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488 – Stop Poking! Any More and She’ll Go Flat!
🕑 Added 2025-09-01 15:00:25 +0000 UTCAll the hidden speakers in the classroom had been dug out, the audio files completely wiped, and the messy glowing letters on the doorplate erased.
Leaving only the three cyberpunk-style words Service Club.
That was Yamauchi Sakura’s final act of resistance.
“Don’t I have any dignity at all?!” the girl cried out, eyes brimming with tears.
No one could figure out what dignity had to do with a neon doorplate.
But when Sakura stood there with the look of ‘touch it and I’ll smash my head straight into you’, Yukinoshita Yukino had no choice but to relent.
Much like the saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Yukino’s sense of justice wouldn’t allow her to trample even Sakura’s bizarre, cheap version of dignity.
All the props they had been fooling around with were actually supplies borrowed from the upcoming sports festival.
As club president, Sakura had shamelessly claimed them.
While she and Kyousuke were tidying up, Hiratsuka Shizuka wandered around the room, inspecting the Service Club.
Compared to its original state as an abandoned storeroom—the place finally had a bit of warmth and life to it.
The most eye-catching spot was a wall near the door that used to serve as a bulletin board.
Now, a sheet of white paper hung there with a neat chart drawn across it.
Curious, Hiratsuka leaned closer.
The first column read Requests.
Instead of descriptions, they were just numbered 1, 2, 3, 4. The first three rows were blank, but the fourth one had “Hojou Kyousuke” written under Handler.
The last column, Status, was still empty.
“Well, look at that. Pretty organized.” The teacher smiled, pleased, before turning her eyes to the front of the classroom.
On the teacher’s desk, four figures about ten centimeters tall stood in a row.
Small as they were, the craftsmanship was careful enough that anyone could tell they represented the four members of the Service Club.
“How cute! Did you make these, Sakura?” she asked.
“Eh? No way, I don’t have hands that clever. Shou-chan made them,” Sakura replied, while stealthily hiding a USB stick behind her back.
“Figures. Out of you four, Nishimiya’s the only one I can imagine putting in that kind of effort.”
Hiratsuka nodded knowingly, but then tilted her head.
“They’re lovely, but don’t you think something’s… missing?” As advisor, she felt obliged to help the kids aim for perfection.
“Huh? No way! Shou-chan spent forever making these.” Sakura tossed her sneaky business aside and hurried over, snatching up her own doll and perching it on her head. “See? It’s like we’re long-lost siblings—just, uh, from different material.”
“Think carefully. I’m telling you, there’s still room for improvement.”
Hiratsuka glanced around the classroom again… then down at her own chest.
She coughed twice.
As a teacher, she couldn’t outright say I want a figure of myself too.
But come on—the Service Club wouldn’t even exist without her!
She was the real backbone here.
How could the “family” be complete without Hiratsuka Shizuka?
“Ah! I get it now!”
Sakura’s eyes lit up.
She grabbed Yukino’s doll, scrutinized it, then jabbed a finger at its chest—twice.
“You sneaky little Shou-chan! Trying to curry favor with Yukino like this? Copying all the bad habits instead of the good ones, huh? Good thing Hiratsuka-sensei caught you, or else the righteous image of our ‘Justice Superman’ would’ve been ruined!”
“Justice… execution!”
Muttering to herself, Sakura kept poking Yukino’s doll in the chest.
(ᇂ_ᇂ|||)
Hiratsuka was dumbfounded, her shoulders sagging.
“Hey—hey! Enough already! It’s dented! Stop poking!”
She quickly rescued the poor Yukinoshita doll from Sakura’s hands.
“Any more and you’ll puncture her actual heart! For crying out loud…”
Casting a glance at the real Yukinoshita, who was calmly brewing tea nearby, Hiratsuka felt a pang of sympathy.
She’d only been here a few minutes and had already witnessed two assaults against the poor girl.
This wasn’t the Service Club.
It was the Yukinoshita Torture Chamber.
