Chapter 6
Lee Sol went into the counseling room with the teacher.
We waited for her outside, chatting quietly among ourselves.
Senior Minji was still amazed when she saw Lee Sol.
“This is my first time seeing her up close... She really does look like a doll. She's pretty, right?”
“W-well?”
The club president laughed awkwardly and brushed the question aside.
“Ahem. But are you acquainted with her?”
Then he hurriedly redirected the subject toward me.
It couldn't have been anything but an excellent judgment call.
Was this the power of experience?
I picked up a snack and answered the club president's question.
“Yeah, well... We are in the same class, at least.”
“......!”
— “This is it!”
What is?
Before I could finish wondering, the club president suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
“Our club's survival rests on you. Try persuading her for us.”
“What? Me?”
“You're closer to her than we are. A friend is more likely to persuade her. Besides, if we seniors say it, it'll sound like we're forcing her.”
I understood what he was thinking.
“I'm not actually that close to her.”
We'd only exchanged a few words.
That was all we'd done this year.
“That's how people become close.”
Even so, the club president was trying to entrust the task to me.
“If you bring her in as a member, I'll buy a whole tub of Häagen-Dazs for the clubroom snacks.”
“......”
Hmm.
Häagen-Dazs, huh.
A little disappointing.
“......I'll add another tub.”
“All right, I'll give it a shot.”
I clasped hands with the club president.
With two tubs of Häagen-Dazs on the line, what couldn't I do?
***
“Oh, what? You were still here?”
After finishing her counseling session, Lee Sol came out and raised her voice when she saw me in the clubroom.
“Because I'm a member of the Counseling Club.”
“Oh. What, that's what it was? I thought you'd been rejected by A-young and—App.”
I quickly covered her mouth.
Startled, my hand had shot out on instinct.
Her face really was tiny. One hand covered half of it.
...In any case.
I had thought, ‘So she didn't come here for counseling after confessing and getting rejected.’
I had managed to stop her before that strange misunderstanding could spread.
“...Where on earth did you hear that?”
Lee Sol mumbled in response.
“Mmph. Mmph. Mmmph.”
— “I can't talk unless you take your hand off.”
Ah, right.
I carefully removed my hand.
Only then did a clear voice emerge.
“Nuri told me. She said we should use our judgment and act appropriately around the two of you.”
“......”
At that, I rubbed my eyelids with my fingertips.
That girl, seriously...
First, I had to clear up the misunderstanding.
“It looks like she got the wrong idea, but nothing happened between Shin A-young and me.”
“Really? I see.”
— “Guess not.”
Lee Sol gave a light nod.
It was an incredibly easy affirmation, both outwardly and inwardly.
For a moment, I wondered whether she had really understood me properly.
“......”
She merely gazed blankly around the clubroom without showing any particular reaction.
Whatever the case, she clearly didn't seem all that interested.
Did she simply not care either way?
Normally, people had at least a shred of interest in others, but Lee Sol didn't show even the slightest bit of it.
‘Why does our school only gather strange people?’
Shin A-young was like that, and so was this girl.
Every one of my friends was bursting with individuality.
‘......Maybe I'm not one to talk.’
When I thought about it, I was probably the strangest one of all.
Before anything else, I had to persuade this girl.
“You said you were looking for a club to join, right? Do you have anywhere in mind?”
Lee Sol shrugged.
“No, not yet. Nuri did tell me to join her club, though.”
— “I'm not particularly eager to, but it's probably better to have someone I know...”
Jinuri, huh? That was another formidable rival.
Her mind seemed to be leaning that way, but she hadn't made a definite decision yet.
That was at least good news. It meant there was still room to persuade her.
“So you don't have a club you particularly want to join yet?”
“Hmm... I guess not?”
I took advantage of the opportunity to ask casually.
“Then, how about this one?”
It was a deliberately probing question.
“...This one?”
— “Ugh... Counseling? It sounds boring just hearing about it.”
Her expression slowly fell.
She looked honestly uninterested. She was shuddering inwardly, too.
She was the complete opposite of Shin A-young, whose inner and outer selves differed.
Put positively, she was honest. Put negatively, she was blunt.
“......”
Her reaction was more or less what I had expected. Who would look for fun in the Counseling Club?
Even so, I couldn't simply back down here.
“How about trying it out, at least?”
The tip of Lee Sol's chin tilted slightly.
“I don't know... Is there even anything to try out in the Counseling Club?”
