Sizzle…
Sizzle sizzle sizzle…
I gazed intently at the bill, a scorching noise playing in my mind as I used my true vision at full bore, but I still couldn’t distinguish it from the real thing─yeah right.
Telling them apart was a cinch.
I might not have the child genius’s artistic eye for beauty, the eye of an appraiser, but when it came to plain old eyesight, I had him beat─and this was certainly no Bank-of-Japan-issued banknote.
The solution to this game of Spot the Mistake was literally obvious at a glance─there were quite a few small differences. I was forced to agree that the quality was “too high,” as the child genius had said (or rather, as Sotoin had said he’d said).
I felt more like I was looking at a precision machine than a piece of art─interesting. So this was what could be achieved when money was no object in the production of counterfeit money.
But I didn’t blurt out “Huh?” because I was transfixed by the outstanding workmanship─in that case, I probably would have come out with something more like “Wow!”
Apparently I didn’t just lack an eye for artistic beauty, I lacked any and all receptivity to beautiful things─after all, even my stomach hadn’t been able to handle Michiru the Epicure’s culinary creations until I got used to them.
So the reason my “Huh” had a question mark after it rather than an exclamation point was that it wasn’t the bill’s quality which had caught my attention─my eyes had been drawn to the inside. That’s right, the inside.
Of the bill.
A back side, sure, but does a bill even have an inside?
Unable to believe my own eyes, I flipped the bill over in my hand, but I still saw the same thing.
From the front and from the back.
What I saw was a piece of paper inside the bill─but it was only when I triple-checked from the side that I was certain.
Something was definitely “sandwiched” in there.
Inside that bill measuring a mere tenth of a millimeter thick.
“What’s wrong, Doji? You look like a real miser staring at the money like that. Whatever’s bugging you, I suggest you calm yourself with a nice, soothing look at my legs.”
Caught off guard by Mr. Bare-Legs’ comment, I couldn’t help taking advantage of his kindness─but what would I do if his legs really did calm me down?
Anyway.
“Well, it’s just, there seems to be something inside this bill.”
“Inside the bill? What the hell are you talking about, kid?”
The delinquent seemed confused─which was an entirely reasonable reaction. I didn’t even feel confident about the statement myself.
To the contrary, there probably wasn’t a person in the world who trusted my eyes less than I did.
They’d given me the runaround for ten whole years.
So I checked the remaining nine bills─and came up with the same result each time.
All hundred thousand yen’s worth of banknotes had something inside.
Each bill was constructed like an ultra-thin envelope─which in a way must have taken even greater skill than the counterfeiting itself. What kind of super-fine tweezers must they have used to make something like that?
“No shit? Well then…”
The delinquent still looked suspicious, but he picked up one of the bills and went to tear it down the middle─I guess he was so curious about this something even someone who could see through things couldn’t fully identify that he was willing to resort to brute force to solve the mystery, but just at that moment, someone grabbed his arm.
It was the child genius.
He shook his head silently.
Maybe, as an artist, he was informing his senior club member that whether the object in question was counterfeit or illegal, valuable or valueless, handling it so violently was unacceptable─which to me was an incomprehensible standard of behavior, but the delinquent did give up his attempt to tear the bill in half, and instead asked awkwardly, “What’s your deal, Sosaku? What do you suggest we do?”
“Ahem. Michiru,” Sotoin began, stepping in as interpreter. “Sosaku is saying, ‘Leave it to this guy.’”
The leader was always butting into other people’s business and saying whatever he felt like─but wait, Sosaku refers to himself as “this guy”?
That didn’t exactly fit my image.
“Well, if he says so…” the delinquent responded, handing the bill that had so narrowly escaped destruction over to the child genius─who proceeded to do essentially the same thing the delinquent had just tried to do.
While Michiru the Epicure had tried to tear the bill down the middle, Sosaku the Artiste tried to tear the front and back apart─and not just tried, but actually did.
With the utmost care.
Just like he was peeling a sticker off its backing.
The child genius succeeded in separating an already paper-thin bill into two halves─and with his bare hands at that, no tweezers or knife or anything. He did it with such extraordinary skill that I almost wondered if all bills were made of two layers to begin with, like the outer and inner shells of a winter coat.
The resident artiste of the Pretty Boy Detective Club was indeed living up to his reputation… But this was no time to lose myself in admiration for his craftsmanship.
What demanded attention.
What demanded my attention was the slip of paper that had fluttered to the carpet when the child genius so adroitly pulled the bill apart.
The paper was nearly as big as the bill itself, but folded in half─and as far as I could tell, it was made of the same sort of paper as the bill.
“What have we here.”
Sotoin bent over and plucked it off the ground.
Apparently, the boy who knows only beauty knows no fear.
He proceeded to fearlessly unfold the bill─his movements flowing so smoothly that I’m quite sure he would have done the same thing, with the same “what have we here,” even if the object that had fallen out of the bill was the detonator for a bomb.
“Oho! Looky here, lads. I believe I am holding in my hands an invitation.”
An invitation?