The Eccentric, the Beauty, and the Detective: Kiriki Junka's Mystery Log Volume 2 Chapter 21

Hisokawa, ever the fan of festivities, was irresponsibly frolicking.

“Man, this is crazy! At this rate the media's going to be sniffing around!”

We got back to class 1, 3 and all the conversations were about the assembly that morning. Iwai and Nagayama were poking fun at me.

“Now is the time for Suzaku Rouji of the detective association. Come on Mr. Awesome Detective!”

“Come on guys, go easy on me, eh.”

I looked to Junka for help. He was telling his own fortune with cards; all alone. What a lonely guy.

“Darn. No good,” Junka groaned.

There were several cards lined up, and apparently his future was unclear. That seemed somehow ominous to me.

At lunch, Junka made sure to finish his food early, and invited me over to Eiji's seat. The time of the invitation had come at last, it seemed.

Eiji had some broiled eel that seemed drool inducingly delicious. Occasionally sipping on some milk, it seemed like he had the same idea as me when it came to growing taller.

“Do you have a moment, Sannomiykun?”

He didn't even look up at Junka, instead leaving it to Yuuki.

“Eiji-sama is presently enjoying a meal. Business is to be conducted after the meal is finished, so please wait until then, thank you.”

“No, it's fine.”

Eiji put his chopsticks on the box, and patted his stomach with a blissful expression.

“I've just finished. So, what's up Kiriki? Need something?”

Junka said nothing, simply doing the running man for about a minute before sitting down, sweating. There wasn't any particular meaning, of course.

“The truth is, Sannomiykun. I'd like you to join the detective association,” he got straight to the point.

“I wouldn't.”

That was blunt.

“Why would I join a group of weirdos like you? Sounds awful.”

I wasn't particularly upset. Junka was definitely weird, so there were probably quite a few prospective members who'd decided against joining because of him.

Junka was quite persistent, though.

“Please! I'll even give you my position as chairman.”

Oh, how generous…

“You're being annoying. I already said I don't want to, didn't I?”

Eiji wasn't moved at all. Yuuki pointed away with one arm.

“You may leave now.”

Junka stuck at it, though.

“I believe we'll be able to solve many mysteries if you join. You've been blessed with different investigative talents than I have…”

Junka had progressed to flattery. Eiji closed his eyes and slurped down his milk. A strange sound ensued, so he checked the contents with a glance.

“Obvious flattery's only going to backfire, Kiriki.”

“No, I genuinely think that if you help us, we'll be able to easily catch the culprit who's got the school in an uproar with his shovings.”

Eiji finally opened his eyes, looking straight at Junka.

“That culprit, eh? True…”

He looked for a second like he'd thought up an unexpectedly good trick to play on someone.

“How about this? We'll compete over it, to see who can catch him first. I'll work with Yuuki, and you'll have your association. The loser will have to do what the winner dictates. If you win, than fine, I'll join your association for you. What do you say?”

Junka hadn't gotten what he'd really been fishing for, but he seemed satisfied with the results.

“Sounds great. Let's do it. It's on, then, Sannomiykun.”

Junka nodded as if he'd just pulled in a big fish.

We went back to our seats.

“Why'd you take him up on it?” I asked in a small voice.

I'd never expected Junka to be the type to make a game of something with real victims.

Junka danced the running man for a minute.

I'd had enough of that.

“It isn't just that we can't guarantee there won't be more victims, but we also need to catch his, or her —we don't know yet— tail before it's too late,” Junka said logically, “I just added more reasons to speed up the investigations besides preventing more casualties. I don't care if I lose since that means that Eiji will have caught the perpetrator. Not that I know what he wants from me.”

I pointed out that, “If it's Eiji, he might just have you disband the association.”

Junka went blue and had to catch my sleeve to stay up.

“What!? No way! That's no laughing matter!”

He'd gotten to the point of near panic.

Since we had time, we headed off to the music prep room. Hatanaksensei seemed lonely as she ate lunch by herself.

“Sorry, you two; I lied…”

She was as bandaged and pitiful as ever. Her honest apology turned into a bit of an excuse, though.

“I felt somebody push me, but I was told to stay quiet by the other teachers.”

“Well, it is the sort of thing the school would want to sort out on its own.”

Junka took a half step in, and asked, “Do you know of any features the culprit may have?”

She shook her head.

“Sorry, but it hurt so much I didn't look.”

“I see…”

Junka couldn't hide his disappointment.

Stakeout. noun.
—often seen in movies and TV dramas.

Junka had asked the entire detective association —not that there were any more than four of us— to go on stakeout. Junka and I had already seen success with one during our investigation of the case of the broken chalk.

“There are conditions common to all the victims…”

Junka had called us all together right away after school, and had begun to lecture, sitting us down, and taking to the blackboard with some chalk.

“First, the perpetrator noticed they were going to descend the stairs. Essentially, the ideal locations for this are the top of the stairs by the roof, heading down to the third floor; the top of the stairs at the third floor going down to the second; and the top of the second flight, heading down to the first floor.”

Junka drew three staircases as he spoke.

“What if he waits on the landing halfway in between?”

“Someone going down the stairs would be sure to spot him, so that's not realistic. There'd also be more chance of being spotted.”

Junka looked over his audience as we listened carefully.

“Now, in my estimation we can rule out the location at the roof, going down to the third floor. This is because the door to the roof will make it hard to sneak up behind someone going down. This limits us ultimately to the two staircases going from the second to first, and first to second floors.”

He circled the two stairwells.

“Is everyone following me?”

We nodded.

“On to the matter of the stakeout. Unfortunately, we do not have any way of identifying the culprit at the moment aside from witnessing an incident, of course. That is why we'll watch the two hallways in such a way as to be able to quickly respond to any incidents. To do this we will split into two groups.”

Junka put his chalk down and clapped.

“The perpetrator is dangerous. There's a high probability that girls alone won't be enough to catch him, so let's split into boy-girl pairs. Tatsuno-san…”

“Yes?”

“You'll be with me. Rouji-kun and Iidsan, I'll have you two pair up as well. Is that good?”

There wasn't any real reason to refuse, so we agreed.

Nao and I stopped at a familiar sight as we went to the third floor hall for our stakeout.

“Sannomiya, what the hell are you doing in a place like this?”

Eiji was peeking around a corner, keeping tabs on the hallway. Noticing us, he stepped out.

“What was your name again?”

“Suzaku Rouji.”

“Ah, yeah, that's it, I remember… I'm staking out the hallway.”

“To catch the culprit?”

“That's it.”

Looked like he had the same idea as Junka. I couldn't see Yuuki, though…

“She's on the lower floor,” replied Eiji perceptively, having noticed my gaze.

Nao whispered into my ear, “We're the ones who are going to catch that culprit.”

“Yeah, that's the plan.”

In the end, we all ended up concealing ourselves together as we watched the hall.

Translator's Note:

I don't like getting near the end of the chapter ahead of schedule because it usually means that I end up doing extra translating just to polish things off.

Editor's Note:

Really, all I need to do is skim these and format a little bit. I almost have to do more work when editors are involved. This way, everything's my fault.

Chapter end