…And the initial "S." Who was S?
Emiri was practically buzzing with energy, her focus completely on the note. "Okay, 'S'. Could it be a student? A teacher? What names did you see in the ledger or the photo that start with S?"
"None in the brief scan we did," I reminded her, trying to keep my voice level despite the rising tide of potential energy expenditure. "And I checked the photo – no initials or names visible."
"Hmm," she hummed, tapping the note thoughtfully. "Maybe 'S' isn't their real initial? A nickname? Or maybe they weren't a member then?"
"Or maybe 'S' stands for 'Secret'," I offered dryly. "Requires less energy to invent a code than to figure out their name."
Emiri giggled, a light sound that felt entirely too cheerful for the dusty confines of the room. "Shinoda-kun, you're funny!"
I wasn't trying to be funny. I was trying to minimize variables. Humor was a high-energy activity, both to produce and to interpret.
"Alright," I redirected, needing to steer this back towards something concrete before my energy levels dipped into critical territory. "Let's consider 'the usual place'. If it's a secret meeting spot, it wouldn't be announced publicly. But it would need to be somewhere accessible and reasonably private at the school, or nearby, after third period."
My mind began cataloging potential locations in a school with 1300 students. That many people meant sheer density in common areas after classes. Privacy was a premium. Empty classrooms, less-used stairwells, the roof (if accessible and not locked), a quiet corner of the library, maybe a shrine or park nearby if the school wasn't completely isolated.
"Could be anywhere," I sighed, the effort of mentally listing locations already tiring me. "Without knowing who 'S' is, or who they were meeting, or what the 'Minutes' actually were, 'the usual place' is just a placeholder for 'somewhere that requires significant searching'."
"But we have the key!" Emiri insisted, holding up the small brass key like a beacon of hope. "And the note! They must be connected! We just need to figure out how!"
Her optimism was relentless. It was like trying to explain the concept of energy conservation to a perpetual motion machine.
Just as I was steeling myself to suggest we meticulously examine the layout of the school campus map for secluded spots – a task requiring several units of energy I wasn't prepared to spend just yet – the creak of the club room door opening again interrupted us.
Both Emiri and I turned. Standing in the doorway, letting in a rectangle of brighter hallway light and disrupting the carefully curated dust-mote ballet in the air, was another girl.
She was smaller than Emiri, with sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to take in the entire dusty room, and us within it, in a single, critical glance. Her posture was neat, almost rigid, and she held a small notebook clutched in one hand.
"Emiri? I thought you might be here," she said, her voice clear and direct. She then looked at me, a flicker of assessment in her eyes. "And... you are?"
Emiri beamed, practically vibrating with the chance to share our discovery. "Rina-chan! You came! Shinoda-kun, this is my friend, Ōsawa Rina. Rina-chan, this is Shinoda Akito. He just joined the Classic Cerebrum Club!"
"The Classic Cerebrum Club?" Rina repeated, her tone skeptical. "Isn't this that old, inactive club? I heard it was about to be shut down." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at me. "And you joined? You don't exactly strike me as the 'cerebral' type, Shinoda-kun."
My energy levels dipped further. Being assessed and categorized required effort. "I had my reasons," I stated simply, opting for minimal explanation. The less said, the less energy used.
Rina's attention, however, was already captured by the items in our hands. "What are those? An old key? And a note?" Her critical gaze sharpened into intense curiosity, surprisingly similar to Emiri's, though perhaps less overtly cheerful. "What are you two doing in this dusty old room?"
"We're solving a mystery!" Emiri announced, holding up the key and the note. "Shinoda-kun found these! They're from fifty years ago, and we think they're related to a box that went missing!"
Rina's initial skepticism seemed to waver, replaced by a focused interest. She stepped closer to the table. "A mystery? In this club room? What kind of mystery?" Her eyes went from the key, to the note, to the open ledger.
This was it. The introduction of a new variable. Another person to explain things to, another source of potential interaction and, yes, energy expenditure. But perhaps also another perspective. Rina seemed sharp; maybe she could see something we missed.
"It started with an entry in the old ledger," I began, resigning myself to the necessary explanation. "From June 14th, fifty years ago. It mentions discussing 'the matter of the missing key' and deciding to 'investigate further'. But there's no follow-up entry." I handed her the ledger, pointing to the relevant page. "We found this key under some old papers nearby, and in this photo," I picked up the photograph, "we saw a small box on the table from that era. We think the key is for the box, and the box disappeared around the same time the investigation stopped."
