Um…?
Did she say, “new club member”…?
“Good to meetcha.”
“Yes, nice to meet you…”
Daiki and Kento addressed me one after the other, each giving small nods.
“Nice to meet you both, too… Er, wait! I didn’t come here to join!” I almost nodded back but then shook my head instead.
“Oh, really?” Rio said with a look of suspicion.
Whew, that was close. I almost got dragged into her club.
I glanced at Daiki and Kento, whose shoulders were bouncing up and down as they snickered quietly to themselves.
You guys! You were both in on it the entire time, huh?!
“Sorry, sorry. We noticed you didn’t mention anything about joining the club. It was just Rio getting ahead of herself,” Kento said, bringing the chuckles to an end.
“You know what? You’re right. So what brings you here?” Rio asked, her head tilted to the side.
“I came to give this back to you.” I took out her fountain pen.
“Oh…! Ah, I did lose it!” Rio said as she checked her uniform pocket. She hadn’t even realized it was missing yet. “Thanks! This was a gift from my dad, so it’s very special to me.”
I handed it over, and she received it with a look of relief.
Welp! All done here! I’m just gonna go now.
“Hold on. Seeing as you came all the way here, do you wanna get a tour of the clubroom?”
“Is that okay?”
There was something in the room that caught my eye as soon as I entered—some writing on the wall.
“Of course!” Rio said, grabbing me by the arm and ushering me over to the wall.
“Whoa! What is the…?”
My mouth dropped open at what I saw.
On the wall was a giant piece of paper with cutouts of enlarged newspaper articles glued onto it. Most of the articles were about Phantom Thief Red and had titles like PHANTOM THIEF RED APPEARS! and PHANTOM THIEF RED SAVES THE DAY! There were even articles from my dad’s time!
“Pretty neat, eh? These are all articles about Phantom Thief Red solving cases,” Rio said, surveying her collage with a happy smile. She really was a superfan. “And here is where we keep all our data.”
She took a file folder out of a drawer.
Data?
“For example, of everything Phantom Thief Red has stolen, twenty-eight percent were paintings compared with forty-six percent being jewels. We’ve also calculated the value of the things that were returned as best we could, based on the available information.”
Wh-whoa…
The file was filled with papers containing graphs and explanations, making it easy to follow. It included details like where and when Phantom Thief Red appeared, along with pictures of each location, accompanied by comments. Everything was neatly charted on a graph. I even recognized a few of the places in the photos—they must have been taken after the events.
I turned the page and saw a picture of an old woman. “Who’s this?”
“That’s one of the people who had something stolen from her returned by Phantom Thief Red. We try to find and interview them. This person had a ring stolen and returned.”
Whaaat?! You guys do stuff like that, too? Talk about taking being a fan to a whole ’nother level!
I turned the page again.
Wait, what…?!
The next page was a drawn picture of our card.
“That is the card Phantom Thief Red leaves behind. We created a picture of what we think it looks like by asking people who’ve seen it. The real cards are all taken by the police, so we can’t actually see them for ourselves,” Rio said, looking at the file together with me.
Their best guess was actually pretty close to the real deal. At first, I almost thought they’d drawn it while looking at an actual card.
The shape of the markings, even the font and arrangement were all pretty accurate. Taking a closer look, I realized some bits and pieces were slightly off, but I never would’ve guessed they could re-create this just by asking people about it…
Do fans always go this far?!
“Rio gets a bit caught up in herself when it comes to Red. Sorry about that,” Saiki said, seeing that I was taken aback by the intensity of it all.
Yeah… I could tell…
Rio didn’t seem to mind me one bit, though, as she went over to a drawer and took out a wristwatch.
“This is another thing Phantom Thief Red stole and returned to its owner. I asked them to give it to us…”
Geez! You did what?!
“And this is the case you were there for, right?”
Rio took out a new file. It had Sky Towers written on the front of it.
The Sky Towers incident.
Back then, bad guys had stormed an amusement building complex, taking Kei, Misaki, and other people as hostages. I’d had to temporarily team up with the Middle School Detective, Hibiki Shirasato, to handle that one.
“Here are the articles from that incident.” Rio opened up the folder, and there were several articles from different newspapers. The picture all had the Sky Towers in the background, with Hibiki and the police on the scene. This was probably just before they caught the bad guys and saved the hostages.
“Can you tell me about what happened to you?” Rio asked, leaning forward with great interest.
“I was there but…the truth is, I didn’t even see Red.”
You can’t see yourself, after all. Yup, not technically lying.
“But you know, you must’ve seen something. Like how the police moved. You probably met Hibiki Shirasato during this case, too, right? And…”
Rio had a long list of questions, which I stumbled to answer, but I managed to keep her off the trail without telling any flat-out lies. This went on for about ten minutes before she must’ve been satisfied with the interview, because she let out a deep breath and stretched.
“Argh, I’m so jealous of you, Asuka. Being at the scene of the crime meant you were that much closer to Phantom Thief Red,” she said, before releasing a sigh of regret.
Um, the Red you’re looking for just might be closer than you think…
Not that I could actually say that.
“So do you have a better idea of what our club does now?” Rio asked, looking at me.
“Yeah. Although, I’m surprised you were able to get the school to let this be a club.”
“Rio originally wanted it to be the Phantom Thief Red club,” said Daiki, “but the student council didn’t let that one through, which is why we broadened it to all phantom thieves. The student council wasn’t thrilled with the idea even when they did eventually pass it, though.”
“The only reason it got the okay was because Rio came forward with a mountain of files and data. They probably lost to her passion,” added Kento.
“Ah, so that’s what happened. That makes more sense. So even the student council can’t keep up with Rio.”
“If they weren’t going to pass it, I was going to run for student council again and force it in,” Rio said, like this was easy to do. Although, coming from her, it didn’t sound like she was joking.
Actually, I don’t think she is joking. It sounds like that is exactly what she would do.
Not only would Rio do it, but according to President Shiori, she probably could, too.
“And since this isn’t just a Phantom Thief Red club, we have details from other phantom thieves on file as well.”
Other phantom thieves…like Fantasista?
Fantasista was the world-famous phantom thief we had to face on the Flower Song. I thought his reason for stealing—because it’s fun—was dumb, but his ability was no joke. It was a hard battle, but we got the diamond back in the end.
“That’s right! I was so surprised to hear that they appeared on the Flower Song. You were there for that one, too, right? Ugh, I’m sooo jealous,” she said with another sigh, before snapping back and continuing, “Here’s Fantasista’s file,” she said, taking out a new folder.
Oh? I’d like to see this one.
It’s good to know as much as you can about your enemies, after all. I opened the file she handed to me.
Uh…
It was a bunch of newspaper articles, but they were all written in English.
Um, yeah…I can’t read that.
I did take some time to go through the articles, though, looking at the pictures of empty museums and pedestals where expensive art was supposed to be.
“You probably haven’t started learning English yet. I can tell you what they say when you have some time, if you want.” Rio closed the file.
An explanation from Rio. I want to hear it, but I’m also afraid to say yes.
As interested as I am, I bet she can go on a while…
But wow, I’m surprised to see all this. Never knew there were people out there who do this much research. I’d better not disappoint the people who cheer me on like Rio does!
I need to keep doing what I do the best I can!