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The Council's Road, Not Taken (Kaguya-sama/Oregairu Spinoff)

Reader mode
Chapter 1.3
  • Threadmarks
    • Vote Tally : Council Road, Not Taken (Kaguya-sama/Oregairu Spinoff) | Page 3 | Questionable Questing
    ##### NetTally 1.6.0

    [X] "It's not impossible, but that's not really the case at the moment."
    No. of Votes: 11
    Kerrowe
    Blonddude42
    Cap'nSmurfy
    Flagrais
    NewGame+Just
    PandaVenom
    rocket501
    shanagan
    taovkool
    TastyPocki
    Yuki

    [X] "I don't know. Maybe not."
    No. of Votes: 8
    kenmadragon
    BlueMangoAdea
    Cuchulin
    eraserman
    Ideas-Guy
    linkjames24
    Lucidum
    Moniker LewdInSky

    [X] "What a stupid rumor."
    No. of Votes: 2
    Cane Toad
    BB54

    Total No. of Voters: 21

    "It's not impossible, but that's not really the case at the moment." You assure them, "They're not dating, this I'm sure."

    Whether they are attracted to each other or just you seeing what isn't there, only God knows. However, what you're very sure about is the fact that they're not going out.

    "What do you mean it's not 'impossible', Hikigaya-san?" Kose looks somewhat perturbed as if she's not approving the idea in the first place.

    "Whether they will go out in the future is unclear, but the possibility is not zero."

    Especially with how stubborn Shirogane Miyuki was, trying to get her attention. Come to think of it...

    Considering what happens between you and Miyuki in the last six months, you probably have a part in fueling that fire. It's kind of disturbing how much Shirogane Miyuki improves as a person as long as he put any effort into it.

    Shirogane Miyuki was a parody of wretched human beings, with all of his attributes except his face start in the negatives. Yet, looking at he is now, no one would know the old Shirogane Miyuki was someone who has minimum passing grades and incredibly unathletic.

    There's no way his effort to pursue Shinomiya will remain unnoticed. Not by Shinomiya, not by the public at large. But you wonder why the rumor acts as if his pursuit was reciprocated?

    Because you know that's not really the case. It was blatantly one-sided rivalry, borderline obsession even.

    "At the moment, their relationship is more like rivals than lovers, so you better stop imagining what's not there." You tell them, "You'll get killed doing that."

    "Rivalry?" Kino blinks in confusion, "Ah, I see! Because of their rivalry, their feelings may turn into love?"

    You see a glint of hope on Kino's clear eyes, and you regret the fact that you just put a disturbingly romantic situation in a gullible maiden's mind.

    "Yes, but that's just a possibility. Seeing as you're obsessed with truth, the idea that they love each other is false. If they like each other or dating, I would be the first person to know."

    "That's probably not going to happen." Kose looks relieved but also disturbed, "I understand, we're not going to talk about this to anyone."

    "You better do, else no one knows the sheer anger Shinomiya can incite on unfounded rumors." You warn them.

    Kino looks like she's a lost cause, however. But as long as Kose is there to rein her, things will probably turn out okay.

    "Kaguya-sama isn't that petty, she's so perfect and gallant that something like rumor wouldn't leave any stain on her." Kose frowns in response.

    "What, really?" You raise your eyebrows.

    "Kaguya-sama is like an angel the world has been looking for!" Kino says with starry eyes.

    "Her brilliant light shines upon mankind!" Kose agrees and they, in incredibly disturbing fashion, intertwine their fingers together.

    From a distance, it will look intimate and romantic, but seeing them up close like this is horrifying!

    "And I believe President Shirogane is the only one qualified to stand beside her, ahh!" Kino shouts.

    Kose's enthralled expression turns dark in response and scolds her friend, "I believe that belief is open to interpretation."

    Kino, in response, glares back with a certain intensity. "And I'm afraid I can't let that slide."

    You're absolute speechless, one is a shipper fool and one is a Shinomiya fanatic, you're put between a rock and hard place today, for sure.

    But at least they're not nice girls, you can't handle nice girls. Not with your trauma.

