The Eccentric, the Beauty, and the Detective: Kiriki Junka's Mystery Log Volume 2 Chapter 6

With a slightly disappointed “ah,” the atmosphere lightened a little in the room. Miyako-sensei rubbed her chin.

“Now that you mention it, Kiriki, you're in the detective association, eh? I saw it in the paper. Apparently, you're quite astute.”

“Not at all,” Junka maintained humility, “We were just lucky. But, still…” he started to get embarrassed, “Astute, is it? To think I would hear such praise from Miyako-sensei… whew, it's a little embarrassing.”

I'd just recently pieced together that Junka was weak to flattery.

“Ah, but that wasn't the point. Is it alright if I ask a few questions?”

“It's fine,” assented Miyako-sensei, “You can show off your skills.”

Junka cleared his throat.

“Then, firstly, how many cigarette butts were there?”

“Two. Is it difficult to see?”

Miyako-sensei swirled the bag like a test tube. Upon scrutiny, two could be distinguished inside.

“Next,” Junka continued, “What brand are they?”

Miyako-sensei seemed dubious.

“Brand? What's that got to do with anything?”

Junka wasn't letting go, though.

“No, it's very important. Please.”

Miyako-sensei squinted hard at the contents of the bag. She was 33, so her eyes weren't going bad yet.

“They're Marlboro Menthol flavour. Satisfied?”

Junka was scratching his chin, and I wondered if he'd been able to glean anything from that.

“Right, and this is related… did you find any yesterday after school? Was it this morning that you found them?”

“That's right. As I said, I found these after homeroom this morning, so they weren't here yesterday.”

“Is there a possibility they were smoked after school, and you simply found them this morning?”

“No, I forgot something last night, and came back to my desk to retrieve it. There were none.”

Junka stroked his hair, a dignified action.

“What's the probability that someone moved what was smoked somewhere else over by your desk early this morning?”

She shook her head with chagrin.

“There were traces of them being stomped out.”

She went to the desk, knelt down, and rechecked.

“They're mostly gone now, but the black marks are still visible. There is no doubt they were smoked around here, and then put out underfoot.”

That was where Junka clasped his hands, silent. I wanted to believe that was when he was putting his brain to work.

“Could it be that another teacher smoked those here?”

She stood up, and went back to the podium.

“None of the faculty here are that rude, Kiriki. No matter how you look at it, it didn't go down like that.”

Junka took a deep breath.

“Was it a single culprit, or were there several?”

“There were two cigarettes, so I'd guess two. Well, one person could have smoked two. Even still…” Miyako-sensei spoke with displeasure, “The culprit's a daredevil, smoking right next to the teacher's desk out of all the places in the empty classroom. It's clearly meant to provoke me, to challenge our Shibuyamadai high school. I'm ashamed to have such a student.”

Silence made a round-trip through the room, and Junka shrugged his shoulders.

“That's it for my questions, Miyako-sensei.”

“Eh?” Miyako-sensei looked like she'd finally snapped back to reality, “Already done? Did you figure out the culprit from that?”

“No, not at all.”

Junka sat back down.

“It's unfortunate how you've handled this, Sensei. You should have immediately extended homeroom this morning to get to the bottom of this. We may have caught the culprit then, but it is too late now.”

Miyako-sensei gave Junka a disappointed look. The follow up in my head was that Junka wasn't a magician, so he couldn't conjure up a solution to a case without clues.

Junka, perhaps having lost interest, shut his eyes, and began to hum Fujinami Tatsumi's pro-wrestling theme: Macho Dragon.

Why couldn't he sing a more appropriate song?

“Sensei.”

The unpleasant voice had come from an unpleasant student: Yahara Maneo. He had raised his hand, wishing to speak.

“What is it, Yahara? If you've got something to say, go for it.”

Miyako-sensei had given permission, so Yahara stood up, glanced at Junka, and mockingly waved himself in with both hands.

“I believe the culprit is in the going-home club,” he licked his lips, “It's the only group of people who would have the time to leisurely smoke somewhere before school as everyone else would be busy with club activities. Let's therefore declare that the culprit is not involved in club activities.”

Yahara was mimicking Junka's voice, and it irritated me, but Junka himself was calmly listening to what he had to say.

Seeing nobody wished to comment, Yahara continued his shameless requests.

“Can I ask everyone in the going-home-club to stand?”

Miyako-sensei seemed to think Yahara capable enough, and went along with him uncritically.

“All right, let's have everyone uninvolved in club activities stand.”

Miki, Makita, Sagarsan, and Gatou-san all stood up one after the other, slowly, and nervously.

Miyako-sensei looked at them with irritation, clearly having decided Yahara's reasoning was good enough.

“Who did it? Who smoked in here? Step forth.”

“Sensei, please wait,” said Yahara as he raised his hand timidly, “Are there not others in the going home club?”

I sensed approaching danger in his satisfied appearance like the sound of distant thunder. This guy, he couldn't be…

Miyako-sensei tilted her head.

“What are you on about? This' it.”

“Are there not those who are basically in the going home club, though? Like, say, in a strange association.”

“Say it clearly. You've had someone in mind for a while, so who is it?”

Yahara flashed his teeth at Junka.

“That's clear. I'm talking about the three in the detective association.”

I rose, and livid, shouted, “You bastard, are you trying to say we did it!?”

Yahara leaned back, at ease. He put up a front.

“My my, Suzaku, could you be trying to hide something?”

“What was that!?”

Miyako-sensei stepped in with, “Calm down, Suzaku, nobody's claiming you're the culprit. Being angry isn't going to help you.”

“Sensei…”

“I'd like to ask too. Is the detective association generally like just going home?”

It struck close to home since we pretty much had nothing to do if we weren't in the middle of an investigation. I wasn't going to lie, and it'd be pretty obvious anyway.

So I reluctantly stated, “Yeah, it gets like that sometimes.”

A fair hand shot up, Nao's hand.

“Sensei, may I?”

“What is it, Iida?”

I could tell from the inflection of her words that Nao was wound up like a spring.

“I can understand what Yaharkun is saying. It is true that we do not undergo activities when there is no investigation for us to work on, but that does not mean we merely waste time. Rather than coming to school early, we'd sleep. I would, Kiriki-kun would, and so would Suzaku-kun.”

“I don't know, how can you be sure?”

Yahara was persistent. Miyako-sensei didn't seem too suspicious, though.

“Well, just stand up for now, then.”

In the end, we reluctantly stood up along with the unaffiliated, we numbered seven in total.

“Okay, so I'll ask once more. Who was smoking in here?”

Nobody responded.

I figured that Miyako-sensei was a little too carried away. Naturally, anybody would be irritated by someone smoking next to her desk, but hanging people out to dry and interrogating them seemed a bit too much. If she kept it up, she might hurt her relationship with her students. There was no reason for her not to know that, but perhaps she was still young.

Translator's Note:

Back when I was translating flamering, if I ever didn't understand something, I could usually just look it up in Japanese to get an explanation, but for some reason, whenever that happens with Junka, all I get is porn. Well, the ratio of normal-adult content is about 5:1, but it's still way, way more than what I've gotten used to in English in recent years. To avoid this, I'll rely more on my Japanese friends, though it will be a bit slower. Also, it's partly because I refuse to use google if I don't have to, and the filter in duck-duck-go is unreliable in both directions. That is: sometimes it misses stuff, and at the same time, it blocks useful stuff that isn't a problem.

Editor's Note:

I tend to use silence from an editor as an excuse to not do stuff related to the site. That's no good, obviously, I need to take responsibility for this stuff a little more.

Chapter end