Coca-Cola Is a Matter of Grave Importance
Class 1-A's entry for the culture festival was a cosplay café.
The concept was simple, and exactly the sort of thing bound to be popular: pick whichever you preferred, a butler uniform or a maid uniform, and wait on the guests while wearing it.
The class had twenty-eight students in all, split precisely down the middle between boys and girls. Eighteen had chosen the butler uniform, and ten the maid uniform—not because a single boy had opted for the maid outfit, but because four of the girls had chosen the butler clothes instead.
And, by Tateyama's insistence, Kayano, supposedly Class 1-A's signature attraction, was one of those four.
"...Whoa."
The sound slipped out of Miyauchi before she could stop it.
Standing in front of her was Kayano, dressed as a butler.
The truth was, when Kayano had first announced she would wear the butler uniform, Miyauchi had doubted it. She wasn't sure Tateyama was right that the girl was the class's main draw, but it was a fact that Kayano was the cutest girl Miyauchi had ever seen in her life. There were moments she seemed cuter than a doll.
And yet—a butler uniform? Wouldn't that clash horribly? The doubt had been only natural.
But they did say the face was what completed an outfit, didn't they?
Looking at Kayano after she had changed, Miyauchi could only swallow in silence. Soft brown hair spilling down her back suited the jet-black uniform perfectly, and those blue eyes, set in contrast against it, only deepened the air of mystery. A height small even for a high school girl, joined to the long, clean lines of the butler suit, stirred in Miyauchi a faint and guilty thrill. And more than anything, once Kayano's own cool atmosphere settled over the whole of it, every last trace of Miyauchi's worry vanished.
"Whoa, it really suits you. I bet you'd look better than most of the boys."
Tateyama, watching from beside her, must have been thinking something similar, because that was the only kind of praise she kept repeating.
"...Is that so."
Even under compliments like those, Kayano looked numb to them, as if she were used to this.
"Mm. Then... it's all right if I step outside now, isn't it...?"
"Ah, yes! It'll still be a while before everyone's gathered, so please sit anywhere you like and get some real rest."
At Miyauchi's answer, Kayano turned her eyes aside and checked her outfit, little by little.
"Haa...."
She let out a sigh so small it was barely audible and left the classroom without ever sitting down, as if she couldn't bear to remain in the room for even a moment longer.
"...Ah."
Only then did Miyauchi understand. For Kayano, who must have suffered for her looks since she was small, a cosplay café—a place that used appearance as a weapon—might well be something that poked at an old wound.
Why didn't I think of that?
Looking back, when they had been deciding the class's festival entry, Kayano had clearly voted for an ordinary café, not a cosplay café.
I should have caught on then!
A café was a café either way. Why oppose only the cosplay version? The reason was obvious if you thought about it for even a moment.
I'm sorry, Kayano.
Miyauchi bit her lip, swallowing the apology. Of course, no one was there to answer it.
If I had to choose between men's clothes and women's clothes, I would choose the men's. They were more familiar, and more comfortable. That, of course, was why I had picked the butler uniform.
"Whoa, it really suits you. I bet you'd look better than most of the boys."
Once I had changed into the butler clothes, Tateyama paid me that compliment.
Well, obviously. I am, in both name and fact, a super pretty girl. The face completes the outfit. Unless someone is openly trying to ruin it, I can pull off any look.
"I-is... th-that... so...."
But that was a separate matter from the fact that my mind had already hit its limit. Miyauchi's sidelong, skimming glances, and Tateyama's gaze brimming with admiration—both were far too much to bear. If it had been only one of them, I could have held out. I had clawed my way all the way up to ultra-popular, genuine grade, after all.
My heart is slamming, and my stomach churns until it burns. Honestly I feel like I might throw up, and I am grinding my teeth just to stay upright. If I hadn't been tempered by Miss Koga and by streaming, I would already have collapsed....
Apparently nothing looks wrong, because Miyauchi gives a quiet nod.
In that case—!
"Mm.... Th-then, I, I can... s-step out, n-now, r-right...?"
"Ah, yes! It'll still be a while before everyone's gathered, so please sit anywhere you like and get some real rest."
The moment Miyauchi gives permission, I turn and leave the classroom.
"Haa...."
The clean air of an empty morning hallway.
I... am alive....
