Six girls stared at one boy. The one boy stared right back. The one thing he had not expected on opening the door was prior familiarity with the other club members, much less that they would all be girls!
“Oh, good,” Miyako said as she tapped her feet impatiently, folding her arms in front of her and rolling her eyes in disdain. “Just what we needed.” His sentiments exactly. Hiroyuki very nearly bolted from the room rather than face the prospect of having to share a club with Miyako, of all people! However, before he could even take a single step -
“I quite agree!” Maru announced, stepping forward with great enthusiasm to grasp Hiroyuki in a firm handshake that happened to draw his attention away from his annoying neighbour and onto the weird girl from earlier that went on and on about chivalry and honour to the point his head felt like it might spin off. “It is a pleasure to meet you again, Mister Hiroyuki! With company like yours, we can rest assured that our club is on the right path!” Though, come to think of it, she was kinda cute. And nice.
Just behind her, Omitsu didn’t say a word. She just blushed cutely and waved at him. She probably followed Maru here or something, and it was a good thing too. Someone that clumsy shouldn’t be left out alone. Yuya was just staring as well, and it felt like he was a book having notes pencilled into the margin. Little bit unnerving, really. All he did was give her a book she dropped. Why was she staring at him so intently?
“Miss Arakida, are you certain this is the club you intend to join?” whispered the tall smiling girl. Or one could presume she was whispering. It was a little bit difficult to tell, really, as the volume of her voice was certainly loud enough to carry across the room. If Yuya was staring at him, then this tall girl had already drilled a hole through his head with her eyes. In fact, he had the impression she’d very much like to do exactly that.
“Of course!” Romi insisted. “Why wouldn’t it be? After all, an occult club is certainly interesting and harmless, isn’t it? I’m sure someone so nice wouldn’t be any trouble at all, will you, Mister Hiroyuki?”
“Not at all,” Hiroyuki numbly responded. “So… Uh, this is the occult club, right?”
“Indeed it is!” Maru loudly declared. “Though we are, regrettably, not quite as popular as I had hoped, seven members is quite sufficient to run the club efficiently and with great courage and honour!”
“Hey, hey! Wait a minute!” Miyako interrupted, earning a harsh look from Maru. “I didn’t say anything about agreeing to let him in the club! A pervert like that -”
“A pervert?” Yuya snorted back a laugh. “Him? Hardly, and believe you me, I’ve seen my share of perverts looking for advice on a cheap score. He’ll do fine!”
“Um… I don’t have a problem either,” Omitsu said as she twiddled her thumbs and stared up at the ceiling. Her voice was what an actual whisper should sound like, uncertain and, apparently, ignored by the other girls. “I- I’d like him to join as well. If that’s okay with everyone…”
“Any inappropriate action towards Miss Arakida will be dealt with,” Miss Bodyguard said, drawing out the silence with another disturbing smile before finishing by saying, “With extreme prejudice.”
Romi rolled her eyes. Everyone else in the room simply stared at Miss Bodyguard, who was cracking her knuckles and staring right at Hiroyuki’s crotch. Hrm. Well, that right there was another reason to leave. Time for him to make a hasty -
“If you think I will stand by and allow you to hastily threaten such a beacon of chivalry,” Maru declared, “then you have another thing coming entirely!”
“Th-That’s right,” Omitsu whispered, clamping herself onto Hiroyuki’s left arm, and quite threatening to cut off the circulation. “Y-You big meanie!”
“Yeah!” Yuya sniffed, grabbing onto his other arm in a similar manner. “What gives you the right to threaten people out of nowhere?”
“Far be it for me to stick up for my idiot neighbor,” Miyako added, standing in front of them right next to Maru. “But I’m the only one allowed to kick his ass. Got it? I mean, don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t like him or anything. I just can’t let a weakling get picked on for no good reason.”
Hiroyuki didn’t really say anything at all. Instead, he was wincing in unexpected pain from the two girls hanging on to either side of his body. He almost completely missed the way that Maru blushed slightly and looked over at Miyako, then shook her head. Not that he had the time or the opportunity to really think about the meaning behind it, but, hey, that was certainly interesting!
“I think you’re outvoted,” Romi noted, bouncing on her heels. “Has he done anything harmful?”
“… Negative,” Miss Bodyguard admitted, backing away for the time being.
“Good! Then… We should get this meeting going, don’t you think?” Romi declared, slamming her hand down on the table like a gavel. “Let’s bring this meeting to order!”
Hiroyuki looked around the room and let out a sigh of relief. Okay then. Maybe he would stay, though it would be against his better judgement. It wouldn’t be polite to ignore the request of so many cute girls…
So many cute girls… And one boy. That thought made him blink a bit, and reconsider the personalities he had seen on display just now. No way… This situation! This kind of situation was exactly like - Exactly like a -
<hr>
This was a bad idea. The King, Queen, the whole Royal Court of bad ideas. Even had a little jester juggling grenades in the corner while the King ordered a crown made of knives and the Queen slathered lead-based makeup all over her face. Bad, bad idea and getting worse by the moment.
