GJ Bu Vol 2 Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Television

“Check out what I found!”

A clear day in the middle of the rainy season, Mao arrived at the clubroom while letting out a powerful voice.

She must picked up some weird object again. Kyouya thought as he raised his face from the light novel he’d been reading.

Kirara followed Mao into the clubroom, and she was bringing something with her on her shoulder.

At first glance, Kyouya thought it was a dresser.

But he was mistaken; it was a television.

The reason he could think that the ridiculously big and ridiculously old-looking object was in fact a television was because of the CRT-like gla.s.s screen on it’s front side.

The reason he wasn’t completely confident in that judgement was because despite being electronic equipment, the object was made of wood and had legs attached to it.

On top of that, it looked as if it had been around for a long time. No matter how you looked at it, without a doubt it had been made before Kyouya was born. It was probably even older than Kyouya’s parents. At a glance one could tell that the dust covered object had been through quite a lot.

“How about over here?”

Following Megumi’s indication, Kirara placed the object at a corner of the clubroom.

The television hit the floor with a deep thump. This looks more like a piece of furniture than a household appliance.

“You’re so strong, Kirara.”

Megumi expressed her admiration, joining the tips of her fingers.

Despite her slender appearance, Kirara was incredibly strong.

“Oh, no, not again! Honestly, president, why would you pick up this junk?”

Kyouya said, dumbfounded.

“This ain’t no junk. It’s amazing! A real treasure!”

“Aah… right, right. Of course.”

“It’s a black and white television, right? By the looks of it, it works on vacuum tubes. I’ve read about those, but this is my first time seeing the real thing.”

s.h.i.+on eyed the television with curiosity.

The room’s corner was teeming with weird objects the president had previously taken an interest in, but this one still managed to stand out among them.

“Where did you find this thing?”

“It was lying around.”

Mao puffed out her chest, sniffing with pride.

“Doesn’t that just mean you stole it?”

“Idiot! Of course I asked! When I asked the old man who was throwing it in the garbage if we could take it he said ‘Sure, I’m getting rid of it anyway.'”

“I wonder if it works.”

s.h.i.+on walked around to the back of the television and pulled out the power chord. Kyouya was amazed to see that despite being decades old the power plug was still shaped the same as a normal one.

They plugged it into the power strip and pushed the power switch.

Unfortunately, there was no response from the television.

“It’s really broken, I guess.”

“Oh, no. Not just yet!”

Kyouya was quick to give up, but Mao stopped him with her hand.

“These old TV’s take a while until they light up, you know? The TV we used to watch at grandpa’s house as kids was just the same. If we turned the TV on at the last minute, we would even end up missing the opening of the show.”

They waited for a while as Megumi had said. At first, the sound started coming out.

SHHH, came the noise, just like the one you can hear if you turn on the TV right after a late Sunday night blackout.

“There’s no antenna cable, so I tried connecting a speaker cord.”

s.h.i.+on was fumbling with the back of the TV.

Another moment pa.s.sed and a sandstorm appeared on the screen. It’s definitely broken Kyoua thought, giving up.

“Wait! Don’t move!”

The president’s brusque movement came to halt them. Everybody stood still as if they were playing ‘Statue’.

“Something appeared on the screen just now! Kyoro, go back to the pose you were standing in before!”

“Before? You mean… like this?”

Kyouya put a hand on his chin, a.s.suming a “person who gave up hope” pose, and sure enough, something changed in the sandstorm on the screen.

The faint image of some television program could be seen. They say electromagnetic waves on the air can suffer small changes from the position of the people around them.

“It worked! Yes! It worked! Oh, yes!”

“Yay! It worked, sis!”

“Megu, don’t move! That’s the pose!”

Megu froze at her “it worked” pose. Not only her, but Kirara was also stuck on an “air chair” pose. Adding to that, s.h.i.+on was doing the “airplane”. Mao herself had one leg raised up as if she were a ballerina. That turned out to be the best formation to get a good image from the TV.

The GJ Club had acquired a television set. However, watching it was an extremely exhaustive task.

“Uuuuugh…“

“Let’s just throw it away. There’s almost n.o.body who could look at that and not see a piece of trash.”

“No. Ab-so-lu-te-ly not.”