— “What a hassle... How do I turn this down... Can't I just not join a club...?”
‘This girl...’
By reading Lee Sol's thoughts, I was able to grasp her personality to some extent.
This wasn't merely a matter of finding the Counseling Club or club activities bothersome.
It went beyond that.
It was laziness toward school life in general.
Most of her thoughts were occupied by the desire to lie down if she could only do so right now.
‘...She's even more hopeless than I thought.’
She had absolutely no motivation for anything.
That explained why Jinuri had been shielding her ever since the group assignment.
She must have seemed certain to cause trouble if she went to another group.
Apart from that.
‘Actually, that's good.’
The situation wasn't bad.
It might even have made persuading her easier.
I raised my thumb and pointed toward the inside of the clubroom.
“You might like it more than you think. It's called the Counseling Club, but in practice, it's different.”
I led her to the curtain in the corner of the clubroom and pulled it aside.
“...What's this place?”
“The Counseling Club's snack booth.”
There were snacks, jelly, and canned drinks.
One item after another was lined up, excluding the food sold in the school store.
“Is there anything you want to eat? Pick one.”
“Hmm...”
Lee Sol looked around the snack storage area, dragging out her words.
“I dunnooo...”
— “I'm craving something sweet right now, but there's no chocolate.”
I quickly looked over the shelves.
She was right. There wasn't any.
Of all times, why had every chocolate snack run out now?
‘That guy, seriously...! I told him not to eat so many snacks.’
I cursed the absent club president and rummaged through my bag.
As a stopgap, I pulled out the Choco Mong Jinuri had given me.
I handed it to her as naturally as if I'd just taken it from the refrigerator.
“...We have Choco Mong, too.”
“Oh, Choco Mong!”
Lee Sol's eyes lit up for the first time since she had arrived.
Slurp, slurp.
She immediately sucked down the Choco Mong that had been mine.
She was really enjoying it.
It was a little painful to part with it, but I could endure that for the club and two tubs of Häagen-Dazs.
“Next is the counseling room.”
Lee Sol obediently followed behind me with the Choco Mong in her mouth.
Thanks to the bribe, she seemed to have switched to the position of at least hearing us out.
“We have board games, too, if you get bored. You can play them in the room inside if you want.”
“...Is this really the Counseling Club?”
“They're all things we need for the counseling process.”
“Huh? These?”
A doubtful look entered Lee Sol's eyes. They certainly looked like things we'd brought in so we could play and eat.
...In fact, that was exactly how they were being used.
Still, it wasn't technically a lie to say they were used for counseling.
The snacks and board games really were used during the counseling teacher's private meetings.
We just used them when we played.
“......”
However, it seemed I needed to package things a little differently this time.
I had to make this place appeal to her.
“What do you think is the most important part of counseling?”
I asked the question while looking over the snack shelves.
“Hmm...?”
She pressed the straw to her lips and fell into a brief moment of thought.
“I dunno? Gaslighting?”
“...Would you call it being eloquent?”
“Yeah, that.”
Persuasion was an important part of counseling, so it wasn't entirely wrong.
Counseling was meant to help a client recognize the need for change and bring about a change in their behavior.
It simply wasn't supposed to be the top priority.
“Since that answer was a little disappointing, I'll give you cola jelly as a prize.”
That was the second thing she had wanted to eat. The first was salty potato chips.
I had done it deliberately.
Through that small disappointment, I wanted Lee Sol to take even the slightest interest in the Counseling Club.
“...Then what's the right answer?”
The plan had worked to some extent.
She had asked the question first, even while eating the jelly.
The answer was.
“All you have to do is ‘quietly’ listen to what the other person has to say.”
“...Quietly?”
Lee Sol reacted to that word.
“Other club activities require you to move around or be proactive, but here, staying still is a virtue.”
“Oh......”
It might actually be something quite well suited to her.
What did she think?
It was a tailored pitch for the lazy Lee Sol.
“Are you a little interested in joining the Counseling Club?”
“Hmm, it does seem pretty okay...”
The atmosphere was favorable.
Should I seal the deal now?
“Would you like to join the Counseling Club?”
“What should I dooo...?”
Lee Sol folded her arms and sank into deep thought.
I was really close now.
Maybe I just needed to push a little harder...
Knock knock—
That was when a knock sounded.
“...Excuse me.”
Beyond the quietly opened door,
Jinuri appeared.