Even if something as fanciful as a nighttime casino inside a school gym really did exist, my powers of imagination─which are much feebler than my powers of sight─had utterly failed to come up with an image of what it might look like until that moment.
If pressed, I might have envisioned something along the lines of a school festival─a heartwarmingly ramshackle scene.
But the panorama spread out before my eyes was completely different from that idyllic vision. Inside Gymnasium #2 was a terrifyingly real casino.
Poker tables, slot machines, roulette wheels, all lined up at even intervals around the room like in a movie. The dealers cutting cards looked completely authentic in both dress and manner, and there were even girls in bunny outfits carrying around trays of drinks. I was stunned.
There were quite a few guests, as well.
From a quick scan of the room, I estimated around fifty people gambling and maybe ten dealers, which made for a surprisingly lively, even boisterous atmosphere.
The lights were turned up as bright as they would go, and instrumental music was blasting at top volume─for a casino operating at night in a school gym, there was nothing stealthy about this.
It was like an alternate universe.
I felt like the entrance to the gym was an Anywhere Door that led straight to a hotel in Las Vegas─although the generally young age of the guests and staff (bunny girls included) was one clue to the contrary.
Oh, everyone was dressed to the nines, no question about that.
Still, they had to be in their teens─no.
To be honest, the boys and girls alike looked like middle school students.
Based on that point alone, the scene did slightly resemble a school festival─but just how much money had gone into creating this casino? I couldn’t even begin to guess.
This place gave the alternate universe I’d encountered the first time I opened the art room door a run for its money. Actually, in terms of scale alone, the fact that they’d commandeered the gym like this and completely transformed it into a casino might very well have the art room beat.
“Welcome,” a bunny girl greeted us as I stood there dumbfounded.
Even as a girl, I would have done a double take at her outfit.
But right now, I was a boy.
How was a pretty boy supposed to act in a situation like this? I glanced at the five guys standing next to me, but none of them were looking at the bunny girl─they all seemed to have zeroed in on the games behind her.
What were they, children?
No─boys?
Mr. Bare-Legs might later regret not having seen the bunny girl, but for the sake of protecting her fishnet stockings, I knew I had to do the listening for all six of us.
I would take care of the tutorial, since they all seemed like the type to skip the instruction manual and just start playing anyway.
“Apologies for the inconvenience, but would you mind showing me your invitations?”
“Oh, of course… Here they are.”
I handed her the six invitations, wondering as I did so if she might actually be younger than me, even though her makeup and bunny ears made her look grown-up (weird logic, I know).
“Excellent. Thank you very much,” she said with a smile. “You can get your chips at the purchase booth on the righthand side of the stage─and you’ll want to cash them in at the cashier’s booth on the left.”
The cashier’s booth.
I sucked in my cheeks at the word.
Right.
The guests and staff were all so young─children, even─that I’d been thinking of the casino as akin to a school fair or a children’s game despite its seeming authenticity, but I was wrong.
Boy was I wrong.
A casino where this level of gambling took place was no childish game─real money was at play here.
Not counterfeit money.
Wait, even the counterfeit money had taken a lot of real money to make─and that invitation was way too over the top to be the product of a playful spirit.
“Beverages are complimentary, so please order whatever you’d like. And if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Oh, and one more thing,” the bunny girl said, holding out several masks.
They weren’t the kind of masks you wear to keep from catching a cold; instead of covering your mouth, they were meant to hide the upper half of your face─like the masks rich people wear at fancy balls.
Or put more simply, the kind of masks Tuxedo Mask wears.
“Photography and video recording are prohibited here, but if you have further concerns about privacy, we would be happy to lend you these masks. Would you like to use them?”
“I’m not sure…”
Now that she mentioned it, I saw that quite a few of the guests were wearing similar masks─I hadn’t noticed before because they blended in so well with the fancy dress, but now the level of anonymity struck me as strange.
“What do you want to do, guys?” I asked my fellow club members.
“What? M-Masks? To hide our f-faces? …Wh-Whatever for?”
For once, Sotoin appeared shaken─apparently, he was struggling to understand what possible purpose there could be in the foolish act of hiding one’s beautiful face.
The idea of anonymity never even occurred to him.
“Well, if that’s our leader’s decision,” Sakiguchi sighed, shrugging his shoulders.
His face was better known than the rest of ours because of his official post, so he might actually have had more reason to desire anonymity, but all the same he seemed intent on helping the leader save face─literally.
I suppose clandestine activity is basically impossible for the members of the Pretty Boy Detective Club anyway─no mask could hide their flamboyant brilliance.
To be completely honest, I wasn’t personally opposed to wearing one, since I have a typical teenager’s fear of getting in trouble with her parents, but I couldn’t buck the consensus─and anyway, who cares? I’d already given up my dreams for the future.
“We don’t need them. We have nothing to hide,” I told the bunny girl.
“Very well,” she replied, seeming to take genuine pride in her job. “Please enjoy your time here at the Reasonable Doubt Casino!”