Chapter 9: Cultural Festival: The Opening Act
On the day of the cultural festival, the weather was nice and clear. Fortunately, the aftermath of summer was calming down, so even the clothes he was wearing didn’t seem to give him any problems with regulating his body temperature. He appreciated the fact that he wouldn’t start sweating even with his tightened necktie.
“We have the first shift, so I’m a little nervous.”
“We’ll be clocking out at noon, so we’ll have to do our best until then. We have you and Mahiru here at the front, so I’m sure it’ll be pretty crowded.”
“I’m sorry about that. But, how should I put it? I feel like it can’t be helped, I’ve already resigned to my fate.”
Amane finished listening to the opening ceremony for the students ahead of time in the gym and changed while talking to Yuuta, who was on the same shift as him, in the waiting room they were using to change their clothes, but… Yuuta was already smiling in resignation. It seemed that being put on display was an everyday occurrence for him, and since it was only his clothes that would be different, he was going to give up and accept the inevitable.
Handsome dudes really do have it tough, huh, Amane thought and turned to look at him with pity, but when he noticed, Yuuta gave him a modest grin.
“You best be careful too, Fujimiya. Shiina-san’s going to get jealous.”
“No need to worry, I’ll be like thin air when you’re around.”
“You really went there… Well, Fujimiya, you may end up more jealous than her.”
“Rather than jealous, I’m worried sick.”
Mahiru was cute, and her maid outfit suited her well. It looked so good on her in fact that Amane was worried that she might be stalked by weird individuals or sexually harassed. He was sure a lot of the students would visit looking for Mahiru, and as her boyfriend, it wasn’t a laughing matter, so Amane was worried they might send her some rude gazes.
Yuuta, who seemed to have sensed what was going through Amane’s mind, lowered his eyebrows and smiled wryly as he patted him on the back, saying, “Good luck.”
✧ ₊ ✦ ₊ ✧
After changing clothes and heading back to his classroom, he found all his classmates who appeared to have already finished their rough preparations. He assumed that the students he couldn’t see nearby were probably setting up the kitchen.
Since his shift was starting at noon, Itsuki, still wearing his uniform, stood in front of the podium, and smiled as brightly as ever after seeing his classmates gather around.
“Today’s the first day of the cultural festival. Honestly, I’m not too sure how many customers will come. It’s not like there’s no precedent for a café like ours, but we have a lot of people in our class, after all.”
Itsuki glanced at Yuuta and Mahiru. The two of them gave an awkward smile in response. It was better for them to be prepared.
“Either way, let’s just do this in our own way. It’s our special cultural festival, a chance to go enjoy ourselves. Don’t worry if we don’t get a lot of customers or not. To be honest, I don’t think we will have this much leeway next year. Second-years like us are in the best position to enjoy the cultural festival to the fullest, no doubt there’ll be exams to worry about this time next year.”
“Hearing you say that makes me lose spirit.”
“It suddenly got all depressing.”
“Sorry, sorry. Then let’s not get too worked up! Let’s have fun at the cultural festival again this year!”
A melancholic aura loomed over the class for a moment, but Itsuki’s smile brightened everyone’s mood in one go. It was the right decision for Itsuki to take charge of the class.
“Ah, that’s right, I’ve got something to share. Call it a business practice, or a reminder, but I’m sure you all know this. Make sure nobody takes any photos in the store. We’ll give them a verbal warning when they’re at the reception desk, but photos are a no-go, and even if they ask and give some kind of reason, we won’t allow that kind of service, so just refuse them. Otherwise, something troublesome could happen.”
Of course, certain stores in the heart of the city often allowed that kind of service. But this was just a school festival, and they weren’t set out on selling the appearances of the servers. For that reason, there was a notice in the store that clearly stated ‘no photography allowed,’ and there was a similar message displayed on the menus located at the sides of each table.
In a similar manner, filming videos while on school premises was prohibited during the length of the cultural festival. As a result of students broadcasting events on video streaming sites and apps at other schools, incidents of female students being stalked were reported, and it was a recently decided ban in their school for the past few years due to it.
Musing about how the world had changed to the extent that such restrictions were necessary for student safety, Amane was impressed, but also puzzled just thinking about it. Either way, there were people who didn’t follow the rules, so he ensured to stay on his toes.
