way. He really was a good person... (TL:  ‘Let’s have a dual bearing the rules in mind!’. or ルールを守って楽しくデュエル in Japanese, is a catchphrase from Yu-Gi-Oh DM that serves as an eyecatch before the opening theme is played.)

He continued to add in a soft voice after turning to look at the classroom we just walked out of.

“Besides, if you continue doing these things you’ll make Yukinoshita-san and Yuigahama-san upset with you, right?”

I couldn’t help but smirk bitterly at his words. That’s true. They were surely also good people who would scold me if they were here at this moment.

“...Well, I could only do it because I don’t have club activities anyway.”

As I said that without thinking too much, Totsuka nodded his head two, no three times with a convinced look on his face.

“That’s true… You guys are taking some days off.”

“Yes, lately. That’s why I have nothing else to do…”

A yawn escaped from my mouth as I answered. Patrasche, for some reason I felt really sleepy… (TL: Patrasche is a reference to A Dog Of Flanders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dog_of_Flanders ) It seemed I could see an angel in front of me. No, get a hold of yourself! You just received a reward from Totsuka… he just kissed... no no, he just warned you. (TL: kiss and warn differ only by one character in Japanese.) If I let him see me fall asleep in front of him, Totsuka will then give me a reward again. Surely, had I asked him for it forcefully, Totsuka would have definitely seen me as trash. Though, it wouldn’t be so bad at all…

Thinking so wholeheartedly in quiet, I really felt I was being very rude to Totsuka, who had been worried about me. More importantly, I had looked quite awful and disgusting for the day! The importance of sleep! At least for today I should carry it out in a healthy manner without drowning myself in video games.

“Well, it’s true that playing games all day is kinda bad… Totsuka, are you free on the following days?”

I am afraid that, in the history of my whole life, I had probably never invited someone in such a smooth and cool way as this one. I could even say I had fallen in love with myself just now. Kyaaa, hug myself Hachiman! Or at least, I felt like I would die of shame and embarrassment if I did not cheer myself in that way… Had I done this to a girl, I would probably have recorded this in my memory for all eternity like in “A Century on Film.” It would be archived as the negatives of my history! (TL: A Century on Film" or 映像の世紀 was a documentary that was compiled commemorating 50 years after the end of World War II, and 70 years after the beginning of NHK’s broadcasting service and 100 years since the invention of film, to video. In that sense it was a very special documentary program for Japan. Apparently it was so big that they did a joint programing with the American broadcasting network ABC as well. You can visit the NHK page where there is a 2006 remake: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%A0%E5%83%8F%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%B4%80 and https://www.nhk.or.jp/special/eizo/en/ )

However, Totsuka was probably the only male whom I could speak with in such intimacy. Although calling someone a friend would require approval from that person, I still consider Totsuka as someone who is infinitely close to falling into that category.

Speaking of which, it was still very difficult to invite someone in a one-on-one fashion. This is not just for me, but for Totsuka as well.

It would be a lot easier if we have a group of people, and following the flow of the conversation, we jointly decide to go somewhere together. In this case, where the scenario is one-to-many, the personal burden is shared amongst everyone; whereas if it’s one-on-one, then the entire responsibility is imposed upon the two. That being said, if the other person rejects your invitation, that person would feel extra guilty. On the other hand, when you are in a group, it’s usually just safe to say something like “I’ll go if I get the chance”... If you didn’t go, they’d probably then say “That guy says the same thing all the time but never actually comes. Let’s not invite him next time.” It really was a useful way to distance yourself completely from the group. I strongly recommend it.

Or at least that was how I explained it to myself at full speed. On the other hand, Totsuka opened his mouth as he blinked repeatedly and his eyes widened in surprise. Eh? What kind of reaction is that?

While I quickly put up all the excuses that I made to myself in my mind, I could see that Totsuka opened his mouth widely and his eyes blinked in surprise. Eh, what? What was that reaction?

As I carefully inspected his reaction, Totsuka half-opened and half-closed his mouth switching between “ahhh” and “ooooo”, with his hands waving here and there in panic. He then emitted a low and troubled voice, clapped his hands firmly and lowered his head in apology.

“Sorry! I have club activities… during the weekdays, so I can’t really skip any of those... Ah, as for the evenings… I have cram school to go to, and it would be kind of late to go anywhere and play… Uhm, on my next day off, I also have friendly matches to attend… Uhhh~”

My heart grew painful as I watched him struggle in a dilemma with his responsibilities as the club captain and think about his plans for the following days. At the same time, I felt extremely elated that he had to feel this much trouble and worried for my sake… For both of these conflicting reasons, I almost couldn’t hold but shed my tears… Lately I had been very susceptible to shedding tears and I felt quite troubled by that. Besides, the fact that Precure keeps airing every week already made me want to burst in tears...

However, the one feeling most troubled by that was probably Totsuka, not really me. I don’t normally make invitations like these, so it was probably a nuisance for the person being invited! I’ll have to be more mindful and careful from now on. To put in practice, I’ll have to give three months warning in advance next time.. As I proclaimed my determination, it would be best if I started making the necessary arrangements now.

“No, that’s totally fine. Next time would be great for me too! I’m serious.”

While putting all expectations into the future, I deliberately stressed the words “next time”. Totsuka tossed himself at me leaning forward as he approached.

“Really? You promise! I’ll definitely let you know.”

“Ye, yeah…”

Totsuka pressed his fists firmly as he looked at me with his slightly quivering bright eyes, making me flinch a little bit. Totsuka then sighed in relief.

“I almost never get invitations from Hachiman after all! I promise! Some other time! Definitely!”

I smiled and nodded after Totsuka firmly pointed his finger towards me. Totsuka smiled back at me as he adjusted the tennis bag on his back.

“Well, I’m off to club then.”

“Alright, see you. Do your best.”

Totsuka ran a small distance ahead and turned back to me, waving his hands widely. I raised my hand a little bit in response. After seeing his silhouette disappear at the end of the hallway, I began to walk.

I felt like I was finally able to do things that almost everyone else just does normally. Although it was something I could only do after inspecting what I was saying, pondering it carefully, formulating a plan, giving it some reasons, puting some some logic behind it, and finally questioning and convincing myself.

I hadn’t really wished to change nor had I thought about doing so. It had almost happened spontaneously and was greatly due to Totsuka and his kindness. Despite that , I did notice that I was able to walk up closer to others gradually, little by little.

Yet, I was probably able to do so only because it was Totsuka Saika after all.

Apart from that, at this moment, I was unable to do anything else properly.

The end-of-school bell finally rang. I didn’t really feel like going back to play video games, nor did I have any concrete after-school plans. There really wasn’t much to do if I had no club work, so much that feeling tired could be said to be even better than having nothing to do at all.

Feeling like I wanted to lie in my bed asap because of my back pain, I turned down the hallway and climbed down the stairs. At that moment, I could hear a very loud laugh echoing down the middle of the stairways.

“Fuahahahahahahaha~Hachiman! I’ve been watching you! I’ve heard it all! You dipshit, I knew you had nothing to do!”

I could tell who the owner of that voice was without the need to turn around.

That’s why… Without turning around, it’s time to keep walking down the stairs and going straight home as usual!

===BEGIN PART 3===

It would have been nice being able to ignore him and then go home, but the fact that it didn’t happen was precisely the most formidable part of Zaimokuza Yoshiteru as a human being.

Having tried to coax me, and then provoke me, and finally, cry in order to convince me, I was taken to Saizeriya in front of the station. Before I was able to regain my awareness of the situation, I noticed that I was already biting a doria alla milanese while enjoying the all-you-can-drink bar beverage.

After filling my stomach and catching my breath, I finally sighed deeply as I began to speak.

“Hey, I really want to leave now and go home.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry. We’re having a meeting.”

“Huh?”

“Speaking of meeting with light novel authors, Saizeriya is the definitely the most suitable place to do it...”

“Oh…”

Seriously? I thought it was normally carried out in the editors office or in a coffee shop… I’m guessing this was something he scooped off from the internet again. Well, it’s not like he wasn’t doing anything I imagined, but rather, his enthusiasm was fired up in vain, his focus was headed towards the complete wrong direction, and in addition, he wasn’t really doing anything concrete… Crap... I really couldn’t find any words of compliment to say about him! (TL: Hey Watari, who are you actually referring to here?”

Half disgustedly and half derisively, I ended up giving him a look of 100% scorn. Because I happened to be yawning at the same time, the tone of my responses and reactions gave a false sense of intriguement towards him. In response, Zaimokuza’s mood turned good because of that, but he also seemed to notice the abnormality of me saying it. Zaimokuza spotted my teary eyes, as he used one hand to push up his glasses in adjustment.

“What’s wrong, Kisama? You look rather sleepy.”

“Yeah, I’ve been free lately so I’ve been playing video games. Before I was able to notice it, I had already stayed up overnight.”

Zaimokuza was surprised at hearing my words.

“You’ve been playing because you’ve been free lately? That’s not cool. That’s absolutely not cool at all...”

Zaimokuza shrugged his shoulders as he raised both his hands like a Westerner. Ah~ This conversation was definitely about to get longer… Why is it that men like us, those who normally are very quiet, suddenly become so talkative when the conversation dives into an area of our interests… (TL: He is probably referring to when someone is speaking about their “specialty”, usually an obscure or unusual hobby. For example, Otaku ppl largely give people the impression of being very shy and introverted, yet when it comes to anime they suddenly become rather talkative.) even though we know that after going back home we would end up regretting it and thinking “Ughh, they probably thought of me as a disgusting person… I was talking pretty fast also...”

But well, you probably don’t have to worry about that if you are with someone who knows you more or less. Zaimokuza raised his hand up high and began his long speech.

“Games can only be enjoyed the most when you are ass-burning busy and have absolutely no time to chill at all. ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit… I really shouldn’t be playing games at this moment…I’m super busy, I’m not playing. Seriously, I’m not lying this time!’ such and such, making excuses to yourself this way while playing video games. That’s the moment where a guilty pleasure makes the video game even more fun and interesting. I, myself as the source. That exhilaration I felt when it was exam week and I headed to school after playing video games overnight was abnormally and indescribably uplifting!” (TL: both ‘Guilty pleasure’, or 背徳感, and ‘Uplifting feeling, or 高揚感, might be references that come from Sound! Euphonium.)

“I can’t say I agree with that, nor deny it either…”

The truth is, after staying up overnight yesterday and going to school, I felt like ‘Crap~ I haven’t slept at all~ Craaaap~’, feeling thrilled about it as much as I wanted while creepily smiling to myself. Crapp, I looked really disgusting. Crap~. (TL: Somehow in this paragraph he talks like Tobe, with a bunch of ‘crap’s mixing in his monologues.)

Zaimokuza smiled triumphantly as if taking my ambiguous response as affirmation of his words. Crap~

“So, What games did you play?”

“Ah, this one.”

After a few quick taps on my smartphone, I showed Zaimokuza the official website of the game. Zaimokuza pushed up his glasses in adjustment and reacted in a totally normal manner with an “Ah~” as if remembering something nostalgic.

“Oh~ That one. It was pretty painful when the heroine left in the middle of the story~”

He said so in a plain and normal tone, not pretending to be some kind of fictional character this time. The moment I heard his words, I frowned intensely.

“What? Hey, hey, hey, what the hell are you spoiling here? I already used the seeds on her…? Aah… I don’t feel like playing the game anymore… Stop playing games any more and go back to writing your light novel manuscript…” (TL: judging from the original text, they seem to be talking about Dragon Quest VII. WW might have already spoiled shit on readers’ face… Oops, did I just spoil it for you guys? ;)

“Eh,  You haven’t finished it yet? I’m sorry… Ah, but… butt…! Swallow the damn spoiler for not playing it when it came out! Ignorant, ignorant!”

Zaimokuza laughed loud and proud. Well, he apologized in the beginning so I didn’t really mind...

Well, everyone that plays out-of-season games should be ready for these types of things at least. Not only games, you could say the same thing about movies or TV dramas. It’d be bad to feel sad when you read a Japanese history textbook and suddenly exclaim “Really!? This samurai general died in the end!!? Ahh I just swallowed a spoiler for an NHK Taiga Drama!!’ There wasn’t a single samurai general from Sengoku Era that didn’t eventually die after all. (TL: NHK Taiga Drama is a saga drama series on Japanese history, mostly on samurais and shoguns.)

Having said that, each person has a different set-up, environment or circumstance for playing a game, or viewing a show, so it is necessary to keep that in mind and be a little considerate so that everyone can enjoy the plots!

“I bought those games as soon as they came out, but they all just kept stacking up... Komachi had her entrance exams too, so I had to refrain from playing games at home.”

Zaimokuza nodded at my words as he chewed his focaccia.

“Hmm, I see. Now that you mentioned it, your sister is in her last year of middle school. So, which high school did she apply to?”

“Ah? To our school, ours. Hmm, did I not mentioned it to you?”

“Hmmmmmmmm, I didn’t know anything about iiiit.”

“Well. Normally we wouldn’t talk about personal things amongst ourselves after all. Things like our career plans, our future or family related things.”

“But I do tell you those things! I tell you all the time! My future dreams, and what I want to do in the futureeee! By the way, I called you out today just to talk about these things!”

Seeing Zaimokuza’s anger growing, I shot a glance at Zaimokuza as if asking what he wanted to talk about. Zaimokuza suddenly began to purposely cough and slowly covered his face with one of his hands. The expression I saw through his fingers showed a painful look on his face. Eventually, Zaimokuza took out a piece of paper folded in four from his shirt pocket with his other hand. After holding it between his index and middle finger, I could vaguely notice the characters that could be seen as it rose to the light.

“Remember we came up with a proposal at the library the other day, right? Well, now I managed to come up with the storyline…”


“Oh…”

It was when he came to the club room in early February saying something like him wanting to become an editor. However, this guys had always been coming up with merely storylines... I hadn’t been able to read any completed draft of the story written by him yet… As I thought that, I took the piece of paper that he showed to me and quickly decided to read it anyways.

After doing so, a hand with a fingerless glove entered my sight as it quickly took the paper back from my hands.

