Index:
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
“Let me see if I got this right,” Taniguchi summed up from his seat on one of two worn-out coaches in the karaoke room. “Long story short, Tsuruya-san is a Yakuza Princess. Her family is not only filthy rich but also traditional as hell and went and put her in an Arranged Marriage to Ordinary High-School Student Kyon—”
“Taniguchi, I think you’re doing it again,” Kunikida interrupted in a patient, just short of long-suffering, tone.
“Doing what?”
“Speaking in storytelling shorthands.”
“They’re called tr—”
“I know, but please avoid them in a conversation,” Kunikida insisted. “It’s very easy to lose track of what you’re talking about if I can’t immediately figure out the meaning of even one of them.”
“Alright, got it. But, so far so good?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Righto. Now, Kyon turned out to be awesomely competent at the asskicking department and that got many guys wanting to beat him for… the street cred?” Taniguchi guessed.
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Kunikida differed. “Akasaka-san’s explanation was deliberately vague at times, but reading between lines I think the problem is the value of Kyon’s public image in his… business. Like the effect of a priced proprietary asset on the stock market.”
“Can I get a simpler example, Kunikida-sensei?” Taniguchi asked rhetorically.
“Er, sorry. Let’s try with an analogy about…” Kunikida trailed off for a moment until he snapped his fingers. “Baseball.”
Taniguchi raised an eyebrow. “Baseball?”
“Any other team sport could work, I suppose,” Kunikida allowed.
“Nah, baseball is fine,” the taller boy grinned for some reason. “Baseball analogies have served me well in the past.”
“Alright,” Kunikida said slowly, before getting the joke and rolling his eyes. “Let’s say Kyon is a professional baseball player. His organization, this ‘Tsuruya-tachi’, is the team he plays for, but just not in every match.”
“With you so far.”
“Without him, his team does well enough. They win more often than not, they’re a favorite to go to the playoffs. That sort of thing.”
“The Climax Series,” Taniguchi chimed in almost by reflex.
Kunikida stared at him reprovingly.
“Hey! That’s the official name of the playoffs in the NPB,” he protested defensively.
“Never mind that.” The shorter boy shook his head. “Now, the problem is that whenever Kyon goes into the field, his team always wins by a wide margin. Every time, no exceptions. The reason for this is not particularly important. Maybe it’s because of his own skill, his role as a morale booster, an intimidating factor against their opponents or a mix of the three or another. The important thing is the fact that, after a while, everybody noticed the pattern. Do you see the problem?”
“I think so,” Taniguchi crossed his arms and rested his back on the couch. “People think of him more like a lucky charm than just a player, then?”
“More or less,” Kunikida conceded. “In this scenario, Kyon holds symbolic power for his team. They can’t risk to make him play on every game and cheapen it, nor they can show too much dependency on him and look bad in comparison. But, as long as they’re smart about it, they can get a lot of mileage out of the mere potential of his involvement in a given situation.”
“Kind of like a ‘don’t-make-me-call-Kyon’ policy?”
“Not a generalized policy. More than a convenient leverage for negotiation, from time to time.”
“Like… cutting in line at the school cafeteria by letting them think that Kyon send me to buy stuff in his place?” Taniguchi suggested.
Kunikida blinked several times at him and then his jaw dropped slightly open.
“… which never happened before,” the taller boy amended without success.
“… Of course,” Kunikida said skeptically, “but yes, just like that. Now, think of this situation from his opponents’ point of view.”
“They want Kyon to lose his lucky streak.”
“More like they want him to get lost. Period.” Kunikida shuddered almost imperceptibly. “In a way, that includes the National Police Agency.”
Taniguchi unconsciously frowned at Miyuki’s blank business card resting on the table between them with a phone number jotted by her on it. “How so?”
“Kyon apparently gives too much of an advantage to his group, making things difficult for the police. The impression I got from Akasaka-san is that she wants Kyon to surrender to the authorities on his own. Even though they don’t have enough for an arrest warrant, otherwise I guess they’d have already done so, getting him out of the streets for a while would be a prize of its own.”
