The timeline is somewhere before the first chapter.
The perspective is that of Itoigawa.
I remember well the first time I met Maito.
It was a few days after the entrance ceremony.
Around the time the cherry blossoms started to look unsightly, Maito came to observe our club activities.
She was the first one there. She came to observe before anyone else.
The door at the back of the laboratory hesitantly, slowly opened, and there was this cute girl with impressive eyes peeking through.
…Ahhhh, she was so cute! Maito at that time was really cute! She’s still cute now, but Maito back then was something to be preserved forever!
…And there was us.
“Ah, welcome.”
The club president at that time was like a block of wood, completely unhelpful. He said welcome, but it was like, so what now?
Because at that time, all of us were making flowers out of crepe paper… for the science classroom at the end of April.
We were all gathered around the center table.
Folding flowers.
The awkwardness and cuteness of Maito made it feel like time had stopped.
…Normally, if you come to observe the chemistry club and it turned out to be like a flower club, you’d think they’d leave, right?
But then?
“Ah, just come in. You can put your bag over there.”
When the club president said that.
“…Excuse me.”
Maito slightly bowed her head and came in.
…At that moment, I somehow thought, this girl will join our club.
Then we hurriedly cleaned up the flowers and showed her a little experiment.
A bit of science magic that looks impressive.
I believe… it was the supersaturation of sodium acetate.
You put a small amount of water and a lot of sodium acetate in a test tube until it’s about one-third full, heat it to dissolve it, and once it’s dissolved, quietly cool it in water.
Once it’s cooled, drop just one crystal of sodium acetate into it.
Then, using the dropped crystal as a seed, a crystal flower of sodium acetate blooms.
It’s one of the popular exhibits in the science classroom.
Watching the crystal spread and the test tube being eroded by the crystal, Maito reached out to the test tube.
And then she said, “Ah, it’s warm after all.”
…Sodium acetate is used as a material for eco-warmers. You dissolve it in hot water and crystallize it by shock. That generates heat, and that’s how you warm up.
So, of course, it’s warm. …It was a bit of a surprise, as if she had preempted my explanation.
And it was around that time.
…A boy was peeking in.
Yes, Tsuge.
…Tsuge ended up getting excited talking with the seniors and didn’t talk to Maito at all.
…Yes. Right.
It was quite a while before Maito started having proper conversations with them.
Maito came to visit again the next day.
That day, a few other first-year students had come to observe, I believe.
Maito was approached by one of the girls there and started talking.
…At that time, it seemed pretty normal. I hadn’t thought much of it, just that it would be nice if the first-year girls got along well.
But, it seemed like they were less interested in chemistry than Maito. It’s obvious now, in retrospect.
…Yes. And so, that day, in addition to Maito, a few others who are now with us came.
Hariu, Toriumi, Hagasaki, and Kariya, I think.
They were playing with burning cotton gunpowder in their hands.
If it’s properly made and not damp, it burns in an instant on your hand without being hot.
…And then, Maito seemed to become interested in that too. She went over to the cotton gunpowder table with that girl.
The girl was reluctant to do it, but Maito happily burned the cotton gunpowder in her hand.
I sort of understood then what kind of girl Maito was.
She doesn’t fear the things she’s interested in. She acts with reason.
…It might have been a little different in reality. That girl isn’t too scared of fire.
Probably because she uses it a lot.
Watching Maito listen to the dimwitted club president explain about cotton gunpowder, I grew even fonder of her.
She has a strong interest in chemistry, is curious, and acts with reason.
And she’s cute on top of that.
Just the best.
And moreover, the pudding she makes is incredibly delicious…
We had something like a fun party during the fall break.
At that time, we decided that each girl would bring one dish.
Because I heard that Maito’s specialty was pudding. Because of senior privileges. Just on a whim. A moment of folly!
…It was shocking. That such a wobbly, meltingly smooth, yet not too rich pudding could be made at home.
It was so delicious, and I got the leftovers too. Yes. I have no regrets.
