× day in the month of ○.
That day, Hanamoto Hibari was furious.
At her teacher, and this country’s education administration——
If I were a novelist, that was probably how I would write out my feelings at the moment.
Today at school, I had my modern Japanese class. Just like how it was with every subject, the classroom was filled with a somewhat drowsy atmosphere throughout the lesson, and ended without anything particularly remarkable happening. We, as students, simply bowed to the teacher when the lesson was over, and then were simply seated again. The teacher, as well, simply gathered up the course materials as usual and made to leave the classroom.
It was at that moment that I quickly stepped forward and called out to the teacher. And as he slowly turned around, I asked him,
“Why doesn’t the textbook have any mystery or detective novels in them?”
Tougan-sensei, the teacher in charge of teaching modern Japanese, looked bewildered at first, as if a slug had suddenly been sprinkled with a seven-flavored spice. He then scratched his head with an annoyed expression on his face. He was in his late thirties. I assumed he must have lost the passion he’d had when he’d first started teaching, because the look on his face seemed to say that he couldn’t stand it when students bothered him about things that weren’t related to the lessons.
All my classmates had already closed their textbooks and left their seats to start chatting with each other. No one was paying attention to my conversation with Tougan-sensei.
“I believe that there are many beautiful works to be found in the mystery genre, and they deserve to be passed down and read by many people. So why aren’t they included at all?”
This was something that had bothered me since I was little. I loved the fluid sentences, the literature overflowing with clever psychological depictions, and of course, the beautiful scenes spun by concise and vivid wording. There was a lot to be learned from them. However, why was it that mystery novels were never featured at all?
“Why? Well, obviously, it’s because it’d be problematic.”
Tougan-san spoke while carefully pausing in between his words. To me, it sounded like he was trying to think up reasons as he spoke.
“Problematic for whom?”
“For both the students and the teachers, of course. Why do you think classic novels and essays are mentioned in the textbook? So that we can learn from them, right? It’s so we can learn the origins of the Japanese language, and its beauty and profoundness through understanding the psychological depictions of the characters, right? That’s what the modern Japanese textbooks are for. If things like mystery and detective novels were put in there, that would be problematic for you as a student, wouldn’t it?”
“So in other words, do you mean to say that there’s nothing to learn from mystery novels?”
“Of course. After all, they’re for leisure reading. Just something to entertain the masses. Something that kids read for fun. They’re little more than a game where you solve riddles to find out who the culprit is while imagining what the ending might be. The characters are introduced only for the sake of being killed, and the story progresses only for the sake of solving the riddles and tricks. Any detailed psychological depictions are put aside, and there aren’t any deep themes that explore human nature nor any aspect of history. What could you possibly learn from them?”
For a moment, it felt like the chatter of the classroom had suddenly gone far away. A raging anger started welling up inside of me. His casual, and somewhat condescending way of talking was the same as usual, but for some strange reason, it bothered me.
“And even if they were included in the textbook, it would only be an excerpt. There’s no point in putting in only a part of a mystery novel. You wouldn’t be able to find out who the culprit is, right? Tests would be too hard if the question was something like, ‘Figure out the culprit by reading the following passage,’ right?”
“Excuse me if I’m being rude but, Tougan-sensei, you haven’t read a single mystery novels, have you?”
Before I could help it, I had raised my voice a little.
“What did you say?”
Tougan-sensei also raised his voice, as if he were trying to compete with my volume.
It was right about then that everyone in the classroom seemed to notice something abnormal, and each of their conversations stopped like a passing shower of rain.
“Mystery novels only consist of ‘riddles,’ and completely ignore psychological depictions, themes, and everything else. That’s what you believe, correct?”
“Y-yeah, that’s right. And to top it all off, the wording of the sentences and the content are usually all written in bad taste. The tricks, which are its only selling point, rarely ever make sense realistically. Laughable, isn’t it!”
“That isn’t true!”
“If you ask me, mystery writers are just a socially inept lot with unnecessarily bizarre tastes!”
“Take back what you just said——!”
“Hibari, I’m going to the restroom, so come along with me—!”
Just as as I was about to yell at a teacher without any thought of the consequences, Touka-chan aggressively took me by the arm and before I could protest, pulled me out into the hallway.
“Sensei, thank you for your instruction today,”
She quickly said to Tougan-sensei, and walked while pushing me from behind. As I’d expect from someone in the Judo Club, she was strong. No matter how firmly I planted my feet on the ground, she had no trouble pushing me along. In the end, she wound up taking me all the way to the restroom.
“Touka-chan, why did you stop me?! Did you hate that rumor about being called Akebi High School’s mini-Godzilla that much?”
“You idiot, do you really need to ask? What were you planning to say to a teacher looking that angry? Also, I’ll have you tell me all about this ‘Godzilla’ thing afterwards, you hear?!”
“That’s…. For the sake of the honor of all detective and mystery writers, I was prepared to die a heroic death in battle!”
“Don’t go dying in battle in the middle of the classroom during an otherwise peaceful break time.”
“But…. But….!”
I was frustrated. And also saddened. I felt overwhelmed when I thought about how even the teacher for modern Japanese felt that way about mystery novels. Were all the works that I loved really such childish and unnecessary things?
“I was listening in the background, so I heard everything. It was Tougan’s fault for wording things so badly. That wasn’t how a teacher should have acted as a role model to the students. He’ll be single for life if he keeps acting like that. He deserves to live a life as bland as his name.”
“Touka-chan….”
“So um, cheer up, alright?”
She said, and pulled on my pigtail braids out of embarrassment.
“Touka-chan, you’re so manly. Even though you’re this tiny.”
“Shut up! Let me just say that you’re on the small side too, you know! Same goes for your chest!”
“Aaagh! Touka-chan’s verbal abuse—!”
I already know that, so you don’t have to say it!
“After that, I went with the flow and tried hugging Touka-chan, but I was thrown straight through the air.”
“How pleasant.”
Angered under those circumstances, I had visited the house of the mystery writer, Kudou-sensei, and fervently told him about what had happened today.
I was furious. No, even at the time, I was still furious. Not about what had been said about my chest, but about the opinion and treatment that everyone, including my teacher, had towards mystery novels. I wasn’t furious because of my chest in the slightest.
However, despite how desperately I had been trying to express my wrath and frustration, the only thing that the author kept saying was, “How pleasant.” He sat comfortably in his office sofa with his arms folded aloft, and was indulging in the cup of coffee that I had made.
“Are you even listening? He was making fun of mystery writers! Isn’t that horrible?”
“It’s just as that teacher said.”
“Wuh?”
Hearing these unexpected words from Kudou-sensei, I made a strange sound, like a dog might make in their sleep.
“It’s a fact that mystery novels are written to be read for entertainment, and when riddles are the main focus, any psychological depictions are often kept brief. It’s also a fact that most of the topics covered are generally seen as bad taste.”
“Th-that can’t be…!”
I had been convinced that he’d definitely take my side this time, but seeing that I’d made a grave miscalculation, my shoulders slumped heavily in disappointment. Didn’t he feel at all frustrated to have his occupation criticized like that?
“Don’t take me the wrong way. I don’t write for the sake of critics who try and make a name for themselves by beating down other’s works, or for people like that modern Japanese teacher called Nigauri or whatever his name may be. It would only fill me with dread if I were to be glorified by such people as they rub their hands together and praise me with, ‘Each and every page of your work is equally sensible and harmless. It’s perfect reading material for the youths that will shoulder this country in the future!’ or similar flattery. What significance does a colorless and transparent mystery novel even have without a single drop of venom? Just try and come up with an answer using that sponge melon head of yours.”
“The modern Japanese teacher’s name isn’t Nigauri, and my head’s not a sponge, either!”
“Oh? What’s this, inflating your cheeks like a department store ad balloon? You look more like a watermelon now. Keep on inflating them like that then, and fly off to Ginza.”
There was no love! Touka-chan’s verbal abuse had love in it, but there was no love in this person’s words at all!
“Mystery novels aren’t the type of works to be placed in glass display cases and admired for how refined or tasteful they are. They are to be read by adolescent boys as they hold back feelings of guilt, relying on lamplight to illuminate the pages in the dead of the night. The purpose of mystery novels is to allow those boys to remember how fast their hearts were beating in that moment. The true thrill of mystery novels is the dark pleasure that they bring.”
While unbelievable, it was impressive that he could apply logic to things so fluently like this even without any real evidence to back it up.
“Those that want to be showered in praise and held in such high regard should simply write literature. Works that center around timeless, humanistic themes that can’t be taken at face value, such as human love, discrimination, and war. I, for one, care little for themes, and write novels purely for the sake of the story. I write stories that will leave intense scars on the readers’ hearts, and their soft, fair skin that has not yet been touched by another. I don’t need the indulgence of those ‘high and mighty themes’ or what have you. What sways the readers’ is a riveting story that no one has ever told before, and that is what I believe to be true salvation for the readers’ soul.”
It was hopeless. He was completely unapproachable, like an island in the middle of nowhere with no ferries to take you there. I was mistaken in thinking that this arrogant mystery writer, Kudou Renma, would understand the frustration and sadness that I had felt.
This man is completely unconcerned with the assessment and common sense of the world, and immerses himself only in writing his stories. If I do this, I’ll sell. If I do that, my reputation will go up. With blatant disregard to any of those things, he wrote mystery novels based entirely on his own judgement.
Whether or not he was mentioned in a school textbook was a matter as unimportant to him as a cat fight happening on the other side of the world.
“If you included miso soup in a full course meal of French cuisine, very few would appreciate it. However, it is not because the miso soup soup tastes worse than French cuisine. Miso soup is delicious.”
“It really is delicious!”
“Yes, delicious. But the miso soup that you make is a bit bland!”
“That has nothing to do with this conversation!”
“In other words, no matter how good it is, if the time or place is wrong, no one will be happy. Nothing good will come out of forcing something somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
Of course, I also wasn’t so concerned with whether or not mystery novels would be included in textbooks. I was more irritated by the fact that everyone thought they were nothing but entertainment, and nothing could be learned from them.
“I just couldn’t stand to see mystery novels being looked down on as absurd nonsense. It made me start to wonder if everything that’s moved and surprised me up until now have all been something vulgar.”
There’s no way it could be. That’s what I wanted to believe.
“When it comes down to it, whether something is vulgar or not changes with the times. More importantly, what’s wrong with nonsense? What’s so bad about dreaming? Who ever said that reality must always triumph over something else?”
“W-well….”
The author stood up from the sofa and began to slowly walk around the study. As he looked at me when I unintentionally stammered, it seemed he was starting to take interest in the topic.
“Reality is always what is considered just and valuable, and though you seem to hold resentment towards those realists who regard mystery novels as something written in poor taste, it defeats the purpose to try and bring nonsense closer to reality. Authors such as I write nonsense day and night in order to reveal things that cannot be witnessed in reality,”
The author said and leaned against the desk, staring over at the wall-to-wall bookshelves with eyes that seemed to be gazing at something far away.
“Everything has its own form of domain. It’s pointless to try and argue which is superior and which is inferior.”
“But there are people who have never looked at things that way, and you’re fine with being unfairly held in low esteem by them?”
“Didn’t I say before? The worth of something changes with the times. It’s a waste of time to be making a fuss over a temporary assessment.”
“…You don’t care even if people don’t praise you?”
“I don’t want to be praised for writing stories. All I want is that the stories I’ve written to not be forgotten,”
The author said, and suddenly dropped his gaze to the drawer of his desk. In it was the manuscript for his new work. That gaze made my heart beat faster and sweat run down my back.
“Sensei, aren’t you thirsty from talking so much? Should I make you some coff—”
I started to say, but the author suddenly took a step back from the desk in a hurried fashion. Then, in one swift movement, he opened the drawer and took out the manuscript that he had written.
“What’s the matter?”
I said to him, but he didn’t reply. Before long, his shoulders began to tremble.
“S-Sensei?”
I slowly approached, and a terrifying expression that could only be described as that of a crazed serial killer made its way onto his face. The expression he had now made his usual displeased face look like one of a benevolent saint. It was rare to ever see him this angry.
“I can’t… bear this any longer!”
The author said stiffly, as if squeezing the words out, slammed the thick manuscript on the desk, and briskly left the study.
Looking closer, the manuscript was brutally torn into pieces.
What could be the meaning of this—?
It was a completely unexpected turn of events.
*
After being abandoned in the middle of the conversation and knowing not what to do, I stood alone in the office for a while. But after waiting for a long time, the author failed to return, and so I went out to look for him.
“Sensei, where are you? He’s not here, either…. Oh! Don’t tell me he went to go take a bath?!”
“Is your brain made of ohagi? Why would I have a need to suddenly go and take a bath?”
“Wah!”
The author said and suddenly appeared from the kitchen. On the table was an assortment of seasonings and peeled vegetables. Although few, the plates, cooking utensils, and ingredients were all organized to to easily accessible. For me, the usual user of the kitchen, that was.
“It’s because you just suddenly disappeared in the middle of an important conversation… What on earth happened? Ah, Sensei, you have an apron on. Wow! It doesn’t suit you at all!”
The author was wearing a simple apron over his usual clothes, and holding a mortar in his hand.
“Sensei, it’s rare to see you in the kitchen. You usually never cook anything. Even when you’re on the brink of starvation.”
