Fikush-ON!

Ch. 18: Another Sleepover

It was May, and the last school day of the week. I was spending my afternoon in the club room. That place is the only reason why I would ever stay in school after the classes. I had stopped by the redundant storage room to borrow some old VHS recordings for us to watch. This one was a recording of our principal's speech in the auditorium. I actually had watched this one previously, multiple times. It was one of my favorites.

"Huh, principal looked like that 10 years ago?" Ichiro muttered to himself.

Tadaaki snickered. "He still had some of his hair left."

"Shush! Now comes the best part," I said to them, and we directed all of our attention towards the TV screen.

At first, nothing seemed to be wrong. The principal was just giving a speech to the students. Suddenly, a student can be seen getting up from his seat, shaking his fist.

"This is for cutting down on the clubs' budgets!"

Before the principal has time to react, the student hurls a liquid-filled balloon at him, striking him straight on the head. I'm not sure what the liquid is, seems to be milk. At least I hope it's milk. All the students go nuts, an outright chaos ensues. The teachers try their best to control of the situation, but to no avail. The recording gets cut and ends. Yup, this school's been such a shithole for the longest time. At least it provides some entertainment value.

The guys and I burst into laughter.

"F-f-fucking h-hell!" Tadaaki managed to stutter in the midst of his laugh.

Ichiro was holding his stomach, his howls being the loudest. He lost his balance, fell on the floor, and continued his laughing there.

"Hey, hey, hey," he called out, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Rewind it, dude."

Still chuckling, Tadaaki reached over for the VCR player. Snickering at my friends' reactions, I suddenly felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. Someone's calling me. I glanced at my friends, who were currently rewinding the tape with big, shitty grins on their faces. I decided to slip in the hallway to answer the call. Closing the club room's door, I leaned against a wall, checking the phone in my hand. The caller was Ui.

"Afternoon, miss," I answered the call with a sarcastic tone.

"Hey, Eiji-kun! I hope I didn't interrupt anything," Ui said.

I took a glance towards the club room's door. I could hear my friends' muffled laughing.

"Nah, at least nothing important. So, what's up?"

"Do you have any plans for today? Or for tomorrow, as a matter of fact?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Eh, no, not really. Why, you got something planned?"

"Would you like to come over for a sleepover?" she asked me, the question catching me by surprise.

I mean, sure, I've already spent my night in the Hirasawa residence a couple of times. Regardless, I still got nervous.

As I was grinding my teeth, Ui carried on: "My sis is currently on a field trip, and I wouldn't like to be alone. The sleepover was actually Azusa-chan's and Jun-chan's idea. I wanted to invite Tamiko-chan at first, but then remembered that she's sick, so I got the idea to invite you. I mean, if you want to come."

She gave me some time to process the question. After calming down a bit and thinking about it rationally, I couldn't help but think about Nakano's reaction to all this.

"Uh, are those two actually okay with me coming along?" I asked unsurely.

"Oh? Yes, of course, as long as you'd sleep in a separate room."