Public pressure against magicians was growing stronger as the days went by, but school was a sort of autonomous zone. It didn’t have so much independence that it possessed extraterritorial rights, but it was definitely a society somewhat estranged from the rest of the world. First High’s school grounds were no exception, maintaining peace and quiet for the time being. But Tatsuya was certain now that he’d heard what Fumiya had to say that this was nothing but the calm before the storm.

And sure enough, the news came through the phone lines to inform him that the storm had arrived on the evening of Thursday, April 19.

“Tatsuya, thank you very much for your warm welcome the other day despite our sudden visit.”

“You’re very welcome.” All he’d done to warrant the term warm welcome was serve tea and snacks. Tatsuya realized Ayako was saying it to be diplomatic, but he didn’t take her up on the back-and-forth of flattery and modesty. “What news do you have for me today?”

“Won’t you ever engage in even a paltry bit of small talk, Tatsuya?”

“Maybe next time.”

Ayako, wavering between two reactions—being mad or giving an amazed sigh—eventually chose to simply give up. “Well…that will do for today. This is something quite important, after all.”

“I’m ready to listen.”

Tatsuya’s mind had been focused on this important matter since before she’d started talking. Ayako, facing down a stare strong enough to poke holes through her despite being on the other side of a screen, averted her eyes in mild embarrassment.

“A concrete schedule regarding the incident Fumiya informed you of the other day has been decided.” But even an embarrassed Ayako could perform her duties properly. In this sense, she wasn’t as lowbrow a girl as her appearance might suggest. “On April twenty-fifth, next Wednesday, a Diet member will be coming to observe First High.”

“Is it Kanda from the Civil Rights party?”

“Yes—I’m surprised you knew.”

“Well, isn’t that surprising.”

Kanda was a relatively young up-and-coming politician in the opposition party, known as a civil rights activist extremely critical of Japan’s defense forces. He’d suddenly been appearing frequently in the media since the beginning of the week. And while the words and actions media outlets displayed seemed at a glance to make him an ally to magicians, it was a ploy—anyone even a little bit cautious would have understood he was actually attempting to remove magicians from the JDF.

“Indeed,” said Ayako, letting out a giggle, perhaps feeling the sarcasm was warranted. “Mr. Kanda plans to barge into First High with his usual group of correspondents.”

“Barge in and do what?”

“We don’t know that much, unfortunately.”

“Meaning they’re not setting up for anything too big,” nodded Tatsuya, convinced, not even pretending to think about Ayako’s answer.

“How, exactly, did you mange to twist things into that interpretation…?”

The only people in the conversation were Tatsuya and Ayako. Miyuki wasn’t beside Tatsuya, nor was Fumiya next to Ayako. Perhaps eased because nobody was watching the conversation, she made a blank, confused face, a juvenile expression suitable for her age.

“If they were planning something large scale, there’s no way you wouldn’t know about it, right?”

“…I’ll take that as a compliment,” replied Ayako, at a loss but managing to stay cool (or so she believed, at least).

“It was a compliment.”

However, after receiving an even more serious-sounding follow-up attack, she was actually dumbstruck.

“Tatsuya…you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“It’s people like you who… No, never mind.”

Ayako appeared ready to pursue the point, but presented with an ironclad poker face that perfectly hid Tatsuya’s feelings, she swallowed what she had been about to say. The other reason was that she’d remembered a moment before doing so that it wasn’t why she’d called him.

“As you’ve said, we don’t believe this to be anything large scale. It will probably be one of his regular performances. But might not his entourage of journalists plan on padding it out many times over and make a song and dance of it?”

“I see. Yes, they might do that.” For the first time tonight, he pretended to be deep in thought for his second cousin. But it only lasted a few seconds before he returned his gaze to Ayako, a slightly appreciative smile on his face. “Thanks for contacting me. This will be a big help.”

“I very much look forward to observing your skills, Tatsuya.”

