“…So, why am I being interrogated?”
“Because you’re popular!”
“Handsome guy tax collection!”
“No mercy!”
Sometime later, Suzumoto, who came to the club, was surrounded by Toriumi, Hariu, and Kariya. It’s laughable.
“So, who was the love letter from?”
“What did it say?”
“Die!”
That’s terrible. It’s laughable.
Surrounded by the three, Suzumoto raised his hands as if surrendering, looking somewhat exhausted.
“It wasn’t there.”
“…Huh?”
“It wasn’t there? What? No way.”
“Eh… again?”
Suzumoto sighed exaggeratedly and said again.
“I checked, but there was no love letter.”
“Well, let’s confirm just in case. First, the one who found the love letter was me. I found it during gym class the day before yesterday. Third period. When I opened it to borrow shoes, there was a cute envelope!”
“And the next one to find it was me. I found it yesterday. When I peeked during lunch break, there was a cute envelope.”
“Why were you peeking in my shoe locker…”
“Well, I heard about the love letter from Hariu. I wondered if it was there. And it was. By the way, there was nothing in my shoe locker!”
Even if you cheerfully report that, it’s troubling.
“…So, about that love letter. When I opened the shoe locker yesterday while leaving school, there was nothing.”
Is Suzumoto possessed by something? A ghost of a love letter or something?
“Why is that, I wonder? It means someone is putting it in and taking it out, right?”
“Surely, it’s a very shy girl. When you think about it like that, it’s kind of cute, isn’t it!”
Kariya is saying something fluffy, but honestly. A girl who repeatedly puts in and takes out a love letter every day isn’t cute; it’s kind of horror-like. It’s scary.
“We should consider that there are some circumstances, right? Assuming you guys aren’t tricking me.”
“I swear to God!”
“I swear to Mr. Hibiki!”
Swearing to God is one thing, but swearing to that unreliable teacher is troubling.
…But, well, I don’t think Hariu or Toriumi are lying. Both of them aren’t the type to tell such lies… They know that Suzumoto would genuinely get angry if he was lied to about a nonexistent love letter or was tricked with a fake love letter.
He simply dislikes being teased, and more than that, he doesn’t like being insincere about people’s feelings. Good or bad, after half a year of knowing him, you understand he’s a serious person.
“…But, two days in a row, huh. And I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. What does that mean?”
“Yeah… why is that, I wonder?”
“She’s probably embarrassed and hides it before Suzumoto sees it!”
Even though miraculously both Hariu and Toriumi have witnessed it.
…But both Hariu and Toriumi saw it by coincidence.
So, whoever is putting in and taking out the love letter is really trying to make sure that no one notices its existence.
“Is there any reason to put in and take out a love letter? Honestly, I can only think of Kariya’s ‘she’s just shy’ pattern! It’s frustrating!”
Hariu is shouting, but honestly, I can’t think of anything either.
I mean, that’s the most natural explanation. There’s no reason to think further, and no need to either.
After all, Suzumoto himself hasn’t seen the love letter even once, right? Then he can just pretend he doesn’t know. There’s no need for outsiders to make a fuss.
“…Or maybe, just maybe… is there a possibility that ‘the purpose is for someone other than Suzumoto to discover it’?”
…Toriumi says things like this.
So we have to verify it.
But, damn. Why do I have to think about someone else’s love letter?
So, I started thinking.
“Eh? ‘The purpose is for someone other than Suzumoto to discover it’ is pretty far-fetched! The shoe locker has a lid!”
First, this.
As Hariu said. Our school’s shoe lockers have steel doors.
There’s no peep window or anything, just a number tag and a small ventilation hole. It’s a simple, ordinary shoe locker.
So, ‘someone accidentally looking inside the shoe locker’ is impossible.
“You can’t peek through the ventilation hole… right, hmm.”
“You could use an endoscope! But I wouldn’t do it!”
It’s impossible to peek through the ventilation hole. Who would bring an endoscope to school? No one, right? Maito, are you stupid? No doubt about it. Stupid.
