7
Needless to say, Komachi Hikigaya’s kindness is there.
Moving into late November, the nights got pretty cold.
But I’d pedaled as fast as I could about half the way home, so sweat had soaked my clothes. Panting hard, I went inside.
I went straight to the bathroom, peeled off my uniform, switched on the shower over my head. I’d set the water on the hot side, and it stung my cold body.
Even after I washed myself clean, I didn’t feel any better. I gave up and turned off the water.
All I saw reflected in the mirror was a drowned rat. My expression was dismal as hell, as always.
I came out of the bathroom and dried off, then changed into my lounging clothes.
When I went up to the living room on the second floor, the only occupant was the cat, Kamakura. He was doing that loaf thing, fast asleep with his paws curled under his body.
When you’re tired, nothing beats animal therapy. All that pedaling had built up tons of lactic acid in my muscles, and I was really beat.
I sat down on the sofa, rolled Kamakura over, stretched him out, flicked his ears, smooshed his paws, and burrowed my face in his stomach fur. Oh man, this is so much fun.
Having been submitted to a smooshing, Kamakura looked at me with extreme annoyance and a blatant aura of suspicion, like What the hell is with this guy…? He really hates this stuff; man, he’s so funny.
“Ha-ha-ha…agh.” At some point, my laughter turned into a sigh.
“Sorry.” I apologized to Kamakura with a pet, but he jerked his head away and leaped off the sofa. He continued on to the door, jumped at the knob, and adeptly opened it. Then he left the living room.
Whoa, close the door. It gets cold in winter, you know.
Now that Kamakura had left, I was completely alone.
Normally, this would be a precious time to pass in calm comfort. But the silence just made the same thoughts run through my head on repeat.
I was thinking about the student council election. I don’t know how many times I’d had this internal dialogue.
Yukinoshita and Yuigahama. If one of them became student council president, what was the problem likely to occur? The end of the Service Club. I wasn’t bothered by that in itself. That was inevitable anyway. I’d known it would end, sooner or later. Even if nothing happened, we’d eventually graduate, and the club would be finished.
So then what was the problem? I’d known all along that it wouldn’t continue forever. What was the problem with that?
No, wait. Why am I trying to find problems in the first place?
In fact, the problem of trying to find problems was the problem, or in other words, the l’Cie of the Pulse fal’Cie would cause the Purge, and Cocoon would…
I received no answers, whether I considered it seriously or facetiously.
I stared at the ceiling and breathed a deep sigh. I wasn’t going to get any answers when I didn’t even know what the problem was.
When it came down to it, I was lacking in a prerequisite reason…
A reason to do something, to move into action. A reason to treat that problem as something to fix.
I had no reason from which to originate, so the problem wouldn’t materialize.
Yukinoshita and Yuigahama announcing their candidacies had basically settled the matter of Isshiki, too. I’d say theirs was the better plan, more likely to succeed than mine.
So then there was nothing for me to do.
So there was also no reason for me to oppose the two of them over Isshiki.
But I still felt uneasy, like I had to do something. I kept asking myself, Is it fine this way? And then, each time, I’d utterly defeat myself in argument and then raise the problem again, and I’d argue it down again, over and over.
What a difficult personality. Having a middling degree of intelligence creates some real head-scratchers.
But I’d resolved most issues somehow, so far. I’d never had anybody to talk to about my concerns in the first place, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have talked to them.
You should only lean on people within your reach—and only to the degree that they can support you. If you go too far, you’ll end up going down together. It’s like if your loan cosigner was someone you weakly called a “friend.”
Going with that line of reasoning, the range of people I could rely on was extremely small.
Since I’m not good at giving support for someone else, I won’t receive support, either.
If the both of us were to fall, that would mean spitting on the kindness of the person who had reached out to me. It would be disrespecting the trust of that person relying on me.
A loner’s creed is to live without bothering others. Our dignity is in not becoming someone else’s burden. Therefore, I take pride in generally being able to manage things myself.
That’s why I don’t rely on anyone, and no one relies on me.
If there is only one exception, then I guess it’d be family.
You’re allowed to bother your family as much as you want. I don’t care how much they bother me, either.
Matters of kindness and trust and possible or impossible aside, with your family, you can reach out, if nothing else, and lean on them without reservation—even if my dad is pretty much kind of a useless human being, even if my mom is always fairly busy and occasionally tends to badger me a lot, no matter what a good-for-nothing I am, and even if my little sister is shallow, despite how cute and scheming she is.
These relationships don’t need a reason.
In fact, you can make “because they’re family” into a reason for everything.
Of course, that can also become a reason for resenting or hating them, though.
If I were to rely on anyone now…
…who of my family would it be?
Well, this wasn’t something that would work out somehow by talking to Mom or Dad… They’d be useless. Really, you know, they’re there to support, occasionally scold, and love me. Before you bother yourselves over me, worry about your old age or your health or whatever. Live long lives, good grief.
Oh yeah, I think they’re coming back late again tonight; corporate slavery is hard, huh? And as I thought to myself, the door to the living room creaked open.
Is it the cat again? I thought, turning around.
But it was Komachi who came in, wearing a slightly too-big tracksuit.
It seemed she’d come in for a study break to get a drink, as she completely ignored me and opened the fridge. But it seemed there was nothing much she was interested in, as she closed it again. Apparently, this was the only reason she’d come to the living room, and she made to leave right away.
Without thinking, I called out to her as she walked away. “Komachi.”
“…What?” She turned only her head, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
She’s still angry… Maybe it wasn’t time to talk to her yet. But now if I said it was nothing, then I’d hurt her feelings again.
Not knowing what to say, I groaned a bit before asking her a question. “Uhhhhh…do you want a coffee?”
Komachi gave a little nod. “…Yeah.”
“…Roger.” I stood up and got ready to make us some. I poured water into the electric kettle and clicked it on. As it heated up, I grabbed two mugs and prepared the instant coffee.
Komachi supported her head with her elbow on the kitchen counter and wordlessly waited for the water to boil.
I didn’t say anything, either.
Eventually, the water boiled, and I poured it into the mugs. The scent of coffee rose with the hot water. Turning the handle toward Komachi, I handed her a mug. “Here.”
“Mm.” She took it and headed for the door. It seemed she meant to take it straight to her room.
Her actions said, Don’t talk to me until things have cooled off, but still, I was not discouraged and called out to her. “Hey, Komachi…”
“…” She stopped in front of the door. But she didn’t look toward me. She just silently waited for me to continue.
I worried saying this would make her disgusted with me, but I pushed through the unease and said it anyway. “…I want to ask your advice about something.”
“Uh-huh. Komachi’s listening.” But she answered instantly, leaning against the wall.
I faced her directly for the first time in a week, and we looked each other in the eye, smiling like we hadn’t in a while.
Komachi tucked her smile away for the moment and lightly cleared her throat. “But there’s something you should say first, isn’t there?”
She was right. We’d just been fighting, so it was asking too much to suddenly demand her help. Searching for the words I should say, I vigorously scratched my head. “…The other day was, like… I shouldn’t have said that.”
Komachi pouted, puffing up her cheeks. “Not only what you said. Your attitude sucked, and your personality, too. Plus that look in your eyes,” she said.
“Yeah…” I couldn’t argue with that.
And she kept going. “I’m sure it’s gonna be your fault anyway, ’cause you did something.”
“Yeah, true, true.” She was completely right, and I had nothing to say in reply.
Her hounding was still not over. “And you haven’t apologized, either.”
“Ngh… That’s true…” Now that she mentioned it, I got the feeling what I’d just said didn’t count as an apology.
I opened my mouth to make a proper apology this time, and Komachi breathed a short sigh. Then she gave me a kind but exasperated smile. “But, well, this is you. So that’s fine with Komachi, because Komachi is your little sister. So I’ll forgive you.”
“Well, thank you very much…” I know I made her mad, but she’s still getting a tad cocky here… I think that grumpiness was pretty blatant in my voice and face. In fact, I was actively trying to make it come out.
