A Confession

Today’s UN Training --- Build up the team around you

A thing that Tani and many others have a tendency of forgetting, is that all successful people have a team around them. A movie star has an agent and an acting coach, a sports person has a trainer, a pianist has a teacher. No one truly goes at it alone.

A diplomat is no different.

They have people to help them gather information, brief them on relevant topics and offer him or her opinions on how to deal with crises. Obviously, Tani is not yet a diplomat. But as a club leader, the people around him are now considered a part of his team with each of them serving a purpose outside of just being his students.

If he wants his team to work efficiently they would need to have the confidence to do so. Who better to instill that confidence than the most confident of the bunch? Tani has made it a goal to foster the best version of each and every person around him, both for their own good and his. If they reach their potential they can better serve his objectives after all.

And so, with the Gogatsusai festival coming in hot, Tani has spent the last couple weeks reinforcing their positive traits; dishing out compliments a little more often, and not being as harsh on them when they fail.

The response has been positive, they’re all working more like a single unit than a group of individuals following the lead of someone dictating curriculum.

If every day he can little by little build up the team around him, he’s sure that the upcoming festival will be a rousing success. 

It is still a delicate balance however. He can’t afford to be playing favorites in this process, not if he wants all of them to be at the same point of development come performance time.

No one can feel more special than the other.

He might find that last bit a little more difficult to pull off than he’d think, particularly in regards to a certain childhood friend of his...

---------------------------

On this Monday of the last week of May, Tani has done something unprecedented. 

He’s shown up at his shoe locker only 5 minutes before classes start. 

Currently surrounded by the perpetually tardy students who he once considered the dregs of academia, their abrasive presence is felt in the noise of them rapidly opening and shutting their lockers, followed by their scurried feet rushing in every which way to the classrooms.

Tani is late for his own reasons, none of which has to do with him being lazy; the truth is that he had been juggling more than his normal share of obstacles early this morning due to the fact that the Gogatsusai festival is this upcoming weekend. After coupling in his usual routine with working on the Languages club’s booth, he still managed to leave his house to get onto the train at a respectable time. He should have gotten here as early as usual, but about half way into his journey he realized that he wasn’t wearing his summer uniform.

Only just this year Kokusai implemented a rule stipulating that students begin wearing their Summer uniforms a week earlier than the usual June 1st date. Also, unlike most schools, the cut off for the switch is to be strictly imposed for whatever reason--- there is no grace period.

Of course he isn’t worried about Principal Togashi reprimanding him over it, but there are still many other teachers who could force his hand, and Tani isn’t one to ruffle any feathers if he doesn’t need to.

So he had to get off at the nearest station, head back to his place and change his clothes as fast as he could before turning right back around. Then he missed his desired train by a split second and cursed out loud while impatiently waiting for the next one to arrive. After all of those trials and tribulations, he made it here dangerously close to starting time.

Not since middle school has he been late to class, and knowing that Anita is up there in 3-D waiting for him to arrive and probably wondering where he is compels him to rush just like all the other students he looks down on as irresponsible. Not to mention, he’ll have to give Shirai her sweets at lunch, and he can only imagine how much she’s freaking out about that. 

Her missing out on her treats could turn out to be a huge blunder. He shivers at the thought of it while throwing his shoes on and hurrying towards the hall.

Noticing something in the corner of his eye, he stops in place and catches sight of Kimura Ume at her locker. His first thought is to scold her for nearly being tardy like him, but he notices something curious that quickly defangs his miff.

“Huh?”

She’s holding a pink envelope, staring at it as though she were deep in thought.

“What do you got there?” Tani asks.

His voice snaps her back into reality and her face goes flush before a series of chaotic movements hides the envelope behind her back.

“T-T-Tani! Good morning!”

She looks like she’s on fire.

“Why the hell are you so flustered?”

Ume sheepishly laughs, puts on her school shoes and walks to his side. “Hey hey, Kokusai’s summer uniforms are pretty cute, huh?”

He watches her do a little twirl and present herself to him, changing the initial subject with the deft touch of a rennaicance sculptor. 

Tani dissects her outfit and gives it some serious thought. 