“So, she wants to make a deal with Kyon,” Taniguchi surmised. “By… getting him to betray his allies? That sounds stupid. No way they’ll forgive something like that.”
“Not necessarily,” Kunikida countered. “If Akasaka-san and Kyon can make it look like she tried to charge him with something and failed, he’d be able to walk home without betraying anyone and the NPA still gets Kyon removed from the equation.”
“I see,” Taniguchi said and nodded slowly. “There are still a few things I don’t get. First, why Akasaka-san didn’t want us to call Tsuruya-san to tell her about what happened today.”
“Actually, I’m not too sure about that,” Kunikida admitted. “If Tsuruya-san is Kyon’s boss, she’s bound to learn about the incident sooner than later. It’s like Akasaka-san expects her to act rashly and make the situation worse even though, in her own words, Tsuruya-san is competent enough to know better,” he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think I’m misreading something here.”
“Now I get it,” Taniguchi cut in immediately, smacking the side his fist into his opposing palm. “You’re thinking it too much, man. It’s pretty simple.”
“Is it?” the shorted boy prompted.
“Yeah. Tsuruya-san is head over heels in love with Kyon,” he assured. “She may act like a proper mob boss if another of her subordinates gets attacked, but if you tell her that seven guys with guns tried to kidnap her man and you can’t reassure her that he’s fine in the same phone call, she could freak out big time.”
“That’s… quite a leap of logic,” Kunikida disagreed politely. “How can you be so sure she could react like that?”
“How can you or Akasaka-san be 100% sure she won’t?” the taller boy answered with a similar question. “No matter how small the chance, it’s a risky bet to make and NPA lady can’t leave that kind of thing to the dices.”
“Wait a moment,” Kunikida raised his hand in a halting gesture. “In the first place, where do you get that Tsuruya-san is in love with Kyon? We know that their engagement was arranged by their families, after all.”
“And probably you can name more than half a dozen of political marriages in history from the top of your head that ended with the couple caring for each other for real. In this case, I can totally see Kyon doing his thing with Tsuruya-san, who sounds to me like a lonely and properly paranoid and distrustful heiress straight out of a crime manga. Chicks like that dig the whole ‘Lady and Knight’ prototype—”
“Archetype,” Kunikida corrected reflexively.
“—archetype for a reason,” Taniguchi reworded without missing a beat. “Noticed how he talks to her or how he tacks the ‘-hime’ honorific to Tsuruya-san’s name? He totally copied that from me,” he said and nodded in a vaguely smug manner.
“’-hime’ is not actually a hono—,” Kunikida shook his head. “But that’s not important right now. Leaving the rest aside for the moment, what do you mean with ‘his thing’?”
“Oh, that. Remember earlier during lunch when I told Kyon that Suzumiya changed a lot after she met him? That’s the thing I’m talking about. The guy has a way to become important in a girl’s life and, as far as I—or they—can tell, with no other intention but helping them.”
Kunikida made a troubled face. “Kyon certainly seems like the kind of person willing to lend a hand to those in need, but you make him sound like someone who actively seeks to burden himself with other people’s problems.”
“Maybe not, but he always gave me the impression that he’s something of a softie at heart. Sure, a snarky, face-palming softie who can make you feel stupid with a look and kick your ass six ways to Sunday without breaking a sweat, but good people in the end. Kinda like a tsundere Quixote in denial with a sharp tongue.”
Kunikida was now certain where the conversation was going and commented carefully, “There is always more to a person than meets the eye.”
“Well, duh,” Taniguchi said without putting any real strength in his voice and looked at the ceiling, letting his arms hang listlessly to each side. “It’s just… I can’t… I just can’t believe he’s a criminal, you know, much less this ‘young but well-respected saiko-komon‘ Akasaka-san was talking about.”
Just like that, Taniguchi finally addressed the elephant in the room that so far they tacitly managed to avoid with banter and oblique speculation.
On his couch, Kunikida remained silent but attentive.
“I mean,” the taller boy elaborated, probably not really talking to the person at the other side of the table. “I don’t really understand how the food chain works here, but I got that the senior advisor is pretty high up there right under the big boss. Nobody gets a rank like that and succeeds at it without being skilled, smart, ambitious and more than a little ruthless and manipulative. But no matter how I see it, that’s just not Kyon,” he insisted in disbelief, perhaps even pleadingly to some people.
