Chapter 174: Ishigami Yuu, Step Forward!
The final event of the morning was the borrow-an-item relay race.
Sakurai stood outside the field. He hadn't signed up to participate, but in the previous rounds, quite a few female kouhai came looking for him.
What were their prompts again?
[Someone I like]
Let's skip that one.
[Someone I admire]
That's still normal.
But he always had a bad feeling.
[Broadcast announcement from the Media Club: Borrow-an-item relay, Round 6! Begin!]
This time it was Shinomiya Kaguya's turn. She held the slip of paper in her hand, studied it for a moment, then walked toward Sakurai.
"Sakurai-san, come with me."
She reached out her hand. Sakurai Saki looked at it but didn't dare take it.
Not because of some superstition—he was just very curious what prompt she had drawn.
"Let me ask… what's the prompt?"
"It's 'The person I want to raise as a pet,'" Shinomiya Kaguya said impatiently.
She glanced at her opponent in this round—they'd almost finished borrowing their item already!
"Wait a second!" Sakurai Saki stepped back two paces. "What made you think I'd agree to this?"
Who the hell wrote that prompt anyway?
"We're on the same team! Didn't you just say earlier that if the white team loses, you'll shave your head bald?" Shinomiya Kaguya didn't care what he thought anymore.
She grabbed Sakurai, who was just about to run off, and dragged him forward.
"Shave my head? What the cheer squad leader for the white team says has nothing to do with me!"
"Tch." Kaguya clicked her tongue.
Kaguya: (¬⤙¬ )
"Hey! Don't think you can trick me so easily!"
⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾
Sakurai glanced at the finish line not far ahead, completely stuck.
The crowd around them—
"Woah, it's General Affairs Sakurai and Vice President Shinomiya. Are they that close?"
"Well, they've always been kind of famous together."
"Close? But I heard they even fight during PE class…" a female kouhai whispered a rumor.
"Fighting couples are super common though, right?"
Sakurai really didn't want to be involved with Shinomiya Kaguya, and on top of that, the rumors these people were spreading had zero chance of becoming reality.
Even if he was going to fool Miko-chan, Sakurai would never lay a finger on Kaguya.
Put simply, everyone should understand just how much Sakurai despised Kaguya by now.
"Did you hear that? Those people are already gossiping,"
"You care about the opinions of weeds?" Kaguya said as she stormed forward, still gripping his wrist tightly.
After all, she was the captain of the archery club—she might even be second in physical strength in the entire student council. And who's the strongest?
Sakurai: ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ It can only be me!
"Weeds, huh? That's a bit harsh," Sakurai Saki muttered.
Then he turned toward the kouhai girls nearby and gave them a helpless look.
The kind of expression that said, "I'm being forced into this, I have no choice," which only made them ship the two of them even harder.
"What are you doing?"
"Adding fuel to the fire, got it?" Sakurai Saki whispered.
"Are you insane? I don't want people making up stories about me and you," Kaguya snapped, recalling how the Media club had once written a short story about her and Sakurai.
The story was titled—The Night of the Ice Queen and the Little Puppy.
'Little Puppy?'
(·•᷄ࡇ•᷅ )
That guy was obviously a wild wolf you could never tame. Who the hell would want anything to do with him?
You could only say that distance creates beauty. The moment you got close to Sakurai, you'd discover the darkness hiding beneath that radiant appearance—and then feel absolutely sickened.
"Weren't you the one who said not to care about the opinions of weeds just now?"
Sakurai teased her.
"Can you hurry the hell up!?" Kaguya dodged the topic.
A few seconds later—
The two of them reached the finish line.
"First place!!!" shouted the student acting as referee.
Shinomiya Kaguya heard the announcement and nodded with satisfaction. She then immediately walked off.
"Bye bye, Sakurai-san."
Just like someone who tosses a toy away after playing with it—completely indifferent.
Sakurai Saki didn't care either. He returned to where he had been before.
At noon, he went to the cafeteria with his mom for lunch.
