Ogino walked silently back home. She dragged her feet as she squeezed the handle on Cookie's cage.
Her mind was in shambles. It was only the first month of her third year, but the worries that plagued her were growing day by day. She knew that her regular school life would be getting harder, but she wasn't ready for that.
She could feel a very important part of her life slowly slipping away, but she was hellbent on getting her main goal accomplished first.
Kinjo's face flashed for a second, but she quickly shook it away.
That's how it had always been for her. Ever since she entered high school she had focused not on her social life, but on her life after high school was over. She had minimal friends and she never hung out with any of them. It was only after the Journalism club was created that she interacted with more people.
Now, that club was on the brink of disappearing.
They barely had enough members to be classified as a club, and the student council had already warned them about the decrease in student interest for the newspaper and the club in general.
Ogino refused to let all the work that she and her previous senpai had put in be washed down the drain, but it was hard to keep it afloat.
Just as she was thinking that, she heard a voice call out for her from behind.
"Ogino!"
The voice wasn't hard to identify. Her child-like excitement and tone were ones that she had gotten quite used to.
"Hey, Fumiha. I thought you'd be home by now."
"Oh, Toi and I went out somewhere." She answered as she began scouring through her bookbag. She suddenly pulled out an instant picture and handed it to her.
In the picture was a guy with longish hair posing like some magazine model. He was pouring coffee into a cup as he dramatically fixed his hair.
"And…who's this?"
She had never seen that man in her life. He was handsome, to say the very least, but he looked much older than both Fumiha and herself.
"It's Reiichirou, Toi's brother!"
"Toi's brother?!"
She compared the two faces in her mind.
Impossible, she thought to herself.
"Yeah, but more importantly," Fumiha started.
She explained the plan Toi, his brother, and she came up with. The two of them walked as Fumiha talked. By the end of her spiel, Ogino was nodding to herself.
"That might just work. It could also just as likely fail."
"But it's worth the try, right?"
Ogino smiled at Fumiha's sly grin.
The next day during their club meeting Ogino and Fumiha explained the plan to Kinjo. She nodded along as they explained, and by the end of it—
"Hm, not a bad idea." She typed something on her laptop. "So we'll test this out on the next issue of the newspaper. Fumiha, can you write the section for this?"
"Of course!"
"Alright, then I'll leave it in your hands."
"Huh, what about me? My family owns the store!" Toi complained, "Shouldn't I be the one who writes it?"
Kinjo stared at him for a moment before sighing, "How would it look like if people saw that you were writing about an establishment your family owns?"
"Um…"
"Like you were biased," Kinjo answered for him. "Fewer people would believe you."
Toi tried to argue, but he couldn't come up with anything. He slumped into his seat defeated.
"Anyway, I need the article done by Wednesday at the latest," Kinjo said with a small sigh.
"I'll get it done by tonight! I'll e-mail you the document."
"Can you?" Kinjo asked with a slight amount of hope.
"I told you, you need to get more sleep. I can't be turning it in last minute," Fumiha proudly smiled.
Kinjo lightly smiled, "Let's see if you are up to it."
Fumiha grabbed the pen she always kept on the hem of her sleeve and pulled out her notepad. She wrote down some basic points to talk about in the article before putting the notepad away.
After deciding that Ogino would work on the front page to make it appealing for this special occasion, and Toi once again was left with nothing, the club ended for the day.
Fumiha and Toi left, leaving only Ogino and Kinjo in the room.
"Do you really think this will work?" Ogino asked with a low voice.
She pet cookie through the bars as she waited for Kinjo's response.
"Maybe. At least there's a chance." She closed her laptop and put it back in her bookbag. "There's plenty of students who'd be up for a change of pace."
"But wouldn't they have already looked for places in that case?"
"You know how people of this school are. They all prefer the devil they know."
"…Yeah, you're right."
Ogino had heard that phrase thrown around in her town and school: "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". But to her, it just sounded like people were being cowards.
Ogino had moved to this town when she was younger, but since the beginning, she could tell how closed-off people were. She could feel that many of the students were itching for something more, but they were shackled by what was more or less the tradition of this town.
"Heh, what would our senpai think of us relying on first years?" Ogino asked as she stood from her chair.
"I doubt they would care much about that. They relied on you quite a bit." Kinjo carried her book bag and headed for the door.
"Right…" Ogino said as she picked up Cookie's cage.
She always looked up to her senpai. The fact that she couldn't be the same for the two first years hurt her a bit. But with so much on her plate, it was just another thing she would, hopefully, deal with in time.
That same day, Fumiha worked on the article. Thankfully she had already planned for this and had asked Reiichirou plenty of questions she thought would be useful.
