The Villainess Reika-sama

[40]

As autumn deepened, we began choosing photos for our graduation album.
I’m not a member of the graduation committee, but I decided to cooperate as proactively with them as possible.
I think it should be alright, but on the off chance that somebody entered a picture of my shame during the Deer Assault Incident, it’d become the shame of my life.
At the moment there aren’t any weird photos of me, but you can never be too careful.

The photos in the album are being chosen from those taken by Zuiran’s exclusive cameraman as well as photos that the students want in them.
Well, it’s something I knew would happen, but the photos are kinda biased towards certain students, huhh~
The ones contributed by the students were almost all Kaburagi and Enjou photos, and mostly ones with the contributors in it. Stuff they’d want to remember I guess.
If we accepted all of these, it would end up as a Kaburagi-Enjou album, so we rejected most of them.
There are lots of photos of the more salient students, and the more docile and plain students are getting overlooked, so they’re checking the photos carefully.
If after we graduated and some kid said “I’m… not in a single photo…” or something, they’d really feel hurt after all. Their happy parents would be sad too.
And we’re carefully comparing the photos and student roster.

“It really helps that you’re assisting us, Reika-sama.”

The one who said that with a smile was Honda Miharu-chan from my class.
We’re in different groups, but she’s a serious and diligent girl, and was the vice rep from last year.

“Besides the class and group photos, it takes a lot of work to check the student-contributed photos, after all.”

“Yeah. I almost missed one.”

The docile kids don’t submit their own photos, and sometimes there isn’t even a single photo of them.
In those cases, members of the album committee go take photos of ‘school lunch’ or the like. And if possible, take photos where the kid isn’t by himself, but instead having fun with their friends.
The teacher in charge of the album is checking it together with us, so it should be fine though.
While I’m at it, I’m trying my best to select the cuter ones.
I’m helping out, so just this much bias is okay, right?

“This is a photo of the Petite Pivoine isn’t it.”

The photo being held out to me was from the other day, when our cameraman came to the salon.
Each year the Pivoine has its own special group photo. We are technically the face of the school, after all.
In the centre of the photo was Emperor on the couch with Enjou next to him, with the other members surrounding them. On each side of the photo was a red peony, the namesake of the group.
But the problem was that I was sitting next to Emperor.
Even though there were heaps of other girls who wanted that spot, why me?
But everybody else was like, “Please, go ahead Reika-sama” and recommended it to me without listening, so I couldn’t refuse.
If I made it too obvious I didn’t want to, Emperor would probably get upset after all.
‘At the very least, next to Enjou then…’ I thought, but Enjou refused me with his smile. …So mean.
Thanks to that, I got warned a bunch of times by the cameraman for having a stiff smile, and the guy next to me started clicking his tongue, and I had a horrible time of it.
This photo had that kind of backstory.

“So this is the Pivoine’s salon. How wonderful. It’s like a dream…”

So said the album committee members as they looked at the photo in a daze.
Mn, it’s a needlessly luxurious room, isn’t it. The “bearing of a ruler” peonies just make it even more luxurious.
Because even in this Zuiran Academy that feels all rich already, the Pivoine is just in a different class. After all, the normal students aren’t allowed in.
Even though the truth is that all we do is drink tea, eat sweets, and laze around. Mn? Could that just be me?