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...
At last, the day of the cultural festival arrived.
The students, who had long since finished their preparations, all sprang into action. It was not just the classrooms either—even the path from the school gate to the teaching buildings was lined with little booths and stalls that had already opened for business.
Some of those were run by the classes themselves. After all, nobody had ever said a class could only have one cultural festival theme. If they finished one project and still had leftover points, were they supposed to return them to the school?
Of course not.
Naturally, they were going to squeeze every last bit of value out of them. As long as it could raise sales even a little, they would set something up. Anything was better than handing the points back.
The moment it became a matter of fleecing the school, every student would unconsciously push things to the absolute limit. Across all twelve classes, not a single one ended up needing to return any points.
Of course, some of those stalls were also being run by clubs and school organizations. Their main goal was to catch the guests' attention, lure them over to the club activity rooms, and get them to spend even more there.
The clubs did not receive class-point rewards no matter how high their sales were during the cultural festival, but the school had stated clearly that all revenue would belong to the clubs themselves.
That was more than enough to motivate them.
Ever since the student council changed hands and Yukio became president, all club budgets aside from the swim club had been slashed again and again. Most of them were strapped for cash.
Now that guests were finally coming in, of course they were going to "entertain" them properly and earn some precious activity funds.
For a while, the entire school really did take on the lively atmosphere of a festival. It was obvious the students were thrilled. Even though they had been up and working since early morning, everyone was smiling and chatting as they got ready to enjoy this rare cultural festival.
The faint morning light was like a silent battle horn that boosted morale. The moment the students saw such beautiful clear weather, motivation naturally began to well up inside them.
Yukio, meanwhile, was once again being dragged around by Amasawa, wandering from stall to stall.
After that phone call the day before, he had ultimately agreed to spend the festival with her.
The main reason was simple: from the beginning of last semester, Amasawa had seemed especially excited for this cultural festival. She brought it up all the time in casual conversation. At that point, Yukio really could not bring himself to refuse.
After all, from Amasawa's point of view, she had been born a test-tube baby and then shut up in that all-white facility from the moment she entered the world, forced to endure one harsh lesson after another.
That kind of isolation, even worse than Advanced Nurturing High School, had left her longing for everything in the outside world.
Kids her age were supposed to get to run around and have fun at cultural festivals. She, meanwhile, had only been able to stare at white walls and study in lifeless silence.
Now that she finally had the chance to experience one for herself, there was no way she was going to give it up. Once Yukio realized that, he agreed.
Walking among the bustling festival stalls, they could already see students here and there enjoying themselves. Naturally, any points students spent would not count toward the official sales totals.
Still, money was money, so the stalls carried on with business as usual.
Amasawa seemed thoroughly infected by the festive mood. She was unbelievably hyped, bouncing as she walked beside Yukio, her bright eyes lively and sparkling.
Maybe it was because she looked so openly cheerful, but she drew plenty of attention from the people around them. Neither she nor Yukio cared about anyone else's stares, though, and before long they stopped at a water-balloon fishing stall.
It was one of those classic festival games in Japan: a big tub of water filled with balloons, and each player got a very thin strip of paper folded twice over. The goal was to thread it through the loop tied to the balloon and lift it out.
If the paper held without tearing, the balloon was yours—or you could exchange it for a prize, depending on how the stall was run.
Still... what made Yukio feel the poverty of it all was that the prizes here were just the balloons themselves, or at most two tiny bags of snacks. There was nothing else.
Even he thought it looked a little pathetic. But considering each class only had two hundred thousand points to work with, and not every teacher was as willing as Sakagami to look the other way, it was honestly pretty normal that some classes' activities looked a bit bare-bones.
Amasawa, on the other hand, did not care about any of that. She crouched down immediately, excitement written all over her face.
"Hey, give me two strips!"
The one running the stall was a first-year student, still obviously green around the edges, and quickly handed over two thin paper strips.
Once Yukio took one, he realized just how absurdly thin it was. It had been cut down too—barely about a finger's width and a finger's length. If ordinary toilet paper was four-ply, this stuff was maybe one ply at best.
You could fold it, sure, but lifting out a water balloon with it still took some real skill.
"Senpai~ Easy peasy!"
Before Yukio could finish mentally roasting the game, Amasawa had already folded hers and casually hooked out a balloon. She held it up triumphantly to show off.
That drew a grin from him. He folded his own strip, slipped it neatly through another loop, and lifted out a second balloon before handing it to her.
"This one's for you."
"Hehe, thanks, Senpai~"
She accepted it without hesitation. Strangely enough, though, she did not trade either balloon in for snacks. Instead, she held both against herself and used her coat to cover them up a little.
Then she flashed him a teasing smile.
"So, Senpai? Do I compare at all now to that Sakakura-senpai you personally went to D-Class and pulled into your own class?"
"Pfft!"
Yukio completely lost it at that move and nearly choked on his own spit.
"Y-You... aren't you worried one of those might pop and soak you?"
"Well now~"
Amasawa's expression shifted again, pure playful little-devil mode, brimming with youthful energy. It was provocative, sure, but in a way that felt lively rather than tacky.
"So Senpai likes wet-clothes play, huh~"
This time Yukio wasn't caught off guard. He simply stroked his chin with an amused look and gave her a slow once-over.
"If possible, I'd very much like a private demonstration."
"Ugh."
Amasawa quickly traded in her balloons for four little bags of snacks and stuffed them into her coat pockets.
"When Senpai suddenly gets this gentlemanly, it kind of scares me."
Yukio did not bother answering. He looked around casually instead and found there were actually quite a lot of games here: cork guns for target shooting, ring toss, molded sugar candy, all the standard street-festival stuff.
They even had goldfish scooping, the classic summer-festival attraction people always remembered most fondly. Considering how little money the school had given out this time, the fact that they had managed to get such a big tub of little goldfish together was honestly pretty impressive.
And sitting in charge of that goldfish stall in person was none other than first-year D-Class leader Hosen.
The moment he spotted Yukio, a flash of intense wariness crossed his eyes.
"Well, well, Senpai. You here playing with your girl, or doing a student council inspection?"
...
For every 50 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.