As I suddenly opened the door to the Culinary Club, I called out, "Jina! I'm so glad you're here! I need your help right now!"

At the suddenness of my actions, Jina, my childhood friend and also the president of this club, who was sitting at the table, jumped in surprise.

"Oh for God's sake!" she exclaimed looking at me. "Can you stop doing that? You always barge in like that and scare me! You're really going to kill me one day! Can you walk into a room like a normal person?"

Placing her palm on her chest, she sighed heavily, as if calming herself down.

"I'm sorry Jina! But I really need to talk to you about something very, very important!"

Slamming the door behind me, I entered the room like a tornado and immediately landed on one of the empty chairs next to Jina.

Jina was a very beautiful girl. She had long black hair, a face like a model's, and graceful, slender arms.

Sometimes I thought that if I were a guy, I would definitely ask her out.

Catching myself staring at her face, I shook my head.

Now is not the time to think about it!

Looking at her with pleading and impatient eyes, I asked, "You have some free time now, don't you? Can you hear me out?"

"Um… Actually, I wanted to organize supplies and food..." she said with a little hesitation.

It wasn't long before the school festival, and I knew they were preparing for some kind of cooking competition, so I didn't want to tell her about it yesterday so as not to distract her, but now it couldn't wait any longer.

"Please! It's important!" I shouted, grabbing her hands and starting to shake them violently. "Help me find the costume! The drama club members are so useless! They aren't even trying to find it!"

"Wait! Mai, Mai! Calm down!"

She pulled her hands out of my grip and grabbed my shoulders, looking straight into my eyes.

"If you want me to help you, explain things to me first. Who is useless? And what costume are you talking about?"

Hearing her words, I asked with hope in my eyes, "Does that mean you'll help me?..."

"Yes..." she replied quietly. "But in order for me to help you, you have to tell me everything calmly, okay?"

Her words helped me and I finally relaxed a little.

Noticing that I had calmed down, she moved away from me, resting her chin on the palm of her hand and looking at me, ready to listen.

I cleared my throat before starting to explain, "Ahem... you know our club is making a short movie for the upcoming festival, right?"

"Yeah, of course I do," she replied.

"Okay... As you know, we're making a short movie about a princess and a knight. We're almost done, we just have to shoot the last few scenes. And since the movie is set in the Middle Ages, we're using costumes specially made for us by the Cosplay Club. And these costumes, as you can imagine, are very difficult to make," I paused for a moment. "We had to wait a very long time for them to be ready! We don't have enough time to sew a new one! Do you realize how stressed I am right now?!"

I hadn't noticed that my voice had risen.

Jina, on the other hand, looked at me patiently.

"Yeah, yeah..." she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Of course I know. You've told me about this before, remember?..."

Her calm gaze fell on me again.

"Explain everything... I promise I'll help you," she added.

"...Ah… yeah… sorry," I said, feeling a little guilty for raising my voice.

"...I'll get to the point then..." I continued. "Well, as you probably know, all the costumes for the movie are stored in one place, our storage room. But yesterday, when we went to get the princess costume, we found that it was missing. At first we thought we had left it in the drama club room, but it wasn't there either. Anyway, we don't know where it went..."

I looked at Jina expectantly.

"So the costume disappeared without a trace?" she asked.

"Yes... But the thing is, the storage room was locked and we were the first to open it yesterday."

"And what time exactly did you find it missing yesterday? In the morning? Or after class?"

"After class, just before we went to the drama club. Then we immediately started looking for it. We've been looking and asking around all day today, too. But we still haven't found it..."

"Hmmm..." she put her index finger to her lips thoughtfully.

"Please help me, Jina! We have absolutely no time to make another costume!" I shouted, looking into her eyes, a look of obvious desperation on my face and voice.

"...Mai, please calm down..." she repeated once again. "First of all, let's try to figure out where the costume could have gone? It definitely didn't just disappear. Do you think it's possible that someone stole it?"

Once again, her words instantly relaxed me.