“Wait, wait! It’s kind of embarrassing for me. So how about you just read it at home…”

“What are you talking about, is it a love letter or something? By the way hey, stop blushing, you’re giving me weird vibes.”

I stole the storyline back from Zaimokuza as I said that. I had no choice but to take it home after being told not to read it here. I carefully folded the piece of paper and put it deep inside my backpack. I’d probably completely forget about this and end up never reading it. So I should at least bury it solemnly.

Not noticing my intentions, Zaimokuza watched in satisfaction as I neatly and carefully put the paper away, after which he looked into the distance and whispered with a bit of lament.

“Next year we’ll have entrance exams as well… It’ll be my last challenge.”

Last challenge? Had he already done the first challenge before…? I couldn’t help but doubt it, but seeing him say this with that painful yet serious look on his face made me swallow my question. Putting that aside, this would probably be the way Zaimokuza would settle the score.

There are no better words than ‘entrance exams’ as an excuse to give up things. The same could probably be said about “trying to get a job.” It was enough of an excuse for one to melt the possibility of it ever spreading into dreams, hobbies or club activities. Eventually, we have the so-called ‘ideal adult’ that the entire society desires finally molded into good shape.

That’s why, before that happens, before being dragged, flattened and stripped off until nothing is left by the society, people try to defy and resist, struggling to at least try to have a glimpse and a tiny bit of the person that they wanted to become in their mind... I’m afraid that’s also what *she* had attempted.

Maybe because I began to think about these things, I had gone completely silent for a while. I didn’t know how he had interpreted that silence, but Zaimokuza smacked my shoulder and then gave me a thumbs-up.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I was just referring to my last challenge as a high school student.”

Uwah, he just a put on a cool face…

“No, I wasn’t actually worried about you…”

“H..here it comes~! You tsundere~!”

The laughter that Zaimokuza made while putting one of his hands over his mouth was really annoying… Although if I try to argue against him now, he’d definitely say something even more absurd and irrelevant again. Hence, I simply put up a sickened face, nodded my head slightly in agreement with him, so as to hurry him to move on to the next topic. Judging by his cool look on his face moments ago, there was probably still something else he wanted to talk about.

After having a serious laugh, and just as I had thought, Zaimokuza began speak in a serious voice.

“Of course I’m not giving up. Just as there are things that you can only write about as a high school student, there are probably other things you can only write about after becoming a college student. The shortest distance isn’t always the right way to follow. Instead, detours are my glorious way going forward.”

Had he been writing now as a high school student, his words would have sounded really good, in my opinion. But anyway, I decided not to say that outloud. After all, what he was saying wasn’t too far off. So, I decided to say something else, with a big smile.

“Well, you’re right. You’ll probably also have a lot of content to write when you become a ronin.” (TL: Apart from referring to a masterless samurai, ronin also refers to high school students who fail their college entrance exams and have to retake the exam next year.)

“Ha~ha~ha! …that sounds a little too real so let’s stop talking about that. I really could seriously end up as a ronin so I don’t want to think about that. Yes, stop now, stop now please.”

Zaimokuza went from facing up to the sky laughing loudly, to a serious face in an instant. I couldn’t help but smile bitterly after seeing that. This guy really was a hopeless lost cause, which made me feel a bit relieved…

Come to think of it, Zaimokuza was one of the few people who knew me before I joined the Service Club. Although it was only because in the P.E. class they made us pair up in a group for being left out and not having a partner, we were both in the same situation at one point. If I hadn’t joined the Service Club, I would spend my afternoons like he would after class like this.

… Although, that might not be as bad as one would think, either.

But hey, maybe spending my time like that once in a while is good enough. Keeping Zaimokuza company is pretty exhausting after all!

===BEGIN PART 4===

The morning news said the plum blossoms had already bloomed in the Kantou Area. Having heard that, made me certain the strong wind from the other day was the first to announce the arrival of spring. The returning cold of winter could still be felt sometimes the last few days, just like the so-called “three days of coldness and four days of warmth, and then the cycle repeats itself”. At the same time, the frequently blowing warm air certainly made me feel like the long winter had finally ended.

‘If the first wind of spring has already blown, continue to give us beautiful flowers, oh plum blossoms…”  is probably what the god of entrance exams would be chanting as well. Finally, it was the day when the results for the entrance exam that Komachi took were published.

(TL: He makes reference to a short poem written by Sugawara Michizane, that more or less translates to: If the first wind of spring has already blown, continue to give us beautiful flowers again, oh plum blossoms, even if you don’t find your master, don’t forget to make the flowers bloom throughout spring.” See https://kotowaza.avaloky.com/pv_senyo02.html )

The plum blossoms bloomed but the sakura flowers hadn’t yet. Holding that feeling in mind, I was being very nervous all morning. But that was only me. Komachi, on the other hand, had been drinking tea in a calm manner. (TL: “The plum blossoms rose ... sakura flowers hadn’t yet.”, or 梅は咲いたか 桜はまだかいな, was an Edo period Hauta and was adopted into a song by Metis in 2007. As a song that embodies ‘passing the exam’, it is very popular among students who took or are about to take important entrance exams.)

“Umm… I’m off to school then…”

“Yes, Komachi will go too… And, I’ll call you when I see the exam results, so it’s okay, don’t worry!”

After hesitating on what to say, I finally let out those words. Even after hearing me, who can only force out these many words, Komachi had replied “it’s okay, don’t worry” in complete carefree manner as she gave me a wink. (TL: ‘it’s okay, don’t worry’, or ‘平気、へっちゃら’, comes from Lilka Eleniak from WILD ARMS 2nd IGNITION: https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E3%81%B8%E3%81%84%E3%81%8D%E3%80%81%E3%81%B8%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%89%E3%83%83%21)

It was probably meant to console me, who was apparently even more tense and restless than back when my results were announced. Seeing and feeling that confident attitude, I was able to finally rest easy.

Since a couple days ago, Komachi suddenly had become much more mature than before. Although she was still a middle school student, and a minor in society's eyes, I could notice her awareness that she was no longer a little girl anymore.

She was already a mature girl, and a bit of an oddball by normal social standards, and now she had even filled her personality with tranquility and stability. It would not be wrong to say that this was proof of Komachi’s growth or perhaps it was signs that she was becoming more independent… It really felt like she was growing apart from her brother.

I quickly hid the slight sense of loneliness behind my smile, and then left the house in a hurry. I spoke to Komachi from the entrance.

“Well, I’ll go on ahead.”

“Yes! See you~”

I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her reply from the living room in a carefree tone.

As usual, I followed the same path to school as I biked away on my squeaking bicycle… Would we go to school together if she was accepted? (TL: here’s my gift for the readers. https://i.imgur.com/QFpuxxW.jpg) No, I had the feeling that probably wouldn't happen. Maybe by chance we would leave home at the same time every once in a while, but I don’t think we would try to go to school together intentionally. That way, Komachi and I would be able to maintain the adequate and comfortable amount of distance between us.

I had been thinking that way about Komachi as I arrived at school. When classes started and throughout them, my mind had been somewhere else.

I looked at the clock when second period was about to end. I had been checking clocks all day, but finally the hands reached the important numbers I had been long waiting for.

Any moment now, the results would be announced...

While I sighed in secret, I could finally hear the sound of the bell announcing the end of second period. After seeing the teacher rush out of the classroom, I circled my arms a bit to relieve the stiffness in my arms, when my cell phone began to vibrate.

After quickly putting it in my hand, I looked at the screen. I could see a push notification saying “You have a new message” next to Komachi’s name.

Just thinking how this message contained the announcement of whether Komachi had failed or passed, the fear took over, making me doubt whether to open it or not.

Even so, I was filled with determination as I tried to touch the screen with my trembling fingers.

However, before I could proceed, an agile beast dashed in front of me. Like the tail of a purebred horse fluttering through the air, a gust of wind ran through the classroom leaving a bright blue trace behind it.

After following that trail with my eyes, I could see Kawasaki Saki running past out of the classroom. She had probably received a message on the same matter from her brother Taishi at the same time as I did. Driven by that, I also stood up quickly and dashed out of the classroom.

Perhaps because the two people who were usually quiet and off in the corner of the classroom had suddenly ran out, the class suddenly got rowdy with voices asking “what happened, what happened?”

“What? What happened? Is something going on? Go!? Should we go too? Let’s gooo!”

I could hear Tobe’s voice making a fuss behind me as I left the room. However, now was not the time to turn around and check. Break time was only ten minutes. Kawasaki was already beginning to disappear ahead of me with her elegant strides through the hallway.

She was probably heading towards the bulletin board at the entrance of the school where the scores were posted. Of course that was also my destination too. Without wasting a minute, I managed to arrive at a group of people in an uproar.

Even though all the applicants filled the area with a thunderous noise, I could quickly find Komachi’s silhouette. Apparently, she noticed me too.

After wiping the sweat off my brow, along with my messy appearance, my shoulders moved up and down to the rhythm of my breathing. In contrast, Komachi took her time approaching me in an extremely calm manner while raising her hands.

“O-Onii-chan. I passed.”

That was all Komachi said with a totally calm face.

Hence the fire inside me was contained. My heavy breathing that arose from running eased after I took a deep breath. I let the fatigue slowly flow through my entire body as a form of relief.

“I see…”

After finally being able to form some words, only those words escaped my mouth. In spite of feeling overjoyed enough to break into a dance and praise her openly in front of everyone, because she had been so calm as if her acceptance was a matter of course, I felt like I had to stick to those same standards.

I really wanted to stroke her head but we had already grown too old for that. As her onii-chan, no, as her brother, I had to behave calmly to be worthy of interacting with a sister who had matured.

As I thought that, I made up my determination and began considering the congratulatory words a grown man should say in this situation.

“I’m glad... I’m glad, I’m really glad.”

But what came out of my mouth turned out to be rather immature and childish. Really, what a dumb brother. It was really irritating that compared to his sister, this brother hadn’t grown up one bit. Despite of always being able to come up with the proper words easily in a flashy manner, now I couldn’t even ramp up the right thing to say.

‘You must be quite disappointed…’, I thought as I looked at Komachi.

I couldn't express myself properly with words, so I could at least congratulate her with a good expression, with my best smile. The truth was, my smile wasn’t anything nice to look at, so I hoped she could close her eyelids at my smiles...

However, Komachi did not close her eyelids at all. She simply stared into my eyes with a gentle smile on her face.

“Yes, I’m really glad too. Really…”

After nodding, Komachi’s big eyes began to gleam in the sunlight. Her nose sniffled, her words interrupted, and her deep sigh trembled. Komachi tried to suppress it in as she inhaled deeply. I could then hear her sigh mingled with sobbings.

“Really, seriously… I’m relieved...I’m really really relieved...!” (TL: よかった not only can mean ‘glad’, but can also imply ‘feeling relieved’.)

Kamachi threw herself and flew at me, sinking her head down at the collar of my jacket. The warm breath became irregular blobs of her sobbing voice, eventually hitting my skin intermittently.

I wondered when was the last time I had seen Komachi wail like this? Her crying look hadn’t changed a bit since she was little, despite how mature she looked like this morning - I suddenly realized this and made a bitter sigh.

Ahh, I was wrong. It hadn’t been that she was calm, but rather, she was only trying her best to behave in composure. She had been holding back her nerves and anxiety so as to not make myself or our parents worry about her. Or maybe she wanted to avoid getting overly worried so that she would begin stressfully asking questions. She had tried desperately to stay afoot with her trembling legs and properly take the exam result that was presented in a such mercilessly clear-cut way in front of her.

I’m glad her efforts had been rewarded - I really thought so from the bottom of my heart.

My hand naturally reached to Komachi’s head naturally. I started stroking her hair after patting her head for a few times. Komachi then began to cry again out loud in my arms.

“Aaaaahn, Onii-chaaan, I’m really serious glaaaaaaad and relieeeeved.”

I comforted Komachi while patting her on the back. She cried so much she almost started to look like Tatsuya Fujiwara. (TL: Tatsuya Fujiwara is a famous Japanese actor, well known for his over the top performances; crying/making a fool of himself. Amongst his main roles he has played as Light Yagami from death note in a live action film. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuya_Fujiwara  Here’s a video of a Japanese entertainment show where they do a mock segment of his acting. If you want an idea of how his screaming sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzORpLeIjCM) Apparently it would be a little longer before we both began to separate and distance ourselves as siblings. Soon after that, even if I’ll be kind of sad and unwilling to accept it, Komachi will become a reliable, dependable adult and a wonderful woman. Probably it will happen soon, in the not too distant future.

But, I wonder if, before that happens, maybe just for a little bit longer, she would allow me remain her onii-chan for now...

After accompanying Komachi for a brief while, I could hear a sharp voice from behind, coming from Kawasaki Saki.

“Taishi!”

“Onee-chan, yo I made it!”

After turning my head a bit around, I could see Taishi holding up a set of documents, probably the ones that accepted students would receive. He walked towards us.

Taishi’s proud voice reminded me of the famous movie Rocky, in which Rocky calls Adriane in a very loud yet proud voice.

Maybe after she heard a voice from someone familiar, Komachi began to realize there were other people around. She came to herself and suddenly pushed me away from her. She then used the sleeves on her uniform to wipe the corners of her eyes.

Well, obviously she didn’t want just anyone seeing her cry like that. I forced a bitter smile and hid Komachi behind my back.

Soon, Taishi seemed to notice me and started making his way towards us. Speaking of Kawasaki, she stood alone in a corner, looking up at the sky, occasionally covering her eyes with her hands. Right, right. Onee-chan, good for you…

While I pondered about Kawasaki’s feelings, Taishi took a winner’s stance with a fist pump.

“Onii-san, I made it!”

“Don’t you dare call me onii-san. I’ll kill you! Call me senpai. Good for you, congratulations. But one sec, who are you by the way?”

“Thank you very much!.... I am Kawasaki Taishi!... Ehmm…. Hi, Hikigaya-senpai!”

His radiant smile seemed a bit more manly than before. He now had the look of a man who’d become more competent. Seeing that made me want to congratulate him in a manly way as well.

“...happy for you. Good, let me toss you up into the air!”

