Conquering Villains and Capturing Targets Is Harder in Real Life than in Games

11: You would've liked it if it had been a kiss.

"B-b-but, Semi-kun! You haven't even heard what I was going to ask yet!" wailed Takagi-sensei.

Madoka's lips curved up into a smile but his gaze were empty. "If it's about helping out with student council work over the lunch break, then my answer is no, sensei."

"B-but Semi-kun we NEED you!"

"Need I remind you, sensei, that I'm not actually part of the student council anymore?"

"Only because you didn't run this year! I'm sure you could have been president if you did! If you want, we could appoint you to an honourary position on the council!"

"Since the student council is the democratic governing body of the school, I feel that it would be ethically wrong for me to be appointed onto the council when the students did not select me."

Madoka's argument was faultless—so faultless that a few stray tears escaped from the corner of Takagi-sensei's eyes out of helplessness.

Ah sensei, I pity you. You're up against Semi Immovable Object Madoka. You might as well give up now to save your breath.

However, Shizuka underestimated Takagi-sensei's desperation and thus he refused to give up. "Please, Semi-kun, it's an emergency! After you left yesterday, we discovered three stacks of reports that had been neglected. Many of the reports needed immediate attention so Ichinomiya-kun volunteered to go over them on his own so we could go home. Unfortunately, this morning, we discovered that the reports he sent out contained several critical errors that need immediate fixing."

Madoka raised his eyebrow. "I don't mean to be impolite but isn't it your job as advisor to go over the reports before they're sent out, Takagi-sensei?"

Takagi-sensei fidgeted around embarrassedly before he stuttered out a reply, "Ah, w-w you see that w-would b-be the case u-usually, b-but I had s-some stuff to take care of y-y-yesterday so um I couldn't."

Madoka nodded showing that he understood but in the next second he turned to Shizuka with a genuine smile and said, "Let's go for lunch," as if he nothing had happened.

Takagi-sensei grabbed Madoka's shoulder. "Semi-kun, don't be like this!"

Sighing, Madoka turned back to Takagi-sensei. "Sensei, you know we only have a 60 minute break for lunch. Our conversation has already taken up 6 of those minutes which means we only have 54 minutes left and you can see," he stressed as he gestured to Shizuka. "I have already have a prior engagement for lunch."

As if noticing Shizuka's presence for the first time, Takagi-sensei turned and sniffled. "Yoshino-chan, is that true? D-do you have plans?"  

Shizuka felt sympathy for Takagi-sensei but she still nodded truthfully.

"Now if you'll excuse us—"

"Yoshino-chan, couldn't you let us borrow Semi-kun j-just this once? Please! I beg of you! On behalf of all of the student council!"

Perhaps because she too had experienced being reduced to an incoherent mess in front of Madoka, Shizuka felt a strange sense of solidarity with Takagi-sensei. Thus, after a beat she suggested, "Semi-san, if it's not too much trouble why don't you help them out? They seem to really be in a bind."

Madoka frowned appearing visibly disheartened. "But we had lunch plans..."

"We can take a rain check, after all, lunch occurs everyday."

"Yeah, but I don't know who's going to be inviting you to lunch then," mumbled a cutely depressed Madoka.

Wah I can almost see some droopy puppy ears hanging on his head.