Solving Cases is My Daily Life Now: Volume 1

Chapter 8

"I see you're awake today as well!" Yua said as she slid her desk over to Rina's at lunch time.
"Not especially, I just haven't felt as tired as I usually do lately." Rina said as she took her bento out of her bag.
"Well normally you're like a zombie girl, shuffling around and trying to resist your urge to eat brains." Yua responded as she took her own bento out.
"I'm still trying not to eat brains, but you're making it very hard for me...not that your brain would do much for me." She joked back as Yua clutched her chest in fake agony.
"You're so cruel..." she said dramatically, closing her eyes.
Rina held up a bit of squid to Yua's mouth in response, who sniffed it for a moment before gulping it down in one bite.
Rina laughed as she continued to eat, both of them silent for a moment.
"I'm almost surprised Fukuhara didn't come to steal you away for a rendezvous today." Yua said, not looking up at Rina.
"Apparently he had some things to do on his own today. Which is fine with me." Rina said with a shrug.
Shortly after that, she heard the door open, widening her eyes slightly as she saw who was there.
It was Emi, the girl from the day before.
"Um, Yua, could I talk to you for a second?" She asked, looking around nervously.
"I'm sorry strange girl, but I've never seen you before in my li-" Yua started to speak but stopped when she saw Rina standing up.
"Sorry, I'll explain later." Rina whispered to her bewildered friend before stepping out into the hallway with Emi.
"That was Akamine? The girl that hangs around with Fukuhara, the detective guy?" Emi asked, seeming almost concerned.
"Yeah...she's my best friend. Why?" Rina asked, trying to ignore the fact that she was digging herself a deeper hole with each lie.
"Well...I wanted to clarify, about yesterday." Emi said, fiddling with her fingers.
Rina crossed her arms and tilted her head at the girl.
"Ok..." she said, waiting for Emi to go on.
"I know I said I didn't like Suzu, but I don't want you to think Fuko and I had something to do with it! We were actually together on two of the occasions that Suzu's things were vandalized. We were at a cafe with another friend when her desk was found, and in the library when her locker was..." Emi said.
Rina narrowed her eyes slightly. Her instincts told her that Emi wasn't being entirely truthful, though at the moment she had no reason to say anything.
"Ok, well it's not like I was going to run around and tell people you did it." Rina said, partially telling the truth.
It then occurred to her that it could be an opportunity to get more information.
"Emi...do you have a classmate named Haruto?" She asked, as innocently as she could.
Emi let out an "Eh?" followed by a light gasp as she began to blush.
"Yes...I know him. W-why?" She asked, looking away.
Rina raised an eyebrow. Haruto must have been the guy Emi liked, the one that looked at Suzu instead.
"No reason, I just heard someone mention him the other day." Rina said with a shrug.
"Really? What'd they say?" Emi asked, stepping closer.
Rina backed up a bit, not prepared for the slight increase in intensity.
"I, um...don't really remember." She said with a light chuckle, rubbing the back of her head.
Emi looked down, but seemed to accept the answer.
"I see...well I cleared up the misunderstanding, so um...bye!" She said with a nervous smile before leaving.
Rina watched her leave, she seemed just as suspicious as the first time they spoke. Though she found it hard to believe that someone so meek could do something malicious. As she walked back into the classroom something donned on her: how did she know which class she was in? She didn't have much time to think about it before she had to dodge an empty bento thrown by Yua.
"What's the big idea, stealing my name for your own? If you don't like Rina, come up with something more original!" Yua said, hands on her hips.
"Sorry, sorry. It was so she wouldn't know who I was, and your name was the first to come to mind." Rina said with a shrug, picking up the bento and placing it on Yua's desk.
"Well, I'm flattered at least that I'm always on your mind." Yua said, sticking her tongue out as both girls put their bentos away.
Shortly after that the bell rang, and when class was over Rina made her way to the club room, ready to hear what Masaru had learned.