As she promised, she got the article done by the end of the day and sent it to Kinjo.
The following week on Monday, the school newspaper had its flashiest cover yet. Ogino was certain that having the image of Reiichirou at the front would do wonders too.
Thankfully, a considerable amount of newspapers were picked up.
Through the grapevine, the news of a local café no one had heard of began to spread. Now with an excuse to visit somewhere that wasn't the usual café, many students made plans to visit. Especially when they heard an ex-student council president was running it.
It definitely helped that Fumiha ran around telling everyone to pick up the newspaper. She claimed that it was a very special edition which made people curious. Saying that really would only work for this first issue, but at least it gave them a head start.
"My brother said it's packed today too!" Toi turned his phone to show a picture of the filled coffee shop. Although to be fair, that wasn't a hard thing to accomplish with how small that room was.
Reiichirou took the picture as a selfie, a selfie that apparently a few other students in the background decided to pose for too.
"He did save us seats, right?"
"Yeah, it's the ones in front of the bar. Apparently, a few girls weren't too happy about that."
"So it did work…" Ogino murmured to herself. Although that could've been taken as the operation in general, in this case, Ogino was talking about placing the image of the handsome Reiichirou on the front cover. She was really aiming at a certain demographic.
Having ended club early, the four of them traveled together to the café. It was the first time the Journalism club had ever had a trip outside the school. If it could even be considered that.
The moment they entered, the same coffee bean and sugar smell filled their nostrils.
Reiichirou was busy taking orders as they entered the café.
The four of them saw the four open stools on the bar. Each one had a note with the word reserved written in marker. They took off the notes as they sat down.
"There you are!" Reiichirou finally said, "The full Journalism club that I've heard so much about."
"Don't lie. You didn't even know this club—"
Fumiha elbowed Hiro, immediately shutting him up.
"I guess I have you to thank Ms. President." He bowed in front of Ogino, correctly guessing it was her based on the description Fumiha gave him.
"You're doing us as much as a favor as we are." She bowed as well.
Reiichirou served each of them a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies; except for Ogino who wanted a cup of tea. The warm heat emanating from the coffee brought with it its distinct smell.
They all properly introduced themselves before they began talking.
"I'm glad to see that this plan that Ms. Fumiha came up with worked so well." He prepared a few more cups of coffee for one of the tables.
"It's a bit early to be celebrating," Ogino said as she sipped her tea. "It worked, but just barely. I hope it's not a one-time thing." She said the last part in almost a whisper.
After delivering some cups of coffee, Reiichirou said, "I don't think this a one-time thing, but I'm certain that you will have to figure out new things for the newspaper as time goes on. Regardless of how good an idea is, people get bored of it eventually."
Fumiha realized what he said was true. They were lucky that the town they live in was filled with people who were looking for new things, but eventually, that wouldn't be enough.
"At the very least this has delayed the student council from acting against you." He looked off into the distance as if reminiscing about something. "Well, in the meantime I hope I can be of help. I already got a place if you wish to hear it."
The four of them looked at each other before nodding.
"Alright. I decided to start small. Like this cafe, it's one where mostly older fellows know of. I guess you start knowing more places the older you get." He shrugged. "Anyway, this place is an arcade."
"An arcade?" Hiro asked taken aback. "How could something exist like that without people knowing about it?"
Obviously, places like an arcade are mostly populated by kids. For a place like that to exist in this town, there had to be some sort of clientele to it, and yet it had to not be well known. Either that or only older people went to it, which wouldn't be the most probable thing.
"That's the thing," Reiichirou waved his finger, "The place doesn't have many clients. At this point, the owner is planning on closing the arcade this year." He pulled out a picture from under the bar. "It opened a long time ago, so the owner is quite old now. The people I heard this from were friends of his."
The image was visibly old. It depicted a young man standing in front of a large shop with many arcade machines inside. His large smile spoke of how he was feeling when this picture was taken.
"How has he been getting by?" Fumiha asked as she scanned the image.
"A few of his friends still took their grandchildren to this arcade. A few other younger kids go to that arcade but seeing as it's pretty far away from most schools, it never really becomes popular and is eventually forgotten again."
An old arcade might not be the most attractive thing for people their age but seeing as everyone always went to the same arcade all the time, it might just work out. It was a bit farfetched, but it might just bring some semblance of hope to both the owner and the club.
"Alright! Let's try it!" Fumiha said excitedly to the rest of her club.
They all looked at her, and Ogino nodded. "Yeah, I don't know if it will work out as well as this one did, but we might as well try."
She downed the rest of her tea as she smiled at the picture on the bar.
"Heh, I guess this is the beginning of your journey, Journalism club." Reiichirou said with a slight grin. "I'm rooting for your success."