My Senpai Dreams Big.

When I walk through the front door of the salon at seven PM on a Monday, she's back.

It's not unusual for me to come home to my mom servicing a customer. But I'm late today because practice went long, so the salon is closed. And Reika Suzuran is definitely not a customer. She's walking around the place like she owns it, chatting with my mother confidently while she nods at nearly everything the student council president says.

Behind them, Touka follows, desperately trying to peek around Mom's legs and get Reika Suzuran's attention, and trailing in the back is Tamaki, hunched over, holding onto a clipboard for dear life with both hands, frowning and staring lasers at the scene unfolding in front of her.

It's kinda surreal watching this.

They don't notice me come through the front door at first. The president is still talking to my mom. "I've done some research about the prices for a wash and a cut in this area. Most salons are around ¥4000, but you're at ¥5000. Why don't you cut it down to 4, or even 3 and a half? Advertise it as a flash sale. Especially since you're a cash-only business, you can afford lower rates since you don't have any credit card processing fee to worry about. The easiest way to get more customers right off the bat is to lower your prices. They check you out because it's cheap, you win them over with good service, and then when the prices go back up they'll still come back."

"That makes sense..." Mom puts a cupped fist on her chin. "Our prices were set that way because we're working with high overhead, though..."

"What do you have to lose?" The president shrugs her shoulders. "If it doesn't work, you go out of business. Wasn't that what you were already planning to do?"

"When you put it that way..."

"Aikawa-kun!" Shit. She noticed me. "I've already cut about eighteen thousand yen of unnecessary expenses!"

"...How nice of you." I narrow my eyes at her. She doesn't notice. Or maybe she's intentionally ignoring it.

Eighteen thousand...we're over sixty million in debt. That's kinda insulting when you think about it. It's like giving a homeless guy ten yen and expecting him to feed himself with it. Our latest string of Googol reviews are straight one-stars. “Place was dirty”, “Slow”, “I see why no one goes here”, etc.

"I'm going to go study." I sling my bag over my shoulder, heading toward the curtain in the back of the salon and the stairs that lead up to the home. "See you in three hours."

"Huh?" The student council president suddenly stops her speech on price controlling to stare at me directly. "I wanted you to help out with something, though..."

"No thanks. I'll see you tomorrow." I turn right back around.

"Aikawa-kun...are you really gonna blow your senpai off like that?" She says that, but she's grinning. I don't like that. When girls do that, they're 100% up to no good. And besides, you're the one who barged into my family's business when nobody asked you to.

I'm not stupid enough to try and piss her off. I know what sort of things happen to people that do. I haven't seen the second-years from the karate team who used to beat up on Haru ever since the summer...and I think it was all because they got on President Suzuran's bad side.

Instead, I just stare lasers at her. "I would love to help, but unfortunately I have to study for the linear algebra midterm next week. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Tatsurou..." This time my mom's voice freezes me. "Can you hear Suzuran-san out?"

Ugh.

Why is everyone so quick to get on her side? Mom should know just how hopeless everything is. We're millions in debt and here she is unquestionably believing a high school student when she says she can save the business- again, a request that nobody made of her in the first place.

...I shouldn't have asked that. I know exactly why. President Suzuran is the insanely charismatic type. She's someone who can say something with nothing to back it up and still make you believe it. How else can you explain why people at school treat her like a goddess?

...She really is just like Dad.

I finally shrug my bag off, dumping it on one of the empty, cracked black leather chairs. "So? What do you want me to do?"

"Check this out." The student council president comes bounding toward me with a big grin on her face as Tamaki shuffles behind her, still clinging behind her like a shadow, scribbling down things on the clipboard she's holding. "We're working with a time limit, so the best thing to do is to get the word out as quickly as possible. That's where technology comes in. I set this up...with the internet, you don't even need to sell haircuts at all. You can just ask for donations." She holds a smartphone screen out to me, and I bend in to take a closer look.

Save Salon Biwa!

One of the most charming family-run barbershops in Shakuji has received an eviction notice out of nowhere...

What the hell is this?! The description is filled with all sorts of buzzwords- "a community staple"? “Historic”? "Known for exceptional service"? "Woman-owned"? "Voted Best of Nerima by Y*lp"? Some of these are outright lies! Like I mentioned before, our actual reviews are filled with nothing but comments about how much we suck and she's trying to make it seem like a good thing!

Below it is a green bar. ¥5480 raised of ¥2000000...

"So we're begging?" The disappointment in my voice is immeasurable. President Suzuran's brilliant solution to all our financial woes is to plead for handouts with strangers. I don't care if you do it online or not- panhandling is panhandling. Sure, we may be poor, but we're not desperate.

