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whentranslatorscry · 5 months

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Chapter 4 Kakushidate Yakusuke Listening (1/3)

Think of the children: this exalted pretext seems to pass easily, and I think the truth of it lies somewhere around what Kyouko-san said. One could argue a decent point of view whenever they want to go against the grain, and those feelings might just be jealousy towards the pure and unblemished innocence from adults who have experienced failure. It is not to be denied, neither is it to be affirmed.

When it comes to the right to freedom of expression, things get even more complicated. It is easy for parents to say, “If you read manga too much, your grades will go down,” which is a typical example of an opinion that does not reflect reality.

Of course, reading manga all day long will not help your grades, but not because manga is bad. You can’t read manga and expect to get good grades. You have to make a commitment to study instead of reading manga.

Games and sports are the same, in that, fundamentally, anything that is not studying is a distraction from studying.

On the other hand, if you study too much, you will have no time to play. Thinking only of your grades means that you will lose your communication skills, to say nothing of the other problems you will encounter, you may even end up committing crimes.

As you must study if you are to read well, so you must read manga if you are to become a manga artist.

I’m not saying this to be mean, but the creator of the problematic manga "Cicerone," Fumoto-sensei, was a totally different person than I thought. I had heard that he was so depressed by this incident that he wanted to give up his pen, so I imagined him to be a delicate, sensitive, maybe even neurotic man. But in the Sakusousha meeting room, I saw him as a hundred times more capable and reliable than me, and he was well built too.

At first glance, he looked nothing less than hearty.

Having met Satoi-sensei before, I had the preconception that manga artists, being freelancers, didn’t care about their dress, but perhaps because he was meeting strangers Kyouko-san and me, Fumoto-sensei was dressed smart yet casual; his rich beard seemed not so much grown out as neatly groomed.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Fumoto Shun, manga artist.”

The way he spoke, the tone of his voice, he really did come across as a very tough guy. But if you judge people by appearance then I, being over 190 centimeters in height, should give you the creeps.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Okitegami Kyouko, forgetful detective."

Kyouko-san, unlike me, showed no sign of fear as she handed out her business card with a coquettish smile and bowed her white-haired head respectfully. She then turned to Kondou-san standing next to Fumoto-sensei and introduced herself in an identical manner.

"Pleased to meet you. I’m Okitegami Kyouko, forgetful detective. I appreciate your faith in me. I’ll do my utmost best.”

On a first formality she scored a hundred percent, aside from the fact that it was their fourth meeting. Naturally, Kondou-san was not surprised at all and he returned a flawless greeting.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Kondou Bunbou, editor-in-chief. Please make yourself at home.”

And everyone sat around the long table in the center of the meeting room.

As a guide or as an intermediary, if you think about it, my job was over when I brought the two together, so I did not need to attend this meeting. To make matters worse, as a stranger I ought to have known better than to miss my chance to leave at this point.

This is a rather sticky problem, not to say a matter of internal office politics, so looking at things from Fumoto-san’s place, he might have liked this giant man who came from nowhere to leave the room… I felt a bit guilty about it. Though with my critical fractures I was obviously involved in this incident. I couldn’t really call myself an outsider now.

Another way of looking at it is me being an indirect victim of Fumoto-sensei’s manga—which was all the more reason to tread carefully so as to not touch on any sore subjects.

As for Kondou-san, he probably just wanted Fumoto to retract his resignation—hope that my presence here won’t create unnecessary pressure on him—though it’s possible his thinking was the exact opposite and the reason he allowed me to attend is precisely to pressure Fumoto.

He’s that strategic of a man.

Otherwise, he could not have climbed to the position of chief editor so young.

It is naturally possible that he simply enjoyed the idea of coming to work with Kyouko-san… While I was thinking over it, Torimura-san, Kondou-san’s subordinate and Fumoto-sensei’s editor, came in with tea. She put a teacup in front of everyone, and when she took her seat, Kyouko-san immediately got down to business.

“Now, with regard to Kondou-san’s commission, I would like to explain what I consider to be the malaise you feel.”

The fastest detective, as good as her word.

Still, as I had been thinking about this matter since the morning, I felt that it was about time that it was made public. But, just as I held my breath ready for the detective to reveal the answer,

“Hold on, please,”

Fumoto intercepted her—an unthinkable act in mystery novels, breaking off the detective’s speech. But he particularly probably couldn’t stand being left out of the conversation as it moved on without him.

"I don’t know what Kondou-san told you, but I… I think we're good already," he said.

“Mm? You're good already?”

Kyouko-san counter-questioned, seeming to not take offense despite her mystery-solving being cut short—a bit as though playing dumb.

She might have her considerations… like trying to avoid possible complications with him.

"It's just... It might sound like I'm throwing in the towel, but since I'm retiring anyway, there's no need for a detective to work on it," he wanted to say.

"Fumoto-sensei, this matter still…”

Kondou-san was about to offer some consolidation when Fumoto-sensei,

“I understand how unfair this is to you, Kondou-san and Torimura-san, but I think I have to take responsibility. A reader of my manga tried to commit suicide—I can’t be at peace with that. I can't just keep drawing manga as if nothing happened."

"......"

He poured out his words like a machine gun. This was not a momentary lapse of emotion, I felt a strong determination. It was something that someone like me, who lacked resolve most, naturally has no right to speak of, let alone anything to say.

But why though?

His talk of bearing responsibility even came off somewhat irresponsible, and there was a sense of relief in his voice about not being able to continue drawing manga, though it was a bitter decision to make.

"I came here today to give a face to the editorial department that looked after me… Please understand, I have come to a point with manga…”

“Fumoto-sensei!”

This time Kyouko-san interrupted him, the conversation now a battle for dominance.

Her cry had startled him, and he turned to face her.

“I had the chance to read the latest issue of ‘Very Well,’ and it was absolutely wonderful!”

She said it with a smile of pity.

“The theme running through the whole work is really wonderful. The challenge was to depict despair and the future through the medium of teenage comics, and I think it was successful. The content is, of course, excellent, but what impressed me more was the attitude of the author. Though it is written for children, it is a fiction that adults can enjoy.”

“It, it’s really… thank you.”

He seemed to be taken aback when he was suddenly praised for his work. He bowed his head in bashful acknowledgement.

Looks like the preview reading paid off…

I’m not sure if I can take Kyouko-san’s sentiments at face value—it was the same with Satoi-sensei, Kyouko-san is ultimately a detective in the service industry, so it goes with the territory that she more or less possesses the worldly wisdom of having to pay a compliment or two in public.

Without accumulating memories, she’s surprisingly worldly-wise. However, there is no point in pulling a rambling lie here, right. So her feelings about the work should really be positive.

As it turned out, because I ran to the site to search for evidence first, by the time I arrived at the publishing company, it was already very close to the time we had agreed to meet, so I didn’t have a chance to look through Fumoto-sensei’s works at all, and I was just sitting there.

But it seems Kondou-san’s assessment of Fumoto-sensei—very talented, with a bright future ahead of him—was far from exaggerated.

It is for this reason that Kondou-sensei was pulling out all the stops—even hiring a detective—hoping for Fumoto to rescind his retirement, too.

“I’ll be very sorry if I don’t see a follow-up to the manga, and the children will be disappointed, and some devastated reader will surely go jump off a building again!”

Kyouko-san said those shocking words in the same calm tone she used for her praise, and the strong malice implied in the word “children” hit me like a bolt from the blue. But it was Fumoto-sensei who was most shocked.

“How do you propose to take responsibility for that?”

"T-That is..."

The question, thrown out as if nothing had happened, was full of malice, forcing Fumoto-sensei to cast a plea for help at Kondou-san.

He seemed to want to say, "What's with this person?"

The answer was just two words: forgetful detective. A person who could get on anyone’s nerves because she forgets by the next day.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing,” Kondou-san said with a bitter smile.

As he had entrusted Kyouko-san not for the first time, this kind of conflict was probably within his expectations, and he perhaps enjoyed this sort of bohemian atmosphere even more.

So this man was more tolerant than he seemed.

“It’s just that readers really won’t accept your resignation without a word! Personally I still hope that you will consider your influence.”

“I am considering my influence…”

Fumoto rallied his spirit to respond.

“I hope you’ll forgive my candor, but I never thought about it when drawing. I should have considered it earlier. It’s my fault for not considering it. I love manga, I’ve read them since I was a kid, and that’s what made me want to become a mangaka, but I really should have been more aware of the impact they have on readers. It was careless of me not to consider.”

He said it so solemnly that I could hardly argue with him. In fact, this was an unavoidable aspect of art.

“Even in baseball there’s risk of getting hit on the head by a pitch,”

Said Kyouko-san from the sidelines.

This time, completely ignoring Fumoto’s promise of reflection.

“Say you believe that 'a sound body produces a sound soul’ and take judo lessons. You may die in an accident during judo practice, or you may be late for class and get run over on your way home from tutoring. The risk of being run over is higher at night. Wherever they are, children are at risk of dying. Manga is not the only thing that has a dangerous impact.”

“…You want me to brush this off, like it’s nothing? A child of twelve jumped off a building because of my work—and you want me to act as if nothing ever happened?”

Positively enraged, Fumoto-sensei leaned aggressively across the long table, posing this question to Kyouko-san. I would have been crushed by this pressure, but it was no wonder that she was still keeping her serene face.

“Since I am not a creator, I cannot provide an apt solution to your problem. But if I were in your shoes, I would never have done nothing,”

She replied solemnly.

“I would bear this in mind and then apply the experience to my future works.”

“……”

Fumoto-sensei remained silent and still, slowly retracting himself back to his original position, stunned. Kondou-san also appeared shocked by her response, his eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. Her statement was too bold, and even I as an outsider found it hard to agree with. Nonetheless, how much she really meant what she said was unknown.

It felt as if she deliberately introduced an extreme argument to swiftly terminate the debate. At any rate, the forgetful detective was able to keep the situation under control with this.

“So, Fumoto-sensei, don’t say you don’t want to pursue this any further. Please listen to what I have to say, listen well and try to comprehend it thoroughly. Now, Kondou-san.” She turned towards him.

"Please show me the contents of the suicide note that the girl left behind.”

This is suicide in the name of suicide

Dying for the one I so dearly loved

To fly off is to become an angel.

Please, do not grieve for me

And bless my completion.

Defer this death of mine

To my Cicerone

Fumoto Shun.

The police only allowed Kondou-san to see a photocopy of the will, and forbade him to make any further copies or take any photographs, so the above text was written from Kondou-san’s memory, and so it could not reproduce the original handwriting of the middle school girl—however, the memory of Kondou-san, not being a forgetful detective but a capable editor, can be considered reliable.

Incidentally, the handwriting of the suicide note was judged to be poor in an unbiased assessment, and the illustration said to have been attached at the end quite rough.

Well, to say that a girl's handwriting is beautiful just because she is a girl would be prejudiced—bad handwriting in children is just normal.

More problematic was the unambiguous mention of “Cicerone” and “Fumoto Shun”: there seemed to be no hope of different interpretation that could be read into it.

“The lines are practically quoted from the manga, she just copied the initial five lines verbatim,”

Said Kyouko-san mysteriously with a nod.

“Honestly, I can’t imagine what kind of character the middle school girl is just by reading this. There’s no individuality coming through.”

Perhaps thinking it inappropriate to mention the name of the jumper girl in front of Fumoto, Kyouko-san refrained as she shared her impressions. But her blatant omission of the name kind of further erased the girl’s individuality.

“That’s not important at all… What’s important is that a student imitated my manga and wanted to become an angel."

Fumoto-sensei said in self-depreciation.

He probably still hadn’t recovered from the bombshell Kyouko-san had dropped—his voice, though faint, still held his point.

"To become… an angel…?”

“Yes, Miss Detective, everything you said makes perfect sense. As an artist, if I—but I’m not that great a person. I became a manga artist simply because I can draw and like manga—please don’t expect so much of me. I have no such noble ambition in my heart.”

I just do what I want to do, without too much thought behind it—Fumoto-sensei went on, and he was completely indifferent to the meaningful nod from the girl in front of him.

It seemed that he was addressing not only Kyouko-san, but Kondou-san and Torimura-san as well.

“You know as well as I do that sometimes the state gets carried away and tries to intervene for censorship purposes, but there are those big names who stand up and speak out for the sake of freedom of speech, aren’t there? Comics are on a plateau, manga culture is declining… things like that. But I don’t think every mangaka has such high ideals. I only became a manga artist because I like reading and drawing manga. I don’t have the perseverance to keep drawing when people hate me and insult me. I don’t think I’m doing anything as grand as promoting culture. If I'm doing it because it's interesting, I should stop when it's no longer interesting. ...Honestly, I don't think regulation is all that bad. It's not as if the manga from the past, when expression was more free, are necessarily more interesting than today's manga. Isn't that just like what the old folks say, that the past was better?"

Hard to argue with that, coming from the mangaka himself. Personally, I felt that Fumoto-sensei was the one who was now in a plateau—even so, my objection was too superficial.

Censorship is not the devil.

That much is certain.

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whentranslatorscry · 5 months

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Chapter 3: Kakushidate Yakusuke Guiding (3/3)

As the face of Kyouko-san was still graced with a smile, I hastily turned away. My actions, however, were marred by my clumsiness and my frantic pace, resulting in a second's delay in my turn.

And so—I ended up seeing.

It wasn't underwear that I saw.

Instead, on the inner side of Kyouko-san's right thigh, perched on the railing—precisely where my cast was put on—there was a line of text written in pen, flashing fleetingly before my eyes.

In her own handwriting, it read:

"If it wasn't suicide?"

Being the forgetful detective who almost obsessively avoids leaving records or traces, the one and only exception to Kyouko-san's memorandum was her own body, which she used like a notebook.

On it she wrote the most basic, unforgettable facts in order to maintain consistency in her memories. Otherwise, if she accidentally dozes off on a train, the moment she wakes up she'll be struck with a panic, not knowing who or where she is.

Therefore, today, somewhere on her body—possibly the abdomen or arm—should also be written:

"I'm Okitegami Kyouko. Detective. Memory resets every day."

This line tells her who she is.

You could think of it as a means of defense against the villains who try to put her to sleep so that she forgets the content of the investigation. So, in addition to her basic information, she would sometimes jot down clues related to the case on herself.

This time, there should be no forces trying to put Kyouko-san to sleep, but perhaps because she was so tired from supporting me, she felt both fatigued and anxious that she might lose her memory during the investigation… out of prudence, she would keep a record of the current situation in the case.

Maybe it was when we split up to take action. Like, she had borrowed a pen from someone she met while climbing the stairs. She's a detective in the fast lane—she can move from one clue to another with the speed of light.

I was worried she might have dozed off and forgotten everything we reviewed en route, but it turns out she had already taken preventative measures, how reliable she is, I can only admire her remarkableness once again. To my regret, I could not make any sense of this line, "If it wasn't suicide?"

It was too fragmentary. Nonsense.

Naturally, it had to be in this case. The casebook is self-evident, and recording what is entrusted to her in concrete terms was a big taboo for the forgetful detective. While a password was not necessary, a mnemonic must be kept to a level of key words that will trigger inspiration.

After all, I am not Kyouko-san, hence I can't read the meaning of it.

But the fact she had written that—even if I didn't understand, I could guess.

This lime must be referring to the jumper middle school girl, Sakasezaka-chan—if it wasn't suicide, then what?

If it wasn't suicide? Then an accident… no, that's not it.

She had her shoes lined up and she'd written a will.

It is absurd to think of it as an accident.

At this time, the possibility that she directed and acted out the suicide herself but failed—not an accident, but suicide in the broad sense—should also be considered. In that case, what really happened?

Was Kyouko-san thinking... perhaps, that this was a case of third-party murder?

A murder case. But the girl's shoes were neatly placed on the rooftop, and the suicide note was also written in her own hand...I turned my back on Kyouko-san and tried to clear my head and get my bearings.