No wonder she had rushed to drag Kyousuke back and left alone with Sakura for much longer, the girl would probably lose her sanity.
At this point, Hiratsuka abandoned her tour and moved to check on her tormented student.
Instead of a plain water dispenser, the clubroom now boasted a fancy-looking tea maker.
The kettle was white, its round belly painted with a chubby beige cat lounging lazily.
The teacups were white too, each outlined with a sleek black cat, its green eyes half-lidded.
Yukino sat with perfect posture, a paperback novel open on her knees, blowing gently across her steaming cup of tea.
“Yukinoshita,” Hiratsuka called.
No response.
‘Knock, knock, knock.’
The teacher tapped on the table. Still nothing.
She knocked again, harder this time.
Finally, Yukino lifted her gaze from the pages, looking at her through the haze of rising steam.
Her pale blue eyes softened in the mist, reminding Hiratsuka of both the black cat on the cup and the beige one on the kettle.
But she knew better. This was a cat that scratched.
That glint in Yukino’s eyes said it all, and the next words confirmed it:
“What is it? Has your woodpecker gene awakened, Hiratsuka-sensei?”
Hiratsuka twitched.
Of course Yukino was referring to her table-knocking.
“Just so you know,” Yukino continued in her icy tone, “the strength of human fingers is nowhere near that of a woodpecker’s beak.
Even if you don’t mind the pain, you should consider how long it would take your hand to heal before you could start knocking again.
If you truly can’t suppress the urge to peck, I’d suggest using your teeth instead. Who knows? You might even awaken your otter genes.”
“…..”— Hiratsuka sucked in a sharp breath.
“You’re telling me humans have nothing to do with woodpeckers. It’s more believable if I say my ancestors were lumberjacks!” she shot back.
“Is that so?” Yukino shook her head solemnly. “With modern science, we’ve barely scratched the surface of human biology.
There are still countless mysteries waiting to be uncovered. Isn’t it common to hear of people suddenly surpassing their limits? Perhaps that’s the moment they awaken hidden genes.”
“No, no, no. Ancestral power makes way more sense than some random woodpecker DNA.” Hiratsuka shook her head firmly.
With her decades of manga-reading experience, she knew one thing for sure—awakening a woodpecker gene would never beat inheriting your ancestors’ power.
Yukinoshita lowered her head, losing interest in speaking.
Her verbal strike had missed its mark.
Seeing this, Hiratsuka Shizuka allowed herself a sly little grin before asking:
“Say, Yukinoshita… don’t tell me all that was just payback because I didn’t stop Sakura from poking your chest? Just so we’re clear, the doll looks more like you now. Earlier, it was a bit… off-model.”
Without even lifting her head, Yukino calmly flipped a page in her book.
“First, the woodpecker talk came up because you wouldn’t stop hammering the desk like one.
Second, that doll is based on me, but it isn’t actually me. Shouko had full creative rights after I gave consent.
Third, I have no intention of being criticized by a childish teacher who can’t just say outright that she wants a doll of her own. That is all.”
“Ugh—…” Hiratsuka clutched her chest and collapsed dramatically onto Sakura, gasping for air as if fatally wounded.
She then looked up at the girl with eyes full of desperate hope.
“Okay!” Sakura declared proudly. “The vice-president of the Service Club has received your request loud and clear. Tonight, I’ll pass it along to Shou-chan. Next time you come, we’ll make sure a Hiratsuka Shizuka doll is waiting for you!”
“If possible, make my coat look like Superman’s—and maybe stick a jet booster under the shoes,” Hiratsuka added seriously.
“What about the hairstyle? Should we make it like a black sunflower—wild, wicked, super cool?” Sakura eagerly suggested.
“…Hmmm,” Hiratsuka complicating, “but I have another idea in mind.”
“Sigh…”
Listening to their nonstop chatter, Yukino could only sigh in exasperation and turned her gaze toward Hojou, who had just finished tidying up and was walking over.
With Nishimiya Shouko absent, Kyousuke had somehow become the most dependable person in the room.
Truly, the world worked in strange ways.