Ayako returned an affected smile and, after bowing, ended the call.

On the next day, Friday, April 20, Tatsuya called Azusa and Isori to the student council room before the morning bell.

“Huh? But isn’t that a major affair?!” After hearing a Diet member from the opposition party would be coming to observe, Azusa lurched to her feet, shoving out her chair, and wailed.

“…Do you really need to get that upset over it?” Kanon, stuck to Isori like usual, offered up.

“No, this is a bona fide incident, Kanon,” Isori chided. “On a surface level, Mr. Kanda’s opinions appear to be safeguarding magician rights. But his argument is to declare it evil that the military takes in magicians. His intent to block magicians’ involvement in the military is hiding under the surface.”

“Well, even I get that. But he’s trying to target the military and the school, right? Not us.” Kanon responded to Isori with a slightly miffed look; maybe she didn’t like how Isori had taken Azusa and Tatsuya’s side instead of hers.

“Even if it leads to us losing our freedom?” Isori asked.

Kanon looked startled. She still didn’t quite get what Isori was concerned about.

“If people who want to stop the military from using magicians get into power, they would definitely prohibit magic high school students like us from choosing the Defense Academy route after graduation, and Magic University graduates from entering the armed forces. They’d probably try to restrict us from having any interest in national defense at all.”

“You mean they’re trying to censor the way we think?” asked Kanon, not buying it.

Isori lowered his eyelids a little and shook his head. He wasn’t denying the question Kanon had voiced, but rather the one that had shown up on her face.

“Principled pacifism doesn’t allow for analyzing military threats to one’s country or for debating the necessity of defensive military preparedness. They try to completely wipe out any speech that seems to accept the presence of an armed force. They would even use violent methods to enforce it. They probably don’t have any reason to hesitate to instate thought censorship. After all, they claim to champion magicians’ human rights at the same time that they try and take away their freedom of employment.”

It was an unexpectedly scathing criticism. Even Kanon, who thought she knew Isori best, was a little embarrassed. Tatsuya felt surprised, too—maybe that was natural. Did Isori have some kind of bad memories of this “principled pacifism”?

“…So we have to assume it will have to do with us, Kanon. And Shiba—how do you plan on dealing with it?” Perhaps sensing he’d gotten a little too excited, Isori gave an awkward, insincere smile and tried to change the topic. “I’m sure you called us because you have some ideas.”

“Yes.” Tatsuya turned around to glance at Miyuki. Having waited patiently behind him ever since Azusa and the rest had arrived, she now handed the e-blackboards in her hands to Azusa and Isori. Tatsuya went on the moment he saw them lower their gazes to the boards:

“They want to criticize magic high schools, saying they’ve turned into places for military education and that they force their students to enter the armed forces. In which case, all we need to do is show them that we see good results in magical education aside from classes aimed toward militaristic goals.”

Tatsuya spoke the conclusion straight from the shoulder. Nobody vocally agreed, or argued, or even raised a question.

“Therefore, I’d like to have a somewhat showy demonstration when Mr. Kanda arrives at our school.”

“…‘Somewhat’?”

“…This is ‘somewhat’?”

Finally there was a reaction from Azusa and Isori. Indirect expressions of objection, given with appalled faces. But their voices couldn’t quite express the appalled nuance like their faces; their tones seemed superficial.

“The preparations will be a lot of work, but the demonstration itself won’t be much different from the electric discharge experiments or implosion experiments done on a daily basis. At least not on the surface.”

“Maybe just at a glance, but…” Even as Azusa weakly protested, her face didn’t change—she still seemed to be trying to endure Tatsuya’s dry grin.

“They’ll look similar on the outside, but this will mean something completely different…but I guess that’s what will make it work so well. Still, Shiba—” Finally seeming to have pulled out of his shock, Isori nodded and spoke as though to himself before turning a troubled look on Tatsuya. “Can we really do this? A thermonuclear reactor with a resident gravity-controlling magic program is one of the Three Great Practical Problems of Weighting Magic.”