“…”
“Just think about it,” Taniguchi argued, “Would a guy like that let a girl like Suzumiya boss him around? Or run errands for his club like hauling that electric heater across town last winter, do you remember that? Or put on a fancy costume and dance that funny choreography for a flash mob? Or even let people call him by that ridiculous nickname?”
“…”
“For example, there is no way someone like that would not have taken advantage of someone as good-looking as Suzumiya when she was so obviously into him, right? I know I really shouldn’t talk about a girl like this, but the thing he had going on with Suzumiya was a done deal. Kyon only had to ask nicely, or perhaps not even that, and bam! Relationship Upgrade.”
“…”
“How about Yamane, then? Kyon busted his voyeur photography ring. That’s something anyone would call a good deed, doesn’t it? Another guy with his skills and contacts would have wanted in on the deal to make some extra money and please stop with the polite silence, Kunikida,” Taniguchi snapped suddenly and scowled at the other boy. “I know you’re good at the whole decon thing. Tell me how all this makes sense to you.”
“‘Decon’? Do you mean as in literary deconstruction?”
“Yeah,” Taniguchi said, letting his previous vehemence vanish from his voice. “That’s why we don’t watch as many action movies together anymore.”
Kunikida made a skeptical face. “Really? I thought you preferred to watch them with Yanagimoto-san now,” he said in a deliberate conversational tone.
“Nah, she doesn’t like them too much. We take turn picking movies. Last time it was 27 Dresses.”
“Your pick, I guess?” Kunikida teased.
“Hell no. And stop stalling. I’m calm now,” Taniguchi sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand.
“Right, sorry.” Kunikida took a moment to collect his thoughts. “But first of all, let’s review today’s facts before we forget anything important. Is that alright with you?”
Taniguchi scowled at the other boy again but nodded. “Fine. Let’s leave it for later,” he relented, “but don’t think I’m letting this one go. I’m not someone you have to coddle, okay?”
“Okay, I promise.” Kunikida paused and cleared his throat. “For one, I think we can assume that Kyon is not only an accomplished martial artist, but he probably also received urban warfare training if today’s incident is anything to go by.”
The taller boy frowned, confused. “What’s the difference?”
“No amount of the former would allow him to incapacitate six men armed with firearms at the same time and the latter is certainly not something you can normally get in a dojo.”
“But I didn’t see any blood on them. I’m sure Kyon didn’t shoot—”
“I’m not saying he did,” Kunikida clarified. He then went for his school bag and pulled out a notebook and a pen. He opened it on a blank page and drew a big rectangle. “Let’s say this is the rental car lot and here is the street,” he explained and wrote the word ‘street’ at one of the large sides of the figure, “and this is the alley.” He traced a line from the opposite side and perpendicular to it and away.
Kunikida drew another rectangle inside the big one, more or less at the center and wrote ‘black car’ on it. “Do you remember the position of the bodies around the car?” he asked and handed over the notebook and the pen to the other boy.
Taniguchi took them and said, “I think so.” He sketched several stick figures and then noticed something. “Wait, something is missing.” He drew a second rectangle inside of one representing the lot and pointing towards the alley. He wrote ‘van’ on it and explained, “There was another unconscious guy on the van, here.” He drew a circle where the driver seat was located and handed the stationeries back to the other boy.
“Hmmm,” Kunikida made a thoughtful noise and traced dashed lines from the center of the heads of each stick figure and approximately following the direction of their torsos.
To Taniguchi’s surprise, the six lines converged more or less to the same point at some distance from the black car and away from the van. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“Shock wave, I think.”
“Like… Like a bomb?!” Taniguchi gulped, raising both eyebrows and blinking. “Is that what set off all the alarms?”
“There was too little damage for that. I was thinking more along the lines of those devices SWAT teams in the movies throw inside a house before going in themselves, the ones designed to produce only light and noise.” Kunikida tapped his finger on the notebook on the table and made an effort to remember the name.
“Stun grenades?” Taniguchi suggested.
