I’d been wondering about it.
The stage between the purchase booth and the cashier’s booth─because no matter how much they tried to dress this place up, it was still a school gym, which meant there was a stage, or maybe I should say a platform, and even I, who didn’t have an entertainer’s bone in my body and couldn’t care less about amusing people, thought it was a waste not to put it to some kind of use.
I couldn’t help thinking they ought to have some magician or dancer up there, or maybe some kind of video program running─but even though the curtains were up, the stage was empty.
They weren’t using it at all.
Fudatsuki could hardly claim he lacked the budget for a stage program, or that he couldn’t find a magician or a dancer─who would believe he was short on money when he’d created such a stunning casino?
So even someone as slow on the uptake as I am had kind of guessed he might be planning to use the stage for something else─and sure enough.
A special program.
“Ha ha ha!” crowed Sotoin, with whom I’d reconvened. “I chose well when I made him vice president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, did I not, young Dojima? I predict he will look absolutely gorgeous on stage. Don’t you agree?”
Being proud of your subordinates is all well and good, but I’m begging you, please don’t go around screaming personal information like “Pretty Boy Detective Club” and “vice president,” and definitely not “young Dojima,” in an illegal place like this!
Mr. Bare-Legs and the child genius were standing next to us─and the delinquent, too, although he was so dispirited that he looked like a different person.
With four pretty boys together (five, if you included me in my disguise─or no, make that four after all, since the delinquent was for all intents and purposes dead), we made quite a brilliant group, but for once, no one was looking at us.
The eyes of every guest in the casino were trained on the stage─which was no longer empty.
Two men stood on it, facing each other across a table and chairs.
Actually, based on age, I suppose I should say two boys, or to be even more accurate, two pretty boys.
Sakiguchi and Fudatsuki.
As far as looking gorgeous on stage goes, Fudatsuki gave Sakiguchi a run for his money─and while Sakiguchi was a year ahead in school, both held the position of student council president.
“…”
A special program.
The bunny girl who had come over to inform Fudatsuki of the “problem” had explained to me what that meant (it was hard to tell the bunny girls apart, but I was fairly sure she was the same one who had explained the casino to me when we first came in─I guess she must have liked how I looked as a pretty boy, because she was extremely considerate).
Apparently, any guest who won more than a certain amount of money earned the right to a “showdown” with the maestro on stage─and these showdowns were a popular attraction for the casino, or rather, they turned them into spectacles that became the main event of the night.
And of course, they involved gambling.
Would the maestro win, or would the chosen gambler win? That was the question, but the odds were drastically out of balance.
Fudatsuki, it seemed, had never once lost one of these special programs─so the spectacle wasn’t so much about who would win as whether he could keep his winning streak going.
No, that wasn’t it either.
The power of his winning streak was itself the show─which is to say, it seemed more about putting a spell on the audience than selling them on another visit.
In which case, I could probably assume he’d handed me that narrow victory in Othello earlier.
The flip side was that if the challenger did manage to win, Fudatsuki faced a devastating loss─so naturally, most people bet against him, because the odds on him were scarcely better than 1:1.
And that wasn’t all.
The rules stated that the challenger was to place all his chips above a certain set amount on the table─so if he lost, he’d lose them all (like a certain delinquent I know).
I didn’t say this to the nice bunny girl, but the deal was simple. This show wasn’t about entertaining the guests. It wasn’t even about winning back the casino’s losses─it was about profit. The casino stood to take in both the one guest’s excessive winnings and everything the other guests wagered on him.
A brilliant system, you might say.
Or a dishonest one?
No, when I thought about the risk Fudatsuki─that is, the casino─was taking on, the system didn’t necessarily strike me as dirty… If Fudatsuki lost, then his opponent (in this case Sakiguchi) wouldn’t just get three times or even ten times the chips he’d bet.
He’d get everything.
The right to run the casino would be transferred to the winner─which meant that while Sakiguchi was betting unearned money, the casino was staking its own destruction.
