Chapter 67: Beginning of Term Ceremony

Summer had finally ended, and the second semester of school started today. We were just having a beginning-of-term ceremony today, so it’d end pretty quickly. Well, that was what I thought, but there was still work to be submitted and things to be distributed, so it might end up taking a bit of time.

I remember getting mad in my past life because I thought that we’d be getting home quickly, but the teacher kept on dragging it out. It wasn’t like there was a set dismissal time, so I wasn’t really waiting. The other classes had already left, but ours was the only one that stayed late and didn’t leave. That was annoying, right?

Well, anyway, I entered the classroom, and… I only saw the usual faces. In my past life, there were those who were always late but came early because they were excited from summer break and those who came late because they were sluggish from summer break. Those people were often there, but… as expected of the students attending Touka Academy; they didn’t do something like that.

“Greetings, Satsuki-chan.”

“Sakuya-chan, greetings.”

I greeted Satsuki-chan, who always came earlier than me. …she wasn’t that suntanned. She was a little suntanned compared to four months ago, but she wasn’t so suntanned that you wouldn’t think she was a first-grader back from break.

“Umm… did something happen?”

“Oh! I am sorry. It is nothing.”

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Elzz, R vbswtbv vbyv, cwv vblal olal dsdl… yzz vbl jkep obs’e nsxl kdvs pnbssz olal ryzl…

“Ysadkdt!”

“Ggyxk-pyxy, tsse xsadkdt.”

“Ysadkdt, Ggyxk-nbyd!”

Oh? Azami-chan had come too. I had met up with Azami-chan before we came back from school, so I knew that she wasn’t that tanned. Well, I said that, but Azami-chan hadn’t tanned at all. She had a pretty active lifestyle, so I thought that she’d be suntanned or something, but apparently not.

“Good morning, Sakuya-sama!”

“Azami-chan, greetings.”

Azami-chan executed her standard morning greeting to start the day. She had done the greeting since first term, so I didn’t mind starting the morning with this. Time passed like that, and the beginning-of-term ceremony was held in the auditorium. 

　　～～～～～～～

The boring opening ceremony had ended, and I returned to the classroom. Even though the auditorium was air-conditioned, the principal’s speech was still boring. If this were the old days, we’d be standing under direct sunlight for minutes… Now someone might say “What about heatstroke!?” or “This is abuse!”.

It’d be a disaster if anything happened to the Touka Academy students, so they held assemblies and events in the air-conditioned auditorium. It must’ve also been difficult for the whole school to stand outside.

We returned to the classroom where we submitted our homework, received printouts, and information was communicated. There’d be kids who didn’t do the homework in my past life, but it looked like there weren’t any of those kids here. Everyone submitted their homework politely and on time.

That was definitely good, but… in a normal school, there’d be kids who didn’t do their homework and kids who forgot to bring their homework; there should’ve been all kinds of problems. There wasn’t a single problem here. Everyone submitted their homework on time like it was the norm.

That was a good thing, but… for some reason, it… didn’t seem very individualistic? If everyone acted flawlessly, they wouldn’t be very interesting, right? That shouldn’t have been a bad thing, but it wasn’t something I could honestly praise…

Well, maybe that was because the sense of values I had from my past life were old. To the kids here, that was normal. I was the odd one out here.

All of today’s plans concluded smoothly without a hitch. But, unfortunately, we couldn’t go back home. Even though it was the day of the beginning-of-term ceremony, the Five Norths Association was meeting today. We didn’t meet at the end-of-term ceremony, but we met at the beginning-of-term ceremony. I didn’t know why. It was that type of tradition. But I had to show my face at the Five Norths Association.

Oh… but at the entrance ceremony, the new students were all from the Five Norths families. All the current students gathered there, but… that was a kind of debut for the Five Norths families’ children attending that year. But then what about today? What were we doing in our gathering on the day of the beginning-of-term ceremony?

I wouldn’t understand everything even if I complained, so, like in the first term, I walked with Azami-chan and Satsuki-chan to the salon.

“Greetings.”

When I opened the door and entered the salon, I immediately sat in my usual seat in the back. Then, Kaya-san followed me right after as usual. Kaya-san didn’t look that tanned either. None of the people that I had examined today were completely sunburnt.

“Greetings, Sakuya-chan. What is it? Staring at big sister like that…”

“Kaya-san, greetings. Was that rude? I am sorry. I had thought that you had changed over summer, Kaya-san, so I wanted to take a look.”

If I said “I wasn’t looking at you”, my lie would immediately be revealed, so I just apologised.

“Are you that interested in this big sister? Do you want to have a more detailed inspection? Do you? Then, you are welcome at my house.”

“Um~… well~… my mother is glaring at me because I have played too much over summer… so I cannot simply go out and play now.”

I said that to Kaya-san to stop her from making that bewitching face. It wasn’t a blatant lie. I had played a lot over summer break, so my mom told me to restrain myself. She didn’t say that I couldn’t play at all. Socialising was also one of a young lady’s jobs. That was why she didn’t tell me I absolutely couldn’t, but rather to choose my playmates and limit the frequency of my outings.

