Our Hardworking Class-Rep (1)

It was a lovely Thursday morning in Tsuburaya City, the time of day where its citizens would be scurrying out of their home to work or school. When the trains would be packed and the streets flooded with businessmen and students alike.

However, there was one high school student who was still in bed, curled up in his sheets like a badger in its burrow. Even as the sun's rays began flooding into through his window he did not budge an inch. And why would he? After all, he wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere.

His name was Shuyaku Kotaka, and he had been suspended from school for two weeks.

"Kotaka!" he heard a faint voice coming from outside his door, "Its morning!"

That was his mother. She had come to pick him up after his tussle with the Firebirds the night before, fussing over his injuries like she always did and worrying about whether or not he would have to change schools again despite his reassurances.

"Sorry mom," he thought, rolling over in bed, "nothing is going to get me out of bed until I'm good and ready…"

"Kotaka!" came the voice again, much louder more aggressive, "You're friend is here! It's not polite to keep a guest waiting!"

Kotaka lay still, the implications of what his mother just said not hitting him for a while. In an instant his eyes snapped open and he bolted out of bed. He slammed the door open and nearly tripped as he scrambled into the living room, where he was met with the sight of a familiar golden face.

Godou was sitting at the dining table, happily gorging on a stack of his mother's homemade pancakes. He was wearing his school uniform along with his signature three-horned helmet, his mouth clearly visible through the gap in his helmet that he usually opened in order to eat something.

"Morning Boss!" He said, his mouth dripping with syrup and pancake.

"Godou." Kotaka panted, "What are you doing here?"

"Recruitment Drive!" Godou declared, pointing his fork at Kotaka, "Now that my plan has been set in motion we cannot afford to waste time loafing about at home."

"We're starting today?!" Kotaka cried out in shock, "But we're still suspended! How do you expect to gather up students if we can't even enter the grounds?"

"That's obvious!" Godou continued, shoving another chunk of pancake into his mouth, "We look for them outside of the school."

"It's 7am in the morning!" Kotaka yelled, "Nobody will be out of school until 4 in the afternoon at earliest!"

"Really?" Godou cocked his head to one side, "Then we'll just hang out until then I guess."

"Ugh, You didn't put any thought into this at all, did you?" Kotaka sighed, slapping his palm to his forehead.

"Kotaka," Kotaka stiffened up reflexively at the stern voice of his mother as she walked out of the kitchen, a plate of fresh pancakes in her hands. People always said he took more after his mother than his father, she had the same unmanageable hair and the same piercing snake-like eyes, Eyes which were currently firmly focused on Kotaka, giving him a look that would make anyone else shrivel up on the spot.

"Your friend came all this way to see you," she frowned, "be a little more polite."

"Look, he even brought us a housewarming present." She placed the pancakes down on the dining table and pointed to the corner of the living room. There Kotaka saw a large box with an odd-looking blue vacuum cleaner pictured on the side.

"That's a new product from the company my mom works for," said Godou, licking his lips, "These pancakes are delicious Boss-mom."

"Ara, I'm glad you like them," she smiled, "My boy never has any friends over so I went all out."

"Mom!"

"Oh hush." Kotaka's mom frowned, staring at Kotaka with her hands on her hips, "I'm not sure what exactly the two of you are planning, but it would definitely do you some good to get out of the house as long as you stay out of trouble."

"Yeah Boss!" Godou laughed, beckoning Kotaka to come closer, "Now come on, eat up these delicious pancakes and let's get going."

"I get it, I get it," Kotaka grumbled, finally caving through the combination of Godou's and his mother's insistence. He sat down at the table and starting cutting up his pancakes, "So where exactly ARE we going after this."

"The batting center of course!" came Godou's excited reply.

"Again?" Kotaka cried, "Don't you know any other places to hang out?"

"What better place is there than a batting center?" Godou frowned.

"Ugh, look. If you're going to drag me out of bed this early the least you could do is follow me somewhere I want to go." Kotaka grumbled, "I've got a couple of places I've been wanting to check out since I moved here..."

Kotaka's mother laughed softly as she snuck back to the kitchen, leaving the two boys to their planning. She wasn't quite sure what to make of her son's strange new acquaintance when she first met him at the police station or even when he showed up at her door the next morning. Onimaru Godou seemed like a nice enough fellow, but she couldn't shake a strange sense of uneasiness. Her intuition was telling her that there was something off about this boy other than his strange choice of headgear. That said; she was more than willing to chalk those feelings up to being paranoid and welcome him into their home.

He was, after all, her son's first real friend.

SSS