Naturally, Komachi would notice that. She flicked her eyes away and cleared her throat dramatically. “And…Komachi’s sorry, too.” She bowed her head politely.
Seeing that, I smiled wryly. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll forgive you, because I’m your big brother.”
“Whoa, someone’s gotten cocky now,” she said, and we both giggled. Then we slowly drank our coffee. There wasn’t any regular milk, sugar, or condensed milk in it, but it tasted good anyway.
Komachi put her mug on the table and asked me, “So what happened?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“…I don’t mind,” she replied, then came over to the sofa and sat beside me.
I finished my long, long story, including the field trip and the series of events leading up to this student council election.
Komachi brought in some refills of the coffee from the kitchen and then placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“Oh…that really is like you, Bro.” That was her first impression. “But listen, Komachi can understand that ’cause she’s Komachi. I’ve lived with you forever, so I get it.”
I reached out to my mug, too. Komachi had made my coffee with lots of milk and sugar, and it wasn’t too hot.
She gently sat down beside me and brought her coffee to her lips. She took a sip, then lifted her head. “I laugh it off, like, Oh, he’s so dumb. I’ll think, You’re so hopeless. And then…I’ll be a little sad.” She put her feet up on the sofa, bringing her knees in against her chest. “But other people won’t act like that. I think they won’t get it at all, and they’ll feel really hurt.”
I hadn’t really been wanting others to understand. So this was probably the sort of thing you’d call self-satisfaction. To be honest, I hadn’t done it for anyone else. So nobody was going to understand or sympathize with me.
The one exception was my sister, Komachi, but she smiled a little sadly at me. “You’re kind to me, Bro, but that’s possible because I’m your little sister. I think if I weren’t, you wouldn’t even be near me,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
I considered it.
A Komachi who isn’t my sister… Whoa, what’s this super-ultra-high-spec ultra-marvelous beautiful girl? I can envision a future in which I would instantly propose to her, get rejected, then kill myself, so let’s absolutely make sure to stay away from her…
Yep, it’d definitely wind up like that. But I couldn’t imagine a Komachi who wasn’t my little sister in the first place. I think we still probably wouldn’t date or anything, because anything about Komachi or little sisters aside, I can’t hang around people anyway…
Komachi is Komachi. If she weren’t my little sister, there’d be no point in that sort of speculation.
“Well, that aside, I am glad that you’re my little sister. And that was worth a lot of Hachiman points.”
“B-Bro…!” Komachi buried her face in her hands as if hiding moist eyes. She put on a big show, adding some sniffles and an emotional sob while she was at it. But the show was over surprisingly fast, and in the next moment, she said nonchalantly, “Well, in Komachi terms, if you weren’t my bro, I think I’d stay away from you for sure. I wouldn’t even be aware you existed.”
…Hey? Are you still angry? Could you stop the verbal domestic violence? “Well, you say that, but I actually have some good points, don’t I?”
“Nope. And I don’t wanna do this. I mean, it’s such a pain.”
You didn’t have to go that far… You just made your bro sad. And she said it with a pretty serious look on her face, too.
She really is not cute…
As I was getting grumpy and nearly clicked my tongue at her, Komachi suddenly smiled and bumped me with her shoulder. “But having been around you for fifteen years, Komachi’s gotten a little attached, like Guess that’s just how he is. Oh, that was worth a lot of Komachi points!”
Hmm, but what you said before scored pretty low, though.
But she was strangely convincing. “…Well, it’s true, fifteen years will do that.” Accumulated time has a proper weight to it—enough that I could find my uncute little sister this cute.
Suddenly, there was a weight on my shoulder. Looking over, I found Komachi leaning her full weight against me. “…Fifteen years, starting now… No, the future’s even longer than that.”
She had to be talking about possibilities. She was talking about the possibility that, like how Komachi and I had spent fifteen years building our relationship, maybe you could build up time like that with someone else.
But for me right now, it still didn’t seem very realistic. “Don’t give me your cheap logic,” I shot back at her.
Miffed, Komachi retorted, “Just how many years do you think Komachi has been listening to your cheap logic?” Then she shoved a finger into my cheek. “You’ve got a future! More after this! You got that?!”
“O-okay…,” I replied.
She nodded like, Good, and removed her finger from my cheek. Then her expression turned a little serious. “…It’s not only you. Komachi’s got a future, too. I like Yukino and Yui. So I don’t want the Service Club to disappear. I mean, I really think if you lose it now, you’ll end up growing apart.”
You can see someone every day, but you won’t necessarily become close. But if you stop seeing someone you’ve become close with, you’ll naturally grow apart. Human emotions can’t be explained as simple proportional relationships.
Head still leaning on my shoulder, she asked in a sweet, cajoling tone, “So can you make it work out for me and my friends?”
That was the singular answer I got from Komachi.
I think if she hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.
Some part of me had been looking, this whole time, for a reason to try to hold on to that place, the time I spent there. “…If it’s for my little sister, I guess I’ve got no choice,” I muttered.
I’m a wonderful big brother; I’ll do almost anything for my younger sister.
She chuckled smugly and then, in a particularly monotonous manner, said, “Yeah, it’s for Komachi’s sake. Because Komachi’s selfish. Whoops, you got no choice now!”
“That’s true.”
I aggressively rubbed her head, and she squealed, shaking her head along with my hand.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Komachi replied proudly.
I withdrew my hand and glanced at the clock. “It’s about time to go to bed. It’s late.”
“Yeah. Then, good night.”
“Yeah, night.”
Komachi stood up and returned to her room. I watched her go, then I leaned back on the sofa again.
I’d obtained a proper reason and a problem.
I still didn’t know Yukinoshita’s true intention. So I still couldn’t say anything about that.
And I couldn’t accept what Yuigahama was doing. But I could understand it—because it was similar to what I was doing.
My old methods were never about self-sacrifice. And they weren’t wrong. I’d drawn a hand with few cards, and so I’d done the absolute best I could with the utmost efficiency. And my actions had even brought good results, sometimes. So from my own subjective perspective, I could call that perfect.
But if an objective perspective exists, that perfection falls apart.
To eyes full of pity and sympathy, it would look like trite narcissism. Pity and sympathy are an expression of contempt for another person. Self-pity is an act that belittles the self. Both are despicable and utterly repulsive.
However, pity and sympathy probably aren’t the only outside perspectives. I realized this for the first time when it was shoved in my face so plainly.
When you just don’t want to hurt someone.
That feeling isn’t pity or sympathy.
That’s why I would never call what they’d done, could not let what they had done be called, sacrifice.
In order to keep Yukino Yukinoshita or Yui Yuigahama from becoming student council president…
…what was the one thing Hachiman Hikigaya could do?
It was the day after making up with Komachi. I’d been thinking the whole time, since morning.
What was it that Hachiman Hikigaya could do?
Nothing came to mind, and I was seriously freaking out.
H-huh? This is strange… I felt like I could do anything last night, though…
Thinking about it, given my current position, I’d never had many options in the first place.
For example, let’s say I was to declare candidacy for student council president and run against them. Then what? No one would nominate me, and so I wouldn’t even be allowed to run.
Or I could obstruct their campaigns. This would be really pointless if it were just me, too. Besides, slanderous flyers and nasty rumors were the wrong way to go about things. I didn’t want to drag them down or show contempt for them.
Not only was I stuck at just two ideas, one of them was obstruction… There was shockingly little I could do. It seemed matters that would inevitably be based on majority rule, like student council elections, were incredibly incompatible with someone like me.
But I’d brought this on myself. There was no one I could ask for help, either. I wasn’t the sort of person who would be allowed to trouble people—I hadn’t built the relationships for that. Present me was suffering for past me’s choices. And most likely, the present me would make the future me suffer, too.
My brain had been working and working at this the whole time since I’d come to school, but I still couldn’t think of a way to fix this problem—even though I’d finally obtained a goal.
Even once we were on lunch break, I still couldn’t think of anything. There wasn’t much time left until the election. The vote was on the Thursday of next week, and today was Tuesday. That was a full week, but my only available manpower was myself, and I had no plan to oppose the girls’ plans, to boot.
