December 25
Weather: Snow followed by clear skies. Maximum temperature 3 degrees.
Recorder: Tsuge
December 22. Despite not being our usual activity day, we gathered in the chemistry lab two days before our training camp.
It wasn’t planned, but it was inevitable.
Tomorrow, December 23, is a holiday, and December 24 is the closing ceremony.
After the closing ceremony, we will head straight into our winter training camp, but we still haven’t made any plans.
If we start planning in the afternoon, we won’t have enough time to prepare dinner, so we decided to outline our plans today.
“Merry Emperor’s Birthday!”
I couldn’t understand if it was the anticipation before the winter break, the high tension before the camp, or simply the mood, but Maito-san shouted this as she entered the lab.
“President! Merry Emperor’s Birthday!”
“Merry Emperor’s Birthday. …What exactly is that?”
“Since Christmas is the birthday of Jesus Christ and we celebrate it on Christmas Eve, I thought we should celebrate the Emperor’s birthday from the eve as well. Merry Emperor’s Birthday. I also like how the phrase sounds with 3, 4, or 5 syllables. Merry Emperor’s Birthday.”
I can’t quite grasp Maito-san’s sensibility, but that’s probably how it is. It’s definitely better not to think too deeply about it.
“Hey!”
“Oh, only two people are here so far.”
“Hey, Toriumi! Katori! Merry Emperor’s Birthday!”
“Merry Emperor’s Birthday!”
“Merry Emperor’s Birthday…? Umm, like Happy Birthday, I guess…?”
Eventually, Toriumi and Katori also arrived. They both adapt quickly.
“Today is Emperor’s Birthday Eve, you know.”
“Oh, Emperor’s Birthday Eve, huh.”
It seems to be Emperor’s Birthday Eve.
“It’s cold today, but will it be a White Emperor’s Birthday tomorrow?”
“Oh, the forecast said it might be a White Christmas. It’ll be sunny tomorrow.”
“So it won’t be a White Emperor’s Birthday, huh? That’s kind of disappointing, kind of disappointing.”
Their conversation is strangely lively, but… is my adaptability low? I have quite a bit of confidence in my adaptability, but sometimes I feel inadequate in this club.
“If it snows on Christmas and blood rains down together, would it be a Pink Christmas?”
“Well, even if nothing falls, it would be pink anyway, because it’s Christmas.”
“Ah, I think that’s no good, you shouldn’t say that.”
…Well, it’s probably just that our adaptability vectors are pointing in different directions. I’m sure of it.
“Oh, by the way, Kariya left a message. He’ll be a bit late. He seems to have some duties as a library committee member.”
Kariya is on the library committee.
Probably, since it’s the end of the year, they might be doing some simple cleaning.
“Got it. Well, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
For now, today’s goal is to plan for the training camp… mainly the dinner plans, which won’t be a problem even if Kariya isn’t here.
“We can plan the training camp dinners as long as Maito-san is here.”
“Yeah, that’s right. We can make plans if Maito-san is here.”
“Conversely, we can’t make plans without Maito-san! Because we can’t cook!”
“I greatly lament your low cooking skills.”
Kariya has the second highest cooking skills in this club, but well, as long as the top one is here, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“Somehow, the nightmare of the summer training camp comes to mind…”
Maito-san looks at us with a resentful expression, but it can’t be helped. We can’t do what we can’t do.
“Oh, should we check the stock of cooking utensils and seasonings? We bought some in the summer.”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
I’m not very good at cooking, but I’m fairly good at checking inventory and managing supplies. This is something I can help with.
Basically, our chemistry club doesn’t have a dedicated club room. We temporarily borrow the chemistry lab and store our supplies there.
The equipment we use for training camps is mostly stored in the chemistry prep room. In other words, it’s placed where other students don’t enter.
The chemistry lab and the chemistry prep room are connected by a single door without having to go through the hallway, so we can move freely between the lab and the prep room.
“Hey, did someone break a beaker?”
There’s an old pot placed next to the door of the prep room. Setting aside why it’s a pot, this pot is for broken glass. Since the lab has a lot of glassware, it’s common to produce broken glass. This pot is a dedicated trash bin for such glass.
Some of the glass shards have what looks like white markings, probably from a beaker.
“What? Maito-san, do you remember everything in the trash can?”
“Yes. It’s almost full, but I thought it could still hold a bit more. I didn’t want to throw away broken glass because it’s a hassle. Also, the last thing on top should be the test tubes I smashed.”
Ah, yes, that’s right. Maito-san once broke six test tubes at once. If that’s the case, it’s not surprising she remembers the contents of the glass trash pot.
“But no one has broken any equipment recently, and with tests going on, it’s hard to think we did experiments in class! Who broke it!”
…It is concerning. I wonder who it was. But finding the culprit might be difficult. I understand the sentiment, though.
Looking to the side, there’s a dish rack next to plants like aloe and pothos, where several beakers, glass rods, and other glassware are placed. Quite artistically, I might add.
Naturally, it’s likely that a beaker fell from here and broke.
“Maybe a teacher in a hurry dropped it.”
“Maybe. Or it just fell naturally?”
“Uh, no, that’s unlikely with the windows closed.”
Toriumi and Katori were investigating the scene like it was a crime scene.
“Oh, but look at this. The beakers in the dish rack are stacked like a tower.”
“Wow, seriously, it’s really tilted.”
As they said, beakers, flasks, funnels, etc., were stacked in a dish rack in a delicate balance.
If the dry equipment were properly put away on the shelves, there wouldn’t be such a glassware tower. This way, it’s no surprise if a beaker falls.
“Then can we conclude this as accidental death, Director Katori!”
“Am I the director…? Well, I guess there’s no criminal intent here.”
Well, if there were criminal intent, it would mean someone intentionally broke the beaker. If that had happened, the commotion would have reached the chemistry research room, which is just a door away from the chemistry prep room, meaning the teachers’ office.
Given that the teachers are just two walls away (or zero walls if both doors are open), it’s unlikely anyone would purposely break a beaker.
“Then the case is solved. You two, bring some plastic bags. I’ll write ‘Fragile’ on them. Since it’s the year-end cleaning, we’ll throw this out immediately. Chop chop.”
Maito-san, holding the pot with the beaker fragments, urged Toriumi and Katori.
…Wait.
“Maito-san, can I see that for a moment?”
“Hmm?”
I was a bit curious and picked up one of the glass shards from the dustpan.
“The marking?”
“Yes.”
The shard had a white paint marking. It’s a beaker, so that’s normal.
However, something that should be on a ‘normal’ beaker is missing.
“This beaker isn’t from Iwaki or Pyrex.”
Iwaki is a glassware manufacturer. Pyrex is another glassware manufacturer.
Our school’s experimental equipment, especially beakers and flasks, are primarily from these two manufacturers.
These manufacturers’ beakers usually have the brand name near the top left of the markings, but the shard I picked up had the ’50’ marking with nothing written on the left side.
Even if there were other manufacturers’ beakers in this lab, given that not a single shard with a manufacturer’s name is found in the pot, this must be a ‘no-name manufacturer’s beaker.’
“Huh? And these markings are really sloppy, right? Look, the distance from the bottom to the 10ml mark is more than 1.5 times the distance from the 10ml mark to the 20ml mark.”
“Maybe they overcompensated for the rounded bottom…”
A proper beaker wouldn’t have such discrepancies.
In other words.
“This is an imitation, a decorative beaker.”
Of course, there’s no way such a thing should be in our lab.
This means this beaker was brought in from outside, and there must be a reason behind it.