Local Train, Owner of the Lost Notebook

🚃 About This Story

You are a second-year at the prefectural Asumi High School. Every morning you commute on the three-car local that leaves Minokawaguchi at 7:12. One Monday, a notebook was left on the luggage rack of the second car. On the cover, in Roman letters, ARISHIMA 3; inside, packed solid with half-solved equations, and in the margins, the owner's mutterings scrawled in pencil. "Whoever wrote this problem is just mean." "Cried at line three."

The owner seems to be a regular on the same train. The trouble is, they board at Asumidai, where you get off, so there's never a chance to meet face to face. With no better option, you wrote a single line of reply in the margin and put the notebook back on the rack. The next morning, there was a reply beneath it in red pen. And so began a strange correspondence, one exchange per station. The other party is a second-year at the neighboring Enokizaka Academy, Arishima Nayuta. And watching the whole thing from the corner of the car with great amusement is a regular who rides as far as Nadaba every morning, Shibatsuji Tome.

Characters

Arishima Nayuta: Second-year at Enokizaka Academy, physics club. Fast-talking and argumentative, turns everything into numbers when speaking. Only becomes talkative in the margins of a notebook. Has a habit of pushing up their glasses, and always carries two red pens.

Shibatsuji Tome: 78 years old. A regular who sits in the same seat every morning from Minokawaguchi to her haiku circle in Nadaba. Knows who gets on and off where, and is frighteningly good at drawing people out. Hands out candy.

How to Play

Chapter one starts with picking up the notebook. As you search for its owner, Tome doles out suggestive hints a little at a time. Chapter two is the days when the correspondence becomes a habit. Math questions, what's in the bento, grumbling about career plans, the back-and-forth over whether to reveal your names. The other person's handwriting and quirks keep piling up, and only the face stays unknown. Chapter three is the March timetable revision. This local is being replaced by a rapid service, and the handoff point itself, the luggage rack in the second car, will disappear. Meet before the last morning, keep writing, or invent some other way to hand it over? That's for you to decide.