No, lining up the shoes neatly could have been done by someone else. But a handwritten will?

I didn't know what it said, but if it was in the girl's own handwriting… Hmm, wait, if she was made to write it, for example, by force or by some tricky tricks... Since she's a child, she couldn't have done anything else.

In that case, the story of how she was personally moved by Fumoto-sensei's manga to jump would be a cover-up.

That's too perfect—it looks fake.

That's what Kondou-san had said.

Was this his "off" feeling?

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

While I was still caught in the whirlpool of thoughts, Kyouko-san had already safely climbed over the handrail and pressed her body against my back from behind—it seemed she meant to support me again.

"Please continue leading the way."

"O-okay..."

I couldn't ask.

For the record, I was curious about the "if it wasn't suicide?" line. I also considered asking her whether she had any leads on potential suspects, should it turn out to be a murder case. But such questions remained lodged in my throat––to voice them would be tantamount to admitting that I had caught a glimpse up her skirt.

It wasn't just giving myself away, but a whole confession wrapped up in a single insinuation.

So unless Kyouko-san chose to explain of her own initiative, the intention behind that note was beyond my reach.

However—the one thing I could confirm was.

Compared to me, the fastest detective's thoughts had already gone far, far away.

Walking side by side with a gap between the two of us, too great to overcome.

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Chapter 3: Kakushidate Yakusuke Guiding (2/3)

The seven-story mixed-use building whose rooftop the middle school girl jumped from was actually the same one where I worked, at a secondhand bookstore named Truth Hall on the first floor.

It was a very traditional shop specializing in mystery novels. The store, roughly thirteen square meters in size, was crammed full of used books, managed single-handedly by the owner—an epitome of a personal-run bookstore. I had a short spell working here.

It was just as I had gotten off work and left the bookstore to go home that the middle school girl fell on me.

Every time I found a job, I would be embroiled in workplace disputes and accused without cause. I needed detectives to clear my name, but always ended up unable to stay, even getting fired—this inexplicable vicious cycle kept recurring, leaving me with virtually no freedom to choose my career. Truth Hall was a job I chose very proactively and positively.

Kondou-san might call it "having a foot in two boats", but to me, the key was the store's specialty in trading mystery novels. As a memorandum, I, who have been recording my experiences of incredible and baffling scandals, am eager to enhance my understanding of mystery and detective stories. I wanted to read not only bestsellers making the rounds but also more niche novels that are hard to find these days.

In other words, I was looking for a job that would balance my interests with a good work-life balance, but what was surprising was that this pipe dream actually came true on paper. Booksellers, like other people in the book trade, have to do physical labor (books are heavy), so when applying for this job, my large frame might have played to my advantage—since I could reach the top shelves close to the ceiling without a ladder, I must have been a godsend for the boss.

This was closer to reality than saying it was my passion that had moved him—but if really true, with my hand and foot broken, I would be of no use in this shop.

Of course, once an employment contract is established, as long as I stubbornly cling on, regardless of my broken bones or the media casting suspicious glances at me, my boss cannot fire me. But I don't plan on doing that—I don't want to cause trouble for the workplace I've finally entered.

Just nearly dying at the store's entrance caused enough trouble. Even with all eyes suspecting me, the boss never accepted press interviews. I wished to respond to his attitude with sincerity.

Hence, when we arrived at the mixed-use high-rise three stops away from the hospital, Kyouko-san and I agreed to split up.

She went up to the rooftop first and I headed to the secondhand bookstore: Truth Hall.

"Can you walk on your own?" Kyouko-san expressed concern for me. I had thought it inappropriate to ask her assistance to announce my resignation—even if the keyword "specializing in the trade of mystery novels" had aroused her curiosity.

"Then let us meet on the rooftop."

Kyouko-san entered the elevatorless old building. Getting to the rooftop requires some stamina. If she had the energy to support my body all the way, walking up seven flights of stairs should be a piece of cake.

I made it sound grand, but part of me just wanted to get this nuisance over with. I went around to the other side of the building alone and headed to Truth Hall.

At first I thought the owner might not open due to the recent happening, but business seemed to be as usual. If it had been the day of the incident, police might have cordoned off the sidewalk at the scene, but this being a bustling main road, it couldn't be closed for long.

Well, if that's the case, then Kyouko-sam should be able to move freely to the rooftop without any hindrance.

I pushed open the manual sliding door of Truth Hall and stepped in.

It seemed business was as usual, and the owner, as he did when I was working here, was standing behind the cash register at the counter with the same stern face, flipping through what looked like used books for sale.

I got on with the resignation quietly. Even though I wasn't at fault, I did cause trouble for the store in practice. I was prepared to receive his complaints, but those expectations were betrayed.

On the other hand, I had faint hopes—that he might ask me to stay—but this hope too was dashed.

No wonder, I hadn't been at it for long—I mentioned that I would bring back the apron and umbrella another day, but the boss said to consider them parting gifts. Wasn't it too casual as severance pay? Well, at least for mementos.

Leaving a word that I will come again as a customer next time, I didn't stay longer and my broken foot walked me out of the store.

While the shop's name was, according to the boss, not smeared, the turnover had once increased as a result of the report, which made me feel a little better. Who knows, this might be just a kind lie from the hard-to-please boss—or should I say a lame lie.

"I'm glad that something like that happened to us. Because we're a mystery bookstore, you see…"

So that could be thought too.

Not to sound imprudent, I had to admire their unyielding entrepreneurial spirit—from the bottom of my heart, I hope that going forward, Truth Hall will continue to guard the bastion of culture known as mystery literature.

In conclusion, as I, now once more having effortlessly slipped back into the realm of the unemployed, lugging my broken right leg up several flights of stairs reached the rooftop. I was aghast to see Kyouko-san straddling a railing, for her skirt was hitched up as she clambered over the handrail. There couldn’t be any behavior more ill-bred than this.

Dangerous!

"K-Kyou—!"

I tried to call out unconsciously, but I choked. If my shout startled her there she might really tumble off. Even though the one genuinely petrified was I.

How I wished to dash over without a second thought, harness all my strength, and unceremoniously hoist up Kyouko-san from behind and drag her back to safety. But with a broken leg, I couldn’t dart over, and with a broken hand, I couldn’t hold her.

My recent unemployment only heightened my sense of powerlessness—By the time these thoughts had run their course, Kyouko-san had crossed the railing, turning to face me.

"Oh, Yakusuke-san, you're quite the trooper."

She flicked me a casual greeting.

I didn't need her greeting; I needed an explanation.

"Have your affairs been settled? Did you quit smoothly?"

"Uh huh, it went fine, very smoothly...”

What a weird exchange.

I mean, who has ever heard of quitting not going smoothly?...Yeah I guess you could.

A job isn't something you can just quit at your heart's desire, as I knew all too well first hand.

All things considered quitting was a success this time.

Though battered and bruised, at least I hadn't had any disputes with the boss.

Having explained this, I found myself still trembling, like a detective trying to coax a potential jumper off the ledge.

"So Kyouko-san, what might you be up to this time?"

Kyouko-san stood nonchalantly on the other side of the railing, her footing no wider than the size of her own foot. A slight loss of balance, a gust of wind, and she could crash down.

In doing so, she might be seen as chasing the middle school girl to her death. I, who happened to be present on the scene, might indeed get slapped with suspicion serious enough to warrant the deployment of an investigative unit this time.

Right when my mind was brimming with a foreboding sense of being potentially framed for a great detective's murder, Kyouko-san—oblivious to my concerns—made a tangent.

"Chase, hmm... you could call it being influenced by the narrative nature of it."

It didn't seem that irrelevant actually?

"Whether it's for a reason or not, it appears humans inherently desire an end."

"An end…?"

"Should I call it a suicide wish? No matter adult or child, isn't there a present desire to 'die'?"

"......"

I couldn't bring myself to agree with her, though psychology does indeed recognize the term 'death instinct,' which refers to a self-destructive impulse—essentially, a desire to die.

Pessimistic.

Humans are fragile, not knowing for what reason they may lose their lives—this impulse may sometimes become uncontrollable and manifest.

If that were the case, for murderers who claim that their motive for committing grave crimes was to be sentenced to death, the impulse lurking in their hearts may not be dismissible with just a “for no reason”—because it is also one of the “common occurrences” that are annoyingly frequent.

Only calming down and looking closely, I found that Kyouko-san just stepped over the railing, and had not taken off her boots—this alone made it very clear that she (albeit presumptuously) did not mean to follow the middle school girl who had arranged her shoes before jumping.

In other words, this risky act was just part of the detective work—not to follow suit, but to recreate the scene. By actually standing in the same place the middle school girl did, she might discover something, which was Kyouko-san's usual "try it to know it."

Be that as it may, it still looked very dangerous—although I breathed a sigh of relief, in order not to startle Kyouko-san, I slowly approached her with my naturally slowed gait due to a broken leg.

"Any new discoveries while I was gone?"

I asked vaguely, and Kyouko-san, hand propped against her cheek, hummed thoughtfully, a contemplative expression on her face. This gesture was very cute, but I wished she'd keep both hands on the railing.

"Nothing that could be called a discovery at this stage... If I had to force it, there's just one thing I figured out—that Sakasezaka Masaka-chan really wished to die."

"...What do you mean?"

Perhaps because we were alone on the rooftop, Kyouko-san mentioned the girl's name directly—adding 'chan' to it made the situation feel even more stark. It was a vivid reminder that this was real life, not a novel or a TV drama.

Sakasezaka Masaka.

Twelve years old.

This name contained a certain individuality that could not be summed up in a phrase such as "middle school girl."

"It's really something, standing here. You can feel just how tall seven-stories really is. Tumbling from this height, head over heels, would surely end in death."

Anyone could feel that without having to stand here, I thought...

"So, we can probably rule out the possibility that this was a staged performance to vent suicidal tendencies. This could be an essential clue."

"I see."

Not knowing what's so important, I'll nod along for now—asking the wrong thing could cause Kyouko-san to lose her footing. This was not the time to debate.

But with this, I really felt like a detective trying to stop a jumper

"You say falling means certain death, but Kyouko-san, Sakasezaka-chan survived, didn't she?"

"Only because you just happened to be passing under where she fell."

"Could there be a possibility that she staged it from the beginning, meaning to use someone to cushion the fall...?"

"No way! Even softer than asphalt, the human body is not a trampoline. Even if there was someone to cushion the fall, the chance of death is still high. In fact, Sakasezaka-chan is still in a critical condition, hardly what you'd call 'saved'."

I read too many detective stories and got into the habit of selling the plot. Well, it was a real miracle that I and she were saved.

To think of it, if I had been even shorter, I might not have had a chance to work at the bookstore, Truth Hall. If that was the case, I would not have met with such an accident on my way back.

So, everything may be more coincidental than a miracle.

Coincidence, but no conclusion.

"Indeed, we can't completely rule out the possibility that she waited for a tall, seemingly sturdy passerby before jumping—but from here, you can only see the top of people's heads."

Kyouko-san turned around 180 degrees on the narrow space at her feet, and looked down the road again.

"At the height of the seven-story building, it is impossible to see the height of the pedestrians—You are tall enough, but you're skinny."

For a meat cushion, you wouldn't be the best choice—Kyouko-san grasped the handrail with her left hand and tried to push her body out further from the building.

I'm glad you've finally grasped the handrail, but you're not doing gymnastics, so please don't lean your body forward at such a steep angle.

"I'd pick someone meatier if it were me! There's a high chance of failure still, that both of you will die anyway."

"Oh."

...I just threw out a hypothesis to start the conversation. A real scary thought. But this is what detective work is all about, looking at everything from every angle.

"With a meat cushion, twelve-year-old Sakasezaka Masaka might not have given a second thought to anything. Maybe she didn't even think about what would happen to the cushion when she crashed down like that."

This is so stupid that there is no need to discuss it at all.

But we can't rule it out, to say the least.

This is a common mistake of readers of detective stories, who assume that real-life events and real people do not plan or plot when they commit crimes.

Most of the incidents I have experienced are of no value whatsoever as literature; they are merely the result of a momentary lapse of attention.

From the sound of Kyouko-san's voice, it seems that she is not giving much thought to this possibility.

To be on the safe side, I'll say it.

Why not?

I'm the one who said that there is no possibility of it being staged. But at this point, I can't think of anything that would rule out the possibility. On the contrary, I think it is quite persuasive, and cannot even be sure that it is not true, that a child who read a comic book that glorified suicide and was influenced by it tried to play a "suicide game" and failed, and that the child's antics pulled a pedestrian (me) along.

"No, you see, there are a lot of low-rise six-story and five-story buildings in the neighborhood. If all you want is to play a game, you should jump off those buildings."

Is that how it is?

Of course, not all rooftops are open to the public, but if you want to stage suicide, it's human nature to jump from a lower floor—another strong clue that this may not have been self-staged.

If this view was only accessible by crossing the handrail, then Kyouko-san's on site investigation today indeed had its worth. Ideally I would prefer her to wait until I joined her before crossing the railing. Though for a detective who places the highest value on speed, the concept of "waiting" may not even exist...

"Well. It's time we head to the publishing company."

Kyouko-san, abandoning her precarious 45-degree angle pose, prepared to cross the railing, meaning to rejoin me. It was really nice of her to retreat when she could have been in big trouble if she had been caught hanging around on the roof of the building. But her movements while crossing the railing were so unsteady it made my heart skip a beat.

Reaching out to her was in danger of pushing her, so I had to content myself with watching. It was not at all a motion suitable while wearing a skirt—and she halted mid-step.

"Yakusuke-san, turn around please." She adjusted her disheveled long skirt back into place.

"I, I'm sorry."

"No, thank you."

I couldn't just stand and stare.

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Chapter 3: Kakushidate Yakusuke Guiding

If you mean to save time thoroughly, the most appropriate mode of transportation when moving should be taxi.

However, forgetful detective Kyouko-san prefers not to take taxis while on the job—There are voice and video recorders in the car.

Since her principle of action is to strictly observe the duty of confidentiality and to forget everything cleanly by the next day, avoiding having every detail of her movements at work recorded is reasonable. But avoiding even vehicle recorders seems a bit paranoid. Still, being a detective who has 'forgetfulness' as her selling point and rarely takes notes, perhaps such concerns are just part and parcel of the job.

Though I so wished she'd give a little thought to asking a fracture patient to lead the way, we opted to take the tram to the scene.

As I mentioned before, the doctor actually gave me permission to leave the hospital as soon as I was able to. The troublesome part was, there was no crutch that suited my height—there was one, but it was an old model, and with my right hand also broken, it was tough to handle.

It wasn't totally unusable though. I had resigned myself to struggle with it when Kyouko-san, observing my difficulty getting out of bed, came to stand on my right-hand side.

"Please. If you think I’m a heartless detective, you are mistaken,"

She was apparently offering to substitute herself for my crutch.

“Whoooaoaoa…!"

"Don’t be shy to put all your weight on me. I may not look it, but I'm pretty strong."

Walking did feel considerably easier this way, but how could I let Kyouko-san do this much for me… I tried to politely decline at first, and when I realized she was supporting my weight while sneakily touching the plaster on my leg and hand, gave up on that idea.

I even had the suspicion her insistence on taking the train was just an excuse to freely touch my plastered limbs, but this wasn't the time to question it.

Actually, I didn't really want to know.

"Now then, please lead the way."

"Okay... it's just three stops by train from here to the scene, but we'll have to walk straight there to the station like this."

"I couldn't ask for more."

I couldn't ask for more…

As such, the two of us were leaning on each other as we walked, our bodies pressed close together and quite conspicuous on the street. I felt very shy about it, but Kyouko-san did not seem to mind at all.

Wasn't this a bit careless of her... Most people seeing me with a plaster cast would probably just think Kyouko-san was thoughtfully taking good care of me. Oh well, at least they wouldn't see through this woman's obsession with broken bones—that was good enough.