“Oniisan, are you just by yourself!? Then you can’t possibly toss me into the air! Isn’t that just a german suplex!? I’ll splatter onto the paved ground and die right away!”

Taishi extended his hands and arms forward as he distanced himself away from me, giving me a complete rejection posture. I smiled bitterly, about to tell him it was simply a joke.

“Oh, tossing him up in the air? Really, really? We should do it~!”

Tobe suddenly interrupted and showed up before I could say it. He probably just wanted to romp around noisily and camouflaged it as an excuse to congratulate others. Behind him was also Yamato, Oooka and the rest of the group. Upon closer inspection, I could see other students from our class and people from other classes as well. As for Hayama… after looking around, I found him speaking to the other teachers with a beaming face. I imagine he had come to mediate for us. Although it was during break time between classes, we technically exited the campus after all. Unfortunately, his careful consideration seemed to be a waste, given Tobe and his buddies’ presence here…

After a loud “Yeah!”, Tobe gathered Yamato, Ooka, and the others and soon surrounded Taishi, who had been resisting but ultimately was tossed up in the air.

I took the opportunity to turn around and check out Komachi, who had been hiding behind me.

“Komachi, go ahead and let your middle school know, also our parents.”

“Sure…”

Still speaking while having red eyes and a sniffling nose, Komachi pulled out her smartphone and began to contact the school first. I verified the time as I listened to her call on the side. I had better head back to class now, probably… Or so I thought, as I looked in the direction of Hayama, who was still trying to convince the teachers, I could see Yuigahama from aside as she ran over in a hurry.

“Komachi-chan!”

Komachi raised her head when she heard the voice. She quickly wrapped up her call and ran over to Yuigahama.

“Yui-sann!”

I thought she had finally calmed down a bit, but as soon as she saw Yuigahama she immediately began to burst into tears again. She then jumped and clung onto her without hesitation as if saying “Mu, Mugiwaraa…”, and then began to cry again… (TL: The phrase used in Japanese is む、麦わらぁ··· The variation of it is a reference to Luffy’s line from One Piece. See https://bit.ly/2VOMDEe) Was she crying even harder than she did toward me? Was it my imagination?

After Komachi informed Yuigahama of her admission with tears and cries, Yuigahama nodded to every single word Komachi said while holding her tightly. After that, Yuigahama put her forehead against Komachi’s, who sank her face onto Yuigahama’s chest, and then smiled gently.

“Congratulations… I’m glad… You really did your best… I’m so happy for you!”

The words she had whispered and crafted were followed by a big bright smile in the end. Komachi smiled widely back to Yuigahama in return, while still covered in tears.

“We have to tell Yukinon too!”

After hearing those words from Yuigahama, Komachi nodded as she took out her smartphone. However, she stopped herself halfway in that same moment.

‘Yep! Ughhuh, but I can’t see with all these tears in my eyes…”

“Ah~... I’ll call her then.”

Yuigahama smiled bitterly while beginning to make her call. After raising her smartphone as if she was going to take a selfie, she pointed the front camera towards herself and Komachi. Apparently she was trying to making a video call or something. She had probably intended to show Yukinoshita Komachi’s face as well… but I wondered if Yukinoshita knew how to make a video call on her smartphone...

Or at least while I worried about it, after what seemed like a tough fight, the three of them had already began to talk through their screen. With the screen perfectly up close to her face “Yuginoh-sahn!” Komachi began to cry out yet again. Just as I expected, she completely forgot to contact our parents…

I can imagine our parents have been worried so much right now, especially our dad. “If she hasn’t told us anything yet, then she must have…!!” he would then become even more gloomy and pessimistic… etc - vividly imagining his reactions gave me headaches. Maybe I should just call him. Though, he’d probably say something like “I wanted to hear it directly from Komachi…” Hphmm! Like father like son!

Well, anyways-

*Greetings, Dear Mother. Let me get straight to the point.
Sakura blooms. Best Regards.*

(TL: Sakura blooms, or サクラサク, implies that the student has passed the exam. If the student fails the exam, the phrase would be Sakura falls, or サクラチル. Back in 1950s, students who live in rural cities in Japan would ask their friends who live close to the universities to send their exam results via telegraph. These two succinct phrases were, and still are, widely used to convey the message.)

===BEGIN PART 5===

After I saw Komachi off and returned to the classroom, the excitement inside me continued as I spaced out to spend my time. My body felt relieved from definitively knowing the fact that Komachi had succeeded, so most of the contents of the lessons had gone in one ear and out the other.

What a relief… As I savored such bliss over and over again, classes continued to pass one after another. Perhaps because I’d been taught since an early age to chew my food thoroughly before swallowing, I decided to taste and chew this happy piece of news two and three times over. You could say I’d been ruminating like a cow.

Because of that, even though the morning bell announcing the arrival of noon break had sounded loudly, I didn’t feel the hunger and urge to eat at all. Even though normally I’d dash over to the cafeteria and try as hard as I can to secure a healthy portion of the lunch meal, today I had the coolness and flexibility to walk over leisurely.

As I was considering what to eat for lunch, I was just about to stand up and have my hips leave the chair. Almost immediately a couple knocks could be heard at the front door, to which the door began to open slowly. Putting aside the doors to teachers’ lounge or club rooms, who would bother knocking on the door to an ordinary classroom before entering…? While I had my doubts, the person who appeared turned out to be Yukinoshita Yukino.

The class became boisterous at the sight of an unexpected guest. However, not affected by the attention she had received at all, Yukinoshita immediately began to speak out her business here.

“Is Kawasaki-san here?”

“Eh? Me?”

Having pointed at her own face with her finger and responding in a hoarse voice, Kawasaki blinked in surprise. Yukinoshita nodded in response, giving her a confirmation. Since both of them were pretty girls, they even attracted more attentions from others. Being looked at by many curious eyes, Kawasaki quickly ran towards Yukinoshita, with her forehead frowning, her mouth distorted, and her face blushing due to her inability to hold back her embarrassment.

They both began to talk near the entrance of the classroom. Hmm… Kawasaki-san, maybe because of your embarrassment, I couldn’t heard a single word from you… Perhaps also having that in mind, Yukinoshita spoke in a low voice as if they were having a secret conversation, which made it impossible for me to hear anything meaningful from them.

The people around seemed to want to hear the conversation as well, but based on their reactions, I could assume that they couldn’t hear anything from them either.

Well, it probably had something to do with prom. It’d be impolite to want to overhear it, considering I didn’t have any intention of getting involved.

This time I stood up with the intention of heading out the backdoor of the classroom. As I began to walk, I realized that the seats near the window at the back of the classroom had been quieter  than usual, so I decided to take a look in that direction.

I could see Yuigahama observing Yukinoshita and Kawasaki from where she was. Yuigahama had probably guessed what Yukinoshita had come to talk about as well. That was why she hadn’t said anything and just observed quietly.

But apparently, all of this had seemed a bit strange to Miura.

“Yui-, you are fine?”

Her way of asking was a bit blunt and her words sounded a little harsh. Even so, she seemed to be mindful of her words for Yuigahama’s sake in her own way. She was probably abbreviating some words that held lots of meaning, but Yuigahama seemed to have understood it regardless.

“Hm-- Yes. Even if I don’t join the conversation now, she’ll probably brief me on the important stuff later. Besides, I’ll be going to club after this anyways.”

“Hhmmmm?”

Yuigahama thought for a moment and responded to her with a gentle smile. In response, Miura made a sound that was very ambiguous, not being clear whether she was satisfied with Yuigahama’s answer or not. Miura simply continued to play with the curls of her hair. After exchanging glances with Ebina-san, they both tilted their heads.

Well, it’s not like their reactions weren’t understandable. The position they found themselves in was a bit different than before, so it was normal for them to be confused.

However, the reason that caused this change in our situation and stance is surely that we have moved forward, even just by a little bit.

I looked at Yuigahama and the others out of the corner of my eye, and left the classroom.

===BEGIN PART 6===
I went to the shop at school, bought some random stuff that was still there, and sat down at the usual bench with a MAX can. Hearing the sounds of the tennis club’s daily practice and the tweeting sounds of Japanese white-eyes, I began to enjoy the lunch break taking place slightly later than usual.

The wind was still kind of chilly for me to have my lunch outdoors. But thanks to the remaining excitement lingering in my heart arisen from Komachi’s acceptance, I wouldn't say the cold weather was unbearable at all.

I bet our dinner today is going to be a huge celebration for Komachi’s acceptance, so I thought it was probably fine to eat a light meal for lunch. After eating up two slices of savory bread, I took my time sipping and enjoying my waaaarm~ MAX can in leisure. (TL: On the vending machines in Japan, hot beverages are usually labeled waaaarm~/あったか〜い, or cooooold~/冷た〜い.)

After spending some time relaxing, I could hear humming sounds mixed with delightful footsteps coming from behind. ‘This humming sound could be…’ I turned my head around, and just as I expected, it was Isshiki. As soon as she saw me, she opened her mouth halfway and soon wore  a disgusted face filled with surprise.

“Ah, he’s really here…”

“Yeh? Eh, what’s up?”

I noticed her words were somehow quite disrespectful to me… Anyway, it wasn’t her first time, so I decided to let it go and asked directly about her business here. While saying ‘Well, I just wanted to say a couple words to you…”, she quickly sat down next to me and cut her sentence in the middle, as if something just came up in her mind.

“...by the way, why’s Senpai not in the classroom!? You made me walk to your classroom all for nothing! It was super embarrassing for me to ask your classmates whether Senpai was in the classroom or not, though!?”

Perhaps she was recalling her embarrassing moment in that situation, she immediately blushed red and dragged my shoulder incessantly to express her protest, the intensity of which did not stop but kept growing stronger.

“There’s more! There’s more, though! Tobe-senpai asked around in a super loud voice that I was searching for Senpai; Yo, anybody know of his whereabouts blah blah blah.’ Don’t you think that’s a pretty terrible move!?”

Ugh-, I really could imagine that scene… Well, I didn’t know about that ‘Yo’ part though. But indeed, it’d be something that Tobe would say. I couldn’t really hate him had he merely acted out of good-will. But in the case of Tobe, he was definitely trying to appeal to Ebina-san, hinting something along the lines of ‘despite of my way of acting, I am actually a good dude, right?? Riiight??”. That was quite hateful and evil in its nature, indeed.

“Yeah… well… I’m sorry to hear that..? It’s not my fault and it’s completely Tobe’s fault, though… So, in the end what happened? Hayama came out and helped you eventually. Right?”

As I was trying to guess what happened afterwards, Isshiki let go of her hand on my shoulder and waved it left and right.

“No, before that Miura-senpai came out and shouted ‘Shut up, you guys are being so noisy!’ and soon Tobe had gone quiet.”

Ah I see. That’s how it went… I could also imagine that kind of situation as well… As I tried to delineate the scene in my head, Isshiki continued talking even further.

“In the end, Hayama-senpai told me to ask Yui-senpai. So I ended up here.”

“Hmmm, I see.... So what’s your problem this time?”

“Yep, so I’d like you to do me a favor here…”

As I asked her again, Isshiki straightened up her sitting pose and then gently hugged her knees. After that, she tilted her head a little bit, looking into my eyes with her head slightly up. She dragged my sleeve gently with her thin fingers. Along with the wind, her flaxen hair wiggled and her brown eyes moistened.

“Senpai... would you lend me a hand?

“I said no way… I just hate the prom from the beginning…”

That foxy Irohasu attack won’t work on me anymore…! As I thought that, I couldn’t help but avert my eyes away from her. If I happen to see her face, I would definitely end up nodding my head, though, so it couldn’t be helped at all!

In addition, since I had already rejected her request once, I would look bad if I changed my stance on it easily. Furthermore, if I yield here it would seem that I have lost to Iroha’s cuteness.

That’s just too impure and too dishonest. For someone like her, who holds firm her beliefs and position, and wanted to use it as a proof her existence, making the choice according to her own judgement, it would be too dishonest. I thought I should also take some pride in my response and decision. After all, it’s not like I approved of the prom. It was a decision made from my own perspective, not from that of the Service Club. For that reason, I believe that my answer shouldn’t change.

However, I heard that sometimes the meaning of words do change according to the listener. For some reason, Isshiki looked quite satisfied with the answer that I gave, wearing a gentle smile on her face. She closed her eyes, as if she was dreaming, and put her hands gently against her chest, and then slightly raised her chin up. She began talking as if she was singing a fairy tale like a bird.

“Even if you say so, you looked super happy being asked to do a favor by me, though!”

“...my face looked like that??”

Hence, I tried my best wearing a hateful, unwilling face just to show her. If words didn’t do the job to convey myself, then eyes would do. I had to use my eyes to speak.

As I did so with my eyes, Isshiki quickly wore a serious face. The usually shiny, blinking eyes now quickly squinted, releasing a sharp blade-like sparkle.

“... Do you want an honest answer from me?”

“Eh? Wait, what? That’s kinda scary. Don’t put on a serious face. Please don’t.”

Being told that in such a serious manner, I couldn’t hold in my scared trembling. If I don’t move on to another topic soon…!

“By the way, isn’t Yukinoshita doing her job properly? Is there an issue here? Don’t tell me stuff like you actually don’t quite get along with her, okay? Otherwise, it would only make me feel sad and painful.”

“Eh, just so you know, I really am quite fond of Yukino-senpai, though… Well, as for whether she likes me back or not, that’d be another issue to discuss. I’m actually not quite sure if we indeed get along or not.”

She was a little sullen in the beginning when she was saying the first half, but she soon quickly turned a little gloomy when she moved onto the second half.

Nah, I think Yukinon does like Irohasu though… not just by a little bit but I think by quite a lot… Well, I had better not yuri that out loud…, one second.., not *say* that out loud. At one point Irohasu will notice it eventually.

Etc, etc, while I was thinking this and that, Isshiki suddenly raised her face and briefed me on the situation, waving her fingers in the air left and right.

“With regard to the ongoing preparations, it is actually going pretty well. I really noticed how capable of a person she is, to the point that when we are working together, I feel like she is more of a Student Council President than I am, and I really want to fire the Vice-President now and replace him with her.”

