Chapter 28
“Have you filled out the club application?”
In response to Miyuki's question, Tetsuya waved a sheet of paper with a bright look on his face.
Did eating a lunchbox meant for a nobody at lunch put him in such a good mood?
I ate mine on a secret date with Miyuki on the rooftop.
Miyuki nodded, then looked at me this time.
“What about yours, Matsuda-kun?”
“I already filled it out, Mom.”
“Mom...?”
“You keep asking whether I packed everything even though I've already prepared it all. That makes you my mom, doesn't it?”
“.....”
Miyuki shook her head from side to side.
As she was letting it slide, she saw my lecherous expression and narrowed her beautiful brows.
“W-what is it...? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What?”
“You were about to say something weird...!?”
Yeah. I was going to ask if you weren't going to feed me, Mommy.
“Something weird? Like what?”
When I shamelessly acted as if I had no idea what she was talking about, Miyuki fanned her face with one hand and exhaled.
“Phew... Never mind...!”
You were thinking the same thing as me, weren't you?
The conditioning is going well.
That's how you gradually become more lewd.
“Matsuda... You're making Miyuki uncomfortable.”
Tetsuya butted in from the side.
Read the room. You're not the protagonist of Dokiaka right now.
Only I get to say lines like that.
“No, I didn't say anything. She just jumped to her own conclusions. This is unfair.”
“Sure, sure. Let's hurry to the kendo club. We'll be late at this rate.”
I lightly brushed off Tetsuya, who was trying to push me along, then spoke seriously to Miyuki, who was composing herself.
“Make sure you get into the student council.”
“.... Yeah, thanks.”
“If you get in, let me off when I'm late while you're guarding the front gate.”
“That will never happen. I don't know about anyone else, but I would never let you off, Matsuda-kun.”
We'll see if you can really do that.
I let out a short laugh at Miyuki's sharp reply, then headed to the kendo clubroom with Tetsuya.
At last, it was time to see the second heroine.
Inoo Renka.
At the academy and at home, she kept her hair tied up and wore only her uniform or kendo uniform, making her look plain.
Outside, however, she transformed into an incredibly stylish woman.
She wore all kinds of hairstyles like a hair model and showed off a variety of fashions.
She was the sort of woman who exuded enough coldness to make most ordinary guys unable to speak to her properly,
a woman who was difficult to approach because of her frigid attitude.
That was more or less how Renka appeared on the outside.
But inside, she was warm.
Unlike the gentle Miyuki, she was a prickly-but-caring tsundere who took good care of people once they grew close to her.
And Renka had a secret.
She absolutely loved manga and anime.
Attending comic conventions and collecting merchandise and figures were just the basics; she even watched adult anime without hesitation.
She was a hardcore otaku who devoured every genre without discrimination and was happiest at home admiring the figures she'd collected.
In the Dokiaka world, she was famous as an anime analyst, to the point that her reviews on one of the largest anime community sites routinely received thousands of upvotes.
Plain, aloof tsundere, otaku.
An extraordinarily rare creature that displayed three distinct sides.
Now I was going to see that Inoo Renka.
**
What were the essential elements of a school-club story?
Passion? Talent? Effort? Sweaty friendship? A rival?
Or a hot-blooded upperclassman?
Those things might be included, but I thought the essential element was a manager.
A beautiful female manager taking a liking to the protagonist and giving him special treatment...
Then the heroine would feel a subtle twinge of jealousy after seeing the warm atmosphere between the protagonist and the manager.
Dokiaka's kendo club had a manager like that too.
Her name was Nanase Chinami.
She was a second-year student and an energetic manager who was even tinier than Miyuki... and incredibly cute.
“Hello! Are you here to join the kendo club?”
Chinami welcomed us with a huge smile, and Tetsuya answered in a booming voice.
“Yes! That's right!”
“Whoa! Your voice is loud...!”
“S-sorry...”
“No, it's fine! It's nice to see someone so full of enthusiasm! I'm Nanase Chinami, a second-year. I'm the kendo club's manager!”