    "By the way, you're done? If there's something else you need, ask away." You tell them.

    Kose and Kino look around confused, before they realize it they ended up in a parking spot not too far away from the school, behind an abandoned factory. This is the parking spot you normally use.

    Normally you just go through the factory complex with your clumsy parkour skill. Many thanks to Ryuju momo for teaching you that, and you're improving every day.

    Kose looks like she's afraid of something, "Uh, why are we here again?"

    "Oh yeah, we're following Hikigaya-san." Kino finally comes back to her senses, "Why are we here, Hikigaya-san?"

    You look at her with an incredulous expression, then presented the Yamaha Dragstar 250 beside you. "I park my motorbike here, why?"

    "Wha! The rumored Shuchiin black rider is you?!"

    "What kind of stupid rumor is that?!" You raise your voice in pure and utter disbelief.

    "Yeah, there's a rumor circulating the school about one rebel student who's involved with the Yakuza and goes around the town on a giant gangster bike, terrorizing everyone!" Kino explains to you.

    You look at your weedy 250cc bike and sighed, they call THIS compact cruiser a giant? Just how sheltered Shuchiin princesses are?

    "Look, I'm on good terms with Ryuju group because my friendship with their daughter, doesn't mean I'm a Yakuza too. Besides which, I didn't break any rules, how could I be a rebel?"

    Kose squeezed her eyes, "But you're not allowed to bring motorcycle into school."

    "And we're outside school now, so I never break that rule." You insist.

    A legal loophole, bitches! How's that?

    "That's true." The duo gives up.

    "Umm, Hikigaya-san, are you going somewhere after this?" Kino blushes a bit, "H-how about we have some tea? I know a nice cafe around here."

    You freeze for a moment, but rack your brains for a more likely explanation. And found one.

    "You want to ask more stuff about Miyuki again?"

    "Well, that's too." Kino rolled her eyes aside mischievously, "But more than that, you seem to know a lot about media and journalism."

    Kose, on the other hand, doesn't look like she has ulterior motives. "Yeah, it would be nice to talk about it with other boys. As you can tell, our mass media club is exclusively girls at the moment."

    Well even if you agree, you'll never spill bad stuff about Miyuki. To be honest, you dislike his fake and show off nature, but Miyuki is a hard worker who's willing to run through a thorny part to achieve the seemingly impossible.

    You respect that part of him.

    You might be a wee bit cynical, but you're not a betrayer.

    Even if you agree to go, there's no need to think deeper and look into anything other than obviously superficial, intellectual interest. They want to talk about media and journalism, and nothing else.

    [ ] "Sure."
    [ ] "Maybe next time."
    [ ] "No, thanks."


     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] "No, thanks."

    Mama didn't raise a gossipmonger.
     
    [X] "Maybe next time."

    8man! Use your 108 Loner Skills to escape this awkward situation! They're gonna grill you for deets about your bro! Never give out details about your bro to the press! Bros before paparazzo!
     
    [X] "Sure."
    A no-brainer answer, who would pass the chance to eat out with two girls? I dare anyone to take another option otherwise.

    We don't really need to answer any personal questions relating to our friend. We can just keep the conversation within the bounds of matters of academic import.
     
    Chapter 1.4
  • Threadmarks
    • Vote Tally : Council Road, Not Taken (Kaguya-sama/Oregairu Spinoff) | Page 4 | Questionable Questing
    ##### NetTally 1.6.0

    [X] "Sure."
    No. of Votes: 15
    kokuenDG
    bastur2
    BB54
    Blonddude42
    BlueMangoAdea
    Cuchulin
    Fieryfoxpaws
    Flagrais
    Ideas-Guy
    Lmchakone
    PandaVenom
    roronoa20
    SEKALE
    shanagan
    TastyPocki

    [X] "No, thanks."
    No. of Votes: 2
    Cane Toad
    slime jello

    [X] "Maybe next time."
    No. of Votes: 2
    kenmadragon
    Kerrowe

    Total No. of Voters: 19

    "Sure."

    Seeing not much reason to reject, you agree with their invitation and join them in a little tea time after school. It's not as if you're completely lacking in an ulterior motive, to be honest.

