Hyouka:Volume 2 Chapter 4
Status: Incomplete
34% completed (estimated)
4 - "Bloody Beast"
The next day.
It was another fine day, with fine weather covering the entire country. A good day for leisurely activity. Watching a bit of TV for once in the morning, it showed people heading off to the sea and mountains. Ahh, tanned skin, smiling faces, that's what I call a vacation!
And here we were, huddling our desks in the corner of the classroom having a meeting.
Then again, I had no preference either way. In fact, having a meeting might even suit me better. If I had to be free, then I would prefer killing time in an air-conditioned cafe sipping away at a hot cup of coffee. On such an occasion, only black coffee with its bitter taste would suffice.
"Oreki, stop daydreaming! We're supposed to be thinking of a solution here!"
My consciousness returned to the meeting. Even without being told, we all knew the agenda today was the solution to the movie "Mystery (working title)". Since we were only discussing it, we weren't exactly going beyond our responsibilities as "observers". But then, I was merely listening silently, as it was just Satoshi summarizing the situation,
"...In other words, what Haba-sempai said was correct — the sealed room was rather rigid, as it's not easy breaking into a double sealed room. Especially the outer sealed room, which was practically shouting 'as though you can break in',"
The outer sealed room Satoshi was referring to was the second sealed room which Haba was mentioning yesterday. As the entrance to the right corridor was being watched by Sugimura, no one would be able to sneak inside perfectly without being seen.
Chitanda tilted her head and said timidly, "So it can't be broken into? But, how could you be so certain?"
"Well, you see, Chi-chan,"
Ibara took over the explanation.
"It's under the pretext that Haba-sempai's second sealed room exists. If that is to be broken into, then they must have filmed something about when and how it was broken into. If that's the case, then the cast could have treated this 30 seconds as a blind spot where they would show how the killer breaks in. But we've not seen anything of that sort in the movie. As the movie was very simple, there's just not enough room to insert anything extra."
"Oh, I see. So it was never mentioned whether the killer sneaked through during the brief moment Sugimura-san wasn't watching the hall, right?"
Ibara nodded and continued, "Besides, it's the same thing if it was Sugimura-sempai trying to escape from Senouchi-sempai and the others' lines of vision. That's why I hadn't thought Hongou-sempai would consider the possibility of a second sealed room. That was just Haba-sempai thinking too much. Instead, thinking from the premise of who had entered the right side corridor would have been better."
Give it up already, Ibara. Where's the fun if you have to do all the thinking? Though Ibara quickly gave a self-deprecating smile and waved her hand to dismiss what she just said.
"Nah, that probably won't work as well. Since they've already shot the part with Sugimura-sempai shown standing above the hall, which means he was watching the whole time."
Silence. The meeting had come to a deadlock.
Recognizing the stalemate, Chitanda suddenly spoke.
"By the way, I nearly forgot,"
She took something out of the bag she was carrying on her shoulder.
"Here, have some."
It was some sweets wrapped in small elegant boxes with English words written on them. It seemed they were whiskey bonbons.
"What's with these?"
Faced with the sudden appearance of such luxury, Ibara said that looking half-amazed. Chitanda smiled gently.
"These are samples for a new recipe. It was sent to us as a gift by the candy makers for the Bon Festival. Though we hardly eat many sweets, so..."
Upon opening the lids, each small box contained around 20 rather large whiskey bonbons.
"Since I got it as a gift, feel free to have them."
She handed one over to me. I removed the paper wrapping and put the chocolate in my mouth. I could smell a strong flavour of almond and whiskey as I bit it.
Chitanda asked, "How is it?"
"...It tastes strong."
To the point of getting drunk. I was thinking of having another one, seeing as she went out of her way to give them to us, but decided otherwise.
As each one of us got their share of candy, I began to do some thinking.
The biggest challenge this mystery posed was its limitation of information. As Ibara had put it, as it wasn't really filmed meticulously, there was hardly room to insert anything extra. To begin with, was it even possible to solve the mystery just by watching the movie? I really don't want to watch it again just to confirm. Besides, the movie never even showed the fact that the entrance to the hall and the north-facing windows were boarded up. Was it possible to film the rest of the scenes in time for the day after tomorrow (Yes! The day after tomorrow!) just by our own observations...
