Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume29 Chapter5 7

Santa's Refreshments. Part 7.

Friday.

The arts club delivered the signboard during the lunch break, just as they had promised.

Last year's sign had been written as though advertising a sumo wrestling tournament, while this year's was written as though it were for a Kabuki play. Looking at it, you expected to see the names of some famous actors like Nakamura, Bandou or Ichikawa written on the sign.

"At first glance, it looks black, right?"

The president of the arts club said, pointing at the lettering. The two club members who had carried the signboard to the Rose Mansion had left it outside, to catch the sun's rays.

Yumi, who had come outside to receive the signboard, said, "Yep," and nodded her head in agreement, since it certainly looked black to her. Then she was asked once more:

"Even when you look closely, it looks black, right?"

"It's not?"

Touko and Noriko-chan had accompanied Yumi outside and they both shook their head, unable to see anything other than black writing.

"I thought you'd say that. Ta-dah."

The arts club president held up a piece of black imitation vellum. It was about the size of a paperback. She then brought the vellum close to where 'Graduating students farewell party' was written –

"Ooooh."

Isn't that strange. When viewed alongside something that was genuinely black, it was immediately obvious that the lettering was slightly different. It was a very dark purplish blue.

"It takes someone with a great color sense to come up with such a nice result."

The arts club president responded to this compliment by fishing for compliments by good-naturedly saying, "Praise me more."

"Very stylish."

"One more."

"Wait, best in all Japan."

"Okaaay, take it, you thieves."

Finally, there was a smattering of applause from the three girls from the Rose Mansion and the three girls from the arts club, and the handover was completed. The president of the arts club was as funny a person as ever.

In the evening, Noriko-chan and Touko went to the main gates to receive the delivery of 200 roses from the florist. But when they returned, they weren't just carrying flowers.

"What's this?"

Yumi asked Noriko-chan, after spotting the plastic bag with a pharmacy's logo on it that contained a number of small, thin boxes. Touko was currently busy placing the flowers into water-filled buckets. The flowers were red, white, yellow and salmon pink. Fifty flowers each of the four different colors.

"It's a present from a kind Santa."

Noriko-chan said, as though reciting from a textbook.

"Huh?"

"– is what I was told to say."

By the so-called kind Santa.

Still, this Santa seemed quite eccentric. Randomly appearing in the middle of March and giving an inappropriate gift to girls carrying flowers. And since Santa normally was kind anyway, he wouldn't refer to himself as a 'kind Santa.'

"It was Sei-sama, right?"

That gave them these gifts.

"Correct. It was pretty easy to figure out."

"Yeah."

Accepting the plastic bag from Noriko-chan, Yumi took the small, gold boxes out of the plastic bag and lined them up on the table. They were, unmistakeably, energy drinks. Ten of them, in all.

Now's not the time to be feeling tired. Yumi could just picture Sei-sama saying that to them.

"What's this, Sei-sama gave us a supply of energy drinks?"

"I haven't seen these ones before."

Yoshino-san and Shimako-san took a break from their work and came over to have a look.

In general, high school students didn't have much contact with energy drinks. A quick survey showed that only Yumi and Noriko-chan had tried them before.

"It looks like it has alcohol in it, so I wonder if it's okay for us to drink."

Shimako-san murmured, reading the list of ingredients.

"But, see, it says here 'suitable for people 15 years and over.'"

"All those over the age of 15 – "

Yoshino-san called out, and everyone responded by saying 'Here' and raising their hand. All present were apparently qualified to drink these.

Still, no-one reached out for a drink. The hesitation arose because taking one would mean admitting that you were tired.

In the middle of that.

"I shall drink one of these."

Jumping in at the deep end, Shimako-san opened one of the boxes with a determined look on her face. Even though it seemed like a fairly trivial matter, it probably still required a certain amount of determination to taste some (completely unknown) new drink.

However, inside the box there was a tray that protected the bottle, and the bottle came with a straw already attached to the mouth, but wrapped in plastic. Since Shimako-san hadn't encountered anything like this before, she wasn't going about opening the bottle in a particularly efficient manner.

"Here, onee-sama."

Noriko-chan handed a completed bottle to Shimako-san, who was still fighting hard. Then she took Shimako-san's bottle and finished opening it.

"This is a gift from onee-sama's onee-sama, right?"

"Yes."

Shimako-san nodded. She must have wanted to receive Sei-sama's feelings. Through her stomach.

"Oh well. I'm not really all that tired … "

Yoshino-san opened a box as well. Followed by Yumi and Touko.

Shimako-san and Noriko-chan waited for them, so they all said, "Cheers," and clinked their bottles together before drinking.

It was an anticipatory celebration. Of all they had done. And of what was to come tomorrow.

Feeling slightly flushed and tingly, the five girls walked abreast along the path lined with ginkgo trees.

"You know, my father drinks this sort of thing and says that it relaxes him. I wonder what the real story is."

Yoshino-san muttered, taking one of the empty cans out of the shopping bag.

"He keeps drinking them, even though they don't have any effect?"

Surely he wouldn't go out of his way to buy them if he thought they were having no effect whatsoever.

"But if you kept drinking this kind of thing, your body would get used to it and it wouldn't have as much effect, right?"

After hearing Touko's theory, Noriko-chan jumped on board too.

"And then you have to find something stronger – that kind of thing?"

"Yeah."

The Yamayurikai members had considered it improper to leave the empties from their energy drink party lying around, so had gathered them up to take home and dispose of. Yoshino-san had been asked to take them home, as she lived the closest to school.

The five untouched boxes had been left in the Rose Mansion with a label that read, 'Refreshments from Satou Sei-sama.' The use-by-date printed on the boxes was November of the following year, so there was bound to be another time when they all were busy and feeling tired before then. Like, for example, the school festival, or next year's 'third-years' send-off.'

"It tasted like the cough-syrup I used to have as a child."

Shimako-san smiled, reminiscing. Yumi remembered the cough-syrup as bitter medicine, so was surprised at how easily Shimako-san seemed to have drunk it.

"Didn't you think it tasted more like caramel pudding?"

"I'm not sure – "

Yumi was the only one not to endorse Yoshino-san's opinion.

"I thought it tasted more like my grandfather's medicinal alcohol."

"Do you drink that often?"

They had reached the school gates and, after a good laugh, they waved goodbye and went their separate ways.

It may just have been Yumi's imagination, but everyone seemed a little bit giddy. Even though they hadn't thought they were tired, perhaps some fatigue had set in that they weren't aware of, and the energy drinks had cleared that away.

Unfortunately, the energy drink didn't have the power to make you remember things you had forgotten. Still, it was surely better to remain oblivious and sleep soundly, than to remember it now, when it was probably too late.