"That's a rough way to put it, Aikawa-kun." Suzuran flicks her garishly dyed hair as she closes her eyes. "I see it more as an investment. Look at this. If you donate twenty-five hundred, you get a one-time 20% off coupon. Five thousand gets you three of them. Ten thousand or more gets you access to a special program where you can get discounts on services for an entire year...I haven't even thought about what we'll do for people who donate fifty thousand...maybe priority when there's a line..."

"Hold on! Mom, you can't be okay with this-" She's just coming in and changing our prices out of nowhere-

"Takkun, it's fine." Mom nods wearily. "When Suzuran-san explained how the pricing model would work, it made sense to me."

"That's...not the issue."

"It's worth giving her a chance, isn't it?" Mom looks at me with sad, pleading eyes, and my resistance immediately shatters. Of course she's not happy about her choices, just like me. Number one is letting criminals take her business out from under her. Number two is being in debt to a high school student. And yet she's continuing to push on.

Am I the crazy one here?

"That's not all," the president smirks, pulling out a large paper folder and opening it to reveal a stack of papers, flashing with red and blue colors. SALE! NEW CUSTOMER SPECIAL!, they scream in my face. "Not everyone's internet savvy...so this will solve that issue. We're leaving no community bulletin board untouched!" Her face turns sheepish. "But...I'm not from here, so I don't know where the best spots are to put them. That's where you come in..."

Mom says nothing, but I can tell just from the way she's looking at me what she's thinking. Please, Tatsurou. Help her out. She's the only chance we have to not lose everything.

...Damn it.

"Fine. I'll go. But I really do need to study tonight."

"I'm going with you too!" Tamaki's sudden shout makes Touka shrink back from her position at President Suzuran's feet. "I need to make sure you're...putting up the posters right...and just doing that. I-I mean, it's not like I care if you're doing something with Onii-chan-"

"Tama-chan, can you and Kappyon stay here and help me finish taking inventory?" Mom cuts my little sister off before she can finish.

"But I want to go with Onii-chan- wait, no, I didn't mean it that way!"

A cool breeze hits my face when we step outside. At this point, it's already dark, and the streetlights are on. September is getting cold early this year. As I would expect, the streets are nearly deserted. Our neighborhood is not exactly a lively place to begin with, and after the sun goes down it gets even deader.

"Where to first?" The president turns her head as we walk down the street, grinning.

"The bulletin board by the playground three blocks down," I reply without missing a beat.

We're alone, and I don't know what to say to her. I just keep walking with my head down, like a robot. I should be overjoyed that I'm walking side-by-side with a pretty, popular third-year girl, but considering the circumstances...

Finally, the small playground with the rusted jungle gym and slides, and the bulletin board, looms close. As we approach, I scan the sheets of paper posted. There's not many. Half of them are torn and unrecognizable, and most of them are from two or three years ago.

"Here, hand me the stapler." That's the first words to her I say in minutes. She obliges, and the advertisement goes up on the board, front and center.

"Where's the next bulletin board?"

"A few streets over."

Once again, our conversation dies off. It's so quiet that you can hear the cars zoom by on the main street a short distance away.

Finally, hesitantly, Suzuran speaks up. "Aikawa-kun...why are you so against me trying to help you?"

"Didn't I already tell you? It's because we didn't ask you to."

Once again, it's silent as the next board comes into view, sandwiched in between an old apartment building and a storefront occupied by no one. As I begin to staple the flier on the board, Suzuran says softly, "It can't just be that. Tell me the truth."

"It's really not your business." Just as none of what my family does is to begin with. And I really don't want to get on her bad side if I actually said what I felt. I'd rather pick a fight with Mike Tyson than Reika Suzuran.

"I said tell me the truth." In an instant, she's backed me toward the bulletin board, glaring at me. Shit. I actually did piss her off.

"It's because...uh...it feels like you're taking advantage of us."

"Uh-huh. How come?"

"Because we're millions in debt to the Yakuza and we have less than a month before we're evicted and you're acting like we can easily fix all this if we listen to you. It's impossible."

We start walking again. This time, she doesn't ask me where the next bulletin board is. I've lived in this neighborhood for years- I can remember their locations from memory.

"Nothing is truly impossible."

"I bet you're gonna say that if we try our hardest and never give up, everything will work out, huh?"

She turns her head to me, staring blankly. "No. I'm not. But if you give up, it means it definitely won't." As she falls silent, the sounds of the cars driving by on the main street fill my ears once again. "I'm kinda disappointed in you, Aikawa-kun. I never thought you'd be the kind of guy to give up without a fight."

