Kanpeki na Sako-san wa Mobu (Boku) Mitai ni Naritai Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

“A girl’s uniform sure is weird, don’t you think?”

From time to time, Takumi would blurt out odd and mysterious comments like that. However, he usually had an interesting thought going along with that, so I joined in.

“What was that about a uniform?” I asked him with a quiet voice.

There aren’t many people present in the classroom this early in the morning, but I’m scared of the girls’ reactions if they heard what we were talking about. And yet, Takumi continued in the same volume as before, showing no fear.

“A uniform’s supposed to keep up regulations, and yet it gives room for exploration at the same time.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You mean that they contradict themselves?”

“Uniforms prevent the expression of individuality, yet you can customize it quite a lot, right?”

“I don’t think they’re designed to allow for much customization.”

“No, that’s not quite true. What about the length of a girl’s skirt?”

Approaching the topic of skirts, I gestured to Takumi to finally keep it down a bit. It’d be bad if the people around us caught on to our conversation.

“The reason you would keep your skirt shorter…Yeah. To show off how stylish you are, because of how confident you are in your looks, or because you want to go against the rules and regulations.”

“R-Right.”

“At the same time, a long skirt gives off a recommendable and diligent impression. That’s how the balance is kept, and the length of the skirt is decided.”

“Balance…”

I feel like I get it, but also not really.

“Basically, simply by looking at a girl’s skirt, you can somewhat conjecture their personality. At the same time, the school prepares a skirt that can be adjusted for that exact reason.”

“What kind of conspiracy theory am I listening to right now?”

“So, Tsuyoshi, big question. What kind of length do you prefer?”

Being asked by Takumi, the first thing I remembered was Sako-san’s pleated skirt. Her folded skirt was a few centimeters above her knees. It helped emphasize her diligent and pure image, as well as a glimmer of mature cuteness. When talking about Sako-san’s skirt length, I feel like it really reflects her personality. For some reason, I’m starting to grasp the skirt philosophy that Takumi was talking about…But most importantly, why did I immediately think about Sako-san when talking about skirts?

“Hey, Tsuyoshi, you’re grossing me out with that serious expression.”

“You were the one who asked me, right?!”

I can’t believe he has the nerve to actually complain now. But I guess he’s not entirely wrong, it’d be a bit creepy to go silent when discussing skirts.

“What about you, then? What’s your preferred length, Takumi?”

“I do like short skirts, but they can’t be too short. I prefer the type that only barely doesn’t reveal their underwear in a gust of wind.”

“I think you’re the gross one here, Takumi.”

As our conversation reached a conclusion, the front door of the classroom swung open. Spotting the individual who had arrived, Nishida-san once again screamed in shock.

“Machika?! Did you go through another image change yet again?!”

That single statement was enough to gather the attention of the entire class. As a matter of fact, Sako-san’s skirt had gotten a solid 10 centimeters shorter. Normally, you wouldn’t think much of it. It wasn’t against the school regulations, barely changing her impression from a diligent honor student to a bit of a repulsive girl. As they had been hidden by Sako-san’s skirt until now, I never fully realized, but she had beautiful and long legs. They were slender but not worryingly slim, and her thighs were dazzlingly bright.

My gaze was completely sucked in by her legs, and although this was subconsciously happening, I still felt guilty and immoral. Takumi seemed to agree with me in that sentiment, as he was staring at Sako-san’s legs all the same.

“Beautiful…”

He had no intention of hiding his gaze. When I looked around the class, checking the other guys’ reactions, almost all of them were staring at Sako-san as well. I guess us boys are simple beings—myself included. But that brings up the question…of why she shortened her skirt like this. If Takumi’s skirt logic is true, then there must have been some kind of change in Sako-san’s behavior. I looked at her once more. She was discussing something with Nishida-san, and every time she smiled, her skirt fluttered.

“Hey, Takumi, if you can guess a girl’s personality by their skirt length, then does that mean Sako-san changed?”

“Good question. I’m sure there’s some change that happened.”

“Why do you think so?”

Takumi showed me a grin.

“Because she got rejected by the boy she likes…would be my top guess?”

