COTE Year 2 Reimagined

Volume 7:Part 8

It was now finally time for the cultural festival to begin, I made my way to our café while being forced to carry the boxes we arranged to help us beat Ryuen.

When I arrived, I could already tell how nervous everyone was, Haruka and Akito were nowhere to be seen as I expected, but I didn't need to worry about those two right now.

Since I was appointed the manager against my own will, I was forced to help everyone prepare the place after making all the necessary arrangements. Everyone took their positions as it was time to open.

It didn't take long before our café was filled with customers. Unsurprisingly, they all ordered the same drinks, which led to us running out of our best beverage in less than an hour. Mii-chan was clearly concerned, so I had to step in.

"Update the menu so the new customers don't get confused."

She nodded at me and got to work. This was all expected so far. Running out of drinks wasn't a bad thing since it meant that we sold a good amount early on.

The cultural festival was open to anyone from outside the school, I wondered if that man would make a move, but I highly doubt he'd try anything too aggressive. It's very likely that he's lost interest in me by now and started focusing on the other students in the white room. He knew I had nowhere to go after graduation, regardless, so he wasn't too concerned.

The number of customers ordering from our café just kept going up, and it seemed like everything was going perfectly until Ryuen made his move three hours into the festival.

"Yo Ayanokoji, we have a problem!! The girls from Ryuen's class are handing out flyers near the gate and stealing our customers!"

I nodded at him and went to grab the boxes I brought with me today, Ryuen was as cunning as ever, but to me, every move he made was always predictable.

I walked outside with Ike and a few of the girls, and we noticed the girls from Ryuen's class yelling and handing out flyers to anyone who entered. They were asking for help and announcing that both our classes were in a competition, also adding that there's a chance they might end up getting expelled to guilt trip people into ordering from their café.

"What do we do!?! You're the manager, right??"

As always, my position as manager was troublesome. I handed Ike the box, and he started opening it.

"It's simple. Just do the same thing they're doing."

The box I prepared was full of flyers voicing the same sentiment that these girls were expressing.

"How did you? Did we have the same plan as Ryuen?"

I nodded at him.

"Horikita knew Ryuen would do this."

As always, I used Horikita as a scapegoat. Not that it mattered since that would end up benefitting both of us.

"Wow, Horikita sure is amazing!!"

Ike was truly impressed and started working with the girls to hand out the flyers.

I was about to make my way back inside when I ran into Ibuki. She was wearing a traditional maid costume and standing out of sight so nobody would notice her.

"That costume suits you."

Her face turned red in anger the moment she saw me and heard me speak.

"What the hell does that mean!?!?"

The moment she yelled, everyone around started giving her weird looks, so she immediately quieted down. She didn't want to attract attention to herself while she was wearing that ridiculous costume.

"Why would you make a bet with Ryuen in the first place. Didn't you know he'd probably cheat?"

She looked irritated and crossed her arms.

"I know!! But I couldn't let that asshole talk down to me. I had to show him!"

I had a feeling she didn't show him anything. Ibuki's aggressive nature was one of her strong points, but also her biggest weakness, no doubt.

"I see. Well, good luck with that."

She scoffed at me and didn't even respond. I made my way back to the café and noticed the line outside was growing every minute. At this rate, people will start leaving instead of waiting for a free space to open up, which would cause us some trouble.

But we didn't need to worry about that since Kushida was here. She was taking her role seriously just like I asked her and performing better than all the other maids.

Kushida went out of the café with a plate full of biscuits and started handing one of them to each of the guests, waiting in line while smiling warmly and shaking their hands. After being handed a free treat and greeted warmly by someone like Kushida, they'd feel pressured to stay and would feel guilty if they left. I didn't even order her to do that. She could simply read the situation and understand the correct course of action, then execute it herself.

I noticed the other maids looking kind of irritated probably because Kushida hasn't even practised with them once, and yet she still outshone all of them. I also noticed Yousuke coming up to me.

"Kushida-san is really keeping the class together. And after what you showed me this morning, I'm feeling a lot better about the unanimous special exam. You really made the correct decision during such an extreme situation, I don't regret trusting you, Kiyotaka-kun."

He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me, then got back to his work. This morning, I showed Yousuke proof of my words, and now I showed him how useful Kushida was to our class. From here on out, he'll trust my decisions a lot more confidently. Next up, I needed to show Haruka that same proof before the day ends.

But before any of that, I was called in to help. On top of being the manager, Horikita gave me a camera and forced me to take pictures of the maids. We set up a system where customers can pay to take a picture with any maid they want, and of course, the cameraman is none other than me.

Kushida has already made us the most profit using this system since everyone wanted to take pictures with her. She probably found it disgusting, but she pushed through and kept doing her job, I appreciated how reliable she was.

So far everything was going as I expected.