"Speaking of guiding, the suicidal middle school girl referenced in her will a short manga by Fumoto-sensei. The title is just that."

"Oh? Is that so?"

True to Kyouko-san's words, we walked and talked.

Being so close to her—practically close enough to feel her breath, made my heart race and my cheeks flush. I had no confidence in my ability to converse.

If memory serves me, the title of Fumoto-sensei's short manga should not be this.

Though her memory as the forgetful detective was flawless to a fault, for the span of one day until it resets. It was a correctness that mortals like me could not compare to.

If this was her 'preview' result, then she must not be mistaken… And her return to calling the suicidal girl 'middle school girl' was most likely due to us having left the hospital ward and moved to a more exposed location.

We can't be too careful about where and by whom we might be overheard, with endless media outlets trailing after me, the person of interest in this case. Even without the paparazzi, my reputation for getting involved in incidents was rumored to have caught the attention of public security.

…If the rumors were to be true, I wonder what they would think of me, walking out of the hospital ward hand-in-hand with a woman with all white hair.

"But I remember, Kondou-san told me it was called Cicerone or something like that..."

"That's not wrong either. 'Cicerone' is Italian for 'person who guides'—in the work it refers to the guide on the journey of death."

So that's what it meant. I didn't know what it meant before—I thought maybe it was a word the author invented—but the title was indeed very specific.

Kondou-san said that manga had romanticized depictions of suicide—Kyouko-san had already read through it during her "preview," hadn't she?

I asked her.

"Yes, I've read through Fumoto-sensei's works once. There aren't actually that many,"

She replied.

As usual, her reading speed was remarkably fast. According to Kondou-san, Fumoto-sensei's experience should not be short, so I figure the quantity is still not small.

"Hm...any thoughts?"

"What?"

"N-nothing. I mean, since you actually read it...umm, what was it like?"

The ambiguity of the question was due to the fact that I didn't want to commit myself. What I really wanted to ask was about the content of the manga, that is, would it make people want to kill themselves after reading it, but I felt that was too tasteless to ask, so I didn't.

There was actually no need ro say that much to a detective like her. She considered a bit, then went 'Oh' before adding,

"Well, let's wait until the afternoon to talk about Cicerone—it would be unfair for you to form unnecessary preconceptions based on my impressions before you read it."

"O-Okay."

I had no intention of reading it… But as one involved, I may be lacking in integrity if I deny to read it. Maybe I should borrow it from Kondou-san later at the company. My reading speed was nowhere near that of Kyouko-san, but it's short, so it shouldn't even take five minutes.

I was thinking I could put off dealing with this story for the time being, but then Kyouko-san continued.

"For instance, aren't you aware of the promotional blurb for Kyuusaku Yumeno's 'Dogra Mogra' at the time of its release which claimed 'Read and Go Mad'?" (Note: Kyuusaku Yumeno was a mystery novelist in Japan's Shouwa era, and the long mystery novel Dogra Mogra was his representative work)

Was she trying to make small talk? It couldn't be.

In every minute and second that she couldn't afford to waste, she shouldn't have the idle pleasure of idle chatting with people about mystery novels.

I had read it, but I didn't find such a blurb there.

"...Surely there wasn't anyone that actually went mad, right?"

"None that were reported officially."

Her memory could be trusted on this—trivia about a novel as old as Dogra Mogra has to predate her ability to retain knowledge.

"I certainly didn't go mad."

Being in the process of fiddling with the plaster on my body made this claim somewhat dubious... As for me, however minimal my self-awareness, I knew I didn't go mad from reading this book.

"If one reads nothing but masterpieces and let them have no effect on his life, his sensibility has to be abnormal."

Such strong words, perhaps a touch of book-lover sentimentality.

Dogra Mogra was too complicated for me, to be frank, with many parts I couldn't really understand. I might have different thoughts on a second read.

Having walked to the station, we went to buy our tickets. For the same reason she doesn't take taxis, Kyouko-san doesn't use prepaid cards on the job—they leave a record. Even if it takes a little extra time, this small delay could be quickly made up by the fastest detective.

Luckily, as if timed to our arrival, the train pulled into the station. I dearly hoped we wouldn't be late for our appointment with Kondou-san due to our on site investigation.

"Please, have a seat."

Kyouko-san finally released me—free again at last, I felt regretful about that as well, how capricious of me.

I suppose moving around with two broken bones took more energy than I imagined, so being able to sit down was a blessing. Serving as a giant's cane must have been no easy task for her either. I saw her sit beside me and stretch with a long sigh.

"Yawnn..."

Then, her eyes closed.

"Crap, p-please don't sleep!"

I didn't have the heart to say such words to her, given she was only fatigued from supporting my build. But I had to be firm—it would spell disaster if she fell asleep here.

The detective who forgets, whose memories reset every day.

It's a special constitution to be precise, where her memories reset on waking, whether from a nap or a full night's rest.

Now, with the rhythmic rocking of the train, dozing off even for a moment would wipe clean any memory of my request, the information about this case she had previewed—and also the insight she had gained of the malaise that lurked in Kondou-san heart during the course of previewing. All would be utterly forgotten.

This was the worst possible situation for the forgetful detective, yet the most likely danger I had to watch out for.

"It's all right, I got plenty of sleep last night,"

Kyouko-san said and still she stood up from her chair, perhaps worried she might fall asleep sitting.

Speaking of, since she could not remember when she fell asleep, it was also difficult to say whether she really got "plenty of sleep" last night... Whether one feels well rested or not after sleep depends on the individual—some may still feel tired after ten hours of sleep, while others may feel refreshed after just one hour of napping—she may have been working on a commission late into the night yesterday before finishing it.

Not being able to adjust when to sleep and when to wake is the fatal flaw of the forgetful detective. Drowsiness is not something one can control.

"If you want to write a story about rewarding the good and punishing the evil, you'll inevitably have to depict the evil alongside the good. If you want to portray intense good, you must also intensely depict its corresponding evil. It's hard to guarantee that readers won't be influenced by this part."

The topic that was once paused suddenly resurfaced, leaving me momentarily unable to react.

But as long as she kept talking, she wouldn't fall asleep,

"So you think reading so-called 'good literature', like what's on recommended lists, isn't necessarily beneficial?"

So I agreed.

"Exactly. One could even argue that a story utterly devoid of evil might have a negative impact. Imagine a child, raised on a steady diet of sweet love stories and classic novels, believing every boy to be a gallant, handsome prince, both tender and chivalrous—venturing into society with an impression like that, you're bound to be sorely disappointed. The gap between fantasy and reality chews you up and spits you out!"

Hypothetically speaking. Yet her words had a ring of truth to them and it all sounded very real. If this was an episode from Kyouko-san's life before becoming the forgetful detective—when she was a teenager—then I was hearing truly precious tales.

Had she been chewed up and spit out...?

"Such is the challenge of parenting... or rather, education. Children don't always grow up as adults expect."

"I-I guess."

Although she cited good literature as an example, when I was a child I never read the books recommended to me by my parents or or by my teachers. I was more drawn to comics and cartoons that made adults frown. When reading detective novels, I'd often be criticized for indulging in "stories of murder". Looking back on it now, it might have been these stories that cultivated my propensity for false accusations. What baffled me was why adults would reject such fascinating tales.

Everyone has been a child once, why can't they understand a child's mind? This thought had young me scratching my head.

"Well, precisely because everyone was once a child, they tend not to comprehend."

"Huh? What do you mean by that, Kyouko-san?"

"Ah, simply put, when everyone was young and not so disciplined. Calling them 'innocent' is just to sugarcoat it. These are the people who, having experienced foolishness and impulsive periods in their lives, feel the need to censor literature."

"......"

It was too uncouth to say. Her smile was friendly and her tone was cheerful, but in fact she was delivering truly devastating critique... But recalling my own childhood, it's hard to say she was wrong.

Who could say she was wrong?

"Life begins with imitating parents. Perhaps parents don't want their children to stumble in the same places they did. But to deny that sentiment without any explanation, that's kind of preposterous."

"Is, is it?"

That's surprising to hear.

The conversation so far had given me the impression that Kyouko-san opposed the view that fiction should be condemned as evil. But it would seem she did not look at things so one-sidedly.

"Regardless of the content of Fumoto-sensei's works, I believe that literature exists which could potentially sway readers toward suicide—crafty tales that glamourize suicide or tragic love to sway the reader's values,"

She clarified, almost as if to prove my assumptions wrong.

"The cases where authors end up following the bleak path outlined by their own works are spread across the world. For the sake of argument, the influence of literature cannot be ignored. But if you really want to blame the author, you must prove that there is a statistical difference of at least 5% between the number of readers who attempt suicide after reading the work and the number of readers who do not."

The larger the reader's pool, the higher the probability of individuals who may conduct antisocial activities. Say we find a crime novel on a criminal's bookshelf, do we speculate whether the book motivated the crime, or was the book so riveting that even an antisocial individual couldn't resist it?

She seemed more focused on concrete data rather than hypothetical situations.

"It's true, not everyone who reads soccer manga becomes a soccer player..."

"Yes, just like how not everyone who reads a romantic manga can find romance themselves."

She seemed to take issue with the portrayal of love in manga. I wonder what Kyouko-san's own girlhood was like.

"Of course," she continued.

"Nor can everyone who reads mystery novels become a famed detective."

Fair enough.

Even harder than reading mystery novels and becoming a murderer, it seems.

To accommodate Kyouko-san's request, I've suddenly had to make time during my break to go examine the scene, but if I do that it'll become completely for personal reasons. Still, I wanted to take the opportunity to get a troublesome errand out of the way��No, to say I want to 'get it out of the way' is kind of wrong, because that is not my meaning at all. This is not something to be gotten out of the way as an afterthought.

I may not be the fastest detective, but I had to settle the matter as soon as possible, as a matter of priority.

My resignation procedures.

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Chapter 2: Kakushidate Yakusuke Commissioning (2/2)

"Y-yes, that's right."

"What she wrote is very detrimental for my client, so confirming its authenticity, that's what this is about, correct?"

"...Mhm, right."

She's right that she's right, but the way she said it made it sound like Kondou-san and I were conspiring to cover up that will, and I was starting to feel guilty.

Sure she could interpret it like that—why should anyone be looking for some sort of "truth" beyond the handwritten will she left behind? Wanting to find some other truth could easily be seen as shirking responsibility, as shameful behavior.

"Responsibility… hm?"

Kyouko-san smiled meaningfully.

Meaningfully, and shrewdly.

"She may have been moved by manga to attempt suicide, but I do not think the author bears any responsibility."

"Huh?"

"Apologies, just my personal opinion. I'm a detective, I only think in legal terms. If a reader really did commit suicide because of a manga, the charge would probably be incitement to suicide, but there's almost no chance of such a prosecution succeeding."

"......"

Kyouko-san said that this was her "opinion"...but I feel such a firm and steadfast opinion could just as well be called a "viewpoint". At least it's different from my "impressions".

What she said may be salvation for Kondou-san, but for me it's still not that clear-cut.

Legal liability aside, the question of moral responsibility was another matter entirely. Even just the example Kyouko-san cited earlier, of using the law to assign blame, could itself provoke an emotional backlash.

"Ahaha. If you put it that way, the term 'moral responsibility' is quite strange, isn't it— oh, come to think of it, maybe there's already a law like that and I've just forgotten it. Book burnings and censorship is nothing new in history after all."

Regardless, the forgetful detective of today alone clearly isn't equipped to resolve the issue of regulating creative freedom.

Kyouko-san shrugged her shoulders, bringing the derailed conversation back on track.

"All I can resolve is this particular case."

That's of course enough— debating over "laws that restrict creative freedom" or "an atmosphere that suppresses creative freedom" here would be pointless.

Still, on the topic of creative freedom, I expect that by this afternoon, Kyouko-san will be discussing it with the key man, Fumoto...

I do hope she doesn't say anything too sharp— I'm worried enough as it is.

Kyouko-san's appearance being as composed as you see, perhaps owing to her attitude of "I'll forget it tomorrow anyway", she can be completely oblivious to propriety when conversing or debating.

I don't think it would be ideal at all for her to take that approach with Fumoto-sensei who's driven himself into a corner thinking of withdrawing from the world entirely...

To someone self-blaming, saying "You are not to blame at all"— this kind of total denial of their feelings may cause them to shut their heart even more and go "You don't understand me at all".

There's no telling how things will develop.

"I hope you can promise me first that the task I'm about to take on is still an investigation after all, and even if the results are not what Kondou-san hoped for, I will not distort the contents of the report. This one point, please be sure to understand."

"Ah, okay. I can certainly understand that. I don't mean to ask you to fabricate investigation results either."

Some detectives have claimed that making things up is part of the job (known as "fabricating detectives"), but I know well that Kyouko-san was not that kind of detective— moreover, Kondou-san would be the last person to want such despicable conduct.

Regarding how to respond from the standpoint of the editorial department and publishing company, that's another thing. If the cause of a middle school girl's suicide attempt really is related to works previously published by them, he wouldn't evade that fact either—

Just the kind of guy he is.

Therefore— what needed to be faced was the malaise he felt.

Something didn't felt quite right— everything felt too right.

Somehow deliberate…

Recalling Kondou-san's words again, I still don't understand his implication, or perhaps what he wants Kyouko-san to investigate is not just the truth behind the incident, but also to find out through her investigation what exactly is the malaise he senses.

"Aha, I've got it all figured out already."

Out of the blue, Kyouko-san casually said this.

"Really? So you've already figured it out… Wait, what?"

Because she spoke so casually, I almost let her words go in one ear and out the other.

Say what?

"Wha..what do you mean you've got it all figured out?"

"Just what I said, I've got a theory. I figured out what Kondou-san was saying during my previewing. Yes, I agree with him, that the whole thing is full of malaise. It's truly worthy of a professional editor to pick up on that, his sensibilities are rich."

"……"

If such is the case, the sensibilities of professional detectives should also be very rich—it seems that she had already grasped what Kondou-san's malaise was before meeting him in person.

With this previewing, won’t class be dismissed early? The fastest detective has indeed performed her knack to the fullest.

"That kind of discomfort, can it be clearly articulated in words? Not just based on feeling.."

"Because it's a feeling that something is not right, it's a senses problem, but it can still be described quite clearly with words! I believe it can be cogently explained to a certain extent."

To really explain the 'offness' that Kondou-san was unable to articulate so clearly herself—I don't believe it.

"Hmm...how should I put this. I don't exactly know Kondou-san's character very well, but I guess he probably has some idea. As I speculate, it's not that he can't describe it with words, it's more that he's struggling to describe it."

"Is that so...?"

I don't quite understand the subtle difference between "can't describe" and "struggling to describe."...If Kondou-san had already noticed what that malaise was, he wouldn't have entrusted her, right?

...Incidentally, Kyouko-san said she didn't exactly know Kondou-san's character, but they have actually met several times before.

She just forgot.

"Could you please tell me? What exactly is that malaise?"

"If I answered your question now I would be forced to explain the same reasoning twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, so please allow me to clarify in the afternoon."

She firmly refused me with a sweet smile.

It seemed that for a detective who values efficiency, having to waste time presenting the same reasoning twice would be insufferable to the point of being "forcing", as she put it.

Clarify it when meeting Kondou-san and Fumoto-sensei in the afternoon. Certainly a reasonable approach. So what about wasting time playing with my plaster cast...

"Since you have the opportunity, why don't you try reasoning too, Yakusuke-san? Because with just the information at your disposal, you can already establish a certain degree of conjecture."

She said.

"O-okay...I'll try my best."

I didn't think I could get anywhere just by trying my best, but since she'd proposed it, I had no choice but to go along.

"However, as a detective, merely grasping that something feels off is hardly considered getting the job done. Therefore, now that the details of the request have been clarified, it's about time to take action, Yakusuke-san."

