“It’s not in there.”
“Um, did we really have the corrections made?”
“Yeah. I saw it, so I’m pretty sure.”
I thought maybe the teacher accidentally skipped it, but I was watching the teacher with the red pen almost the whole time… That doesn’t seem likely.
“The ones without corrections are mine, Maito-san’s, and Toriumi’s proposals… Three of them, right?”
“Yeah, that seems to be the case.”
The others had red marks, but it looks like President’s, Maito-san’s, and Toriumi’s didn’t.
“Wh-Why is it… Why were just the three of us left out… Is it because we’re the top three crazies in the department…?”
“What!? I’m a crazy person!?”
“In this department, being highly sociable means you’re crazy! Doesn’t it!? Yes, it does!”
… Leaving President aside, I could understand Maito-san, but Toriumi’s lack of corrections… that’s a bit… hmmm…
“Maybe President’s and Toriumi’s didn’t need any corrections?”
“And yet, the coldness of you implying that mine needed corrections but didn’t get any, Katori-kun.”
Ugh, well… It’s true that I can imagine President and Toriumi’s being perfect without corrections, but Maito-san… Seeing that even Hagasaki-kun had corrections, it’s hard to imagine hers was perfect and didn’t need any… Sorry, Maito-san.
Hmm, this is troubling. If this continues, not only us, but President, Maito-san, and Toriumi won’t be able to proceed with the experiment preparations. This is bad.
“Katori. Just to confirm, the teacher was correcting everyone’s proposals, right?”
“Yeah. Probably. I didn’t see everything, though.”
“So, there was a moment when you weren’t watching.”
“Only when the teacher went to the office.”
“I see. Understood… But it’s hard to believe something happened during that time.”
Suzumoto said as he walked over to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk.
“My experiment can’t proceed much until the chemicals arrive. I might as well try to figure out why only the three of you didn’t get corrections.”
Oh, that’s a bit unusual. Well, even Suzumoto has days like this. Yeah.
“So, those who can continue their experiments, please do. Katori, sorry, but could you explain what happened step by step after asking Hibiki-sensei for corrections?”
… And so, the blackboard ended up filled with some rather sad text.
Starting from when Hibiki-sensei finished drinking tea in the home economics preparation room and came out, one minute later, he began corrections in the staff room.
In the middle of correcting the second proposal, the pen ran out of ink and the process was interrupted.
The corrections resumed, but soon he had to take some documents to the office, so he left with the proposals.
About three minutes later, the teacher returned and resumed corrections, but then immediately paused to look for a useful book.
After finding the book, corrections resumed, but then paused again to check the price of chemicals.
After finishing that, corrections resumed, but then immediately stopped to start researching substitutes for chloroform.
After that, corrections resumed again. The red pen ran out of ink.
He replaced the pen and resumed corrections. This time, he started looking for correction tape.
Finally, corrections resumed, and were completed! This all took about 15 minutes.
Then he moved to the copy room to make copies, put the original in a file, and I returned to the chemistry lab.
… Ahh, why was there so much back and forth…
“Is that everything?”
“Yeah. The rest is as everyone saw.”
As I nodded, Suzumoto started thinking while staring at the blackboard with the chalk still in his hand.
“So, if the teacher messed up somehow, maybe he accidentally swapped the order of the proposals while going to and from the office?”
Maito-san joined in, starting to think as well.
“Maybe during the book search, pen search, and correction tape search frenzy, the order got mixed up, and the uncorrected ones ended up at the back, never getting corrected?”
Toriumi joined in too.
“That could be possible, but… there is one strange thing about that.”
President also joined.
“The teacher started researching substitutes for chloroform midway through, correct?”
“Yes. No doubt about it.”
I remember thinking, “Oh, that’s the stuff used in fiction to make people pass out,” so I’m sure. Yeah.
In reality, that stuff doesn’t knock people out at all, right? President explained that to me the other day…
“So that means, during that time, the teacher was correcting Maito-san’s proposal.”
“Maito’s? …But Maito’s proposal…”
“Yes. It’s still in an uncorrected state.”
Yeah, that’s right.
Maito-san’s, Toriumi’s, and President’s proposals didn’t have any corrections. That’s what we’ve been thinking about…
“But, other than Maito-san’s proposal, there wasn’t any experiment planned to use chloroform, so if the teacher was really researching chloroform substitutes, it means he was correcting Maito-san’s proposal.”
“W-What!?”
S-so that’s it. Yeah, if no one else was using chloroform in their experiment, then it naturally means the teacher was correcting Maito-san’s proposal.
“By the way, Katori-kun, what did the teacher suggest as a substitute for chloroform?”
“Um, I think it was dichloromethane. He said, ‘As long as it’s carbon with chlorine attached, it should work.'”
“Oh, yeah, that’s definitely for my experiment then. Anything with chlorine and carbon would work… Oh no, does that mean chloroform won’t be purchased!? I wanted to try inhaling chloroform!”
“Stop. Stop it, Maito. Don’t turn into President.”
“Am I really seen as someone who would inhale chloroform? Well, I do like the smell of acetone.”
… Well, yeah. There are all sorts of people. It’s a good thing. Diversity is a good thing.
“So? Did you make any progress on that?”
“Huh? Hagasaki-kun! Why are you here!?”
“My experiment got stuck.”
At that point, Hagasaki-kun joined us.
“Stuck? Do you mean you’re short on chemicals?”
“That too, but before that, I failed.”
What? That’s… unusual. Even Hagasaki-kun fails sometimes.
“Wasn’t your experiment the one where you burn paper?”