“Yes, that’s it. I think Kyon detonated a stun grenade or something similar right in this point,” Kunikida posited and put his index finger on the converging point in the paper.
“But, I didn’t see any broken glass. I mean, if a flashbang or whatever that was had enough oomph to knock out a grown man from several meters away,” Taniguchi said and traced one of the dashed lines that crossed the rectangle representing the car, “why the black car had all the windows intact?”
“I’m not sure,” Kunikida admitted. “Perhaps that’s how they’re supposed to work in real life, but I can’t know for sure. Human hearing and balance organs are very sensitive to shock waves and perhaps…” he trailed off and an idea suddenly struck him. “What if the car wasn’t equipped with regular glass to begin with?” he suggested.
“Some kind of armored glass? Well, if those guys managed to get real guns in a country like ours, it wouldn’t surprise me… Wait. How can we be sure of the guns?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe they used props. I’ve seen very realistic airsoft replicas before. Last year Kyon wanted help building and painting a couple of handguns for Suzumiya’s movie. Later, he said they turned out okay even though he said it was his first time with anything other than a DIY model of a robot when he was like ten.”
Kunikida shook his head. “I think they had real weapons. When I followed Akasaka-san into the rental car lot, she took a moment to hold one of the guns with a handkerchief by the barrel, frowned at the weight and then put it back very slowly in the same position as before on the ground.”
“Oh, it was worth a try,” Taniguchi relented. “That reminds me of the other thing I wanted to ask you. Where did Akasaka-san come from? When did you meet her?”
“It was right after I decided to follow after you, around the point where the alley behind the restaurant meets the street. Akasaka-san and a man got out of a car, showed me their badges and made me several questions. I explained what I could about the situation and told them about you. Akasaka-san ordered the man—apparently a plainclothes police officer from what I remember from his identification—to secure the scene and call the local police. Then she went after the sound of the alarms.”
Taniguchi raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised she let you tag along.”
“Well, she almost didn’t, but the time was against her and she agreed with me under the condition that I had to follow her orders to the letter,” Kunikida explained. “How about you, did I miss something of the scene?”
Taniguchi winced and looked positively ill for a second as a fact he was unconsciously avoiding was brought back to the surface of his thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Kunikida asked carefully.
The taller boy told his friend about what he saw in the interior of the van. Kunikida’s expression grew more and more appalled the more detailed the account went. At some point he frowned and asked a few questions to clarify one thing or another, then he said, “Bait.”
Taniguchi nodded. “Yeah. I think they had somebody locked up in there, someone Kyon knows to force him go along with their orders.”
“Then the envelope he received from the waitress—” Kunikida deduced.
“Proof,” Taniguchi finished for him. “Most likely pictures. Nasty ones.”
“...... don’t you think…?” Kunikida tried, but he couldn’t bring himself to complete the question.
“What?”
“I mean,” he tried again. “What if the person imprisoned in the van, the hostage, is someone we know too?”
Eyes widening in horror, Taniguchi cursed. The faces of every member of the SOS Brigade danced macabrely before his eyes. His imagination twisted their images to fill the blanks and match the ghastly evidence from his memories, but Kunikida’s indistinct words kept him from making himself sicker by them. “What? What did you say?”
“I said, was there anything in the van that makes you think the victim remained confined for just a short time, like one or two hours at most?” Kunikida asked. “This is important, please try to remember.”
“Okay,” Taniguchi said slowly and collected his memories. Remembering the interior of the van objectively now required a considerably bigger effort than before he could give a face to the unknown victim, but something on the palm of his hand caught his focus and allowed him to glimpse a more comforting conclusion. “The blood stains, some of them looked old. Like half a day old, maybe more.”
Kunikida blinked several times. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said and pointed to a small scar on the border of his left palm, midway between the base of index finger and the thumb. “See here? I got this last Saturday when I was replacing a spark plug in my scooter and cut myself with the screwdriver. I stained the side of the fuel tank with my blood, but I didn’t clean it right away because I went to wash my wound. The next day, the stain was dry and black and took me some effort how to get it out of the metal without damaging the paint.”
“Then, the stains on the floor of the van—” Kunikida prompted.