Rina took the ledger and the photo, her eyes scanning them quickly. Her expression was serious, analytical. She wasn't jumping to conclusions like Emiri, but examining the evidence presented.
"A missing key... a missing box... and this note," she murmured, picking up the note Emiri offered her. She read it, her lips moving slightly. "'Meet me at the usual place after third period. Bring the 'Minutes'. Urgent. Don't be late. - S.'" She looked up. "This adds another layer. 'Minutes'? A secret meeting? 'S'?"
Her mind was clearly already working, processing the information with a different kind of focus than Emiri's boundless enthusiasm. It was less about the excitement of the mystery and more about the details, the discrepancies, the logical gaps.
"We figure 'Minutes' might be what was in the box," Emiri explained. "Something important or secret they didn't want in the main ledger."
Rina nodded slowly, considering this. "And the key was for the box containing these 'Minutes'. Someone was supposed to take the 'Minutes' to a meeting, was interrupted here, grabbed the box but left the key and this note behind." She looked around the dusty room again. "Seems plausible. But why the secrecy? And what would be in club minutes fifty years ago that was so urgent and secret?"
Her question hung in the air, a challenge that demanded energy to address. My own thoughts circled back to the potential contents: scandal, sensitive information, something that could cause trouble.
"Humans are complicated," I commented, the words escaping before I could perform a full energy-cost analysis. "They go to great lengths, expend vast amounts of energy, to keep things hidden. Sometimes, figuring out the secret itself requires less effort than figuring out why it was a secret in the first place." It was like trying to understand why someone would run a marathon – the sheer energy output was baffling when simply sitting quietly achieved a similar state of non-movement with drastically less effort. Today, it seemed, Shinoda Akito was learning that engaging with curiosity could lead to unexpected, and highly inefficient, demands on one's personal energy reserves.
Rina was silent for a moment, her sharp eyes moving from the ledger, to the photograph, to the key in my hand, and finally to the note in Emiri's. She seemed to be weighing each piece of evidence, fitting them together like puzzle pieces.
"Okay," she said finally, her voice measured. "Assuming your hypothesis about the interruption and the box being removed hastily is correct... the key detail is this note." She held up the note. "Urgent meeting, 'Minutes', 'S', 'usual place'. This isn't about losing a key during normal club activities. This is about something specific and time-sensitive."
"Exactly!" Emiri agreed, bouncing slightly with renewed enthusiasm. "Something important enough to cause panic if they were caught!"
Rina gave Emiri a look that seemed to convey a complex mix of exasperation and fondness. It reminded me, vaguely, of someone dealing with a particularly energetic puppy. "Which means," Rina continued, turning her gaze back to the note, "figuring out who 'S' is, or where 'the usual place' was, is probably the key to figuring out what was in the box and why it was a secret."
She was right, of course. As much as I wanted to conserve energy by ignoring the problem, these were the next logical steps for anyone attempting to solve this.
"We checked the ledger and the photo for anyone named S," I reported, saving her the energy of suggesting it. "No luck."
"Then 'S' could be a nickname," Rina mused. "Or maybe their last name didn't start with S, but their first name did? Like Satoshi, or Shiori?" She tapped the note again. "Or maybe 'S' isn't even a person's initial. Maybe it stands for something else entirely."
Another variable. My energy levels flickered in protest.
"What about 'the usual place'?" Emiri asked, turning to me. "Shinoda-kun, you're good at figuring things out logically! Where would be a 'usual place' for a secret meeting fifty years ago?"
I sighed internally. Logical deduction required mental processing power. "It would need to be somewhere not easily observed," I explained, "especially after third period, when hallway traffic is high. A quiet corner of the school grounds, maybe. Or somewhere just off-campus that students frequented."
"Like the park across the street?" Emiri suggested. "Or that old cafe down the road?"
"Possibly," I conceded. "But 'the usual place' implies it was a spot they used repeatedly. Without knowing who 'S' was meeting, it's hard to guess their preferred secret location."
Rina was looking intently at the note again. "What if 'the usual place' isn't a physical location?" she said slowly.
Emiri and I both looked at her. "What do you mean, Rina-chan?" Emiri asked.