"Huh? Take what action..."

"Since I'm a woman of action and not some armchair detective, shall we walk and talk?"

If anyone was an armchair detective, it would be me, crippled as I was.

That being said, I was well aware Kyouko-san was an action type. She was the type who can't sit still, and who knows where she'll run off to if I take my eyes off her.

It was a cruel request to make of a man with a fractured leg, 'Shall we walk and talk?', but I decided not to make a fuss about it. If we were heading to the Sakusousha, wasn't it a bit early?

We were to meet with Kondou-san at one in the afternoon— it wasn't even eleven yet. From the hospital to the publishing company, it wouldn't take more than half an hour, even with delays. Even if we wanted to have lunch on the way, this was too early to start.

If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to stay in that hospital room and clarify some details first, instead of chatting while walking? No matter how much you value speed, there is no point in wasteful rushing around.

Kyouko-san should understand this better than anyone.

"No no, we're not heading directly to the publishing company.I want to do an on site investigation first. That is, the place where you had the fortune... oops, misfortune to break a bone. We're heading to the mixed residential-commercial building where the middle school girl—Sakasaka Masaka-chan—jumped from."

"......!"

Detectives are amazing. She already knew the full name of the middle school girl even though it hadn't been publicly announced. But, I hadn't considered visiting the scene.

Although the attempted suicide of a child, a very severe case indeed. It lacked the "eventfulness" typical of mystery novels, so generally, there was no need for an on-site investigation.

However, Kyouko-san seemed to think otherwise.

I wasn't sure how necessary it was, but she, who wasn't keen on wasting time explaining the same reasoning twice, must have had her reasons for wanting to go.

If she wanted me to guide her, I had no reason to refuse.

"But, Kyouko-san, before we go to the publishing company, um... if we make a detour to where the girl jumped, we'll be pressed for time. Because the direction is just opposite…"

"Oh, that's simple,"

Kyouko-san said, nonchalantly.

"We just have to skip lunch."

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Chapter 1: Kakushidate Yakusuke Being Hospitalized (3/3)

At last, the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Kondou-san's request was to find out what exactly was the malaise he felt. He wanted to know "that feeling" which he himself could not articulate and I also could not sense just by listening to his account.

Of course, if there was nothing, there was no way of knowing what to find out, and even if there was something, Kyouko-san might not necessarily be able to point it out.

After Satoi-sensei's case and then Sunaga-sensei's case, Kondou-san probably overestimates Kyouko-san's abilities more than necessary. She really just happens to be relatively better at strictly abiding by confidentiality agreements; she is not omnipotent.

Well, maybe Kondou-san only meant to smooth things over in his own way of doing things. He seems to be trying to play matchmaker between me and Kyouko-san at every opportunity. But he shouldn't have the leisure to be concerned about our idle affairs, with his circumstances.

"No no, Yakusuke. I know what you're trying to say, but I have my reasons too. It has to be Okitegami-san, no one else. Of course since this isn't something I want brought to light now, it's natural I want it handled in absolute secrecy, but the point I want to emphasize in particular this time is speed, rather than secrecy. And that's why I need Okitegami Kyouko. I mean to rely on Okitegami-san's talent as the fastest detective. As we're far too pressed for time."

"Pressed for time...? What do you mean?"

Yes, in addition to "the forgetful detective" Kyouko-san had another nickname: "the fastest detective." But why the urgent need for speed?

A week had already passed since the incident. I hate to say it, but at this point, no matter how fast we are, it may be too late.

"I'm aware that Fumoto-sensei is going through a tough time, but 'Verywell' is a weekly serial manga after all,"

Said Kondou-san, practical as always.

He said he wouldn't stop an artist that really wants to quit, but as the editor-in-chief of the manga magazine, he seemed reluctant to let the artist he had high hopes for leave the industry just like that.

Just as a detective must keep secrets, he said,

"Manga artists, too, got deadlines to meet."

Chapter 2: Kakushidate Yakusuke Commissioning

"I'm Okitegami Kyouko, the forgetful detective. Nice to meet you."

The next day. As usual, even though it wasn't our first meeting, Kyouko-san appeared again with the same greeting and walked up to the bed in the center of the hospital room.

"Oh."

She stared intently at my right leg—right thigh, specifically, where the fracture was and the cast was put on.

"K-Kyouko-san?"

I asked, baffled and anxious about her fixed gaze and our unexpected proximity.

"Nothing, pardon me,"

Kyouko-san straightened her hitherto hunched back.

"I fancy the idea of a broken bone. So I lose myself while inspecting one."

It was quite something to say in front of someone nursing broken bones. Well, I suppose it made for a suitable icebreaker for our supposed first meeting. Maybe breaking my bones was worth it after all.

Was it, though?

However, it didn't seem to be just a joke to close the first meeting distance. Because Kyouko-san said,

"Let me touch it for a bit!"

Without even waiting for my consent, and she touched the plaster cast on my right arm as if examining a patient, speaking as she did— huh, getting a cast makes you so popular, I felt like I was back in school.

Maybe it was the hospital setting, Kyouko-san— already with white hair— was dressed entirely in white. She wore an embroidered long dress with a coarse striped cotton blouse with long sleeves, and had a thin silk scarf wrapped around her neck—the only black item were her conspicuously dark glasses frames.

"My, how wonderful, how cool."

Why was she so fascinated with a plaster cast... She acted as though scrutinizing a piece of evidence that would crack a case, and I could only let her do as she pleased.

Some people really have incomprehensible hobbies.

I don't believe my plaster cast had anything to do with the case... Well, during the "Unreturned, Unprocessed" incident, it was by picking up the smallest threads of clues left at the scene that Kyouko-san succeeded in grabbing the culprit.

Regarding this middle school girl's attempted suicide case, perhaps from the two plaster casts on my body she really could dig up a truth that would make one's jaw drop— I didn't dare casually ask what she was doing.

Rather than compromise, I asked Kyouko-san this.

"Have you never broken a bone before?"

With no other intention than the literal meaning of the words.

"Never! That's why I'm so fascinated by it!"

She replied, not sparing a glance at me and continuously touching the plaster cast. I couldn't just blithely accept her answer at face value.

Kyouko-san, being a detective who loved to put herself in danger, it was hard to imagine she had never been injured before—even if she thought she had never broken a bone, it was likely just that she had forgotten.

With Kyouko-san wholly absorbed in the plaster on my hand and leg, allow me to explain the defining traits of this forgetful detective. When I first commissioned her she was still a detective known only to those in the know, but lately the forgetful detective's fame has steadily risen; perhaps you have already heard of her.

But with her being the forgetful detective, some may have already forgotten.

Okitegami Kyouko, chief of Okitegami Detective Agency.

Though since it was a one-person company, she was both the chief and the sole employee, handling everything from business to PR to accounting by herself—a detective without a Watson at her side.

Such a lone wolf of a detective was a bit of a rare sight.

I understood even then that she was highly skilled, but the defining trait of Kyouko-san as a detective was not actually her abilities. As can be inferred from her nickname of "forgetful detective," the keyword for her was: forgetful.

Kyouko-san only has today.

Her memories reset every day—sleep the night, wake in the morning, and everything that happened the day before is wiped clean from her mind.

No matter what kind of investigation she participated in or what kind of truths she uncovered—the client's affairs or the murderer's affairs, all information would vanish like smoke, without exception.

All memories erased.

Strictly speaking, for a detective whose job implied prying into others' secrets and exploring the underbelly of society, this was an extremely advantageous trait. From a confidentiality viewpoint, there simply couldn't be a more stalwart assurance from any other detective.

It was indeed because of this quirk that Kyouko-san had also undertaken many commissions that delved into state secrets or international affairs. Even dangerous requests that could threaten her life if exposed, which most detectives would shy away from, she investigates fearlessly.

It's so miraculous it's more of a gift from nature than a quirk. Of course, such an advantage comes with its challenges.

Her memory resets daily— meaning no matter the case, it has to be solved within a day— because the evidence gathered and deductions made would be forgotten in a day.

Be it intricate cases or impossible crimes, she is on the clock.

The Forgetful Detective, while maintaining an absolute seal of secrecy, must also abide by a time limit—otherwise she cannot complete her tasks. Thus was born "the fastest detective."

Being forgetful, she became the fastest— the fastest detective was none other than the forgetful detective.

The famed detective solving any case in a day— to be precise, when taking on a commission, "can it be solved within a day" was her criteria, and only when she was sure that it could be solved would the Okitegami Detective Agency take on investigating the case. In other words, the reason Kyouko-san took on this case—the middle school girl suicide case introduced through me by Kondou-san—despite it being a request that looked to the layman's eyes like it didn't even have a place to begin, was that she was convinced the tangled knot could be undone within the day.

"Ah... This has been most satisfying. Thank you."

Kyouko-san said some incomprehensible words of thanks and finally let me off the hook. Due to my propensity to be wrongly accused, I've had the forgetful detective help me out of trouble several times, but I was beginning to genuinely worry whether I had simply missed opportunities in the past to realize this woman might actually be a dangerous character… So, her decision to spare me left me sighing with relief from the depths of my being.

By the looks of it, (it looked like she'd really had enough fun, so naturally) her frolicking with my plaster cast hadn't been her true purpose for this visit; Kyouko-san finally came to the point.

"As we're pressed for time, we best get down to work. You're Kakushidate Yakusuke, yes? Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Without even knowing who I was, she just felt her way over my broken areas in that very pressed time. Just what was her deal?

Also, just to reiterate, even though the forgetful detective had helped get me out of trouble multiple times, Kyouko-san had, predictably, forgotten all about those past instances. Be it the first or the hundredth time, to her I was always a first-time acquaintance.

Even if we forget her merits as the forgetful detective, the fastest detective, even if she wasn't at the apex of the field, Kyouko-san was still an exceptionally capable detective. But my hesitation to seek her help each time stemmed from my reluctance to endure this blow.

Hence I only sought Kyouko-san's help when I absolutely needed to 'forget' or needed the 'fastest' solution, or like this time, when someone had asked me to introduce them.

...Come to think of it, I hadn't even introduced myself yet, and Kyouko-san said "nice to meet you," so how did she know who I was? I did give my name when I called this morning to request her services, but she shouldn't know that the person on the phone was I.

Perhaps my puzzled expression gave it away, and Kyouko-san pointed to the bed railing.

"Voilà."

More specifically, she was pointing at the patient name card attached to the bed railing— which had my name, Kakushidate Yakusuke, written on it along with date of birth and blood type.

This observation may seem trivial—hardly what one would call the "observational skills required of a detective." But perhaps that's what deduction is, the accumulation of such minute discoveries.

"The time now is ten past ten."

Paying no heed to my admiration, Kyouko-san glanced at the clock placed by the hospital room window. As she said, the hour and minute hands formed a nice angle.

We'd agreed to meet earlier at ten.

In other words, Kyouko-san had spent exactly ten minutes playing with my broken bones despite the limited time. I regretted allowing her to waste ten of those minutes like this.

Despite the fault not being mine.

"A complex situation we are dealing with. We’ll have to coordinate our plans with both Kondou-san and Fumoto-sensei. Regardless, let's set our initial goal to solve this within the next twelve hours. That is to say, by ten tonight!"

"Wait… twelve, twelve hours!?"

I exclaimed in surprise at the revelation of such a specific timeframe. The fastest detective however considered this more than ample.

She had planned a meeting with Konodu-san and Fumoto-sensei that afternoon to discuss the details. Understandably, she meant to provide ample time for that.

"Firstly, allow me to pose a few questions to you. Though you haven't directly contracted me, you nonetheless seem involved in this case,"

With a decisiveness unimaginable from someone idly playing with plaster, Kyouko-san got straight to business with the utmost efficiency.

"Ye-yes, I am,"

I answered. There was no denying my involvement as I'd been at the heart of the incident and nearly lost my life as a consequence.

She then persisted,

"Before we proceed, Kakushidate-san, is it safe to assume you hold no murderous intent towards the middle school girl?"

With a question that sapped all my strength away.

My hand and leg already broken, how was I supposed to go on living if I kept getting sapped like this— but if you said getting questions like these was normal, then so be it.

It appears Kyouko-san wanted to start by confirming whether I was "truly" falsely accused or not. This was not meant specifically for me; as a fundamental part of Kyouko-san's attitude as detective she seemed to have an unshakable creed that "the client lie."

It was a lonely but accurate truth.

In my eyes, a relationship where we'd known each other for so long yet were unable to build any trust, filled with unspeakable futility and emptiness.

Not unexpected that we couldn't get close to each other, her being the forgetful detective and all...

"Before I received the call and arrived here, I had already glanced through the contents. Some media reports referred to it in passing, so I wanted to reconfirm. Please don't take it to heart,"

Kyouko-san said. It was clear to me she was waiting for a response; she wouldn't gloss over it.

"No such thing ever happened,"

I said helplessly.

"I didn't know what happened initially. My mind was empty; I could not remember anything. All I remember was leaving work for home. I heard a cracking noise followed by a blackout. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed, buried under an almost unbelievable reality— a girl had plunged from the top of a building on top of me. This preposterous fact, I only learned about later,"

I was beset with overwhelming woe, so much so I sighed to the heavens. As if my luck couldn’t get any worse, I became a prime suspect. The sprawling details that came later were enough to make me hang my head and weep.

"I see. It would be a long shot to calculate the exact time and place of her landing. Just catching her, let alone rushing forward to harm her, quite a stretch."

"Right, right? I can't fathom why they would accuse me."

I sent her a plea for help unconsciously, just like old times. Clearly it wasn't about clearing my name this time, but it seemed I had grown the habit of seeking her help whenever I saw her.

That being said, although I chose to ignore those reports soon enough, they were, just like Kondou-san said, lacking in authenticity. Therefore, the widely discussed reports began to die down the day before yesterday. Or perhaps they were preparing to sensationalize other trends; just the nature of media.

"But Kakushidate-san, didn’t you notice? If you had seen the middle school girl falling, you could've dodged,"

She asked this quite naturally.

If I had dodged, while I'd be unharmed, it wouldn't be the case for the middle school girl. She was gravely wounded and unconscious. She might have died instantly if I'd stepped away. From a detective's standpoint, it was a reasonable question. I wasn't saintly enough to assert I wouldn't have dodged if I had noticed.

Because I did not see it coming, it led to this misfortune.

On a side note, it’s rare for one to walk on the street and look straight up— who would anticipate a girl falling on them from the sky?

"I understand. I will choose to believe you,"

Said Kyouko-san, seemingly accepting my word. I gave a sigh of relief and the burden lifted upon her trusting me, but suddenly, she spoke again.

"Kakushidate."

Did she still have doubts about me? I felt disheartened.

But that was not the case at all; as she’d said, her investigation of me was finished. Because what Kyouko-san had asked next was:

"Since ‘Kakushidate’ is kind of a mouthful, may I address you as ‘Yakusuke’ from now onwards?"

Kyouko-san only has today. All memories of before yesterday, without exception, are wiped clean and reset to zero— but experiences remain.

Since we've known each other so long, her body still remembers even if her mind doesn't, that's why she wants to call me Yakusuke— or was thinking like that a bit optimistic? Just wishful thinking?

The real reason was probably just that Kakushidate is harder to pronounce than Yakusuke, or perhaps because the latter has fewer syllables and saves a bit of time— or maybe it's just based on the rationale of choosing the "fastest" option. It's also possible she just felt like it today (or maybe touching the fracture elated her), and the next time we meet, with her reset memories, she's sure to go back to calling me Kakushidate.

Just a trivial thing of this degree.

Such a trivial thing made my heart flutter yet Kyouko-sam herself didn’t seem to care in the slightest, carrying on as if I had already agreed.

“Yakusuke-san, when I got your call, I already heard the rough situation from you, but allow me to rearrange it.”

The fastest detective does not stand still. "Aside from the marvelous… oh, I mean, serious harm you suffered, this time I'm asked to investigate the reason for a middle school girl's suicide attempt, correct?"