The words got stuck in my throat. Since I knew exactly what he was playing at, I had nothing to return. But even so, I don’t understand the connection between getting rejected and shortening your skirt. I followed Sako-san with my eyes to attempt and filter out her thoughts, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

The second I gave up and sighed, my gaze met with Sako-san’s. For whatever reason, I could see a faint grin. I almost jumped up in my seat out of shock, and immediately looked away. Did she…realize that I was staring at her? If not, she wouldn’t smile at me like that…right? The chime rang, and morning classes began without any mystery being solved.

I sat in the final row of the classroom towards the window side, so I found myself looking at Sako-san’s back during class. I kept thinking about the reason why Sako-san suddenly shortened her skirt. However, the riddle remained unsolved even once classes ended.

“Takumi, the final homeroom’s over.”

“Mmm…Ahh.”

I shook Takumi’s shoulders, who was completely asleep. If left alone, he might end up late for baseball practice. Takumi gently raised his upper body and rubbed his eyes.

“It’s already this late, huh…”

“Go on, you’ll be late to your club.”

“Roger. Are you off to the future guidance counseling room?”

“Yep.”

“Go get ‘em, champ.”

“Right back at you.”

I left the sleepy Takumi and stepped out of the classroom. I went down from the third floor to the second, reaching the future guidance counseling room after passing by a few other students. Said guidance counseling room had the size of an average classroom, but as it was stacked with bookshelves and racks, it felt a lot smaller. From here, you could borrow university entrance exam workbooks or other reference books, as well as grab university documents and pamphlets. As Nishijin High is a well-known and high-level school in the area, they offer full support for possible future choices. However, I didn’t make my way here to receive help for my entrance exams. Instead, I called out to the desk deep behind the bookshelves.

“Shibato-sensei, I’m here.”

“Oh, Tsuyoshi.”

A man with tousled hair stopped his work and looked at me. Shibato-sensei is the teacher responsible for the future guidance counseling room, and he was also my homeroom teacher back in my first year. This special trait is being quite listless and messy. He’s known for only shaving every two days, and today’s one of those days where he didn’t. It’s not exactly a dirty impression you get from him, but he looked a lot older than just in his late twenties.

I walked past the valley of bookshelves, stepping in front of his desk. Although there are four desks available for teachers to use, I only ever see Shibato-sensei in here. Most of the other teachers are sitting in the teacher’s office, after all. Shibato-sensei is very particular in the way he does things, so he often clashes with the other teachers. That’s why he runs away from the teacher’s office and hides here in the future guidance counseling room. The reason I came here is to help him with his work and clean up stuff.

According to Sensei, the workload of the future guidance counseling teacher is quite high, so as soon as classes end for the day, I would come over here to help. Some of it is stuff that originally is supposed to be handled by a teacher, but he tends to push a lot of it onto me. This is why he’s got no place to stay in the teacher’s office. And as expected, he pushed another bundle of documents onto me.

“Today, I need your help with the filing. Make sure to order them by date.”

“Isn’t this a bit much?”

“Don’t complain now, okay? I just want to go home quickly.”

“Should a teacher really be saying that?”

It’s been about a year since I started helping Sensei here. The reason I became his target for this has a rather peculiar story to it.

In the summer of my first year, I completely flunked the very first exams. Every single subject was a mess, and in English, I even ended up the lowest of the entire year. With 280 students in every school year, there’s bound to be somebody who is the lowest. In other words, even high-level schools like this have dropouts, which would be me. Backed into a corner, I went to seek help from Shibato-sensei here in the future guidance counseling room.

“I thought I was being fairly diligent with my studies back in middle school, but I find myself struggling a lot now that I’m in high school. I’m losing confidence in myself.”

Surrounded by desks, Shibato-sensei nodded.

“I see. We have a lot of diligent and talented people at this school, so it must feel like you’re the only one being left behind.”

“That’s right. I at least don’t want to be left behind.”

“Hmm…” Sensei put his hand on his chin and started thinking.

After a brief silence, he stood up and grabbed a bundle of paper.

“This is the list of universities our graduates headed off to.” He put the papers down in front of me. “I’d like you to split them up between active students and ronin¹, and give me the total sum. You can use the pen over there.”

“U-Um…”

I couldn’t follow the situation. Did I get work pushed onto me? Even though I came to ask for help? Also, should a student like me really be looking at these documents?

“Once you’re done with that, we can talk.”

“…All right, I understand.”

