After regular classes ended, the three friends convened in a space behind the main building.
"Okay, it was a bit short notice but I managed to convince the president of the drama club to lend me two freshmen to help us out. They'll be arriving soon," said Fuyuki.
"What did you say to get him to agree to this anyways?" asked Shizuka curiously.
Fuyuki smiled deviously. "Well, I couldn't outright say that we needed two guys to act out the part of delinquents in our self-produced hero saves beauty scenario, so I said I needed two male actors for an improv activity I'll be conducting. At any rate, the president of the drama club owes me various favours so he couldn't refuse."
Shizuka shook her head. "I feel bad for him."
"Mori-senpai, Satou-senpai, Yoshino-senpai, g-good afternoon! We're from the d-drama club," two male students stuttered out nervously as they approached the friends.
Collectively Fuyuki, Shizuka, and Mika silently inspected the two that the drama club had sent over.
The student on the left was short and portly. His heavily gelled hair was styled into messy spikes and was garishly bleached to a colour that was closer to orange than gold. Looking carefully one could see a long and ugly red scratch running from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone.
The student on the right was his opposite as he was tall and gangly. He had flat, shoulder-length black hair parted to one side that contrasted with his blindingly white complexion. With his spindly limbs and all black clothing he reminded Shizuka of a black widow spider.
Yet, despite their rough appearances, the two appeared mild-mannered and extremely bashful as they stood still with their heads lowered while the girls blatantly assessed them.
"They're perfect!" decided Fuyuki.
Not wanting to waste time, Fuyuki immediately informed the boys of what they needed the two to do.
Predictably, upon hearing that they needed to harass the school's goddess their jaws dropped.
The shorter student, whom identified himself as Chinen, frantically waved his hands back and worth in front of his face and wailed, "It's impossible! We couldn't! I couldn't dare to hurt Yoshino-senpai!"
"Me neither! If I did such a horrible thing I would be kicked out of your official fanclub at school for sure!" exclaimed Akiyama, the taller student.
"But you wouldn't be hurting her for real. It'd just be an act," insisted Mika.
"Even so it's impossible!"
"Aren't you guys part of the drama club? Where are your ambitious spirits as actors?" challenged Fuyuki.
Chinen looked embarrassedly to the ground as he explained, "Senpai, I only do behind the scenes work like making set pieces and stuff and Akiyama usually plays extras or background stuff."
Akiyama nodded. "Yeah I usually play townsperson C. With my height sometimes I'm also a tree or a mountain."
Fuyuki stared at the two quizzically and then muttered bitterly under her breath, "Damn that lousy president! I asked him for actors!"
Shizuka, who had been quietly observing the baffling scene in front of her, walked over to Fuyuki in a dejected manner. She sighed softly as she tugged Fuyuki's sleeve. "Fuu-chan, it's upsetting but we shouldn't push them if they really can't do it. We shouldn't give our kouhais a hard time. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be."
Turning her head to face Chinen and Akiyama, Shizuka smiled sadly. "I'm sorry for requesting something selfish from you two. I'm sure you were troubled."
At that very moment a ray of afternoon sunlight reflected off Shizuka's shimmering, doe-like, honey coloured eyes, making her appear as if she would cry at any moment.
Feeling incredibly guilt-ridden, Akiyama stuttered, "I-I we...If there's anything else...w-we would love to help you, senpai."
Shizuka shook her head sorrowfully and said in a small voice, "It's alright. I understand." She then buried her face into Fuyuki's shoulder looking like a small pet that had been abandoned.
Chinen and Akiyama looked back and forth at each other not sure what to do. Their goddess seemed really upset!
Finally, Chinen gathered his resolve and weakly said, "If you really need our help, then I'll play along, senpai."
Beside him, Akiyama nodded to show that he would do the same.
Slowly, Shizuka spun around to look at the two and beamed. "Really? You're willing to help?"
"We'll try our best!"
Shizuka ran over and grabbed ahold of both of their hands. "Thank you so much guys. You have no idea how grateful I am for your kindness."
At her touch, the two's face became as red as a tomato.
