Volume 1 - CH 1.5

The day after Cultural Committee’s welcome party for new students, I was working hard at my part-time job from the morning. A while after I woke up in the morning, I noticed a message from Misono saying, “Good morning. Do your best at work.” Thanks to this message, I am working in a fresher mood than usual.

Misono, who gave me such support, is now, for some reason, looking at the menu list at the family restaurant where I do my part-time job. To be more precise, she is hiding the lower half of her face with the menu list and moving her eyes back and forth between the menu and me. Shiho was sitting across from her, grinning and looking at me.

“Why are you here……”

I did indeed say yesterday, “I have a part-time job tomorrow.” I told her, but I did not tell her where the part-time job was, and she did not ask me. I wondered if someone had told Misono about my part-time job, but I didn’t tell Misono about my part-time job until after the welcome party for new students. I don’t think it was brought up before that.

“Excuse me.”

As I was wondering why, one of the involved parties called for me. Call me with a button.

“Have you decided what you want to order?”

“Hey, isn’t it Makki-san? What are you doing here? Are you doing part-time work here?”

It was too obvious. I know Shiho was grinning at me earlier. Misono, on the other hand, has her face completely hidden by the menu list.

“Your atmosphere changes quite a bit, doesn’t it? It’s definitely better that way. Misono was also noisy about how cool you were.”

“Hey!”

Misono quickly lowered the menu list in front of her face and looked at me with a red face to protest Shiho’s remark, but when her eyes met mine, she hid her face with the menu list again.

“Am I wrong?”

“……No, you don’t.”

During my part-time job, I waxed my hair. Further, the whole uniform is a white shirt, black slacks, and a sarong around my waist. The impression may indeed be different.

But I was embarrassed to be told it was cool, and decided I’d pretend I hadn’t heard it.

“Since this is a restaurant, I guess I need to use some wax on my hair to keep it in place. It would be a problem if my hair falls out. So, what do you want to order?”

“Are you embarrassed, Makki-san?”

“Leave me alone. The order.”

The current time is just before 11 am, and even though it is Sunday, there are not that many customers yet. I can afford to talk to them for a while, but I don’t know what they will say to me when I go back to the kitchen if I talk to the two good-looking girls for too long.

“Then, I’ll have this pancake and a drink bar. What about you, Misono?”

“I’ll have the same as Shii-chan, please.”

Misono’s face was still behind the menu list. Her ears peeking out from the side were slightly red. What a cute little creature.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, your order is ready.”

The cooking was finished, so I served it with the standard phrase and explained about the drink bar.

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t order this strawberry mousse, you know?”

All they ordered was pancakes and a drink bar. But in front of the two of them, there was also a piece of strawberry mousse. Although I had prepared it in a cool way, I was embarrassed to explain it in front of their faces. I had also prepared the line, “I’m sorry if you don’t like strawberries,” but I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to use it.

“Here. The bill.”

If you check it out, you’ll know what I’m trying to do, please guess it. Shiho smiled as she received the bill with only their order listed, and showed it to Misono as it was. Now Misono also took off the menu list guard and showed her face normally.

“Umm. I’ll properly pay for it.”

“It would make me sound like a pushy salesman, so don’t say anything, just eat it.”

Misono’s manner as she tried to get her wallet in a hurry made me more flustered than she was. I was just trying to be cool with my new junior, but I was just being pathetic at this point if I made her pay for it.

“That’s right, Misono. You have to take the treat properly, otherwise, it would be uncool for Makki-san, who has gone to all the trouble of being cool.”

Shiho gives me covering fire, but it’s also shooting at me. It’s absolutely on purpose.

“Therefore, at times like this. All you have to say is, ‘Thank you very much, Makimura-senpai. I love you,'”

“Hey.”

“Eh!? Umm……Thank you very much, Makimura-senpai. I lov—”

“No need to say it!”

I stop her just before the dangerous word comes out. Even though it was a joke, my composure would be broken if I let an innocent type like Misono say more than that. Misono, too, must have cooled down and realized what she was about to say, because she blushed and deployed her menu list guard again. However, this time she only hid the lower half of her face, and her moist eyes remained fixed on me.

As I thought, I should have let her say what she said earlier even sacrificing my presence of mind, and I regretted my decision on stopping her.

