Ranobe Mo Ore Mo Sukina Gyaru - Volume 1 Chapter 3.3

Gal and Manga Club 3

“According to her, ‘I find going home bothersome, so I always take a nap here.’ Hey Nakamachi, wake up! We have an order from the President. We need to draw 4-koma for the club magazine.”

“Eh…? Ah, it’s Yoda-kun… I’m happy to see you after such a long time, ehehe…”

“Never mind that, President wants us to draw 4-koma. I’ll be drawing one too, so you draw one as well.”

“4-koma? Alright… let’s see, let’s figure out together what kind of excuse I can give her so she won’t get mad at me if I don’t draw a four-panel. Let’s think of something together!”

“Don’t try to find excuses to be lazy. Wake up and draw your 4-koma.”

As I said that, Nakamachi let out a big yawn and tried to rope me in.

“Yoda-kun, let’s take a nap together. It feels so good!”

Who in the real world would take a nap with a girl…?

If I did that, I’d probably instantly fall in love with Nakamachi, confess, get rejected, and it would just leave a scar on my heart all over again!

While I was thinking along those lines, Tsumakawa suddenly appeared next to me and greeted Nakamachi.

“Hello, Nakamachi-san. I’m a gal, yay!”

“Don’t give a self-introduction that doesn’t introduce anything. At least say your name.”

“…ah, it’s a gal. There is a cute gal-chan in the club room, yay!”

“Nakamachi, don’t just give half-awake responses. —This is Miona Tsumakawa-san. She’s a cheerful gal who somehow tagged along when I was going to the club activities. She’s also a first-year student like us.”

“Hey there, nice to meet you! Shall I make you join the ranks of the gals?” 

“Why did you say something in a Demon Lord’s tone? — Anyway Tsumakawa-san, this is Himeko Nakamachi. She’s basically a girl who does absolutely nothing in the club except sleep on the sofa all day. She’s into sleeping, I guess.”

“Hello, I’m Nakamachi, and my family runs a delicious bakery. My dream is to marry a wealthy man in the future and live a comfortable life with his money. I also love Uber Eats.”

“Even though we have a guest here, she doesn’t even bother getting up from the sofa. She’s seriously like a sleeping beauty and it’s ridiculously cute! Nezumayo-kun said she’s like a large dog––I get it. She’s like the big dog we have at home!”

“Ehehe.”

“She probably didn’t mean to compliment you…”

I instinctively retorted, but then Tsumakawa told me, ‘Oh, I was actually complimenting her.’

…Women’s conversations are too high-context, aren’t they? While thinking this, I suggested again to Nakamachi.

“Anyway, let’s finish quickly and draw the 4-koma.”

In the club room, there’s only one pen-tablet and laptop purchased with the club funds, so I gestured for Nakamachi to sit at the seat with those tools.

Nakamachi then quickly drew the 4-koma while complaining.

“I wish Hina-chan senpai would draw them all…”

Her speed was astonishing, taking less than five minutes.

After she said, ‘It’s done, please check it,’ I promptly checked the 4-koma on the computer screen.

Title: On Hiatus

Panel 1: Two stick figures are drawn, and they have these speech bubbles.

【This panel concludes this 4-koma.】

【Look forward to the next 4-koma!】

“It’s blatantly lazy! Ending a 4-koma on panel 1 is unheard of!”

“Hahaha. Surreal is good, you know?”

“Don’t use surrealism as a cover for laziness!”

As I stared at Nakamachi while giving these retorts, Tsumakawa, who was looking at what was displayed on the computer screen, said,

“Hey, isn’t it actually quite funny?”

…Well, it’s not completely uninteresting.

There’s a sense of holding back on effort, though.

“…well, for now, I’ll just show this to the club president.”

“Yatta, I finished the 4-koma.”

“You only drew one panel, though.”

“It’s all about being eco and LOHAS, Yoda-kun…By the way, what does LOHAS mean?”

“I don’t know either… Why don’t you look it up?”

“I’m not curious enough to go through the trouble of searching for it.”

“You’re the embodiment of youth ignorance. In this age where you can find out almost anything with a smartphone, you can’t even spare the effort to search…”

“I’ve discovered the wisdom and the aesthetic appeal of ignorance, so I don’t need to know anything anymore.”