The truth was, most of the seasonings in the kitchen were ones that I had brought. Kudou-sensei has never cooked on his own, at all.
Just like how a penguin would never do knitting. That’s how unlikely he is to cook. Moreover, if left alone, he’ll start eating the seasonings straight from their bottles, so I have to make sure to keep an eye on him whenever he’s in the kitchen. But despite all that, here he was now, in the kitchen, and wearing an apron.
“What’s that….?”
I peeked inside the bowl that the author was holding. Inside was a mysterious mixture of green and purple power, blended together to make a troubling color.
“Oh, Sensei… if you couldn’t wait any longer, you should have just said something.”
Nervously, I reached into my uniform pocket and took out a small bundle.
Since I’d come to visit the author today, I’d actually been waiting for the right time to give it to him.
That day, Hanamoto Hibari was nervous.
Anxious about being able to make them well.
If I were a novelist, that was probably how I would write out my feelings at the moment.
The next class after modern Japanese was home economics.
After Touka-chan had thrown me with a Tomoe Nage, we hurried to change classrooms and made cookies. I could feel the physical strain on my body from making cookies immediately after being thrown, but it was still fun to bake together with everyone. And as was natural amongst a group of girls, the topic turned to who everyone would be giving their homemade cookies to.
“Hibari-chan, who are you giving them to? Tell us. Come on, just spit it out. Aw, are you getting embarrassed? You’re shaking all over!”
“Oh, just leave me alone!”
I didn’t confess no matter how much my classmate, Mizorogi Yue-chan, interrogated me, but if anyone had watched how I’d made the cookies, they would have figured it out right away.
The reason being that I’d grinded up a bunch of coffee beans to use as a secret ingredient.
Although everyone else tried to stop me, and kept asking me if I was sure about using them.
“With that said, here are my specially-made Hibari cookies. Please, help yourself!”
“What are those?”
“But I just told you that they’re cookies.”
In spite of the fact that I’d offered to him with my best smile, the author was looking at them with a gaze that might be directed at some strange bug that he’d spotted in the corner of the bath.
“And why did you remember them just now?”
“Why, because you’re hungry, aren’t you? You were overcome by a sudden pang of hunger and started cooking something to eat, right? So I thought these Hibari cookies might help with that! Hey, wait a minute! Why’re you closing your eyes and making that anguished face like I’ve just added to your problems?! They’re cookies! Delicious cookies!”
I jumped up and down in front of him, desperately trying to get him to notice the cookies, but with little effect. Instead, he placed the mortar he was holding on top of my head.
“Quit hopping around. I’m not hungry. And besides, I’m not making this to eat myself. It’s bait.”
“Bait?”
“Now, mind you, this isn’t bait for you. Stop reaching for it! Such an ill-behaved girl.”
“I’m not reaching for it! Don’t make it sound like I reacted when I heard the word ‘bait’!”
I couldn’t stand how he decided what I was doing like I was part of the novels he wrote.
“But come to think of it, this might be just what I need.”
“So you do want it, then? Hehehe, I’ll let you have a little bite, if you insist.”
Half-teasingly, I waved the bundle of cookies before him, and to my surprise, he took them with a serious look in his eyes.
“Hibari-kun, this is perfect! I was thinking that something was missing. You have my thanks!”
“Oh, Sensei, you’re exaggerating… But I never thought you’d be so happ—”
“How convenient.”
The author said, and poured every last cookie into the bowl.
“Ah.”
He did it with no hesitation, as if he’d been planning it from the start.
And then, he crushed up my cute cookies and mixed them together with the eerily-colored powder. Lastly, he added a small amount of water and shaped the solution into a round, dumpling shape. It no longer looked anything like a cookie. It was more like… a pathetic ball of sludge?
Huuuh? That’s weird. Despite all I’d learned in home economics at school, and read so many recipe books, I had absolutely no words for what I saw before me now.
“Hmph. It’s done!”
“How can you say that?! What’re you doing?! You’re horrible! I worked so hard to make them! I put so much effort into kneading the dough!”
“Here, and here, and somewhere around here…”
“Are you ignoring me?!”
The author was walking around and placing those small dumplings on the floor in the corners of the kitchen.
“And lastly, the study.”
Paying no attention to my protests, the author took the remaining dumplings and headed back to the study. Taking with me the sadness of a girl whose carefully-made cookies had been reduced to sludge dumplings in the matter of seconds, I chased after him.
Just like he’d done in the kitchen, the author was walking around the study and placing the dumplings in corners of the room.
“Sensei, is this some sort of ritual for good luck?”
“Haven’t I already told you? It’s bait. For these past several days, I’ve been tormented by rats. I’ve just about had enough with the vermin.”
“Rats?”
“It’s obvious if you take just one look at what they’ve done to my manuscript!”
The author pointed at the torn-up manuscript on his desk. Looking at it carefully once more, it finally made sense to me.
“Ah, so the rats were the ones that chewed it up!”
“I noticed earlier that the drawer was open just a crack. They must have gotten in through there.”
It certainly didn’t look like a person had torn it up. It seemed more like some small animal had eaten through the paper.
“And so, that’s why you used my cookies to make a bait to lure out the rats?”
“It’s not just bait. They’re specially-made with anesthetics! I would have overlooked it if they’d merely chewed on the table leg, but now that they’ve meddled with my manuscript, there will be no mercy. I’ll kill them and all their descendants for the next seven generations! I’ll make them regret being born as rats! Fwahahaha!”
I understood the situation now. Knowing the author’s personality, it didn’t matter if it was rats or the power of the state. Since they’d ruined his precious manuscript, he wasn’t going to hold back in exacting revenge. Of course, from an outsider’s point of view, it seemed very childish.
He hardly seemed like the person who, just a while ago, had been gallantly talking about how stories were salvation for the readers’ soul.
“I won’t kill them right away. After they’ve been drugged, I’ll slowly skin them one at a time on the cutting board over twelve hours, with their lovers watching over the whole time. And finally, I will say this. ‘Meow before the one you love. Throw away your dignity as a rat and meow just like a cat.’”
“Cut it out already!”
“Ugh! Why you… headbutting me in the stomach….”
Although I’d used my body to physically stop the author from taking it any further, the fact still stood that the rats had chewed through his manuscript. Would I secretly let them free once the bait had trapped them? No, that wouldn’t solve anything….
“My, it seems noisier than usual in here today.”
As I was losing myself in my thoughts, Kareshima-san appeared, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands.
“I heard your voices all the way from downstairs, so I let myself in.”
“Kareshima-san, you won’t believe this. Sensei is being so terrible I can’t even bear to look at him!”
“That’s the last straw, you little runt!”
“Now, now. On a more important note, Senpai, you have another guest waiting for you.”
Standing behind Kareshima-san was a tall, slender man, looking quite apologetic. He was wearing a full-piece business suit, but the cloth seemed a bit worn out.
“Oh, it’s you.”
The author had been crouched over and clutching his stomach in pain, but as soon as he saw who it was, he stood up straight and took on a bossy attitude.
“That’s not a proper greeting, Sensei. I’ve come to collect the manuscript you promised.”
“Yazume-san, good afternoon!”
I’m also quite familiar with this person. He’s Kudou-sensei’s editor, Yazume Masachi. Twenty-five years old. After several years of rejection, he had finally been accepted into a university, and though graduated last year, he had been unable to find an occupation. Amidst his stumbling around unemployment, he eventually found his current position as the editor-in-chief of a publishing company. On his very first day of work, he had said with a smile,
“I know nothing about the publishing business, but I’ll do my best!”
As if those words had brought about his demise, he had been appointed as the editor for the infamous, bizarre author, Kudou Renma, upon entering the company, and from there, his days of suffering began. The author always makes him worry about the manuscripts so much he seems likely to develop stomach ulcers. He’s forced to run around and gather writing references, and stepped on just for the sake of killing time—— But even then, he doesn’t run away, and always comes back to the author’s side. Perhaps that was why——
“It doesn’t feel like what you go through is all that different from my experiences….”
“Hibari-san, you’re the only one that truly understands my suffering!”
In spite of his height and handsome face, Yazume-san is a very kind person, and can’t drink coffee unless it has plenty of sugar in it. That said, I’m equally as much of a sweet tooth as he is.
Being both sweet tooths, we were also part of what I liked to call “The Victims of Kudou Renma Society,” and whenever we saw each other at his house, we would exchange stories about what kinds of disservice the author had done us.
“This victims’ society of yours, shall I disband it with ruthless malice?”
And whenever Yazume-san and I spoke like this, the author’s mood would always take a turn for the worse. It was awfully selfish of him, seeing as how the cause of all this was his own daily, arrogant behavior.
“So, Sensei… about that manuscript…”
Yazume-san asked tentatively, as if facing a hostile beast. The author responded by handing him the manuscript that had been chewed up by the rats.
“….What is this? A document that was excavated from some ancient ruins?”
Unable to grasp the situation, he looked back and forth between the author and the manuscript.
“It’s the manuscript you wanted. Take it and leave.”
It would seem that the manuscript that the rats had eaten away had been the one Yazume-san had come to collect that day. It was no wonder the author had been so furious.
“Um, but it’s so torn up that I can’t even read it properly…. Is this your new take on a crime thriller?”
“The answer is inside the rats’ stomachs. They’re somewhere in this house, so if you want to read the whole thing, find them and have them cough it up.”
“Meaning… that….”
“The rats ate it.”
“Is there any way you could rewrite it….?”
“I don’t care enough to.”
“Nnn…..”
“Ahh, and now Yazume-san’s crying.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. It made my stomach hurt to watch.
“Now, now, Yazume-san, why don’t you sit down first?” As I tried to think of what to do, Kareshima-san stepped up and kindly guided him to a chair.
“There’s nothing to worry about. If he really had no intention of writing it again, he would have already kicked you out. But since he’s explained to you what happened, it means that he plans on rewriting it.”
He comforted Yazume-san as if holding down the lid on a boiling pot. I decided to take this chance to also try and help.
“I’ll go make some coffee! With lots and lots of sugar!”
Yazume-san, who was being generously comforted from either side, wiped his tears while choking out words of thanks. The author merely looked on with disgusted eyes as if watching the hatching of woodlice.
“Come now, Sensei! Don’t say any more mean things and just hurry and write him the manuscript! Even it it’s a little unreasonable, as a professional writer, it’s times like these that you have to try your best!”
“Try my best? Even if it’s a little unreasonable?”
I had said those words to motivate him, but the author reacted to them in an entirely different way.
“I refuse. In the first place, doing what’s unreasonable and trying one’s best are two different things. Don’t go thinking you can budge a writer with such careless wording!”
“What are you going off about this time? Honestly, now isn’t the time….”
“Imagine that there is a very heavy rock is in front on you.”
Great, and now he’s started to give some weird example. Obviously trying to avoid the topic by going off on a tangent. It was my fault for saying something unnecessary again.
“You must move that rock to another location. What will you do?”
“Umm…. I’ll try my best, with all my might, and pick up the rock.”
In my head, I imagined a heavy rock, and then answered the question. And when I did, the author looked at me with a nasty face and hit me on the head.
“Nothing will come out of trying your best there. You’re just trying to do the impossible.”
“Then, what does it mean to try your best?”
“Discipline your body daily and raise your stamina and strength. In time, you’ll be able to lift the boulder. That’s what it means to really try your best to accomplish a goal. That’s what effort is.”
His reasoning actually made sense.
“Somehow, this doesn’t really sound like the things you usually say.”
“Of course, there are other ways to go about it. You could find some tools and move it using the principle of leverage. Or you could save up enough money to hire someone to remove it for you. These are all forms of effort. The point is to use your head and think of different ways to approach it.”
“So in the end, the solution is money, is it….”
“As long as the rock ends up being moved, that’s all that matters.”
Suddenly, I realized something. I thought to myself, perhaps he isn’t trying to avoid the topic, but instead, he was using this example as a metaphor for something else.
Use your head to think of how to move the unmovable rock. In the situation, the “rock” was——
“Sensei, please stop trying to avoid the topic because you don’t want to write the manuscript again.”
“Avoid the topic? And what do you mean by that? Although, I actually don’t want to write the manuscript a second time. Sorry to tell you.”
This was my last chance to make a proposal.
“Oh, I see how it is! So you flat-out refuse to write it, is that it? Then how about playing a game with me?”
“A game?”
He took the bait!
“That’s right. If I win this game, you’ll promise to rewrite the manuscript and give it to Yazume-san.”
“Hibari-san! You’re a goddess! A goddess detective!”
I could hear Yazume-san’s cries of joy from behind me. It made me feel embarrassed to be praised like that, but at the rate things were going, I was starting to feel sorry for him, and considering my position, I felt that I had to do something.
“How about it, Sensei? There’s no way the great author, Kudou Renma-sensei, would run away because he was afraid of losing to a little girl…. riiight?”
Ahhh, I’d said those words to provoke him into playing the game, but now that I’d said them, I was scared, so so scared, of what would happen next!
“Little girl…. I show you an ounce of kindness and you go and get ahead of yourself…. Shall I remind you who’s mercy allows you to be walking on two legs right now?”
Ahh, he’s really angry. Now that it’s come to this, I have no choice but to follow through.
“You said that if I lose, I have to write the manuscript. In that case, if you lose, you’ll also be forced to accept some form of punishment.”
