Chapter 1 You're Out of the Club Now

You’re Out of the Club Now

It’s the early spring of my third year of college, in a club room at a university in Tokyo.

“Sawashiro. You’re banned from the club as of today.”

“…Eh?”

Today, I, Sawashiro Yuki (沢城祐希), was expelled from the club by Kuzumi Shusuke (久住秀介), the club president and a friend since my first year.

“No, why am I suddenly being expelled? I mean, I’m the vice president of the club, after all.”

The club I belong to is nominally an outdoor club with the purpose of “going to mountains, rivers, and other natural places and playing with nature” as its name.

I was born and raised in the countryside until high school, and when I went to college in Tokyo, I lived alone in the city.

And because I grew up in the countryside, I loved to play in places full of nature, such as mountains and riverbanks. When I was in the countryside, I often went mountain climbing, fishing, and playing in nature.

So I joined this club because I thought it would be a lot of fun to go to places full of nature during my college life.

If anything, this club wasn’t a club where you enjoyed nature by doing outdoor things like mountain climbing and fishing, but rather a club where you went to popular campgrounds or nearby riverbanks and enjoyed barbecues and drinking parties. So it was a club that attracted a lot of outgoing people.

So I ended up joining a club that was completely different from what I had imagined, but I thought it was a really fun club because I got to interact with a lot of people.

There were not many young people in the countryside where I used to live, so it was really refreshing and fun to be able to interact with so many people my own age.

So since I joined this club, I’ve been coming to the club room as often as I can to deepen my relationship with all the club members, and I’ve also been taking the initiative in planning and managing the club activities and working behind the scenes.

My efforts were recognized by the seniors, and I was appointed vice president of the club when I became a third year.

So from then on, as vice president, I always worked hard to plan and manage the club’s activities so that everyone in the club could have more fun… and yet I was suddenly kicked out by Kusumi, the club president, and that’s the situation I’m in now.

“Give me a good explanation, Kusumi! Why am I being kicked out of the club? Did I do something wrong?”

“Don’t ask such an obvious question! The big problem is that you don’t do any work for the club, even though you’re the vice president! So we don’t need any more useless incompetents like you in this club! Hurry up and get out of the club!”

“No, no, I do a lot of work in the club! If anything, I’m doing the most work!”

I made the club’s recruitment flyers, organized the events, served as the drinking party organizer, and did all the miscellaneous work like arranging car rentals and barbecues when we went on trips.

I also deepened my connections with similar outdoor clubs at another university, and I was the one who planned events with them.

I had done so much work all the time, and it was so strange to hear Kusumi say that I hadn’t done any work for the club.

“Huh? You know… Work means doing something perfect, idiot! And yet, all of your events are just kid-friendly events, like going to nearby riverbanks or campgrounds near Tokyo! Make some more interesting events where we can go somewhere far away and have fun, idiot!”

“No, it can’t be helped! The number of girls in this club is increasing, so it would be a bad idea to go too far away! If something unexpected happened and we couldn’t go home the same day, the girls would be worried!”

Right. Actually, when I joined this club, about 80-90% of the members were boys, and it was a yay club that had a lot of drinking parties and barbecues, but when I became a second year, the ratio of girls increased dramatically.

By the way, the reason why the number of girls who want to join this club has increased is because camping meals and solo camping became a big boom on SNS a while ago.

Originally, the purpose of this club was to go to places where nature is abundant, such as mountains and rivers, and play with nature, so many girls were attracted to this purpose and joined. So now the ratio of men to women is about 50-50.

As a nature lover, I tried to organize various activities for the girls who were interested in such things, but as the number of girls increased, I thought it would be better to avoid doing anything that would make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

So when I planned a trip, I mainly focused on places that were relatively close to Tokyo or places where we could always return home on a day trip. I always took safety into consideration so that the girls who joined the club because of their interest in nature because SNS would not feel uncomfortable.

But it seems that Kusumi, the president of the club, didn’t like my way of thinking.

“Sigh, you really are full of excuses… People who always make excuses are really dead as people, right? Then I’ll tell you something else… You always organize drinking parties in shitty places where we can only drink cheap shitty sake! You should try harder to find a place that serves good drinks, you idiot! Think more carefully when choosing a place to drink, you idiot!!”

“No, it’s just that we’re students and we’re on a budget, so it’s inevitable that we end up drinking cheap drinks! I mean, it’s not like it’s bad! The pubs we always go to are very friendly places that serve food and drinks at very reasonable prices for us students! You should be grateful to the pubs that charge such low prices!!”

Kusumi seemed to have various complaints about my work in the club, but I made sure to voice my objections as well.