Determination
"I don't know about you, but this almost feels like a repeat of what happened last year. You did say Music Room #3, right?" TK asked.
"Yep, and I sent it out to everyone," Izzy nodded.
"What if everyone changed their minds and decided they didn't want to be here anymore?" Kouichi asked.
"You'd think the decent thing to do is to text back that you can't make it," Zoe snorted.
"We don't always work with the most considerate people around," Koji smirked.
"It's kinda true," Takato turned red.
"Hopefully that'll change now that I see some new faces here. Thank you for showing up, Zoe and Henry," Izzy said.
"You're welcome. Glad we could be part of the team," Henry said.
"Knock knock, I'm here! Just got held up a bit!" Mimi peeked into the classroom.
"Come on in," Izzy waved her in, avoiding eye contact with her.
"Umm, Izzy...by the way, thanks for letting me know about the club meeting. That was really...professional of you," Mimi sheepishly said.
"We're just waiting for the other members to get here. We'll give it another five minutes and then we'll just start regardless of whether they show up or not, how does that sound, guys?" Izzy looked at his watch.
"Sure," TK shrugged.
"Uh, hey TK...what happened between those two, by the way? Weren't they seeing each other like over the summer or something?" Kouichi whispered.
"Yeah, but whatever it was, it didn't last long...," TK paused.
Two months ago...
"She said she was going to meet up with me at the lemonade stand by the pool, but maybe she got held up at her lifeguard course," Izzy played with the screen of his new smartwatch. "Maybe I'll go check up on her," he crossed the street and made it to the gate pool.
"Sorry, pool's closed to the public," a pool attendant stood by the gate.
"No, I'm just here to pick up my girlfriend. She said she had a lifeguarding course here," Izzy said.
"Oh yeah. You can use the staff entrance here," the pool attendant lead Izzy to another gate.
"Thank you," Izzy said.
"You're welcome. Have a nice day," the pool attendant nodded and walked off.
"You too," Izzy droned. The closer he walked towards the pool, the more he could have sworn he saw Mimi giggling and canoodling with a handsome, tall, tan lifeguard. Despite the amount of time he spent on computer screens, he had a better than 20/20 vision, but this time he could have sworn his eyes were playing tricks on him. He began to really question his eyesight when he saw Mimi wrap her arms around the lifeguard and plant a kiss on his lips. "Mimi?"
"Oh my God, Izzy?" Mimi let go of the lifeguard and stood up straight.
"You told me to meet you by the lemonade stand once you were done with your classes, but I was there for 15 minutes so I came here to check up and see if you were alright. Clearly, I had nothing to be worried about. Seems like you're in more-than-good hands," Izzy let out a small laugh.
"Oh, come on Izzy! Don't be that way!" Mimi pouted.
"Thanks! My name's Dwayne, I'm the lifeguarding coach here and I took one class at the University of Tokyo. I might go back one day, if I feel like it...but that school is a joke. They don't count Remedial Math as a credited course," the lifeguard shrugged.
"Hi. I'm Izzy, Mimi's ex-boyfriend. I would say I'm delighted to meet you, but the breakup is still relatively new. Anyways, I hope the two of you have fun, I have to go," Izzy said.
"Izzy, no! Come on, don't be that way!" Mimi whined.
"I'll probably see you in class," Izzy said.
"I'm sorry!" Mimi whined.
"Sorry, gotta go," Izzy looked at his watch and bolted out of the pool area.
"I don't know all the details. Izzy avoids talking about her, and honestly I'd rather not ask Mimi. She throws a fit, even though she's definitely the one in the wrong. I know because she told Sora everything, who then told Tai, who then told Matt, who then told me. But I guess since that incident, Izzy decided to take up running. He said it was a spur of the moment thing, like for no reason at all, but he ran all the streets of Odaiba that day. Then he ran through all the streets of Minato, Shibuya, so on, and so forth until he ran all the streets of Tokyo. After that, he just decided to stick to running in his neighborhood. He said it was less crowded. Matt trained with him before, but he can't keep up. Izzy's just too fast at this point. Some people say he's training to join track or something, but if you ask me, I think he's just trying to run from his feelings," TK shrugged.
"Better than eating them away. Check this," Koji snorted.
"Hey, I hope we're not intruding but we stopped by because we heard you'd be here," a group of cheerleaders came inside the classroom.
"Yes. What can we help you with?" Izzy asked.
