Shoo-In

"I can't believe you went and already nominated Yogi." Arata berated Erina. She was so excited at the prospect that he provided her, she failed to listen to him about anything else.

"Oh come on, what's wrong with that. My beloved just had to be in this ball."

"Except you just gave up any advantage we could've had." He knew that with how the pairs were working. They could possible try to force one to give up their spots for him. Otherwise there wouldn't be a point to attending if he wasn't going to be in it. "It's fine, I guess, as long as you get in that's the first step right there."

"Oh I don't think that'll be a problem at all." She spoke with more confidence than he would've liked. She acted like she was already guaranteed in.

"Really, I don't think we should put the cart before the horses on this one." He wanted to bring her back to earth, but it seemed like he was the one that was naive.

"Uh, do you not know about my reputation."

"Before last week, I paid no attention to you. I also don't keep track of any happenings at school to know care." Thinking about it now, what else goes on around here that he never noticed?

"Well I just so happen to be one of this school's top maidens."

"Top maidens? Sounds like something that I would see in an anime." He thought that was odd, if that was the case there was probably also one for boys as well. "Anyone else part of that list I should know about?"

"Well it's no surprise that Misei or Misao is on that list. Though Akiba and Yuriko are also pretty popular, I'm not sure why." He was pretty certain on why those two were so well liked by the boys. Despite her plain look, Akiba brought that air of the girl next door. She just seem so inviting for boys, and there wasn't anything he could think of that was wrong with her.

Yuriko on the other hand, was something that many boys looked to as cute. Her smaller statue, coupled with a cold exterior just made people want to gravitate to her. Of course as he learned of recently, her fists are made of steel too.

"Damn it, well that makes them pretty much guaranteed to make it to the ball too. I guess even if you nominated me, I probably wouldn't get in. I'm pretty much unknown in this school."

"Yeah, that happens when you're a loser." He gave her a glare as she laughed it off. "We're not the only ones, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter about the rest."

"Yeah, unless those girls are also in love with Yogi, I think I'd rather not know more about this." Either way, without being at the dance himself, was there anything he could realistically do to help her? Perhaps his job was already done at this point. "Well, guess that means I should be heading to the first years."

"Why would you do that?"

"Were you not paying attention to anything we said back at lunch? I promised to help get the votes with Shitara, Miyatani, and Yogi."

"I guess I was just getting too lost in Yogi's eyes to notice." He sighed, he hoped that just once she'd not be so enamored with the guy.

"Fine, whatever. Anyway I'll be going, it would be rude to keep them waiting." He left her, without saying goodbye. Her head too high in the clouds to care. He headed down to the first floor to meet the others.

"There you are. We've been waiting for you." Misao spoke to him directly.

"You're not late, I guess we're all here pretty early." Yogi tried to give him some consolation.

"Wow, you guys must be really looking forward to this dance." He pretended to be surprised. With his position, he of all people knew what this meant.

"I guess from someone that's not going to be in it, I'm not as into it as you guys." He laughed. Misao stared at him, unamused.

"Hey don't count yourself out yet." Yogi said, he looked at him, confused by what he meant. There was no way he was going to be in. As far as he was aware, he wasn't nominated. Even if he was, there was no way anyone was going to vote for him.

"Maybe when we're done chatting, we should get this done." Misao brought their attention back to their task.

"Right." Akaki agreed. "Well since we only have two clipboards, maybe we should pair up?"

"You're correct. Well then, I'll go with Kashimura. You and Yogi and take the other one." She divided up their group without any other input. Not that they really disagreed. With that taken care of, they split their work, taking one half of the floor and went their separate ways.

Arata himself believed to be the best way to go about it. Of course it'd make since that Yogi and Akaki would go together, they were best friends after all. However, knowing about her. He realized that this was just a plan to get alone with him. Being the new guy in this group, she saw him as a wildcard in this competition.

If that was what she wanted to do, she didn't seem to try to get into a conversation with him. Instead, they quietly went to the first class to gather votes.

"All right, that's another for the president." He told her, she tallied another notch for the girl. "Looks like just one more kid over there." They walked over to the last boy, asking him.

"Well, um, I think I'll..." The boy sat at his desk, under duress.

"Well what is it? We don't have all day." She ushered him on.

"Hang on, you gotta hold back a little." He shooed her away, believing that this would help. "All right, so can you tell me who you want to vote for?" He took a nicer approach, making himself seem more approachable. The boy didn't say anything, instead he meekly pointed over at Misao. "Do you wish to vote for Shitara?"

