Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai: Volume 4 The Tower

The Tower

After school, in the Neighbors Club clubroom.

Yozora, Sena, Yukimura, Rika, and I were all killing time doing whatever we felt like, as usual.

Kobato was still busy copying down the answers to all the worksheets the rest of the Neighbors Club did for her, as well as writing her journal and the reading reflection, so she didn't come to the club today.

I think she wants to make sure it gets turned in on time, and not put any of the work everyone did for her to waste.

Yozora was reading a book next to me.

Maybe it's because she isn't used to the short hair yet, but she keeps fidgeting with her bangs and the hair on the back of her head too.

I also noticed that Sena, who was sitting on the sofa across from us, was staring at Yozora while holding her PSP in her hands.

"What're you spacing out for?" I asked Sena.

"Hmm... I was thinking I should change my hairstyle too."

She said while raising her silky blonde hair up into the air.

"Don't copy me, Meat."

Yozora said in an annoyed tone of voice after raising her head from her book.

"W-who said I was copying you? I just thought I'd change it since I've had this look for a while now!"

"Hmph..."

Yozora exhaled out her nose, and then, as if she just remembered something,

"Now that I think about it, I did get my hands on some interesting news regarding hairstyle recently. I'll be nice and tell you about it."

"Interesting news?"

Sena looked at Yozora with doubt in her eyes.

"It was written in this magazine I saw while I was at the hair salon. It said there's a new hairstyle called 'The Tower' that's popular with normal girls in the city."

"The Tower?"

Yozora's face cringed slightly upon having Sena ask about it.

"How should I explain it... Well, the main point is to, as the name suggests, give your hair a 'towering' amount of volume. Like, you stick your hair straight up, harden it with some spray, and then add curls or something. There's even some where the hair is so tall they put decorations on it."

"Oh? That sounds kinda interesting."

Rika took this chance to jump into the conversation.

"Ah, Rika knows about that too. Rika's seen pictures of 'The Tower' on the net. It's like an evolved form of the gorgeous hairstyles that nobles wore back in Medieval Europe. They've all got a very unique feeling to them."

"A noble!? That suits me perfectly!"

Sena looked like she was totally into it now.

"The really amazing ones can be styled into a bird cage with a real bird in it, or made to hold an antler's horns, or hang big decorations that say 'Love' and stuff."

"What? Are they trying to be generals from the Sengoku period...?"

Yukimura raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you could probably say that functionality aside, it is actually pretty similar to the pride and uniqueness the Sengoku generals displayed with their kabuto helmets."

Rika said, prompting a reply from Yukimura.

"Then do you mean to say this 'The Tower' hairstyle... serves the function of identifying oneself and one's social position after being captured and beheaded by the enemy?"

"No." "Wrong." "As if that's what it's for."

Yozora, Rika, and I all replied in unison, and Yukimura made a disappointed looking face.

"Hmm... I don't really get it, but it has a good vibe to it..." said Sena.

Yozora nodded.

"Yes, that's right. It's very difficult for a normal person to control such a towering hairstyle. It would be exceedingly reckless for a commoner to try and do it. They'd end up with so much hair all over, people wouldn't even be able to tell where the body was anymore. Sorry for getting your hopes up with something completely beyond you."

Sena twitched as her cheeks stiffened up.

"Anyway, if you want to change your hairstyle, commoners like to typically go to a normal hair salon and get their hair styled normally."

Sena's face twitched even more as Yozora went on, going out of her way to stress "normal" and such.

"Still, I wish that just once, I could see a real 'The Tower'..."

"Yeah~ But Rika thinks it'd be hard. We might've been able to make a good tower with all the hair you had before you cut it too, Yozora-senpai," said Rika.

"Haa... If only we had a pure blooded noble with a gorgeous aura powerful enough to overcome even the might of The Tower hairstyle..."

"Ahaha, you know we don't Yozora-senpai. Nobles like that only exist in anime and manga."

"I guess you're right."

...T-these two... what an obviously unnatural conversation...

However, we do indeed have someone here who that cheap provocation will work on.

Sena raised her voice.

"Hey, you two! You have a noble with a great aura right here! There's not a single person 'The Tower' fits in this world more than me!"

"Hahaha, don't push yourself, Meat."

Yozora said with a gentle smile on her face.

"She's right, Sena-senpai. 'The Tower' is an incredibly difficult hairstyle to wear. Shaping it into a tower is one thing, but looking good in it is..."

"How are we gonna know without even trying!? No, forget that, I already know! Make my hair into that 'The Tower' or whatever! I'll show you that no matter how flashy a hairstyle it is, that the divine aura overflowing from within me will completely control it!"

