Аннотация: The opening of the magic club and the visit of a psychologist from the social committee.
Interlude 15. Shimomura Yu
Everything turned out quite well. Admittedly, Yu has always been shy of new people, and a whole class of new people - br-r! Another thing was on the Internet, where Yu felt at home and was not shy at all. Just try it on the moderator moepotter.jp someone raises the cap or says a bad word, and is banned with a whoosh. Shimomura also knew quite well what "blocking by IP" and "cutting off anonymizers" were. She even participated in the layout of the latest versions of the site herself, and her colleagues said that she was doing well... But still, it wasn't that. Not A Lifelong Passion!
Magic! That's what I remember from her grandmother's fairy tales, growing up reading all sorts of mystical fiction for children (and sometimes for adults), and it struck a powerful chord in Yu's soul after reading the first book about HIM. Yes, yes, about the boy with the scar and the glasses. Like thousands of other children, she associated herself with a child from a non-magical world who suddenly found himself surrounded by the charm of magic... She even expected an owl to come to her too... or better yet, a dragon. Get more of it so Dad can see it! The passion for flying has also been absorbed since childhood... And Dad is her favorite, even though he's boring! But he didn't arrive.
And then Yu went to look for like-minded people on the "network" - they had an Internet computer since 2000, and the young Shimomuro perfectly learned how to use it. And when they bought her a laptop out of generosity...
In general, she found like-minded people. Even together with a group of enthusiasts, she translated new books before the release of the "official" translation - as best she could. Unfortunately for others, Yu inherited not only her mother's sweet habit of admiring the unusual, but also her father's rationalism regarding applied solutions. Do you want to get a dream? Make it with your own hands!
And so Shimomuro Jr. entered the classroom of her new school and was introduced to the class after Chidori-Shizuka. They were even put in a row. Shizuka... a girl with glasses and a gorgeous braid that you would never grow... She was unusual. That confident look, the impenetrable calmness when she was asked in class, the subtle, almost mocking humor - after a day of communication, all the boys did not dare to approach her closer than a meter, let alone ask what. Sometimes it seemed that she was just having fun looking at others. Sometimes it's deadly serious, and the radius of the planet or the distance from Earth to the Sun in kilometers is the most precious knowledge she's ever learned. And on the history of Japan... After giving a brief description of the situation between 1901 and 1920, the teacher did not dare to ask her anymore.
Shizuka was simple and mysterious at the same time. She loved rice and seafood, and could tell a lot of interesting things about the city... and at the same time, I didn't listen to music, I hardly watched movies, I didn't give a damn about actresses and actors, and, oh gods! She was completely uninterested in hearing about GP! No, at first she was interested, but after the phrase "flying on brooms and conjuring with magic wands" she abruptly lost interest. And who will figure out why?
However, the girl with the scythe, by her very presence and kindness to a newcomer like her, helped Shimomuro get used to the classroom faster, become friends with the rest of her classmates and girls from parallel classes of the stream. And, gathering four like-minded people, Yu went to register a magic club. I was a little confused by the reaction of the principal, who, putting a sweeping visa on the form and applying a personal stamp (to highlight the room and the props that the school could provide), whispered to himself something like "finally, a normal hobby, and not a club of fans of differential equations or builders of giant humanoid robots." Shimomuro immediately wanted to look into the last one, but she courageously restrained herself and did not ask anything.
Shizuka didn't want to go to the Magic Club.
"I'm definitely not a magician, you know!"
However, she did not refuse to help her new girlfriend, and the six girls brought the club room into a "cozy nest" literally on the second day. They even put pots of flowers. A "goblet" containing the powder that defines magicians was solemnly placed on the central table (the composition was wisely kept secret). It was assumed that the neophytes would put their hand there and try to transmit the Force... If you are lucky, rays of light will shoot out of the bowl. It's very stylish, isn't it?
And, of course, on Saturday, a young psychologist from the screening committee wanted to settle there - she liked the office.
Interlude 16. Suzuhara Mikuru, a psychologist from the Social Committee. Junior secondary school number 209
Suzuhara was very worried, because today was her first day working with children - before that, she had mostly been acting as a secretary. Despite the recommended specialized education and the fact that she was a second-generation magician, having been born to two weak magicians accepted into the Jinguji clan, she was released "into the field" only when the branch was checked by an inspection from the central office of the Social Committee. Identifying disguised spirits is her job, and eliminating the effects of contact with spirits in ordinary people. The education of a psychologist was required to erase or change the episode of the meeting between yokai and the man in the latter's memory. Often it didn't even require magic - a small conversation, and the victim himself believes not in supernatural causes, but in a combination of circumstances.
But Mikuru was taken care of in the department - with her wave of brown hair, fragile figure and big naive eyes, they were afraid to let her go to real work... and they did it right. But because of the stupid commission for work with schoolchildren and students, everyone was torn away from chairs and "solitaire". The emergency as it is.
While the school commission was checking something about chemical reagents and whispering with the chemistry teacher, the streams were driven one by one to the assembly hall... and the hellish work began. Children! Who came up with the idea of catching "atypical behavior" in this fumbling, whispering crowd of sitting "chickens"? It's good that their inspection included as many as three psychologists... and that the commission, by a strong-willed decision, rejected the verification of flows under ten years of age. And they will also listen to the lecture on the school broadcast.
As a result, the lecture turned into a real torture for Mikuru - try to see who in the sea of heads... Even if there are only ninety people, it's all the same. In the end, Suzuhara just ignored the observations and decided to call on the list. And to start with the "difficult" boys. The boys were called one at a time, and she was pretty exhausted trying to get the teenagers to talk-shy of strangers, class, and surroundings... and a pretty-looking girl. About kami, to question children again during puberty... The horror!
