3 bar menu

Chapter 148 Part 1

At Sairei Academy (1) ~Melody~

Private Sairei Academy High School was located in the north-western part of Sakate City, adjacent to the south of Saiou City.

It was far from the station and urban areas, and as could be seen from the fact that Saitama Natural Zoological Park, which Sairyou Academy used for its new students orienteering event, was nearby, the surrounding area was full of greenery.

From Sairyou Academy, it was less than 20 minutes by car, or about 30 minutes by bicycle.

If you were to look at the grounds of Sairei Academy from above, you would be able to see that the four buildings formed a slightly elongated rectangular shape.

The school building located on the top side, which happened to be on the north side, was Building A, which was used by the general education department.

The buildings on the left and right (east and west) were Buildings B and C, which were used by the art departments.

The school building located on the bottom side (south) and mainly used by teachers – what other schools would call the administration building – was Building D. Each school building was three stories high, and the second floor of each building was connected by a passageway.

The main gate was located on the south side of the school grounds, and a long road stretched straight to the entrance in the center of Building D.

On the east side of the road was a large parking lot that could accommodate about 150 cars. Across the road on the west side was a multi-purpose hall with a height comparable to a three-storey school building.

To the north of Building A stood all sorts of sports facilities, such as two grounds, one large and one small, tennis courts, a gymnasium, indoor practice areas, and even a swimming pool.

Its scale surpassed that of Sairyou Academy which was in the neighboring city.

To begin with, Sairei Academy was founded 20 years ago.

Half of the students were enrolled in arts-specialized departments, which were rare for high schools, and the other half in general education departments, but their goal was to attract and nurture talented people who excelled in both academics and sports.

That plan was only half successful.

Due to their excellent facilities and instructors that were assembled using the money and connections of the Ayakuni Group, they were able to take part in national competitions and exhibitions in just a few years, and they had even produced a number of graduates who went on to art and music universities and made a name for themselves as professionals.

On the other hand, the general education department had been having a hard time attracting students.

There was a reason for this.

When it came to academics and sports, their sister school, Sairyou Academy, in the neighboring city was widely known.

In the first place, even among the board of directors, there were dissenting opinions on them taking the trouble of building a school in the neighboring city of Sairyou Academy.

However, there was this adult circumstance in which as they planned to open a university campus in the same city, they had finished the acquisition process, but the plan was suddenly canceled, so the Ayakuni Group, which was looking for a suitable site for a new school, decided to choose this place.

If this had been in the southern part of the prefecture, where the population was high, it might not have been that much of a problem, but in the central part of the prefecture, where there were only a few large cities, the capacity of the neighboring area was too small.

As feared, the general education department continued to fail to reach its full capacity for some time, and even among those who enrolled, many were low-level students who failed to get into nearby public high schools.

Athletic club activities were also slow, and the extensive sports facilities, which they had taken the trouble of building, ended up turning into pearls throws before swine.

While art-related students were achieving excellent results and raising the reputation of Sairei Academy, they were dragged down by general education students who liked to cause troubles; such a trend continued for some time.

For this reason, when the Ayakuni Group decided to make one of the schools under them coeducational 15 years ago, the Sairei side touted mainly its new and excellent facilities, but the biggest obstacle was undoubtedly the quality of its students.

After it was decided that they would make Sairyou coeducational, the sister school social event that had been regularly held until then with Sairei, which lost to them, was terminated, and the rift between the two schools ended up deepening.

However, that was when Sairei’s reforms began.

First, they drastically reduced the enrollment capacity of the general education department, which had a deviation score of less than 40, from 130 to 90 per grade (in exchange, they slightly increased the enrollment capacity of art-related departments).

Then, they established a college preparatory course.

A special college preparatory course for students who aimed to go on to famous universities (depending on their grades, they might have their entrance fee, or even their tuition fees waived).

And also a management preparatory course for students who wanted to learn about society from a broad perspective and become entrepreneurs or managers.

And then, in order to bring the remaining students in the regular courses up to average level, they also strove to improve the quality of the teachers.

It was also around this time that – in order to allow the students to discipline the students of the general education department, who tended to be unruly, themselves – the power of the student council was strengthened.

For a while after the school’s founding, the student council officers were made up of students from various art departments, but after two or three years, students from the special college preparatory course and management preparatory course began to join them.

Sairei Academy, which had failed to become a coeducational school, also changed in other ways.

The particularly striking one was their tendency towards boys.

In the first place, it could be said that Sairyou Academy, which focused on higher education and sports, and had a policy of respecting the position of men and nurturing girls to become good wives and wise mothers, was the most suitable school to become a coeducational school.

