The Unbreakable Pandora's Box
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Nagisa's POV
"Shiota? Hey, Shiota? Shiota!?"
A voice calling my last name was repeated three times, and I eventually heard it the last time. That was the time I realized that I was spacing out and I tried to get a grip to focus on eating my lunch with a fellow female teacher.
"Huh? Ahh, sorry about that, Sasaki. What were you saying?" I made an awkward smile as soon as I got a grip of myself.
"Good riddance, I knew you weren't listening. Are you feeling okay? You looked like you fell into an empty world." Sasaki twitched her eyebrows gently and looks at me like I'm weird.
"Sorry, my bad! I reflect on my actions, so please don't be mad at me!" I bow down my head to apologize by reflex.
"It's fine. You don't have to be formal with me all of a sudden. Anyways, about what I was trying to say earlier..." After ignoring my disrespectful behavior, Sasaki started to clear her throat.
"Shiota Nagisa, I'm deeply grateful for what you did. From now on, let's be close friends!" This time, it was her bowing down at me.
"Ehh?!? It's okay, it's okay! You don't have to mind about it that much! I was just doing my job, that's all!"
I was embarrassed by what she suddenly said and what she's doing. I immediately accepted her gratitude and tried to stop her from keeping her head down in such a long duration.
Eventually, she raised back her head to look at me with a relieved face and a smile. Were you that troubled after what I did??
"Thank goodness that you accepted. I look forward to being your friend from now on." She made a heartwarming smile.
After hearing what she said, I felt happy somehow. But to distract ourselves from this developing situation, I pointed at her meal.
"We should probably continue to eat our lunch. It's going to get cold, you know."
"Mhm~ I guess you're right." With that, Sasaki started to eat her meal again.
Feeling relieved now that all that embarrassment is gone, I decided to continue eating my lunch as well. Not to mention, this lunch was homemade, and by mom of all people. I guess she won't let go of the thought about me still being needed to look after like I'm still in high school. Oh how sweet but tragic.
But anyway, let me introduce to you. This here sitting in front of me at the same table is named Sasaki Hotaru, a Philosophy teacher, and a year younger than me. And yeah, remember that time when I decided to extend my time with Class 2A the other day? Yup! You guessed it right. She was the teacher I mentioned to you who was absent at that day due to being out in a cold, so I eventually covered for her in several days.
Taking me out to eat lunch together as a way for her to say thank you for that, I couldn't refuse her offer and decided to come along, but I didn't expect that it would be awkward from the start.
To be honest, I've never hanged out with another teacher before so things a little while ago were a bit uncomfortable. But now that we've come into terms, I can talk to her normally now.
I know it's a bit cold to not being able to socialize with my fellow co-teachers, but because when I get the feeling that most of them hated me because of being the only one respected and idolized by the students, I limited my interaction with them from time to time.
But now that I got the chance to talk with another teacher freely, I guess I can hold longer conversations with them now.
Meanwhile, at the midst of my meal, my phone in my pocket suddenly started vibrating. Judging from how it's vibrating, it must be a call. Though I completely got no clue since I turned it into silent mode. And so in order for me to find out, I took it out and saw the label on the screen.
Kayano?...
It was unexpected for her to call me during this time of the day. Maybe she eventually got a break from her work, probably.
"Sorry, I gotta take this." I immediately stood up from my seat and went toward somewhere quieter without hearing Sasaki's response.
When I found a spot, I answered the call.
"Hello? Kayano?"
"Ah~! Nagisa! Sorry for calling you all of a sudden."
"It's okay, I was just about to finish my lunch. By the way, is there something you want to tell me?"
"Yeah. It's about this meeting in the afternoon. Will you come?"
"Of course I will. Why do you ask?"
"Um, if it's okay with you, let's meet up before the meeting and head there together."
"Oh? Uh, yeah sure! I'll see to it then."
"Great! Well then, see you later, okay?"
"Okay."
Our call ended.
Well, I guess you can call this as expected. Lately, Kayano's been visiting me a lot often, and we've been hanging out since then. So I guess you could say I've gotten used to it.
Anyway, after my call ended with Kayano, I immediately went back to our table and sat right away.
"Sorry for making you wait." I told Sasaki as soon as I reached the table.
"Who was that? Your girlfriend?" Unexpectedly, Sasaki suddenly asked me this question.
"EHH?!? N-No, it's not like that! It was just a friend!" I got a bit flustered.
"Hmmm~? A friend, huh?" Somehow, I get the feeling that she wasn't listening at all, so I tried to change the subject right away.
"Uh, nevermind about that! Anyway, do you know the reason why we're going home early today? It's kind of unusual, don't you think?" I tried to sound as convincing as ever.
"Ah, you mean that one? Well, I heard this from the other teachers, but I don't really think it's true." Thank God she took it!
But what she said totally made me a little curious, so I went to ask a question again.
"What's true?"
"Have you heard? A man was found murdered inside an alley today, and that place is close to our school, so the police told us to be wary about our surroundings and make sure our students get home safely." Sasaki briefly explained.
Ah, yeah, but I didn't hear it from anyone. I saw it with my own eyes. It was disgusting, and cruel. What kind of a person would do such a thing?
"That's why the student council and the faculty both decided to cut the school day into half for today so that the students won't be in peril in the afternoon." Sasaki continued.
Meanwhile, I went with the flow of our conversation and later on finished our lunch on time.
Afternoon classes were postponed today so we were released earlier just as Sasaki had mentioned. After waving a farewell to her, I went to check back to the Assassins' club since I don't have things I really need to do right now.
