"Nipple-****ing!"
Upholding composure, I lower my cup back down to its saucer and swallow without incident. On the outside is serenity. Inside? Screaming. Nevertheless, I'm kind of proud of myself for not choking on my tea this time. I might finally be getting used to this nonsense. A glance at Suzu shows an expression which seems to reinforce this notion. Either that, or she's just jeering from when I spat all over her notebooks the other week. Ah, that reminds me. Another weekend came and went where I'd forgotten to buy those blue spirals I still owe her. I'll stop by the 8-11 with Takatoshi on the way home. Maybe for some onigiri, too, if there aren't any other students around to rat me out for buying food while in uniform again.
Honestly. The lengths I'm forced to go through now; all because of these overgrown kids, and their depraved sense of humor. Still, it wouldn't be fair to shove all the blame on those two. I really should know better than to take anything more than a sip whenever Shino and Aria are in the room.
"What's this about ****ing nipples?" That would be Miss Yokoshima. Of course the only time the student council's advisor would poke her head in this room is whenever anything, uh, poke-y gets mentioned. "You all should be ashamed of yourselves," she says with suspicious volume. "I will not allow such crudeness to corrupt the confines of this fine institution!"
Aria croons from her spot at the whiteboard. With hands grabbing restlessly at the hem of her skirt, she pleads, "But this is extremely important!"
"Forgive us, Miss Yokoshima," Shino says. "This matter concerns —"
"Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about." In a single swoop, the door slams shut and Yokoshima is right between them. She grabs the marker from Shino's hand and begins to write furiously on the whiteboard. "I watched that entire livestream last night," she says. "Come on, you two. Big Sis Naruko is here with her mastery of the English language. We can figure out that western-style crossword together, and then pass the Blu-rays back and forth if we win." At that, the two younger girls cheer.
Takatoshi groans, and finally looks up from his papers. "What was all that about crudeness and being ashamed of ourselves, then?"
"Never mind that. Daimon and Principal Kondou were having a chat right down the hall. You know the drill."
"There really shouldn't have to be a drill in the first place." Attaboy. I still have a lot to learn from you, Takatoshi.
Past that, I'm really trying to zone out at this point. Takatoshi's reviewing the latest club budget petitions. Suzu's verifying each clubs' expense reports from the last month. I'm supposed to be sorting the paperwork between the two; both ingoing, and outgoing. For a moment there, however, I was caught up in watching a teacher, a student council president, and the student body's official secretary drawing up formulas, pie charts, and graphs for the sake of winning a contest started by some Internet celebrity. I probably don't want to know what these Blu-rays contain, but even if their contents were perfectly tame, the method by which these three are working towards winning them most certainly is not. They mentioned something about a crossword puzzle, but they keep writing and saying stuff that I've never seen on one, myself.
"*** dumpster!"
"**** beads!"
"Nipple-****ing!"
"You keep saying four-down is nipple-****ing, Shichijou," I hear Yokoshima say. "The character count may match, but there's no hyphen in it. Some of the other ones have a hyphen."
"It's a trick question! They're subtly trying to tell us that four-down's not a virgin anymore. That's why there's no hymen!"
"Hyphen, Aria," says Shino.
"See? That's how they get you! Just listen to how similar they sound."
Shino raises a finger to object, but squeals in defeat. "She got me there. Her logic is sound."
"Oh, don't give in so easily to logic, Amakusa," says Miss Yokoshima. "If I did, I'd be pregnant ten times over by now. Wait, on second thought, I'm not getting any younger. I've been with some of these **** buddies of mine long enough that they're practically my husbands, by now. Maybe I really should consider poking holes in some of those condoms."
"Condoms!" Aria begins writing faster than ever before. "That's got to be nine-across. They'd have to connect condoms with nipple-****ing, after all. That totally adds up!"
"Aria, please. You're just spurting out nonsense." Wow. Okay, that one caught my full attention. Shino is sincerely the second-to-last person I'd expect to act as the voice of reason. Wait, unless she's just — "Nobody makes condoms that small!" — setting up for another joke. Grand.
"But Shino," says Aria. "What about men with micropenises?"
"Or people with Pinocchio nipples?" adds Yokoshima.
"Oh. Then I was mistaken." Shino then turns to me, of all people, and bows meekly. "I'm sorry, Pendragon, for saying that there were no such condoms."
Three voices cry out, "You're apologizing for the wrong reasons!"