Writing the manuscript was his job, rather than a form of punishment, but I decided against arguing it at the moment. The author had a hand on his chin, finding true enjoyment in thinking up what punishment to give me. I waited for the whip to come cracking down, watching him with the mentality of a slave.
I had no idea what ruthless request might come from the author, who was like the human personification of sadistic.
Glancing behind me, Yazume-san was just as nervous as I was waiting for the author to speak. He had the face of a puppy that had been grabbed by the stomach. Kareshima-san had walked off to take a book off one of the shelves and started reading. He had a face that seemed to say, “Let me know when this mess has been all cleared up.”
At long last, the author nodded slightly in satisfaction and said,
“Then, if you lose, you’ll quit pretending to be a detective.”
——Come again?
The words that had come out of the author’s mouth had been completely beyond what I had imagined.
Quit pretending to be a detective?
That was the punishment that he wished on me?
I was curious about what could be his aim in that, but before that——
“Um, but I’ve never really had any intention to pretend like I’m a detective.”
Before anything else, I had to clear up any misunderstandings about this.
“Are you really trying to deny it now? You, who reads mystery novels from my bookshelves day and night, who pines after Akechi Kogorou, who plunges headfirst into any case that occurs around you despite what I might say against it and gets into all kinds of trouble?! You’re already a fine detective. An amateur detective.”
“Uu….”
What he said was certainly true.
“B-but I’ve never once called myself a detective!”
“Yes, that may be. Rather than being a detective by occupation, you’ve volunteered to act as a detective in your everyday life. That’s what being an amateur detective is. A role that forms from acting on your surroundings. Looking at it this way, you’ve already started on the path of being an amateur detective.”
The author laughed at me silently, as if to say, “Your skill as amateur detective isn’t any different from the average person, and in certain cases, it might even be worse.”
“I understand what you’re trying to say, but…. Why would you have to tell me to stop assuming that role?”
“Hmph, ask what’s in your own chest for the answer to that.”
My chest…..? Chest….
“Don’t say anything about my chest!”
The sad thoughts had come back again.
“Umm, going back to the game, what will you two be doing….?”
Yazume-san, who had been watching our exchange in silence, shyly raised his hand. Come to think of it, we’d never decided on what the game would be.
Right away, the author said this,
“Book searching.”
“….Book searching?”
I automatically looked up at the bookshelves lined up behind where the author was standing. In them were rows and rows of books from every time period and country…. well, a certain selection of them, anyway.
“I’m going to give you three clues. And using those, you are to find, somewhere in this house, the book that I wish to read right now, and bring it to me.”
The author pretentiously ran his finger along the spine of one of the books on the shelves. “It’ll be easy for a detective like you, right?” It was obvious in his face that that was what he wanted to say.
“In other words, you’re testing Hibari-chan’s skills of deduction and insight as a detective, correct?”
Kareshima-san suggested without lifting his eyes from the book he was holding.
“I-I understand. I’ll find that book! So then, what are my three clues?”
“Very well then. The first clue is this. The book that I wish to read right now is ‘a book that you have read before as well.’”
“As you’d expect from Kudou-sensei. You’ve committed everything about Hibari-chan to memory, haven’t you?”
Kareshima-san interrupted.
“She’s always telling me whenever she’s read a new book. Each and every time. Like it or not, I can’t help but remember it.”
He didn’t have to make it sound like such a nuisance.
“But doesn’t this already narrow it down quite a bit?”
Yazume-san seemed quite pleased. He must have assumed that the condition “a book that I have also read before” was a considerable advantage.
But——
“Yazume-san, unfortunately, it’s too soon to celebrate.”
Kareshima-san explained my thoughts for me.
“The number of books that Hibari-chan has read in this house is a little more than you might think.”
“I-Is that right? Now that I think about it, on top of your love of books, you’ve been coming here for quite a long time, if I recall. In that case… it could be any book out of several hundred books, then?”
“Try several thousands. No, perhaps even ten thousands.”
As I waited patiently for the author’s next words, I could feel Yazume-san staring at me, rendered speechless by what Kareshima-san had said. He was right; it was much too early to try and narrow down which book it could be.
“Although she reads a lot, Hibari-kun always chooses works of fiction, and rarely reads books on thesis or the technical aspects, so you could say she’s rather lacking in knowledge.”
“Y-you don’t need to mention that!”
I wish he’d at least leave my preferences alone.
“What’s the second clue?”
Watching with glee as I desperately sorted through my mental library, the author slowly opened his mouth.
“The second clue is—— ‘The eleven blank days.’”
This time, his words were shrouded in mystery. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen a book with that title, but nothing came to mind. In the first place, this eccentric author wouldn’t just outright hand me the title of the correct book. Instead, this must be an important clue in identifying the book.
“The eleven…. blank days….. Wait, I’ve heard that somewhere before…..”
“Really put that brain of yours to use and think hard about it. Now then, the next clue is the last one.”
As he said this, the author looked as if he’d committed the heinous crime of planting a bomb somewhere in this house.
“The book that I wish to read——‘Describes you in your current situation.’”
Saying this, the author pointed straight at me. No matter how you looked at it, it was clear that he was pointing at me and no one else.
“….It describes me? Um, what do you mean——”
“That’s all three clues! I have nothing else more to say. Gather up your wit and seek out that book, amateur detective!”
As if to drive me away, the author said this and clapped his hands a few times. Like he was telling me to figure out the rest on my own. At this point, no matter how much I screamed and cried, he wasn’t going to tell me anything else. Even if I threatened to hang myself in front of him unless he told me, it would be of no use.
“Good luck, Hibari-chan. If you lose this game and with it, your job as a detective, feel free to come to Kokuudou.”
“I’m counting on you, Hibari-san! For the sake of the manuscript! The manuscript!”
After receiving words of encouragement from Kareshima-san and Yazume-san—though I wasn’t very sure about calling them ‘encouragement’—I dashed out of the study.
*
Although I’d dashed out of the study so confidently, I froze as soon as I was out in the hallway. To be perfectly honestly, I still had no leads at all. I hadn’t the faintest clue of which book it could be.
A book that I have also read before.
The eleven blank days.
A book describing me in my current situation.
With these three clues, I was to find the book that the author wished to read. If this were an ordinary house, that wouldn’t have been such an impossible task. If it were your average house, I would only have to look through a few dozen books, or at most, a single bookshelf. But this house is far from normal. In this house is an unbelievable number of books. There are close to ten thousand, even two thousand books here. Among all these books, was it even be possible for me to find the one, correct book?
“No, this won’t do. I have to think this through before it gets dark.”
I couldn’t stop trying to think. In order to make it easier to see the truth, I first organized the information that I knew.
First, in total, there were four rooms with books in them in this house. The study I’d just come out of, the parlor next to the kitchen, and two rooms on the second floor that are being used as libraries.
Of those, the rooms that held the most books are the libraries on the second floor, and the study.
As for the parlor, the two bookshelves there are comparatively small, such that I could reach the top shelf if I stand on my toes, making it the room with the least books.
Should I start searching from the libraries on the second floor, which holds the most books?
No, I decided to think it over a bit more.
I tried to remember what kinds of books were in those libraries, and what purpose the author used them for.
If I remembered correctly, most of the books in the libraries are ones that he doesn’t read on a daily basis. In contrast, he keeps the books that he frequently reads in his study, where he can easily access them.
In that case, what kind of books are books that he doesn’t read on a daily basis? The answer is an obvious one; reference books that he’s collected for the sake of writing novels in the past. The reason for this is that the author hates to use a motif in future novels if he’s already used it once. Which meant that books that he’d already read once for the sake of writing previous novels would naturally be stored in the libraries.
As the author had pointed out, I mostly read literature and works of fiction, and rarely ever reference or technical books. If the correct book was “a book that I have also read before,” looking in the libraries, which were full of books I had never read, wasn’t a priority.
With that in mind, I headed for the parlor. Quietly, I opened the door and peered inside. This room is one I usually don’t go into. In between two sofas facing one another was a dignified-looking black, wooden table. Being called something as fancy as a parlor, this room is only used when there were special guests.
Then did that mean that people like Kareshima-san, Yazume-san, and I aren’t special, and instead regular guests? But knowing Kudou-sensei, he’d just cooly say that we weren’t even deserving to be called guests.
Up against the wall opposite of the door were two bookshelves, nestled close together like siblings. They were the same as when I’d last seen them. I immediately ran up to them and began skimming the spines of the books. As I did so, I thought about the second clue.
What did he mean by “the eleven blank days”? I still had the feeling that I’d heard this phrase somewhere before. No, maybe not heard, but seen something with similar wording in a some book. In any case, I was certain that it was hidden somewhere in my memories.
“Blank…. Blank space, blank paper, empty….. Eleven days…. One more day than ten. Ten plus one…. Plus and minus?”
Thinking that it was some cruel wordplay or code, I tried saying aloud every possibility I could think of, but none of the words gave me any insight.
Was it some kind of condition that had appeared in a novel…..? Which meant that it had to be a mystery novel?
I once again thought over the characteristics of the issuer of this riddle, Kudou Renma. First of all, Kudou-sensei had said, “Find the book I wish to read,” but that was probably a lie. He wouldn’t choose the correct book based on such a simple motive. As the issuer of the riddle, there was sure to be some kind of hidden message. A message for me, the riddle solver. It was most likely to be strongly linked to the third clue, “a book that describes me in my current situation.”
Me in my current situation. It was clear that “current situation” meant “the situation I’ve been in today.”
With that in mind, I carefully went over every conversation I’d had with the author since coming here today. I was sure to come across some kind of sign. Gather up your wit and seek out that book. That was what the author had said to me.
At that moment, I heard his voice calling all the way from the study.
“I forgot to tell you. You have until five o’clock. You don’t have the leisure to be rambling to yourself or describing an elaborate scene like in serious literature.”
“Ehhh?! Why is there a time limit?!”
“You fool! You have thirty more minutes, understand? You piece of junk!”
He reminded me, purposely sandwiching the words between two insults. Rather than a mystery writer, this person was nothing more than a foul-mouthed villain. But that wasn’t important right now. I no longer had the time to be leisurely thinking this through.
I picked up thinking where I’d left off, about the message that Kudou-sensei was trying to tell me.
“Me in my current situation. Me, of right now——”
I tried to figure out the intention of the riddle issuer, read into what the author wanted to convey.
I thought back to the first thing I’d talked about with him when I’d come here; the incident during my modern Japanese class. Was it connected somehow to what I’d said about mystery novels being excluded from textbooks? Was there some kind of foreshadowing?
“Me, of right now—— Me——of today.”
Realizing that time was running out, I repeated those words to myself over and over, trying to think it over as quickly as possible.
——The situation I’ve been in today…..
How long did I stand there in front of the bookshelves, lost in thought? Eventually, the grandfather clock in the hallway rang out, announcing the fifth hour.
At that moment, I came to realize the truth, in such a way that felt as if the place that I standing in was turning upside-down.
*
“My, my, if it isn’t the return of the great detective.”
As I entered the study, the author greeted me with an arrogant smile on his face. Kareshima-san was casually seated in a chair, completely unchanged from when I’d left. Yazume-san was also seated, but was slumped weakly against the table like a daikon that had been left out to dry in the sun for seven days and seven nights. Depending on the results of the game, he could end up having to leave without the manuscript, so I could see why his spirits were weary.
“So then, Hibari-kun, were you able to find which book it might be?”
The author was sitting in his favorite chair, crossing his legs in an exaggerated fashion. After I’d settled down a bit, I nodded yes.
“Oh? But you don’t seem to be holding anything.”
As he said, I didn’t have any book with me. I was completely empty-handed. But that was fine. The moment I’d come to the answer, I had also realized where the book was located.
“The book that you wish for is in one of the bookshelves in this study.”
I confidently walked up to a bookshelf and standing up tall, I stretched out my arm. Leaning forward, Yazume-san observed which book I was reaching to pull out.
Before long, I took out a certain book and held it out to the author.
“Agatha Christie’s ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. This is the book you want, correct?”
A short silence, one that could be measured with one hand, swept over the room. Still seated in his chair, the author looked down at the cover of that book, but immediately looked up at the ceiling in a bored manner and said,
“Masachi, wait until ten o’clock.”
“Huh….? You mean…..”
Hearing his name called suddenly, Yazume-san jumped up from his chair.
“I mean that I’ll write the manuscript for you.”
It would seem that I had won the game.
As if it had been dyed by some kind person somewhere, floating in the night sky was a beautiful full moon.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
In front of the small gate outside of the house, Yazume-san bowed his head over and over.
“Thanks to you, it seems that I’ll be able to leave here with the manuscript as planned!”
“O-Oh, no…. It was nothing.”
Along the street that had turned pitch dark, street lights slowly flickered on. I could see tiny moths that had already been drawn in by the light, and were fluttering in a trance around it.
“But how were you able to figure out the correct book? I couldn’t get it at all.”
That had been the biggest problem. It was only natural that Yazume-san didn’t know the answer. The reason being that it had been a riddle that no one else but I would have understood.
“I’m amazed that you were able to find it with only those three clues. That book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, is one of Agatha Christie’s most well-known works, isn’t it? If I remember, it was written more than ten years ago….. I wonder why Sensei would suddenly want to read that book.”
As Yazume-san had said, “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is the third in the series of novels which features the great detective, Hercule Poirot, and among all of Agatha Christie’s novel—or rather, among all mystery novels ever written, it stood out as a remarkable work read by many.
