Ryuuto and the Scientist (1)

Right, the club fair. It must’ve started this afternoon– Friday afternoon is a primetime recruitment opportunity as it was the end of the orientation period for first years.

“Ooh, what kind of club was giving out donuts, Chloe?” Sato inquired, waving her finger near the box, contemplating which one she wanted to take.

“It was the angling club,” she replied. “They had an activity with a donut on a fishing-pole, and if you could get the donut without using your hands, and without it touching the ground, you won the box!”

“Sounds fun!! I wanna try!” Sato shouted excitedly.

“Free donuts, I’m in–” Lafon twirled around with another donut in hand, presumably to go change.

“Iwasaki-kun, let’s go as a group!” I looked over to Sato, whose eyes were shining with determination. The three of them could definitely keep each other company at the event…but Sato seems quite insistent by the looks of it, I suppose…

“Alright,” I exhaled. “Once Lafon-san comes back, we can head—”

“I’m ready.” I turned around, and Lafon was changed to her outdoors fit—including her navy blue beret.

***

“Come over and try your putting skills!”

“Wanna see how to make taiyaki!! Fresh and delicious–”

The entire courtyard in front of the main university buildings had been taken over by thousands and thousands of students, holding colorful banners, giving out food, playing instruments, and everything in between. This was an opportunity for first years to join ‘student circles’, and there are plenty to choose from– I read somewhere that there are over a thousand circles that one could join from. Some clubs are definitely more into the club activity that they’re advertising about, while others are more than likely for hanging out together.

The trees were holding on to the last cherry blossoms, slowly being replaced by budding green leaves, marking springtime taking full hold of the season. We circled around the courtyard, passing by a few circles and casually checking them out on our search for the donuts.

“Where’s the angling club?” Sato looked towards Watson, who was looking around quickly.

“Eh… they might have moved somewhere else, but I can’t remember what their banner looked like,” she sighed. “Sorry…”

“Iwasaki-kun, please be our tour guide–” Sato clasped her hands together and bowed slightly in my direction. “Lead us to the promised land–”

“Ah–sure…” I looked around as well, scanning all the banners. Outdoors club, not quite. Rock-climbing club…cool, but not it. Cosplay club…there’s a club for that? Over there…. I think I see it….Angling club written in white on a dark blue banner. “I think I found it.” We made our way to that area, and lo and behold, one of the group leaders was holding a large fishing pole with a donut attached to it.

“Ah, Watson-san! You came back with your friends!” a cheerful voice rang from Watson’s left. She waved her hand, wearing a white sunhat, covering her black hair neatly held as a bun. “Nice to meet you all, I’m Megumi Tachibana, a 2nd year and co-leader of the Angling club!” she raised her hand and pointed at the banner behind her.

“Nice to see you again!” Watson nodded.

“Heyo! I’m Serina Sato from the USA, nice to meet ya! “

“Elise Lafon, from France, pleasure to meet you.”

“Iwasaki Ryuuto, nice to meet you, Tachibana-senpai,” I replied last. That last remark seemed to unintentionally pique her interest—

“Iwasaki-kun’s been showing us around and helping since we all moved in, and thanks to him we found you!” Sato beamed.

Tachibana raised her eyebrows in curiosity. “I see,” she started, then leaned slightly in my direction. “You’re quite the popular first-year, Iwasaki-kun,” she smiled. She’s missing critical context here! And this will only end up being miscommunicated even further if—

“Eh, Iwasaki-kun, what’d she say!?” Sato switched rapidly between me and Tachibana.

“Ah, that it’s nice of him to help international students out,” Tachibana replied smoothly. “It can be tough for you all to adjust to living here, so it’s good to see us local students interacting with you more—” she pointed to her fellow club members. “In fact, a good part of our circle are actually international students, and we all get along great!”

“Of course that’s until dinner and Tachibana gets her—” slam! The guy next to Tachibana, presumably her clubmate, received an elbow to the side quite forcefully, causing him to smile awkwardly and slightly keel over.

“Aaanyways, who wanted to try our game?”

Sato tried first, and unfortunately the donut bounced off her head and landed on the ground. I went next, and my donut met a similar fate. It was much harder than I expected, as the person would yank the donut upwards just as a fisherman would, and it was only a matter of attempts before the donut fell to the ground.

Lafon removed her beret and crouched underneath the fishing pole, the donut dangling above her. Then, with one swift motion, she launched herself off the ground, grabbed the donut with her mouth, yanked it off the pole before the club member had time to react, and landed gracefully on the ground, pastry in mouth.

The group of students behind us applauded with Tachibana and her fellow clubmates.