“Eh, you are talking about firing the Vice-President but not yourself… I think he works pretty hard, though I can’t really say for sure…”

As long as he doesn’t flirt with the Secretary-chan, he’s a pretty serious guy, in my opinion. I think… So don’t flirt there, don’t look down on work, and go work!

Judging from the envy, jealousy and respect from Isshiki’s verdict on Yukinoshita, Yukinoshita has certainly demonstrated her ability well enough to enforce all of their agenda soundly. In light of Yukinoshita’s ability and experience level, it’s not hard to imagine that, at all. In addition, because of that, it’s also easy to delineate what awaits ahead in the not-so-distant future.

“It all looks fine to me as long as you two get along while finishing your jobs smoothly… However, even if it all went smoothly, things do happen...”

“Sorry?”

Isshiki twisted her mouth at my words, which accidentally slipped from my mouth, as if she was merely trying to say ‘what the hell is this guy saying’. She looked puzzled, with her eyes half open. What an irritating way of questioning me back…! Nevertheless, I guess I couldn’t put all the blame on her. After all, before the school festival took place, she wasn’t even the Student Council President then.

For that reason, she was not aware of the fact that there were people who were forced to be sacrificed in order to get things going smoothly.

More importantly, nobody in the prom planning committee at this point knew of this fact at all, not even Yuigahama was at the spot at that time. Even though I let Yukinoshita promise that she wouldn’t overwork herself, if the situation ends up being urgent, there’s the possibility that she would lie and deceive and eventually burn herself out. Because of this, she needs someone to notice it and stop her before that could happen. Otherwise, everything would go wrong.

Hence, I probably need to talk to Isshiki right now.

“I won’t say it’s some advice for you, but try not to rely on Yukinoshita too much. She tends to be able to handle most of the errands, but just in case she collapses, then everything would come to a halt. She doesn’t even have the kind of stamina that only stupid people possess. Because she is such a stubborn person who hates losing so much, she would totally work recklessly and burn herself out, yet still be wearing a face as if she’s just fine and nothing’s happened. Anyway, just so you know and beware of it.”

Given that I wasn’t helping them out, perhaps I shouldn’t say too much to her. But at least let me say this much, in a way that doesn’t sound too meddling or intrusive. For someone as clever as Isshiki, she should be able to get my point very easily.

“... I see.”

After quietly hearing my words, Isshiki finally said in satisfaction. She then cast her suspicious eyes on me.

“I’ve had this feeling since a while ago… Does Senpai actually…”

Eh, what, what is this…? That’s kind of scary though… As I was being stared at by questionable eyes, Isshiki finally dropped her sharpened mouth and then broke into a smile.

“Over-protection.”

Though her mouth was wearing a gentle smile, I could somehow sense a tone of derision from it. Her voice contained a feeling of coldness as if it got released all at once. However, after her squinted eyes blinked two or three times, she then opened her eyes wide and told me that it was all just a joke.

Thanks to that, I was able to turn my face away, and breathed out the air that I was holding in my lungs for a long time.

“Nah, I don’t think that’s the case.”

After I gasped out a few words, Isshiki laid her index finger against her chin and tilted her head.

“Then, how would you describe it? Oniichan-temperament?”

“Ah, that might be partly true…”

“In other words, you do like younger girls?”

“Nooo…”

As Isshiki asked me while leaning her body forward, I replied to her while leaning back the same amount of distance. After that, this time Isshiki learned her body backward a little bit, in an off-putting pose, and said the following as if teasing me:

“I wonder if you are really honest~…”

“No matter what you say, I do have a younger sister after all. Should I say it’s already become part of my habit, but I could accidentally end up treating other people almost like how I treat my sister.”

Without leaning myself back or falling, I straightened up my back, putting my hands in my pockets as if only saying proudly with my body language ‘Acting like an onii-chan, that has become my habit...!’ Thereupon, Isshiki put on a disgusted face, sighing briefly with an almost unnoticeable smile in it. What a fast switch of mood! It would have totally gone missed if not for me.

“I think you had better stop doing that.”

“O...okay…”

Saying that with a blatantly cold voice, Isshiki sat on the chair, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her head on her kneecaps. She disinterestedly stared into the courtyard.

“There’s no such girl who would feel happy about being treated like a sister.”

Along with her lonely voice, I felt like her words just disappeared in the chilly wind and I could tell that they were genuine.

Perhaps she had some past experience of being treated that way before. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that Isshiki would attract a lot of attention from guys older than her. It would also not be surprising if she had any past experiences being treated like a little sister. I still couldn’t fully understand why anyone would treat this super naughty little demon kouhai the same way as a little sister. In any case, my sister is indeed the only sister of the world - Hikigaya Komachi. There was no such Komachi prior to Komachi, and there will not be any Komachi after Komachi. I do not know of any little sisters that would surpass Komachi, and Komachi is and will be my only sister. If you wish, I could say from Zenzenzense that ‘A Sister is All You Need’ until I die. (TL: Zenzenzense is the opening theme of Your Name. ‘A Sister is All You Need’ is a GAGAGA light novel series written by Hirasaka Yomi and was adapted into a TV animation series in Fall 2017.)

No, wait a second? In that case, would Komachi, as the sister of the world, often be told by other guys ‘You somehow look like my sister’...?

That’s a little bit unacceptable… As my heart grew a little itchy and uneasy, I couldn’t help but let it slip out from my mouth.

“Well, that’s true. Those who claim themselves as big brothers are indeed quite disgusting - ah that hurts! That’s even a crime!”

“Huh? …well, true, that’s indeed very disgusting…”

Isshiki suddenly looked in my direction, wearing a slightly disgusted face as if trying to say ‘what is this guy saying? Gross…’ Nevertheless, she soon cleared her throat once and returned to normalcy.

“That’s not what I actually meant. Don’t you think in that way, you don’t feel like you’re being treated properly as a girl? Wouldn’t you also not want to be told to be like an oniichan?”

“Nah, I am a real oniichan after all. So I really wouldn’t hate that.”

“Ah… Maybe guys are fine with that. Hmm, then…”

Perhaps something came up in her mind, Isshiki confirmed the condition of her throat with a “nnn” sound, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked like an actress who was prepared to dive into the role before a film-shooting. After taking an Irohasu-break, Isshiki slowly opened her eyes and put on an emotionless face. Now, Ready? Three, two, one… Action!

Isshiki first showed a friendly face to me, yet then she averted her eyes away from me while keeping that smile on her face.

“Ah, ahaha… Senpai, you somehow look like a father in a way. Eh, no, how should I put it, that… I really want to thank you for everything - something like that, right?”

That was such a shockingly hurtful statement for Hachiman!

I read out that line in a narrator’s tone. I was seriously hurt by her words, so much that I had to pretend that I was caricatured as Zhuge Kongming from the Three Kingdom period in order to take her words. (TL: a reference to Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s manga Sangokushi.) The more important thing is, judging from her choice of words and attitude, I could tell that she had the intention of deliberately avoiding being impolite and accidentally hurting my feelings - this is the saddest thing of all. Or rather, it didn’t quite sound like a bad thing to say to a high schooler, right? However, when I turn into my 30s and am being told the same thing by someone a couple of years younger than me, then I would normally feel hurt by that, though!

After finishing an almost perfect performance, Isshiki used her eyes to ask me ‘how do you feel about that?’, I nodded my head unwillingly.

“... that caused so much damage to me… Not only did I feel like I was being put into another category, But more importantly, I also began to question myself, ‘do I already have the old person smell?’ - thinking about it made me want to die… perhaps I’ll die.”

“Putting aside the smell, but that’s basically how I feel about it - you belong into a different category.”

Isshiki nodded with her arms crossed. After that, she continued with her index finger pointed upward, suggesting that she wanted to give yet another piece of advice.

“There’s a good chance that when a guys says explicitly ‘You look like my little sister’, he’s really just using it as a pickup-line that basically implicates ‘I no longer treat you like a sister’. These two lines go hand in hand together.”

“Ugh.. that’s rough… What the hell… What kind of beings do these guys think sisters are… Sisters are holy sanctuaries that shall not be trespassed. I want them to reconsider this concept of *sister* and mend their ways of thinking.”

“Eh, that was some reaction that I did not expect, but whatever… Anyways,”

She said with her cold, reluctant eyes. She put her hands on her hips in a pose like she was about to teach me a lesson, and then began her admonishment.

“From now on, refrain from saying things like ‘You look like my sister’ lightheartedly to girls…”

She suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence, then quickly leaned backward and covered her hand over her mouth.

“Ha! Do you, by any chance, want to say that ‘I no longer treat you like a sister’ pick up line to me but I don’t think I will get a heartthrob anymore at this point so please pick another chance and try next time, I am sorry.”

“Alright alright I got it I got it I won’t say a word I won’t say a word.”

Because I had just said a bunch of words all at once, I could not longer keep my breathing stable anymore. Isshiki also took a deep breath in and out. Her breath and my sigh overlapped.

“What is with your attitude there? You definitely weren’t listening, right?”

Isshiki puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction. Come on, not only did you say everything so fast but also at the end, you always end your long sentence with an “I’m sorry” after all… How could I possibly pay serious attention to your words...!

After seeing me worn out, Isshiki became very displeased and gave a strong snort, turning her head away from me.

“That’s enough, whatever. Anyway, please I’m counting on you for the favor.”

“Huh, eeh? Wait, didn’t I already…”

That was a pretty tough and bad attitude there to ask someone for a favor. Yet, since her voice sounded like she was kind of sulky at that moment, I could not really say no to her. Hence I lost my words.

A brief moment of silence.

“After all, I am not Senpai’s little sister.”

Isshiki whispered with her lips close to my ear. Completely different from her previous attitude, her voice sounded melting and sweet this time. Nevertheless, from deep in her tone, I could sense a bit of strength and persistence from her language.

Before I could react to her words, Isshiki quickly stood up and slapped the dirt off her skirt, smiling brightly at me.

And then, as if dancing a Waltz, she stepped away rhythmically. The trajectory from her skirt, the soft movement of her skinny fingers, and the glittering light reflected from the falling dust all gradually went afar.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the Student Council room after school!”

After taking a few steps away, she said that to me and waved her hands gently. Soon, Isshiki set off on foot while humming through her nose.

She was too far away for me to say anything back to her, and too distanced from me to chase after her. Why would I ever consider treating a girl like her, who is one or two cuts above me, as my little sister…

Hence, I need to fix my understanding right now - Isshiki Iroha is indeed *the Kouhai of the World*.


===BEGIN PART 7===

When school had ended, I walked leisurely in the corridor on my way to the Student Council room.

Given that I failed to deny Isshiki’s request on the spot, I had to bear the consequence and go help. Although, I had no choice but to go, I had no idea how I was gonna face them when I’m there. So naturally, my footsteps grew heavier and slower.

Despite that, the Student Council wasn’t even that far away in distance, and it didn’t take me long to arrive there.

As soon as I finished knocking on the door, it opened immediately. Isshiki’s face appeared from the gap of the door.

“Ugh, Senpai, you are so late.”

“Ok, sure, I’m sorry.”

It was a fact that I was being sluggish along the way, so I had better apologize on the spot. I was then allowed into the room.

Being welcomed by Isshiki, I entered the room and saw that Yukinoshita and Yuigahama were already inside. I couldn’t see other members of the Student Council. I bet they were probably working somewhere else, then.

If Yukinoshita ever needed help, Yuigahama would probably be the first person she reached out to. For that reason, it wasn’t particularly surprising to me when I saw Yuigahama there already. Perhaps Yuigahama had already heard from Isshiki that I was going to come, so she only briefly said ‘hi’ to me and waved her hand gently.

As for Yukinoshita, she noticed my appearance and opened her eyes wide in slight surprise. She began talking in a voice that was mixed with doubt and confusion.

“Hikigaya-kun…”

“Hi… I was told by Isshiki to come over. Well, I’m here to help.”

Judging from Yukinoshita’s reaction, it seemed that Isshiki didn’t mention to them that I was here to help. Hey~, Irohasu~, Hou-Ren-Sou is very important~! Had I come without being called for, perhaps I would have been supremely embarrassed and pained...(TL: Hou-Ren-Sou, which plainly means Spinach, is an abbreviated business term for Report (Hou-koku/報告), Contact (Ren-raku/連絡), and Discussion (Sou-dan/相談).)

However, despite showing a little bit of confusion, she didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Instead, she gave a bitter, apologetic smile.

“I see. I’m sorry for having to bother you, then. We kind of need some help today, so your help is genuinely appreciated. Thank you.”

“No need. I’m quite free today after all. I don’t mind.”

Welp, I guess my ‘free’ time today was going to slip away thanks to our busy and heavy work that was coming up next… As I thought this, Yukinoshita rested her chin on her hand, and began speaking in a non-busy and non-heavy fashion.

“You are probably having a celebration party at home for Komachi today, right? I intend to finish our work and dismiss everyone as early as possible. If you do have anything after this, please let me know, I will make some adjustments.”

I was a little bit caught up in surprise by her words. She really did have tremendous composure and poise in her… I was expecting this place to be more of a heated-up workplace though… My  next response to her ended up mixing with some confusion in it.

“Eh, ehhhh… No, my father will get back home late after all. You don’t have to care too much about it… Well, I wouldn’t be against wrapping things up early though.”

“That’s true. In that case, without further ado, let’s get to our work now.”

Yukinoshita smiled gently, suggesting I sit next to Yuigahama. I obeyed and sat down. Soon, a pile of documents were pushed on the table.

“Before I could use some help, just in case, I would like to explain the overview of the event.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she spread out the documents on the table and began reading the abstracts. But, I could hear her words sporadically mixed with humming sounds. I quickly turned my eyes to seek the source of the sound, and discovered that Isshiki was preparing the tea while humming through her nose. She looked at the package of the chocolate snacks, mumbled ‘hmmm I see~’ and began munching on them… Well, after all, this person already knows all of this and shouldn’t need to pay attention anyways. Also, she will properly do the job when it comes to her.

“Along with the proposal documents, could you also please take a look at the progress planning table as well?”

As soon I was told, I began skimming through the documents. From the documents, I assumed that the proportions of the prom had been scaled down by us compared to the one we saw in the foreign TV drama.