Rina was almost surprised that Suzu wasn't in the club room when she got there, only seeing Masaru sitting at his desk looking at his phone.
"Suzu didn't come in today?" Rina asked as she set her school bag next to her desk.
"She doesn't have to come in every day." Masaru said, before yawning and stretching, "good thing too, dealing with her every day would be exhausting."
"Hey, I think she's sweet." Rina said, hands on her hips and cheeks puffed out.
Masaru didn't respond, only setting his phone down and looking up at her.
"I did some digging on Haruto today. He's actually pretty popular in that class, but there is one thing..." He said as Rina sat down at her desk.
"What's that?" She asked, tilting her head.
"He seems to be pretty fixated on Suzu." Masaru responded, putting a pocky stick in his mouth.
"Now that you mention it, Emi said that her crush was always looking at Suzu..." Rina said, putting her hand on her chin in thought.
"What's the significance of that, other than a motive for her?" Masaru asked, eyebrow raised.
Rina blinked, she had totally forgotten to tell Masaru about what happened at lunch,
"Oh yeah. Emi came by my class at lunch, she knows you're investigating the vandalism. Buuuut she doesn't know that I'm involved too, so she mentioned that she and Fuko had alibis for two of the occasions."
"I'll have to check the authenticity of that tomorrow, but what does that have to do with Haruto?" Masaru asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk.
"I asked if she knew him, her reaction seemed to indicate that he was her secret crush." Rina finished, slightly proud of herself for getting information.
Masaru leaned back again, taking everything she said in.
"But if Haruto likes Suzu, why would he vandalize her things...?" He wondered aloud, before standing up.
"Either way, there's still one variable we haven't considered yet. This girl Fuko. I asked around and she's not in any clubs, but she hangs around on the roof with some friends after school." He said, before walking towards the door.
Rina took that as her queue and followed him, notepad in hand.

"I'll take the lead on this one. My sources indicated that she's sharper than most." Masaru said, looking forward as he walked.
Rina would have pouted at his perceived lack of faith in her, but in truth she knew Masaru was better suited for such situations, so she simply nodded.
After a few moments of silence, Rina was surprised when Masaru spoke up.
"You spent all of last week asking me questions about myself. It never occurred to me to ask what you did that forced you to join my club." He said, looking over at Rina.
"That's..." Rina looked down.
After all that had happened, she was somewhat embarrassed at the way she behaved.
After more silence, Masaru spoke again.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He said, looking forward again.
Rina frowned, she didn't want him to feel like she wouldn't be honest with him.
"Masaru, I-" she began, but was cut off.
"These are the stairs to the roof." Masaru said as they stopped at the end of a staircase.
Rina sighed, deciding to leave it for now since Masaru changed the subject.
"You ready?" He asked, turning to her.
After a moment of thought, Rina nodded.
"Ok, just write down anything important." Masaru said, walking up the stairs, followed closely behind by Rina.
When they reached the top they could hear voices on the other side of the door, presumably belonging to Fuko or one of her friends.
Masaru gripped the doorknob, and without hesitation swung the door open.

The girls on the roof all turned to look at Rina and Masaru, one less surprised looking than the others.
The girl in question, a girl with dark yellow hair, simply smirked, seeming to have expected their arrival.
"Fuko, I take it?" Masaru asked, locking eyes with the smirking girl.
The girl took a step forward, arms crossed as she looked Masaru up and down.
"And I guess that makes you Masaru Fukuhara, then? Come to interrogate me about poor little Suzu?" She asked with a laugh, her friends looking a bit more confused than she did.
"I just want to ask you some questions." Masaru said, briefly glancing at the group of girls before looking back to Fuko.
"Well, anything you need to ask me you can ask in front of them." Fuko said with a grin, extending her arm across the group.
Rina supposed it might have been an attempt to make Masaru falter, but his expression didn't change.
"Very well. My sources combined with information from your classmates indicate that you have a problem with Suzu. I was hoping you might enlighten us and tell me exactly what that problem is?" He asked, hands in his pockets.
"Oh, that makes me a suspect now? I'm not sure how many SOURCES you have, but if they're reliable at all they should have told you that nobody likes Suzu in that class. She's weird, a stuttering pervert that draws porn in class." Fuko responded, the confident smile never leaving her face.
Rina grit her teeth, she almost said something harsh to the smug girl. But Masaru spoke first.
"You must not know your class as well as you thought. From what I've heard, at least one person in the class likes her, a lot. Why is that, do you suppose?" Masaru asked, tilting his head slightly.
Fuko laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Oh, you mean Haruto? Poor guy has had a morbid fascination with all year. But he's not as head over heels for her as you might think. I did seem him hanging around after class the day Suzu's desk was vandalized, at least he was still there when I left." Fuko said with another laugh, her friends awkwardly joining in at times.
"That could account for one time, but I have no reason to rule out more than one culprit. I've also heard you're friends with Emi from your class?" Masaru said, taking a pocky stick out and sticking it in his mouth.
Fuko nodded, before looking off to the side.
"Oh, yes. We're very close. We were actually at the library when it happened with Suzu's locker. And at a cafe when the desk was messed around with." She said, waving her hand in front of her with the last sentence.
Rina narrowed her eyes, it matched up with what Emi said. But they could very well have been lying together, and she and Masaru wouldn't have known.
"Was there anyone else with you at the time?" Masaru asked, still not faltering as he grilled her further.
"Yes, in fact she has some pictures on her phone!" Fuko said, pointing to one of her friends.
The friend jumped, looking around before taking her phone out.
"Y-Yeah..." She said, standing up and taking her phone out, showing Masaru and Rina the pictures.
Sure enough, the times, dates, and locations matched up.
"See? So whomever you're looking for, it isn't me or Emi." Fuko said, her smug smile briefly turning to Rina.
Masaru raised an eyebrow, taking a bite from the pocky stick.
"As I recall, I said I had some questions. Never said anything about accusing you." Masaru said, turning around to leave, "though your eagerness to prove your innocence makes me suspicious for sure."
Fuko's grin faltered for a moment as Masaru shrugged and began to walk away, with Rina turning around to follow him just fast enough to hide her own grin.
"Don't worry, we'll be in touch if I find out anything that could implicate you." Masaru said before gripping the doorknob.
They could hear Fuko begin to whisper to her friends as Masaru opened the door, stepping back inside with Rina.

