March 16, Tuesday
As March begins, clubs have an important job to do. And that is to recruit new members.
As a public school, Kitsushouharukaze has entrance exams on two different dates, and those results are announced on the 5th and 20th of March. Since club activities are so active in the school, none of the clubs have the time to wait for the entrance ceremony, and instead the intense battle to recruit promising new students start on the days that the results of the entrance exams are announced.
Of course, both Koutarou and Harumi of the knitting society will be taking part in this recruiting battle. In preparation for that day, they had come to the mall to purchase some things. The two were quite motivated and weren't just ready to use the remaining club funds, but also their own money.
“We have to recruit some for the second announcement”
“I'm sorry for not being useful”
“T-That's not what I meant!”
A certain reason was behind their motivation. Since the first announcement had gone by without any satisfactory results, they decided to bet on the second announcement.
On the day of the first announcement, Harumi had been caught by the members of the drama club and forced to wear a dress and help the drama club with their own recruitment. As a result, Koutarou was left to recruit for the knitting society on his own, and his results were lacking as he was unable to find a new applicant. The knitting society wasn't very popular to begin with, and having a lone boy looking for recruits completely backfired.
As such, the two decided that they had to successfully recruit someone on the second announcement.
“It doesn't look good if the president of the society is not present, does it?”
“Supposedly, the drama club will be changing how they recruit for the second announcement so we'll be fine”
The drama club could normally be called a small club, but this year they saw a great increase in applicants. The two plays that they had put on last year had been very well received and played a large part in the increase in applicants. Just by having Harumi stand by the drama club's reception wearing Alaia's dress was enough to attract attention.
Because of that, the drama club was satisfied with the amount of applicants they had gotten and decided not to use Harumi for the second announcement day. Instead, they were going to line up their good-looking boys and cross-dressing girls and attract those into that. Since neither Koutarou and Harumi had anything to do with that, the knitting society would be able to properly recruit with both its members.
“But...”
Despite that, a small worry was budding in Harumi's chest.
I would be happy if we get more club members... but then it won't just be me and Satomi-kun...
Since she was so responsible, Harumi absolutely wanted new members. She wanted to avoid the knitting society from shutting down during her and Koutarou's time. That's why she wanted to recruit at least one new girl before Koutarou was left alone, since it was obvious what would happen if Koutarou was left to recruit on his own next year.
But at the same time, she also had the feeling of not wanting anyone to intrude on her time alone with Koutarou. To her, the time spent during her club activities with the boy she loved was very precious. That's why the woman inside of her wished for the society to continue with just the two of them.
Those two desires clashed and caused Harumi's expression to look somewhat lonely.
“Is something wrong?”
Noticing Harumi's expression, Koutarou peered at her face.
“Ah, u-uhm... I was just thinking that if we get more members, w-we'll, probably have to change how we do our activities...”
Harumi hurriedly gave an ambiguous answer. She couldn't say what was really on her mind no matter what, so this was the best she could do.
“Ah, right, it's always just been the two of us. If we do get more people, we'll be able to do more things, so we need to think about that too”