Fikush-ON!

Ch. 14: The Mid-Autumn

"This, gentlemen, is how you earn 500 yens," I said to my friends, holding a coin between my fingers.

My, how easy it is to fool money out of overconfident punks. After all, strength only makes up half of winning an arm-wrestling match, and the rest comes down to technique, which I have come to master over the years. So, sometimes when I'm low on money, I scope the cafeteria out for arrogant-looking punks, and challenge them to an arm-wrestling match for money. Of course, betting is strictly prohibited in our school, but so far I haven't gotten in trouble, so whatever, I guess. After buying myself a sandwich and a drink, we exited to the hallway.

"Want to head up to the walkway? The weather seems nice," Tadaaki suggested as he glanced out of the hallway's window.

Ichiro and I agreed. Despite it being the middle of autumn, the weather was still rather warm, so I guess it could be refreshing to enjoy our lunch outside. We climbed up to the third floor, and exited to the elevated walkway. The walkway doesn't see much use outside of lunch breaks, since as I've earlier stated, the third floor of the west wing doesn't hold any classes. Regardless, it's still a good place to hang out when the weather's nice. Enclosed with three meter tall chain-link fences, it's like a miniature rooftop you see in high school anime and such. Taking a seat on the low ledge and leaning against the fence, we began eating our lunch, admiring the scenery from time to time.

After finishing out meals, I stood up and stretched a bit. "Let's go to the club room, we still got half an hour to waste."

"Ah, Sugimoto-san."

"Good idea, I still have room for some coffee," Tadaaki said, stuffing the trash into his coat's pocket.

"I've been looking for you."

"We could also check out that one indie rock album. You know, the one the club's Founder praised a lot," Ichiro suggested.

"There's something I need to talk about with you."

"It's a plan, then. Let's get moving," I said, and we started walking towards the door.

"Are you ignoring me on purpose!?" Hironaka snapped as the grabbed me by the back of my uniform's collar.

"What the hell do you want!?" I retorted, glancing at her over my shoulder.

She just angrily glared back at me. I looked at my friends, and beckoned them to go ahead without me. After glancing at each other with confused faces, they headed off and exited the walkway.

Finally letting go of me, Hironaka sighed and crossed her arms. "I've been looking for you for a while."

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it, okay? Actually, you can tell those fatheads at the faculty office to stop blaming me for everything," I said, still annoyed.

My words caused Hironaka to get a bit muddled. "Huh? Oh, no, you're not being accused of anything."

"Is that so...? Well, never mind, then," I muttered as I started walking towards the door.

However, I was grabbed by the collar once again. "Not so fast!"

"What now!?" I cried out.

"I've still got something to talk about with you!" Hironaka yelled as she yanked my collar.

I tried to struggle myself free. "But didn't you just say that I'm not being accused of anything?"

This caused Hironaka to turn me around to face her, yanking me a bit closer. She furiously glared at me.

"So I'm only a student council member? That's everything I am? My whole personality? My interests? My hobbies? Just running around after losers like you because teachers ask me to? Is that what you think?"