But just because the members of the Pretty Boy Detective Club were a team didn’t mean they were mates. Some of them, like Sakiguchi the councilman and Fukuroi the bossman, even acted like sworn enemies in the outside world─the only place those two joined hands and took a seat at the same table was the art room.
The art room.
It fell out of use after Yubiwa Academy excised electives from its curriculum, until a band of rogues known as the Pretty Boy Detective Club commandeered it─and remodeled it to the point that it now bore no trace of its original appearance.
Luxuriously thick carpets covered the wooden floor, paintings and sculptures decorated every inch of wall, there were extravagant sofas, tables, and even a canopied bed─and when you flipped the switch beside the door, it wasn’t a fluorescent light that flickered to life overhead but a pair of glittering chandeliers.
The place looked more like an art museum than an art room, but in fact it was the headquarters of the Pretty Boy Detective Club─they’d fixed it up to suit their tastes so they could spend their time in luxuriant comfort.
There could hardly be a less relaxing environment for someone like me, who had stubbornly failed to rid herself of her commonplace sensibilities, but apparently the original members still felt it to be lacking.
To make a long story short, this feeling seemed to be the reason for the urgent summons that day─because when the delinquent, Mr. Bare-Legs, and I arrived, we were greeted by the sight of the president and vice president holding a stepladder on which the child genius stood, his back arched and his arms outstretched as he flicked his paintbrush this way and that.
The president─Manabu the Aesthete, lover of beauty, aka Manabu Sotoin (elementary school year 5).
The vice president─Nagahiro the Orator, he of the beautiful voice, aka Nagahiro Sakiguchi (middle school year 3).
The child genius─Sosaku the Artiste, creator of beauty, aka Sosaku Yubiwa (middle school year 1).
For a second I thought they must be practicing for the annual Fire Brigade Parade or something, but no, the child genius seemed to be using the ceiling as a giant canvas─he was painting a mural on it.
Really now.
I’d been convinced the art room didn’t have a speck of undecorated space left, but now even the ceiling, the sole remaining blank space, had fallen into their clutches.
A heartrending moment.
“Ah, there you are! A bit late, wouldn’t you say, Michiru, Hyota, young Dojima? But never mind, I have faith that each of you did your very best. Thank you for coming!”
The president turned toward us, still holding onto the ladder.
Given that I’d done my very best to run away, I felt a twinge of guilt at this innocently warm welcome.
“My apologies for earlier, Ms. Dojima. For some reason the line went dead before I could be sure you’d gotten the message. I do regret inconveniencing you with my incompetence.”
Sakiguchi’s apologetic tone only added to my feelings of guilt, but they were somewhat assuaged when I remembered it was his unusual powers of imagination that were behind the purchase of my dog collar─the bastard had me tied up tighter than a cell phone contract.
As for the child genius up on the ladder, supported by the other two as he ran his brush across the ceiling, he didn’t so much as glance in my direction─true, he probably would have fallen off if he’d tried to turn his head towards us while he was twisted into that unnatural position, but he was concentrating so intently that he seemed not even to have noticed our arrival.
From the looks of things he’d just begun painting, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had in mind, but his creative posture alone was enough to bowl me over.
“So, you finally got started on that ceiling redecoration project we’ve been tossing around─anything we can do to help?” the delinquent asked briskly, pulling the door shut behind him.
“For now, we could use another team member holding the ladder. It’s still a little wobbly with just the two of us. And Sosaku could use an assistant to pass supplies up to him, plus we need someone to catch him on the off chance he falls. Positions, please.”
“I wasn’t asking you, Nagahiro. I was asking the president,” the delinquent spat out at his rival, even as he stepped forward to hold the ladder.
That made sense strength-wise─my spindly arms hadn’t gotten any more muscular just because I was dressed as a boy.
And the vaunted dynamism of Mr. Bare-Legs’ legs was a natural fit for disaster management─if he did fall, the child genius would surely be in safe hands, or rather feet, just as I had been when Mr. Bare-Legs tackled me.
By process of elimination, that left me with the role of assistant. It fell to me to pass the child genius the various brushes and paints lined up on the table, wipe away his sweat, and so on.
As a second-year student, seeing to the every need of a first-year evoked complex feelings for me, but oh well, if the student in question was Yubiwa, I could handle it─after all, as his last name suggests, he’s the heir to the Yubiwa Foundation, the parent organization of our own Yubiwa Academy (he’s the one with the aforementioned bottomless savings account, which means that for all intents and purposes he’s the one actually holding my leash).
Yubiwa is way more of a VIP than the councilman or the bossman, so in a sense devoting myself to him was the best choice for my future─although here in the art room, he wasn’t the heir to the Yubiwa Foundation, he was simply an artist and member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club.
I’d heard he was also the one behind most of the renovations in the art room─he’s so impressively multitalented that he personally produced the vast majority of the replicas of famous paintings and sculptures on display.
“Um… Mr. President? Am I right in thinking that this is why we were urgently summoned here today?” I asked timidly, just to be sure.
“That is correct! Our task today as members of the Pretty Boy Detective Club is to complete the art room at long last! The time has arrived!” Sotoin replied enthusiastically.
Honestly, his answer, seemingly devoid of hidden meaning as it was, came as a relief─don’t get me wrong, it was a huge undertaking, and I couldn’t forget that I was participating in the unsanctioned renovation of a school facility, but at least it had none of the over-the-top drama of certain other club activities I’d participated in, like flying halfway across the country in a helicopter, or sneaking into a rival school in the middle of the night; it felt more like a sitcom.
I was starting to feel not just relieved but even a little remorseful about my hasty attempt to escape the call to action. I decided I had overreacted─though as it turned out, this judgment was itself a bit hasty.
Not that I knew it at the time.
I had no way of knowing that this little redecoration project, seemingly the innocent product of the president’s whims, would lead us back to a kidnapping that had taken place at Yubiwa Academy seven years earlier.
Yes, a kidnapping.
A strange and impossible crime, the likes of which I’d never even dreamed of.