“Well, that’s about it. It’s about to start.”
Just as Itsuki’s finished speaking, a subtle noise could be heard from the speakers within the classroom. And in the next instant, the principal declared the beginning of the cultural festival to all classes.
“Okay, let’s do our best for today and tomorrow! Aim for the best selling class of the year!”
The entire class grew excited by Itsuki’s reckless words as he raised his fist in the air. He seemed to be more than just fired up.
Amane straightened his back once more, and Mahiru, who had been by his side listening quietly, smiled modestly and whispered, “Let’s do our best.”
✧ ₊ ✦ ₊ ✧
One could say it was just as expected, but ever since the store opened, many customers… mainly fellow students, had made their way over to Amane’s class.
“The Angel’s effect is so scary.”
Yamazaki, a classmate and the boy in charge of customer service, muttered so. Likely, he was overwhelmed by the rare sight of seeing a student-hosted event having a full seating area as soon as it started. Or perhaps, he was surprised by all of the customers’ overflowing enthusiasm. There was no way they could seat all of the customers in the café all at once, so even if the number of customers entering the store was limited, it was inevitable that there were some things that they couldn’t help.
Each and every time Mahiru passed through the café, all of the boys’ gazes were drawn to her figure, and seeing this, Amane experienced a mixture of exasperation, admiration, and displeasure, barely managing to not let it show on his face. Amane already predicted this outcome and had long since given up, but he didn’t think it was a laughing matter. From Mahiru’s perspective, however, it appeared that the same thing could be said to Amane, so the feeling was mutual.
“Well, that’s to be expected. More importantly, we’ve got customers.”
After reprimanding Yamazaki, Amane guided the new customers to their seats. The usual routine was to have any available staff at hand attend to the incoming customers, but every so often, a customer would request to be served by a particular student, which posed a bit of a problem. Their café didn’t offer specific services such as employee requests, and if he could, Amane wanted to tell them to instead visit a store that did.
Amane felt a little apologetic towards the female students wanting to be served by Yuuta, but as he was busy serving other customers, they would have to settle for Amane.
“Dear customer, please take a seat here.”
Amane pulled out a chair and turned to face the girl, smiling as Ayaka had instructed him, only to find that the girl who was disheartened at not being served by Yuuta looked at him and was taken aback. While feeling sorry for not being the person she wanted, Amane showed her the basket for which to place her possessions in and handed the menu over to the female student.
“Today’s recommendation is this A-set. Is that to your taste?”
“Th-Then I’ll take that one…”
Although they were recommendations, there were only three sets of items available on the menu, A, B, and C. Each contained a combination of baked sweets and drinks. They sold meals as a set to prevent students from only ordering a drink and taking up seating space. The receptionist was to inform customers to report any allergies beforehand, so they shouldn’t run into any problems.
Amane bowed politely to the girl hesitantly placing her order and recited, “Certainly, please wait patiently until your order is ready.”
“One A. We’re packed with orders, so do your best.”
Behind the scenes, there were classmates of his going back and forth between the rented kitchen area and the classroom in order to serve the customers’ sweets, and a classmate who happened to be free slowly raised his head.
“Woah… I looked toward the receptionist, that’s gonna be tough.”
“Don’t say that.”
“We tried to prepare as much as we could before we opened up the café, so we can figure something out, but….”
“I’ll just do what I can, that’ll work, right?”
“…I’ve been observing for a while now, and I think things will get tougher on you guys from here on out.”
“Really? Well, no doubt Kadowaki’s in high demand, he’ll get busier as more customers come in.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
His classmate sighed but didn’t appear to intend to follow it up with anything, which left Amane baffled, but he didn’t think it would get all that difficult for him.
Amane looked at him with an expression implying he didn’t understand and was instead returned with pity.
“Also, every time Shiina-san comes around, she looks slightly displeased about something.”
“What’s with that?”
“I think it’s probably your fault.”
“Nothing I can do, serving customers is my role.”
“That’s part of it, but I don’t think that’s the only reason.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at here.”
Amane felt like he was being blamed for it, but he didn’t catch on and his expression clouded over. Amane assumed he was trying to imply that Mahiru was jealous, but judging from the way he was saying it, she may actually be sulking about something else.
Amane decided to ask Mahiru later on, but ended the conversation and transported the prepared meal to the table.
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