He didn't bring a bento today—mainly because he wanted his mother to experience the school cafeteria.
...
In the afternoon——
The first event was the cheer battle, which would begin in ten minutes.
"How do you feel?" Sakurai looked at Ishigami Yuu, who had already changed into a girls' uniform.
The red team's cheer squad wanted to create a visual contrast, so they had decided on crossdressing.
Sakurai was really glad he didn't join the cheer squad this year.
Sakurai: （´∇｀''）phew~
"…Sakurai-senpai, I'm a little nervous," Ishigami Yuu said, watching the students slowly gather.
"Worried about how they'll look at you?" Sakurai guessed.
Ishigami Yuu didn't reply.
He really did care about how others saw him—the rumors, the whispers from classmates. Even if he wanted to ignore them, he couldn't.
Most of his peers, both boys and girls, held some degree of hostility toward him.
"Just treat them like weeds, Ishigami-kun," Shinomiya Kaguya walked up beside the two of them.
Fujiwara Chika was there too—
"Don't worry too much! I mean, for someone like Ishigami-kun, a piece of trash like you—there's probably only one or two people on Earth who even notice you exist! The rest don't care at all, they don't even want to look at you!"
Chika: ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭
Ishigami: <(ꐦㅍ _ㅍ)>
"Idiot!" Ishigami Yuu glared at her.
"Saki-kun, did you see that? He just scolded me!" Chika-chan turned to him for help.
"You were the one who badmouthed him first, weren't you?" Sakurai tapped her lightly on the head.
Saying things like that at a time like this… Just how much did Chika hate this underclassman?
Still, because she interrupted, the heavy atmosphere lightened and turned much livelier.
"Ishigami-kun really doesn't suit this outfit at all." Chika held her head as she glanced at the Shuchiin girls' uniform on Ishigami Yuu.
It was extremely weird—ugly in a cute way, but 99% just ugly.
Wait, in that case, was there even any "cute" left?
Chika thought for a few seconds and finally concluded——Ishigami Yuu is ugly! Not cute at all!
"Ishigami, do your best." Sakurai patted him on the shoulder, then tightened the red headband on his own forehead.
It was about to begin. Time to get ready.
"Umu." Ishigami Yuu nodded, then stood up straight.
————
"You're way too concerned about Ishigami-kun, aren't you? President Shirogane too. I really don't get what goes on in you boys' heads." Shinomiya Kaguya withdrew her gaze from the underclassman and muttered.
Sakurai Saki didn't answer.
Both he and Shirogane saw a reflection of themselves in Ishigami.
Even someone like Shirogane Miyuki, who seemed so capable now, had nearly given up right after last year's opening ceremony.
Sakurai was the same. Last year, he drifted aimlessly for more than two months after the semester started, until Shirogane Miyuki spoke to him.
If you wanted to say it in a slightly chuunibyou way—then it was called succession.
Or maybe passing on the flame?
Not expecting anything in return, just doing it—simply because you want to. That's all there is to it.
"If everything in this world needed a reason before we could act, it'd be far too depressing," Sakurai Saki murmured.
...
13:05 PM, afternoon — Cheer Battle.
[Up next is the cheer battle by the red team's cheer squad!!]
The announcer's voice rang out. Ishigami Yuu stood among the cheer squad members.
Beside him, Onodera Rei said softly, "You scared?"
"Would you care about what a bunch of weeds think?" Ishigami Yuu replied with a blank expression.
"Don't bring shame to the student council." Onodera Rei said no more after that.
...
"Let's go!! Let's go! Go Red Team!!!"
In the crowd, Sakurai Saki looked at the red flag fluttering in the middle of the schoolyard, where it read——[Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain]!
Taken from Sun Tzu's Art of War, it was once used by Takeda Shingen as his battle standard.
Behind the cheer squad, Ishigami Yuu's movements didn't falter for a second, pouring in all the effort he'd built up over the past two weeks.
"Just throw away the past, Ishigami," Sakurai Saki silently wished.
Humans have to learn to look forward.