Chapter 3, Part 2: Bad Reputation
"You've got a bad reputation. That's the word out on the town."
Alright. Okay. I’m glad I came up here today.
I mean, sure, all I have to eat is a crummy package of melon bread and I’m still trying to figure out just how Misha got so crafty all of the sudden, but there’s just… something that’s making it sort of worth it all.
I had been feeling pretty bad about how dirty my room had been getting lately. Molly hasn’t been around after school to force me to clean the room or, more accurately, clean it herself. Apparently, the reason I haven’t seen Molly outside of the study sessions is because she’s been spending her time with another of her classmates.
And not Miki.
No no no.
A boy.
That’s right. According to Miki, our friend Molly, the girl who goes nearly catatonic around boys that aren’t me, has been seen talking to a boy from her class.
And because Molly’s been spending time with a
boy, she hasn’t been around to straighten up my room. So the soda cans and loose papers and other various bits of trash that seem to just spring out of the carpet in my room have just been piling up and up and up. And I thought that I would hold the fort down on owning the biggest mess.
But now that I’ve been to the Newspaper Club’s room, it’s obvious that I am just a mere apprentice in the realm of messes.
The whole room is a mess of paper and files and boxes. They've stacked a huge, unsteady-looking tower of boxes in the corner of the small room. There are two desks, more like tables really, and one is taken up by a very old looking computer. And around that are more piles of manila folders with more papers pouring out of those. There are various black and white photos everywhere, with little yellow sticky notes attached to them with hastily scribbled messages on each of them. Whoever wrote the notes has handwriting even worse than mine. At the least, there aren't any empty soda cans or empty food containers like there are in my room. I guess it’s more that these two are just disorganized.
“So, this funding requisition isn’t really for a computer is it? There’s got to be something else, right? Like a maid?”
The two girls seated across the table from me shake their heads in unison. The blonde girl is Naomi Inoue. She’s currently smirking across the table at me, twirling a pen between her fingers. I don’t like the look she’s giving me. Like she’s about to tell me something she finds hilarious that’s just going to ruin my day. Naomi and I have spoken a few times before today, since we’re both at Yamaku for epilepsy. When I got here in my first year, the nurse that was in charge of our medications thought it would be a good idea for us to be all “buddy-buddy” since we’re both epileptics.
That worked out just fine since I was such a “people person”.
“Maybe a giant filing cabinet?”
“Fuuuuuuunny, Yuuto,” Naomi sighs and her smirk disappears. “Glad to see that sense of humor I remember you having hasn’t changed.”
I take a look around the room again.
“Well…”
“It is for a new computer.” The other one says in perfect, almost robotic, monotone. That’s the first time she’s said anything since I walked in. I think her name is Natsume or something along those lines. I keep staring at her eyes. They’re different colors. It’s actually pretty cool. I don’t think that’s why she’s at Yamaku though. I don’t think people would make life difficult for her over having two different colored eyes.
Nor do I think it causes any real physical problems.
Unless she’s here because of the staring. Hell, I’d stare at them. They’re pretty cool. I’d definitely trade my epilepsy for the two different color eye disease-thing.
“Yeah. The old one is really slow and it keeps crashing.” Naomi explains and waves her hand to get my attention again. She’s had to do that a few times now. Between Natsume’s eyes and the extravagant mess around the room, my attention is not on this computer issue. “And the keys keep sticking.”
Their computer does look pretty old. My second-hand refurbished laptop looks better and by today’s standards, it’s prehistoric. But I can definitely see some stains on the plastic casing of this one and not just from age. They’re different colors.
“The keys are sticking? Did you spill soda or something on it?”
Naomi and Natsume exchange a glance. My stomach rumbles at how empty it is.
“No.”
“Cherry Soda.”
They exchange another glance. This glance thing must happen a lot in the music club. Maybe they practice the double-take look in their spare time? Naomi would probably do something stupid like that.
“You spilled soda on the keyboard? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Natsume shrugs. “You never asked.”
