4.5 Chapter 2.1: Katsuragi Kohei is surprisingly troubled (1)

A lot of the time, I think Japanese people are very tolerant in regards to religion. Of course, leaving aside what it was like in the past, in modern times, nobody cares what religion you choose to practice and you are free to do so. Even if you choose to have no faith, that in itself is no problem too. However, even though they do not care about religion, in regards to certain events like birthdays or Christmas, there is no denying that they are influenced by the faith of Christianity.

Of course, you could say it derives from the faith of those people, but one can also say that the success of companies also depends on those events. In recent years, the rising trend of celebrating Halloween can also be attributed to that flow.

What I mean by all this is---for this school, birthdays are also a huge event. In shopping malls and convenience stores on school grounds, there are surely corners being set up for all these events.

The thing is, this particular incident happened a week before Ibuki and I would be stuck in an elevator together. It was a chat I received from Kushida, the healer of our class.

"Actually, next week Wednesday is Inokashira-san's birthday it seems. If you're ok with it, would you celebrate it with us?" she texted me.

That sort of message had been sent to our chat group, in fact. Inokashira, by the way, is plain and quiet girl from Class D. A type similar to Sakura. She doesn't have many friends, so the story here is to make friends with her for her birthday event. Of course, for Ike who received the same message, there was no reason to refuse. Because it's blatantly obvious he has taken a liking to Kushida.

He must want to use this event to get even slightly closer to Kushida.

"You got a message from Kikyo-chan too, right? Let's prepare some presents for Kokoro-chan!". Ike did everything he could to get us to give our consent, but Yamauchi's response was slow.

"But even if you say that, I don't have money.....I should be getting more next month though" Yamauchi said.

That's right, the students of Class D are basically broke right now. In the special exams that took place a while ago, certain results were achieved and certain students were promised a large amount of private points but sadly those points will only be handed out on the 1st of September. I had used up most of my points and so currently I have almost no remaining balance.

In other words, I will have to overcome the summer vacation using this current poor man's lifestyle. In that case, inevitably I would have no room to spare points for someone's birthday.

Or rather, on that premise, these guys were individually planning out their birthday presents. If it's a close friend that would be another matter but I don't have any male acquaintances that also get along with Inokashira.

But even if it happens to be a cheap present, Inokashira should still be able to accept it if the presents come in large numbers.

"Isn't it ok if the guys pool their points to buy one present? In that case, even if it's for 500 points we should be able to buy something proper for her".

I proposed that to them.

If so, even Yamauchi should be able to accept that too but it seems his financial situation is just the bare minimum. It seems to be truly cut short and he himself is being forced to live a life of poverty. The points awarded at the start of August is 8700 private points. Even using Japanese yen as a standard, it still amounts to 8700 yen.

Even though from the perspective of high school students, it may be somewhat lacking, even so, if one does not become wasteful there is still room to work with it. Fortunately enough, the school provides free meals and drinking water is also free. In other words, if one does not waste anything, it's possible to survive without using a single yen.

However, most of the students often run out of money as the end of the month approaches. It's no different from when we received 100,000 points every month at the time of our enrollment. What I mean by all this is, people desire to spend as much as they have.

In the end, the three of them ended up agreeing with my proposition and we decided to buy the present at a later date.