Hyouka:Volume 2 Chapter 4
Status: Incomplete
Expression error: Unexpected / operator.% 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 on?"
Well, I'll leave that aside for now.
"...... Whoo."
A strange sigh was heard.
An amazing sight appeared before my eyes. I had two pieces of bonbons unwrapped before me. Satoshi also had two, while Ibara had one. But was that six pieces of wrapping that Chitanda had unwrapped? And she was on the process of unwrapping a seventh was as we were watching. I frantically stopped her,
"I think that's enough for you. Since it's alcoholic, after all."
Upon being told, Chitanda stared at the seventh piece of bonbon on her palm, she then looked at the wrapping beside it. Just when I thought 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's gonna tell the difference. At 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 does Hongou intend to put in her script.
"It could be better if I had this yesterday,"
Indeed it would be better if I 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 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 crime. Without even searching, the page I flipped to ended up being the part where I was looking for.
(TL to Editor: Please put the following script paragraph in Italics into a box with suitable fonts as you see fit. )
Kounosu: "There's another set of master keys in the office, can someone go get them?"
A cut here is recommended prior to shooting the door being unlocked.
Upon unlocking the door, only the boys are to enter the room. (The girls are to stand side by side at the door. )
Kaitou-kun is to lie on the ground. While it may be plain to the observer, please have him hold his arm to emphasize the pain. He is unconscious and unable to call out for help.
Sugimura: "Kaitou!"
The boys are to run towards him.
The order of who reaches him first is fine.
Upon helping Kaitou-kun up, Sugimura-kun is to discover the blood on the floor with his palm.
Sugimura: "Blood."
The girls would <scream> together.
Katsuda: "Kaitou! Dammit! Somebody help!"
Katsuda-kun would go and open the window. (Please be careful not to get injured by the glass. )
Please take a few moments to shoot the outside of the window. Make sure there are no traces of footsteps outside.
Katsuda-kun is to go towards the Left Stage, whether it's through the stage or the backstage corridor is fine. Though as the stage is filled with many rotting wood, please take extreme care when walking through 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 style. From the description "Make sure there are no traces of footsteps outside." - it was as how Nakajou had put it, 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 stuff around with them either. I quickly stapled the pages together.
"Wonder what we 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 us done, 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 turn in 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. Even with the filming incomplete, advertisement of the movie still seemed to be continuing."
Then she shouldn't be included as part of the crew, isn't that kind of misleading? Such a straightforward question was responded by Eba with a straightforward answer,
"Though 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 had 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 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 looked staggered as Chitanda practically shouted into her ear, while Chitanda looked quite happy has she placed her hands before her chest,
"This Sawakiguchi-san, she's good at drawing, isn't she? My memory seemed to be fuzzy today, I can't believe I couldn't remember who she was just now."
Hmm? Chitanda knows who she was? Eba turned her head around and asked,
"Drawings? Sawakiguchi does occasionally draw some illustrations, but how do 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!"
She 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 that borrowed that strange library book!"
The 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's 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 wouldn't find them strange once you meet her in person."
Wonder what she meant. What's she trying to insinuate?
Eba stopped in her footsteps as we arrived outside the Class 2-C classroom.
