Wasn't This Yours, Senior?
"Wasn't this yours, Senior?"
Since I'd already made up my mind to go, I dug through the gallery a little longer before I actually moved. There was something I needed to know first. I knew it had been dumped at the Recycling Collection Area—what I didn't know was exactly where.
A school's recycling station is never just a recycling station. It's where trash from every corner of the building ends up heaped together, and I had no desire to go rummaging through garbage on a blind guess. Fortunately, the gallery still held a fairly detailed account. There was even a thread arguing over which side it was on and which bag it had been stuffed into, so I had a rough idea of where to look.
At least it hasn't been long since she threw it out. Small mercies.
It was lunch right now. Not much time had passed since the thing was discarded, so if I had the spot right, the layout shouldn't have shifted much in the meantime. If this had happened the day before, I probably would have had to tear through every trash bag in the place. And if it had really come to that, I wouldn't have considered going in the first place.
Anyway, once I'd confirmed what I needed, I turned around at once.
Behind the school building, beneath a corrugated steel roof, every kind of trash had been gathered in one place. I stood at the entrance and slowly took in the surroundings, calling up what I'd read on the gallery. Toward the back, wedged into one of the bags lined up along the wall.
In truth, I had a decent guess the moment I looked. Even so, I deliberately turned my head this way and that, scanning the area. There probably weren't any spectators watching me—the gallery treated me as an Ordinary Guy, after all—but you never knew. Someone out there might be paying attention to the Recycling Collection Area itself.
I loitered around the edges for no good reason, then walked slowly farther in and crouched in front of a black trash bag at the spot I'd seen on the gallery.
They said it was around here…….
The mouth of the bag was tied loosely. Peering inside, I could see crumpled paper and something like plastic, and there, caught between them—
I actually found it.
I reached in and slipped out a black USB.
Just yesterday I'd been lamenting that even after living through something transcendent, nothing about me had changed. And yet, in the end, I'd done it. A successful first step, built on an asymmetry of information. Whatever else it was, what I'd been through could fairly be called a kind of urban fantasy, and that historic first achievement was precisely this: pulling someone else's discarded USB out of a trash bag.
"……."
Yeah… it looked pretty pathetic. Still, it was something. At the very least, I'd proven I could take information from the gallery and actually affect reality with it.
I let myself enjoy that small flicker of satisfaction for a moment.
All right. Now what do I do with this?
I'd found it, so I had to give it back. That much I'd expected from the moment I decided to come to the Recycling Collection Area. The problem was what came after handing it over. I would have to explain how I'd found it, and I couldn't act as if I already knew the whole story. It wasn't so much that I needed an excuse for Senior Han Sehee. I didn't want the spectators watching her to realize I was reading their community.
These are people who meddle in Causality itself, or whatever they call it…….
If they found out a human was eavesdropping on their chatter, there was no telling what they'd do.
……So a frontal assault is the only option.
By frontal assault, I meant saying—shamelessly, or rather, honestly—that I'd happened to pick it up. You find a USB in a trash bag by accident. How else are you supposed to find one? I'd already started this out of my own curiosity. If I couldn't take it back, better to get it over with quickly. Dawdle around with the thing in my pocket and I might pile up some strange misunderstanding, and besides, the campaign was set to start the moment lunch ended. Time was tight.
I slipped the USB into my pocket and headed off at once.
I reached the floor with the second-year classrooms and walked down the hall. I knew Senior Han Sehee was in Class 1 of the second year. With the gallery going on about her the way it did, there was no way not to know. As I drew near Class 1, I could already feel the restless atmosphere. I stopped at the classroom door and stole a look inside.
"Hey, did you check over there?"
"I'm telling you, it's not there. Not under the desks either."
"What about under the teacher's desk?"
"You think it'd be there?"
Inside, several students were bustling around in search of something. Among them was a face that was familiar, if you could call it that. The kind of looks you don't forget after one glance. Han Sehee stood hemmed in by a few classmates, wearing a troubled expression.
"Are you sure you actually left the USB there?"
"I did… Haah. I'm sorry. Because of me, everyone—"
"Why are you the one apologizing?"
"Does it even make sense for it to vanish after we get back from lunch?"
"Let's just ask around and check the other classes too."
The whole class seemed to be worrying over her together. Watching an entire homeroom step up like that, I figured she hadn't become student council president for nothing.
Just then, a male senior near the classroom door noticed me.
"Oh, a first-year?"
He looked me up and down, then tilted his head.