“Yes, same kind. Meaning that whoever was in class today—” Taniguchi begun.
“—it wasn’t the hostage,” Kunikida finished for him this time.
“Suzumiya was in class, so the blonde with the twintails, Tachibana-san,” Taniguchi listed immediately.
“Yes. Her boyfriend, Koizumi-san, came looking for her during the first break.”
“I saw Tsuruya-san running up the stairs when I was walking them down for the shoe lockers. It’s well known that she ‘escorts’ that first year girl, Michikyuu Kanae, to their clubroom after class every day.”
“Kyon mentioned at lunch that Michikyuu-san prepared his coffee today,” Kunikida pointed out. “Therefore, we can probably assume from both facts that she was in class today.”
“He also said that Asahina-san let him borrow her thermos, so she was probably in class today too.”
Kunikida looked a little dubious. “It’s possible that she left it at their clubroom and Kyon asked her permission to use it by phone or something.”
“Well, it’s easy enough to verify if she was in class today,” Taniguchi assured.
“You know someone in her class?”
“Er, no. Asahina-san is Kitago’s School Idol, capitalization intended. She has a creepy fanclub and everything. A couple of guys in our class are members and I’m pretty sure I’d have heard them complain if she was playing hooky today. I could always mail them and ask, though.”
“Wait a second. This is off-topic, but don’t they know that Asahina-san has a boyfriend?” Kunikida asked.
“Oh, yes. And they ‘abhor him in righteous loathing as the wretched demon who dared to wish for the heavens.’ That a direct quote, by the way,” Taniguchi said.
“That’s a little…”
“My sentiments exactly. Kyon’s name was crossed out from a lot of guys’ shit-lists after news this Shutaro guy got out.” Taniguchi shook his head. “Back to the point, we’re only missing two girls in Suzumiya’s club, both from class 2-8. Nagato ‘Silent Beauty’ Yuki and an AB-minus transfer student named Sasaki-san.”
“......... AB-minus? Why just an AB-minus? Er, and does Yanagimoto-san know that you’re still rating girls with your scale?”
“I’m not, but old habits die hard,” Taniguchi explained easily and then blinked, somewhat owlishly. “Stop, rewind. Do you know this girl? I mean, from before she transfered to Kitago?”
“… yes. She was my classmate for our second and third years in middle school and also Kyon’s during the latter. I saw her in the hallway today, so we can assume she wasn’t the hostage under the same hypothesis as before. That only leaves Nagato-san as a possibility within Suzumiya-san’s club.”
“Kunikida, you know I’m totally asking you later where did that ‘why just an AB-minus’ complain come from, right? I think I know the answer, but—”
“Later,” the shorter boy cut in with a sigh and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Now it’s not the time for that. Do you have any way to know whether Nagato-san was in class today?”
“Other than calling Suzumiya and getting her all suspicious on me about why I’m asking her about Nagato-san? No, I don’t, but you might. Do you have Sasaki-san’s number?”
“Yes, but it’s the same problem in my case. How do I ask her about Nagato-san without explaining about today’s incident? I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily, especially if our speculation turns out to be baseless in one way or another.”
“The same way you convinced Akasaka-san that we hang out with Kyon ‘over the Internet’,” Taniguchi air-quoted. “Nice BS there, by the way,” he praised honestly, “especially considering this is the same guy who didn’t know what a viral video is or what the expression ‘going memetic’ means.”
“It’s a common preconception,” Kunikida explained, somewhat sheepish. “Adults often overestimate how widespread new media actually is among our age group. Just look at the newspapers. Also, speaking of the video you took of the flash mob organized by Suzumiya-san’s club, did you eventually tell him about—?”
“Suzumiya told me not to worry and keep quiet about it.”
Kunikida raised both eyebrows at that.
“She also made me give her my old account and monetized it,” Taniguchi said. “I can’t believe I never thought of that,” he muttered to himself and shook his head. “Now, how about this? You call Sasaki-san to ask about Nagato-san and I check on Asahina-san’s fanclub.”
The other boy looked reluctant.