Preventing Iroha Isshiki from getting elected as president while also keeping Yukinoshita and Yuigahama from winning seemed impossible, no matter what amazing plan I might come up with.
My one option was to come up with some other candidate—but I’d shot down that idea myself.
Should I put off the election? Or dismantle the whole system of student council elections? No, I had no method of accomplishing that. I was at total stalemate.
But still, I couldn’t sit and do nothing.
In search of something I could manage on my own, I headed to the library.
At lunchtime, the library was deserted. Not only was it forbidden to eat and drink there, the library was a long walk from the classrooms, so it wasn’t a very popular spot for lunch. The only time it was crowded was before testing times.
I surveyed the shelves and decided to search for civil documents and materials that might have some information about Soubu High School history, or summaries of student council elections. If I was going to try to beat the girls in the election, I’d have to think up some appropriate election promises and an election speech. If something came to mind while I was fishing around these documents, that’d be great. If I could discover a loophole in the election rules, that would be a real find. However, I found no such convenient documents as I went back and forth between various shelves.
I saw something that looked about right and went to pull it out. Reaching out to the very top shelf, I hooked it with my finger. The book slid out and fell.
“Yikes.” I jerked my head aside automatically, but the heavy book smacked into my chest, knocking the breath out of me, and then spit got in my windpipe and made me choke.
And while I was coughing and hacking, the book next to the large empty space tipped over and landed with a tump, and then they were all falling over like dominoes clattering down, while the thinner and lighter books fell to the floor with a rustle of paper.
That noise, as well as the sound of me coughing and hacking, was especially loud in the quiet library, and the few visitors gave me cold looks. Oh, I could understand their feelings. If I saw some idiot making a racket in the library, I’d act the same way.
And so I somehow managed to restrain my coughing and endeavored to put things back where they’d been.
There were books scattered around my feet, and books on the shelf fallen over.
Agh, what do I do about this? Geez.
I sighed roughly and then crouched to pick up the books, and that was when a haughty voice descended upon me. “How wretched you are, Hachiman Hikigaya. Fwa-ha-ha!” I knew without turning around—Yoshiteru Zaimokuza was standing behind me, letting out a thunderous laugh.
“Don’t be stupid. This is my default wretchedness. Do you need something?”
“A foolish question. I’m nigh always here at lunch. And as I knew you were here via ESP, I elected to take a moment of your time!”
Damn it, he’s such an obnoxious, lame pain in the ass. Even a second of conversation with him is so exhausting. My back was bent over to begin with, and now my shoulders slumped even further.
Seeing my state, Zaimokuza unexpectedly squatted down and met my eyes. “…Herm? Whatever is the matter, Hachiman? …Do you have some concern?
“…No, not really anything important.” Nothing I’d talk about with someone else.
But Zaimokuza adjusted his glasses with a click and said, “Talk to me.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not worth talking to anyone about.”
“What nonsense! How much blathering have I done to you? …I can listen to your blathering, at least… Heh, I’m so cool when I reach out to the weak.”
Very proud of yourself, aren’t you, good sir? And weak? Hey… Are you one of those guys who wants to nurse a fragile girl at her bedside? I kind of get that.
But regardless of what his motives were, I hadn’t expected to hear something like that from Zaimokuza, and I couldn’t help but smile. “…The only cool thing you said was the first part. So who’d you rip it off from?” I said.
Smugly, Zaimokuza said, “No, ’twas I.”
“You dork. You’re not allowed to say anything actually cool.” I was exasperated at myself for actually being impressed.
But Zaimokuza, huh…? He’d completely vanished from my memory until this very minute, but maybe he could help.
If it was him…
Yes, if it was him, bothering him wouldn’t hurt me emotionally, and there wasn’t even a question of whether this would damage him or not—just standing there, Zaimokuza is a fatal wound. He is the living irredeemable. In a way, he’s the type of creature closest to myself.
I couldn’t count on him for anything. But I could trust the fact of his presence, which could destroy both good vibes and bad. Most of all, we’d been a gym class duo for some time. A hopeless and crummy duo, though.
“…Zaimokuza, I have a favor to ask.”
“Hrm, so be it. So then what shall we do first?”
Surprised that he answered instantly, I couldn’t yet think of what I’d ask of him. “Yeah… First, help me clean these up.”
“O-okay… I shouldn’t have said that after all…”
He’d probably been hoping for something cooler. Zaimokuza went completely back to normal, muttered that quietly, and obediently started organizing the shelf.
Sorry. Though I couldn’t say this for sure, I’d never end up asking Zaimokuza for help. It’d probably end horribly. Me and Zaimokuza pairing up. Not even worth considering.
I roughly summarized the student council election situation to Zaimokuza and put off explaining anything about my specific plans until after school.
During the afternoon classes, I pondered over how to work Zaimokuza into the current situation. But unfortunately—or should I say of course?—it didn’t seem like he’d fit in at all. Was there anything Zaimokuza and I could do together…?
I never did think of anything before the end of school came. I had to meet up with Zaimokuza then. I’m kind of a jerk, thinking this was a bit of a pain in the ass when I’d been the one to make this request of him.
Homeroom ended, and everyone else left the classroom. Their destinations were various: Some were going to their clubs, some were going home, and some were going out to have fun.
One of these groups remained together in the classroom and didn’t leave. This combination of blonde, brown, and black hair naturally drew the eyes of those around them.
Holding her head as she scratched at her pinkish-brown hair, Yuigahama moaned. “Fnggggh, hmm…” She had a mechanical pencil in her hand, but it didn’t look like it was going to move.
In the seat beside her, Miura was pulling and releasing her blonde sausage curls when she suddenly thought of something. “Oh, wouldn’t it be cool to come to school in our own clothes?”
“That’s it!” Yuigahama pointed at Miura, then immediately wrote that down on a piece of paper. But then her hand stopped again, and she started moaning again.
Ebina, sitting opposite them, was also thinking and going “Hmm” as she combed through her black bob with her fingers. “It’d also be nice if they stopped doing bag inspections. They really do it from time to time. It’s embarrassing when you have the stuff, you know? Like, I’ll have doujinshi I borrowed from friends still in my bag.”
“That’s just you, Ebina,” Miura said, and Ebina chuckled gleefully.
“O-okay, well, I-I’ll write it down,” Yuigahama said.
“You don’t hafta write that down. More importantly, I wanna eat lunch on the roof.”
“I’ll take that, too!”
It seemed the three of them were thinking up election promises to use in Yuigahama’s campaign speech. Hayama and the guys were probably not around because they had their club. Hayama was doing Yukinoshita’s campaign speech, so maybe he couldn’t help Yuigahama anyway.
Ever since Miura had seen Hayama hanging out with Orimoto and her friend the other day, she’d been prone to agitation and zoning out, but that must not have been on her mind when the guy in question wasn’t around, as today she was brisk as usual. “Also, the bus is too crowded. It’s annoying.” She spun her hair around her finger and folded her long legs in the other direction… In fact, she may have been a little meaner than usual.
“I dunno if that’s the job of the student council… But sure, I’ll write it down.” After writing that, Yuigahama considered and went “Hmm” again. But after scratching her head with the mechanical pencil, she stopped writing.
Then Ebina clapped her hands. “Oh, I want LCD tablets in the art room.”
“I…don’t really know what those are, but I’ll write it down!”
Watching the three of them from a distance, I stood from my seat.
…Yuigahama was serious about running in the election. Her approach, and everything she was doing here, was very much like her.
When I got to the Saize near the station, I found Zaimokuza already there. You don’t need to bother searching around the restaurant to find the guy, so he’s convenient at times like these. I went to his seat, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Sorry to make you wait,” I said.
Zaimokuza waved a hand as if to say, Don’t worry about it. He was munching on something, and there was an empty plate on the table. It seemed he’d just eaten something. Based on the size of the plate and the crumbs there, it was focaccia. Beside the plate was an open container of sugar syrup. He was eating focaccia with syrup? Is that supposed to be good?