The gym would be decorated with flower stands and balloons, with the front of the event space, including the stage, being designated as the dancing area. Several tables and chairs were to be equipped at the back of the event space as a chatting area, where food and beverages would be served.

As for the timeline of the event, it would begin with flashy Kanpai-cheers, and then followed by the Student Council president and school club presidents’ greetings. After a while, when everyone’s tension got higher, club music will be played to mark the beginning of dancing time. Periodically, the rock band would jump in and play its music, and in addition, public confession events would be held at an irregular interval. Eventually, both the Prom King and the Prom Queen will be chosen and they will be leading the dance with the flow of romantic, slow-tempo music in the background. In the end, let's rock and uproar! Given that there isn’t a designated time slot for chatting, attendees have to use the chatting area outside the dancing stage if they wish… (TL: ‘Let’s rock and uproar!/みんなでどったんぼったん大騒ぎ’ comes from ‘Welcome to Japari Park’, the opening theme of Animal Friends.)

I see, no, I don’t get any of it. Partly, it’s because I’ve had no concrete knowledge about proms in general. More importantly, I’ve had no experiences or connections with stuff like clubbing culture or dancing culture whatsoever, so I don’t get any of those as well. What’s up with this public confession thing? A new type of sentencing?

Therefore, I decided to ask or do research later on things that I didn’t know, but for now I would dig into those that I knew already.

“This looks like it’s going to cost a lot…”

That was my very first impression. Thereupon, Yukinoshita promptly took out a piece of paper.

“I’ve already made a trial balance sheet. It has an estimate of how much the event will cost. You can take a look if you are curious.”

“Nope, I’m fine. It will be more accurate if you are the one walking through those detailed numbers. The more important concern of mine is the source of our budget. Where are we going to pull it from? Didn’t we already use up all the budget when we distributed the pamphlets last time?”

“The prom itself will take place in March, so I will ask them for the billing statements next month and onward, and then process them by pre-using the budget from next the fiscal year. In case we have to pay the bills in advance, we will just pay in advance and ask for reimbursement later.”

Slightly shrugging her shoulders, Yukinoshita explained in a lighthearted fashion. I couldn’t help but to consider its actual feasibility. Since the budget spending has to be set and reported by the end of February, all expenses incurred in March roll into the next budget cycle. More importantly, shouldn’t the budget planned for the next year already be settled...? As I asked myself these questions in doubt, our well-known dancing queen Isshiki Iroha-chan hummed in a good mood and began serving us the tea. This person really didn’t have anything else to do…

“Given our situation, unfortunately, the prom next year might need to be scaled down in various ways. Oh well, there’s not much we can do here.”

“Is that really good…”

Yuigahama smiled bitterly as Isshiki poured the tea into Yuigahama’s paper cup. Holding the tea tray against her chest, Isshiki tilted her head in question.

“Huh? But no one would notice it anyways, right? I don’t think people really know what the Student Council does.”

“Hmmm… Ah, yep, I don’t think I’ll notice it either. I don’t really know much about it, either.”

Yuigahama looked like she was thinking hard about whether the plan was proper or not. Eventually, she placed the paper cup softly on the table, and hung her head powerlessly downward. Ahh, she seemed to have lost the argument… After that, Isshiki suddenly became hyped up, quickly raising her fist high up in the air.

“That’s it! This is the time when we need to go all out on the event, making it so flashy that everyone will think we are actually doing hard work and will then forgive us for everything.”

What she said wasn’t fundamentally incorrect, but it really made me understand how terrible of a person Isshiki is… Who was here to give her some candid advice… so I looked into the direction where Yukinoshita was. Unfortunately, she was apparently busy with her work. Holding a thick file folder titled ‘Accounting Documents’ in one arm, she moved her fingers along the text and checked it against the document displayed on the computer screen.

“I am performing a trial balance calculation now. It looks like there are many items that can be dropped, which will trim down the budget. So I don’t think it’s going to negatively influence our budget planning next year. In fact, every year we seem to have unspent budget at the end and now is the time to make good use of them.”

She quickly closed the folder cover and smiled proudly.

This was bad. This was going into a bad direction… A clever scum and a capable junk car  would probably lead to an ominous chemical reaction in the end. (TL: “Ponkotsu”, a “junk car”  is an  anime trope of a seemingly perfect girl with hidden flaws.)  Although everything seemed to be going smoothly I still couldn’t stop worrying about them…

I decided to referee the trial balance sheet, just so that I could reduce my anxiety level by a little bit. After confirming every single accounting item on the sheet, a question suddenly arose in my mind.

“Is it okay that we don’t include any costume-related costs? Everyone needs to dress up, right?”

“Yes, but the attendees have to pay for that cost themselves. The only thing we could do, I guess, is to negotiate with those clothing rental companies.”

Yukinoshita quickly pulled out the catalogue full of clothing rental companies. Of course, it wasn’t for me - she handed the catalogue to Yuigahama. Thanks for understanding me! I have absolutely zero interest in this kind of stuff… On the other hand, Yuigahama’s eyes were already twinkling and she began to flip though the catalogue.

It’s true that most girls yearn for beautiful dresses like these. Since opportunities to dress up on a special occasion like this prom are quite rare, they had better make good use of them and get dressed up nicely. Yet, what about the guys? According to some certain internet comments, I’ve heard that at a publisher party attended by manga artists, most female manga artists wear dressy clothes, whereas male manga artists usually just wear their daily clothes. There are even those who show up in sportswear and jerseys.

“Does everyone dress up like this?”

I was implying that I kind of wanted to refrain myself from this formality. Isshiki seemed to agree with me and nodded.

“Well, I bet there will be students who don’t prefer dressing up this way. From our end, we will recommend for everyone to dress themselves up, but we will not enforce any dress code on our part.”

“In that case, I think everyone will end up dressing lavishly. No matter if it’s due to being affected by the surrounding atmosphere, or it’s due to yielding to peer pressure… I don't think we should make explicit guidelines about things that can be left to people's tacit understanding, because it will seem we are making mandatory rules, creating factors that would get people criticized for not following them.”

Yukinoshita added, giving a blank smile. Isshiki also wore a smile on her face in return. That smile, which might be fabricated, still looked beautiful and cute. But for some reason, I started to feel an impending doom waiting ahead…

I turned my face away from the smiling two and turned my attention back on the trial balance sheet. To be honest, since there’s no way for me to independently verify the accuracy of the price information, I could not determine whether the numbers were indeed feasible and made sense. Nevertheless, I could tell that all factors that fell within our planning so far were taken into consideration on the balance sheet. If we proceed and find out additional costs that we hadn’t included beforehand, we could count them as ‘preparation fees’ and ‘misc. expenses’ on the balance sheet and should be able to cover that part easily.

“... well, it looks good to me for now, if we omit the missing ‘labor cost’ part.’”

“I see. Thanks for double checking for me. To indicate that you have checked those items, could you please circle them one by one?”

After being smiled at in a delightful manner, I had no choice but to smile back at her.
As she continued her giggling for a while, she finally stopped smiling, put her hand over the balance sheet and pointed at the numbers on it.

“Even so, the numbers are actually not finalized yet. For example, the catering service could be switched to somewhere even cheaper than the one that we requested at the Thanksgiving event. We are still waiting for the biddings and the final comparisons to be made. The flowers that we need for decoration purposes can be combined with the bouquets given to the graduating students in each club, and we can submit our order altogether in order to lower the unit cost. We are in the process of negotiating that as well.”

“O..oh… I see…”

(Illustration TL: Yukinoshita in school uniform, holding balance sheets and a pen in her hands.”)

Now, not just the Student Council vice-president, how about also adding the Student Council accountant into that list of to-be-fired candidates…? I noticed that Yukinoshita’s practical skills had gone up by yet another level compared to before, to the point that she should just be called Yukinoshita Yukino RX. (TL: refers to Kamen Rider Black RX) The feeling that Yukinoshita can simply take all the work and get it done perfectly has come home to myself. Even Isshiki,... she nodded her head as if saying ‘let’s let the RX do it’. No, I think the president might as well be added to the to-be-fired list, too!

Anyway, after reading through the prepared material, I certainly became more confident and began to feel more realistic about the actualization of the prom than what I thought before. It should be doable theoretically… Now we just have to deal with those non-theoretical parts of the business, which I am afraid is indeed the toughest part.

For example, things like deadlines and catching up with the schedule, do not usually rely on theories. These things do not possess human emotions. “Eh, to be honest I think it’ll be tough to get it done.”. “Let’s work harder!”, “Should I say blatantly that I don’t think we are going to make the deadline”, “Let’s work harder!”, “I’m sorry! It’s impossible!”, “Let’s work harder!”, “...okay...”. I guess the only solution then is to move at light speed in order to slow the time down… That’s already science fiction, though…

Now, let’s take a look at the other thing that concerned me - the schedule table. So I pulled out the next document, the Progress Planning Table, done by hand. Probably handwritten by Yukinoshita herself, along with a checklist, completed items were already marked as checked.

Thanks to the table I was able to visualize the progress with a single glance. The beginning part were mostly colored already, but the more towards the bottom you went, the more white area you could see. It looked like we still have a long way to go. (TL: You can take a look at an example of a schedule table to track the production of a TV anime here: https://imgur.com/a/0Ob0tOR)

However, conversely, the fact that it only took them the past couple days to start with the proposal and planning, and perform a trial balance sheet calculation was already very amazing and deserved being praised. Or rather, I should feel scared of her…

I felt very overwhelmed by the fast moving progression shown on the table. How hard did you work indeed…! Some of those already checked off items should have been rather difficult tasks to do, though.

For example, the top most item was ‘Pitching the Proposal to the School and the Parents and Acquire their Consent’. Checking off this one single item was almost as good as solving the majority of the issues concerning the prom project. Although the item was followed by a small footnote that read ‘Only Informal Consent acquired, pending approval after the midterm report is finished at later date’, as long as we had some kind of oral consent, we could already declare our victory…! We won! Gahaha! (TL: ‘We won! Gahaha!/勝ったな！ガハハ！’ is a famous catchphrase by Karasuma Chitose from Girlish Number, which is also screenplayed by Watari Wataru.)

After that, we had either already done budget finalization, produced the event schedule, announced the event in a notice, finalized the music and soundtrack, opened the official website, had a meeting with the Club President Association, and etc, or we just checked them off as expect-to-be-completed-soon. I would say we could not have done better than this in the planning phase.

The remaining tasks included the production and the assembly of the decoration materials, planning the operation on the day of event, setting up the event space, stuff that involves time dedication, labor, and couldn’t proceed until the event date gets closer.

Well, there were quite a few things that we wouldn’t have known how they’d go unless we are actually doing it, which would be the main uncertainty here… And then, I guess this would be the part when I would be told to get involved.

In order to find out what kind of work I should be expecting in the future, I began re-reading the table from the very beginning. There, a line of words seized my attention.

“Hmmm, ‘Announcing the Event in a Notice’... I had no idea that you guys have already announced it!”

Feeling a refreshing shock, I couldn’t help but leak my voice with mixed feelings. Then, while I was speaking, the air in the Student Council room suddenly froze. Everyone cast eyes at me as if looking at a new species of animal from afar. Out of those reactions, Isshiki’s was the most blatant. She stared at me with a face that basically said ‘what are you saying, I have no idea?’.

“Huh? Why are you asking?”

“Eh? Because I hadn’t heard about it anywhere...? Right?”

I turned to Yuigahama, who I believe should have possessed the same amount of information with regard to the prom event. Yuigahama then twisted her body uneasily, with her mouth hesitant to talk next. Nevertheless, she forced out her words eventually.

“... I also knew about it, already.”

“Huh? How? Why? Are you people bullying me?”

“We are not! I was also wondering why you didn’t know about this… Ah, wait a second.”

Perhaps suddenly noticing something, Yuigahama took out her smartphone with a rustle. After seeing that, Isshiki also exclaimed ‘Ah!’, as if she also noticed something, and then took her smartphone in hand.

Soon, almost at the same moment both of them showed me their smartphone screens, loaded with the same content. ‘LINE!’, along with a mysterious message tone, the application that appeared on the screen was indeed the messenger application LINE that everyone knows.

“We created an official LINE account and released all prom-related information there. Since it’s the media that our generation uses most frequently, we decided to use it as our main channel of disseminating the information.”

After hearing Yukinoshita’s explanation, I was finally able to understand why. It’s true that high schoolers these days are all connected to each other via LINE. So indeed LINE would be the most efficient way to put up any notices in a prompt manner… Of course I wouldn’t have known anything! Since I wasn’t using it at all!

“Hmm… I see…. Huh, wait, are you also using LINE?”

“I am. It’s pretty convenient, though. You can easily obtain information like store information and electronic coupons on LINE. If you send a message to these official business accounts, they can also send you back photos and images of their merchandise.”

Watching Yukinoshita elaborating the convenience of using LINE in a delightful smile, I nodded and replied in agreement inattentively while peeking at Yuigahama sitting beside. Noticing me meaningfully looking at her, Yuigahama nodded at me and said ‘yep, yep, that’s it’, showing a bitter smile in response to me. See! I knew it was the official account for the Cat Cafe!

She had more important things to talk about for sure…! As I was wondering about it, someone that seemed to want to do the job for me entered my sight.

“By the way, why is Senpai not using LINE already? Is it because you don’t know how to use it? Were you born in the Showa period?”

“Nah, I am a human from Heisei era! You highly underestimate those born in Shouwa. Those older people can use LINE just fine without any issues. I did not use LINE intentionally because I don’t think it’s necessary for me.”

In response to Isshiki’s extremely impolite comments, I complained with dissatisfaction. Yukinoshita put her hand on her cheek and nodded in agreement.

“Well, it’s true though. I heard that enterprises these days use LINE internally as well… It’s not a tool only limited to young people.”

“I think it varies from person to person in my opinion. No matter if it’s an adult or an older person, as long as it was deemed necessary by the situation, they would for sure practice as hard as they can in order to be able to use it.”

