Chapter 2: Signs of an Approaching Storm

Chapter 2: Signs of an Approaching Storm

Chapter 2:

Signs of an Approaching Storm

N OW THAT OUR SUMMER BREAK had passed, the second semester of our second year was beginning today. Looking at it more broadly, this meant that our three years spent at this school would soon be over. I fastened my tie and slipped my arms through the sleeves of my shirt. While checking myself out in the mirror, I made sure that my hair was all right and that there weren’t any issues with my appearance. After confirming everything was fine, I headed toward the front entrance of the dormitory. On the way, I was joined by Sudou. He let out a loud yawn, and then we exchanged pleasantries as we walked along side by side, heading outdoors.

“Suzune threatened me with the chance that they might hit us with a written exam early in the second semester, so I pulled an all-nighter,” he groaned. “An all-nighter, man.”

“So you were studying even on the final day of summer vacation, huh?”

“Thankfully, she came up with a curriculum for me that’ll keep me pretty busy for a while yet. But man, I’d like to get my Academic Ability rating in OAA up to at least a B though.”

Getting to a B or better in Academic Ability would be a big jump, but I didn’t think Sudou was just talking big. After all, if he studied hard over the summer vacation, it wouldn’t be surprising if he managed to improve his Academic Ability even further than he already had. Sudou had become a genuinely well-rounded man, being an athlete and a scholar. He also had a dramatic decrease in things like tardiness, absences, and other such minor behavioral issues. He still had a bit of a temper that could flare up if the situation called for it, but I supposed that was one of Sudou’s defining characteristics.

“Hey, I got a kinda weird question to ask you,” he said. “You think that, like, Kanji’s kissed Shinohara and stuff yet?”

“Huh?” I blinked.

“I mean, I’m happy for ’im, that he’s got himself a girlfriend. But the fact he’s ahead of me is pretty frustratin’. I dunno, it’s just been botherin’ me a bunch lately.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just ask him that directly?” I said. “Knowing Ike, I have a feeling he’d tell you if you did.”

“Like hell I can ask him that… If he says somethin’ like they ain’t even held hands yet, or I hear that he’s actually gone further than that, like, you-know-what, then… Well, my fists might start doin’ the talkin’ for the first time in a long time,” explained Sudou.

I see. That would be a slight problem. It definitely would be troubling if he started communicating with his fists.

“Considering Ike’s personality, I get the feeling that he’d probably go around telling everyone indiscriminately if he was happy about something. So, if we’re not hearing anything from him, that likely means things haven’t developed too far, right?” I reasoned.

“That’s true, you got a point there. But maybe it’s different when it comes to love. I haven’t experienced it, so I dunno,” he sighed. “Hey, Ayanokouji, have you ever had a girlfriend…? What’s it like?”

The conversation’s topic unexpectedly shifted from Ike to me. I couldn’t help but feel Sudou’s passionate (I certainly believed it) gaze fixated on me, as if he were asking me, “ Come on, what’s it like?”

“There’s no use lying to you, so I’ll tell you. I got together with my first girlfriend a little while ago,” I told him.

“…Seriously? Like, seriously, for real?”

I could have misled him into thinking otherwise, but since Kei was going to start telling people before long anyway, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to even try. After I gave him an honest answer though, Sudou held his head in his hands and let out a sigh. Immediately afterward, he reached over and hurriedly clasped onto both of my shoulders.

“W-w-w-w-w-w-wait a sec, don’t tell me it’s…?!” he wailed.

“Relax. It’s not who you’re thinking.”

“Seriously?! You mean it really ain’t Suzune?”

“Right. It’s not her,” I replied.

“O-oh, okay. Well, that’s good…” Sudou let out a sigh. “Heh, for a minute there, I thought my heart was gonna stop or somethin’…”

He must have broken out in a sweat because he brought his left hand up to his forehead and clumsily wiped it away with his palm. Then, he showed me his damp palm, as if to illustrate just how flustered he was.

“Well, who is it then?” he asked.

“That’s—” I began, but I was interrupted.

“Ah! Found you!”

Just as Sudou regained his composure, the sound of running footsteps came from behind us. And when the hurried person caught up with us and matched pace, she looked up at me with a slightly angry expression on her face.

“I was thinking we should go to school together, but you didn’t tell me that you weren’t in your room!” grumbled Kei. She puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.

“You never told me anything about us going together though,” I replied.

“That’s… Well, I was feeling nervous about it until the very last minute, so I hesitated, and…” Kei trailed off.

Sudou eyed us suspiciously as Kei and I had this odd back-and-forth conversation out of nowhere.

“Hey, what the heck didja just come and interrupt us for, Karuizawa?” complained Sudou. “We were having an important bro conversation, don’t butt in.”

