My Childhood Friend, Snow White, Doesn’t Realize Her Unrequited Love

“… Hey, um… Aren’t they getting closer?”

“No no no, it can’t be… Wait, oi! Is this for real?”

“Wait, isn’t the boss going all out though? Huh?”

Abashiri, confident of his victory, glanced at me and his eyes widened in surprise.

H–He’s fast! What a cadence… What big steps! Kuzuhara has some track and field experience!

The distance between us was closing in, step after step. We kept running, and just before the finishing line, I reached him.

“UwoooooooOOOOOOOORGH—!”

Abashiri screamed, and soon after—

“KUZUHARA-KUN, WIN THIS!”

“COME ON!”

—Shirayuki and Sakura’s cheering echoed throughout the stadium.

We both gave it our all, our sweat blood, and tears, to end this sudden death.

And we finally reached a conclusion.

“… I’m sorry, I lost…”

Yes, I lost this battle.

The difference between the two of us was only mere centimeters, but a loss is a loss.

“… It was wonderful, you ran well…”

“Uuuuuuuu~ I don’t want you to leave, Kuzuhara-kun… I told you I love this student council with all of us together…”

Aside from Shirayuki, who brought me into the student council, seeing Sakura crying so much was, well, very surprising.

As I wondered about what to tell them, Abashiri turned his attention to me.

“… I have to admit, your sprint at the end was astonishing. If this had been a 200-meter run, and you went all-in from the start, there’s no telling who the winner would be… Well, but this world’s all about results… Kuzuo Kuzuhara, you lost the match, so leave the student council.”

He then turned on his heel and walked away.

The world’s all about results, huh…

Well, I agreed with him on that. Today, I lost while he had won. That’s all there is to it, no less, no more.

“—Eh, cough cough… Now then, I will announce the results of the impeachment trial!”

The teacher’s voice echoed throughout the field.

“The winner of the first event, the handball throw, is Abashiri. The winner of the second event, rock-paper-scissors, is Kuzuhara, and the winner of the last event, the 400-meter run, is Abashiri. Therefore, the winner of the trial is Sou Abashiri!”

A whirlwind of happy cheers echoed soon after her announcement.

“Yay! Abashiri, you finally did it!”

“You’re the vice-president now!”

More than one hundred students cheered for him, enjoying the moment of his victory.

“—Now, we’ll begin the final signature verification process. All those whose names have been called, please come to the morning assembly table with your student handbooks!”

Following the teacher’s instructions, a large number of students began to move.

“Kuzuhara-kun, Sakura-san… Shall we go back to the student council office?”

“Uuu… Guh…”

Shirayuki toddled along, Sakura following behind with tears streaming down her face.

“Well, uh… Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“… Yes, what is it?”

“Uuu… What’s wrong, guys?”

“I lost the match, but I didn’t say I lost the game.”

“… Eh?” Both of them said in unison.

And soon after they looked up at me, it finally happened.

“Eh, do I even have a name?” Yogiri said loudly.

“Me…? No, no, I didn’t sign anything, did I?” Yuzuki, the senior of the Computer Research Club, tilted her head slightly.

“Huh, no way! My name’s here as well, why?!”

“Eh? I don’t remember signing anything.”

“This is not my handwriting!”

One after another, the voices raised their complaints, and in the end, only 93 valid signatures went through, seven less than the required 100 signatures for a successful impeachment.

“R–Ridiculous… What the hell is going on?!”

Abashiri’s face went ghost-pale, dismay surfacing on his face. Honestly, it was understandable. Anyone would’ve panicked if the ladder had been removed under them at the last minute.

“… Abashiri, what the hell is going on? I don’t think you did, but… You didn’t forge the signatures, did you?”

Under Hitori-sensei’s sharp gaze, Abashiri vehemently shook his head side-to-side.

“N–No ma’am!”

“Then how do you explain this situation?”

“Well, that is…”

As far as I was concerned, there was no good counter-argument to the teacher, and the commotion only grew louder and louder.

The teacher, unable to look him in the eyes, clasped her hands with a thump!

“The trial has now lost the prerequisite for its installment. Therefore, in accordance with the trial rules, Sou Abashiri is hereby disqualified!”

“T–That can’t…” He fell to his knees, face overflowing with despair.

“Oi, oi, oi! What just happened?!”

“He won the trial, but he was disqualified…?”

“I–Is this even possible? Something is definitely wrong!”

As his previously guaranteed victory crumbled right before his eyes, the atmosphere dampened to an indescribable level. My “traitor” friend, who finished his role, walked toward us with a grin plastered across his face.