"Oh nothing...we just thought to bring some cookies down. I hope you like them, Izzy," one of the cheerleaders said.
"Wow. Thank you," Izzy said.
"Have a good day!" the cheerleaders said.
"You too, ladies. Thank you again for the cookies," Izzy said.
"I don't understand. You don't even like cookies," Mimi crossed her arms.
"It's the thought that counts," Koji smirked.
"This is ridiculous. How did cheerleaders come here before the rest of the members?" Zoe huffed.
"Hey, hey, party people!" Marcus knocked on the door.
"Did you guys know Marcus is back in town?!" Davis gasped.
"Glad to see you again! But how?" TK asked.
"Well, remember our old Principal Sampson? My pops didn't like the googly eyes and moves Sampson was making at my mom, so he threatened the agency to move him back to Tokyo or my pops was gonna sue big time. They misunderstood, and sent us to Tokyo instead, but I ain't hurting! It's good to be back!" Marcus grinned.
"It's definitely good to have you back. I wanted to tell everyone, but decided to keep it a surprise," Izzy nodded.
"You cheeky bastard," Davis said.
"But aren't you happy to see me?" Marcus grinned.
"No doubt in my mind!" Davis said.
"Alright guys, let's take a seat. It looks like everyone is here...well, not everyone, but you know what I mean," Izzy bit his lip.
"I hate to admit this, but I think I do miss Tai and Rika," Koji sighed.
"What about Sora?" Kouichi gasped.
"I don't have a problem admitting that I miss her. It's the other two I have a problem admitting," Koji said.
"Fair enough," Kouichi said.
"Alright guys, so I was thinking about our club and making a couple of changes to make it run a little more smoothly than last year. We did come across a couple of obstacles, but I believe it was partly to due with the fact that we had a lack of organization and preparedness," Izzy said.
"Snoozefest," Mimi put her thumb down.
"I just think we need to take some precautions so that we don't come across the same situations we went through last year. I have a binder of notes thinking back to little changes we could improve-"
"Ew, boring!" Mimi said.
"Mimi, do you have any positive criticism or ideas to share?" Izzy asked.
"No...," Mimi turned red.
"Then I suggest that until you come up with any 'exciting ideas', you keep your mouth shut," Izzy curtly said.
"Oh snap," Koji covered his mouth.
"Brutal," Marcus said.
"He's got a point. I don't know about you guys, but first things first, I think we should at least have a structured, organized club. From there, we can definitely plan so much fun activities! It's totally possible! I know because I was in a ton of clubs last year," Zoe said.
"Exactly. And I think one of the first actions of the club, besides me being president is to have Zoe as vice president," Izzy said.
"Why? She was barely in the club for over two minutes," Mimi said.
"Are going to be against everything I say?" Izzy crossed his arms.
"Maybe," Mimi shrugged.
"Look, this is coming from my point of view. Running the club is pretty tough business and quite a bit of responsibility. I think you can remember a bit of that, can't you, TK and Davis?" Izzy asked.
"Oh yeah... that was bad," TK said.
"Fun at first, but totally sucked when we had to deal with the grown-up people stuff like budget and whatever," Davis said.
"I was thinking that Zoe would be a great fit for vice president because she's shown herself to have initiative, determination, responsibility, and it would look good on her transcript for colleges, which is a priority of hers. Unless one of you guys would want to give it a shot?" Izzy raised an eyebrow.
"Nah, we're good," Marcus shook his head.
"Thank you, guys! I feel so honored, and I hope I don't let you down!" Zoe said.
"Second set of business, I know when we first started, we copied more or less out of the Ouran High School Host Club structure. I don't necessarily want to do it like that anymore," Izzy said.
"But how else are we gonna get money?" TK asked.
"Here's a two-parter answer. I was looking through last year's handbook, and did you know that there's a separate form that a club can fill out to get an allocated monthly budget from the school? The administration doesn't tell you that, but it seems like the only activities that fill them out are the athletic and musical programs. We can still do fundraisers on the side, but it would be nice to have some money from the school so that more people can enjoy the club," Izzy said. "What I meant though is that I don't want us try to fit Ouran's idea of a club. We are all unique people and we don't have to match up to another group just to be like competition. I don't think we had that problem after a while, but I can imagine that they had some of their members graduate too, so regardless, things are changing for both clubs. Even so, I want us to be like complimentary, not competition. Do you know what I mean?" Izzy asked.