"I'm not giving up. I just don't want my family to get their hopes up for no reason."

"That sounds to me like you're giving up. 'It's okay for everything to get taken from me so my family doesn't get hurt'. Did you ever bother to ask them what they want before you made decisions for them? All I see is a lame attempt to justify your cowardice."

It's silent for a few seconds, and then I finally say, "If you were a guy, I would have punched you for that."

"I hit the nail on the head, didn't I~" the president smirks. "If boys can't counter your argument, they go straight to fists."

"You can't just say that to someone and not expect to get hit for it-"

"Go ahead and try it right now," she grins. "I bet you can't touch me."

"I-" I unclench my fists. Of course I'm not gonna punch her. She took Captain Takeno down like it was nothing, and she took out an entire delinquent gang at Nishi. She'd wipe the floor with me.

"You can get angry at me," she sighs. "Why don't you get angry at the people who are taking your beloved home away from you?"

"You think I'm not?" I snap, flashing a glare directly at her for a second. "But I'm just one person, and you are too..."

"Can't you trust me?"

"Huh?"

"You don't want your family torn apart from all the things that they love. I don't, either. Can you trust me?"

The next bulletin board quickly appears as we turn the corner. This time, stapling the ad goes even faster.

"...Why do you want to save us so badly?"

She falls silent for a second, and then says, "Because you're one of my beloved juniors and something horrible is happening to you when none of it is your fault, and you're blaming yourself for it. I can't stand when that happens."

"No wonder everyone thinks you're a superhero. You sound like one."

"That's a funny way to put it," she giggles. "I'm not a hero at all. I just do what I have to."

I have no doubt that you do...but everyone at school thinks you're Jesus. I still have no idea why.

"You remind me of someone I've known for a very long time. A bunch of bullies went behind his back and did some horrible things and then blamed him when they got caught. It wasn't his fault, but he still acted like it was, so I had to step in. You're the same way. So I want to do whatever I can. That's all there is to it."

"A friend or something?"

"Yeah, something like that. He forgot me. I never forgot him."

"That sounds pretty rough, though...he couldn't remember who you were and you still went out of your way for him?"

"You're misunderstanding something, Aikawa-kun." She turns around, holding out a finger. "I'm an elected official. That means that even if someone doesn't care about me...or hates me...or never asked for my assistance...or couldn't recognize his childhood friend despite the fact that both of us are in the top 10 students in the entire third-year class...I will fight for them. It's my responsibility. That's the way it went for him...and that's how it'll go with you." Suddenly, she puts her hands behind her head as she trots along. "Man, Torakichi's denser than osmium! I bet it was all the kicks to the head that did it."

"Captain Takeno?"

"Yup. We knew each other as kids. He was really funny."

"Why do you call him that?"

"Because that's what he wanted to be called when he was little. Doesn't it fit him? He looks like a samurai."

"Ayappi- Shiritori mentioned something like that, too."

"I knew her when we were young, too. And Haruto-kun. She hasn't changed much, but as for him...he used to be different. You know those rambunctious kids who always want to be the center of attention? That was him."

"That's kind of...hard to believe." Another poster goes on another bulletin board. "Childhood friends, huh? Must be nice. I have no idea where mine are right now. I haven’t seen them in forever."

All the rich kids have known each other for years. I haven’t.

"Well..." the president mutters, "I wasn't really their friend. There were six of them and they would always come by the bakery in a big group. I was the girl who would sell them sweets every now and again." She pauses. "And then they stopped showing up one summer.  It was the same year Mom died. I didn't see any of them for a while after that, not until I found out Torakichi was in the same class as me when I entered high school. But I still never got the chance to talk to him until this year. There's no point in having old ‘friends’ around if you've become so different you're hardly friends anymore. At that point, you might as well be strangers.”

For a second, I can't find the words to say back to her. "I'm sorry about your mom. My dad died when I was young, too. It sucks."

"I figured he did," she replies. "You seem like you're trying to take his place. You're too responsible for your own good."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment, or not?"

"Take it however you want," she giggles. "Hey, can I ask you something? It's about Fuu-chan."

"You mean Suzuran from 1-3?"

"Yeah. My baby sister. Is she doing okay? I don't have a lot of time to check on her, even though I want to...she’s on a scholarship, you know. Just like me. She seems like she’s been really stressed out lately trying to keep her grades up…she’ll barely talk to me at all."

“You’re both on scholarships, too?”