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Kakushidate Yakusuke Being Hospitalized (2/3)

Different from Satoi-sensei, who already enjoyed an unshakable position and was in a league of her own, this man was a new talent the editorial department had high hopes for and attached great importance to—or something.

"Yeah, yeah, more or less. Only, he's not exactly a newcomer. He's actually older than Satoi-sensei and has been around longer."

"Really?"

The manga world gives the impression of young geniuses popping up constantly, but on the other hand there's also a tendency for some to take surprisingly long to make their mark. While it's true that anyone can become hugely popular regardless of age or status, reality isn't so rosy.

Sure it's better than being unemployed, but it was a harsh world I didn't think I could handle— though not exactly as Kondou-san put it, maybe only those like Satoi-sensei who take hardship as nourishment are bound to succeed.

"Fumoto-sensei's 'Verywell,' it started serializing in our magazine recently and… How to put it, it's something I feel has potential. His time is finally coming. As editor-in-chief, I am filled with excitement from the bottom of my heart."

Wow, Kondou-san's job must be so fulfilling—he sounds so enthusiastic that I temporarily put my own affairs at the back of my mind to feel sincere happiness for him. But not having read the manga, I couldn't really comment.

Plus, from how he talks, he and Fumoto-sensei seemed to be sailing much as smoothly as Satoi-sensei, having no room for an unskilled person like me whose only talent is sidestepping trouble.

Just as I was puzzling about what this issue could possibly be,

"Just that, there's been a problem these past few days, and it's very serious."

He finally got to the point.

I leaned forward, wanting to listen closely.

Just what was this "trouble not entirely unrelated to me."

"I mean, nothing unprecedented...Fumoto-sensei's issue isn't the bizarre, unheard-of, extraordinary kind that's befallen you almost daily. It's a problem that manga artists or novelists, or any 'creator' of some sort, could potentially face at any time. It's neither especially novel or especially classic."

"...Kondou-san, you're talking in circles and making this more complicated than it needs to be. Don't worry, no matter what kind of request it is, if there's a real necessity for it, Kyouko-san will accept, you can rest assured. She's not the sort of detective who only takes on 'charming mysteries' or 'baffling cases.' Besides, as the forgetful detective, you know she keeps all secrets."

As far as the forgetful detective goes, unless it was a "case that could be solved within a day," she wouldn't take it on either. After all, just recently she had made a right mess of things by not strictly adhering to this rule.

Though I felt bad for Kondou-san, if I already could discern that the case was an unnecessary hardship at my end, I'd recommend another detective more suited for it than Kyouko-san— I too felt partially responsible for that previous incident.

"No, that's not what I meant... You're right though, no point in beating around the bush and raising your unwarranted expectations, that would counter my intentions. Being an editor, some things are just hard to express."

This hesitant manner was so unlike Kondou-san— not raising my expectations, but with his solemn preamble I couldn't help imagining what kind of huge deal it could be.

However, just when I thought he had finally made up his mind to get down to business and start giving specifics, he jumped back to the previous topic.

"The fallen middle schooler...she was trying to commit suicide, wasn't she?"

Though for some reason certain news reports (almost all of them) had morphed it into me trying to murder her, at the very least the fact she jumped off the building on her own was undisputed.

I, having personally experienced countless events straight out of a mystery novel, would be inclined to suspect that this entire affair was actually a homicide staged to look like a suicide. I've experienced such cases firsthand. This is not purely hypothetical. But there was a handwritten will left behind here, suggesting it was a suicide.

A note typed on a computer or sent via text message could potentially be forged, one handwritten, however, is irrefutable.

"Yeah, the problem lies with what she wrote."

"What problem exactly?"

As someone suspected of murder, the existence of the will was like a lifeline in my eyes. For now it's just baseless speculation by the media, but without that will I could have really been charged with attempted murder— come to think of it, a suicide does not necessarily need to leave a will, so I probably should be grateful to her for leaving one.

"Absolutely. As your friend, I feel I should be just as grateful to her as you are... But I simply cannot."

Kondou-san's tone carried a hint of anger. This anger probably wasn't directed at me, but I still shrank back instinctively.

"H-how so?"

"That will has become the root of my… and also Fumoto-sensei's troubles. No, it has taken root, sprouted, and the vines growing from it are suffocating Fumoto-sensei so he can hardly breathe."

"......?"

"It's about what's written— she declared herself a fan of his."

Being as dense as I am, I was still left in the fog at this point. But the following words made it clear just how grave and heavy were the troubles they carried.

"She wrote in black and white that she was personally moved by Fumoto-sensei's piece to take her life, even considerately drew illustrations of his characters."

Unable to bear the relentless portrayal of "Secondhand bookstore employee (25)" as a suspect of critical concern, I'd not paid due attention to recent news and print media—thus, my understanding of the precise details pertaining to the middle school girl, and the specific content of her will, was rather limited.

All I know is that she left a will, and tried to end her life by jumping from a building— which, frankly speaking, was more unbearable for me to contemplate than my own reality of being suspected. The backdrop that led a twelve-year-old to commit suicide is something I found too distressing to face, neither did I wish to know what drove her to that.

It was far too sensitive a topic.

Even if it was the very reason for my hospitalization and job loss— the thought of her still hovering on the verge of death made it all the worse. I didn’t expect that the suicide note would be so baffling— or maybe baffling isn't quite the right word.

After all, it has to do with someone's life—not only.

It has to do with someone's profession as a manga artist.

I never imagined that during my unconsciousness, things would turn out like this for Kondou-san…

“Is this the 'largely related to me' thing?”

“Well…had you not been in the exact spot where she fell, it would've blown up.”

He said.

Perhaps to calm his nerves, he began now to peel an apple. I then noticed that I'd actually been holding the apple that he had peeled for me the whole time without taking a bite, and immediately took a bite.

“You mean?”

I asked him munching on juicy fruit.

Kondou-san sighed and said,

'What I mean is, if it wasn't for 'Secondhand bookstore employee (25)' becoming a media darling, the one under fire now would probably be Fumoto."

Hold on. Shouldn't I be the one sighing at this? It seemed I'd somehow helped Kondou-san without realizing it, just through a layer of separation— which did please me of course, but becoming a media darling (or 'media target' rather) because of it was hardly something to celebrate.

"I am not happy that you became the punching bag. But it is fact that I was saved because of it. I spoke up for you when you were wrongly accused before, and now not only can we call it even, there is even some left over, the surplus may even rival the national budget! And maybe in order to maintain the narrative that you are the culprit, the will has barely been reported on."

That's how it was.

Looking at it with tinted glasses, we could also say that in order to frame me, the media concealed the existence of the will— of course, considerations were also made because the "victim" was an underage girl who still showed signs of life. But if I hadn't been standing at the spot where she fell that day, she probably would have gone to meet the King of Hell according to plan, and the contents of the will would likely have been made public, with the barrel pointed at the "culprit" who drove her to suicide.

Indeed—at Fumoto Shun.

"Uh, the piece that moved her, isn't it that manga, the one currently being serialized, 'Verywell', was it?"

"No, not that one. It's Fumoto-sensei's early work. It's a short story he drew when he was just starting out… A one-shot called Cicerone."

Kondou-san explained.

I didn't even know the name of his currently serializing work until just now, so of course I'd never heard of this one-shot or had any idea what it was about. And I didn't understand the meaning of that loanword(?) Cicerone either.

"Well, that's one only people in the know would know about. If she read that, she must really be a true fan of his. Having such a huge fan should have been a happy thing."

"And what kind of manga is it?"

I wasn't sure if I should ask, but if I didn't, the conversation would grind to a halt, so I picked up the courage to ask.

"Hard to describe in one sentence…but for sure, there is suicide in the piece. From a certain point of view, if you ask whether it glorifies suicide, yes, it does. Since he had just debuted at the time and it was drawn when he was very young, should we call it radical...? It's undeniable that some parts are sharp and thorny."

Kondou-san seemed rather reluctant to elaborate—hmm.

I hadn't seen the content, so I won't comment much, but from what I had gathered, some people were sure to blame that manga for the schoolgirl's suicide, believing she imitated what she saw.

Especially since she wasn't just any fan— she spelled it out in her will. If it weren't for the media making me out to be a suspect and giving it widespread coverage, the prevailing narrative in the media would definitely have been full of tired arguments about "the harmful influence of manga on children" or that "creative freedom shouldn't be unlimited".

The mere thought of it sent shivers down my spine.

I used to half-jokingly, half-seriously curse heaven for treating me this way. But this was the first time I thanked my innate misfortune without the slightest hint of self-mockery. Even if there's no need to be so dramatic, just thinking about what would have happened if the one passing by when she jumped wasn't me with my inborn misfortune, but someone smaller, and the suicide girl and them were killed together...

No doubt Fumoto-sensei's manga would have become the target of public backlash for taking two lives.

Needless to say that as a mystery novel reader,I stand on the side of defending creative freedom. But on the other hand, it's not that I want to restrict press freedom either, yet I also don't want authors to have to turn their imaginations into reality under so many constraints— this is my personal opinion.

Rather, not so much an opinion as just some random thought— expressing my feelings without much due consideration. Just my reflexive, unexamined thoughts— in fact, if I were to come across works full of blatant discrimination, I'm sure it would make me uncomfortable. I would certainly 'feel' that children shouldn't be exposed to such things.

There's no solution to this dilemma.

All you end up with is mixed reviews.

If you ask whether creative works can influence their audience's lives or sensibilities, the answer is of course yes— if there are readers who became professional baseball or football players because of reading comics, then how can we definitively say there are none who became juvenile delinquents or criminals? Not just children, even adults can be influenced by fiction, become better or worse people because of them— this is undeniable. Rather, one might say people seek out creative works precisely with the desire to change their own lives.

Be it comics, novels, movies, or nonfiction reality, it is basically impossible to come into contact with certain things and remain unaffected whatsoever. At the extreme, some readers or viewers might see the relentless media attacking me and think, "That suspicious guy deserves all the criticism he gets."—who knows.

No media under the sun does not influence its consumers.

Nevertheless, to play the relativist and go, "all judgments are intrinsically subjective" is equally meaningless. Hence, when both sides can only muster impressions that don't amount to opinions, the debate is basically over— that's what I think.

People are naturally influenced by what's around them, but if your own feelings were to be overturned by this reasoning— that would be untenable for anyone. Of course, to be defeated in an argument is not to lose. It's not a question of victory or defeat, and it's not a question of value perspective.

"There's a good chance it could have caused a tremendous scandal, but Kondou-san, we seem to have averted the worst case scenario, haven't we? A close shave, I suppose... or should we say it ended as an incident not worth calling an accident... Anyway, no longer a problem, is it?"

The endless argument has ended. And so has the problem, it's solved.

While it's hard to say the deep root of it was resolved completely, still, by me becoming the scapegoat, the worst seems to have been avoided. It may not be a perfectly tidy resolution, but hasn't the matter been settled?

"No, it's not that simple. Certainly thanks to you— although it's weird to say— since it didn't become public, the problem didn't surface. However, even if it didn't become public, the man in question still found out."

"The man in question?"

"Fumoto-sensei."

He was greatly devastated, Kondou-san told me.

Someone passed this news on to him. Who told him anyway? Well, I can't get too angry about it now, but I can't help feeling for Kondou-san's feelings.

"For his own work to nearly take a child's life— it made him so upset he's considering putting down his pen— or rather, it's making his creative work painful."

What a forced pun.

But I understand the feeling, even if I can't fully understand as I've never heard of a manga directly leading to something like this. Though it's a sad universal truth that young people have been driven to suicide after being inspired by novels, plays and other creative works since historical times. That brings no comfort here of course.

If the manga artist he has such high hopes for is being driven into such dire straits, it's not unthinkable that Kondou-san would be anxious. As the magazine's editor and as a human, it's hard not to share in that distress.

That's the kind of man he is.

But if there is any advice I could give as a third party regarding this matter, ultimately, it's a hardship that Fumoto-sensei will have to overcome by himself I think. Or if he's reached the point where he doesn't even want to draw manga anymore, then that decision should be respected.

"I understand that too of course. We are trying to persuade him in consultation with his direct editor, but in the end it will come down to his own judgment."

"Seems fair. Yeah, it's not my place to interfere...I'm being too nosy. Terribly rude of me. But why tell me about this?'"

After hearing the whole story, I felt this was entirely a trade secret— even though it was closely related to what happened to me, was it really okay for him to tell me the contents of a will involving Fumoto-sensei's dismissal? And wasn't he originally asking me to introduce Kyouko-san to him... From listening to it all, I still felt this wasn't a case suitable to entrust to the forgetful detective.

No, not just the forgetful detective, no detective at all— because there's neither a mystery that needs solving, nor a criminal that needs catching.

"You're absolutely right, Yakusuke— only if the story I just told is true."

"Only if it's true?"

—Wasn't it true?

I was listening the whole time thinking it was.

All this while I have been burdened with countless unfounded accusations labeled "facts." Just like how now the media was portraying me as a critical suspect and making a big fuss. Even if you told me that everything just now was "fabricated," I could not easily deny it either.

Nothing can be certain— a certain perfectionist detective once said this.

"Hmm...I may have misled you. The reality is what it is. I didn't see the original suicide note but the police showed me a copy and revealed some insider details that haven't been told to you yet— Simply put, Fumoto-sensei's current circumstances are not entirely separate from yours."

"Is that so..."

"But you know, something just doesn't feel quite right about it."

Kondou-san said.

Despite his use of "feel quite" in an offhand way, his tone was one of firm conviction.

Something was off.

What could it be that was off?

"On the flip side, you could say it feels too contrived— I can't quite put it in words, but there's something forced about it."

"Forced..."

Was there some... conspiracy or something?

A plot to undermine a promising young manga creator expected to carry the future of the magazine, making a middle school girl leave behind a suicide note like that and killing herself— that's what he was getting at?

That's too forced.

A storyline like that would be not only forced but delusional paranoia that even I wouldn't entertain.

"Of course, I have no intention of spouting such wild speculations, and if she really did attempt suicide because of Fumoto-sensei's work, as editor-in-chief I have no intention of shirking responsibility either. But the malaise I feel makes me think there's more to it."

Malaise...that was really far too abstract to base anything on. But even so, can't ignore a felt sense of unease.

Is this why he requested Kyouko-san?

This is why he needed Okitegami Kyouko?

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Vol 4 The Testament of Okitegami Kyouko

Chapter 1. Kakushidate Yakusuke Being Hospitalized (1/3)

Crunch! came a sound much like the crushing of an egg.

Its source: my body.

Oblivious to what had happened, utterly confused about how— such words were too flowery for the situation. Before the thought 'utterly confused' even had a chance to register, my consciousness faded. All I could glean was— so this is how it feels to die.

Well, if we could die whenever we wanted, life wouldn't be much of a struggle, and while life is fleeting, it is also stubborn to the core.

After hovering at death's door for a full week, I awoke in a hospital bed, learning that a middle school girl had fallen from the roof of a building, her body crashing down directly onto me as I walked home.

Somehow or other, it seems I'd cheated death.

If I was expected to savor this miracle however, to humbly thank the heavens for this misfortune that had fallen upon me quite literally—was a bit much. It made me want to curse the heavens and ask what grudge they held against me.

Simply in the sphere of my everyday life, I consistently and constantly am embroiled in all sorts of crimes, from the smallest to the most heinous. Each and every time suffering wrong accusations, continually treated like a suspect, shouldering blame to the extent that it feels like a backpack. After a long while, finally— for the first time in forever— I found a job. Why on earth did this have to happen as soon as I found a job.

To lay out the extent of the damage: I did survive, but my right arm and thigh were severely fractured, so it goes without saying that I can't work for the time being— forget work, I couldn’t even write or eat— needless to say, the job was done for.

