Athletic Festival Arc
17 Power Outage and Weakness

Rainy season continued, and it had been raining heavily since the morning.
"U-Um, I made this in the cooking cla.s.s… Would you like to eat it?"

Heading to the student council room, Meru couldn"t help but turn her head toward the heart-warming event happening behind her. However, her gaze quickly turned to one filled with pity.

"I don"t need it. Don"t confuse me with Rengetsu. I won"t take even one thing from a woman. Haven"t you heard from the others? Coming to me without even getting information is extremely foolish. If you understand, don"t come within two meters of me."

Behind Meru was a female student holding cutely wrapped sweets and an ill-tempered Shoutarou. He was probably the only person who would show such revulsion to an act of good will from someone else. Unsurprisingly, the girl looked like she was about to cry. However, that kind of thing would annoy Shoutarou.

"Why are you going to cry? I"m the one who"s unhappy to the point I want to cry."
"Katsuragi-kun, sto-p."

The one who stopped Shoutarou as he was about to pour salt on the wounds of the sobbing girl was Meru. Shoutarou was surprised by her voice and turned his head toward her with wide eyes. At the same time, the girl with reddened eyes also looked toward Meru. Being stared at by those moistening eyes, Meru made a slightly troubled face.

"Ahh, Katsuragi-kun has been irritable lately because of his constipation, so the way he speaks is harsh, but you shouldn"t worry about it."
"Kusuhara, you…"
"Shut up."

Meru glared at Shoutarou as he was about to object to her remark. As expected, when faced with a sharp look on the same level as Hayate"s, Shoutarou kept his mouth shut.

"I-I didn"t know. I"m s-sorry. Good bye."

The girl said all that in a tearful voice and ran off. Not paying any heed to her as she left, Shoutarou glowered at Meru.

"That was unnecessa–"
"I"m against treating people"s kindness with disdain."

Meru raised one hand in protest. Shoutarou sighed heavily, saying "There"s no helping the things I hate, right?" as he walked toward Meru. However, for every step forward Shoutarou took, Meru took one step back.

"…What are you doing?"
"Didn"t you say it before? "Don"t come within two meters of me." I"m also more or less a girl."
"Kusuhara…!"
"Ahh, don"t get grumpy. At a time like this, you should have something sweet…"

Saying that, Meru pulled out her usual candy. However, Meru looked at the candy in her palm with a wry smile as she again remembered what Shoutarou had said.

"Ahh, my bad. You have a principle of not accepting things from women, right? Forget about just now."

Meru went to return the candy to her pocket, but Shoutarou, who had closed the distance while she was doing so, forcibly pulled her arm toward him and took the candy.

"Eh"
"I"m sure that I said that I deem you acceptable. …And this is also my favorite candy!"
"Haa…"

His tone at the end of the sentence was mixed with anger, and Meru tilted her head at the sense of dissonance she got from the words he fired off in that tone, but since it was more trouble than it was worth, she didn"t retort.

"Then, goodbye."
"Wait. I"m over here today, too."

When Meru waved at Shoutarou and began to walk away, Shoutarou quickly stepped up next to her.

"Huh? Weren"t you in charge of construction, Katsuragi-kun?"

Shoutarou and Yuuri were in charge of construction for the athletic festival. In other words, their work wasn"t in the student council room, but in the gym"s storage room and empty cla.s.srooms, so he should be heading in the opposite direction.

"It"s because Kamishiro is having a meeting with those in our year who are in the cavalry battle to discuss their strategy. Aidou will be able to manage the construction alone somehow or other so I came to help."
"Ohh. That"s appreciated. Then, the amount of work…"
"I"ll say this in advance, but I won"t accept any more than half."

Shoutarou said resolutely before Meru could say anything. Meru gave an exaggerated sigh.

"You"re really pigheaded, huh."
"I just stated the obvious."

With a snort, Meru matched Shoutarou"s pace, then walked a little bit faster.

"At any right…I wonder if the rain will stop."

They were in the student council room. Meru muttered those words as her eyes unintentionally slipped from the doc.u.ments to the situation outside. The clouds were dark and the sound of thunder had started just a bit ago.

"Is there anything you aren"t good at dealing with, Katsuragi-kun?"

Meru suddenly asked that kind of thing. Guessing at the reason for that, Shoutarou laughed scornfully.

"You"re not good with thunder?"
"That"s not it."

