As the door to the faculty office slid open, the cold chill of the air conditioned surroundings crept up to my body. I rubbed my arms while shivering slightly, the sweat accumulated from the rehearsal cooled my body rapidly.

「...Must be several degrees below in here...」

Seeing that there wasn’t anyone left, I took the remote hung on the nearby wall and turned it off. Biip. The inside of the faculty office was already quite dark with only a few lights up. Was there still someone around?

As I was thinking so, a freckle-faced granny passed me by just as I entered, pushing a cart of cleaning materials with her. Judging from the fact that I had never seen her around before, she must be the new person in charge of janitor duty on this block. Noticing my gaze on her, the granny stopped for a moment to nod towards me. I gestured amiably as well, and after she pushed the cart out of the door and left.

I continued forward until I reached a grey cabinet beside a printing machine. A small acrylic box was inside the third drawer, with the other keys for the seven clubrooms already returned. I found the one that states【Modern Theatrics Club】and returned the key inside.

When I was done, I left the office silently with lights up as there was someone still sleeping in one of the cubicles at the corner. Must be a teacher who overworked himself, a good rest should be plenty as long as I don’t interrupt him. I also left the air conditioner back up for him, although it was tuned a little less cold than before.

I came down to the first floor through the stairs and met with Yamo-san at the front porch. He grinned at me with a wave while I approached.

『Yaaa, Yato-bō. You’re the last one today? Did something happen between you and the club president Hibiki-chan? When she left, she seemed pretty angry you know?』

「Haha, well… things just happened.」

The old man shot me a strange look while grinning, and patted my shoulders. 

『I get it I get it, you don't have to tell me anything more... In any case, it looks like you got over whatever was bogging down your mind before, huh.』

I was surprised, but that faded away from my eyes quickly.

Come to think of it, he must have seen it on my face earlier this afternoon. This gramps can pick up and respond to people's emotional cues after all, that's the main reason why he's well-liked.

He doesn't approach people too closely that it intrudes on your personal space, neither does he make it seem like he doesn't care. To put it in simple words, Yamo-san was a perceptive old man who made others feel at ease in a conversation. Since he could already tell my bad mood which lingered in the afternoon, I no longer hid it anymore.

「...Yeah. Working with the guys in a while got rid of it.」

『That’s great. Yaaa, young people should spend their lives more meaningfully like this.』

Yamo-san rotated his shoulders and continued.

『When my son has project deadlines to meet and gets under pressure, he also works it out of his system by running about. Speaking of which, here’s a little something I gave the others earlier.』

This wasn’t the first time Yamo-san had given us students something from his son’s overseas travels, so I took it unhesitantly and thanked him with a smile.

「Hm, what’s this? Doesn’t look like sweets this time. You got something strange from Togushi-san this time?」

Togushi was the name of his beloved son, we had met them on more than one occasion when he happened to drop by to fetch Yamo-san home. ...

In my hands was a small cylindrical container that fit in my palm, and inside was about a dozen crystal balls that resembled clear tapioca pearls. To be more precise, it’s one of those water beads we used to play when we were kids. It would grow when left in a water body for a few hours, giving us the satisfaction of 'raising something from young'. Of course, back then it was easy to satisfy children with simple yet gimmicky toys. Nowadays, it feels as if the children of this generation with their tablets and smartphones had already lost the touch of innocence the older generation once had.

It's slightly regrettable.

『You can eat them but if let it soak in water for a bit, it’ll taste better. Maa, I don’t really get how it works too but my son said that it was some kind of new product in the market. The packaging is all written in korean too, but he guaranteed that there wasn’t any strange ingredients inside so it’s safe to consume.』

What Yamo-san passed to me was a big box in large korean characters that contained these small containers. But it seems edible like he had said. From the image of grapes on it, seems like it’s grape-flavored too.

I opened the container and placed one of the pearls into my mouth. As I rolled it around my tongue, the taste of grapes filled my taste buds before long. When I bit it, there was a burst of sweetened milk and tea mixing with the initial flavor, creating the very premium texture of a freshly-brewed grape milk tea. So that was it, the water somehow affects the sweetener inside. If this was done with proper ingredients without any additives or any artificial flavoring agents, then this would be pretty popular among the students as a bite-sized ‘drink’.

As it is now though, I can say that this kind of product would not completely replace the complicated process of making milk tea, but it’s amazing how close it’s coming to replicating it. Either way wIth the improvements to technology as the years pass, it isn’t that unlikely for something like this to appear on the market eventually.

『How is it? It’s good right?』

When I came to, I realized that the gramps had been looking at me happily.

「Indeed, it tastes pretty good.」

『Hehe, I knew you would say that. You can have another two of this stuff since you liked it.』

「But that’s---」

『---Don’t worry about it, I still have plenty left over. Take it, I can’t finish them all anyway. You can share it with your friends if you want to. Just think of it as thanks for the coffee.』

「...In that case...」

I took over a few more containers and stuffed it into my bag while giving my thanks again. After that, I bade farewell to Yamo-san and left the campus.