I thought from the perspective of the retired screenwriter Hongou Mayu, writing a mystery script despite having no prior knowledge of detective fiction, and working so hard on it that she got gastritis from being too stressed out. Eba was right in describing her as a sincere and attentive person. She has my sympathies though, as the people from the filming division were unable to get the script she worked so hard on. I wonder how she would feel if she were to hear people tell her "Can you really solve this just by watching the film?"
Well, I'll leave that aside for now.
"...Whoo."
A strange sigh was heard.
An amazing sight appeared before my eyes. I had two bonbon wrappers in front of me. Satoshi also had two, while Ibara had one. But was that six wrappers from bonbons that Chitanda had eaten? And she was in the process of unwrapping a seventh as we were watching. I frantically stopped her.
"I think that's enough for you. Since it's alcoholic, after all."
Upon being told this, Chitanda stared at the seventh bonbon on her palm, then looked at the wrapper beside it. Just when I was wondering what she would do next, she promptly put the bonbon into her mouth.
As she was quite indulging herself, she said, "Oh, I've eaten this much already. It's got some strange taste, so I felt curious and had more."
Eating more just because she was curious......
"Chi-chan! Are you alright?"
Noticing how serious the situation was, Ibara called out to Chitanda, who merely responded with a smile.
"I'm fine, why do you ask?"
"But, you look strange."
"I'm fine, I'm fine... Fufufu..."
Umm, your laughing is way different from how you normally laugh.
As the appointed time had arrived, Eba came as usual and stood by the door with her emotionless expression, though this time she raised her eyebrows.
"That smell... is that alcohol?"
Satoshi promptly replied, "Nope, just whiskey bonbons."
As if Eba cares about the difference. In any case, she seemed to lose interest in the smell and handed a bundle of paper over to me.
"Oreki-san,"
Ah, yes. I stood up to receive the copies. It was the script that I requested from Eba the other day. With this, I would be able to find out just how much Hongou intended to put in her script.
"It would've been better if I had this yesterday,"
Indeed it would have been better if I had had this earlier. I then smiled bitterly upon noticing my thoughts. Didn't I decide not to care much about this problem? Maybe I was getting fired up after shooting down Nakajou's and Haba's theories in quick succession.
If I don't have to do it, I won't. If I have to do it, make it quick. At once, I opened the script and looked up the part mentioned the day before, to find out if there was any mention about the surroundings of the scene of the crime. Without even searching, the page I flipped to ended up being the part where I was looking for.
| Kounosu: "There's another set of master keys in the office, can someone go get them?"
|
It was written in quite some detail. I see, no wonder she was so stressed out if the whole thing was written in such a style. From the description "Make sure there are no traces of footsteps outside." - it was how Nakajou had said, when Hongou went there the grass had still not yet grown completely. Based on this fact, Nakajou was actually right.
As I was thinking, Chitanda said to me, "Is that a script?"
"Yeah."
She seemed pretty hammered.
"Looks good, very good. I want to have it."
...She's really drunk. Normally it would have been fine to just hand it to her, but as I'm quite worried about her now, I decided not to. In turn, I called out to Satoshi, "Satoshi, you have a book binder?"
Satoshi gave me an indignant look.
"As if anyone would carry that around."
"You have a stapler then?"
"I do have one; it's a small one, though."
He placed his hand inside his drawstring bag and took out a stapler. Not everyone carries such things around with them either. I quickly stapled the pages together.
"I wonder what we should do with this?"
"Losing it would be bad, so you keep it with you,"
As per Ibara's instructions, I placed the script copy into my shoulder bag. Upon seeing that we were finished, Eba spoke.
"Then, let us go. We'll be heading to the Class 2-C classroom."
Upon exiting the classroom, a tune started playing on cue. It's the light music club today, the song was... The March of the Black Queen. I kept wondering why for the past few days the music would play upon us leaving the room. I reckon it probably has something to do with our appointment being at 1pm, which would be the time when the music clubs would take turns having their practice sessions on different days, as I do not hear music from other music clubs.