"So, do you think she's behind the vandalism?" Rina asked as she followed Masaru down the stairs.
"I think she's definitely involved somehow, though I have no way to prove it yet." Masaru responded, not turning around as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Rina hesitated for a moment as Masaru continued walking towards the club room, but quickly regained herself and followed him.
"There are so many people involved in this...why do they hate Suzu so much? Just because she's a bit different..." Rina looked at the ground, wishing she didn't let things like that bother her so much.
"More than a bit, I'd say. Still doesn't warrant this kind of treatment, though." Masaru said without turning around.
Rina lifted her head as she remembered their discussion before talking with Fuko.
Rina stopped in her tracks, grabbing the back of Masaru's trench coat to stop him.
"In any case, we-" Masaru stopped when he felt his coat being tugged.
He turned to face Rina, his eyebrow raised, waiting for her to say something.
"I...stuck my chopsticks into a girl's nose." Rina said, looking at the floor.
Masaru looked at her for a moment, blinking a few times.
"...what?"
Rina tensed up, realizing she gave him no context.
"The reason I got in trouble!" Rina looked up at him, the heat building in her face, "a classmate was being mean to my friend, so I...stuck my chopsticks into her nose and pulled her around a bit."
She and Masaru gazed into each other's eyes for a moment as he seemed to register what she was saying. Slowly, a smile formed on his face, and he began to laugh.
"H-hey! It's not funny!" Rina said, finally letting go of his coat to punch him on the shoulder.
Masaru laughed for a few seconds more before saying something.
"But that's just so like you, Rina." He said with a smile.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Rina asked, the heat not leaving her face.
"In the short time I've known you, I can tell you're not the type to let someone suffer. You always have to say something, and if you don't you agonize over it." Masaru said, putting his hands in his pockets.
Rina looked at the floor again and frowned. Was she really so easy to figure out?
"But...it's not a bad trait to have." Masaru said, turning back around, "to care so much...to put forth the effort to truly help someone. It's an admirable quality."
Rina looked back up at him, tears almost forming in her eyes. She had never considered the possibility of Masaru admiring anything about her.
"Keep talking like that, and I might think we're friends or something..." Rina said with a laugh, the heat fading from her face.
Masaru turned his head halfway back to look at her, a half smile on his face.
"Well, we wouldn't want anyone to make that mistake, would we?" He teased, before beginning to walk.
Rina puffed out her cheeks, before following him once again.
The rest of the walk was quiet, with Rina trying to regain her composure after briefly being so vulnerable.
When they walked into the club room, Suzu was there waiting for them.