"Maybe it's a time," Rina clarified. "Or an event. 'Meet me at the usual place' could mean 'meet me during the usual break time', or 'meet me at the usual club meeting time', but somewhere else this time. Though 'after third period' specifies the time..." She trailed off, thinking.
Her point about "usual place" not necessarily being a physical location was... interesting. It added a new, albeit slightly more abstract, dimension to the puzzle. It also increased the number of possibilities, which was generally bad for energy conservation.
"So," Emiri said, summarizing with her usual straightforwardness, "we need to figure out who 'S' is, what 'Minutes' are, and where 'the usual place' is. And find the box!"
The list felt dauntingly long from my perspective. Each item required a significant energy investment.
Rina was still looking at the note, then at the ledger. "Maybe there's something else in the ledger about typical meeting times, or places the club members might frequent?"
"Could take a lot of energy to sift through all that," I warned, gesturing to the thick ledger and the piles of papers. "Fifty years of records is... substantial."
"But it might be our best lead!" Emiri insisted, already reaching for the ledger. Her energy seemed boundless, a stark contrast to my carefully managed reserves.
Rina, however, put a hand on the ledger. "Let's be systematic," she said. "If the meeting was 'after third period', that suggests a specific time slot. Does the ledger mention when third period ended back then? Or when the club usually met?"
This was a more focused approach. Instead of reading everything, target specific information. Less energy. I approved, marginally.
"We could look for entries about regular meeting schedules," I said, nodding. "And see if they align with 'after third period'. That might tell us something about the 'usual place', if it was related to their regular club activities but moved for this urgent meeting."
Working together, Emiri flipping pages with eager speed and Rina scanning the text with sharp focus, we started going through the ledger again, specifically looking for mentions of meeting times or locations around the period fifty years ago. The dust, unfortunately, showed no regard for our efforts, continuing its slow, silent accumulation, a testament to the vast, energy-consuming expanse of time we were trying to bridge.
Reading through decades of faded ink and mundane notes about who brought the tea to the meeting or complaints about the stationery budget was surprisingly effective at draining energy. My eyes blurred slightly as I scanned rows of similar-looking entries.
"Anything yet?" I asked, leaning back slightly in my chair, trying to find a position that required minimal muscular effort. The old wooden chair creaked in protest.
"Not a clear schedule yet," Rina replied, her voice focused. "Lots of 'Meeting on Tuesday,' 'Discussion on Friday,' but nothing consistent. And no mention of third period."
Emiri suddenly gasped, startling both of us. "Look! May 10th entry!"
We both leaned closer. Emiri pointed a triumphant finger at a line of faded text.
"Decided to move the next few meetings to the usual time, but in the Art Annex storeroom, as the club room is temporarily needed for... (text is smudged)... Will return as soon as possible."
"'The usual time'," Emiri read aloud, practically vibrating with excitement. "They mention the usual time! And they had to move because the club room was 'temporarily needed'?"
My analytical engine, despite the energy cost, processed this new data point. "So they did have a 'usual time'," I noted. "And this room wasn't always available. 'Art Annex storeroom'... that's specific."
Rina frowned slightly. "Temporarily needed? For what? The text is smudged. Could the reason the room was needed be related to the missing key and box?"
"Possible," I admitted. "If the room was needed for something sensitive, maybe they kept something sensitive here that needed to be moved, like the box with the 'Minutes'."
Emiri tapped the entry. "And they moved their meetings to the Art Annex storeroom. So 'the usual place' for meetings isn't the club room! It's the Art Annex storeroom!"
"No," I corrected, trying to conserve energy by being precise. "The ledger says they moved their meetings 'to the usual time, but in the Art Annex storeroom'. This implies the Art Annex storeroom was the temporary location. The 'usual place' for the meeting mentioned in the note could still be somewhere else entirely, or it could be referring to 'the usual time' they met, but in a different location."
Emiri tilted her head, looking slightly confused. Rina sighed softly.
"What Shinoda-kun means," Rina translated, her tone patient but with a hint of dryness, "is that this entry tells us they sometimes met in the Art Annex storeroom, but it doesn't confirm that the Art Annex storeroom is 'the usual place' mentioned in the note. That meeting in the note was 'after third period', remember? This entry doesn't say when their 'usual time' was."
"Oh," Emiri said, looking back at the ledger entry with slightly less certainty. "Right." She still looked excited, though. The energy level remained remarkably high.
