BXBX NOVEL Chapter 228: 1.2
Chapter 228: 1.2
"We\'re going to eat, sorry. I can\'t lend you Kiyotaka." Kei came running and forced her way in between us to stop Horikita\'s advances. She spread her hands and put her palms up at her. "Also, I don\'t think it\'s a good idea to ask out a boy who has a girlfriend..."
"Yes, whatever, but it\'s not me who wants to borrow him, it\'s someone else. And it\'s not a girl either. So would you still allow me to do so?" She pointed her phone at me, and Kei peeked at the screen before I could.
"Yagami... Takuya? Who?"
"It doesn\'t matter who\'s sending the message. What\'s important is the text."
The text sent from Yagami to Horikita seemed to have been sent about an hour ago;
[Can you call Ayanokōji-senpai to the student council room during lunch break? The student council president has requested it. If it\'s too difficult for you, please let me know and I\'ll come to you.]
"As a member of the student council, I have a role to perform. If a member says they have something for me to do, I can\'t refuse the request."
Horikita basically had no choice and had to tell me that my presence was required.
"Miyabi Nagumo-senpai, it seems that the student council president wants to see you. Did you do something to him again?"
"I haven\'t done anything."
These days. I add in my mind.
"If you refuse, Yagami-kun will come here. If you still refuse, maybe the student council president Nagumo-senpai will come here. So, how should I respond?"
Horikita is just a liaison. Regardless of how I responded, she would just proceed with the process without hesitation.
"Sorry, Kei. If I ignore the student council president\'s orders, the rest will be troublesome."
"Crap. Well, if it\'s the student council president, I guess it can\'t be helped. Satō, let\'s have lunch together?"
Understanding that she had no choice but to agree to this situation, Kei quickly ran over to Satō and the others.
"You switch up so quickly, girlfriend." Horikita mumbled something that might have been admiration or disgust.
"I\'m on my way."
"Then I\'ll report that to Yagami-kun."
"If you\'re exchanging contact information at the student council, wouldn\'t it be faster if the student council president Nagumo contacted you directly without going through Yagami?"
"The only people who exchange contact information on the chat app in the student council is Yagami-kun because Yagami-kun requested it directly."
I was convinced and left the classroom, and Horikita came out to the hallway along with me.
"I don\'t know what kind of reason you have, but I recommend that you try not to make him angry as much as possible."
I parted ways with Horikita, who had given me some advice, and I had no choice but to head for the student council room.
I arrived in front room and knocked softly on the door. Soon after, I heard the voice of Nagumo in the room, and the door swung open. As expected, there was no other figure inside the student council room except for Nagumo.
"Yo, Ayanokōji. Have you noticed any changes in your life lately?" Nagumo asks me before anything with a slight smirk.
The only thing that is disrupting my life is this man standing in front of me right now. The pressure of the stares I receive from the third-year students every day has not weakened at all. In fact, even the third-year students who didn\'t recognize me in detail remembered me as a matter of course. Without a doubt, I am the most famous junior in the upperclassmen. Even if they didn\'t know the details, I was engraved as the junior who challenged and poked Nagumo.
"Nothing in particular has changed... or I\'d like to say so, but well, I do have some issues here and there."
It\'s easy to pretend that I don\'t notice anything, but if I don\'t show that I\'m overwhelmed, I risk escalating the situation even more.
"As the student council president, I can help you with those problems, you know?"
"It may just be a passing issue. I\'ll ask for your help when I\'m really in trouble."
If I make him feel good to some extent, there\'s a possibility that Nagumo will back off. No, that\'s a bit too optimistic. The only thing Nagumo wants is for me to be directly defeated. There was no way he could be satisfied with this level of achievement. Even though Nagumo had a certain goal, he was not going to let this be the end of the conversation, so he changed the subject.
"I bet you\'ve already heard about the rules of the sports festival, right? It\'s time for our direct confrontation, Ayanokōji. Some of the events in the sports festival are open to all grades. You should fight me in those."
"Is that strict discipline for juniors? I\'ve seen Student Council President Nagumo\'s OAA. Unless it\'s a competition with a big luck factor involved, there\'s no way I can win even if I stand on my head. The result is clear as day."
Even though there was no other choice but to play the hand he had been dealt, Nagumo would not be satisfied with that.
"You\'re a funny guy Ayanokōji... You think that if you play yourself down, I\'ll give up on you or something. Well, I can\'t blame you for that. You have no choice but to take the low road given the circumstances." It seems Nagumo is a man who is able to see through shallow thinking. "I know you\'re not keen on this. I don\'t want to waste my time on you either. So, if you win one match against me in this sports festival, I\'ll let bygones be bygones."
"One win, huh?" That was much looser than I had imagined. "You seem to think that one win is simple enough. Is it that easy for you?"
"You could say something like that but I wouldn\'t state it that way."
"What about winning all the games, isn\'t that a better conditional...? No, it\'d be a disgrace to the student body president if I confronted you with the condition of winning all the games."
It wouldn\'t be that mere pride was getting in the way. In fact, he\'s using his pride as a shield to somehow drag me out into the fray.
"Who said I\'m not adding a restraint? Regardless of whether you win or lose, you\'ll have to participate in all five of my events, and if you miss even one of them, you\'ll lose."
"What will happen if I lose? Would the winning student council president be satisfied with that?"