“Come on,” Taniguchi pressed. “You probably don’t want to talk to her, I understand that, but we’ll sleep a lot better tonight if we can confirm that neither Nagato-san or Asahina-san was in that van.”
Kunikida sighed and fished out his phone in answer.
“Okay. Now I really get why you didn’t want to call Sasaki-san,” Taniguchi conceded. “That girl is sharp. Like a tack. In your shoe.”
“You think?” Kunikida retorted.
“Yeah,” Taniguchi nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “From your conversation on the speaker, she gave me major Suzumiya vibes in a way, you know.”
Kunikida made a complicated face. “They’re not very alike, per se.”
“Oh, so you noticed,” Taniguchi nodded to himself. “They’re not like peas in a pod by a long shot as far as I can tell, but there’s something similar about them. Kinda like polar opposite sisters.”
“Sisters?” Kunikida asked skeptically.
“Well, the basic idea behind the cliché.” Taniguchi cleared his throat and intoned flamboyantly, “Two maidens, born alike. Each to different houses, both with the same fire in their spirits waiting to shine over others. One through the way of academics and science, the other…” he trailed off and scratched his chin, then he changed back to his normal voice and said, “I got nothing. Crazy Awesomeness, maybe?”
Kunikida snorted. “Nice one, Hamlet,” he said, giving special emphasis to the first syllable of Taniguchi’s part in their class’ play.
“Hey!” the taller boy mock-complained. “Joking aside, I suppose I’m just glad that none of Kyon’s clubmates is involved in this mess,” he sighed.
“That’s true.”
“Nice tale you sold, by the way. Especially the part where you brought up the thing about Nagato-san grades to get Sasaki-san to talk about her.” Taniguchi commended. “Does Nagato-san really get exactly the same score on every round of exams?” he asked.
“Yes. 480 of 500 points,” Kunikida elaborated. “Average scores are published thrice per term and it has happened eleven times out of eleven to date. Nagato-san’s school-wide rank varies from one round to the next, but her score is always a four percent below perfect.”
“It sounds like one of those ‘school mysteries’, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I think it’s some kind of internal joke between her and her teachers,” Kunikida said and then thought to himself for a moment. “Nature versus nurture,” he pondered. “You might have a point there.” He glanced at the clock on the wall opposite to the door. “Eight minutes left on the clock.”
Taniguchi followed his line of sight. “You’re right. What do we do now? Going home?”
“What else?” Kunikida shrugged. “It’s not like we actually have a way to contact Kyon if he turned off his cell phone and I don’t know his home number. Sasaki-san might have it, but I didn’t want to reach out for too much during the same conversation.”
Taniguchi blinked several times as a memory struck him and he looked at the objects resting on the couch next to Kunikida. “Wait,” he cut in. “There could be a way.”
“How?”
“Kyon’s place,” Taniguchi explained. “I went there once. It’s a two-story house a little more than half a hour away from Kitago on foot.”
“Really?” Kunikida commented surprised. “I thought Kyon didn’t bring people over because of some rule his parents had in place.”
“Well, you know what they say about Suzumiya and rules. Last year she was holding auditions for a rock band and I suspect she ‘volunteered’ Kyon’s house for the occasion.”
“I didn’t know you played an instrument,” Kunikida said impressed.
“Er, I don’t. I just knew chicks dig band members, especially lead singers and guitar players.”
Kunikida sighed.
“Never mind that. The point is we could go there and see what happens.” Taniguchi pointed at one of two school bags his friend was carrying around. “We even have a perfectly unrelated excuse for it.”
The shorter boy looked doubtful. “Taniguchi, according to what we think it happened today, less than a hour ago someone tried to kidnap Kyon. He not only fought off his world-be captors on his own, but he also rescued the hostage—most likely one of his coworkers—they used as bait.”
“Now,” Kunikida continued, “right after all that, do you really think he would go to his own house?”
“It’s not that,” Taniguchi shook his head. “It’s… the gesture.”
Kunikida wanted to argue further, but Taniguchi’s words went in an unexpected direction and that caught him wrongfooted.
“Did you see Kyon’s face right before he left our table at the restaurant?” Taniguchi asked suddenly, his countenance set in an unusual and very serious expression.
