After the interviews, Yamaji decided we couldn’t let any of them go. It was technically voluntary, so we couldn’t force them to stay the night, but though Shota wanted to leave, we eventually managed to convince even him to stay.
Dr. Higano and I left Yamaji at the station to go over the interrogation report while we took the three of them to their rooms at the hotel. Dr. Higano seemed to have a few unanswered questions remaining, however, and went into Koichiro Myoko’s room to talk with him a little.
I took the elevator to the hotel lobby and sat on a sofa. I would be in the lobby all night to stand guard for them.
I sighed and thought over the questioning.
All three of them seemed to be concealing something. None of them were completely unrelated to the death. We had to figure out what they were hiding and expose it.
I pulled at my hair…and caught myself. That’s not what was bothering me.
I was frustrated by the lack of consistency between the Reina that each of them had described.
“Dammit!” I cursed to myself. “There are no photos? Why? It’s impossible. Not even her father? Her fiancé? Her boyfriend? And then what was up with the way they were describing her? Had they all really failed to understand her?”
Ice Sculpture. Snow White. Maternity.
Everyone is complex, but there are limits. Their characterizations also differed greatly from the Reina I knew in high school.
It was all ridiculous. Impossible.
Something was clearly off.
“I understand how you’re feeling,” Dr. Higano sympathized with me when he returned to the lobby. “But just relax.”
“But Doctor—”
“If you’re too worked up, your best ideas won’t come to you,” he warned, and rubbed my back gently. Naturally, that did nothing to calm me down and only heightened the tension in my whole body.
“D-Did you finish talking with Koichiro?” I asked.
Dr. Higano ignored my stammer and sat on the sofa. “Yes, I just wanted to ask about his relationship with Reina once more. But you’re right to be feeling frustrated. We would’ve been in a serious bind if what they said about Reina had been more disjointed. The one consistency was that she was ‘beautiful.’ This whole thing is starting to turn into a nightmare. It’s even made me ask this question.” Dr. Higano paused. “Did Reina Myoko really exist in the first place?”
Exactly.
It seemed like each of them had seen their own convenient illusion of her.
If no one had been actually interested in her as a person, then it wouldn’t have been an issue. However, it wasn’t just Ken Nakahigashi—Koichiro Myoko’s feelings for his daughter and Shota Akiyama’s love for his girlfriend were unmistakably genuine. They didn’t seem to be lying about her either.
But someone was lying. For instance, if there was a beautiful flower in a vase, then everyone would be paying attention to the beautiful flower. But if the vase was full of muddy water?
The person lying had to be Reina, the victim herself.
I was sure of it. Unless we investigated Reina herself, we’d never understand the entirety of the case. That wouldn’t change even if we assumed this was a Masquerade killing.
And of everyone currently working on the case, who was most suited to investigate Reina in greater detail? It was without a doubt me, her classmate.
I had to find out more about Reina.
“Yes!” I told myself, reinvigorated. I knew who I should contact immediately.
Otoha Tamachi, Miyuki Yata, Sena Hagawa, Asami Ino, and Ryoko Omura. The “Bumblebees” who all had had close connections with Reina.
They might know exactly what it was Reina was making such an effort to hide.