Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume29 Chapter3 4

Not Here. Part 4.

Yumi made her way over to the clubhouse after school and successfully collected a completed survey from Minato-san, just like she had promised.

Apparently Minato-san had spent the entirety of her lunch-break unearthing the one-page printout from within the mountain of paper. In other words, she had been in the clubhouse while Yumi was having her little chat with Minako-sama in the newspaper club's clubroom, as well as while Touko was having her one-on-one rehearsal session with the president of the drama club.

"Sorry about that. Making you come all the way out here to get it."

Minato-san giggled nervously as she gently scratched her short hair. Her voice was as cute as ever. Her appearance was boyish but her voice was sweet, and yet she drew horror manga. The discrepancy was huge.

"The lunch-break was almost over when I found it, and there wasn't time to take it to the Rose Mansion so I left it in the clubroom thinking I'd do that after school. I was worried I'd lose it if I took it with me."

The clubroom seemed tidier than the last time Yumi had been here, probably as a direct consequence of Minato-san's lunchtime search. Initially, Yumi had been fascinated by a row of vividly colored illustrations that looked like they were on display.

"What are these?"

Yumi asked, pointing at a pile of monochrome sketches in the corner.

"Ahh. If we had the space, those would be on display as well. They were an experiment to see how differently you could draw mangas with the same layout and the same text."

It looked like there was one page that served as the layout template, and then within that template the club members were free to draw whatever they wanted. The layout and the text were all identical, but the final products were all wonderfully different. A school story, a mystery, a period drama, and a horror piece. Even though the text was the same, they could use it however they wanted. The fact that they were all in black and white seemed to reinforce each piece's individuality.

"They're good."

Yumi admired them one at a time. Yeah, it had a strong impact.

"No, no. Our manga club still has a long way to go."

Minato-san demurred, waving her hands like windscreen wipers.

"The drama club are incredible, the way they're slamming around."

"Slamming?"

"They'd come flying out into the hallway when they used too much force. I only saw that two or three times though."

"I had no idea."

The slamming seemed to be happening quite frequently. If that's the case, then it's no surprise that Touko would have a few cuts and bruises.

"Are they doing some kind of pro-wrestling play?"

"Who knows?"

Yumi shook her head. The only thing that was written on the form they submitted and the program was 'The Drama Club's March Performance.' Perhaps because they hadn't decided on what they were to perform, or perhaps because they wanted to keep it a secret until the curtain was raised.

Either way.

"That girl with the hair rolls, she's your petit soeur, right, Yumi-san? Is she okay?"

"...Probably."

It looked like that rumor had already spread far and wide, even without the help of the Lillian Kawaraban.