“Oh, that’s right. Just so you know, I’m the one who invited her to come here today. Because Misono was so reserved that she didn’t want to bother you, Makki-san. Also, your face is red.”

Shiho said so as if she remembered, and I thought, well, that’s probably true. I have not had much contact with Misono, but I could not believe that she would suggest such a thing, and on the contrary, I think that Shiho would suggest it. And leave the last part alone.

“I thought it would be something like that. Who told you, Shiho? About this place?”

“My boyfriend knows Makki-san.”

“Who?”

“Guess who?”

Shiho says it as if to provoke me, but I’m clearly out of ideas. There are too many candidates.

“Well, I guess I’ll find out someday.”

“Gave up right away, huh~”

“There is nothing I can do about what I don’t know. I also can’t stay and talk here too much. Well, for that reason, please take your time. Bye then.”

In the end, nothing more happened, and before lunchtime, the two of them left the restaurant, while bowing to me.

When I looked at my phone during break time, I saw another polite thank-you message from Misono. Sunday is tough with so many customers, but thanks to Misono, I felt like I could work hard for the second half of the day which actually made me in a good mood until the end of the evening.

When I finished changing my clothes after working until the evening, I got another notification on my phone. It was a message from Doku, a friend of mine at the Cultural Committee, to me and Sane, saying, “Buy something to drink and gather at 7 pm.”

When I arrived in front of Doku’s apartment just before 7 pm, Sane was already there, with a plastic bag in his hand with a large number of cans and snacks in it. How much is he going to drink this Sunday night? I only bought two cans, you know.

“Hey. You said you had a part-time job today, right?”

“Yeah. Do you know what he’s going to talk about?”

I raise my hand to Sane, who raises his hand while looking at my hairstyle.

“Nope.”

“Well, he’s not you, so I guess there is some substance in his talk.”

“That’s right. Oi.”

“These stairs are always scary, aren’t they?”

“Ah. Don’t ignore it.”

Ignoring Sane’s complaints, I walk up the stairs of the apartment building, which make a creaking sound. I wonder if this staircase will break one day.

“Hey.”

“We’re here–”

When I open the door, Doku is beckoning us from the back of the room.

“Oh, come in, come in.”

“Haven’t you had a drink already?”

Sane asked Doku, who was more high-spirited than usual, in astonishment.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Sit down, sit down.”

After exchanging a look with Sane, both of us took off our shoes and sat down, and put the bag we had bought on the table.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Now, now, let’s have a toast first.”

“You’ve already been drinking.”

There were two cans lying next to Doku that appeared to be empty.

“Then, cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

When Doku leads the toast, we both rush to open the can and respond to the toast.

“So, how’s it going?”

After the toast, when I was sipping and Sane was guzzling, it was Doku who threw the question at us. However, now I knew what Doku wanted to talk about.

In the Cultural Committee, as a matter of tradition, when the question “How are you doing?”, “What up?” “How’s it going?”, are asked by someone, it is synonymous with “Let’s talk about love,” even if there are only three men in the room.

“Well, me? Well, I’m just so-so, you know.”

“Just honestly say there’s nothing going on.”

“It’s not like there’s nothing going on! I went to a mixer.”

You just went there, that’s it. If you had made a proper relationship, you would have told us right here and now.

“Sane has nothing. What about Maki?”

“Do you think something happened to me?”

“No.”

“Right?”

Even Doku knew that. Doku knew that there was nothing that was romantic going on with Sane or with me in particular. Nevertheless, the fact that he went out of his way to bring up this subject suggests that Doku had something to tell us. When I consider the fact that he had been drinking before we arrived—

“I see. You were dumped again.”

Sane, who had apparently reached the same conclusion as I had, tapped Doku on the shoulder and said so.

“Let’s have a drink today. I’ll accompany you, even though I have class tomorrow.”

We have class tomorrow in the morning, but if our friend is heartbroken, we can’t help but comfort him. However, Doku looked at us as if he was annoyed with us and then gave us a peace sign.

“I haven’t been dumped. I’ve got a girlfriend!”

“Die,” two voices overlapped.

“Isn’t that harsh?”

“In my local dialect, ‘die’ means ‘congratulations'”

“It’s the same in my hometown.”

“You’re both from different regions…..”

Doku, who had already downed two bottles of shochu, was not as sharp as usual. I had no choice but to urge him to get down to business.