The story begins with the strange death of a woman in a village called King’s Abbot. Afterwards, a well-known man in the village, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered in his study, and though there are several suspects for being the culprit, the conclusive evidence is lacking. Under these circumstances, a certain character in the story serves as Poirot’s assistant, taking notes on the case, while also investigating and deducing on his own.
As mentioned above, this is the premise of the novel.
“It was the second clue, ‘the eleven blank days,’ that helped me to see the light. Those words were meant for pointing me in the direction of Agatha Christie.”
“Is there any relation between ‘eleven days’ and Agatha Christie?”
“I believe it was in December of the year 1926. Agatha Christie, who, at the time, was already a well-known author, suddenly disappeared one day after leaving her house.”
“Ah! Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about that, as well! About how her whereabouts were unknown.”
“Afterwards, she was found living in a hotel under a different name, and the number of days until she was found——was eleven days.”
“So that’s why it’s ‘the eleven blank days’…..”
Even today, the details of her disappearance are still unclear. Even Agatha Christie herself has never revealed the truth.
“I’ve read in her biographies about how this mysterious incident revolving around the up-and-coming mystery writer caused an uproar at the time. It was pure coincidence that I remembered this when I did.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that! It’s amazing that you were able to find the answer from there.”
“Actually, the words, ‘the eleven blank days’ didn’t only point me to the author. There was one other clue hidden there.”
While distracted by the frayed ends of my braids, I continued.
“Yazume-san, do you remember when The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published?”
“Umm… before the war…. No, during the Taisho era?”
Yazume-san earnestly tried to think of the answer, but in the end, he wasn’t able to come up with the correct one.
“I’m sorry. I still need to study more…. What year was it again?”
I wasn’t sure if the reason he didn’t know was because he was still a green editor, or simply because I was an enthusiast for mystery novels.
“It was published in 1926.”
“…..Ah! It’s the same year!”
For a moment, he had been frozen like a wind-up toy waiting for its spring to be wound, but upon realizing the connection, he cried out.
Yes, the year in which The Murder of Roger Ackroyd had been published and the year that Christie had gone missing were both 1926.
“From these two points, I determined that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was most likely the correct book. Furthermore, it also qualified under the first condition of being ‘a book that I have also read before.’”
“I see! Making full use of the clues, you were able to arrive at the truth! Oh, how splendid! To win against that Kudou-sensei! I think that Sensei will finally realize your strength this time, Hibari-san. After all, you were able to tame that unruly, man-eating wolf of an author and got him to write the manuscript in his study as promised, right as we speak!”
Perhaps due to the fact that he knew that he was getting a manuscript that he had nearly given up on, Yazume-san had become quite talkative.
“Yazume-san, if you say things like that, Sensei will bully you terribly for it later. He has a frightening ability that allows him to sense when bad things are said about him, even when he himself isn’t present at the scene.”
“Eh…. Th-there’s no way that could be. Ah, no, it might be possible….”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Hibari-chan. Hm? Yazume-san, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Kareshima-san, who had just come out, laughed when he saw Yazume-san’s face.
Bidding farewell to Yazume-san, who was staying behind to wait for the completed manuscript, Kareshima-san and I left the Kudou residence.
“I’ll walk you to your house. It’s dangerous for a girl to be out alone this late.”
With each step Kareshima-san took, his navy blue haori flickered before my eyes. It was if the color was meant for melting away into the night.
“Today sure was eventful. Still, no matter what he might say, I think Senpai really does know every book you’ve read, Hibari-chan.”
“I wonder about that. I never know how much of what he says is true….”
In the same light tone, Kareshima-san then said this,
“Looks like he’s letting you get away with playing the detective.”
“….What do you mean by that?”
A bird let out a strange cry from somewhere unseen. Kareshima-san suddenly stopped, and facing in my direction, he leaned close to me and said,
“We’re here.”
Before I’d realized, we had arrived at my house.
“Th-Thank you so much for walking me.”
After thanking him, Kareshima-san gave a light wave, and just as he was about to leave, he seemed to have second thoughts and turned back around.
“Oh, right. He told me to pass along a message. ‘If you search the stomachs of the rats, you’ll probably find the sweet, coffee-soaked pieces of the manuscript,’ he said.”
“Ah!”
“You two really do make a nice pair. Haha.”
Laughing, Kareshima-san bent down and lightly pulled on my cheeks.
“Leggo ov me~”
“Come on, Hibari-chan, say ‘lemonade.’”
“Lemwonaad.”
“Aww, so cute~”
He teased me like so for a short while.
Eventually, he disappeared into the night like a whimsical breeze, his sandals clattering against the pavement.
I stood by myself in front of my house, lost in a daze.
So the author had noticed, after all. And Kareshima-san might have noticed as well, after hearing his message. No, perhaps he’d already figured it out as soon as he’d realizing the intent of the author’s riddle.
He must have figured out that I was playing not the detective, but the culprit.
*
This is what happened to me today. The entirety of the incidents on × day in the month of ○.
I hadn’t planned on writing in my diary this late into the night, but it’s difficult to stop once I put brush to paper. I also can’t help but feel motivated to try my best, knowing that Sensei had rewritten the manuscript from scratch.
Since I’ve been writing my diary up until this point, naturally, I’ve only written about things from my perspective. I have not written about things that I don’t know, or things that I haven’t experienced.
At the same time, there are truths that I have consciously not written about. Since I am writing my own diary, I’m free to decide what to talk about, and what not to talk about.
But—— The entire time that I’ve been writing, something’s been bothering me. Perhaps I should write down the truth after all, I thought. If I don’t, I don’t think that I’ll be able to sleep at ease after this.
Actually, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a trick known as the “narrative trick” is a core part of the story.
The “narrative trick” is a trick that applies to all the text in a novel aside from the dialogue spoken by the characters, which is detonated by quotation marks.
For example, when describing a character, rather than using words like “he” or “she,” using their name to refer to them allows that character’s gender to remain vague. Furthermore, even if they’re really an elderly eighty-year-old person, their behavior might be purposely described to seem young. In other words, it means to take advantage of the fact that the reader believes the narrative sentences to be truthful, and unlikely to deceive them.
One of these “narrative tricks” is a technique used in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, commonly known as the “unreliable narrator.”
The novel is written in the form of a memoir penned by the character acting as the detective’s assistant, while in reality, the plot twist is that the very character writing the memoir is the culprit. Knowing this, everything that the reader has read and put faith into up until that point changes to the untrustworthy words of a criminal. Furthermore, since the writer of the memoir is actually the culprit, he only needs to avoid writing unfavorable things in order to keep his true identity a secret. In doing so, the truth is progressively distorted in writing.
Therefore, people may criticize that such a technique is unfair to the reader, and it becomes a biased mystery-solving game between the author and reader, but putting that argument aside for the moment—— Yes, in fact, I am using that exact technique to write my diary at this very moment.
Now then, I will now bring to light the unfavorable parts that I haven’t written about.
Actually, when I went to visit the author’s house today, he left right away to go to the store.
“I’ve run out of ink, so I’m going out to buy more. Be good and make some coffee while you wait or something. Understand?”
Having already finished preparing the coffee at the time, after seeing him off as he rushed out of the house, I poured a cup of coffee for myself. And then, as I blew on my coffee to cool it, I did as I was told and sat in the sofa to patiently wait for his return.
But, at that moment, I noticed that the drawer of the author’s desk was open just a crack.
Once I’d noticed this, I could no longer resist the temptation. Although it was completely baseless, I could sense its presence. Somehow or other, I was half-certain that it was there.
——The manuscript for the author’s new work was inside that desk.
Just as I’d suspected, when I opened the drawer, there was the manuscript. And before I’d noticed, I was engrossed in reading it. Knowing that it was something I shouldn’t be doing, my body was honestly…. Wait, what am I writing?
In any case, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. This is interesting! This is so interesting, Sensei!
I paused only to take up my coffee cup. And while still fervently reading the words on the page, I brought the cup up to my mouth. Thinking that the coffee would have cooled by then, I took a sip without bothering to check the temperature, and actually, the coffee was still fairly hot. Hot enough to lightly burn my tongue.
I flinched strongly from the shock of how hot it was. And at that moment, coffee spilled from the cup.
Right on top of the author’s precious manuscript.
Awawawawawa…. Even thinking back on it now makes my teeth chatter! Oh, how frightening! Oh, heaven forbid!
It was too late for me to regret the terrible thing that I had done. I rushed to the kitchen for a towel to clean up the coffee and dry the manuscript. But no matter how much I tried to dry it, it was useless. The manuscript had been partially blurred and rendered illegible.
What do I do? What am I going to do? Think! You have to think, Hibari!
But there was no more time left to think. I could hear the author’s voice coming from the entrance hall. I quickly returned the manuscript to its original place in the drawer, but doing that solved nothing. It was only a matter of it being discovered now and be killed for it now, or it being discovered later and be brutally killed for it later.
Trying not to show my agitation, I then talked to the author about what had happened at school today. I was restless the entire time I was talking, and kept worrying about what was inside the drawer.
When the author suddenly turned his attention to the drawer in the middle of the conversation and reached for the manuscript inside, I felt the sweat drip down my back, and bid farewell to my life.
However, my life still continued after that.
The rats, oh, the rats! They had chewed up the manuscript severely, hiding the fact that I had spilled coffee on it.
Was such a coincidence even possible? In the hour and a half since I’d spilled the coffee and until the author had discovered the manuscript, the rats had chewed up it up, erasing the evidence of the coffee stains.
For a while, I couldn’t believe it. But it was the truth.
At that moment, I made up my mind. I would take full advantage of this coincidence.
If I was honest and told the truth, surely the author would only smile and tear me to shreds, just like the paper of the manuscript. Which was why I had no choice but to go through with it. I couldn’t expose myself as the culprit!
And as I’ve explained, the author and I wound up playing a game, but from the conclusion, it becomes evident that he knew from the start that I had read the manuscript without his permission and even spilled coffee on it.
——If you search the stomachs of the rats, you’ll probably find the sweet, coffee-soaked pieces of the manuscript.
The message that Kareshima-san had given me explained everything.
He must have guessed the situation from the scent of coffee that still lingered in the study, and from how restless I had seemed.
And hiding the fact that he knew about the soiled manuscript, he had taken joy in watching me step up to the challenge with the confident face of an amateur detective.
And then, he had me bring the novel with similar motifs, “a book that describes me in my current situation,” to him with my own two hands.
Planning it in this way, he must have enjoyed slowly wearing down my spirit.
Ohh, it’s so frustrating!
….But, I know that I was in the wrong today. While I was trying to decide whether or not to come clean, I was coincidentally saved by the rats, and taking advantage of that, I tried to hide the truth. I’m not only a failure as a detective, but as a human being. Oh, what a shameful life.
Tomorrow, I’m going to go back to the author’s house and apologize. I’ll probably be strangled and hung from the second floor, but I’ll still apologize with all my might. Although, he’ll probably seriously tell me to engrave with a fountain pen, “I will never go against you again,” on every cell in my body or something along those lines….
In any case, I have to go and apologize.
P.S.
The following day, when I went to the author’s house, the rat bait that had been made from my homemade cookies had been cleared away entirely.
“Rats? There couldn’t possibly be any here. There might have been last month, but I chased them off with the power of knowledge, courage, and laborers,” said the author.
There weren’t any rats? Huh? Then, what about the chewed-up manuscript…? Had it been a different manuscript that he’d worked so hard to write late last month…..?
“H-huh….? Huuuh? Then, not only did everyone know from the start, but…. Huuuh?”
In that case, that changed a lot of things.
Had he planned to tease me the moment he’d discovered the coffee-stained manuscript in the desk drawer? If that was the case, for what purpose had my homemade cookies been sacrificed for…..?
That night, it was very possible that he hadn’t been rewriting the manuscript at all, but been enjoying making Yazume-san wait impatiently until the very last moment. And when time was almost up, he rewrote only the page that had been smudged with coffee, and gave the manuscript to Yazume-san while pretending to look as if he’d just completed a grueling task.
It was possible. Very possible.
“You were only fooling around with me from the start! You tricked me!”
As I shouted this in the study, the author smiled unabashedly in full satisfaction, as if he had done absolutely nothing wrong.
His next words were so simple that there’s nothing to decipher from them, but I’ll write them down just for completion’s sake.
“Ahaha!”
———
translation notes;
Tougan-sensei’s name: written as 東岸 in kanji, but it also sounds like 冬瓜 (tougan/Winter gourd/melon) which is known for having a bland taste, which is why Touka says “He deserves to live a life as bland as his name.” Kudou-sensei also mistakenly (on purpose) calls him Nigauri (冬瓜) meaning “bitter melon”. In the same scene, he calls Hibari “sponge head” which in Japanese is, ヘチマ頭 (hechima-atama). “Hechima,” when written with the kanji 糸瓜 is another type of melon, the “luffa sponge gourd.” The word “hechima” (usually when written in katakana) is also used as slang to refer to something boring or useless.
Tomoe Nage (巴投げ): An overhead throw tactic in judo.
Akechi Kogorou: A fictional private detective created by the Japanese mystery writer, Edogawa Rampo.
Plus and minus: In kanji, “eleven” is written as 十一 which looks like a plus (+) and minus (-) sign.
Haori(羽織): A short coat worn over formal kimono.
