By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

It had to come sometime. The Apothecary Diaries has finally given us a short story volume. Well, sort of. This is not exactly the “we collected all the bookstore-exclusive stories and bunched them in a book” volume we see from other light novel series. The stories detail the main cast’s return to the rear palace after a year away in the West, what has happened in their absence, and what’s going to happen going forward. With one exception right at the very end, Maomao is not the POV character for any of these stories, which makes them unique. That said, Maomao certainly inhabits a lot of the narrative, and the ending of the 12th volume, which saw her finally coming to terms with what she and Jinshi have going on between them and showing it physically, turns out to be something that absolutely everyone can see written all over their faces. Which means… well, it means a lot more go stones have to be set in motion, as a Jinshi/Maomao pairing could be deadly if not handled properly.

The stories, which can sometimes stretch over multiple chapters: 1) Lahan has to deal with a hanging corpse found in Lakan’s chambers, which is made to look like a suicide but it’s soon clear isn’t; 2) Jinshi meets up with the Emperor and Empress, and is told that the rumbles over Gyokuyou’s son being the WRONG kind of future emperor have only been getting louder (it’s that red hair, you see); 3) Maamei has to deal with her sister-in-law returning from the west permanently injured, and her brother being far too attached to a duck, which is not a metaphor for former consort Lishu at all; 4) Yao and En’en still have not left Lahan’s residence, much to the irritation of everyone except Yao, who clearly has a crush on him. This ends up possibly getting solved by 5) the return of Lahan’s brother, and the demise of the best running gag in the series. 6) Maomao catches up on things at Verdigris House, including a shocking change; 7) Maomao is called to meet Ah-Duo, who has heard the rumors about her relationship with Jinshi and has a few things to say; 8) Jinshi invites Maomao to his residence so their love can finally be consummated… or at least that’s what everyone except Jinshi assumes.

The stories build up to the big climax (or rather, lack of climax) of the ending, in which Maomao is nervous but ready but Jinshi has not yet emotionally or politically prepared himself for the consequences of this relationship. It’s probably for the best they wait a bit more. Elsewhere, I was as startled as Maomao to hear that Meimei is no longer in the brothel, having been bought out by the Go champion we saw in previous books. We don’t even see her in this volume, which is bad in that she was the one Princess we got the most development for, but also good as it means Joka, the one we knew the least about, gets a spotlight, where we see she’s worrying about her future and wants to forget about her past, something which might be harder than it appears. I was relieved to see Chue has stuff to do here, and will not be written out anytime soon, mostly as she’s become my second favorite after Maomao herself. Best of all, though, is the way that the “Yao has a crush on Lahan” plotline, which every character hated and so did I, is resolved. It’s resolved so simply I’m amazed I never thought about it. And what’s more, despite the demise of the running gag I mentioned before (we now know his real name), it lives on! (he still can’t use it, because spoilers).

I assume with Vol. 14 we’ll be back to Maomao POV, and probably a lot more political backstabbing and murder. Till then, this is a great way to handle a short story collection.