And once I got there, only Stella and Natsumi were missing and the rest were happy to see me after a few days since the taking of the old classroom. I guess they really miss having club activities, huh? But I told them to continue practicing the things what they can do for now but on a limit. Truth be told, I kinda feel guilty for leaving them train on their own.
However, my time with them didn't last for long when a mail came from my phone. It was Karma, but there was no subject. However, I already knew why he wanted to meet up, so I left the club room, told Aoba to look after his club members in going home or so before going outside the campus.
While reading the content of the email on the way, Karma wanted to meet up with me at the park just around the city. Once I reached the destination and found him feeding pigeons with bird seeds, I went to join him before we started talking about the thing I wanted to discuss with him later on.
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"Have you shown this to Mr. Karasuma yet?" Karma asked as he held the small metal box that Sugino had picked up last night and went to observe it by turning it around and around.
"No, I haven't." I sighed.
"Then let's show this to him right away." Karma stood on his feet immediately.
"It'd be pointless if it's just us. Let's see what the professionals can do." He continued.
Sounds like a good idea. I admit I also don't have a clue about what this thing is. Not to mention, the lock is kinda complicated, and the thing is durable as steel. It'd be meaningless if we just break it open since we don't even know what's inside. It could be fragile.
And so without wasting our time, Karma led me to his parked car and we went towards the Ministry of Defense right away.
Upon arriving, we saw Mrs. Irina out slacking off again around a corner. Eventually, she noticed us and quickly dumped her cigarette while acting all innocent.
We were a bit confused to her actions. Although, she pretended like nothing really happened when she finally turned her attention toward us and talked like she didn't notice us a few seconds ago.
"Oh? It's you boys! What brings you here?" Her act was clearly visible, but Karma and I decided not to push the awkwardness even further and went with her play.
"W-We're looking for Mr. Karasuma. Is he still inside?" I asked her, though it took me a few seconds to completely recover.
"Hmm, if you're looking for darling..." She suddenly blurted out a word that's been personal between the two of them.
I guess her act is still imperfect that she accidentally mentioned 'darling' all of a sudden; which she meant Mr. Karasuma.
Although she was completely unaware that she said it when she gave us Mr. Karasuma's whereabouts with a straight face the next moment.
I guess we don't have to mind about that for now.
At Mr. Karasuma's Office...
"What's this?" Mr. Karasuma asked as soon as he received the small metal box I'm handing over.
"We still don't have a clue sir. Actually, I found this yesterday just as we were going home and I kept it with me since then. It's been bothering me lately though." I explained.
Mr. Karasuma soon switched his attention towards the box after listening to my story. Then, when he looked like he was running out of ideas, he started to stand up and gazed over us.
"So in other words, you're leaving it to me to crack this thing open?" Mr. Karasuma asked. Thankfully he knew where were going with this.
"Yes sir."
"Alright. Follow me."
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"This—! is definitely—!! hard to...open—!!"
The technician Mr. Karasuma asked to open pandora's box complained as he was trying his hardest to force the box open by inserting a flat metal bar on the small gap and push it down so that the top part of the box would open.
Unfortunately, it's already been 5 minutes before he came up with this method. This metal box is certainly highly secured if it's gonna take us long to open it.
"Let me handle this, move aside." Momentarily becoming impatient, Mr. Karasuma decided to take action and switch places with the technician.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Karasuma was also having a hard time opening the box.
"It's no use. The lock has it completely jammed. Is there any other way to open this?" Mr. Karasuma finally puts a stop to his meaningless effort and turns to look at the technician for another method.
"Hmm, I'll see what I can do. But I don't think I'll be able to finish this today. It might take a day or more, so..." The technician scratched his head at his last statement and made troubled face.
"Then get to it. I still have an appointment I need to attend to, so I'll leave the rest at your hands." Mr. Karasuma said before turning around and leave. Although, before he was about to walk away, he stopped halfway and turned his head to look at both Karma and me.
"Don't stay too long in here. You still got a meeting with the rest of your former classmates, don't you?" And with that, he truly left.
I wonder how he knew about our meeting with the rest. Did somebody told him? Or was it just a coincidence that Mr. Karasuma had a hunch that something like that was planned between our former class?
Nevermind, it doesn't matter. Right now, the opening of the unbreakable pandora's box is our priority.
We tried different methods, like using an iron-cutter but failed, a master key but snapped during the process, and the use of a mechanical machine but it also malfunctioned as a result. Seriously, how hard is it to open this tiny little box?!
Although, I'm currently wondering why it got so badly rendered but we couldn't even make a dent over it today. Did a simple fall maybe made it broken? Or perhaps the lock itself is designed not to be opened?
"I'll have this checked over an X-ray in the laboratory. We have to know what's inside so that we can use the burner." The technician said as he was leaning at a wall to rest. Though, Karma was doing the same thing while I was crouching and stare at the box with doubtful expressions.
"Yeah, that might be a good idea." Karma seconded to the technician's idea.
I wonder what could be inside.
Meanwhile, just as I had thought of that, I happened to glance at my watch on my wrist and saw the time.
"Oh crap! Karma! We need to go to the meeting! It's already getting late!" I hastily told Karma just as he was about to follow the technician.
"What?! Already?? Oh fine." Karma growled, hinting that he might be interested in seeing the contains of the box but couldn't.
But unfortunately, we've got no time for that. It's already 5:15 pm, which means we were trying to open the box for approximately 4 hours!
We've got to get to the meeting venue, and fast!
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End of Chapter 35