"Ye-yes."

"Oh..." He figured it must've been embarrassing for the boy to say it to the girl that was asking him in the first place. "May I ask why?" The boy's eyes widened with worry. "Don't worry, I won't tell her." He confirmed. Arata was curious what made her stand out.

"I just think that President Jingu takes too much attention from her."

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"I mean, she nice too. But I think that Shitara works hard, and she's really loyal too." This boy didn't know the half of it, he thought. "She's also really cute..." He finished, trailing off at the end in embarrassment.

"All right then, well thank you. I'll make sure your vote gets tallied." He bid farewell to the boy, returning to Misao. "He wanted to vote for you."

"Really, that's all?" She checked a point to her own name. "What exactly did you do to get him to tell you?" He asked as if she was curious, but really was because she was annoyed at being forced to leave the two.

"Oh it's nothing special. I take care of kids a lot, so I know how to handle the shy ones. Although, I guess he wasn't a child, he's only a year younger than me."

"Fine, let's get to the next class then." They left the room they were in for the next one. But before getting there, he didn't want to be in silence with her. He had to do some digging of his own.

"So, the president's a pretty nice person, isn't she?" He was looking for something in her words that might give something away, but she caught on to his scheme.

"Small talk. Ha." She gave a single dry laugh at him. "I get what you're trying to do, but you don't have to be so sneaky about it." She told him. "We all know what we're doing here, so I have nothing to hide."

"Oh, that cool then. I just have to ask, but why are you doing this?" He asked. At the beginning, he thought it was clear. Akaki broke his expectations, so he was unsure if her intentions were what they seemed to be.

"Why? Well it's simple. I'm repaying my debt to her." She explained.

"Your debt? What exactly did you do for you?"

"Before I came to this school, I was a miserable human being." He wasn't sure exactly what she meant. He remembered they shared a class in middle school, she didn't seem so down then. "That was when I met her, she showed me what I was truly capable of."

"I see, so she helped you get to where you are now."

"Not just that, but she let me see where I could truly take myself. She gave me a life, and so I owe her my life." He thought it sounded very dramatic, but he couldn't deny that he couldn't appreciate the loyalty.

"Well that sounds good and all, but it looks like we're here. Time for some more votes." They entered the next class. As with the last one, things went pretty normally. Before too long, they founds themselves with the last two to vote, a pair of girls.

"So who are you voting for?" She asked them.

"Actually, can we ask a question first?" One of them asked.

"Go ahead, and make it quick, we don't have a lot of time."

"Thank you. Um, are you two dating?" He stood back, his ears heating up.

"Oh no, we're not..."

"As if I would date someone like him." She spoke clearly. He looked over at her annoyed. He thought that she could've at least acted a bit more reluctant to reject the idea.

"Yeah, anyway can we please get your votes?"

"Aw that's too bad, I really wanted to see you two dancing. I think you look cute together." At this point, he thought he was being teased by them. Misao may not have been at the top of the school, but he was certain that he was at the bottom of this pyramid.

"Yeah, but I think I'll still vote for you."

"Me?" He reacted, unsure why they would say that. "Sorry, but I'm not one of the nominees" He thought he was clearing up a misunderstanding. It turned out he was the mistaken one.

"Actually, you are." Misao told him, She showed him the board. On it, his name was one of the options, still with no tallies.

"What? You hid that?" He was certain that she did so to get a leg up on him.

"No, all the first years have already seen the names. So you weren't hidden as a choice." She explained. "I don't know how you got on, but I don't think it mattered either way." She wasn't wrong. He was far from known at school, so expecting many votes was generally out of the question.

"Really, that's your name." One of the girls brought them back to their original conversation. Then I'll vote for you anyway."

"Yeah me too."

"I guess you've got some consolation prize after all in this." She smiled at him. Not a gloating one, like before. Instead, one that seemed more like genuine happiness for him.

"Yeah I guess so." He replied. It didn't mean too much for him. If anything, he felt a little bad that those votes were going to waste. "I wonder who put me on the list?"

"I wouldn't know. Nominations are kept secret, only the teacher responsible for taking them knows."

"Well that's probably for the best." Once they left this room for the next. Misao made her move.

"You know, I don't know why you're supporting Erina. Don't you think it's unfair that I told you my reasons, but you haven't mentioned yours?" She asked.