Suzu was sitting on Masaru's desk, sketching something when she looked up at them.
"Oh, R-Rina and Masaru!" She said as Masaru walked across the room, "finally back f-from your l-lustful retrea-" she cut herself off with noises of pain and Masaru grabbed her by the cheek and pulled her off of his desk.
"What are you doing here? I told you that you didn't need to come in today." Masaru said, looking at his desk where she was sitting.
"I j-j-just wanted to see if you g-guys made any progress!" She whined before Masaru let her go.
"A little bit, though not very much. Once again we've been left with more questions than answers." Rina said with a shrug, before handing her notepad to Masaru and sitting down at her desk.
Suzu sat down in one of the chairs in front of Masaru's desk, looking at her lap.
"Suzu, yesterday we talked about a student in your class named Haruto. Do you know him?" Masaru asked as he sat down at his desk.
Suzu gasped lightly before looking up at Masaru.
"W-What about h-h-him?" Suzu asked before gulping, her face turning pink.
"So you do. What have your interactions with him been like?" Masaru asked, not looking up from the notepad.
Suzu fidgeting for a moment, thinking before she attempted to speak up.
"W-w-w-well, a little over a m-m-month ago...he c-c-c-c-confessed to me!" Suzu finally spat out before covering her blushing face with her hands.
Masaru looked up at Suzu, his expression not changing.
"What did you say?" Rina asked, almost genuinely curious.
Suzu removed her hands from her face and turned to look at Rina.
"W-well, I guess you could say I r-r-rejected him..." she said, avoiding looking Rina in the eye.
"Why?" Masaru asked, crossing his arms and tilting his head.
"W-well..." she began, turning back to face him, "for all my perverted t-talk, I've actually never b-been with anyone before...and I d-d-don't think I'd be very good in a r-relationship, at least not right n-now. Besides, he's not really my t-t-type..." Suzu said, covering her face again.
"That sounds like a motive to me." Masaru said, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling.
"So what are you thinking, Masaru?" Rina asked, certain that Masaru already had a general idea forming.
"Well, all four suspects are certainly suspicious. And there are four instances of vandalism. Two of the girls have alibis for two of the occasions, yet said nothing in regards to the other two." Masaru said, before leaning forward onto his desk.
After a few moments, he looked over at Rina.
"For now, we work under the assumption that each one of them vandalized Suzu's things on one occasion. We simply need to find out who did what, and if that theory is even correct." He said, before putting a pocky stick in his mouth.
Rina nodded, and Suzu looked between the two of them, blushing.
"We have a motive for Emi and Haruto. But what reason would Seto and Fuko have?" Masaru wondered aloud, "Suzu, have you had past dealings with either of them?"
Suzu shook her head, before seeming to realize something.
"I've never really spoken to Seto, but...Fuko has talked to me a few times. I thought she was being nice, but maybe...maybe not..." she said, looking away from the two.
"What did she say?" Rina asked, head tilted.
"Mostly things about what I d-draw, why I do, things l-like that..." Suzu responded, getting quieter with each word.
"Suzu." Masaru said sternly, slightly startling both girls in the room, "You can go home for the day. I need to speak to Rina alone, meet us here after school tomorrow."
Suzu hesitated for a moment, before nodding, putting her drawing that Rina could have sworn looked like something with two guys into her bag.
She silently bowed to the two before leaving, looking uneasy.
"What did you want to discuss?" Rina asked, standing up and walking over to Masaru's desk.
"There's one person we haven't spoken to yet in all of this." Masaru said, closing his eyes.
"Haruto?" Rina asked, raising an eyebrow.
Masaru nodded, before standing up himself.
"I have an idea. At lunch tomorrow I'll call in a few favors. We'll trick Haruto into going to a secluded place, where you and I will confront him. Suzu will be hiding out of sight, so she can hear what he has to say." Masaru said, taking his phone out and seeming to message someone.
"Wouldn't forcing her to hear that be cruel?" Rina thought, though not entirely disagreeing with him.
"Not cruel, realistic. Suzu not hearing anything about negative feelings doesn't make the negative feelings go away. Besides, maybe she'll feel obligated to say something to him." Masaru said, looking over at Rina.
Thinking over what he said, Rina nodded.
"I'm not crazy about this, but I'm with you." She said, looking him up and down.
Masaru nodded as well before looking at his phone again.
"You can go now, too. I'm going to make some calls." He said, walking over to the window.
"Ok, see you tomorrow." Rina said, with Masaru waving in response.
When she left the room, Rina leaned against the door. Tomorrow was going to be tough for sure. Would she be able to refrain from giving Haruto a piece of her mind? She wasn't sure, but when she thought of Masaru and Suzu it gave her more resolve than she expected. So she slapped herself on the cheeks and began the walk home, ready to help face Suzu's demon's the next day, hoping things would turn out ok.