“Well, normally, to find out if there’s a love letter inside, you have to open the shoe locker, right?”
Exactly.
“Then, the person who put in the love letter expected ‘someone to open Suzumoto’s shoe locker’?”
“Haha, no way! Normally, you don’t open someone else’s shoe locker!”
“Right. That’s right. It’s weird. Why did you open my shoe locker, Hariu…?”
“Uh, haha… because I didn’t have any shoes…”
So Hariu is ‘not normal.’ He admits it himself.
“Maybe that was the aim? Like, they predicted Hariu would go to borrow Suzumoto’s shoes.”
“No, that’s impossible. Even if someone knew Hariu forgot his shoes, they wouldn’t expect him to borrow mine. Our shoe sizes are too different.”
“Yeah, I honestly regret it. Our shoe sizes were too different…”
“…Why did you try to borrow mine first?”
“I didn’t think about the size at all! In my heart, I’m 2 meters tall!”
Oh, really. Physically, there’s more than a 10 cm difference.
…But yeah, normally, predicting ‘Hariu opening Suzumoto’s shoe locker’ is impossible.
“Uh, so, is it correct to say that ‘it’s also impossible for me, Toriumi, to predict that I’d open Suzumoto’s shoe locker for the same reason’? Hm?”
“Well, yeah, that’s right.”
And, of course, Toriumi couldn’t have predicted it either.
It seemed that Toriumi opened Suzumoto’s shoe locker on a whim. Who could predict someone opening another person’s shoe locker on a whim? At least, I wouldn’t.
“…which means, does it really mean that the person who left the love letter originally intended for no one to see it?”
Well, yeah, it seems so.
I mean, isn’t the whole point of putting a love letter in a shoe locker to make sure only the owner sees it? I don’t know. I have no idea what girls are thinking.
“…Hey, Maito.”
“What’s up, Suzumoto?”
“Just hypothetically. Hypothetically, let’s say you have two X chromosomes, okay?”
“O-okay.”
“What would be your reason for giving and then taking back a love letter?”
…Maito has a really weird expression. Honestly, I kind of want to make that face too.
Suzumoto, this is seriously affecting your mental state, isn’t it? Just because Maito is biologically female and wears a skirt uniform doesn’t mean you should ask her. It’s like asking an alien. Are you really that desperate, Suzumoto? In a way, it’s impressive.
“Um…you’re asking me that…let’s see.”
But Maito started thinking about it pretty seriously. Well, she’s not the type to shy away from thinking, no matter the topic.
“Hmm…if it were me, giving a love letter to someone I like and then taking it back…it would have to be for a really good reason, like I checked the calendar and saw it was a bad luck day…oh, wait, if that were the case, there’d be no reason to take it back yesterday. The day after a bad luck day is a good luck day.”
Seriously? After thinking hard, this is what you come up with. This is why. This is why Maito is…
“No, but, if it were me, I wouldn’t even give and then take back a love letter in the first place, I think. Yeah. Because if you’re giving it to someone you like, right? A love letter. So I wouldn’t give it half-heartedly. Even if I wanted to take it back, I wouldn’t.”
…Oh, I see.
Maito, who apparently thought about it seriously, came to a rather unhelpful conclusion and slumped over her desk.
“So, if I were to give and take back a love letter on my own accord, it would only be when I want to tease the person specifically. Yeah.”
“No, you can’t tease someone who doesn’t even know about the love letter. Are you stupid? Suzumoto hasn’t seen the love letter even once. How can you tease someone with something they don’t know exists?”
“Oh, I see. So, it wasn’t even for teasing…wow, I have no idea!”
…In the end, we didn’t figure out much. Ah, man.
We were about to disband, thinking we wouldn’t get any more conclusions, when suddenly.
Bang! The door opened with a rather annoying sound.
Standing there, out of breath, was Kadomi-kun.
“Suzumoto!”
“W-what’s wrong, Kadomi-kun?”
“Hurry! We found it!”
“Huh?”
Even with his brief explanation, we could imagine what ‘we found it’ meant.
“The love letter!”
So.
