Chapter 11 - Proposals and compromises (1)
Translator - Vodka
A new chapter starts.
I was done with the chapter, but I had to proofread it once, but then, my mom had to be hospitalized. Man, I could use some vodka right about now.
The student council would stand grandiosely in front of the students as their representative during events, but if we were debate if that was always the case, then the answer would be in the negative.
Most of our activities were behind-the-scenes work. If it was to be put crudely, we were handymen.
We had to be in charge of accounts for the repair jobs that needed to be on the school building, calculating budgets for the club activities of the various clubs, listening to the requests of students, undergoing trial and error to achieve them.
One way or the other, there were only tedious jobs in store for us.
In particular, the student council had a lot of power in our school.
It could be interpreted as immense trust in the president, but it could also be seen as teachers abandoning their jobs.
After all is said and done, there were too many ch.o.r.es every day.
Well, it was nothing more than my own displeasure…….
And then, for today"s agenda as well, we had requests from students.
"Well then, regarding today"s agenda, I think everybody knows but, it"s regarding the three of them."
As usual, the whiteboard in the student council room had been used to handle the agenda at hand. Displayed on it were photos and information of three students.
From the left, it was in the order of Shizuku, Yuuto, Kirasaka.
While listening to the president talk, I looked down at the doc.u.ments in my hand. They had been distributed to everybody a while ago.
It was a doc.u.ment that laid bare the desires of several students, albeit under the veil of anonymity.
Many requests could be seen to have been written down. There were requests to lift the ban on entering the old school building, increase the number of items on the school cafeteria menu. There were even the ones that requested the change of the school uniform, or even a teacher.
I caught sight of several requests that were completely outside the scope of our work as the student council.
It went without saying, that the student council would give their all to deal with issues we were ent.i.tled to deal with, but for the ones which were outside of our purview, we would impose our own opinions on them and move to the next one.
However, this time around, there was an issue that couldn"t be ignored……
Depending on the situation, it could be a matter that affected the daily lives of those three.
I want the student council to prepare a place and time for confession.
Put simply, such were the contents of the majority of the requests.
Of course, the writing styles that had been adopted by the students didn"t follow the abovementioned format.
I had simplified it in my way, but well, such were the contents.
……Again a troublesome matter here.
Stuff like that, take care of it by yourselves. Why are you asking the student council?
Didn"t the fans of the idols make rules by themselves and impose them upon the fandom?
Do it like that or something. Decide it by yourselves. Stuff like until when you could confess under the cherry blossom tree after school or something like that……
To begin with, the people who were being treated as idols, were the ones at fault.
I shouldn"t need to work for them……
I was having such thoughts, but it would seem that the student council had plans to deal with this situation.
A student cannot be detained after school, for selfish reasons. Such a thing couldn"t be allowed.
Those three had their own lives.
Just because they had good looks, or that they were popular didn"t change the fact that, in the end, they were still regular students.
Their rights should have to be appreciated, like everybody else"s.
From my perspective, even if they didn"t like to get confessed to, they were neither the bunch who had an overabundance of expressions.
Therefore, this time, we decided to come up with a compromise that would not bind the three people in question, adversely. Then, we could proceed to propose the same to them.
The reason why the people in question weren"t present at this meeting, was because if we were to have them here at a time like this when we were yet to come up with a single plan on how to deal with the situation, it would have had ended up being a wholesale delegation. It would seem the council was against the idea of imposing the burden on them.
The discussion proceeded under the president"s leadership. I listened to their conversations while being somewhat in a mood of wanting to leave it to the others to deal with this issue. Then, I saw the president gesturing at me.
What is it, I wonder?
Did she need me to distribute some additional doc.u.ments, or take down the minutes of the ongoing meeting or something? I stood up from my seat and went towards the president.
"Well then, Shinra, I am counting on you to lead the meeting."
She had handed over the baton like it was the most natural thing to do.
"I……why?"
Standing there with the doc.u.ments regarding today"s matters in my hand, I had inadvertently let out these words.
Towards my question, the president said this.
"Handling the proceedings of a meeting is your job, right? Besides, you"re the most qualified one, when it comes to those three."
“It was like that?……I am not qualified, though.”
I continue to put on a pretence. Then, it came to me.
Indeed, something to that effect was written in the doc.u.ment at the time of joining the student council.
I pulled my hair back with a force not enough to make me go bald and received the baton.
"Well……your opinions."
"Don"t turn to others for help immediately."
Miura"s sharp indication.
No, well, I don"t have much experience in this. Besides, aren"t we supposed to gather everyone"s opinion first, and then, decide on what to do?
"This is how you are supposed to lead a meeting, right?"
"For the time being, let"s first make sure that everyone is up to speed with the issue at hand."
Said the president, in my stead. She was sitting in my chair.
Talking about her location, she was right in front of me.
She could have just sat in her own chair. Was it because mine was nearer? Anyways, she prompted me to take the next step.
"I understand……the main problems are not only the place and the time but also the number of people requesting it, isn"t it?"
The biggest problem this time was the number of people.
Confession must be once in a lifetime thing that requires one to challenge the determination inside his heart. However, at the same time, it was something that could only be done if the other party would spare time for that event.
If there were one or two in the span of a few days, there wouldn"t be any problems.
I mean that would still be too much, but it was probably a matter of only a few minutes. If we added them up, they probably would take lesser than ten minutes in total.
However, if that happened every day, that would be a pain.
It took time to wait for the person who had called out to you. The process itself consumed time.
Many a time, the confession spots were familiar places such as the school rooftop, behind the school building and sometimes, the nearby shrine.
There wasn"t much pedestrian traffic either. However, it did take time to travel to the spot.
Depending on how many students were waiting in the line, it could take nearly an hour before they could be done with everyone.
Fortunately, since it had been only been a short while since the start of the new school year, they were regaining the calm, but their popularity hasn"t changed.
Rather, it was likely that from here on out, more and more new students were going to become their fans.
There was a period when the student council received many requests from students. Even with the influx of so many requests, it didn"t feel that uncomfortable. However, this time was different.
I couldn"t help but feel uncomfortable because of this single doc.u.ment.
I couldn"t put the reason into words, but then, Koizumi raised his hand and said this.
"I-indeed, I have heard about this from the students several times."
"Same here. Since my enrolment, I have heard my cla.s.smates talking about how they wanted to be able to call out to the seniors!"
It would seem that it was not the first time that Koizumi and Hino-kun had heard about this either.
If you were in this high school, you would hear about those three even if you didn"t want to. So, today"s issue wasn"t surprising either.
I had merely forgotten about this because recently, I had been in too much contact with those people, and in my subconscious mind, I had thought of that to be normal.
Abnormal, yet normal.
This was the everyday scenario at Sakuranogaoka school.
"……It would solve the problem if they just didn"t respond to their calls."
If those three refused before it got to the point of confession, this problem could be nipped in the bud.
However, the president shook her head.
"Ren could do that, but I don"t think that those two could ignore it if they were being called out."
"……Then, let"s look for an alternative."
That was how it was, huh.
Shizuku and Yuuto would never ignore them.
Even if they were going to reject the other party, they would give them answers in their respective styles.
They were that kind of people, and that was why this was such a troublesome affair.
The conversation broke off, and everyone started turning the wheels in their heads.
I stood alone, wondering who would be the first one to propose a plan. Then, Miura raised her hand.