Maria-sama ga Miteru Volume 28 Chapter 19

"This is yours, Shouko-chan."

Tsutako-san said.

"Yes."

Shouko-chan nodded.

"Ehhhh - !?"

The massive shock rolled over them like a tsunami. Which would make the preceding declaration of, "I'm sorry!" the earthquake.

But the response of, "Yes," to the statement, "This is yours, Shouko-chan," was frankly more astonishing.

"How long have you known?"

Yoshino-san snapped at Tsutako-san. The great detective was clearly not amused at being beaten at her own game.

"I had a hunch fairly early on. Then when I ran into her on the way back from the gymnasium, I thought it might be hers. She looked like she was agonizing over something. I could tell something was up, but I wasn't sure what."

"But your hunch came even earlier than that?"

Excluding the part when Tsutako-san went to the gymnasium, Yumi had been with her pretty much the whole time. So this was definitely something she wanted to hear. For reference.

"Earlier, you asked about how Katsura-san knew I was in the Rose Mansion, then we had a discussion about it, yeah? Since it looked like someone told her I was here."

"Ahh, I remember that."

"And the most logical explanation was that Shouko-chan told her when they met in the clubhouse."

"But then we ruled that out because Shouko-chan hadn't been told about it."

"That's right."

Tsutako-san snapped her fingers.

"Shouko-chan knew, even though she hadn't been told. So what would lead to that outcome?"

"She has ESP?"

Yumi's lame response was met with a derisive, "That's not it," from Yoshino-san and it was left to Shimako-san to provide an answer.

"I suppose Shouko-chan might have seen it. Tsutako-san going into the Rose Mansion, that is."

"Correct … right?"

Tsutako-san looked to Shouko-chan for confirmation.

"Yes."

But even then, so what?

"It may have just been a coincidence that she saw it, but it may also have been because she was waiting outside our second-year pine group classroom. And why would Shouko-chan be in a place like that?"

"Why indeed?"

The question being posed was why did Shouko-chan wait outside their classroom, not approach Tsutako-san in the hallway, and then surreptitiously follow them to the Rose Mansion. Yumi had no idea whatsoever.

"My current hypothesis is that she wasn't so much spying on me as checking to make sure that no-one else approached me."

Shouko-chan was listening to Tsutako-san's explanation along with everyone else.

"But, for what possible reason?"

Mami-san asked.

"So no-one could give me that roll of film. After all, it has Takeshima Tsutako written on it. If anyone found it, they'd bring it straight to me. So if she saw anyone strange approaching the classroom, she could step in and offer to return the film to me. Since we're both in the photography club, no-one would have a problem with that."

But then Tsutako-san relocated to the Rose Mansion. And Shouko-chan adjusted her tactics. Nobody would think to look for Tsutako-san in the Rose Mansion, so standing guard outside there would be pointless. So it'd be better to stake out the places where people would go to look for Tsutako-san.

"So she went to the clubhouse."

"Exactly. And that's when you met Katsura-san, right? You only told her I was in the Rose Mansion after you were satisfied that she didn't want to see me about the film. But after waiting at the clubhouse for a while you were getting restless, so you started to wander around. The courtyard's probably where you thought you dropped the film."

But that was where she met Mami-san, and was taken to the infirmary. What an incredible deduction. Yumi was impressed. It was pretty impressive that Tsutako-san could envisage all this based on those few hints, but what was even more impressive was that it all looked to be more or less correct.

"But then why did she drop it in the first place. If it's that important, surely she'd take good care of it."

It certainly seemed incomprehensible. Everyone agreed. Shouko-chan explained.

"I always carry it with me so that I don't lose it, and so Tsutako-sama doesn't see it. But today, while cleaning, I tripped over in the courtyard. That's probably when it fell out of my pocket. It was only after I'd finished washing out the cuts that I noticed it missing. I rushed back to the courtyard, but couldn't find it."

That was when Shouko-chan's suspicious behavior started.

"So?"

"In here are photos of me that were taken in secret."

Tsutako-san looked grim as she tapped on the top of the film canister.

"I'm sorry."

Shouko-chan earnestly apologized. But there was no, "That's okay," forthcoming.

"I shouldn't have stopped Yoshino-san."

So that's what she was thinking.

"Huh?"

Tsutako-san held the film in her left hand and cried out, "Here I go," as she made the kind of movement you'd use to unfurl a scroll with her right hand.

"Ahh - !? Don't do it!"

Yumi covered her eyes with both hands. Film can't be exposed to the light until after it's been processed. For someone who knew full well what it would do to expose the film, it was unthinkable.

"… Heh, as if I'd do that."

When she heard that, Yumi timidly opened her eyes and saw Tsutako-san smiling and rolling the film around on the palm of her hand. Naturally, it was undamaged. The film had not been pulled out of its casing. Apparently she'd just pretended to do that.

Still, as far as jokes go, the performance went a bit too far. Yumi had thought her heart was going to stop.

"I mean, I'm always taking hidden photographs, and I wouldn't be so self-centered as to say that I'm the only one who doesn't want to be photographed. Besides, I'm sure I've had my photo taken plenty of times without realizing it anyway."

Bravo, Tsutako-san.

Still, the friends gathered there understood perfectly.

For the past few months, Shouko-chan had been watching Tsutako-san intently. During that time, she had undoubtedly absorbed all kinds of things. The art of photography may come in time, but a small part of her already resembled Tsutako-san.

"It was fun, right?"

Tsutako-san asked, turning towards Shouko-chan. Shouko-chan said, "A little bit," then stuck out her tongue, smiled and said.

"No, a lot."

Incidentally, the 'Takeshima Tsutako' film was developed a couple of days later, and it contained photos that were too dark to make out the subject, out-of-focus shots, ones where some third person's elbow was intruding on a close-up - almost all of the photos were flawed in some way.

However, there was one photo. A wonderful shot, that had everyone buzzing.

It was a profile shot showing Tsutako-san's serious face as she was holding up her camera, preparing to take a photograph.

Chapter end