Sorry to repeat myself, but Yubiwa─Sosaku Yubiwa─is a child genius. That term could very well refer to the gift for business that allows him to run the Yubiwa Foundation at the age of twelve, but the truth is, his more quintessential talents lie in the realm of art.
Sosaku the Artiste, creator of beauty.
That’s his nickname in the club─and in fact, most of the gorgeous works of art on display in the art room are his creations.
That probably explains how he managed to detect something unnatural in the bills lying on the table─an artist’s sensitivity, I suppose.
Which I lack. As do most people.
“This is counterfeit…?” Sakiguchi asked in disbelief, picking up another bill. The delinquent and Mr. Bare-Legs followed suit. Actually, Mr. Bare-Legs tried to pick up a bill with his foot, but since this turned out to be more or less impossible, he gave up.
Come on, do you really need to look so disappointed?
In danger of losing the thread of the narrative as I wondered just how much he stakes his life on his legs, I gingerly reached for a bill─a ten-thousand-yen bill─myself.
There was Yukichi Fukuzawa’s portrait, and there was the watermark, right where it should be… Looked authentic to me.
But that was the judgement of a layperson.
Banknotes represent the culmination of Japan’s technological skill─you could even call their creation a form of art─and I’d heard they’re equipped with quite a few security features. The child genius must have found a flaw in one of those. Even the slightest inferiority would tip off the sensitive young artiste─or so I assumed.
“Tsk tsk tsk. Not at all, young Dojima. Sosaku tells me the quality is in fact too high.”
For some reason, the president wagged his finger smugly.
Man, that pisses me off.
You didn’t do anything!
Well, maybe it’s like soccer─apparently true connoisseurs of the game admire skilled passers more than the players who actually score the goals… But, what? The quality is too high?
The child genius said that?
I glanced over at him, but his face remained as sullen and unreadable as ever─of all the club members, he was the only one I still wasn’t sure had accepted me.
But I wouldn’t get anywhere if I let suspicion consume me.
“The quality is too high, you say… Hmm,” murmured Sakiguchi, returning the bill to the table as if he’d decided it would be impossible to pass judgement himself. “Are you suggesting that they’ve ignored any question of cost performance in making these counterfeits? For example, that they’ve spent more than ten thousand yen to produce a ten-thousand-yen bill?”
“Precisely. Well said. I bestow my praise upon you,” Sotoin (the fifth grader) replied arrogantly.
How could a guy with that kind of attitude be so well liked?
“Spending more than ten thousand yen to make a ten-thousand-yen bill… What would be the point of that?”
Unfittingly for a club member, I directed my question not to the leader but to the sub-leader─in this group of eccentrics and oddballs, Sakiguchi at least held the respectable position of student council president in the outside world, so I inevitably found myself trying to draw him out.
Of course, considering his fiancée, I had to admit he might actually outdo them all when it came to shady appetites…
“An excellent question,” he answered in his excellent voice. “Naturally, it means that one would be able to produce a bill that appears more genuine than the genuine article.”
“More genuine─than the genuine article?”
“Usually, when counterfeit money is detected, a low manufacturing budget is to blame. But if you spend more money than they spend making the real thing, you have a good chance of producing a believable copy of just about anything.”
“…”
After hearing Sakiguchi’s explanation, I turned my attention once again to the bill in my hand─but there was no way this ten-thousand-yen note was worth more than ten thousand yen.
And even if it were.
Even if they’d gone over-budget on this ten-thousand-yen note─this hundred-thousand-yen broccoli wad─or the million-yen bundle of cash.
If that was what it all meant, then wasn’t it pretty meaningless? I felt like I might lose sight of the meaning of meaning.
“Oh, you’re kidding me. They made this just to amuse themselves? As a toy?” Mr. Bare-Legs drawled in a bored tone, flapping one of the─counterfeit?─banknotes around in the air.
He really was treating the bill like a toy, but he’d reached that conclusion a little too quickly for my taste. I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think he had it right─though this sort of thing might well fit the definition of an amusement.
“Bo~ring. Fake or real, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still not the kind of thing a real businessman carries around in his pocket.”
The delinquent’s position was a bit closer to my own than was Mr. Bare-Legs’.
Though if you ask me, a guy carrying around a wad of counterfeit money sounds a hell of a lot more dangerous than a guy carrying around a million yen.
Best to stay away from this character.
In a sense, I’d used the morning’s events as a pretext for coming to the art room, but it looked like I might actually have brought in a doozy of a case─and I shivered at the thought.
If I was going to do an about-face, now was the time.
I honestly wanted to side with the delinquent rather than Mr. Bare-Legs, but this was no time to be sharing personal opinions.
Oh geez, it was just play money? I’m sorry guys, I made a fuss over nothing. I’m sure that businessman was just messing with me! Let’s drop the whole subject! Fukuroi, would you mind pouring me another cup of tea? I think I’m ready to try your standard Darjeeling blend this time around ♪
Eee ♪
I was hoping to use a little speech like that to change the subject, but since I’m absolutely not the kind of sunny character who ends her sentences with musical notes, all that came out was a stifled, “Buh…”
Tongue-tied by the guy in the tie?
What in the world could the mysterious businessman get out of spending so much money to mess with a regular person like me? I was trying to force the evidence into a narrative that equated counterfeit money with a silly trick, but who plays a trick that would be cheaper to play using real money?
You’d have to be way more serious about the whole thing.
It was precisely this feeling that made me try so hard to turn it into a joke we could all laugh off─which was about the only thing a rookie member who’d accidentally brought a nasty problem to the club could do─but being the gloomy type that I am, I just stood there with the words caught in my throat, saying, “Buh… Buh…” over and over again.
“Beautiful!” Sotoin─that is, Manabu the Aesthete─shouted at the top of his lungs.
As if he was finishing my choked-off sentence for me.
Hey, that’s not what I was going to say!
But he just kept going.
“Counterfeit money that costs more than its face value to produce─is that not a truly beautiful idea? It sparkles with indescribable brilliance. I can’t contain my curiosity!”