Chase The Truth

Chapter 51: The Beauty Pageant

Begin!

~Normal POV

10/30 - Sunday

The school festival started yesterday. The first day was nothing special. Yu, Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko had been put in charge of managing their classroom's theme, which was a mock group date café. Something that made Yu a little uncomfortable with doing, now that he and Rise were together. But the others let him just watch the door instead out of respect. Naturally, despite it being the thing the class voted on doing, nobody was actually brave enough to try it out so they basically spent most of the day just sitting around being bored. Though Yu did get a little amusement out of when Kanji showed up. He was asked to describe what kind of girls he liked and it was funny hearing him vaguely admit his crush on Naoto. (Yu doubted that he would have said anything if she'd been there.)

But today was the day everyone was looking forward to at Yasogami. The beauty pageant... Yu and the other boys weren't eager for it, but the boys' pageant was up first. Yu and Kanji reasoned that they could handle it sportingly enough, since it meant Yosuke and Teddie were getting their comeuppance for what they did to the poor girls. That was really all that mattered.

Of course, Teddie being the idiot that he is, didn't realize this was supposed to be a punishment. He was actually excited to do it. So much so, that when it came time for him to join them on stage, he completely stole the show with his enthusiasm and won by a landslide. His prize was getting to be a guest judge for the girls' pageant later in the afternoon.

Just when they thought it couldn't get any worse for them...

~...

Yu, Yosuke, and Kanji had found spots to watch the show relatively close to the stage. The crowd was restless waiting for the pageant to start. They hadn't seen the girls since they went to change back into their uniforms after the boys' show. They said they were going to get ready in an empty classroom. And Teddie was waiting backstage with the student MC for the girls to show up.

"I hope they don't just straight up kill Teddie backstage," Yu commented. He wouldn't have been surprised if they did.

"Why would they?" Yosuke asked, dumbly.

"Oh, gee, I wonder- It's because he convinced them to do a swimsuit segment for the show, ya fucking idiot."

"You didn't tell him to do that, right?" Kanji asked.

"What- no!" Yosuke said, quickly. "I didn't know about it at all! He doesn't tell me shit like that. Now, if I was in charge, I'd have said 'nurse uniforms,' myself."

Yu rolled his eyes at that. That sounded like Yosuke alright. He recalled that his friend mentioned once having a thing for nurses.

"But this is fine too. Besides," Yosuke continued slyly. "Aren't you even a little excited, Kanji? I mean... Naoto's gonna be up there..."

Kanji blushed and looked a little conflicted so he chose not to respond.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up," Yu said, calmly. "There's no way she's gonna do it."

At this point, the student MC came out and started the show. He began by introducing the contestants one by one as they stepped out on stage. First up was Ms. Kashiwagi. Who had no business being in a pageant with a bunch of teenagers, but she was allowed to compete anyway. Likely because she bent the competition rules herself; when the show was supposed to be for students. She was also the reason nobody could back out. So, Yu was rather hoping one of their teammates would win instead just to spite her. Next up was a girl named Hanako. Who was probably nice once you got to know her, but she'd never been particularly nice to any of them. She was better than Kashiwagi, though, by a mile.