The Right To Refuse

Reina Asuzagawa's POV

"Reina! Could you please do this for me?"

"Reina! Replace me for the cleanup duty."

"Reina! You're going to manage your father's company, right? You're going to do it, right?"

All of them are asking me very nicely. But I know, deep down inside them their thinking:

"This girl can't even refuse properly. If we just convince her even further, I'm sure she will agree."

For them, It seems like I don't the right to refuse. Although, there are times when I actually wanted to help them, they're going to ask me again to help them.

If I just said "just this one time" and I fulfilled their request. They're going to come back again, and ask me to help them. It's like an eternal maze with no way out. Even my mother is like that.

She's not even giving me time to express my feelings. She wants me to manage my father's company at the future. But I want to be a manga artist.

Creating colorful stories and creative characters that make people smile, is what I want. They will come back to me and ask me to make more, but I like it. Because I like drawing.

But It's still a dream, if I can't even refuse my mother, then I can't fulfill it. Everybody is not even giving me space to refuse, It's like It's already given that I'll agree. Of course, I was brought to trouble because of this.

There's one time that a classmate asked me to deliver papers to the faculty room. Naturally, It's her job, but she gave it to me. After I delivered the papers and came back, the class already started and the teacher even punished me.

I feel like they're taking advantage of the fact that I can't speak properly. But one day, a request came to me again. But this time, I fulfilled it with my own will.

"Reina! Please join the Art Club! I'm the only member there! Please help."

I fulfilled it with my own will, even though she already left by the time I joined the club, I'm not mad at all. Every time I'm in this room, I feel peace, that no one will actually come here, asking me for requests that I can't refuse.

I'm just drawing things here all the time, but I really like it. I'm going here faster than the speed of sound so that they will never catch me, just joking about the speed of sound, but I'm actually a little fast.

In this Art Club, I found my place where I can be at ease. It's been 2 months since I joined this club, but no one came here for requests at all.

"Umm, is this the Art Club?"

I was startled by his sudden appearance, so I quickly covered my face with the canvas. What's his intention for coming here? He wants to join or maybe... a request again.

+++++

"Well, that's fine. You have the right to refuse. I'm sorry for scaring you like that."

That's the first time someone actually said those words to me. That time I felt, I'm not some robot that will not learn to refuse. I felt that I have the right to refuse.

He turned his back towards me, indicating that he's going to leave now, but I immediately called out to him with my weak voice. He didn't around, so I repeated my words. With my weak voice, I repeatedly called out to him.

After raising my voice a little, she finally turned his head towards me! I approached him, very slowly and said to him:

"Please let me try it out."

"Huh?"

For the first time in my life, I want to help someone like him. Even if he ends up abusing my help in the end, I still want to help him here! Because I'm so grateful to the words he said to me.

+++++

"So this is our new costume designer, umm, umm, umm."

What's her name again? This girl from the Art Club said that I should let her try it out. So I fulfilled it, I took her to the clubroom and introduced her to the members.

"Umm, Araragi, isn't it rude not knowing her name first."

Said by Ayano Katachi while looking at me like blankly. You're correct, It's definitely very rude not even knowing her name first. But the girl just waved her hands back and forth as If saying "there's no problem with it!"

She walked towards the whiteboard, took a pen from the table and wrote her name.

"My name is Asuzagawa Reina. Nice to meet you. I'm not really good at talking, but I hope we can get along."

After that, she bowed her head towards all of us. Seeing that, Ayano Katachi and the others are looking at her with a puppy eyes. I do admit that It's a really cute way of introducing yourself, but It's not making my heart flutter at all.

It's not like my heart is made of iron, I just didn't felt anything special.

Regardless, we've gotten ourselves a costume designer. Now, I've got to walk to the next step.

I told the girls that I'm going home early, and they should get the work done. Nakano Urara should be done by reviewing the dance steps, Yumeko Arimoto for the songs and Asuzagawa Reina at drawing the design.

As for me, I'm going to go back to the den of the devils.

END OF CHAPTER 17