Oh yeah, I missed lunch. Should I order something, too? I was opening the menu when I suddenly realized—talking with Zaimokuza wasn’t going to turn this situation around so easily, and it was also highly likely that this would drag on for a while. So then it’d be best to have dinner, while I was at it.
I pulled out my phone and called Komachi. Instead of ringing, some song I don’t know jingled at me. Why does her cell phone always sing when I call it…? I was thinking when Komachi answered.
“Hello, hellooo.”
“I don’t need dinner today.”
“Why not?”
“I’m having a, well, sort of a meeting-like thing with Zaimokuza.”
“…Hmm. Where are you eating?”
“The Saize close to school.”
“Got it!”
“Uh-huh.” I hung up abruptly. It’s nice and easy when you can communicate all that stuff in less than thirty seconds, with the minimal amount of words.
Zaimokuza, who’d been watching me talk on the phone, gulped down the rest of his cola and spoke with tons of motivated energy. “Now then, Hachiman. Let us begin…though I don’t really know what’s beginning.”
Acting this eager before he even knew what was going on didn’t exactly inspire confidence in me. It actually just made me uneasy instead. “First, can I eat something? I’m hungry.”
“Herm, well, an army marches on its stomach, as they say. Eat what you please.”
“Thanks,” I said and immediately pressed the order button. A professional Saizeriyan (referring to a user of Saizeriya) never hesitates in ordering. I remember most of their regular menu, so I check only their seasonal and new items. Then in the time before the server comes to take my order, I instantly consider every possibility and make my decision.
By the time the server had come around, I’d already decided on my order.
“Milan-style pilaf, the assorted grilled meats, and the drink bar.”
With a beep, beep on a smartphone-esque device, the server input my order.
Zaimokuza timidly raised his hand. “Oh, and spicy chicken, too… Oh, and also the hashed meat with turmeric rice.”
You’re still gonna eat…? Well, it’s fine. The chicken is good.
We spent a little under an hour eating, and once my stomach was full, I finally decided to get to the subject at hand. I tossed back my coffee and said to Zaimokuza, “Okay, so I explained to you about the election, right?”
“Aye. ’Twas about how you would prevent those two from winning.” Zaimokuza nodded dramatically. But after a little thinking, he groaned. “Fmm, but, well…”
“What?”
“Why must they not be elected?” He asked me that very simple question with a tilt of his head.
Well, that’s the normal response, I guess. In fact, I doubted many would be against either being president. Or more like the majority just didn’t care who it was. I had my personal reason, but I hesitated to be honest about it. I didn’t feel like I could explain it right anyway.
So instead, I asked Zaimokuza, “If Yukinoshita or Yuigahama got elected, what do you think will happen to the school?”
“Herm, I fear ’twould become a world unkind to one such as I…,” Zaimokuza answered, sweat rising on his forehead.
“Yeah, that’s all you need to know.”
Though actually, no matter which of them became student council president, I doubted the school would change much. A high school student council doesn’t have the power to change anything fundamental about a school. What I’d told him was just some BS logic I’d come up with. I didn’t think that would actually convince him, but it was my only option if I wanted to get through this.
“So as for what I’m going to do specifically…” I was about to move the conversation along when I got a phone call from Komachi. I casually raised a hand at Zaimokuza, got his permission with a look and a “Sorry,” then answered my phone.
“Hello?”
“Oh, there he is!” Her voice came not from my phone but from behind me. I turned around to see Komachi there, in her school uniform.
“…Huh? Why’re you here?”
“I heard you were having a meeting…so I’m here!”
Right when I was about to complain, like, Come on, don’t give me that; I didn’t invite you…, someone unexpected came up from behind her.
“We’re not bothering you, are we?” He was wearing that familiar gym uniform with his tennis bag slung over his shoulder, standing there idly. Smiling bashfully like he was a little embarrassed, he was more angelic than that picture of an angel decorating the wall.
“T-T-T…”
T…T-T-T-T-Totsukaaa! Oh dear, I’m so shocked, I can’t talk right.
I was so startled meeting him here, of all places, I nearly wound up thinking we were destined to be together. But based on what I could see here, this was something Komachi had schemed up, and so this was probably not love but Nisekoi: False Love. That was a relief. I could be at ease, build my Gundam, and fight!
As I stuttered to a halt, not quite able to respond, Totsuka looked at me with concern. So as to soothe his worry as soon as possible, I quickly found a reply. “No, not at all! Anyway, will you sit down?” I briskly moved my bag off the seat beside me and pulled out the chair. The plan here was that logically, Totsuka would sit there! Am I a genius or what?
“Oh, or do you want to eat something?” I said to the picture of an angel hanging on the wall, in a demonstration of my gentlemanliness. Oh, whoops! My mistake! Got my angels confused. Why does Saize have an angel picture on the wall anyway?
“Oh, so then…,” Totsuka said with no particular suspicion as he sat down next to me.
With a cry of “Fngh!” Zaimokuza offered him the menu. He must have been too nervous to form words. Me and Zaimokuza were making a surprisingly good coordinated play here.
“Maybe I’ll have the peperoncino… Oh, but garlic, huh…? Hmm…” Totsuka eyed the menu, weighing his options. I didn’t reach straight out to the call button this time.
Go ahead, take your time choosing. Order whatever you like, be it peperoncino or Pepelotion.
As Totsuka was considering his order, I stood beside Komachi and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Komachi, what the hell is going on here?”
“If you’re gonna do this thing for Komachi, then Komachi’s gotta put in some effort, too, right?”
Ohhh, you’ve put in a real effort for me. I reached out to pat Komachi’s head, but she smoothly dodged my hand and stepped back. Then she puffed out her chest a bit smugly. “And so I recruited a whole bunch of people to help!” And then, with a “Ta-daa!” she spread her arms and pointed.
She was gesturing toward Kawa…Kawaguchiko? No, was it Yamanakako? Well, Kawa-something is fine. Wait, Komachi knew her number, too? I don’t even know her name.
Kawa-something stuffed her hands in her pockets, glancing at me with a grumpy pout on her lips. “Why me…?” she muttered quietly. When her eyes met mine, she went silent with an “Urk!”
Awww, I’m sorry you had to come here when you so clearly didn’t want to.
Well, Kawa-something was from my school, so I could understand her being here. As a constituent in the election, you couldn’t say she had absolutely nothing to do with it.
But the other one really had nothing to do with this. “So why’s that here, too?” I asked Komachi.
And then said irrelevant article quite cheerfully and briskly replied, “I’m not a thing! I’m Taishi Kawasaki!”
Uh, like I said, why are you here…? Oh, is it to let me know that Kawa-something’s name is Kawasaki? Thanks.
But it seemed that was not the case. Komachi scratched her head with a laugh. “Well…even Komachi doesn’t know Saki’s number.”
“Oh, that’s why.” That made sense. “Well, you got ahold of her, so you don’t need that anymore, right?”
“I’m not a thing! I’m Taishi Kawasaki!” Taishi insisted once more, not discouraged.
If your big sister did that much insisting, I wouldn’t keep forgetting her name, I thought.
Meanwhile, Kawasaki was glaring at me. “Did you just say you didn’t need him here?”
“No, um, I do need him, yes…” Mostly as a mental stabilizer for Kawasaki. Please stop glaring daggers at me like it’s kill or be killed or Kill la Kill…
“Anyway, let’s sit down.” Komachi intervened and moved us over to sit at the table seats nearby. She prompted Kawasaki and Taishi to take the seats at the back, while she sat next to me. She’s the kind of competent girl who will casually choose the lowest-rank seat for herself.
We checked what everyone wanted and ordered as a group, and then once all the drinks were set out as well, Komachi cleared her throat. “Ahem. Without further ado, it’s time for the big plan to keep Yukino and Yui in the club!!” she announced, and Totsuka and Taishi followed with a patter of applause, while Zaimokuza nodded.
Komachi must have explained the situation to Totsuka and Kawasaki beforehand, as they didn’t particularly question anything. She really is such a competent little sister.
