Aria leaves earlier than usual for a dentist appointment, and Suzu's mom picks her up in order to find their dog again. Takatoshi is called by his parents to run home after school to help with dinner prep for some guests we're having over tonight. Missus Tsuda texts me right afterwards, saying that I don't have to help since I'm technically a guest, myself. I text her back that I'll be right over, anyway, but she gets very insistent in the most polite, motherly way possible that I stay the hell out of the house until dinner's prepared. Jeez, I eat one bowl of cake mix, and suddenly I'm never to be trusted around food again. I paid them back what it was worth!

Anyways, that leaves only the President and I to monitor the grounds once classes are over. There'd been some reports of students bringing in outsiders after school for reasons unknown, so until things settle down, we need to make sure every kid clears out aside from club activity.

We aren't alone. Kaede Igarashi is leading three members of the Disciplinary Committee as our backup, but we've broken up into pairs. Shadowing Shino, we spend the next hour or so walking a beat and find nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few lovebirds or chatterboxes here and there, but they vacate the premises amicably enough. After a particularly lengthy, uneventful stroll filled with small talk, I decide to change the subject to something less related to council work. My brain's too fried from all that paperwork earlier to want to be reminded about anything administrative.

"By the way, President, there's something that's been gnawing at me lately."

"Sure, Pendragon. What's up?"

"The other day, you, Aria, and Miss Yokoshima were talking about winning some sort of contest, right?"

"You want to know if we won?"

"No, actually I wanted to ask — uh, wait. Did you?"

"The contest is closed, and we're still waiting for the results to be tallied, but after reading a few forum threads of people sharing their answers, I'm beginning to think we may have already lost."

"Crying shame. Anyways, I actually wanted to ask what those Blu-rays were."

"Ah, it's the farewell box set for the first four seasons of Marauder Maiden back from when it got temporarily canceled for a few years."

"Marauder Maiden. That's an HBO show, isn't it? I remember skipping some ads for it on YouTube. Something about a princess during the Meiji period who —"

"A warrior princess," Shino insists. "She secretly took up the mantle of shogun after her husband was killed in battle fighting the rebels of the Emperor!"

"Right. Then she goes about uniting her clans."

"Yes, by inducting each daimyo into her bisexual reverse harem!"

I shake my head. "Never caught that part. Must've started on the sixth second, onwards."

"And it stars Hidetada Mae and Jiro Yoshizawa as the shogun's favored consorts, who fall in love with each other behind her back." She hunches over all of the sudden, and actually starts drooling and huffing. I stand there watching her for a few seconds, waiting, but nothing happens. A firm push on her arm snaps her back to reality. With that, we continue the walk towards the next building. After just a few moments, however, Shino starts huffing again. She's even snickering to herself. Then comes the second time I have to shake my head.

I swear, the fluid in my brain is spinning at this point. Shino seems to really like this topic, though, so I decide to oblige. "You guys sounded like you were so dead-set on winning those Blu-rays," I say. "If they're really that important to you, why not just save up and buy them?"

A sinful smile crosses her lips. "Ah, that's the thing. The Blu-rays we're trying to win are part of only thirty-seven sets that have never been released to the public."

"Oh, you mean like limited collector's editions?"

"Not exactly. These particular sets are highly sought after because they're defective."

"In what way?"

"The censorship mosaics failed in editing, but they'd already been committed to disc before the error was caught."

"Sounds like they should've committed to a more thorough inspection process before making such expensive mistakes." When nothing even resembling a reply comes my way, I look over at Shino.

"Hidetada and Jiro, oh my . . ." She's drooling in fantasy again, but at least is doing so while walking this time.


Author's Note: "Fantasy Name Generators" is an online randomizer tool I used to come up with the fictional actor names, Hidetada Mae and Jiro Yoshizawa. Any resemblance to actual persons' names is purely coincidental.