Turn Around and Face Me! 10

Class Representative

“A… Culture Festival?”
“Correct.”

A mist still lingered over my consciousness as I just happened to overhear a conversation happening around me. A particular set of words just happened to pique my interest and wake me. As the mist receded, I realized, ‘Oh, right… I’m still in homeroom.’

“It is our academy’s tradition to host a Culture Festival at this time.”
“… Even though we’ve only just enrolled?”

Mei’s response to Tridd-sensei’s words represented the feelings of our entire class. A big event like a Culture Festival was normally held after we had gotten a chance to settle into our new environment.

“Our academy hosts yet another festival during the Harvest Festival. So please understand that this Culture Festival is meant to welcome new students into the Academy.”
“W-What do you mean?”

In response to Lily-sama’s question, Tridd-sensei cleared his throat before continuing.

“To put it simply, the goal of the Culture Festival is to strengthen your bonds with your new classmates. Each individual first year class will be working together toward the Culture Festival, which will also give you a chance to get used to our academy.”
“Oh I see, that makes sense.”

Simone seemed to be convinced, nodding as she replied.

“You call it a Culture Festival, but just what is it that we’ll be expected to do?”
“Each class is expected to contribute to the festival in some way. In the early years of our academy, classes would often do public demonstrations of a research topic of their choice. Recently however, food stalls and refreshment stands have been much more popular. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with research demonstrations either, you know…”

For a moment, Tridd-sensei trailed off, seemingly thinking back to those early days with a fond nostalgia before continuing.

“For example running a café, a haunted house, or creating a maze within the classroom… What you do is up to the class to decide. If you do want to serve food, you will need to submit a form requesting permission, so keep that in mind… Oh, right, before that…”

Taking pause, Tridd-sensei took a moment to look at his students before continuing.

“We will need to decide on a class representative. The class representative will negotiate on behalf of the class to the academy faculty. In the case of the Culture Festival, they will also be responsible for submitting the aforementioned forms, should that be needed.”

A low buzz stirred within the class. In middle school we had a role called class monitor, which was somewhat similar, but… if I must say, it was really just a fancy title for the sucker who had to take care of miscellaneous tasks. In contrast, in this academy, it seemed the role of class representative held actual influence.

“Come on, you should be the one to do it.”
“Wha? No way. I really don’t think I could.”
“Guess you’re right~”

Glances were exchanged among various students within the class, as though to gauge the others’ intentions. From what I could see, it appeared there were some who were interested in the role―just not enough to volunteer themselves, I suppose.

However―

“Tridd-sensei! I would like to act as our class’ representative.”

Entirely ignoring the stalemate that my classmates had imposed on themselves, I boldly declared my intentions. In response, my classmates looked at me with piercing glares.

“Oh, Alea-san? Hm, it’s true that you would likely be able to fulfill the role without issue. Are there any others interested in the role?”

Tridd-sensei gave a light nod before turning his attention back to the rest of the class, turning to look at each individual student one by one.

“There is no reason to hold back on my behalf! If anyone else here is interested in the role, take your stand and we’ll settle it directly.”
“… Alea, that’ll only have the opposite effect.”
“I don’t think there are that many who would want to directly compete with you, Alea.”

All I was trying to do was make my own intentions clear, but Mei and Simone showed clear exasperation. On the other hand, Lily-sama simply wore her usual troubled smile.

“It doesn’t appear there are any other volunteers. In that case, those in favor of Alea-san becoming the class representative, please offer your applause.”

A light, sporadic applause spread through the classroom. It seemed that while many didn’t strongly approve of me as the class representative, they didn’t see the need to disprove it either. Overall a lukewarm response, but I suppose that was to be expected.

“In that case, I’ll hand things over to your new class representative. Please discuss what you intend to do for the Culture Festival between yourselves.”
“Thank you.”

Accepting the position of class representative, I stepped up onto the podium in front of the class. From there, I took a sweeping look over the rest of my class. They returned my gaze with interest, confusion, doubt, and antagony… The class’ response was varied, but well, that was fine. I would simply have to earn their approval moving forward.

“Alright then, continuing where Tridd-sensei left off, let’s decide what we’ll be doing for the Culture Festival. If you have any suggestions, please raise your hand.”

Nothing. It seemed that the class was either holding their suggestions back out of consideration for something, or perhaps it was just that no one wanted to speak first. Regardless, it didn’t seem that anyone intended to raise their hand.