Fantastic. This is more exciting than a chess game with Izekawa. I groan and slide the stack of forms in front of me across the table to them. Naomi picks up the top piece of paper and starts looking it over.
“Is this the first time you’ve requested funding from the school?”
Natsume nods.
“Yeah,” Naomi puts the paper back down in place and folds her arms over her chest. “Last year, Tomoko took care of all that stuff. She actually got us that old hunk of junk computer before we even joined.”
“Tomoko?” Who the hell is that?
“Club President.” Natsume answers.
“
Former Club President. She graduated last year,” Naomi nudges her friend with one elbow and thrusts her thumb on her other hand into her chest. “I’m the Club President now. Natsume’s too wooden for it. I’m the people person.”
“I assume that this Tomoko also cleaned?”
“Don’t be an ass, Yuuto.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I start, since these two don’t seem to want to get this process going. ”These are the forms for additional funding requests. You’ll need to fill them out and bring them back to the student council room for us to review. After that, we’ll take them to Administration and they’ll see what they can do or if they even want to really.”
“How long does that normally take?”
“Ehhh… It depends on them, not Student Council. I’m just the middle-man here.” I take another look around the room. It’s starting to make my skin crawl. I mean, normally, messes don’t bother me. Just look at my room. It’s basically a trash heap that I happen to sleep in.
“But if I were you two, I’d clean the room up a bit. Make it look a little more presentable in case Shizune wants to follow up on this or someone from Administration comes down here to talk to you. This doesn’t exactly send a great message.”
“We did clean.” Natsume mutters.
“What?”
“Well, we sort of thought Shizune and Misha would come here to do this with us. If we knew it was you, we wouldn’t have worked so hard.”
“This is clean?” I nearly knock over one of the precarious paper stacks when I move my hand and bump into it.
“Why do you even have all this stuff?”
“The room is fiiiiiine.” Naomi gives me a dismissing wave. “It’s not like we have enough members to keep it organized in here.”
“The student council has three members and we keep the room nice and tidy,” I glance at the computer again. “And we don’t ruin office equipment with soda.”
“It’s not ruined. I mean, it still works.” Naomi reaches out and pats the computer monitor. It miraculously doesn’t crumble to dust under her touch.
“Sometimes.” Natsume solemnly adds.
“How many members does the newspaper club have exactly?”
Natsume and Naomi exchange another glance.
“You’re looking at half of them. There’s two first years but they’re pretty green and it’s hard to fit all four of us in the room this year.” Naomi says with a shrug.
Four members? Only four members in the Newspaper club? How does this thing run properly? How are they putting out newspapers? How are they even a club?
“How are you even a club with just four members? The music club would have shut down if it ever went below six members.”
Naomi shrugs again.
“Beats me. You’re the one in student council.”
Good point. I guess the Newspaper club is just one of those clubs that has to exist at every school.
Natsume slides the stack of forms over to her and starts reading them. At least she’s on task. I get the feeling she’s the only reason this club is afloat. Club President Naomi Inoue looks to follow the President Takamichi approach to running a club.
“The forms are pretty straight-forward. I don’t know exactly why it’s supposed to take all of lunch for me to hold your hand through all of this, but…” I rip open the bread package on my lap.
“I’m sure that Natsume here can figure it all out without any help from you, Yuuto. You won’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.” Naomi waves a hand at me to dismiss any ideas I had about being stuck here.
I know Shizune and Misha better than to just leave. By taking that stack of forms from Misha, I became responsible for them. If I was to just leave now and these two didn’t return them in a timely fashion, it’d be my head on the chopping block.
Which really is just a few remarks about my laziness from Shizune and then I have to march up here and get the forms back from these two. Yeah. I’m going to go ahead and avoid all that.
“No, I’m fine with waiting. Besides, you two would probably lose them all in this mess up here.”
“You’re gonna throw off our mojo, Yuuto. We won’t be able to work on any newspaper club business with you here.” Naomi shoos me with both hands.
I don’t move.
“Have you two even put out a newspaper this year?” I raise an eyebrow at the pair.
