Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume33 Chapter3 1

Grand Entrance. Part 1.

"Well would you look at that."

She spoke in a tone of wonder, after arriving out the front of the Lillian Girls Academy gates and seeing no-one else around.

"I'm the first one here."

Quite an unusual occurrence.

Thinking that they may be waiting inside the gate instead of outside, she peeked inside but there was only an empty reception area, none of the people she was looking for.

She checked the messages on her mobile phone and, while she was at it, the time. 9:25am. And there were no messages from either Youko or Eriko.

"The graduation ceremony's today, right?"

Taking a step backwards, she saw the plain white signboard with 'High school graduation ceremony' written in black letters hanging from the gate post on the right.

"I guess my invitation that we 'might as well meet in front of the school gates tomorrow' wasn't explanation enough."

– If it was something ordinary, they wouldn't be able to make it. And knowing this, it was very much in Sei's nature to add the 'might as well' to the invite.

"I wonder what time it starts."

Sei thought it was probably 9:30 or 10:00, something like that. Oh, maybe it was 9:00? She had experienced it first-hand last year, but because it was so long ago she'd completely forgotten.

Looking around at her quiet surroundings and the empty reception area, Sei changed her mind, thinking that a 10:00am start was unlikely.

So if we accept either theory of a 9:00 or 9:30am start, why weren't those two already here.

Or maybe they'd gone ahead of her.

No, no, in that case Youko's personality was such that she would have sent her a message. Although it wouldn't be such a bad thing if her personality had changed since starting university.

Well then, what should she do?

Sei started by sending a message to Youko, asking 'Where are you now?' and then loitered around, watching the gates. At any rate, she could think about what to do when she got the response.

"And Eriko – "

It was a bit of a puzzle as to what she should do there. She hadn't originally been invited, so if she didn't show up no-one would say anything.

(But.)

From the way Yoshino-chan acted yesterday, it seemed as though she would like it if Eriko were invited.

(That's right.)

Because her reason for saying, "Invite Youko-sama too," had been, "Wouldn't she want to see Sachiko-sama in her finest hour?" So you could interpret that as Yoshino-chan inviting Eriko, so that she could see Rei in her finest hour too. As for Sei, her petit soeur was still only a second year, so that clause didn't apply to her.

But when Sei thought about it, she realized that if only Eriko was here then she probably would have gone ahead of them. Since Eriko didn't know that she and Youko would also be here today.

After folding closed her mobile phone and putting it in her pocket, Sei felt something bumping against her legs.

"Oh!"

When Sei looked down, she saw a dark-brown striped cat circling around the cuff of her pants, rubbing its body against her legs.

"Goronta. It's you."

Sei picked Goronta up and gently patted her. Goronta responded by purring happily.

"I never see you around the university campus, but you're always around here, huh?"

What a cute cat. Sei hadn't seen her in about a year, but Goronta didn't seem to have forgotten her.

"You've grown. You look like the boss cat now."

Based on her weight, it looked like she was eating properly. Who knows, she might even be pregnant with mewling kittens. At the very least, it looked like she was able to fend for herself now. Sei was glad that the final result wouldn't anger Shimako-san.

"You're probably hunting birds and mice, I guess. Although you'll probably get given sausages or fried eggs from time to time."

Well, you could probably call that a form of hunting too, so it was okay.

"You like it when I pat you here, don't you? Yeah, just like that."

Sei had squatted down and was playing with Goronta when she heard an icy voice call out, 'What are you doing?' from above her. Just as expected, when she turned around Youko was standing there.

"Oh."

Sei had been absorbed in playing with Goronta and hadn't noticed that a bus had pulled up on the other side of the road and someone had walked across the pedestrian bridge.

"What do you mean, 'Oh?' And what were you thinking, I sent you message after message but you didn't respond to my question."

"Huh?"

"Please stop making such idiotic responses."

This was … pretty bad.

"I deeply apologize. If your humble servant has been inept, please enlighten them, Lady Youko."

"… You know I'm really furious."

Youko took out her own cell phone, pressed a number of buttons and spoke as she looked at the display.

"Yesterday, without warning, I received a message saying, 'Free tomorrow? Even if you're not, add this into your schedule and come. You'll probably see something interesting.' You said to come, but where was I supposed to go. You should at least put the location in the message."

"And then I sent you another message saying it was for the high school graduation."

"But if I hadn't asked, you would have just left it like that, right. And anyway, saying that 'we might as well meet in front of the school gates' is hardly what you'd call making an appointment. I sent you a message saying, 'When?' and then waited and waited but you never sent me a response.

"Heh heh – my bad."

At times like this, all you could do was apologize.