Not to bring up cost performance again, but no one could put on a show like this without the kind of absolute confidence that goes beyond any calculation of profit and loss.
Absolute confidence.
Or should I say, absolute playfulness.
As I was drifting around trying to get a sense of the place, the situation had taken an unexpected turn─and now all I could do was watch the showdown between the two student council presidents with my heart in my throat.
Though strictly speaking, Sakiguchi could have turned down his role in this show─he wasn’t obligated to get up on stage.
When the staff approached him, he could have firmly refused in that beautiful voice of his─but as the bunny girl declared, no one in the history of the casino had ever turned down the invitation.
Was it greed that motivated them? I don’t think so.
I’m sure there are some gamblers who simply couldn’t say no to the right and opportunity to face down the legendary maestro─but I doubt that was the only reason people accepted Fudatsuki’s proposition.
In a calmer environment, I’m certain most people would decide to keep the money they’d won through luck or skill─and at first glance, it struck me as strange that not a single person had turned down Fudatsuki’s offer. But that’s the magnetism and magic of the casino.
I mean, before being invited up to the stage, the challenger was surrounded by bunny girls, praised to the skies, introduced to the crowd as a winner, and generally treated like a star─so you can imagine how hard it would be, in that overpowering atmosphere, to say, “No, I’d prefer to skip the big showdown.”
I suppose it’s what they call reading the room.
To give a more familiar example, when your whole class is voting yes, it’s tough to be the only one to vote no─and in the same way, once the challengers get swept up in that atmosphere, they start to think, “Oh well, it was easy money anyway, might as well give it a go.”
A very well-thought-out system…
Or more like a con, and a polished one at that.
“Ahem! There’s nothing to worry about, young Dojima! Just relax.”
Sotoin rested a hand on my shoulder.
I’m sure he intended it to be soothing.
But unlike when Fudatsuki said those words, now they had the opposite effect of making me deeply anxious.
“Nagahiro is certainly not the kind of person to lose his head and be swept up onto the stage─he got up there of his own free will. He’s fully aware of what he’s doing!”
“Um…”
I wasn’t sure what to think.
“Totally, we all trust him when it comes to that. Nagahiro isn’t gonna lose his grip just ’cause he’s surrounded by a bunch of bunny girls,” Mr. Bare-Legs concurred, his hands intertwined behind his head and his legs crossed even though he was standing up. “Unless they’re still little,” he added.
“…”
Can you really call that trust?
Personally, I’d call it suspicion.
But when I looked back up at the stage, it was just like they’d said─Sakiguchi the master speaker, guide (or goad, depending on how you look at it) of the people, didn’t look at all like he’d been pulled up to the stage against his will, a victim of the frenzied atmosphere in the room.
So did he have a reason for going up there?
A reason, or, an objective?
Could he have been planning this from the start, hence his insane winning streak? Had he anticipated the existence of a special program based solely on the presence of an empty stage?
At that point, we’d be talking more intuition than deduction.
Maybe I was reading too much into it, but if he’d thought of Kamikazari Middle’s student council president when he heard my story about the dropped cash, then it did seem possible…
I just didn’t know.
But one thing seemed certain: the vice president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club was on stage to carry out some sort of detective work.
“Oh, and young Dojima─since your eyesight will not affect the outcome of this game, feel free to place a bet,” Sotoin said, as if he’d just remembered, but the timing was all wrong.
I wasn’t inclined to go along with the frenzied mood of the casino hall.
I’d rather sit this one out.
“…By the way, who did you put your money on?” I asked the three Pretty Boys who had headed over to the purchase booth once again to buy more chips─which is to say, all of them except the delinquent, who had gotten a head start on emptying his purse.
“Ten on the manager to win.”
“Ten on the guy with the slicked-back hair.”
The child genius pointed silently to Fudatsuki.
All three had unexpectedly gone with the safe bet.