On top of making plans beforehand, I could only play after I checked with my mom and obtained her permission, so I couldn’t play just because I wanted to.

I thought that my mom was getting stricter and stricter… was she going to add a curfew too? But was I really playing that much? Enough that my mom would go so far?

I did what I had to do and went to my lessons. I was still in first grade, so I thought that playing was one of my jobs too, but, well…

“By the way, Kaya-san, what did we gather here at the salon to do?”

It looked like tradition stated that we gather on the beginning-of-term ceremony, but what were we gathering here for?

“Huh? We’re not doing anything in particular? We’re just gathering.”

…huh? Just gathering?

Then, couldn’t I just skip? It wasn’t like everyone was gathered here on the weekdays. There were people who had things to do and so returned home, and people who didn’t participate much in the first place. Couldn’t I just go home today…?

“Perhaps it’s because everyone must gather on at least the first day of term?”

“Oh… it is that kind of thing…”

Understood… I was just thinking that there were people who didn’t participate or people who couldn’t come on set days because they had lessons. Because of fat, there were few days when everyone was gathered here. Or there were people whom you’d never seen before because you’d never gone to see each other.

Everyone gathering on the first day—the beginning of term ceremony—made more sense when I thought about it like that.

Looking around, the topic of discussion seemed to be the Konoe family party that happened during summer break. It’d be nice to have a common conversation topic at times like this. Maybe that was why the Konoe family held a party during each summer break.

When everyone gathered after summer break now, they could talk about common experiences like the Konoe family party they had all attended. Everyone could become friendlier and the Konoe family’s influence would increase. And for the people who didn’t come to the party and couldn’t talk about it would be left out, like me right now.

I wasn’t really interested in that type of thing. I didn’t want to attend the Konoe family party if I didn’t have to, and I wouldn’t think anything of it if I couldn’t follow the conversation. But a normal kid would probably get worried and feel like they were being excluded.

And if those kids were here, their circle of friends would probably abandon them. That didn’t mean they’d be completely abandoned; but just because one person couldn’t talk about the topic didn’t mean that no one else would touch it. Kids who couldn’t enter the conversation naturally would be alone.

So everyone had to participate. They had to go the Konoe party to have a topic of discussion they could talk about with everyone. The Konoe family’s general influence would increase too. That was because of their careful tactics.

“H-Hey, Sakuya.”

“…greetings, Konoe-sama.”

Why did this guy never use honorifics with my name? And we weren’t so close that he could call me by first name, but…

I wasn’t thinking that I wanted him to completely ignore me like before. But there was an order to things, you know? I’d be annoyed if someone I wasn’t even friends with stopped adding honorifics to the end of my name, and I’d think they were being overfamiliar. Ibuki and I still weren’t friends. I hadn’t completely discarded the possibility of us being friends, but we still weren’t friends.

And… Ibuki wasn’t that suntanned either… Ibuki seemed like the type to go play outside, but… Maybe he just put on a ton of sunscreen.

“Hey, Kujou-san…”

“Greetings, Takatsukasa-sama.”

And Enju wasn’t in a good mood. Not in a good mood, or rather, he didn’t know how best to approach me. By the way, Enju was pale. Way too pale. Was this not too pale even for someone called the “Snow White Prince”? Had he really even experienced summer? It was like he had gone to a snowy country…

Oh… maybe a family like the Takatsukasas had actually gone to a country in the polar regions or on the southern hemisphere for summer break.

“Sakuya! You didn’t come to my party at summer break, right? So I’ll host a party on a day when you can go. When are you free?”

Huh? What was with that way of talking? Maybe he wanted to get a little friendlier with me, but acting like that would normally get me annoyed, you know?

Why did he have to talk to me like I was such a pitiful creature that he’d even host a party for me? And also, didn’t Ibuki remember that he was referring to me pretty rudely too? I wouldn’t want to go to his party even more.

“Isn’t this great, Sakuya? Ibuki-kun, Sakuya hasn’t been going out much lately. But since you’ve invited her, our mother is sure to agree. Once you decide on a date, perhaps you could send us official invitations? If you do that, our mother should consent.”

Brother~! Why were you pointlessly butting in!? I didn’t really want to go at this point, you know? I was going to listen to what he had to say at first, but my will to go disappeared because of the way he acted. Ibuki and I were like water and oil. We could never understand each other.

“I’m sorry, Kujou-san. I’m going too, and you can invite your friends too.”

“*sigh*… It cannot be helped, I suppose… Konoe-sama, I am available on…”

Enju said that and I didn’t have any reason to refuse. I took out my scheduling book, checked my plans, and decided on a day with Ibuki. Even though he called it a “party”, no adults were being invited, our parents weren’t invited, it wasn’t large scale, and there were very few people. It seems he was imagining something like friends gathering.

He’d told me that I could invite my friends if I wanted to, but… everyone probably had their own plans. If I were to invite anyone, that’d be Satsuki-chan, Kaya-san, and Azami-chan and her group, probably?

Because my brother said pointless things, he quickly added that he himself wouldn’t be able to participate. Saying pointless things and then running away yourself was…

Anyway, I could try to invite Azami-chan’s group tomorrow.