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ArabicAnime Crossover: Eating Evil in a Daily World — Chapter 23
Chapter 23: A New Collaborator
Yui Yuigahama puffed up her cheeks in annoyance, looking exactly like a hamster aggressively hoarding seeds for a harsh winter. She took a vicious bite out of her melon bread and mumbled indistinctly around the mouthful.
“You’re the one who’s…”
Miko Yotsuya sighed, watching the girl practically choke herself. She unscrewed a bottle of tea and handed it across the desk.
“What are you even trying to say? Swallow your food before you talk.”
“Th-thank you.”
Yui snatched the bottle, chugging the tea down like a woman dying of thirst in the desert. She patted her chest, letting out a heavy breath as if she had just narrowly escaped the grim reaper.
“Phew… I seriously thought I was a goner just now. I swear I even saw ghosts for a second.”
Miko’s eye twitched slightly. “There are no ghosts around right now.”
“Oh, whatever!”
Blessed with an incredibly thick skull and an endlessly optimistic disposition, Yui completely missed the strange phrasing. She leaned over, scanning the corners of the classroom with a curious gaze.
“Hey, by the way, where did Yozora run off to today? He vanished the second the lunch bell rang.”
“Oh no!”
Miko froze. The color drained from her face as a sudden realization hit her. She shot up from her desk so fast her chair scraped loudly against the floor.
“Oh no, oh no, I completely forgot.”
Leaving a bewildered Yui behind, Miko bolted out of the classroom and sprinted down the hallway, making a beeline for the open plaza between the main school buildings.
Normally, this courtyard was a quiet sanctuary where students sat on benches to enjoy their bento boxes in peace. Today, however, it was an absolute warzone. Tables and folding chairs were crammed into every available square inch of pavement. Brightly colored banners snapped in the wind, and desperate upperclassmen shouted promotional slogans through plastic megaphones, their voices overlapping in a chaotic din.
“Any freshmen looking to hit the courts? Join the Basketball Club!”
“Tennis Club over here! Our goal this year is the national tournament!”
“Anime Appreciation Club! We have snacks!”
“Literature Club! Do you love reading?”
It was Friday lunch break—the official kickoff for Sobu High School’s club recruitment drive. Freshmen looking to enrich their extracurricular lives and upperclassmen desperate to meet their membership quotas were currently locked in a fierce, mutual selection process.
The moment Miko stepped into the plaza, she was swarmed.
“Hey there! Want to join the Literature Club?”
“No, ignore him! The Anime Appreciation Club is way more chill!”
“Just a heads-up, our Women’s Tennis Club actually rivals Shuchiin Academy’s track record! Winning a championship looks amazing on your college applications!”
“Girls belong on the court! Join the Volleyball Club!”
“Track and Field! Come sweat out your youth with us!”
Overwhelmed by the aggressive marketing, Miko forced a stiff, polite smile and held up her hands in surrender.
“I’m sorry, I’m already in a club.”
“Is that so? What a pity.”
The upperclassmen instantly deflated, shaking their heads in disappointment as they scattered to find easier prey. Although today was the official start of the recruitment drive, several clubs were so desperate for fresh blood that they had been secretly poaching first-years since the opening ceremony.
Miko pushed her way through the dense crowd, her eyes scanning the perimeter until she spotted a painfully lonely stall set up in the far corner. It consisted of a single folding table, two cheap chairs, and a white banner with crooked, smudged calligraphy that looked like it had been painted in a frantic rush.
She let out a long, exhausted sigh and dragged her feet over to the tragic display.
“Yozora, I’m here.”
Yozora was slouched in his chair behind the table, aggressively tapping away at a mobile game on his phone. He didn’t even bother to look up.
“You’re here? Grab a seat.”
Miko sat down, glancing at the vibrant, energetic recruitment booths nearby, and then back at their own desolate setup. The contrast was physically painful. Yozora’s stall didn’t look like a high school club; it looked like a shady fortune-teller’s booth waiting to scam gullible tourists.
And the banner… The words Supernatural Quantum Mechanics Investigation and Research Club were scrawled across the fabric in jagged, bleeding ink. If anyone actually walked up and asked to join right now, Miko wouldn’t be thrilled. She would immediately assume they had a screw loose.
“Yozora…” Miko began, her voice dripping with skepticism. “Are we… really going to be able to recruit anyone like this?”
Yozora finally looked up from his screen, flashing a blindingly confident, utterly shameless grin.
“You just need to believe in the unbreakable bond between you and me!”
‘…’
Miko stared at him. She really needed to stop expecting him to communicate like a normal human being.
If this pathetic stall had a single redeeming quality, it was simply Yozora himself—specifically, when his mouth was shut. Version T0: Silent Yozora. He was objectively handsome. Would some naive fangirl wander over just to strike up a conversation with him? Probably. But recruiting members based purely on a pretty face seemed completely pointless.
Just as Miko was spiraling into despair, a soft, clinical, and entirely monotone voice cut through the air.
“Is this the Supernatural Quantum Mechanics Investigation and Research Club?”
Miko snapped her head around. Standing directly in front of the table was a petite girl with long, grayish-brown hair cascading over her shoulders. She wore a pristine white lab coat over her Sobu High uniform, her framed glasses resting neatly on the bridge of her nose. Her expression was completely blank.
Someone actually wanted to learn about this club? Was there another eccentric weirdo in this school besides Yozora?
“Um, yes, that’s right.”
Seeing that Yozora was perfectly content to ignore the newcomer, Miko scrambled to her feet, swallowing her intense secondhand embarrassment.
“We are the… the Supernatural Quantum Mechanics Investigation and Research Club.”
The girl gave a noncommittal hum. She raised a slender finger, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose as her analytical gaze locked onto Miko.
“Do you understand quantum mechanics?”
Miko winced internally. Yozora was the one who came up with this ridiculous name, not her. She decided honesty was the best policy.
“Honestly… I don’t really understand it at all.”
The girl nodded slightly, her face betraying no surprise. She shifted her attention to the boy lounging behind the table.
“Do you understand quantum mechanics?”
Yozora leaned back in his chair, completely unbothered.
“I don’t understand it either.”
The girl let out a quiet sigh, looking exactly like someone whose incredibly low expectations had just been met.
“Is that so… I suppose I was too naive to think there would actually be someone in this school genuinely interested in quantum mechanics. Sorry to bother you.”
She turned on her heel, the hem of her lab coat swishing as she prepared to walk away.
“Hold on a second, Rio Futaba,” Yozora suddenly called out, a low chuckle escaping his lips.
Futaba paused. She glanced back over her shoulder, her brow furrowing in a slight, calculating frown.
“You know me?”
“Of course I do.” Yozora rested his chin on his hands, smiling like a predator who had just spotted his favorite prey. “Please, join our club.”
Miko stared at him in sheer disbelief. Did he really think anyone would accept an invitation after a pitch that terrible?
To her absolute shock, Rio Futaba didn’t immediately walk away. Instead, she pushed her glasses up once more, her voice cool and measured.
“Neither you nor she understands quantum mechanics. You are entirely incapable of discussing the topics I am interested in.” She tilted her head slightly. “So tell me… what benefit would I possibly get from joining this club?”