Using the opportunity of drafting resumes to also start writing something like memoirs, given my present crippled state, I felt I might have to become a writer for real.

Hearing my words, Kondou-san who came to visit gave me a stern talking to.

"Might have to become a writer? Oh, you don't know how hard it is to be a writer!"

Kondou-san served at a major publishing company, Sakusousha, where in his early thirties he already held the position of the head of the Comics Weekly magazine department. Perhaps because of his previous stint in the novels department, he wasn't tolerant of careless remarks like those I had just made.

Before I could apologize for my blunder, Kondou-san chucked and said,

"Young people who underestimate writers are the ones who, unexpectedly, easily become writers—you've got real potential there. You could easily spin your everyday experiences into any number of books. This experience is indeed precious."

Was he mocking me? Or encouraging me? Both seemed possible, yet neither quite right. I figured I should take his words positively.

"And you know,"

Kondou-san went on, slicing a great deal of apple by the bed. It pained me to have my former boss do such a thing but, as an injured patient with a disabled right hand, all I could do was accept his kindness. Moreover, he would dislike it the most if I were to show such reserve—we are just friends now, and he wouldn't even allow me to use polite language.

"In the world of manga, a girl falling from the sky is quite a coveted event. But when it actually happens, it turns out to be such a tragedy... You've had your fair share of miserable experiences, but isn't being hospitalized quite rare for you?"

"Yeah, well, that's true. It's precious."

Considering what it was like, it would seem I got away with minor injuries, and according to the attending physician, as long as I remain conscious there would be no threat to my life. The broken bones, they weren't likely to cause any lasting damage either. The doctor assured me firmly that I could be discharged today if I was up to it—perhaps a polite way to hint that the hospital was running short of single rooms.

"Don't think like that, no need to stay any longer than necessary, not with hospital bills being what they are. My goodness, gotta thank your parents for that sturdy body of yours."

"I guess so. I'm filled with such gratitude I could cry..."

I never hesitated to tell people about the inconveniences of my tall stature, surpassing one hundred and ninety centimeters (and I believe it to be the very reason for my constantly attracting unwarranted attention and suspicion). But if it was thanks to my height that my life was saved this one time, I could only call it a blessing in disguise.

"They say broken bones mend stronger once they heal. Not that I need to be any stronger."

"Ha-ha, that's just folk wisdom, though."

Folk wisdom, is it?

"it's not muscle after all; can't magic itself back to health," he added on. As expected of Kondou-san, so learned and well read.

Speaking of, I seem to recall some Greek philosopher or other who supposedly died when a tortoise shell fell on him and cracked his skull. Although meeting the body of a fallen middle school girl could be said to be no less misfortunate, at least it didn't become the cause of my death. Maybe my luck was not as bad as it could be.

What's more, I wasn't the only one saved.

The fallen middle schooler also managed to escape death by a hair's breadth, thanks to my chance presence below to break her fall. She fell from the seventh floor of a mixed residential and commercial high-rise— under normal circumstances she should have been dead by now. It was because she had me as a cushion that she wasn't.

A middle schooler—to be precise, a first year in middle school.

A girl not yet twelve years old— at the most she could be called a child, not even an adolescent.

This too was why she was saved.

Had my hulking physique been a size smaller, or she been a grade higher, neither of us might have come out of it unscathed.

While I was now awake though, she was still hovering at death's door in some other hospital. Can't really say we both were unscathed. I couldn't know what state she was in, I'd just had heard that she was in a coma. But one thing can be assumed: it wasn't a state that would allow me to smugly proclaim, "It was thanks to my self-sacrifice that her life was spared."

…Not to mention that even if the treatment worked and she woke up fine, she may not thank me at all—because.

Because she'd jumped off that building of her own free will.

Yes—a suicide jump.

With a will and shoes neatly arranged.

With no hope of rescue, she'd aimed for the asphalt road.

A guy like me walking beneath her was just an unwanted interference with her resolve—a nuisance in her eyes. Hence, despite my good intentions, I got no gratitude in return.

Call me shallow if you will, but since I was heavily injured because of this and will almost certainly be fired, I was hoping I could at least be a hero for saving a child's life—when actually, I just served as a thing to break her fall in her attempt.

Well, if you consider what suffering must have led the twelve year old girl to decide to take her own life, maybe it's not something to say "just" about, and compared to witnessing her crashing to the ground a few seconds earlier, things could have turned out worse.

She may not thank me, she may blame me, and maybe I should be proud to have saved a life all the same—even if it was the result of a mere accident.

Even if it's the result of bad luck, that's how it is.

"Hahaha, you're such a nice guy."

Kondou-san was really mocking me now.

"I wonder why someone like you is always accused as a criminal. Couldn't get off even this time, could you."

"......"

To hear it depressed me very much.

Misfortune being already a daily occurrence, I could never not feel depressed when wrongly accused— this time, though, was depressing to an exceptional degree.

Simply walking down the street, someone fell from above and crushed me, landing me in hospital with major injuries....However, since both of our lives were saved by that incident, depending on how you look at it, it could be considered not a heroic tale, but at least a miraculous survival case, a positive thing.

But people saw nothing of the sort.

While I was unconscious all the TV broadcasts had apparently made it appear as if I had positioned myself under the fallen girl so as to deal her a final fatal blow.

What a final blow, she didn't even die— how do you have to twist and contort the facts to make it sound like that? In my haste I went through all the newspapers from the past week. The coverage was so outrageous I gave up halfway through reading.

In short, all the media pegged me as the culprit, accusing me of attempting to murder a middle schooler. Couldn't escape being implicated even with my life hanging by a thread— am I to carry this undeserved blame all the way to my grave? Truly an unprecedented, tailor-made misfortune just for me.

I considered my tendency to be falsely accused as having reached its peak.

I'd never fancied the thought of becoming a great detective, but it seemed I couldn't even be a victim. Perhaps because the "victim" was an underage schoolgirl, thankfully my name had not been plastered in the papers, which could maybe be counted as my solitary redemption.

But at this rate, it was only a matter of time until my real identity as 'secondhand bookstore clerk (25)' became public— not that it bothered me, but I felt terribly sorry for my boss who hired me.

"Secondhand bookstore clerk (25), eh? Who asked you to leave your job in publishing to work in a secondhand bookshop. That's what you get for having a foot in two boats."

It left me speechless how sharply those at the forefront of publishing could speak.

But it did feel a bit like betraying my old boss.

I worked at the publishing company under Kondou-san for a time, and I was falsely accused and dismissed without a chance to defend myself. So I didn't really owe the company anything special.

But that's neither here nor there. To say my present state is some kind of divine retribution would be overstating things a bit, don't you think?

"I doubt it'll actually come to that, but… just in case the police believe the media stories and come knocking, I should probably have a detective at the ready..."

I muttered to myself, only half in jest.

I wasn't sure what sort of detective to call for a situation like this still... My phone contacts had the business cards of several agencies, but I couldn't think of one offhand that specialized in dealing with falling girls. If anything, I'd love an expert at handling media circuses... A professional in media control, that would be...

That's when Kondou-san said,

"How about Okitegami-san?"

"Oh...? Nah, this kind of case is not suitable for Kyouko-san. Not Kyouko-san. Maybe it's the least suitable for her out of all the detectives out there."

Kyouko-san— Okitegami Kyouko. Calling her on was something I did in the past at Kondou-san's request; I'd introduced her to him as a detective. Should I say she was an oddball of a detective? A somewhat peculiar one, anyway.

Hence, she was perfectly suited to handle the trouble Kondou-san had been facing at the time. However, her particularities made her clearly unfit for this case.

From my numerous experiences (generally one should not have this many), recovering a normal life after being put through a media circus requires a long battle of endurance. Precisely because of this, there's absolutely no chance here for the detective with the fastest case-cracking rate to swoop in and "solve any case in a day".

"I was just thinking, what a blessing in disguise it would be to take this opportunity to get closer to her, you know?”

"Hahaaha… very funny, Kondou-san. You know as well as I do there's no chance for progress with Kyouko-san."

"Not with that attitude.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and continued.

"Well, since you'll get someone else to restore your image..."

He handed me a peeled apple.

"Could you call Okitegami-san for me?"

"Huh? What do you…"

"That is, I..."

He said.

"I've got another case that I would like the forgetful detective—to forget."

Kondou-san was not only a friend but a benefactor of mine. I of course had no reason to refuse him.

During my past stint working at the publishing company I had found myself wrongly accused, and it was only Kondou-san who spoke up for me. For him I wouldn't think twice about going through hell and high water.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I, Kakushidate Yakusuke, had been perennially awaiting an opportunity to repay his kindness. Yet on this particular day, the abruptness of his request akin to a sudden blow left me stunned beyond measure.

Could Kondou-san have gotten into some trouble while I was hospitalized? His predisposition to misfortune must be on par with mine. Most people wouldn't require a detective more than once or twice in their lifetime. Especially not in such a short period.

"Listen here Yakusuke. To me it's not as sudden a request as it seems, nor am I trying to exploit your situation. The problem I'm facing and the predicament you've fallen into aren't entirely unrelated."

"Not entirely unrelated?"

"Not only, it's largely related to you…if I must be honest with myself, it's causing me a great deal of trouble. I imagine you're pretty troubled as well, and though I probably don't measure up to your level of trouble, it's still a considerable headache."

Speaking up to here, Kondou-san showed a weary smile— which I had missed as my thoughts were consumed with my own stuff, but now that I looked at him, I couldn't help seeing the exhaustion on his usually vibrant face.

What could've happened in the week I was unconscious? It was apparently largely related to me, but I didn't have the slightest clue. My obliviousness wasn't anything new, though.

"Something up with Satoi-sensei again?"

That Satoi-sensei was Satoi Aritsugu, one of the manga artists Kondou-san edited for, and also a wildly popular author for the magazine he was chief editor of.

The robbery at Satoi-sensei's studio that I had introduced Kyouko-san to was the last time we met. Satoi-sensei had left an impression on me as the temperamental genius type, so I figured she was was good at getting into trouble as she was at drawing.

But I was totally off base. I'd make a terrible detective.

"Satoi-sensei is doing great! Better than ever. The incident seems to have inspired her creatively. And Kyouko-san's personality was like stimulation to her."

That's excellent news, though it made me feel anxious on a personal level. I had wanted to write about Kyouko-san's detective adventures before someone as brilliant as Satoi-sensei put them to manga.

It seemed she wasn't one to draw mystery manga, thankfully...

"Then is it another mangaka?"

"You catch on fast, Yakusuke."

I was actually quite embarrassed by his praise.

I just didn't believe Kondou-san had any personal troubles, hence I figured if he needed a detective it had to be about his editorial work.

Nothing more ordinary or mundane than that, really.

"Well, it's not a manga artist I work with directly... I doubt you've heard of him yet. Fumoto-sensei. Fumoto Shun."

As you might guess, I hadn't heard of him.

However, "yet" was the word here. I surmised this must be an up and coming new manga artist likely to gain more fame and recognition going forward.

#translation #okitegami kyouko #the testament of okitegami kyouko

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whentranslatorscry · 6 months

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Re: Ikusa spoiler question

Hello! I was curious in regards to the Ikusamonogatari novel if they say specifically what day Koyomi & Hitagi got married on? Thanks for your time!

They never state the date either in Ikusa or Shinomonogatari. Probably because it was more of a formality to them the honeymoon story opens with wedding having already happened some days ago. I like to think it was 17 May 2023, the day when "Koyomi's Wedding Report" promotional video was posted :']

#ikusamonogatari

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whentranslatorscry · 6 months

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The Forgetful Detective Series - English Ebook Compilation

Volume 1: The Memorandum of Okitegami Kyouko

PDF

EPUB Translation: yoraikun, 2018

Volume 2: The Testimonial of Okitegami Kyouko

PDF

EPUB Translation: yoraikun, 2018

Volume 3: The Challenge Letter of Okitegami Kyouko

PDF

EPUB Chapter 1 translated by yoraikun. Reposted with permission.

Volume 4: The Testament of Okitegami Kyouko

PDF

EPUB

Volume 5: The Resignation Letter of Okitegami Kyouko

PDF

EPUB

#okitegami kyouko #translation #boukyaku tantei

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whentranslatorscry · 7 months

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hello! if it doesn't bother you, would you be able to release an pdf or epub with all chapters from volume 3 of boukyaku tantei, just like you did with ikusamonogatari? also, not related to this question at all but it makes me really happy to see more people translating other books by nisio, it's a shame so much of his works hasn't been translated yet. thanks so much for your hard work!

Thank you so much for your interest. Yes, I'm planning to make both a PDF and EPUB for it once the translation has been edited (I have the bad habit of hastily posting half unedited work here). I'm also happy to bring more Nisioisin content to fans, and hoping to do more of this if I have the time.

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whentranslatorscry · 8 months

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Special Appendix: Excerpts From "Forgetful Detective" Related Reports

Competitive Swimmer Drowning Case Report Written by: Hijiori Oritetsu

Victim: Unagi Kyuugo Cause of death: Electrocution

(Beginning omitted) so the forgetful detective entered this case as an alibi witness. Strictly speaking, in the form of a witness who was unable to prove his alibi. This was no coincidence, but rather the suspect deliberately taking advantage of the forgetful detective's young age yet full head of white hair and unique appearance to manufacture an alibi. This greatly complicated the case and created many unnecessary troubles. From this perspective, we investigators should feel fortunate to have accidentally obtained the forgetful detective’s abilities to help clarify the case. However, I must also solemnly add that if the suspect had not found the forgetful detective but just an ordinary person to provide an alibi, it would surely have taken some time to process, but the case probably would not have become so complicated. Although it was blatantly lazy to sleep soundly during the investigation, the suspect also seemed to have had a backup plan to flee if things went badly, so the forgetful detective's speedy investigation still provided great help in detaining the suspect. Also, to clear up what seems to be much misunderstanding, I will note here that I absolutely did not see the forgetful detective in a swimsuit (End omitted)

Expenses: - Transport expenses - Snacks and bread - High-performance hair dryer - Bento boxes - Azuki bars - Swimsuit (white one-piece) - Request fee (incl. tax) Detective time: 13 hours (incl. sleep time)

“Nashorn” Fitting-Room Murder Case Report Written by: Tooasa Fukachika

Victim: Yanei Sashiko Cause of death: Bludgeoned to death

(Beginning omitted) Now I must mention the detective who helped investigate this case, the forgetful detective. I want to emphasize that, accepting the request from the chief and appearing at the scene as a fashion advisor, she almost single-handedly uncovered the truth, identified the suspect, and induced his confession, smoothly resolving this case. As the commander at the scene, I must deeply reflect on this. As for the forgetful detective's extraordinary insights into the locked room murder, as described in the appendix to this report, while her ideas may not apply to every case and are perhaps just an extreme perspective as a detective, they will likely prove helpful when dealing with extreme cases. After all, the so-called "locked room" is (middle omitted) Finally, I will add that this was the first time I witnessed the forgetful detetctive's abilities. Although I only received her assistance from start to finish, if I, as one who worked with her, were to offer harsh advice from experience, I must say there needs to be a thorough review of using an irrelevant excuse like "serving as a fashion advisor" to bring her in. That probably increased costs instead. It would likely save more expenses to have her participate as a detective from the beginning (End omitted)

Expenses: - “Nashorn” clothing (one-piece dress, jeans) - Dinner (Italian) - Alcohol (own expense) - Request fee (adviser fee + detective fee) Detective time: 8 hours

“Enmusubito” Vice President Case Report Written by: Donma Kezuru

Victim: Fuchibuchi Yoshitoshi Cause of death: Bludgeoned to death

(Beginning omitted) Subsequently, under the pretext of voluntarily cooperating and providing statements, the interrogation of the company president yielded results that essentially confirmed his involvement in the suspected murder. Ultimately, in all fairness, while we cannot yet say we took a reckless gamble this time, it was still quite a risky move. Even though this was not the first time, it still felt as though we had once again been toyed with and manipulated in the palm of the forgetful detective's hand through her glib words. Speaking of "not the first time", the forgetful detective showed no fear even when facing someone who could be a murder suspect, and her boldness in being alone with him in a room was nothing out of the ordinary for her. If she does not change this risky behavior of charging ahead, we can only keep playing this dangerous game with her. I have no position to advise the senior police officials who shelter the forgetful detective, but if the intention is to keep pushing her forward like this, I hope comprehensive safety measures can also be devised—this is the consensus of all the investigators, and I hope our superiors can take it to heart. (Middle omitted) Let me add one more point for your reference. Although "Enmusubito" [the company] lost its two founding presidents and has faced public condemnation, the employees who remained united and worked hard have now gradually turned its business around. Unlike what the two founders may have thought, it seems the company was kept running not by them, but by the staff working on the frontlines. (Middle omitted) Also, it was a rare treat for the forgetful detective to help us pro bono this time. For us, realizing that she too has an instinct for social justice was a pleasant discovery. However, that said, if the suspect had preemptively paid her a deposit this time, the result probably would have(End omitted)

Expenses: None Detective time: 45 minutes

#translation #okitegami kyouko #boukyaku tantei

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whentranslatorscry · 8 months

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Miss Kyouko’s Cipher Table (5/5)

“Here you should have considered the goal of Fuchibuchi-san’s message; the value of Pi or the combination is secondary.”