Yukino stood, retrieved a blue ceramic teacup from the cabinet, and poured him a cup of tea, offering it to her trusted right-hand man.
‘Hungry? Drink tea first,’ Kyousuke thought idly as he accepted it, taking a seat beside her and sipping lightly.
‘Mm. Delicious. Delicious because—it was hot water.’
“So, can we talk about the previous request now?” Yukino asked softly.
She had already closed her paperback and replaced it with a blank notebook, pen poised to jot everything down.
Seeing her so ready, Kyousuke almost blurted out, “Don’t worry, you can just use a recorder.” That’s what reporters usually did during interviews.
“Well, how do I put it… the request was successfully completed, but at the same time… not completely.” Kyousuke frowned.
Even he hadn’t expected things to turn out this way.
“Hm?” Yukino’s brows furrowed.
A rational, perfectionist like her couldn’t stand vague answers.
“You could also say it failed. But… not entirely failed, either.”
Kyousuke rubbed his forehead with a weary sigh and began explaining.
Last night, after the Yamazakura gang’s team-building event, he treated his underlings to a big feast.
As expected, Hatake Gorou and the others kicked things off with beer.
Ever since their middle school days, under the bad influence of Eikichi Onizuka and company, they’d developed the ritual of chugging ice-cold beer on an empty stomach before touching any food.
Under the buff of “nighttime drinking,” Gorou’s mouth couldn’t be shut.
Before the first skewers even hit the table, he’d already spilled everything to his senpai, Onizuka.
Of course, he began with the classic line, “You absolutely cannot tell anyone.”
Naturally, the loyal and chivalrous Onizuka kept his promise.
When he passed the story along, he warned everyone with utmost seriousness: “Don’t you dare tell a soul. Or I’ll kill you.”
Unfortunately, his “I’ll kill you” sounded more like, “If you don’t tell a hundred people, I’ll kill you.”
So by the time the first platter of yakitori arrived, the entire gang knew:
Hatake Gorou had fallen in love with Kuroda Kaito.
Top student Hikigaya Hachiman, who ranked 11th in Japanese, even gave it a title—“The Sweet, Sweet Love Story of Gorou and Kaito.”
Kyousuke later confirmed with Kisaki Tetta that the leak really didn’t come from loudmouth Mitsuhashi Ryouma.
No, it was Gorou himself who had blabbed.
And when the drinks really got going, Gorou even pulled out Kuroda’s last photo in drag, bawling and wailing:
“Look at him! He’s gorgeous! Who wouldn’t fall for this? Tell me, am I wrong?!”
The sight was tragic enough to move grown men to tears.
Outrage followed—people demanded that Kuroda immediately crossdress again and become Gorou’s girlfriend.
At first, Kuroda refused.
But three rounds of drinks later, flushed and dizzy, he suddenly called his sister and bravely ordered her to bring a wig and kimono over.
Hearing this, Kyousuke could only bare his teeth in horror.
He wasn’t sure Kuroda would have the courage to face life after this.
“…Which proves that the strategy we settled on in the Service Club was correct. You found your own way to stabilize Gorou’s emotions. In other words, the request was resolved perfectly.”
Yukino summarized in her calm voice.
Her notebook was already filled with notes, showing just how complicated the whole affair was.
No surprise—any request that began with ‘panties are a matter of life and death’ was bound to be terrifying.
“That’s right.” Kyousuke nodded.
After all, he’d had to beat Gorou up three separate times before the guy calmed down.
Just for that, he felt he deserved a huge reward from his club president.
Listening to his smug tone, Yukino lifted her eyes to him.
Her gaze was hard to read, but somewhere between exasperation and resignation.
“So, because of a whim of yours, you nearly caused social upheaval—and at the same time put an end to both Gorou and Kuroda’s futures?”
“Hey, hey—what do you mean ‘put an end’? They didn’t…”
“It wasn’t a whim, Yukino-chan! The cherry blossoms were really pretty!”
Their conversation was suddenly cut off as a head popped in between them, shoving a phone screen right up to Yukino’s face.