"I guess you're right, it is a bit unfair." He relented. He was certain that there wasn't much reason to hide why, though avoiding specifics would be best. "I wish could say that my intentions were was pure as yours."

"Huh, you're not doing this for her sake?"

"No, more like for my own sake. I won't get into details, but let's just say she has some dirt on me."

"Blackmail." She responded, understanding the situation. "That is an unfortunate position you've found yourself in."

"To be honest, I'd thought you'd be more upset with Erina for doing it."

"I am a bit unhappy that she'd stoop to such a low, though I understand why she's doing this." She explained. "However, I think you should understand this, after all, you haven't known us for that long. But we are all friends still, even if we're rivals at the same time."

"Really? If that's the case, why are you so cold to me?"

"Because I didn't consider you a friend. Also, maybe you should reword your question a little."

"Why?"

"It should be why I was cold, I'm not cold to you now, am I?" Thinking of it, she was nicer than when he was talking to her the day before. "You're not so bad, so we're more like proper acquaintances than strangers to each other."

"Well that's a relief, I think I'd rather not make enemies with someone like you." He laughed, happy that he wasn't going to be destroyed in school.

"Of course, don't forget, the two of us are still rivals in this." It didn't take much longer after their first two classes. Before they knew it, they were done and met with the other two to tally up the final results.

He returned to class, wondering if there really was anything he could've done to help Erina. From the votes that he knew of, she was pretty popular, as she said. Of course he only got two votes for himself that he knew of, most likely the only two he received. So he was pretty sure that he wasn't going to be in it.

How much help could he be? Or perhaps this was for the best, at least he could take a spot in the sidelines for once. Taking a break would be nice.

Looking at the others, he was certain they were going to make it in. He didn't think that Akaki would be in it, but it turns out being one of the smartest kids in school was pretty helpful for getting the attention of the first years. Yuriko probably wasn't going in either, since there was no one to nominate her.

School ended, and with it, the rush of students going to find out who was going to be in the ball. He, on the other hand, was in no rush. Not only was he going to find it regardless how long it took, but he was pretty sure of the results that mattered.

"Hey guys." He greeted the others, waiting behind the crowd of people. "You see who won yet?"

"Oh no, we were waiting for you, actually." Yogi replied.

"I'm sorry to make you guys wait for me."

"We haven't been waiting that long." Said Misao, "And besides, with this many people I doubt we can just walk up and check it anyway."

"Probably going to be a lot of disappointed people." Erina joked. Seemed like she was much more confident than he was about the results, and they probably agreed on it anyway.

"You're probably right." He didn't disagree, though he wouldn't put it like that. "Oh it looks like the crowd is lightening up a little." He noticed people leaving as they either found out they weren't on the list, or were chosen after all. "Since I made you wait, I'll go and look." He was partially doing it so they didn't have to go through this wave of remaining people to see. At the same time, he just wanted to be the one to confirm what they all knew.

It was harder than he was expecting. He had to bob and weave through people, not wanted to get pushed over. Thankfully, his smaller than average statue made it a bit easier to avoid people. Once he made his way to the front, he could quickly scan the names.

At the top wasn't a surprise. He saw the president as the most popular girl, Yogi took the top spot for boys. It looked like Akiba, Erina, and Misao were pretty good with the girls. The name he wasn't expecting on that side would be Yuriko's. He didn't even realize that she was nominated.

Knowing that the pairs had each other covered, along with Erina getting Yogi on. Who picked her? Was it Yogi? If that was the case, that could be bad news for him. Checking on the boy names, he saw Akaki's. Next was a complete shock to him though.

"What?!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. It was enough to scare the students standing by him, trying to see the names. He didn't care about the attention he drew to himself. What he saw, was his own name on the list of chosen dancers.

"What's wrong?" The group came running to him, checking to make sure he was okay.

"Ha, ah. Turns out, I'm dancing after all." He turned around, looking like a mess to them.

"Oh that." Yogi laughed. "I was hoping to surprise you with that." Everyone turned to him, not sure exactly what he meant by that.

"Yeah… You see." Akaki explained. "Yogi nominated you, and it turns out there were a lot of uncertain students. So he convinced them to vote for you." His wry smile indicated that he wasn't all in on that, but he couldn't really stop it from happening.

"Ah, I see now." He said, then he fainted from the shock. With this revelation, his life was about to get interesting.