So, to recap her situation. She had to find some guy to fall in love with, then get him to fall in love with her. Or she became a demon and had to live in Hell forever. This was Miyako Marugo’s lot in life, and she was determined to do something about it.
Now, she might have been willing to dismiss it all as a bad dream or some really, really badly tainted meat. She would have. Until… Well, until she tripped up and hey were those horns growing out of her forehead? They disappeared after a bit, but that kind of thing did rather put a bit of perspective on things. You know?
Hence: Occult club. If anyone around here had the faintest notions of what the hell (so to speak) was going on with her, it had to be here. At the very least, she could research it without seeming totally weird or anything like that. Perfect cover, and if she was lucky maybe she’d even meet a guy worth her time.
That last point was invalidated by the inundation of girls, and the one boy she couldn’t stand. Her pervy next-door neighbour. Look at him. He probably thinks this is like a harem manga or something. Honestly. He’s so two dimensional, it’s kinda insulting in a weird way. As for how he knew these other girls, he must’ve deceived them or something. There was no other explanation for it. Why else would they not be able to see his true colours? Hmph! Fine, she’d just have to make them see the harsh nature of reality, and unveil the truth right before their very eyes. After all, wasn’t honesty the very best policy?
“Well spoken!” Maru said to Romi. “We should begin this meeting immediately with a statement of intent for this fine club and its noble mission! It is my intention that we hunt down the supernatural, the otherworldly and chase it back from whence it came! Be they ghosts, be they vampires, be they half demons posing as innocent and charming schoolgirls we shall rout them all!”
Unnoticed by everyone else Miyako very nervously swallowed. Bad idea and getting worse all the time.
“Oh, wow!” Romi said. “That sounds so interesting!”
“Supernatural beings do not exist,” Miss Bodyguard stated with a nod. “Therefore, this activity is deemed… Safe.” Romi sighed an irritated-sounding sigh, but Miyako was a little bit caught up in her own thing here to really think about that at the time being. She had to be careful none of her club found out the truth about her, or else she might really be in for it! And while she was at it reveal the truth about Hiroyuki for their own protection, because that was the right thing to do, dammit!
<hr>
From where Yuya was sitting, this whole situation was just ideal. She’d been looking for a club that she could hide away in, one that people wouldn’t bother her about all their romantic woes and whatnot, and, wouldn’t you know it, she’d stumbled right into the jackpot! The occult club! How far away from romance can you get? Right? She couldn’t even think of anyone from the occult club that ever bothered her, though now that she was actually there she realised it was because technically speaking the club didn’t actually have any members until right about now. Which was a little weird, now that she thought about it. How had all seven of them found out about a club that didn’t even have any members if none of them had specifically seen any advertising for it, and what was even stranger was - Was…
Yuya shook her head and looked across at the only boy in the club. The <i>only</i> boy. He was kinda handsome, if she was perfectly honest with herself. It was so weird. She couldn’t get a read on him at all. All she could tell was that he was straight. Liked girls. Loved girls. But that was it. Details on what kind of girl he liked, not a thing. Yuya found this completely fascinating. This was the first time she’d experienced something like this!
“Eek!” a tiny voice went, and Yuya turned around towards the source. It was that kind of quiet girl, sitting on the floor and rubbing her head. By her side was a book that looked suspiciously as if it had fallen off the bookcase. “Um, sorry!” Omitsu said, dusting herself off and bowing just a fraction.
“Nothing to apologise for,” Hiroyuki replied, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Was that the kind of girl he liked? Maybe if Yuya adopted a personality like that he’d - No, no, what was she thinking? That was silly. Best not to pursue that line of thought. “Please try to be a little more careful in future, huh?”
“Okay…” Omitsu said, and oh boy, she had it <i>bad</i>. Really, really bad. It would genuinely surprise her if nobody else could see it, dear lord, it was so obvious. Honestly, that poor girl needed a shot of Cupid’s bow stat, otherwise she’d -
“Hey, what’s that book anyway?” Miyako asked, jealously snatching it away from Hiroyuki’s grip, deliberately drawing attention on herself. Yuya blinked. Oh. Oh! Oh, dear! And he didn’t even have a clue, did he? Yuya sighed wearily while Miyako flipped through the book, and Maru peered over her shoulder. This was going to get complicated, wasn’t it?
“Huzzah!” Maru roared. “Please, if you would! Set it down on the table at that page! Ladies and gentleman! It appears that fate favours us! For behold, here is the very first investigation we shall conduct! The occult club is in action!”
Grateful for the distraction of the growing love triangle forming all around her, Yuya eagerly stepped up as the book was settled in place and read a fascinatingly bizarre story in black and white, right there in front of her. A story centred around the school. A story featuring certain supernatural elements….
- A ghost story
- A missing student story
- A love spell story
- A future prediction story
- Something else
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