Fundraiser

“Welcome everyone, it’s me Maika for you cuties that haven’t met me yet. Thank you all for helping with today’s school festival fundraiser. I can feel the excitement hanging in the air! So this is the schedule for today, in the morning we will be making the cookie dough and setting up the stalls and in the afternoon we will bake, deliver and sell them to the entire city. We can do it!”

“Mona, shouldn’t you have done the speech since you're organizing the event?” Ti asked.

“Well, it’s impossible to involve Maika in something without her taking over every little detail of it. At least that gives me more time to play some games and pet the cat”

“Cat? You mean in the monster world online?”

“Ehhh.. yeah that is what I meant” Mona almost spilled the beans about the cat to Ti, which she still hasn’t told her about.

“Anyway, it’s been a while since we played some games in your room together, are you up for it tonight?”

 “Mmm… maybe some other time”

Yuki's dorm room

Shakingly, Serena is standing at the door of a dorm room she has never been to before. It was number 386 right? Serena takes a little note out of her bag and compares it to the number on the door one last time. While Serena was still gathering the courage to knock on the door, she heard a soft voice coming from behind her.

 “Serena is that you?”

Serena turned around and there stood Yuki who apparently wasn’t even in her room.

“H..hi”

“Please come in”

Yuki opened the door with her key and the two girls went in together. Serena stopped in the middle of the room.

“Please sit down” Yuki pointed at a chair and Serena went to sit down.

“So how can I help you?”

Serena started twisting a strain of her hair again before quietly whispering.

“I have a question about the f..festival”

Serena took a brief pause.

“Are you the treasurer?”

“Correct”

“How much does it c...cost?”

“You want to know how much funds you need to raise in order to continue the festival?”

“Y..yes”

Yuki grabbed one of the many stacks of paper that were lying on her desk and started spitting through them. She pointed at a number which has been circled with a red marker. As Serena realized they would never be able to raise this number by selling some cookies, she immediately wanted to leave the room.

“Sorry for b..bothering you” 

As Serena was about to stand up and leave, Yuki told her to stay for just a little longer.

“Wait, I want to show you something”

Yuki grabbed another page from her desk and show it to Serena. It turned out to be a page from a novel Yuki was writing.

“It is a draft”

After Serena had read it, she took back the page and started reading it out loud to Serena. To Serena’s big surprise, Yuki sounded really excited and cheery compared to her regular calm and cold voice. Yuki noticed Serena’s surprise.

“Remember, I am not Yuki, I am Kotsuki”

 “Yuki is shy, Kotsuki is not”

Serena looked at Yuki with confusion-filled eyes.

“Have you ever thought about why looks like reading novels? For a minute you can be someone else. You can get in their heads. Someone who is not like you”

Yuki gave the page back to Serena.

“Please, read it out loud”

Serena hesitantly started to read the page.

“Could you do it again, but like Kotsuki. Remember, you are not Serena, you are Kotsuki”

Serena initially didn’t know what to do, she wanted to hide and run away again, but she could see Yuki was trying to tell her something. Although she initially stumbled over her words, she was eventually able to read the paragraph with way more confidence than she usually did.

“You’re getting the hang of it.”

After some practice, Serena kept getting better and better at capturing the character.

 “Just like you hear her in your head, don’t you?”

After a brief silence, Serena asked Yuki.

“C..can I come back to the literature club?”

“Of course, I can help you practice”

 Serena and Yuki decided on meeting again the next day to practice reading the book the literature club choose out loud.

The fundraiser

When the other asked Serena if she figured out the required amount to raise for the festival, she just ignored them and pretended she’d never mustered the courage to go ask Yuki. In reality, she knew that telling them the real number would bring down their positive spirits. Who knows, maybe the fundraiser is really successful and they will be able to manage it just fine.

On the day of the fundraiser, Serena helped Nia with preparing the dough and baking the cookies while Mona and Ti were at the stall in front of the school, selling cookies to passerbys

Selling freshly baked cookies!” Ti yelled like a real stallholder.

“Maid cookies… made for you by cute maids! You like maids don’t you?” Mona followed, it sounded a bit like she was mocking Ti.

“Why maid cookies Mona?”

“Maids make everything better right?”

“Yeah sure…”

Yuki's dorm room

The next day Serena went back to Yuki’s room. Yuki showed her the section she would like to have Serena read at the next literature club meeting. After some practice, Serena was able to get it right.

 “You did great Serena, I think you will be ready for tomorrow”

“I will try my best”

The next day the two of them went to the club meeting together.

Alright Serena, your turn to read. Do your best!” said Maika who had been instructed by Yuki to give this part to Serena.

Although they practiced quite a lot, Serena still felt really nervous. 

She started twisting her hair.

 “Ehh. ehhh”

Yuki turned to Serena and put her hand on her shoulder

“You can do this, Serena”

Serena took a deep breath and then started reading just as they practiced. Although quite and sometimes hard to understand, Serena managed to read the entire text to the group without major hiccups.

“You did well Serena” said Yuki after Serena was done reading.

“Can I have an applause?”

Maika started clapping and the rest of the club followed.

Serena’s euphoria of being able to read the text before everyone was bigger than the embarrassment of suddenly being the middle point of attention.

“I am so proud of you Serena-chan”

“Could you come to my room later today?”

Asked Yuki at the end of the meeting.

In Yuki’s room, she showed Serena the page of her draft again.

“Remember this?” Serena nodded.

“You did well reading the text out loud. Now I want to leave you with one more thought. Remember Kotsuki is not Yuki. But Kotsuki is written by me. Her words are my words, you see. I learned to use my characters to communicate with people. Talking really so no different than reciting if you think about it. Just write down the words in your head and recite them as if it was a character saying them. A different Serena that finds it a little bit eassier to communicate and share her ideas with others.”

“Thank you for helping me Yuki”

 “I will try my best”

The fundraiser

“Alright everyone, thank you all for this awesome day! I can tell you all put in your energy and the results show. I will hand over all the money collected to the festival’s treasurer who will count it and hopefully it is enough for the festival to continue. I am really looking forward to it!”

“Sadly this is not enough. After subtracting the ingredient costs we are left with about 5% of what we need” Yuki said to the girls the next day when they met up again.

“5%? that means 19 more days like these to go!” said the always optimistic Maika.

But after seeing the look on the other girl’s faces, she soon realized this wouldn’t be possible.

“19 more days like this? Then the dentists will have a full agenda filling all those cavities.” Mona joked.

“Well, I guess there is not much we can do” Ti looked really down

“We will think of something Ti-chan”

Mona and Serena's dorm room

“And then Rika pulled suddenly her sword from her halster. She was feeling a looming danger. Please stop and show yourself. I am not afraid to use it!”

“Please don’t use it on me Rena-chan”

Serena hadn’t realized Mona had entered their dorm room.

She felt embarrassed since she had been reading out loud for practice.

“I heard you joined the literature club again, I am really proud of you Serena. I hope you feeling better.”

Hearing Serena read out loud like that made totally up for Mona’s bad mood caused by the failed fundraiser.

“Can you read me some more?”

Serena proceeded to read to Mona until the two of them fell asleep.