She's so lively.
Her shoulder-length pink hair curled slightly inward at the ends, which was part of her charm.
I feel like ejaculating in there.
Even when I played Dokiaka, I wished I could make her a secondary heroine...
Maybe I should properly go after her while I had the chance.
Having a lot of heroines made conquering them difficult, but since I'd often meet Chinami while pursuing Renka, we'd have plenty of opportunities to interact, so I decided to look on the bright side.
“I'm Miura Tetsuya, a first-year. It's nice to meet you, senpai.”
After Tetsuya gave her a deep bow from the waist, Chinami performed the roughly thirty-degree formal kendo bow she'd shown him when accepting our applications, then looked at me.
“And who is the person over there with all those injuries on his face...?”
“Matsuda Ken. First-year.”
“Matsuda Ken...? That name sounds familiar... Oh!!”
Chinami muttered to herself, then clapped her hands.
When Tetsuya and I flinched, she pointed at me and shouted.
“That incident yesterday!! The disciplinary committee!!”
It had spread to the second-years too.
Well, it had been a major incident involving a problem-ridden club at the academy, and the disciplinary decision had been posted on the bulletin board, so everyone who needed to know probably knew by now.
I looked down at Chinami with an indifferent expression.
“I've gone through the disciplinary procedure. Is there a problem with my joining?”
“No! Of course not... I was just surprised. I'm sorry if I offended you...! Give me your application and come right in! You can sit on the empty cushion at the very front!”
Tetsuya and I handed our applications to Chinami and walked past her.
“I... I can't read his handwriting... It's terrible...!”
Chinami's tiny voice came as she looked at my application.
Tetsuya let out a muffled laugh when he heard her.
I jabbed that bastard in the shoulder with my elbow and entered the kendo clubroom.
The kendo clubroom had an oppressive atmosphere.
There were several first-years who had already joined at the start of the school year. Perhaps they had grown accustomed to the place over the past six months, because they sat in seiza facing straight ahead without saying a word.
The kendo club had around thirty members in total, boys and girls included.
There weren't many first-years among them.
A lot of students must have applied during the first semester, but it looked like most of them had quit along the way.
There were seven students hoping to join now, counting Tetsuya and me.
That was a large number, considering it was the second semester.
We found empty cushions and sat side by side, then roughly followed the people around us into seiza.
After we had waited in silence for a while, Chinami came in from outside and knocked on a separate door set into the clubroom.
The door opened, and a furry middle-aged man with a kindly smile emerged alongside a woman with long hair tied back in a ponytail.
‘That's Renka.’
Her delicate features were neatly arranged on a fair face.
Sharp eyes, thick and long eyelashes, and tightly pressed lips...
A tall figure and an average-sized chest...
She was the Inoo Renka I knew.
My heart wasn't pounding as hard as it had when I saw Miyuki.
But that was because I had adapted to Dokiaka, not because Renka was any less beautiful.
As I stared fixedly at Renka,
“Welcome. I'm Dojima Goro, the adviser and coach of Yeboni Academy's kendo club. Call me Coach.”
I snapped out of it when the furry man stood before the applicants and introduced himself.
““Good afternoon, Coach!””
The applicants roared their greeting in unison.
Had they coordinated it just to leave me out?
I'd missed the timing to greet him.
I stole a glance at Renka and saw her staring at me sternly.
My image had taken a hit. But did I even have any image left to damage at this point?
“You've got spirit. The person standing beside me is Inoo Renka, captain of the kendo club, and a reliable person who will train you alongside me.”
She was the captain despite being only a second-year.
She must have earned everyone's recognition with her outstanding skill and charisma.
Renka probably wasn't in the best condition because an injury had kept her from competing in the National Sports Festival held in August.
So I had to be careful not to act cocky and lock myself out of her route.
““We look forward to working with you, Captain!””
Fuck! Come on, let's greet her together, you bastards!
Having missed the timing yet again, I listened to Goro's welcome speech in a half-resigned state.
**
“Next... Matsuda Ken, you're next!”