Naomi’s smirk disappears into the void of “getting her ass told” and is replaced with one of the pouts I’m used to seeing on Miki or Misha. Natsume just lifts the forms in front of her face so I can’t see her anymore. Naomi turns to her, face desperate for help.
“Natsume.” She hisses quietly.
The other girl doesn't budge and Naomi turns back to me with that pout again.
“Well, we sort of
tried to finish one around the festival but we got busy with our class booth and fell a few articles short and just… forgot… to do it… I guess.” Naomi’s whining trails off and she turns her attention to spinning her pen again. I guess so long as she’s not looking at me everything is just peachy in her world.
So, two members. No newspaper. A disaster zone for a club room. And they’re still running?
Yet the music club, which did actually meet and play music, didn’t get any funding from the school.
Amazing.
“Then I don’t think I’m going to disturb anything.” I take a bite of my bread to illustrate I’m staying.
Naomi sighs. “If you’re going to stay here, then can I at least get your help with the newspaper then?”
Staring across the table at Naomi, I swallow the bread I’ve been chewing into mush down.
“How am I going to help you with the newspaper? I’m already working my ass off for the student council.”
Naomi snorts. I wonder briefly if she’s spent any time with Miki.
“You’re sitting down and babysitting us. Not to mention you get to eat while you do it. That doesn’t exactly look like hard work to me.” Naomi twists in her seat and pulls a small black plastic digital recorder out of her bag.
“And it’ll be easy. You don’t even have to get up out of that seat. Just let me interview you for the paper.”
An interview? I put my bread down on the table, over a photo from the festival. Why do they want to interview me?
“About?”
“Student Council,” Naomi waves the recorder at me and that smirk teleports back to her face, “And about you, I guess.”
An interview about student council? What about it? It’s just… student council. Whatever. If it’ll keep me from just sitting here in silence and eating crappy, slightly stale melon bread, then it’s better than nothing.
“Fire away.”
“You mind if I record it for later review?”
“Whatever.”
“Sweet.” Naomi pushes a button on the recorder and places it down on the table between us.
“So, first off, how did you get involved with the Student Council?”
“I guess you could say that I was kidnapped.” I pick a piece of my melon bread off and shove it into my mouth.
“What does that mean?” Naomi leans forward in her chair. Am I really that exciting? Well, I did say “kidnapped”. Maybe I should watch my words around Naomi. That could probably be seen as something way more exciting than it actually was.
“I used to be part of the music club. Due to a long line of neglected duties by the at-time president, I got sent to help the student council,” I explain. “It was just a temporary position at first, but I ended up joining them in the end.”
“Are you the secretary or the treasurer?”
That is a damn good question. I’ve never asked Shizune what my official position in Student Council is. Do we even have real positions? If we would, that would make Misha the Vice-President, wouldn’t it? Ugh. That’s a very scary thought.
“Don’t know. Shizune doesn’t really give positions. I think Misha and I are just considered her “Student Council”. Like she’s the Queen Bee and we’re workers. We just do whatever we need to do.”
“What are your duties?”
“Uh… They’re all over the place. I do stuff that Misha or Shizune physically can’t. Mostly, it’s carrying heavy boxes from the student council room to storage or the administration offices or whatever,” I scratch the back of my neck. “You’d be amazed at the amount of paperwork this school creates in a week.”
“So you’re just moving stuff from one place to another? They needed a new member to do that?”
“No. I do other stuff too. Today, I came up here to help you guys out with paperwork to streamline processes. Later today, I have to go help build the stalls for Tanabata. Like I said, I just do whatever needs to be done.” I drum my fingers against the table.
“Don’t do that, it’ll ruin the recording.” Naomi reaches across the table and swats my hand to stop me and save her precious recording of my interview. “Why’d you join the student council? When I first heard you had become the newest member, I thought it was a joke. And when I found out it was serious, I gave you like a week tops.” Naomi’s words start blurring together as she talks faster and faster.
I slide my hands off the table and shrug.
“Why does it matter? I liked working for them. It was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than working for the music club.”
