Transition and Restart 129 Chapter six, 2016, summer's end: 4

"And with that I leave the word to your class representative," Kondo-sensei said.

Their popular home-room teacher was replaced by their not so popular class representative by the blackboard.

She wasn't mean or anything, and Ryu appreciated how she refused to have anything to do with him or Kuri. It felt refreshing if nothing else.

Outside the classroom windows small clouds played on a blue sky, and it was still hot enough to be called summer.

"Our votes have left us with a cos-play café, haunted house and mud wrestling. I hope you'll kill that last one quickly today," the class rep said. A loud murmur of agreement told him half their class had absolutely nothing to do with the mud wrestling idea.

She placed a ballot box on the teachers desk and had empty slips of paper passed around in the classroom.

"Now, before you vote, we'll apply for two events. If none of them pass it's either food stalls or competition booths. Understood?"

Ryu grinned. Harsh but efficient. 'You just killed the wrestling all on your own.' He stared at the perpetually sulking class rep as she oversaw the casting of the votes.

When they were all done she marked up three sections on the black board, and long before half of the votes were counted it was clear that the café would win by a wide margin with the haunted house in second place.

Ryu suspected it would be the stalls for them in the end anyway. From what he heard the second years had priority for the more popular events with the third years running any larger arrangements. Well, they'd fight for a slot in the gym for the fashion show, but that was the club and not 3:1.

The bell rang and their class rep went for the student council room. Beginning tomorrow the festival planning committee would get its own planning area in an empty classroom, and they'd see very little of the class reps and the club presidents for those clubs who managed to get an attractive event depending on other events for timeslots in temporary locations.

As he wasn't caught up in student council business he headed over to their club room. On his way there he glanced into 6:1 to see if Yukio or Ulf was there. They weren't, but a few girls gave him hopeful giggles. He smiled back at them, waved for some extra brownie points and walked another two classrooms.

When he entered he arrived into a minor commotion. From the voices it was clear 6:1 hadn't made a choice to the satisfaction of the entire class. At least not those who were members of the club.

Hiroyuki-kun and Hitomi-chan stood by a table in the office area. Another member from 6:1 sat in a chair beside Yukio and Urufu took down notes on a whiteboard.

'Whiteboard? When did we get one?' Ryu looked around. There were three of them mounted on the walls and another two on wheels. 'Damn, did Urufu open those deep pockets of his once again?'

"What's up," Ryu asked.

"Huh? Oh it's you." Urufu finished jotting down whatever he was doing. When he turned Ryu saw he was nursing an aching back. "We've got a play on our hands, well that or a café of some kind."

"And he just doesn't understand how important this is," Hitomi-chan complained.

Ryu looked at Urufu, but Yukio got in first. "Hitomi-chan, Urufu has never seen a culture festival before. He doesn't know, but I think we can make him understand."

'Always prepared to defend your friend. Still weren't you in the same class last year? No, that's right. He got expelled, which makes it my problem as well.' "Urufu, it's the biggest happening during the year, and Himekaizen runs it for two days," Ryu said.

Urufu shrugged. "They told me. So it's an all-important annual event. I've seen those you know, in Sweden."

'Yeah, I bet you have. But we can't tell the others.' "What's the problem?"

"If we don't get the café we're stuck with a play!" Hitomi-chan said, and Hiroyuki-kun nodded agreement with her.

"To be honest I'd give up on the café," Ryu suggested. "Second years will get all of those."

"You're just as bad as Urufu."

So that was the problem. When Ryu looked closer at the whiteboard he could see that most of Urufu's notes concerned a play. 'You think you can land that one?' "Urufu, you're planning for the play?"

"Yeah, as I told them, if we go for something modern, say West Side Story, we could integrate the play with the show the club applies for. Thematic cohesion should give both applications a greater chance of approval."

''Thematic cohesion'? Yes, that's Urufu all right.' Ryu decided against voicing his thoughts. "Sounds like an idea. Probably won't get shot down like our café and haunted house."

"You applied for one as well?"

Ryu nodded at Hiroyuki-kun who had asked the question. "Fat chance though. We'll be doing food stalls this year."

"Ah, on that topic. Try to get something foreign. We'll apply for the barbecue to be the centrepiece of some kind of international cuisine area."

"Huh?" Ryu hadn't heard anything about that.

"If we can get enough of the food stalls to serve foreign food we can make a thing out of it and concentrate it to one area separate from the rest of the stalls."

Ryu stared at Urufu. "Why would we want to?"

"Because it's more fun that way, and we could have a small stage and run mini events as well."

Yeah, that definitely was Urufu. Always planning a little bit further than anyone else. "There's more to it as well I guess," Ryu said.

Urufu nodded. "Yes. Everyone involved will feel like a part of something larger locally. We'll get an excuse to carry out a lot of tables, and in the end the freshmen will have their café anyway."

Yes, definitely Urufu. 'Father said he would make a good CEO.' Ryu suspected he had already been one.

Chapter end

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