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"We're quitting."
"Huh?"
The girls' sudden decision startled everyone in the dojo.
"We’re leaving the kyudo club." Noa repeated. Rika and Yuna nodded behind her back, agreeing with her.
"Why?" Ryouhei asked, regretting it a second later. He was still a bit intimidated by the female members of the kyudo club, but he had spoken out loud without even meaning to, so shocked he still couldn't believe his own ears.
"We're sick and tired of this situation!" Yuna blurted out, her auburn ponytails shaking on top of her shoulders. "We're sacrificing our lunch time to come up with a good strategy to recruit more members before orientation week and here we are, pointlessly wasting our time watching you guys fight!" she looked pointedly at Minato and Kaito and at least the two guys had enough sense of shame to silently blush and lower their heads without trying to protest the accusations.
"We're all stressed because of our upcoming competition and because we're trying to get more members to join, let's not be so drastic. We can talk this out and resolve the problem peacefully, right?"
President Takehaya, ever the sensible voice of the group, was trying to cover up for his friends' mistakes, but the girls weren't going to let it go this time.
"So what, just because we don't have any group competitions like you guys that means we aren't as stressed? Unlike you guys who are already five, we do actually need more female members to become a whole team and compete, we're the ones risking the most if things don't go according to the plan!" Yuna continued, getting more worked up by the second.
Seo placed a hand on top of her shoulders to firmly hold her back and spoke in that calm, reasonable voice that no one could ever say no to: "We request to be released from the co-ed kyudo team to form an all girls one."
"That's ridiculous!" Nanao protested and even coach Takigawa was frowning now.
"I'm not sure that could be possible, girls. The school only has one kyudojo so even if there were formally two kyudo clubs, you'd still have to share the space for practice…" their coach pointed out.
"We could split the dojo every other day, alternating each other," Noa suggested.
"But that would mean practicing only 3 days a week! That's not enough!" Minato complained.
"There's no way in hell I'm doing that!" Kaito yelled and for once him and Minato were on the same page. The two boys looked at each other surprised, then seemed to remember their argument and turned away again.
"We don't care if you guys agree or not, it's not like you guys ever bothered to check if we were okay playing second fiddle to your constant drama." Yuna said.
"But-" Nanao tried to intervene but couldn't continue in front of the girls simultaneously bowing in front of them.
"We're not going to change our minds, so goodbye," Noa declared and walked out of the dojo with her two comrades, keeping their heads high in front of the open mouthed boys.
*
"I don't even get how this happened!" Ryouhei raised his hands in a gesture of chagrin after they were left alone.
Nanao clicked his tongue: "Isn't it just Kacchan's fault for picking a fight with Minato out of nowhere as usual?"
"Hey don't blame this all on me!" Kaito barked but he seemed to have lost all the bite, silently wondering if the girls had truly walked out because of him like so many other people before.
"It's not just Onogi." Minato said. "It was my fault as well then, I got carried away too…"
"It doesn't matter who started the fight earlier," Seiya reminded them, "it sounded more like an issue that's been developing for a while now and that kept building up silently. We just didn't notice it before and because of that we all contributed to it."
The boys fell all silent in front of the weight of those words.
"Well, well." Masa-san offered them some consoling pats on the back, except to Seiya, who sneakily moved away before he could receive the playful hit. Masa-san just shook his head in amusement and didn't bring attention to it.
"Instead of crying over spilled milk why don't you guys think about a strategy to get them back?" their coach suggested.
"Get them back?" Ryouhei asked. "Is that even possible?"
"They sounded pretty mad at us," Minato added.
"They might be simply playing hard to get, some girls are like that…" Nanao offered a bit of his expertise.
"I don't think that's the case at all here…" Kaito muttered.
"Come on! You're all young good looking guys!" Masa-san interjected, "Use your charms to win their hearts back, so we can all just be one happy and united little club!"
"You just don't want to bother with drafting a separate training regime for two different clubs, do you Takigawa-san?"
Masa-san laughed bitterly: "Always thinking the worst of me huh, Seiya…"
"He didn't deny it…" Seiya mumbled.
"But I actually meant what I said!" Masa-san looked each of them in the eye, speaking in his usual frank and honest style: "If you guys want the girls to join the club again, you should think how to convince them. And you should learn to be more mindful of the girl's struggles too, not just your own."
"They said multiple times they think Seo alone is more charming than all of us though," Nanao scrunched up his face like he couldn't believe that was possible.
"That's still not a good reason to give up just like that." Masa-san clapped his hands. "Make them see your true, deepest charm, the charm no one else has ever seen before!"
*
"Are we seriously going to send our resignation letters to Tommy sensei?" Yuna asked, after calming down a bit. She had unleashed all her pent up frustration on the boys, but now that she was alone with her friends she started having some doubts. They were only three people, what if no one else joined the female kyudo club they just decided to form? There wouldn't be enough people to keep one and they would be left without a club to return to.
"No, but in the meanwhile we can scare the boys a bit and force them to shape up." Noa revealed her secret plan and Seo nodded at her side.
"We never wanted to quit the club after all, we just wanted them to understand us a bit more." Rika agreed. "Those boys might be a bit childish, but they aren't bad people."
"As expected of Seo, you are wiser than president Takehaya," Noa complimented her.
"Maybe you should become our official captain!" Yuna spoke up.
Seo waved her hand dismissively: "I haven't reached that level yet. I lack the experience the president has and if I wanted to lead you guys and new girl recruits we might possibly get, I'd still like to be in the same club as him to keep learning from him."
"So now we just wait?"
"Now we wait."
"You better not keep us waiting too long, you stupid boys!" Yuna pointed at the clear sky and her two companions laughed soundly.
*
They didn't have to wait too long, it turns out, because the next day the girls were officially summoned back in the dojo.
Yuna looked around herself and barely contained her amazement at how sparkly and shiny the pavement was: the boys must've surely put an extra effort for their sake and that pleased her incredibly.
"What did you want to discuss with us?" Noa asked in a monotone, trying not give her true intentions away.
"We're sorry!" the boys knelt down in front of them in dogeza style and Kaito, Minato and Nanao offered them a small bouquet of white lilies each.
The girls took the gifts gingerly, staring at each other in surprise.
Yes, they weren't expecting this!
"We're sorry!" the boys said in unison, then Nanao continued on his own: "We're sorry not treating you always like our precious teammates, for fighting over stupid stuff and not concentrating on our work, for taking your support and presence for granted all this time!"
"Please forgive us and come back to the club!" Kaito all but shouted.
The girls were shocked but they wasted no time in trying to make the boys get up from their kneeling position because:
"It's not necessary. All we ever wanted was to stand together with you guys, as equals." Noa clarified, bringing back a smile to the whole club.
*
Takigawa Masaki watched over the apology scene gently. He was incredibly proud of all of his students and silently celebrated the renewed peace inside the Kazemai dojo. That is, until Nanao suddenly exclaimed:
"What do you mean this was just a test and you had no intention of actually leaving in the first place?!"
Oh well, that didn't last long.