“And you punched that guy, right? The president of the Music Club?” Naomi grins at me across the table. It’s a very punchable grin. I would like to punch that grin. But I know where that gets me. “At the festival? You punched what’s his name… Taka… Takaaaa… Takamichi? Yeah. Takamichi. You punched him. In the mouth. Right?”
“And yes, there was that.” I cover my eyes with my hand and sigh.
“I figured. But it’s been a month now, right? Well, since you officially joined up or whatever. Mind if we get a picture?”
“A wha-“ I lift my hand and am momentarily blinded by the flash of the camera in Natsume’s hands.
Christ! Are these two just stupid? Naomi knows I have epilepsy! Why would she have Natsume use the flash? Please. No. No sudden triggers. I’ll probably die under an avalanche of paper in this room if I just start having a seizure now.
“Son of a- A picture? Are you kidding me?”
“Moving on. Why have you decided to stay with the student council?” Naomi throws out there so I turn back to her general direction. I rub my eyes to get them to focus again before turning to her.
“Are you two trying to give me a seizure?”
“Sorry. ” Natsume mutters before pulling the request forms over her face again.
“Oh. Right! Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry Yuuto. So sorry. Kind of got caught up in this,” Naomi waves her hands around with a sheepish smile. “Anyway, back to the questions, why did you stay with the student council?”
“
Because I wanted to.” I growl. You know, the polite way of saying “none of your goddamn business”. Why did I agree to this again?
“But you know about what happened to the student council last year, right? I mean once Shizune was elected President.”
“You mean how everyone but Misha left? Yes. I’m aware. I do go to this school too.” I roll my eyes and slump forward in my seat.
“Left?
Left? They didn’t just leave! They fled! They flew the coop! They sprinted with their tails between their legs!”
I shrug again. “So?”
Naomi throws her hands up to the heavens and lets out the most frustrated groan I have ever heard anyone utter. It’s even better than anything I’ve ever created with Miki’s help. “
SO? So then why did you agree to be part of the student council? How can you hang around those two when so many other kids couldn’t? Huh?”
“I stayed because I liked the work.” I pop another piece of bread into my mouth. Naomi just stares at me across the table as I chew slowly. Even Natsume eventually lowers the paper covering her face again to stare at me.
“You stayed because you like the work?” Naomi repeats slowly.
“That’s what he said.” Natsume says quietly before I have a chance to get any smartass comment out.
“You liked the work?”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Well because you’re you!! You’re Yuuto Miyamoto! You’re a dick! You’re an ass! You’re the shortest-fused bomb that I’ve ever had the misfortune to speak to!” Naomi throws her hands up again and nearly falls backwards in her chair. Natsume somehow catches her before the chair leans too far back and pushes it forward again.
“Yes, I’m an ass. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy something like the student council.”
“An ass doesn’t even begin to cover it, Yuuto!” She laughs.
“Miki calls me an “assbutt” if that’s a better fit.”
“Do you even know what people think about you? Before, everyone just thought you were a huge downer to be around. But now? Everyone’s scared to talk to you now!” Natsume runs a hand down her face before fixing me with a furrowed brow.
“Hey, I thought this was supposed to be an interview. What’s with this crap?” I weave my fingers together and shift in my seat. I guess Naomi wasn’t kidding about how it would get hot with all three of us in here. I’m starting to sweat. And I do hope it’s just from the heat and not the grilling I’m getting from the “
ace reporter” sitting across from me.
“And you’re talking to me. Miki and Molly talk to me. In fact, they’re my friends.”
“They don’t count. They were your stupid friends before you punched that guy.”
My stupid friends before I punched that guy?
My stupid friends? Hold up there, Miss Club President. Molly is not stupid. And only someone who’s been forced to spend an ungodly amount of his free time with Miki is allowed to call her stupid. And that list is me.
“What is your deal, Inoue?”
Naomi sighs and slumps in her seat, defeated. “Yuuto, we haven’t put out a newspaper yet this year because there is seriously nothing interesting to write about.”
“Nothing interesting? Didn’t we just have a school festival?”