Back then, I still didn’t know how irresponsible and uncaring Sensei is, so I accepted the work without much thinking. After a short hour passed, I finished my work.

“Sensei, I’m done.”

“Seriously?! Now I can go home early.” He said and started cleaning up his desk.

“W-Wait a second! What about my advice?!”

Shibato-sensei stopped in his tracks.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot, haha…” When I glared at him, he awkwardly scratched his head. “The thing is, this is the first time I actually pushed work onto one of my students.”

“Can I go home now?”

“Now hold on. This is where stuff gets important. At this school, it’s common sense that the higher the grades, the better. That’s what you’re worried about, yeah?”

I dropped my hips back on the chair again.

“You know, this is actually the third school I’m teaching at, but I don’t really like it here.”

“…Why is that?”

“Because the students are all diligent in their studies. They may have some worries here and there, but they know that studying is the path to success.”

“So you’re saying that studying isn’t important? Where is this going?”

“No no no. I’m saying that students being too diligent is boring. There’s nothing for me to do. That’s why I’m relieved to meet a student who actually has trouble in his life. And to answer your question…Yes, studying is very important.”

“……”

“Don’t look at me like that. This is where it gets really crazy.” Sensei cleared his throat. “How did it feel doing the work of the future guidance counseling?”

“How…I felt like a slave.”

“Haha, I bet. By the way, the data you put together will be collected and put on the homepage for potential applicants and guardians to look at. It’ll act as a guiding ray for the people graduating from middle school. And because you helped me, I get to go home early. I’m thinking of cooking for dinner tonight. Sounds good, right?”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Anyway, you just helped somebody, Tsuyoshi. No matter how much you may have studied, you won’t immediately be of use to someone. That’s why what you did just now was wonderful. Even if you ended up with bad grades, you just got first place in the helper ranking. You can be more confident now, right?”

It was just miscellaneous work, so I don’t see how that would suddenly make me feel more confident. However, the idea of having helped someone started to fill my chest. It’s not like my fear in regards to my grades and school suddenly vanished, but I at least felt as if my horizons had widened. That being said, I couldn’t just accept that honestly, which is why I happened to respond in a rebellious manner.

“You say that, but studying is still crucial, no? I may have helped somebody, but that doesn’t just remove my bad grades.”

“You’re right. If you want your grades to improve, all you can do is study.”

Receiving an answer that didn’t help me in the slightest, my eyes turned into dots. I came here because I wanted advice in regards to my anxiety, so being told to “Just study more” really didn’t resolve anything. Right as I wanted to throw another complaint at him, Sensei continued.

“But, you’re not worried about your bad grades, right? You just hate yourself for not holding any special talent or skill. There are other methods to resolve that. Helping others as you did just now is one of those.”

“So my worries will be resolved if I do miscellaneous work again?”

“That fully depends on you, Tsuyoshi. But, it’s worth trying, no? However, you can’t completely ignore your studies either.”

So in the end, it’s still all about studying? But I can at least gain something from it. I can’t really respect Shibato-sensei for pushing his work onto students, but he doesn’t seem like a bad person at least.

“Thank you very much for giving me advice.”

“Aye. Did that help?”

“Half of it, maybe?”

“That’s more than enough in my book.”

With this, my advice came to an end, and my relationship with Shibato-sensei should have ended. Yet, I still came over to the future guidance counseling room even after that. Seeing that I visited again, Sensei blinked in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Is there something else plaguing you?”

“No, I was just wondering if there was anything I could help you with,” I said, to which Sensei’s face lit up.

“Really?! That means I can leave early again, today!”

That’s how I started regularly showing up at Sensei’s future guidance counseling room. It’s not like this helped me change from an average guy who can’t study, but just Sensei said, I thought I might become someone who can be special outside of studying. Maybe I could be more confident one day. And with this event as a trigger, my days changed ever so slightly.

Roughly a year passed since then, and Shibato-sensei stopped being my homeroom teacher, but I still help him from time to time. I can’t say for certain if I’ve suddenly gotten more confident, but I at least have more faith in the days I spend. That’s why I’m doing the slave work again today.

“Sensei, can I use the interview room?”

“Yep, it’s open.”