“Of course.” Suzuran shrugs her shoulders. “You think a baker can afford to pay full tuition to Shinchou for two?”

“I…didn’t realize that,” I sigh. “I kinda thought you were rich just like everyone else at school.”

Suzuran giggles as we walk along. “Aikawa-kun, you’re hilarious.”

“What?” I can feel my ears start to burn.

“Half the students in your grade have some kind of scholarship! You’re not the only one.”

“What? How do you know?”

“When the teachers like you, you get access to…certain things.” She grins devilishly. “We’ve got students from every background imaginable. You just gotta find them. You’re not alone, Aikawa-kun.”

I can’t say anything back. Half of my class? That’s kinda crazy when I think about it. Why did I think everyone at Shinchou was so rich in the first place? Was it the prestige? Was it the campus? The history? The way everyone carries themselves?

Or…was it me?

“Now, how’s Fuu-chan doing?” The president bends over, grinning at me.

"Well, I'm not in her class, so I can't say for certain...but she hangs around me and Haru and Ayappi- Shiritori. Sometimes she seems scared of Shiritori...but I think she's friends with both of them."

It's one of those things that you can't hate about Ayappi. She has no concept of personal space, but she's so cute. God, she's so cute. I love her so much.

"Good. I was worried. She's always been shy since she was a kid. It got really bad when Mom died. She wouldn't leave her room. We nearly went out of business, but then Dad-" She makes a slight face of disgust. "Never mind. I'll leave it at that. All I'm going to say is that your family reminds me a lot of mine." She grins. "Don't take it personally, Aikawa-kun. I'm just doing what I want. But can you trust me?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

Before we know it, twenty different fliers have been stapled to twenty different bulletin boards, and it's almost seven-thirty. We've chatted the whole way home, about being the eldest sibling and school and TV shows and even about what Haru and Ayappi were like as kids. I'm kinda jealous of her. I wish I had known them for longer. Maybe then I would have had a better chance with her. Or maybe not.

As we finally turn back onto the side street that my family's home is located on, I hear the thump of something on the ground, and a voice that I definitely didn't want to hear today.

"I said where's the damn money?!"

"You..." I know exactly who that is. Sure enough, I catch a glimpse of the ugliest, bald-headed teenager in the world, dragging a baseball bat behind him, and a man in sunglasses and a dark suit. In an instant, I'm sprinting. "Wahira, you piece of shit, get out of here!"

He doesn't, and neither does his boss. Instead, Wahira just smirks. "Well, look who it is. Mister Prep School's back." He taps the bat on the ground. "Get out of the way before I bash your sorry head in-" Suddenly, his voice stops as he turns to the left and then slowly turns back with a look of horror on his face like he just saw a zombie. "Aniki! That's-" As the man in the dark suit leans over, Wahira whispers something into his ear. He's almost shaking.

Then, I realize who he was looking at. The president, still full of vigor in her step, confidently strolls up next to me and takes a look at the gangster and the wannabe in front of her. "Oh. You two must be the bad guys, right?"

The Yakuza shifts his sunglasses, looking down at her. "This is a surprise. I didn't expect to see Reika Suzuran on our turf."

"Who, me? I'm just a passerby."

"We have business with the owner of this store. I'd appreciate it if you don't get in our way. We've got no quarrel with you."

"Huh..." She puts a finger on her chin. "Well, you see, Aikawa-kun is my classmate, and you're extorting his family. So I think I do have a problem with you." The whole time, she's smiling.

"I guess I have no choice," the man sighs. "I didn't want to make enemies with you, but it seems like you're insisting..."

"Me? You're the one who's shaking down a single parent."

A vein on the thug's forehead twitches. "This is our property, and we have a right to reclaim it. You'd better step aside if you know what's good for you. I don't care who you are."

"I already told you! I'm just someone passing by. And it's not your property. Aikawa-san owns it. And she's going to pay for it. All sixty-three million of it. Every single yen." Suzuran still remains smiling, staring right at the criminal, not backing down. Wahira looks as white as a sheet.

The gangster chuckles softly. "All right. I'll make you a deal. You pay it off, I leave you alone. You know what? You can even keep the money. I'll pay it off for you. Not like that'll ever happen. But if you don't, and you're not going to...I don't just take the house. I take all of you, too. You'll be working for me until you die. And I get to choose what kind of work, too." At this point, his lips twist into a malicious smirk.

"You bastard, you better not-"

Before I can jump in front of her, President Suzuran smirks. "Deal."

"Hold on!" I whirl around. "You can't just make decisions like that-"

"Of course I can. Because there's no chance we'll lose."