The summer uniforms are quite stylish compared to most, the burgundy bow ties the girls wear match well with the tailored white shirts tucked into dark gray plaid skirts. To add a little bit of individualized flare, Ume doesn't have her shirt tucked in at all, giving her a really casual look.

“Yeah, you look good.” Tani admits without a hint of apprehension.

Ume smiles and replies, “You look good too… short sleeves and no tie is quite the look for you.”

Tani looks down at his white shirt and sighs, “I forgot my tie at home, I was in a rush to get here. Don’t get used to this disheveled version of your dear leader because it won’t happen again.”

“Hehe, then I’ll savor it for today.”

The two walk alongside each other with a lack of urgency, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’re on the cusp of being late. Tani can still see the corner of the envelope sticking out of her bag, and although he’s curious about it he decides to remain on topic.

“What were the uniforms like at the school you were at before coming here?”

“My old school?” she holds her chin and contemplates. “It was an all girls school, so our uniforms were kind of drab.”

“You went to an all girls school, huh? Must’ve been weird to go from our middle school to that.”

“There were some positives about it.” She holds her finger up and says with a chuckle, “Like I never had to worry about being confessed to by a boy.”

The fact that this is what she brought up out of the blue confirms Tani’s suspicions about that envelope.

“Some people would love to have that problem.”

“Not me, the drama is wayyy too much to handle.”

Now this piques Tani’s interest.

“You mean to tell me you got caught up in drama at some point?”

Ume seems to realize she let something slip, and looks just about as uncomfortable as she was when she was hiding the letter from him.

“Y-Yeah I guess you can say that…”

He can only imagine what that drama was, but not wanting to pry and keep her feeling uneasy, he pats her on her back and says, “Well, it’s not something that you have to worry about now that you’re here.”

To his surprise, this seems to bring her a bit of relief, she even shows him a little smile.

“Unfortunately I still do,” She pulls the letter out her bag and holds it in front of her when she finishes, “I have just had a drama bomb dropped off at my feet.”

“Someone has confessed to you?”

“Yeah, this is from Sunao-kun in my class, he wants to meet me behind the school after classes today.”

“What are you going to do?”

She leans towards Tani and teasingly asks, “Should I go out with him?”

Tani’s heart takes a peculiar beat, and he has to clear his throat to dispel the effects of it.

 “...You do whatever you want.”

“Ehhh, not even a hint of disapproval?? You should be more upset!”

“Why should I be upset??”

Ume playfully puffs her cheeks out at him, but she is actually quite agitated by his lack of reaction. 

In her mind she harkens back on their date. 

They had a great time and she even gave him a hug at the end, but nothing has come from it thus far. She and Tani have remained close, if not even closer than ever, but he hasn’t done anything to show her that things might have changed between the two of them.

She’s in a delicate spot as far as their friendship goes, if she makes the wrong move it could really mess things up between them. Him not revealing any emotion in regards to another guy making a move on her just confirms that there hasn't been any movement in either direction.

For now she just has to continue to play it cool.

“I guess there isn’t a reason to get upset anyways. I’m going to reject him.”

Tani tries to hide it, but he’s kind of relieved to hear that.

“I see…”

“The problem is that he is the ace of the Tennis club.”

“So what?”

“So what?? Rejecting popular people is a very dangerous endeavor!”

Tani definitely doesn’t get it, he tilts his head confused.

To which Ume answers, “He is one of the most popular guys in this school, that means a lot of people probably know that he likes me, and that means he’ll feel embarrassed when I say no. He might not be a bad person and hold a grudge over it but there’s going to be other girls and friends of his who will on his behalf.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tani scoffs. “What are they, a bunch of children?”

“Tani, that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here. Where do you think we are??”

He catches himself in his naivety and bites his tongue before saying,

“B-But still, I feel like so long as you’re honest about it there shouldn’t be any problems.”

Ume flinches and shields herself with her arm as though something was thrown at her. “Omigod, could it be that you're the actual child here!?”

“Excuse me??”

“Have you really not noticed how these kind of things work in high school!? My poor, poor, sweet and innocent Tani!”

She’s looking at him like a baby duckling that lost sight of its mother. Her pitiful glare is an absolute death blow, so he defends himself the only way he knows how.