Apparently, Sudou hadn’t noticed anything strange about the conversation I was having with Kei. He didn’t seem to have put two and two together just from her showing up here. Come to think of it, Kei and Sudou had barely ever interacted with one another before at all. As for the question of whether they got along or didn’t… Well, all I could say was that they didn’t have a particularly good relationship.

“Are you planning on telling people about us today, Kei?” I asked.

“Huh? Y-yeah, I am,” she said. “But picking the right time’s a little tough… I mean, making an announcement as soon as we get to school in the morning kind of feels wrong, you know…? It’s difficult to just announce it. I mean, it’s not the same as just going up to someone and being like, ‘Hey, listen to this!’ or something.”

“It seemed like you were pretty quick to make an announcement back with Yousuke, though,” I pointed out.

“W-well, yeah, I suppose. But the circumstances now are completely different.”

“Hey, hey, what’s…this…” Sudou stammered. “Are you… Huh?”

This had been a great demonstration of just how thickheaded Sudou could be. But now, after hearing me address Kei by her given name and listening to what we were talking about, he stopped moving. He stood there with a completely dumbstruck look on his face, as if he had finally started to realize something was going on.

“Wait a minute… What? H-hey, what’s goin’ on, Ayanokouji?”

It seemed like he was unable to connect the dots and see what we were together, though…or maybe he just didn’t feel like he could be totally certain from what he was seeing.

I supposed that he might be a good pick to be the first classmate to tell. “We’re dating,” I replied. “Me and her.”

Grinning, Kei jabbed me in the arm with her elbow three times. She might have simply been happy that I had been the one to say it.

“H… Huh-whaaaaaaat?! F-for real?!”

Sudou must have been totally flabbergasted by what he heard, because he shouted in an exaggeratedly loud voice, far louder than I expected. Coincidentally, none of our other classmates were around, but other students still turned their heads toward us, wondering what was going on.

“That was WAY too loud,” huffed Kei.

“S-sorry. But wait, hold on, WHAT?! W-why are you datin’ Karuizawa?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she retorted. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No, that’s what I mean, it’s just… Well, actually, I guess I can’t say it’s like there’s nothin’ wrong with it, I guess, but… Umm…?”

Sudou stammered and seemed like he was somewhat taken aback. He was perplexed by the whole thing. He arched his neck a bit, showing that he couldn’t quite grasp what he heard.

“What, you wanted me to go out with Horikita?” I teased.

“No way in hell, man! …Wait, that’s not what I meant… It’s just…hold up,” said Sudou.

He grabbed me tightly by the shoulders, brought his lips close to my ear, and then whispered to me in a low voice.

“’Scuse me for sayin’ this, but, uh… You know Karuizawa was, well, datin’ Hirata before, and who knows what kinda crazy relationships she had in junior high, yeah? That seriously doesn’t, like, gross you out or nothin’? Don’t you think she’s kinda too much for you as your first girlfriend?”

Well, I supposed that was just the image that our classmates had of Karuizawa Kei. In fact, until I had learned about her past myself, I had thought of her as that kind of girl too.

“What’re you whispering about all sneakily?” asked Kei.

“N-nothin’,” mumbled Sudou.

After Kei shot him a glare, dejectedly Sudou moved away. I supposed he must have felt sorry for saying something that was so close to bad-mouthing her.

“Ayanokouji and Karuizawa, goin’ out… It’s no use, no matter how many times I say it in my head, I just can’t wrap my mind around it. What a shock. Feels like crazy stuff is happenin’ right away at the start of our second semester…”

Though Sudou was quietly muttering to himself, I most definitely heard everything he said.

2.1

W E ARRIVED at school at last. While we were walking over there from the dorms, we occasionally passed by third-year students going in our same direction. They kept shooting me glances just like they did on the boat, but there was no indication that Sudou noticed at all. This was the same odd situation that had unfolded every time I went out during our summer vacation. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it, in the truest sense of the words. Being watched gave one an intense feeling of oppression and entrapment. It was simply going to continue until those gazes stopped.

Kei quickly gathered up a group of girls to talk about things that had happened over the summer vacation, and Sudou started chatting with his good friends Ike and Hondou. I was also casually talking to my own friends in the Ayanokouji Group as I waited for the bell.

Eventually, Chabashira came into the room and opened her mouth to speak, the very same way she did in our first semester.

“There are several major events awaiting you all in the second semester this year,” she announced. “First will be the sports festival, which was held last year as well. This event will be held in October. It’s meant to evaluate students’ physical abilities. Though some of the rules differ from the way things worked last year, there aren’t any major differences in the abilities required.”

