Chapter – 07
An air of excitement filled the classroom as everyone looked forward to spring break.
Today was the last day they’d spend in this classroom.
Before entering high school, Kazuki had never imagined her life would turn out like this. Especially when it came to club activities—if
you told the Kazuki from a year ago that she’d be a member of the Contemporary Art Club, she never would’ve believed it.
Back in middle school she’d been on the basketball team, and she’d fully intended to keep playing in high school. She’d even gone to
observe the basketball club with her friends. She had already signed the temporary club registration form and all that remained was to hand it in.
If she’d simply taken a different route that day, she might never have met Shioi, standing alone outside the clubroom.
But Kazuki saw her.
Standing there with a melancholy expression, quietly watching the students passing through the hallway…
She was beautiful.
That was the only thought that crossed her mind.
She looked so fragile and breathtakingly beautiful, as though she’d stepped straight out of a painting. Kazuki found herself completely captivated.
The moment she rolled up her basketball club application and slipped 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 learned that even Shioi herself barely understood contemporary art and mostly talked about it for the sake of
appearances. That realization had been profoundly disappointing.
If someone asked Kazuki where she’d gone wrong in her youth…
That was definitely the moment.
“Ahhh… I want a do-over on my youth.”
As she lay sprawled across her desk, silently resenting her past self, a familiar voice came from above.
“You’re depressed first thing in the morning again?”
“Oh, Yudai. Morning.”
Tomoda Yudai.
The first boyfriend she’d ever had, and they’d been dating for six months now.
Dating a boy from the same class had felt like a huge psychological hurdle. There was always the risk of classmates teasing them, and
just imagining how awkward things would become if they broke up made her chest hurt.
“So when you say you want a do-over… are you saying you regret dating me?”
“No, that’s not it. If I somehow traveled back to a year ago, I’d probably still end up dating you.”
Over the past six months, they had neither fought nor passionately swept each other off their feet.
Their relationship felt more like an extension of friendship.
That comfortable distance suited Kazuki perfectly. None of the awkward situations she’d feared had happened, and she felt she was
enjoying a peaceful, uneventful romance.
“What I regret is choosing my club.”
“What the heck even is the Contemporary Art Club?”
“Oh, that club with the weird president? You planning to stay in it next year?”
“Probably not. It might get disbanded. We don’t have enough members.”
With Iwasaki joining, they only needed one more member to avoid dissolution.
But the deadline was only a few hours away.
The odds weren’t exactly in their favor.
“So that’s why my senior dragged me out early this morning to recruit people…”
She let out a huge yawn.
“I’m so sleepy…”
“Hmm. If you just need to hit the minimum number, why not grab one of our classmates? Like Miyata.”
“…Guernica.”
“…G-Guernica?”
Kazuki called her classmate Keisuke Miyata “Guernica.”
As in Picasso’s Guernica.
The famous painting said to depict the indiscriminate bombing by the German Air Force—a work that made viewers uneasy simply by
looking at it. Faces and body parts were arranged where they clearly didn’t belong, almost like a game of Fukuwarai, making it both
ridiculous and strangely unsettling.
The figure second from the left…
The long-necked creature that resembled a cow…
Its face looked exactly 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.
His photography club had also been scheduled for dissolution.
Which meant Miyata was essentially clubless.
That made him the perfect candidate to recruit simply to fill the numbers.
“Hey, Guernica. Got a minute?”
Kazuki tapped Miyata on the shoulder as he organized his locker.
His cow-like face slowly turned toward her.
Even though he wasn’t some cubist human creation, why did he resemble Guernica so perfectly?
It wasn’t as if his facial features were misplaced.
His eyes, nose, and mouth were all perfectly normal on their own.
Yet somehow, when viewed together, they gave him an oddly artistic appearance.
That was simply the kind of face Keisuke 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 was cheerful and incredibly easygoing.
If she’d said someone else looked like Guernica, it would’ve been a vicious insult.
It was basically another way of saying,
“Your face doesn’t even look human.”
“So anyway,” Kazuki continued, “your photography club is disappearing, right?”
“Can you join my club just to make up the numbers? You don’t have to actually participate—you can be a ghost member. Otherwise our club’s getting shut down.”
“Your club is…”
“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 born beautiful.
If she’d been average-looking—or worse—the Contemporary Art Club would probably have remained 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 was wondering what I was gonna do next year anyway. I’ll have plenty of free time.”
“If anything, I’m lucky you asked.”
“Just so we’re clear…”
Kazuki added,
“Don’t get any weird ideas about dating my senior. That’s absolutely not happening.”
Kazuki didn’t know what kind of guys Shioi liked.
But she was quite certain…
It wasn’t Guernica.
Still, she never expected to gather enough members this easily.
The club’s dissolution had seemed almost inevitable.
Getting four members together now felt nothing short of a miracle.
“Well then,” Kazuki said with a smile.
“Let’s head to the clubroom after the closing ceremony.”
“I can’t wait to meet Senior Shioi!”