At the side Fuyuki thought to herself that it was a shame that her friend couldn't be this smooth in front of the guy she was actually pursuing.
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After they had the two's cooperation, Fuyuki helped them get into their characters. "You're no good delinquents. Lazy but short tempered. Violent but crude. Most importantly, you loathe model students, like Shi-chan, because they're all uptight sticks in the mud who think they're better than you because they get a few good test scores."
Chinen and Akiyama nodded uncertainly.
"No, no, no! That look is all wrong! You're not being fierce enough! You have to look more rude and ready to pick a fight," reprimanded Fuyuki. "Now show me your meanest faces."
Why do they look like they have to use the washroom?
"Never mind, just use your default expressions."
"Semi-san should be here soon. Let's get into positions," Mika whispered to Shizuka and Fuyuki.
"Why is he still at school at this time anyways?" asked Shizuka.
"Every two weeks he stays after school to help the student council with their work," Mika explained, referring to her data.
Shizuka blinked slowly. "Didn't he not run this year?"
"He didn't but everyone knows how efficient he is so Takagi-sensei begged him to drop by from time to time to guide the underclassmen along."
Knowing Takagi-sensei he probably had no choice. Poor guy. Hey wait, how come no one asked me? Wasn't I productive too? I mean I probably would've said no since it was really bothersome, but still. Tsk. The bias.
"Alright, people we're close to starting. Remember the set up is loosely something like you guys were hanging out at the back of school when Shii-chan comes over and lectures you for littering. Unhappy with her nosiness, you guys decide to give her a hard time. I'll let you guys figure out how the scene should flow. It'll be an interesting improv exercise. I want to see creativity and dedication out there. No matter what happens or who comes by you cannot break character, okay? That is key. Alright, people get into your places!" instructed Fuyuki who had taken on the role of a director.
Chinen and Akiyama awkwardly shuffled to the nearby equipment shed.
Fuyuki and Mika ducked into a clustering of bushes after throwing some random snack wrappers on the ground and Shizuka stood a distance from the boys.
From the bushes Fuyuki whisper-shouted, "And action!"
"What are you guys doing here?" questioned Shizuka calmly while facing the two boys.
Imitating a yakuza character that he had seen in a movie, Akiyama stuck out his neck and spat on the ground. "What's it to ya, girly?"
Shizuka praised Akiyama in her heart. Good job, mountain man! That wasn't half bad.
"Are these your wrappers?" Shizuka asked as she pointed to the bits of garbage on the ground.
"What if they are?" Chinen replied lazily.
"Fujita-san, the groundskeeper works really hard to make sure our campus stays clean so I would appreciate it if you didn't litter."
Akiyama snorted rudely as he nudged Chinen. "Isn't that rich? She would appreciate it if we didn't litter."
These guys are doing better than I thought they would. I should treat them to some snacks later.
"What if we said we don't appreciate you telling us what to do?"
"Then I'd have to report it to a teacher."
Akiyama turned to Chinen and let out shrieks of laughter as he clutched his stomach. "Did ya hear that, Chinen? She wants to report us!"
Chinen chuckled as he cracked his knuckles loudly. "What makes you think we'll let you do that?"
The two began to corner Shizuka against the wall. When they were close enough to touch her, Chinen tapped at Shizuka's nose with his index and middle fingers. "What a nice little nose you have there. Too bad it likes to stick itself into places it don't belong. We should probably fix that, don'tcha think, Akiyama?"
Shizuka flicked Chinen's fingers from her nose and glared at him. "Don't touch me."
"Why, what will you do if we touched ya?" questioned Akiyama as he grabbed her arms.
Although Shizuka would normally be able to twist his arms off, for the sake of the scene, she could only look up at him with angry eyes and cry, "Get your hands off me!"
At this time in the bushes, Mika noticed Madoka making his way towards their location on his way out of the school. "Yes! He's just in time," she whispered happily to Fuyuki.
"Just in time for the climax!"
Chinen raised his arm and swung it down. Shizuka turned her head away and closed her eyes thinking he would hit her.