After ushering the last "problem" out the door and looking at the clock, Suzuhara discovered that it was already four o'clock in the afternoon. And she decided to launch the girls en masse.
"...You're kidding me! Mikuru thought, looking around at the customers. "Or someone at the top of the school hates girls with glasses." The three visitors were in uniform, wearing glasses and about the same build, only the hairstyles were radically different. And they didn't look like any kind of "fuses", rather, on the contrary, they looked like "nerds".
"I wonder if this is a chauvinist director who hates smart women, or did the head teacher try her best?"
The girls greeted each other, introduced themselves, and sat in a semicircle on chairs that had been pulled out in advance, and Mikuru began to "talk." She was also haunted by one of the students' last names, but she couldn't figure out which one. After quickly "driving through" the topic of "blowing up is bad" and making sure that the topic of the students was not interested in any way, Suzuhara habitually turned to the topic of domestic violence. And that's when she got sick!
Kaname saw nothing wrong with domestic coercion, considering it an integral part of life. The looks are more like those of a cynical middle-aged woman, but to hear such a thing from an eleven-year-old? It's a nightmare!
Chidori treated violence evenly: it was bad, and she planned to "stop" it towards herself. She said this with such cold indifference that the impressionable Mikuru immediately formed the image of a little girl with a scythe, right in her school uniform from a rooftop position "suppressing" violence with a sniper rifle. The "picture" turned out to be so organic that it's just awful!
As for Yu, she said that she does not consider domestic violence as such, but only unreasonable attempts to impose her opinion. Because reasonable attempts can be not only not harmful, but even the only true one. And she told she a couple of cases from the history of plane crashes. "Was she looking for them on purpose?" - poor Suzuhara broke out in a cold sweat, listening to the distraught Yu, who climbed onto her second favorite hobby, "flying". The psychologist, as already mentioned, did not complain about the lack of imagination.
Feverishly scribbling five pages in her notebook, Mikuru was already considering whether to immediately call her parents to the committee or first submit an official petition to the joint commission on schools of the city, when the most short-haired girl got up from her chair. She stretched. She looked at Suzuhara with a satisfied smile. And, addressing the other girls, she said:
"I still lost to my mom! She said that Mikuru-chan would definitely attack me, you, and Shizuka with a long diagnosis, and I thought she would recognize me right away."
"From... How do you know me?!" the psychologist jumped up and, bumping into the girl's cold squint, shuddered.
"Mi-ku-ru... san. Did my last name remind you of anyone? Perhaps, for some reason, it looks like the name of the head of the IT service? Hmm, probably because I'm his daughter..."
And then Suzuhara remembered. The Kaname couple repeatedly attended the Committee's corporate events (as is customary for employees, they brought their "soulmates" - after all, the Social Committee was and remained a fairly closed organization). It was this woman, Kaname, who, having slightly taken on her breasts and hooked tongues with Mikuru, first made her believe in a conversation that an experienced contract killer was sitting in front of her, at least an international terrorist, and maybe Saddam Hussein, who had deep facial and chest surgery. And then, in the same five minutes, she proved that you need to be able to interpret facts using completely truthful words and that generally accepted positions are not always correct. And now, slowly breaking out in a cold sweat, she peered into the familiar squint her daughter had taken over from her mother.
"Let's start with that," Kaname said in the tone of an experienced psychologist, "First of all, Mikuru-san, you needed to clarify the information about the parents and the occupation of the subjects themselves. For example, the tranquility of the Sidz... Chidori is related to the fact that she has a lot of martial arts experience and can really fight back in case of violence. What's not scary isn't fearfull, is it? Well, you probably guessed about me, but the fact that Yu's father worked as a test pilot is probably news to you? It's simple, isn't it? I'll have to tell Dad to print out the report on our school and give it to Mom to read-that's it..."
Then Mikuru's nerves broke down, and she did something that violated two points of the instructions of the Social Committee at once.:
Then Mikuru's nerves broke down, and she did something that violated two points of the instructions of the Social Committee at once:
First, she used magic, casting an area spell on the girls, which discourages "fast" memory for the last fifteen minutes. It was quite an overload for her weak gift, but the girl still had experience...
And secondly, she stormed out of the classroom without even bothering to make sure if the spell had worked or not... and why rays of light are hitting the ceiling from a plastic parody of a medieval goblet.
Luckily for Mikuru, she was the only magician in the entire delegation... and, unfortunately, she didn't know that Hiroe's compact camera was snuggled behind the neat pots, from which the shorn-haired woman was already pulling out a mini CD.
"Don't worry. And he won't write a report either - such a slip in front of outsiders!" Hiroe stroked the disk. I bet a couple thousand yen, if Yuto brings this to the Social Committee, one lovely psychologist will just be buried... to the archive, to scan the papers until the end of days. By the way, can you explain why you did this?"
"I don't like it when people try to mess with someone's brain... And it's so rude, you know!"
"Er... was it magic?" Yu finally managed to get out of herself. "Have you seen it too?"
"Have you seen what?" Kaname batted her eyelashes innocently.
"We're not magicians," Shizuka continued to match her tone, and the girls nodded to Yu, took the camera and left the door.
For a while, Shimomuro tried to put the events in her head, then for another fifteen minutes she tried to decide whether it was her imagination or the fountain of light was really there. She spent another ten minutes telling herself not to look at the goblet, but she did. Of course, there was no powder there, just a black coating on the walls. And all the way home, Yu was thinking hard, is it good if magic really exists, or should she close the club from sin and focus on flying? Doesn't the school have an airplane modeling and piloting club?