"Does that mean we're not gonna see them again?" Takato asked.
"No, I can't imagine that, considering Rika is attending Ouran Academy now. In fact, we'll most likely see them more often. What I mean is when it comes to those guys, our main goal is to be ourselves and have a good time. Not try to compete or 'be better than them'," Izzy said.
"I like that. Tai was always a bit too competitive," Kari nodded.
"Next thing, I have is we need to have a more open communication between us members. We're friends first and I hope while at least when we're at the meetings, this can be a no-judgement zone. With that being said, I hope that everyone will be okay to say what's on their minds-"
"I have something!" Mimi raised her hand.
"Within the club!" Izzy kept going.
"Never mind," Mimi put her hand down.
"For example, let's say we planned a yard sale on Saturday but Kouichi found out it might rain that morning. He should voice his concerns so we can find a solution. Or for example, we plan an outing for the aquarium, but TK's scared of dolphins and it turns out Takato hates clownfish. We can choose another place. Let's leave personal stuff outside though, like I don't think I want to hear Koji and Kouichi argue about whose sweater belonged to who, or I can't think of anything else at the top of my head," Izzy said.
"Makes sense," Marcus said.
"I don't think that'll be completely possible, but we could try? You guys seem like an emotional bunch, no offense," Henry said.
"You have no idea," Koji snorted.
"I think those were my biggest concerns. Did anyone have anything to add?" Izzy asked.
"When are we gonna do anything fun?" Davis whined.
"Knock knock!" a young-looking man in a lab coat and khaki shorts walked into the classroom. He had black disheveled hair and wore pink bunny slippers on his feet. "I brought donuts!"
"Uhh...thank you. But you seriously didn't have to do that," Izzy turned a dark red.
"Don't worry, I'm not a creep," the young man said.
"Are you sure?" Koji raised an eyebrow.
"Don't worry. I do this with all the students," the young man reached into the bag and grabbed a donut. "Hi guys, I'm Vice Principal Nishijima, but you can call me VP Daigo. I'm also the after-school coordinator. So, what club is this?"
"This is the Odaiba High School Host Club," Izzy answered.
"Ah, no. No no no no no, not gonna work," VP Daigo took a bite from his donut.
"Excuse me? What do you mean 'not gonna work?'" Zoe said with air quotes.
"We had this club last year," Davis said.
"Probably because the principal didn't know what a host club is. But I do, I worked in one. In fact, that's how me and your new principal met. Yeah, she's so pathetic, she paid someone to shower her with attention. I'm telling you, it's borderline prostitution. She's definitely not gonna like this, and honestly as much as I'm amused by this, I'm also a bit disturbed myself. You guys are just kids," VP Daigo shook his head.
"No! We didn't prostitute ourselves! We helped other clubs stay in business last year! We helped someone learn to read, write, and talk, and we reunited someone with her brother! We're not just some grimy hooker ring! Honestly!" TK pleaded.
"And we donated to one of the food pantries in the area whenever we get the chance," Takato said.
"Okay, cool. So you sound like a good group of kids, but so far, the host club thing still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, like when I bit into a Boston creme donut expecting that deliciousness and it was jelly instead. Not good, not good, not good," VP Daigo shook his head. "Look guys, I want to help you out, but you're gonna have to change everything if you want to stay together. The name, the purpose of the group, everything. I just came to drop off this form. It's not due till the end of the month, but the principal wants to cut corners wherever possible to focus on the academics. I'm trying to convince her that extracurriculars are beneficial to the school too, but it's kinda hard to when there's clubs like yours ruining my case. Like I said, I'll try to help you out, but you only have till the end of the month. In the meantime, I'll just write you down as TBD club...To Be Determined...yep," VP Daigo pulled a pen out of his lab coat and wrote on the back of his hand. "Good luck guys!"
"Thanks," Izzy said.
"That was odd," Marcus said.
"Since when did we get an after-school coordinator?" Kari asked.
"Beats me. But right now, as odd as he is, he might be our best asset if we want to keep the club running. I guess we're now the To Be Determined club as of now until we come up with a better name," Izzy grimaced.
"Ew, I hate that name," Mimi said.
"I agree with you on that, Mimi. But like I said earlier, if you're going to have criticism without ideas, I'd rather not hear it in the first place," Izzy said.
"He's right. There's no use in complaining if we're not going to be proactive about it, guys! So, what we have to do is come up with a new name, and then a new structure for the club. That should be easy peasy, lemon squeezey, right?" Zoe asked.
