My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU IF: Yukinoshita's Choice - The wall of the student council, and the shadow of my mother.

The school building after classes was buzzing with the fever of cultural festival preparations. Students clutching sheets of poster paper ran through the hallways, and the intermittent sound of plywood being hammered echoed from classrooms. An irritating racket. I, Hikigaya Hachiman, walked through that noise as if pushing it aside. Next to me was Yuigahama Yui. Her fluffy brown hair swayed softly under the fluorescent lights of the hallway. In her hands, she clutched a clear file containing Yukinoshita Yukino's novel manuscript with both arms. Holding it preciously, like cradling a baby. "I'm nervous, Hachiman." Yui moved half a step closer to me than usual and whispered. "Not really. We're just submitting an application, right?" "But... um, isn't the student council kind of scary? I heard the president corners you with really logical arguments." "How should I know? Besides, those guys are just our classmates. If you're that scared, go home." "I'm not going home! We decided to present Yukinon's novel at the cultural festival. I want to actually be useful. I can't just rely on you, Hachiman." Yui tightened her grip on the clear file. The edge of the manuscript bent slightly. (She's surprisingly stubborn, this girl.) I let out a small sigh. A few days ago, at Inage Seaside Park, we heard Yukino's true feelings, and the three of us decided on a plan to present her novel at the cultural festival. Three weeks remained until the Soubu Festival. Yukino entrusted the manuscript to us. In that clubroom bathed in sunset light, I read Yukino's manuscript. "When I woke up in the morning, outside my room's window, there was a small cat." Just the first line grabbed my heart. It was delicate, proud, lonely, and yet warm. There was no way I could let something like this end without being read. I truly thought that. And yet. Reality always builds walls first. The biggest of those walls was the student council room we were heading to now. ◆◆◆ The student council room was at the back of the first floor of the main building. An old plate printed with "Student Council Room" hung on the door, and below it, a handwritten paper reading "Accepting Performance Applications" was pinned sloppily with a thumbtack. I could hear Yui swallow hard. "Your heartbeat is loud." "I-I can't help it! I've barely ever talked to anyone from the student council..." "They're students at the same school. They're not gonna eat you." I turned the doorknob casually. Clatter. Inside, a bleak space spread out with long desks arranged in a U-shape. On the whiteboard by the window, the cultural festival timetable was written in colored markers. At the back, in the seat at the center of the room, two students sat. One was a nervous-looking boy wearing glasses. He raised his eyes from the computer screen in front of him for just a moment, looked at us, then returned his gaze to the screen. Next to him sat a sharp-looking girl with long black hair. Both wore small name tags on their left chests reading "Student Council." (Ah, student council officers.) I didn't recognize them. Of course not. I don't take interest in others at school, and others don't take interest in me. A perfect symbiotic relationship. "Excuse us." Yui bowed her head slightly and entered. I followed. "What do you want?" The glasses boy said without looking up. A flat, low voice. "Um, this... it's a cultural festival performance application." Yui stepped forward and held out the documents. The application stated that the Service Club wanted to hold an exhibition presentation of Yukinoshita Yukino's novel. The requested location was the small multipurpose space on the first floor of the special building. Budget: zero. All we needed was simply "permission for an independent exhibition." "...Service Club?" The glasses boy finally looked up from his computer. His name tag read "Secretary: Kato." (Kato, huh.) He had an ordinary face. That plain face you'd find three of in any classroom. But the eyes behind his glasses gleamed with an oddly persistent light. "The Service Club, that's the one, right? Hiratsuka-sensei's weird club." "It's not weird! It's a proper club that solves students' problems!" Yui shot back, leaning forward. Kato glanced at the black-haired girl next to him. "What do you think, Vice President?" The black-haired girl, the so-called vice president, sighed boredly with her cheek resting on her hand. Her name tag read "Vice President: Kawamoto." "No need to even ask. Independent exhibition denied." Kawamoto's voice was cold and dry. "What do you mean?" I had interjected without thinking. "Internal regulations. Clubs with three or fewer members cannot apply for independent exhibitions at the cultural festival. The Service Club has three members, right?" "Three or fewer is no good... since when has that internal regulation existed?" "I don't know. If it exists, it exists. Check Article 8, Clause 3 of the Soubu Festival execution guidelines. It was decided long ago because too many tiny organizations would make operations unmanageable." Kawamoto smoothly spat out the rejection like a routine business notice. Her gaze didn't even look at Yui's hands where the application had been placed. She didn't look me in the eye at all. "B-but...! Please! We really, really want to present this at the cultural festival! This is a novel my friend wrote, and it's an amazing work!" Yui bowed her head. With that movement, her brown hair swayed softly. "A novel? At the cultural festival? Isn't that a bit plain?" Kawamoto's lips curved into a thin smile. It was an unmistakably mocking smile. "No matter how good the work is, rules are rules. The Service Club cannot exhibit independently. If you really want to present it, apply jointly with another club. Why not have the brass band's performance include a reading of the novel?" "That would defeat the purpose!" "I don't care about that. Besides, was the Service