“I can’t say I did,” Kunikida admitted carefully. “Why?”
“Kyon’s a good poker face but my gut is telling me—more like screaming at me—that he was… sad and ashamed that we saw him, you know, ‘on the clock’,” Taniguchi air-quoted. “I could bet he’s avoiding us because that’s what he thinks we want him to do. And if we don’t do something about it soon enough…” Taniguchi trailed off.
“I think I understand,” Kunikida said. “But, are you sure you still want—?”
“Yes,” Taniguchi declared before the other boy could finish his question. “As I said before, I still want to hear how all this makes sense to you, probably something about this very bad Kyon who was doing everything for his own benefit from the very beginning—”
Kunikida unconsciously pressed his lips together into a flat line.
“—but I suspect it won’t make any more sense to me than it does now,” Taniguchi shrugged. “I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I trust my gut. ‘Kyon the yakuza’ is just one part of the story. There has to be more.”
Taniguchi rose to his feet and extended his right hand, palm up, in his friend’s direction. “I’ll take Kyon’s bag to his place. If you don’t want to get more involved in this, that’s fine, man. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“Tell me, what are you planning to do, exactly?” Kunikida asked.
“Nothing much. Drop Kyon’s school bag at his place. If I find him there, I’ll tell him about Akasaka-san. If I don’t, I’ll ask his folks to tell him to call me. If that doesn’t work, there’s Monday at class.”
“Is that it? Nothing else?”
“Yeah. I mean, what else is there for me to do?” Taniguchi asked rhetorically.
Kunikida remained silent for a minute, then he stood up and handed over Kyon’s bag to the other boy. “I carried this for too long today. It’s your turn now.”
Taniguchi took the bag and raised an eyebrow at Kunikida.
“Let’s go,” the shorter boy said. “It’s only three o’clock and I don’t know how far Kyon’s house is from this point.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. There are a few things I want to be sure of before doing anything else.”
“Righto,” Taniguchi said without bothering to hide his grin. “Kyon’s house must be two or three train stations away from here plus some walking. Probably we’ll need to wander around for a bit to locate the house because I don’t have the address written down this time.”
Kunikida stared at Taniguchi’s uniform for a moment and then at his own. “Just in case, we should do something about our uniforms, first.”
Taniguchi followed his line of sight and tilted his head slightly to the side in confusion. “Why is that?”
“An incident like today’s will attract a lot of attention from the authorities. Akasaka-san probably brought us here and told us to stay put for a hour to prevent us from being questioned by uniformed police officers and we know that at least the waitresses are likely to give them our descriptions.”
The taller boy raised both eyebrows at that. “Now you mention it, why did she do that?”
“Best guess, Akasaka-san wants to keep Kyon’s involvement in this case under wraps for now. So many illegal weapons in the same place is bound to make the police nervous and they could arrest Kyon before she gets a chance to make a deal with him.”
“Makes sense. I’m still wondering why she’s trying to help him.”
Kunikida shook his head. “You said it before. There has to be more to this than she told us.” He took off his school blazer, untucked his shirt and begun to loose his tie. “Should be this be enough?” he asked.
Taniguchi eyed him for a moment and said “I think I have just the thing.” Then went for his school bag and took out a black plastic bag from it. In turn, he produced several pieces of clothing from it, mostly colorful and carelessly wrinkled T-shirts, and set them out on the table.
In the process, he also grabbed Miyuki’s business card and was about to put it in his pocket when the other boy silently asked for it with a gesture. He handed it over with a shrug. “Yeah, I admit I’ve this tendency to lose my stuff. Anyway, take your pick. I think the ones in the lower row should fit you the best.”
Kunikida simply stared at the clothes and a few accessories on the table, then at his friend, his expression set in a mix of humor, incredulity and resignation.
“What?” Taniguchi asked, admittedly more smug than defensive.
“May I ask why you carried that many T-shirts—”
“—and a pair sweatpants, sunglasses and a couple of baseball caps,” Taniguchi cut in and put said items on the table.
“—and a pair sweatpants, sunglasses and a couple of baseball caps with you today?” Kunikida repeated without missing a beat. “I mean, what could you possibly—?”
