“Huh? No way, not happening. Two weeks? You’re asking for the impossible,” I answered instantly with the shake of my hands. Yukinoshita across from me slowly nodded her head.
“That’s true. It’s not a realistic amount of time to work with. On top of that, if we assume that we need to supervise and check over the publicized content, proofread it, correct it, and make it consistent with other things, we’re looking at only one week.”
“It got even shorter!?” Yuigahama turned towards Yukinoshita with an astounded face.
“This is merely an ideal schedule in order to publicize the newspaper… Of course, it’s far from ideal already with this late of a start. We should stay ahead of schedule while keeping in mind of any potential problems.”
Although Yukinoshita explained logically, matter-of-factly even, even she knew it wasn’t a very realistic proposal.
“…Of course, this is only under the assumption that we undertake this request.” She added, looking at me for confirmation. It looks like she was entrusting the final say to me. The schedule she anticipated was fairly harsh, but it wasn’t bad enough that we could consider it absolutely impossible.
One week, huh…? Wait. If I can’t work on the weekends and today’s day is… I tried adding the days, but somehow, I couldn’t do the calculations. Huuuh? Hachiman-kun, were you really this bad at arithmetic?
No, the numbers were clearly in my head, but my heart, however, wasn’t very accepting of them.
“Okay, tell me something. If we follow the schedule, how many days are there until the deadline…?”
“Umm…” Yuigahama looked up at the ceiling and began counting with her fingers. Her expression turned into a look of surprise.
Yukinoshita looked at me with sorrowful eyes. “…You can still see hope if you don’t count the days.”
“Saying that already tells me there is no hope…”
This totally won’t work out? Yeah? I glanced at Isshiki and even her expression grew dark.
“…I guess… it’s no good?” Isshiki whispered intermittently, her voice vulnerable as though she was keeping herself from breaking into a fit of crying. Her eyes became moist and her breaths were laden with heat. Her fists that gripped her skirt weakly trembled. Her thin shoulders skipped and she slowly and timidly looked into my eyes. It’s almost as though she was putting her feelings of passion into every single one of her movements that it made me feel like wanting to take up the job.
But not so fast! I was already used to Komachi, my little sister, crying like that! When you’re brought up with a sister like her, you end up building a resistance whether you liked it or not! That’s why, I was very used to accepting things without hesitation.
“So you just need something done in a few days, right…?” I answered her with a voice that I’d normally use with Komachi. I hate it! I hate this onii-chan attribute of mine!
“Thank you soooo much,” Isshiki said, smiling as she expressed her appreciation. In contrast, the other two on the side were looking at me with a considerably cold stare and made deep sighs.
“…I see you’re as soft as ever.”
“W-Well… That’s one of Hikki’s good points… and also one of his hopeless points.”
As Yuigahama made a problematic smile, she also looked at me with cold eyes even though I thought she’d mediate for Yukinoshita.
Er, I’m very sorry… I’m very sorry for causing you so much trouble… Instinctively, I was going to apologize to the two, but the one who originally brought this job to us was Isshiki. She’s the one at fault, not me.
I glanced at Isshiki and she was rubbing her chest in relief.
“Phew, you’re a real life saver. I was really hoping I could put the things from before under our expenses.”
She had an incredibly happy smile in contrast to her laudable attitude from earlier. I mean, I guess it’s fine since I had a vague idea that this was going to happen.
But at least keep your sly act up all the way until the end! Good grief, I had absolutely no hopes or dreams.4
× × ×
It was a pretty harsh schedule, but we somehow managed to settle on something. Developments from here on would influence our costs, but at the current state, there weren’t any problems with the budget.
However, we had yet to decide on what to do, the most crucial part.
“Okaaaay, let’s begin the planning meeting.”
Isshiki announced her words in long-winded fashion. Only Yuigahama gave applause. Although Isshiki initiated the meeting, she faced Yukinoshita in the next instant wondering how to proceed.
After taking her look, Yukinoshita placed her hand to her chin. “I suppose we should think about the concept first.”
“Wouldn’t what Iroha-chan mentioned earlier be good? Introduction to local fun spots or stores with delicious food or stuff like that.”
“Oh, yes! I think that’s good! I think a plan where we can do all kinds of research and put those under expenses is good!”
Isshiki appeared to be in full agreement with Yuigahama, but what she was saying sounded like she had a completely different objective in mind…
Hearing the two of their opinions, Yukinoshita shook her head. “If we had the time, that would be fine, but given our situation, filling eight pages with just that would be more than we can handle. We need to think about other kinds of articles.”
“Is there anything else you want to do?” Yuigahama asked Isshiki.
Isshiki crossed her arms and tilted her head in contemplation. After groaning for a few minutes, she whispered, “…Not really.”
After listening to her answer, Yukinoshita’s shoulders dropped and Yuigahama wryly smiled. Well, that’s just how she is…
Yukinoshita’s proposal—brainstorm from the concept up—was a very by-the-book method. You could even say it’s the proper and correct way when actually publishing a free newspaper. However, in Isshiki’s case, publishing the newspaper aligned with her objective, so the concept was just an after-thought for her.
What we should think about now wasn’t the concept that we, the publishers, would use as a basis for the newspaper, but the concept of how we could capture the attention of the readers.
“If we’re unsure of how to start, why don’t we work backwards from the goal?”
“Huh?”
It looked like my idea didn’t make much sense to Isshiki. She tilted her head in a right angle and looked at me with narrowed eyes. How irritating… I was actually trying to help, you know…
But though Isshiki didn’t get it, Yukinoshita certainly did.
“Goal… In other words, you mean the readers?”
“Yeah. We basically narrow our target demographic and cater to what they’d like to read.”
“Readers… So this paper’s just getting passed around in the school?” Yuigahama asked, and Isshiki nodded.
Well, we’re ultimately in the dark until the very end, so for now, the appropriate thing to do here was distribute pre-release copies or first editions within the school.