I watched their interaction. Emiri's pure, boundless curiosity driving forward, sometimes overlooking details. Rina's sharp, grounded analysis catching those details. And me, observing, trying to apply logic while minimizing my own participation, only to get drawn in by the sheer inefficiency of leaving the thinking entirely to them. It was a strange dynamic, like a high-speed train (Emiri), its diligent conductor (Rina), and a passenger who desperately wanted the train to stay at the station (me).
Suddenly, Emiri looked up from the ledger, her eyes finding mine. "Shinoda-kun," she said, her voice a little softer, a hint of something other than just mystery-solving excitement in her expression. "You're really good at putting things together. Even when it seems complicated."
A direct compliment. Unexpected. My energy levels flickered again, this time with a different kind of surge. It was slightly disorienting. I wasn't 'good' at it; I just applied low-energy logical processes to avoid the higher energy cost of confusion.
"It's just applying basic principles of deduction," I mumbled, looking away, pretending to be intensely interested in the dust motes dancing in the sunbeam. Accepting praise required social energy I hadn't budgeted for.
Rina's sharp eyes darted between the two of us, a knowing look on her face that made me slightly uncomfortable. She seemed to pick up on subtle social cues that I generally filtered out to conserve processing power.
"Applying basic principles requires effort, Shinoda-kun," Rina said, her voice flat. "Something you usually try to avoid." She then added, in a drier tone, "Today, Shinoda Akito has apparently discovered that the pursuit of historical oddities requires a significant, non-refundable expenditure of energy, regardless of one's personal philosophy."
My own words, repurposed and aimed back at me. It was a valid observation, undeniably accurate, and delivered with minimal wasted words. Energy efficient communication. I could almost respect it, if it didn't highlight my own failing strategy.
"It appears so," I conceded, letting out a breath that felt heavier than strictly necessary. This club was proving to be far more energetically demanding than advertised. I had joined hoping for a quiet corner to conserve energy, but instead, I seemed to have stumbled into a vortex of boundless curiosity, historical puzzles, and unexpected social interactions, all conspiring to drain my carefully managed reserves. It was, in its own way, a disaster. An interesting disaster, unfortunately.
Emiri and Rina continued scanning the ledger, their heads close together over the dusty pages. The silence of the old club room was punctuated only by the soft rustle of turning paper and the occasional creak of the old furniture. Compared to the bustling hallways of Shinwa Senior High School, a place teeming with 1300 students and their collective, vibrant energy, this room felt like a pocket of historical inertia. And yet, even here, energy was being expended at an alarming rate.
Just then, a sound from outside the room broke the quiet. Footsteps echoed in the narrow corridor, accompanied by the murmur of voices. They seemed to be approaching the Classic Cerebrum Club's door.
My energy levels immediately went on alert. Unscheduled social interaction required rapid assessment and preparation, a significant drain. Who was it? Another lost freshman? Students daring each other to look into the 'haunted' club room?
The door, which we had left slightly ajar after Rina entered, creaked open wider. Two students peered inside. A boy with a nervous expression and a girl who looked bored. They weren't familiar faces from my brief, energy-conscious observations of classmates.
"Um, excuse me," the boy mumbled, looking around the dusty room with wide eyes. "Is this... the Manga Club?"
Emiri looked up from the ledger, blinking in surprise. "Oh, hello! No, this is the Classic Cerebrum Club!"
The girl sighed loudly. "Told you this wasn't it, Kenji. The Manga Club is on the third floor. Room 3B."
Kenji blushed slightly. "Right, right. Sorry to bother you." He glanced again at the dust-covered furniture and the piles of old books. "Wow, it's really... old in here."
"It has a lot of history!" Emiri said cheerfully, not at all bothered by the interruption. "We're actually looking into a mystery from fifty years ago right now!"
The bored girl's eyes widened marginally at the word 'mystery', but Kenji just looked more confused. "Oh. Right. Well, uh, good luck with that."
"Thanks!" Emiri replied with genuine enthusiasm.
The two students lingered for another awkward second, glancing at the dust, at the ledger, at us, before the girl nudged the boy. "Come on, let's go find the actual Manga Club before orientation for that is over."
They quickly backed out of the doorway, pulling the door mostly shut behind them, leaving us once again in the dim quiet, the energy of their brief passage still lingering in the air.
