Ugh, yesterday was a total drag, and now today I can't even just bolt home after school. Club activities. Seriously. Now, where the heck is this Classics Club room anyway?
Still, I guess if I'm going to be the only member, having a private club room all to myself… that doesn't sound half bad. A place to just crash after a brain-draining school day, somewhere I can bury myself in light novels and manga without anyone bugging me...
"Okay, maybe this won't be completely awful," I mused, realizing I'd already wandered past half the classrooms in this wing. Did I miss it?
Ah, there it was. Not huge, not tiny. It turned out to be a special classroom – the engineering drawing room. Apparently, they rarely actually had engineering drawing classes in here, so it was mostly empty. Second floor, kind of out of the way. Perfect for my purposes. Small, had a window. Yeah, this could work.
I dumped my shoulder bag on one of the two tables, plonked down on a chair, and muttered, "Right, good night." Little did I know, 'good' was the last thing this 'night' was going to be.
...Next thing I knew, someone was shaking me.
"Wake up, Kyo!"
Ugh, who was this destroyer of my hard-earned peace?
Oh. It was Amaeshi. What was he doing here?
I blinked myself awake, slowly rubbing my eyes as the room swam back into focus. I couldn't have been asleep for more than ten minutes, tops, but I felt like I'd just been dragged out of a week-long coma.
"What is it?" I grumbled, my voice thick with interrupted sleep. "And why are you in my designated napping zone?"
"I joined your club!" he announced, practically shoving a form up my nose.
"Whoa, stop, stop! Why?"
"What do you mean, 'why'?" he said, looking at me like joining a ghost club that did absolutely nothing was the most normal, everyday thing a person could do.
"For you, of course!" he declared. "If a club has less than three members for three months straight, it gets disbanded. You don't want that to happen, right?"
Oh, you bet your sweet bippy I want that to happen. I wanted this stupid club to dissolve into nothingness so I could reclaim my afternoons and go straight home. Anyway, even with him, that only made two of us. We still needed one more. Not even Amae could do anytime about that.
"And one more thing," he continued, oblivious to my inner monologue. "I asked pretty much everyone I know to join, but, uh, none of them were exactly thrilled about joining a ghost club."
Yes! Music to my ears. My peaceful, club-free afternoons were still within reach!
"Except one," he added, a sneaky grin spreading across his face. "She should be here any minute."
Nooo! This bastard! He knew exactly how to maximize my discomfort, didn't he? Who even asked him to go to all this trouble to 'save' this club anyway? Certainly not me!
Just then, a voice chimed in from the doorway, "Excuse me? Is this the Classic Mistry Club?"
It was a girl. And, well, I guess you'd call her gorgeous. She had this air about her, almost like… nobility? Not that I'm any judge of beauty; most people look pretty much the same to me. Except Amaeshi, of course. He's… distinct. In his own way.
"Yep, this is it! Welcome to the Classic Mistry Club!" Amae chirped, suddenly transforming into Sir Galahad. He even gestured her towards a seat, whipping out a handkerchief to theatrically dust it off. His sudden 'chivalrous gentleman' act was seriously irritating for some reason.
She sat down, right across the table from me, her gaze calm.
"Allow me to introduce everyone," Amae began, puffing his chest out a bit like a proud pigeon. "This fine specimen here is Kyo. He… well, he exists. Don't expect much more than that from him."
Hey! I'm not that useless! I contribute… by not causing problems!
"And this lovely lady," Amae continued, beaming at the newcomer, "is Misaki. She's the youngest daughter and heir to the Miro clan!"
Heir? Did he just say heir? Like, actual nobility? "Hold on," I cut in, because this was just too much. "You said 'heir' of a 'clan.' What's that supposed to mean? We don't still have feudal lords and samurai running around in 21st-century Japan, do we?"
Amae looked at me like I'd just confessed to not knowing what rice was. "What? You seriously don't know the Miro clan?"
What did he expect? I barely knew what day it was most of the time, let alone the intricate social hierarchy of the very town I was born in. Seriously, Amae was a walking encyclopedia of completely useless knowledge.
"Well," Amae said, shooting me a look that clearly said 'you live under a rock, Kyo,' "since Kyo here is apparently clueless, allow me to enlighten you. Way back, like a hundred years ago, before World War II, this town was basically split between a few big, powerful factions. Three main ones: the Fukube clan, the Miro clan, and the Hanbe clan. They were always squabbling over land and power, you know the drill. Life wasn't exactly a picnic for the regular folks. Then, the leader of the Miro clan at the time decided to put a stop to the whole messy cycle. He proposed they all merge the clans into one and work together."
That sounded… overly simplified. How do three warring clans just decide to 'merge'? And if they did, why was the new, supposedly merged entity still called the Miro clan? Seemed like a few crucial pieces were missing from that story.
Definitely some missing pieces to that puzzle. But, you know what? Not my problem. As long as figuring it out didn't require any actual effort from me, I couldn't care less.
"So," Misaki asked, her gaze shifting between me and Amae, "what exactly do we do in this club?"
"Excellent question!" Amae beamed, clearly thrilled to be asked. "I actually went to ask Mr. Ramen-slurper – I mean, our faculty advisor – about that very thing. And it turns out, the club even has a website! Apparently, the previous generations of our club investigated all sorts of little things: school rumors like Hanako-san of the Toilet, the 'Jonny Hunter' legend, even some petty crimes like bullying and stuff. And they published their findings online." He sounded like he'd memorized the club's entire digital footprint.
"So," he declared, puffing his chest out again, "we'll continue their glorious legacy!"
Damn this guy. Always chasing after glory. Always volunteering for unnecessary work. If I had to describe him in one sentence, he was the polar opposite of me in every conceivable way.
"The website," Amae announced grandly, "is 'www.classicmistry.freesite.com'. Everyone should check it out when you get home!"
A freesite domain? Real classy. But then again, they were just some high school kids. What did I expect, a professionally designed portal?
"Okay, that's all for today, everyone!" Amae chirped, clapping his hands together. "Time to head home!"
Finally. The words I'd been waiting all afternoon to hear. Thank you, Amae, for finally shutting up and letting me escape this unexpected social whirlwind.