× day in the month of ○.
That day, Hanamoto Hibari was furious.
At her teacher, and this country’s education administration——
If I were a novelist, that was probably how I would write out my feelings at the moment.
Today at school, I had my modern Japanese class. Just like how it was with every subject, the classroom was filled with a somewhat drowsy atmosphere throughout the lesson, and ended without anything particularly remarkable happening. We, as students, simply bowed to the teacher when the lesson was over, and then were simply seated again. The teacher, as well, simply gathered up the course materials as usual and made to leave the classroom.
It was at that moment that I quickly stepped forward and called out to the teacher. And as he slowly turned around, I asked him,
“Why doesn’t the textbook have any mystery or detective novels in them?”
Tougan-sensei, the teacher in charge of teaching modern Japanese, looked bewildered at first, as if a slug had suddenly been sprinkled with a seven-flavored spice. He then scratched his head with an annoyed expression on his face. He was in his late thirties. I assumed he must have lost the passion he’d had when he’d first started teaching, because the look on his face seemed to say that he couldn’t stand it when students bothered him about things that weren’t related to the lessons.
All my classmates had already closed their textbooks and left their seats to start chatting with each other. No one was paying attention to my conversation with Tougan-sensei.
“I believe that there are many beautiful works to be found in the mystery genre, and they deserve to be passed down and read by many people. So why aren’t they included at all?”
This was something that had bothered me since I was little. I loved the fluid sentences, the literature overflowing with clever psychological depictions, and of course, the beautiful scenes spun by concise and vivid wording. There was a lot to be learned from them. However, why was it that mystery novels were never featured at all?
“Why? Well, obviously, it’s because it’d be problematic.”
Tougan-san spoke while carefully pausing in between his words. To me, it sounded like he was trying to think up reasons as he spoke.
“Problematic for whom?”
“For both the students and the teachers, of course. Why do you think classic novels and essays are mentioned in the textbook? So that we can learn from them, right? It’s so we can learn the origins of the Japanese language, and its beauty and profoundness through understanding the psychological depictions of the characters, right? That’s what the modern Japanese textbooks are for. If things like mystery and detective novels were put in there, that would be problematic for you as a student, wouldn’t it?”
“So in other words, do you mean to say that there’s nothing to learn from mystery novels?”
“Of course. After all, they’re for leisure reading. Just something to entertain the masses. Something that kids read for fun. They’re little more than a game where you solve riddles to find out who the culprit is while imagining what the ending might be. The characters are introduced only for the sake of being killed, and the story progresses only for the sake of solving the riddles and tricks. Any detailed psychological depictions are put aside, and there aren’t any deep themes that explore human nature nor any aspect of history. What could you possibly learn from them?”
For a moment, it felt like the chatter of the classroom had suddenly gone far away. A raging anger started welling up inside of me. His casual, and somewhat condescending way of talking was the same as usual, but for some strange reason, it bothered me.
“And even if they were included in the textbook, it would only be an excerpt. There’s no point in putting in only a part of a mystery novel. You wouldn’t be able to find out who the culprit is, right? Tests would be too hard if the question was something like, ‘Figure out the culprit by reading the following passage,’ right?”
“Excuse me if I’m being rude but, Tougan-sensei, you haven’t read a single mystery novels, have you?”
Before I could help it, I had raised my voice a little.
“What did you say?”
Tougan-sensei also raised his voice, as if he were trying to compete with my volume.
It was right about then that everyone in the classroom seemed to notice something abnormal, and each of their conversations stopped like a passing shower of rain.
“Mystery novels only consist of ‘riddles,’ and completely ignore psychological depictions, themes, and everything else. That’s what you believe, correct?”
“Y-yeah, that’s right. And to top it all off, the wording of the sentences and the content are usually all written in bad taste. The tricks, which are its only selling point, rarely ever make sense realistically. Laughable, isn’t it!”
“That isn’t true!”
“If you ask me, mystery writers are just a socially inept lot with unnecessarily bizarre tastes!”
“Take back what you just said——!”
“Hibari, I’m going to the restroom, so come along with me—!”
Just as as I was about to yell at a teacher without any thought of the consequences, Touka-chan aggressively took me by the arm and before I could protest, pulled me out into the hallway.
“Sensei, thank you for your instruction today,”
She quickly said to Tougan-sensei, and walked while pushing me from behind. As I’d expect from someone in the Judo Club, she was strong. No matter how firmly I planted my feet on the ground, she had no trouble pushing me along. In the end, she wound up taking me all the way to the restroom.
“Touka-chan, why did you stop me?! Did you hate that rumor about being called Akebi High School’s mini-Godzilla that much?”
“You idiot, do you really need to ask? What were you planning to say to a teacher looking that angry? Also, I’ll have you tell me all about this ‘Godzilla’ thing afterwards, you hear?!”
“That’s…. For the sake of the honor of all detective and mystery writers, I was prepared to die a heroic death in battle!”
“Don’t go dying in battle in the middle of the classroom during an otherwise peaceful break time.”
“But…. But….!”
I was frustrated. And also saddened. I felt overwhelmed when I thought about how even the teacher for modern Japanese felt that way about mystery novels. Were all the works that I loved really such childish and unnecessary things?
“I was listening in the background, so I heard everything. It was Tougan’s fault for wording things so badly. That wasn’t how a teacher should have acted as a role model to the students. He’ll be single for life if he keeps acting like that. He deserves to live a life as bland as his name.”
“Touka-chan….”
“So um, cheer up, alright?”
She said, and pulled on my pigtail braids out of embarrassment.
“Touka-chan, you’re so manly. Even though you’re this tiny.”
“Shut up! Let me just say that you’re on the small side too, you know! Same goes for your chest!”
“Aaagh! Touka-chan’s verbal abuse—!”
I already know that, so you don’t have to say it!
“After that, I went with the flow and tried hugging Touka-chan, but I was thrown straight through the air.”
“How pleasant.”
Angered under those circumstances, I had visited the house of the mystery writer, Kudou-sensei, and fervently told him about what had happened today.
I was furious. No, even at the time, I was still furious. Not about what had been said about my chest, but about the opinion and treatment that everyone, including my teacher, had towards mystery novels. I wasn’t furious because of my chest in the slightest.
However, despite how desperately I had been trying to express my wrath and frustration, the only thing that the author kept saying was, “How pleasant.” He sat comfortably in his office sofa with his arms folded aloft, and was indulging in the cup of coffee that I had made.
“Are you even listening? He was making fun of mystery writers! Isn’t that horrible?”
“It’s just as that teacher said.”
“Wuh?”
Hearing these unexpected words from Kudou-sensei, I made a strange sound, like a dog might make in their sleep.
“It’s a fact that mystery novels are written to be read for entertainment, and when riddles are the main focus, any psychological depictions are often kept brief. It’s also a fact that most of the topics covered are generally seen as bad taste.”
“Th-that can’t be…!”
I had been convinced that he’d definitely take my side this time, but seeing that I’d made a grave miscalculation, my shoulders slumped heavily in disappointment. Didn’t he feel at all frustrated to have his occupation criticized like that?
“Don’t take me the wrong way. I don’t write for the sake of critics who try and make a name for themselves by beating down other’s works, or for people like that modern Japanese teacher called Nigauri or whatever his name may be. It would only fill me with dread if I were to be glorified by such people as they rub their hands together and praise me with, ‘Each and every page of your work is equally sensible and harmless. It’s perfect reading material for the youths that will shoulder this country in the future!’ or similar flattery. What significance does a colorless and transparent mystery novel even have without a single drop of venom? Just try and come up with an answer using that sponge melon head of yours.”
“The modern Japanese teacher’s name isn’t Nigauri, and my head’s not a sponge, either!”
“Oh? What’s this, inflating your cheeks like a department store ad balloon? You look more like a watermelon now. Keep on inflating them like that then, and fly off to Ginza.”
There was no love! Touka-chan’s verbal abuse had love in it, but there was no love in this person’s words at all!
“Mystery novels aren’t the type of works to be placed in glass display cases and admired for how refined or tasteful they are. They are to be read by adolescent boys as they hold back feelings of guilt, relying on lamplight to illuminate the pages in the dead of the night. The purpose of mystery novels is to allow those boys to remember how fast their hearts were beating in that moment. The true thrill of mystery novels is the dark pleasure that they bring.”
While unbelievable, it was impressive that he could apply logic to things so fluently like this even without any real evidence to back it up.
“Those that want to be showered in praise and held in such high regard should simply write literature. Works that center around timeless, humanistic themes that can’t be taken at face value, such as human love, discrimination, and war. I, for one, care little for themes, and write novels purely for the sake of the story. I write stories that will leave intense scars on the readers’ hearts, and their soft, fair skin that has not yet been touched by another. I don’t need the indulgence of those ‘high and mighty themes’ or what have you. What sways the readers’ is a riveting story that no one has ever told before, and that is what I believe to be true salvation for the readers’ soul.”
It was hopeless. He was completely unapproachable, like an island in the middle of nowhere with no ferries to take you there. I was mistaken in thinking that this arrogant mystery writer, Kudou Renma, would understand the frustration and sadness that I had felt.
This man is completely unconcerned with the assessment and common sense of the world, and immerses himself only in writing his stories. If I do this, I’ll sell. If I do that, my reputation will go up. With blatant disregard to any of those things, he wrote mystery novels based entirely on his own judgement.
Whether or not he was mentioned in a school textbook was a matter as unimportant to him as a cat fight happening on the other side of the world.
“If you included miso soup in a full course meal of French cuisine, very few would appreciate it. However, it is not because the miso soup soup tastes worse than French cuisine. Miso soup is delicious.”
“It really is delicious!”
“Yes, delicious. But the miso soup that you make is a bit bland!”
“That has nothing to do with this conversation!”
“In other words, no matter how good it is, if the time or place is wrong, no one will be happy. Nothing good will come out of forcing something somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
Of course, I also wasn’t so concerned with whether or not mystery novels would be included in textbooks. I was more irritated by the fact that everyone thought they were nothing but entertainment, and nothing could be learned from them.
“I just couldn’t stand to see mystery novels being looked down on as absurd nonsense. It made me start to wonder if everything that’s moved and surprised me up until now have all been something vulgar.”
There’s no way it could be. That’s what I wanted to believe.
“When it comes down to it, whether something is vulgar or not changes with the times. More importantly, what’s wrong with nonsense? What’s so bad about dreaming? Who ever said that reality must always triumph over something else?”
“W-well….”
The author stood up from the sofa and began to slowly walk around the study. As he looked at me when I unintentionally stammered, it seemed he was starting to take interest in the topic.
“Reality is always what is considered just and valuable, and though you seem to hold resentment towards those realists who regard mystery novels as something written in poor taste, it defeats the purpose to try and bring nonsense closer to reality. Authors such as I write nonsense day and night in order to reveal things that cannot be witnessed in reality,”
The author said and leaned against the desk, staring over at the wall-to-wall bookshelves with eyes that seemed to be gazing at something far away.
“Everything has its own form of domain. It’s pointless to try and argue which is superior and which is inferior.”
“But there are people who have never looked at things that way, and you’re fine with being unfairly held in low esteem by them?”
“Didn’t I say before? The worth of something changes with the times. It’s a waste of time to be making a fuss over a temporary assessment.”
“…You don’t care even if people don’t praise you?”
“I don’t want to be praised for writing stories. All I want is that the stories I’ve written to not be forgotten,”
The author said, and suddenly dropped his gaze to the drawer of his desk. In it was the manuscript for his new work. That gaze made my heart beat faster and sweat run down my back.
“Sensei, aren’t you thirsty from talking so much? Should I make you some coff—”
I started to say, but the author suddenly took a step back from the desk in a hurried fashion. Then, in one swift movement, he opened the drawer and took out the manuscript that he had written.
“What’s the matter?”
I said to him, but he didn’t reply. Before long, his shoulders began to tremble.
“S-Sensei?”
I slowly approached, and a terrifying expression that could only be described as that of a crazed serial killer made its way onto his face. The expression he had now made his usual displeased face look like one of a benevolent saint. It was rare to ever see him this angry.
“I can’t… bear this any longer!”
The author said stiffly, as if squeezing the words out, slammed the thick manuscript on the desk, and briskly left the study.
Looking closer, the manuscript was brutally torn into pieces.
What could be the meaning of this—?
It was a completely unexpected turn of events.
*
After being abandoned in the middle of the conversation and knowing not what to do, I stood alone in the office for a while. But after waiting for a long time, the author failed to return, and so I went out to look for him.
“Sensei, where are you? He’s not here, either…. Oh! Don’t tell me he went to go take a bath?!”
“Is your brain made of ohagi? Why would I have a need to suddenly go and take a bath?”
“Wah!”
The author said and suddenly appeared from the kitchen. On the table was an assortment of seasonings and peeled vegetables. Although few, the plates, cooking utensils, and ingredients were all organized to to easily accessible. For me, the usual user of the kitchen, that was.
“It’s because you just suddenly disappeared in the middle of an important conversation… What on earth happened? Ah, Sensei, you have an apron on. Wow! It doesn’t suit you at all!”
The author was wearing a simple apron over his usual clothes, and holding a mortar in his hand.
“Sensei, it’s rare to see you in the kitchen. You usually never cook anything. Even when you’re on the brink of starvation.”