Rina watched the door close, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk on her face. "Manga Club," she repeated flatly. "Some people have such... straightforward interests." Her gaze then returned to the ledger, her analytical focus immediately restored. The brief external interaction seemed to have been logged and dismissed as irrelevant data.
Emiri, however, seemed slightly energized by the exchange. "See, Shinoda-kun? People are curious about mysteries! Even if they're just looking for the Manga Club!"
I remained silent for a moment, processing the event. Two external variables, introduced and removed with minimal interaction required from my end, beyond basic verbal responses. Total energy cost: moderate, primarily due to the initial alert and processing their spatial location. It was an inefficient detour, but perhaps a necessary reminder that our little pocket of mystery existed within a larger, much more energetically active world of normal high school life, filled with over a thousand other students pursuing their own, often less dust-filled, interests.
I looked back at the ledger entry about moving meetings to the Art Annex storeroom. "The Art Annex storeroom," I murmured. "If the club room was 'temporarily needed' for something potentially sensitive, maybe that's where the box was moved to initially?"
Emiri's eyes lit up again. "That's a possibility! Could the box still be there?"
Rina frowned. "Fifty years is a long time. Storerooms get cleared out. But it's a lead. It's more specific than 'the usual place'."
"True," I conceded. "Investigating the Art Annex storeroom would require less energy than searching the entire school campus for 'the usual place' if that place isn't defined."
It felt like the most logical next step. A finite, identifiable location, directly mentioned in the club's records from around the time of the mystery. It wouldn't be energy-free – navigating an unfamiliar part of the school, potentially dealing with custodians or art teachers – but it was a directed application of energy, aimed at a concrete target. Today, it seemed, my energy-saving strategy was evolving, forced by circumstance into a more active, though still reluctant, pursuit of efficiency through investigation.
"Alright," Emiri declared, her eyes bright with purpose. "The Art Annex storeroom it is! Let's go!" She started to move towards the door with characteristic alacrity.
Rina nodded in agreement. "It's the most concrete lead we have. Less energy than trying to guess 'the usual place'." Her practicality, focused on efficiency of action rather than overall energy conservation, was a different kind of contrast to Emiri's pure drive.
I sighed inwardly. Leaving the quiet, albeit dusty, sanctuary of the club room required expending a significant unit of energy. I had just settled into a state of moderate activity; transitioning to movement was costly. "Moving requires momentum," I pointed out, mostly to myself, but loud enough for them to hear. "Initiating momentum from a state of rest is highly inefficient."
Emiri paused at the door, looking back at me with a curious tilt of her head. "But we need to find the box, Shinoda-kun! We have the key and the note and the indentation! We're solving the mystery!"
"Solving a mystery requires traversing physical space," I countered. "Traversing physical space expends energy." It felt like explaining thermodynamics to a hummingbird.
Rina stepped towards me, a dry look on her face. "Shinoda-kun, standing here talking about expending energy is also expending energy. Relatively small amounts, but still. Moving will at least feel like progress."
She had a point, irritatingly enough. Stagnation wasn't necessarily energy-free if it involved mental deliberation or discussion. Sometimes, the path of least resistance was simply to comply and get the movement over with quickly.
"Fine," I conceded, pushing myself up from the chair. The old wood groaned in protest, a sound I deeply sympathized with. "Let's proceed to the location designated as the temporary meeting place fifty years ago. But let's do so with maximum efficiency. No unnecessary detours. No running."
"No running, got it!" Emiri chirped, though her excitement still gave off the distinct aura of someone about to sprint.
We left the Classic Cerebrum Club room, closing the door behind us and leaving the dust motes to their undisturbed dance. The hallway outside was blessedly empty for the moment, a brief reprieve from the school's usual population density. As we walked, the faint sounds of afternoon classes and distant club activities drifted down the corridors. 1300 students, all somewhere, expending energy on learning, socializing, or whatever else occupied their time. My goal remained singular: avoid contributing unnecessarily to that collective energy output.
"So, the Art Annex," Emiri said as we walked. "Where is that, anyway?"
"Third floor, I think," Rina replied. "Near the art classrooms. It's usually pretty quiet up there after classes, unless there's a club meeting."
"Less foot traffic equals less required energy expenditure on navigation and avoidance," I noted, filing away this information. A quiet location was a plus.