Now that Isori asked about the core part of his plan, a slight hint of hesitation passed over Tatsuya’s face.

“We can’t make a real one yet.”

However, that didn’t reveal a lack of confidence as to the plan’s practicality, but instead that he’d been wondering how he was going to answer this question.

“We can’t even call it an experimental reactor, because it’s not an actual reactor. But we can show it off in a more flashy and more easily understandable way than last year’s Thesis Competition, when all we did was suggest that creating a nuclear fusion reactor was possible.”

“…With a stellar reactor?” Azusa mumbled. She hadn’t looked up from her e-blackboard throughout any of the conversation, and was still in that pose. “A continuous thermonuclear reactor with a resident gravity-controlling magic program. It seems like the opposite of the concept Suzune suggested of an intermittent type of nuclear reactor.”

As Azusa gazed fixedly at the e-blackboard, she couldn’t see either boy’s face. “And the energy it can draw per unit of time is leagues more than her system… If we create your stellar reactor, Shiba, it would be possible to provide energy whether it’s day or night, without receiving influence from meteorological conditions. Factories could operate electric power supply without fear, and we wouldn’t have to fear a second global cooling. This demonstration is probably as good as you can get to appeal to the peaceful uses of magic.”

Her mutterings, which seemed spoken to herself, broke off, and she turned her face to Tatsuya. “Was this your plan all along?”

“It’s not exactly my own idea, but it is what I’ve been aiming for. The magic skill needed is still too high, so it’s pretty far from being implemented, but if we get all the students in school together to help, we can create a working experimental reactor.”

Tatsuya nodded more firmly to Azusa’s question—as if to say a thermonuclear reactor with a resident gravity-controlling magic program was the very pinnacle he was striving to attain. A stellar reactor was nothing but a central piece to accomplish his real goal, but right now, he didn’t intend to let them know about that.

“I see… All right.”

Azusa, too, nodded in an uncharacteristically strong manner. Tatsuya hadn’t told them everything, but he was sincere in his intent to realize this stellar reactor. And Azusa had nodded because she’d sensed his earnestness.

“Isori?” She turned to face Isori. “I think we should help Shiba with his plan. What do you think?”

“I’ll help, too. A public experiment of a stellar reactor—I’d be more than willing to get involved, not only to deal with Mr. Kanda but as someone who wants to be a magical engineer.”

Perhaps it was just the fact that Azusa had been the one to ask, but Isori, too, nodded vigorously.

During lunch break that day, Tatsuya visited Jennifer Smith in the faculty room. The rule was that if someone wanted to conduct an extracurricular experiment, they had to speak to their club adviser if it was for a club, or to their homeroom teacher if it was independent and outside club activities, and if they were a Course 2 student without a homeroom teacher, they needed to submit a request form to the main office and get the school’s approval.

Jennifer suddenly frowned after seeing the list of magic to be used at the top of the application form.

“Gravity control, Coulomb repulsion control, a fourth-phase shift, a gamma-ray filter, a neutron barrier… Shiba, are you doing an experiment on a high-powered laser cannon, or…?”

“That was not my intent, ma’am.”

Tatsuya answered his homeroom teacher’s question with an artless, standard phrase. The situation didn’t exactly call for an amusing response, but part of it was probably that he’d been too taken aback to choose anything other than a platitude that he wouldn’t have to think about. He hadn’t realized until Jennifer pointed it out that the combination of spells he’d placed on the list could also be used to create a laser weapon that used nuclear fusion explosions.

But Jennifer hadn’t been listening to Tatsuya’s answer, either, so maybe it went both ways. Her question was more of a monologue—her eyes were plastered to the form.

“This is quite the ambitious experiment…” She looked up from the e-paper with the form displayed on it and over to Tatsuya, who stood next to her. “But can you guarantee it’s safe?”

“Mathematically, yes.”

