I moved one of the gutter lids behind him, causing it to make a small sound. There you go, now turn aro—OH MY GOD you’re wearing headphones listening to music?! Hold on, hold on, hold on, if you keep going, you’ll bump into Detective Kumano around the next corner! No really hold on uh if I don’t do something they’ll bump into each other—“where the hell you think you’re looking, punk?”—but the event will—“I’ll be late, I’ll be late~☆”—shit I don’t have time for this that’s not it that’s not it hold on CALM DOWN!
......OK, what I need to do is to separate the two of them. If they end up meeting, things are going to get super complicated. But how... oh how about I use telekinesis to pull on their clothes but no that’d be way too blatant... oh right phone, phone, let’s call Shouta-kun on the phon—NOOOOOOOOO I DIDN’T MAKE IT! Oh screw all this!
The instant right before the two of them were about to actually bump into each other coming around the corner, both of them abruptly backstepped and took a distance as if they’d both just met their lifelong enemy. For the briefest of moments, Shouta-kun emitted a very unnatural degree of killing intent, which caused Detective Kumano in his karate stance to narrow his eyes.
“Uh, sorry, sir. ‘Scuse me.”
“Hold on a moment.”
Shouta-kun promptly lowered his fighting pose and removed his earphones to apologize, then tried to slip past Detective Kumano. However, the detective stood to block him.
Cold sweat dripped down both Shouta-kun’s and my cheek. Shouta-kun’s experience fighting with World Shadows had backfired on him just now. How he had carried himself just now was definitely not something that a normal person would be capable of.
A suspicious young man found wandering around a suspicious abandoned building that’d been tied to an eyewitness account of a suspicious figure. I could almost audibly hear Detective Kumano’s suspicion meter cranking all the way up to max.
“Aren’t you the young man I met in that café? I have a few questions for you.”
“Sorry sir, I’m in a hurry.” Shouta-kun tried once again to take his leave, but Detective Kumano refused to yield the way.
“What is it, sir? Have I done anything bad—”
“There’s been rumors of monsters that appear all over the place in Tokyo lately. Do you know anything about that?”
“........................Nah I don’t.”
The question that Detective Kumano asked in a monotonous voice saw a brief moment of silence before Shouta-kun finally responded. Oh my god Shouta-kun, that pause was suspicious as hell! I’m begging you, please somehow manage to gloss things over!
“And apparently, whenever those monsters show up, suspicious figures also show up out of nowhere.”
“............”
That’s a bald-faced lie! There’s no such setting! Well I mean, it’s actually kind of true, but the police have absolutely no information about that. Although I could tell that Detective Kumano was just saying random things to shake Shouta-kun up, the person in question himself was already emitting a “wait, have I been busted already?!” aura. His effort at trying to maintain a straight face had caused the rest of his body to become so stiff that it quivered with every utterance from Detective Kumano. That rendered all the effort concentrated on his face absolutely moot. However, he was being threatened by a policeman who looked like a bear. I could not blame him at all.
But with that said, please hang in there just a little bit more. If I used telekinesis to interfere, then it would set up the fact of “I got interrupted in the middle of my questioning,” which would only serve to deepen the detective’s suspicion.
“That suspicious figure...... has been reported to be a young man with red hair.”
“......Well, red hair is a pretty common sight in Tokyo nowadays, isn’t it? There’s also purple and green and even rainbow-colored hair. The other day, I saw a middle-aged lady walking around town with her hair done up like the Golden Pavilion—”
Shouta-kun tried his best to divert the conversation while keeping his eyes averted, but Detective Kumano forced him to look at himself, then peered down into his face from his towering height. “You are hiding something important, aren’t you? I can tell by looking at your eyes.”
“!” The blood drained from Shouta-kun’s face. Despite this also being a lie, Shouta-kun had clearly believed it. Although the two of them had bumped into each other by pure coincidence, Detective Kumano was making it seem like he had been purposely looking for Shouta-kun after already having figured everything out. Shouta-kun was completely falling into Detective Kumano’s trap.
In truth, the skill to discern whether someone is lying or not by looking into their eyes is something that exists only in fiction. According to an experiment conducted in 2005 where several hundred veteran FBI agents were asked to discern whether someone was lying or not by looking only at their eyes, the average correct percentage came out to somewhere between 49~50%. In other words, this so-called “skill” is just pure guesswork. In addition, all those myths regarding how someone’s pupil moves or how they blink or the number of times they breathe are just that: myths. It’s sad, but that’s the plain old truth. All of those “techniques to tell when someone is lying” are just nonsense logic that “capable” detectives and investigators read from the works of their favorite mystery authors and are incorrectly propagating.
Consequently, the instant Detective Kumano said “I can tell by looking at your eyes,” he was pretty much admitting out loud that he was just shooting in the dark. However, Shouta-kun did not have an interest in trivia or in mystery novels, and thus had no way of knowing. He didn’t know, so he couldn’t tell. And that’s how he got fooled.
But don’t freak out just yet, Shouta-kun. You’re still technically in the clear. Just play dumb. Even just clamming up would be fine. Detective Kumano has no evidence, and he didn’t catch you actually doing anything. As long as you don’t admit it yourself, Kaburagi-san and I can do something about it later—
“I’ve done my research, I’ll have you know. I already know that you’re Freezing Knight.”
“......How did you figure it out?”
AH! HE WENT AND ADMITTED TO IT!
Folding in the face of Detective Kumano’s sure-sounding declaration, Shouta-kun ended up affirming what had actually been a mere guess. Who’d thought that Amaterasu’s secret would be exposed so easily? Or should I actually be praising Detective Kumano for his skills right now? If he hadn’t been a policeman but a normal person who didn’t know anything, then I could have just telekinetically knocked him out or taken some other forceful method to keep our secret. Not that there’s any point in me thinking about “what-if”s at this moment in time, though.
In any case, what the hell am I supposed to do about this?! I have no idea. I’m so done. I haven’t the faintest idea how to proceed. Should I contact Kaburagi-san to ask for her advice? But she’s in the middle of a marriage interview. If I interrupt and make her leave her seat, then worst case, I could be ruining the entire rest of her life.
“That’s confidential. But don’t worry, all I want is to ask you a few questions. You won’t be hurt in any way. Come on, let me give you a lift to the police station.”
“......Sigh. All right, all right. I’ll only tell you as much as I can though. Who knows if you’ll even believe me about the World Shadows. But before I go with you, let me have one last smoke.”
Wait, what? Hold on, don’t you remember Kaburagi-san telling you to contact us if this sort of thing ever happens? You just got scolded about this after Baba’s incident!
“You sure have guts trying to smoke in front of a police officer. I’m confiscating this.”
“The fuck?! What the hell do you think you’re doing! Give that back, you thief!”
“Both drinking and smoking are for after you turn 20.”
After I had said “rest assured, I’ll inveigle Detective Kumano with no issues whatsoever!” with so much confidence, it was suuuuper hard to go running back to Kaburagi-san for help. However, this was no time to baby my pride.