"What do you think the Art Annex storeroom will be like?" Emiri asked, peering around a corner as we turned down a different corridor. "Filled with old paintings? Sculptures? Or just dusty boxes?"
"Given this school's track record with historical storage, 'just dusty boxes' seems the statistically most probable outcome," I predicted. Probability was a useful tool for managing expectations and thus conserving energy. No need to waste effort anticipating grand discoveries if the data suggested otherwise.
"But maybe the box is in one of those dusty boxes!" Emiri suggested hopefully.
"That would require opening multiple dusty boxes," I pointed out, already feeling a preemptive drain. "A multi-step process with a high potential for dust inhalation, which requires physiological recovery, thus expending further energy."
Rina gave a short, dry chuckle. "Shinoda-kun has a point, Emiri. Let's prepare for dust."
As we approached the stairs, the faint murmur of students became louder. Climbing stairs. Another unavoidable energy cost. I mentally calculated the flights required to reach the third floor. Unnecessary vertical displacement.
"Just think of what we might find!" Emiri said brightly as we started ascending. "Maybe the 'Minutes' are some incredible secret history of the school! Something scandalous!"
"Or maybe 'Minutes' refers to how long the club members from fifty years ago could tolerate being in that dusty storeroom before needing fresh air," I offered, keeping my gaze fixed on the steps, focusing my limited energy on forward vertical motion. It was a low-energy joke, requiring minimal creative thought, primarily observational cynicism. Like observing that the effort required to chase a rolling coin downhill far exceeds the coin's actual value.
Emiri laughed. "You're funny, Shinoda-kun! But I bet it's a secret!"
As we reached the landing for the third floor, the noise level dropped again. The art classrooms were quieter, filled with the faint scent of paint and clay rather than the general school aroma of floor wax and adolescent anxiety. The hallway was lined with student artwork, a splash of color that felt slightly jarring after the muted tones of the second-floor corridor.
Finding the Art Annex wasn't difficult – it was clearly marked. The storeroom, however, was another matter. It was a solid, plain door tucked away at the end of a short, less-used side passage, next to what appeared to be a kiln room. No windows, no nameplate. Just a door.
It looked, predictably, locked.
My energy levels, which had been cautiously optimistic about a straightforward entry into 'just dusty boxes', plummeted. A locked door. This required... further energy expenditure. Finding someone with a key? Breaking in? Both options were high on the energy-cost scale.
"Oh no," Emiri said, her initial excitement dimming slightly. "It's locked."
"Naturally," I stated. Expecting an unlocked storeroom in a school was an energetically wasteful assumption. Locks were a fundamental barrier to low-energy access.
Rina stepped forward, examining the lock. "Standard school lock. We won't be getting in without a key. Or the custodian."
The custodian. An external variable. Required social interaction. Explanations. More energy. Or finding a teacher associated with the Art Annex. Even more variables, potentially.
My mind, despite my principles, was already calculating the least energy-intensive way to acquire access. Finding the custodian seemed marginally less complex than navigating the administrative hierarchy for a teacher. But still. It required effort. Significant, inevitable effort. The Art Annex storeroom, it seemed, was not prepared to yield its secrets without a fight, a fight that would primarily be fought by draining my personal energy reserves.
"It's locked," Emiri stated, the obvious fact hanging in the quiet hallway. Her shoulders seemed to slump just a fraction, a rare dip in her otherwise constant state of high energy.
"As expected," I replied, because stating the obvious was low-energy communication. "Storerooms containing things are often secured. It prevents unauthorized access, theft, or inconvenient discoveries by overly curious individuals." I glanced briefly at Emiri, whose curiosity levels were currently off the charts.
Rina examined the door and the lock again. Her expression was pragmatic, but there was a hint of frustration in her eyes. "We'll need a key. Or permission to get in." She turned to me, her gaze sharp. "Any brilliant, energy-saving ideas, Shinoda-kun?" Her tone wasn't exactly challenging, but it wasn't entirely neutral either. It held a subtle edge, like she was both genuinely curious about my potential solutions and slightly critical of my general approach to life.
This was the dynamic. Her sharp, critical nature meeting my passive, energy-conscious existence. It could sometimes lead to moments that felt... pointed. Like standing under a spotlight and being asked why you aren't moving faster.