“Don’t justify your laziness with words that sound smart… By the way, according to what I just looked up, LOHAS stands for ‘Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability.’ It seems to mean ‘healthy and sustainable lifestyle.'”

“Okay, Yoda-kun. Let’s not talk about LOHAS anymore. That’s too much information.”

“Nakamachi, you’re the one who brought it up and yet you’re giving such a salty response?”

When I pointed this out, Nakamachi laughed cheerfully and got up from the seat with the notebook computer.

Then, she lay back down on the sofa again and naturally fell asleep, saying, ‘Ahhh… gwaa.’

She’s way too good at sleeping.

“Don’t fall asleep during conversations with other people!”

“…Nezumayo, you have a close female friend?”

For some reason, Tsumakawa, with a seemingly bored expression, turned her face away from me as if avoiding eye contact and in a somewhat sullen tone, asked me that.

“Close female friend? More like Nakamachi is just a clubmate… We don’t hang out together on our days off, so we’re definitely not friends in the female-friend sense…”

“Really? But just now, you two seemed pretty close. If being able to have a friendly conversation means being friends, then wouldn’t your relationship with her be that of friends?”

“Huh? Isn’t it too early to label it a friendship based on just that?”

“Is it? …Because for me, you address me as ‘Tsumakawa-san’, right? But you called Nakamachi by her name without honorifics… Aren’t you clearly discriminating the two of us?”

“I-I’m not discriminating… it’s just that we’ve been doing club activities together since we first entered the school, and I’ve gotten used to Nakamachi…”

“See? The length of time you’ve spent together has made a clear difference. Nakamachi, who’s been with you since the beginning as a clubmate, and me, just a classmate you’ve only recently gotten to know — that’s why you added ‘san’ to my name, right? Because you haven’t opened up to me yet.”

” ….. “

“A punch driven by an emotion that’s definitely ‘not’ jealousy!”

“A punch driven by an emotion that’s definitely not jealousy!?”

I recited Tsumakawa’s words in surprise as I was suddenly hit on the shoulder with a mysterious word.

Uh, what kind of punch was this? If I were to take her words at face value, it seems to be confirmed that she didn’t hit me because she was jealous of my relationship with Nakamachi(?)

As I was panicking like that, Tsumakawa continued with a plainly grumpy look on her face continued her words,

“Let me explain! ‘A punch driven by an emotion that’s definitely not jealousy’ means it’s a punch that isn’t caused by feelings of jealousy!”

“Hasn’t this explanation become even more confusing? I mean, seriously, I’ve never been in a situation where someone says, ‘Let me explain!’ and then doesn’t actually explain anything!”

“Uh, but it’s really the case. Like I said before, I’m not in love with Nezumayo or anything, or at least not yet. So when I saw Nezumayo getting along with Nakamachi-chan, I didn’t really get mad or anything——and I didn’t feel jealous at all. I just, for some reason, felt the urge to give you a full-fledged ‘gyaru punch’ once.”

“…I still don’t get it. If jealousy isn’t the reason, then why did you punch me, Tsumakawa-san?”

“Not even Miona knows that!”

“If the person herself doesn’t know, then how am I supposed to know?”

Rubbing my shoulder where I was punched, I said in a bewildered manner.

“Sorry-sorry. I don’t really regret what I did, but sorry for the punch.”

Then she apologized with a subtle expression. She said that as if she couldn’t decide whether to apologize or not.

This gal… she has quite the character. Does this gal really feel sorry?

With those thoughts in mind, I switched places with Nakamachi and took a seat at the computer.

Thus, I picked up a pen to draw the remaining two 4-koma comics that Hinashiro-senpai had requested.

***

By the way, this is a bit of an ending twist…but later, when I submitted the two 4-koma comics I had drawn to the club president, she gently rejected them.

『Let’s set aside Yoda’s and I’ll draw the two myself!』

That’s what she said…

…Hey, isn’t that weird? Nakamachi’s 5-minute comic got accepted, but the one I worked so hard on got rejected?

Is being funny really that important? Oh god! (crying.jpg)