Oh man, she went and said it...

A devilish smile rose to Yozora's face.

"Hmph, if you're going to be that persistent about it then I'll stack your hair for you. I've been doing my own hair maintenance for a while now, so I'm fairly good at it."

"Rika has tons of hair products sitting around in the Rika room, so wait here while Rika grabs them!"

Rika ran out of the clubroom.

"Eh!? U-um, wait..."

A tinge of regret found its way to Sena's face after she realized what she'd said, but it was too late.

☺

Thus, the project to make Sena's hair into "The Tower" began. Sena sat down in the chair we set up in front of the clubroom's full-length mirror.

"D-don't do anything crazy, ok!?"

Sena said, clearly scared.

"Don't move, Meat."

Yozora held a brush in one hand, and gently ran it through Sena's hair.

As you'd expect from someone who spent several years taking care of her own long hair, she was incredibly good at it.

Even Sena, who had a strained look on her face when they started, slowly shifted to a more relaxed one.

"Hmph, you're not bad. Having another girl brush my hair actually feels pretty good too."

Sena said in a happy tone of voice.

"Haa~ Sena-senpai, your hair is so smooth. You don't have any split ends either."

Rika seriously said while brushing Sena's hair with Yozora.

Just as you'd expect from a genius inventor girl(?), her brushing was just as smooth as Yozora's.

"...I suppose I can compliment you too, if we're only talking about your hair," said Yozora.

"Rika is just as jealous of your pretty hair too, Yozora."

"You're right, if we're only talking about hair, Yozora's is compliment-worthy too. She has an awful personality, but really pretty hair. Yeah, only the hair... Wait, what are you talking about? Rika your hair's pretty and smooth too."

"Eh, you think so?"

"Yeah. I've actually been a little jealous of that pretty black hair of yours before."

"If you're going to say that, then Rika will let you know she's wanted to have been born with pretty blonde hair like yours before too. You have too, right Yozora-senpai?"

"Well, I suppose I have considered it once in a while."

"Oh? Really?"

.........

Girl talk.

It's like there's this "The Girl's Territory" I shouldn't be a part of.

"Aniki, I've prepared tea."

"Thanks."

Sip sip sip.

I continued to blankly stare at the three high school girls next to me while sipping tea with Yukimura.

"Ok, it's finally time to get to making a tower."

Yozora said, having finished brushing Sena's hair.

"How do you think we should style it?"

"Let's see... Meat, do you have any requests?"

"Hmmm~"

Sena, who was now in full relaxed mode, thought for a while and said,

"I don't really get 'The Tower' in the first place, but make it how a normal would do it, if you can."

"So normals are the theme, huh... Hmm..."

"That's a rather difficult order... Normals..."

"Normals... If you're talking about normals, then... summer?"

"Ah, that's a good idea Yozora-senpai. Shall we give her the image of a normal enjoying her summer to the fullest then?"

"Hmm, sure, let's do that."

"Ok, then... We'll add some waves on the sides to simulate the ebb and flow on the beach."

"Ok."

Rika and Yozora skillfully brushed both sides of Sena's hair into a wave shape as they added more and more hair spray.

"Hmm... It won't be very unique if we only have this one thing going on. Let's add some curled locks of hair here and there to accent it with the feel of the swirling tides."

"Ah, that sounds good."

...S-swirling tides?

"Also, we can curl the hair over here to add the feeling of a summer storm."

Rika dumped a ton more hair spray into Sena's hair, and then began to make a wild curl out of it.

"Wow, this sense of unbalance is pretty good."

"Isn't it~? What do you think, Sena-senpai?"

"Eh? Ah, yeah... it looks ok, I guess?"

Sena's face said she wasn't exactly satisfied with it.

"Now then, let's get to work on the top now too. What should we do?"

"We've got the sea imagery on the sides, so let's make the top have the feeling of a sand castle."

"That's wonderful! A castle would suit Sena's gorgeous (lol) image perfectly! Oh, right, why don't we add a bikini on top as a ribbon too!?"

"You're a genius! The sea, a sand castle, a swimsuit... now that we've got all this, it makes me want to add a watermelon and fireworks."

"We certainly can't leave those two out! Aha, this matches a normal perfectly! It has everything normals would come to do at a summer beach in it!"

"Yeah! Also, since we're going with the sea, let's add some yakisoba! And some curry!"

"Oh yeah! The yakisoba Kodaka-senpai made for us at that training camp was really delicious, wasn't it!?"