Tatsuya’s answer may have seemed irresponsible, but Jennifer didn’t rebuke him for it. One of the points of experiments was to see whether something that was possible in theory was also possible in the real world. Prohibiting an experiment because one didn’t actually know whether it was safe would be, in a way, putting the cart before the horse. And she was a scientist, a person far removed from any such foolishness.

“In our school’s presentation at last year’s Thesis Competition, you used a proton-proton chain reaction to avoid neutron radiation exposure. You’ve opted to use a deuterium-deuterium reaction for this experiment—why is that?”

Of course, that didn’t mean she hadn’t considered the risks. Keeping risk to a mathematical minimum was something that automatically made its way into her considerations.

Needless to say, Tatsuya had thought about that, too. His answer came fluidly. “By its nature, a P-P chain reaction has conditions that are too strict to be used as an energy source. With Ichihara’s experiment, we used a probability-controlling spell to induce the reaction, but given its usage as an energy reactor, one could say it’s better to have as few spells injected into the system as possible. Besides, even with a P-P chain reaction, the danger of radiation exposure is small, but that doesn’t mean neutrons won’t emerge at all.”

Jennifer folded her arms and thought his answer over. “…All right. But I can’t give permission alone. I’ll forward your form. We should have a decision by after school today.”

“Thank you very much, ma’am. I’d also like you to treat this experiment as strictly confidential.”

Tatsuya hadn’t believed he’d get permission to use the radiation lab and the schoolyard immediately. After adding that final thing, he bowed to Jennifer and left.

“So did you get permission for the experiment?” Azusa asked.

They were in the student council room after school. In response to her, Tatsuya held out the application form on which was written the principal’s electronic signature and message. “Conditionally, but yes, it was approved.”

“What are the conditions?” Isori inquired, causing Azusa to look up from the e-paper displaying the form.

“It’s an obvious thing,” Tatsuya explained, “but a teacher has to oversee it. That’s the condition.”

“Makes sense. Which teacher will be with us?”

But at the same time Isori layered another question atop Tatsuya’s response, the chime indicating a visitor rang.

“Mr. Tsuzura,” Miyuki answered, checking the monitor. She turned back to Isori. “It looks like he took the trouble to come all the way here.”

The one who quickly rose to her feet was Izumi. She didn’t appear to be moving briskly in the slightest, but, suitably for a freshman, she headed for the door before one of her upperclassmen could respond and welcomed their guest in.

With Tsuzura’s visit, the student council’s activities temporarily ceased. Honoka and Izumi, who had been training in student council operations, had also stopped their work and were now at the conference table. Tsuzura took a seat where the student council president usually sat, and the student council room quickly changed into a meeting room for discussing their experiment. The one who had planned this experiment was Tatsuya, and its collaborators for the moment were limited to student council members, so it couldn’t be said that meeting here in this room was without reason.

“I’ve looked over the experiment’s procedure, and I think it’s an interesting approach.”

Wetting his throat with tea brought out by Pixie, Tsuzura made the first statement of the meeting.

“Shiba, how were you thinking of splitting up responsibilities?”

Splitting up responsibilities in this case referred to who would oversee what magic. The spells to be used were gravity control, Coulomb repulsion control, fourth-phase shift, a gamma-ray filter, and a neutron barrier.

“First, I was thinking of asking Mitsui to handle the gamma-ray filter.”

“Me?!”

Suddenly named, Honoka raised a dumb-sounding voice. She hadn’t heard about the details of the experiment at this phase, so one couldn’t blame her.

“I can’t think of anyone who is superior to you when it comes to magic for controlling the oscillation frequency of electromagnetic waves, Honoka. Will you do this for us?”

“I understand! I’ll do my best!”

But in the end, Honoka, without asking anything important, enthusiastically nodded at his request. Considering her feelings, this, too, was perhaps inevitable.

“The Coulomb repulsion I’ll leave to Isori.”