The truth was, most of the seasonings in the kitchen were ones that I had brought. Kudou-sensei has never cooked on his own, at all.
Just like how a penguin would never do knitting. That’s how unlikely he is to cook. Moreover, if left alone, he’ll start eating the seasonings straight from their bottles, so I have to make sure to keep an eye on him whenever he’s in the kitchen. But despite all that, here he was now, in the kitchen, and wearing an apron.
“What’s that….?”
I peeked inside the bowl that the author was holding. Inside was a mysterious mixture of green and purple power, blended together to make a troubling color.
“Oh, Sensei… if you couldn’t wait any longer, you should have just said something.”
Nervously, I reached into my uniform pocket and took out a small bundle.
Since I’d come to visit the author today, I’d actually been waiting for the right time to give it to him.
That day, Hanamoto Hibari was nervous.
Anxious about being able to make them well.
If I were a novelist, that was probably how I would write out my feelings at the moment.
The next class after modern Japanese was home economics.
After Touka-chan had thrown me with a Tomoe Nage, we hurried to change classrooms and made cookies. I could feel the physical strain on my body from making cookies immediately after being thrown, but it was still fun to bake together with everyone. And as was natural amongst a group of girls, the topic turned to who everyone would be giving their homemade cookies to.
“Hibari-chan, who are you giving them to? Tell us. Come on, just spit it out. Aw, are you getting embarrassed? You’re shaking all over!”
“Oh, just leave me alone!”
I didn’t confess no matter how much my classmate, Mizorogi Yue-chan, interrogated me, but if anyone had watched how I’d made the cookies, they would have figured it out right away.
The reason being that I’d grinded up a bunch of coffee beans to use as a secret ingredient.
Although everyone else tried to stop me, and kept asking me if I was sure about using them.
“With that said, here are my specially-made Hibari cookies. Please, help yourself!”
“What are those?”
“But I just told you that they’re cookies.”
In spite of the fact that I’d offered to him with my best smile, the author was looking at them with a gaze that might be directed at some strange bug that he’d spotted in the corner of the bath.
“And why did you remember them just now?”
“Why, because you’re hungry, aren’t you? You were overcome by a sudden pang of hunger and started cooking something to eat, right? So I thought these Hibari cookies might help with that! Hey, wait a minute! Why’re you closing your eyes and making that anguished face like I’ve just added to your problems?! They’re cookies! Delicious cookies!”
I jumped up and down in front of him, desperately trying to get him to notice the cookies, but with little effect. Instead, he placed the mortar he was holding on top of my head.
“Quit hopping around. I’m not hungry. And besides, I’m not making this to eat myself. It’s bait.”
“Bait?”
“Now, mind you, this isn’t bait for you. Stop reaching for it! Such an ill-behaved girl.”
“I’m not reaching for it! Don’t make it sound like I reacted when I heard the word ‘bait’!”
I couldn’t stand how he decided what I was doing like I was part of the novels he wrote.
“But come to think of it, this might be just what I need.”
“So you do want it, then? Hehehe, I’ll let you have a little bite, if you insist.”
Half-teasingly, I waved the bundle of cookies before him, and to my surprise, he took them with a serious look in his eyes.
“Hibari-kun, this is perfect! I was thinking that something was missing. You have my thanks!”
“Oh, Sensei, you’re exaggerating… But I never thought you’d be so happ—”
“How convenient.”
The author said, and poured every last cookie into the bowl.
“Ah.”
He did it with no hesitation, as if he’d been planning it from the start.
And then, he crushed up my cute cookies and mixed them together with the eerily-colored powder. Lastly, he added a small amount of water and shaped the solution into a round, dumpling shape. It no longer looked anything like a cookie. It was more like… a pathetic ball of sludge?
Huuuh? That’s weird. Despite all I’d learned in home economics at school, and read so many recipe books, I had absolutely no words for what I saw before me now.
“Hmph. It’s done!”
“How can you say that?! What’re you doing?! You’re horrible! I worked so hard to make them! I put so much effort into kneading the dough!”
“Here, and here, and somewhere around here…”
“Are you ignoring me?!”
The author was walking around and placing those small dumplings on the floor in the corners of the kitchen.
“And lastly, the study.”
Paying no attention to my protests, the author took the remaining dumplings and headed back to the study. Taking with me the sadness of a girl whose carefully-made cookies had been reduced to sludge dumplings in the matter of seconds, I chased after him.
Just like he’d done in the kitchen, the author was walking around the study and placing the dumplings in corners of the room.
“Sensei, is this some sort of ritual for good luck?”
“Haven’t I already told you? It’s bait. For these past several days, I’ve been tormented by rats. I’ve just about had enough with the vermin.”
“Rats?”
“It’s obvious if you take just one look at what they’ve done to my manuscript!”
The author pointed at the torn-up manuscript on his desk. Looking at it carefully once more, it finally made sense to me.
“Ah, so the rats were the ones that chewed it up!”
“I noticed earlier that the drawer was open just a crack. They must have gotten in through there.”
It certainly didn’t look like a person had torn it up. It seemed more like some small animal had eaten through the paper.
“And so, that’s why you used my cookies to make a bait to lure out the rats?”
“It’s not just bait. They’re specially-made with anesthetics! I would have overlooked it if they’d merely chewed on the table leg, but now that they’ve meddled with my manuscript, there will be no mercy. I’ll kill them and all their descendants for the next seven generations! I’ll make them regret being born as rats! Fwahahaha!”
I understood the situation now. Knowing the author’s personality, it didn’t matter if it was rats or the power of the state. Since they’d ruined his precious manuscript, he wasn’t going to hold back in exacting revenge. Of course, from an outsider’s point of view, it seemed very childish.
He hardly seemed like the person who, just a while ago, had been gallantly talking about how stories were salvation for the readers’ soul.
“I won’t kill them right away. After they’ve been drugged, I’ll slowly skin them one at a time on the cutting board over twelve hours, with their lovers watching over the whole time. And finally, I will say this. ‘Meow before the one you love. Throw away your dignity as a rat and meow just like a cat.’”
“Cut it out already!”
“Ugh! Why you… headbutting me in the stomach….”
Although I’d used my body to physically stop the author from taking it any further, the fact still stood that the rats had chewed through his manuscript. Would I secretly let them free once the bait had trapped them? No, that wouldn’t solve anything….
“My, it seems noisier than usual in here today.”
As I was losing myself in my thoughts, Kareshima-san appeared, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands.
“I heard your voices all the way from downstairs, so I let myself in.”
“Kareshima-san, you won’t believe this. Sensei is being so terrible I can’t even bear to look at him!”
“That’s the last straw, you little runt!”
“Now, now. On a more important note, Senpai, you have another guest waiting for you.”
Standing behind Kareshima-san was a tall, slender man, looking quite apologetic. He was wearing a full-piece business suit, but the cloth seemed a bit worn out.
“Oh, it’s you.”
The author had been crouched over and clutching his stomach in pain, but as soon as he saw who it was, he stood up straight and took on a bossy attitude.
“That’s not a proper greeting, Sensei. I’ve come to collect the manuscript you promised.”
“Yazume-san, good afternoon!”
I’m also quite familiar with this person. He’s Kudou-sensei’s editor, Yazume Masachi. Twenty-five years old. After several years of rejection, he had finally been accepted into a university, and though graduated last year, he had been unable to find an occupation. Amidst his stumbling around unemployment, he eventually found his current position as the editor-in-chief of a publishing company. On his very first day of work, he had said with a smile,
“I know nothing about the publishing business, but I’ll do my best!”
As if those words had brought about his demise, he had been appointed as the editor for the infamous, bizarre author, Kudou Renma, upon entering the company, and from there, his days of suffering began. The author always makes him worry about the manuscripts so much he seems likely to develop stomach ulcers. He’s forced to run around and gather writing references, and stepped on just for the sake of killing time—— But even then, he doesn’t run away, and always comes back to the author’s side. Perhaps that was why——
“It doesn’t feel like what you go through is all that different from my experiences….”
“Hibari-san, you’re the only one that truly understands my suffering!”
In spite of his height and handsome face, Yazume-san is a very kind person, and can’t drink coffee unless it has plenty of sugar in it. That said, I’m equally as much of a sweet tooth as he is.
Being both sweet tooths, we were also part of what I liked to call “The Victims of Kudou Renma Society,” and whenever we saw each other at his house, we would exchange stories about what kinds of disservice the author had done us.
“This victims’ society of yours, shall I disband it with ruthless malice?”
And whenever Yazume-san and I spoke like this, the author’s mood would always take a turn for the worse. It was awfully selfish of him, seeing as how the cause of all this was his own daily, arrogant behavior.
“So, Sensei… about that manuscript…”
Yazume-san asked tentatively, as if facing a hostile beast. The author responded by handing him the manuscript that had been chewed up by the rats.
“….What is this? A document that was excavated from some ancient ruins?”
Unable to grasp the situation, he looked back and forth between the author and the manuscript.
“It’s the manuscript you wanted. Take it and leave.”
It would seem that the manuscript that the rats had eaten away had been the one Yazume-san had come to collect that day. It was no wonder the author had been so furious.
“Um, but it’s so torn up that I can’t even read it properly…. Is this your new take on a crime thriller?”
“The answer is inside the rats’ stomachs. They’re somewhere in this house, so if you want to read the whole thing, find them and have them cough it up.”
“Meaning… that….”
“The rats ate it.”
“Is there any way you could rewrite it….?”
“I don’t care enough to.”
“Nnn…..”
“Ahh, and now Yazume-san’s crying.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. It made my stomach hurt to watch.
“Now, now, Yazume-san, why don’t you sit down first?” As I tried to think of what to do, Kareshima-san stepped up and kindly guided him to a chair.
“There’s nothing to worry about. If he really had no intention of writing it again, he would have already kicked you out. But since he’s explained to you what happened, it means that he plans on rewriting it.”
He comforted Yazume-san as if holding down the lid on a boiling pot. I decided to take this chance to also try and help.
“I’ll go make some coffee! With lots and lots of sugar!”
Yazume-san, who was being generously comforted from either side, wiped his tears while choking out words of thanks. The author merely looked on with disgusted eyes as if watching the hatching of woodlice.
“Come now, Sensei! Don’t say any more mean things and just hurry and write him the manuscript! Even it it’s a little unreasonable, as a professional writer, it’s times like these that you have to try your best!”
“Try my best? Even if it’s a little unreasonable?”
I had said those words to motivate him, but the author reacted to them in an entirely different way.
“I refuse. In the first place, doing what’s unreasonable and trying one’s best are two different things. Don’t go thinking you can budge a writer with such careless wording!”
“What are you going off about this time? Honestly, now isn’t the time….”
“Imagine that there is a very heavy rock is in front on you.”
Great, and now he’s started to give some weird example. Obviously trying to avoid the topic by going off on a tangent. It was my fault for saying something unnecessary again.
“You must move that rock to another location. What will you do?”
“Umm…. I’ll try my best, with all my might, and pick up the rock.”
In my head, I imagined a heavy rock, and then answered the question. And when I did, the author looked at me with a nasty face and hit me on the head.
“Nothing will come out of trying your best there. You’re just trying to do the impossible.”
“Then, what does it mean to try your best?”
“Discipline your body daily and raise your stamina and strength. In time, you’ll be able to lift the boulder. That’s what it means to really try your best to accomplish a goal. That’s what effort is.”
His reasoning actually made sense.
“Somehow, this doesn’t really sound like the things you usually say.”
“Of course, there are other ways to go about it. You could find some tools and move it using the principle of leverage. Or you could save up enough money to hire someone to remove it for you. These are all forms of effort. The point is to use your head and think of different ways to approach it.”
“So in the end, the solution is money, is it….”
“As long as the rock ends up being moved, that’s all that matters.”
Suddenly, I realized something. I thought to myself, perhaps he isn’t trying to avoid the topic, but instead, he was using this example as a metaphor for something else.
Use your head to think of how to move the unmovable rock. In the situation, the “rock” was——
“Sensei, please stop trying to avoid the topic because you don’t want to write the manuscript again.”
“Avoid the topic? And what do you mean by that? Although, I actually don’t want to write the manuscript a second time. Sorry to tell you.”
This was my last chance to make a proposal.
“Oh, I see how it is! So you flat-out refuse to write it, is that it? Then how about playing a game with me?”
“A game?”
He took the bait!
“That’s right. If I win this game, you’ll promise to rewrite the manuscript and give it to Yazume-san.”
“Hibari-san! You’re a goddess! A goddess detective!”
I could hear Yazume-san’s cries of joy from behind me. It made me feel embarrassed to be praised like that, but at the rate things were going, I was starting to feel sorry for him, and considering my position, I felt that I had to do something.
“How about it, Sensei? There’s no way the great author, Kudou Renma-sensei, would run away because he was afraid of losing to a little girl…. riiight?”
Ahhh, I’d said those words to provoke him into playing the game, but now that I’d said them, I was scared, so so scared, of what would happen next!
“Little girl…. I show you an ounce of kindness and you go and get ahead of yourself…. Shall I remind you who’s mercy allows you to be walking on two legs right now?”
Ahh, he’s really angry. Now that it’s come to this, I have no choice but to follow through.
“You said that if I lose, I have to write the manuscript. In that case, if you lose, you’ll also be forced to accept some form of punishment.”
