To hold a more in-depth discussion, Isshiki went back to the Student Council to bring back some material. Some time had passed since she left. While we waited for her return, Yukinoshita gave us another filling of black tea.
When the steam ascended from the tea, the aroma filled the room. The heater wasn’t functioning as usual, but the combination of the tea and my coat was enough to take my mind off the coldness of the room.
“Sorry for the wait!”
The door flung open and Isshiki excitedly came into the room.
She came in carrying a clear file. She placed that on the table and began removing its content onto the desk. Her eyes sparkled as though she was a child looking at a leaflet of a toy shop right before Christmas.
Having been witnessed to her acting like that, even I was starting to want to make this free newspaper a reality. However, spiritual concepts like energy, guts, and motivation alone weren’t enough for that.
First, we needed to get a handle on the situation. The more you understood your situation, the more cornered you’d be; that’s what they called work.
If the costs and the schedule weren’t flexible enough, you couldn’t make something happen in the first place. Being aware of that and still trying to press the issue would only lead to a drop in morale. On the other hand, in the case where the costs and the schedule were flexible, people would get complacent and claim it’d be a cinch. They would drop their guard and ultimately, everything would fall to ruin. Ew, what’s up with that? Having the job in the first place led only to a future where everything failed…
But that’s exactly why it’s important to refuse the job once you had an idea of your capacity. In the situation where you didn’t have the option of refusing, you should negotiate to reduce your workload. It’s only after spending my time in this environment of forced labor called the Service Club that I was finally able to go through this epiphany. Finally.
I waited for Isshiki to finish preparing the documents and I spoke to her.
“First thing’s first, we haven’t decided we’re going to do this yet. We’ll decide only after we hear the specifics and discuss whether it’s doable or not.”
“Yes. That’s fine with me!” She answered with a cheery voice and a bright smile.
Argh… You’re making it harder for me to refuse if you look at me with those sparkling and expecting eyes…
I was speechless and sat there groaning. As if being my proxy, Yukinoshita started the conversation to advance it along.
“Well, why don’t we start off with how you’d like to approach this.”
“Yes. So, ummm, when we made printouts for the Christmas event last time, we made the orders from a printing company. I contacted them and asked them some questions, see?”
As Isshiki was speaking, she quickly took out several documents. They were pamphlets and sales quotes. But I have to say, to think she had already established communication with a printing company… She didn’t look like she could do any planning, but she certainly did have the ability to take action…
“So this is what they recommended to me…” Isshiki pointed at a spot in the pamphlet. Yukinoshita who had been beside her looked at where she indicated.
“Eight pages of full color… The scale’s gotten quite big now…” Yukinoshita pressed against her temple as if to restrain a headache. Isshiki let out an embarrassed laugh next to her.
“Well, I kinda ended up deciding on this because of where the conversation was heading.”
“Heading where exactly…?”
I was astounded. Isshiki’s cheeks inflated. “…I mean, you end up saying ‘yes’ when an adult tells you something, right?”
“I get you. I totally get you.” Yuigahama nodded, boldly expressing her agreement. Mmhm, girls nowadays… I can’t help but be worried that a bad adult or upperclassman will deceive them one day…
“Let’s see… Based on the budget, we can determine how many copies we can print… We should be able to secure places if it’s within the school and we can make them recyclable… It doesn’t seem like we’ll need to worry about any inventory risks, either.”
On the other hand, Yukinoshita paid no attention to the other two and mumbled to herself, processing the material at her own pace. Mmhmm, Discommunication-chan… I’m a little worried about you, too!
After a thorough examination of the pamphlet, Yukinoshita lifted her face and slid it over to me. I took the pamphlet and sifted through it. The pamphlet had a simple set of instructions all the way to printing.
“We can have the company handle the design and framing the content for us… This means as long as we can prepare a draft of the content and instructions on the design, we should be in good hands.”
“You don’t say. That doesn’t sound any different from the local magazine page we did before.”
So in short, as long we knew what we wanted printed in the newspaper, we wouldn’t have any problems. That being said, it didn’t change the fact that we needed to FIX the images and the composition in the articles. Phew, it’s abnormal how overly aware I felt for just saying FIX.
“The page count compared to back then is considerably different, however…” Yukinoshita answered. Her voice sounded somewhat tragic. That’s where Yuigahama opened her mouth with an energetic voice.
“But hey, we have the people from the Student Council this time. If we just split up the work with everyone, we should be able to manage something, right?”
“Yeah, that’s true. That should somewhat…” Just as I was about to continue, I could see Isshiki looking away with a sour face.
“……”
“…Isshiki-san? Just why are you so quiet?” Yukinoshita smiled sweetly, her voice amiable and her gaze warm. But mysteriously enough, there wasn’t a hint of warmth in her smile and just looking at her caused a chill to run up my spine. I’m telling you already, that’s really scary…
Isshiki was just as frightened—no, she was panicking to the point that she was making a commotion.
“Ah! N-No! Um… I-It’s just everyone’s kinda busy with the fiscal year-end. So I thought maybe there wouldn’t be any problems after we got that covered, or something…”
“…In other words, you’re saying we shouldn’t expect their assistance.”
“Yes…” Isshiki lowered her shoulders in apology when Yukinoshita let out a thin sigh.
“N-Now now, there’s not much we can do about that. If we really do need the help, I can try asking my friends or something… So, um… let’s just take it easy!” Yuigahama gripped her fist and said in encouragement. But this girl’s definition of “taking it easy” was probably different from doing things appropriately or properly…
In any case, we could see the costs of work and the workload. Presumably, we also had an idea on how the lowest number of staff we’d have. The only thing remaining was the schedule. Once we knew that, we could judge the possibility of this task.
We had a rough idea of the plans for the entire month, but we needed a much more in-depth look into the schedule.
“So, when exactly does this need to be done?”
“Very soon.” Isshiki took out a schedule sheet and tapped it. “Right now, with our remaining budget, the perfect plan is apparently this one with a discount, see? So in order to use that plan, the printing company said we need to submit the material and data to them during February.”
Hoh, a discount. So they had things like that, too. If they could use up the remainder of their budget with that plan, then it shouldn’t be a problem. It coincided exactly with the accounting period for next month, so Irohasu was rather good at managing herself!
I thought in attempt to avoid reality, but there’s just one thing I couldn’t ignore entirely.
Hm? In February? I tilted my head and Isshiki quickly added with a small voice. “…So, there’s… about two weeks left.”