Classroom of the Elite: After Story

The Fireworks Festival (1)

It was the of day of the festival, and Kiyotaka found himself at the grounds where the festival was to be conducted in a few hours. It was currently half past noon. All around, shopkeepers were setting up food stalls and  game(?) stalls.

I need to check out what the deal is with these 'game stalls'  along with Kei.

It was pretty loud with people shouting and some were even fighting with their neighboring stalls for space. What made matters worse was that it was an unusually hot day which a lot of people were complaining about but, that just meant it would cooler at night. In the words of his boss Tsugumi Ai,

"Now it might seem like noise but as night approaches, it turns into the background music of a slice-of-life anime."

 He understood what she was trying but unfortunately, he hadn't an inkling of knowledge in the accursed form of digital entertainment known as anime. Ishizaki had once tried to get him to watch an anime with him but he had declined the offer saying he was too busy. 

I remember that 'Bocu no Pico' was the name of the anime. Well, I can always see it later with Kei.

He was helping Ai with her stall, who he started working part-time under. She bubbly woman who had completed her university and had a degree in culinary arts. 

She had recently opened a small Japanese confectionary cafe near his apartment and upon seeing his 'average' cooking skills she was happy to have him onboard. They worked from 7 to half-past-ten p.m everyday catering towards late night corporate officer workers. 

Tsugumi Ai was probably in her late twenties and told him that she wanted to open up a restaurant in Chiba in the future. She was building up seed money for it with this gig. Personally, Kiyotaka respected her a lot. She had a clear goal and had drawn up a plan to reach it. He could relate to her. She even looked a lot like him. They had the same height, same brown hair and similar facial features except for the eyes. People often mistook them for siblings.

Her reasoning for letting him call her by her give name was to promote equality in the workplace and she didn't want to be called 'boss' as it made her feel old. He could not for the life of him understand why calling her 'boss', made her feel old.

After bringing all the ingredients they had sat together and prepared last night, they sat down together in the stall and had their lunches. A while later, Ai paid the extra money for helping him set up the stall. They made sure the contents of the tent were safe and bid each other goodbye. Ai-san would come again half an hour before the festival starts with the lanterns they had bought yesterday and set up the stall.

"I'll be making a truckload of money of money tonight, look out for some new decorations in the shop later!", she exclaimed waving her hand as she left.

Kiyotaka just put on a smile and gave her a thumbs-up watching her as she left his sight. He immediately turned around and started walking. After a few minutes, he arrived at the place where he saw number of people working .

Well, my plan lies on the fact that businessmen are scum. Safe to say, this plan won't be failing. 

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"Your hair is getting pretty long, you should get a haircut one of these days.", Kei said.

True, he hadn't gotten it cut for three months, and now it was almost as long as Ryuuen's had been before he had cut it at the end of their second year. His bore an eerie resemblance to his father's hairstyle as he had pushed his hair back and let it grow in that fashion making it look like a waterfall to anyone looking him from behind.