Physical ability was very necessary in this battle that was shortly to come, just as Chabashira herself said moments ago. That might worry students who were only good at their studies. As expected, my close friends Keisei and Airi, who weren’t good at athletics, were listening to Chabashira with grim expressions on their faces. The fact that the rules were different this year was also a point of concern.

“Following that, the Advanced Nurturing High School will hold its first-ever cultural festival in November,” Chabashira went on. “As with the sports festival, we will provide you with detailed information about the event shortly. But know that we are going to be taking time starting in September to prepare for both of these events, in parallel.”

That meant, most likely, that September would mostly be spent preparing for the sports festival, probably in the form of a few more hours spent in physical education classes each week. There would also be about an hour or so per week spent on discussions for the cultural festival. After the sports festival was over in October, the students could begin preparations for November’s scheduled cultural festival in earnest. Aside from that, we knew there was also a school trip coming up, but it was unclear whether it would be related to a special exam or not.

“In addition, of course, you will have a mid-term test and a final test in between these events,” added Chabashira.

At any rate, there didn’t seem to be any doubt that the second semester was going to be a busy one.

“I will provide a more detailed explanation about the sports festival at a later date, but first, I’ll talk a bit about the cultural festival today.”

Though the sports festival was scheduled to happen first, Chabashira provided us with details about the cultural festival now.

“The cultural festival is going to be a big affair; you’ll be seeing a lot of visitors on campus. You will be competing with all of the other classes and grade levels at this school in terms of total sales. You may apply for as many activities and programs as you wish, but your budget is limited. For further details, please look at your tablets.”

Cultural Festival Overview

Each second-year class will be given 5,000 Private Points per student to be used solely for festival preparations. Students will be allowed to spend those available points freely. First-year students will be provided with 5,500 points each for start-up costs, and third-year students will be provided 4,500 points.

Additional funding may be provided for community service activities such as student council activities, contributions via club activities, and so on. Further details will be announced to each class after rules have been finalized.

Start-up funds and additional funds will not be reflected in final sales totals. Any funds that are not used must be returned in the end.

100 Class Points will be awarded to classes in first through fourth place. 50 Class Points will be awarded to classes in fifth through eighth place. No Class Points will be awarded to classes placing in ninth through twelfth place.

Looking at the rewards, we had a chance to get a decent number of Class Points for placing high, and there weren’t any penalties for ranking low. As long as we were somewhere in the top eight, we’d get something. As for the rules, they were easy to understand, and it didn’t seem like there’d be any confusion. The fact that this was shared with us before we received any details on the sports festival also made sense just by listening to what was said. After all, we couldn’t start making preparations for the cultural festival until we had been provided with the rules. By contrast, we could already start getting ready for the sports festival to some extent just by improving our physical abilities in preparation.

“H-huh, it kind of sounds like a typical school cultural festival,” commented Shinohara.

It wasn’t like she felt like this was a disappointment, of course, but I could understand why Shinohara couldn’t help saying that. I couldn’t see that there was a risk of losing Class Points, or of anyone getting expelled. However, I supposed the fact that I was starting to suspect there was something more to this event was proof that the inner workings of this school had deeply influenced me.

“It will also be important for you to determine which location you would like and secure a spot on the campus,” Chabashira continued. “For example, if you wish to set up a stall in a place where visitors are sure to pass through, like near the main gate, you’ll have to pay the school to use that location.”

The students, myelf included, looked down at our tablets to see additional information that had just been sent to us. The title of the file was “List of Possible Stall Locations on Campus” and included a campus map. It listed all of the locations that stalls would be available on campus, each with a location name and number. For example, the location closest to the main gate that Chabashira just mentioned was listed as “Main Gate 1,” and the cost to reserve that location was 10,000 points.

There seemed to be places that were free as well, but these were located far from the main gate. That would make them difficult for visitors to reach.

Not counting any additional funds, we would have a budget of about 200,000 points. With that in mind, a cost of 10,000 points was by no means cheap. However, there was no doubt that it was a prime location and likely to attract a large number of visitors.

“It is entirely possible that there could be conflicts with other classes and grade levels over stall locations, but only one class is allowed to use a space in each location,” Chabashira explained. “In that case, there will be a bidding process, and the class with the higher bid will earn the right to use that stall space.”

Meaning that if we were forced to use more of our points thanks to a bidding war over securing the rights to a prime location, the budget we could allocate toward the actual program or goods for our stall would be greatly reduced. We had approximately the next two months to spend coming up with ways to compete with the other classes and grades efficiently, and within a limited budget.

“The school will neither publicly disclose what each class will be doing nor where their stalls will be located. School officials will not leak information, but do be aware that you can’t stop other students from overhearing you. If word about what your class is doing gets out, it would be best to assume that other students will come up with merciless countermeasures against you,” our teacher said.

