Chapter 51: Airi-senpai Goes Berserk
Airi: "Kousuke-kuuun? Wanna haaaang out?"
When I arrived at the clubroom for the first time in a while, there was Airi-senpai smiling.
...Correction, she's only smiling with her face—she's actually mad?
It's rare for this gentle goddess to be in a cranky mood.
Usually calm and easygoing, Airi-senpai is now closing in, eyes blazing!
Airi: "Being the class committee is tough, right? Thanks for your hard work. So you can't help at the basketball club's food stall, huh? Hmph! Senpai is lonely...!"
She's angry and sulking, and honestly, it's adorable.
She's older, reliable, but gentle—like a big sister.
Airi-senpai is that type of popular girl.
The basketball club's food stall is going to be a yakisoba stand, apparently.
Our homeroom teacher somehow managed to wrangle a stall with a griddle from somewhere.
To help with the club budget, for two days, someone has to stand in front of the griddle all day flipping noodles.
Of course, it's a shift system, but...
The other female managers seem obsessed with flashy costumes for their own class stalls.
Maybe I should try changing the subject?
"What's your class doing for the festival, Airi-senpai?"
Airi-senpai, still sulking, replied,
Airi: "Yakisoba shop."
"Huh?"
I couldn't help but ask again.
"Wait, isn't yakisoba the basketball club's thing?"
Airi: "Both club and class are doing yakisoba! Everyone is dead set on making me cook yakisoba! They keep saying, 'If Airi cooks, customers will come!' and buttering me up!"
A turbulent seventeen-year-old, Tendou Airi.
Apparently, since club and class are separate jurisdictions, it's fine if their stalls overlap.
Airi: "Especially at the basketball club—no one! helps out! Once the festival starts, everyone focuses on their own class! Even me! It's been five years since I've cooked yakisoba on a griddle! I don't even know what I'm doing!"
I'm more impressed that she's ever made yakisoba on a griddle at all.
Speaking of griddles, it reminds me—
The time Sahori-senpai and a club member went to eat okonomiyaki together, ate the same thing, but Sahori refused to even pay half, so everyone called him a cheapskate—
(Airi: First time with a griddle in five years! Sahori: Won't split the bill! Sorry, can't relate!)
The thought made me chuckle.
Airi: "What are you laughing at?!"
She's older, but Angry Airi-senpai is so endearing.
After hearing out Airi-senpai's frustrations, I messaged everyone on LINE, telling them that at the very least, we'd gather everyone tomorrow for a year, and reported the situation to the captain.
Then I suggested a shift system and volunteered for shopping and other duties, and Airi-senpai returned to her goddess self.
With a smile,
Airi: "Shopping... In that case... Kousuke-kun! I choose you! Kousuke-kun! Cry for me!"
"...Heeelp."
Airi: "That's not a cry, that's just whining!"
Airi-senpai giggled, looking amused.
No, I'm not a Pokemon, you know.
See Chapter 41: The Cultural Festival's Food Stall.
I made sure to tell Airi-senpai as well.
"I'll go shopping with you, but I'm bringing someone else too."
Airi: "Eeh? I'd be fine with just you, Kousuke-kun?"
I need to tell Airi-senpai, too.
"I'm planning to date Tomonaga-san. So..."
Just from that, Airi-senpai made an "Ah!" face,
Airi: "Ah! Oh, I see? Makes sense, right? You two have always been together, after all? ...That's nice. Yeah, it's a good thing, a good thing. If it's Tomonaga-san, if it's Yukari-chan. Yeah, yeah, you're the same age too? That's better."
Airi-senpai quickly thought it over by herself and accepted it.
Airi: "Yeah, yeah! Congrats! It's okay! Shopping for the club's food stall is no big deal! If you're worried, bring along someone like Koji-kun, okay?"
Once everything was settled, Airi-senpai grinned and sent me home.
Relieved by Airi-senpai's smile, I headed home.
The cultural festival is almost here.
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Basketball club clubroom.
Airi, alone, speaks out loud.
"This is for the best."
Nodding to herself,
"Now we can enjoy events and graduation together. Being the same age is best."
Airi nods again,
"If it's Yukari-chan, she's perfect for Kousuke-kun. Kousuke-kun is surprisingly sensitive despite being so reliable and tends to show it on his face, even if he seems expressionless... Yukari-chan is the same kind of sensitive."
Nodding.
"If it's me, I'd graduate first... and I'm the older lady who knows about his ex, too..."
Nods.
"This is good. This is better."
Airi keeps saying that.
Airi genuinely thought it was fine, that it was better, because she liked Yukari too, the one she spent the summer and even went to the aquarium (date?) with.
...Then why does my chest hurt?
Airi realizes: this hardworking, devoted underclassman,
This quiet, expressionless younger boy, she likes more than she thought.
She understood that.
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