Club Activities / 部活

A full day of classes later, I had my first science club meeting this month. This time around though it was different. We were told two kind souls took the initiative to join our marvelous extracurricular club. What made it even more dissimilar was the class they were from, class 1-3. That’s right. Two first-years joining our ranks. What a day to be alive.

We were all inside, discussing our usual matters.

“Nishimura, did we end up cleaning everything else?”

“If I’m not mistaken, we still need to clean the remaining beakers and the flasks.”

“Really? There aren’t many left though, no?”

“Fortunately, no. Just the ones we forgot.”

Suzuki wasn't paying attention to our talk at all. He was preparing the stage for the newcomers.

“Let’s make it quick then. I certainly wouldn’t like their first impression of their upperclassmen to be one of three lazy club members. Suzuki, help us out! Two or three per each of us and we’ll do this in no time.”

“Don’t count with me.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you see I’m busy with the preparations of their first experiment?”

“Your experiment can wait.”

“No can do.”

That damn guy was persistent. Up to a certain point though. Sadly for him, while I was usually friendly, Nishimura was rather straightforward, to put it lightly.

His “No can do” attitude briskly changed when he slowly shifted his eyes to the person standing next to me. That frightening look on her face. Truly scary. It contained enough anger for both of us with more to spare.

“Ah, now that I think of it, I was just finishing it! Give me a few seconds!”

Liar. He was shivering with fear of his classmate. Well, at least he decided to help. I don’t want to be that kind of person, but her ominous aura was just what we needed to persuade him to aid us.

We all rushed to finish our cleaning chores. It was going well until the two new members showed up at our doorstep when we were about to finish it.

“Umm, is this the science club?”

“According to what we were told, it should be.”

A girl and a boy. The promised package had arrived, though at a far-from-ideal moment. I ordered a fellow club member to show them around.

“You’re right, this is indeed the science club. Suzuki, can you please show them the place?”, 

“Consider it done!”

That was a task for the one and only true science addict in the room.

Kinoshita, the girl who earlier showed more confidence towards the information they were given, apologized for appearing out of nowhere at a bad time for us.

“Ah, I’m sorry for interrupting you!”

“Don’t worry about that, he will show you around! If there are any doubts, he should be able to clear them,” Nishimura comforted them.

“Exactly! Come on, you two, let’s start with the material we have!”

Except something was off. Didn’t take him long to realize Nishimura was acting infinitely friendlier towards the freshmen than she ever did when directing her speech to him. In his mind all he could think of was “Huh? Wait… why is she acting so kind now?”, sighing, “She never does that with me…,” now wishing he was the first-year there.

Following the tour’s end and the cleaning of the remaining material, we all introduced each other to our brand-new members. Kinoshita questioned us on what we were planning on doing today.

“Say, what will we do today?”

“Glad you ask!”, he looked very confident, but that confidence vanished as soon as he forgot the following words, “Uhhh, Ishida, what was it?”

“You did say you wanted to do something with bananas, as it was a simple one, good for starters.”

“Ah, I remember now! Last week we all agreed on recreating gel bananas! Mhm, I even bought some fresh ones yesterday!”

The hot-headed girl held back more than usual, but still expressed her anger at her colleague’s stupidity.

“Did you leave your brain at home? It has nothing to do with microwaves," she turned to the newcomers and apologized, "Sorry for my colleague, he can be pretty dumb sometimes.”

Ouch.

“Anyway, what we’re doing does have something to do with bananas.”

“Yes. We’ll be analyzing the DNA of those bananas over there. If we have time, we can also do the same with strawberries,” I clarified.

“Ohh that’s so cool, Senpai!”

“Kinoshita aren’t you too excited?”, the other first-year remarked.

“What? This is really awesome, why wouldn’t I be excited?”

“Stop it, you two! Wait here while I go get the material.”

Suzuki and I were surprised to see our fellow long-time member be so cordial. In a lower tone, we remarked how it was exceptional and remarkable to see her like that, committed to making the newbies feel at home.

“Ishida, did you give her some drug or anything of the sort? That’s very different from the Nishimura I know.”

“Not really. Although, to be honest, it also surprised me how hard she’s trying to make them feel at ease.”

“Got to take advantage of it while it lasts!”, he giggled.

“Yeah.”

That single word of agreement might have come off as a soft response, but I truly meant it. It was really nice to get to see her soft side, even if she kept it only to when the two first-years were present. I had already seen it previously, though not often enough to leave an impression as lasting as the one her cold side left on me. Intentional or not, it was showing—just like both of us, she deeply cared about this small science club as well.

“Hey, you two. Instead of standing there, come here and lend me a hand.”

“A-Alright!”

I answered Nishimura's call readily, glad that, for once, all three of us upperclassmen were acting accordingly.

While I was performing scientific experiments with them, Yokoyama and Kimura were at their own club.

Yokoyama was preparing to serve. She closed her fist and faintly swung it back and forth while the other hand held the ball, as if waiting for the right moment to perform the service. Suddenly, she let go of it, gently throwing the ball vertically. As the ball began descending, she propelled it forward with that clenched fist.

The spherical object soared through the court, hitting the top of the net and bouncing to the other side with little to no kinetic energy left.

As it smacked the net, someone from the opposing team shouted, “It’s in the net!”, rapidly followed by “It’s dropping, forward, forward!”, with a teammate answering the call for help and stretching herself across the court, with her body parallel to it, nearly touching the floor, saving the team with their forearm dig.

