"So, Sugisaki was talking about the School Festival just now, right? We're the Literature Club. What kind of event do you think we could put on?"
"A maid café!" Sugisaki replied without hesitation.
"Fine. Then you can wear the maid outfit, Sugisaki, and the rest of us will make coffee."
"Hey, hey, that's just weird! Why do I have to wear the maid outfit?"
"Who do you want to wear it, then?"
That question left Sugisaki speechless.
"O-of course, Amano."
That was a lie. When he had blurted out "maid café" a moment earlier, he had been imagining the club president in a maid outfit.
As for his upperclassman, Sugisaki had unconsciously excluded her from the category of girls.
She was a girl, of course, and a cute one at that, but in Sugisaki's mind, a creature called a "literature girl" seemed rather different from an ordinary person.
"How mean. Ken, you were just thinking that a maid outfit wouldn't suit me at all, weren't you?" Amano Touko said pitifully, sitting in a chair in the corner with her legs drawn up.
Yes, that was exactly what he had been thinking. What kind of girl sat like that? From a slightly unfortunate angle, he could practically see her underwear.
Still, Sugisaki had to admit that her perceptiveness was first-rate.
Of course, he wasn't about to admit it out loud.
"A maid outfit would look great on you, of course. So would you be willing to wear one?"
"No."
Just as I thought.
"So that's unanimously rejected." Huo Lin yawned again. "I think Eriol suggested something just now. Sorry, I didn't catch it."
"A book club. I think detective novels would be a good choice."
Huo Lin paused with her hand still covering her yawn.
"Rejected!"
Sugisaki noticed that the president sounded even more forceful than she had about the maid café.
"Oh dear, what a shame." Eriol smiled without pressing the matter.
"Why don't we just run an ordinary restaurant?" Huo Lin didn't want to waste any more time discussing it and made the decision casually.
"A restaurant?" If Eriol had suggested it, Sugisaki would definitely have objected, but since the president herself had said it, he swallowed his protest.
He was just a little puzzled. "But a restaurant needs a cook, doesn't it? Can any of us cook?"
Amano is a book-eating monster. She doesn't even eat meals herself, so she definitely can't cook. Pass!
Eriol is a transfer student from Britain. Even if he can cook, what good food does Britain have? Fish and chips? Pass!
As for himself, Sugisaki knew his limits. All he could do was boil water.
After all, they were still elementary school students. Even the home economics classes that started in fifth grade taught them little more than how to make a curry.
"I'll cook. The rest of you just need to prepare the ingredients and wait tables," Huo Lin said.
"President, you can cook?"
"I do all the cooking at home. I've also worked at Shinjukuya."
"Shinjukuya? You mean that really famous sushi restaurant?"
"I wouldn't call it really famous, would I? But it is an old establishment with several decades of history, and the owner is the fourth generation to run it. I'm a neighbor, and I helped out in the kitchen for six months, so I have no trouble preparing raw fish or making sushi. Why don't we run a sushi restaurant, then?"
Huo Lin couldn't say she had been employed there. It was illegal for a restaurant to hire an elementary school student, after all, and she would get the place into trouble.
Having a neighbor's child help out in the kitchen was fine.
In reality, though, the owner had given her some money, no less than a part-timer would have earned, entirely out of consideration for the Yagami House.
"You're amazing, President!" That wasn't flattery. It really was beyond anything Sugisaki had imagined.
"So I'll leave the odd jobs to you, Sugisaki. You'll need to get the ingredients on the day. The sushi vinegar needs a specific blend, so I'll prepare that in advance, and I have rice from Niigata too. But the most important thing is fresh sea fish. The fish market usually opens before dawn. If you want fish fit to serve raw, rather than whatever everyone else has left behind, you'll need to reach the Seafood Market by five in the morning at the latest. Can you do that?"
The School Festival lasted three days, not one. So if they ran a sushi restaurant, Sugisaki would have to get up before dawn on all three days.
"I-I can. But what about the transfer student? What will he do?"
"I can go to the Seafood Market with you. It would be hard for one person to carry back that much fish, wouldn't it?"
Seeing Eriol volunteer put Huo Lin at ease. Sugisaki might be a boy, but he was still an elementary school student. Going to the Seafood Market alone before dawn wasn't particularly safe.
With Eriol there, there would be no problem. This great magician from the age of the gods had nothing to fear even from terrorists.
Since even Eriol had said that, Sugisaki had no further objections.
He wasn't going to find fault with Amano. Making a girl go to the fish market before dawn would be unreasonable in the first place.
But Amano Touko raised her hand of her own accord.
"What about me? What will I do?"
"Wait tables."
"Oh, all right."
Their earlier lengthy discussion had gotten nowhere, but once Huo Lin gave her opinion, the Literature Club's School Festival event was settled in just five minutes.
That was the authority of the club president. You couldn't fault her efficiency.
"But if we're running a restaurant, we'll need plenty of foot traffic, won't we? Will we be all right here in the Old Building, or should we ask the school for another venue?" Amano asked. "I know people on the Student Council. I could put in a request."
"No, we'll stay here. Fewer customers would be good too. We wouldn't have to work so hard."
It wasn't as though they were really opening a business to make money.
"A hidden gem down a back alley?"
The phrase meant one of those little gems tucked away deep in an alley that only the locals knew about.
"Hm? Yes, something like that." Huo Lin didn't think her skills could compare to those of a real sushi chef, but in an elementary school, she could certainly blow everyone else out of the water.
Compared only with the food stalls that might appear at the School Festival, theirs would definitely be a "hidden gem."
With their business settled, it was about time to head home.
"President..."
Sugisaki was about to ask whether she wanted to go home, but Huo Lin waved him off.
"You go on ahead, Sugisaki."
"B-but aren't you going home, President?"
"Come on." Amano gave him a push. "The president and Eriol must have something else to discuss."
No, that's exactly what I'm worried about. That bespectacled transfer student didn't look like a good person at all. He might trick the president.
But with Amano pushing him along, Sugisaki had no choice but to leave the clubroom.
Once she was sure everyone else had gone, Huo Lin stood and took the Book of the Night Sky out of her desk.
She had sat beside Eriol to make it easier for him to study this Device.
To Huo Lin, this was the real business at hand.
Although Clow Reed could temporarily seal the Book of the Night Sky too, he could never maintain the seal as long as Huo Lin could. Even a great magician from the age of the gods had limits to his magical power.
That meant he could only focus fully on his research while beside Huo Lin.
"Eriol, have you thought of a way to deal with this book?"
"Yes. I've analyzed the basic structure of Eternal Curse Night. Breaking it wouldn't be particularly difficult, but-"
Before Huo Lin could get excited, the word "but" told her she had been getting her hopes up too soon.
Everyone knew that "but" meant it couldn't actually be done.
"This curse repairs itself. In other words, even if we break it, it will regenerate within a very short time."
"How short?"
"About three minutes."
"Then that's completely pointless." Deflated, Huo Lin slumped over the desk.
Then the edge of the desk pressed painfully into her chest, forcing her to sit up straight again.
"Isn't there a way to solve it for good?"
"The curse's core is the core of the Book of the Night Sky itself. The only way would be to separate that core, then generate a new one to replace it while completely destroying the old core."
Before you continue