The blonde lifts her head to look at me in disgust.
“So did every other school in Japan ever. It’s a freaking school festival? Who cares? We have one every year. ”
Okay. Well, she’s got a point there. But still…
“Well then, shouldn’t it be an easy article to write? How hard is it to write about a festival?”
Naomi slumps forward even further, resting her chin on the table top. Natsume pats her back with one hand while lifting the paperwork back in front of her face again.
“That’s not the point, Yuuto. I don’t want to write a stupid easy article. I want to write about exciting things. Like school scandals and accidental deaths and murder and affairs and murderous affairs… anything but a stupid school festival. I gave that stupid assignment to one of the first years.”
“And?”
“And they wrote it and it was boring.
And you joining up with the student council is just about the only thing remotely interesting to happen this year besides that new kid who entered our class.” She explains, staring at the table between us.
Well write about him then. I’m not really that interested in being in the newspaper.
“How the hell does Mr. Bad Reputation himself stay in the student council when Shizune’s own cousin can’t even stick around?” Naomi grumbles.
Shizune’s cousin? Shizune has a cousin at the school? That’s the first I’m hearing about it. Why wouldn’t she tell me about it? Sure, Shizune hasn’t really been a very open book but… Misha? I don’t see Misha being good at keeping secrets. And it’s not like having family here would be an actual secret.
Maybe I’m just overthinking it? It could be that her cousin graduated and it’s not a big deal anymore or something.
“Are you like… dating Shizune or something?”
…
“What?”
“She asked if you were dating Shizune.” Natsume calmly repeats behind her paper wall.
“Wha- No! I am not!”
“Misha?” Natsume ventures.
I pick my melon bread from the table and shake my head.
“Then why do you stay in student council?” Naomi’s head rolls so her cheek is against the table. It must be the coldest thing in this room. “I mean, if you’re not getting any then what’s the big secret?”
I close my eyes and lean back in my chair again.
“I think this interview is over.”
“What? Oh come on. Don’t avoid the question.” Naomi’s head pops back up from the table. Her smirk returns from the depths of her formerly forlorn attitude. “I mean, Misha would be a stretch. She’d probably drive you to suicide or something. But Shizune? You two could be great together. I bet you’d kill for her if she asked.”
“Are we seriously going to go through this?” I wipe a few beads of sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “Don’t you have something better to do than speculate about imaginary relationships?”
“Come on. Shizune Hakamichi, the Tyrant of Yamaku and Yuuto Miyamoto, the biggest asshole in Japan?” Naomi snaps her fingers. “It’s not that hard to imagine. You two could rule the school with iron fists.”
I shove the melon bread back into my bag. “You should quit while you’re ahead, Naomi. There isn’t a scrap of anything to prove that I even have a miniscule amount of interest in dating either Shizune or Misha. They’re my bosses.”
“You punched Takamichi when he insulted them.” Natsume interjects. She lowers her paper fortress back to the table and turns to Naomi.
“I don’t think we’re going to get a new computer.”
Naomi doesn’t even let the news of no computer stop her. She swings an imaginary bat at me, grinning.
“Natsume drives it home!” She cheers.
“He called Shizune and Misha “bitches” and you turned right around and punched him in the teeth.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” I snap. Damn them. Why in the world did I agree to this stupid interview anyway? I should have known it would turn out this way. They’re two teenage girls. They’re just digging after rumors. “I punched Takamichi because he… he did something to me...” I am not getting into the name drawing incident with Naomi. She’d probably write about it. “Insulting Shizune and Misha was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Excuses, excuses. The fact that you’re blushing doesn’t help you.” Naomi laughs. “So is it Shizune then? Or Misha?”
Even Natsume covers her mouth to hide what I think is a silent giggle.
That’s it. Interview over. I don’t need these two to throw me into the rumor mill of Yamaku. I reach across the table and press the stop button on Naomi’s digital recorder.
“Wha-Hey! We weren’t done!” Naomi exclaims.
“I think you two should stick to writing about the stupid festival.”
Next Chapter:Moral of the Story
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