A student council member with a guilty look on their face.

(Chapter originally by MidnightWisher at writing.com)

Sliding the door open, Makoto stepped into the Student Council room and found herself face to face with one of male student council members, who had begun to bow and spit off apologies to her the moment her foot entered the room. “I’m so sorry, President!”

Immediately, Makoto stepped into her role as president. She placed a hand on the council member’s shoulder, “It’s okay, just calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“I lost all of the school festival’s paperwork, the approved class event plans, the club events plans, the classes’ special request forms, the festival floorplans, the budgets, all of it – I’m so sorry!” He said. Makoto’s went wide and she felt the life **** slip from her body for a moment as she stood there stunned, hoping that she simply misheard him.

“What… what do mean?” She asked with bated breath.

“I was a little behind on double-checking the paperwork, so I put it all in a few folders to take with me, and I was going over the documents earlier today any chance I got, during class, between class, while walking around the school, in the bathroom, in the locker room, I’ve been everywhere already today” He said, amazing Makoto by how much he could say with so few breathes. “And, I don’t know when or where I lost them. I thought I still had them with me, but I was wrong. I’m so sorry…”

If you were to ask most students at Shujin how they thought their president would take this news, they would recommend that the messenger run for the hills because it would not end well. Those students would be wrong. Instead, Makoto cast him a soft gaze, took in his tear-stained face, and sighed, giving him a pat on the back. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to offer him a small, reassuring smile. She saw no point in giving him a hard time about it, especially not when he was clearly already giving himself one. “I’ll find them, don’t worry.” Despite saying that, she couldn’t help but wonder whose idea it was not to back up the documents in the event something like this happened that got them into this mess in the first place.

“You mean it?”

“Yeah, I’ll find them in no time,” Makoto said, giving a thumb up and an earnest smile. Or so she hoped, at least. The festival was only a few weeks away, and they couldn’t afford to spend the time to remake the budgets and plans. They were pushing the deadline as it was, and if they didn’t meet it there wouldn’t be a festival. Makoto refused to let that happen. Finding those documents were now her top priority.

But what exactly was she going to do? The school day was only about halfway over, but she could start searching now. After all, the longer they’re missing the more likely something could happen to them. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford to miss a few classes, and her absence would be excused since it was official student council business. Alternatively, she could search the school after hours when there were less students around, but then there was the risk that someone might pick up or throw away the documents.