The sphere flew back to where it came from, and Yokoyama, now close to the net, went for it, positioning her arms upwards to receive and toss the ball for someone to spike it.

“Alright, Kimura, we’re counting on you!”, she communicated before tossing, expecting her pass to be successful.

Unluckily, when her hands made contact with the volleyball, the rotating sphere escaped from the two palms, slipping through her fingers, adopting an unintended trajectory. Shocked, she witnessed her faulty toss’s result: the ball was quickly heading to the other edge of their half of the court, with no one seemingly able to reach out for it before the object touched the opposite side of the floor.

As the opponents thought it was over after that disastrous toss, a certain teammate of Yokoyama’s came dashing from one side of the court to the other at a blistering speed. That was none other than Sakurai Kimura.

She jumped high, faced the open spot, and prepared to spike.

The adversaries rushed to that side of the court, but it was all too late now, though one pointlessly stretched out her arm, in hopes of blocking the spike.

The spiker imbued the sphere with frightening speed, crossing the net and landing—just outside the end line, sadly.

As the ball landed, Kimura suffered the consequences of her drastic attempt to fix her friend’s mistake. She was sent flying beyond the limits of the sidelines, falling to the floor.

“Ahhh, Kimura!”

Yokoyama was worried about the outcome of that heroic jump of hers.

The referee whistled, signaling the end of the game and the opposing team’s winning point. 23-25. That was the final score.

Yokoyama approached her friend and reached out an arm, helping her get back up.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she grabbed her hand and pushed it, getting back on her feet.

“Jeez, you’re crazy sometimes.”

“I got carried away!”, she said, laughing it off.

One of their opponents greeted Kimura, aiming to shake hands.

“Good game! This was a very close one.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to play one more?”

“Sorry, I can’t. Maybe next week?”

“Sure thing. We’ll play one more before heading out. Yokoyama, do you want to join us?”

“Oh, no. I’m also done for today.”

“Okay, see you both next time.”

She entered the court again and asked if the remaining members were down to play another match, “Girls, want to go at it one more time?”, right as the two girls made their way to the dressing rooms.

Now back to their school uniforms, Yokoyama and Kimura talked as they walked, exiting the building.

“Kimura, was there any reason why you didn’t want to continue playing? You’re typically the kind of person who plays until they can’t no more.”

“Good question! That’s because I am going to begin studying for midterms later today!”

“Already?”

“Of course! I can’t slack off, got to keep my grades on par or better even than last year’s!”

“Now you reminded me of Ueno, he’s also kind of a workaholic.”

“Ehhh? W-Where did that come from? I do know when to stop. Besides, I’m simply making sure I enter the university I want.”

“Ah, forgive me then. Say, any chance we could study together?”

“OOHHH! Yes! Of course! Do you want to begin today?”

“Kimura, you’re too close.”

“Ahhh, I am sorry. It has just been a long time since Ishida ditched me to study alone, or in favor of that new girl.”

“You mean Natsuko?”

“Yeah.”

As they approached the limits of the school grounds, they noticed the cherry blossoms still thriving, with elegant petals still floating in the air.

“Time really flies, doesn’t it? Those two have been living in the same house for a month now. I can’t stress how lucky that guy is, with a cute girl next to him every day!”

“I know, right?”

“I wonder if they’re already dating.”

“Knowing Ishida well, he doesn’t have the guts to ask her out. He can be pretty shy, especially around girls.”

“Yes, I’ve come to notice that. Though… that’d suck because I would really love to see some action between them.”

As she finished the sentence, Kimura spotted me leaving the school, coming from the right.

Noticing them, I patched my path in order to unite with my two friends.

“Speak of the devil…,” the volleyball star commented.

“Hey, you two. I take it your club activities are over for today.”

“Mhm,” Yokoyama said, “I thought Natsuko was with you?”

Joining them, all three of us headed to the bus stop.

“She recently joined the Math club and hasn’t finished today’s activities yet. I sent her a message, don’t worry.”

“Sheesh, that’s not how you treat your lover.”

“Yokoyama, that’s not funny in the slightest. Let me remind you my life is not a shoujo manga.”

“Yes, yes, my sincere apologies. Are you headed home?”

“Yeah. You two?”

Kimura put her arm around Yokoyama’s back, as if to include her in whatever crazy plan she had in mind.

“We’re going to study together, right?”

“Ye—Kimura, that’s too tight!”

“Ah, sorry.”

“…Right, but where are you going? Where will you be studying?”

“Ummm…”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Seriously?”, I monotonously remarked, “You two haven’t decided where and were still walking towards the bus stop? For her it makes sense, but last time I checked, you don’t live on this side of the city, Kimura.”

“You know you can be quite annoying sometimes, Ishida.”

“Very fitting of you to say that, Kimura.”

“Cut it out, you two. We’ll be doing it at my place.”

Her unamused posture swiftly changed into one brewing with excitement, demonstrating her impressive innate skill to jump between facial expressions faster than the stock market changed stock prices. She jumped and tightly hugged her friend.

“Yaaayyy!!!”

“Kimura, that’s way too close.”

Pure lack of amusement in her eyes. “Is personal space that much of a foreign concept to this woman?”, she uttered to herself.

Acknowledging it was getting late for me, and realizing I still had to pick up a manga volume I ordered at a bookshop near my house, I said my goodbyes.

“Well, I’ll be going. See you.”