"Obtaining the key requires interaction with school personnel," I stated, breaking down the problem into its fundamental, energy-costly components. "Option A: Custodian. They likely have a master key for storerooms. Requires locating the custodian, explaining our presence here, and requesting access. Potential energy cost: moderate, depending on the custodian's disposition and questions asked."
"Option B: Art teacher," I continued. "This is the Art Annex. An art teacher would probably have access or know who does. Requires identifying the relevant teacher, finding their location, explaining the situation, and requesting access. Potential energy cost: higher than the custodian, as teachers tend to ask more questions about student activities."
"Option C: Unconventional methods," I concluded. "Forcible entry, lock picking. Requires specialized skills I do not possess, or brute force which is high energy expenditure and carries significant risk of disciplinary action, leading to exponentially higher future energy costs in explanations and rectifications."
I looked at them, presenting the logical, energy-cost analysis. "Therefore, the lowest energy path to access is likely Option A or B. Finding the custodian or an art teacher."
Emiri nodded, following the logic. "So we should look for the custodian?"
Rina, however, was still looking at me with that assessing gaze. "So your 'energy conservation' extends even to choosing the path of least social interaction?" Her voice was flat, devoid of Emiri's bright enthusiasm, making the observation feel more like an accurate, slightly critical diagnosis than a simple question. It was one of those moments that felt a little... exposed. Pathetic, maybe, from a more actively engaged perspective. My logic was sound, but admitting that minimizing social energy was a core part of my strategy felt slightly vulnerable.
"Social interaction requires decoding and responding to variable human behavior," I explained, maintaining a neutral tone. "Predicting the reaction of a lock or a physical object is significantly less energy-intensive than predicting the reaction of a person." It was pure, low-energy fact. Why expend effort on the unpredictable when the predictable was available? This was where my approach diverged from most people I observed, who seemed to thrive on the unpredictable energy of social dynamics. It was like they were running unnecessary sprints when walking would suffice. This underlying capability to analyze complex systems (like human behavior, or test questions) and then choose the most efficient path, even if that path involved doing almost nothing, was perhaps where the comparison to Ayanokoji's calculated choices lay, though my goals were far less ambitious than surviving a competitive school hierarchy. I just wanted a quiet life.
"Right," Rina said, a hint of something I couldn't quite place – maybe understanding, maybe still skepticism – in her voice. "Predicting people is too much work."
"Precisely," I confirmed, feeling a tiny flicker of validation that my logic was at least being understood, if not entirely accepted.
Emiri, having patiently listened to our brief, slightly strange exchange, clapped her hands together lightly. "Okay! Custodian or art teacher! Which one is easier to find right now?"
"Custodian offices are usually on the ground floor or basement," I recalled from my initial energy-conscious survey of the school layout. "Art classrooms are here on the third floor, but the teachers might be in the faculty room elsewhere."
"Let's try the art classrooms first!" Emiri suggested, already turning down the corridor towards them. "Maybe an art teacher is still around!"
"Requires immediate redirection of physical momentum," I murmured, adjusting my trajectory to follow her. More energy expenditure. But the alternative was standing here, debating, which also used energy. Sometimes, moving forward was the only way to stop expending energy on indecision. It was a paradox of energy conservation.
As we walked down the hallway towards the art classrooms, the scent of paint grew stronger. Students' artwork lined the walls – vibrant, chaotic, full of the kind of raw, undirected energy I typically avoided. It was a visual representation of everything my philosophy stood against. Yet, following Emiri's bright, energetic presence and Rina's sharp, focused stride, I found myself moving towards the source of both potential information and undeniable energy expenditure. The Art Annex storeroom, and the secrets it might hold, waited just beyond the next interaction.
We reached the cluster of art classrooms. Unlike the quiet corridor outside the storeroom, these rooms still showed signs of recent activity. Easels were set up, smocks hung on hooks, and the faint, distinct smell of paint and solvent hung in the air. Some students were still finishing projects inside one room, overseen by a teacher who was cleaning brushes at a sink.
"Excuse me," Emiri said brightly, approaching the open doorway of the classroom.
The teacher, a woman with paint smudges on her cheek and an air of perpetual mild distraction, looked up. Her name tag read: Ms. Saitou.
"Yes?" Ms. Saitou asked, wiping her hands on a towel. Her gaze seemed to drift slightly, as if parts of her mind were still contemplating color palettes or drying times.
