The three girls didn't linger long at Hara Kei's apartment.
Their visit this time was purely to check on Kei's condition, to see whether he needed their help.
According to Shizuka Hiratsuka, his illness wasn't serious. "He only took a day off. It can't be anything major," she had said. Still, some things couldn't be trusted without a firsthand look.
Upon confirming that Kei was merely overworked, all three breathed a sigh of relief.
After preparing dinner for him and watching him eat, they gradually took their leave.
Incidentally, when Yukinoshita carried the dinner into Kei's bedroom, she had twitched her nose in slight suspicion. She caught a faint, sweet-tart scent in the air—something that smelled vaguely like… mango?
But at that moment, Touma Kazusa was quietly peeling an apple for Kei, who lay in bed. Evidently inexperienced at such tasks, her apple had a bumpy, uneven surface, and the peel came off in broken strips. Seeing this made Yukinoshita's blood pressure rise slightly, and she quickly dismissed her fleeting suspicion.
"No need to peel the apple right now. Let's eat first," Yukinoshita said. "There's a folding table that can go over the bed. Touma, could you bring it over?" Since her hands were full carrying the plates, she indicated the direction with a slight nod of her pointed chin.
Touma seemed to have expected this. Carefully, she placed her "labor" into the bowl, then set it on Kei's bedside.
She stood up, stretching her legs slightly, the black stockings on her calves brushing together as if shaking off some minor numbness.
She also quietly kicked a small plastic container—emptied by someone earlier—into the darker recesses under the bed.
Somewhere no one else could see.
"All right, I'll take care of it," she said.
…
The next day.
Though his body still felt a little sluggish, it no longer hindered Kei's daily life.
After a rather uneventful morning, Kei carried his lunch to the clubroom's private lounge.
No—now it should be called the "Lamb Society" room.
While Kei was absent that day, Shizuka Hiratsuka had completed all the paperwork to officially register the club and even hung the room's nameplate.
The old "Storage Room" sign had been removed and replaced with a neat plaque reading "Lamb Society." On it was a cute chibi lamb, and in the lower right corner, in Hiratsuka's flowing handwriting, were the words:
"Those who enter this door must relinquish all despair."
Kei was intimately familiar with Hiratsuka's handwriting, having spent countless class hours studying her blackboard notes and reading her comments in his workbook.
Sighing with mixed feelings, he pushed the door open and entered.
As usual, he was the first one there.
But, unexpectedly, the second person to enter wasn't Yukinoshita, Chika, or Hiratsuka herself.
It was a woman Kei didn't recognize.
Judging by her uniform, nearly identical to Hiratsuka's, she must be a teacher.
"Excuse me, is this the 'Lamb Society'?" she asked, glancing at the plaque on the door before addressing Kei inside.
"Oh." Kei raised an eyebrow, thinking, So soon… a task already?
"Yes," he replied with a nod.
As the young teacher opened her mouth, seemingly about to speak further, Kei interjected, "But all our members are here. You might need to wait a moment—no, never mind. They've already arrived."
"Ah, Teacher Mio, you're here?" Yukinoshita arrived gracefully with a bento in hand, while Chika followed, curiously eyeing the newcomer. Only Yukinoshita seemed to have interacted with her before.
…
"This is Teacher Hina Mio. When I investigated why Touma Kazusa had stopped playing the piano, I got information from her," Yukinoshita explained, introducing the young teacher to the three members of the Lamb Society.
Kei was quietly surprised. Based on Yukinoshita's description, he had expected someone bold and outgoing like Hiratsuka. In reality, Mio appeared as a demure, refined young lady. People really couldn't be judged by appearances.
"Ah, I also want to thank you all," the young teacher said, nodding to the three. She seemed freshly graduated from university. "Getting Touma Kazusa back into the string club really eased a worry of mine. However…" she sighed, "I'm afraid I'll be troubling you again."
She pulled a white envelope from her pocket and placed it on the table. "Normally, students shouldn't be involved in this kind of matter," she said hesitantly. "But Hiratsuka strongly recommended you, and you've already helped me tremendously. Most importantly… I couldn't think of another way."
She let out a soft sigh and smiled ruefully. "Needing to ask students for help… I suppose I really am an incompetent teacher."
She passed the envelope toward Yukinoshita, indicating she should open it.
Inside was a stack of bills.
All ten-thousand-yen notes. Yukinoshita counted them: exactly thirty bills.
That meant three hundred thousand yen in total—roughly 16,000 yuan if converted to Kei's previous currency.
For students from most schools, 300,000 yen would be a fortune. But here, at St. Eden Academy, none of the three present were exactly short of money. They were startled but showed not a trace of greed.
"Whose money is this?" Yukinoshita asked, returning the bills to the envelope and looking at Teacher Mio.
She gave a bitter smile. "It should be from some club's activity funds, but the problem is…"
"I have no idea which club's funds these are," she admitted.
"I hope the members of the Lamb Society can help solve this problem and find the rightful owner of this 300,000 yen."