Red Data Girl - Series 1 & 2

The First Makeup - 6

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By Noriko Ogiwara
A Translation

This is the last piece of chapter 1, putting us a quarter of the way through the book already! The next piece will start chapter two.

Red Data Girl: The First Makeup
By Noriko Ogiwara
Chapter 1: Mayura
Part 3 (2 of 2)

When the sky outside the window turned dark, Mayura invited Izumiko to go to dinner at the cafeteria. Izumiko accepted. It made sense that the two girls would go together but all the same, Izumiko was still happy to have been asked.

Before they left, Mayura, who had been looking at her computer, frowned.

“I sent Manatsu an email saying I wanted to introduce you two, but he hasn’t replied yet. I texted him too, but I guess he hasn’t seen that either.”

Izumiko truthfully preferred the idea of them eating together alone, but she kept that to herself. The thought of talking to a boy her age made her a little uneasy. Mayura didn’t seem like she was willing to give up on her brother, but in the end she finally closed her laptop with a snap.

“Alright, let’s go. We don’t need to wait for him. I’m hungry.”

Unsurprisingly, Mayura brought them to the high school cafeteria. When Izumiko paused, Mayura stopped and looked back at her.

“Can’t only current high schoolers use this cafeteria?”

“No, that’s not true. It’s fine for anyone in the school to use it,” Mayura corrected. “When I was in middle school, I ate at both cafeterias. I ate here with the upperclassmen a lot.”

A passing student called out to Mayura and she returned the greeting.

“I met with the Japanese history teach today and joined the club he runs at the high school.”

Already used to eating here, Mayura grabbed a tray and started putting food on it as she spoke. Izumiko followed her lead. There was more Japanese food than she had expected. Grilled fish, hijiki salad, miso soup with nameko mushrooms, mixed rice… Izumiko chose chicken cream stew, a green salad, and French bread.

“My dad teaches at a university and I grew up in a house filled with musty old books so the teacher heard about me somehow. He reached out to me when I was still in middle school,” Mayura explained as if it was no big deal. She led them over to a table.

“That’s great. You have a club to be part of right from the start then.”

“I’m not the only one he’s talked to. There’s a lot of exchange between the middle and high schools here. But still. I might be the first person to join a club in our grade. Maybe it’s because I’ve never gotten along well with people my age. That’s created some strange rumors in the past though.”

Izumiko didn’t want to mention that she already knew what the rumor was. She searched for a new topic to bring up.

“Your family must have a lot of history. My grandpa likes old books, but there’re not a lot of old texts left in the shrine anymore. We heard that most of them disappeared around the beginning of the Meiji era.”

“I get that. My family lives out in the country too, remember.”

“No way. I can’t think of a place anymore out in the country than where I live.”

They ate and took their time as they chatted back and forth. By the time they had finished, Mayura’s brother still hadn’t showed up. Just as Izumiko was starting to think the day was over, she heard a cheerful voice from behind her and paled. She hadn’t been expecting this.