Writing the manuscript was his job, rather than a form of punishment, but I decided against arguing it at the moment. The author had a hand on his chin, finding true enjoyment in thinking up what punishment to give me. I waited for the whip to come cracking down, watching him with the mentality of a slave.
I had no idea what ruthless request might come from the author, who was like the human personification of sadistic.
Glancing behind me, Yazume-san was just as nervous as I was waiting for the author to speak. He had the face of a puppy that had been grabbed by the stomach. Kareshima-san had walked off to take a book off one of the shelves and started reading. He had a face that seemed to say, “Let me know when this mess has been all cleared up.”
At long last, the author nodded slightly in satisfaction and said,
“Then, if you lose, you’ll quit pretending to be a detective.”
——Come again?
The words that had come out of the author’s mouth had been completely beyond what I had imagined.
Quit pretending to be a detective?
That was the punishment that he wished on me?
I was curious about what could be his aim in that, but before that——
“Um, but I’ve never really had any intention to pretend like I’m a detective.”
Before anything else, I had to clear up any misunderstandings about this.
“Are you really trying to deny it now? You, who reads mystery novels from my bookshelves day and night, who pines after Akechi Kogorou, who plunges headfirst into any case that occurs around you despite what I might say against it and gets into all kinds of trouble?! You’re already a fine detective. An amateur detective.”
“Uu….”
What he said was certainly true.
“B-but I’ve never once called myself a detective!”
“Yes, that may be. Rather than being a detective by occupation, you’ve volunteered to act as a detective in your everyday life. That’s what being an amateur detective is. A role that forms from acting on your surroundings. Looking at it this way, you’ve already started on the path of being an amateur detective.”
The author laughed at me silently, as if to say, “Your skill as amateur detective isn’t any different from the average person, and in certain cases, it might even be worse.”
“I understand what you’re trying to say, but…. Why would you have to tell me to stop assuming that role?”
“Hmph, ask what’s in your own chest for the answer to that.”
My chest…..? Chest….
“Don’t say anything about my chest!”
The sad thoughts had come back again.
“Umm, going back to the game, what will you two be doing….?”
Yazume-san, who had been watching our exchange in silence, shyly raised his hand. Come to think of it, we’d never decided on what the game would be.
Right away, the author said this,
“Book searching.”
“….Book searching?”
I automatically looked up at the bookshelves lined up behind where the author was standing. In them were rows and rows of books from every time period and country…. well, a certain selection of them, anyway.
“I’m going to give you three clues. And using those, you are to find, somewhere in this house, the book that I wish to read right now, and bring it to me.”
The author pretentiously ran his finger along the spine of one of the books on the shelves. “It’ll be easy for a detective like you, right?” It was obvious in his face that that was what he wanted to say.
“In other words, you’re testing Hibari-chan’s skills of deduction and insight as a detective, correct?”
Kareshima-san suggested without lifting his eyes from the book he was holding.
“I-I understand. I’ll find that book! So then, what are my three clues?”
“Very well then. The first clue is this. The book that I wish to read right now is ‘a book that you have read before as well.’”
“As you’d expect from Kudou-sensei. You’ve committed everything about Hibari-chan to memory, haven’t you?”
Kareshima-san interrupted.
“She’s always telling me whenever she’s read a new book. Each and every time. Like it or not, I can’t help but remember it.”
He didn’t have to make it sound like such a nuisance.
“But doesn’t this already narrow it down quite a bit?”
Yazume-san seemed quite pleased. He must have assumed that the condition “a book that I have also read before” was a considerable advantage.
But——
“Yazume-san, unfortunately, it’s too soon to celebrate.”
Kareshima-san explained my thoughts for me.
“The number of books that Hibari-chan has read in this house is a little more than you might think.”
“I-Is that right? Now that I think about it, on top of your love of books, you’ve been coming here for quite a long time, if I recall. In that case… it could be any book out of several hundred books, then?”
“Try several thousands. No, perhaps even ten thousands.”
As I waited patiently for the author’s next words, I could feel Yazume-san staring at me, rendered speechless by what Kareshima-san had said. He was right; it was much too early to try and narrow down which book it could be.
“Although she reads a lot, Hibari-kun always chooses works of fiction, and rarely reads books on thesis or the technical aspects, so you could say she’s rather lacking in knowledge.”
“Y-you don’t need to mention that!”
I wish he’d at least leave my preferences alone.
“What’s the second clue?”
Watching with glee as I desperately sorted through my mental library, the author slowly opened his mouth.
“The second clue is—— ‘The eleven blank days.’”
This time, his words were shrouded in mystery. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen a book with that title, but nothing came to mind. In the first place, this eccentric author wouldn’t just outright hand me the title of the correct book. Instead, this must be an important clue in identifying the book.
“The eleven…. blank days….. Wait, I’ve heard that somewhere before…..”
“Really put that brain of yours to use and think hard about it. Now then, the next clue is the last one.”
As he said this, the author looked as if he’d committed the heinous crime of planting a bomb somewhere in this house.
“The book that I wish to read——‘Describes you in your current situation.’”
Saying this, the author pointed straight at me. No matter how you looked at it, it was clear that he was pointing at me and no one else.
“….It describes me? Um, what do you mean——”
“That’s all three clues! I have nothing else more to say. Gather up your wit and seek out that book, amateur detective!”
As if to drive me away, the author said this and clapped his hands a few times. Like he was telling me to figure out the rest on my own. At this point, no matter how much I screamed and cried, he wasn’t going to tell me anything else. Even if I threatened to hang myself in front of him unless he told me, it would be of no use.
“Good luck, Hibari-chan. If you lose this game and with it, your job as a detective, feel free to come to Kokuudou.”
“I’m counting on you, Hibari-san! For the sake of the manuscript! The manuscript!”
After receiving words of encouragement from Kareshima-san and Yazume-san—though I wasn’t very sure about calling them ‘encouragement’—I dashed out of the study.
*
Although I’d dashed out of the study so confidently, I froze as soon as I was out in the hallway. To be perfectly honestly, I still had no leads at all. I hadn’t the faintest clue of which book it could be.
A book that I have also read before.
The eleven blank days.
A book describing me in my current situation.
With these three clues, I was to find the book that the author wished to read. If this were an ordinary house, that wouldn’t have been such an impossible task. If it were your average house, I would only have to look through a few dozen books, or at most, a single bookshelf. But this house is far from normal. In this house is an unbelievable number of books. There are close to ten thousand, even two thousand books here. Among all these books, was it even be possible for me to find the one, correct book?
“No, this won’t do. I have to think this through before it gets dark.”
I couldn’t stop trying to think. In order to make it easier to see the truth, I first organized the information that I knew.
First, in total, there were four rooms with books in them in this house. The study I’d just come out of, the parlor next to the kitchen, and two rooms on the second floor that are being used as libraries.
Of those, the rooms that held the most books are the libraries on the second floor, and the study.
As for the parlor, the two bookshelves there are comparatively small, such that I could reach the top shelf if I stand on my toes, making it the room with the least books.
Should I start searching from the libraries on the second floor, which holds the most books?
No, I decided to think it over a bit more.
I tried to remember what kinds of books were in those libraries, and what purpose the author used them for.
If I remembered correctly, most of the books in the libraries are ones that he doesn’t read on a daily basis. In contrast, he keeps the books that he frequently reads in his study, where he can easily access them.
In that case, what kind of books are books that he doesn’t read on a daily basis? The answer is an obvious one; reference books that he’s collected for the sake of writing novels in the past. The reason for this is that the author hates to use a motif in future novels if he’s already used it once. Which meant that books that he’d already read once for the sake of writing previous novels would naturally be stored in the libraries.
As the author had pointed out, I mostly read literature and works of fiction, and rarely ever reference or technical books. If the correct book was “a book that I have also read before,” looking in the libraries, which were full of books I had never read, wasn’t a priority.
With that in mind, I headed for the parlor. Quietly, I opened the door and peered inside. This room is one I usually don’t go into. In between two sofas facing one another was a dignified-looking black, wooden table. Being called something as fancy as a parlor, this room is only used when there were special guests.
Then did that mean that people like Kareshima-san, Yazume-san, and I aren’t special, and instead regular guests? But knowing Kudou-sensei, he’d just cooly say that we weren’t even deserving to be called guests.
Up against the wall opposite of the door were two bookshelves, nestled close together like siblings. They were the same as when I’d last seen them. I immediately ran up to them and began skimming the spines of the books. As I did so, I thought about the second clue.
What did he mean by “the eleven blank days”? I still had the feeling that I’d heard this phrase somewhere before. No, maybe not heard, but seen something with similar wording in a some book. In any case, I was certain that it was hidden somewhere in my memories.
“Blank…. Blank space, blank paper, empty….. Eleven days…. One more day than ten. Ten plus one…. Plus and minus?”
Thinking that it was some cruel wordplay or code, I tried saying aloud every possibility I could think of, but none of the words gave me any insight.
Was it some kind of condition that had appeared in a novel…..? Which meant that it had to be a mystery novel?
I once again thought over the characteristics of the issuer of this riddle, Kudou Renma. First of all, Kudou-sensei had said, “Find the book I wish to read,” but that was probably a lie. He wouldn’t choose the correct book based on such a simple motive. As the issuer of the riddle, there was sure to be some kind of hidden message. A message for me, the riddle solver. It was most likely to be strongly linked to the third clue, “a book that describes me in my current situation.”
Me in my current situation. It was clear that “current situation” meant “the situation I’ve been in today.”
With that in mind, I carefully went over every conversation I’d had with the author since coming here today. I was sure to come across some kind of sign. Gather up your wit and seek out that book. That was what the author had said to me.
At that moment, I heard his voice calling all the way from the study.
“I forgot to tell you. You have until five o’clock. You don’t have the leisure to be rambling to yourself or describing an elaborate scene like in serious literature.”
“Ehhh?! Why is there a time limit?!”
“You fool! You have thirty more minutes, understand? You piece of junk!”
He reminded me, purposely sandwiching the words between two insults. Rather than a mystery writer, this person was nothing more than a foul-mouthed villain. But that wasn’t important right now. I no longer had the time to be leisurely thinking this through.
I picked up thinking where I’d left off, about the message that Kudou-sensei was trying to tell me.
“Me in my current situation. Me, of right now——”
I tried to figure out the intention of the riddle issuer, read into what the author wanted to convey.
I thought back to the first thing I’d talked about with him when I’d come here; the incident during my modern Japanese class. Was it connected somehow to what I’d said about mystery novels being excluded from textbooks? Was there some kind of foreshadowing?
“Me, of right now—— Me——of today.”
Realizing that time was running out, I repeated those words to myself over and over, trying to think it over as quickly as possible.
——The situation I’ve been in today…..
How long did I stand there in front of the bookshelves, lost in thought? Eventually, the grandfather clock in the hallway rang out, announcing the fifth hour.
At that moment, I came to realize the truth, in such a way that felt as if the place that I standing in was turning upside-down.
*
“My, my, if it isn’t the return of the great detective.”
As I entered the study, the author greeted me with an arrogant smile on his face. Kareshima-san was casually seated in a chair, completely unchanged from when I’d left. Yazume-san was also seated, but was slumped weakly against the table like a daikon that had been left out to dry in the sun for seven days and seven nights. Depending on the results of the game, he could end up having to leave without the manuscript, so I could see why his spirits were weary.
“So then, Hibari-kun, were you able to find which book it might be?”
The author was sitting in his favorite chair, crossing his legs in an exaggerated fashion. After I’d settled down a bit, I nodded yes.
“Oh? But you don’t seem to be holding anything.”
As he said, I didn’t have any book with me. I was completely empty-handed. But that was fine. The moment I’d come to the answer, I had also realized where the book was located.
“The book that you wish for is in one of the bookshelves in this study.”
I confidently walked up to a bookshelf and standing up tall, I stretched out my arm. Leaning forward, Yazume-san observed which book I was reaching to pull out.
Before long, I took out a certain book and held it out to the author.
“Agatha Christie’s ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. This is the book you want, correct?”
A short silence, one that could be measured with one hand, swept over the room. Still seated in his chair, the author looked down at the cover of that book, but immediately looked up at the ceiling in a bored manner and said,
“Masachi, wait until ten o’clock.”
“Huh….? You mean…..”
Hearing his name called suddenly, Yazume-san jumped up from his chair.
“I mean that I’ll write the manuscript for you.”
It would seem that I had won the game.
As if it had been dyed by some kind person somewhere, floating in the night sky was a beautiful full moon.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
In front of the small gate outside of the house, Yazume-san bowed his head over and over.
“Thanks to you, it seems that I’ll be able to leave here with the manuscript as planned!”
“O-Oh, no…. It was nothing.”
Along the street that had turned pitch dark, street lights slowly flickered on. I could see tiny moths that had already been drawn in by the light, and were fluttering in a trance around it.
“But how were you able to figure out the correct book? I couldn’t get it at all.”
That had been the biggest problem. It was only natural that Yazume-san didn’t know the answer. The reason being that it had been a riddle that no one else but I would have understood.
“I’m amazed that you were able to find it with only those three clues. That book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, is one of Agatha Christie’s most well-known works, isn’t it? If I remember, it was written more than ten years ago….. I wonder why Sensei would suddenly want to read that book.”
As Yazume-san had said, “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is the third in the series of novels which features the great detective, Hercule Poirot, and among all of Agatha Christie’s novel—or rather, among all mystery novels ever written, it stood out as a remarkable work read by many.
