50. East and West
Gathering devoted followers. In order to achieve that, using those who stand out as an advertisement to expand your followers isn’t a bad move. I can understand why she would go for Natsukawa───
“───But, that’s a bad move.”
“…What did you say?”
I subconsciously blurted out what I was thinking.
I said it in a low voice, it should look as if I was talking to myself, Yeah, it should be okay, I can still take it back…. or not, I guess she won’t let it pass by.
“Somehow, I heard some unpleasant words… May I ask what’s the reason?”
“Natsukawa is standing out too much. If you were to have her become your advertisement, the others will just think “Eh? Natsukawa-san isn’t the candidate, but that girl?”, you know?”
“W-What did you say…!?”
“As your average male student, I can guarantee that. If you take in Natsukawa, you’ll just get overshadowed. And just be a side character.”
She looked at me in disbelief. Her eyes saying, “What the hell do you mean?”. But, even without me explaining it further, she should understand it herself already.
It’s true that she has a good mix between a foreigner and a Japanese face, so she looks good with that blonde hair. And between cute and not, she’s cute for sure, so she must be stand out too. I’m sure Claumaty could do it herself with these looks. But, if there’s someone even cuter next to her, she’ll lose all her effort until now and back to the starting point.
“Natsukawa is cuter than you.”
“───!”
Claumaty’s mouth opened and closed, as if she couldn’t believe what I just said. Perhaps in her mind, she was screaming “Seriously!?”.
The other two girls behind her were equally giving “Aren’t you being too much?!” looks, but after they looked carefully at Natsukawa, from bottom to top, I could see their temples were throbbing.
How is my Natsukawa, hmm? She’ll overshadow her, don’t’ you think so?
“M-Marika-san… ! She──Natsukawa-san is from the ‘east’! You shouldn’t meddle too much with her!”
“T-That’s right…! We from the ‘west’ should use the “west” way, we should elegantly gather your followers!”
“…….”
Claumaty’s legs were shaking, and she looked angry.
She must have lost her words because of my unexpected response.
You’re too shallow-minded, if it’s just this much, you won’t be able to use Natsukawa to your advantage. Well, I’m sure you just want to use her to run away from troublesome things, right?
“─── Fu, fufufu…”
“……!”
Claumaty who trembled a lot, showed a forced smile, and the “small fry” atmosphere I felt since earlier had gone, her eyes changed to a curious one. She immediately directed her “You’ve got my attention now” looks over at Natsukawa, from the bottom to the top.
“─── Hiii…!?”
──But, Claumaty realized that Natsukawa had suddenly frozen on the spot. I was getting ready for the worst but, I got curious, so I looked at the end of Natsukawa’s line of sight, and finally understood the reason.
The entire class, or at least almost all students of class c, had gathered at the doors to the classroom, inspecting what we were doing outside. There were those who looked at Claumaty like she was a bother.
Yeah, this is bad, she can’t win over them now… I mean, she totally seems like the bad guy here. Well, her request was unreasonable from the very beginning.
“M-Marika-san… we should…”
“R-Retreat for now…”
“Urgh…”
The three were panicking. Especially the two behind Claumaty were desperately trying to convince her to leave. They probably didn’t want her to stand out in a bad way.
Seriously, I wonder what’s the story of those two, to be okay with being her henchmen…
“…..Then, we’ll be taking our leave here.”
It couldn’t be helped that someone like me participated in this matter. After all, you chose the wrong person, Claumaty. You tried to pick a fight with Natsukawa, who won against you in both looks and personality, not even counting her grades which were close to yours.
Well, this is the expected result. You just get what you deserve.
“Sajo-chi, Sajo-chi.”
“Hmm…? E…”
Ashida, who had been a spectator, slightly showed me a wry smile, pointing in a certain direction. When I turned in that direction, there, I saw Natsukawa, covering her face with both her hands, quivering. Somehow, it looked like she was blushing all the way up to her ears…
“Eh, what? Wha’ happen?”
“Well, this is your fault, Sajo-chi. Cause, you said something crazy like that without batting an eye.”
“Something crazy…?”
“You just called her ‘cute’.”
“Huh? Natsukawa heard enough of that, right?”
“T-That might be true, but… Being told this openly in front of everyone without any hesitation… I’m sure she doesn’t know how to react…”
“Cute”, I’ve said that word countless times, and everybody around us should be aware that I feel that way. There’s no reason for me to be embarrassed if just saying that to her now. I mean, Natsukawa’s gotta be used to that too by now, right?
“… Can you consider the time, location, and situation? Oh my gosh!”
“But, I’ve said it almost everywhere and every time, so should be okay, right?”
“Sajo-chi. It’s because you’re like this… aahh, seriously!”
Eeehh… Don’t be suddenly angry with me. it’s scary, you know…
Right as I felt terrified of Ashida’s attitude, I felt someone pull on the sleeve of my shirt. Turning around, I saw Natsukawa with a flushed expression.
“…….D-Don’t you say something embarrassing like that…”
“Cute.”
Natsukawa being embarrassed near Sajou Illustration
“!!…D-Don’t look.”
“This is, same as always.”
