I, the mastermind behind the scenes at Soubu High, refuse to be caught in a bloodbath.

Himeko smiled wryly and made a phone call to Miss Reiko.

In the car, Himekoji weighed her options for a moment, then raised her head and dialed the same number she had dialed the first time.

It rang for about thirty seconds before being answered, and the voice on the other end sounded extremely unconfident.

"Excuse me... who are you?"

"Himekoji Haruto, you must be Hikigaya, right? There's something I need to tell you."

"Ha...please go ahead."

Although Hikigaya was momentarily puzzled as to how Himekoji knew his phone number, he quickly realized that if the student council president couldn't even get this much information, then he really had no right to be the president.

"Tomorrow is Yui Yuigahama's birthday. Someone is planning to bring Yuigahama back to the Service Club, so a good idea is to celebrate her birthday. Of course, a birthday celebration can't be complete without a gift. As far as I know, Yukinoshita has already prepared a gift, and I have also prepared one. So I'm just letting you know. It would be best to prepare something by tomorrow afternoon."

As for whether the "someone" Himekoji mentioned is Yukinoshita, Hiratsuka Shizuka, or both, let the clever Hikigaya guess.

Author's Note:

P.S.: Hedgehog Cat solemnly reminds you: If you read a book but don't vote, the author will shed two lines of tears.

PS2: I've heard that this book seems to have gotten a pretty good recommendation this week. Thank you all for your votes and support. Also, let me talk about the big update on release date. If I'm not mistaken, it should be released next Friday. I'll update 40,000 words on the first day, and 20,000 words per day for the next three days, for a total of 100,000 words, which is a full 50 chapters. The quality of the chapters should be no different from the chapters I'm releasing now. It's not just padding out the chapters for the sake of a big update. When I'm feeling inspired, I can write 20,000 words a day, and even when I'm not, I can still write 4,000 or 8,000 words. So these are all accumulated drafts.

Thank you for your support! If you like this book, please vote for it!

Chapter 073 A Little Reminder: [Himekoji Haruto] is Loyal and Righteous

"Um, can I not participate?"

"I'm sure you'll accept Shizuka Hiratsuka's iron fist, like the annihilating third punch or something."

"...I see, that makes sense. Okay, I'll go talk to Komachi about it, since I'm not really confident when it comes to buying gifts..."

"Good luck then, see you tomorrow." Himekoji then hung up the phone, while Komachi, who was playing video games with Hachiman, exclaimed in astonishment, "Someone actually called my brother!"

"Even if Komachi said those words, I would still be angry, really angry!"

"Don't talk about that. Who called? Was it Yukino or Yui?"

"Didn't you hear? It's a boy... the student council president we met before, Himekoji Haruto."

“Oh, so his name is Himekoji Haruto. I didn’t know that before. He didn’t introduce himself either.” Komachi said, frowning as she spoke. “That guy looks like he’s going to be hard to deal with.”

"Anyway, that's how it is. The other members of the club are neither friends nor colleagues, not even classmates..." Hachiman tossed his phone aside, looked up at the ceiling, and said unconsciously, "Hey, Komachi, what's a good birthday present for a girl?"

"Waaaaah..."

"Hey! Don't cry, what happened!"

"Because this good-for-nothing older brother finally thought of giving the girl a birthday present, Komachi felt a sense of accomplishment, like she had married off the daughter she had raised, and she was so moved that she almost cried... Waaaaah."

Well, I was definitely touched, but not to the point of actually crying.

"Ahem, that guy just said tomorrow is Yui's birthday, so he wants me to prepare a gift for her. I'm not very confident, so I'll have to consult my dearest little sister..."

"Ugh! Seriously, it's so late, brother, and you're still lounging on the sofa like a couch potato. Hurry up and get ready so we can go pick out a gift for Yui-nee!"

Komachi anxiously pulled at Hikigaya, who was lying on the sofa and seemed unresponsive. Only when he was pulled so hard did he reluctantly stand up, tidy himself up, and go out with Komachi.

On Monday, May 22nd, Aki Tomoya, who had returned to school after a week of reflection at home, apologized to Eriri in front of the entire school and endured the scorn of many girls. Himekoji didn't know what would happen to him in the end, and she wasn't interested in messing with him, so she left it at that for now.

Every month, during the second self-study period on the third afternoon, as is customary, all clubs, departments, and hobby groups in the academy must have one of their managers or presidents attend a meeting in conference room number three. The meeting is chaired by the student council president and is used to discuss the budget for the following month and other special applications. After a slight adjustment of the seating arrangement, the people arrived on time quickly. Yukinoshita's seat was a little further back, but she didn't care about it.

