Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume24 Chapter5 6

First Year Camellia Class is Normal. Part 6

At the same time.

Having already finished eating her lunch, Noriko realized she had to do something and stood up.

"Pardon me. I have to head out for a little while."

For now, everything that needed cleaning had been cleaned, so she picked up her empty lunch box and left the room. Rosa Chinensis, Shimako-san and Yoshino-sama were all on the second-floor of the Rose Mansion, but they simply said, "Take care," and didn't question her as to where she was going or what she was going to do. Although Noriko had bolted out of there, so they didn't get much of a chance to ask.

At the entrance to the Rose Mansion she ran into Yumi-sama, who had arrived later than usual.

"I went to the library for a little bit. Then something else came up, which kept me until now. How about you, Noriko-chan?"

"I'm off to my classroom for a little bit … no, maybe Milk Hall. I'm not sure if I'll be back."

Noriko glanced back at the second-floor room as she said this, which prompted Yumi-sama to say:

"You can take your time. There's nothing more to assist Shimako-san with."

She'd already done everything she had to – made a "candidate" sash, designed her poster, and written her speech.

But even so, Noriko wanted to be at Shimako-san's side whenever she had the time. Even if she couldn't do anything, she wanted to be close. As her soeur, wasn't it only natural she felt that way?

Even Rosa Chinensis, who seemed cold at first glance, surely felt the same way. That was why she was showing up at the Rose Mansion so frequently, even though she'd never offered to assist her petit soeur with her election preparation. Rosa Foetida was studying for exams so she hadn't been to the Rose Mansion that much, but those soeurs lived next door to each other, and were cousins, so she was probably supporting Yoshino-sama outside of school.

"Take care."

Seen off by Yumi-sama, Noriko returned to the school building. She wasn't quite sure where to go, so decided to start with the closest location. Which was the first-year camellia class.

Inside the classroom, lunch time was pretty much over, with students either playing cards over some desks that had been drawn together, or had put their desks back in their original positions and were getting ready for the next class.

"Not here."

She went over to where Touko usually ate alone, but there was no-one there. She tried touching the cushion and felt a faint warmth. After doing so, she realized this was the sort of thing they did on police dramas, and felt a bit embarrassed.

Maybe she'd gone to the toilet.

Noriko left her lunchbox at her own desk. Anyway, if they were going to talk, it would be better to do it away from the classroom. She decided to head out in search of Touko.

"Ah, Noriko-san."

As she was leaving the classroom, one of her classmates called out to her.

"Are you perhaps looking for Touko-san?"

"Huh? … Yeah."

Well, if she'd been seen going to Touko's desk and touching her chair, that seemed like a reasonable deduction.

"Do you know where she is?"

Noriko asked, thinking her classmate might know since she called out to her, but the response was, "No, I don't."

"If you see Touko-san, can you tell her to go to the staff room? I was walking in the hallway when our teacher asked me to relay that message to Touko-san, but I haven't seen her. If you find her, can you tell her?"

She must have thought it was a safer option to wait in the classroom until Touko returned, but then Noriko had shown up and was apparently looking for Touko, so she took the opportunity to ask. Her face clearly showed that she didn't want to head out into the cold to find a classmate that she wasn't too friendly with..

"Alright. The staff room. If I see her, I'll tell her."

Noriko said and left the classroom. Not without due consideration. She'd come to the conclusion that it probably wouldn't matter if she didn't find Touko, since if it had been urgent they would have used the school-wide PA system.

She started walking in the direction of the toilet and, sure enough, ran into Touko coming the other way.

"… Touko?"

Noriko waved and rushed over, but something about Touko felt out of place today.

"Have you got a moment?"

"What could this be about?"

As they walked together, Noriko's uneasiness steadily increased.

Something about Touko's stride felt unnatural. Clop clop, clop clop. When she walked, it made a strange sound. Noriko looked at Touko's feet. And then she called out:

"What happened there?"

