Chapter 5

“Thank you. I will directly consult you then, Nonomiya-kun, should I ever be troubled.”

Tsukimori smiled with her almond eyes half closed.

It didn’t look like she wasn’t scheming something. I won’t deny the influence of my wishful thinking on this a.s.sessment, though.

Our conversation ended because our cla.s.s teacher, Ukai, had appeared in the cla.s.sroom.

My mood was quite good that day. Kamogawa and his comrades were annoying when they came to question me about my conversation with Tsukimori in the following break, but I considered it a good harvest because I had discovered how thrilling and amusing it was to talk to her.

Well, it was just me savoring the thrill produced by my own fantasies, though.

Still, it was much better than a boring reality.

Without any progress or new information, my peaceful daily routine went on and, before I knew it, two weeks had pa.s.sed since finding the murder recipe.

As there wasn’t anything to stir up my imagination, my excitement subsided and I was about to forget the very existence of the recipe.

Because I had kept holding back my trump card, the game had stopped slowly and quietly. It was a truly pathetic situation.

However, a change occurred all of a sudden.

Perhaps…the game had not even started yet.

I went to school as always, and the cla.s.sroom was ever noisy. But Tsukimori was nowhere in sight. Her seat was empty.

I was puzzled, but the answer wasn’t long in coming.

“Hey, Nonomiya! Have you heard?”

It was Kamogawa.

“Can’t say I have.”

Of course I had no idea what he was talking about because his sentence lacked the object.

“Someone from Tsukimori’s family is dead.”

I felt my heartbeat accelerate.

“Who?” I asked while suppressing the arising excitement.

“Her dad, it seems. It was a traffic accident. Youko-san has my fullest sympathies…,” answered Usami with a sad face.

“Really, I feel sorry for her. To lose one’s father at this age, that’s…”

Unlike his usual behavior, even Kamogawa showed a mournful mien. That must be the normal reaction.

“…Indeed. Let’s all support her.”

However, I harbored different emotions from the others. Youko Tsukimori, traffic accident, death—these keywords led me straight to the murder recipe.

I desperately suppressed the grin that was about to flash over my face.

It’s getting interesting.

[Live]

The first lesson was English, but I don’t remember anything of it. I was pondering the accident of Youko Tsukimori’s father.

I also played with the thought of browsing some news sites on my mobile phone—hidden from the eyes of the teacher, of course—but I decided against it because I was known as a fairly well-behaving student. I kept telling myself that I was keeping the best for last and spent a painful hour like this.

The very moment the English lesson ended, I rushed out of the cla.s.sroom, fired up for details about the accident, and headed straight to the library room.

It should have today’s newspaper, and since there was a casualty, there had to be an article about it.

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