So even if we came up with the perfect plan for our class’s stall, there was a risk that other classes would copy it or devise ways to undermine our efforts.

“You may also find that there are additional things you’ll need, from time to time. If something is not available here on campus, it can be brought from outside as long as you apply for and are granted permission. You are free to use your budget however you wish, as long as it’s within the scope of the rules.”

It seemed like I was going to need to look into that matter more closely, as well as into other aspects.

“That’s all for the cultural festival and its rules,” Chabashira said. “Major preparations and the set-up period will come after the sports festival concludes, but starting today, please begin to discuss what you’ll be doing and how you’ll allocate your budget on your own time.”

The more time that we devoted to the cultural festival, the more prepared we’d be.

2.2

A FTER CLASSES ENDED for the day, many of my classmates remained in the classroom, except for those who left for their club activities. Why? It was because we were having our first discussion for the cultural festival which was going to be held in November, of course. I found it likely that a number of students here had experienced a cultural festival before in their junior high days. Since I didn’t have any information in particular about it, I decided to just be a listener, as usual.

Yousuke had gotten permission to use the monitor in the classroom. “First, let’s start by making a brief list of options that come to mind easily,” he said, typing on his tablet.

“When people think of cultural festivals, the things they typically expect to see are food stalls and haunted houses, that sort of thing,” said Horikita.

Yousuke started adding these most obvious examples to a list, one by one: food-related options, a haunted house, a maze, a café, live music, a play, and so on.

“The event will be held from ten o’clock in the morning to three o’clock in the afternoon,” he said. “As for food and beverages, adults will be coming as well, so we’re anticipating that we’ll have to be prepared for that. However, if we do so, we might see more competition in that regard…”

“The rest is just a matter of budgeting things well,” said Horikita. “Compared to a haunted house or a maze where we can keep costs down after we’ve simply constructed what we need, the cost of offering food will inevitably be higher.”

Some items, such as music equipment, could be rented for a fee. We could use those for whatever we decided to do, like if we did a live musical performance. However, they were limited in number, so they were first come, first served. There was also the question of how many students were even skilled enough to actually turn a profit.

“We have thirty-nine people in our class,” Yousuke continued. “Meaning, our budget as it stands now would be 195,000 points. To be perfectly honest, that’s not enough. With that kind of money, even if we said we were going to make food, I don’t feel we can simply snap our fingers and decide that.”

“I have a suggestion. May I?” said Horikita.

“Of course. Your opinion is welcome, Horikita-san,” replied Yousuke.

“As you’ve said, Hirata-kun, our budget for the cultural festival is limited. However, no matter how much we argue about the options listed, there are many things that we still don’t know. If we decided to cook takoyaki at a food stall, we would need answers to a lot of questions, like what ingredients to use, how good our classmates are at cooking, and so on. In that case, I think that the first thing we should do is repeatedly present our ideas to the class and test them, even if we have to use our own Private Points to do so.”

Many students nodded in agreement with Horikita’s suggestion. It was honestly important that we tested things out no matter what we decided to do, whether it was a food stall or something else. That was certainly true. Of course, there was a risk that we’d end up having to pay out of our own pockets to do that, but it was simple to just dismiss that as a necessary upfront investment.

“But… Well, I’m not trying to say that I think it’s a bad proposal,” Matsushita started, “but don’t you think some people might be reluctant to try anything if they’re going to have to pay themselves?”

Matsushita feared that in that case, some students might just decide to leave the planning to the rest of the class and not help with the cultural festival.

“That’s fine,” said Horikita. “I don’t want to waste my time with just any random idea. But that being said, we mustn’t disregard anyone trying their best to contribute. If anyone thinks of an idea that sounds like it could be the right one, they should actively try and present it. What if we pay out a reward to whoever proposes an idea that we end up using?”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” agreed Matsushita. “There’s nothing wrong with rewarding people for their hard work and giving something back.”

“We can work out the specifics of the rewards later, but to give an example, if we’re awarded 100 Class Points via the cultural festival, that would mean our entire class will get 390,000 Private Points per month. We can divide that by the number of people who proposed an idea and give it out later. That way, there shouldn’t be any complaints.”

Hypothetically, if we had five activities or events, that would mean 78,000 points per person. If the number of people who proposed ideas and the number of collaborators was too large for it to be profitable for us to divide the total amount between them, I figured it would still be acceptable even if the total amount was spread out over two or three months. That way, students who had actively contributed to the cultural festival would gain something, and those who cut corners would get some benefit later on too. Ultimately, if our Class Points were going to be increased, there was no reason to object.

“Also, we need to be very thorough in withholding information so that no one steals our ideas,” added Horikita. “Be very careful about what you say, wherever you say it, whether you’re in school, in the dorms, or at Keyaki Mall.”