“So cool!”

“Alright, congrats, Lafon-san! Now there’s only one more box of donuts left, and I know just the first-year to try and win it–” she pointed at Watson and willed her up to the front. “Watson-san, show us how it’s done!” Once Watson was in position, Tachibana raised her hand to the student holding the pole,“You know what to do! This is the finale!”

“Yes, Tachibana-kaichou!” the clubmate shouted, launching the donut in the air, immediately releasing it from the pole. What?! That’s impossible to catch, even Lafon might have trouble targeting that donut-projectile.

As the donut reached its maximum height and plummeted towards the ground, Watson stood there, determined to catch it in her mouth. The donut fell down, missing her mouth as it dropped just below her chin, as it would make its way towards the floor.

Until it landed on her chest. At least she was wearing a hoodie….

“There’s your two-time winner, congrats Watson-san!!!” Tachibana yelled into the microphone as the crowd erupted in cheers.

“Ah, I was wondering why she had so many crumbs on the front of her hoodie earlier,” Sato nodded as she applauded Watson on.

Huh, I sense another dark presence nearby…

“Must be nice.” There was Lafon, clapping her hands, yet her face was anything but congratulatory. There seemed to be a bit of tension over how….well-endowed the final attempt by Watson was.

I defer any further comment.

***

After an eventful club fair, we finally called it a day and headed back to the dorms.

"Say, Watson-san, you could start a business and make some money with all those donuts you won."  

“That’s true, maybe 200 yen a donut?” Watson proposed.

“200 yen? That’s a steal, I’d like the whole box, please!” Sato chimed in. 

“Well, for you Serina, it’d be 250 yen each,” Watson grinned, as Sato paused in shock. 

“Hah?! Why are you charging me,” Sato counted on her fingers, “25 percent more?!”

“No reason.” Well, that’s quite some Canadian humor from Watson I wasn’t expecting. She waved us goodbye as she went back to her room, as did Lafon, carrying multiple boxes of sweets.

I walked back to the common room, where I left my bookbag by the table.

“See, that was fun!” Sato grabbed her bag from the chair. “And we got all this free stuff–AHH!” I heard her voice stop abruptly and I reflexively looked to see her tripping over the chair. 

“You alright, Sato-san?” I got down to see if she was injured, and she replied with a smile and thumbs up. 

“Just tripped, silly me!”

The contents of her bookbag were all over the floor now, which I started putting back together as Sato got back up. “No wonder your balance was off, there’s this giant textbook here weighing you down–”

Electricity and Magnetism for Scientists and Engineers. I read the cover of the textbook, and as I picked it up…. Jeez, this book is heavy.

When she saw me place the book on the table, her eyes widened. “Ah–eh–I was just borrowing this book from a classmate,” she stammered. 

“Is that so?” I shrugged, flipping the book open to a random page– oh lord, I could discern some of the English words, but then the numbers, and Greek letters…hold on, why are there arrows going in so many directions with a coil…. Eddy Current?

“Eddy Current…who’s Eddy? Current is an interesting last name, too…” I mumbled.

She instantly perked up, giggling a little. “Eddy current? That’s not a name, silly. It’s a phenomenon that occurs when an electrical conductor moves through a magnetic field, as the change in magnetic field felt by the conductor will induce an electrical current called the ‘Eddy current’, where that Eddy current produces a magnetic field in the opposite direction of the original magnetic field—” she stopped, noticing my face had gone completely blank.

I have absolutely no idea what anything she said means–but it must be quite something to know this stuff.

“You…must be super weirded out by that–sorry,” she looked down, like she had realized a grave mistake. “Just…forget about what I just said, okay?”

“Ok…but—”

“Thanks–” she quickly replied as she moved her hand over the textbook, closing it. She placed the rest of her belongings in her bag and smiled. “It's been a long day, I bet. I'll see you later." 

As she turned to leave, I noticed her complexion had changed slightly….it wasn’t the cheerful,l go-lucky Sato I’d gotten to know over the past two weeks. There was a hint of unease, melancholy even mixed in there.

If something was bothering her about this book, maybe I shouldn’t have pressed that much about it. Like, if she wanted to talk about it, she’d probably throw it on the table the first day like it’s show-and-tell time.

But really, that knowledge of hers, it’s something…

“Amazing.”

Sato stopped in her tracks, turning slightly with a puzzled expression. “Uh, Iwasaki-kun, what'd you say again... ‘su-goi’?”

Ah, shoot, she wouldn’t understand that— like what’s a ‘sugoi’ to her?!

“Oops… I meant to say…amazing.”