The president delivered this energetic speech at the same time he flung the door open, and as I was wondering what he would have done if no one had been inside, I glanced over and saw that he wasn’t alone: Sosaku the Artiste, creator of beauty─aka Sosaku Yubiwa, year 1, class A─was hanging back behind him.
As his name suggests, Yubiwa is the scion of the family that runs the Yubiwa Foundation, which in turn runs our school (and what’s more, he’s so gifted that at the tender age of twelve, he’s the linchpin of the whole organization), so you’d think he would be the one making other people hang back rather than hanging back himself, but the boldly confident Sotoin didn’t seem the least bit abashed to have such an eminent figure stand behind him.
As befits a president.
Except that this president isn’t even in middle school yet.
As the other members like to say, it’s elementary: he’s a fifth grader─Manabu Sotoin, year 5, class A, Yubiwa Academy Elementary School.
In other words, despite being the youngest member of the club, he’d brought this gang of oddballs together─and for some reason, he had the loyalty not only of the child genius but of the perpetually grumpy, rough-mannered delinquent, the proud student council president, and the freewheeling Mr. Bare-Legs as well.
That was the greatest mystery of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, and a point of deep personal interest for me─but at present, I saw no way of unravelling it.
What in the world explained the pull of Manabu the Aesthete…? The truth was, he’d hardly lifted a finger during our last case.
If I had to name one thing he did do that time around, it would be dressing as a girl to accompany me when I dressed as a boy (for that matter, what the hell was I doing?).
“Well, well, young Dojima! Your eyes are as beautiful as ever! Hyota, your legs look excellent as always. Nom nom. And Michiru, you seem to have elevated your cookie-making talents to new heights. I’m counting on you for dinner as well. And you, Nagahiro. Please tell me about the current case in that prideworthy voice. To clarify, I mean your voice, which is worthy of my pride!”
As he arrogantly fired off this litany of compliments and commands, the president plopped down onto the sofa. Some nerve he had, sitting down so self-importantly like that when he’d only just shown up─by comparison, the child genius looked quite modest standing silently behind him.
Although he’s always silent.
Silent, cold, and sullen.
That’s got to be just about the worst possible character for a genius─in fact, I’d only heard him speak once since we met.
Even when Yubiwa was silent, though, he and Sotoin seemed to enjoy some special mode of communication… And today, they once again appeared to be operating in tandem.
Honestly, what was their connection?
“Yes, Mr. President. As it happens─”
Unlike me, who had met the president only recently, Sakiguchi appeared used to Sotoin’s tyrannical behavior, and proceeded to succinctly explain the matter I’d told him about only moments earlier, in that prideworthy (that is, worthy of the president’s pride) voice of his.
I couldn’t help being surprised at how a simple change in narrator transformed my halting account into an easily comprehensible tale─oddly enough, it was only after hearing his digest of events that I was able to truly digest the bigger picture, even though I myself was the protagonist of the story.
But understanding the big picture didn’t help me understand what it all meant, and I found it somewhat problematic that hearing Nagahiro the Orator recount the story in his beautiful orator’s voice almost convinced me that my encounter wasn’t so unusual after all, as if the mystery had ceased to be mysterious─could a story be too well told?
“Hmm! How interesting! A man who vanishes into thin air, that truly is a mystery!” the leader exclaimed, slapping his knee. Fortunately he seemed resistant to the brainwashing power of the Orator’s beautiful voice─and like the other three, he appeared unmoved by the mention of a hundred thousand, or even a million, yen.
I hardly need mention Yubiwa’s response.
To a boy who runs an entire foundation, a million yen is probably chump change─and he was indeed gazing at the bills on the table as if they had no value whatsoever. For my part, I looked at that money with a commoner’s hungry eye; as they say, he who laughs at one yen will cry over one yen later (I had no intention of laughing at a hundred thousand yen, but I could definitely see myself crying over it).
“Hmm? What’s the matter, Sosaku?” Sotoin asked, glancing over his shoulder. “Seems you have something you’d like to say.”
I was facing Yubiwa head-on and I couldn’t detect any change in his demeanor, so how in the world could Sotoin have picked up on something when he wasn’t even looking at the child genius? He must just make it up as he goes along.
But in response to his question, Yubiwa raised his eyebrows ever so slightly─a signal subtler even than the blink of an eye.
“Oho, so this is what you’re after?” Sotoin asked, plucking a ten-thousand-yen bill from the table and passing it over his shoulder. The child genius took the rectangular piece of paper and began to scrutinize it.
Could it be that he’d never seen such a paltry sum of money before…?
Aside from the leader, the other members appeared as puzzled by Yubiwa’s actions as I was: Sakiguchi, the delinquent, and Mr. Bare-Legs all watched and waited for his next move.
But, in something of an anticlimax, the child genius simply handed the bill back to the leader as if he’d grown bored with it.
What? He hadn’t discovered anything?
Then why act so suggestively, I wanted to complain (of course, as a student at Yubiwa Academy, I could never complain to the scion of the Yubiwa Foundation about anything, even as a joke).
“I see,” Sotoin announced with a dramatic nod, as if he alone had gleaned some satisfaction from Yubiwa’s performance.
“What, Mr. President? What is it?”
Apparently, Sakiguchi had reached the limit of his patience with the inscrutable exchange passing between Sotoin and Yubiwa.
“Oh, nothing important,” the leader responded, grinning gleefully. “Sosaku was just saying that this bill is counterfeit.”