“Yes,” agreed Sousuke, with total sincerity. “I have made many enemies in my time. It could be Soviet KGB assassins, or mercenaries working with a drug cartel. I can’t rule out fundamentalist Islamic terrorists either...”
“You have way too many weird friends. How’d you even know someone messed with your cubby?”
“I placed an inconspicuous hair into the seam of the door,” he told her. “This morning, the hair was gone.”
“Hang on. You put a hair in the seam of your cubby door every time?”
“Yes. Is it that unusual?”
Is this guy okay? Kaname was starting to get seriously worried. She’d seen him in action once before and knew that he was for real, yet she couldn’t completely shake the feeling that he suffered from massive delusions of grandeur.
“At any rate, I want to inspect the inside of the cubby,” Sousuke continued. “I intend to insert a fiberscope from behind to identify the nature of the trap.”
“Uh, you walk around with all that stuff?” she asked.
“I keep a tool kit in my locker for times just like these.”
“Times just like what?”
Sousuke attached a device resembling an 8mm video cassette case to a black tube and flicked on the light at the end. He then checked the battery on his electric drill and cautiously resumed preparations for his inspection.
“C’mon, Sousuke, class is gonna start soon,” said Kaname. “I promise you there’s no bomb. If you’re too afraid to open it, why not just leave it be?”
“I can’t. Too dangerous.”
He seemed so certain, yet Kaname still couldn’t imagine there being a bomb of any kind in play. “Then clear it up fast,” she told him exasperatedly. “Don’t use an endoscope or whatever like you’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Yeah! Yeah!” The students, watching from afar, voiced their agreement with Kaname.
“Just finish it, Sagara!”
“We can’t stand around forever!”
He nodded slightly in the face of their jeers. “I see. That will require a rather more extreme solution, but...” Sousuke pulled a large tube from his bag, squeezed out a piece of brown clay from within, and stuck it to the outside of his shoe cubby.
“What is that, toothpaste?” Kaname asked suspiciously.
“No...” Once the clay was attached, he implanted a device that looked like a four-battery pack, then pulled out a tape cassette-sized remote control. “Please step back. No, farther.” Sousuke shouldered his tool kit and retreated to a safe distance, pushing Kaname along with him.
Her expression remained dubious. “Hey, c’mon,” she insisted. “What’s that clay stuff?”
“Plastic explosives.”
“Um—”
Sousuke removed the safety from the detonator remote and shouted at the spectators, “Fire in the hole! Cover your ears and open your mouths! Is that understood? Starting now!” Despite his warnings, not one of the students did as they were told, and before Kaname could try to stop him, Sousuke pressed the red button on the remote.
“Don’t—”
Bwooooom!!!
A shock wave rippled through the entry hall as everyone present was thrown to the floor. Tiny flames licked at the ceiling, splinters went flying, and white smoke filled the room. The recoil from the explosion had tipped over the entire Class 2-4 shoe cabinet, scattering slippers everywhere. Some people were coughing from smoke inhalation, some were cringing from the sudden noise, some were weeping over the sight of their burned Air Max sneakers...
“Hmm.” Sousuke stood up swiftly. “It seems there wasn’t a bomb after all.”
“How can you tell?” Kaname stood up, a little more awkwardly. She was so overwhelmed by it all that she’d briefly forgotten to be angry.
“I only heard one explosion. Besides, look at the other side of the box: completely unscathed. Had it truly been rigged with a bomb, the explosion would have come out the other side, accompanied by shrapnel to increase lethality.” Sousuke unpacked the tragedy he’d just wrought with great precision, gesturing slightly to help with visualization.
“So, you messed up everyone’s morning for no reason, huh?” she asked.
Sousuke was silent for a while. Then he said, “No, my precautions were necessary. Detonation is the safest way to deal with unknown quantities. My judgment was correct.”
“Youuu...” Kaname snarled, snatching up a slipper from the floor and using it immediately to slap Sousuke on the head.
“Ouch,” he said stoically.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she fumed. “What am I supposed to tell the teachers?!”
“You’re the student council vice president. Use your authority to—”
“Yeah, right! Why should I— Ah!” A flaming scrap of paper landed just then on Kaname’s shoulder. She quickly brushed it off onto the floor, then started stomping on it to put out the fire.
“Ah... Wait,” said Sousuke, squatting down to seize her ankle.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” Kaname shrieked, struggling to hold her balance.
Without sparing a single glance at her leg, Sousuke picked up the tattered scrap of cloth.
“What now?” Kaname demanded.
Sousuke stared at the strip of paper. “It has my name on it. It appears to be a letter.”
“A letter? Oh, guess it is...”
Half-hidden by the soot, Kaname could just make out the word “Sagara.”
“Now, Chidori-kun. Could you tell me how the fire this morning started?” The question came from Hayashimizu Atsunobu, the student council president, whose back was to the noon sun streaming in through the window.
Hayashimizu had a long oval face, slicked-back hair, and wire frame glasses that he wore over narrow, intelligent eyes. In stark contrast to Sousuke, he projected an air of calm authority, and his dignity seemingly went unchallenged by the presence of the two people sitting sulkily across from him.
The student council room was on the fourth floor of the southern school building, with a view of the whole courtyard.
“Can you tell me why I should, Senpai?” Kaname grumbled. She and Sousuke had been called to the student council room by PA announcement during lunch break that day.
“You were a witness to the incident,” Hayashimizu reminded her, “and you’re my right hand.”
“I’m not your right hand,” she objected hotly. “I’m just the vice president!”
“Even so, I require objective witness testimony. Please tell me what you saw.”
“Not exactly sure what you want me to say...” Sousuke blew up a shoe cubby. What else is there to explain? Kaname thought. But while she struggled to find the right words to express that...
“I will explain myself, Mr. President,” said Sousuke, who had been silent up until now.
“Please do.”
“Sir. At 0815 hours today, I arrived at school and identified the presence of a suspicious object in my shoe cubby.”
“A suspicious object?”
“My initial reading was an explosive device, but I wasn’t certain,” Sousuke admitted. “Regardless, it was clear that my shoe cubby had been tampered with. Vice President Chidori and a small crowd of students objected to my attempts to investigate more cautiously, so I resorted to a swifter method of disposal.”
“Hmm,” said Hayashimizu. “Which was...?”
“Detonation via high-performance explosive.”
“Detonation?!” Hayashimizu’s eyes flashed, and it was clear to Kaname that he was angry.
Ah, perfect! she thought. Sousuke respects the president. If he gives him a good scolding, maybe he’ll finally tone down the craziness!
While she watched in anticipation, Hayashimizu took in a deep breath, then said solemnly, “I see. That would settle the matter swiftly, wouldn’t it?”
Kaname fell backwards, tipping over one of the room’s tables.