Her calm and slightly firm tone always had a sedative effect on me. I didn't know why. She was good at controlling my emotions.

I looked at her thoughtfully before answering.

"We looked everywhere..." I said. "We've also asked all the club members, our friends, and even the teachers if they know anything, and even posted notices about the missing costume on the school bulletin board, but no one knows or has heard anything. The school security guard hasn't noticed anything suspicious either. The teachers have promised to find it, but you know I can't wait for them... After all this, I really feel like someone stole it on purpose. It's hard to believe it was an accident."

"Yeah... How could a costume that was always kept in the same place suddenly go missing? Especially when it's not a little thing like a phone that you can put somewhere and forget about. But if no one saw anything, that means we can't find the costume until we find out who the culprit might be, or until they decide to give it back and confess to stealing it."

"Yes! Exactly! That's what I thought too!" I exclaimed, pleased that she shared my thoughts. "That's why I came to you!"

"Hmm..." she lowered her eyes thoughtfully. "I'm very curious about who stole it, and more importantly, why... If we can get an idea of who it might have been and what their motives were, it will be easier for us to find the costume... But we need a clue."

Yes, she'd always been interested in that sort of thing. The shelves in her room were filled with mystery books. And she loved playing detective, though she always insisted she wasn't very good at it.

"I have a question..." she said. "Are you sure the costume was in the storage room before the day it disappeared?"

"Of course!" I replied. "More than sure! We were just shooting a scene that day!"

"So if I understand correctly, the day before yesterday you shot the scene, after shooting you took the costume back to the storage room, and the next day, yesterday, the costume was gone?"

"Yes, that's right!"

"Then I have another question. Who took the costume back to the storage room? Did you take it personally? Or was it someone else?"

"No, it wasn't me. It was taken by another club member who is in charge of the storage room, a first year student. She usually takes things back to the storage room."

Jina didn't know the members of the drama club personally, so it was logical for her to ask these questions.

"But why didn't you leave the costumes in the drama club room if you had to shoot the next day anyway?"

"Well, we always take all the important stuff back to the storage room after the shoot. Since I don't want the costumes to get torn or dirty or anything like that... It's better to keep them in a separate place."

"So this first year is in charge of the storage room?"

"Yes..."

"Hmm... but why? I thought you, as the club president, were in charge of such things."

"Well… You're right... But when she joined, she really wanted to be helpful, so I decided to give her a little responsibility to show that I trust her," I said.

"Ah, I see, that makes sense. And how many members does the drama club have anyway? As I recall, there are about 6 members, right?"

"Five including me. Besides me, there's Rina, she's a third year, then the first year girl who's in charge of the storage room, her name is Miyu by the way, and two second year boys, Ken and Akito. There was another guy, but he left the club."

"Left the club? Is that the guy you told me about the other day? You called him a dickhead if I remember correctly?"

"You remember that?" I chuckled slightly. "Yeah… him..."

"Okay… then I have one more question. Who else has access to the storage room? Only club members?"

"Yes, only club members. But we only have one key, so club members usually have to go to Miyu first to get the key if they want to get into the storage room..."

"I see... What about the guy who left the club? He might have a motive, right? You said that the club members didn't have such a good relationship with him. Maybe he wanted to sabotage the club? Do you think he had a spare key?"

"Nah... I doubt it was him to be honest, though I had the thought," I said. "It's unlikely he would even waste time trying to steal the costume. He never cared about the club in the first place. And even though he's a scumbag, he's easy to read, he usually speaks his mind directly rather than doing something like this behind someone's back. And it's highly unlikely that anyone would trust him with the key..."

"But there's a possibility that he made a copy of the key beforehand..."

I laughed skeptically.

"You're really making it sound like he's some mastermind who planned this in advance. Like I said, he didn't care enough about the club or us to bother with stuff like that."

"Still... the whole thing is suspicious, don't you think? If there really is only one key and Miyu didn't give it to anyone, how did the culprit get into the storage room? Unless they stole the key from Miyu and then secretly returned it to her. But they couldn't have done it unnoticed in such a short time."