“Yeah. It was supposed to burn in the shape of the characters I wrote… but it didn’t.”
What he showed us was, well, a complete disaster. The paper was almost completely burnt.
“It was lucky I was in a place without a fire alarm.”
“It’s definitely not burning the way you wrote it.”
Hmm… It’s kind of strange that this happened to Hagasaki-kun…
“I used the exact recipe that a senior did in the past, so I didn’t think there would be any problems. But it looks like I’ll have to adjust the mix.”
Oh, at the beginning of the proposal, it did say, “Source: Last year’s Kumada group.” So it’s basically a senior’s recipe.
“…That’s odd. Didn’t the teacher correct it?”
“He did. But there were no corrections on the mix. He only corrected the characters I was planning to write.”
“What were you planning to write?”
“‘Welcome.’ The teacher corrected it, saying the stroke count was too high.”
So maybe he’ll change it to “Hello” or something…?
“I don’t think the teacher would notice a problem with the mix just by looking at it.”
“But it’s Hibiki-sensei, right? Hm? I’d think he’d notice something like that…”
That’s true. I can’t imagine Hagasaki-kun failing, but I also can’t imagine the teacher missing a correction…
What’s going on?
“Hagasaki-kun. Can I take a look at your proposal?”
“Sure.”
Suzumoto looked at Hagasaki-kun’s proposal, then tilted his head… and showed it to us as well.
“The first half has no corrections. The second half does… that’s what it looks like.”
Then Suzumoto went back to the desk and realized that Hariu’s proposal had “the first half corrected, but not the second half.”
“That was close! I almost went ahead with the experiment like this! That was close!”
“In Hariu’s case, the typo is still there, so it’s obvious that corrections were missed.”
“What!? I made a typo!?”
There’s one part where “mL” is written as “L.” That’s 1000 times different! Scary! Well, the context makes it clear, but still…
“…So that makes a total of five proposals with missed corrections.”
Yeah, that’s right. In the end, half of Hagasaki-kun’s and Hariu’s corrections were missed, and Maito-san, President, and Toriumi’s were completely missed.
Hmm… This is definitely a bit of a problem…
“Hagasaki-kun’s recipe wasn’t corrected, and Hariu’s ‘L’ wasn’t changed to ‘mL,’ and Maito’s chloroform issue… It’s clear that corrections that should have been made were not.”
And that’s five documents. This really isn’t just the teacher forgetting to make corrections.
But the teacher was definitely correcting them… So why don’t these proposals have any corrections now?
“Is it possible the teacher made copies in the office and accidentally mass-produced uncorrected versions?”
Hariu started suggesting that, but that seems a bit far-fetched…
“Hmm, wouldn’t that be pointless? I mean, that would mean the teacher deliberately made uncorrected copies, right?”
“Yeah, maybe to make us notice the lack of corrections and sharpen our attention! …But, yeah, that’s a stretch.”
Yeah, it is a stretch…
I don’t think the teacher would do something like that, and besides, even though there might be a copier in the office, considering the three minutes it took for him to return, I doubt he had time to make copies.
And, as I said before, “there’s no point in doing that.”
It’s hard to believe something happened during the time he went to the office. Yeah.
“Then, let’s consider the possibility that someone sabotaged us! Like, what if the home economics teacher did something to undermine Hibiki-sensei’s trust so he’d become more dependent on her or something like that?”
“You’re really reaching here…”
“Yeah, even as I said it, I realized it was pretty far-fetched.”
If the home economics teacher did something like that during the three minutes the teacher was in the office, it would be pretty incredible…
“…Yeah, there’s almost no chance of that, considering both the motive and the timing. Even if he just ‘dropped something off’ in the office, there wouldn’t have been enough time for anything else to happen if he returned in three minutes. It’s hard to imagine something happening there. And if something did happen, there’s no way we could deduce it.”
It looks like we’re deciding not to think about that. Let’s not dwell on things we can’t figure out. Yeah.
“Then perhaps the corrections ‘disappeared’ from the proposals.”
…Here, President suddenly suggested something like that.
“Is it possible that this isn’t the original document?”
“Wasn’t the red pen the teacher used very light in color?”
“Huh? Hmm, I don’t really remember…”
…But I understand what President is getting at.
Basically, if the pen used was light in color, there’s a chance that the marks weren’t picked up when copying, so they didn’t appear on the copies.
“Yeah, if the teacher used an orange-ish pen or something, it might not show up on copies.”
“Especially since our school uses that ‘red-black two-color copy’ method to save money.”
Yeah. So that’s possible, but…
“This is the original document. Look. You can see the corrections I made myself!”
“…Mine too.”
Kariya and Kadomi-kun came over and showed us their proposals.
…Yeah. You can see where they wrote and erased with a mechanical pencil. The paper is indented, so it’s clear this is the original, not a copy.
“Oh, so these are the originals. In that case, the idea that the corrections didn’t show up due to a copying error seems unlikely.”
“…I see. I understand now.”
And with that, Suzumoto gave a wry smile. But this is a victorious smile, so it seems he figured it out.
“Wait, did you solve the mystery!?”
“Are you a detective!?”
“It’s not much of a mystery. And the teacher has done this to me once before.”
Suzumoto, still smiling wryly, took Maito-san’s, Toriumi’s, and President’s proposals, along with Hagasaki-kun’s and Hariu’s, and headed toward the chemistry preparation room.
…And he was back in less than a minute. He didn’t have the proposals in hand.
“It’s fine now. Time will take care of the rest.”
So… what exactly just happened?