Eichou High’s cultural festival took place on Saturday and Sunday. Seeing as that meant we had to go to school on the weekend, everyone was given Monday and Tuesday off in exchange.
I saw off my little sisters, who made a very firm point of making sure I knew exactly how unfair it was that they still had to go to school when I didn’t, and also my parents, who let me know how much of a relief it was to not have to do the laundry or clean up the kitchen after breakfast, since they knew I’d be around to handle it. Then all that was left for me was to enjoy my weekday off in blissful idleness!
For this brief, shining moment, I reign supreme over the whole Hazama household! Bwa hah hah!
Okay...so the truth was that, actually, I had been thinking about taking advantage of the weekday off to go out and do stuff without having to deal with weekend crowds for once. I had been thinking about it, past tense, because everyone who I’d asked to hang out had turned me down. It just made sense, really—everyone was either so worn out that they wanted to relax instead or had already booked up their break before I got to them.
Huh? That’s weird. I thought I’d made a bunch more friends lately, but maybe I was just imagining it? Maybe everyone’s going out to have some sort of cultural-festival after-party whatchamajigger sans me?!
Which was exactly what I asked Mukai in a text, to which she responded: “nope (lol)”. Sorry for the pointless ping, Mukai.
Speaking of Mukai, her creative drive had gotten kicked into overdrive in the festival’s aftermath, and she’d be using her days off to shut herself up in her room and draw like no tomorrow. She had a sort of self-discipline when it came to her art that I really admired.
Oh—and I also eventually learned that there would be an after-party, but that the plan was to put it off for a while so everyone could rest and recover beforehand. My classmates were so considerate, it was actually a little scary. You’d almost think that I was totally thoughtless in comparison! Right?!
And so, I ended up with so much free time on my hands that I soon found myself sprawled out on the couch in the otherwise abandoned living room, watching TV. My parents subscribed to a streaming service—one of the ones that let you watch all the old movies and TV shows you wanted—from which I’d picked something out more or less at random.
“These services sure are handy,” I said to myself. My parents were the ones who paid the subscription fee, so I got to watch all I wanted without having to put any strain on my own wallet at all.
Not too long ago, most people would’ve gone to rental shops instead of streaming stuff online...and, in fact, I actually remembered begging my parents to rent movies for me when I was little. That was where the idol-show recordings that Makina and I had watched back in the day came from, mostly. She owned a few of her own, but the bulk of them, we’d had to borrow. You could see recordings like that even easier these days—of the famous groups, anyway—and there were even sometimes concert recordings that were exclusive to streaming services, apparently.
Not that Makina watches that sort of thing anymore, most likely, I thought to myself as I munched on snack foods and flipped through the movie listings. I’d started with a movie that I’d been interested in but hadn’t quite gotten around to seeing while it was still in theaters, then moved right onto another film without missing a beat. Just as that was wrapping up and I was considering a third—seriously, I could’ve killed infinite time like that if I’d had the chance—my phone rang.
“Hello? Yotsuba?” said the girl who’d called me.
“Hey! Did you need something, Mio?” I replied.
“Not really. I had a free moment, and started wondering what you were up to.”
Y-You mean she called me on the phone even though she didn’t have any real reason to?! Extroverts are amazing!
“I just wrapped up lunch, and since I’ve got work this afternoon, I was about to leave school for the day. You?” Mio asked.
She had a high school idol’s schedule, all right. Just the thought of it was exhausting. I wasn’t sure what sort of whim had led her to call me at that particular moment, but my circumstances were almost laughably lax compared to hers, and so...
“I’m, uhh...g-going over my notes from the class I just took, basically?” I said, lying on reflex. Actually, maybe “posturing” would be the better word in this case?
“Huh? I thought you had the day off ’cause of your cultural festival?”
“H-How’d you know?!”
“Maki mentioned it when I called her earlier. But, wait—you have classes anyway, so... Oh. Are you taking makeup lessons right now, Yotsuba? Heh heh! Yeah, that sounds like you for sure.”
I’d tried to show off, and where did it get me? Buried neck-deep in a misunderstanding that actually made me look worse than the reality of the situation would’ve! And it really did sound just like me, when she put it that way!
“N-No, I’m not! I’m actually...well, lazing around watching movies at home, more or less,” I admitted.
“What, really? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”
“Ugh... It sounds like you’re really busy with work, so I thought you might get annoyed if you knew I was slacking off.”
“Why would that annoy me?” Mio asked with a sharp laugh. The sounds in the background made me think she was probably walking somewhere while she talked to me, but she didn’t seem like she was tense or in any particular hurry.
I guess that’s a real celebrity for you. She’s incredible...
“Yotsuba? Are you listening?”
“Ah—yeah! I, umm... Sorry, what did you just say?”
“So you weren’t listening. Great. I was just asking what movie you were watching.”
“Oooh. Umm...”
I took a moment to tell her about the two films I’d watched. Both of them had come out in the past two or three years.
“Hmm... Hey, Yotsuba—ever heard of a movie called The Ladies’ Academy Case Files?”
“The name rings a bell, I think...?”
“Well, if you don’t have anything better to do, watch that next. It’s not bad at all.”
“‘Not bad’...?” I repeated. It wasn’t exactly the most glowing review for a movie she was actively recommending. I searched for it on the streaming service, and...
O-Oh!
“Wait, Makina stars in it?!”
“Yup! And I’m a supporting actress.”
“Hold on—is everyone from Shooting Star in this movie?!”
“That’s right. A lot of people treated it as a B-tier idol commercial as a result...which, I mean, it was, don’t get me wrong, but it also turned out pretty darn well, considering. It got a good reception among insiders, you could say.”
“Huuuh...”
That explained a lot. No wonder I’d heard about it in passing—with a cast like that, Sakura and Aoi had almost certainly gone to see it, and they’d likely mentioned it to me.
“The elevator pitch is that there’s a murder in an all girls’ boarding school for the upper crust that’s located deep in the mountains. Maki’s the detective who gets called in to solve the mystery, and I’m her assistant,” Mio explained.