The Eccentric, the Beauty, and the Detective: Kiriki Junka's Mystery Log Volume 2 Chapter 24

Nao, Eiji, Yuuki, Hinata, and I all arrived at the art club room as a group of five and called Harumi over.

“Yes?”

She looked frightened to be called out into the hall. She seemed to have gathered that she was in a bad spot from the fact that both Eiji and I had found out about her being on the roof alone.

Despite Eiji's having to look up at her, Harumi seemed to be intimidated.

He thrust a finger at her.

“You're the one who's been shoving people, aren't you, Kashiwagi?”

He'd come straight at her and, after a few blinks, she caught on to what he meant.

“What? No!”

She backed right into a wall, and started to fluster when she couldn't retreat farther.

“Why would I do it!? That's totally irrational…”

“You're the only one who could have shoved Mimatsenpai down the stairs.”

“What's that supposed to mean!? As if I could do something that awful!”

“Lies!” Eiji breathed fire, “It just looks bad if you deny it now! If you come clean, you'll get off easier, you know. Don't waste this opportunity!”

“I'm not gonna take this!”

He wasn't getting anywhere. I started to lose confidence. Doubts in my chest began to grow as she continued to deny.

“What's all this fuss about?” Kanechiksensei opened the door to the room to check.

That was the moment that Harumi took the opportunity to fly into Kanechiksensei's arms, crying… loudly.

“There, there Kashiwagi-san, what's wrong?”

“Sensei, they're accusing me of being the culprit!”

Eiji seemed to be trying to burn a hole in her back with his glare.

“The culprit's a girl, Sensei.”

“Oh my,” Kanechiksensei played innocent, “but isn't there some misunderstanding? This girl's not one to do such a thing.”

She patted Harumi to calm her down.

“Since you have made a mistake, you should go home and think this over some more. It's low for a boy to make a girl cry, Eiji. You should apologise.”

Eiji wasn't giving up.

“Please hear me out, Sensei.”

He explained his reasoning and research.

“… which makes it obvious the culprit is Kashiwagi, since she was on the roof.”

“Oh? But, you know…” she put a finger to her cheek, “On that day she came back from the roof with her sketches. Right to the club room where she stayed until she went stayed until she went home. And she'd come back before the incident.”

Eiji went blue.

“No way…”

“No way, or any way, the truth is the truth.”

Kanechiksensei smiled.

“Keep trying in your investigations. It'd be nice if you caught the real culprit quickly.”

Shielding the weeping Harumi in her arms, she disappeared back behind the door.

All we could do was stand there stupefied.

“If she wasn't the culprit… who did it?”

I couldn't help but sympathise with him.

We waved at the teacher guarding the stairwell with a bamboo sword as we headed down to the shoe lockers. Four of us walked the short distance to the station.

I felt regret.

“Junka once said that an investigation won't always bear fruit, and I guess this is one of those times. Honestly, I don't see how we can put an end to this one. It's pretty stressful, doing this.”

Nao looked bitter.

“We didn't lose to Sannomiykun, but we didn't win either. It's frustrating.”

Hinata was fiddling with her camera.

“For now, we just need to study for our exams. That's the main part of being a student, after all.”

Junka was making a paper plane.

“The real problem is that the culprit might start some other violent activities. The teachers guard the stairs after school, but not during class, or at lunch.”

That startled us.

“Oi, are you saying that he'll strike again?”

“Who knows.”

Junka feinted throwing the paper plane forward, and launched it straight into my chest again.

“Close, but no cigar. Three points.”

I'm NOT a target, Junka.

The student body had transitioned into studying for finals, and jotted down the hints written on the blackboard. The weather had been great recently, but hot, piercingly hot, and the room was filled with the smell of sweat. Carrying that away was the dry breeze flowing in through the window. The kids in the window seats were feasting on a sandwich made of the beating sun and the refreshing breeze while bathing in the complicated looks of mixed jealousy and pity from the other students.

Junka wasn't in the class at lunch. He'd headed out at some point before eating. I wondered if he had plans. Eiji, on the other hand, was digging in to a giant lobster. That made me jealous. I thought to look for Nao, but couldn't find her, so I figured she was probably eating with Hinata in class 1.

Not that that was bad. For the moment, I had a peaceful afternoon.

At least that's what it was, until a shrill shriek, and the sound of tumbling pierced the atmosphere.

“What was that?”

Not that there was any need to ask. It was clearly somebody falling down the stairs. Eiji sprang out of the room like a tiger ready to fight. I too left my bread behind with my friends to rush to the scene.

I dove down the stairs to find two girls on the landing between the second and first floors. One of them I knew well.

“Iidsan!”
She was nursing a female student.

“Hey Iida!” Eiji asked loudly in his excitement, “What happened!?”

“It's the shover!”

The girl was crying as she grasped her thigh in pain.

“Get a teacher, quick!” Nao asked Eji as he stood beside her.

“I'll go!”

Yuuki took the responsibility and ran off to the staff room, making us eat her dust. Eiji observed the victim.

“So, Iida, were you the first on the scene? Did you see the culprit?”

“I don't know,” Nao kept calm, “I was on my way up the stairs here. I was shocked to find her already falling… I guess the culprit had already fled.”

Eiji said something shocking: “Aren't you the culprit?”

Nao and I both had our jaws hit the floor.

“What are you on about?”

I wondered if he'd finally lost it, when he suddenly began to explain his Iida Nao hypothesis.

“Now that I think of it, didn't you go to the toilet right when Mimatsenpai was shoved? You could have tricked us, and when you were out of sight, gone and shoved her.”

“Trick? Like what?”

“I don't know, but wouldn't it explain how you got here first?”

“That's dumb, you're the worst. Enough of this already.”

The two of them shot fire at eachother, lighting up the air.

Hearing the sound, many students gathered in a spirit of curiosity. Junka, too.

“Someone got shoved again, it seems.”

“Where were off you picking daisies while this happened?” I rebuked my friend who had failed to show up when it mattered.

“I was asking about Mimatsenpai from class 2, 2. Man I'm hungry.”

That was when Yuuki brought Nagatsensei over.

Translator's Note:

Why didn't Nao just point out that if she did get there right away from below, the girl who got shoved would be a witness to that? Nobody could have shoved her, run down past her, and then turned around to walk casually back up like nothing happened without her noticing. Also, she was with other people when other incidents happened.

Editor's Note:

Just before I updated this, I did a quick check of the whole thing one final time. That was when I noticed that I'd forgotten to delete some of the Japanese from my rough document. Good thing I go over this stuff. I honestly don't really even feel the need for an editor since I can just work a little harder and get the basic results for myself. Maybe one day Dr. MIA will return.

Chapter end