At the same time Meru denied that with a nonchalant face, the sky lit up followed almost immediately by the booming of thunder. Looking at Meru who wasn"t perturbed in the slightest, Shoutarou made a face that had "boring" written all over it. The desire to protest arose within Meru, but she somehow managed to hold it back.

"There"s only one thing I"m bad with, and that"s women."
"That, I"m already tired of hearing it."
"… Do you have anything, Kusuhara?"
"Even if I had one, I wouldn"t expose my own weakness."

Meru grinned. Shoutarou, who had exposed his own weakness, scowled and grumbled, "You"re unreasonable."

"But it"s really gloomy so I wish the rain would stop…"

Meru whispered. Her face also expressed that she really was wishing for the rain to stop.

"They said the rainy season should be done tomorrow or the day after. Your needless worries will be over then, so just put up with it."
"You"re really strict, huh? Katsuragi-sensei."

Meru jested as usual. Outside, lightning flashed again.

"I"ll go submit this batch."

They had made more progress than expected. Shoutarou stood up from his seat and took the acc.u.mulated mountain of doc.u.ments.

"Eh… I"ll go!"

Meru made to s.n.a.t.c.h Shoutarou"s doc.u.ments. It seemed that both had the same idea to go to the staff room to take a breather rather than continuing filling out the doc.u.ments.

"You do your own job."
"You still have some left, don"t you, Katsuragi-kun."

In the end, they started a ridiculous argument. It was strange that the idea to go together didn"t come up even though it"d be fine for both of them to take a breather if they had the time to have an argument.

"Cut it out, Kusuhara…!"

Boom…boom…boom……..crash!

At the same time Shoutarou shouted, lightning struck with an earth-shattering noise. Since it was so loud, the place it struck had to be closeby. Then, the lightning struck, a strange flashing began and the lights went out.

There was no light. It was still the evening, but no light came in through the cloudy sky and the room became dim.

"A power outage, huh… Well, it"ll probably be fixed soon…"

Although it was dark, it wasn"t to the extent that they couldn"t see anything, so Shoutarou wasn"t particularly worried about it.

However, one side supporting the doc.u.ments Shoutarou was holding suddenly disappeared and they began to fall off balance. He somehow managed to adjust how he was holding them and catch them but he naturally got mad at Meru who had suddenly let go.

"Kusuhara, don"t suddenly let go! Do you want to scatter… Kusuhara?"

He could tell that Meru"s state reflected in his eyes was strange, even if she was just an indistinct outline in the dimness.

"N-No… Uu, ah…."

Meru let out just a little bit of a hesitant voice as she crouched on the ground. Surprised, Shoutarou quickly placed the doc.u.ments on the desk and crouched down in front of Meru. Her shoulders were trembling.

"Kusuhara? Is your stomach upset?"

Meru covered her face with both hands and shook her head negatively.

"D-Darkness is…a little…"

Shoutarou was astonished by Meru"s tearful voice.

"Kusuhara. You, you"re bad with dark places?"

Shoutarou spoke the conclusion he had drawn from her previous suggestive question and the words that she let slip. However, Meru didn"t nod in response.

"Rather than dark places…it"s more like places that are both dark and confined…"

Meru told him slowly having tightly shut her eyes so that she couldn"t see the dark room.

The only thing that Meru had trouble dealing with was being inside dark rooms. She was fine even walking the streets at night. It was to the extent that she had to sleep with the lights on.

Meru"s figure, smaller and more helpless than her usual self, was fleeting. Shoutarou took off his gla.s.ses and threw them to the floor before grasping both of Meru"s hands.

"N-No…"

Meru made to cover her face once more, but Shoutarou caught her hands firmly and prevented her from doing so. When he did, Meru"s trembling intensified.

"Kusuhara, open your eyes."
"I-I can"t."
"It"s ok, so open them."

Meru reluctantly nodded in response to Shoutarou"s persuasive voice and slowly, slowly opened her eyes.

Shoutarou saw tears welled up in Meru"s eyes. Her panicked eyes carried light even in the dim room.

"It"s okay. It"s not scary. You aren"t scared of anything."

Shoutarou said clearly while looking into Meru"s eyes. She could feel Shoutarou"s rea.s.surance through his grip on her hands. His hypnotism-inducing eyes had certainly taken hold of hers.

"Uu…ah…"

Even with that, Meru"s trembling didn"t stop. As expected, Shoutarou"s hypnotism didn"t have an effect on Meru.

