Yuri has to work

The video ended, and the girls saw their reflection on the computer monitor in the computer room in their school.

"What do you think, Megumi?" Risa asked.

"Well, it's okay. I'm not too much of a vlogger person. Is that going to be the whole thing?" Megumi said.

"Well, there can be more vlogs. We could record more."

Risa unplugged her phone from the wire that connected it to the computer. She aimed the camera at Megumi.

"Oh, please," Megumi said, "I rather not be on camera. I don't like it."

"Why?"

"Well, I can't really tell you. I just don't like it."

"Okay." Risa put the phone down. "To be honest, I think I'm losing faith in the vlogging idea. We have to record, edit, and then release. That's a lot of work that I'm not that willing to do. Unless someone else does all of the work for me. Hey, Yuri!"

Risa was shocked to see that Yuri was incredibly busy. She was typing on the keyboard of the computer at ludicrous speeds.

"Yuri, what are you doing? Are you writing a story? Coding?" Risa asked.

Whatever she was doing, she was writing something. And that something looked like kajdsfab.sdnblhwg dfd k kjS manb kf er gek erjh zoidbdf l kSN b fd/l earui dfl;k dfo odpklr hdpui grndf b fknjb or something like that but longer. Risa had no idea what it meant, but Yuri knew fully well what she was doing.

"Done," Yuri said.

"Anyway, do you want to be my camera girl, editor, and manager?"

Yuri shook her head and left the room.

"I guess that's a no," Risa said.

"I don't know how you could interpret it any other way!" Kasumi said.

"Where is Yuri going?" Megumi asked.

"I don't know," Kasumi said, "She just does that sometimes. Probably the bathroom or something. She doesn't like asking for permission."

Yuri was, in fact, heading to the bathroom. She didn't need to use it, but she just felt like it. Do you ever feel like that? It was like going to the fridge to open it and see if anything was added since the last time you checked. Or probably not. She was probably just getting away from everyone. She didn't hate people. Just wanted to recharge somewhere. So, the bathroom was the perfect excuse. It was nature's calling, after all.

However, her solace would be briefly interrupted. Mrs. Hiiragi was carrying a comedically tall stack of papers, and she saw Yuri paperless.

"Hey, Yuri," she said, "Can you be a sweetheart and carry this comedically tall stack of papers to the principal's office? It's really important."

Yuri being Yuri, she couldn't say no to this proposition. In fact, she couldn't say yes to it either. Mrs. Hiiragi's eyes were covered by the mass of papers. So, no amount of shaking of the head could convey Yuri's wants, and before she could muster up a 'no', Mrs. Hiiragi put the tower of papers in Yuri's hands.

"Thank you so much, Yuri. You are a lifesaver," Mrs. Hiiragi said.

Yuri didn't have too much say in the matter. So, she just skedaddled away to the general direction of the principal's office.

After a minute or so of skedaddling, she realized that she didn't know where the principal's office was. Now, this wasn't a situation that hasn't happened before. In fact, you were there, but she didn't want a repeat of that situation. Or to be more specific, she didn't want to ask that tall guy for directions again. That was it really. She didn't have any more problems. However, there was a large possibility of that happening because Yuri couldn't really see who was in front of her. (Well, it wasn't a large possibility, but it was much bigger than usual.) Now, the average person would look to the side and see whether or not the person they were asking was the tall guy, but Yuri was special. She decided that the best course of action would be to be near a flight of stairs, and if the person whom she asked had the voice of the tall guy, she will immediately throw herself down the stairs. Now, it was a task of finding the stairs. She wandered around until she found the stairs and then she walked up to the nearest person she could detect and said "Help."

"That's a big stack there. Let me split it," said a male voice. Luckily it wasn't the tall guy's voice.

The boy picked up the upper stack of the papers, and she could finally see the person she was talking to.

"Fried chicken," she said.