But Kawasaki leaned her cheek on her hand as she looked the other way to ask a different sort of question. “Was there a point in inviting me?”
“This is about Soubu High, and we really wanted to get your help,” Komachi said modestly with a cute smile and a “Tee-hee.”
Stop with the obsequious hand-wringing, come on.
But it seemed that kind of manipulation didn’t work on Kawasaki, and her attitude was unchanged. “Huh. I don’t think I’d be useful, though.”
“Oh, just getting your opinions will be helpful,” I said.
Kawasaki looked over at me for an instant, but her eyes immediately snapped away again. “…You don’t need my opinions,” she said.
But given the situation, her opinions would be useful.
Being in the lower reaches of a subtributary at school, the perspective of the lower class is ingrained in me. I also couldn’t help but hold some bias toward the candidates, Yukinoshita and Yuigahama. The views of someone who stood a certain distance from them would be more neutral. It was necessary to include that standard of judgment.
I was right about to explain this when the food came. I waited for the server to leave, but that created a break in the conversation, and I felt like I’d lost my moment. Well, I could skip to the conclusion. “I need you.”
Kawasaki blinked. “O-oh… Then, well, okay…,” she said, pulling her cup of iced tea toward her, turning her face away as she sucked on the straw. There was the slurping sound of an empty cup. Maybe it was because she was looking away. I wonder if she was tired.
I kind of felt bad for making her go along with all this trouble. “Sorry,” I said.
Kawasaki removed her hand from the cup and leaned her cheek on it again. She looked at me for a moment as if thinking hard, then said, “It’s fine. You doing stuff with that club…fits.”
“What? Why?” There was nothing in particular about it that fit me. In fact, I hated words like service, work, and labor. I hated even the idea of them.
“N-never mind. I was just thinking that because you haven’t been yourself lately.”
A loner always has a great eye for observation. What keen insight. People-watching is the penchant of the loner.
Not myself, huh?
But if she was going to talk about what wasn’t like me, then what I was doing now wasn’t like me. I wasn’t giving up. I was trying to protect the club. This was very clearly not like me.
But it seemed the others evaluated the situation differently. Komachi, sitting beside me, chuckled. “You’ve always got to put up some useless struggle, Bro.”
Oh, that felt right.
Out of power and out of moves to make, but still repeatedly struggling in vain anyway, not bothered by the damage I take—wanting to get a hit or two back at the other guy if I’m gonna lose anyway, to make things suck for him…
That’s like me.
Then let’s play this game in a way that’s like me.
First, let’s observe some of the examples of success we have at hand.
I turned to Komachi. I seemed to recall she was on the student council in middle school. In other words, she’d run as a candidate and won before. She would have also managed a campaign before, too. So I decided to ask about that. “Komachi, how’d you win that election?”
She considered my question a moment before prefacing with “Hmm, I won by vote of confidence, so I don’t think that’ll be very useful…”
“That’s fine—just tell me about your election strategy or whatnot.”
“Okay… Well, before you declare candidacy, I guess I’d go and say, Komachi’s gonna do it! And if you do that, most of the time, nobody’ll fight you for it.”
“I see…” It may not necessarily be that victory goes to whoever makes the first move, but if you do something to give others some pause, even those who are interested in running might hesitate. As expected of my little sister: shrewd.
I asked with a look if there was anything else, and Komachi folded her arms and began making thinking noises. “Also…boys might be at an advantage with stuff like this. Well, boys who are popular or well liked, though.”
“Oh yeah, ’cause with middle schoolers, boys might have a hard time voting for a girl.”
“Hmm, that’s part of it, but…” Komachi was evasive, putting on a vague smile.
“What is it?” I asked, curious as to the rest of what she wanted to say.
Komachi stuck up her pointer finger. “If a girl’s running, about half the girls’ll be against her.”
O-ohhh… I have been witness to my sister’s transformation into a full-fledged member of women’s society. Big Bro is happy that Komachi’s grown but also a little sad…
Opposite us, Taishi was also a little disturbed. His head drooped, and he muttered, “Hikigaya’s heart is black as coal…”
“Don’t you go calling my sister blackhearted.”
And your sister’s got more black going on—like her panties.
But anyway, some of what Komachi had said could be of reference. “Using girl-on-girl hostility, huh…?”
Suddenly, Zaimokuza reacted. “The Meat to the Tigers Plot!”
Hearing that, Totsuka tilted his head. “But that would mean making Yukinoshita and Yuigahama fight, wouldn’t it?”
“True… And if everyone gets too into it, it’ll start proxy wars, or it could drag on afterward, too…,” Komachi noted solemnly.
That’s just a common opinion, right? You’re not talking based on personal experience? I’m worried…
But that was indeed a concern. Miura seemed like she might get into a proxy war… Then Yukinoshita would pay her back double and make her cry. Well, Miura aside, it would probably be best to avoid doing anything that would create a breeding ground for future problems. Or more to the point, causing unnecessary damage to Yuigahama and Yukinoshita was out of the question.
As everyone was racking their brains and wondering if there was anything else, Zaimokuza raised his hand, as did Taishi.
“So then, the Empty Fort Strategy!”
“Maybe it’d be a good idea to have some other candidates.”
Wow, Taishi. You totally ignored Zaimokuza and offered your own opinion, too, even though it had nothing to do with what he’d said. He might actually be the real deal.
But Yukinoshita and Yuigahama had already explored that option, and I’d rejected it. “I’ve already considered that. Besides, not just anyone could beat those two.”
Frankly speaking, the only one who could get more votes than either of them would be Hayama. And those votes were on Yukinoshita’s side now, while the girls from Hayama’s clique would be with Yuigahama. So no other candidate could stand up to them.
So Taishi reconsidered. “Oh, so if one person couldn’t beat them, maybe having lots could be a good idea.”
“Ohhh! Like a pile of dust!” Komachi clapped her knee.
I think she was referring to the saying that even dust makes a mountain if you pile up enough.
Flooding the ballot with candidates… True, doing that could reduce how many votes they got. Would it work? No, in that case, the candidates with the most votes would still win, in the end—in other words, one of the girls.
If opposing them wasn’t an option and neither was flooding the ballot, then I had to consider other angles. “A way to beat Yukinoshita and Yuigahama…,” I muttered, and Kawasaki, who’d been listening in silence until then, opened her mouth.
“Not like it matters, but if neither Yukinoshita nor Yuigahama are gonna do it, then who’ll be president, in the end?
“…Oh.”
Whoops. I completely forgot about Isshiki.
“Come on…” Kawasaki breathed an exasperated sigh.
Oh, I’m exasperated with myself here.
Preventing Yukinoshita and Yuigahama from becoming student council president would mean making Isshiki be president. This wasn’t good—as long as the only candidates were those three, one of them had to be president. I really didn’t have any options here.
Scratching my head, I reconsidered the situation, this time, with Isshiki included.
This was when a particularly nice-sounding voice came to my ears. “Hermmm, now that it’s come to this, with our backs to the river…”
That remark made me lift my head, and my eyes met Zaimokuza’s.
“Zaimokuza…”
“Herm.” He gave a satisfied nod.
Good grief, Zaimokuza… I couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks for everything. I’m grateful for the sentiment. But sorry. This is hard to say, but you’ve really been getting in the way.”
“Hngeh!” Zaimokuza’s head flung back.
Look, I mean, pushing that Chinese history angle is obnoxious…
However, no matter how many times he’s kicked down, Zaimokuza is a man who will crawl his way up again. Just like Gen after he was told, “You’re wheat! Become wheat!” he straightened his back once more.
“Kerfphon, ’twas you who proclaimed to me I should make suggestions! And thence I’ve been demonstrating my tactics, strategy, and art of war.” Adjusting his glasses with a click, Zaimokuza looked at me.
“Well, you weren’t the one to think up any of those ideas, though.”
“Silence, you! Your chances of beating those two is equivalent to zero in the first place! You’ll never win at the strategy level, and therefore, you must battle them on a tactics level.”