Perhaps having heard everything already, Isori nodded without a word.

“I have an idea as to a freshman who can handle the neutron barrier, so I was thinking of asking her.”

At this line from Tatsuya, Izumi’s expression twitched.

“A freshman? Will that be all right?”

Tsuzura probably couldn’t help feeling uneasy as well. He cut in with a remark that seemed involuntary.

“Yes. She has a natural talent for anti-object barrier magic.”

“Who would that be?”

“Her name is Minami Sakurai. She’s my cousin.”

“I see.”

But upon hearing Tatsuya’s explanation, Tsuzura returned his posture to his previous leaned-forward one with an eased expression. To Tatsuya, the change in his attitude seemed like it had come too easily. In all likelihood, Tsuzura’s concerns hadn’t been allayed because she was Tatsuya’s cousin; he’d decided he could trust her because she was Miyuki’s cousin. That was how Tatsuya interpreted it.

“I haven’t decided whom to ask about the fourth-phase shift yet. And I’d like to leave the central factor, the gravity control, to my sister.”

At the same time Tatsuya said that, Miyuki bowed slightly in her seat.

“I think those are all appropriate selections.”

Tsuzura appeared convinced this time as well. He, of course, knew as well as anyone else that the student with the highest magic power in First High, leaving the seniors aside, was Miyuki.

“In which case, the first issue we’ll need to resolve is who to ask for the fourth-phase shift spell.” Saying that, Tsuzura looked over to Azusa. “Would Nakajou not work?”

In the end, the one who answered his proposal wasn’t Azusa herself, but Tatsuya: “I’d like the president to keep watch over everything in balance.”

“I see. Yes, that would be more appropriate.”

As he withdrew his own proposal, Tsuzura’s face became thoughtful again. At that point, Izumi raised her hand.

“Excuse me, but if it’s all right, would we be able to undertake that particular job?”

This proposition should have been unexpected, but Tatsuya responded in a businesslike tone without letting his true feelings to the surface. “When you say we, do you mean both you and Kasumi?”

“Yes. We may lack strength alone, but together I’m sure we’ll be able to help.”

Hearing Izumi’s words, of the other six in this place (Tsuzura, Azusa, Isori, Tatsuya, Miyuki, Honoka), four looked hesitant.

“…Mr. Tsuzura knowing about it aside, I hadn’t thought even you, Shiba, would have been aware.”

Of course, from Izumi’s own perspective, it was natural for the others to be dubious about her proposal, and when it was accepted like it was natural, she couldn’t help but brace herself. There was no way an upperclassman chosen as an engineer for the Nines and as a representative for the Thesis Competition wouldn’t know the meaning of two people being assigned to one spell. No surprise being expressed despite that meant nothing other than that Izumi and Kasumi’s skill was already known.

“Why don’t we discuss that at another opportunity? Not that such an opportunity will come for sure, but…”

Tatsuya smoothly turned aside Izumi’s searching gaze and projected a model diagram of the experiment onto the large screen on the wall.

“Mr. Tsuzura, Mitsui and Saegusa don’t know the details of the experiment. I’d like to explain everything from the beginning for them, and also to make sure everyone knows.”

Gaining Tsuzura’s agreement, Tatsuya revealed the experiment’s details once again to the student council members. The contents were such that Azusa, Isori, and Miyuki already knew them, but nobody in the room looked bored.

“…The stellar reactor system, from a technological standpoint, is still full of parts that aren’t mature yet. But if the people here work together and function as a team, we can definitely succeed at this experiment, said to be one of the Three Great Problems. That is what I believe.”

Thus wrapping things up in the end, Tatsuya got his stellar reactor off to a small start.

The practical preparation period for the stellar reactor experiment was four days long, from April 21 to April 24. Considering the time that had been needed to build the Thesis Competition’s experiment equipment, the lack of time seemed hopeless. And they couldn’t fully mobilize the entire student body this time, either.