Ibara asked Eba, who walked ahead of us, "Who're we meeting today..."
"Sawakiguchi. Sawakiguchi Misaki, of the marketing division, though she was hardly involved in the filming process. As the filming is incomplete, advertisement of the movie has also been stalled."
Then she shouldn't be included as part of the crew, isn't that kind of misleading? Such a straightforward question was responded to by Eba with a straightforward answer.
"Sawakiguchi was deeply involved in the early planning stages of the project as well as the direction it would take. So she might have some good ideas concerning the mystery."
She then added, "At least that's what Irisu has determined."
Hmm, initial staff member, huh? Though Eba may say Sawakiguchi might come up with some good ideas, to me it's just another member of a motley crew. Being involved in deciding the direction of a project wasn't really much. As Irisu had mentioned, and based on our conversations with Nakajou and Haba, Class 2-F's movie has no other direction apart from that of the mystery genre. As if someone involved in deciding such a direction would be able to deduce anything... Though as I thought that, I said nothing.
We came upon the connecting corridor, when suddenly Chitanda raised her voice.
"Oh! I remember now!"
"W-what is it, Chi-chan?"
Ibara staggered as Chitanda practically shouted into her ear, while Chitanda looked quite happy as she placed her hands before her chest.
"This Sawakiguchi-san, she's good at drawing, isn't she? My memory seems to be fuzzy today, I can't believe I couldn't remember who she was just now."
Hmm? Chitanda knew who she was? Eba turned her head around and asked, "Drawings? Sawakiguchi does occasionally draw some illustrations, but how did you know that?"
Chitanda smiled and said, "In the Arts Preparation Room. Oreki-san, you should know. And yet you're quite mean to keep quiet about it!"
Now she's got me dragged into this. She sure is a merry drinker. Thank goodness she's of the pleasant type. Umm, where were we? The Arts Preparation Room?
As I tried to recall, Ibara got there before me.
"Oh, she's one of those girls that borrowed that strange library book!"
That strange book, a mean way of describing it, but that reminded me. This spring, I was involved in a quiz challenge involving art and the names of many girls. And Sawakiguchi was one of those girls.
As though trying to recall, Chitanda's eyes wandered round and round.
"Yes, that Sawakiguchi-san. If I remember correctly, her drawing was the one that looked kind of strange,"
While I wasn't too familiar with memories regarding someone else's artwork, as a member of the Manga Studies Club with an interest in all things visual, Ibara nodded in agreement.
"You're right, I remember as well. Whether her drawing was terrible or full of personality, her art just seemed different from what her classmates were drawing for their assignments."
"Maybe she was drawing it in an abstract style?"
Though not familiar with the situation, Satoshi decided to say something.
Ibara said with a troubled look, "Something like manga that looks poor at first glance, but is actually good?"
Walking some distance ahead of us, Eba laughed softly.
"You've seen Sawakiguchi's art? In that case, you probably won't find it strange once you meet her in person."
I wonder what she meant. What's she trying to insinuate?
Eba stopped as we arrived outside the Class 2-C classroom.
The girl there had her hair tied into a chignon. Rather than a chignon, calling it a Chinese hair bun would be more appropriate. With two Chinese hair buns wrapped with cloths adorned with dragon patterns on both sides of her head. She wore a tank top and jeans. Her skin was slightly tanned. On her hand was a magazine...... seems to be an astronomy magazine. The overall mismatching girl noticed our presence and waved one of her arms smiling to us,
"Ciao!"
And greeted us in Italian. Chitanda promptly greeted her back without hesitation,
"Good afternoon, Sawakiguchi-san."
Sawakiguchi gave a big sigh, and shook her head in an exaggerated way that reminds me of those overreactions seen in American movies,
"No, you don't seem to get it. When I say 'ciao', you should greet me back with 'ciao' as well! Otherwise it won't connect. Now let's do this again. Ciao!"
I looked on with troubled eyes at Chitanda, who took it rather calmly,
"Oh, I'm very sorry. Then, ciao."
Yup, she's really drunk. Normally, Chitanda would have panicked already when faced with such unexpected responses. Watching this all along, Satoshi whispered to me,
"She's kinda eccentric, isn't she?"