(Why would he leave me, his friend, the combination if not to reveal it to me?)

Was he mistaken?

When told otherwise, he really didn’t see how it could be—since the numbers have all been deciphered, outwardly it could only be explained as a code meant solely for him. Was Fuchibuchi’s intention elsewhere?

“You might say I read too many detective novels, but it seems most logical to assume a dying message is left by the victim to identify the killer. However, a unilateral accusation from the victim does lack evidentiary weight.”

Then Kyouko-san turned to Officer Donma with a gaze more guarded than one would expect amongst acquaintances.

Ah, right.

Officer Donma had introduced her to him, and naturally Yuinouzaka had regarded them as ‘accomplices’ of sorts. But in Kyouko-san's eyes, Officer Donma was also a complete stranger until today—the forgetful detective without human connections.

“And so Fuchibuchi-san did not attempt to directly point to the culprit, imstead he left a cipher. The answer to the cipher itself didn’t matter—with infinite interpretations, it can be read any way you like. However,”

She turned to look at Yuinouzaka. Her eyes behind her glasses—gentle, yet distant.

Immense distance.

“Yuinouzaka-san. You alone reacted to it.”

“…….!”

“By wishing to decipher it, you led us right to you. Yes, this was exactly Fuchibuchi-san’s intent in leaving the message. I heard from Officer Donma you were the only one moved in response to the poem, and that is why I was hired. As soon as I heard the story, I thought ‘Could he be Fuchibuchi’s killer?’”

He didn't mean to indicate the culprit's identity.

He tried to smoke out him who reacted to the code.

Would Fuchibuchi think up such a plan on his deathbed? While it sounded ridiculous, the 'intent' also made for a much more convincing explanation.

At least, much more convincing than sacrificing himself in the name of friendship like it's some fairy tale, or gallantly giving the combination to his murderer.

Assuming this to be true, Yuinouzaka’s hounding of the police and hiring of a private detective then was a betrayal of his duty of confidentiality named self-preservation.

Rather than the victim accusing him, the culprit had incriminated himself. His reaction, as he had rushed to corroborate and validate it, gave credence to a dying message that should have had none.

Not a slip of the tongue, rather a slip-up in solving.

It was no more than his friend urging him to give himself in.

(Calm, calm down… This is not evidence, it's harassment—that's what the officer is trying to do, put pressure on me. not that he has grounds for…)

Just as Yuinouzaka wrestled down his doubts, Kyouko-san rose slowly to her feet and remarked coolly:

“Officer, I’m given to understand there are illegal items secreted in the safe in the vice president’s office. Perhaps you would like to hear what Yuinouzaka has to say about it.”

Her unabashed words shredded any veil of confidentiality—unless she and the officer had colluded in advance, making this meeting nothing less than an undercover operation.

She had been playing the part of the hired detective to search for a possible motive behind the murder. And with the motive clear and him as the prime suspect, it was an amateur crime. He could hardly imagine enduring the harsher interrogation that would follow.

He had no choice but to concede—he'd been duped.

By Fuchibuchi—And by the forgetful detective.

He was only too ready to take his friend’s revenge as just deserts, but he could not muster a single resentful thought towards Kyouko.

“Please don’t look at me with such eyes. I'm the one who should be lamenting here. This time, I did not get any remuneration from the police. I ended up working for nothing.”

“T-then…”

Oh.

She had no intention to honor confidentiality from the start. ‘As long as I’m paid what I’m due,’ she had said. So if there was nothing to be paid…

Understanding as he did, however, Yuinouzaka hung back.

“But, if that was the case, you could have just broke the cipher for me without having to pry into Fuchibuchi’s intentions—”

“I could have taken that route until I heard about those highly illegal registers… But now that I know, I’m afraid not. I said I’d remain ignorant, didn’t I? Willfully ignorant and oblivious. I cannot accept payment from you.”

She said, not in an accusatory way, but with a shrug of her shoulders.

“I am a slave to money. I believe it to be sacred, marvellous and deserving of the utmost respect and adoration, dazzlingly beautiful.”

Therefore, said she, crystal clear.

With no ties or connections, so utterly uncertain of herself, it alone was her sole benchmark, the one universal value that would not change no matter how hard she tried to forget it.

“I shan’t take a single dirty penny.”

The following can be called an epilogue. The police did end up physically forcing open the safe in the office of Enmusubito’s vice president. The twenty-five digit number deduced by the forgetful detective resulted in an incorrect password, and still couldn't open the safe.

As it turned out, her guess that the code was Pi was itself correct, but Fuchibuchi's code-making went one better.

"3000000000000000000000000."

——This was the correct PIN to unlock and safe and retrieve the address books, as Yuinouzaka learned when his lawyer told him in jail. He couldn’t help a wry smile.

(Ahh… there was a time when Pi was said to be ‘approximately three’.)

Across the x, y and z axes, the solution rolls and rolls.

Therefore, instead of a solution, it was a code to mislead.

(‘Approximate’ something, huh? Gave just enough to set me up.)

He’d probably rigged the safe not to open regardless of which detective might try to crack it. Thinking so, Yuinouzaka felt he was in touch again with something of the man’s friendship, for the first time in a while.

For good or ill, it brought a genuine smile to his face, the friendship he could not afford.

Prev | Next (Special Appendix)

#translation #boukyaku tantei #okitegami kyouko

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whentranslatorscry · 8 months

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Miss Kyouko’s Cipher Table (4/5)

Before he realized it, he'd become determined to open that safe, if only to avoid putting Fuchibuchi’s death to waste.

“So? Kyouko-san, what is the answer you have narrowed it down to?”

“Don't rush, I am not yet finished going through the cipher analysis methods,”

She said, as if to placate his impatience. The lecture wasn't over? Here he was thinking she had finished explaining and was beginning to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

“Method number five, in cases where the cipher is wrong or the encrypted text incomplete. These are tricky to decipher. If the problem statement is erroneous, a legitimate approach won’t work.”

“Do we really need to consider cases like that? If the rules are wrong, there’s no way to interpret it at all, right? If it’s unsolvable.”

As with the three great unsolvables—‘insolvable’ would be the solution.

“Mistakes or omissions don’t need to be considered and may leave no room for interpretation. But if they are intentional obfuscations by the creator, they certainly do, and this is extremely important. While I’ve talked about many methods, the truth is, this is the very first thing that should be examined.”

Intentional—deliberately made?

What kind of petty cipher would that be—weren’t ciphers meant to be solved? No it wasn’t impossible. A dying challenge rather than a dying message. Leaving a meaningless but cryptic-looking text just to watch him flail helplessly about like this from the afterlife?

That'd be in terrible taste and a complete waste of his time, only strong-armed into pointless expense.

The detective who called herself a slave to money surely wouldn’t give Yuinouzaka a discount even if it proved to be unsolvable … Oblivious to such scheming thoughts of her employer, Kyouko-san continued on:

“The reason to intentionally make an incomplete, unsolvable cipher is to filter out random blind guesswork, you see.”

My natural enemy, as it were—she said.

Mm… So rather than pettiness or spitefulness, it is gatekeeping?

“In other words, with computers nowadays, any cipher could just be broken by brute force, no? Even the idea of using prime numbers to generate passwords only ‘takes time to crack,’ not ‘impossible to crack.’”

Whenever the forgetful detective refers to ‘nowadays,’ the timeline she calibrates to is a mystery. Yuinouzaka was left gobsmacked by the way she casually adapts her perspective to match his—just as that thought crossed his mind,

“Even wartime ciphertexts, once the deciphering method leaked to the enemy, became utterly helpless.”

She said such an old-fashioned thing.

By her mind which scrolls freely along the vertical axis of time, Kyouko-san made him feel as if she cared nothing for changes in values.

(Just where does this person place… good and evil?)

Might it be money?

That's the way it is, and it's a value system that runs from the past to the future, and it's easy for a businessman like Yuinouzaka to say that money talks.

“But how can we avoid the mechanical brute force attack on the encrypted message by making an incomplete cipher?”

“Humans can supplement mistakes and imperfections, and adjust them, can't they? Say, hypothetically, instead of a twenty-five-digit cipher, Fuchibuchi-san left only half that—with the first half solved, couldn't you then predict the other half?

Well, that's a bit of a mixed metaphor, but it does sound a little extreme. How can you guess the other half when you don't know half of what you're guessing…

“Like making a cipher for The Tale of Genji using the first half of '源氏' to stand for 'Genji', and confuse things?”

Taking his cue, Yuinouzaka used a metaphor of his own. Being only told "Genji", you would normally associate it with the Heike Genji. While it's meant to refer to the literary work of Murasaki Shikibu—read the answer, not the cipher.

Like a two-fold cipher?

Even against a computer’s brute force, two-factor authentication for passwords can be effective—relying on human nature makes it quite complex. Even if the cipher is cracked, it leads not to the solution but a false one—now it was all beyond him.

If the message left by Fuchibuchi was of that pattern, then his decision to leave it to the experts—the police, the private detective—was the right one.

“So, Kyouko-san, decryption method number six is…”

As Yuinouzaka spoke, keen to move the conversation on,

“Oh no. There are only five methods.”

She said, glancing at the mantel clock as she did. As he listened to the forgetful detective talk about what ciphers are, thirty minutes passed.

When an answer finally seemed forthcoming, it was a relief to him, though it was not worth the trouble if she had to spend three times as much time explaining it to him as it had taken to solve the cipher—he was just as anxious to get on with his life as he was to get the answer.

So he failed to notice when she had finished her classification of methods as if she was suddenly calling it quits.

"To sum up,"

Said Kyouko-san.

It is too late in the day for that.

"The meaning behind Fuchibuchi-san’s three-line poem is a sequence of eleven digits.”

“Eleven? Wasn't it twenty five?”

“Precisely. Eleven.”

Her tone brooked no argument.

So sure of herself—then the contrived analogies of a moment ago were rooted in reality after all.

Still, eleven digits and not twenty-five… That amounted to less than half. It seemed a stretch that eleven numbers could lead to twenty-five. It wasn't an imperfect cipher or anything; or a safe combination, just a mobile phone number or something jotted down as an aide memoire. Yuinouzaka couldn’t help feeling skeptical.

“It is a safe combination I believe. Though we can’t know for certain without trying it."

Well if she's so confident, he would first have to hear these purported eleven digits.

“I think the three-line poem was Fuchibuchi-san’s own creation, to help him remember the combination,” she continued on, interpreting it much as Yuinouzaka had initially.

“When you know the answer is a number sequence, encoding it makes it more memorable—like a mnemonic for a phone number.”

“... You keep calling it a three-line poem, is this actually poetry? Then, as in the reading of Nostradamus' great prophecies, we’d have to interpret the text itself for meaning…”

Method number one, already rejected—however, on reflection, Nostradamus’ great prophecies, though enthusiastically deciphered, were wildly off the mark.

“No, I mean not in that sense—though well, method number one is not without its clues to breaking the code.”

“….?”

If she did not mean poetry, then what did she mean? His old friend had no interest in verse—Yuinouzaka knew this well, which is why he instantly recognized the message as not a death poem but a cipher.

“Twenty-five or eleven, once you guess the encrypted answer is numerical, there’s really nothing to it—May I borrow a pen?”

Prompted, Yuinouzaka retrieved a gel ink pen from his notebook and placed it in Kyouko-san’s left hand. She had removed the cap and onto her bared right arm, copied the ciphertext—the three-line poem.

The handwriting matched the note on her left.

Far more legible than the photograph of his friend’s scrawl.

Ambidextrous maybe, he mused irrelevantly, as Kyouko-san added slashes to the poem on her arm:

“This should help clarify, no?”

marui/to/shikakui/ga/nakatagai

gyakusankakukei/dewa/narenareshii

cyokusen/nareba/natsukkoi

“…? No, I’m afraid I still don’t understand…”

She had separated words with slashes, it seemed, but the significance eluded him—easier to read, yes, but no less inscrutable.

“I said it was a poem because it’s a piem, you see.”

As if throwing a line to a dim client, she elaborated—a piem? Some non-English version of poem?

No, wait… piem?

π?

“So this is…Pi?”

“Yes, 3.14,”

Kyouko-san smiled a knowing smile.

“3.1415926535.”

まるい（3）/と（1）/しかくい（4）/が（1）/なかたがい（5）

ぎゃくさんかくけい（9）/では（2）/なれなれしい（6）

ちょくせん（5）/ならば（3）/なつっこい（5）

The concept of mnemonics, it turned out, was a close call. In Japan Pi is memorized as such, organizing number harmonies into verses to be recited by heart, like the English version: “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.”

He’d heard English speakers memorise it by the number of letters per word—the term “piem” was new to him, but it must be what they call verses crafted to remember pi.

Fuchibuchi did it in Japanese, that's all, and i was no wonder that it was nonsense. If that's the case, then eleven digits would be more than enough—half that, even.

Yuinouzaka doesn’t remember Pi beyond four decimal places himself, but a quick search would reveal twenty-four, a hundred, as many as you like. With word lengths matching pi’s digits closely enough to seem non-coincidental, that would suffice. As long as it jogs your memory that the safe combination is pi, that’s all you need. A bit of playfulness, nothing more.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Quite careful, you might say…to stop at eleven digits instead of twenty-five. And…”

“And what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

It seemed that he had been put off, but then, having got the answer right, he didn't care about the details. As someone who knew Fuchibuchi well, he could see hints of Kyouko-san’s boastfulness—that is, probably he simply ran out of ideas after eleven digits.

“By the way, do you happen to recall the eleventh and twelfth decimal places of pi, Kyouko-san?”

“Eight and nine.”

That clinched it.

He hammered home his unthought-of theory. No way could he naturally rhyme an eight-syllable and nine-syllable Japanese word.

“Yes, well you know, piems in Japanese are tricky—with logograms, you could break ‘丸い’ into ‘maru’ ‘i’, ‘逆三角形’ into ‘gyaku’ ‘sankaku’ ‘kei’. A mnemonic is easier to remember, frankly.”

Kyouko-san was brutally frank.

“Starting with ‘round’ does certainly give a clue it is about pi—that is, the point of method number one. An expert might solve it in two seconds.”

Two seconds is going too far, even for with the hint. It is not clear whether the answer is correct or not… Until Yuinouzaka punched it into the safe himself, he could not rest easy.

Thinking this, as he rose from the sofa, the parlor door opened of its own accord—and in strode Officer Donma, manners cast aside.

The bookish man in spectacles.