“Look, I’m way too busy with my own stuff to afford paying attention to the goings on of common folk here at Kokusai. Whatever the hell issues they're dealing with in their world isn’t nearly as troublesome as what goes on in mine.”

Ume’s playful mockery suddenly stops, and her entire energy shifts into something more solemn.

“Don’t be so sure about that…”

“I’m way sure.” Tani puffs and sticks his nose up. “No one in high school can unequivocally destroy you like a rich business person or a high level politician can. Therefore the world of high school is a world full of small fries.”

Tani haughtily says that despite being a high school student with that very distinct ability to ruin someone's life.

“Not everyone can be like you, Tani.” she says with a sigh.

Ume very obviously didn’t take what he said very well, although her tone was light and sarcastic, it was meant to come across like a razor blade.

Tani doesn’t notice the fine cut.

“Ha! That’s right, so you should be grateful that rejecting a classmate is your only problem.”

“I’m struggling to figure out if you’re trying to cheer me up or stomp on me??”

“I’m just saying that you shouldn’t stress about it.”

“Easy for you to say. Listen Tani, I have first hand experience dealing with stuff like this, I know how nasty it can get.”

He can finally sense that Ume isn’t joking this time around, she’s even giving him a strained look while squeezing at the handle of her bag. Just what does she mean when she says she has experience with this? At her old school, did she have to reject someone as well? Having come from an all girl’s school she should have at least been spared from the affection of boys.

Unless... 

‘Kin-Kon-Kan-Kon!’

The school bell rings, and the two childhood friends are officially late.

Tani sucks in a gasp like someone who just ran directly into a bear in the woods. “My god, what have I done!?”

He falls to his knees in a heap and sulks.

Ume scratches her cheek. “I guess we got a little distracted.”

“My long and storied perfect attendance record streak has been broken. I am a failure.”

“It’s fine, stuff happens!”

“Not with me though, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me!”

She grabs him by his tieless collar and drags him along as though he were a sack of potatoes. “C’mon quit moping, if you hurry along maybe the teacher won’t mark you down as late since this is a first time offense.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Tani props himself right up with vigor and right out of her grip. “Yoshitaka-sensei hasn't had one bit of character growth this entire year, he wouldn’t dare write me up!”

He starts running down the hall, and Ume waves goodbye as he disappears around the corner to rush up the stairs. 

During their chat they had actually passed her own class 3-C and she was consciously aware of it when it happened, spending time with Tani before school started was too rare of an opportunity to pass up.

Even now she’s not in any rush to get in there and face Sunao. 

That late slip will be well worth it.

She turns around and heads the opposite direction but is stopped by Tani’s voice coming from down the hall.

“Ume!”

Turning back, she spots him peeking his head around the corner. He has a reassuring smile on his face, one that shows a surprising amount of empathy.

“..?”

“I don’t know what happened back then to make you feel the way you do, but I do know that whatever it was, I wasn’t there to help you through it.”

“Tani..?”

“Well I’m here now, there’s no way anything like that will happen again.”

His smile turns playful and he once again disappears behind the corner and up the stairs. With his footsteps echoing through the halls, his fleeting voice trails off along with them when he finishes,

“So don’t stress over it!”

Ume holds her chest, certain that the color of the blush she feels on her cheeks is reaching the tips of her ears.

“Hehehe,” she chuckles, squeezing at her bowtie in an unserious attempt to contain her jollity. “Hehehehe!”

A flowery pirouette turns herself back towards her original destination, and once reaching her class, she finds the door to be extra light when she slides it open.

----------------------

Later on in the day, Ume spent her time post rejection in a good mood, palling around with the club and diving into her Italian with Emilia. When the group was together hashing out final details for their booth, she didn’t show a hint of unease after going through what must have undoubtedly been a difficult interaction.

In the few moments that she and Tani were alone together, she didn’t say anything to him about it other than that Sunao took it well.

Of course this wasn’t enough to placate Tani’s suspicions, so the following day he enacted a plan to make sure that the tennis ace wasn’t up to no good behind the scenes. It started with gathering intel on the school star by asking Mariko what she knew about him. Mariko told Tani that Sunao was one of the rare jocks that is kind and considerate and had a fairly small ego all things considered.

Tani didn’t believe a word of it. No good looking and popular boy is popular for those traits, he has to actually be a cocky bastard who is putting on airs to fool unsuspecting girls.