"Seems so."
"So Kamiyama High School still has strange people that I don't know of......"
He sounded quite regretful, as though talking about a companion of his own kind. As though she's heard us, Eba gave an awkward smile.
Meanwhile, upon hearing Chitanda's response, Sawakiguchi became very cheerful,
"Thank you for coming all this way. The name's Sawakiguchi Misaki."
In turn, Eba introduced us to her,
"These are the people from the Classics Club. Do go easy on them, Misaki."
Indeed if she didn't go easy on us, I'd be at a lost. As Eba didn't introduce us individually, we had to do so ourselves. Sawakiguchi didn't seem intent on memorizing our names, or maybe she was just listening selectively. After Satoshi announced his name, she said,
"I see. Anyway, have a seat."
"Okay."
As we got ourselves seated, Eba took her leave and departed. As soon as Eba closed the door, Sawakiguchi stretched her fingers so much we could hear them creak,
"So you're the ones who helped us out on our project, right? Well, how did you find the others' deductions? Were they good?"
Satoshi said bluntly,
"Not really."
"They were rejected?"
"Yeah."
Satisfied with the response, Sawakiguchi nodded many times,
"That won't do, if the students don't endure hardships. Young'uns these days sure know nothing about hardships."
As she spoke in an exotic deadpan-like accent, for a moment, I nearly couldn't make out she was saying "Young ones". She seemed to be the sort that likes to utter meaningless stuff, though I don't particularly dislike people with such interests.
On the other hand, Satoshi said jubilantly as though digging out some treasure,
"Well, it is a difficult case, after all. If one intends to sit down and solve this, then it won't be interesting if they don't digest the details properly."
What do you mean digest the details properly? As far as I know, Satoshi has two mottos. The first was "Jokes are to be made on the spot, so too are misunderstandings to be dispelled right away." The other was "Conclusions cannot be made from databases alone." And it's not like he could solve the case himself using his own database anyway.
Sawakiguchi laughed,
"You guys sound pretty reliable. As expected of the people Irisu recommended. Well, if my assumptions ends up scattered, I'm counting on you to sort out the bits."
"Leave that to us."
If you're gonna make such a verbal promise, don't come crying to me if you end up overdoing it. Though Sawakiguchi was also overdoing it,
"Alrighty! Then I'll be counting on you fully."
Satoshi spoke in a frank and relaxed manner,
"Sawakiguchi-sempai, you probably must have had it tough. Is the marketing division making any progress? It's tough with the product being unfinished, right?"
"True."
Sawakiguchi made a sulky expression and crossed her arms,
"It's true that without the product, we could not make any advertising posters. But we'll think of something."
"Then, what seems to be the problem?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
She sighed deeply,
"We still need a title. We can't do anything without a title. We can't even decide on the suitable font as well. Normally a title would be added when a movie is finished, but the problem now is that the movie is not completed."
That goes without saying. Anyone involved in advertising during the Cultural Festival would have to make banners or posters, but it feels extremely lonely not being able to do anything due to the lack of a title.
Sawakuguchi then smiled at Satoshi,
"At any rate, we'll have to do something with the script. Before you hear my theory, I'll take any questions from you, so fire away."
Even when she asked us to fire away, I ended up flinching at her overenthusiastic manner. Yet Chitanda didn't seem to mind a bit,
"Then we will begin. Sawakiguchi-san, you were involved in the direction the class would take for the festival, right?"
Sawakiguchi looked puzzled and said,
"Well, yeah, I was involved."
"You decided to make a movie, with mystery as the genre, and you entrusted Hongou-san with the script, right?"
"Yeah."
Chitanda stretched her body across the table,
"How did you decide upon that? Please tell me."
What's she trying to ask? What's that got to do with the main topic anyway? Though she was still as articulate as usual, she didn't seem to be thinking properly. I promptly chided her,
"Chitanda, stop saying something so foolish."
At which point Chitanda turned her head towards me,
"But I'm curious about it!"
She then turned back towards Sawakiguchi. She's beyond help. Thank goodness that Sawakiguchi didn't take it badly as she smiled and waved her hand,
"If it has to have any relationship, then you could say everyone is involved in the decision-making process. I'm not saying this as a figure as speech either."