Emiri stepped forward, launching into an explanation with her usual energetic clarity. "We're members of the Classic Cerebrum Club! And we're investigating a mystery from fifty years ago! We found a note and a key and an old ledger entry, and we think a missing box might be in the Art Annex storeroom, but it's locked!" She finished slightly breathless, her enthusiasm filling the doorway.
Ms. Saitou blinked slowly, processing this torrent of information. Her gaze settled on us, particularly me, perhaps sensing my lower energy output compared to Emiri's explanation.
"The... Classic Cerebrum Club?" she repeated, as if trying to recall something from a very old, dusty filing cabinet in her brain. "Oh, yes, the historical one. I didn't realize it was still active." Her eyes then went to Rina, who was standing beside Emiri, observing the interaction with a quiet intensity. "And... a fifty-year-old mystery? In the storeroom?"
"Yes," Rina confirmed, stepping forward with a more concise explanation. "The club records from that period suggest the club room was temporarily unavailable, and meetings were moved to the Art Annex storeroom. We have reason to believe an object related to a mystery from that time might have been moved there." Her explanation was efficient, hitting the key points without Emiri's elaborate preamble.
Ms. Saitou considered this, a faint crease appearing between her brows. "The storeroom... That hasn't been used by students in decades. It's mostly just old supplies now. The head of the department has the key, usually. Mr. Tanaka."
"Mr. Tanaka," Emiri repeated, looking ready to sprint off and find him.
"He's in the faculty room, probably," Ms. Saitou said, preempting Emiri's potential energy burst. She then looked at us again, her expression shifting from mild distraction to polite curiosity. "A mystery, you say? What kind of mystery?"
This was the point where explaining the missing key, missing box, cryptic note, and initial 'S' could become quite the energy sink.
"It involves an old club ledger entry about a missing key, a photograph showing a box that matches a recent indentation on our club table, and a cryptic note mentioning 'Minutes' and a secret meeting," I summarized, opting for a factual, low-embellishment approach. Giving just the data points was more energy-efficient than weaving a compelling narrative.
Ms. Saitou tilted her head. "Minutes? A secret meeting?" She seemed intrigued, though still somewhat lost in the details. She looked at Rina, then back at me. "And you think this is all in the storeroom?"
"Based on the ledger entry about moving meetings there," I confirmed. "It's the most logical place to look for the box, or further clues, from that specific time period."
Ms. Saitou seemed to ponder this, looking from us to the quiet hallway leading to the storeroom door. She sighed softly. "Well, I don't have the key myself. Mr. Tanaka does. But..." She hesitated for a moment, then reached into her pocket and produced a small, jangling ring of keys. "I do have a general access key. It might open some of the older storerooms, if the locks haven't been changed. It's not guaranteed, and you'd need to be very careful. It's quite dusty in there."
This was an unexpected turn of events. Direct access might be possible, bypassing the potential energy cost of a full explanation to Mr. Tanaka. A rare moment where the universe seemed to align with my desire for a slightly less energy-intensive path.
"Careful with the dust is my specialty," I murmured, eyeing the keys. Dust disturbed required cleaning, cleaning required energy. Avoidance was key.
Ms. Saitou looked at me with that same slightly puzzled expression. "Alright," she said, making a decision. "But please be quick, and don't touch anything fragile. I'll need the key ring back before the end of the school day." She carefully detached a single, older-looking key from the ring and handed it to Emiri. "This might work. It's for some of the older utility rooms. The Art Annex storeroom lock is very old."
Emiri accepted the key with a look of reverence usually reserved for ancient artifacts. "Thank you so much, Saitou-sensei! We'll be very careful!"
"Yes, very careful," I echoed, already calculating the minimum energy required to unlock a potentially rusty lock without breaking the key or disturbing excessive amounts of dust.
Rina gave a polite nod of thanks to Ms. Saitou. "We appreciate your help, Saitou-sensei." Her tone was respectful and efficient.
Ms. Saitou smiled faintly. "Good luck with your mystery, Classic Cerebrum Club. Just... try not to cause an avalanche of old canvases, alright?"
"We'll do our best to minimize geological disturbances," I assured her, earning a curious glance from Ms. Saitou and a suppressed sigh from Rina. It was another low-energy joke, based on literal interpretation and exaggeration of potential outcomes. Simple, effective, minimal brain power required for delivery.