So he moved onto phase two.

Tani is a sneaky fellow when he needs to be, and during lunch break he made a quick stop into class 3-F on the way up to the rooftop with Anita. There he spoke to--- or rather, accosted one of his favorite targets, a member of the computer sciences club.

Anita, unable to fully understand what was being said, simply watched along with a smile on her face as he procured from the nerdy student a little magnet sized microphone transmitter to connect via bluetooth to his smartphone.

Why did he need such a thing you ask? Just keeping in line with the assurance he gave Ume the day before.

Despite being a middle story student, Sunao spends his lunch breaks on the roof as the leader of the upper story class's most popular clique, and to Tani’s surprise he was still easily accessible. So accessible in fact that sneaking that little transmitter into his back pocket with a slight of hand while pretending to bump into him was no trouble at all.

Now, this little piece of equipment isn’t meant to survive the day, he fully expects that Sunao will eventually find it and either toss it in the trash thinking nothing of the ibuprofen sized piece of metal, or it would be destroyed when he next does his laundry.

To the chagrin of the computer sciences club member, that microphone was sent down a one way street never to be seen again.

Tani listened in to Sunao’s conversations as much as possible throughout the course of the day, even now while currently in the Languages club he’s kept an earbud in his ear this entire time with the excuse that it’s been helping him keep up with his Norwegian language practice.

With the day now winding down the topic of Ume finally gets brought up. Sunao and some friends of his are changing into their normal clothes in the boy’s locker room. 

Despite Ume sitting right in front of him, Tani listens in on the tennis star’s conversation.

[I can’t believe she rejected you, what a bitch!] one of the boys says.

Tani instinctively grips the chalk he’s holding in his hand so hard that it breaks in half.

[Don’t insult her, she is a really sweet person.] Sunao replies, expressing his discontent both gently and firmly.

[But she’s a famous model, of course she’s gonna have that persona. The truth is that cute girls like her are all the same.]

Tani is fuming, completely offended on Ume’s behalf. How dare he speak about someone he doesn’t even know like that?

[She’s not like that. I see how sweet and kind she is to everyone in class every day. Just because she’s cute doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. How would you feel if girls assumed that we were shitty jocks just cause we play a sport?]

Sunao rebuked that claim with grace.

But somehow that statement feels directed at Tani, he 100 percent assumed that about the popular tennis player.

“....”

[Alright if you put it that way, I’ll take back what I said… Did she at least give you a reason why she said no?]

[She did… and I could tell that she was being completely honest, it wasn’t meant to hurt me at all.]

[Let me guess, she said she had a boyfriend?]

Tani stops everything he’s doing and entirely focuses in on the conversation in his earbud.

[No, she’s still single.]

Now he looks to Ume and gazes upon her like she were a magical creature in the process of emitting a dazzling display of colors from her body.

[What she told me…] Sunao’s voice goes acquiescent as he continues, [Is that she is absolutely head over heels in love with someone else.]

“!!!”

The colors surrounding the form of Ume explode outwards and strikes Tani with the force of dynamite.

[Wait, you’re telling me that didn’t absolutely crush you?? I would have died if the girl I like told me that!]

[It did crush me, I’m still crushed. But until you see someone as pretty as her admit something like that so honestly and full of heart, you’ll never know how easy it is to forgive being turned down that way.]

Tani holds his chest and is overcome with guilt for ever treating this pitiful guy like a villain. Mariko wasn’t kidding when she said he was kind, he almost seems too perfect. He takes the earbud out of his ear and stuffs it in his pocket unable to bear eavesdropping any longer, especially knowing that Sunao won’t be causing Ume any problems going forward.

He’s left with an incredibly valid question.

For Ume to turn down a guy that has looks, athleticism, popularity and charm--- just who is this other person that she admitted she loved with such enthusiasm?

How much better could he possibly be than Sunao?

“Must be some kind of guy…” he mutters under his breath, “Or just really lucky.”

Staring at Ume and lost in his imagination, the laser beam of his gaze finally becomes too powerful not to notice. She raises her eyebrow at him.

“Okay, what’s on my face??”

“...What?” Tani absentmindedly asks.

