The Stuffed Animal’s Future
As the campus festival came to an end, Alus’s classmates were looking satisfied as they received their cuts of the profits from the shooting stall.
Alus was, of course, among them. After this, they had plans for him, Loki, Tesfia, Alice, and Ciel to hold a small party. With this many girls, however, he didn’t have much say in the preparations.
He glanced over to a corner of the empty classroom where the leftover prizes were piled up. The prizes that had been left unclaimed from the shooting stall almost all belonged to him.
Alice’s hand-knit muffler and Loki’s scrunchie were taken first. Seeing how even Tesfia’s ugly stuffed animal had been taken, perhaps Alus’s pricey items were rather boorish.
He was once again made aware of the gap in his sensibilities. In this kind of festival, handmade things had more value than ready-made luxury items.
At the same time, he felt a little envious of the students who could see the value of the diligence and effort required to make items by hand.
“Guess there’s a little bit of heavy labor left to do in the end,” Alus muttered as he looked down at the pile of prizes. Just as he was starting to feel a bit fed up with the expected work—
“Sir Alus, I will help too,” Loki spoke up, offering to assist, and Tesfia and Alice stepped up as well.
“We’re going to Al’s laboratory after this anyways, so I’ll help too,” Tesfia said. “They look pretty expensive so we wouldn’t want them to get stolen.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone who would steal things here. But who knows what kind of accident might happen if someone touched them... Besides, we can carry it all in one go if we all pitch in,” Alice said, flexing her arms, as if to say to leave it to her.
They looked a little unreliable, but Alus decided to take them up on their offer.
Tesfia, Alice, and Loki grabbed as much as they could carry and left the classroom, though they looked a little unsteady doing it. Alus picked up what was left and then called out to Ciel, who stood there with a smile on her face and her hands behind her back.
“You’re going too, right? This is all that’s left, so could you go get started on the preparations?”
“Of course! But before that...” With a sly look, she put something on top of the pile of prizes that Alus was carrying.
“Hmm...” It had a creepy, strangely familiar appearance. When Alus identified what it was, he spoke up in an exasperated tone. “That’s Fia’s stuffed animal. So you’re the one who got it?”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s the right way to put it...” Ciel evaded the question with a wry smile.
Alus immediately picked up on what she meant. “What, so it was left over after all...”
Even as he spoke, the ugly stuffed animal seemed to stare at him. Just like he remembered, there was nothing cute about it. If anything, it was irritating. That’s why nobody picked you, he wanted to say... however.
Right... so nobody wanted you, he thought, and felt a strange sorrow. The stuffed animal wasn’t at fault. He looked over at Ciel, and shrugged. “How kind you are.”
It was Ciel being considerate, after seeing how popular Loki’s and Alice’s prizes were. Even Alus thought it was sad that it was the only one left, so she’d done a good job. At the same time he was a little relieved that his taste hadn’t been wrong.
“So you take care of this guy, okay?” Ciel said, as if it was alive, pushing the stuffed animal off on Alus.
He recalled Tesfia saying he could use it to decorate his room if it was left behind. He also had secretly hoped the best for the Fiend-like stuffed animal that had found itself created in this world. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to say that he didn’t need it when looking at its surly face. But in reality, he didn’t need it.
Who knew what Tesfia would say if she found it in his room... but he’d ultimately already given in.
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