Epilogue

“So the only one who could have possibly done that is you—Nozawa-san!” Yua declared, pointing.

“W-what? No way… you couldn’t have possibly figured out my trick! How?!”

Winter was approaching its end.

Soon, spring would come, bringing along with it the end of my first year of high school.

A group of five students stood right outside the school building, witnessing this epic revelation.

Detective Shiomi Yua had exposed yet another culprit, and the two girls on both sides of Nozawa started hurling him with abuse.

—A lot happened during this year, but some things never change.

Yua kept on solving mysteries like always, and I remained by her side as her assistant.

“Hmm. I have to say your idea for the trap wasn’t half-bad, Amari-kun,” she told me after the culprit ran away, with the girls after him.

“Well, none of it would’ve mattered if not for your brilliant reasoning, Shiomi.”

“Mhm, for sure.”

It was so easy to butter her up… Yes, some things really never change.

“Watcha doin’? Another case or something?”

Startled by this sudden voice, I turned around to see my friend and classmate Sagara.

“Oh, it’s you, Sagara. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just saw you starting some sort of scene and thought it could be amusing, but seems like I was too late,” he said, shrugging.

I leaned toward him. “And how are things going with Hitomi-chan?”

It was hard not to laugh when I saw him actually flushing a little.

“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on!” he insisted. “What about you two, though? Looking chummy there, hmm?”

“Do we now?” wondered Yua.

“Aren’t we just normal?” I added.

Sagara looked from me to her and back, rubbing his chin. His shoulders then slumped as though in disappointment. “Yeah, I suppose you’re just being freaks like usual.”

“Wow, rude.”

“Yet true. See ya later, then, wannabe detectives,” said Sagara, waving his hand as he left the scene.

I briefly waved back at him, then lowered my arm. “So, are we going to solve that case about the guy getting ghosted?”

“No, that one’s for tomorrow,” said Yua. “We need to wait for the girl’s response, so there’s no point in investigating anything right now.”

“Hmm. How about some heading back for some snacks, then?”

“You’re on,” she said with a smile.

Despite Takai’s best efforts, no club currently wanted to use our spare room—and it was almost the end of the year, anyway. As we walked back into the school building, I looked at Yua and wondered.

“Say… are you fine with how things are?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” she asked me back.

—This was the first time I had a girlfriend like her. And the first time she had a boyfriend like me, too.

A few weeks back, Yua had accepted my confession, and we became an official couple.

However, nothing seemed to really change about our relationship. Neither between us, nor in how we acted or what we did. Practically everything remained the same.

We had gone on some dates, but even then, most of them had somehow devolved into fresh cases for Yua to solve rather than anything romantic.

And honestly? I was perfectly fine with how things were.

Neither of us were the type of person to suddenly become shy around one another, or hold hands all of the time, or act lovey-dovey or anything like that.

We were the detective and the culprit taking our relationship to the next level. That was all.

“I mean our current lack of snacks.”

“That’s your fault!” she blamed me. “I’m lowering your share from 20% back to 10%, you eat too much!”

“Aw man, and after I finally got that raise?”

No… if I were being honest, there was one subtle change I noticed.

But I was probably the only one who could notice it.

Whenever she looked at me, there were stars in her eyes.

It might sound odd, but I was happy that she looked at me the same way she approached a mystery. That, more than anything else, was proof that our feelings were mutual.

“Prove yourself worthy of the snacks, Amari-kun.”

“Sure, Shiomi-chan.”

I had the feeling that it wasn’t going to be an easy relationship and that we were going to get into a lot of trouble down the road. Who knows if we were even going to last for long?

That was a mystery we’d have to solve together.

END