January 10
Weather: Cold
Recorder: Kadomi
Winter break is over.
Even though there wasn’t no club activity during the break, most of it was taken up by training camps, so it doesn’t really feel like we did much for the club.
“Hey Kadomi-kun, can you grab that for me?”
And today doesn’t really feel like a club activity either.
“Got it.”
On the count of three, Katori and I lift a cardboard box together.
“Whoa, this is pretty heavy. Did we overpack it?”
“Books are heavier than they look…”
Katori and I are carrying a box full of books.
The library did a big cleanup at the end of the year, and they donated a bunch of old science magazines and textbooks to the chemistry club… But they said, ‘If you don’t need them, feel free to throw them out,’ and they gave us everything. Now we’re kind of stuck with it. But we don’t have the heart to throw them away, so we decided to just stack them in a corner of the lab for now.
“Sorry about this. The librarian said they feel bad about throwing books away themselves.”
“So they make us do it instead? What’s up with that?”
Kariya, who is on the library committee, has connections with the library. The committee did the big cleanup at the end of the year, and that’s when they decided to donate the science magazines and textbooks to us.
“But thanks to that, the library is all cleaned up.”
“And now this place is a mess instead?”
“Come on, Hagasaki-kun, don’t get so mad.”
“I’m gonna kill you.”
…The back of the chemistry lab is now piled high with boxes of magazines and textbooks.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave things like this for too long… But it’s a pain to throw them out, so I guess we’ll just leave them here for now…
It kind of looks like we’ve built a Jenga tower, but at least the back of the lab is where the books ended up.
…I feel like this will collapse if there’s an earthquake.
“Oh, by the way, does anyone want to read any books?”
Trying to avert our gaze from the precarious pile of boxes, Kariya suddenly asks.
“I don’t want to read any science magazines or textbooks.”
Hagasaki-kun is still in a bad mood. As usual.
“Hmm, what’s your angle here?”
“Oh, um, it’s just that the library is asking for ‘book requests.’ The announcement will be in next week’s library newsletter, but there’s already a request box set up in the library! I can submit your requests if you want!”
Ah… So they’re planning to buy new books.
Our school library has a lot of books and a pretty good selection… or so I’ve heard.
They accept requests from students and then buy the books, so it’s pretty well-regarded.
I don’t really read books that much, so it doesn’t matter to me.
Kariya, Maito, and Suzumoto seem to go to the library often, so if you ask them, they’ll probably come up with some requests.
“So, is there any book you want to read?”
Kariya asks, but since I don’t read much to begin with, there’s nothing I really want.
“Hmm, nothing for me.”
“Nothing for me either. If I want a book, I just buy it myself.”
…Also, the books we want to read aren’t usually the kind of books the school would buy for us…
Yeah…
“Oh, well, if you think of anything, let me know. Maybe something will come up if I ask Maito-san or Suzumoto?”
“Probably… But why didn’t you just ask them in the first place? Why are you even asking us?”
“Well, I just thought maybe you guys had something in mind…”
I don’t know how to put this…
The library is just kind of… hard to enter.
I don’t really know how to use it. There are too many books. It’s so quiet. I don’t feel welcome.
So I’ve never been one to frequent the library. I think a lot of people feel the same way.
“Every year, even when we ask for requests, we don’t get many. It’s not like we never get requests to stock entire series of light novels, though.”
“Isn’t that kind of a ridiculous thing to ask for?”
I mean, it’s a school. Light novels, really?
“And since last year, the library has a few light novel series fully stocked.”
“Wait, I didn’t know that…”
…So they actually bought them. I guess it was okay. It must’ve been okay if they bought them…
“So yeah, we’re pretty open to any requests. But when we don’t get many, we end up buying random books that no one cares about, so please, please!”
Hmm…
…I thought about it a bit, but… Sorry, Kariya.
I really don’t have any books I want to read.
And so, until the next club meeting, there wasn’t an earthquake. The boxes didn’t collapse. That was a relief.
“Uh, why are these boxes stacked like this? What’s inside? Can I take a look?”
“A lot happened while you weren’t paying attention, Hariu…”
“Hey, stop that! If it collapses, I’m not helping you put it back together.”
I didn’t want to help either, so I pulled Hariu away from the boxes he was trying to peek into. It’s just old magazines, nothing worth worrying about.
Somehow, the boxes made the club activities feel a bit tense. Even while doing experiments, they were always on my mind…
“…Oh, by the way.”
Kariya, who seemed to be wrapping up the experiment, suddenly spoke up.
“Does anyone have any book requests?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“None.”