Strict confidentiality. Over these next two months of preparations, that would be of the utmost importance. From here onward, these discussions would continue, and the class’s first step would be for people to present their ideas to either Horikita or Yousuke. If there was a possibility that the ideas presented could be adopted, we could proceed to the next steps.

2.3

F OR THE FOLLOWING two weeks or so, our lives at school carried on as usual. We spent every day working hard in class while preparing for both the cultural festival and sports festival in parallel. It was a precious time when we could say that we were just going through normal, routine, everyday lives at an ordinary high school. Surprisingly enough, news about my relationship with Kei didn’t spread past Sudou, and there weren’t any signs that anyone else had found out about us.

Then, in mid-September, on the Wednesday of the third week of the month, something happened after class. As I was sitting in the back of the room, someone came into view. It was unusual for this certain someone to reach out to Horikita, but that’s exactly what was happening. She came up to her as she sat in the middle of the front row.

“Um, excuse me, Horikita-san?” Satou called to her, sounding a little shy and reserved. “If you don’t mind, could I have a minute of your time after class?”

Satou was one of the girls who had never interacted with Horikita.

“I need to go to the student council in about an hour to take care of some business,” Horikita replied, “but as long it doesn’t conflict with that, I don’t mind. What is it?”

She seemed puzzled, but she also had never been approached by Satou before. After Horikita’s slightly perplexed response, Satou spoke up once more, somewhat meekly.

“Well, about ideas for the cultural festival, we’ve been thinking a lot about it, and um… Well, you said before, um, that you wanted us to come talk to you if we came up with anything, right?”

“Yes. I did say that we’re open to presentations…”

“Yes, that, exactly, let me make a presentation,” said Satou. “I’ve come up with an idea that can seriously win us this cultural festival.”

Satou’s confidence was showing, but Horikita wasn’t going to be so easily impressed. It was little wonder why, though; over the past ten days or so, more than a few students had brought their ideas to Horikita. Both guys and girls had made proposals to her because of the rewards they would receive if their ideas were adopted. The ideas presented were varied and ran the gamut from the mundane to the bizarre, but what they all shared in common was one thing: Horikita wasn’t going to take anything you said seriously if you just randomly threw out the name of an idea and nothing more.

On the day that Horikita made a statement about offering rewards to anyone whose idea was accepted, Hondou immediately proposed that we sell karaage fried chicken because it was delicious. However, Horikita turned him away, telling him to go write up a detailed proposal first. She was unwilling to accept a vague idea thrown at her with no additional information. Though Hondou was discouraged after being told off, he submitted a detailed proposal document the next day. Unfortunately, all it contained was a recipe he probably just pulled from the internet and an impassioned statement about how much it would sell and how delicious it would be.

Upon seeing Hondou’s low-level proposal, Horikita reiterated the importance of the documentation. For example, if we were going to operate a karaage fried chicken stand, how much would it cost? What location should we use? How many people would be needed to run it? How much would we sell the chicken for, how many customers could we expect, and what was the basis for those estimations? Horikita also rather bluntly declared that she would only listen to those who had gotten their ideas in proper order.

After that, it felt like the number of people who approached Horikita casually with hasty proposals ought to have decreased dramatically, but surprisingly enough, the number of students who came to her with proposal documents actually increased day by day. Several ideas had actually made their way onto Horikita’s list of things to consider for the festival. However, none of the proposals thus far had been particularly decisive, so nothing had been officially adopted yet.

“Well then, let’s see your proposal,” said Horikita.

“Oh, um, yes. I do have a presentation prepared, but… I can’t quite show you here,” Satou said. “If possible, could I have a bit of your time, just a little while from now?”

“Is that so? Well, all right. Where do you want me to go?”

“Oh, um, right… There’s an empty classroom in the special building, please be there in thirty minutes. I got permission from the teacher in advance,” said Satou.

“An empty classroom?”

Though Horikita sounded perplexed, Satou simply said, “That’s right, see you there!” before she turned and walked away. Then, Satou met my gaze as I was watching this happen, and she walked over to approach me as well.

“Hey, um, Ayanokouji-kun, do you have some free time today?” she asked.

“Me? I don’t have any plans in particular, no,” I replied.

“You heard what I was talking about with Horikita-san earlier, right? I was wondering if you could come with her. Thirty minutes from now.”

“Why me, though?”

“That’s a secret for now. If you come, you’ll understand.”

Just like when she was speaking to Horikita earlier, Satou’s confidence was visible on her face.

“Okay, I’ll be waiting!” she said to me. Then, after checking the time on her phone, Satou hurried out of the classroom.

