Literature Club

In our school, the kids are very very carefree. Usually, this school is not a student's first preference and most ambitious students go for prestigious private schools. I chose this place because Saeko went here, so I wonder if she left anything behind in here...

"We should do another thing," Hikari suggested out of the blue. "Did you know there's a literature club in our high school? They don't have many members, so it's about to get shut."

"I thought clubs like that have a lot of interested students. How come no one joined?" Yamato asked. "It's so unpopular I haven't even heard of it."

"What has that to do with us?" I asked Hikari. "It's not like any of us read a lot of books."

Yamato made an offended face, "Hey, don't bring me in the same category as you two. I'm a big Akutagawa fan. I get even better grades in Japanese than you, Souma."

"Wow, I suck at it," Hikari said with a dillydally tone. "Anyways, I know an alumni from our school, and he told me Saeko was in the Literature club. She wanted to recruit more members but no one really joined." Yamato awkwardly laughed not knowing what to say. He must be uncomfortable with how often we keep talking about my dead sister like this. But he has a sister too, so he'd understand.

"Whom do you know?" Hikari did not look like he'd tell me. I sighed and let it go. "I don't think Saeko was much of a literature person. She didn't really have any proper hobbies."

"She joined because they didn't have enough members."

"As much as I'm interested in what she was up to, I'm not joining some dying club and I don't even think I can read so much in one sitting." I stretched my arms and stood up. "Want to check out the club room before we go home? Yamato, this time you're not leaving without us." I glared at him.

We went to the corner of the second floor. It was a tiny storeroom and when we got inside, there was one big window, a few cardboard boxes lying around, an alarm clock and two chairs inside. The room looked so cramped that even just three people seemed to not fit in there comfortably. Hikari refused to come inside, complaining about the dust and shouting dramatically about something like, "I have a bad experience with dirty things!" It wasn't that dirty.

"If there's no one here, then how come the room isn't locked?" Yamato asked glancing out from the window. "And this window looks like no one closes it. That's why it's so dusty in here."

"Uh... the door lock is broken." A very quiet voice spoke from outside the door. "I'm sorry, no one really comes over so I never clean up." We looked over there and saw a girl standing next to Hikari. She wore thick glasses and her bangs were clipped to both sides of her face. The rest of her hair was short and straight, sort of reminding me of Saeko's haircut.

"You three are first years? What are you doing here?" She asked cautiously. "I'm the only member using this room. There's nothing to steal here."

"Rude! Senpai, how can you think we're here to steal? And you already forgot about me! We just met this morning!" Hikari rambled to her. She whispered something along the lines of, "Ehh? Really?" And that just got Hikari talking more. "How do you read so many books and still have such a bad memory?" He folded his arms and tapped his shoes like a stubborn child.

"If I forget something, I'll just read it again." She laughed very silently. It was impressive how one could laugh without a sound.

"Me too, Senpai," Yamato said from before. "I also keep forgetting things. But you can't really forget things that really matter, you know?" He walked out and stood next to her. They made eye contact for a second, "Oh, I'm Yamato Takahashi, from 1-A." He smiled and raised his hand expecting a handshake.

"Emi Fujiwara, 3-B" She shook his hand. "If you want to look around, then sure do. But you won't find anything useful. I use cardboard boxes to keep old books our Senpais donated years ago, and the alarm clock to wake me up if I fall asleep by accident. The window just keeps the room ventilated. I'll tell you beforehand though, no snacks are allowed inside the room. I don't want a roach infestation before I graduate from here."

She got inside and started to organize the boxes in a more symmetric way. She didn't have anything on her to wipe the dust with, so she tried to wipe it with her finger. She had to give up quickly because the layer was too thick.

"Have you heard of Saeko Ayato? She used to be a club member here." I asked.

"How long ago? I just know the seniors who graduated last year."

"I think she graduated like three years ago... Yeah, around that." It'd be weirder if she remembered something like that. "She was my older sister, she passed away recently," I added and that surprised her.

"Oh, my condolences for her. I'm sorry, I don't know anything from when I hadn't joined this school..." Yamato sat down on one of the chairs and she sat down on the other, me and Hikari stood opposite the window. The wind blew gently over my ear and under my shirt collar, giving a chilling sensation. I wonder if Hikari found it as refreshing as I did.

"Three years ago..." She started. "I think that's when that weird thing happened and people stopped joining our club... one of the members argued with the Student Council about something... and they cut the club's budget even lower than before. Something like that happened, now that I think about it."

"He didn't tell me about that." Hikari looked down at his feet. "He just told me Saeko wanted more people to join the club— but no one wanted to join a boring club like this..." He looked upset and I had no idea why. I could do nothing to help that.

"I think a member slapped the Council President or something." She recalled. "Sorry, I'm not sure. I've just heard stories about it from my two seniors. Literature is usually popular among students, but no one even knows about this club since the budget is impossibly small."

I glanced at Hikari, and his face looked hurt and sort of mad. As if he was going to give someone a good long hearing about something they did wrong. I looked around the club room again, and yeah, it looked as if not one new thing had been bought for years. Even the plastic from the chairs was scraping off from sunlight damage.

We both were out of questions. It wasn't as if we could do anything for the dying club.

"Can I join the club?" Yamato suddenly asked and it surprised all of us. "There were no posters about the literature club when our school term started, so I didn't know about it."

"Do you read?" She asked suspiciously.

"A little bit. I'd like to learn more from Senpai." He smiled cheekily. It seemed to make her happy, so she started showing him books from the cardboard boxes. Me and Hikari found a chance and slipped out quickly and Yamato completely ignored us. How rude.

We walked down the stairs and Hikari stopped midway. I looked at his face and I couldn't breathe. He was crying. "What—" I started but didn't say anything. There's nothing I can help with. Not for Saeko, and not for Hikari. I can't force them to tell me about their problems, and they'll never tell me about their problems.

"He—" Hikari hiccuped and wiped his eyes. "Yuki, that bastard. I hate him. I hate him so much, Souma... Why does he keep doing annoying things, I hate him so much!" Yuki. Where had I heard that before? That was all I could think about for a while. It was a name, Hikari gave me a name.

I placed a hand on his shoulder and he shrunk in closer, digging his head onto my shoulder. I felt his tears soaking up my shirt and he kept sobbing. I put my hand on his head and let him cry it out. "I miss her." He whispered so softly, I could barely make out what he had said.

"Me too." We stood there for a long time.