He was chief investigator in the Fuchibuchi Yoshitoshi murder case, and it was he who had introduced Yuinouzaka to the forgetful detective; but the demeanor of him today was markedly different from their past conversation.

Of course, he had every right to come into this waiting room, having gone through proper channels and having made an appointment in advance, but it's not as if the police just came unannounced every day—The employee who had guided him here was visibly unsettled.

The men behind Officer Donma looked like detectives too… The air wqa thick with tension. At any rate, he didn't feel any warm feelings.

“Just as I prerequested,”

Said Kyouko-san in response to their entrance with a nonchalant air, without even getting up from her seat.

“Should I not contact you within thirty minutes, please come find me.”

(……?)

It didn't make sense—it was a more enigmatic declaration even than the cipher. What was that?

So all that hemming and hawing over cipjers, refusing to announce the solution, she was just stalling for time, was she? The meandering lecture had seemed unlike the reputed fastest detective. Was she watching the clock? Waiting for the police to arrive?

And why?

To turn him in?

“Y-you breached confidentiality!”

Yuinouzaka sputtered, knowing his protest futile.

How could this be.

It was stupid of him to swallow the detective's line about keeping secrets absolute confidential when he knew perfectly well that doctors were under the same obligation to report gunshot and knife wounds.

Here he had spilled everything about the address books and Fuchibuchi’s secret, on the pretext that she’d forget it all by tomorrow. No, wait—he’d only mentioned it after Kyouko-san had entered the room. How could she have ‘pre-requested’ information she didn’t yet know existed?

“I am not in violation of anything. It was you who breached confidentiality, Yuinouzaka-san. You've blown your own cover. I kept my promise—you didn't keep yours.”

With a cool smile, Kyouko-san added to the confusion. What was he supposed to have done?

…The detective could ‘prerequest’ information from the police—not about the address books, but about the murder?

Still, the message didn't point to him—

“With a ciphertext, you should seek the author’s intent, not a solution,”

She said, as if it were a question on a literature examination.

Or rather, one of legal interpretation.

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whentranslatorscry · 8 months

Text

Miss Kyouko’s Cipher Table (3/5)

They say she's fast, but this was—too fast.

“Um… Kyouko-san.”

“Let me confirm a few things, if I may,”

She held up a finger to stop Yuinouzaka in his tracks, where he leaned forward without thinking.

“Those twenty-five digits—it is a safe combination, a passcode of some kind, correct?”

Sharp.

Had he been too forward in his hint, after all—but did asking such a question mean that the code represented what Yuinouzaka hoped?

He’d sooner not get into the messy details if he could avoid it—murder motives and all that—but it seemed he had little choice. Asking for the solution with his cards hidden was wishing for too much.

“You guessed it. It’s the combination to the safe in the vice president’s office—which I thought Fuchibuchi-san had left for me before he passed. That’s why I asked you here, Kyouko-san.”

Yuinouzaka then glanced at the parlour door. “If you necessary, I'll show you later…it’s a big one, in the vice president’s office. Only Fuchibuchi knew the combination… Oh, and if it turns out to be a clue pointing to his despicable murderer…well, that's fine in itself, I suppose it would have been worth calling for you still…”

He added, but perhaps unnaturally, Kyouko-san was unresponsive—well, it's somewhat better to be thought of as a ruthless businessperson who cares only about the company's profits than a murderer.

“There is more than just my patron inside that safe, I take it?”

“Your patron?”

Unaware of what was meant, Yuinouzaka looked blank—presumably, money—maybe she considered it in poor taste to say "money" directly, but this choice of words was in fact poorer.

“If you have valuables in there and can't get them out, all you have to do is get a safe opener to retrieve them. There must be some reason you can't do this—some company secret, perhaps, that would be embarrassing if revealed? Is this what you want me to discretely remove from the safe?”

“U-um, yeah… Yes.”

He could only nod.

It was not so much fast or sharp as it was unpleasant having his purpose seen through—this couldn't be mere logic.

Yuinouzaka was also an intuitive sensibility person, so he could tell—this detective had seen through him sensually. One could say there is a kind of sloppiness in saying everything that comes to mind in a wild guess, and then if it misses, it misses and that’s all right too—a crude guess, but effective if it yielded the reaction she wanted.

Yuinouzaka was not at all relaxed, but he knew if he was careless, at this rate, with no regard for the dying message, she might deduce he was the killer. He reasserted himself and, grudgingly,

“There’s…address books, in the safe,”

He said.

It was genuine reluctance, or so he’d meant to imply, overplaying it if anything, to suggest he had nothing more to hide.

It may have been artifice, but necessary artifice—reckless as it was to invite a detective into the firm, they’d come too far now to back down.

“There’s little need, I’m sure, to explain the nature of our business further. Facilitating connections between people, a broker of personal contacts—naturally we retain a great many address books, and obtaining those is our primary duty.”

“I see, these books are a sort of master register, containing those valuable contacts and thus confidential company secrets you wouldn’t want an outsider accessing?”

As expected, not having the whole picture, she was slightly off base. Maybe purposefully off base, to test him.

Such a game of horse trading would get them nowhere. Better just to lay his cards on the table.

What's the use of worrying about it now? She'll forget it bu tomorrow.

“What Fuchibuchi had hidden away in that safe were illegally obtained address books. I should make clear I was unaware of this.”

He’d meant to avoid sounding defensive, but this much was true, he had not known.

That his trusted vice president had long been compiling these ‘address books’ through unlawful, or at least legally dubious, means, using them to build the firm’s connections—he couldn't believe it.

As the one in charge, not knowing itself was a problem, and Yuinouzaka did not pretend this could be waved away as ignorance. Right versus wrong, it was plainly wrong.

So he was shocked when he learned of it and immediately confronted his partner—but Fuchibuchi showed no remorse whatsoever.

It seemed that his friend was quite oblivious of the fact that he was doing anything ‘wrong’—on the contrary, he was doing the company a great service with these ‘address books.’ The reason for his silence was that he was doing the company a favor by keeping his mouth shut about his illegal activities.

For the company.

I did it for your sake.

Whenever he was told that, his friend's words were like gibberish to him. If the affair became public, the company was ruined first of all, and so was he—this was what he was trying to get across, but the discussions never went anywhere.

There were many things they could not agree on. The only copy of the dangerous address books that he had, Yuinouzaka on getting rid of it immediately, but the stubborn Fuchibuchi refused to tell him the combination to the safe, intent instead on acquiring new ledgers—now that Yuinouzaka was wise to him, he schemed more brazenly. Indeed he was so cool and confident that he might have been thinking he could weather the collapse of the company once or twice and simply start over.

In that case, then—our values are worlds apart.

The company was the result of the cooperation of them both, and Yuinouzaka was determined to protect it by any means necessary—even breaking the law to conceal its illegality. Even kill his friend.

…Still, he thought he had given him a chance—before bludgeoning him on the head. Yuinouzaka had prefaced it with, ‘This is your last chance,’ and asked him once more for the safe’s combination.

Laughing, Fuchibuchi had not taken it up, though.

Did he really expect he could get away with it or—were the registers worth dying for?

In any case, Yuinouzaka's intentions did not reach his friend—only the desire to kill.

Eliminating the vice president may have prevented further illegal activities, but Yuinouzaka went so far as to believe that the address books in the safe—incriminating evidence—could only be destroyed on his own.

Then came the cipher.

The dying message.

Fuchibuchi’s last minute change of heart, revealing the combination at his death?

It was terribly convenient, self-serving thinking on his part. But the fact it was in code gave Yuinouzaka hope.

Fuchibuchi was well aware that the address books were socially illegal, and that the safe's number was not to be written down as such—It’s natural to assume that when you’re memorizing a twenty-five digit number, you would be encrypting it in some way.

At least less improbable than coming up with a code on the spot as you die is the idea that he wrote the numbers down deliberately, to send a coded message that would not be noticed by anybody who didn't know the code, or so we could speculate.

“I believe I grasp the situation. I will refrain from judging the morality of Fuchibuchi-san’s misconduct. Let’s just say that I will remain unconcerned, as I will forget about it by tomorrow,”

Kyouko-san said.

Difficult for Yuinouzaka to tell what she was really thinking—putting on a professional face, or was she really unconcerned?

His first impression of her as ‘incalculable’ was now giving way to 'unfathomable.’

“With the facts established, let us commence the deduction of the forgetful detective, starting with the question of what this cipher might be. As hastily and concisely as possible, shall we?”

“First of all, we must never forget that a coded message, whatever its form, exists to be solved. This is the bedrock truth that shall not waver, come what may. In this case we have a dying message, but fundamentally any cipher is a message cast towards someone, so pray keep that firmly in mind.”

Met with a plea to “pray keep” this information in his mind, Yuinouzaka didn’t know what expression to assume and settled on an ambiguous smile.

(A message…meant for me, from Fuchibuchi. Something like “I’m leaving the company to you” or “Now it’s your turn to play the villain”…?)

“Let’s take this step-by-step. Method number one to decryption—in cases when the ciphertext has inherent meaning…”

“It…can lack meaning?”

Yuinouzaka dared to ask, offering a polite murmur of interest—though really, with not a shred of detective mind, he didn’t care for lectures and wished simply for the answer, if she had deciphered the twenty five digits. But, mindful of his role as client, he curbed his impatience.

To which Kyouko-san replied, “Of course it can,” of course.

“So to speak, does the surface text have coherent meaning, or not? Think of Nostradamus’ prophecies, for example. All those attempts to decipher what the great king of terror symbolizes, or who Angolmois represents, and such.”

He was dumbfounded at her pulling out something so old-fashioned as Nostradamus, but soon he realized such was expected of the forgetful detective whose knowledge and experiences were reset every day instead of accumulating.

Completely unaffected by the vertical axis of time, she could only refer to antiquated analogies.

Her views were cut into pieces.

(Each day waking up to a world with different views, what does it feel like…? How on earth do you make it work?)

Such was the way that Yuinouzaka's thoughts were slightly derailed, and then,

“Applying this method to Fuchibuchi-san’s message… doesn’t the first line, ‘the round and square are at odds’ make you naturally think of ‘squaring the circle’?”

The forgetful detective continued.

Squaring the what now?

It rings vague bells, but he couldn't think of it right away. Something from his school examinations?

“A problem that requires using only a compass and ruler to construct a circle and square with equal areas. You know it? It’s one of the three great Greek puzzles in mathematics,”

She explained.

“Ahhh, yeah, that one.”

Despite not quite remembering, he nodded along.

“To be called one of the great unsolved problems, I imagine it's a tough one.”

“It’s been proven impossible to solve.”

The one-and-done chime was met with a lame reply—an unsolvable problem. What's the sense of that? What was the thought of the mathematician who kept trying unsolvable problems when he came across the proof—suddenly Yuinouzaka began to feel uneasy about the really proper answer to Fuchibuchi’s cipher.

“Uh, would the second and third lines represent the other two problems? Um…trisecting an angle and…doubling a cube, was it?”

At the words uttered while searching his memory as if to rip out every nook and cranny of his brain, Kyouko-san shook her head with, “That's what I thought at first.”

“While it doesn’t follow the 5-7-5-7-7 structure of a jisei death poem, it does rhyme and keeps to the theme of geometry, like a meaningful cipher—the writing on the back of a treasure map, or the left eye socket of a skull indicating something. I could just about accept reading the ‘inverse triangle’ in the second line as referring to the angle trisection problem, but it's pushing it to force ‘straight line’ in the third to refer to a cube, I'd think.”

Even if meaningless, a good cipher can still present a semblance of coherence on the surface, she added blandly.

Brute force decryption, huh.

It seemed that some time and effort would be required before the answer was revealed; this was the resolve that Yuinouzaka came to—even the fastest detective seemed to prefer a more roundabout approach, almost as if she disliked rational shortcuts. Slow and steady.

“So, method number two: when the coded message is meaningless.”

“Well…if it’s meaningless, isn’t there no solution?”

“That's not necessarily true. Imagine a nonsensical text with the ‘ta’ character inserted randomly throughout, but with a racoon illustration off to the side—what would you think?” (Note: The word ‘tanuki’ in Japanese sounds like “remove (nuki),” hence the symbol of a raccoon implies ‘remove’ the ‘ta’ character.)

Needless to say, even a child would know the answer that, the difference between this code and the earlier circle area problem is stark. But the point was made clear.

Rather than taking the surface meaning, some key must be applied to transform the text and reveal its true significance—that’s what the detective was talking about.

In simple terms, it could be ‘read every fourth character’ or ‘only read the kanji’ or even ‘connect the first character of each line’ like a kakizome. With this in mind, Yuinouzaka looked again at the photograph of the dying message.

There were of course no raccoon illustrations. Such a simple code would not be worth the attention of a detective.

“They say on the internet, prime numbers are used as keys to encrypt passwords.”

He had said it merely to pass the time, and Kyouko-san had merely tilted her head in response—unlikely not to know prime numbers while knowing the circle area problem. It was more likely she couldn’t bridge ‘internet’ and ‘password’ together.

Just when had her memories stopped accumulating? Suddenly he found himself pondering her.

To speak of it, how can she know she's a detective if she doesn't remember anything? Without accumulating memories, would it not be extraordinarily difficult to comprehend that your own memories do not accumulate?

The answer to that question,

“Method number three is when there is meaning in handwriting or penmanship, not in the intent of text.”

Revealed itself when Kyouko-san rolled up her sweatshirt sleeve.

On the bare, slender, pale arm was written:

‘I’m Okitegami Kyouko. 25 years old. Detective. Chief of Okitegami Detective Agency. Memory resets when I sleep.’

Now he understood; she wrote a note on her skin to keep her from losing herself. If the loss of memory could be likened to death, then this, too, was akin to a dying man’s message.

While her ingenuity could be admired, this message seemed to him to be anything but a cipher. It is at best the most primitive and means nothing more than that.

“That’s not quite it. The writing shows something of my state of mind when I wrote this message. The neatness of my handwriting suggests I wasn’t in a panic writing hastily in dire straits. And the fact that it’s written in water-based ink implies I didn’t have access to oil-based pens when I wrote this… The smaller size of the 'agency' characters shows I hesitated on where to break the line. Beyond the literal meaning, handwritten text contains a treasure trove of information.”

Graphology—is it?

In this digital age we tend to forget, but ugly handwriting aside, there are still things that can only be read in handwriting. That, too, could be a cipher.

Huh.

That is, Fuchibuchi’s message contains additional meaning precisely because it’s handwritten…or bloodwritten, so to speak?

If so, Yuinouzaka was a right fool for not photographing the scene and just memorising the text. Though even looking at this photo, he was none the wiser. The only thing that stood out was the messy handwriting, which is understandable given the circumstances… but to fault that seemed cruel.

Or, perhaps, there was a red sheet underneath that would reveal the true message if held up to the light? Hard to imagine a near-death murder victim would go to such lengths, though…

“Yes, this is the fourth method: requiring of additional physical tools to decipher. When you get to this point staring at the cipher itself will get you nowhere—you have to examine the physical situation and artifacts, not only the text.”

“Oh, I see!”

Blast. She’s not about to suggest they visit Fuchibuchi’s flat and examine the living room where he died, is she? No matter how close they were as business partners, he couldn’t imagine the police granting access to an active crime scene…And he had no desire to revisit the site of his friend’s murder.

“I was prepared to do just that if necessary to cover all possibilities, but thanks to your hint I believe we can narrow down the options considerably.”

He didn’t recall giving any hints. If he had the wit to crack it he would have done so.

“But you did give one. Twenty-five digits.”

“Ahhh…”

Oh, was she referring to that explicit leading question he had spat out all too willingly in his anxiety? If she had narrowed down the range of answers by that, he might have led the expert astray.

In theory, just as his name could be contrived from the text given, so too could a twenty-five digit number be forged by twisting words around. But if that doesn't open the safe, it was all meaningless anyway.

It's not a number he wanted, but the ledgers.

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