When I arrived at school, I looked for Gazette and found her talking to Elodie. Just like yesterday the two of them were together. They were laughing at something funny on Gazette's phone. Knowing Gazette it was probably a juicy gossip story. She was always up to date with the latest gossip. Otherwise, she wouldn't be Gazette.
I went up to them and gave them both a kiss on the cheek. Now that we're working on the same project, it would be really rude not to.
“Can you girls meet me in the office after school? I got a job for the communications department”. I needed more data on the double tsundere phenomenon. I had spent the last couple of days reading a lot of yuri but I was by no standard an expert yet. That universe was a lot bigger than the couple of novels I had already read and I needed to find out how the double tsundere stalemate could be broken reliably.
They both instantly got a smile. They knew they were gonna get a scoop to gossip about.
“We'll be there!” Elodie merrily responded.
“Oh and if you can, we are going to need more data on Tina from 5ME”
Gazette's eyes sparkled immediately. I knew she was gonna do a thorough job and I knew she was curious as to why I would want information on the girl from the flower shop.
Ah, that felt good. For the first since the FBY debacle started, I felt I was in control and not being played. But it was too early to cry victory. With an adversary like Ms. Lyst, I would need to be cautious at all times or the time would come that I would never see the inside of my kitchen again and I would not let that happen. Nothing or nobody comes between me and my precious cooking! My eyes flinched for a second as I went into my protect-my-kitchen-mode. Luckily nobody seemed to have noticed that my other side came out for a second.
After that, we talked until the bell rang. Gazette and I gave Elodie a goodbye kiss and then went our separate ways from Elodie who was in a different class.
Morning classes went by painfully slow. First, we had psychology which was an exclusive course for the human sciences course I was in.
This was given by Ms. Narcy Stick. I thought she was rather pretty with her stylish waving brown hair and always tastefully applied make-up. She used a little too much perfume though. Even after she left the classroom we would still smell that scent for quite a while to the point that the next teacher often just opened a window to air the room.
As a teacher, Ms. Stick was rather self-important and thought of her 2-hour course as the most important thing we would learn during our entire lives. Especially since she tweaked the official curriculum herself to be even better than the prescribed one.
Ms. Stick was a single woman nearing 30 and she used almost every opportunity she had to curse the fact that she was not yet married. She could not understand that candidates weren't throwing themselves at wonderful her by the bushes.
“Probably because she constantly says stuff like that out loud” I whispered to myself and I heard a little snicker from Eve, who was sitting at the desk behind me. Whoops, I let that one slip out a little too loud.
Ms. Stick stared at me, if eyes could kill, I would be in the morgue. I quickly looked down, my face turning red, luckily this was the first time I had ever done something like that and she seemed to let it pass with a clear look that was saying I should not try to pull something like that again. I knew she was the kind of person that remembered things for a long time and I knew I hit a mine there.
After psychology came morning break and after that, we had Ms. Dubusier and Ms. Conne. When the bell finally announced the end of the fourth hour. The school was out for the day and everyone rushed out.
I decided to skip lunch today because I made an appointment with Elodie and Gazette. I would have to do with a few of the macaroons that I made yesterday. I went to the FBY office and went in to find Ms. Lyst working on her laptop.
Before she could say anything I tried to one-up her and switched to a dramatic mode that I had seen in crime shows.
“We have a yuri emergency”, I said, “and I am gonna need your help.” This was my chance to take the lead and I would not miss it.
“What do you mean, what happened?” She answered a bit shocked that I was acting enthusiastically all of a sudden.
Going in an even more dramatic but still serious mode I explained Elsa's dilemma and my theory about the double tsundere situation while drawing a schematic on the blackboard.
But instead of overpowering Ms. Lyst, her eyes started sparkling and she became intense and excited.
“Could we really have broken the wall between 2D and 3D?!” she exclaimed. Then she coughed and straightened herself and turned back to the usual Ms. Lyst.
“I see, so what are your plans to facilitate the yurification process?” She asked in her basic professional attitude.
As on queue Elodie and Gazette entered the room.
“Good you are here,” I said, being on my guard and not leaving Ms. Lyst a chance. “I have a task for you girls.”
As we all went to sit around the meeting table, I placed a plate of macarons in the middle so everyone could take one. All the girls' eyes sparkled and once it reached their tongues they all seemed to be put in a daze by the sweet delightfulness of a macaron. I thought I could see shoujo sparkles around them. My macarons are like single combo multi KO. There are the texture layers of the cookie, then the filling, and inside each filling, there was a piece of candied fruit. Well, their state is what I intend my cooking to do so I felt proud of their reactions.
Once they came out of their daze Ms. Lyst put her glasses straight by pushing the bridge with her index finger.
“I am noting the purchase of coffee and tea equipment, it is clear that it is going to be necessary to make this bureau function optimally with this level of sweets.” Ms. Lyst said dryly. I was really wondering where all the money for infrastructure came from because I could not imagine the school bothering with it. Schools were known to be short of money all the time. But there was no time to ask that now because we had a case to work on.
“On to business,” I said.
“First of all, I would like more source material, specifically on the double tsundere and what the most reliable way is to make the yuri-seed blossom. I would like our communication team to focus on that.”
Then I turned my focus to Gazette.
“Second, Eline, did you have time to look into Tina, is there anything we should know?”
“Well, you were right in assuming that she is a complete tsundere. Also, there has been a rumor that she has been down lately. But if anyone asks her about it she just answers “It's not like I'm feeling down or anything.” As always, Gazette worked fast and had good information.
“Combined with what we know from Elsa we can assume that she is down because she and Elsa were close and then Elsa suddenly stopped talking to her. We also do not know if she knows if Elsa heard her say that she didn't like her. So we should add a possible minefield caution.”
“We have until 14.30 to make up a plan, let's go!”
Elodie and Gazette nodded. Ms. Lyst just watched us silently.
I said all of this as seriously as I could. Doing my best to look assertive and professional. I would not give Ms. Lyst a chance to make me lose control and to be honest I would never have thought it but playing the dramatic crime squad leader part was really fun to do. Especially because everyone went along with it.
But then Ms. Lyst said with sparkling eyes: “We have our first Y(uri)-file ladies, I am expecting results. Claire, the second I saw you I just knew you were the right girl for the job!” and suddenly she managed to make it look like everything I just did was her achievement.
There was just no winning with that woman. My inside exploded but my outside appearance wore the most gentle angelic smile. I would need something or a certain someone to hone my knife skills on tonight.
Cue theme music
@Yati https://youtu.be/Vpqffgak7To
@Rookie_Slime
Psychology in school?!!
There is a humane science course you can take in high school. you get psychology if that is the direction you have chosen to follow
@Yati that's pretty cool!
Claire goes *Stabby stabby*
Was there a timeskip of a few days before the last chapter?
No. Why do you ask? did I make something unclear?
When I arrived at school, I looked for Gazette and found her talking to Elodie. Lately each time I went looking for Gazette, they were both together. This was a recent thing. I remember Gazette always going around gossiping and looking to get her hand on a new scoop. It seems like those two became very good friends lately.
This sounds like at least few days passed between the two get recruited and the current day, otherwise Claire hardly had enough instances where she would have looked for Gazette to actually notice this new pattern.
@Echimera
You make a valid point. I decided to change the paragraph. Thank you for pointing that out to me. 
It now reads:
When I arrived at school, I looked for Gazette and found her talking to Elodie. Just like yesterday the two of them were together. They were laughing at something funny on Gazette's phone. Knowing Gazette it was probably a juicy gossip story. She was always up to date with the latest gossips. Otherwise she wouldn't be Gazette.