“In that case, I have a couple of ideas that I think will get us going. I’ll list them out, so if you have something to say, feel free.”

With that, I began writing my ideas on the chalkboard.

“A swordsmanship boot camp…?”
“It’ll be a bootcamp where participants can train in the basics of swordsmanship.”
“Protein Café…?”
“We’ll run a café that’ll allow people to try various cuisines high in protein. Protein, after all, is the building block of muscle.”
“Muscle Building Arcade…?”
“People will discover the joys of muscle building by trying out various exercises. Doesn’t that just sound like so much fun!”

For some reason, the further I got in listing my suggestions, the more bewildered my classmates’ responses became.

“Hey… Just me or is Alea uhh…?”
“If we leave it up to her, we’re gonna end up having to do something crazy.”
“Okay, I think we actually have to start taking this seriously. If we don’t, our Culture Festival is going to be a Muscle Festival.”

One by one, my classmates began raising their hand to offer their suggestions. Perfect, class autonomy truly is a wonderful thing.

“Alea… She’s really mm… quite something, huh…”
“B-But if she’s the one in charge, even if we end up with something strange, I’m pretty sure customers would come anyway…”
“… I do think they’d come… But I think Alea would be the only one having fun.”
“T-That’s true… What we do for the Culture Festival should be something that the whole class enjoys…”

As I took suggestions, the peanut gallery seemed to be making a fuss.

“Hey, Mei, just to make sure, that wasn’t Alea putting up a front, was it?”
“… No, that’s who she is.”
“Ah… Hahaha… Alea-chan’s, well, a bit musclebrained. Just a bit.”
“Who are you calling musclebrained! You there, instead of just complaining you should submit your own ideas.”
“Hyauh! E-Er… I’m sorry…”

When I called out to her, Lily-sama quickly shrunk.

When all was said and done, there were around 10 ideas on the board. Aside from my aforementioned suggestions, the class suggested a café, haunted house, water balloon fishing, and other similar minigames.

“Alright, let’s decide by vote. You will be allowed three votes each. Please raise your hand to vote when the idea you support is called. Let’s start with the swordsmanship bootcamp.”

Without hesitation, I raised my hand. I was sure this would be one of the frontrunners.

However,

“Just me? How sad…”

I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for me to personally share the joys of swordsmanship with my fellow classmates.

“Alright, next. How about the protein café?”

Again, I was the only one who raised my hand. Er…?

“Next, the Muscle Building Arcade.”

And again. Er… Hm…? Could it be that I’m a tad out of touch…?

And so, the class decided to run a café, tried and true, but also rather stale.

“… Phew, that really was a close call.”
“But I see, while Alea-chan seems like she’s got it all together, she’s also rather… Adventurous.”
“As her classmates, we’ll have to be sure to support her.”

That wasn’t quite the reputation I intended to foster here.

“Now that we’ve settled on a café, next, let’s discuss our menu. If you have any suggestions, please raise your hand. As for me, I think we should offer protein shakes―”
“What if we let your customers try and compare various blends of black teas?”
“I’d really like to serve desserts that pair well with the blends!”
“The Culture Festival is open to people outside the academy too, so maybe we should prepare something to cater to male customers too.”

I didn’t really understand why, but my classmates were now very proactive about sharing and discussing ideas. No matter how it came about, this was certainly a good thing.

“Oh, I just remembered thanks to the café idea, but I’ve heard that over at The Institute, it’s tradition for them to run a crossdressing café…”
“… Alea, stay. No more.”
“Why don’t we take a step back and calm down, Alea?”
“C-Crossdressing would be a little too much… At Least for L-Lily…”

Wait, huh…?

And so, the class settled on serving various blends of black tea, pairing them with various baked goods.

“Come on! Shouldn’t we take this opportunity to be more ambitious? To the very least, we could add a protein bar to the―”
“Alea, no more.”
“Alea, just shut it.”
“Alea-chan, please just stay quiet.”

I simply don’t understand what I did to deserve this.

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Translator Note: Welcome back to TAFM and Happy Belated Birthday Claire! The chapter was originally released in celebration of Claire’s birthday on Inori-sensei’s Fanbox and ko-fi. If you’re reading this chapter as it’s being released, you have the option of heading over there and subscribing for ~1$ to access even more episodes! ~5$ (only on Fanbox) will get you early access to the entire chapter right now!

But the classic school culture festival, and the callback to the crossdressing cafe, I guess the Royal institute is still doing them. Also… Alea…

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