"I'm not saying there isn't another key..." I said thoughtfully. "I'm just saying that it's unlikely that the culprit is the former club member... though I could be wrong. If you want to question him and poke around, I won't stop you, the most important thing is that you find the costume..."

"Okay... Let's say someone other than Miyu has the key," she said. "Then I have a question, has your club or club members had or have any conflicts with anyone at school? Maybe someone has a grudge against you? Maybe someone wanted to sabotage you, considering the costume was stolen at the worst possible time."

"I thought about that, too... But I doubt it. As far as I can remember, we've never had any conflicts with anyone. We always try to maintain good relations with everyone."

"Then... that just leaves the club members..."

"You mean the culprit is one of the drama club members?" I asked.

To be honest, I had my suspicions, but as the president of the club, I didn't want to make unfounded accusations.

I wondered what Jina thought.

As if she noticed the change in my gaze, she asked, "Hmm... Do you have any suspicions? Are any of the members particularly suspicious? You mentioned earlier that they're useless. What did you mean by that?"

"To be honest... I don't really want to suspect anyone, but I can't say that the club members aren't suspicious at all. In fact, I'd say they're both suspicious and not suspicious at the same time. And about useless... I just meant that some of them aren't exactly in a hurry to find the costume."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for example, those two. Rina and Ken... Rina is the one who wrote the script for the movie, but she acts like the missing costume doesn't concern her. And Ken keeps saying it's probably just a prank and telling me to calm down..."

"Do you think it was one of them who stole the costume?"

"They... Um... No, I really don't think it was one of them. They always take the club seriously. I don't think they'd have any reason to steal the costume..."

"Then who's left? That first year girl, Miyu, who's in charge of the storage room, and the other guy, right?"

"And me..." I added.

Jinu just laughed at my words.

"Hahaha. You? You mean you're the one who stole the costume? What a twist!"

I laughed back.

"Maybe. Hahaha, who knows, maybe I came to prank you?"

"Pfft... okay, all kidding aside. I mean, I know how important the Drama Club is to you. You wouldn't do that kind of pranks...." she said. "So who do you suspect? Do you think it could be Miyu? She has the key, right?"

"Miyu? Hmm... well... she did act a little suspicious..."

"Suspicious?"

"Yeah... When I asked her if she knew anything, she reacted strangely... like there was something she didn't want to tell me."

"Do you think it was her?"

"Well... honestly, I don't think so... She wants to play the princess too much... I don't think she'd steal her own costume."

"Ah... So she's the one playing the princess?"

"Yup... and honestly, I'm more suspicious of the other member, Akito..."

"Akito? Why?"

"Although, no... I wouldn't say that I really suspect him. I just have a feeling there's a slight possibility it could be him."

"Hmm... What makes you think that? "

"To be honest, I got the impression that he was a little happy the costume was gone. He said we didn't really need it anyway. When I asked how we would shoot the final scenes in that case, he said we might as well not shoot them at all, and then immediately dismissed his words as a joke."

"Really? Yeah... that's a little weird," Jina agreed.

"I know, right?"

"Hmm... do you know what his motive might have been?"

"Well... he likes Miyu, who as you know plays the princess, but Miyu likes Ken, who plays the knight the princess will end up with..."

"Ah... jealousy then?"

I hesitated a bit.

"Yes, jealousy... But I can't be one hundred percent sure that it was definitely him. I don't want to make any direct accusations. I just don't want to accuse someone without proof."

Jina was silent.

"And even if he really was the one behind it, it's unlikely that he'd just admit it if I asked him, right?" I added.

She smiled slightly.

"Hmm... was that one of the reasons why you asked for my help, I guess?"

"Yeah, I guess so..." I admitted.

"Okay, then... I need to talk to the club members first. And about the former club member, I'm still not one hundred percent sure. I won't take him off the account just yet."

"You can come to the club tomorrow after class. I'll introduce you to everyone," I said.

"Sounds good."