"Ok, let's decorate the waves with yakisoba!"

"Y-yakisoba...!?"

Sena's face went stiff again.

"Yukimura, go buy us some yakisoba, a swimsuit, watermelon, and some fireworks please."

"Understood. Allow me to handle the task of running errands to complete this tower of Sena-anego's honor."

Yukimura left the clubroom oddly happy after Rika asked him to go get things.

After he left, Yozora and Rika kept on playing around with Sena's hair, stacking it higher and higher.

"Uuu... Kodakaaa..."

Sena looked like she was about to cry as she directed her eyes over at me.

Sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

I averted my eyes from hers, and started reading a book while watching the three of them out of the corner of my eye.

☺

""It's doneeeeeee!!""

I turned around after hearing Yozora's and Rika's shouts of joy... and I stood there at a loss for words.

...T-this is just too awful...

There were branches of hair randomly sticking out from the side and back, along with yakisoba mixed in here and there, and a bikini tied on the top like a ribbon.

A beautifully woven Japanese castle lay at the top, and there were fireworks, melon bread(I'm guessing this is the watermelon's replacement), a dead dragonfly, and a cicada's shell(apparently Yukimura just picked it up on a whim when he saw it) randomly mixed in everywhere as decorations. There was also some fried squid and a chocolate banana sticking out from the castle tower like a pair of antennae.

......This is bullying no matter how you look at it.

However, Yozora, Rika, and Yukimura (who joined in after he got back from buying the fireworks) didn't seem to feel that way at all as the three of them wiped the sweat off their foreheads full of a sense of accomplishment.

"I call it ―― 'The Ultimate Normal @ A Midsummer Night's Dream Mega MAX Tower'"

Yozora triumphantly declared.

As for Sena and her newfound awful hairstyle, she was wearing a look of anger, sadness, and humiliation all rolled into one on her face as her body shook, full of those emotions.

"Sena-senpai you're so super cute~♥ Rika wants to give it a try sometime too!"

Rika's eyes were sparkling like diamonds.

There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in her voice at all. It looks like she really thinks 'The Ultimate Normal @ A Midsummer Night's Dream Mega MAX Tower' is a cute hairstyle.

"Ahh... So cute... Really... You're really cute!"

Surprisingly, Yozora made a bright, girl-like (I mean she is a girl, but you know) smile too.

It doesn't look like she's acting either.

"Uahhhh, what a waste! I wish I could've tried out 'The Tower' once before I cut my hair too...!"

Yozora said, looking like she was actually upset about it.

I just do not get women...

"That is a fantastic way to style your hair, Sena-anego. I have no doubt you'll be able to die a wonderful death now."

More weird compliments coming from Yukimura.

...I understand Yukimura even less than women.

Well, anyway, after seeing their reactions, Sena's face softened up.

"R-really? You think it suits me that well?"

Sena said as she looked at her very original hairstyle in the mirror. Looks like she's not all that upset about it.

"It super totally suits you, Senpai!"

"Yeah... I hate to admit it, but it does."

"The cicadas and dragonfly give it a fleeting feeling, and it has a certain presence to it that tells others it isn't just for show."

"Hmm~... Hnn~ Hmm~... Hnn, you've got a point, this might be pretty good..."

...Are you kidding me?

"Hehe♪ Hey what do you think? How do I look, Kodaka?"

Sena asked, clearly in a good mood now.

I pulled back, and showed her a forced smile before saying,

"Yeah... It's like, it really screams 'Sena' to me."

Your hopelessness that is.

"Hehehe, doesn't it!?"

Not only Sena, but Yozora and the rest all had a satisfied smile float to their faces after hearing my reply.

...That day, Sena went home wearing her new 'The Ultimate Normal @ A Midsummer Night's Dream Mega MAX Tower' hairstyle.

☺

The next morning, I happened to run into Sena at the school's entrance.

I was secretly relieved to see that her hair was back to how it usually is.

"Uuu~ Kodaka~"

Sena moaned with a sad look on her face.

"Papa yelled at me when I got home yesterday... He spanked me, and made me put my hair back to how it was, and it was awful..."

"I-I see."

..."Good job Pegasus," I thought to myself.

By the way, when we got to club later that day, Yozora and Rika looked like they were honestly feeling bad about what they did, and told Sena, "We got really into it and kept saying how cute your hair was yesterday, but when we think back on it, it really wasn't." Yozora even gave her a rare apology, and said, "I went a little overboard. Sorry."

Sena yelled "At least stop while it's still just a funny story for later!" in return and ran out of the clubroom in tears.

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