I Accidentally Triggered The Erratic Childhood-Friend Route! (Part 2)

“Tomoyaaa!”

A bubbly feminine voice calls out, shattering my moment of resolve.

Unfortunately…yes—it seems the timing indeed could have been better

A lot better.

Frankly, at this point, I would have settled for even just half-decent timing.

I watch as not Haruki, but Yuki Yuka (友希 優花), twirls into the student council room.

Her brown twintails swing back and forth as she prances toward me, the buns at their base bouncing with each step—each one styled like a swirly cinnamon roll, perfectly matching her equally sweet demeanor.

As she arrives in front of me, she grabs a chair, her each and every movement broad and expressive, filled with an endearing flair—as if all perfectly calculated with ruthless efficiency to maximize her cuteness.

And yet, somehow it all comes naturally.

She spins the chair around the wrong way and wrests her elbows on the backrest, stacking her hands and resting her chin on top of them as she looks up at me with her big pink eyes.

“Sooo…watcha doin’?” she asks, tilting her head.

“Paperwork.” I give her a tired smile, gesturing to the mountain of documents on my desk.

“Boring!” Yuka pulls out an extra school bag she keeps just for snacks, flips it upright, and dumps everything out. She then sprawls the contents across my desk in a colorful display—completely uninvited.

“I don’t think it’s good for you to always be doing so much paperwork, Tomoya.”

“Yeah, I, uh…I’m not exactly doing this because I find it fun, Yuka.”

I start to reply but get distracted by the impressive speed at which she’s powering through the snacks she’s just laid out—followed by an even more impressive mess of crumbs and wrappers.

“Yeah, no, that’s fine. You can just leave that all over my desk, I’m sure someone else will clean that up for you,” I chide.

With her words muffled by a mouthful of food, she points a candy bar at me and retorts, “You know, I’m great at eating sweets—just not so good at the other parts of the process.”

She resumes shredding through wrappers.

“By the way, I have just a teeeensy favor to ask,” she says, motioning with her hand before reaching into her bag and pulling out a blank history worksheet.

“I kindaaa forgot to do the homework last night.”

She leans in and whispers.

“Any chance I could take a quick peek at yours?”

“Bold of you to cheat right in the middle of the student council room, Mrs. Yuki” our student council treasurer jabs from the desk next to mine.

“Bold of you to sell me these snacks on school grounds earlier without approval,” she fires back.

Giving a playful shrug, our only slightly corrupt treasurer goes back to doing paperwork.

“Sooo?” Yuka turns her attention back to me, completely ignoring the handful of student council members she’s unabashedly trying to cheat in front of.

“Oh Yuka…and here I thought, my dear dear childhood friend simply wanted to pay me a visit and enjoy a lovely conversation with me—only for it to turn out she was simply using me, I don’t know how I’ll ever recover,” I declaim, putting on an exaggerated, sarcastic performance.

“I want to talk to you! I just…”

She turns her head away, trying to suppress the guilty look on her face.

“…want to copy your homework while doing it.”

Ever unable to say no to her—the same way a grandparent struggles not to spoil their adorable grandchild—I let out a sigh, pull out my homework, and hand it over.

“Fine.”

I do this with a twinge of guilt, knowing full well I’m part of the problem…and probably only further enabling this kind of behavior.

“Thaaaaank youuuuu!”

She rips open a plastic wrapper containing two of her favorite pastries—frosted cinnamon rolls—and offers me one.

She gives me a smug, conniving grin as I accept it, like she just outsmarted me into taking a bribe and relinquishing my ability to testify against her in court.

She leans in and whispers in my ear—

“Now we’re both criminals.”

Blindsided by her absurd statement, I can’t help but let out an involuntary chuckle, shaking my head.

“There you go Tomoya!” she says, slapping me on the back.

“Everything’s not all bad, is it?”

I grab a napkin from my bag, set the pastry on it to eat later, and get back to work.

As she works her way through most of her snacks, she finally gets to the cinnamon rolls she always saves for last. As she eats one, her face lights up with such pure, unadulterated bliss that I can’t help but start getting hungry myself.

As I pick up mine and go to take a bite, I catch Yuka out of the corner of my eye blindly reaching for the other cinnamon roll—only to realize it’s gone.

She slowly turns to me, eyes glassy, lip quivering, wearing a wounded puppy-dog expression as if she’s on the verge of tears.

I sigh and hand over the other roll, which she devours loudly without a hint of remorse.

We continue to chit chat as I do my paperwork and as she copies my answers.

A shared childhood friend of ours, Yuka has known both me and Haruki almost as long as we’ve known each other, and has often hung out with us. While she’s a distracting intrusion whenever I’m trying to do work, I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t a welcome one.

She’s not exactly the brightest or most considerate person, but she’s got a big heart and carries an infectious positivity she enjoys spreading to others. That’s probably why, even though she was initially dragged into the student council with us as more of a package deal—taking up the role of Head Of Public Relations—she’s actually filled it shockingly well.

While the position hasn’t historically been taken all that seriously here, with many of its responsibilities often having been delegated to others, her early work on the newsletter, school bulletin board, social media page, and club promotion has been so well received that people are starting to look at the role in a different light.

Like Haruki, she absolutely radiates positive vibes, but rather than his gentle, calming warmth, hers is more of an energizing sweetness.

I feel myself getting recharged just by being around her, and before I know it, I’ve pushed through the last of my paperwork.

We finish at the same time, and as she hands my worksheet back, I ask her.

“I don’t know how you manage to stay carefree while bending the rules so often. Don’t you ever worry about a teacher catching you or something?”

“It's okay, I can get away with it ‘cause I’m cute,” she says, tilting her head and pressing a finger into each cheek.

“I don’t know how long you can go through life relying on that.”

“It’s worked so far!”

“Think that’d work for me? I’m in desperate need of a cheat code right about now.”

She pats my shoulder and looks at me with the kind of pity you’d reserve for a small child who’s just been told Santa Claus isn’t real.

“Based on how your first few weeks have gone? I think we both already know the answer.”

“I can be cute!” I jokingly protest “I’ve got this hairclip—that’s pretty quirky, right?” I point at the blue, river-shaped clip in my hair, a gift from my parents and a nod to the Ubakawa family name.

“You’re right. The way it matches the purple bags under your eyes? So cute.”

“Yeah, I’m, uh…a bit exhausted.”

“You know, you’ve been that way ever since school started, I wonder why?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“Yeah, I wonder why?” I remark, again waving my hand to present all the paperwork spread out in front of me. “Speaking of which, I need you to help me deliver these envelopes to the addressed teachers today. All you have to do is get their signatures then bring them back to me.”

“I mean, I could…but there’s kind of a problem.”

“What?”

“That would be boring, and I don’t want to?”

“Yeah, I’m aware. But I did just give you all the answers to your homework, so…you think you could maybe help me?”

“Uh…did I mention I’m cute?”

I lightly smack her on the head with the envelopes.

“Okay, fine,” she says, rubbing her head.

As she puts the envelopes in her bag and gets up to leave, I hear the sound of girls squealing.

I glance over as the student council room door opens again—and Haruki steps inside.