"Speaking of which, shouldn't Tachibana-senpai be on duty in the Student Council Room today?" Sawahara saw the president's expression growing colder and quickly switched back to the proper form of address.
"Yeah. You weren't at school before, so you probably haven't heard yet." Manabu Horikita remembered that he'd forgotten to tell Sawahara something. "The Student Council Room is going to be renovated soon, so regular duty has been changed to patrols."
"Huh? We have to patrol outside in this heat?" Sawahara couldn't help complaining. It was August, after all. It was scorching, and now he had to patrol the school too.
"You're not expected to patrol outside all day. On your duty day, you only need to walk around campus from eight to nine in the morning and from five to six in the afternoon." Manabu Horikita explained. He wasn't some heartless person who would make Student Council members wander around outside at noon.
"By the way, you have to wear your uniform when you enter campus. You know that, right?"
"That's exactly why I think this is such a pain." Casual clothes were much cooler than the school uniform.
"Then stop complaining and get to work."
Keeping order at the pool was a pretty easy job. With Manabu Horikita there, the authority he'd built up among the school's upperclassmen over the past two years was enough to keep them in line.
"The school allows people to do this?" Sawahara looked at the stalls some of the upperclassmen had set up beside the pool. Most of them sold snacks.
"They're only allowed to set up here by the pool for these few days. It is summer, after all," Manabu Horikita said.
"?" Sawahara didn't quite understand what he meant. Why did summer make it okay?
"The school allows students to set up stalls here on this day for their sake," Manabu Horikita explained. "After all, if they weren't at this school, most students would be going to a fireworks festival with friends or family around this time. You could say this is a way of making up for that."
"I see. Then where are the fireworks?" Sawahara understood. A fireworks festival naturally ought to have fireworks, right?
"..." Manabu Horikita fell silent. "For certain reasons, there won't be any fireworks this year."
But Manabu Horikita didn't reveal the exact reason, which only made Sawahara more curious.
"Oh, the fireworks. They did say they were going to hold a fireworks festival last year," an upperclassman said, beaming as he explained what had happened after Sawahara had spent generously at his stall.
"But later, we heard that the fireworks they'd prepared couldn't be set off, so in the end, the whole thing was called off. At least they let us keep the right to set up stalls."
"They couldn't be set off?" Sawahara asked, puzzled. How could prepared fireworks be unusable?
"Yeah, apparently they'd gotten damp. I don't know how they were stored, but somehow they got damp. I was planning to confess to Minako at the time. If the fireworks festival had gone ahead, I wouldn't be single now."
"..." I don't think the fireworks had much to do with why you're single. You don't exactly look like the kind of guy who'd have an easy time finding a girlfriend.
Since the truth would've been too hurtful, Sawahara decided not to say it.
"That's a real shame," he said.
You lost your chance to see yourself for who you really were.
In the afternoon, just before the pool was about to close, Sawahara asked the president a question.
"President, was the Student Council Room being renovated because of the fire?"
"Yes."
On Friday, according to the Student Council duty roster, it was Sawahara's turn to patrol.
A certain rumor had been spreading like wildfire around the school lately: a supposedly very accurate fortune-teller was coming to Keyaki Mall. The girls in Class C had mentioned it during a study session.
Sawahara's opinion was:
"If you have that many extra points, you can just give them to me. I guarantee I can tell fortunes more accurately than he can."
After all, if you told everyone they'd lose money soon, you were bound to be right.
Come to think of it, was there any point in patrolling the school? Who would come here during the break?
"I can't believe there really are students coming to school." Sawahara hadn't expected to run into Katsuragi here. "Looks like you just came from the club building. Did you come to the Student Council for something?"
"How did you know I was coming to the Student Council?"
"First, it's the break, and there are basically only two reasons to come to the club building: to seek help in the Student Council Room or to take part in club activities. You applied to join the Student Council before, so that means you probably haven't joined a club. So it must be the first reason." Sawahara explained his reasoning.
"So what do you need from the Student Council?"
"..." Katsuragi hesitated, saying nothing.
"Are you worried I'll trip you up?" Sawahara raised an eyebrow. Did people really think he was the kind of person who'd kick someone when they were down?
"If that's what you think, then you're right. If you don't tell me what you're up to, I guarantee I'll trip you up."
"..." The blatant threat made Katsuragi's expression extremely grim, but he had no choice but to give in. "I want to mail a package outside the school."
"Oh, that's all?" Sawahara had thought Katsuragi was planning something serious. There was no need to be so secretive about this. "The school's rules definitely won't let you mail anything out."
"I just want to send my younger sister a birthday present. I absolutely won't reveal any information about the school," Katsuragi promised.
"That won't help, Katsuragi. The school doesn't care whether you'll actually reveal information. It only cares whether there's any chance you might." Sawahara shook his head. What good were promises? Sima Yi had once pointed at the Luo River and sworn an oath too.
"You can do anything with points, right? At the start of the school year, they said points could be used to buy anything." Katsuragi remained calm. He knew this wouldn't be easy.
"That's true, but you can't do it. First, changing the school's rules requires sufficient authority—in other words, you have to become Student Council President. Second, the number of points needed to change a rule isn't small. Even for me, all my points wouldn't be enough to get the school to allow packages to be sent out."
The bigger the change to the school's rules, the more points it took. Changing a fundamental rule that involved the school's confidentiality would cost an astronomical number of points.
Sawahara watched Katsuragi's expression grow ever grimmer, then suddenly smiled.
"Want to hear another way of looking at it, Katsuragi?"
Before you continue