Chapter 35: Caught.

Translated and Edited by: luccayn.

Common Honorifics:
-san: A polite suffix, but not excessively formal.
-kun: A common suffix among friends and younger people.
-chan: A common suffix among people you’re close with, mostly used for feminine nicknames and girls, since it’s cutesy and childlike.
-senpai: A common suffix and noun used to address or refer to one’s older or more senior colleagues in a school, workplace, dojo, or sports club.

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It didn’t take long for me to get extremely busy.

“Akito, your record-keeping is slow. Be quicker and more thorough.”

“Y-Yes!”

I assisted Yuki with her secretary business, which included summarizing a whole lot of documents as fast and as well as I could. All this recording and rewriting was for keeping knowledge and passing it on to the next generation of officers. This meant that if our records were sloppy, we’d be remembered as such. Needless to say, this was more weight on our shoulders as any blemish on our records would be forever engraved in this school’s history.

“How about this, Yuki-san?” I spun one of the documents I’d been summarizing in her direction. For a second I thought I caught her looking stern at them, but it didn’t take long for her to switch.

“This should be just fine. Excellent job,” she squirmed her eyes while reaching up to pat me, being not as tall as me.

“Th-Thank you…” While embarrassed, being recognized filled my heart much more. Before I could say anything else, I recalled my promise to Karen. “Sorry, Yuki-san! I need to go help Karen!”

“Mhm. Do your best.”

“I will!”

I scrambled out of the room and rushed down the hallway. With a quick push on the door, I finally reached the student council office where I was to meet up with her. “S-Sorry, Karen-san,” I said between breaths.

“Ah, it’s fine. If you had been much later though, I’d have gone alone.”

“Sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it, really. You can make up for the time lost with work.”

“Yes!”

“Alright, off we go!”

“Wait, don’t pull me! I can walk by myself!”

With that, we both made our way to the exit door. As we left, I heard Saki’s begrudging, jealous tone paired with a bewildered look on Rin’s face.

“An after-school date…”

“Stop it… It’s not a date. Just fieldwork.”

Keren led me out of the school. I hadn’t actually asked what we were going to do, so I was a bit lost. “What should I do?” I spoke up.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I?”

“No…”

Stopping at the school gates, she swung her backpack over her shoulder and nabbed a stack of papers from inside it. Then, she split the stack 50-50 and handed me one half.

“Um, what’s this?” I flipped the half stack over and titled my head.

“Flyers for the Matsugaku Festival. What I want is for you to handle the northern part of the map.”

I looked as she said. The fact there were around 100 of these flyers garnered a twitch of my brow. Anyone would, to be fair.

“Oh, just put them in the mailboxes. Don’t actually talk to anyone or we won’t have enough time,” though it was sensible, it didn’t make things easier in the long run. A hundred was still a hundred. “Anyway, I’m in a hurry. I’m off then!”

While I was lost in thought, she quickly jogged to her assigned area. “Okay, got it!” Overthinking it was useless, so I got going as well.

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It was a bit past 6 PM.

“I’m doooone!” One hundred flyers was no easy task. Just searching for mailboxes to put each in took ages, as every house was different than the last. Quite the grueling task.

“You worked hard, Akki. It was much easier thanks to you.”

“Glad to hear it.”

We had arranged to meet at the school gate before parting ways, and one look at her and I couldn’t tell the sheer amount of work she made. I couldn’t help but think that maybe the student council was filled with superhumans.

“Alright. Shall we go back to the office?”

“Let’s.”

Back there, we saw the other members still working.

“Great job, everyone~!”

“Thanks for the hard work.”

Karen and I sent words of appreciation their way, and Ayaka turned with a smile.

“Akito-kun, Karen. Great job to you too~!”

It was honestly heartwarming, and just this interaction was enough to relieve some of my stress. A tap on my shoulder took me by surprise. Then with a turn of the head, I saw Saki smiling from behind me.

“How do you feel now?” Her smile was as wide as Ayaka’s.

“What?” I raised an eyebrow, caught off by her sudden remark.

“Being my boyfriend and all, you should know, right? I’m more soothing, aren’t I?” She threw a quick glance at Ayaka. Seems like there was a bit of rivalry between the two still.

“Y-Yeah, you sure are,” I answered with a dry smile.

“Good. I’m relieved I could overwrite her…”

“Haha,” I chuckled awkwardly.

After our little exchange, Rin remembered something and mumbled it to us. “By the way, rumors have it you two are dating. But it’s quite the opposite of what I thought.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I heard something like Aki got a perfect score on a test because he likes Saki-Saki so much,” Keren said, sliding her fingers across her chin thoughtfully.

The looks I received were challenging. Not knowing how to respond, I turned back to Saki, who nodded subtly. “That’s right. The rumors are true. Akito is head over heels for me, and I’m just dating him because of his tenacity.”

“Huh? But then why are you so clingy to him?” Yuki hit the nail on the head.

“That’s because he asked me to. Even I can’t refuse it when someone so, so passionately asks me to do lovey-dovey things,” she sighed dramatically. I couldn’t believe how good of an actress she was.

“Oh really?” They all exclaimed in unison, turning to look straight at me. Though I was hit with a wave of great interest, I didn’t like being the center of attention. Honestly, it felt like I was an animal at the zoo or something.

However, Saki had forgotten the presence of someone else in the room.

“Pfft—!” Ayaka tried her damn hardest to stifle her laughter. She slammed her head down on her table, almost as if having some sort of stroke.

“What’s wrong?” Karen quipped about Ayaka’s strange behavior. Bursting into laughter suddenly in this situation sure was strange, so I was also part of the confused crowd.

“C’mon over here for a sec,” Ayaka called over the three girls, excluding me, to her side. She then tapped at her phone as quickly as lightning and showed something to them. As soon as their eyes laid on whatever it was, they looked back and threw Saki warm glances.

“What’s going on…?” I felt concerned as the person in question.

Then, Ayaka gave her phone to Saki, whose face exploded into a fit of red as soon as she saw its contents. All this made me question myself. What the hell was going on?!

I didn’t want to be the odd one out, so my curiosity went through the roof. Having had her fill, Yuki walked back to her place. Though when she passed by me, she said a quick, “Good job,” with an incredibly gentle expression.

“What do you mean…?”

My question prompted her to show me her screen. On it was a video of Saki and I eating lunch on the rooftop. Whoever filmed it captured a lot, too.

“Saki-chan, what’s this video all about?” Ayaka asked, still holding her laughter.

“W-Well, um, it’s because Akito asked me to…”

“But it looks like he’s about to pick up his own chopsticks, doesn’t it? Hm?”

“T-That was also something he asked me to do…”

“This is a bit much, don’t you think?” Rin delivered the final blow.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Karen summarized the whole situation quite perfectly.

“Based on this video, it feels Saki-Saki is in love with Akki. Like, in love, in love.”

Hearing it out of her friend’s mouth was enough to make her squirm, struck to the core. They really didn’t miss, wow.

“But then why all the lies?” Ayaka continued, watching over Saki with a grin.

“W-Well…”

“Oh, I see. Rather than doing all the chase, you want to be chased too, eh?”

“Wait—!”

The president’s accuracy was so on point it was scary. It sent shivers down my spine to know she was the one in charge of everything.

“Aw, you’re so cute, Saki.”

“What a romantic!”

“Please stop it!” Not able to withstand the onslaught of teasing any longer, she buried her face in her desk, covering it all with her arms.

Honestly, I felt a bit better knowing that they now understood the truth behind the rumors. It also felt amazing to get back at Saki a little.

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