The Science Club / 科学部

As I got closer to the science club’s room, I noticed the door was ajar—I wasn’t the first to arrive there. My suspicions were confirmed when I entered the room.

“Hey everyone!”

“Everyone? It’s only three of us in total now, idiot.”

That was the hot-headed Asahi Nishimura, only female member of the current science club for any normal set of observing eyes. A third-year from a different class than mine. She, just like me, was a rare case of a freshman joining the science club. Long story short—in this school, it was extremely rare to see freshmen joining this club, only second and third-years chose to join it. Ever since we entered this school, no other first-years chose this club. Why? I have no idea, still ask myself that same question every year.

“She’s right, Ishida, you know. I wouldn’t recommend using that pronoun to refer to our very limited member count.”

He actually agreed with her, an unusual sight to behold. Suzuki really was on the same wavelength as Nishimura. But that still didn’t invalidate the use of “everyone”. The urge to pick up a dictionary and explain that “everyone” didn’t require a number greater than two was strong, but I reluctantly resisted it.

“Ever since our fellow upperclassmen graduated, the number was cut in half,” he continued.

Heartbreaking—that it was.

While it may or may not come as a surprise, this decrease in science club members didn't reflect proportionally on the liveliness of this small extracurricular activity. If I was to get technical here, the relation between that and the number of students here closely resembled the one observed in an exponential function, with the latter acting as the X-axis.

But I digress.

I will, once more, take the chance to provide a quick introduction to another of my acquaintances.

Takeshi Suzuki was the perfect fit for a science club, he loved experiments. You could say he’s the soul of this school club. He has known Nishimura since their first year, as they have always been in the same class (nowadays class 3-2, previously 1-2).

“Yes, I get it, my apologies for trying to cheer you both up.”

“After two years, you’re still as stupid. You never succeed at cheering me up, thought you knew that by now. Maybe you did cheer him up though.”

She was dropping all the insults she missed the opportunity to throw at me during Spring break. In the meanwhile, I proceeded.

“Anyway, we should be getting new members soon, or so I hope. Otherwise, they’ll close the club indefinitely.”

“Yes, hopefully new faces show up and choose the objectively best club.”

The words of science club’s number one fan.

“That could also mean we get to have underclassmen for the first time in our stay in this club.”

“Oh, yeah! I am already imagining it,” he continued his fantasy with a higher flimsy voice, “Senpai, that’s so cool! Umm Suzuki-senpai, how do we execute this experiment?”

“Takeshi.”

Nishimura interrupted our small chat with a rather unfriendly tone. Her voice was deeper than normal, which, in itself, was already a bad sign. Add that fear-inducing facial expression and menacing aura to it. Truly scary. Comparable to a tiger. Except it wasn’t palmtop sized. And that made it even scarier.

“Huh?”

He clearly wasn’t aware of what was about to happen, though he should be since they’ve known each other for two whole years. I was. And it didn’t look good.

She clenched her fist and enunciated crisply the two words you never want to hear from an angry tsundere.

“Drop dead.”

She punched him. Not with much strength, fortunately. Though her head was hotter than the surface of the Sun, she didn’t have an equally burning desire to be suspended.

Similarly to a predetermined sequence of events, she followed her punch with a one-word trope-y comment, also known as a rather famous entry in the vocabulary of typical insults used by anime characters.

“Pervert.”

Never gets old.

While she was cooling off, Suzuki was lying on the ground, thankfully conscious.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-Yes. O-Ouch, it hurts.”

“Can you stand up? Seems like you’re not bleeding, that’s a relief.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? My face is numb, I can’t feel part of it! I suppose I deserved it.”

“Eh? How did you deserve that? A slap in the face would clearly be enough. In my honest opinion, at least.”

“He did deserve it,” she retorted, hearing our conversation.

Displeased with the situation, I tried to be as straightforward as possible.

“Nishimura, I’m being serious when I say this, I don’t want our behavior to affect the club’s reputation, okay?”

The club was barely existing legally as it was since our school’s rules required a minimum of three students to maintain one working.

“Fine,” she pouted.

You could notice some regret on her face because she exaggerated her classmate’s punishment. For God’s sake, she went overboard with him. I could never bring myself to call them friends if that was part of their relationship.

“So long as he shows more decency.”

On the good side of things though, he was feeling better shortly after.

“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the Infirmary?”

“I’m fine, this is not the first time it happens. My face has developed a good resistance to her impulsive punches over time.”

Nishimura glared at him, having heard that loud and clear.

“A-Anyway, Ishida, over there you can find our stuff from last year stored inside the drawers and atop the table.”

“Ok.”

That was a rocky start. I walked towards the bottom of the room and noticed our last year’s experiments’ byproducts.

“Ohhh our copper sulfate crystals are still intact. That brings back some pleasant memories. There’s even our custom calorimeter.”

“Yeah. We should think about what we want to do this year. Maybe we could repeat the DNA one. With some more fruits and vegetables this time around, too. What do you both think of this idea? Assuming we get new members, of course.”

Suzuki was very interested in performing an extended version of that chemical experiment. It was his favorite one.

Nishimura, who was double-checking and, if needed, labelling instruments and chemical compounds, stopped doing so to give her two cents on the matter.

“Eh, if you want to, we can do it. But it’d only be fair if we did each of our favorite experiments. Don’t dismiss us both, jerk.”

“Agreed.”

He had no choice but to signal his agreement.

Acknowledging defeat, he expelled a long and monotonous “Fine”. We all joined her to help her organize the room, on the off chance new faces showed up next week or the following.

When we finished our duty, we left the room. Suzuki was the first to leave.

“Nishimura, do you have the keys?”

“Yes.”

We both grabbed our schoolbags and closed the door. Nishimura applied the second layer of locking.

“Are you still going anywhere before leaving?”

I asked her that because she was walking in an opposite direction to mine. She wasted no time giving me her answer.

“I’m going to pick up something to eat over there in the vending machine. Want to accompany me?”

“Ah, sorry, I’ve got things to do.”

“Alright, then see you next week.”

“Bye.”