Just as it’s completely inadequate to describe Nagahiro Sakiguchi simply as president of the Yubiwa Academy student council, it’s also completely inadequate to describe Lai Fudatsuki simply as president of the Kamikazari Middle School student council.
Fudatsuki is the same age as me, but in addition to being student council president, he’s a salesman, a businessman, a manager and an overseer, a producer, a promoter, an investor, a maestro, an impresario, and above all, a playboy.
Among his many ventures, the casino he was running at night in the school gym─the casino we Pretty Boy Detectives unexpectedly got involved with not so long ago─was probably toward the relatively legal end of the spectrum.
With a robust pipeline to a genuine criminal organization, he’s an overwhelmingly dangerous individual─although you’d never guess it from his mild manner.
A petit bourgeois like me really has no business getting involved with him, even in the course of my detective work, which is why I had promised myself I would do my best to avoid him at all costs, and which is also why Sakiguchi gave me the kiddy phone. But apparently such defenses were as good as nonexistent to this playboy─worse than nonexistent, actually; he’d called me on that very same kiddy phone, which meant the criminal was using the crime-prevention tools to his advantage.
He’d taken me in.
It was probably pointless to try and figure out how Fudatsuki had gotten ahold of a cell phone number that only members of the Pretty Boy Detective Club were supposed to know─whatever connections or tools he had, this kid drew on essentially bottomless resources.
And he’s a second-year middle school student, which is pretty mind-blowing.
But in the end, it all came down to a phone call.
If only I’d hung up sooner, this whole mess would’ve been over before it started─I should have ignored him, regardless of whether he invited me to meet him or not, whether he said he wanted to see me or not.
The fact that instead of approaching us directly he’d called me to make an appointment beforehand was a sure sign that he felt a certain amount of caution toward the Pretty Boy Detective Club as well. Taking a stronger stand would have been enough to avoid any problems.
“Actually, Ms. Dojima, there’s something I’d like from you in return,” he’d announced brazenly the night before. “Or perhaps I should say, there’s something I’d like you to return to me─remember that money I dropped, which you were kind enough to pick up?”
I knew right away what he was getting at.
I’d been worrying about it myself─I’ll skip the details, but picking up his million-yen bundle of banknotes was the catalyst for the showdown between the detectives and the playboy.
We’d boldly infiltrated Kamikazari Middle School in the middle of the night because we felt it would be wrong to accept the ten-percent finder’s fee─a hundred thousand yen─which Fudatsuki had given me.
A couple of plot twists later, we’d managed to return sixty thousand out of the hundred thousand yen, but in all the confusion we failed to give back the remaining forty grand, and it had been in my purse ever since─and now Fudatsuki was saying he wanted it back.
After all this time.
“But, well, it’s evidence of my crimes, you see. Since I’ve shut down the casino, I’d like to have it back.”
His explanation sounded reasonable─so reasonable, in fact, that it sounded like an excuse. The truth was, he’d scattered “evidence of his crimes” all over the place, and in purely practical terms it was ridiculous to think he’d be able to get back every single one. Plus, the economic foundation he’d built wasn’t so unstable that a paltry piece of evidence like that could shake it.
I was certain he had another reason for wanting to meet me─I didn’t know what it was, but as a student of Yubiwa Academy, I could hardly respond to an invitation from a guy who was eager to expand the power of Kamikazari Middle without due consideration.
All the same, I couldn’t not respond─admittedly, as I said before, being told I didn’t have to go definitely made me want to, but I’m not such an idiot (I’m not, I swear) that I’d shake off my escort to meet Fudatsuki for that reason alone.
It was also true that I didn’t know what to do with that forty thousand yen floating at my fingertips, although if it really bothered me that much I suppose I could have thrown it away─forget evidence, now that the casino was closed the notes were just useless scraps of paper.
But I had to meet up with him.
There was something I had to ask him─again, I won’t go into the details, but it had to do with improper activities at the casino he was running.
Improper activities.
I suppose a middle school student running a casino is plenty improper on its own, but he’d been working at something even more improper there.
Although maybe I should say he was playing at something improper─simply put, he’d dramatically increased profits by having an employee in an “invisibility suit” lurking around the casino.
Swindling the guests out of their cash wasn’t the point, however─the point, it seems, was to test out the invisibility suit itself. And I’d just happened to uncover the whole thing with my preternatural vision.
It was my first skirmish as Mayumi the Seer, she of the beautiful eyes, member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club.
An immortal moment in my life.
Although mortifying would probably be a more accurate description of my feelings in the moment (never mind guys’ clothes, I was wearing a bunny suit, of all things)─but anyway, a few days after it all happened, something occurred to me.
Like, What the hell?
Sure, I’m Mayumi the Seer and I have overly good vision, thanks to which I was able to see Fudatsuki’s assistant despite some invisibility suit straight out of Harry Potter.
I uncovered the presence of a black-clad “kuroko” who was using hand gestures to tell Fudatsuki what cards his opponent held─that much made some kind of sense.
But how on earth had Fudatsuki known what gestures his assistant was making?
After all, the kuroko was wearing invisibility clothes.
Squint as he might, he still shouldn’t have been able to see anything─which meant that no matter how much the kuroko gestured, the message should never have gotten through.
Weird.
Contradictory, even.
It was the very definition of not believing one’s own eyes.
If it were the plot of a mystery novel, I’d be forced to call it an unacceptable blunder on the part of the author. This was no time to be raising childish questions about the behavior of Nello, the boy from A Dog of Flanders─and yet, as a member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, I needed to come up with a beautiful interpretation like the child genius’s. I needed to display my childish boyishness to the fullest.
Judging by the outcome, Fudatsuki had definitely been receiving signals from his assistant in the invisibility suit.
I was forced to conclude that he could see the kuroko─which in turn led me to a hypothesis.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth─in other words.
Fudatsuki had it too.
He had the same powers of vision I did.
And if that was true─then I needed to overcome all obstacles, including a pair of tenacious escorts, to see him.