If it is only a matter of drawing a few extra looks, I am used to it enough to endure. My face is my face, so of course people glance my way. If I couldn't handle even that, I probably would have refused to come to school at all.
But when it goes beyond glances—when attention turns directly on me—the symptoms appear. Even now I could probably manage one person somehow, but any more than that is completely impossible....
"Huu."
The place I have found is the Old Science Room, no longer in use. Until today, every time I headed home I wandered the school a little, and all of it was in search of a classroom like this. Once today's business is over, I will hole up here until it is time to leave.
Someone like me might show up in the middle of it, but that much is fine. It takes an outcast to know an outcast. If they were the kind of outcast who would come all the way here, they would either see that I had claimed the spot first and quietly withdraw, or head for the corner on the exact opposite side.
In other words, no problem...!
I check the clock. It is already eight. Time to head back to class.
The Old Science Room sits in a fairly out-of-the-way corner, and yet, as if to announce that this is culture-festival season, a fair number of voices come drifting in, noisy and bright.
"Ugh...."
I stretch quietly and let out a sigh. A new ordeal has come to meet me, and right now I am seriously wondering how I am supposed to get through it.
The reason I am always the first one to school is simple. The later you arrive, the more eyes swing toward you when you walk in. I hate that atmosphere of gathered stares, and I also hate the feeling of interest going cold once people realize you aren't the person they were looking for. Especially me, with no friends in the class at all—everyone turns their eyes away from me at almost the same moment.
So I would rather get to the classroom first and pretend to be asleep. If you are already there when everyone else arrives, the only look you get is a brief one from the second person in, and after that you almost never feel eyes on you. In high school it is usually Miyauchi who comes in after me, so I have even grown somewhat used to it.
But right now I am in the Old Science Room. And now it is time to go back to the classroom.
Which means that if I return to class now, the situation I fear most at school is about to happen. To put it in a metaphor, the threat is on the level of ordering fried chicken and having the cola arrive as Pepsi.
Coca-Cola is a matter of grave importance.
"Huu...."
But I swore I wouldn't run anymore.
"Haa...."
I get up, draw one last deep breath, and slide open the door of the Old Science Room. Then, toward the noisy hallway, I slowly set my foot down.
...I should have just gone home early.
In truth, when I got back to class, there wasn't much of a problem. The door was open because everyone was changing into butler and maid uniforms, and they were all busy talking about how each other looked, so almost no one was looking at me. I felt a few sneaking glances, but that was about the same as usual, so it was fine.
The problem came after that.
Our class's entry is a cosplay café. For dessert we use what Miyauchi made herself, plus things brought in from outside, and drinks like coffee and black tea we brew ourselves. The style is this: a guest comes in, chooses from the menu, and a butler or a maid goes to prepare it, then sits and chats with them for a little while.
Right. I have to talk to the guests.
Having to make the coffee or the tea myself is already nerve-wracking, and I have to hold a conversation on top of it? This is clearly a punishment prepared for the express purpose of killing the class outcast. A school that permitted an entry this horrific ought to reflect on itself....
Of course, there were ways to avoid serving tables. I could handle the register, or stand by the door and play mascot, drawing people in. But in the end I would still have to talk to strangers, wouldn't I? The mascot role in particular also means stepping in if the line gets long or something goes wrong.
Yes. Right now I am caught between a rock and a hard place.
"Then let's put Kayano on guest service."
"...Yes."
As expected, the world is far too cruel....
The Shiodome High School Culture Festival is now open!
With that announcement, the first culture festival of my high school life began.
And our classroom is incredibly loud. My flyers must have caught people's eyes more than I expected, because classmates who went out to scout say that among entries with a similar concept, ours is the busiest of all.
...Thanks to that, the people on service duty—including me—don't have a moment to rest.
Is this a blessing, or a curse....
"I'd like to order."
"Ah, uh, y-yes...."
The fourth guest I end up serving seems to be a couple.
"I-I'll... h-help you... w-with your order, young master—ah, miss...."
"Ah, yes. I-I'll have a coffee and a brownie."
"Coffee and a macaron, please...."
A couple. I want to fire a Couples, Drop Dead beam, but right now I am a butler attending to guests.
Endure it, me. I have no intention, just yet, of setting foot on the path of the asura....
...If I don't at least think something like that, the nerves are going to drop me....