On the other hand, for the first few years after its founding, the quality of Sairei Academy’s students was low, and coupled with the fact that followers of the Men-sharing Movement, which was gaining momentum year after year, had gathered there as their students’ guardians, there was a tendency of viewing men as inferior to women.

As expected, things like committing crimes against men outside of school were discouraged, but instead, dark rumors centered around the student council had been surreptitiously whispered about for the last 10 years or so.

Such as they were taking advantage of men’s weaknesses and keeping them.

This was because there had been sightings of people with their faces hidden going into the building where the student council office was located, surrounded by members of the student council after school.

However, no students made a fuss about it, and even if there were any, they would either become strangely quiet, as if they had turned into a different person, or stop coming to school before they knew it.

For this reason, from Sairyou Academy’s point of view, Sairei Academy was a school they had to be on guard against in a different way to the Municipal Matsuzaka High School (Ichimatsu), which was famous for being a delinquent high school.

However, following the result of the quiz championship, the male students had been invited to visit their school.

Although the time frame was limited, as a result of Sairei’s tireless efforts to promote their school, mainly by pushing their art-related activities, 21 boys from all three grades decided to accept their invitations.

Then, after discussions between student representatives from Sairyou and Sairei, including the student council, it was decided that they would have to accept a number of conditions for inviting the boys to their school.

– To ensure that the boys would not feel uncomfortable due to the excessive actions of Sairei students, Sairei’s side would have to take proper precautions in advance and be alert on the day of the event.

– Some toilets would be reserved for boys only. To prevent female students from hiding in there, security guards would be stationed there, and no one would be allowed to enter except when the boys came to use them.

– Sairyou would send five times as many girls as the boys to accompany them.

– Not only Sairei, Sairyou’s side would also bring along the security guards contracted by the school.

Sairyou’s female students were filled with unshakable anxiety and tension.

Sairei’s students were filled with expectation and joy.

With contrasting feelings, the groundbreaking day of inviting high school boys to the all-girls high school had finally arrived.

◇ ◇ ◇

They gathered at school at 9am.

When they arrived at Sairei Academy in separate buses, Sairyou students started to get off one after another from the cars parked in the parking lot.

The security team, which consisted of students with large builds from the athletic clubs and security guards, who got off the security company’s van first, surrounded the bus entrance.

Perhaps they had been cleared out in advance, there was no sight of Sairei students in the parking lot.

Though, not only students but also faculty staff were watching from the second and third floors of building D, the nearest building.

They got into the three buses according to their grade, so as soon as he got off, Yuu ran to the first bus.

The girls around him panicked, but Yuu paid them no mind and headed towards the group where the third-year girls were gathered.

Standing a little further away from the circle surrounding the third-year boys were Sayaka and Riko.

It was summer vacation, but today all the girls were dressed in sailor uniforms.

「Sayaka!」

「Ah… Yuu-kun?」

「Yuu-kun!」

「Are you feeling better now?」

「I’m all better now. As you can see.」

Sayaka smiled at Yuu and struck a biceps-flexing pose.

Normally, Sayaka wore no makeup – even without any makeup, her dignified beauty still stood out though – most of the time, but when he got closer to her, he noticed that today, as if to hide her pale complexion, she was wearing makeup.

When he looked at Riko, she had a resigned look on her face.

When he called her two days after the quiz championship and asked her about her condition, she told him that she had been suffering from a persistent cold with a slight fever, but not severe enough to warrant a visit to a doctor.

Fortunately, it was summer vacation, so she had been resting at her apartment, and Riko had gone to check on her every other day or so.

When Yuu asked her if he should visit her, she refused in a flustered manner, saying it would be bad if she were to end up infecting him.

Today, too, Riko was serving as the acting president, and there was also a suggestion that Sayaka should take a rest.

However, they probably didn’t go as far as to stop Sayaka, who was forcing a smile on her face and steeling herself to join them.

Yuu held Sayaka’s hands tightly.

Even though it was hot outside under the blazing sunlight, Sayaka’s hands felt colder than usual.

「Yuu-kun?」

「At any rate, let’s just do our best in the morning, say hello to their student council, and then go home as soon as possible.」

「Yeah, that’d be a good idea.」

The invitation, which was to deepen the friendship between the two student councils and doubly serve as a review meeting for the quiz championship, was for after lunch.

However, they could just cut it short early in the name of Sayaka’s poor health, and meet up again at a later date at Sairyou.

Not only Yuu, but Riko also had no intention of staying too long there.

◇ ◇ ◇