Chapter 90: The Capable Duo

Reading Settings

Translator: Soafp

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With the documents in hand, the two of them stepped into the adjacent prep room.

“It’s been a while… Dusty in here.”

“Looks like no one cleaned. The ventilation in this room is terrible, so unless it’s cleaned regularly, it gets really dusty.”

Sora dropped the files onto the desk with a thud, locked the archive room door, and, with practiced ease, turned on the ventilation fan. Ginji, meanwhile, casually powered on the laptop and printer, wrapping up their prep.

“So, what exactly are we doing?”

“Budget review, of course. If we have all the documents, we just need to read them and compare them with the results to spot the discrepancies. Which means, Ginji, you have a very important role to play.”

Sora picked up one of the files and leaned in close to Ginji.

“What is it? If it's data entry, I'm good at that.”

“Ah-ah, it's even more important than that. First, please have a seat on the sofa.”

“…Fine, whatever.”

As he sat down, wondering why they even locked the door, Sora climbed onto his lap.

“H-Hey! Sora, what are you doing!?”

“You’re here to encourage me so I can work smoothly.”

As Sora settled her weight onto him, Ginji sighed. He knew by now that when it came to Sora, things went better if he just played along instead of resisting.

“…Just make sure you actually get the work done.”

“Of course! I'm all fired up!”

Smiling, Sora opened the file and began reading through the expenditures and outcomes listed for this year's student council activities. She flipped through the pages of densely packed numbers, taking no more than two or three seconds per page. Within minutes, she'd finished the file and reached for the next one.

Seriously?

Ginji was starting to sweat. Now he finally understood what Sora was doing—she was reading through every document and storing it in her memory before checking for inconsistencies. It was only possible because Sora had the ability to recall what she saw with photographic accuracy. And she was doing it right before his eyes.

“…Next.”

Still focused, Sora continued flipping through the files. In under ten minutes, she had gone through all five. After reviewing the submitted receipts and invoices, she stretched and looked up at Ginji, her hazel eyes shimmering.

“I've memorized everything. Now I'm going to mentally cross-check all the figures, so keep patting my head.”

“…Yeah, yeah.”

As Ginji massaged her scalp like a head rub, Sora narrowed her eyes like a content cat.

In the dusty, quiet room, she closed her eyes and worked through the data in her mind. Every so often, she nudged him to remind him to keep patting her. After thirty minutes, Sora finally opened her eyes.

“All done. I fixed everything.”

“Nice work. Can you tell me what was wrong?”

“Hm? Wouldn't it be better to just tell the student council directly?”

“I've got a bad feeling about that. Just tell me too.”

Seeing that Ginji wouldn't let it go, Sora pulled out a notebook and pen, opened a file, and began to explain.

“Okay, first, about the budget for the school festival. When they compiled the club expenses, some of them got mixed up with regular club funds. So, for example, these, these, and these—this caused discrepancies from the pre-approved budget.”

She marked lines in the file. When Ginji checked, he noticed a few incorrect submissions from sports clubs.

“Seems like something they should've caught.”

“Right? This is the club budget and this is the festival expenses. You can see the difference if you look.”

Reading the documents she pointed to, Ginji frowned.

“Huh? Which lines correspond to which?”

“The last two lines on the submitted form match these two lines in the summary.”

“The rows don't line up? No wonder they got confused.”

“…Is that a problem?”

“Sora, what did you do when you found mistakes in the paperwork they made you do before?”

“I just fixed them and reported the results.”

“No wonder Shiki's been stressed out.”

With Sora's unique memory, she had no trouble comparing mismatched lines in different documents. She could recall and check the numbers in her head. But that also meant she didn't understand how others could make mistakes—how easy it was to misread numbers when rows didn't align. She'd been reporting results without explaining the discrepancies, and the people taking over her work couldn't possibly process things like she did.

“You're part of the problem too, y'know. You explain stuff so logically when you're teaching me, so why not do that here?”

“Hey—what's that supposed to mean?”

Ginji gave her a gentle flick on the forehead, then booted up the laptop.

“This printer's got a scan function, right?”

“Yep. What are you planning?”

“We've gotta explain why the mistake happened and how to avoid repeating it. Otherwise, they'll keep dumping this work on us.”

“You sound like someone who's actually good at this stuff.”

“My mom's like you—tries to do everything on her own. My dad asked me to help support her as a part-time job.”

He scanned the documents, adjusted the formatting so the corresponding rows and columns matched, color-coded everything for clarity, and marked the errors.

“Whoa, that makes it super easy to understand.”

“Heh, I've got a level 2 computer certification.”

“…That totally doesn't suit you.”

“I studied hard for that, okay? Anyway, tell me the rest.”

“Well, this one isn't exactly a mistake, but when they organized an interschool exchange, some invoices weren't included. I think they're still waiting on adjustments. Since they weren't accounted for, there's a discrepancy in the total.”

