Case 13: The Detective's Lie

“Will you answer one question, though?”

“Hmm?”

Sunday was over, school was back, and I was also back in my usual spot: with Yua in that abandoned clubroom after school.

Right after I’d broken up with Hitomi, I asked Yua whether I could return to being her assistant.

I was half-expecting her to ask me to beg, request payment in the form of snacks or just flat-out refuse, but to my delight she simply accepted me on the spot.

(“I had a feeling this would happen. Welcome back, Amari-kun!” she’d said.)

Therefore, I came here like usual as if nothing happened.

As for Hitomi… Well, she also treated me pretty much the same as usual, although I did hear her tell people about the fastest breakup in history. When Sagara came to ask me about it, I also confirmed this fact.

The boy wore a somewhat weird expression but said nothing further and proceeded to ignore me for the entire day.

And, as I came back to the detective’s office full of snacks, I decided to interrogate Yua about something important.

“—Who was your client?”

As expected, she immediately understood what I was referring to, and also gave her answer immediately. “I’m sorry to say that’s confidential.”

“I’m your assistant though, aren’t I? I already helped you with many other clients.”

Yua narrowed her eyes. “At the time this request came you weren’t my assistant, so I can’t tell you.”

“Hmm… I see. I guess that makes sense.” I smiled, leaning forward on the back of the chair. “Will you answer if I guess it, though?”

“I can’t promise something like that,” she said resolutely.

“Alright, fine. Then just hear me out as I lay out my own reasoning.”

She responded with a smile of her own. “Look at you, thinking you’ve risen beyond the rank of an assistant already? Let’s see you try, amateur.”

With that being said, it wasn’t anything impressive, and it was just a very probable guess I couldn’t even prove by myself.

I definitely was no detective. Barely an assistant, come to that. Maybe I should have pursued a career in crime instead? Anyway…

“The client was probably my classmate and friend—Sagara Hikaru.”

“Hmm.” Not a single muscle in her face moved. “An interesting proposition, but why?”

“For one, there’s the matter of speed. You took action way too fast. Someone must have approached you with that request practically the very next day after Hitomi confessed to me. It’s not like I’m that well-known in school for rumors to spread that fast… So it makes sense it was someone from my class,” I explained. “But really, it’s mostly because Sagara was acting so odd. Uh, that’s it, more or less.”

“Pretty sloppy,” she said, waving a hand dismissively, but still smiling. “I can’t confirm or deny it with such weak reasoning and logic.”

I gave a huge shrug.

I wasn’t expecting her to actually give me the answer, although I was plenty convinced of it by now.

Some questions remained regarding Sagara’s motives in that respect, but I think I figured them out as well.

I wasn’t going to say them out loud, anyway. There really was no point to doing this. There was something more important I had to do.

“Weak reasoning and logic, you say? Pretty much like the day when we first met, hmm?”

Yua was visibly surprised by this comment. “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Well… I’m talking about the lie you’ve told me at the very beginning.”

Looking back, I was extremely naïve. I couldn’t be blamed, though, since the days after that proved that she really was a brilliant detective, so I never thought about it too deeply.

However, after gaining some new information just yesterday, I thought back and realized I’d been a bit of a fool.

“Lie? What would that be?” she asked. She didn’t sound particularly hurt by my accusation or anything; there were even small sparkles in her eyes.

“What, have you forgotten already? A literal minute after we met, you named me,” I continued, “then proceeded to form an entire chain of reasoning to explain how you arrived at my identity… but that was just a load of bullshit, wasn’t it?”

Her smile widened. “Why? It was perfectly logical.”

“No, it wasn’t. I bet I could’ve poked a lot of holes into it, if I really thought about it back then… But really, the premise of you knowing the names of the entire grade was ridiculous in the first place. So the only possible conclusion—is that you lied to me. You’ve known me before I even entered this room.”

“Well… I suppose I technically admitted as such yesterday.”

Right. After all, she took on a request from Hitomi to investigate me, and that was a while before we properly met.

Yua just shrugged. “You can’t blame me, right? Not like I would’ve told you about all that… And I always offer discreet services.”

“Hmm, I suppose so.”

It wasn’t like I of all people could complain about her lying to me or pretending to be cooler than she was.

So I wasn’t mad or anything.

If anything—it made me even more interested in her. She was a sneaky one, this girl.

“Are we done with that, then?” she asked, innocent as ever. “I’m starving here, so can you get me something from the closet? Doesn’t really matter what.”

“Aye aye sir.”

“I’m not a sir.”

“Aye aye Ayu.”

“I’m not ‘Ayu’, either.”

Yes, that was the way things should be, I thought cheerfully while approaching the closet and grabbing something at random.

And while performing my duties more like some sort of servant than an assistant, I was thinking about the fact that I spotted another one of Yua’s lies.

No, maybe it wasn’t a lie.

It was possible not even Yua herself noticed this.

Yesterday, she came to investigate Hitomi and me, probably at Sagara’s request. That much was fine and understandable. It wasn’t anything unusual.

Yet a part of this was unnatural.

In these kinds of jobs, Yua would usually perform the task, then go report to the client.

Therefore, she had no reason at all to approach us, let alone corner Hitomi like this and expose the truth to me. Even if Sagara’s request was something like ‘make them break up’, I doubt she’d agree.

Meaning, this was something she’d done on her own initiative.

“What’s with that creepy smile?” Yua mumbled as I handed the bag to her. Whoops, did my feelings show up on my face?

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just glad to be your assistant again.”

This actually made her smile as well. “Welcome back, Amari-kun.”

“I’m back.”

I wasn’t going to expose her second lie, at least not for the time being.