The football club, the basketball club, followed by the archery club, the kendo club, and then the volleyball club, the judo club, the news club, the film and television club—no one from any of the various departments was absent, and so the meeting officially began.

"Before announcing the budget, I first want to inform you of a recruitment notice. You can go back and think about it carefully," Himekoji said slowly, holding up the proposal to the microphone. "It's about the arrangements for the soccer tournament at the sports festival next semester. Since students from the other two schools may come to Soubu High School, we need a certain number of volunteers to maintain order and help out. Such a large-scale event cannot be completed by the student council alone. The conditions for recruiting volunteers at our school are that you must first join a club or department. There are no gender restrictions, and the number of volunteers is yet to be determined. Each department will receive an increase in its departmental allowance based on the number of volunteers. This is a valuable opportunity, and I hope you can seize it."

So, Yukinoshita raised her hand.

"Please speak, Yukinoshita, head of the Service Club."

Himeko reached out her hand.

"Okay, I think many departments with fewer people have the same problem as me: we have very few people, and even if we have volunteers, we can't compete with larger departments like the soccer and basketball teams in terms of numbers. So, could we change the criterion of the number of volunteers to the original number of people in the department?"

Although Yukinoshita's problem is very real, it's impossible, Himekoji thought to herself.

“My answer is, that’s impossible,” Ji Xiaolu decisively rejected it, adding, “If a department can’t recruit anyone, it just means it’s not attractive enough. If you’re going to say that everyone in your department participates in volunteer activities, then the recruitment rate would be 100%, which is basically a pipe dream for most departments. So please sit down and think about it again.”

Yukinoshita bit her lip reluctantly and sat down.

So, Isshiki Hachiman raised her hand again.

"Isshiki, the manager of the soccer club, please speak."

"Yes, yes~", she stood up with a cute smile and asked in an affectedly adorable tone, "Can our football club also send someone to volunteer?"

"Since the football department has already allocated a lot of other budgets for holding large-scale events, even if you send people to participate as volunteers, you will not be able to continue to receive the preferential treatment of departmental funding afterward. Is there any other problem?"

"I'd like to ask Himekoji-senpai where you got your hair dyed? It looks so amazing, I'd like to go and see for myself~"

Then Himeko noticed that Hayama was silently holding his forehead, looking somewhat embarrassed to face him.

"I'm sorry, you probably won't be able to find a hair salon like this anymore."

"Eh~~~~! Why is this happening?!"

"Because my hair color is inherited, not dyed. Okay, do you have any other questions?"

"Some people also want to know, what's the status of the application submitted last month to hold a beauty pageant?"

Isshiki had a little bit of anticipation. Although the enemy was strong, his own strength was just as good. What if... he could get Hayama-senpai to notice him even more?

After Isshiki raised this question, almost all the department heads pricked up their ears and began to listen carefully. Himeko flipped through her notebook and smiled, "I was actually just about to announce today that this application has been approved. Let's cheer!"

Indeed, almost all the male representatives cheered. Iroha was also excitedly acting cute and quietly shouting "Hooray~". Himekoji heard shouts of "Yukino-chan", "Yukina-chan", "Kasumigaoka-sama", "Mariya-chan" mixed in with the cheers. Yukinoshita herself put her elbow on the table, sighed and rubbed her forehead. It seemed that she really disliked this type of event.

Author's Note:

P.S.: Remember to vote for this book after you finish reading it!

Chapter 074 It's over, [Touma Kazusa]'s grades are too bad.

"The first beauty pageant of Soubu High School will be held concurrently with the cultural festival. Specific details will be announced next semester." Seeing that everyone's cheers had subsided, Himeko coughed twice and said, "Alright, quiet down. Now, let's begin reading the budgets for each department for next month. Jasmine, give me the budget sheet."

While Himekoji was presiding over the meeting, Kazusa was called to the teacher's office.

"I'm telling you, this is very dangerous, you know that?" The burly homeroom teacher waved the test paper that Kazusa had done in the regular exam in his hand, suppressing his anger, and said, "Don't even mention getting into a higher school, even graduating is a big problem. Don't think that just because your mother is a member of the school board, you can do whatever you want. The school also has all kinds of rules and regulations."

I'm very sorry.

Kazusa apologized coldly, her tone completely devoid of sincerity; her studies were simply not that important to her.

"Are you really going to just let yourself fall into this state of depravity?!"

"This has nothing to do with you, teacher."