“You’ve been staring at me without blinking for a while now, it’s freaking me out!”

“I… No I haven’t!”

“A bold-faced lie?? Wait, are you drooling too!? Gross!”

Tani throws his hand over his mouth to investigate. He isn’t drooling at all, but being caught staring at her like this embarrasses him to no end, especially considering the exact reason which brought upon his gaze in the first place.

The revelation that she’s in love with someone has dealt him an undecipherable blow.

Internally scrambling, a desperate reach into his pocketbook of excuses produces a halfhearted insult. “I was just paying close attention to your Italian, it’s terrible!”

“Uwaa? That’s another lie, Emi-chan was just telling me that it's good!”

“...She’s right.” Emilia says, raising her little hand in front of Ume as though protecting her friend from Tani’s attacks. “Kimura-senpai is doing amazing right now.”

Ume puffs and stands to her feet and points at him triumphantly. “Ha! How dare insinuate otherwise!”

If one paid close attention, Ume took on the form of Tani when she said that.

“Alright fine, sorry.” Tani plops himself down on his chair and folds his arms in a pout. “I was zoning out. You didn’t do anything wrong and there’s nothing on your face.”

“Hmph! Good.” Ume plops herself down as well, and with one eye shut she lifts her chin up. “I accept your apology.”

“You just look different, is all.” Tani says as though reluctant to admit it.

“Oh yeah? How so?” she replies, still looking at him with one eye closed.

“I don’t know, like a lady I guess?”

Ume’s head sinks into her shoulders. “Ehhhh, what are you, an Ojisan?”

Tani aggressively scratches his head. “Stop making me out to be a weirdo, I’m not trying to be a creep!”

“Then just say what you mean!”

“I’m not gonna say it in front of everyone.”

Ume looks around and sees that Anita, Charl and Mariko are quite literally not paying attention to anything they’re saying. Tani might think otherwise at times, but the people around him aren’t always hanging on every word he says.

“By everyone, you mean just me?” Emilia asks as the only person here who has had a front row seat to their banter. “Don’t mind me, this is doing wonders for my friendship training. I didn’t know it was possible for people to yell at each other so affectionately.”

“Affectionately??” Ume shrinks back.

“Fine, I’ll say it.” Tani leans in close over the table and explains, “Ever since yesterday, you’ve been much more radiant than normal.”

“So you equate my radiance with being lady-like?”

“Hmm, not exactly... You know what just forget about it, I’ve dug myself a deep enough hole as it is.”

Ume leans in and gives him a wry smile, “If you want out of that hole you just need to stop being so wishy washy, it’s so unlike you.”

Tani purses his lips and catipults himself out of the deep dark pit when he says,

“I’m saying you’re cuter than normal.”

“Uwawa!?”

“That’s it, I’m not giving you any more than that.”

Ume holds her face and feigns a bashful smile when she jokes, “To think you’d find me cute after I rejected the school’s prince, I’d have to dig deep into my anime catalog to find a character with that archetype.”

Tani fires a squint at her.

“You rejected someone?” Emilia asks.

“Oh Emi-chan, I totally forgot to tell you yesterday. I’m sorry!”

“...It’s fine…" Emilia sinks into her chair. "...I am a forgettable person after all...”

Tani watches Ume switch her attention to Emilia and immediately feels like he’s been let off the proverbial hook. She’s scrambling to find the right words to placate the distraught little Italian girl and groveling in the process.

Emilia’s blank glare lightens up a bit, and Tani can tell that she is teasing Ume by continuing to barely react.

“Hahaha.” He laughs at the comedic scene under his breath before sighing it away.

Ume was really dragging him down into deep waters there, she even got him to admit his most embarrassing thoughts. She’s quite good at getting to the soft bits underneath his persona--- better than he ever gave her credit for.

Being aware of her talents against him doesn’t dim her radiance however, she almost gets brighter as she latches onto an emotionless Emilia and bellows out her dismay for unintentionally keeping her out of the loop.

(Maybe I am a creepy Ojisan…) Tani thinks to himself, letting a little puff of resignation escape his nose and a smile of acceptance lift the edges of his lips. (There aren't many things cuter than a girl in love.)

Today’s UN Lesson --- Building up your team irresponsibly can potentially lead to a favorite player!