“Well, joking aside. Who is it?”

“A junior girl on the swimming club.”

“So that’s why you haven’t been coming to Cultural Committee lately.”

“No, it’s not! Well……it’s not that it’s wrong. You see, the swimming club has fewer seniors than Cultural Committee, right? So, they have a lot of work to do at the newcomers’ party and so on.”

I guess his words are not a lie, but I can guess that she is also a big reason why he is there. Sane seemed to have thought the same thing, looked at me, and shook his head with a wry smile.

“I’ve settled down and from now on I’m going to go to Cultural Committee properly. So, come on.”

After we were done with our investigation, Doku began to brag about his girlfriend in the name of introducing her to us. He said she was petite and cute, her face was round and cute, the way she ran was cute, and the way she called him was cute. After five minutes of hearing these things, I began to lose interest in drinking.

“You just met her in April because she’s a junior, and you started dating her today. How can you have so much to talk about?”

I asked, half in disgust, and Doku responded with an annoyed look on his face.

“Well, I’m even thinking about getting married.”

“Uwah, that’s heavy.”

Although my true opinion came out in a flash, Doku didn’t seem to mind. When I looked at Sane, I saw that he was still smiling lightly.

“You’ll understand if you fall in love, too. Right, Sane?”

Doku is awfully annoying today.

“Oh, yeah. Well, since I had a girlfriend in high school, I didn’t think about getting married, I guess?”

I feel a little sorry for Sane, who is having trouble with the topic.

“Well, this much is normal for a college student.”

“If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t be the kind of guy who suddenly thinks about marriage, or the kind of guy who talks about what he likes about his girlfriend for five minutes on the first day we date.”

Well, though I didn’t have a girlfriend. Doku looked at me as if he was looking at something pity. You’re the one who’s a pity.

“That reminds me, how’s Maki doing with those girls?”

When Doku had calmed down a bit, Sane asked me as if he wanted to get away from the subject.

“Those girls?”

“The girls you were with yesterday at the welcome party before you came to us. Misono and……Shiho, right? They were both cute, weren’t they? I heard you took them home, you know.”

“As usual, you’re quick on the information. But there’s nothing special about it. I was just taking her back.”

“Did you do this voluntarily? Is that possible?”

“No.”

Certainly, I didn’t actively take the initiative to do it, but I’m not happy about the negative trust he has in me.

“It’s not like I suggested sending them home. When I told her I was going home without going to the after-party, she asked me if it would be okay to go home with me, so I just took her home.”

“What!? So you have hope then.”

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s why you’re a virgin. Right, Doku?”

“Eh? Yeah, you have hope, I think?”

Doku is still a virgin, too. Probably. In general, it’s the virgins who immediately assume that they have hope at times like this.

“In the first place, we talked for the first time yesterday. What could make her fall in love with me on our first meeting? I mean, you were there, right?”

I was starting to feel sad after saying this, but I didn’t say anything wrong.

Among the Cultural Committee second-year boys, Kouta, the vice-president, is definitely the most popular. Not only because of his position as vice-president but also because of his appearance and speaking ability. Under such conditions, there is no way they would go out of their way to fall in love with me at first sight.

“When you say it like that, I guess so. So they compromised with Maki?”

“Misono is so pretty that there’s no need to compromise with me, and she’s not that kind of girl to begin with.”

I knew, of course, that Sane had no malice toward me, but for some reason, he couldn’t ignore it that he would normally.

“Ah, sorry. But……right?”

“Yeah. That’s unexpected.”

Sane apologized to me, looking a bit awkward, but immediately looked at Doku with a strange look on his face. Doku looked at Sane with a similar expression.

“I’ve never seen you in such a bad mood before.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Really?”

“That’s right. Besides, I gave you two names at the beginning, but only one of them came from you.”

I was taken aback when Sane tapped me on the shoulder while grinning, but even though it was unconscious, I should be able to explain the reason if I thought about it.

“It’s nothing, I was just thinking that Misono was the one we were talking about, since Shiho has a boyfriend, I should leave her out of the conversation.”

“Is that really so?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Theoretically, it was correct, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was really so. As if to escape from my thoughts and my friends who were grinning at me, I downed the contents of the first can and reached for the second can.

In the end, I continued drinking after that and canceled my first class the following Monday.