That almost sounded legit…
Totsuka, who’d been listening, tilted his head. “Um…tactics and strategy are different?”
“Huh? Uh…a-aye, that it is. Look up the difference between the twain in your dictionaries!” Zaimokuza avoided the question by pushing through vigorously, then turned back to me. “Attempting to challenge them is wrongheaded in the first place.”
“Well, yeah, that’s true, but…” Frustrating as it was, I couldn’t argue with him. It was true that I couldn’t beat them in a fight. It wasn’t that fighting was useless—it was more like I couldn’t fight at all. The overwhelming advantage they had in this fight wasn’t my only obstacle—I wasn’t even standing on the stage of the competition.
This is no good. The situation is worse than I thought.
As I was scratching roughly at my head, Komachi said to me, “Bro.”
“Hmm?”
“Snowflake is right.”
“Yeah, Big Bro understands that, too, Komachi-chan…” I turned her aside for the moment in the way you might soothe a small child, like, Let me think about it a bit, ’kay?
I think the words of wisdom about winning without fighting were written by Sun Tzu, right? If I could become Sun Tzu, I might be able to figure something out. I am Sun Tzu, I am Sun Tzu, I am Sun Tzu, I am Sun Tzu… I’m some zoo? In other words, rather than fighting, the wisdom of victory can be found at the Chiba Zoo, huh…? Chiba is the greatest after all…
My train of thought had switched onto a very weird track when Komachi tugged on my sleeve. “Komachi doesn’t particularly want you to win.”
“Huh? Uh, but I have to win this election.” If I didn’t, one of them would end up being student council president.
“But, like, you haven’t even announced candidacy, so forget winning.” Kawasaki sighed contemptuously.
Dead sound argument… Oh, she really was right, though.
“Ah-ha-ha, well, Hachiman isn’t bound by rules, right?” Totsuka attempted to mediate with a laugh, seeming a little confused.
He’s such an angel. If Totsuka was gonna say that about me, then maybe it’d be nice not to be bound by the rule that is civil code volume 4, article 2.
As I was secretly basking in the comfort of Totsuka’s comment, Komachi tugged on me, forcing me to turn toward her. “Komachi just wants Yukino and Yui to stay in the Service Club. Honestly, I don’t really care about this student council election.”
“O-oh…but then there’s still Isshiki…” Being that I’d accepted this request, I couldn’t toss it aside without a second thought. Most of all, Yukinoshita, Yuigahama, Miss Hiratsuka, and Meguri would not say yes to that.
Seeing my reluctance, Komachi stared at me. “Bro, is this Isshiki person the most important here?”
“Well, no, not at all.”
“So then why is this so hard?”
“Uh, look, a request is a request,” I said.
Komachi took my face in her hands and pulled. “Which is more important, your work or Komachi?”
“Obviously, you. I have no intention of getting a job,” I said boldly and with all the love in the world as I swept aside Komachi’s hands.
“Process of elimination, huh…?” Totsuka smiled, either out of exasperation or worry.
Oh, but if it’s you, Totsuka, I’d unconditionally answer in your favor.
Komachi was pouting, and there was a little glare in her eyes, but her lips parted in a big smile. “I really can’t be honestly happy about that, but…well, okay, okay. Then what’ll you do, Bro?”
“I get what you’re saying. But I’m not going to force Isshiki to be student council president.”
That’s exactly what you’d call a sacrifice. That was why I couldn’t allow it. Even if there was a reason for abandoning her request, it would merely be a reason I’d thought up, one with nothing to do with Iroha Isshiki. Fundamentally, nobody has the right to sacrifice another to satisfy their own selfish reasons.
“…Yeah, okay. Well, this is how you do things, Bro.” Komachi sadly lowered her eyes a touch, but her expression quickly turned to an exasperated smile.
“Yeah, Hachiman is Hachiman after all.” Totsuka followed that up with a grin.
“Hmm…” Kawasaki seemed a little startled but smiled as if she found this very interesting, somehow. But when her eyes met with mine, she immediately averted them to gnaw at her straw. Then she glanced back at me to say, “N-not that it matters, but…what are you gonna do?”
“Let me think a bit.” I closed my eyes.
If the number one priority was retaining Yukinoshita and Yuigahama, as per Komachi’s request, then Iroha Isshiki could be the only option for student council president. Since it was incredibly unlikely we could back any other candidates, I would ignore that, in this case.
Additionally, we couldn’t hurt anyone.
So then what was the remaining issue?
Just one thing: what she herself wanted.
So then I had to come up with a way to turn that around.
In other words, I had to eliminate every reason Isshiki would have to not want to be the president.
Upon reaching this point, I opened my eyes.
“In essence, this means our initial approach was wrong…” Mine, Yukinoshita’s, and Yuigahama’s. “Well, in that case, I guess I have to negotiate with Isshiki.”
“I hope she’s someone you can even talk to… She’s a girl, isn’t she? Can you communicate?” Zaimokuza muttered.
His rationale was rather strange, but unfortunately, I basically agreed with him. And even Taishi beside him nodded for some reason. Seemingly out of curiosity, he asked, “What’s Isshiki like?”
“Hmm…”
Iroha Isshiki. She made herself look gentle and sweet, but that was deliberate. There was a brutal divide between someone like Hayama and people like me and Tobe, who weren’t even on her radar.
It was extremely difficult to put into words. But if I had to say, how would I put it?
“To make a comparison, she’s like Komachi, except not at all cute or charming.”
“Ohhh, that’s bad,” Taishi something or other said.
“Bro, what does that mean…?” Komachi’s bright smile was scary.
“It’s like, you know, it means you’re cute,” I said carelessly and petted her head. “Well, she’s someone I can communicate with, so it’ll probably be okay.” I was pretty much certain about that. If Iroha Isshiki was deliberately putting on that character, you might say that made her suited to negotiation. If she was carefully calculating risk and return, then depending on what I told her, I could influence her.
Now then, we’d have to arrange the bargaining chips for my efforts.
No—it might be more accurate to say fabricate them.
Anyway, I’d solidified my concept. Now I simply needed to work out the specifics of my method. For that, I needed a little more information.
“Kawasaki, list some people you think might be good for student council president.”
“Huh?” She must not have been expecting me to address her, as she pointed to herself, blinking. Then she hesitated. “Uhhh…th-this is kinda sudden.”
“Just take it one by one.” I actually did want some time to gather my thoughts.
“All right, then…,” she said, then tilted her head as she gradually brought up names. “I think Yukinoshita or Yuigahama would be fine. And…Hayama was his name? That sparkly, annoying dude.”
Well, that was fair enough. Yukinoshita and Yuigahama would be starting to gather nominators in earnest, though, so that would exclude them from the idea I had in mind now. But that was what she thought of Hayama, huh…?
Kawasaki considered some more. “Ebina…could probably do the job, but she’s not really cut out for it.”
I agreed with that. She was the type who’d shine in a position where she had freedom. But if Kawasaki was bringing up Ebina’s name so quickly, they must have gotten pretty friendly lately…
Then Kawasaki went “Oh” and added, “Definitely not Miura.”
Bad blood there. But if she was bothering to bring up her name, she must have had Miura on her mind.
The names Kawasaki had come up with so far were prominent figures in our grade, and well-known, too. I’d call that an acceptable lineup.
But the next name she voiced was a surprising one. “And maybe Sagami…”
“What? Sagami?” I asked suddenly, frowning.
Kawasaki went sullen. “What’s with that look? You’re the one who asked.”
“Oh, sorry. It’s not like I’ve got a problem with you… But why?”
“Since she was chair for both the cultural festival and the athletic festival. It’d make sense for her to be president.”
“I see…” My impression of Sagami was awful, so I couldn’t even imagine it. But it was true that to someone who didn’t know anything about what had gone on with the committees, Sagami would have a history of relevant work. And second-years aside, for the first- and third-years, who wouldn’t really know what had actually happened, that title might actually hold some weight.
This was an unforeseen dark horse. Most of all, using Sagami wouldn’t hurt me personally. Tobe, who also occupied the category of people I wouldn’t care about using, I would also add as a candidate. Man, he’s such a good guy.
