HaruChika

It was half past six in the evening. I walked around the school building, looking for Haruta. His bag was in the music room, so I knew he didn"t go home yet. Currently it was the preparation time for the cultural festival, therefore the closing time was extended by one hour more than normal. We had to leave the school building in half an hour.

I walked on the second floor of the dim school building. I noticed that the door of the science room was open and timidly peeked in.

A small figure was sitting on one long table. It was Haruta.

"Harutaa," I said with a miserable voice.

"Huh? Didn"t you go home yet?"

"What." I stopped. "I guess I worried for nothing."

"Shh." Haruta put his index finger to his mouth. "Can you wait with talking out loud as much as you can until it"s past seven o"clock?"

"Will something happen if we wait?" I whispered as I came closer to him.

"You"ll understand if you wait," Haruta whispered back in a knowing tone. "By the way, if the two of us stay alone like this and are seen by someone, we"ll probably get misunderstood."

I distanced myself a little from Haruta.

The faint noises that were left over became inaudible as it turned seven o"clock, and the gradually darkening dim light encroached the science room. I regarded the lighting of the ground that shone only a little bit from the windows as my salvation. When I looked at my wrist watch, it was already past seven o"clock.

It became clear that there were footsteps gradually approaching from inside the corridor. Those footsteps suddenly stopped in front of the science room. I caught my breath.

"-- Is Kamijou-kun here?"

Beyond the door I heard the whisper of a female student.

"I"m here."

After Haruta answered, a huddled silhouette opened the door and entered. Her face couldn"t be seen very well and she was carefully holding something. I could see a flask made of stainless steel.

I yelped. The cla.s.smate of the Biology Club who was with Kusakabe-sensei stood there. She became aware of my presence and was about to shrink away with a surprised expression.

"You don"t have to run away. This girl is a thug, but she"s you"re ally."

I frowned at the uncalled-for words and somehow maintained my self-control.

"Uh, yeah. I won"t do anything, so come over here."

While hanging her head she closed in step by step. Haruta came down from the table and held out a hand. Without saying a word, the girl handed over the flask of stainless steel.

Haruta turned the cap of the flask he received. After taking the beaker on the table, he raised and displayed that gla.s.s container in the dim light that  shone from the window.

"Ah --"

A beautiful, transparent blue fluid filled the beaker.

I was at a loss of words.

"This is the completely changed state of the copper sulfate crystal, isn"t it?"

When Haruta said that, the girl nodded.

"This is the copper sulfate"s saturated solution. It’s possible to do this if you shake it a lot, put it inside a plastic bottle or something and leave it alone for a day. You needed this."

She stayed quiet and nodded. Her shoulders began to shake a lot.

"You knew this was poison and stole it?" I finally found my voice back.

She kept her mouth shut stiffly. I waited patiently, but she wouldn"t talk. I spontaneously flared up at her att.i.tude, went closer and grabbed her shoulders.

"Answer me. Just what were you planning to do by stealing poison? Do you know how much you made everyone worry about whether the cultural festival would be cancelled or not?"

She burst out crying and stooped down on the floor. Her loud sobbing filled the science room. If you cry, I won"t know... If you cry... I stood stock still at that spot in a daze.

"Chika-chan."

I turned at Haruta"s voice.

"From our point of view it"s poison, but for her it represents something different."

"... What do you mean?"

"Medicine. White spot disease and oödinium. Surprisingly it was known since the past that the aqueous solution of copper sulfate is a specific medicine for these two diseases."

"Diseases, you say." I looked at girl who was still crying. "So who has those diseases?"

"The damselfish. The blue damselfish, a variety of the damselfish. It’s a vividly bright blue ocean water tropical fish that is widely known in j.a.pan. There are often schools in the tide pools of the Okinawan reef. Perhaps the research that the head of the Biology Club left behind is the observation of the ecology of the blue damselfish."

I stared at Haruta.

"The white spot disease is a disease peculiar to salt.w.a.ter fish. In the early stage it appears as a white spot of about one millimeter. Leave it alone and it will spread through the whole body in a blink of time. As a result of the pain, the fish that is covered in countless of white dots will frequently rub itself against pebbles and driftwood. Probably she --"

Haruta placed the beaker he was holding on the long table and continued.

"I think she felt pained to see that blue damselfish like that and desperately tried to heal it. Then she used a store-bought medicine. However, it didn"t get better at all. There"s also an effective and expensive medicine that can cure white spot disease. That expensive medicine was not something she could get her hands on."

"Why...?" I murmured.

"The budget of the Biology Club for the cultural festival is low. There are three first years. They have to maintain the costs of raising tropical fish. I think they use their pocket money as well. Because they don"t want to shut down the research that the club president left behind. They wanted an exhibition at the cultural festival somehow, in order to be deemed worthy to continue the club."

I looked at the crouching girl.

"Is that true?"

She nodded while looking down. Finally, her shaky voice reached out.

"I heard about the copper sulfate from an acquaintance. I knew that the Chemistry Club created the crystal and treasured it. But I thought, if it was just one…" She let out a sob. "I brought the diseased blue damselfish home and stayed quiet about it... But I was afraid and in the end I wasn"t able to use it..."

"That"s because," Haruta interrupted. "When you make a mistake with the concentration of the aqueous solution of the copper sulfate, you will let the blue damselfish die."

She nodded. "The next day there was an uproar about me taking the blue damselfish home and staying quiet about it. I went back home in a hurry and returned it to the water tank. But I didn"t say anything about the copper sulfate. I heard from my friend who is an executive committee member that it was poison and that its theft had become a big problem. I wanted to return it, but it had melted and it"s unable to return back to its original form..."

I silently listened to her. The damselfish theft. Kusakabe-sensei"s words from that time revived in my mind

"I"m sorry, I"m sorry." She continued to apologize, to the point that my heart started aching. "I kept it with me the whole time and I couldn"t do anything about it. That was when Kamijou-kun called out to me."

Suddenly I wondered if she liked the third year club president who changed schools. She was desperately trying to protect the research he left behind. To let the world of the water tank that reproduced his birthplace remain at this school. Is this? --

"It"s solved." Haruta said unsentimentally and looked the other way.

"But." I wasn"t relieved after all.

The sound of a clicking tongue resounded. Haruta took out his wallet. Then he flipped a 500 yen coin. I took the 500 yen coin that spun in the air as if stopping it like a sword stroke between bare hands.

"How about inciting everyone in the executive committee to do a fund raising campaign to reach the cost of the medicine? Though I think you executive committee members have no qualifications to blame the girl."

Recklessly doing things in order to protect something. That"s the same for us.

"-- Yeah," I answered. "I will convey that to the executive committee tomorrow morning. I think they"ll definitely understand. I won"t complain."

"Chika-chan, that"s the spirit."

The girl sniveled as she looked up. Even though she wiped her face over and over again, new tears came out and dripped on the floor.

"... Hey now. Let"s go home quickly or else we"ll get scolded by the teachers."

I pulled the girl"s arm. When we were about to leave the science room together, I sensed that Haruta was left behind by himself.

Haruta"s figure from behind gazed outside the window. Beyond his gaze was the gate in the middle of construction.

TRANSLATOR"S NOTES

Haruta mentions two fish diseases: the white spot disease (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis) and oödinium.

The blue damsfelfish is a species native to the Indian and western Pacific Oceans.