"You bastard!" The teacher slammed the unanswered test papers onto the desk, crossed her legs, and said, "I don't know what your relationship is with the student council president, Himekoji Haruto, but that guy is a formidable character. He plays the piano with you every day now, right? The teachers are even under a gag order for this... I don't know what methods you used, but you'd better stay away from him. The teachers value him highly. A mediocre pianist like you shouldn't drag down a genius!"

"Wait, what we do has nothing to do with the teacher! He insisted on playing the piano..." Kazusa argued excitedly, "Besides, Himekoji's grades have always been the worst in the international education class, it's not as exaggerated as you're saying..."

"I guessed you'd say that, so I made a copy of his test paper. Take a look," the male teacher said, pulling a folder from his desk and slowly handing it to Kazusa. Kazusa took it, opened it, and frowned repeatedly, saying, "This..."

"You'll understand when you see it, right? The points deducted from all of Himekoji's papers were exactly the points he left blank. In other words, if he had answered all the questions, he would have gotten close to full marks, if not perfect. That's why I told you not to bother him. The teachers are watching."

"You're a senior in the third year, so don't do anything that might influence or mislead the younger students. That's all I have to say, you can go back now."

The teacher took the folder back from Kazusa's hand and rubbed her temples in frustration.

After the meeting, Himekoji temporarily left all the after-school work to Mariya, as he had to go to the Service Club today.

"Oh dear, our president is really a troubleshooter. Whenever there's a problem, Hiratsuka Shizuka-sensei will drag him over."

Ju, who was in charge of handling all the work, sat in the seat that Himekoji usually sat in.

"Kasumigaoka-senpai, what's wrong?"

Jasmine keenly noticed that Kasumigaoka was extremely absent-minded; it was as if her mind was not on the student council room at all, nor on the documents in her hands. Her eyes were fixed on the screen with a blank expression, and her slender hands were just repeatedly typing out the same few kana on the keyboard.

"what..."

Kasumigaoka turned to look at the jasmine, and only then did she sober up a bit. Seeing that she had created so much meaningless content, she quickly deleted it.

When deleting down to the very end, which is the initial part, the document stated: New Book Project...

The rest is completely blank.

She couldn't write anything, no matter what she tried. After the last volume of the old book was finished last month, Kasumigaoka gave her a final outline from Himekoji, but no matter what she did, she couldn't type out the first chapter. She knew that once she started writing, the rest of the content would quickly follow, but she just couldn't type out a single word smoothly. Her brain felt like a blender, frantically mixing the Japanese syllabary (hiragana and katakana) with kanji, and the final product was a complete mess.

Kasumigaoka couldn't understand why she couldn't write anymore, when it had been going so smoothly before.

"Senior, are you alright?" Ju Ye pointed to the pen cap and asked with concern, "If you're not feeling well, it would be better to go to the infirmary. Today's work isn't too heavy."

"I'm fine... I'm just thinking about some personal matters."

Kasumigaoka shook his head calmly, closed the document for the new book project, and began his work for the day.

"You'll come along, right?"

After the school bell rang, signaling the end of the school term, Yukinoshita turned to Himekoji and spoke.

"Yes... It's better to give gifts in person." Himeko stretched, having almost slept through Monday's classes, mainly because he had a lot of training after his date with Yukinoshita on Sunday. Yukinoshita frowned at his lazy appearance and said sarcastically, "Why do you seem less motivated than Hachiman?"

"That doesn't matter, let's go."

Himekoji yawned, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked one after the other with Yukinoshita toward the special building where the Service Club was located.

The Service Department was originally supposed to be on the fourth floor of the Special Building, but Himekoji moved it to the sixth floor when he approved the application.

"That's quite unusual. You didn't go directly to the student council office."

"At the very least, you should try your best to fulfill the promises you've made to others. If you really can't fulfill them, then think of another way."

It was the first time the students of Class J had ever seen Himekoji and Yukinoshita go out together. However, their behavior didn't seem to be related to a date, so no one thought of following them. The rumors only circulated briefly before fading away.

In the office, Himekoji sat quietly reading by the wall. He had already read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" once more, and now he was reading "Brave New World." Yukinoshita was reading a paperback edition with a cover that featured a cute black kitten. She would occasionally glance at Himekoji, but Himekoji's attention was completely focused on the book.

Then, Yuihama shouted "Ah!" at the door. Soon after, the door to the back room was pulled open cleanly, and Hikigaya walked in first. He first saw Yukinoshita, who looked a little surprised, and then noticed Himekoji, who was reading against the wall. He frowned to himself.

"Yuigahama-san..."

Yukinoshita closed the book and looked at her in surprise.

"Yay, hello, Yukino~"