Editing Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume27 Chapter6 1

=== <noinclude>Amendment, Overwriting and an Old Photograph. </noinclude>Part 1 ===

The electric kettle had brought the water to boil.

"Do you want black tea? Coffee? Japanese tea?"

Shimako asked the girl seated at the table. The girl look depressed.

"Uh."

That was such a non-answer, it was as though the girl hadn't noticed the question. Reluctantly, Shimako spoke.

"Right, right, we're having onigiri for lunch. We should have Japanese tea, after all."

She poured some of the hot water into the teacups to warm them. Then she added tea leaves to the small teapot and poured in the hot water.

Lined up on the table on the second floor of the Rose Mansion was the food they'd bought in the basement of the department store, all except for the cake.

As she prepared the tea, she looked over them. Six onigiri, six pieces of fried chicken, 300 grams of marinaded fish and vegetables … all the portions seemed a little too large.

Surely there was no particular significance to this. However, there was often quite an important reason hidden behind seemingly insignificant actions. In other words, she shouldn't overlook these signs.

"Uh."

Once more, the response came quite late. Apparently she agreed with the decision to have Japanese tea.

She hadn't been particularly courteous from the start, but this was taking it to a whole new level. After the fight (although Shimako wasn't sure if it was right to call it that) with her classmate outside the toilet block, the wind seemed to have been knocked out of her sails.

"Hey,"

After pouring the tea, Shimako asked.

"That girl from before, she's your classmate, right? When was it … right, the first time I went to your first-year peach group classroom, she was the one who went and brought you to me, wasn't she?"

"That's probably right."

"It is right. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been consistency."

"Huh?"

The eyes of ''Ami-san'' swum with surprise. Then she looked towards Shimako-san's hands, pointed, and said, "Ah."

"There's three teacups."

"Yes."

Shimako nodded.

"Invite your friend, and the three of us will have lunch together."

When Shimako said this, she was highly pleased with the hitherto unseen look of pleasant surprise that floated across the girl's face. So she could make that sort of expression to, huh.

"I wonder if you could ask her to come here."

"Me?"

"Yes. This time around, I'd like you to bring Igawa Ami-san to me."

Shimako smiled.

Right. You don't have to keep this charade up.

It wasn't yet too late. Things could still be properly amended.