    It's been six months since you moved to Tokyo, and no girls ever invited you to anything. Sure there's Momo, but she's a basket case. She probably didn't even think of you as a real man, and hanging out with Yakuza underlings are far away from romantic.

    You're thirsty, that's a fact. You're horny and romance-starved just like every other healthy 16 years old boy. Being invited by girls like this, why would you refuse?

    "Great, where should we go again?" Kose asks, "We don't know if any of there cafes are up to your taste, Hikigaya-san."

    "Anything is fine by me, even Saize." You straightforwardly tell them.

    "Sai..."

    "...Ze?"

    You're expecting them to laugh right there immediately since it's the absolute least romantic place to go. Girls in Chiba also like that. But, for a casual outing? There's absolutely no better place than that. High school students in Chiba love Saize, Tokyo can't possibly be that different.

    "It's a joke." You brush their confusion away immediately.

    "What is Saize?" Karen asks.

    "Umm, I think it was one of the Italian restaurant chains?" Kose guesses wildly, "Saize... Saizeriya or something?"

    "Are you kidding me?"

    Just how much an anti-pleb are these Shuchiin girls, not knowing one of the biggest restaurant chains in Japan? Honestly, you pitied them. These girls basically like flowers raised in a glasshouse, never knowing nature.

    "Saizeriya is the best friend of all poor students everywhere. In other words, it's a heaven for us plebeian." You tell them, "It's an Italian-themed Japanese restaurant chain with hundreds of branches all over the country. Their taste is so-so, but the main selling point is the immensely low price. People who have been in Shuchiin for all their lives probably never go to one."

    "A place where girls of Shuchiin will never go." Kose's eyes widened and gleaming, "Interesting."

    "We can make an article out of this!" Kino agrees with her.

    "Please bring us there, Hikigaya-san!" They ask you.

    Fuck.

    No, that's not an understatement. Even though you pretend to be calm, the excitement of going with two pretty girls combined with the frustration of their ignorance made you run your mouth needlessly.

    Well, it doesn't help that Saize is one of your favorite places, so you take the matter rather close and personally.

    "Just make sure you don't have a food allergy or something." You warn them, "Also the closest Saizeriya is about 8 minutes walking from here."

    Instead of having they walk you decide to commute them one by one via your motorcycle. You can tell how scared and ashamed they are with how they try not to hug you but also gripping your jacket tightly since they're afraid of falling down.

    And so here we go, Saizeriya.

    "So crowded!" Kino mutters, "Is it always this crowded?"

    "No, this isn't bad at all, you should see how it looks like during lunch and dinner period." You scoff at her almost childlike expression of marvel.

    "The interior is huge, but the number of tables is huge, it feels a little cramped." Kose isn't quite as impressed, but she still pays quite an amount of attention to her surroundings. "Children are running around too."

    "There's absolutely no privacy isn't there?" Kino nods.

    "This is what people call hiding in plain sight." You tell them, "The number of customers is large enough that it's actually easier for someone to hide, as long as they don't appear too fancy. I think the main problem is your uniforms now."

    "We'll keep that in mind."

    The shock on Kino and Kose's face when they look at the menu is astounding to say at the least.

    "Uhhh... are you sure this isn't a scam?" Kino whispers carefully.

    "Rude, this much is expected for us lower and middle-class plebs." You chastise her, "I told you the price is cheap, didn't I?"

    "But not this cheap!" Kose almost flails her hands, "I've been to normal cafe and restaurant before, this is too dubious, it's scary!"

    "Kose, your father has a Miso company, surely you understand a simple concept such as economy of scale?" You almost slam your face on the table.

    "Yes, of course, I am." She looks a bit insulted by your provocative statement, "What's that has to do with this?"

    "Saizeria food isn't cooked on-site, they're prepared in a factory kitchen somewhere in this city and distributed early in the day to the restaurant chains like this." You explain to them, "They're heated up and served as needed, but for the most part they will be kept in cold storage on the back."

    "Amazing."