I’m sure there are those grandparents who want to chat with their grandkids and then ended up picking up LINE… As I imagined this lovely scenario in my mind, Yuigahama, who had been listening the whole time, made a subtle expression on her face for some reason.

“But most of those people tend to pretend that they are young energetically in the conversation. How should I put it… For example, they would send very arbitrarily chosen emotes, emojis and stamps over… Also their ways of addressing us in a casual mood simply sounds so old fashioned.” (TL: casual mood is a way of speech that Japanese people use to talk to usually close friends of the similar ages. Also Watari, I’m very unhappy about the implication of her revelation here.)

“I can totally sympathize with you. I know, right, it’s unbelievable. You made me remember that feeling of ‘old person smell’ that could be sensed in between the words they use in their messages.”

Isshiki clapped her hands in agreement…. For some reason, I felt extremely hurt by their comments.

“Wait, why are you all so familiar with what it’s like to talk to the old dudes?”

“My dad is using LINE.”

“Same here.”

Hmm, I wonder what kind of ‘daddy’ they have indeed… They should be referring to their fathers, right? I started feeling a little bit scared somehow, so I had better switch the topic and ask them something else instead.

“But more importantly, do you still think it’s a good idea to make announcements only on LINE? How about those people like me who simply don’t use it?”

“We have also been syncing our LINE account with other SNS websites. Furthermore, just in case, we also post announcements on school bulletin boards and have been running the official website as well. So I don’t think there’ll be any issue.”

Yukinoshita quickly answered with a flow of words. She suddenly cut her words off and then began chuckling.

“In addition, for those who can’t be even connected with all these efforts. Those who have been unwilling to make connections with others do not deserve to be connected, nor do they have the intention to attend the prom, in my opinion. A good example for now, would be you.”

“That’s a very sound argument…”

I had never expected that my everyday behaviors would become the supporting evidence for an answer to my question… Did I just win the argument again…? I want to learn about the feeling of losing.

As I nodded in agreement, Yukinoshita began to wear a mature, sisterly smile on her face.

“If you have any other questions or concerns, please go ahead and ask.”

After hearing her words, I thought hard for a while. With regard to the materials that I had reviewed so far, I didn’t think I had any particular questions in mind for now. Nevertheless, I did have concerns at the moment.

“... I don’t have any questions per se, but I do have pieces that I don’t quite understand. It might be a little late to ask it now, but I still don’t understand what exactly prom is in the end… I don’t get it at all nor can I imagine what it would look like. To be honest this is the thing that concerns me the most right now.”

I was having this concern in my mind when I was invited to the conversation on the matter of prom the other day, and also when I was reading the events schedule earlier.

Hearing my words, Yuigahama opened her eyes wide.

“Heh? Isn’t a prom just like the party that we saw in the drama we watched earlier?”

“Yep, well, that’s true, but… Assume that we wanted to replicate the same kind of prom as shown in the movie. I still feel like there’s definitely something wrong and awkward with it.”

I could not find the most accurate words to describe my uncomfortable feeling about that prom. As I mumbled ‘hmmm’ in confusion, Yuigahama also tilted her head and showed her agreement. Just at that moment, Isshiki entered the conversation with a know-it-all face

“I get that! I get that! I want it to be a prom that we could hold, that only we could celebrate, that is only celebrated for our sake! That’d be it, right?!”

“That’s totally wrong…”

What was with that ‘a prom that is only celebrated for our sake’. Why did you turn to an aloof face only at the end.

“Really if it’s wrong, then what do you think it is...?”

Isshiki stared at me with dissatisfaction. I wouldn’t have been wondering had I known the answer already! I managed to escape from Isshiki’s stare by turning my face away from her.

Thereupon, my eyes met Yukinoshita’s.

“In that case, I suggest that we work on the answer together from now on.”

Wearing a peaceful smile, Yukinoshita said mysteriously. She then stood up from her chair.

===BEGIN PART 8===

Leaving the Student Council room, our next destination was the gym.

Normally at this time there should have been sports clubs practicing indoor sports activities. But for some reason, it was a completely different scenery than I expected. The party space was already set up and ready to be used in front of the stage area. I could see the flower stands and the balloons already carried over into the arena, along with the glittering mirrorball that was tied to the ceiling.

“Oh…this is amazing...”

After looking around the gym, Yuigahama expressed her honest opinion. As for me, I felt like I was suddenly thrown into another space dimension, merely frozen there in awe without being able to give even a simple line of comments.

“I will give a more detailed explanation at a later time. Could you all please get ready to change? Kawasaki-san will be preparing the costumes by the stage. Yuigahama-san, could you please give her a hand?”

“Okay!”

In reply to Yukinoshita’s calm instructions, Yuigahama answered energetically and quickly ran to the side of the stage in a hurry. However, I couldn’t follow her. Kawasaki was referring to that … Kawa something-san? She was also here? As I was pondering what the situation was at that time, Yukinoshita looked at me with a puzzled face.

“Have you not heard about her from Isshiki-san yet?”

“Not at all…”

Hey~ Irohasu~? As I turned my face around and cast my eyes to her, Isshiki made a ‘darn’ face. Well, let me teach her a lesson at a later time and focus on understanding the situation right now.

“So, what is this whole thing we are doing now? What’s our plan?”

“We want to make an introduction video for the prom. In addition, we are also taking photos to be uploaded to the official website in order to produce the special event page. We can also use this chance to confirm our readiness of prom operations.”

Following the direction that Yukinoshita was pointing at, I could see a couple sets of cameras made ready by the Student Council members. Yukinoshita continued her words a bit unwillingly.

“So, we need an actress for the video. The person that I’d like to ask the favor of is… Isshiki-san.”

“...actress for the video?”

Both Yukinoshita and I quickly turned our attention to Isshiki. Perhaps Isshiki also felt pressured by the stares coming from two people and began to feel uneasy. She looked at the floor and began sweating nervously. Looking at her reaction, Yukinoshita sighed deeply in exhaustion.

“We will post-process the videos in a way that viewers cannot recognize the identities of the actors involved, so don’t worry. I also intended to ask you to take a look while editing the video as well… After all, you must have been pretty troubled to be suddenly told without advance notice, right...”

Since Yukinoshita mentioned both ‘post-processing’ and ‘editing’, I guess Yukinoshita was being mindful of Isshiki. Yukinoshita then wore a bitter smile on her face.

How rare for Yukinoshita to not get angry at this point… Normally she would just say ‘Isshiki-san’ in a cold voice though… As I thought this, Isshiki, who had been holding her head with both hands, suddenly dashed in front of me, and lowered her head in apology.

“I am sorry I apologize I have been really regretful and I am seriously repenting don’t get it wrong I was talking about something else so my focus was kind of diverged away… Also I told Tobe-senpai about this and asked them for the favor as well and I thought I must have told you as well…”

“Tobe?”

I asked her in return, because I had just heard something unexpected from a long stream of repentance. In response, Isshiki raised her head up, combed back her loose hair over her ear, and nodded back to me.

“Yeah. I guess I wanted them to cheer up the mood as background actors, or just simply mob actors… So I recruited Tobe-senpai and some other first-year students from the Soccer Club.”

“Additionally, as for the girls’ roles, I asked students from our class and Isshiki’s friends to fill in.”

After hearing Yukinoshita’s explanation, I began pondering. Usually these introduction videos are used to convey the atmosphere and the hype of the event that it promotes; therefore, the more people in the video the better it is, perhaps. I guess people always say  ‘Even dead trees make a mountain look more prosperous’ after all.

“It looks like you’ve asked quite a few other people as well… Well, as long as there are enough people for me to blend in, I’ll do it.”

“... sorry about that.”

“Nope, it’s partly my fault for not confirming the details of my job with you here, after all.”

It was kind of strange to see Isshiki apologizing in a faithful manner like this. I smiled bitterly, followed by Yukinoshita also giving me a smile back.

“Thank you. Your help is really appreciated. It would have been quite troubling for me to ask someone that I’m not that familiar with to retake the scenes again and again...”

“Please do not just assume that we are going to have retakes... Whatever, let me go get changed for now.”

“Ah, I already have it ready here.”

After saying that to me, Isshiki began walking. I exchanged eye contact with Yukinoshita to say goodbye. She also nodded at me in return to express her thankfulness for doing her a favor. Led by Isshiki, I walked to the other side of the stage, opposite to the one that Yuigahama walked towards. Along the way, Isshiki began talking with her shoulders down and a little bit of depression in her tone.

“Eh… I kind of have a better idea of what you said before.”

“What is that?”

I caught up to her and began walking at her side. Isshiki still kept her eyes looking at the floor.

“Despite the fact that everything has been going smoothly, without me noticing it, I realized that a lot of things that I should be doing were taken away… I might have been a little too careless. I guess not only this, but also among many other things Yukinoshita also did herself. If this trend keeps on going, I might end up solely relying on Yukinoshita for real...”

Her dismal voice was filled with regret. She seemed to remember the conversation that we had during the lunch break. Being able to reflect on one’s other failures after making one single mistake could be said to be quite impressive and excellent. As for myself, I couldn’t even admit and face my own failures… I opened my mouth as I admonished myself.

“Isn’t it a good thing that you realized it now? It’s a pretty small sunk cost you’ve made so that you are able to take precautions early.”

“Yep… I will be more careful next time.”

Despite of her lighthearted tone, Isshiki’s face did not turn more cheerful. After replying to me, she kept mouth tightly shut. Getting wrecked by failures while being carried away certainly feels quite distressful. For example, when you are working on a part-time job, while you were thinking ‘wow, darn, I’m so capable, I’m already used to everything’, you then suddenly screw something up. Your manager then kindly covers up for you, and then you begin to notice how deplorable you are and how apologetic and embarrassed you feel, to the point that you just want to die right away.

Since I’ve had a similar kind of experience before, I naturally felt like giving her some comforting words.

“If you have something next time, just tell me as soon as possible…. Well, I might make excuses and complain at the beginning even if you tell me early, but in the end, I think I’ll always willing to help anyway. Therefore, how should I put it… Please don’t get too depressed.”

“I thought so too!”

Before I could end my sentence, Isshiki suddenly raised her face up, and smiled widely. I was struck speechless by that. Soon, Isshiki again dropped her shoulders in depression like she did before.

“I’m joking… I will seriously straighten myself up, starting now.”

Perhaps she was just playing around with me just to cheer herself up a little bit. Her voice was quiet and I could feel a strong sense of determination from it.

We finally reached the side of the stage. Isshiki opened the door from aside. I followed her and entered inside, where I was able to see a wide area filled with a performance stage, microphone stands, among other random stuff. There were some chairs and a full-length mirror that was to be used for make-up before the performance during the event. There were also costumes stacked on top of those chairs.

“All the costumes that you need are left here. In case the sizes don’t match I think you could ask Kawasaki-senpai..? Did I get the name right? She will make some adjustments for you.”

“Alright.”

After giving me a courtesy gesture, Isshiki walked away and left. Seeing her off, I quickly got ready to change.

I took off my school uniform and grabbed the prepared costumes. I wondered if this was the so-called tuxedo…? I didn’t quite understand its difference from a suit, but merely felt that it kind of looked like something you would wear to attend a wedding? If it has a stand-up collar and a bow tie then I would somehow know how to wear it. However, included in the costume set that was prepared for me, there was also a pin, or some kind of brooch-like accessory item, which I had no idea what it was. Let me ask about it later.

After I finished changing, I stood in front of the mirror to confirm my looks. There I could see a guy that looked like a tired, dying pianist. Hmm… I wonder if I wore it right. I had never worn this kind of costume before so I had no idea whatsoever. In addition to a tuxedo, a stovepipe hat, and a mantle cloak, I might as well also wear a white mask… (TL: refers to Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon)

Fortunately, it seemed that at least the size of the costume fit quite well on my body. In the end, I grabbed the bow tie in my hand, mimicked Conan and fastened the buttons.

I ended up taking a longer time since I was putting on clothes that I wasn’t used to wearing. I quickly walked out of the side stage.

First things first, I decided to return to where Yukinoshita was, and when I got there, I noticed a handsome teenage bishounen who was dressed lavishly, yet I didn’t think I recognized him. Since the dress coat that the bishounen was wearing had a feature of having pretty long tails, I was able to identify that type of costume at first glance. That was indeed the so-called tailcoat.

“Looks great! The size also seems to fit you.”

After being talked to suddenly, I looked at the gentle, smiling face and finally was able to recognize who it was.

“Oh… You are Yukinoshita… What is this, what happened to you?”

After hearing my question, Yukinoshita, who was wearing the tailcoat, anxiously stretched her arms, adjusted her collar and pulled up the tails.

“Just as I thought, do I look strange…?”

“Nah, it’s not strange at all…”

Or rather, it fitted her so brilliantly. The monotonically colored tailcoat highlighted the beauty of Yukinoshita’s white skin and made her stand out even more. The long tails and the trousers further emphasized the perfect shape of her long legs. Her hair was tied up in one strip and waved according to the beats of her movements, leaving an ephemeral impression behind. Adding her slender body to all of these made me think of the phrase ‘unfortunate bishounen’. (TL: originally 薄幸の美人, or Unfortunate Woman, used to describe a beautiful woman who unfortunately possesses a tragic life.) Her looks were so fascinatingly beautiful that it gave an impression of a perverted beauty. Ah I could already feel a sense of danger from her.

“So handsome… to the point that you look like you are in a movie scene.”

“Ara, thank you. By your standards, that’s pretty nice and well-chosen compliment.”

Hearing my words that implicitly described something so unrealistic and surreal, Yukinoshita covered her mouth and giggled. Her hands were wearing pure white gloves, making her look even more unrealistic.

“No, I’m serious in all regards. If you were to be featured in a live-action movie adapted from a manga series, it would definitely have received very high scores and top reviews.”

“If you put it that way, then somehow it doesn’t really sound like much of a good compliment, though…”

She sighed deeply and placed her hand against her temple, yet another movie-like scene in my eyes. Thanks to her following words, I was able to return to reality.

“Your costume fits you well, too, and you also look like some character from a movie - maybe you are the protagonist…, no, an aristocrat that bullies the protagonist…’s hanger-on.

“I’m not like some yakuza’s thug… You don’t need to force yourself to compliment me.”