Satoshi asked puzzlingly,
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing really. When a group has very few members, then direct democracy is the best way of getting things done."
"...... So they're all given questionnaires to fill in?"
"You think pretty fast."
She tapped lightly on Satoshi's shoulders,
"Numbers are justice, and I believe the best happiness derives from the largest majority, or something like that. As we didn't battle it out through debates, basically we had things decided with questionnaires."
Though I still have doubts about whether the minority would be convinced as a result, but recalling what Irisu had said, the objective of Class 2-F was to get their project completed. If they could decide on something good, then they would do it. So deciding via a questionnaire might be reasonable after all.
Chitanda asked once again,
"Umm, does that include choosing Hongou-san as the screenwriter?"
Sawakiguchi went thinking for a moment, before smiling bitterly,
"Ah, that one's different. As Hongou was the only one capable do doing it, we didn't even bother with a confidence vote for her."
"She did it voluntarily?"
"No, she was nominated for the role. Though I can't remember who nominated her."
Upon hearing that, Chitanda raised her brows as though looking sad. I have absolutely no idea why, as I didn't know what feelings Chitanda was holding when she asked such a question.
While I was entrenched in thought, I noticed Sawakiguchi took something from beside her feet. It was a sack. Like a drawstring bag, it was the possession of strange people. Sawakiguchi stuck her hand inside,
"Hmm? I thought you were interested in knowing how we got things decided? Anyway...... here."
She took out a notebook,
"I don't know if you'll find this useful, but I brought it anyway."
Chitanda opened the notebook handed to her. It was full of numbers and words, which took me some time to comprehend what they meant.
No 4 What should we be making?
- Art gallery -- 1
- Play -- 5
- Haunted house -- 8
- Movie -- 10
Movie decided
No 5 What movie should we make? - Taiga drama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga_drama) -- 1 - Absurd comedy -- 8 - Slapstick comedy -- 3 - Mystery -- 9 - Hardboiled fiction -- 2 - Abstain -- 1
Mystery decided
As we flip the pages, more details were written.
No 31 What murder weapon should be used? - Knife (stabbing) -- 10 - Hammer (beat to death) -- 3 - Rope (strangulation) -- 8 - Others
Burn by oil -- 1 Thrown from high places -- 2
Knife recommended (Hongou retains right to veto)
No 32 How many victims should there be? - 1 person -- 6 - 2 people -- 10 - 3 people -- 3 - Others
4 people -- 1 Everyone -- 2 About 100 -- 1
- Abstain -- 1
2 people recommended (Hongou retains right to veto)
I understood after having a brief look at it. It was the collection of questionnaire results. Ibara, who also realized what it was, turned to ask Sawakiguchi,
"May we borrow this? It might be important."
"Sure thing. It's already been decided, isn't it?"
So whether we could borrow it was not a problem at all, huh? Seeing as we were chosen by Irisu to determine the validity of the deductions, she must have deemed the lending of such stuff trivial. What on earth was going on in Chitanda's mind? ...... That was the real mystery.
She might probably just be drunk.
Chitanda closed the notebook and carefully brought it before her chest. She then inquired,
"This may sound awkward, but may I ask something else from you?"
"Sure."
"Sawakiguchi-san, are you close to Hongou-san?"
That question sounded familiar. If I remember correctly, that was what she asked Eba as well. Sawakiguchi looked a bit troubled as she replied,
"Umm, we were only classmates, that's all."
With such details, one could determine what sort of person Hongou Mayu was. It was not hard to guess that she wasn't intimate with an eccentric person (according to Satoshi) like Sawakiguchi.
Chitanda didn't hide her disappointment as she lowered her head,
"I see......"
"You have anything else to ask?"
Sawakiguchi asked Chitanda and the rest of us. I didn't have anything particular to ask, so too did the others. Upon sensing we've finally come to the main topic, Sawakiguchi leaned forward a bit,
"Right! Now you'll hear my theory. If you were to suggest that it wouldn't work, then...... you know what I mean?"
She smiled and said in a mischievous tone.
