(How exactly can I change that personality of hers? And why is it even like this?)
Saiki was quite puzzled. Back in middle school, things were weird for him too. (I'm talking about the environment! The environment!) The people around him were basically either chuunibyou boys, super-athletic gorillas with chins growing out of their butts, hot-blooded shonen types, or straight-up perverts... and so on.
In short, a bunch of really strange people. Yet even under the influence of so many weirdos around Saiki, Gotoh Hitori somehow managed to stay exactly the same extreme social-phobe she always was. Not a single change. It was honestly kind of surprising.
[Forget it, no point thinking about it.]
Saiki spread out the hand that had been resting under his chin. There would be time later anyway.
[Let's head in, Shiraishi.]
Saiki opened the door to the rock club and walked inside.
"Yeah, coming."
Shiraishi followed in after him.
[Excuse the intrusion.]
There were only three people inside.
A guy with somewhat spiky hedgehog-like hair walked up. "Oh, hi. This is the rock club. Are you hoping to join?"
[I'm not the one joining. My friend here has a bit of interest in the rock club, so I brought him to take a look.]
Saiki pointed toward his left.
"Really? Where is he?"
The guy welcoming them looked left and right but didn't see anyone, so he asked Saiki.
"Is there someone?"
Shiraishi waved his hand, trying to get noticed. "I'm right here!!"
(Note: Extremely loud (`へ´))
"Oh, got it, got it."
"So, this classmate, have you played any instruments before?"
Shiraishi lowered his hand. "No, I haven't really touched any yet."
The leader lowered his head in disappointment. "What? You haven't even touched an instrument? Sigh."
The leader looked extremely let down, but the next second someone smacked him on the head.
Iijichi Nijika suddenly popped up. "Hey, you can't just say that to people like that."
"Iijichi-senpai, when did you get here? Don't you usually not come?"
Iijichi Nijika: "I just felt like dropping by today. And these two are...?"
Saiki [I'm Saiki Kusuo. Just accompanying my friend to check out the club.]
Shiraishi: "I'm Shiraishi Junta. Came to see if the rock club suits me."
Iijichi Nijika: "Oh, well then Kusuo-kun, Junta-kun, feel free to look around. If you're interested, just join."
"Mm, sure."
(She just called us by first names right off the bat.)
Shiraishi moved next to Saiki and whispered, "This senpai seems pretty nice to people."
"Alright, TAKERU, why don't you show them around."
TAKERU: "Then let's let you try the drums first. We also have bass and stuff."
[Wait, jumping straight into touching rock instruments like this, is that really okay?]
"It's fine, it's fine."
Shiraishi tried first. "Then I'll give it a go."
...20 minutes later
Shiraishi: "It's actually pretty fun. Even though I have no idea what I'm doing or what I'm playing."
[That just takes all the fun out of it, doesn't it, Shiraishi.]
TAKERU: "This is completely no good. It's awful. What came out just now was basically a steaming pile of crap."
As he spoke, he seemed to realize his words were off, so TAKERU switched to an encouraging face. "But it's okay. We're the same way, Shiraishi-kun."
[That's not encouragement at all. And you're the rock club. What do you mean 'we're the same'?]
Iijichi Nijika held her forehead and pointed toward the spiky-haired guy who looked kind of delinquent but was actually fairly handsome.
"Sorry about that. His brain's a little off. Let me introduce him. His name is... oh right, TAKERU."
(You don't even remember his name clearly, do you, senpai?)
"He originally wanted to be the vocalist, but every time he sang halfway, his jaw would dislocate. So then he switched to wanting to be a guitarist."
"But the results were... unexpected. The sounds he produced were like the horrible dying screams of an oil zen."
[That's basically completely hopeless.]
Iijichi Nijika pointed to another guy who had an open, sunny smile.
"TAKAYUKI. This guy can't tell the difference between other instruments and bass. Before, he could only produce noise that sounded like flies buzzing around your ears."
Finally she pointed to the last one, a chubby guy whose hair was parted to one side and wore glasses.
"And this one~ is SHINYA. He's apparently only ever played drums in rhythm games, but as for his actual drumming level... the sounds he makes are like mom smacking eggs on the table in that weird way."
(A bunch of trash.)
"There was also someone before who didn't know anything but still wanted to join as vocalist. No idea where that person ran off to now."
(Better not let that one join. That attitude alone is already problematic.)
(Why would these people even want to join the rock club?)
Saiki thought of something.
[So what about you, Iijichi-senpai? What position do you play?]
Iijichi Nijika explained: "Strictly speaking, I don't really belong to this club. I just come by often. A former classmate of mine was in this club. I know a bit about music, but..."
While saying this, Iijichi Nijika looked at the people to her left with a look of "why can't you do better" and tried to encourage them.
"TAKERU, you have to keep trying hard. You can't let the rock club that senpai left behind go to waste."
TAKERU: "Senpai, we've already done our best. And aren't we working hard to recruit members? Look, the Shiraishi-kun in front of us isn't bad. Even though he doesn't know anything, if he takes the vocalist spot, we can try our best."
(This attitude is way too problematic. Did you already forget about the previous person?)
[Shiraishi, let's just go.]
Shiraishi nodded, somewhat in agreement. [Even though this senpai is really nice to people, music really doesn't seem to suit me. And he said my performance was a pile of crap. It wasn't that bad, was it? At most half a pile.]
(Don't use that as a comparison! Shiraishi... because things will just keep getting worse the more you compare.)
TAKERU saw the two about to leave again and looked a bit disappointed, but still tried to persuade them. "Hey, Saiki-kun, why don't you give it a try? Maybe you'd be a little better than Shiraishi-kun. Shiraishi-kun, you should think about it too."
"Even if Saiki-kun ends up performing kinda badly, like a pile of crap or something, it's fine. We're the same. We're all in this together."
[Yare yare daze, what are you even saying? I'm not the same as you guys.]
Saiki felt genuinely insulted.
"Sigh, you haven't even tried. At least show us something. If you actually perform well and show some talent, then maybe it'd be different."
...