"An ability I can"t use when I want to use it no matter what is no different from being useless…"

Shoutarou dropped his gaze and muttered self-mockingly. Meru wanted to respond, but with the dark room visible to her, she couldn"t vocalize it well.

Her field of vision became pitch black. At the same time, Meru was enveloped by warmth. Shoutarou had embraced her. Meru"s eyes opened wide at the situation.

"Katsuragi-ku…"
"It"s just for now. I"ll let go as soon as the lights come back on."

Shoutarou said that bluntly, but the arms embracing Meru were gentle.

"Thank you…"

Before too long, the electricity came back on. The student council room became bright and Meru, with her eyelids shut, felt it.

This time, Meru promptly opened her eyes. Shoutarou"s face was very close. Although she was fascinated by his gla.s.ses-less face, the thought of his proximity brought her back and Meru made an apologetic face.

"…You hate being touched by women, right? Sorry."

Holding Meru was Shoutarou"s own choice. Since the circ.u.mstances were what they were, Shoutarou himself didn"t find contact with the opposite s.e.x to be repulsive like he usually would. Despite that and despite the fact that she had lost her composure and had yet to return to a calm state of mind, Meru was worried about him. Shoutarou made a bitter face.

"I"m sorry. I couldn"t do anything."
"…That"s not true. Thank you."

Meru smiled and picked up the nearby gla.s.ses Shoutarou had cast aside.

"Your magic words… Because I heard them, I calmed down."

Her trembling hadn"t stopped, so there was no way that was true. Meru blocked Shoutarou"s mouth with her hand as he was about to refute that.

"This discussion is over. I"m not happy about it, but keep the secret about my weakness to yourself, Katsuragi-kun."

Meru stuck her tongue out. To Shoutarou now, her joking act was painful. He nodded with a frown.

"Are you two o…k…?"

Not long after Meru and Shoutarou"s conversation had ended, Yuuri came into the student council room. Since he was an executive, there was no problem with him coming to the room. If there was a problem, it was Meru and Shoutarou"s current situation.

Shoutarou wasn"t embracing Meru anymore, but they were both crouching and their faces were unnaturally close.
That caught Yuuri"s eye and he broke off in the middle of his business, stopping in front of the door.

"I"m sorry for bothering you while you were in the middle of something."

Yuuri said quickly and in a monotone before moving to close the door. However, Shoutarou hurriedly separated from Meru and stopped him.

"Aidou! It"s a misunderstanding!"
"Ah?"

The Yuuri who looked over his shoulder was an entirely different person. They hadn"t met his martial arts switched self since the time before the card game tournament.
However, Meru didn"t understand why his switch had been flipped.

"Aidou-kun?"
"Katsuragiii. b.a.s.t.a.r.d, even though you say you"re a woman-hater, you took advantage of the power outage and laid your hands on Kusuhara! Now choose, should I report it to Kamishiro or should I beat you down now? You a.s.shole!"

The raging Yuuri drew his wooden sword from somewhere around his back. Shoutarou, who had lost all color, fled from the student council room. Yuuri continued to hurl abusive language that didn"t match with his face as he chased after him.

Left alone in the room, Meru gave a little chuckle at the series of incidents.

As she did, this time it was Hayate who came back to the student council room.

"Meru. Were you ok during the power outage?"

Hayate worried about Meru the moment he entered. Of course, Hayate didn"t know about Meru"s fear.

"Yeah. Since Katsuragi-kun was here."
"Those are sickening words."

Hayate said that with a smile, but a vein near his temple was pulsing.

"I"ll triple Shoutarou"s workload."
"…? But Katsuragi-kun is in the middle of being chased by the martial arts switch-flipped Aidou-kun. If you go that far, isn"t he a little pitiful?"
"If he did something that could flip Yuuri"s switch, it"s even more appropriate."
"Hmm…"

Since she couldn"t understand what he was talking about after all, Meru stopped worrying about it and picked up the doc.u.ments Shoutarou had left behind.

"Ah, Kamishiro-kun."
"Yes?"

Standing in front of the door, Meru looked over her shoulder with a grin.

"I"m glad that I entered the student council after all."

Meru said just that and left the student council room.

Looking outside the window, the rain had completely stopped and the sun had come out.

Ok this one was actually rather long. There ya go. I suppose we shall eventually find out what the trauma behind this fear is. It"s interesting, since her dad"s room was dark before her foster father went in… Anyway, hope you enjoy and see you next week!