The Astronomy Club's Observation Log

🔭 About This Story

Lost in the school building, you wander into the white observation dome on the roof of the old wing, where a club president in a lab coat tells you "You've got good eyes" and signs you up on the spot. Otoridai Prefectural High School Astronomy Club, three members. What decided your admission was not your own will but the president's eye for observation. Waiting for you were a broken reflector telescope called "Number Three" and the president's black observation log.

The log holds records of the stars, and not only those. "May 12, in front of the school store. Second-year boy and girl, distance 50 cm, conversation 3 minutes. Possible binary system." The president who is supposed to be watching the stars seems to be observing human relationships as well.

Then one day in the rainy season, the president proposes a wager. By the Perseid meteor shower, which falls on the night of her retirement from the club, will a confession be observed in this club, or not? You are appointed referee. But by your third day in the club, a page for you, the supposed referee, has already been started in the field notebook. Whose love, exactly, is being observed?

Characters

Shirase Sarasa, third-year, club president. Lab coat and bedhead, and she refers to herself with the boyish "boku." Once the talk turns to astronomy she talks a mile a minute and cannot stop, and she classifies even human relationships in astronomical terms. The one word she is too embarrassed to say is "youth." The final page of her observation log is the one thing she shows no one.

Mikuriya Akane, second-year, treasurer. A stationery shop's daughter who wields both calculator and abacus. She is supposed to be the realist who answers talk of dreams with a price tag, yet she always ends up on the losing side of the deal. In the income column of her ledger sit entries of three thousand yen that she has explained to no one.

How to Play

Observations in the dome, the plan to repair Number Three, the mystery of the ledger that does not add up. From long talks in the dome at night to winning permission for the summer camp, this is a story where every day of summer piles up in the observation record. You are free to weigh in on the wager or to watch it play out in silence. On the night of the meteor shower, each person gets three wishes. What you wish for is allowed even to you, the referee. Whether Number Three's primary mirror reflects the stars again also depends on how you spend your summer. On the night the wager is settled, what you do is up to you.