“Shiki probably added more tasks and didn't track all the expenses. We'll have to check into that.”

“To cover the shortfall, Aika used the tea budget for hospitality expenses, so they couldn't order the usual tea from our regular supplier.”

“Shifting budgets like that just causes everything to fall apart. Of course it's a mess… They should've known people can't do things the same way you can.”

Ginji pulled out a sample format and began drafting a manual. While Sora had done all the calculations and cross-checks in her head, most people couldn't. But with a computer, you could replicate it easily. Using spreadsheet software, Ginji set things up so entering data would automatically link it to related tasks and expenses.

At 5 p.m., the school bell signaled the end of the day, and a soft knock came at the prep room door. Sora opened it to find the student council secretary, Ooi, and the general affairs officer, Oikawa.

“Ah, we have permission to stay on campus, but do you think you'll finish by today?”

“…We can help if there's anything we can do.”

“Uh, Ginji, what do we do?”

Sora walked over to Ginji and hid behind his back. Ginji stood up, laptop in hand, and nudged her forward.

“If it's about the discrepancies, we're done. We've been making materials for the handover. Do you have time for an explanation now?”

Ooi and Oikawa exchanged glances. Back in the student council room, it looked like the first-year reps were still around too. Ooi plopped down on the guest sofa while Oikawa sat on a folding chair nearby—apparently she didn't want to sit next to Ooi.

“Well then, let's hear what was wrong.”

Sora gave Ginji a quick glance.

Sora glanced at Ginji, not wanting to speak in front of others, but Ginji nudged her to go ahead and explain.

“Don't give me that sidelong look. You explain it. I'll help if you need it.”

“Muu, stingy Ginji… Fine, I'll explain. First, the mistake with the club budget happened because it got mixed up with the expenses for the school festival…”

Sora opened the file and began pointing out the issues one after another.

“Wait, hold on a second.”

“I need to take notes…”

Oikawa and the first-years began crowding around, pulling out notepads, but Sora continued rattling off mistakes at full speed.

“These numbers here and here, plus this page—they're still from last year, and don't reflect the added tasks this year.”

As Sora flipped through the files without even pausing to double-check, the student council members gradually realized something was off—and their faces turned pale. It wasn't just because of how much they had relied on her. It was also the dawning fear: Can we really do this ourselves?

“…”
“She memorized everything?”

“In that short amount of time?”

Sora continued to calmly and precisely point out each error, and Ginji added comments to explain why the mistakes had happened. With Sora's final explanation of the corrected budget proposal, the review was complete.

By that point, anyone could see that the only reason the increased workload Aika had introduced was manageable at all was because Sora had been handling it behind the scenes.

“Takagi-san, I see now—you're not just pretty, you're smart too. Now I understand why Oikawa and the others insisted on bringing you back. I sincerely hope you'll continue to support us.”

“I knew she was doing the work by herself, and so did the other first-years… but I never imagined she could do this much.”

Ooi's eyes sparkled with admiration, while Oikawa looked down, humbled. Behind them, the first-year duo Yoshida and Muroi were desperately trying to take notes from Sora's flood of corrections—but had already given up. Yoshida spoke up.

“Yeah, this is impossible. We can't do what she does.”

“We couldn't even keep up with the stuff she just said…”

Hearing that, Ginji nodded deeply.

“Yeah, that's the normal reaction. No one can do things the way Sora does, so I made a manual that's easier to follow. That part actually took longer.”

He placed the printed materials and laptop on the desk.

“A manual?”

“Yeah. I added a table to the current format so the same mistakes don't happen again. Just input the numbers while looking at this, and it'll calculate everything automatically. I also made a checklist to help avoid the same kind of errors. It should be fine now. Here—this explains the new tasks and the manual for handling them.”

The first-years accepted the corrected documents and manual as Ginji handed them out one after another.

Seeing this, Sora wrapped her arms proudly around Ginji.

“Ginji worked really hard!”

“I just organized what you did. Anyway, this should cover the extra tasks Shiki added. I put all the materials in the folder, so that really wraps it up.”

“Yup!”

As the two stood to leave, Ooi tried to stop them.

“Wait—no, seriously. You guys are amazing. Please consider officially joining the student council—”

“No thanks.”

“Well then, let's go, Sora.”

“Hey, wait up, Ginji!”

Ignoring the calls to stay, the two walked out of the room. The entire student council sat in stunned silence, staring at the door as it closed behind them.

Out in the hallway, Ginji roughly ruffled Sora's hair, a wicked grin on his face.

“What's with that look?”

“Now they all know. Between Shiki and you, who's actually the real talent here.”

“Honestly, I think you might be the one who's better suited for this kind of thing.”

“Don't be ridiculous. If it's between doing student council work and helping you, I'll help you every time.”

Sora couldn't help but feel a growing sense of panic as a thought struck her:
Wait a second… is my boyfriend actually super competent?