Chapter >> The Young Businessman Who the Girl Doesn"t Know About
"Imouto, do you have any advice for what I should do for a girl with a bad mouth?"
"Why don"t you just have her go to a lady"s school of some sort?"
"Let me say this. That school would definitely collapse."
My little sister would be cla.s.sified as an active girl. As such, I thought I could ask her for some advice as she could see things from a different perspective on things.
I did say that communication and conversation were both important, but between the two of us after school, I was the only one who could fulfill those requirements. If I were to continue conversation on my own, there would be some improvement at the very least, however, once things fell into habit, it would only worsen again. I want to avoid that.
"What type of person are they? Is her bad mouth really that bad?"
"Aah. There are many legends, you see. When a male student decides to act familiar and talk to her, she replies with a "You make me sick. Go over there. For someone like you, I would throw away like trash. The incinerator might even be better". Students that come by with a positive att.i.tude always end up stunned, falling to the ground like dried squid."
"That"s quite the extreme rejection from her. Are you okay, Onii-chan?"
"Since I"m a person who isn"t easily hurt by words, I"m alright. I"m a person who randomly tells jokes all the time, after all. Being suddenly called trash, is just the start. I mean, just by going home I end up making a complete recovery, so in theory, it could be said that I"m invincible."
"I won"t see you very often from now on. I"ll probably take away too much of your energy."
My little sister sat down on the sofa. As brother and sister sat side by side, watching the television as the it stuck pictures into our brains, she muttered.
"Nii-chan, aren"t you not in a club?"
"That"s why, I"m always the one to say "Welcome home". I"ve never been able to hear my little sister say something like that… F**k!"
"You"re words were censored there… Why don"t you guys try joining a club? The two of you. You"ll be given the chance to have a lot more communication and conversation, right? You"ll also get more personal connections."
"That might be fine, but I have no intention of joining a club. I have confidence that it would become a ghost club in three seconds if I did. Moreover, if I join a club now, next year will be filled with entrance exams. It"s all too late."
I muttered all of that regretfully. It is definitely a good idea, but joining a club is impossible. Besides, club activities are too much effort. If I end up stuck in that kind of environment, I"ll end up evaporating instantly. With my height being at 180 centimeters, I did end up getting some invitations to sports clubs, but I declined them all. I can"t allow that to get in the way of my after school time. I can"t have them meddling with my own business. Besides, it"s all so exhausting.
In such a serious atmosphere, Arina would probably be like a roaring tiger skewering her opponent, but unfortunately, I don"t have that same energy. Let"s move along with ease. Peace is best.
"Then, why not just help out with club activities? Even during our own club activities, I sometimes think, "If only we had one more person". What do you think about helping out in that way?"
I see. That might be good. There"s no need to join, and it"ll be a good way for Arina to interact with other people. For clubs, there should be some merit in getting an extra bit of help.
"I"ll take that. Will there be any fees for using your idea?"
"It"s considered free content, so it"s alright."
Let"s go with this. I need to immediately talk to Akakussensei about it.
There was free time during lunch. After having my mealtime meeting with Makoto (just eating our packed lunches), I headed towards the staff room.
"Akakussensei, is now a good time?"
"Hmmm? Sui-kun? What is it?"
I told Akakussensei about the plan that my little sister came up with. I tried to sell her the idea like a salesman, saying that it might have some good influence on Arina.
In reality, there are a lot of things that you wouldn"t understand unless you actually do it, but there are much more things that you could better understand just by doing it. Reading is important, but there are many other things that can"t be expressed just through words that I would recommend for Arina.
"Isn"t that fine?"
"Really!?"
"Yeah. Sorry, seems like a lot of work, but do your best!"
"Yeah!"
After being given the okay, I left the staff room satisfied.
Now then, what club needs outside support. If there isn"t any demand, then our support would be useless. That"s why, with the leftover time during lunch, it"s time to find out which clubs need help. After returning to the cla.s.sroom, I asked Makoto about it.
"Does the badminton club have any problems with needing more people?"
"Hmmm… Not really,"
"Really?"
"Why?"
"Well, you see…"
I stopped myself in the middle of speaking. That was dangerous. Speaking of which, Makoto was one of the people who confessed to Arina. He had confessed in the middle of the first year of high school. I wasn"t there to see it in person, but I heard he took a break from club that day. It seemed like he was pretty depressed. As such, I won"t touch upon it. I don"t have a hobby of digging up old wounds.
"I"m free so I just wanted to know if you needed any help. There"s nothing much to it."
"What is it, Sui? Did you suddenly want to join some club activities?"
"No no. It was just on a whim."
Next, I decided to ask Namiki Shirona, who went to the same middle school as me. Shirona was in the next cla.s.s over. In other words, in the same cla.s.s as Arina.
I think this every time, but visiting another cla.s.s feels very strange. It feels very difficult to enter or something like that. There are so many students, that other cla.s.ses are filled with people you don"t know. So, it feels almost like a different world.
Gathering up my courage, I walk through the door. An unknown world quickly opened up in front of me. As expected, the environment was different. Moving my head around to look for Shirona, I found a group of three female students engaged in conversation. There she was.
"Shirona, can I ask you something?"
"Ah, Sui, what is it?"
"Eh! Shirona, is it your boyfriend? Is it?"
The girls on the side made a fuss. Shirona quickly and desperately denied their statement.
"What is it? It"s been a while since we"ve talked."
"That"s true. We ended up in different cla.s.ses, and it was quite hard to adjust to new cla.s.smates and everything."
"Heeh, he seems to have a nice relationship with Shirona, right?"
This girl really likes to talk…
"There"s nothing between me and Shirona. It"s just that we were in the same middle school. Right?"
"Y-yeah."
Why did she stammer there.
"I"m Yuuri. Hiiragi Yuuri. Nice to meet you."
Next, the energetic girl next to her spoke up.
"I"m Miyanaka Ran. Nice to meet you."
What"s with the parade of self-introductions. I only came here because I had business with Shirona. However, I had no choice but to ride the wave.
"I"m Sakaki Sui. I"m from the next cla.s.s over."
"What did you come here for, Sui?" Shirona asked.
"Shirona, you"re in the girl"s soft tennis club, right? Do you have anything that might need more help for?"
"Hmmm."
Shirona thought about it. While that happened, I looked around the cla.s.sroom. It looks like Arina wasn"t here.
"If I had to say it…"
"Oh, tell me, whatever it is."
"Our club, doesn"t have enough people. There are too many b.a.l.l.s used during practice compared to the number of people able to retrieve it, so it becomes very inefficient."
"I see. Which means you want someone to pick up b.a.l.l.s."
"Yeah. Something like that."
"Is it alright for us to help out? It"ll end up being complete volunteer work."
"Eh, really? It"s going to be tough. Rather, it won"t just be you, Sui?"
"There would be one more girl helping out. She should have a good amount of ability and athleticism, so it should be enough. What do you think?"
"What"s with that praise…?"
"For me, I would be really thankful having someone to pick up b.a.l.l.s."
Yuuri spoke up. She"s also in the soft tennis club I see.
"Oh. Then, Shironsan, can we consider that a deal?"
"Hmmm. It"s good, right Yuuri?"
"Completely okay. Moreover, it"s very welcome."
"Great!"
I was happy that I was able to get one deal. Is this what it"s like to be a salesman? It"s a world filled with deception.