Touko was wearing visitor's slippers. Ivory and blue, although closer to ivory. In other words, the color was close enough to the white indoor shoes that it didn't stand out that much. But even so, slippers were slippers. That's why her appearance had seemed strange – she wasn't wearing her indoor shoes.

Since this was the first time Noriko had noticed, it probably meant she hadn't seen Touko walking around today before now. After sitting down, she wouldn't have noticed her shoes.

"… Did somebody hide yours?"

That thought instantly crossed Noriko's mind. She didn't want to think it was the case, but the hypothesis that Touko was being harassed by her classmates wasn't one that she could dismiss out of hand, although nor was it a foregone conclusion.

"Not at all. I left my indoor shoes at home."

Touko smiled.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She answered directly, looking straight into Noriko's eyes. So she probably did leave them at home. But even if she accepted that, it just gave birth to another question.

"So, why did you take them home?"

Normally, she wouldn't take them home during the term, right? It had only been about a month since the start of the third term. Or maybe Touko took them home to wash every weekend, and Noriko simply hadn't noticed.

"That's Noriko-san for you."

Touko said, lowering her voice a little.

"It's true that I left them at home. The reason I took them home was because they got so dirty they had to be cleaned."

"What happened?"

"It's no big deal. It was kind of noticeable, but it came out easily in water. I could have washed them at school, but it'd take a while for them to dry in this weather. And I didn't want to leave a wet pair of indoor shoes in my shoe locker. But after going to the effort of cleaning them, I blew it all by leaving them at home."

"Who did it?"

"Who knows?"

She said that her shoes were on the ground and looked like they'd been crudely trampled on when she returned from PE class on Saturday.

If the culprit was one of their classmates, they either left after Touko did or returned before she did, but who could remember that sort of thing? Plus there was no reason to limit it to just their classmates. At the very least, Noriko hadn't seen anything.

"That's horrible."

Even so, someone had definitely done it. There was no reason why her shoes would fall out of her shoe locker of their own accord.

"But, I've done that sort of thing in the past."

"Huh?"

Noriko asked in surprise, to which Touko said:

"Did you forget? I did it to you. The method they chose, it's somewhat like divine retribution, don't you think?"

It was kind of the same, but also kind of different. But enough of that. It was true that Noriko had received a similar method of harassment prior to the new students' welcome party.

"Putting a hair-clip in your shoes, hiding your shoes, writing graffiti on your desk, taking the juzu from your bag."

Touko counted off the items on her fingers, one by one.

Noriko couldn't stand it and told her to stop.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I'm not smiling."

"You are. It's like you're enjoying this."

"How could I possibly be enjoying it? You're reading too much into it, Noriko-san."

In truth, Touko's mouth wasn't smiling. But Noriko wasn't fooled by what she saw in front of her eyes. Touko was acting as a "person that isn't smiling."

"Well, whatever."

Noriko looked at her watch. There was about five minutes until the end of lunch.

"Let's go to the staff room. I'll come with you."

"The staff room? Why? To tell the teacher what happened to my indoor shoes?"

Touko looked confused.

"Not that. Our teacher called for you."

"For me?"

Touko changed course, saying that in that case she had no choice but to go. Noriko walked with her, since she hadn't been told not to come.

Clop clop, clop clop. The slippers echoed each step Touko took.

"I wonder if I've rubbed them the wrong way."

Clop clop, clop clop.

"… Who knows."

That was something Noriko didn't know.

Naturally, the summons had nothing to do with payback from their teacher or anything of the sort.

"Here."

At the staff room, their homeroom teacher handed Touko a brown paper bag.

"Your mother brought it for you."

"My mom did?"

Touko took the bag and looked inside. What she saw was a pair of clean indoor shoes.

"Ah."

Noriko too called out without thinking.

"She said you left them in the entrance and she spotted them just before noon."

Their homeroom teacher smiled fondly.

"She seems like a nice mother."

"Yes."

Touko agreed, hugging the paper bag and shoes tightly.

"She really is."

That was the only time when Touko wasn't acting.

At least, that's how it looked to Noriko.