"You better hope so. Otherwise you won\'t see your troubles going away anytime soon, and you\'ll probably get more calls from me like this. Or maybe you\'ll have to worry about... other things."
"We have a class policy regarding the festival. Can you give me some time?"
"Well, I guess that\'s the only thing you could say for nowI\'ll give you a week to get back to me by next Monday."
"Okay. If we\'re done talking, may I be excused here?"
"Don\'t be so hasty. Or do you have plans after this? Since I called you, you didn\'t make any promises to be anywhere, did you?"
"Yes, well, I don\'t have any plans."
"Aha, that\'s a relief to hear."
Nagumo was talking while occasionally checking something on his phone. He had no intention of releasing me yet.
"Excuse me." From the other side of the door, I heard a voice I hadn\'t heard in a long time. Ichinose with a plastic bag in her hand. "Sorry for the wait, Nagumo-senpai."
"Ah, don\'t even worry about it. Yo, I\'m sorry I couldn\'t come with you to buy lunch today."
"Don\'t worry..."
Ichinose trailed off as she suddenly saw me standing next to Nagumo.
"Oh, this? I\'ve been having lunch with Honami every day in the student council room. I\'ve been keeping my right-hand man busy." Nagumo said while looking towards Ichinose and adding a wink.
I had thought that the chances of us passing each other or running into each other during lunch break had been decreasing, but I guess that\'s it. If she was in the student council room, which was off-limits to normal students, I wouldn\'t have seen her.
"When we eat and talk together, we hear about a lot of gossip and stuff. Isn\'t that right, Honami?"
"Fufu, yes."
"I told her that I have a visitor today. So what. Ayanokōji, how about joining us for lunch today?"
There were three lunch boxes peeking out from the bag. It seems that he was planning to have us eat here from the beginning while he finished his conversation with me. I\'m sure it\'s emotionally painful for Ichinose to sit with me right now. However, there was no way to escape, as the environment wasn\'t one I could just walk out from.
"You said you don\'t have any plans after this, right? That\'s why you can chill with us."
I was surrounded, and if it was an order from the student council president, it was as if I had no right to refuse.
I sat down in a seat far away from Nagumo. Ichinose, who always eats next to Nagumo, handed him a plastic bag and sat down next to Nagumo. She didn\'t look at me, but started preparing his lunch with a slightly downcast look. It was impossible for Nagumo not to notice this unnatural appearance, and he must have thought back to the exchange on the boat.
"The rules of the gym festival are very different from last year, aren\'t they, senpai?" I decided to break the tension.
"I\'m rather grateful for that, man. If we had held the gymnastics festival with the exact same rules as last year, my win would have been too easy."
The rules of the previous year\'s sports festival were that the students were divided into two groups, the red group and the white group. Nagumo was in control of the entire third grade. This meant that he was able to intentionally make the students in the groups he didn\'t belong to lose. No matter how much the remaining freshmen and sophomores struggled, their chances of winning would be zero. In the end, the conversation that used to take place between the three of us became a rally between Nagumo and Ichinose, and I silently carried my food to my mouth.
I finished eating with the two of them not even halfway through their meal, and I closed the lid cover and held it in my hand.
"What, you\'re done eating already? You can leave the empty stuff there."
"Thank you." I replied, but Nagumo\'s eyes were already on Ichinose, not me. Ichinose, too, had turned to face Nagumo, perhaps to avoid focusing on me.
"Excuse me."
There was no point in staying here, so I left the student council room.
"A strategy to show superiority, huh?"
It may look like humiliation to the casual observer, but it\'s meaningless if he can\'t inflict psychological damage on me. If he wanted to achieve that effect, he should have prepared a few more members of the student council to be on the sidelines.
Then he could have at least labeled me as a poor, pitiful man.
Nevertheless, from the looks of it, Nagumo will probably continue to contact Ichinose in the future. It would not be surprising if something happened that would change the relationship between them. As I start to walk away, I thought about the effects of that.
Will becoming a part of Nagumo lead to the growth of Ichinose Honami? If all goes well, she may be able to gain enough favor and love to take over the position of student council president. This is the reason why he\'s so confident... No, that idea is a little too naive. If Nagumo\'s obsession with Ichinose stems from me, he may well cut Ichinose off at the last minute. If she couldn\'t become the student council president after devoting her body and soul to the school, and the title was recommended to Horikita who made lesser contributions, her spirit would be crushed within a year.
In that sense, I wouldn\'t underestimate Nagumo\'s stand. I need to keep Nagumo in mind, but there are other things I need to do now.
I need to prepare for the upcoming sports festival, but I also need to prepare for the cultural festival that\'s just around the corner. I\'ve asked the people who came up with the idea, Satō and Matsushita, to take a break from the class, but I need to make preparations to secure staff for the maid café.
I was hoping to include Airi in my calculations, but she\'s clearly not going to participate, and I don\'t foresee Haruka participating at this point either. The powerful card of Kushida has also disappeared.
And even if I wanted to learn the ins and outs of this field, I couldn\'t simply rely on my classmates.
In the midst of the cracks in the class relationship, bringing up the subject of maid cafes risks getting people wondering what you\'re talking about, as well as causing information to leak out.
"Maid café...?"
It\'s a show that you don\'t know what to do with, but the budget you have to work with demands big sales. You need a strategy to win, and you also need to research what your competitors are doing.