“That’s not the case. You are the right person for the job. If you try a little harder, you would actually look a lot better. Give me the sleeve button and the handkerchief.”

Yukinoshita took her gloves off and held out her hand to me. Her bare hand looked even whiter than the gloves in my opinion. So I gave her the handkerchief. As I was wondering what a sleeve button is, I noticed I did have something that I had no idea what it was for. I put my hand in my pocket in search of the accessory-like thing, which I found and placed in Yukinoshita’s hand.

“Ah, this is a sleeve button. I see...”

While I was mumbling, my arm was suddenly gripped. Before I was able to retract my arm out of surprise, my jacket sleeves were already rolled up, their cuffs pulled flat and the buttons tied neatly. In addition, Yukinoshita skillfully folded my handkerchief and quickly slid it into the pocket above my chest.

“Classic Three Peaks Fold… This is it.”

She gently tapped my pocket once as a final garnishment, and smiled in satisfaction.

“Oh, ohhh. I felt like this is… this is something that I’ve seen before. The thing that you see in a wedding.”

“Proms are in fact chances for you to learn etiquette like these things, although for us we usually don’t have these encounters.”

“In our case, this is almost just a cosplay, in my opinion.”

“That’s a rather unfavorable way of putting it. Well, something like that.”

Said with a disgusted face, Yukinoshita put her gloves back on.

“So, why are you wearing a tailcoat?”

“We wanted to film a scene where the Prom King dances with the Prom Queen. However, we didn’t know of anyone who is capable of the job. So I had no choice but to take the job myself.”

“Hmm, I didn’t know you can dance.”

“Only as an amateur. However, a tuxedo wouldn’t have looked good on me. A tailcoat, on the other hand, ended up fitting me unexpectedly well. Don’t you think so?”

After finishing her words, Yukinoshita made a perfect 360-degree turn. As simple of a movement as it sounds, her turn was formidably gorgeous. I see - a wagging tail what makes a tailcoat so attractive. Yet, more prominent than anything else, the very existence of Yukinoshita is indeed the most eye-catching part. Her dancing skill is definitely by no means amateur level…

“I feel sorry for the person who is going to dance with you.”

“Don’t worry. Isshiki practiced with me a little bit already. She seems to have good talent.”

Yukinoshita said in a calm manner. But that’s not what I meant…. I was talking about something more fundamental besides dancing skills… I thought. Yet rather than that, I was actually more surprised from knowing who she was going to dance with.

“Isshiki is going to dance with you?”

“Yeah. She is the future Prom Queen after all. ”

She said with a calm, peaceful expression on her face again, as if it wasn’t something that mattered at all. Hey, normal human beings don’t know how to dance in the first place, right? I wonder if Irohasu is going to be fine… Getting worried about her, I began to look around in search of Isshiki. Yukinoshita seemed to notice it as well.

“So, it’s about time to go welcome and pick up the princesses!”

After saying that, she began walking to the other stage side elegantly. Her silhouette from behind looked like a prince-sama.

...speaking of which, this prince seemed to be in high spirits starting just now.

===BEGIN PART 9===

As soon as I arrived at the gym, I began to feel a sense of strangeness and uneasiness, as if coming to another dimension of space. However, now that I had stayed in it for a while, where the actors and actresses gradually convened, I could feel that the prom-like atmosphere had gotten stronger and thicker. When the blackout curtain fell, the spotlight turned on and brightened the stage, the ambience almost became like the one you could feel in a TV drama.

The actors that were gathered as extras, perhaps, were also influenced by the ambience here. Thanks to Tobe, the festival boy who came here late again, helped us fire up the mood. People were all pleasantly enjoying their chit-chats. Male students were mostly in tuxedos; whereas female students all wore dresses. Partly because of the dress-up, even most of those who met for the first time, enjoyed their conversations as well. Rather than a prom, I would say it looked more like a party for marriage hunting - the fact that people dress up lavishly and gloriously is the same.

In particular, the corner where I was at was the most cheerful out of everywhere. The main reason for that was indeed the cross-dressing beauty - Yukinoshita Yukino, and the gorgeous, elegant little devil - Isshiki Iroha.

With orange being the main color of the dress that Isshiki wore, the vividness of the dress particularly attracted every pair of eyes that saw it. Both the radiant color palette of the skirt and the short yet mildly spreading skirt hem, reminded people of the liveliness and vigor of a young maid. At several nearly risqué spots over her chest was decorated lace that turned vaguely visible and translucent under the flashes of spotlights, further underlining the attractiveness of the gorgeous womanhood she possessed...

That little devil soon wore a devilish smile on her face. She appeared to be greatly satisfied and pleased by the situation.

“This might be a terrible way of saying it, but it really feels great to be waited on by a bishounen… I’m really feeling good right now.” (TL:  a bishounen is a “beautiful youth boy” whose androgynous attractiveness transcends gender or sexual orientation.)

Seeing Isshiki’s body trembling due to being deeply moved and impressed by the situation, Yukinoshita showed a disgusted expression.

“You really said it in the worst possible way.... Could you please do me a favor and stay a little farther away from me...?”

“But isn’t accompanying me part of a gentleman’s responsibilities? Didn’t you nicely escort me here just now!? Yaaa, I suddenly had a little heart-throb at that moment…”

‘Ufufu’ Isshiki leaked a smile onto her face after she apparently had some lewd imaginations in her mind. I immediately was able to realize what she was referring to. Earlier when Yukinoshita went to pick up Isshiki, this ‘high-spirit’ prince was a little bit too high-spirited so that she just elegantly hooked Isshiki’s arm without any hesitation, and then escorted her all the way to the venue here in that fashion.

As a result, the venue was suddenly overflowing with commotion and excitement, eventually filling up all the pride that Isshiki had desired, and thus leading to a situation like this.

“... I am reflecting on my conduct”

Yukinoshita used the word ‘reflecting’ in her words, but I could feel a sense of ‘regret’ more than ‘reflection’. Thanks to that, she was now in a ‘low-spirit’ mood and remained rather quiet. She already began to seem quite exhausted, and I could tell her tiredness from her looks before the movie shooting even took place. Yukinoshita probably also noticed it herself. ‘Okay!’ She took a long deep breath out and regained her concentration.

“It’s about time to start filming, shall we? We will need to go in and have some discussions first. Hikigaya-kun, could you please go and bring Yuigahama-san here? I think they should have already finished changing by now.”

“Understood.”

Being told that, I walked to the stage side. For the past couple minutes, Yuigahama-san  seemed to be helping other girls change into their costumes together with Kawasaki. They seemed to have already finished helping the others and finally began to get themselves changed.

I came to the front room located at the stage side, knocking on its door a few times. Soon, ‘coming!’, a slightly irritated voice replied to me. That scary feeling! It was definitely Kawasaki’s voice… Thinking so, I slowly opened the door.

Right behind the door, there happened to be Yuigahama, who had just finished putting on her dress and was doing a final check.

Colored in a very light pink that almost looked white, the transparent texture along with its shade of color unexpectedly gave a strong impression of maturity from an adult. Perhaps it was the contour and the design of her dress that made me think that way. Open and exposed largely around her neck, her waist was tightened firmly yet despite that, it emphasized the curvature of her body and drew attractive arcs along it. The dress itself was very long, but the slit on the side blurred away the heaviness of the skirt and brought balance to it. Also, every move-and-freeze of her body would bring her skirt up waving in the air, conveying a sense of lightness from the material. Her usual hair bun was braided into a corolla, making me think of a name that some prince had used to call it. (TL: reference to Madonna of the Corolla/花冠のマドンナ, a manga by Saito Chiho that was published on Shougaku-kan *Shoujo Comic* back in the mid-90s.)

However, the moment that I stopped embracing these thoughts, was the moment when I saw her smirking in front of the mirror - ‘fuhehe’.

Yuigahama stood in front of the full-length mirror. Concerned with the hem of her skirt and her chest, she touched her body here and there with her hands.

“Uhyaa… This dress is… really… dangerous!!”

“Don’t move!”

Kawasaki stood behind Yuigahama and adjusted the length and the tightness of Yuigahama’s dress, with her hands tapping and touching her dress back here and there. After hearing her frigid warning, Yuigahama immediately straightened up her back. Yet soon, she put her hands around her waist.

“Yes, mad’m. Ehh...ehhh, I want it to be tightened more around my belly...”

“Huh? Don’t you have to dance later, right? Wouldn’t tightening it make it harder?”

Kawasaki responded with a quite annoyed voice at Yuigahama's nervous words. However, after paying attention, you could notice she was a bit worried about her. Perhaps because of that, Yuigahama didn't seem to back down from what she had asked before, in fact, she spoke like a baby who wanted to be pampered.

“Ah, uh, uhhh... I think I can take it!”

“Hmmm..... I'll adjust it a little.”

After sighing impatiently, Kawasaki quickly decided to respond to Yuigahama's request. Kawasaki then squeezed her waist tightly.

“Ok, this should be fine. Do the makeup yourself.”

“Ah, Yes! Thank you Saki! Sorry for making you wait, Hikki-! I'll get ready quickly!”

After saying that, Yuigahama made her way quickly towards the dresser with a mirror. Perhaps in an attempt to not dirty her dress, Yuigahama first put a scarf on top around her neck and only then began to take out her makeup equipment and spread them out over the table.

“Take your time. The others are still having a discussion at the moment.”

After saying that, Yuigahama nodded slightly and gently replied “mkay”, while applying her makeup. Kawasaki passed behind her as she headed toward the exit where I was standing. Her expression seemed pretty tired.

“Well, I'll be leaving now, so take care of the rest yourselves.”

“Yeah, good work. Sorry, it looks like they pushed this on you so suddenly.”

“Exactly...”

After I expressed my words of gratitude, Kawasaki-san glared at me in a bad temper… ehhh, I am so sorry!! - as I contracted my body and bowed my head facing the floor, I could hear a breath that I couldn’t tell whether it came from a gentle smile or a deep sigh.

“The skirt of the dress is long and the heels are high, too. Be careful until you get used to them.”

She said bluntly, yet at the same time kindly, Kawasaki passed by me and left. Seeing her extremely exhausted silhouette from behind, I could only say ‘oh, ok, thanks’ in return. Hmph, Kawasaki-san really is a tsundere! That Kawa-something-san is seriously so kawawaiiii. I quietly saw her off as I thought this.

After that, Yuigahama and I became the only two left in the preparation room of the stage side. Having nothing to do at that moment, I naturally turned my eyes in Yuigahama’s direction. While Yuigahama was adroitly applying the makeup on her cheeks with a brush, her hand suddenly froze in the middle of her work.

“Hmm...eh.. I makes me feel uneasy to be stared at when I’m doing the makeup…”

She said it a little bit embarrassingly as our eyes met in the mirror. Her cheeks that were just brushed over had already turned a light peach-pink, which after seeing, I began to feel awkward myself, and averted my eyes.

“Ah, my bad. Please don’t mind me and keep going… By the way it looks pretty much done to me, right? Isn’t that enough make-up already?”

“Ehh??... Not at all!”

Yuigahama stared into the mirror for a brief moment in annoyance, yet quickly went back to her make-up work and got her hands busy again.

“I.. I see…”

I really did think that was enough make-up though, in my opinion! Well, eh, I mean, she’s beautiful enough already - I swallowed back the words that I was about to say, and ended my sentence like that. Yuigahama switched from the brush to a highlighter pencil, and then gently applied it on her mouth.

“We are taking a video after all, right? It would be so embarrassing for me if I look bad in the video.”

“Aren’t we going to post-process the video clips so that our faces won’t be recognizable afterwards?”

“Those are the clips that go public. The raw clips will still be saved. That will not be deleted. At least, I won’t be deleting it… For that reason, I want it to be neatly preserved.”

After finishing her words in a quiet voice, she gently applied rouge lipstick over her lips. Slightly raising her chin, Yuigahama moved the front of her jaw, changing the angle of her face and slowly moved the pencil to neatly apply the lines over her lips from different perspectives. Her lips eventually turned into a charming sakura-color, as if she had become a totally different person as I looked at her in the mirror. Her expression of carefully inspecting herself in the mirror was devoid of her usual innocence, as if she had evolved into an existence that was so far away beyond my reach. Therefore, I couldn’t hold my words this time.

“I see… that’s the case…”

“That is the case! Alright, it’s finished!”

Thereupon, Yuigahama turned around to me, instead of facing the mirror, and smiled widely. As simple of a movement as it looked like, it was so much of a relief for me - I breathed out quietly, and at the same time, noticed myself holding my breath for a while before that. In order to cover that up, I almost unconsciously scratched my head.

“Hikki are you also fixing the look of your hair?”

“No I am not…”

“Ehhhh?? But, it’s in a mess right now. It’s an introductory video so you need to appear neatly at least. With this hair that you have now…”

Yuigahama’s eyes were fixed on the top of my head. In addition, I felt like her face gradually became more and more ‘ugh’ pitiful… Is my hair that bad...?? Moreover, in an introductory video where you are suppose to give people very positive impressions, it’s true that having a guy that looks this shabby and miserable is definitely unacceptable.

“Well, in that case, I’m gonna fix it a little. By the way, I’m borrowing the hair wax. I guess gel also works.”

As I walked towards the dresser table, Yuigahama quickly passed the spot over to me. Thanks to Komachi’s instructions, if it’s just little things like waxing my hair I could do it myself. After all, I was wearing a tuxedo, wearing a hairstyle as simple as swept-back hair would probably make it sufficiently good-looking. Nevertheless, the only problem is the person who’s doing it - in my case, it’ll just make me look more like an underling thug.

As I thought, I tried to stretch my hand to reach the hair wax amongst other make-up items spread out on the table. Suddenly, it was taken out of my hand from behind. I turned around and saw Yuigahama begin talking in a calm manner.

“Let me do it for you. Hikki-, it’ll probably turn out to be very weird, if you do it yourself.”

“Er…. My sense of beauty is completely rejected… Well, I can’t really argue against you… But, seriously if it’s just waxing, I think I can...”

“Don’t mention it. Just let me do it, let me do it. I am actually pretty good at these kind of things!”

