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"What's that? No club today then?"

"Well, ah-ha-ha, I'm sorry...!"

Mion put her hands together in apology and grinned.

"If you really want to do club today, then you can always do it without this old man. The club locker is stuffed full with games. You can pick whatever."

The club locker was the transdimensional space from which Mion pulled games whenever we met for club activities.
I wondered how so many freaking games could be stored in the locker—it was even smaller than the one with the cleaning supplies in it...
Besides those games, it was also a cornucopia of suspicious objects (costumes?) for punishment games...!
If we lined them all up on the floor in order to sort them, they would definitely fill the entire classroom.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe amateurs shouldn't meddle with this. He-he-he!"

Mion gave a hearty laugh, implying that the only one who could do so was the club president.

"Eh? ...Did I not return it to the teachers' lounge?"

Mion said, feeling about in her pocket.

...Judging by her expression, she must have planned on returning it, but it was still in her pocket.

"I knew you had it, Mion-san~! I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you simply must have been the one who had it!"

"......I was right, too. Satoko and I were both right."

Giggling, Satoko and Rika-chan clapped their hands together in celebration.

"You're annoying!"

Mion elbowed Satoko and Rika-chan in their heads, then headed for the teachers' lounge.

"Oh, right. Have you two heard? Mion has a part-time job, and that's why she's not coming to the club."

"Oh, is that so?! That's so very droll of her."

"......Mii."

The two of them made disappointed faces.
...Whatever anyone said, Mion's club was always the number one thing I looked forward to when going to school.
It wasn't hard to agree with their melancholic expressions after hearing it wouldn't be happening today.

Whenever Mion cancelled club, it was usually because of her job.
However, it also didn't seem like she went there every day.
She would go two or three days in a row, then not go at all for a while.
...It sounded like a pretty damn random part-time job.

"......She isn't working at any one shop or anything."

"She isn't? ...Then does that mean she's a day laborer?"

Mion, wearing socks and a helmet, sweating to death in a factory... ...I couldn't imagine such a thing.

"Ah... I get it. Now that you mention it, her having a job at her uncle's place... I think I've heard about that before."

"......She has a lot of uncles who run their own shops, so Mii is in very high demand."

"Oh, you were unaware, Keiichi-san? There are many relatives of Mion-san's in Okinomiya who run their own stores."

"Huh... I didn't know that. ...So, they're all different kinds?"

"Yes. There's a bakery, a produce market, a ramen shop, and many others besides. That toy store we went to for the club the other day is one of them."

I was dumbfounded. ...That's... amazing!

"...Is Mion's family blessed with some kind of crazy business sense? They run so many different things, it's kind of amazing!"

"...There are others, like a loan shark, a land shark, a strip club, and a brothel. What I'm saying is they do lots of things."

Okay, a couple of weird things came up that time, but still! I could tell it was pretty extensive.

"So the reason she's so fussy about returning money she lent you is because the blood of loan sharks runs through her veins, huh? That explains that!"

...Rika-chan being sold into the entertainment industry to pay off her debts...
...Ah, crap... my nosebleed~☆

(

smile:

"Dying by being thrown on the ground must be the silliest form of death I've ever heard of~!"

...Huh?
...She doesn't really get it, does she...?
Recently, she's seemed so... unspoiled.
Rika-chan and I gave her a pat on the head.

"......We're petting you because you're a good girl, Satoko."

Satoko was lost in confusion, but she seemed to understand she was being made fun of.