After dinner, my mother and father tell Gentarō to bathe since he's quite smelly after the entire day, and he uses my bathroom, which I have no problem with. He tells us he'll do his own laundry, but I decide to go ahead and do it for him, to repay him a little bit more for helping me throughout the day and since I've accumulated enough dirty laundry for about one full load with the combination of his dirty clothing. After Gentarō is done in the shower, he comes out wearing a pair of my pajama wear I lended him since we're the exact same size, and then goes to the dirty laundry basket. "Where'd my dirty laundry go?" He asks from the hall.
"I took care of it, don't worry." I say from my room.
He immediately pokes his head into the room. "Why?! How am I supposed to pull my own weight if you're already doing my chores?!"
"Trust me, it was a one time thing." I laugh. My parents then come into my room and help lay down a spare futon for him to use. He offered to sleep on the couch, but neither me nor my parents would allow that after everything he's done for us today.
"Alright, it's a school night, so don't stay up too late boys." My father says before walking out.
"Goodnight Genta and Gentarō." My mother giggles softly at the similarity of our names before stepping out.
"Goodnight!" The two of us say in unison just before my mother closes the door.
"Let's hope tomorrow goes as smoothly as today..." I mumble and lay down on my bed fully.
"Hey Genta?" Gentarō says as he lays down and stares at the ceiling.
"Yeah?" I ask, scrolling through the apps on my phone.
"Can you tell me more about that tournament? The student council one?"
"Uh, sure...I guess." I set my phone aside and begin explaining. "Well, like I said before, there are 16 candidates, two of each kind of acolyte except boosters, the candidates are selected based on their performance from freshman year, and they all fight against each other to decide who's in the tournament. Only eight people out of those 16 will actually be in the student council when all is said and done."
"Really? What becomes of the other eight?" Gentarō asks.
"They all become support council members of sorts. They help when needed and are all still highly respected, considering they're all still one of the 16 out of 500 students chosen to participate in the tournament."
"Are there tournaments for each grade?"
"Nope, but if a student council member loses a fight to another student, they lose that position to that student, except for support council members. That rule includes other members of the student council as well, such as the vice president becoming the president after beating the previous president in a fight, and that president will then become the vice president. The eight who hold the eight actual positions in the student council at the end of the year continue to hold those positions in the next year, and the year after that as well, with the same rules."
"How does anything ever get done then? If the student council members are always fighting other people, how can they do the jobs they're supposed to?"
"Well that's the thing, student council members have to be treated like our normal human teachers when they're working. A council member has to be officially challenged and a date has to be set if someone wants to challenge them."
"Ohhhhh." Gentarō's eyes widen with awe. "That makes a lot of sense. What are the eight positions of the council then? Oh, and how are they decided?"
"Well, president and vice president should be obvious, then the treasurer and secretary are decided with a bonus fight between the two who lost in the semi finals. The person who wins the fight becomes secretary, and vice versa. The other four are pretty unique; the historian is the person who loses to the president, the parliamentarian is the person who loses to the vice president, the reporter is the person who lost to the secretary, and the committee chairperson is the person who lost to the treasurer, not to mention those four serve under and report directly to the person they lost to."
"I see...so they become like servants then."
"Pretty much, but like I said, only a fight can make the positions change, so even if someone is bad at their job, not even the principal can kick them off unless he decides to change the school's rules."
"I see I see..." Gentarō's eyes sparkle as he takes in all this information. "Seems like they've got everything figured out huh?"
"I know right?" I chuckle.
"How do you know about all this stuff anyway?"
"We're all told about it throughout our freshmen year. You'd know all about it too if you were there last year. Plus, the tournament takes place the second week of school, and everyone gets to watch it go down in every grade, so I saw how it all worked first hand." I laugh.
"Wow, lucky! But...ehhh, I'd probably have slept through it all and had you tell me everything." He chuckles.
"No surprise there." I pause. "You think we would've been friends back then..?"
"Most definitely." He grins up at me. "I would've seen you getting bullied, stormed over, and kicked some major butt just like today."
I laugh at his response. "Yeah, I can see that happening...but you can't protect every booster..." I start up at the ceiling and frown.
Gentarō doesn't say anything for a moment. "...But what if I could..?"
"What?" I look over at him again.
"Could I enter that tournament?"
"What? Don't you remember me saying boosters can't enter the tournament? No booster has ever been in the tournament. The only boosters allowed to 'participate' in the tournament are fabricator boosters who boost acolytes without a lyte. The 16 in the tournament either get a fabricator booster, or they just use their lyte, and most of the candidates usually have lytes. Other than that, a booster has never physically competed in the tournament for a student council member position." I explain in a scolding tone.
"But you said if anyone defeats one of the candidates, they take their spot in the tournament."
"I know what I said, but usually the same kind of acolytes always end up facing off against each other. Every tournament has always had two of each type of acolyte enter the tournament. The first round always ends up being those two classes of the same type of acolyte going against each other, and the eight positions of the student council have always been one of each type of acolyte. If a booster got mixed in, it'd mess up everything and most likely make the administrators frustrated. That's one reason why boosters aren't included, and because fabricator class boosters can't fight...and discrimination but..."
Gentarō pauses, looking like he's thinking to himself. "...But what if they didn't have to fight..?"
"Huh?" I tilt my head.
Gentarō grins and rolls over, his back to me. "You said the tournament takes place next week right? When's the last day to challenge one of the acolyte candidates or whatever?"
"Well, that Friday, duh. There's actually a meeting held in the gym where the tournament takes place to assign seats and whatnot, so it'd probably be hard to challenge them then." I explain as I recall this.
"I see I see... Let's get some sleep Genta. All I'm gonna say is, I'm gonna change boosters' lives at this school for the better, starting with that tournament." I can hear the grin in his voice, and I don't know why, but I feel like I can believe in his words.