    "I see because you're saving on labor cost by centralizing food production..." Kose looks around, noticing something. She looks at the place where the customers seem to get a drink on their own. "Self-service drinks? For a place this huge and crowded, the number of waitresses was rather minimal? Is this for cost-saving measure too?"

    "It's called a drink bar. You pay once, you get unlimited refills as you see fit." You tell her.

    "How... how convenient," Kose mutters, "How generous."

    "Amazing, free drinks..." Kino isn't that different.

    You almost lose it, right there. But you take a deep breath and calm yourself.

    They're not idiots, just uninformed. And you feel obliged to tell them.

    "Saize as franchise symbolize the modern food industry, as the cost of labor exceeds the cost of ingredients, it's easier to make food cheap by minimizing the number of human beings involved."

    "Amazing!" Kino brightly smiles and praises you, "Hikigaya-san sure is well learned!"

    That's just common sense, girl. But then again, what can one expect? Actually, most commoners don't really care about how it works either. They only care about the fact that the food they eat is cheap, safe, and reasonably delicious.

    "Let's order our food and drink immediately as we talk"

    "Wait wait wait final question." Kino stops you, "Is there minimal order?"

    They must be terrified by the number of calories. Eh, girls are like that no matter if they're rich or not. But they'd be too embarrassed to order small things.

    "There's none, just order as you see fit. Excuse me, we want to make our order." You call a waitress, who immediately approaches you with a smile. "I'd like Focaccia with cinnamon sugar, milk gelato with coffee jelly, and drink bar."

    That's actually plenty of snacks, but to be honest your lunch today wasn't too fulfilling.

    "Umm, milk gelato with cherry and raspberry sauce, and drink bar... please?" Kino finally speaks.

    "Ice tiramisu and custard pudding, and drink bar." Kose also orders what she wants. You notice that she doesn't seem to be afraid of calories, unlike her friend.

    They also take some of the pictures of the food and restaurant interior for documentation.

    In the end, none of you talk about journalism and instead of talking about restaurants and the food industry. You have to admit, once you got past the annoyance and disbelief, their curiosity about common things is rather... fascinating.

    And to think that compared to the world-class super-elites like Shinomiya or Shijo, Kino Karen and Kose Erika was rather on down to earth? It's kind of horrifying realization.

    You remembered talking with the previous Student Council President with Miyuki. The previous President want Miyuki to join and eventually succeed him precisely because he wanted a common person to introduce common knowledge to the sheltered students of Shuchiin.

    Alas, Miyuki getting elected never bring any changes to the students as a whole. As shown by the two girls in front of you.

    In a sense, you win against Miyuki in that regard. However pointless, it brings a small warmth to the back of your mind.

    "Wahhh, in the end, we're getting derailed, I'm sorry!" Kino apologizes profusely.

    "But at least we can write interesting articles now, thank you Hikigaya-san." Kose smiles widely.

    "I don't mind, then I shall leave."

    "Wait." Kino hurriedly pulls her phone out, "Do you mind if we exchange contacts?"

    "Ah yeah, me too." Kose follows shortly.

    Now that? That's shocking. In all your sixteen year life, never once a girl would voluntarily exchange contacts with you. Whenever they do, it's because obligation, and even then they look hesitant.

    But you know deep down, you shouldn't be too hopeful. Eventually, they'll get bored with you and forget. Even so, is there anything wrong with indulging in it a little?

    [ ] Share a LINE
    [ ] Share e-mail
    [ ] Refuse
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Share e-mail

    Sharing our LINE is like asking them to text us constantly with all their questions, and suffer the harassment of their curiosity! Don't be fooled, they're shiptrash and Kaguya-stalker! Don't give them the means to harass us on social media at any hour they see fit!

    What kind of normie riaju do you all think 8man is, huh? Giving his LINE out like that so easily... We have a reputation to keep up, and we shouldn't forget that we only met them recently. Remember that in this manga and school, LINE is for super-close friends or for people dating to talk at all hours, even under the covers while dreaming of when they would next see each other while gazing wistfully at the stars!

    :rolleyes:
     
    [X] Share a LINE

    I shall choose the most interesting choice. If Hikigaya has to suffer for my happiness then so be it.
     
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