"Uh...," everyone paused.
"This really feels like a repeat of what happened last year," TK said.
"Well, what should we do in the meantime?" Henry asked.
"You know what? That just reminded me of something I missed. Now this might be a bit of a controversial topic here, but I was thinking of cutting down the meetings from every day to twice a week," Izzy said.
"What?!" everyone gasped.
"Yes, before the school year ended last year, I voiced a couple of concerns to Tai about the future of the...well, TBD club, as our new name now is. One of those concerns is that the younger members didn't really get a chance to try out any different extracurricular activities, since the old club monopolized most of their time," Izzy said.
"But I don't think we played Monopoly that much. Maybe like three times, if that?" Takato shrugged.
"He means that it took up a lot of your time," Henry said. "And it kinda did. We barely hung out last year."
"Yeah. Us upperclassmen didn't really notice much since we were already friends with each other before the club's existence, but it wasn't until later on that I realized that it wasn't fair that our club took a lot of your attention away from exploring other options, or to just have a life outside the club. Then Tai was so busy with the club, that he ended up giving up soccer, and ultimately a possibility for scholarship, and I definitely don't want to rob any of you guys from that either," Izzy said.
"Wow...do you think that it's honestly worth holding onto such a club now? Look at us, half our members are gone anyways, and we've got an 'after-school coordinator', whatever that is, telling us that we have to completely change who we are. Maybe we're just not meant to be anymore," Koji said.
"Come on, there's gotta be something we can do. I really liked being part of something, and honestly, I don't think I belong anywhere else. At least this place feels right," Marcus said.
"Amen to that," Kouichi nodded.
"I think he's hit it right on the nail there. I've tried other clubs before, especially ones with shared interests, but there's something different about this group that has me feeling like this is where I'm supposed to be. Don't you want to fight for that? Don't you want to be a part of that? Whatever happened to us being like a family?" Izzy asked.
"Things change though, people change. They say they'll never leave no matter what, but before you know it, they slowly fade before your own eyes," TK looked at Davis.
"But we don't need a club to hang out with each other. We can always hang out at lunch and stuff," Henry said. "It won't necessarily be the end of the world if the school doesn't approve the club, will it?"
"Come on guys! We can't talk like that! Whatever it takes, I know we can make it through," Mimi stood up from her chair.
"Yeah, we just gotta be the best we can be!" Kari nodded. "If we hold out, I know we can make it through."
"Hmm, I feel like I've heard this somewhere before," Kouichi tapped his chin.
"American TV again?" Koji huffed.
"No... Canadian actually," Kouichi said.
"What's the difference?" Koji rolled his eyes.
"It's so much crappier. But you can't stop watching it anyways," Kouichi said.
"Oh brother," Koji shook his head.
"How about this? We'll meet up next week? That'll give us time to come up with ideas, and to check out all the other clubs for those people who are interested in doing so. Does that sound good?" Izzy asked.
"I guess that sounds reasonable," Henry nodded.
"Alright, meeting adjourned! Safe travels home, everyone!" Izzy said.
"You too," everybody else said.
"Hey, Izzy. Can we talk for a second?" Mimi asked.
"Sorry, I have to run," Izzy picked up his container of cookies and his satchel and ran off.
"I have no idea what's going on, but I think you ticked him off," Marcus whistled.
"Whatever," Mimi huffed.
"I think it's best if we don't get too involved. I'll tell you what I know. Let's go," TK whispered to Marcus.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Marcus said.
"Hey Izzy, come by to visit me?" Tai asked.
"Yeah, and to possibly buy a new pair of sneakers. New year, new shoes, right?" Izzy said.
"Yeah, you definitely look like you could use some new shoes. You know, I'm getting a little worried about you now. Is running becoming your new thing now?" Tai stopped organizing the display of shoes.
"I think it might be," Izzy said. "Look, you know how I was freaking out about what the future of the host club would be like? Well, we had the vice principal-slash-after-school coordinator stop by our meeting today and tell us to completely change everything about the club if we wanted to stay. So now, we're called the To Be Determined club...because we can't be known as a host club. Oh, and he stopped by with donuts. Speaking of which, I have plenty of treats here if you want some. Girls have been coming to me all day with snacks and coffee. It's actually very nice, but too much for me to enjoy by myself," Izzy emptied out his satchel.