“What is up with her, I wonder? She certainly seemed pretty confident,” said Horikita.

“Maybe that just means she’s come up with something special?” I mused.

“Even so, I’m not sure why we’re going through all this hassle.”

I wasn’t sure what it was all supposed to mean either, but we would find out in another thirty minutes. Horikita and I decided to kill some time in the classroom before heading over to the special building.

2.4

S INCE HORIKITA AND I were heading to the same place, we walked over to the special building together. When we arrived outside the classroom that Satou had told us to go to, Maezono was there for some reason.

“Ah, I’m standing watch,” she said. “We didn’t think that anyone would come here after class, but still, figured we’d do this just in case…you know.”

“Standing watch…?” Horikita repeated. “This is far more elaborate than I thought.”

Horikita seemed surprised that they had gone so far as adopting security measures, even though that was something of a prerequisite if we wanted to keep our ideas hidden until the day of the festival. People wanted to keep others from finding out what classes from which grades were doing what. I was surprised too, though. Not only had they asked the teacher to borrow a room in the special building, but they even assigned someone to stand watch to prevent interference from third parties. Moreover, they had even gone as far as sealing up the windows, albeit somewhat simply. You could not see into the room from outside.

“Well then, let’s hurry on inside and have a look,” said Horikita.

“Oh, please wait a minute,” said Maezono. “From here onward, it’s going to be a trial run, as if it were really operating. That way, you can experience it for yourselves as if you were customers, Horikita-san, Ayanokouji-kun.”

“So that’s what’s going on,” said Horikita. “All right. I suppose this is much easier to understand than reading through some hastily-thrown-together proposals.”

After seeing how elaborate this whole production was so far, Horikita’s expectations had undeniably been raised, whether she liked it or not. Whether she would end up adopting this idea for the cultural festival was another matter, but at this point, it was clear that they were putting in a serious effort to win this. I was sure that must have made Horikita happy.

After the two of us once again made sure that there wasn’t anyone else in the vicinity, we slowly opened the door.

The first things that caught my eye were the unexpectedly vibrant colors inside. The decorations that they had put up were so bright and colorful that it made it hard to believe this was just another sterile, nondescript classroom.

“Th-this is…” stammered Horikita.

“Welcome to Maid Café Maimai!”

Three girls greeted us in unison, each of them in a unique costume. Satou, the one who had called us here, and Matsushita, standing next to her, were both dressed in maid costumes. Mii-chan, though, averted her eyes from us shyly and was dressed in a cheongsam.

Although monitors were typically installed in the classrooms, it seemed like the classrooms in the rarely used special building still came equipped with whiteboards. It seemed like they had put it to good use and the name of their café was written out adorably in marker. We were shown to our seats and handed a menu of homemade items.

“What would you care to order, Master? Mistress?” asked Satou.

“Please hold on a minute. May I ask you something before we order?” asked Horikita.

“Huh? What is it?”

“Surely it must have taken quite a bit of time and money for you to put this all together?”

It certainly looked like it would’ve been difficult to arrange all this in just a day if you had to, that was for sure. Even if they worked hard to get all the decorations up, what about their costumes?

Satou turned to Matsushita. “How long did it take us again, Matsushita-san?”

“About four days of preparation time,” Matsushita replied. “I think the costs were surprisingly reasonable, actually. All in all, we spent about 13,200 Private Points. The four of us planned it together—us three here and Maezono-san outside. We divided the costs amongst the four of us, so it was roughly 3,300 points per person. As for what specifically we spent those points on, it was our three rental outfits, and then the items we used to put together the decorations, like origami paper and markers. We picked those up from the general store. All of the tableware here actually comes from our own personal belongings, so there was no cost for that.”

Interesting. I supposed that was the reason why there was a lack of unifying cohesiveness to the tableware. Of course, since we were only in the planning stages now, that wasn’t a negative factor. In fact, I was genuinely impressed by how well they had prepared for the event while keeping their costs to a minimum.

“The impact was perfect. Better than any other proposal I’ve seen thus far. But…” Horikita trailed off.

She offered high praise for how thoroughly they had prepared for this, seeing as they had generally prepared everything. However, Horikita wasn’t so simple as to decide just from that.

“The main question I have is, have you prepared an overall budget for this? I’d like to see what specific processes you have in mind,” said Horikita sharply.

Satou didn’t panic in the slightest, however, and turned to look at Mii-chan.

“Um, well, we’ve tried to put as much as we possibly could into our proposal documentation,” Mii-chan said, taking a clear file folder from her bag and handing it over to Horikita.