“Only finish that question if you really want to know the answer,” the taller boy warned in obviously feigned seriousness.
Kunikida stared levelly at Taniguchi for a minute. Then he sighed and rubbed the space between his eyes. “Be honest with me, how long have you been waiting to say that line?”
“Forever! The opportunity doesn’t come up as often as it should.”
“Congratulations,” the shorter boy stated flatly, “but seriously, why?”
Taniguchi spread his arms in a can’t-be-helped gesture. “Can’t tell you. It goes against the boyfriend-girlfriend privilege.”
“Do you mean like the spousal privilege in law of evidence?”
“Er, I think. It’s kinda like the Brode of Silence, but among couples and limited to stuff that can get us suspended, grounded or bitched at like crazy.”
“…”
“…”
“I think I will take the black T-shirt,” Kunikida said after a while, willfully and perhaps even wisely dismissing his previous question.
“Boring. For me, it’ll be the one with the badass design of Trope-tan with a red laserblade.”
“… Are we really doing this?”
“Don’t complain. You’re the one who wanted a change of look. Pomade?” Taniguchi asked and produced a small jar of the product from his school bag.
“No, thank you,” Kunikida hastily refused and glanced at the clock. “Two minutes left. I’m kind of surprised we didn’t get any warning about the time. Is that how it works?”
“Nah, the clerk usually calls in five minutes before the time is up asking if we want an extension,” Taniguchi explained and pointed at a handset attached to the wall and next to the door of their karaoke room with his thumb. “He either got scared good by Akasaka-san and won’t talk to us, he wants to charge us extra for not leaving in time or he’s plain lazy.”
“I see,” Kunikida said and begun to unbutton his shirt. “Let’s hurry.”
“Righto. By the way, do you think we could take a look of the car lot?” Taniguchi asked and set about changing his clothes.
“The lot must be closed off to civilians by now and kept under a tight watch by the police. Furthermore, I don’t think we will able to see anything from the street because of the front row of parked cars, which is probably one of the reasons why those men picked such location in the first place.”
Taniguchi clicked his tongue. “Straight to the train station, then?”
“I think it’s for the best. Also, what do we do about our blazers and the shirts? I think they will be a little of eye-catching if we carried them around in our hands.”
Taniguchi rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “The station is not that far away, but if it bothers you, let’s see if the clerk has a shopping bag or something he can give us. If that fails, one of us goes to the closest convenience store and see what we can buy to carry the stuff.”
He grabbed his school bag—a school-issued satchel with a lid fastened close by two buckles—, lifted the lid a little and put his arm under it and held it close with the other hand. “And if you don’t mind ironing your stuff later, we could stash the shirts in our bags and hold the blazer between the bag and the lid just like this.”
“Nice trick,” Kunikida commended.
“It’s just something I do with my raincoat from time to time.” Taniguchi paused for a couple of seconds and seemed to fight the temptation to sigh very loudly. “You ready?”
“Almost. Just let me fold my clothes and I’m ready to go.”
“No, I mean ready ready. There’s a chance we will find Kyon at his place and I’m not totally sure how that conversation will go.”
“Hey, where did all that confidence from earlier go?” Kunikida chided. Then he thought to himself for a moment, shook his head and raised a fist and held it shoulder-high midway between Taniguchi and himself.
The taller boy blinked at the sight several times, grinned and bumped his own fist against Kunikida’s. “Is this perhaps the very first time that our diligent Kunikida-kun starts a brofist on his own?”
“It seemed like the right thing to say. Don’t get used to it.”
“Can’t make any promises,” Taniguchi quipped. “Thanks, man,” he said earnestly after a moment.
“No. Thanks to you,” Kunikida thanked back in a similar voice. “Enough is enough. Let’s go already,” he prompted, opened the door and grabbed his clothes and bag.
Taniguchi finished storing his things, checked around just in case they forgot something and left the room first.
Kunikida followed suit and closed the door after himself.
The untouched karaoke machine, still in demonstration mode and muted, played a foreign electro song whose lyrics went “Slipping and falling through the looking glass”, but nobody was there to read the rest.
§