“Huh? Book requests? We can ask for anything? Then I want some guidebooks!”
“Oh, no, that’s not allowed.”
…Looks like they’re asking for book requests again.
I think this is the wrong place to ask. Maito and Suzumoto aren’t here today, so there’s no way we’ll come up with anything.
“Ugh, this is a problem…”
Then Kariya started to look troubled. He always kind of seems troubled, but this time, he genuinely looked worried.
“What, do library committee members have a quota of book requests to fill?”
“No, it’s not like that…”
When Hagasaki-kun asked, Kariya mumbled. I wonder if something happened.
“…Um, well, it’s kind of personal, but I just really want to increase the number of requests.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s easier if I just show you.”
Kariya abandoned his experiment and pulled out a single sheet of loose-leaf paper from his bag in the storage area.
He showed it to us when we gathered around.
What was written on it… was a list of requests, all in Kariya’s handwriting.
“…Huh?”
“Wow, there are some diligent people out there, huh.”
“Uh… I don’t get it. What’s this about?”
I don’t really get it either.
At the top of the list of requests were… ‘English-Japanese Dictionary,’ ‘French-Japanese Dictionary,’ ‘Japanese-German Dictionary,’ ‘Esperanto Dictionary,’ ‘Spanish Dictionary’…
Almost everything on the list was a dictionary.
“Obviously, we can’t buy all of these, but… If this keeps up, we’ll probably still end up buying a few of them.”
Even though the requests are mysterious, they’re still requests, so as a member of the library committee, Kariya feels obligated to take them somewhat seriously.
“Ah, I see. That’s why you want more requests.”
“Exactly! If we get more requests, the percentage of dictionaries will go down! Please! I don’t want the library to be filled with just dictionaries! I want it to have lots of everyday mysteries, bittersweet coming-of-age novels, sweet and sour yuri stories, and so on! Please, please!”
I didn’t ask to hear about Kariya’s preferences…
But yeah.
Even though I don’t use the library, and it doesn’t really matter to me, I do feel a little bad since Kariya and a few other members of the chemistry club actually like the library.
Having a library full of nothing but dictionaries would be pretty sad.
“Do you have any request forms?”
So, I decided to at least submit one request.
“Oh! Kadomi-kun, you’re going to write one? Thank you! Here you go! You don’t have to write your name if you don’t want to!”
Kariya handed me a small request form from his file.
There’s a space for your name, but it’s optional. The sections for the book title and author are required, or you can fill in the section for ‘the type of book you want to read.’
…What should I write?
Now that I think about it, I don’t really have any books I want to read, and I don’t know many books in the first place.
“Let me see that.”
After a while (about 10 minutes), Hagasaki-kun took the request form from me. It seems he’s going to write something instead.
“Here, just submit this.”
The paper read, ‘La Dame aux Camélias: Alexandre Dumas, fils.’ I’ve never heard of it.
“Wow, thanks! And here’s another form, Hagasaki-kun!”
…Hagasaki-kun looked pretty annoyed.
“Then I’ll write something too. As long as it’s a good book that I know of, right? It doesn’t have to be just for me; it can be something I want others to read.”
Katori started writing ‘The Science of Imagination…’ I know that one.
Despite his grumpy expression, Hagasaki-kun started writing down ‘La Porte Étroite’ and ‘The Door into Summer.’ I’ve never heard of those.
“Okay, I’ll write something too!”
Hariu started writing as well. He wrote ‘Cat Photo Collection.’ Hmm… I kind of want to see that. But… is a photo collection something you read…? Hmm, photo collections aren’t really for reading…
…I decided to write something on a form too.
Since I couldn’t think of anything else, I just wrote ‘A book about chemistry.’
“…But seriously, why do you think there are so many requests for dictionaries?”
While everyone else was writing tons of request forms, Hariu asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.
It’s definitely strange. There’s no way so many people are requesting dictionaries. I’d never make such a request myself.
“So, do you think all these requests are from the same person?”
“Hmm… I’m not really sure. Since they’re all handwritten, I can tell that the handwriting is different for each request… But it’s also possible that someone deliberately changed their handwriting just enough to make it look like it’s different…”
…Honestly, it seems more likely that it’s the same person. I can’t believe there are so many people at this school who are that interested in dictionaries.
But if it is the same person, why would they submit so many requests for dictionaries…?
“Should we try to figure it out?”
Katori suggested.
“If we can understand why someone would request so many dictionaries, we might be able to figure out who’s behind these mysterious requests.”
Calling them the ‘culprit’ feels a little harsh… but I am curious.
…And so, we all started tidying up our experiments.