I don’t need that analysis. Also, what’s the difference… ah, is that whether I have an ulterior motive or not? Does she feel happier if I say it with a straight face? Leave it to me, If I can make her happy with this, I’ll say it again and again, with a cool pose.
COOL POSE!!!
Cu─── Don’t glare at me like that, Ashida…
“─── W-Wait a second, Amano!”
“……..”
“I-I told you to wait, did you not hear me!?”
“Eh, ah, me? eh? Amano…?”
Right as I wanted to go back to the classroom, Claumaty called out to someone.
Amano, you better respond quickly
…But when I turned around, she was actually looking directly at me.
Eh, me? Amano…? It happened so naturally that, I didn’t catch the wind of it, But, it seems I’ve become Amano? I wonder why do you think that I’m, Amano… Wataru Amano… That isn’t half bad…
“Are you sure about this!? Even if you’re more elegant than me, the ones to win in the end are those who act!”
“Yes? Eh?”
“I will definitely become the next student council president! For that, even if it’s against the “oh-so-cute” Natsukawa Aika-san there, I won’t lose!”
Claumaty left these words behind, and walked away with the other two girls. Leaving aside the case of her aiming to become the student council president, trying to win against Natsukawa’s cuteness would be futile, rather I felt bad for her and started to worry about her.
“….Claumaty…”
“Claumaty? Who?”
“Eh…?”
◆
After overcoming the troublesome time called end-of-term exams, what immediately came was a disturbance.
I wonder what exactly she means by that ‘west’ and ‘east’? I thought that maybe she was talking about the separation of classes, since class A to C were in the east building, and D to F were in the west building… but is there some tradition in this school that I don’t know…? I thought they did the class separation randomly.
But, this clearly is some kind of discrimination. I thought that this was Claumaty’s identity to say that sort of thing, but the two with her were strangely so prideful of it. Maybe, something happened at the time they enrolled, maybe there was this special circumstance when separating the class?
“There was.”
“There was huh… Really…?”
Iihoshi-san told me like it was nothing. I mean, she somewhat looked like someone who knew a lot of things regarding this school, so I asked her, but to think that she really knew something.
…I underestimated her. Please do your best as the class prez, in the future as well.
“You know, there’s a lot of famous companies around here, right? After making it through the residential district, across the train station, There’s the business district.”
“Aaah, now that you mention it.”
“Also, this is a High-level private high school… For a high-class family, a child’s academic background is to determine the family’s social standing. And, you know that this school is pretty old, right?”
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
Now think about it, at the back of this school, there is an old traffic circle that connects to nowhere…. Right when I enrolled here, I had my hopes up thinking that this might be connected to the train station.
“Then, you can say this as the nature of people from Showa era… Before, the three classes were split into east and west, I mean, you would want to separate those from investors’ families and those who aren’t, right?”
“ ‘Right?’, you say… Ah, that’s why they keep talking about “east” and “west” .”
Isn’t that proper discrimination? Those people’s parents probably have the thought of ‘Plebeian families are snoots’ or something like that to some extent, right? Well, again, it seems like the teachers were treating the students with…out any discrimination. Yeah, just normal.
“But, Class D to F are still three classes. Do we have that many children from rich families here?”
“Hmm～… It seems like, it’s mostly only class E. The others are just those with affiliated relationships I think…”
“Huh? I don’t really get it…”
“Elegant.”
“Eh?”
“The “E” in “Elegant”, is probably the connotation behind this. Though, it’s only a rumor.”
“Eh?”
What are you trying to tell me here, I don’t get it… That’s, the reason? I can’t feel any “High-class” from that reason, it’s so dumb. That’s gotta be some investor getting carried away and just randomly spouting that, right? Don’t say it comes from the school itself, no way right…
“Well, speaking in terms of era, such a thing has been fading for sure, especially this last one or two years.”
“Huh? But, we have some rich students here, perhaps the country put their eye on this school?”
“No, just because the ‘east’ has always been stronger recently, that’s all. In terms of natural virtues, unity, appearances, and grades.”
“Isn’t that an overall victory?”
“When I saw the discipline committee president and the student council vice president, I was certain. They’re both ‘east’.”
“Right, I can definitely see the discipline committee president belong there.”
“Eh…? Hmm, both the discipline committee president and the student council ───”
“Yup, the discipline committee president.”
So that kind of history went down at this school, huh. I thought such a story only existed in a drama or manga. The staff office and the social studies prep room, were in the southern building. The music room and the home-economics room, were in the northern building. Since I never had anything to do in the western building, I didn’t even conscious about it.
“It’s a story that rarely been brought up, so maybe some students from the “East” and ”West” are on the same club? Then again, those rich boys and girls who have been going to school Door-to-Door (By car) since a child, such a pampered kid who has been living their lives mostly indoors, I can’t imagine them joining the sports club.”
“I-I see…”
When I was in elementary school, I went to school by car. Should I hide this from her? I mean, I’m not in a club either, somehow it hit me on the mark… Yeah, it’s me, one of the pampered kids.
TN: While I’m busy with many things, including editing the old ch of this series (It’s really need much efforts), You may be want to read my other series that I may do, Here (If you like Yandere, you may like it)
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Thank you for the chapter !