「Right… the beer.」

I recalled that guy asking me to go get some, and entered a convenience store nearby.

『Welcome...』

An unenthusiastic voice entered my ears. The clerk was a young guy playing a game on his phone, probably working part-time here. I went down the aisles, got a case of the cheapest beer and headed to the counter. I also added a packet of mint displayed during check out.

「That’s all.」

『Aight. Give me a second please.』

The teenager didn’t ask for my ID since this place was near the university campus and everyone was clearly above legal age. He placed the phone down and started doing his job. After a few beeps, he was finished placing the scanned items in the bags.

『That will be $180.45 in total.』

Wait. That much? I took out a card instead and handed it to him.

「PayWave please.」

『Okay.』

...Bip. ----Boop.

Eh? Was it rejected?

『Uhh, your card was rejected.』

「What?! Uhh, *cough cough*, how about this one.」

The cashier seemed a little impatient, but he still accepted the second card wordlessly.

...Bip. Boop.

...Wait.

『This card is no good too.』

「...Could you maybe try swiping it this time...?」

...Bip. Boop.

It returned with the same result.

『「...」』

『Dear customer, do you perhaps...』

「No, no! I have it, just give me a moment.」

『Sure, please take your time...』

The teenager shrugged and picked up his phone as if he had lost interest.

...At this point, it’s not too late to return the items. But I can’t leave empty-handed.

Call Fatso and the others over? No, even if I did plan on making them share the expenses tonight, I would only do so when we get back to the dorms. It would be immediately exposed if I called them out here at this timing.

Just then, my phone rang. The caller was Nijima, he’s probably calling to check if I was arriving.

「Sorry, phone call...」

I laughed awkwardly when the cashier glanced at me for a brief moment. He rolled his eyes and returned to the phone screen.

As expected, Nijima called to ask me where I was. After a few exchanges to reassure him that I was reaching, I hung up. From the sound of laughter on the other side, seems like the girls were having a good time. Now that I thought about it more carefully, this ‘welcoming party’ was actually a mixer in disguise, wasn’t it. No wonder the guys were so restless since this morning ...Now that it’s come to this. I have no other choice but to buy it! Maybe adding some loose change would be enough for a case.

Hm?

As I was checking my pockets, I recalled putting something in there. Aside from a few receipts that I had lazily tucked inside in the afternoon, there was also that one thing.

Card… that’s right. That black card he had picked up near the elevator earlier. Now that I had taken another look at it, the card was made rather peculiarly. I could tell it was made with some kind of metal, yet it was elastic enough to bend like plastic. What material was it even made out of? There was no microchip to indicate that it was any kind of useable card, neither were the words “VISA” or “MasterCard” there. No indicative, affiliated modes of payment, just the reversed ‘9’ etched on it.

The teenager placed down his phone again. It seems like he had finally finished his game, but probably because he had lost a match, his mood appeared to be unusually grumpy.

『Dear customer, if you’re here to buy stuff, please return the items and leave. Thank you.』

Being obstinate as usual, I slid out the black card without thinking any more and replied.

「Use this one.」

『...』

Of course, I didn’t expect much from it. This card might just end up being a dud 99% of the time since it didn’t have the microchip like a usual card. The cashier understood this too, and thought that I was joking around until he looked up at my face.

Besides giving me a permanent complex about my appearance, the only good thing about my face was the fact that I would be able to turn a slight frown into a threatening glare. Since my expression was neutral constantly, one simple change would be easily magnified in the eyes of others.

As expected, this frown of mine did the trick. The teenager acquiesced.

He placed the card slowly into a card reader and keyed in the amount, and at first he looked full of grievances about it. But in the next moment, his eyes widened----

...Bip.

『...Huh…?』

It was… accepted! That black card was! When the cashier took the card out and returned it to me, his face was still one of confusion. How could he not be, he was prepared to give another snarky remark to this unwelcomed customer since the card didn’t even look like a legitimate card you could use! But now he was unable to say anything back from this unexpected result. Let alone this guy, I was also similarly lost for words.

However without revealing the surprise on my face, I took the bags with the card and left the convenience store with a brisk pace as if afraid the card reader might have malfunctioned or something.

『...Eh…? Ah… s-see you again...』

When I left the store, I was still a little lost on the fact that this black card that I had kept incidentally was actually some kind of cash card out of the odds.

...There was money inside after all! That was a whole 100 you know? Who knows how much more is left in there? Of course, it might just be the case that I had just spent all of it, but now that doesn’t seem all that disappointing now that my expectations were overturned the first time.

What did I have to lose? All I had to do was to put it in an ATM to find out. Within my chest was this strange, tense feeling, as if I was one digit away from the winning number for the week’s lottery.

I had to find out.

After giving Nijima another short text saying I’ll arrive in a few more minutes, I headed towards the nearest ATM around.

Finally, when I arrived, I placed the bags down and stepped forward in front of the empty terminal.

With a mind filled with anticipation, I slipped the black card into the card slot------