The future guidance counseling room is connected to a small room used to practice interviews, but whenever nobody is occupying it, it’s free to use for me. I usually use it to do my work. I accepted the documents and files from Sensei and opened the door of the interview room. Two sofas with enough room for two people were facing each other, with a small low table set up between them. I could even use the sofa as a sleeping place, which I definitely can’t complain about.

I sat down on one sofa, starting on my work. Since I just have to do some simple filing today, it’s not that bad. I basically had to be careful not to write the wrong date, but nothing more. Right after I started working, the door of the room opened. I thought it was Shibato-sensei, so I raised my head, but it turned out to be Sako-san.

“Found you!”

Sako-san’s skirt was as short as before. I tried my best to not look at her thighs while responding.

“What’s wrong? Did you need something?”

“I still have some time until my club starts, so I thought I might just talk to you a bit. Am I in the way?”

“No, it’s fine…”

I calmly responded like that but felt dubious on the inside. Sako-san has a lot of friends, so I don’t see the reason why she would look for me like this.

“What are you doing?” Sako-san asked, sitting down across the table.

“Sensei asked me to organize these files.”

“You’re working as hard as always, huh. That’s Tsuyoshi-kun for you.”

“Well, this is about all I can do, anyway.”

As our conversation came to an end, Sako-san suddenly changed the topic.

“By the way, don’t you think that I’m different today?”

I almost dropped the files in my hands. She’s clearly talking about her skirt. I guess it was obvious how much I was staring, huh. A cold sweat ran down my back. However, hiding it probably won’t work either. So I just pointed it out.

“Are you talking about your shortened skirt?”

“So you realized? You’ve been looking at me all day, after all.”

She knew! My hands started sweating profusely, but I still continued my work. It probably was too late by now, but I tried to remain calm.

“Everybody would realize such a big change.”

“You’re right. If I kept it this short, there’s no way you would miss it.” She spoke with a teasing voice, which made my head heat up even more.

“Sako-san, are you teasing me?”

“Now, who knows.”

Or so she said, but she was pretty much admitting to it. So the reason she shortened her skirt was all to tease me? I swallowed some fresh hair, concentrated on my brain, and continued with my work. If my eyes met with Sako-san’s right now, she would probably bully me even further. Almost as if she had seen through my emotions, Sako-san let out a sweet voice.

“Tsuyoshi-kun, I’ve been wondering—” She slowly crossed her legs, as if to show them off. “Between a long and short skirt, which one do you prefer?”

As she kept her legs crossed, the skirt was lifted up. If she had turned towards me, I may have been able to see something I shouldn’t. I kept my gaze glued to the documents in front of me, and answered her question.

“A long one.”

“Why?”

“…Because it looks more diligent and serious. I think it’d definitely look better on you.”

“Huh…I see…”

I knew I was just pulling stuff out of nowhere. As I am a boy, my eyes would naturally drift towards a short skirt. However, her thighs are poison for my eyes. Talking to her like this, I don’t even know where to direct my gate. That’s why I wanted her to fix her skirt.

“Do you really prefer long skirts?”

Sako-san moved her legs, changing her position. My gaze was almost sucked in entirely, but I barely kept my calm.

“Definitely a long one,” I spoke with as much confidence as I could muster.

“Ah, it’s time already.” Sako-san suddenly got up. “I have to head over to my club now. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bye…”

I could finally breathe. However, right

as I relaxed for a second, Sako-san stopped in front of the door.

“If you like them longer, then I’ll keep it short again tomorrow.” Sako-san smiled at me and left.

“What’s this about…?”

I said I preferred them longer, so why did she say that? I don’t get it. In the end, the reason for her odd behavior remained a mystery, and her final words filled my head. I took out my smartphone and sent a message to Takumi.

‘That skirt logic of yours is probably wrong.’

Takumi might be able to solve this mystery. With that hope in mind, I sent him this message.

***

After we made it through the rainy season, what greeted me was a beautiful evening. The river passing the residential district had risen, but the flow of water was calm nonetheless, radiating in a beautiful light. Wind ensemble practice was quite tough, but being met with this comfortable evening breeze, all the exhaustion healed away.

“Machika, is it doing better now?”

As we walked along the river, Mayuko—Nishida Mayuko—asked me.

“Hmm…I’m not sure.”

