"So, you're here."
Asakura was startled by the voice that suddenly rang out. Turning his head, he found Hiratsuka Shizuka standing at the door.
The older beauty teacher had a lady's cigarette dangling from her mouth, but perhaps because of the impact, it wasn't lit. It seemed she was just using this method to soothe her nicotine craving.
"It's rare for Hiratsuka-sensei to come here..." Asakura said nonchalantly.
"The bonfire party is about to start soon." Hiratsuka Shizuka looked at him with a beaming smile.
"I see..." Asakura said, pretending not to see her mischievous grin, and spoke with a serious face instead. "Is it because Hiratsuka-sensei hates that air filled with the sour smell of romance that you ran over here to take refuge?"
"Who are you calling an old lady in her late twenties who still doesn't have a marriage partner!" Hiratsuka Shizuka threw a stinging jab, but Asakura, who had his passive [Snake] enchantment activated and possessed seven times the reaction speed of a normal person, easily dodged it. "Damn it, why can't I hit you..."
"I didn't say anything..." Asakura said, leisurely spreading his hands.
"I don't need to take refuge like a certain someone. Besides, even if I wanted to, I could go to my own office instead of hiding in the Student Council activity room like a certain someone." Hiratsuka Shizuka looked down condescendingly at Asakura, who was sitting behind the desk, and teased. "Asakura, why aren't you staying in your own club's activity room? Don't want to?"
"Although the school festival has reached its end, we still can't relax our guard. Someone must control the overall situation in a timely manner to respond to any sudden emergencies that may occur on campus." Asakura said with righteous indignation. "It's not that I'm not going, it's just that as that kind of person, I am currently guarding the official contact phone of the Student Council to strategize for the overall situation."
"Isn't there someone from the Student Council in charge of that? Why should you, an outsider, be here?" Hiratsuka Shizuka wasn't fooled by him at all. Instead, she pressed both hands on the desk, leaning her whole face close to Asakura's as she continued to press him.
Even though Asakura was already used to beautiful girls, facing such close-range contact with Hiratsuka Shizuka, he had to admit that while this older teacher's style was a bit brash, she was at least quite outstanding in appearance. It was hard to imagine why someone like her would always be troubled by not being able to get married.
Leaving everything else aside, Asakura felt that at least thirty percent of the boys in Sobu High had a crush on Hiratsuka Shizuka. If she were ten years younger, she would probably be a beauty teacher that everyone would fall for-one who could be treated like one of the guys.
"I can only say that at Sobu High, members of the Student Council also have the right to enjoy the school festival." Although his internal monologue was rich, Asakura didn't show the slightest bit of it. Instead, he lamented with a face full of compassion. "So I let the people who were originally supposed to stay here go play. As for me, I have no choice but to shoulder the safety and responsibility of the entire Sobu High and stay here on standby at the Student Council."
"In other words, it's not that you don't want to go to the bonfire party, but you can't go, right?" Hiratsuka Shizuka confirmed with him.
"Yes." Asakura nodded with a look of awe-inspiring righteousness, feeling that the Sobu High school crest on his chest was glowing because of his selfless spirit of sacrifice.
"Then there's no problem. I'll take over your shift now, and you can go straight to the playground over there to participate in the bonfire party."
Hiratsuka Shizuka looked around and saw that there was no one else in the entire Student Council office except Asakura. She then pulled out a lighter, lit the lady's cigarette dangling from her mouth, and took a deep, pleasant puff.
"...It's not that I want to look down on you, Hiratsuka-sensei, but the work of being in charge of the overall situation here is actually very complex and very troublesome. A beginner definitely won't be able to handle it easily..." After a moment of stunned silence, Asakura immediately tried to persuade Hiratsuka Shizuka to give up on this idea with earnest words.
"You don't have to worry about that."
Hiratsuka Shizuka reached out and patted Asakura's back—her strength was quite considerable. Under the premise that Asakura hadn't activated his [Scale], it actually hurt a bit. It was hard to say she wasn't venting her frustration over not being able to hit him just now.
She said: "The dean, who was originally in charge of organizing and improving the various work contents and proposals of the school festival with the Student Council, threw most of the work to me because he thought it was too much trouble. This includes the work steps you are currently doing, staying in the Student Council activity room to wait for communications from various places to prevent accidents, which were also formulated by me and Amakusa back then."
As she spoke, she even made a gesture as if playing an accordion: "No one understands this job better than me."
"I still feel like Sobu High needs me..."
Asakura tried to put up a stubborn resistance.
"By the way..." Hiratsuka Shizuka continued, "I was also the one who proposed the rewards for the Holy Grail activities."
"So it was you—" Asakura was stunned.
"Hmm?" Hiratsuka Shizuka raised an eyebrow.
"Cough, I mean, so it was you, Hiratsuka-sensei, who formulated it. Looking at the inexplicable sense of age in the rewards and the way it causes trouble for people, I should have guessed it long ago~"
"You're not making any effort at all to hide your resentment toward me."
"Is Hiratsuka-sensei the kind of person who would care about such things?"
"Of course I don't care." Hiratsuka Shizuka showed a triumphant 'it's this kind of expression, I just love seeing this look on your face where you're annoyed with me but can't do anything about it' smiling face.
"Truly a great personality." Asakura lamented.
"Is Hiratsuka-sensei the kind of person who would care about such things?"
"Of course I don't care." Hiratsuka Shizuka showed a triumphant 'it's this kind of expression, I just love seeing this look on your face where you're annoyed with me but can't do anything about it' smiling face.
"Truly a great personality." Asakura lamented.
"You can praise me a bit more..." Hiratsuka Shizuka said with a grin. "I can probably squeeze out about three seconds of leeway for you."
"That can only be considered a margin of error, not leeway, right?" Asakura retorted.
At this moment, a pink figure suddenly flashed past the entrance of the Student Council activity room.
Then, that figure seemed to have discovered something and backed up to the door again.
"Ah!" Chibaya Anon bared her little tiger teeth and shouted excitedly while pointing at Asakura. "Found you!"
"Don't shout so loudly, it's not like we're playing hide-and-seek..." Asakura shifted his body a bit guiltily.
"Isn't that because starting from just now, Asakura stopped talking in the Magic Department's community group? We thought something had happened!" Chibaya Anon said dissatisfiedly.
Then she carefully glanced at Hiratsuka Shizuka. As a first-year, she didn't have Hiratsuka Shizuka's classes.
"I'm here to take over his shift." Hiratsuka Shizuka showed a reliable adult's smile toward the girl.
"My phone ran out of battery." Asakura defended himself unnaturally.
"Do you need a charger? I have a universal one." Hiratsuka Shizuka asked with a mischievous grin from the side, clearly enjoying the chaos.
"No need, thank you." Asakura rejected her bluntly.
"Don't mention it, who told me to be the teacher?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka watched with a chuckle as Asakura was grabbed by the arm by Chibaya Anon and dragged out bit by bit. She waved the hand holding the cigarette toward him and said: "After the bonfire party is the folk dance segment, I wish you a pleasant time~"