"Whoa. Rice Krispies treats, cookies, brownies...holy crap! I think you've got it better than the football quarterback! What the heck?! Whaddya do?!" Tai said.
"Honestly, I don't know. Whatever it is, I don't think it'll last too long. It's nice that the girls are being kind though," Izzy shrugged.
"Hell yeah! Shit, where was this treatment last year?" Tai grabbed a cookie.
"I don't know. But Mimi gets mad every time. She's always like 'I thought you don't like sugary foods', so I take a nice bite of something just to annoy her," Izzy said.
"Forget her. She made her choice, she'll have to deal with the consequences. If she even know what that word means. She's a spoiled brat who thinks she can get away with doing whatever she wants, and that's not how life works," Tai chewed with his mouth full.
"Wow. Isn't that a bit harsh?" Izzy asked.
"I'm just telling the truth, something she never had the guts to do. I really thought she was a sincere, honest person, but-"
"Tai, can we talk about something else now? You see, with the future of the club being uncertain, I was thinking of trying out for track and field. But I'll need a suitable pair of sneakers for that, and who better to ask than you?" Izzy interrupted.
"Well, you came to the right dude! Come on this way. We just got a shipment of the latest sneaker right here. They're a bit pricey, but with my discount, it won't hurt your pocket at all. Isn't she a beaut?" Tai sighed and held up a sneaker.
"Hi, Nanna. Is Rika home?" Takato asked.
"No, not yet, but you're welcome to come inside and wait for her, if you'd like," Nanna smiled.
"Thank you. That would be great," Henry said.
"Do you boys want anything in the meantime? I have Capri Suns, those Kool Aids that come in the plastic bottles, chips, Cheese-Its, you name it," Nana offered.
"We'll take whatever's easy for you," Takato said.
"Okay, I'll be back," Nanna smiled.
"She's so nice. I don't understand how it didn't rub off on Rika," Henry remarked.
"Beats me," Takato shrugged.
"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Rika dropped her backpack by the doorway.
"Uh...," Takato paused.
"It's fine. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I'm actually happy to see you goons here," Rika said.
"Thank you? We're happy to see you too," Henry raised an eyebrow.
"I had a terrible first day at Ouran. It totally blows there. It's such a dumb place. So you know at the start of the day, we go to a classroom and sit there for 5 minutes while a teacher calls out everyone's names to make sure we're all there, I guess. Then once the teacher is done with that, he says if there's any announcements within the school before he sends us off to the next classroom. And did you know that we get up and go to classroom to classroom like every hour when they want to change to another school subject? Oh, you wanna stop teaching Spanish and move on to Math? Well, you're gonna have to get up from your chair and walk to another classroom! And did I mention we sit in hard chairs? Where's the bean bag chairs or the comfy recliner seats? What the hell is that?" Rika stuck her tongue out.
"That's literally every school in the country," Henry said.
"Oh my God, that sucks...so I guess having all this homework is normal too, huh?" Rika dragged her backpack over and pulled a bunch of books out.
"Wow...," Takato winced.
"Actually, that's not normal," Henry grimly said.
"Yeah. I kinda wish I took school more seriously now," Rika sighed. "Oh, and I forgot to mention, you know those Ouran guys? They invited me to one of their meetings and it was disgusting. Do you know what a host club is? What it actually does? It was so disturbing!"
"What did they do?" Henry asked.
"So, girls pay to go inside the club room and pick which guy they want to flirt with them. The guys then act all flirty and touchy-feely, like if they were a boyfriend, I felt icky just watching it unfold. Oh, and you know how Haruhi is a girl? Well, either everyone else doesn't know or just doesn't care, but it was just too weird how the girls were throwing themselves at her, and she's so chill about it, like it doesn't even bother her. It's okay though, after all the girls cleared out, Tamaki revealed that it was going to be the last host club meeting ever, which is a relief if that's how all their meetings go," Rika shrugged.
"Wait, what?!" Takato said.
"Yeah. They said it just wasn't the same, since a couple of their members graduated. They figured that they'd try one more time, but after their trial run, they want to go in another direction," Rika said.
"Really?" Takato asked.
"I suggested they regroup and call themselves the Wap-pow Patrol, and then they can solve people's problems since they look like the meddling type anyways. They can even give themselves code names like Chase, Rubble, Skye, yadda yadda yadda. Can you imagine Tamaki saying 'Chase is on the case!'?," Rika smirked.
"Did you just give them the idea straight out of Paw Patrol?" Henry asked.
