Hyouka:Volume 1 Chapter 6

6 - The Old Days of the Glorious Classics Club

It was the end of July when Summer Vacation had begun. Today I was riding my bike along the road towards Kami High as usual. It would take 20 minutes to get there from my place by foot, though I have no idea how long it'll take by bike. I stopped to buy a can of black coffee from a vending machine while resting. I then followed the riverside and turned beside the hospital before arriving in front of Kami High. And there I stood with an amazed look.

Summer Vacation is supposed to have started already.

Yet the sports ground was filled with prop equipment and students in their summer uniforms. I could hear music played by various wind instruments, electric guitars and bamboo flutes. Even though the Special Block was some distance from here, I could tell there were many students there as well. They were of course all here to prepare for the Kanya Festival. The energetic side of Kami High has only just gotten more active as Summer Vacation has started. Crowds of people were crawling around like a group of ants as though saying "Alright guys, the festivals coming up soon! Now that annoying classes are out of the way, let's give it our best!"

I gazed at these people overflowing with energy while noticing a person trotting towards me. It was Fukube Satoshi, dressed casually in short sleeved shirt and shorts, while carrying a sporty-looking mini-rucksack over his back.

"Hey,"

"Sorry, man. Kept you waiting?"

I was happily listening to the A Capella Club practicing their singing in the central courtyard, and Satoshi had to make me turn around with such a creepy voice. I contemplated turning my bike around and going home, but then I changed my mind and proceeded to walked towards him and acted as if I was about to kick him.

"Whoa, Houtarou! What's with the sudden ferocity?"

"You sure are one to talk! Have you no shame in not knowing when not to disturb the peace?"

Satoshi shrugged his shoulders.

It doesn't seem like he has any.

"Sorry man, the Handicraft Club meeting went into overtime."

"Just what on earth were you discussing anyway?"

We're going to knit a Buddhist-like Mandala carpet for the Kanya Festival. Though we've run into a few problems, so we had a contingency meeting just now."

Well, tough work you had there. Not just you, but Toogaito, or even the whole school for that matter.

"So, you got your notes ready?"

As I ask dryly, Satoshi merely bounced back the question to me,

"What about you? It's not something you're used to doing. You thought up of something yet?"

I felt a bit embarrassed at having to answer that, so I said,

"Well, sort of."

"Oh? Now that's rare. Normally you would try and find an excuse and deny such questions...... Anyway, I'll go get my bike, so hang on a bit longer."

And so Satoshi insolently left me waiting while he trotted towards the bicycle parking lot.

As to why I was waiting for Satoshi out here when I ought to be sleeping like there's no tomorrow during such a precious Summer Vacation, we'll need to go back to a week ago, the day when we were so close to finding out the truth about Sekitani Jun, which should be written in the first volume of the club anthology "Hyouka", only to find out that that specific volume was missing. As we couldn't get anywhere without that first volume, I thought to myself that I was not going to go all out to pursue the answer. But it was already too late, for I had crossed the Rubicon without even realizing.

I knew it was pointless to dissuade Chitanda from this, so I proposed a compromise solution. If we're going to investigate the past, just the two of us was not going to be enough. It may be a bit hard for her, but I told her that we had a better chance of solving this with Satoshi and Ibara's help.

Thereupon Chitanda nodded in agreement,

"I guess we have no choice then."

Even though she requested to keep it between ourselves during our discussion in the Cafe Pineapple Sandwich, I ended up letting her down. I could not tell if it Chitanda realized deeply that she would need all the support she could get, or because she no longer regarded the clue that appeared before as important anymore, or it could be possible that our lady here was simply whimsical, at any rate, she had called for an emergency meeting with the Classics Club the following day.

There, Chitanda repeated what she told me before and concluded,

"I'm 'very' curious as to what happened to my uncle 33 years ago."

Ibara accepted the challenge right away,

"The cover illustration interests me. If we can solve this and find out the story behind that, I could even use it as publishing material for the Manga Studies Club."

Satoshi followed,

"The Fictional Heroic Tale to be solved by their juniors 33 years later, huh? I just happened to be researching into stuff from that period."

And approved with both hands raised. While I had no intention of speaking since I had no power of veto, I decided to say something anyway since we're at it,

"Since we're still deciding on what to write for our essay anthology, why don't we use Chitanda's story to help fill up the pages...... um, I mean, killing two birds with one stonr...... sorry, I mean, write something meaningful for it?"

My energy-saving proposal, though quite forward-looking, was accepted unanimously. And so investigating the incident of the Kamiyama High School Classics Club 33 years ago became the Classics Club's priority.