Tatsuya and the others shouldn’t have even known about Mr. Kanda’s plans to come observe. On the face of things, this experiment needed to be something planned and executed without any connection to the opposition party member and media visiting the school. They didn’t need to keep the stellar reactor experiment itself a secret, but because of the discreet nature of the reason behind it, the only people they could use for it were the student council members and those who volunteered to help.

But even from such a humble start, Tatsuya and Miyuki hadn’t viewed the situation pessimistically—though they were the only ones. Like he’d told Isori, they wouldn’t be creating an energy reactor as an actual structure this time; they would just show its mechanism. This experiment was fundamentally a demonstration of magic; they weren’t attempting to assemble an experimental device that could actually operate, as they had been in the Thesis Competition.

Tatsuya had kept that difference firmly in mind. Miyuki, for her part, wouldn’t ever take a pessimistic view of anything her brother was trying to do.

Preparations steadily advanced, and as their goal started to come into a more concrete, physical view, the urgency began to fade from the faces of the other members participating in the experiment. Even Kasumi, who was always making that irritated face like she was doing all this reluctantly, had applied herself to the experiment enough to rival Miyuki’s own contributions. Even Chiaki Hirakawa, with a dubious attitude and always wondering how it had come to this, never stopped working. Even Tomitsuka, who had dragged Chiaki into it in an ill-informed act of benevolence—the anxiety was starting to disappear from all their faces, replaced by something like determination to see things through. Though there were outsiders mixed in—namely Kento Sumisu—the silvery-haired freshman did nothing but look at Tatsuya with a yearning gaze, appearing to exude joy from every pore just for being able to help.

And so it was that on Tuesday, April 24, the day before the real deal, one final rehearsal was held in the radiation laboratory after school. They injected a solution of 50 percent heavy water and 50 percent light water into a globular water tank, which was built with a transparent, high-durability, heat-resistant resin that could withstand great pressure.

Tsuzura had been the one to prepare all the heavy water. While it was possible to industrially produce it from normal seawater, it was still very difficult for a mere high school student to procure so much of it. They’d acquired it in such abundance because Tsuzura had put his own connections to full use.

“All right, let’s get started. Miyuki?”

“Yes.”

The first spell, to control gravity, activated.

“Kasumi, Izumi?”

“Fourth-phase shift is go.”

The twin sisters spoke at the same time, executing their fourth-phase shift spell.

“Honoka, Minami?”

“The gamma-ray filter is in effect.”

“Neutron barrier stabilized.”

Rather than relying on their reports alone, Tatsuya checked each step of the experiment with his “eyes” as they went on.

“Miyuki?”

“Focus set.”

Tatsuya called Miyuki’s name one more time, and she reported that all preparations were now complete.

“Isori?”

“Starting the electromagnetic repulsion dampening.”

And as the final safety valve was released, the members positioned in front of the measurement device began talking over one another as they checked the various statuses.

“Gravitational field stability level is okay.” “Gamma rays within error tolerance.” “Neutron rays within error tolerance.” “…”

As he listened to the voices, Tatsuya watched calmly and closely the first step of his own dream.

The final rehearsal was over. Had it been a normal experiment, today would have seen its completion, as it had given them satisfactory results. However, this experiment was for a demonstration for the anti-magic activists—the real show would be tomorrow. The team members left the lab with hearts filled with anticipation.

Azusa and Isori had volunteered to clean up and close up, so the rest of the members moved to the student council room. School was about to close, but Tatsuya thought some sort of emergency call might have come. The other members were in a long line; Miyuki and Honoka were behind him, Izumi and Minami stood behind Miyuki, and Kasumi stood behind Izumi. Kasumi and Minami weren’t part of the student council, but nobody was here to worry about that right now.

“Welcome back.”