"And to top it all off, not too long ago I got a message asking, 'Where are you now?' Don't you think that's a bit unfair?"

While Youko was yammering on and looking at her mobile phone, Sei too took out her phone. Oops, she had three new messages. All from Youko.

Sei had put her phone into silent mode, so she hadn't noticed their arrival. She probably should have noticed the vibration of the phone in her pocket but, unfortunately, she hadn't felt it. Probably because she had been so absorbed in playing with Goronta.

Timidly, Sei read through the messages, starting with the oldest.

"Ahh – Youko's at the train station."

The first message said, "Now? I'm at K-station."

"I am not. Right now I'm standing here in front of you."

Indeed. The other two messages were, 'Where are you?' and 'Has something happened? Please answer me.'

"If I were to send you a response saying, 'I'm in front of the gates at Lillian's Academy,' you'd get mad, right?"

"...You've got some nerve, don't you."

If Sei were to push just a bit further, it seemed likely she would permanently damage their friendship. Since it seemed that Youko had left her house a bit earlier than normal to go to the train station, but upon seeing Sei's message had assumed something bad had happened and hastily caught the bus here.

"Anyway, what's up? You're here quite early, aren't you?"

Youko patted Goronta on the back as she said this. Goronta rarely let people pat her, but with Sei there she didn't seem to mind.

"Early? What time were you planning on arriving?"

Sei shook her head. If she hadn't sent that message it looked as though Youko wouldn't have arrived yet.

"What time indeed. Since you didn't bother to specify a meeting time, I figured you meant around lunchtime."

Huh?

"Lunchtime? But wouldn't the graduation ceremony be over by then?"

As Sei was wondering what exactly Youko was saying, Youko was looking at her with an expression that implied she was thinking the same thing.

"Huh? So you were planning on going to the graduation ceremony?"

"You weren't?"

Youko and Sei looked at each other. Then they instinctively checked the time on their wristwatch and phone, respectively, before smiling wryly.

No matter how you look at it, the graduation ceremony would have already begun. Rendering their current conversation pointless.

"I see. Well, that explains why you're so well dressed."

Youko said after closely examining Sei's appearance. Just like Youko had said, underneath her coat Sei wore a charcoal gray pant suit. Normally she'd wear the same coat when going to university, but it would be worn with a sweater, or a thick shirt, and a pair of jeans. But since she had planned on going to the graduation ceremony, she had decided against wearing jeans.

"Still, you should have put that in your message."

Even though Youko wasn't expecting to attend the ceremony, she was still impeccably dressed. A black high-necked sweater and a gold necklace were peeking out from underneath the collar of her coat. Youko's skirt was hidden, so Sei couldn't tell what type it was, but she was wearing stockings and high-heels.

"Let's start at the beginning – why did you call me here? You said there'd be something interesting. Was that supposed to be the graduation ceremony? And why did you only ask yesterday when it's on today?"

Sei shrugged her shoulders at this rapid fire succession of questions.

"I don't know. Yoshino-chan only invited me yesterday. And she asked me to invite you too."

As expected, Youko was astonished by her response. What's Yoshino-chan got to do with any of this? Well, that's a fair question.

"I'd be able to see something interesting? She said that? Yoshino-chan?"

"Nope. That was my own prediction based on what I thought would happen."

"Hmmm."

After thinking about this for a short while, Youko said:

"In that case, I think we should wait until the graduation ceremony's over and see them when they're all together. Since it's Yoshino-chan, she's not going to do anything to get a laugh during the graduation ceremony. She'll take that very seriously. So it's not going to be all that interesting."

"Really? Last year's graduation ceremony was pretty interesting, right?"

Sei whistled innocently.

The students' representative had started sobbing as she was reading the farewell address, at which point a hero had appeared from somewhere in the gymnasium to rescue her. Then, together, they were able to safely finish reading the address. Something like that.

"What would someone who was half asleep at the time know about that?"

Youko prodded Sei lightly on the forehead with her finger. She understood that the 'interesting event' from last year concerned her petit soeur, Sachiko, so she changed the topic.

"And? What about Eriko? She probably thought that you meant for us to meet after the graduation ceremony was over, too."

"Probably not, since she wasn't invited."

"Huh? Why not?"

For the second time today, Mizuno Youko was astonished. She had obviously thought that since she was invited Eriko would also have been invited. Even after a whole year had passed, perhaps even for the rest of their lives, she seemed to view the three of them as inseparably bound together as one group.

"Even so, I think she'll probably come."

Goronta walked off, finally tiring of people patting her.

"Was that also something Yoshino-chan said?"

"She didn't say it, but…"

Sei looked up at the sky.

"It's just a feeling I get."