Okay, this was probably about all we were going to get. Now to consider the operational methods.
When I turned to Kawasaki to thank her first, she eyed me, then pouted her lips as if she wanted to say something. I asked her with a look if there was still something else, and she added at a mutter, “And, like…you.”
“Oh, that’s funny. But I’m not going to get thirty nominations.”
“I know. I just wanted to say it.” She jerked her head away.
If you know it, then don’t say it. That kind of thing gets my heart rate up a little.
Anyway, the pieces had basically all been assembled. I confirmed each one. “Hayama, Ebina, Miura, Sagami, and while we’re at it, Tobe. And Isshiki, huh? I’ll have these guys be candidates,” I said.
Komachi’s expression turned doubtful. “Huh? I thought you weren’t going to have that Isshiki person be the candidate.”
“She will be, in the end. That’s why we’ve got the others. They’re like the groundwork—or maybe like bait for her.” Well, I did in fact have a goal beyond that, but it’d be better to explain that further down the road. At this point, Komachi wasn’t all that convinced, so I figured it was best to take things one step at a time.
“Bait, huh…? Will anyone do that for you? Or wait, can you even ask them, Bro?”
“Ha-ha-ha, of course not. So I’m gonna throw in their names without asking, and then we gather tons of nominators.” And so to that end, there was one more person whose help I wanted to borrow. “Totsuka, can I use your name, too?”
He must have been surprised to be called on, as he gave me a blank look. “Huh…? Well, but I…I don’t really understand this stuff…” He twisted around a little uncomfortably and looked down. He gazed at a corner of the floor for a while in silence before he looked at me with upturned eyes. “…You won’t do anything funny?”
“I promise,” I replied. I wouldn’t do anything funny, but I might do something queer. Oh, maybe I already was. Is this love?
Totsuka smiled at me. “…Then that’s fine. Take mine, too.”
“Thanks.”
Th-then I’ll take your name… Hachiman Totsuka would be nice, huh?! It kinda sounds like a shrine.
Anyhow, now all the pieces were assembled. Thanks to Totsuka, I felt like the pieces of my heart were all fitted in right, too, so the world was all love and peace in the end.
As I was mentally chuckling to myself, Komachi, who’d been thinking and hmming beside me, opened her mouth. “But even if you borrow their names, they’re gonna turn it down in the end, so they can’t ultimately be candidates, right?”
Just as Komachi said, without the consent of the individuals in question, the applications for candidacy couldn’t be completed. Because of what had happened with Isshiki, I doubted anyone would be able to hand in that form without the candidate’s permission now.
“It’s okay if they don’t,” I explained. “Like, we don’t need them to. I just have to gather nominators.”
“?” Now everyone at the table looked confused, including Komachi still.
“What do you think would happen if every student in the school nominated you?”
“Well, you’d win.” Komachi nodded as if this was completely obvious.
I nodded back at her. “Of course you would. Or rather, the other candidates wouldn’t be able to announce candidacy. Since if you’ve nominated one candidate, you can’t write yourself down for another.”
“Oh, I never imagined there was a rule like that… No man is above the law…,” Zaimokuza marveled.
But it didn’t matter if it was a rule or not. Also, that Seagal movie has nothing to do with it.
“No, I don’t know if that’s written in the protocol or not. Most students don’t even know there is a protocol in the first place. But if you sign for someone, you’re not gonna think you’re allowed to put your name down for someone else, right?” Since they won’t know about the protocol, at times like these, people will make judgments based on common sense.
If you could only make one recommendation, that would create another side to the nomination-gathering stage. It would not only be a simple cut of weak candidates, but also function as a preliminary election. That could be inferred from the expression “at least thirty nominators.” That meant you could make it as many above thirty as you wanted.
“So I’ll flood the pool with candidates and gather as many nominators as possible,” I said.
“If you gather everyone ahead of time, then the others can’t announce candidacy, huh?” Taishi looked at me with sparkling eyes, like, Whoa!
But sorry, it’s not that simple. “Well, if you were only considering this on a basic level, then yes. But that’s probably impossible. This is ultimately sort of like buying time. If there are a lot of candidates, then people will worry about who to nominate. So it’ll make it harder for them to sign.” Though extremely mild, this would have some effect in deterring nominations from the other two. But it was ultimately just a deterrent and couldn’t finish the deal.
I needed one more move.
“…Hey,” someone said to me as I was thinking about how to draw my cards. Lifting my head, I saw a serious look in Kawasaki’s eyes. She was kind of glaring at me, too, but, well, that’s her resting face. “Forget whether this’ll actually work or not. Won’t it be bad for you if it gets found out that you’ve used these people’s names without permission?”
Once the older sister had spoken, the younger brother also nodded and agreed. “That’s right; you’ll get beat up, Bro. They’ll beat you to a pulp.”
“Don’t call me Bro.” I’ll beat you up, I thought, but Kawasaki beside him was scaring me, so I didn’t say that part out loud.
Furthermore, Komachi, sitting beside me, tugged on my sleeve, too. “Bro.” The corners of her mouth were turned down as she was making dissatisfied noises. She didn’t have to say any more for me to understand. She meant to say, Don’t do the same thing again.
“I know. I’m not going to just waltz out there.”
Then there would be no point.
It was completely true that it was arrogant in the first place to believe just hating me would move all the students in the school to action. I had to adopt more complete methods—incorporating objectivity, even.
“So then who’ll do it?” Totsuka asked.
I shrugged. “I couldn’t make someone else do something like this.” It wasn’t like I wanted to put someone in the line of fire. I didn’t want someone else to take my position. I mean, it’d be awkward if they were to steal away that spot where I belonged. It was pretty comfortable after all.
“So I’ll have a nonhuman do it,” I said, prompting everyone to look at me like, What?
Guess I’ll have to explain it properly… “Zaimokuza.”
“Hey, no, I count as human!” Zaimokuza declared his humanity and waved his hands as if to say, I absolutely can’t, no, I seriously don’t wanna do it! His extremely honest reaction made me smile wryly.
“I get that. I was just calling on you. Do you have a Twitter?”
“Pwoff-foff-foff! Ohhh, I have it all, laddie: a main, a sub, a private, a sub-sub, and another sub from when me main were banned. Ye may leave the twitterin’ to me. Me clanspeople call me the Great Computer Adept!”
What’s with that weird laugh and that accent? Also, I think your relatives are making fun of you.
But Zaimokuza having a Twitter would make things faster. As I explained Twitter to the others, I pulled up some random account on my phone to show them. “Twitter is like, well, a type of social networking service—I guess you call it a micro-blog. I don’t really know exactly what you call it, but you write something in under one hundred forty characters. These posts are shown to your followers…basically, your readers. You can reply and have a sort of conversation.”
They could Google the details themselves if they wanted, so I moved on. “The great thing about it is the reach. If a message is retweeted, your content will spread and spread.”
Once my very general explanation was done, it seemed everyone basically understood what Twitter was. As expected of modern youngsters. Well, you hear about it a lot. Like with those people who practically post wanted posters for themselves, or information leaks, or people not thinking before they post and making themselves the target of an Internet mob. That was how I learned about Twitter, too.
“So what about Twitter?” For Zaimokuza, who was already on it, it had to be a boring explanation. He pushed me to continue.
“We’ll create some candidate support accounts on Twitter. But we make them look legit, like real people are running them. And then these fake people will gather nominations online.”
“Fake people… Hmm…,” Komachi muttered, like maybe she understood, and maybe she didn’t.
I nodded at her.
It was the instant version, a Band-Aid, a breaking of the rules for one time.
But I could use this method just this once.
“That’s not against the rules?” Komachi gave me a dubious look.
If we were talking about the rules, I was pretty sure it wasn’t written in the student council election protocol that you couldn’t do your election campaigning online. Well, nobody had even thought of the Internet back when they’d written the protocol.
Plus, this behavior wasn’t something the rules would even apply to. “I’m not going to actually submit it, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I dunno…” Komachi folded her arms and tilted her head.