Damn, this kid is getting really into it.
The sound of a loud slap resounded throughout the area.
Huh, that was really loud but it how come it doesn't feel like I've been slapped?
"Yoshino-senpai, I can't do it after all!" sobbed Chinen suddenly.
Confused, Shizuka opened her eyes and saw Akiyama and Chinen kneeling in front of her with tears in their eyes. Chinen notably had a large red handprint on his face.
Realization slowly dawned on her. ....Did this kid just slap...himself?
Following Chinen's example, Akiyama delivered a powerful slaps to his own cheeks with both of his hands. "Senpai, please forgive me! I deserve to die! I can't believe I did such a thing to senpai!" he cried wretchedly.
Between sobs, Chinen hiccuped, "No fair-Akiyama—to do two hits when—I only did one!" Chinen reached up ready to hit himself again but was stopped by Shizuka.
"Guys, it's okay! Calm down!"
Mika and Fuyuki popped out from the bushes and ran over.
"Please don't cry Akiyama-kun and Chinen-kun!"
"Yeah, it's our fault! We shouldn't have made you do that."
"We're really sorry!"
Hearing the seniors they admired apologizing to them, the two boys began to bawl harder.
"Take some deep breaths guys. I have some chocolate covered stick biscuits with almonds in my bag, would you like some? Someone gave them to me earlier but I couldn't eat them because I'm allergic. Eating nuts increases serotonin levels in the brain; serotonin's a chemical that makes you happy and more relaxed," explained Shizuka hastily as she searched through her backpack.
After she failed to find the biscuits even after she through all of her backpack's compartments, Shizuka bit her bottom lip, "Crap, I may given them away to someone else. Damn, why don't I carry more snacks on me?"
Knowing that Shizuka was so troubled because she couldn't find a snack for them made the two even more touched so they wept even louder.
Mika's eyes widened. "Were you guys that hungry? Should we send for food? I can call someone!"
Chinen and Akiyama shook their heads furiously making their eyes and snot drip everywhere and tried to stop their tears.
Shaking her head, Fuyuki reckoned, "Despite your tough appearances, you guys sure have soft hearts, huh?
Chinen sniffled. "I didn't want to be born with this face."
"My whole family looks like this," Akiyama added pitifully.
"I don't think it's your faces so much but your styles," said Mika slowly.
Chinen and Akiyama's swollen red eyes widened in extreme shock.
"Wait, don't tell me you guys didn't know? You weren't intentionally trying to look intimidating?" Shizuka asked incredulously.
Wiping his eyes, Chinen revealed, "My hometown's in the countryside. When I moved up here for high school, my older cousin who's a city dweller told me that all the cool high school students had blonde hair so he helped me bleach it at home. I thought I'd be able to make a lot of friends with my trendy new hairstyle but for some reason, everyone avoided me. When I told my cousin he said it was because I had a scary looking face. It must be true because even the stray cats in my neighbourhood avoid me."
Chinen's cousin, were you trolling him?!
Pointing to the scratch on his face, he went on, "I got this from trying to feed one of them canned anchovies."
"I don't think your face looks scary, Chinen and I think your hair's super cool," revealed Akiyama. "In fact, I think I look scarier. I'm so pale people always mistake me for a corpse. I keep my hair long to cover my face because I don't want to scare people."
Your attempts at not being scary have made you more scary, Akiyama...
"Then what about the gloomy all black clothes?!"
"Oh, black retains heat and I get cold easily so I always wear black. I think my overall constitution is pretty weak. It's probably why my face lacks colour."
In the face of these startling revelations, all three girls smacked their foreheads with their palms exasperatedly. By this time the three had all but forgotten their original objective and about the existence of Madoka.
Yet, unbeknownst to them, Madoka had actually walked by earlier. Except, instead of witnessing the scene of a frail beauty getting cornered by two scary delinquents, what he actually witnessed was the scene of two delinquent-like underclassmen sobbing and three flustered seniors trying and failing to coax them into stopping their tears. He stayed and observed for a minute before deciding that it would be unnecessary for him to get involved and left.