<Author's Comment>
This is an exception, a story from after the second song.
Because it’s Halloween!
“...Konuma, what are you doing in a place like this?”
It was morning, just outside the rear entrance, slightly tucked away.
“Ah, Azuma...”
When I turned around after being called, Azuma-neesan was standing there, wearing her uniform as usual.
She had her school bag on her left shoulder, and on her right shoulder—instead of the bass case she had carried almost every day until her retirement from the Instrumental Club—she had a vinyl knapsack-like thing hanging there.
“Thank goodness, Azuma is normal...!”
“Normal...?”
Azuma furrowed her brows suspiciously, then looked at the scene unfolding inside the school building, her expression changing to a wry smile.
“...Oh, I see.”
Following her gaze inside the entranceway.
“Kenji~! Let’s take a picture together~!”
“Oh!”
There was Erina-san, sporting demon-style horns and wings with red lines on her cheeks—I couldn't tell if it was blood or what—and Hazama, who seemed to be a Dracula wearing a long-collared cape. (Does Erina-san even need to cosplay? Isn't that just her true form?)
“It’s Halloween today, after all~...”
Azuma laughed with an “ahaha.”
Halloween is strangely popular at our high school.
It’s not like our school rules were ever particularly strict, but even so, I think the tolerance for Halloween is abnormal. For some reason, you don't get scolded even if you wear a cosplay during class on Halloween.
The reason is that the student council has been holding it as an official event for over a dozen years. Is it okay for the student council to decide something like that on their own? What do you think, Key-kun?
“...So, you’re hanging around here because you’re too hesitant to go inside?”
I gave a soft nod to Azuma’s question.
“I’m just not good with this kind of atmosphere... In the first place, I don't really understand what kind of feeling everyone does this with... If it were me, I’d just think that no one would enjoy seeing me in flashy clothes, and of course, naturally, I normally don't want to see it at all.”
“...Hmm.”
Azuma gripped her knapsack tightly and nodded solemnly for some reason.
“More importantly, Azuma, aren't you going to do that... you know, the cosplay thing? Since you're, well... you know, a normie.”
I swallowed the words “I think you’d look good in it since you have great looks” and said that instead.
“Haha, thanks, Konuma. It was wise of you not to say that out loud.”
She naturally replied to the words I had swallowed.
“Don’t read my mind...”
“Don’t think things that would trouble you if they were read. Honestly, it’s a good thing Amane doesn't have that skill.”
“...Right.”
When I answered sullenly, Azuma smiled gently like an older sister. Wait, she just admitted she has the skill...!
“So, are you not doing it? That knapsack, isn't that a change of clothes or something?”
“No, I’m not doing it.”
When I pointed at the knapsack and asked, I got a surprisingly blunt answer. So that knapsack is something else? Maybe her shoulder just felt lonely without her bass.
“Huh, surprising. Why aren't you doing it?”
I followed up with another question.
Then,
“Hey, do you know how many days we attend high school?”
“Pardon?”
She suddenly changed the subject.
As I furrowed my brow in confusion,
“I heard it's about 550 days.”
She provided the answer to her own question.
“Heh, that's quite a lot...”
“Is it? Personally, I think it’s just that much out of a whole lifetime.”
Azuma groaned slightly.
“In other words, you can only wear a high school uniform about 550 times. And about 300 of those are already over. There's not even half left, you know.”
She whispered that with a solemn face.
“That’s why I want to wear my uniform for as long as I can.”
“I see...”
Azuma’s obsession with youth is as amazing as ever... while I was staring at her with those thoughts,
“...I-I do wash it, okay?! Don’t get the wrong idea?!”
Azuma said that with a red face.
“I wasn’t doubting that at all...”
What's with that cliché tsundere template...
“...By the way, Konuma.”
“Yes?”
“Won't you wear this?”
“...Huh?”
What Azuma pulled out of the knapsack with great anticipation was...
“...A gakuran?”
“Yeah.”
Azuma was staring intently at me.
“...Where did you get that? Black market?”
“What do you mean black market... It’s my older brother's uniform from his middle school days.”
“Wait, it’s from middle school...”
And Azuma-neesan, you call him 'onii-chan'...
“...So, won't you try it on?”
“No.”
She asked with slightly upturned eyes, but since I didn't understand the point, I gave a normal, immediate refusal. Azuma looked at me with a pouting face before...
“Please, Konuma-sama!”
She pressed her hands together in prayer.
“What...?!”
Then she looked up, thrusting the knapsack against my chest and bringing her face close to mine.
“I went to an all-girls school for middle school, right? And our high school uniform is a blazer, right? So, I’ve never attended school with a boy in a gakuran! Walking through the school with a boy in a gakuran is my dream! The protagonists of my favorite manga all wear gakurans!”
I recoiled from Azuma's desperate expression.
“So please! Wear this and walk through the school with me!”
As much as I recoiled, Azuma leaned forward.
“Huh?! Not just wearing it, but walking through the school?! I hate that even more! Ask someone else!”
“Just a quick lap or two is fine! Oh, let's go to the store! I'll buy you a Calpis! I mean, a gakuran boy and a Calpis, isn't that the best?!”
She completely ignored my suggestion to ask someone else!
“No, but, I have...”
“It’s fine! I won't tell Amane!”
Azuma anticipated what I was going to say, nodding with a sharp look and heavy breathing.
“No, that’s not the problem!”
“Besides, even Amane wouldn't call it cheating just for walking around the school with me!”
“It’s not just walking! You want me to walk while wearing that!”
“Look, look, I’ll give you a candy too!”
She pulled a candy out of her pocket and brandished it like a grand bargaining chip.
“I don't need it! Why do you even have candy in your pocket?!”
“Because it's Halloween! Trick or Treat!”
While we were having that back-and-forth, pushing the bag containing the gakuran back and forth between us...
“...Yuri, what are you doing in a place like that?”
Along with a *gogogogogo* background sound, that clear and beautiful voice rang out.
““Eep...!!””
The two of us jumped, our shoulders twitching in shock.
“...Is it a trick, I wonder?”
““No, it’s a treat!””