"It'll keep them busy, right?" Rika shrugged.
"You know what, speaking of the club, we could use your help too," Takato said.
"What did you guys do?" Rika shook her head.
"We didn't even do anything yet. We were in the middle of our first meeting, until we had an 'after-school coordinator' tell us that our club was going to be a no-go unless we become something that the administration can approve of. So as of now, we're stripped of the original club name and we're perpetually in limbo unless anyone can come up with any ideas," Henry said.
"Geez, I wish I could help but I've got nothing," Rika said.
"But you came up with the Wap-pow Patrol for the Ouran guys," Takato said.
"Because it sounded so dumb. I didn't think they were really gonna take me seriously, but that Tamaki guy was really digging it. I couldn't do that to you guys," Rika shook her head.
"We appreciate the sentiment, but any ideas could be helpful right now. Even if it's silly," Henry said.
"Sorry, I've got nothing. And unfortunately, by the time I get out of my last class to make it to your school, I'd miss your after-school meetings by a half-hour. I would cut class, but cutting class last year is what landed me in Ouran. If I cut class here, I don't know where she'd send me next," Rika groaned.
"Understandable," Henry nodded.
"I never pictured high school to start off on such a wrong foot. This is just not how it was supposed to be," Takato said.
"Same," Rika sighed.
"I know it's not what you're expecting, but we can't let it stop us from trying to at least doing our best. With a little determination, I know we can do it," Henry said.
"I don't know, it's really tough. I'm really missing the good old days. Hate to admit it, but I think it's so bad, I miss that dweeb in the ponytail too," Rika said.
"He misses you too, but don't tell him we told you. Everyone misses you," Takato said.
"Nice," Henry shook his head.
The next day...
"Hey Blondie, what are you doing?" Koji asked.
"Just drawing up designs for my campaign posters. You like? Can't decide whether I like this design or this one better... I'll look up more stuff on Pinterest when I get home-"
"Campaign posters? For what?" Kouichi asked.
"Student body council, of course! And I'm running for president!" Zoe beamed.
"That's nice and all, but what about the host club?" Koji crossed his arms.
"Look, we're not a host club anymore. We're a TBD club. A blank template. Now, if I come up with any ideas between now and next week's meeting, I'll scribble them down, but for now, I'm focusing on other things. And I'm not the only one either. I heard Izzy is trying out for track after school today, then Kari and I are going to cheerleading tryouts on Wednesday. She might check out yearbook club on Friday as well. Davis is obviously going to check out soccer, and TK might possibly join basketball, but he's on the fence on that. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to sit and wait around for a club that might possibly die out. As much as I'd love to keep the club around, it looks like everyone else is looking for backup plans, maybe you guys should too," Zoe shrugged.
"You're gonna just give up like that? You'll spend hours trying to decide what kind of swirly letters will look nice on your stupid posters, but you can't put aside ten minutes to come up with any ideas of how to save our club? You were our vice president for a reason, because we thought you could be a dependable right-hand man, but if you don't have the drive to hold us together, then you're not doing your job right. And you probably shouldn't be running for student council if that's how your attitude is going to be," Koji said.
"I don't see you coming up with any solutions. You're just as bad as Mimi, criticizing everyone without doing anything productive about it," Zoe fumed.
"That's all I can think about right now, but it's not easy!" Koji yelled.
"Precisely! So why don't you stop judging me? Don't you think I'm trying? But I can't waste all my time thinking about it...Izzy gave us a week break so we could check out what the school has to offer, and student council has been something I've wanted to do since I moved here last year and now this is my chance. Maybe an idea will pop into my head soon, but at this point, I can't force it anymore. I'm tired of thinking," Zoe said.
"I think I understand. If you think about it, ideas are like taking a dump! All the good ones come naturally and it feels soooo nice when they come out," Takuya turned his seat to face everyone.
"Was anyone talking to you?" Kouichi asked.
"Nah, but you guys were talking about forcing ideas and it just made me think about pooping a lot. I probably need to eat healthier," Takuya frowned.
"Seriously guys, you should try to check out at least one after-school activity this week. It wouldn't hurt. Everyone else is doing it," Zoe whispered to the twins.
"Well, if everyone else is doing it, does that necessarily make it okay? Or is that more or less of a warning sign that something's not right after all?" Kouichi asked.
"You know, I never liked going along with the crowd, but I might just stay today," Koji sighed.