The story begins with the strange death of a woman in a village called King’s Abbot. Afterwards, a well-known man in the village, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered in his study, and though there are several suspects for being the culprit, the conclusive evidence is lacking. Under these circumstances, a certain character in the story serves as Poirot’s assistant, taking notes on the case, while also investigating and deducing on his own.
As mentioned above, this is the premise of the novel.
“It was the second clue, ‘the eleven blank days,’ that helped me to see the light. Those words were meant for pointing me in the direction of Agatha Christie.”
“Is there any relation between ‘eleven days’ and Agatha Christie?”
“I believe it was in December of the year 1926. Agatha Christie, who, at the time, was already a well-known author, suddenly disappeared one day after leaving her house.”
“Ah! Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about that, as well! About how her whereabouts were unknown.”
“Afterwards, she was found living in a hotel under a different name, and the number of days until she was found——was eleven days.”
“So that’s why it’s ‘the eleven blank days’…..”
Even today, the details of her disappearance are still unclear. Even Agatha Christie herself has never revealed the truth.
“I’ve read in her biographies about how this mysterious incident revolving around the up-and-coming mystery writer caused an uproar at the time. It was pure coincidence that I remembered this when I did.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that! It’s amazing that you were able to find the answer from there.”
“Actually, the words, ‘the eleven blank days’ didn’t only point me to the author. There was one other clue hidden there.”
While distracted by the frayed ends of my braids, I continued.
“Yazume-san, do you remember when The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published?”
“Umm… before the war…. No, during the Taisho era?”
Yazume-san earnestly tried to think of the answer, but in the end, he wasn’t able to come up with the correct one.
“I’m sorry. I still need to study more…. What year was it again?”
I wasn’t sure if the reason he didn’t know was because he was still a green editor, or simply because I was an enthusiast for mystery novels.
“It was published in 1926.”
“…..Ah! It’s the same year!”
For a moment, he had been frozen like a wind-up toy waiting for its spring to be wound, but upon realizing the connection, he cried out.
Yes, the year in which The Murder of Roger Ackroyd had been published and the year that Christie had gone missing were both 1926.
“From these two points, I determined that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was most likely the correct book. Furthermore, it also qualified under the first condition of being ‘a book that I have also read before.’”
“I see! Making full use of the clues, you were able to arrive at the truth! Oh, how splendid! To win against that Kudou-sensei! I think that Sensei will finally realize your strength this time, Hibari-san. After all, you were able to tame that unruly, man-eating wolf of an author and got him to write the manuscript in his study as promised, right as we speak!”
Perhaps due to the fact that he knew that he was getting a manuscript that he had nearly given up on, Yazume-san had become quite talkative.
“Yazume-san, if you say things like that, Sensei will bully you terribly for it later. He has a frightening ability that allows him to sense when bad things are said about him, even when he himself isn’t present at the scene.”
“Eh…. Th-there’s no way that could be. Ah, no, it might be possible….”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Hibari-chan. Hm? Yazume-san, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Kareshima-san, who had just come out, laughed when he saw Yazume-san’s face.
Bidding farewell to Yazume-san, who was staying behind to wait for the completed manuscript, Kareshima-san and I left the Kudou residence.
“I’ll walk you to your house. It’s dangerous for a girl to be out alone this late.”
With each step Kareshima-san took, his navy blue haori flickered before my eyes. It was if the color was meant for melting away into the night.
“Today sure was eventful. Still, no matter what he might say, I think Senpai really does know every book you’ve read, Hibari-chan.”
“I wonder about that. I never know how much of what he says is true….”
In the same light tone, Kareshima-san then said this,
“Looks like he’s letting you get away with playing the detective.”
“….What do you mean by that?”
A bird let out a strange cry from somewhere unseen. Kareshima-san suddenly stopped, and facing in my direction, he leaned close to me and said,
“We’re here.”
Before I’d realized, we had arrived at my house.
“Th-Thank you so much for walking me.”
After thanking him, Kareshima-san gave a light wave, and just as he was about to leave, he seemed to have second thoughts and turned back around.
“Oh, right. He told me to pass along a message. ‘If you search the stomachs of the rats, you’ll probably find the sweet, coffee-soaked pieces of the manuscript,’ he said.”
“Ah!”
“You two really do make a nice pair. Haha.”
Laughing, Kareshima-san bent down and lightly pulled on my cheeks.
“Leggo ov me~”
“Come on, Hibari-chan, say ‘lemonade.’”
“Lemwonaad.”
“Aww, so cute~”
He teased me like so for a short while.
Eventually, he disappeared into the night like a whimsical breeze, his sandals clattering against the pavement.
I stood by myself in front of my house, lost in a daze.
So the author had noticed, after all. And Kareshima-san might have noticed as well, after hearing his message. No, perhaps he’d already figured it out as soon as he’d realizing the intent of the author’s riddle.
He must have figured out that I was playing not the detective, but the culprit.
*
This is what happened to me today. The entirety of the incidents on × day in the month of ○.
I hadn’t planned on writing in my diary this late into the night, but it’s difficult to stop once I put brush to paper. I also can’t help but feel motivated to try my best, knowing that Sensei had rewritten the manuscript from scratch.
Since I’ve been writing my diary up until this point, naturally, I’ve only written about things from my perspective. I have not written about things that I don’t know, or things that I haven’t experienced.
At the same time, there are truths that I have consciously not written about. Since I am writing my own diary, I’m free to decide what to talk about, and what not to talk about.
But—— The entire time that I’ve been writing, something’s been bothering me. Perhaps I should write down the truth after all, I thought. If I don’t, I don’t think that I’ll be able to sleep at ease after this.
Actually, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a trick known as the “narrative trick” is a core part of the story.
The “narrative trick” is a trick that applies to all the text in a novel aside from the dialogue spoken by the characters, which is detonated by quotation marks.
For example, when describing a character, rather than using words like “he” or “she,” using their name to refer to them allows that character’s gender to remain vague. Furthermore, even if they’re really an elderly eighty-year-old person, their behavior might be purposely described to seem young. In other words, it means to take advantage of the fact that the reader believes the narrative sentences to be truthful, and unlikely to deceive them.
One of these “narrative tricks” is a technique used in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, commonly known as the “unreliable narrator.”
The novel is written in the form of a memoir penned by the character acting as the detective’s assistant, while in reality, the plot twist is that the very character writing the memoir is the culprit. Knowing this, everything that the reader has read and put faith into up until that point changes to the untrustworthy words of a criminal. Furthermore, since the writer of the memoir is actually the culprit, he only needs to avoid writing unfavorable things in order to keep his true identity a secret. In doing so, the truth is progressively distorted in writing.
Therefore, people may criticize that such a technique is unfair to the reader, and it becomes a biased mystery-solving game between the author and reader, but putting that argument aside for the moment—— Yes, in fact, I am using that exact technique to write my diary at this very moment.
Now then, I will now bring to light the unfavorable parts that I haven’t written about.
Actually, when I went to visit the author’s house today, he left right away to go to the store.
“I’ve run out of ink, so I’m going out to buy more. Be good and make some coffee while you wait or something. Understand?”
Having already finished preparing the coffee at the time, after seeing him off as he rushed out of the house, I poured a cup of coffee for myself. And then, as I blew on my coffee to cool it, I did as I was told and sat in the sofa to patiently wait for his return.
But, at that moment, I noticed that the drawer of the author’s desk was open just a crack.
Once I’d noticed this, I could no longer resist the temptation. Although it was completely baseless, I could sense its presence. Somehow or other, I was half-certain that it was there.
——The manuscript for the author’s new work was inside that desk.
Just as I’d suspected, when I opened the drawer, there was the manuscript. And before I’d noticed, I was engrossed in reading it. Knowing that it was something I shouldn’t be doing, my body was honestly…. Wait, what am I writing?
In any case, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. This is interesting! This is so interesting, Sensei!
I paused only to take up my coffee cup. And while still fervently reading the words on the page, I brought the cup up to my mouth. Thinking that the coffee would have cooled by then, I took a sip without bothering to check the temperature, and actually, the coffee was still fairly hot. Hot enough to lightly burn my tongue.
I flinched strongly from the shock of how hot it was. And at that moment, coffee spilled from the cup.
Right on top of the author’s precious manuscript.
Awawawawawa…. Even thinking back on it now makes my teeth chatter! Oh, how frightening! Oh, heaven forbid!
It was too late for me to regret the terrible thing that I had done. I rushed to the kitchen for a towel to clean up the coffee and dry the manuscript. But no matter how much I tried to dry it, it was useless. The manuscript had been partially blurred and rendered illegible.
What do I do? What am I going to do? Think! You have to think, Hibari!
But there was no more time left to think. I could hear the author’s voice coming from the entrance hall. I quickly returned the manuscript to its original place in the drawer, but doing that solved nothing. It was only a matter of it being discovered now and be killed for it now, or it being discovered later and be brutally killed for it later.
Trying not to show my agitation, I then talked to the author about what had happened at school today. I was restless the entire time I was talking, and kept worrying about what was inside the drawer.
When the author suddenly turned his attention to the drawer in the middle of the conversation and reached for the manuscript inside, I felt the sweat drip down my back, and bid farewell to my life.
However, my life still continued after that.
The rats, oh, the rats! They had chewed up the manuscript severely, hiding the fact that I had spilled coffee on it.
Was such a coincidence even possible? In the hour and a half since I’d spilled the coffee and until the author had discovered the manuscript, the rats had chewed up it up, erasing the evidence of the coffee stains.
For a while, I couldn’t believe it. But it was the truth.
At that moment, I made up my mind. I would take full advantage of this coincidence.
If I was honest and told the truth, surely the author would only smile and tear me to shreds, just like the paper of the manuscript. Which was why I had no choice but to go through with it. I couldn’t expose myself as the culprit!
And as I’ve explained, the author and I wound up playing a game, but from the conclusion, it becomes evident that he knew from the start that I had read the manuscript without his permission and even spilled coffee on it.
——If you search the stomachs of the rats, you’ll probably find the sweet, coffee-soaked pieces of the manuscript.
The message that Kareshima-san had given me explained everything.
He must have guessed the situation from the scent of coffee that still lingered in the study, and from how restless I had seemed.
And hiding the fact that he knew about the soiled manuscript, he had taken joy in watching me step up to the challenge with the confident face of an amateur detective.
And then, he had me bring the novel with similar motifs, “a book that describes me in my current situation,” to him with my own two hands.
Planning it in this way, he must have enjoyed slowly wearing down my spirit.
Ohh, it’s so frustrating!
….But, I know that I was in the wrong today. While I was trying to decide whether or not to come clean, I was coincidentally saved by the rats, and taking advantage of that, I tried to hide the truth. I’m not only a failure as a detective, but as a human being. Oh, what a shameful life.
Tomorrow, I’m going to go back to the author’s house and apologize. I’ll probably be strangled and hung from the second floor, but I’ll still apologize with all my might. Although, he’ll probably seriously tell me to engrave with a fountain pen, “I will never go against you again,” on every cell in my body or something along those lines….
In any case, I have to go and apologize.
P.S.
The following day, when I went to the author’s house, the rat bait that had been made from my homemade cookies had been cleared away entirely.
“Rats? There couldn’t possibly be any here. There might have been last month, but I chased them off with the power of knowledge, courage, and laborers,” said the author.
There weren’t any rats? Huh? Then, what about the chewed-up manuscript…? Had it been a different manuscript that he’d worked so hard to write late last month…..?
“H-huh….? Huuuh? Then, not only did everyone know from the start, but…. Huuuh?”
In that case, that changed a lot of things.
Had he planned to tease me the moment he’d discovered the coffee-stained manuscript in the desk drawer? If that was the case, for what purpose had my homemade cookies been sacrificed for…..?
That night, it was very possible that he hadn’t been rewriting the manuscript at all, but been enjoying making Yazume-san wait impatiently until the very last moment. And when time was almost up, he rewrote only the page that had been smudged with coffee, and gave the manuscript to Yazume-san while pretending to look as if he’d just completed a grueling task.
It was possible. Very possible.
“You were only fooling around with me from the start! You tricked me!”
As I shouted this in the study, the author smiled unabashedly in full satisfaction, as if he had done absolutely nothing wrong.
His next words were so simple that there’s nothing to decipher from them, but I’ll write them down just for completion’s sake.
“Ahaha!”
———
translation notes;
Tougan-sensei’s name: written as 東岸 in kanji, but it also sounds like 冬瓜 (tougan/Winter gourd/melon) which is known for having a bland taste, which is why Touka says “He deserves to live a life as bland as his name.” Kudou-sensei also mistakenly (on purpose) calls him Nigauri (冬瓜) meaning “bitter melon”. In the same scene, he calls Hibari “sponge head” which in Japanese is, ヘチマ頭 (hechima-atama). “Hechima,” when written with the kanji 糸瓜 is another type of melon, the “luffa sponge gourd.” The word “hechima” (usually when written in katakana) is also used as slang to refer to something boring or useless.
Tomoe Nage (巴投げ): An overhead throw tactic in judo.
Akechi Kogorou: A fictional private detective created by the Japanese mystery writer, Edogawa Rampo.
Plus and minus: In kanji, “eleven” is written as 十一 which looks like a plus (+) and minus (-) sign.
Haori(羽織): A short coat worn over formal kimono.