I wondered if Mii-chan had been the one to write it out. There were three pages in the folder, packed with details written in beautiful handwriting. Matsushita had mentioned that the costumes they had were rented, but it looked like they received quotes from three different companies and rented one outfit from each. There were comparisons in price, quality, and selection. The proposal also contained the costs for tableware that they would use during the cultural festival, including lower and higher cost options. There were also details on the approximate number of guests expected as a criterion, differences between that number and maximum guest capacity, and so on.

“This is far and away more complete than any other proposal I’ve seen so far,” said Horikita. “Well done.”

Hearing Horikita’s genuine compliments, Satou and Matsushita turned to Mii-chan, poking her in the side and telling her that she was being praised. Mii-chan, though looking as embarrassed as she’d likely be on the day of the festival, gently made a grateful bow to Horikita. You could say that this proposal from Satou and the other girls had earned a perfect score. However…

“It certainly is an interesting idea,” Horikita said. “Though you could hardly say such things are uncommon, I feel that it has potential, especially if the experience is well put together. However, there are some downsides. The costume rental fee is 4,000 points per outfit. If we follow your proposal, it will cost 40,000 points for ten outfits. Aside from that, the estimated cost of preparing beverages and snacks comes to 50,000 points. That’s a total of 90,000… And then there’s the decorations put up in the room, which come to 5,000 points, and then there’s the location cost on top of that, which means… This is by no means an inexpensive plan.”

Even if we could afford to implement everything without difficulty, especially since we wouldn’t need to pay wages to the people working the café, we’d still be spending half of our current budget on one single idea.

“Y-yes, that’s true…b-but I think that we could raise the costs of the items we offer. To compensate!” said Satou.

As an example, I saw that on the menu that Satou and the other girls put together, one cup of tea cost 800 points. That was more expensive than getting a drink at the café in Keyaki Mall. Of course, it was conceivable that they could reduce their prices significantly depending on adjustments they made in the future, but it still seemed fair to judge that what they offered had a good chance of selling. Horikita looked quite serious as she reread the three-page proposal documentation. With Satou and the other girls standing around her dressed like something out of a fairy tale, something struck me as strangely out of place or unrealistic about the whole situation.

Horikita finally looked up, having perhaps reached a conclusion.

“Just double-checking, but…no one else has seen this presentation yet, have they?” she asked.

“Of course,” replied Matsushita with a nod, her confidence showing. “We haven’t let anything slip.”

Satou and Mii-chan followed suit, nodding as well.

“…Very well. I will be taking serious steps to help ensure that this maid café proposal passes then. Would you be willing to further scrutinize your proposal, including a thorough cost-reduction?”

“Really?! Yay!” shouted Satou.

The three girls gleefully exchanged high fives, each of them overjoyed.

“It’s too early to celebrate. Don’t forget that we’re only taking it under positive consideration for now,” warned Horikita.

Though that’s what Horikita said, the fact the girls had gotten Horikita to pledge that she’d take care of things to help get the idea approved was a huge gain for them. Once Horikita and I stepped back out into the hallway, Maezono was still there standing watch and waved to us happily. I was sure she was looking so pleased because she had heard the commotion from inside the room.

“You sure seem to have a high opinion of what you just saw,” I said to Horikita. “I never expected you to come out and say that you’d take care of things for them.”

“I wouldn’t just casually accept something if I thought we had no chance of winning with it,” she replied. “To tell you the truth, the majority of proposals that had been brought to me were rejected right on the spot, or simply put on hold at best. The fact I said what I did is just a reflection of how strong their idea is.”

I figured that the idea of a maid café in itself was likely not that unusual. However, it seemed that Horikita was willing to cooperate with them because she saw the potential to fully demonstrate the strengths of our class and to do something that would impress visitors.

“Supposing for the sake of argument that another class were to run a maid café,” I began, “do you think we’d still be able to win?”

“Yes, I do. You don’t think so?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

If we just thoughtlessly opened up a food stand, we’d likely have several rivals. On the other hand, if we ran a maid café, even if we had one or two competitors, it was possible we could outdo them by using the assets we had at our disposal. Aside from those three girls back there wearing sample outfits, there might very well be some other hidden talents lying dormant in our class.

“What are you talking about? I’m going to need your help too in order to make sure their idea becomes a solid success,” said Horikita.

“My help?” I blinked. “Wait, you’re not asking me to dress up too, are you?”

“What kind of stupid nonsense is that? If I’m doing this, then I’m going to make sure we give it our all. So, in that case, we need to have the best people for the job, right? So, with that in mind, I think that you, a guy, should be the one to help in that regard.”

“Wait, that’s… Well, I don’t really understand what that’s supposed to mean exactly, but…I would think there are others who are better qualified for this.”

“I suppose you have a point. People like Ike-kun and Hondou-kun might be connoisseurs, of a sort, when it comes to this sort of thing. But I fear that if we told them about this idea, that could lead to information getting leaked. They seem to have loose lips.”

