Vol 1 Chapter 24 (1/2)
VOLUME 1-2
Chapter 24
On a certain day off from school.
“To think my next date would be at a hospital… You really have strange tastes…”
Homura grumbled sourly.
Her reproachful glare was focused solely on Touya, who was buying some juice at a vending machine in the hospital hallway.
“You want bread, then? The shop is over that way.”
“That’s no different from our lunches at school. Isn’t there a dining hall around here?”
“I don’t know that much. Also, I’ve never heard of any hospital food being tasty.”
“You call me here out of nowhere and yet you lack any plan whatsoever?”
“I never said this was a date.”
“Hoh, then what is it? What is it, huh? Huh?”
“You’re too loud. Keep it down, okay?”
Touya glared at her while tossing her a café au lait from the vending machine. While plainly disapproving of being hushed with such a meager bribe, Homura still accepted the goods.
“…Why are we sneaking around here?”
“Because we’re not here today, officially speaking…”
“?”
Still unable to grasp the situation, Homura disappointedly brought the straw to her mouth.
The weather was on the decline today, so the older sister Homura had forced her begrudging younger sister Tsuyu to accompany her shopping. Just when they had arrived at the shopping center in Honmachi, she got a call from Touya.
“Just come here right away, all right?”
After being told just that, Homura had reluctantly changed bus routes to come here. She forced the shopping onto Tsuyu, and she also added in some troublesome and easily misunderstood products to the shopping list for her to get while she was at it.
“Ah, c.r.a.p.”
“What?”
Touya ducked back his head after peeking over to the hospital’s service entrance.
Homura and Touya, a pair of high school students, were now lurking behind the vending machine in order to desperately hide from a jeans-wearing woman who had entered the hospital.
“—Mori-chan?”
“So the leaked information I got was correct.”
It was Professor Fujimori, and beside her was a man wearing chino pants and suspenders.
“So… we came here to catch our teacher’s act of impropriety?”
“What? Look closely at who’s beside her.”
“Oh, if it isn’t Tanakura-sensei from Hiyos.h.i.+zaka High. He’s not wearing a white lab coat today. What, so they’re the ones on a date, then?”
“Like I said, this isn’t a date.”
“Is this hospital connected to Tanakura-sensei?”
“I wonder. I don’t think so, anyway. This place is a branch of the police hospital.”
“Police hospital? …Really? It looks just like a normal general hospital, though…”
She looked around the waiting room, but there were no signs of any heavily injured police officers, patients in striped prison uniforms or Yakuza bosses followed by bodyguards like she imagined would be in such a place.
“…It’s true that it looks like a normal hospital at first glance. This is my first time coming here too.”
The two teachers were leaning against a pillar in the lobby without talking much, seeming to be waiting for someone.
Out of the two of them, Fujimori was the one who was acting uncomfortable and bored. She kept looking at her watch and trying to use her cell phone only to be reprimanded by Tanakura.
“…What’s with that behavior?”
“Mori-chan is just like a penguin at the zoo.”
“Touya-kun, you say really cruel things sometimes.”
While engaging in such whispered conversation, Homura voiced a subject that suddenly occurred to her.
“Touya-kun, you didn’t come to the Boxed Lunch contest back during the festival.”
“There you go off on abrupt tangents again.”
Touya looked at her in astounded exasperation.
“…I admit that I did wrong there. Actually, I already apologized for this, didn’t I?”
“But if you had been there to vote for me, I would probably have gotten a complete and overwhelming victory.”
“Are you holding a grudge against me for that? Just tying for first place is already a victory, isn’t it?”
“…That’s true, but…”
Homura sipped at her café au lait with an increasingly displeased expression.
“You still haven’t told me the reason why you didn’t come.”
“I was busy with a family matter. I couldn’t talk about it.”
“You’re g-l-o-s-s-i-n-g o-v-e-r the question, aren’t you?”
“Shut up, you idiot with variety shows for brains. I was called to meet my mother.”
“Eh… Your mother who doesn’t live with you?”
“Well, she didn’t come in the end, though. It happens a lot.”
“…You were stood up…? Even though she was the one to call you over? …That must have been a letdown.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s just an irresponsible person.”
“……”
Touya shrugged.
“I would have been able to win first place in my compet.i.tion too if the pool water had been just five inches deeper…”
“Gah!”
“Wah!”
Ameno had appeared behind them at some point without them noticing.
She was peering at the two teachers while mimicking Homura and Touya’s sneaking posture.
“…Ame-chan!?”
“Chiayu-san is really cruel. She left me all alone in the car. This is abuse of a minor, you know?”
“So you left the car without permission?”
“Ehehe. Good day to you, Tak.u.mi-san, Homura-san. I did come out without permission, but don’t worry, I’m remote monitoring the area through the car’s on-board camera just as I was told to.”
“You mean you’re monitoring the parking lot?”
“Yes.”
Ameno was dressed in plain clothes today as well. It would be problematic to wear a school uniform here, after all.
Her outfit consisted of trousers she had probably gotten off Mori-chan, a hunting cap lowered over her eyes, and even a pair of colored sungla.s.ses… It actually seemed to make her more conspicuous.
Inwardly, Homura resolved herself to help coordinate Ameno’s normal clothes outside her uniform and cosplay outfits.
“I see. It would get troublesome if the ma.s.s media got wind of this, so you’re keeping watch. We’ll also have to try not to attract attention.”
“…The ma.s.s media… Then, to follow the phrase ‘hide a tree within a forest’, we should pretend to be patients. All right, as someone who has never had her feigned illness “The Guilty” seen through by anyone, you can leave this to me—”
“Hinooka, don’t do anything.”
“Shall I stop my heart, then?”
“I’m saying we don’t need to pretend to be patients.”
“Yahahaha—Ah.”
Suddenly, Ameno’s gaze turned distant.
“It seems—they’ve arrived in the parking lot…”
The three Exploration Club members exchanged looks.
They went up the stairs and moved to a location where the atrium’s entrance hall could be seen from.
Running while bent forward, Ameno rolled along the floor between couches and pressed her back against a low wall facing the atrium.
“Hmm. Clear.”
“We’re in a hospital, you know.”
“Those guys—the members of the agency don’t care about such things.”
“Agency… Ah, you mean the paparazzi,” said Homura with a wry smile.
While having that whispered conversation, the three of them slowly and quietly moved with their backs against the wall.
Eventually, the people they were waiting for entered normally through the front entrance.
The group that appeared at the entrance was two men in business suits and a woman.
“Hmm, that man there looks familiar… Is he Mori-chan’s patron…?”
“That’s my dad.”
“Oops… Speaking of which, I saw him in that photo at your house…”
“The other man is likely the local police director of the criminal investigations department…”
“So he’s also a cop?”