"What are you doing here? Looking for someone?"
A few nearby gazes swung my way.
…Now that I actually had to say it, this was kind of embarrassing.
"Um, excuse me……."
I pulled the black USB I'd found earlier out of my pocket and held it up.
"The USB you're looking for… is this it?"
"……Huh?"
At the word USB, every eye in the room snapped over at once.
"Wait, that really is a USB."
"Sehee, come here. There's a USB over here."
From deeper in the classroom, Senior Han Sehee hurried over.
"You found the USB?"
The moment she slipped out from between the others, her eyes went to the thing in my hand. Then they went wide.
"I think that's mine……."
And someone else was rushing up right beside her.
So that's Jeong Yuri.
I knew her at a glance. A girl with long black hair falling past her shoulders. Standing next to Han Sehee, she stared straight at the USB in my hand. She was trying to hide it, but I knew the whole story, and I could see how anxious she was. Well… that might also have been the bias I was already looking at her with.
I dropped my gaze a little, and there was a name tag on the vest she was wearing. Jeong Yuri.
…Yeah. That's her.
In the meantime, Han Sehee took a step closer and asked, carefully.
"Would it be all right if I asked where you found it?"
I'd roughly worked out an excuse on the way here.
"Ah…… I'm on recycling duty today."
"Sorry? Recycling?"
"Yes. I went by the Recycling Collection Area during lunch, and someone was throwing trash out even though it wasn't cleanup time yet. So I was going to bring it back to them…."
The longer I went on, the more the relief that had brightened Han Sehee's face at the news of the USB drained away, until her expression hardened again. She knit her brows and asked.
"Someone… threw it away?"
The other seniors around us started murmuring.
"Threw what away?"
"Did somebody pick it up by mistake and toss it?"
"Who takes a thing and dumps it straight at the recycling station?"
"Then……."
By that point, anyone would have drawn the obvious conclusion. Someone had stolen it on purpose and thrown it out.
That was when Jeong Yuri, as if the thief's own feet had started to itch, took a step forward and asked.
"Did you… see their face? Whoever threw it away……."
I looked at her for a moment. There was a strange tension drawn across Jeong Yuri's face, and from the front I could see how tightly her eyes were strained. Honestly, it was a little scary. Was she testing how much I knew? Or was she already certain I knew, and using those tensed eyes to warn me not to say it?
But… knowing the full story, I couldn't help the resentment that rose in me. And what exactly are you going to do if I actually say it?
I lifted the hand holding the USB, just a little. Then I pointed at Jeong Yuri, who had come right up in front of me, and said it.
"……."
The air went dead quiet in an instant. The students who had been clamoring over the recovered USB only a moment ago shut their mouths as if on cue. And every one of them was looking at me and Jeong Yuri.
"……."
"……."
The mood was such that if anyone so much as cracked a joke, they'd get mobbed for it. I'd expected as much…… but it was colder than I'd thought.
Jeong Yuri seemed to come back to herself a beat late, and she shot the question back at me.
"……What?"
"You look like someone I saw at the Recycling Collection Area earlier. I thought you were the one who'd thrown it out."
"M-me? Why would I throw that away?"
Her voice climbed, thick with indignation, and I met it with a thoroughly baffled look of my own.
"Oh, it wasn't you?"
"Of course it wasn't!"
"Ah……."
I nodded.
"Then I must have seen wrong."
"……."
"I'm sorry."
"……Huh? No—"
Before Jeong Yuri could get an answer out, I bent at the waist in a quick bow. She'd said it wasn't her. I had no intention of digging in and insisting until I was in too deep. That was territory I'd actually have to prove, logically. This was as far as I could go. Anything past it hadn't been in the plan, and it shouldn't be. My story about being on recycling duty was a lie I'd thrown together, and if anyone started asking for details, I'd be in trouble.
I lifted my head, stepped up to Han Sehee—who still looked dazed—and held out the USB. She still seemed unable to keep up with what had just happened, and when I placed it in her hand she accepted it in a blank sort of way.
"Huh? Ah— yes. Thank you, really……."
"Yep."
I answered at once and spun around. Then I walked out of the classroom without a single glance back. It was exactly the movement of someone who had tossed a bomb and bolted before it could go off.
I was curious how things would land behind me…….
I can just check the gallery anyway.
The thought was enough. I pulled the gallery up.
Whoa… A brief tangle with Han Sehee, and new posts were already sprouting like bamboo after the rain.
…So this is what they wanted?