Club even the kind of club that participates in the cultural festival? No one even knows what you do." "...Huh?" The back of my throat grew hot. No one knows what we do. Sure, that's true. I thought the same thing at first. The Service Club was a club forced on me. I always thought everything about it was a pain. But. "If you don't know what we do, then shut up." The words slipped out of my mouth. I could tell my own voice had dropped. "We do proper activities. We've listened to the problems of people who came for consultations. And this time, we came here to apply so we could present a novel at the cultural festival. You have no right to tell us you don't know what we do." The air in the student council room froze for a moment. Kato slowly blinked the eyes behind his glasses. "Heh." A laugh mixed into Kato's voice. "Hikigaya-kun, was it? I'm surprised you're in the Service Club. I mean, you barely talk in class, and you don't have any friends, right?" "...What does not having friends have to do with the application?" "It's not unrelated. The question is how much persuasive power your words could possibly have." "Huh? What are you—" "Back in middle school," Kato cut in with a dry voice. "You confessed to a girl in your class and got laughed at in front of everyone, right? And since then, you apparently stopped talking to anyone at school. I heard it through rumors." The core of my head went cold. Middle school. The confession incident. That day. (Why, now, of all things—) "Hey, is that true? Confessing when you're a loner—that's really not knowing your place, huh?" Kawamoto laughed, looking genuinely amused. A girl's laughter. A boy's nasal scoff. Kato and Kawamoto's gazes moved over my entire body as if licking me. "That's not...! Hachiman isn't like that...!" Yui's voice cracked with anguish. "Yuigahama-san, you'd better stay quiet. If you hang around a guy like this, people will look at you weird too." "Wha—" Yui's feet stepped back half a pace. That was understandable. She was a girl who had lived by reading the room. Naturally distancing herself from places where sparks were flying. That was her way of surviving, and I couldn't blame her for it. But, now. (Don't run.) Someone inside me screamed that. No. I'm the only one who needs to run. "...Say whatever you want." I clenched my teeth. Saying anything more was pointless. These people had no intention of listening from the start. No. To be more precise, these people found pure enjoyment in mocking me. "Hey, what's wrong? Don't you have more to say? Tell us about the Service Club's activity record or whatever." "Hachiman, that's enough..." Yui grabbed my sleeve tightly. Her fingers were cold, as if she was about to cry. "Stop it, Hachiman... please." Yui's voice trembled, on the verge of tears. (Ah, I'm doing it again.) I'd spouted reckless righteous arguments and stood out from everyone around me, and now I was doing the same thing again. I knew it. The student council has people like this. No, in a place called school, there are people like this everywhere. But. The heat from that night when I decided to protect Yukino's manuscript with my own hands was still smoldering deep in my chest. ◆◆◆ That was when it happened. "What's all this noise?" From the back of the student council room, beyond a partition, an older man appeared. A rumpled suit with a crooked light-blue tie. The student council advisor. His name was Otsubo, I think—a world history teacher. "Otsubo-sensei." Kawamoto straightened her posture, looking annoyed. Kato also pretended to return his gaze to the computer screen and tightened his lips. Otsubo looked at me and Yui with a dazed expression. "What's the application for?" "From the Service Club, for a cultural festival performance. We want to do a novel exhibition." Yui answered politely with a trembling voice. "Service Club... ah, Hiratsuka-sensei's." Otsubo crossed his arms and tilted his head. "A Service Club performance, huh. You have three members, I believe. Independent exhibition isn't possible." "We've been thoroughly informed of that... but even so, we were hoping there might be some way, any way, to get a venue for the presentation." I forced the words out. "Hmm... however," Otsubo trailed off and looked out the window. "If it were just about the member count, we intended to keep pushing. Because the novel is really well done. But." I stopped there, noticing that Otsubo's expression had taken on a slight bitterness. "Actually, you see," Otsubo lowered his voice. "The other day, the school received a communication from the Yukinoshita family. That a student scheduled to withdraw publicly presenting personal writing at the cultural festival would be contrary to the school's educational policy. That was the content." "...From the Yukinoshita family?" "Yes. Yukinoshita Yukino's mother, I believe. A voice with quite a presence." Otsubo smiled with an exhausted face. "So this isn't just a matter of internal regulations. Even if the member count were sufficient, approval would be difficult. The school also wants to handle things as amicably as possible." (The Yukinoshita family is applying pressure even on the school...) The pieces clicked together in my head. The application wasn't politely rejected. The finish line tape had been removed from the race from the very beginning. "That's..." Yui covered her mouth with both hands. "Wait a minute. That logic is wrong." I tried to press Otsubo. "A student scheduled to withdraw publicly presenting personal writing is contrary to education? What is that? Isn't school supposed to be a place that first reads what a student has written before making judgments? How can a parent who hasn't even read the novel, and teachers who are just passing the buck, deny its content?" "Young man, there's a way to say things—" "A way to say t

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Episode 4

Name: My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU IF: Yukinoshita's Choice
Author: Novelia

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