Immediately after finishing her words, she grabbed my head, and turned it facing the mirror. That hurts that hurts that hurts! Also I was so embarrassed that the sweat glands on my scalp turned wide open and I quickly began sweating! Despite all of that, this woman was apparently cheerfully enjoying herself and humming through her nose.

“Dear customer, please let me know if you feel itchy anywhere~!”

“Eh, really you don’t have to do this and let’s just quickly get it done…”

Because I was so embarrassed and was concerned about all the sweat on my scalp, I couldn’t move my body a single inch. For some reason, Yuigahama’s hands suddenly stopped moving. Wait, what? Is my sweat disgusting to you? I’m sorry? - as I thought and looked at her in the mirror, Yuigahama wore a very grave expression on her face.

“Hikki-, you scalp feels so hard… You’ll go bald.” (TL: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH)

“Hey! You could have said anything else, but only this one is absolutely unacceptable to me… If you say it, a war will begin…”

“Joking, joking! It’s soft~ soft~. Rub rub rub~!”

“That’s itchy itchy itchy stop it stop it. Stop now… I beg you please stop please…”

Before I realized it, I had already covered my face with both hands. I bet my face looked pretty pathetic then, so I didn’t want to look at myself in the mirror, nor did I want anyone else to look at me. As my body contracted, I could feel slim fingertips gently scrubbing and rolling my hair and gradually turning it into stripes. Her nose humming changed to another tune before I was aware of it, and became a sweeter, more tender tune.

Sometimes I felt like my hair was being combed; sometimes I felt like my head was being patted; sometimes I felt like my head was being gently bitten by her fingertips - these feelings gradually relieved me and drove the stiffness of my body away. I closed my eyes in silence, as if I had already turned into a Koi-fish waited to be dismembered on a chopping board.

“Alright, done!”

I opened my eyes after hearing her voice. Through the mirror I saw Yuigahama tilting her head, with her eyes asking me ‘how does it look?’. I responded ‘excellent’ to her with three nods. Seriously, it looked so perfectly done that it was such a waste to be done on me. Perhaps noticing me expressing my satisfaction through my facial expression, Yuigahama smiled gently and put her hands on my shoulders.

“Hikki you should also try your best to make yourself look good on the video!”

“Count on me! Recently video processing technologies have advanced drastically. The power of science is omnipotent.”

“Haha, what is that!”

She tapped my shoulders while laughing cheerfully. By then, both of us had finished our preparations. I quickly stood up and started walking toward the venue, followed by Yuigahama’s somewhat hard-sounding footsteps, which no longer had the energetic pattering vibe that they had before. Instead, they were slow and graceful. Thanks to that, it reminded me of something.

“Kawasaki said you should be careful about the long dress and the high heels.”

“Ah, that’s true. Indeed they are quite dangerous. It would be pretty troubling before I get used to them.”

“Yep… Also, it is kind of dark here, so...”

After saying that, I raised my left arm slightly, straightened my spine, drew my shoulders back and retracted my jaw. Also, ‘don’t panic and stress out’, something like that? I felt like that’s what I was told to do.

After seeing my series of actions, Yuigahama looked at me with a wonderstruck face, and gradually, as if she just remembered something, broke into a smile. Without saying anything further, she put her hand softly around my left arm, just like that time before.

After putting up so many excuses, we finally were able to walk together for a short distance, with the same stride.


===BEGIN PART 10===

The movie shooting itself went quite successfully, with the main reason being the most suspected point of failure - the dancing scene of the King and the Queen - actually finished in one shot. Yukinoshita and Isshiki showcased their perfect dancing skills to us.

Yukinoshita, who humbly claimed that she could only dance at amateur level, ended up making an outstanding appearance from the very beginning. Her dance steps were garnished by the loud sound of her leather shoes hitting the ground; her turns brought her tailcoat up waving in the air; her pure white gloves held her dancing partner’s hand gently. Every time any of these movements happened, the girl crowd became enlivened up and screamed loudly.

On the other hand, as expected her dancing partner Isshiki was less skillful and nifty. From the beginning to the end, she seemed to be swung around by Yukinoshita. Sometimes when she made a mistake, she would step on Yukinoshita’s foot, making her own movements a little bit lacking in comparison. However, every time she made a mistake, her reaction of drooping her head was quite foxy and unscrupulous; also when Yukinoshita tried to cover up Isshiki’s mistake and smiled at her, Isshiki would smile back widely at Yukinoshita in return - this was all very pretty of her as well. Seeing Isshiki trying her best to pretend to be a kawaii girl, quite a few guys watching her from aside were also having heartthrobs.

In the end, all the spectators watching gave them a very warm round of applause and cheers, bringing the vibe to reach the climax.

However, Isshiki, who checked the footage during the break, tilted her head in doubt.

“I think it was done quite beautifully. People around us also cheered for us. But still, for some reason I felt like it turned out to be something else rather than a prom, which is pretty bad… Somehow it ended up looking like a dancing competition to me…”

“True. Even I think I looked a little bit different from the impression that I had expected.”

Yukinoshita peeked at the monitor from behind of Isshiki and put her fingers against her temple. She then sighed deeply. I stood next to them and listened to their words, beginning to ponder while reproducing the dancing scenes in my mind.

Hmm, well, they might have a point, though… Rather than everyone having a merry party together, it felt more like watching a performance or something…

As I was thinking that, Isshiki seemed to reach a similar conclusion as well. She nodded her head and turned to Yukinoshita.

“Well, I think it might be good enough for the cheek-time dancing video. In addition, I wanted another video that’s more high-spirited.” (TL: I think cheek-time is Japanglish for slow-dance… It’s the time where the boys and girls pair up and dance to a slow-tempo music in a dancing party.)

“I see, so something that feels shattering and little bit clamorous… Let’s aim at taking a photo in which everyone dances together. Isshiki, could you please pair up with Tobe-kun and have both of you followed by the camera as the main actors that dance together?”

“Well, it can’t be helped… ha…”

Isshiki seemed really unwilling to take the job… Well, Yukinoshita isn’t quite good at this kind of following-the-atmosphere thing so it couldn’t be helped… As I smiled bitterly at someone else’s matter, for some reason Yukinoshita’s eyes quickly turned toward my direction.

“... additionally, we want to take another clip just in case. Yuigahama-san, can I ask you to do the favor? Hikigaya-kun also?”

“Huh?”

Yuigahama looked stupefied, whereas I opened my mouth widely in surprise. What the hell was she talking about…

“Ehh, I have never danced before…”

I said, raising my hand slightly. Yuigahama also nodded her head greatly. Hey, this is not a ballroom, okay? (TL: A reference to Welcome to the Ballroom, a manga and TV anime series by Takeuchi Tomo.) As I thought this, Isshiki began to walk in my direction.

“You could follow this video tutorial and I think you should be fine. Just give an impression of dancing in a nightclub or something you know.”

Isshiki said, putting her one hand on her hip, another hand raising her index finger and waving it in the air. Somehow that did give me a feeling of explaining things but it was by no means an explanation at all.... Seeing me look slightly worn out, Yukinoshita also walked over to me in attempt to help out the situation. With a bitter smile on her face, she opened her mouth.

“It’s okay to just imitate what you see. We only need it just in case. When we compile the videos it doesn’t hurt to have more than the necessary amount of video clips on hand. Or even, it’d be good enough if you two could do it as in just backing Isshiki-san and Tobe-kun up.”

“O..oh.. In that case I think I am very good at it though...”

I wasn’t called a ‘foil’ for nothing. Also what Yukinoshita suggested made sense in a way. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare more than enough material. In addition, the chance to organize a movie shooting event of this scale probably won’t come again. Rather than later having to run into troubling scenarios like ‘We can’t actually use this. We actually don’t have enough of that’, it’s definitely the right decision to take as many video clips as we can this time.

If we think that way, it should all make reasonable sense. However, somehow, there was somewhere that I felt uneasy and strange and it didn’t quite fit into the whole picture. I had the feeling that we were still missing an important piece to make it reasonable.

“Hmmm… Is it really good that the two of us are the ones doing it?”

As Yuigahama asked tentatively, I began to sense that the missing piece just appeared. However, it was immediately brushed away by Yukinoshita’s following words.

“Well, I don’t quite want to ask other people to do it since these are quite prominent roles. If you two could help out, then you are really doing me a great favor. If it’s still troubling or difficult for you, we could seek and discuss other options though...”

“Ah, no, that’s not what I meant… If you think it’s okay if it’s us two, then it’s fine.”

Yuigahama smiled with a troubled face at Yukinoshita, who answered plainly without any hesitation. Yuigahama accepted her words and gently waved her hand by her chest. Well, since Yukinoshita already phrased her words that way, it made it harder to say no to her after all. In fact, other students who were gathered here all came out of their own kindness and willingness to volunteer their time, which of course made it hard for us to force our own will on them again by asking for more.

“So, let’s do a dry run for now!”

Isshiki said to us while clapping her hands. Everyone began moving. Yuigahama and I also moved along with them. After arriving at the designated spot, Yuigahama stood right in front of me.

“...can you dance?”

I asked her quietly. Yuigahama twisted her lips with a troubled face.

“I don’t really know… Ah, well, if it’s just ‘Yay!’ - with that kind of feeling, we could dance to the hype, right!”

“Waay - something that feels like that? I see...”

“Yep, yep! That kind of feeling! Yay!”

Yuigahama forcefully fired up her mood, shaking her body and her hands like an idol to demonstrate her point. Still, I had no idea what to do. As I sighed deeply, Tobe, who stood next to me also wearing a tuxedo, was perhaps triggered by the ‘wayy’ that I said. He put his arms around my shoulder.

“Hey, hey! Come on, Hikitani-kun! Get high! Say wayyy, wayyyyy! See, wayyyy!!”

Although I had no idea what he was trying to say, that meaningless hype of his, looked unexpectedly reliable to me.

“O...okay…. You seemed to be used to it…”

I said to him, almost as if I was talking to myself. Tobe reacted with a laugh, and then began to speak restlessly.

“I know right? Nah, don’t worry, chill man. This is that thing. Just go along the beat! How do you say it? Basically you bath in the sound of music. When the music begins, you dance! Like that?”

“Tobe-senpai, that’s enough of it. You are really noisy there.”

Being scolded blatantly by Isshiki, Tobe said ‘crap!’ and returned dejectedly back to standby mode.

Although his advice was not useful at all, if anything, that kind of attitude was probably what I wanted then. In that case, I had no choice but to somehow imitate that kind of ‘coolness and hype’ mood that Tobe had. When you go to a live house and there’s a song that you have never listened to, you can just wait for that ‘three, two, one!’ and then begin your yells.

After getting my mental preparedness ready, I quietly waited for the music to start playing. Soon, the lights went out.

Shortly after, the music that came out was a classic piece for dance parties. The spotlight jumped around, with scattered lights from the disco ball falling and pouring onto the floor.

Everyone looked kind of awkward and clumsy in the beginning, only shaking their shoulders along to the rhythm. Yet soon after Tobe and some others punched their fists high up in the air, a couple more people followed them. When they clapped loudly, with the clapping sound resonating, the distance among people gradually shrank and became closer. Step forward, twist; step forward again, and then high five, mingled with trolling robot dances. There were even bolder people that joined their shoulders with others.

When everyone was about to get indulged in the music and the atmosphere, the next piece followed. Though not enough to be called a ballad, it was a lot mellower piece than the one before.

I looked around at others while shaking my shoulders like others in the crowd. I couldn’t do much more than just that and snapping my fingers. Beyond that, I didn’t think I could join the crowd and tag along with them without embarrassing myself. The only thing I could do was to shake my feet and my head to the rhythm like a ticking metronome. Suddenly, my empty hand was dragged over.

I looked back, and saw Yuigahama with a shy smile on her face. My heart beat was already raised a lot due to dancing and moving around. Now, because of that, my heart beat even faster, so that I couldn’t help but avert my eyes.

At this point among all the people here, there were those who were waltzing disorderly and half-jokingly; and there were those who had turned their faces away from each other, without standing too close nor distancing themselves too far, and stared at each other’s feet.

Therefore, thankfully, nobody was noticing what was happening here. Yuigahama was the only person looking at me. I quickly put my freed hand on top of her shoulder, and in response, she also wrapped her hand around my shoulder. I didn’t know how to move my feet, so I only shook my body, and when she moved her foot forward I then stepped backward; when she moved aside, I just followed her. Heat began to pile up on the parts of my body that were in contact with her. I grew worried about the sweat on my hands. Since our faces were so close to each others’, I didn’t even dare to breathe.

I was not prepared for the graveness of the situation, mainly not prepared mentally… I opened my mouth involuntarily to put up my excuse.

“Sorry, I’ve sweat a lot.”

“Ah, don’t worry. It’s quite difficult after all.”

“No no, I meant, I was talking about how disgusting I am sweating. I’d better just die, I meant.”

“Ehhh? That’s too much of an exaggeration!? Also, don't have such low self-esteem!”

While Yuigahama was laughing, the piece changed again. I think I knew this one. It was the last piece in the ending of that TV drama. Yuigahama moved her eyes to the side.

Following her eyes, I saw Tobe and Isshiki dancing as they pleased. No matter if it’s the rhythm or the movement, it all looked random and nonsensical to me. Even so, they did look like they were enjoying themselves. Tobe attempted to wrap his hand around Isshiki’s waist. But before he could do it, Isshiki quickly thrashed his hand away, making a round turn as if she was going to do a roundhouse kick… Isshiki is worthy of her Dance Queen title.

When the music ended, a round of applause and cheering took place. Soon, everyone began chatting freely and cheerfully taking photos with their friends and dancing partners.

In any case, the thing that I was most worried about - shooting the dancing clip, I suppose can be called completed.

The moment I came to think of it was the moment I suddenly began to feel exhausted and tired. I staggered out of the venue center and headed toward the tables in the food catering area.

After taking a couple sips of my beverage, I looked around again, at the dance floor, the stage and the decorations.

I see. This is the so-called prom thing… Well, in term of the ambience, I think I somehow got it. Just as I expected, I don’t fit in *at all*.

===END CHAPTER 5===