January 28th
Weather: I’m sad because it looks like it’s going to snow but it won’t!
Recorder: Toriumi
Now then.
“Wh-Why did this happen…?”
While watching the rare sight of Suzumoto’s face twitching, all of us silently pondered, “How did it come to this?” as we stood in front of a single cardboard box.
Inside the cardboard box we were surrounding was, well, you know! It was packed with a ton of so-called erotic magazines!
“Eh… The chemistry books turned into erotic magazines…?”
Yeah. Originally, this cardboard box was supposed to contain unwanted books that we left at the trash disposal site, but somehow, this happened! I have no idea why!
Let me tell you exactly what happened!
The school is currently in the middle of a major cleanup because it’s right before entrance exams! Although I can’t help but think they should have done this at the end of the year, well, whatever.
As part of this, there are repair works happening in the club building, pest control in the extracurricular activities building, and fixing the leaks in the gym, all happening simultaneously! At the same time, our Kariya-kun, who is a member of the library committee, was helping out with the big library cleanup! Consequently, our chemistry club received a large number of old science magazines and science-related books!
I guess they felt it would be a shame to throw them away, but honestly, giving us two whole boxes at once was a bit much. Yeah, it was really a problem.
The librarian probably assumed we’d have trouble with it and told us, “If you don’t need them, feel free to throw them away,” before leaving the boxes with us. Yeah. We couldn’t really oppose the librarian since we had Kariya from the library committee with us. Even without Kariya, none of us had the guts to stand up to the librarian.
So, we roughly sorted the books into ones we needed and ones we didn’t, packed the unwanted ones into a box, and threw them in the trash disposal site. It was a tough job, especially since the disposal site was a mess due to the ongoing cleanups everywhere, but we managed somehow.
However.
We later discovered that we had made a critical mistake. We accidentally threw away the books we needed instead of the ones we didn’t! If we don’t do something, we’ll end up with only the trash while the books we wanted will be gone!
And so today, even though it’s not club time, we all gathered. We rushed to the disposal site, and luckily, the recyclable trash hadn’t been collected yet, so the box was still there. We brought it back, opened it, and found that “the contents had completely turned pink.”
You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, and honestly, neither do I… I couldn’t believe what had happened…
I feel like I’m losing my mind… actually, we all are…
It’s not something trivial like hypnosis or super speed; we experienced a glimpse of something far more terrifying…
“Let’s confirm something.”
“Yeah.”
“The books we originally threw away weren’t like this, right? So, this means the chemistry books weren’t actually a massive donation of books dealing with the mysteries of the human body, right?”
“Of course not, are you stupid? Do you think the library would have erotic books?”
“Of course not.”
Yeah. No way. I mean, Kariya, Katori, and I were the ones who sorted the books, and there wasn’t anything like that. If there had been, I’m sure all of us except Maito-san would have checked it out. Yeah.
Oh, by the way, Maito-san isn’t here right now! As soon as we opened the box, Suzumoto, with his quick thinking, managed to get her to leave. He suddenly said, “Maito, sorry, but can you jump out of that window and not come back for a while?” which shocked her, but it was effective in making sure we could examine the contents of the box without her.
After that shock, we pretended to start a Duel! and quickly sent Maito-san home, so it all worked out. Yeah. (Maito-san doesn’t have a deck, so whenever we start dueling, she ends up left out. It’s a bit sad, though.)
“So, basically, we just picked up the wrong box from the disposal site, right? We need to hurry up and return this and get the science magazines before they’re actually thrown away.”
What Hagasaki-kun said makes sense, you know. Yeah.
“I thought so too, so I already checked. But there wasn’t a single other box filled with books.”
“Has it already been collected!?”
“Other trash was still there, so I don’t think the trash collection has happened yet. But there was no box with magazines.”
“…Are there really people who want science magazines that badly?”
“No, Kadomi-kun. If we think about it logically, it’s more likely that someone mistakenly took the wrong box—the one with our magazines—instead of theirs. The boxes themselves seem to be identical cardboard boxes.”
Exactly. The problem is that the box of science magazines we threw away at the disposal site is no longer there.
Coincidentally, the school had just replaced some of its emergency food supplies, and a bunch of cardboard boxes were left over. So, the librarian and we used those boxes to sort the magazines. Apparently, whoever sorted the erotic magazines also used the same kind of boxes. It’s a real mess.
“…So, what do we do with this? Should we just put it back at the disposal site and pretend we never saw anything?”
Suzumoto seems really hesitant, but honestly, that might be the best option.
…Or so I thought.
“No, I wouldn’t recommend that.”
President said this.
“…Listen. If someone happens to look inside this box during the recyclable trash collection, it will obviously cause a huge uproar.”
“Well, yeah, if they find this many erotic books at school, it would be a big deal.”
Katori was nodding along, but the reality is, they’re already here.
“And then, the question will be, ‘Who brought these books here?'”
…Yeah. This whole situation feels familiar, like when we dealt with the glass flute incident.
“In other words, we’ll end up being blamed for it.”
“…I don’t want that.”
“Of course not. I don’t want that either.”
Yeah, none of us want to be wrongly accused of bringing a ton of erotic magazines to school. We’re just high school boys, after all! We don’t want to be labeled like that!
“Plus, we’re known as an indoor, gloomy, weird, and crazy bunch. There’s no way we could defend ourselves.”
“That’s the worst.”
“The only crazy one here is President.”
“Oh man, why am I even here… Oh man…”
“Hmm, honestly, if Hariu, Kadomi-kun, and Suzumoto were in a different place, they might have avoided some of this blame…”
“Oh, that applies to me too!”
“No, Kariya, with your personality, there’s no way you could avoid it.”
“That’s so mean…”
…Anyway.
We’ve been wrongly accused of various things before, and part of the reason for that is probably the school caste system, or more specifically, the strange general perception that the chemistry club equals a group of gloomy, indoor, nerdy, weird, crazy perverts. It’s a weird prejudice.
Honestly, we can’t really deny that our club is full of weirdos and crazies, and as the club that houses the biggest weirdo in the school—heck, maybe in the whole region—we can’t exactly argue against that image, especially since we’ve pretty much accepted that this is how we’re seen. But the truth is, we don’t really need analog erotic magazines! No one listens to us when we say that, though. The world is a tough place!
“…Anyway, I don’t want to be associated with such dishonor.”
“Right. In that case, there’s only one path left for us.”
President, not seeming to care at all about cheering up Suzumoto, quickly chimed in after Suzumoto’s statement.
“Since the box of science magazines is no longer at the disposal site, it means that the magazines are still in the hands of the culprit. Therefore, our only option is to secretly find the person who swapped the magazines and negotiate with them to resolve this whole mess.”
…I knew it would come to this. Yeah, I saw this coming.