“I was kidnapped when I was in the sixth grade.”
Th-this isn’t your first time?!
Minatsu’s eyes were wide, too.
“Like now?”
“That’s right. I was held for a ransom. I believe it was July, and I was on my way home from school. It was my fault for taking the back roads and trying to go home alone because I got into a fight with my grandfather…”
So you’ve always had a chauffeur, even when you were in elementary school. It’s a shame—making little pit stops while on your walk home is the best part of coming home from school. I’d hate to be stuck in a car every day.
“A man with a face covering pulled me into his car and took me to a storage facility. My eyes were covered, so I couldn’t see anything, and they threw away my phone that had GPS on it.”
“Sounds scary! So you had no way of knowing where you were or calling for help?”
“My family was thrown into disarray when they realized I was gone. The police were at my house, and my grandfather, who is usually quite scary, left work to come home.”
“Yeah, I’d go home too if my granddaughter was kidnapped.”
“No, my grandfather is a stern, imposing man. It was unthinkable for him to put family over work. Up until recently, I couldn’t even look him in the eye when I spoke to him. I realized, however, that he’s at the top of an organization that employs tens of millions of people around the world, and he carries the weight of that burden on his shoulders.”
Tens of millions…
Minatsu and I looked at each other. I couldn’t even picture that many people.
“I mean, that sounds like a big job for one person, but he’s still your family, right? You must be really lonely.”
“Yes, maybe. But when I was little, I always wondered how he could be my grandfather in the first place. The fight I mentioned before was less of a fight and more of me getting angry because I thought he didn’t care.”
“Of course that’s not true! He’s family; he’ll always care.”
“I understand that now. Or, well, I guess you could say I learned it when I got kidnapped the first time.” Kotone smiled a little as she reminisced. “Where were we? Yes—the criminals who kidnapped me held me for ransom. They wanted one billion yen.”
O-one billion?!
Both Minatsu and I listened with our mouths agape.
“To be honest, I thought it was pretty low for a demand from the Hanasato Group. That being said, the kidnappers wanted it soon, before my family had time to work with the police.”
Kotone explained calmly, this like it was just how the world works.
One billion was low…? Kotone really must be super, ultra rich.
“The only solution the police could come up with was to pay the ransom. But there was no guarantee I would be safe even if my family did what the kidnappers asked. While this all happened, there was one person who kept searching for me.”
“I bet I know who that is…”
Kotone smiled at me. “That’s right. It was Hibiki. He was only in first grade back then, but the Shirasatos lived near us, so Hibiki and I had the chance to meet each other a few times before. His grandfather was formerly the police chief, and his father was a government official who worked with the police, so his family was well-to-do. Hibiki told me once before that he comes from a long line of police officers.”
A long line of police officers… Unlike me, who’s related to a long line of thieves—we’re basically cat and mouse. I bet even our ancestors used to butt heads.
“So Hibiki tagged along with the police and snuck into our house, but no one noticed a first-grader was there because of all the commotion. It was an emergency, after all. Once he was in, he started gathering information. He was able to get the kind of information the police don’t share with anyone else from the gossiping maids and butlers. They were in and out of the room where the police were to bring them food and drinks.”
W-wow, that doesn’t sound like something any normal first-grader would do… I always knew Kei wasn’t normal, but Hibiki gives him a run for his money.
“I learned this later, but what Hibiki wanted to listen to the most was the sounds in the background of the kidnapper’s phone calls to my home.”
“What sounds?”
“Trains, and the sound of the caller’s shoes, and the sound of a steam whistle. Those three things came through over the phone.”
“I see. Well, even I could figure that one out. A steam whistle means there was a boat, and there aren’t a lot of spots where you can hear both trains and boats now, are there?”
“At first, that’s what the police thought as well, but there were no such places nearby.”
Minatsu seemed surprised by this, too.
“There was one spot he could be driven to, but it was too far from the tracks to hear the trains going by, and the police didn’t have the luxury to go check every storage facility at every train station. I was being held captive, after all.”
“But Hibiki was able to figure out where you were using those sounds, wasn’t he?”
Kotone nodded. “That’s right. He explained his thought process to me later—that just because you could hear both a train and a boat didn’t mean there was actually one nearby.”
“Uh…huh? I’m not quite sure I follow…”
“I couldn’t, either—I had no idea what he meant by that. But think about it. The sound could’ve been coming from a TV or a computer. It would’ve been easy for the kidnapper to play random noises like that.”
So the kidnapper played fake sounds to throw you off his trail?
“Nope. According to Hibiki: The kidnapper’s actions were spontaneous and unplanned—he knew that as soon as he learned I was kidnapped after getting into a fight with my grandfather. So Hibiki considered another possibility.”
Another possibility?
Both Minatsu and I were fully engaged in the story at this point, leaning forward to listen.
“That a sound effect just so happened to be caught in the kidnapper’s phone call.”
Ah…
“So Hibiki called his classmates and asked if they knew a department store or mall that had a play area on its roof with boats and trains.”
“Why on the roof?”
“I’ve never been to one, but I hear it’s common for department stores to have tiny theme parks on their roofs for children to enjoy.”
“Oh, yeah! I used to go to those when I was little!”
“Hibiki said the sound quality of the attractions there was good enough to sound real, and that the boats and trains usually made noises when you rode them. He asked his classmates if they had any idea of a place that had both, and someone did. There was just one department store that had both.”
“So that’s where you were? I don’t know, the roof of a department store doesn’t sound like a good spot to keep someone captive.”
“Hibiki went to the top floor of the next building over and staked out the scene. It was July and very hot that day, and the kidnappers had me captive in a room with no air conditioning. I remember how much they were sweating. Though they tried not to open the windows, the heat got the best of them eventually.”
“That isn’t what Hibiki thought would happen, was it? No way…”
“From his vantage point, Hibiki had noticed some men who seemed restless. He later told me he ‘didn’t have evidence, but knew it was them.’”
“If he found out that much on his own, then I bet the cops took care of the rest after that, huh.”
“Unfortunately, no. The police trust him now, but back then, he was just an elementary schooler. He tried to make his case to the police, but they didn’t listen.”
That makes sense. Sure, he is a boy genius middle school detective now, but back then, everyone probably treated him like they did any other kid.
“So Hibiki waited for the police to leave for the deal with the kidnappers before heading out to rescue me himself.”
Kotone’s eyes were warm and nostalgic as she recalled the memory.
“After he came and got me, he called the police and had the kidnappers arrested. Looking back on it, the two kidnappers were pretty incompetent, but since there were two of them, this was my only way out.”
That must’ve been Hibiki’s first case, huh? Either way, it definitely doesn’t sound like how a first-grader would think or act…
As Kotone finished her story, she looked up at the quiet light that seeped in through the small window. It was faint, but we did have a little bit of light.
She stared at the light for a few moments before slowly turning back to us.