Case 4: Love Letters (Part II)

I quite liked the Going-Home Club, especially the fact that I had no obligations to stay after school or anything, so I could either hang out with friends or just leave.

However, now I was Shiomi Yua’s assistant. While technically it wasn’t a club, it was somewhat similar.

Therefore, I found myself still lurking at the entrance lobby after school, far enough from the shoe racks to not stand out, but also close enough to be able to watch over most of them, or at least the locker belonging to a certain girl.

The only problem was—I wasn’t here with Yua, despite the fact that I became her “assistant” expressly so I could spend time with her.

“Tch, you should’ve just explained it to me, man.”

This didn’t mean I was there alone, however. My friend/classmate Sagara also accompanied me at the moment.

“How many times do I have to apologize?” I grumbled.

After that whole Takai debacle the other day, the boy lowkey ignored me for the entire day, but today I finally managed to explain my recent circumstances to him.

“Until I feel satisfied,” said Sagara with a smug grin, making me groan. “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

“Well… I’m keeping watch.”

This was my current task as Yua’s assistant. She actually made me come this morning, too.

In a way, Sagara’s presence there was a blessing in disguise; it would make me stand out way less if it seemed like I was just chatting with a friend after school.

That being said, there were no suspicious movements right now. I jumped every time someone approached the shoe racks, but invariably it was just a student grabbing their outdoor shoes, with almost none of them even getting anywhere near Toyama’s locker.

“Hey, would you look at that?” Sagara suddenly said, elbowing me. “It’s your girlfriend.”

I perked up, thinking for a moment he was referring to Yua—though I actually never told him about my ultimate goal—but then realized.

“…Will you stop that already?” I grumbled.

The one who appeared from the corridor was a girl with sleek hair, large eyes and an elegant appearance, Takai Hana. Pure animal instincts bade me to run away, but it was too late; by the moment I noted her arrival, she had already locked eyes with me.

It really was uncanny, the way her usually flowery eyes transformed into thorns.

Our eye contact lasted for all of a second before she just made her way to her own shoe locker and resumed talking to the boy who walked by her side, whom I only noticed just now.

“Thank you, Shimura-san. I’ll do it by tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” replied the boy.

The name tickled my memory—ah, wait, was this perhaps the Shimura Naoto that our client spoke of? He was a good-looking guy with short hair.

Could this be the moment, then? I focused my gaze in the direction of Toyama’s locker, but Shimura just walked past it.

Well, that was a bit too convenient.

A few moments later, Takai finally left along with the tension that held my body.

“Say, wanna go grab a bite or something?” Sagara told me, detaching from the nearby wall. “You’re not gonna keep standing here forever, right?”

While it was very likely that by now the culprit wasn’t going to come anymore, I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m staying just a little longer. I’ll make it up to you.”

The boy clicked his tongue. “Fine, have it your way, then,” he grumbled, then promptly left as well. “I really don’t get it, but have fun, or something.”

He actually also passed near the locker, but did nothing with it, as far as I could see. Still, maybe I was becoming a little more detective-like by thinking about everyone as suspects, eh?

Time kept ticking and people started regarding me with odd looks, so I felt a bit awkward. Luckily, my patience was finally rewarded.

I only knew her for a very short time now, but the figure of the twintailed, short detective was already becoming ingrained into my mind such that just seeing her made me smile, like a Pavlovian response of some sort.

In comparison to my smile, however, she frowned as she noticed me. “What are you doing, Amari-kun?”

“What do you mean? I’m watching over the shoe racks, just like you’ve told me.”

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Here?”

“Well, yes? How else will I be able to see if anyone puts love letters into the locker?”

Yua gave a barely audible groan and covered her face with a hand. “Maybe it’s my fault for overestimating my assistant and not giving out any further instructions…”

Kinda rude. “What did I do wrong?”

“What’s your mission here?”

“Again, watching over the lockers.”

“No, your mission isn’t watching the lockers, it’s finding out whether someone placed a letter in Toyama-san’s locker. They might sound similar, but they’re completely different objectives.”

She was cute when she entered preaching mode, so I didn’t mind it too much. “Can you explain it better?”

“Fine. First of all, based on Toyama-san’s testimony, we can conclude that the culprit would put in those letters at very specific times. Even if you rushed here right after school, it makes no sense to keep watching for more than, say, ten minutes at best; it’s likely the culprit either delivers it throughout the day or before school closes down, though early morning is just as possible.

“Secondly, you chose a horrible spot. Even if the culprit did come here, he obviously wouldn’t do it right in plain view. What you should’ve done was find a spot not where you have a direct line of sight, but, for example, on the other side of the racks. That way, the culprit will feel hidden enough, and you can check whether or not they put the letter in afterwards.”

That was… both quite thorough and made a lot of sense.

There really wasn’t winning against this great detective, huh?

I rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, sorry. You’re right, I didn’t consider any of that.”

“As long as you understand,” she said with a smile.

As always, she was strict, but seemed to accept people learning from their mistakes, so that dulled the edge of her razor.

“What have you been doing this entire time, anyway?” I asked.

“Me? Oh, I went to gather some intel,” she informed me. “I consulted the class schedules and interviewed some people to try and find a timeline to narrow down the possible candidates—all to uncover the culprit.”

Oh, nice. Was she going to show me yet another splendid round of reasoning, like she did when we first met?

“Really? …Wait, have I been wasting my time here, then? Who is it, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet.”

I resisted the urge to fall like in some exaggerated comedy manga.

“Sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. This time, simply narrowing it down won’t be enough. Instead, I have a new plan—to set up a trap for them,” she said, her eyes shining ever brighter.