CH 189

It’s Tuesday morning, a day after the student body president election.

The names of the candidates for the members for the council would be officially posted on the bulletin board during the lunch break today.

It’s best to do what I can as soon as possible.

The campaign will be after the announcement, but the preparations in advance are possible.

I left home an hour earlier than usual and stopped by the student council office at Sakuranaoka Academy.

Two students were already in the room.

“Good morning, Shinra.”

“Good morning, Shinra-kun. I heard about your candidacy from president.”

Akane Hiiragi and Koizumi Shoichi, who were inside the student council room, smiled and welcomed me as I uttered my morning greetings.

“Good morning …Koizumi, congratulations on winning. “

I throw in a few extra words that I hadn’t said yet.

Koizumi scratched his head with his cheeks dyed red, looking both happy and embarrassed, completely devoid of the image befitting a president.

This friendliness is one of his talents, as it is this friendliness that has brought him to the position of president of the council.

Placing my bag on my seat, I pulled out a document from inside and presented it to the president.

It was the official copy of the candidacy form she gave me last week.

The moment president receive this, there is no turning back.

After checking to make sure there were no flaws, president took it and quietly exhaled.

“I also received a formal letter from Ogiwara the other day… Now that both parties have expressed their wishes, the election of members will take place. The instructions from me remain the same as the ones I have informed you of in advance …okay?”

“That’s fine…”

After president took it, she it held out to Koizumi.

Koizumi also confirmed it, which undoubtedly means that as of today, the student council member election and the battle for the seat of the assistant is inevitable.

“I also promise to do everything possible to help. It’s your request after all.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m present or not …President will probably be many times more effective than I am.”

Koizumi gave me a worried look as I responded with a wry smile to his words, which sounded like modesty.

Koizumi probably heard for the first time after yesterday’s election, that Yuuto and I were running for the position.

The news must have come in at a terrible time.

“I’m sorry, …I didn’t mean to cause a mess.”

“That’s not the case, I’d be happy if I could work with Shinra-kun again next year.”

But. then his words stopped.

I know, I don’t even need to predict what he is going to say.

“It’s not about building memories or fighting a losing battle. …Neither am I a fan of the outcome of this game, it just depends on who I’m up against.”

No matter who I lose to or what kind of game I lose, even if they laugh at me for it, I can accept that this was the result of the current reality.

Besides, if I cared about every single evaluation of people I don’t know, people like me wouldn’t be able to do anything.

I should have given up on this pretentious nonsense a long time ago.

Even if I am such a person, I am allowed to be concerned about winning for once.

“If there’s anything I can do, please let me know and I’ll do my best to support you!”

“Thanks for helping. …But aren’t you going to vote for Yuuto…?”

In fact, if we consider the ability and organizational progress, Yuuto would be the better choice to support.

Yuuto also has the ability to more than meet those expectations.

On the other hand, I am a student who does not know what he can do or even if he is useful at all.

Koizumi immediately shook his head at my question.

“I’d be happy to work with Ogiwara-kun, but if my friend is going to participate, I’d rather support him.”

“…A friend”

Koizumi looked at me like that?

To be honest, I felt guilty when I heard those words.

There is a part of me that still isn’t certain about the boundary between a friend and an acquaintance.

It’s a bad thing that my personality has made me do, and I still haven’t been able to answer that question.

Koizumi, perhaps wondering why I had fallen silent, looked back in the direction of the president’s seat.

President, taking advantage of the silence, changed the subject.

“Now, let’s get back to the topic. …Shinra will be given about a week to campaign, and it’s up to you whether you make the most of it or not.

Rising from her seat, president walked up to Koizumi and placed both hands on his side.

Then she smiled as she always does.

“Now, what do you need us to do to follow the scenario you have in mind?”

Her expression looked like she was having fun.

She asked me expectantly, as if she wanted me to show something different from what she was imagining.

“For the president, …I need you to find out the faculty members who are eligible to vote, the clubs they are in-charge of and other such details. …And as for Koizumi, I need you to something other work for me.”

“Whatever you say! First, we need to secure a place for the speech and prepare the props, and then—“

“No, that can wait, and we won’t be doing either of those today.”

I held out my palm as if to stop Koizumi, who was earnestly trying to list the things I would need, as if he were doing his own campaign.

Koizumi stiffened as I opened my mouth to tell him what he needed to do.

“As I recall, it is possible for the student council to distribute printouts and such to the students, isn’t it?”

“Y-Yes, it is possible, but we would have to prepare the drafts …so it would take some time to make them today.”

While Koizumi made a valid point, I once again pulled out a sheet of paper from my bag.

It was a simple survey form that I had created yesterday on the computer in my room.

The content is simple. There are two columns: one for voting for me or Yuuto in the board election, and the other for writing in your requests for the student council.

The rest of the form is a simple one with the date, a title and the name of the organization to indicate that it is indeed a survey from the student council.

“I’d like you to to print these for the entire school year and have them distributed.”

With that, I gave Koizumi a tremendous amount of work from the very start.

Lunch Break.

Before the cafeteria, the students gathered in front of the bulletin board.

I don’t know where the rumors were spreading from, but students who had heard that Yuuto was running for the election gathered in front of the main gate to see if it was true.

“It’s true! It has Ogiwara-kun’s name on it.”

“Shinra… who?”

Several such voices were coming from the group.

I watched the scene from the shade of a tree a short distance away, but the excitement was like a festival.

“I expected it, but it’s pretty …crowded.”

“It’s because Ogiwara-kun has never been a part of an organization or a club before.”

Shizuku was the one who answered my mutterings.

Her long hair was tied up in a single strand and hung down in front, perhaps feeling down in the brutal summer heat.

Because of the popularity and buzz that preceded the event, and the fact that there has been so much excitement, there’s no doubt many of the students’ votes will go to Yuuto.

No student has any prior information about me who was competing against Yuuto.

At best, my classmates from last year and my current classmates looked surprised.

I mean, it’s a level of recognition that only students who were in my class are aware of, or were sorry that I am on the student council at one point.

“I don’t know what the excitement is about, and it’s not like they’re actually going to do something about it.”

Leaning her back against the tree in the shade, Kirasaka lets out a sigh, taking a look at the scene in the front, and immediately shifting her gaze to the book in her hand.

Usually, Kirasaka is an omnivorous reader who reads books by Osamu Dazai, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and sometimes even a completely different genre of novels, but today, she was reading a book titled ‘Winning! How to Fight an Election’.

Both of them are serious to the point of even changing their hairstyles and books.

“…From the perspective of others, it’s just a festival, it’s like the entertainment that humans have been doing throughout history getting excited about who’ll be the winner and who’s going to lose.”

We had only come to check the bulletin board just in case, so we quickly turned back and headed back toward the building.

Shiraishi, who was looking uncomfortable at the edge of my field of vision, looked at me, Shizuku and Kirasaka as if she wanted to say something.

“A-Ano, why was I called?”

“…”

*Gasp* I remember not explaining the reason beforehand, just her that it was urgent and that we would meet in front of the gymnasium.

“…I’ve been waiting for those words.”

“I’m sure you weren’t waiting! If you were, then you wouldn’t have just made an ‘Oh shit!’ face, would you?”

Shiraishi tsukkomied not missing a single moment of the expression that crossed my face.

However, I turned around as if nothing had happened, exchanged my gaze with hers, and asked her what I was going to.