“Yo, boss. It was quite a task to gather this many of the Snow White dwarfs, you know? I hope I can count on you for that ‘treasure book’, as we agreed on.”

“I’ve already spoken to the manager. Come by my place later.”

“Fu fu, hehe~ It’s going to be an exciting night…”

Yogiri smiled wickedly, and—

“—Kuzu-kun, Kuzu-kun! I did exactly what you told me to do! We mobilized the entire Computer Research Club! Now, as you promised, you’ll collab with me next time, right!?”

“Please coach us at Ape!” The member of the club said.

“Yeah, I promised after all.”

“Hell yeah!”

The entirety of Yuzuki’s club frolicked around innocently, happy they got what they always wanted.

“… If Abashiri-san is disqualified… Does that mean you won, Kuzuhara-kun?”

Sakura muttered in dismay, and Shirayuki nodded her head in response.

“This is a very ‘typical’ way to win…”

Kuzuhara-kun is different from the others. While everyone else was desperately thinking about how to win the battle, he alone was thinking about how he could mess it up. Only one person was fighting in the expected way, and at the exact moment the game began, he already had won.

While this happened, someone listened in.

“Is this… Bribery?!”

Understanding what was going on behind the scenes, Abashiri wore an indignant face and grabbed me roughly by the collar.

“Kuzuhara, you are a piece of—!”

“Hey, hey, calm down. I remember you told me ‘This world’s all about results’, right? I won this match, and you lost. That’s all there is to it, isn’t it?”

“Guh… I’ll beat you up—!”

I knew Abashiri was collecting signatures from the shadows shortly after he was appointed vice-president. So I just shined a light on those shadows.

First, I sent students that were on our side, such as Yogiri and the Computer Research Club, to the “enemy camp”, and asked them to change their handwriting and sign their names.

After he gathered all the signatures, Abashiri dared to set up an impeachment trial while pretending to know nothing about the signatures he collected.

On the day of the trial, he’d win at least two of the rounds but still lose due to a lack of validated signatures.

According to the rules, “Only one petition may be filed for the same student during the current year’s term of the student council.”

This time, a petition for the trial was filed against me, the vice-president, and it was accepted by the Election Committee, ending up in Abashiri’s disqualification.

In other words, for the following year, I’m not susceptible to another trial.

And that’s how I solidified my position while being as inconspicuous as possible.

I lost the battle to win the war.

“This injustice will not go unpunished! I’ll protest, protest, and keep protesting!”

“Oi, who did it first?”

“W–What are you—”

“—What am I talking about?”

I pulled out a voice recorder I kept in my pocket and hit the play button.

“I’d like to remove Kuzuo Kuzuhara from the position of vice-president. Will you help me sign the petition for the impeachment trial?”

“What? Why do I have to do something so bothersome?”

“If you cooperate, I’ll give you a preferential budget for next year’s volleyball team. We’ll also prioritize your use of the gymnasium… How’s that sound, not bad, huh?”

I played these shady deals, one after another.

Hakuou students are very assertive, and not at all cooperative. Without this kind of bribery, it would be practically impossible to collect 100 signatures.

“—!”

Abashiri forcefully grabbed the voice recorder and yeeted it to the ground, crushing it into pieces, and stomped on it repeatedly.

“Sorry, that’s a copy. The actual data is hidden somewhere else.”

“Guh—!”

Sure, that’s a copy, but isn’t it too harsh to just break it?

That device cost me three thousand yen (TL: Approx. 24 USD)… Three hours of my part-time job…

“I–I’ll remember that!”

After Abashiri left bitterly, Hitori-sensei walked over to us.

“Kuzuhara…. You did it again, didn’t you?”

“Teach, I’m not very good at listening to people, I need a doctor… What on earth are you talking about?”

“Good grief… You would win this if you did it normally, to begin with… Is this to make yourself inconspicuous? You’re really twisted.”

“Nah, you’re reading too much into it. I could never win by doing it normally, so I used this crooked method.”

Regardless, this troublesome trial ended without any incidents.

Shirayuki, Sakura, and I returned to our office after that whole debacle.

“Guh… I’m beat…”

As soon as I sat down on the sofa, breathed a sigh of relief, and sunk into its delicious entrails—

“Kuzuhara-kun… You were very cruel this time. If you knew you were going to win from the very beginning, you should’ve told us… You have no idea how I felt on the weekend…”

“I–I even cried in front of everyone!”

Both of them stared at me with sharp eyes.

“Ah, well… You see… Y–You know what they say, to fool your enemy, you should, um, start with your friend…?”

“Kuzuhara-kun!”

“Today you’ve been unforgivable!”

And so this hectic school year with the council would continue, at the very least for a while longer.