"Oh, it's you, Yuri," Ben Dover said. It would probably be easier to just call him Ben. "Fancy seeing you here. Where do these papers go?"

"Principal's office."

"Okay then. Do you know where that is?"

Yuri shook her head.

"Okay, follow me then."

Ben walked down the stairs, and Yuri followed.

"So, how have you been?" he asked.

"Good."

"Do you like this school?"

"Yes."

"I love this school, personally. Do you know what I like about this school? The community. The people seem to know each other. There are a bunch of friend groups that seem to have their own little things, and there aren't any 'popular' kids. Of course, there are people who know a lot of people, but it isn't like in the movies where there are the popular kids, and everyone else is below them. There isn't a pecking order or anything. You know, now that I think about it. Does a pecking order exist anywhere? I mean, I'm almost certain that it doesn't exist here, but I'm not sure if I ever saw it in real life. The way that movies portray it is surreal. You are telling me that some schools have the cafeteria split up so that the jocks have their own spot and the nerds get the worst spot or something. I swear the main character of some of these stories is like 'You see, the farther out you are from the middle, the less popular you are, and I sit on the very corner of the cafeteria. I'm so sad.' I understand that some people can be more popular than others and life is unfair, but it seems like there's a goddamn caste system in some schools, apparently. I have a feeling that the authors of these stories told themselves that they were unpopular and then made up this complicated totem pole that all of high school revolves around. Frankly, I haven't seen any of that around here. But then again I might just be lucky. Maybe I'm at the top of the food chain, and I'm just unaware. Maybe everyone is nice to me because I accidentally threw myself at the top of the popularity pyramid. You didn't talk to me because you thought I was popular, right?"

"No."

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it. But I guess you would also be on the top of the popularity list since you nearly shut down the school with the number of love letters you got. Oh, wait. I forgot that you probably don't like to talk about that."

"It's fine."

"That's good to know. I guess we are two accidentally popular people, but I guess I can't talk about myself. My friend group isn't that big. We are just a bunch of guys who don't have girlfriends yet. I wouldn't say that we are at the peak of popularity. Not that I'm complaining. Popularity is just some facade that people aim to get. It's like becoming famous. You want a lot of people to like you and care about you, but that isn't going to fix all of your problems. You'll find other ways to suffer. However, popularity still sounds good. If I could get all of the ladies and friends without any effort, that would be great, but that's not how things work. People just don't act like that. There isn't a cheat code to get all of the attention you desire, and if there was, I don't think the attention is genuine. You can fantasize about becoming popular, but you aren't going to reach your wildest expectations."

"Expectations?"

"Yeah, expectations. I think a lot of people are disappointed because of expectations. You think that this will fix your life. This is the final trick you need. No, nothing will fix your life. Probably. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being overdramatic. Some people say that there was one magic trick that fixed their life. However, that's one magic trick for one person. It doesn't fit everyone. And even if it did, people have too high of expectations to use it. For example, smiling is said to increase your popularity, but not everyone likes to smile all of the time. I imagine you to be one of those people. You are kinda stonefaced, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Right. You don't have to smile. It could help. I won't say that some piece of advice wouldn't work for you, but that doesn't mean that it will work 100% of the time or fix your life. It's not like your smile and everyone starts paying attention to you like you are a supermodel on a runway or a movie star on a red carpet. People who say that this piece of advice worked for them are the winners. You don't hear from the losers, which is a lot of people. Many people have tried to get rich quick schemes and ended up poorer because of it. In fact, those kinds of schemes do tend to be straight-out scams. So, I don't know how viable of advice that is. I imagine stand up straight and keep your head high is more practical than invest in this business that sells overpriced knives. I don't know."

Yuri didn't say anything.

"Well, anyway, this is the principal's office. Would you like my number? Just in case you need anything."

Yuri pulled out her phone, and said "Okay." Ben put his number there.

"Nice seeing you. Bye," Ben Dover said. And the character with the funny name left fore- Wait, I already made that joke.