Chinami called me in a gentle voice.
I trudged over to her and answered.
“Yes.”
“You're tall... If you don't mind me asking, how tall are you?”
“187 centimeters.”
“Wow...! You must have drunk a lot of milk when you were young?”
“Well... I did like it.”
“I hated milk. I like it now, but... I should have drunk plenty even when I disliked it.”
Your upbringing is important, but aren't genes a little more important?
But I like how you are now.
I feel like I could get a blowjob from you if I bent my knees just a little.
“We've chatted enough, haven't we? Here, this is your uniform.”
I accepted the uniform Chinami held out with both hands and gave her a slight nod.
“Thank you, senpai.”
“You're welcome. Also, in our kendo club, we don't nod; we perform a formal bow. Here, follow me.”
Chinami repeated the same etiquette she'd shown Tetsuya when accepting our applications.
I followed Chinami stiffly, and when she grinned and nodded, I scratched my head and stepped outside the storage room.
And there, I ran into Renka.
She stared at me emotionlessly with her arms crossed and spoke.
“Matsuda Ken.”
“Yes?”
“Coach has something to say to you, so follow me to his office.”
Hmm... I wanted to turn that cold voice into breathy moans as quickly as possible.
You're wondering what anime to watch at home right now, aren't you? I know everything.
I followed her, and when I saw Goro sitting there looking imposing, I stood awkwardly and looked at him.
Goro smiled gently at me and held out a hand toward the seat opposite him.
“Sit down, Matsuda.”
“Yes.”
When I hesitantly sat down, Goro got straight to the point.
“You'll start out as the manager.”
“.... What?”
Coach, are you asking to get hit?
What the hell was this about? I wanted to practice kendo.
“Did I make some kind of mistake? If this is because I failed to greet you earlier...”
“That isn't the reason. Punishing someone for failing to greet you when they don't even know the etiquette would be pathetic.”
“Then why...?”
“Kendo is not simply a martial art in which you strike and trade blows with bamboo swords; it is a way of discipline that emphasizes training the mind, spirit, and body. When practicing a martial art, the most important thing is courtesy. Respect for everyone regardless of rank, proper bearing, dignity... Only after laying down these fundamentals of etiquette can one take up the sacred bamboo sword.”
“.....”
“But you have almost none of that etiquette. Can't you feel it when you look back on your behavior so far?”
But I cleaned the bathrooms diligently, drove off the pervert who tried to touch Miyuki, and even quit the violent circle.
I've been making an effort to reform.
I admit I'm still lacking, but it's rather disappointing that he didn't seem willing to take any of that into consideration.
But you're wearing a wedding ring, aren't you?
The standard trope in school sports stories is for everyone to be shocked when the passionate, hairy coach's wife turns out to be beautiful... Be careful.
“.... Yes. I suppose so.”
“It's good to see you honestly admit it. We'll help you so that you can practice the true martial way. For now, help Nanase and observe how the kendo club operates.”
Wouldn't I miss several early events this way...?
Some of those events might end up going to Tetsuya instead.
That would be the absolute worst. Conquering Renka was going to become a hell of a lot harder.
But getting one-on-one instruction from Chinami was an advantage.
She was both the manager and an official member of the kendo club.
She had such good character that she volunteered to be the manager, and her skill was quite good as well, making her a regular participant in team events at tournaments.
She'd take good care of me, and she was also close to Renka...
If I showed Renka that I had a positive side, Chinami might even say something good about me to her.
It seemed like I would be spending a lot of time with Chinami for the time being...
Now that things had turned out this way, should I make Chinami a main heroine too?
She was a virgin whose mind, spirit, and body were all perfect, and if I conquered her first, she could even help me bring Renka down...
There was no reason not to, right?
“I understand. Then what should I do first? Should I go to Nanase-senpai?”
When I readily agreed, Goro and Renka's eyes widened slightly.
They looked surprised.
Judging from that reaction, I might be able to secure the early events after all.
My top priority was being lovey-dovey with Miyuki, but I should also work as hard as possible at club activities.