To get to the point, we found it.
The love letter.
Suzumoto finally found it in his shoe locker himself.
Kadomi-kun said he was curious and peeked into Suzumoto’s shoe locker, so good job, I guess. It doesn’t make any sense though. Why are these guys all keeping an eye on someone else’s shoe locker? I don’t get it. I really don’t get it.
…Anyway, Suzumoto opened the envelope in the corner of the lab, and we watched from a distance.
“…Huh?”
Suzumoto’s bewildered voice gave me a bad feeling.
“Hey, who was it from? Hm?”
“I want to see, I want to see.”
“At least tell us what was written on it!”
Toriumi, Hariu, and Kariya crowded around Suzumoto. It was probably a long shot, but still.
…It was supposed to be a long shot.
“…Wanna see?”
Suzumoto said, waving the lace-patterned envelope.
Of course, the three of them took the envelope and began to open it.
…Really. Suzumoto, I didn’t think you’d show a love letter you received to anyone.
Just as I thought it was strange, the three who looked at the letter before me made weird faces.
“…This?”
“Yeah, this.”
“Really…this?”
“I haven’t done anything to the contents.”
“Reaally…? Seriously?”
“Honestly, I’m puzzled too.”
Their reactions were so strange that I decided to take a look myself without hesitation.
“…What is this?”
“I want to know. What am I supposed to do with this?”
The envelope, which had a very girly lace pattern, was light and delicate. It said “To Suzumoto-kun” on the front, but there was no name of the sender.
And inside was…
A folded blank loose leaf.
Since the loose leaf was blank, we tried everything.
We suspected invisible ink and heated it up, put it in the fridge, and even tried iodine to detect fingerprints. We got something that looked like fingerprints but no letters at all.
What a complete waste of time. What is this?
“It disappears, disappears, and when you think you’ve found it, it’s blank. Absolutely blank. What is this? What on earth is this?”
Suzumoto was clearly losing it.
“…Don’t worry…”
Kadomi-kun was also inexplicably dejected.
“Uh…this, this is a bit unexpected…uh…”
Even Hariu was struggling to respond. If even Hariu was like this, I couldn’t muster any kind of reaction at all.
“Um, so, can we just say the love letter was meant for teasing?”
After all that back and forth, this is what we get.
It’s a total letdown, and it feels like we were idiots for taking this seriously. I can’t take it anymore.
“…Can I check something real quick?”
At that moment, Kariya timidly raised his hand.
“Um, Hariu, is this the envelope you saw?”
“Yeah. This. Lace pattern. I thought it looked neat and cute. I remember it.”
“And Toriumi, you saw this one too?”
“Yeah, the one I saw was definitely this one.”
Kariya nodded with a puzzled expression and put the loose leaf back in the envelope.
The envelope bulged and softened with the loose leaf inside. Kariya gently placed it back on the desk.
“If it was meant to tease, they wouldn’t have taken it out and put it back repeatedly.”
Kariya began to speak slowly.
“And if they wanted to tease Suzumoto by making a fuss over the love letter, they’d write something like ‘I like you! Please meet me behind the gym after school!’ It would be on proper stationery that matches the envelope, not on a blank loose leaf. Then, they’d wait behind the gym and tease Suzumoto when he shows up…oh, sorry.”
Suzumoto looked extremely displeased. Well, I think he’s allowed to. Just imagining it is pretty unpleasant.
“…So, the fact that this love letter appeared and disappeared in the shoe locker, the beautiful envelope with a carefully written address, but with a blank loose leaf inside, I think there’s a reason for all of this.”
Kariya stared at the not-a-love-letter and then, suddenly, looked at Maito. …Are you sure you’re looking at the right person?
“Maito-san.”
“Yes?”
“Earlier, you talked about giving and taking back a love letter, right?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“When I heard that, I thought, this love letter…”
Kariya picked up the envelope from the desk again.
The seal that seemed to have been used to close the envelope peeled off and fell on the desk. Kariya picked it up too and nodded vigorously.
“This isn’t a prank! It’s definitely a love letter!”