Chapter 2
After she scread a question, I started digging through the ten-thousand-yen bills. I wasn't trying to disturb the cri scene. I just had to be sure whether the person under the money was really dead.
Miiko had only confird the arm sticking out of the money.
Calming down and thinking it over, it was possible the landlord had prepared a mannequin ward to human temperature along with the cash to scare us.
"Please say it's a lie..."
That was the hope I clung to, but reality was rciless. After , Miiko also murmured.
"Face reality. He has no pulse. This person really is dead."
One old man's face appeared, lying face-up beneath the ten-thousand-yen bills. A single cut on his forehead, the blood already dried into a visible trail. From the back of the head, invisible from above, dark red liquid had splattered and soaked the nearby floor.
Seeing that state, I couldn't stay calm. He hadn't died from so internal cause like a cerebral infarction, subarachnoid hemorrhage, or heart attack.
"Hey, Miiko... this person... was killed by soone, right...!?"
The bleeding at the back of the head was worse than at the front; it was clear he'd been killed by a blow to the occipital bone. Answering my words was Miiko.
She muttered sothing strange under her breath.
"So it's a murder case."
"Miiko...?"
She smiled as though she were enjoying the situation. Even her shadow seed to be grinning ominously.
This wasn't the first ti I'd felt this mysterious aura from her. Especially whenever she dove head-first into a case.
Her attitude could only be called inappropriate. And I couldn't help finding it unpleasant. I could already see what she was about to start.
"Don't tell you're planning to play detective in a situation like this...? And, as usual, you're not thinking of fighting the murderer or anything, right?"
She solves mysteries of murders she carries out sowhere I don't know about. I occasionally get dragged into them too. Since I'm not involved, I try not to get too close.
But this ti is different. I'm also the first discoverer. She's definitely thinking of starting an investigation together with , now that I'm part of the case.
While I was trying to think of how to reject her incomprehensible behavior, she replied.
"Let ask you the opposite—don't you want to?"
"I don't. Don't you want to mourn this person's death?"
"Detective work is one way of mourning the dead. That's why we have the police, isn't it?"
"...Even so, I hate detectives. Professional detectives, and those who barge into cases without being involved—none of them have ever left a good impression on ."
"I see."
While I called the police with the smartphone I pulled from my back pocket, mories ca flooding back.
All the worst treatnt I'd ever received from detectives.
It might rival the grudge of having my parents killed. After all, they were the ones who first ruined my family.
Detectives. So track cheating spouses or find lost dogs; others show up at cri scenes claiming to assist the police these days.
I'm talking about both kinds.
Thanks to a detective's investigation, all sorts of facts about my father ca to light, and he was fired. The detective then published my father's misdeeds online, writing that almost everything was his doing. After that, online vigilantes slandered him; he couldn't live a normal life in society anymore. He left a note and vanished. Might as well have been killed.
The company my father worked for was apparently rotten too. So it's not that the detective was entirely to bla.
My mother was also killed.
No, she's still alive. She's alive, but she was killed.
My mother, a mystery novelist, had earned the reputation of "the genius of the Reiwa era, the reincarnation of the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie." One day, soone died using the tricks she'd written. The case should have ended quietly as a normal incident. But a detective showed up with great fanfare. A high-school detective currently the talk of the town. The dia made a huge fuss, and the detective, carried away, said, "The culprit is bad, but the person who created this trick must also be punished. After all, they beca the reason the culprit longed to commit the cri." Whether it was intentional or he simply had no other words, my mother was condemned by society as well.
She stopped writing the mystery novels she loved. The kind mother I knew was killed.
Now she barely speaks to , shut away in a villa writing romance novels nonstop.
Even after all this, claiming it's the detectives' fault may sound presumptuous.
No, not yet.
Not just my parents— even my older sister fell victim to a detective.
It's simple. A detective told a stalker where she lived. After the stalker attacked her, she beca a shut-in with a broken mind. Even after the stalker was arrested, her heart never healed.
I think the detective is completely at fault here.
What I personally suffered from detectives doesn't end there. Just recalling the smallest troubles makes my guts boil.
After I finished calling the police, I barked at her as she started imitating a detective.
"Sorry, but stop doing detective stuff in front of ."
What ca back was a single pointed remark, sharp as a needle, piercing my heart.
"But when you were thinking about the dog outside, weren't you reasoning things out? Isn't that detective make-believe?"
"Huh!?"
After I spoke, I realized. The exchange I'd had outside—things I'd said.
I was disgusted with myself for unconsciously acting like a detective. This is how I've always been. I claim I hate detectives, yet I move the sa way.
When a corpse drops in front of , I say "It's none of my business," yet I dive into the case with Miiko. I act aloof and standoffish, but when push cos to shove, I show my dere side by solving the case. Am I aiming to be tsundere or sothing?
As I drooped my shoulders in despair at my own foolishness, she patted my back.
"You're a mystery writer. The son of Professor Toragawa. You've got a talent for solving mysteries. It's a waste not to use it!"
"B-but..."
"Detectives are great! In manga and novels they solve cases with style and give us happy endings!"
"That's wrong!"
She tilted her head at my denial. "What's wrong?" ca her calm voice.
"There's no happy ending like you're talking about in mysteries. Detectives know soone will be killed, yet they do nothing to prevent it, learn nothing from experience, and let people die! Suspects end up having their most important secrets exposed to the detective!"
"And then?"
"Whether suspects end up unhappy or happy after the case is over is almost never written. Even if they beco unhappy because of the detective, everyone just accepts it because it was necessary to solve the case..."
"Hmm... I see. Then, can I ask one thing?"
Even after all I'd said, she didn't seem discouraged about being a detective. She simply asked a question.
"Then... what?"
"Then... what if we don't uncover anyone's secrets and we don't solve the case? The murderer just keeps on living free and easy... is that really okay?"
A question that struck from an unexpected angle.
While grimacing, I still had to answer. That answer had been decided long before I was born.
"Of course not! I can't forgive detectives who barge into cases and ruin people's lives, but murderers are the sa. How many lives are ruined by murder... how many people grieve...!?"
"Then, will you solve the mystery of this case? Won't you use it as a lead to catch the culprit? Won't you at least help the police?"
I quietly nodded. As long as it's just helping catch a murderer, and as long as I'm not putting on so unnecessary detective act, but conducting a modest investigation...
While I was rationalizing my own actions and motives...
The front door burst open violently, and I heard the footsteps of several intruders. At first I thought it was the police, but the police wouldn't barge in so noisily and disturb the scene. Besides, I hadn't heard any sirens.
If it wasn't the police, had the culprit co back to the scene?
If we'd arrived while they were in the middle of hiding the body, we'd have to run— or be silenced...!
"Miiko! Run!"
I tried to flee in terror, but it was too late. A young man who seed to be one of the intruders stood blocking the entrance to the parlor. He snickered and studied us, cutting off our escape.
"Huh? Run? What do you an... hmm?"
The young man in the brown cap looked not just at , but at Miiko too. Then, after grinning, he suddenly widened his eyes.
...Could it be... could it be!?
My bad premonition was confird when the bastard spoke up.
"Running because you accidentally got soone all bloodied up... is that what you're trying to do!?"
He's got the wrong idea!?
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