Ajin the Class Rep

"Please allow me to show you around the school"

Just as the bell rang signaling the end of lunchtime, our class rep, Ajin, approached me with a friendly and welcoming smile - and my heart was melting. 

When I was here before, I liked Ajin. I really did like her a lot. But then again, many other boys did too. She was always calm, collected, kind, and reliable. She was never forceful in trying to keep the rowdy kids under control while teachers were occasionally absent from classrooms for one reason or another. She had a knack for asking people nicely in a way that makes you want to cooperate, and well, she was cute. 

She was not a typical girl with dark long straight hair and the feminine-looking class rep stereotype you'd see in a manga, but neither was she an overtly outgoing socializer. She was always somewhere in between and that was her charm. Nobody would think that she is the prettiest girl in class, especially now that I'm here, yet I'm sure if you grabbed and asked any boy to name the three cutest girls in the class she would always be on the list. 

She did not look down on me like my other classmates did, and of course, she had never joined in bullying me either. She just wasn't that kind of a girl. She even sympathized with me at times and asked me if I was okay. For someone who lacked any form of self-confidence and longed for empathy daily, these moments were so precious. 

However - she never stopped the bullying that was going on in her class. 

This was not something I thought about as a boy when I was here before, but now that I look back, she wasn't much better than others in the class. It was almost as if she did not do something bad herself, it was as if she had no problem just standing back and letting the bullying go on as long as she did not get her own hands dirty. She was always looking the other way, only coming to say some kind words after all was done. I was foolish. I was so starved of kindness that her empty words were comforting.

Yet my heart was beating faster as Ajin led me around the school introducing various rooms and facilities there were. The library, music room, science room, art room, etc, etc. It was actually supposed to be in a home economics class but that class was never taken seriously (to the annoyance of the home economics teacher). There were often student council meetings or this sort of new student introductions during that class time as if to say this class was okay to miss. It won't affect your grade to enter the university anyways. 

"So that's about it. Do you have any questions or anything else you want to have a look at?"

Well, I knew the school layout well enough. I was a student here after all. 

But although I was now seeing Ajin in a somewhat different light than I used to as a hopeless loser, I was still fond of her and wanted to spend some more time with her. 

"What kind of after-school clubs are there in this school? One of the boys was talking about a manga club… and the sports coach earlier also mentioned a football club"

"Oh yeah, you were amazing at football! I have never seen our sports teacher praise his student like that before"

"Er… thank you, I suppose"

"But you aren't seriously considering the manga club right?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Well… it's mostly for, hm, how do I say, a certain type of boys and you probably end up being the only girl there if you joined"

"Is that a problem?"

"Haha, you really don't mind such things. Well, nobody will hold you back from doing what you want. But as our sports teacher suggested, why don't you look around various clubs and see which one you like the best? You seem to be really good at sports so you can even consider things like track & field clubs or girls' softball clubs"

"What club are you in then, eh… Ajin?"

"I'm in the go-home club, hehe"

Wow. I never knew she was like that. 

"Really? You haven't found anything interesting?"

"Well… it's a little complicated. For now, let's just say I need to go home after school and help out with family stuff"

"Fair enough"

"So I suppose that's it for now, right? Let's go to the next class. We should return to our classroom for the math class"

Ah, shit. I suck at math. Being the new transfer student, there was a high chance that the teacher would ask me to come out to the front of the class and solve some shits on the blackboard. I totally won't be able to do that. What do I do now… I impressed everyone (and myself) with my physical ability, but maybe within the next hour or so, everyone will figure out that I'm an idiot. 

That made me nervous, but it's not like I could avoid math class for the rest of my high-school life. Whatever will be, will be. Let's just go and see. 

With these thoughts in mind, I followed Ajin to return to the classroom.