Gardening can be a bit of a mess at times.

There it was, the cultural building. A building Goda had quite frankly forgotten even existed. Not surprising, up to this point he'd only ever inhabited the opposite side of campus, where the baseball field, gymnasium and other sports clubs congregated. As if spurred by this realization, a discomforting sense of unfamiliarity began to creep through Goda's person.

Calm down moron. It's not like your defecting across the border into another country, just searching for the plant people. That actually sounded worse than defecting, and more like the summary of some science fiction novel. "Plants vs High Schoolers, Rise of the Plant People!" they'll call it. In stores near you!

 More importantly, was this even the right building? It had to be, right? The club name had the word culture in it and everything. Suddenly dissuaded by the very real possibility that the horticulture club might be elsewhere, Goda decided he'd circle the building a few times before entering. Just so he could build a little confidence and get a story straight if his fears proved true and his incompetence known.      

Turning the corner on his first pass around the building, he stopped when he saw a female student struggling to lift something by the storage sheds out back. He got a little closer without making his presence known and saw that the student was a second year with glasses. A glasses-senpai then. The thing she was unsuccessfully trying to lift appeared to be a large bag of dirt. Despite the girl's continued struggles, Goda noticed that what she lacked in strength was more than made up for in unwavering determination. As rather than be discouraged or give up, she kept repositioning herself in different ways in an effort to move the bag. It was all quite moving actually, with the right accompaniment it might've even moved him to tears.  

As Goda watched this delicate dance between the immovable object and the unstoppable force something registered in his head regarding the contents of the bag. It is dirt isn't it, and plants needed dirt to grow. He couldn't imagine there'd be a club outside of horticulture that would be in need of such volumes. Meaning there was a strong likelihood that glasses-senpai was a member of the plant people he was looking for! Not that he wouldn't have offered her help if she wasn't.

Having determined his next steps, Goda walked over between attempts and cleared his throat to get the girl's attention. She, who'd been in the middle of cleaning her glasses at the time of his provocation, jumped slightly at the sudden noise.    

"Need some help with that?" He pointed to the bag on the ground, which upon closer look could very well be half of glasses-senpai's weight if not more. Depending on whether she was wearing glasses or not. A certain anime he'd been recommended had taught him as much.  

"Oh! I'd really appreciate it actually." She offered a tired smile.

"Step aside glasses-senpai, you did well hanging on as long as you did. But leave the rest to your kouhai."

She watched him with a somewhat confused expression but gave a nod nonetheless, stepping aside to give better access.

"You had the right idea by the way, but you really need to get under it before lifting with your legs." Goda squatted down, getting up close and personal with the dirt, uniform be damned, and hoisted it into a standing position. Upon confirming his grip on the bag was satisfactory, he looked to glasses-senpai for further instruction.

She clapped her hands in an exaggerated form reverence and motioned for him to follow her...away from the cultural building. 

"Is this bag of dirt not meant for the cultural building?"

"Of course not silly, and that's not a bag of dirt. It's a bag of fertilizer."

"Fertilizer?" Goda had heard that term before. Also plant related if he wasn't mistaken. 

"A natural fertilizer no less, made from organic materials." 

"Oh yeah, what kind of organic stuff we talking?"

"Mostly plant and animal waste."

Goda paused for a moment before tittering to himself, "Animal waste huh."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Gardening can be a bit of a mess at times."

"Oh, it's no problem. Just thinking about when I get home later and my older sister asks what I did today. Now I can tell her that I took care of all sorts of shit."

Glasses-senpai offered a gentle laugh and turned off the walkway towards what looked to be another shed of the garden variety, situated beside a small gardening plot. She fished a key from her pocket and unlocked the shed door, directing a thumb to its interior. 

"You can drop it inside with the other gardening shit."

Goda laughed as he placed the fertilizer inside and lifted one of his now free hands toward glasses-senpai.

"Nice one."

She smiled and responded to the high-five proposition in kind. 

"Normally I'd hold my tongue, but since you were so helpful I settled on a last second manure-ver."

"Would have been a waste otherwise, am I right."

"And we already have plenty of that lying around."

Goda was officially a fan of glasses-senpai. As despite her otherwise quaint appearance, she was turning out to be a riot. Not a bad way to start his second day of suspension. Speaking of.

"Hey glasses-senpai?"

"Glasses-senpai is a bit...well I suppose I haven't introduced myself. Tanji Suzume, nice to meet you."

"Tanji-san then. Does a Nakahara come around here often?"

"Nakahara-chan? That's right, in fact she's the one who usually handles the heavy lifting."

"Just not today."

"Correct. It seems she had to visit the student council after class today."

Goda digested the new information as Tanji strolled over to the garden and crouched down to inspect the leaves of one of the plants.

 "Think she'll swing by afterwards?"

"I didn't get that impression. Is Nakahara-chan a friend of yours?"

"Work in progress more like. We only met yesterday after all."

"I see."

Having decided his next course of action Goda dusted the debris from his shirt and supplied a small wave before turning to leave. 

"Feel free to come by anytime."

It wasn't until after he'd gone that Tanji realized she'd never gotten her helpful kouhai's name. He'd skipped over his own introduction in favor of resuming the question. For the time being she'd just have to apply a placeholder. Something that accounted for the assistance he'd offered today. 

"Ah! That'll work."