Since she plays a different instrument, she probably doesn’t understand the exact details, but my flute was making an odd and dry sound. It seemed like something was a bit off about it. At the same time, Mayuko glanced at my face.

“How are things with Tsuyoshi? I saw you were testing all sorts of stuff.”

“I think it’s working.”

“Oh?”

Since we’ve been together for a long time now, I regularly told her about love and all that. She’s the friend I can trust the most.

“That reminds me, you never really complained or questioned that it was Tsuyoshi-kun, right?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, normally you’d say ‘Don’t try it with that guy’.”

I’ve been confessed to a few times in my school career thus far, and every time I asked Mayuko for her opinion, she immediately and always said to reject the boy.

“Tsuyoshi’s a good guy, so I shall let it slide. I can support you two.”

“And why is that?”

“I told you before, right?”

“I want to hear it again.”

“We were in the same class during our first year, so I know how hard he worked as the class rep and during the cultural festival. He didn’t do it while expecting anything in return, he just wanted everybody to have fun, so I thought he must be a good guy.”

“I can totally see that, it sounds very much like Tsuyoshi-kun.”

“He seems like the plain guy sitting in the corner of the classroom, but he doesn’t just get excited when it really matters.”

Today, Tsuyoshi-kun was helping in the future guidance counseling room. The work may be simple, but helping others is always difficult and complicated. Tsuyoshi-kun was kind enough to do such a thing.

“Is that the reason you started to like the guy, Machika?” Mayuko grinned as she looked at me.

“Come on, stop it.”

My head started to boil. I fanned some fresh air on my face when Mayuko asked me another question.

“That reminds me, did shortening your skirt show some kind of effect?”

“Sure did. Tsuyoshi-kun said that he likes longer skirts, so making mine short was the right choice. He never looked at me once when we were talking.”

“You sure he wasn’t just embarrassed?”

“Of course not.”

Mayuko let out an exhausted sigh.

“I still think your approach is going in the entirely wrong direction.”

“Really?”

“He may have rejected you for being too perfect, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn into a no-good woman.”

“But if I don’t do that, I won’t be able to go out with Tsuyoshi-kun.”

“You’re just too honest, Machika. Be on the attack, but…in a normal way. You’re so clever when it comes to studying, so why are you only a moron when it comes to love?”

“I’m not a moron.”

“Listen, it’s good to be diligent and serious, but you took it a step too far. I’m being worried here, and you’re probably aware of it by now, no?”

“That is true, but…”

I’ve always been Ms. Earnest no matter what I did. And Mayuko knows that this is the kind of person I am.

“Anyway, if you really want to date Tsuyoshi, then you should probably not try anything weird.”

“Whaaa~ I feel I’m doing good work here.”

“That’s just your imagination…” Mayuko sighed.

I felt a great response from Tsuyoshi-kun today. If I continue destroying my perfect image, Tsuyoshi-kun should start accepting me. But even so, Mayuko shook her head.

“I don’t think you should be doing something you’re not used to. Shortening your skirt is one thing, but you really have to be careful when moving.”

“There are other girls who have shorter skirts than me, though?”

“But they are used to shorter skirts, remember?”

“I was being careful, you know?”

“Oh come on…” Mayuki ran her hand through her hair.

Looking upwards, she muttered.

“…Blue.”

“Blue?”

“Your panties today, Machika! Since you kept your skirt this short, I thought you’d be wearing spats beneath that!”

“W-W-W-When did you see them?! Wait, was I even wearing blue ones today?!”

“At least remember that!”

So then…maybe Tsuyoshi-kun may have seen them in the future guidance counseling room. I tried to attack him while keeping them hidden on a close level, but if he saw them…

“Just out of curiosity, but what will you do tomorrow? Keep your skirt this short still?”

“I’ll return it back to normal…”

“Very well.”

The setting sun vanished behind the mountains, as darkness befell the riverside path I was so used to. I felt relieved that nobody could see my beet-red face.

June 21st,

I think the short skirt worked out quite well…maybe.

Tsuyoshi-kun said he likes longer skirts, so this is the right choice.

But I don’t want him to see my panties and make things awkward between us, so I’ll probably keep my skirt normal again starting tomorrow.

Also, just as Mayuko said, I was wearing blue panties today.

Oh god.

---

1 High school graduate waiting for another chance to enter university after having failed the yearly entrance examination​.