Shizuku was there to greet them. She wasn’t a student council member, either, but like her superior (?), the disciplinary committee chairwoman, she was frequently in the room thanks to the stairs linking them directly. It was hard to imagine from her restrained appearance, but Shizuku actually had a pretty free-spirited personality. But her sense of responsibility was stronger than average, so if they ever asked her to mind the place, she’d do the job properly.

“Sorry for making you wait, Shizuku,” Miyuki offered appreciatively. “Thank you.”

“Nothing happened in particular.” Shizuku shook her head, then turned to face her best friend. “Honoka, what’s that?”

Honoka immediately grimaced and let out a short groan. As though that was enough to answer the question, Shizuku shook her head and sighed.

She stood up, then moved behind Honoka and grabbed her friend’s shoulders. Honoka stood about a half head above Shizuku, but without caring about that, Shizuku turned Honoka’s body in such a way that it faced Tatsuya directly. Then, after removing her hands for now, Shizuku gave a glance around, found Honoka’s bag, and without asking took a small, neatly wrapped box out of it. After pressing the box into Honoka’s hands, she went around behind her again and firmly pushed against her back.

Honoka, having stopped after a step and a half, looked up into Tatsuya’s face from closer than before. She was positioned just a little too far away for it to seem like a romantic scene. Still, it wasn’t easy for Honoka to do anything too bold with so many people watching, despite her tunnel-vision habit. What she was about to attempt was innocuous.

“Umm, Tatsuya!”

After speaking, Honoka shut her eyes tight and held out the small box in her hands.

“Today—today is your birthday, right?”

Tatsuya didn’t have time to respond before Honoka continued. She spoke so quickly it seemed like she might not have even taken a breath, but it certainly wasn’t difficult to understand her.

“It’s not much, but I really tried hard to pick it out! Please—this is for you!”

A voice from Kasumi saying, “Are they like that?” reached Tatsuya’s ears, but obviously Honoka hadn’t heard it.

“Of course—gladly.”

The moment Tatsuya’s hands touched Honoka’s present, he felt a gaze, a stabbing one. But by the time he took a quick sidelong glance behind him, the icy blade of a glare had vanished without a trace.

“Thank you.”

“Y-you’re welcome. Umm, please don’t unwrap it until you’re alone, if that’s okay.”

“Hm? Yeah, got it.”

Tatsuya nodded, his face a little mystified. Honoka let out a big breath. She looked so exhausted she might collapse at any moment, but thankfully she just staggered a bit. Perhaps realizing from her expression full of accomplishment that she couldn’t do any more than this, Shizuku walked up next to her.

“Tatsuya, are you free this Sunday?”

Shizuku starting conversations abruptly was par for the course. Tatsuya was completely used to it, but he couldn’t avoid feeling a moment’s bafflement.

“What time?”

Of course, it only lasted an instant. He carried on the conversation without any gaps.

“Evening. Around six.”

“…That should be fine.”

He had a conference at FLT R & D Section 3 regarding development on a fully thought-controlled CAD on Sunday, but he had more than enough time to make it back by six. The rest of the company was one thing, but Section 3 would never drag on longer than expected and keep him there.

“It’s a little late, but I want to have a birthday party at my house for you. Is that okay?”

The Is that okay? had three meanings packed into it: Would you be okay with joining us? Is my house okay to have it at? and Is it okay that I planned you a birthday party without telling you?

“Of course. If you’re willing to throw it, I’m willing to be there.”

He knew without having to ask that her proposition was an expression of goodwill and not her trying to use his birthday as an excuse for something else. He nodded without pretending to think about it, and Shizuku gave him a small nod back. Her face looked impassive, but the corners of her lips had softened just the slightest bit.

“What about you two, Miyuki and Minami?”

She immediately addressed Miyuki and Minami—maybe an unnecessary hiding of embarrassment.

“Yes, that will be fine.”

“I will gladly attend.”

Away from Miyuki answering cheerfully, and Minami answering reservedly, Kasumi was sizing up Tatsuya. She hadn’t thought he’d be the type most women would go for, but now her assessment was wavering.