School Festival Prep

It was finally the first day of school. I woke up early from the sound of my alarm clock and I frantically looked for my phone and stopped the alarm. This thing is so damn loud. Maybe I'll change the ringtone to a nicer and calmer one. I thought about this as I heard a knock on my door.

"Juni-kun, wake up! Time to go to school!"

"Yea, give me a few minutes!"

I got up and dressed in a school uniform. It felt weird wearing one after not wearing it for so long. I finished buttoning up the collared shirt and headed out of my room and towards the kitchen. There, food was already made for us and we ate it quickly. The car driver soon instructed us to get on and we headed to school.

Tochaki-san got out of the car first and I soon followed a few minutes later. We went back to our individual classrooms and the first person I saw was Kanjiro sitting on my desk. He saw me and ran towards me with a curious face.

"So? How was the present that you got them?"

"They both liked it. Thank you for spending the day with me and buying them. I will repay you one day."

"Of course, anything for my friend."

I looked again at the classroom and saw someone I haven't seen in a few weeks. It was Tachi-san. He wasn't talking to anyone and was just sitting in his seat lying down. His face had a piece of bandage. It was probably from when Tochaki-san punched him in the face. I guess that finally knocked some sense into his arrogant personality. I thought about this until the first bell rang and class started. The classroom board already had instructions for us to follow:

SCHOOL FESTIVAL WEEK 1

Today: Students in each class are to come up with an idea that as a class, the students would like to do. The ideas will then be reported to the school director and principal for approval until further notice.

Rest of the week: Each class is given 75,000 yen and use the money for whatever the idea is for their class and start making preparations for the second week (the actual festival week). Please note that any extra money left will be given back to the school. If the 75,000 yen is all spent and the class needs more, the class would have to request for a specific amount of money and give a reason for why they need it. If it is approved, the class would receive the amount of money they requested.

Our homeroom teacher then asked if any of us would like to be the leader for our class. A few students raised their hands and Kanjiro was one of them. Given that Kanjiro has many friends and is quite popular, it made perfect sense he would volunteer to be the leader.

A few minutes was spent with each nominee explaining why they should be the leader. In the end, the three with the most potential were chosen. Kanjiro was one of them. The other two are a girl named Tamaki Sayo and a boy named Spencer Akio. If I remember correctly, Tamaki-san was in the literature club and I found out during the first few weeks of school when Tamaki-san was walking out of the literature club holding a book. Spencer-kun was an American exchange student. He lived in America for primary school and came to Japan for middle school and high school. Both were rather outgoing people so they would fit the role of a leader just as good as Kanjiro.

The teacher then left the classroom to ourselves and we began brainstorming ideas.

"Does anyone have a good idea on what we should do for the festival?"

"Cafe!"

"Haunted house!"

"Board games"

"Balloon animals!"

People were shouting out random things that didn't even make sense. Only a few ideas were written on the board.

"Right now we have five different ideas we can do: cafe, haunted house, dodgeball alley, and a bakery shop. Let's do a majority vote and that idea would be used."

I didn't mind whichever idea to use. I think any of them would be a good idea. Our class had 30 students. 10 votes were given to both the cafe and the bakery shop. The dodgeball alley got 4 votes and the haunted house got 5 votes.

"It seemed someone didn't vote. The current two choices are now a bakery shop and a cafe."

I was the one that didn't vote.

"Whoever didn't vote, which one would you prefer?"

Kanjiro yelled that sentence out while looking at me. It seemed he already knew I was the one that didn't vote. He smiled at me and gave me a smile. It seemed like I had to vote after all… Now which one… I thought to myself that a bakery shop would sell drinks and a cafe would sell pastry, so honestly, what if we just combined them together? I stood up and everyone looked at me except for Tachi.

"I was the one that didn't vote. I didn't think there would be a tie. I personally think we can incorporate the elements of both ideas into one. We could sell drinks as well as make pastries. What do you guys think?"

There were murmurs about my idea being good since I had a point. There were some people worrying about the price of incorporating both ideas. Kanjiro stood in the front of the class quietly until he heard enough.

"I think that's a good idea. What about if we have another vote? If the majority of the vote agrees to combine the two ideas then we will do it."

Another vote was conducted and the idea of combining the two ideas won by a landslide. More than 20 students voted for this idea so Kanjiro didn't even bother counting another set of votes. We now had an idea of what we wanted to do. Tamaki-san filled out a piece of paper and ran out of the classroom, probably handing it to the director.

The students had the rest of the day to themselves but our class decided to be productive and started thinking of ideas on what to do. The discussion took a few hours but we were able to decide that the cafe/bakery shop would be a standard one we would see in any street or mall. There would be 3 different types of drinks and 5 different types of pastries. Luckily, there were 8 people in our class that had baking experience so they volunteered to be in the kitchen making food. The rest of the class consists of people going out to advertise for our class, being servers for the tables, and dishwashing. Not all 30 people would be working at the same time so everyone would alternate two or three times a day so everyone could have a chance to check out other classes' ideas. I was forced into the role of a waiter and Kanjiro was one of the 8 people that can cook.

"This is going to be so exciting! I'm sure our idea would be approved."

"Yea, and also, I didn't know you could bake Kanjiro."

"Well we never had a chance where I could show you. School already has food made for us and you never came to my house before. You should come visit sometimes. I'll bake you a cake for passing the midterm tests!"

"Yes I'll take you up on that offer. Thank you."

We sat in our seats talking for a few more hours.