Chapter – 06
The classroom was filled with the restless excitement that always came just before spring break. Today would be the last day they ever spent in this room.
Before entering high school, Kazuki had never imagined her life would turn out like this. Especially when it came to clubs. If someone had told the Kazuki of a year ago that she’d end up in the Contemporary Art Club, she never would have believed it.
She had been a member of the basketball team in middle school, so naturally she intended to continue playing in high school. She had even gone to observe the basketball club with her friends. She had signed the temporary club registration form; all that remained was to submit it.
If she had simply taken a different route that day, she might never have met Shioi standing quietly outside the clubroom.
But Kazuki had seen her.
Shioi stood there with a melancholy expression, watching the students pass by in the hallway.
Beautiful.
That single word filled Kazuki’s mind.
She looked as though she had stepped out of a painting itself—fragile, ethereal, breathtakingly beautiful. Kazuki was captivated instantly. The moment she crumpled up the basketball registration form and stuffed it into her pocket, her decision had already been made.
Even the name Contemporary Art Club had sounded fresh and fascinating back then.
Now, however, she’d discovered that even Shioi herself barely understood contemporary art and mostly just talked about it for the atmosphere.
That realization had been profoundly disappointing.
If someone asked Kazuki where exactly she had made the wrong choice in her youth…
It was definitely that moment.
“Ah… I want to redo my …..”
As she buried her face in her desk, silently cursing her past self, a familiar voice spoke above her.
“You’re depressed first thing in the morning again?”
“Oh, Yuudai. Morning.”
Tomoda Yuudai.
The first boyfriend she’d ever had, whom she’d started dating six months ago.
Dating a boy in the same class had seemed like an enormous psychological hurdle. There was always the risk of classmates teasing them, and just imagining how awkward things would be if they broke up made her chest hurt.
“So when you say you want a do-over… does that mean you regret dating me?”
“No, not at all. Honestly, even if I traveled back to a year ago, I’d still end up dating you.”
Over the past six months, they’d never really fought. At the same time, their relationship had never burned with passionate romance either. It felt more like an extension of friendship.
That comfortable distance suited Kazuki perfectly.
The awkward situations she’d worried about had never happened, and she felt she was enjoying a peaceful, uncomplicated relationship.
“What I regret is joining this club. Seriously, what even is the Contemporary Art Club?”
“Oh, that club with the weird president? Are you staying in it next year?”
“Probably not… It might get shut down. We don’t have enough members.”
With Iwasaki agreeing to join, they only needed one more member to avoid dissolution.
But the deadline was only a few hours away.
It was going to be a difficult battle.
“So this morning, Senpai dragged me out early to recruit members…”
She yawned.
“I’m sooo sleepy…”
“Hmm. If you just need to hit the minimum number, why not grab one of our classmates? Like Miyata.”
“Guernica, huh.”
“G-Guernica?”
Kazuki called their classmate Keisuke Miyata “Guernica.”
As in Picasso’s Guernica.
The famous painting depicting the bombing of Guernica by the German air force—a work so unsettling that simply looking at it filled people with anxiety.
Its faces and body parts seemed arranged where they didn’t belong. It was almost comical, like a game of Fukuwarai, yet somehow eerie.
The figure second from the left—the thin-necked creature resembling a cow.
Its face looked astonishingly like Miyata’s.
The nickname “Guernica,” which Kazuki had coined, had caught on among some of their classmates. Even Miyata himself knew people called him that.
The Photography Club he belonged to had apparently already been slated for dissolution as well.
Which meant Miyata was now clubless.
He was the perfect person to recruit as a placeholder member.
“Hey, Guernica. Got a minute?”
Kazuki tapped Miyata on the shoulder while he was organizing his locker.
The boy with the cow-like face slowly turned around.
Despite not actually being a Cubist artwork, why did he resemble Guernica so perfectly?
It wasn’t that his facial features were misplaced. His eyes, nose, and mouth were all perfectly normal.
Yet somehow, when viewed as a whole, he became incredibly… artistic.
That was simply the kind of face Miyata had.
“Oh? What’s up? Don’t tell me you’re confessing to me.”
“That’s something people do on graduation day. Besides, I already have a boyfriend.”
The only reason Kazuki could get away with calling him such an outrageous nickname was because Miyata himself was cheerful and easygoing.
If she’d said someone else looked like Guernica, it would have been an unforgivably cruel insult.
It was basically saying:
“Your face doesn’t even look human.”
“Anyway, your Photography Club’s getting shut down, right? So I wanted to ask… would you join my club just to make up the numbers? You can be a ghost member if you want. Our club’s about to be abolished.”
“Your club would be…”
“The Contemporary Art Club.”
“Ohhh! The one with the insanely gorgeous club president!”
Kazuki couldn’t help thinking, once again, how fortunate Shioi was to have been blessed with such a beautiful face.
If she’d been merely average—or worse—the Contemporary Art Club would probably be completely unknown.
The only reason people even knew it existed was because Shioi herself served as its unofficial advertisement.
“Oh, sure! I’ll join! No problem!”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to have anything to do next year anyway, so I was wondering what to join. You asking me is actually perfect timing.”
“Just so we’re clear—you shouldn’t expect anything weird, like dating Senpai.”
Kazuki had no idea what Shioi’s taste in men was.
But she was absolutely certain…
It wasn’t Guernica.
Still, she never expected to gather enough members this easily.
The club had been all but doomed, so reaching four members felt nothing short of a miracle.
“Alright then. Let’s head to the clubroom after the closing ceremony.”
“I can’t wait to meet Shioi-senpai!”