I clapped my hand lightly on her head and said, “Well, even if it’s not allowed, the ones who’ll get the complaints and the blame will be those fake people. The unwitting candidates and those who supported them will be victims, while the onus lies on these fictional people. If we do that, everyone maintains their reputations. Nobody’ll get hurt.”
Someone always gets hurt.
If a world existed where that wasn’t true, then it would only mean everyone is hurt equally.
If you know someone has to take the fall to keep the world turning, but you still hate the idea of someone having to fall, then you have no choice but to create a scapegoat. And rather than choosing someone who already exists, you create something that will take the injuries and hate into its body and heart.
This was probably the best card I could play. It would take some work, and it wasn’t particularly efficient, but still, I could honestly say no harm done.
“Whoa, Bro…” Taishi’s unvarnished opinion slipped out, a slightly stiff smile on his face.
“Ha-ha-ha, not too much praise, now. Also, don’t call me Bro.”
This made Kawasaki inform me rather sharply, “I don’t think Taishi is complimenting you, though.”
Huh? Is that right? So is he freaked out after all?
“B-but it’d be nice if it works out, right?” Totsuka intervened.
Komachi sighed and shot a glare at me. “Well, it’s fine if it does work out, but…”
Normally, when I came up with something like this, Komachi would crisply shoot something right back at me, but her reactions had been slower than usual. This bothered me, so I asked her, “Is this idea that bad?”
“Hmm, it’s more like…I don’t really know…if it’s a good thing for you, Bro.” Komachi said, anxious. It seemed she couldn’t explain it well herself.
Well, I did think it was an underhanded and unfair method.
“But you shall never know if you do not try,” Zaimokuza declared. “There is aught else.”
He was right. My cards were limited, and what’s more, I was drawing a card that fundamentally didn’t exist. The duels of the strongest duelists are always fated. A duelist can even create the cards they draw. That’s how it is.
“So how will you run them?” Zaimokuza asked. “You can make accounts, but still, gaining followers and retweets is no easy task.”
“I’ll follow every single kid who goes to this school. Find one, and you should be able to find more from their followers, like in a chain. And…when students are on Twitter together, there’s a pressure to follow back. Especially with girls,” I said.
Zaimokuza slapped his knee. “Oh-ho, I get the gist of it. You greet them by saying you’re from the same school in a reply and then request to be mutuals, eh?”
As expected of the Great Computer Adept. He understands these things oh so well.
When students are interacting on Twitter, real life connections always get brought into it. If someone tells you they’re from the same school and follows you, even if they’re not a direct acquaintance, it’s human nature to think, I can’t not follow them back… And once they followed the account, we’d have them in the bag, and the tweets made by our fake account would be displayed on their timeline.
“So the usernames and posts will look something like this.” Pulling a ballpoint pen out of my bag, I snatched a paper napkin from the table to scribble it out.
Username: Support Account for _____
[Soubu HS only] Make them student council president! We’re currently gathering nominators! RT to support and put your name on the #nominatorregister! [OK to spread]
While checking on my phone, I made up a decent enough sample.
“Basically, you post this periodically to get retweets. And then you write the names of all the people who retweeted it on your nominator register.”
Besides this, I also had to come up with a profile for the accounts. For this part, there would be difficulty in presenting exactly the right amount of information. I had to ride a fine line: not anyone specific but someone who seemed like they would exist. It’d be a pain to make multiple accounts…
Everyone spent some time inspecting the example I’d written up, as well as some real tweets online. It would be best to have multiple people checking these to make them more accurate. It helped to have extra manpower at times like these.
Eventually, Taishi, who’d been watching this, said “Um!” and raised his hand. “What will you do if the people you’re making candidates see this and deny they’re running?”
Yeah, it was very possible the people in question would see this… “Hmm…” I mulled over this for a bit before I said, “You know, when you post, you should write, We’re not telling them about this yet! Tee-hee. Then you’ll be fine to support them without permission.”
Following Taishi, Totsuka, who’d been looking at my phone, raised his hand, too. Go ahead, Totsuka.
“So the names on here are called usernames, right, Hachiman? It looks like it’s not their real names, but is that okay?”
“Yep. If someone uses their real name, we can just write that, or if we can ask to find out, that also works,” I said.
Kawasaki gave me a dull look. “Nobody’s gonna tell you their names.”
My, Miss Kawasaki, you have a surprisingly tough guard. I don’t mind kids like that. Because I have a real tough guard, too. Prudence is important.
I’m not stupid enough to tell someone my real name if they ask out of the blue, either. I got that much. “Well, frankly, it doesn’t matter if they’re anonymous. This isn’t an official list of nominators. We’re not going to submit this, and we’re not going to publicize it, either. All it has to do is make them conscious of the person they’re voting for, and if it stops them from nominating any others, then that’s extra lucky.”
“That’s enough?” Komachi asked, surprised.
I nodded. “The real value of this is in how it’ll help us with negotiations.”
“Negotiation…,” Komachi muttered quietly.
Well, maybe I’d put that in a rather formal manner.
That was the real point of these fake accounts. Hedging our bets with people who don’t actually exist and the secret online campaign to hamstring Yukinoshita’s and Yuigahama’s attempts to gather nominators were no more than secondary by-products of that goal. The most important thing was the accomplishment these accounts would assemble.
That accomplishment would become my evidence for convincing Iroha Isshiki, and then Iroha Isshiki would be the key piece in my next step.
By getting opinions from everyone here and having them submit their concerns, I was sure to have eliminated most uncertain elements.
The remaining problem was who would manage the accounts, but…
Well, me and Zaimokuza, I guess. “Zaimokuza, can I ask you to run half the accounts?”
“You can indeed!” Zaimokuza put on a cool, dark smile.
You get pretty confident when it’s your field of specialty, huh?
That show of confidence just scared me instead, though, so I made sure to warn him, “Don’t reveal who you really are. You only have to pull the wool over their eyes for the next three days.”
“Leave it to me. After that one time my attempts to disguise my IP were foiled, I learned much, terrifying though the experience was.”
I didn’t know that happened to him… But, well, if he’d had one scary experience, it was unlikely he’d blow it.
I was thinking, Now we can get started, when Kawasaki rapped on the table. What, is that Morse code? I thought, but it seemed she was calling for me. Uh, just call me normally. Or do you not remember people’s names? You’re so mean, Kawa-something!
“What is it?” I asked.
Kawasaki glanced over at Zaimokuza and said, voice low, “Can he write to make it sound like a girl?”
“It’s okay. Zaimokuza is great at stuff like that,” I said.
Zaimokuza popped his thumb up and snapped a ding! of a wink. “Aye, leave it to my literary talents!”
“That’s not what I mean… Find some random account and either copy their text and replace key words or trace their format. You’re good at that sort of thing, right?”
“’Tis what I assumed you meant, ding, ding!” Suddenly, he gave me a self-deprecating smile.
Uh, that’s a fine talent in its own way, so value it, okay?
But now we were basically finished with the discussion, so I drank my coffee, which had long-since gone cold.
One person at the table, Komachi, had a long face, though.
“What is it, Komachi?” I asked, voice so quiet that only she, sitting beside me, would be able to hear.
She replied so quietly, it was as if her voice might fade away. “I was wondering if this’ll really work out.”
“It’ll work out. I’ll do it right, all the way up to the final finishing touches. Leave it to me.”
“Okay…,” she replied, but she was still looking down.
I put my hand on her drooping head and gave it a couple of pats.
“Make sure you actually talk about it with Yukino and Yui, okay? Promise?” Komachi said, taking my head.
“Yeah, I will. But there’s no point in talking when you’ve got nothing convincing. So I’ll do it after we’re ready to go.”
“You always sound logical, but you also skip over tons of stuff, so Komachi’s worried…”
“It’ll be okay.”
I’d manage somehow.
This was a really complicated and annoying way to go about this, but if it was the only way I’d check all the boxes, then I had to choose this option.
I’d gotten my reason, established the problem, and gained a means.
Now I just had to move it into action.
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