If you hesitate to eat good food, you won’t get to eat it. I will eat. I won’t hesitate when it comes to what I want to eat.
…By the way, I baked cookies that time, but they were used for a punishment game.
“The one who becomes the poorest in the game of ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ has to eat the cookies Itoigawa baked.”
Yes. I understand. That was a bit of a failure. Of course, I’ll succeed next time.
…Yes. Right.
Perhaps my doting on Maito was one reason why the other girls left the club.
Of course, I intended to treat all the girls equally.
But Maito was good at experiments, and above all, she was very helpful. Very much so.
If I thought I needed a pipette, Maito would already be bringing it to me.
If I thought we needed to light the gas burner, it was already lit.
Maito is good at predicting what’s needed next in people’s actions and preparing it in advance.
…That’s why, if I needed help with experiments, I would call for Maito.
I don’t think that was a mistake.
When we presented at the science fair in June, I announced Maito as a co-researcher. That’s correct. After all, towards the end, I was planning together with Maito, and she even answered some of the questions.
That’s why she researched and presented by herself at the autumn science fair, and even went on to the prefectural science fair.
…Yes… It was around that time, wasn’t it? When Maito started talking to the other club members.
Probably Tsuge was the first.
He’s someone who’s desperate to talk about those things.
He probably started with a conversation about minerals or poisons, and that’s how Maito was recognized as an “interesting person.”
If someone is knowledgeable and can have a fun discussion in their field of interest… He wouldn’t care if they were a girl or a boy, or even if they weren’t human.
Then, gradually, the other first-year students also started talking with Maito.
They strayed from chemistry and talked about games too. Maito seems to like them quite a bit.
By the time they were presenting at the science fair, they had become quite close, and after the presentation, they became even closer.
We stayed up late working on posters and practicing for the Q&A sessions.
I think that’s when I became good friends with Maito.
After all, spending a long time together tends to make people get along, doesn’t it? That’s just how humans are.
And it’s even better if you share interests.
Maito completely blended in, acquiring eight good friends, and me and the other second years as good… can I say, good seniors? Yes, good seniors.
Even if I’m the senior who sometimes extorts pudding from her juniors, I think I was a good senior.
Then we became third years, got busy with entrance exam studies, and retired before the summer.
…I talk a lot about Maito, but it’s not like I wasn’t close with my classmates.
Maybe not as much as with the juniors, but we were close enough to go out together on holidays.
So, the summer break felt long.
We used to stay in the lab all the time, experimenting in the heat without air conditioning, fooling around, making noise, and having a blast, but this year, that was missing.
…The summer break was so long that it actually helped me focus on my studies. Yes. That might have been a good thing.
But that’s why I want Maito and the others to cherish their time.
I’m only a year ahead, but if I had any advice to give as a senior, that would be it.
Enjoy every second. That’s all.
I don’t have regrets. I feel like I could have played more, but that’s how it is.
But Maito is different.
She has to have more fun.
She absolutely has to have more fun than I did.
Then I got into a university through recommendations pretty easily and ended up having a lot of free time.
…So I took a solo graduation trip to Kyoto.
I thought it would have been more fun with friends. I don’t dislike being alone, though.
Feeling a bit lonely, I went to the tea ceremony club to distribute souvenirs to my juniors.
…And that’s how we encountered something fun.
Another world, of all things. Not something you experience very often.
…But none of my fellow chemistry club members from my year were there.
Everyone was the type to study better at their home’s dining table, so no one stayed at school to study.
That was the only regrettable thing about coming to this world.
But the juniors were there, and they were really working hard to find a way back to our world.
They were trying to pull together everyone who was at the school. They looked so cool, so wonderful, and they seemed to be having fun.
…Being the senior of such juniors was something I was happy about, in this world, no, even if we hadn’t come, even before we came.
…And then, being able to eat a lot of Maito’s cooking, especially her pudding, was also a good thing. Yes.