“I…can’t deny that,” I admitted.

They were the kind of people who might very well end up carelessly revealing information by mistake.

“I don’t want to recklessly increase the number of students in the know here,” Horikita said. “Understand?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Maybe it was just sheer bad luck that Satou had asked me to come along. Or maybe things were just destined to turn out this way.

“That being said, I’ll be leaving the matter of choosing people to you first,” she went on. “You can tell anyone that you want to bring about this project, of course, but please remember to keep this strictly confidential. If things go wrong, this proposal will be off the table.”

That was just how important it was that we kept this a secret.

“Actually, come to think of it… Yes. With that in mind, I’d like to keep information sharing to the absolute minimum. Can I leave this matter entirely to you? We’ll settle on a formal budget at a later date, but I’ll need you to scout for people, handle all preparations, and manage things.”

“Wait, wait, hold on,” I protested. “This is a huge jump all of a sudden. You’re really planning on having me handle all of this, alone?”

“No one is saying that we’re just going to have just one thing for this cultural festival,” she pointed out. “We will definitely have more than one offering, considering our balance of human resources, both men and women. Figuring out a way to increase our profits on a low budget is going to take a lot of work, so I’d like to focus on that aspect.”

Sure, I wanted to let her concentrate on doing that part of the job, I understood that. But I also had to wonder, why me ?

“I trust this means you’re accepting my formal offer?” said Horikita.

I didn’t remember showing any suggestion at all of having accepted any offer, but the decision had apparently been made for me.

“Fine, I’ll do it…” I huffed.

I wondered if it was even possible for me to operate the ideal maid café. I wasn’t very confident. Considering Satou, Matsushita, and Mii-chan were already confirmed to be involved… How many more waitresses did we need? Though the cultural festival was still a way off, it was looking likely that I was going to need to get people together soon.

“I’m going to head over to the student council office,” Horikita announced. “See you later.”

“Y-yeah…”

Having been made to accept a job that made me want to hold my head in my hands in defeat. As I went to leave the building, I happened to cross paths with Chabashira. Considering the location, it seemed unlikely that she was there through sheer coincidence.

“You went to see Satou and the others?” she asked. “I heard about their proposal and what they’re thinking of doing. Not a bad idea.”

“Yes, I did, and I agree. I figured they needed to make sure their application to be here was approved before they could have even started preparing for a showcase for us, after all.”

It wouldn’t have been a laughing matter if they had gone through such thorough preparations without knowing whether they had permission to use the building.

“I was curious about how it was shaping up myself so I thought I’d come over personally to take a look,” said Chabashira. “How was it?”

“Good,” I replied. “Horikita is positive about it too. She must have thought we have a chance of winning with it. She’s working out the details now.”

“I see. Well then, I suppose that means I don’t need to go out of my way to go see it,” said Chabashira.

“I kind of got dragged into this whole thing myself.” I sighed. “It’s turned into a bit of a bother.”

“Meaning?”

“Horikita’s instructions were that I was to supervise this project.”

“You, Ayanokouji? Wow, that’s…” Chabashira trailed off. Then, she smirked at me like she found this whole thing comical. But at the same time, she was giving me a look that seemed to both sympathetic and pitying. “That’s great,” she finished her thought. “Horikita has some rather interesting ideas herself.”

“I think that people like Ike and the Professor would be far, far better suited for this kind of work though,” I said.

Even though I had heard of maid cafés, I didn’t know a single thing about what they were supposed to be like.

“When it comes to understanding otaku culture, then sure, you might be right about that,” Chabashira said. “However, what’s important at the cultural festival is sales. Those two might be capable of improving the quality of the attraction, but they likely wouldn’t be good at finer calculations and turning a profit. That is exactly why it makes sense for you to supervise it instead. It’s a problem that can be solved by asking them for their opinions, if necessary.”

That was easy for her to say. For your opinions to have meaning, you needed to have at least a bare minimum amount of knowledge about the topic at hand. If you just listened to people’s advice while you were in total ignorance on a subject, there was no guarantee that you’d arrive at the correct answer. At the same time, it would be difficult for you to point out anything that might be wrong.

“Just brace yourself and think of it as an opportunity to learn about something outside of typical academic fields, Mr. Maid Café Manager,” Chabashira teased.

“I suppose…”

Just as I was leaving, Chabashira called out to me once more from behind.

“Ayanokouji, could I…ask for a moment of your time again soon?”

“Soon? When?” I asked.

“I’ll send you a message before long. Would that be all right?”

“I guess, sure. I don’t mind. If I’m busy then, I’ll try to make some time.”

I could have refused, but I decided to accept. The woman had a serious look on her face.