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In the sprawling hallways of Yumei U's Law & Judicial Department, a budding paralegal and a fledgling law student were embedded in deep conversation. Slightly too deep, for Ryunosuke's liking ― around this time the term was pretty well on its way to wrapping up before the holidays, and while he'd managed to scrape through the last remaining seminars, Susato was irrepressible in her pursuit of making sure he had a working understanding of what he was actually studying.
Ryunosuke, who'd expended his brainpower roughly two months ago and had been running on fumes ever since, was nodding along diligently. Still, with the earnestness of her efforts, he didn't want to waste them. He drew a deep breath, trying to lob a contribution in. "So, the things they talk about in chapter four...does that also apply for last-minute evidence changes, or...?"
"No, any updated evidence has to be registered well before the trial to the disclosure officer." Susato spiked his lob right back, flitting through her seemingly-inexhaustive supply of organized notes. "Relevant evidence being discovered post-trial can form the grounds for an appeal, but mid-trial updates would be absolutely..." She looked up, noticed his eyes had taken on the approximate sheen and hue of a dead fish, and tilted her head with gentle concern. "Naruhodo-san...are you getting any of this?"
An honest question deserved an honest answer, so he shook his head. "Nope. I feel like I'm trying to pick up radio waves on a coat hanger..." He ran a hand across his head, attempting to massage some consciousness into his brain and winding up with nothing to show for it but a set of ruffled hair-spikes. He sighed. "All I'm getting is static."
A slight shade of worry flitted over her face before she brightened up into a wide smile, tucking her notes away. "Well, you're in luck! Ms. Bernstein should be coming to Yumei as a guest lecturer next month―I read about it in the Gazette!"
"O-oh?" He felt halfway grateful that she was keeping an eye on him and halfway exhausted at the prospect of more work, but overall, the gratitude beat it out. He already relied enough on Kazuma―she shouldn't have to worry about him, too. He responded with a smile of his own, pulling his phone from his pocket. "I'll check it out, thanks. Maybe that could help me with..." He opened his browser, tapped one of his oft-used bookmarks, and blinked a couple of times. "...huh."
The loading time was much quicker than normal, mainly because it redirected to a mostly-blank page, far from the usual content hive of dry school announcements and semi-sensationalist headlines. What he found instead was a white background, black text, and one simple message:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Yumei Gazette will be unavailable for the near future. We deeply apologize for this inconvenience, and hope to resume its service soon after new leadership has been found.
He furrowed his brow, refreshing the page a few times with no change. "This seems like..."
She'd leaned over, her gaze intently fixed at his screen. "...a mystery?"
Ryunosuke didn't have to look up from his phone to know her eyes were already twinkling. He tucked it away into his pocket, letting out a soft sigh. "...I was gonna say 'trouble', but I guess you're right, too."
A few messages exchanged between their group chat later and the quartet had joined up from their disparate directions, caught in a fortuitously blank timeslot between their student duties; Rei greeted Susato with a kiss and started on an excited debriefing how her latest lab project had gone, Kazuma greeted Ryunosuke with a nod and a compliment to his freshly-dishevelled hairstyle. Carefree chatting filled the air as they began the excursion to ground zero of their latest enigma.
As student papers go the Yumei Gazette wasn't a bad one, consistently packed with relevant information as well as day-to-day tidbits, but its meteoric rise had begun only a few years ago. Back in the day it had essentially been a glorified newsletter, up until an enterprising student had lifted it off its knees and transformed it into a paper worthy of publication ― possibly to be found in the bottom rack of your lower-rate grocery stores, but publication nevertheless.
It was, technically, a collaborative effort, but though it accepted contributions from a handful of writers and one occasional cartoonist, it all went through one man: Raiten Menimemo, currently aiming for a BA in Journalism and Media, for whom the paper was one big resumé. His pride and joy, his chance to hit the big time, and―currently―the thing that might end his career before it started.
Despite the potential perceived glamor of its recent upshot in reputation, however, its offices remained the same. A repurposed side-room tucked between a meeting room and a storage closet, marked by a laminated piece of paper attached to the door with a thin strip of duct tape. The four pushed their way within to discovered its insides were even narrower than expected, and utilized every inch of its limited space―a desk had been wedged in somehow, probably assembled on-site. Post-it notes festooned the walls, each packed with dense scrawls and layout thumbnails.
And, standing against the far wall, one young man, drawing up hasty rectangles on a vertically-aligned whiteboard and filling them with swift scribbles of illegible handwriting. Susato put one hand to her mouth, clearing her throat softly; spinning on his heel to greet them, he cracked immediately into a wide grin.
As he turned around, it was hard not to notice he was festooned all over with straps; backpack, camera bag, a frayed tote packed with notebooks. "Hey, hey, if it isn't yesterday's news!" Possibly after seeing Kazuma's brow scrunch up, he raised his hands in a conceding gesture. "No offense intended, 'course, just the facts."
Ryunosuke barely had time to draw a breath before he'd be intercepted by a hastily-jabbed marker and a fast-pattering voice. "Hey, be a focus group for me real quick―how's this headline sound? 'Enterprising Editor Expelled'!" His hands splayed wide through the air as his brows arched, eyes beaming. "Or, ooh, 'Rising Star Fizzles And Falls'!"
Ryunosuke blinked. He'd tried to assemble a mental row of questions beforehand, but now found a new one taking precedence. "You're...covering your own expulsion?"
His broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "What else am I gonna do, hand it over to the next guy? Never leave to another what you can leave to yourself, that's one of the edicts of Menimemoism." Susato frowned into her notebook at her attempt to spell that as he strode back behind his desk, clasping his hands and leaning over. "Right! Now, what can I do for you?"
He'd been under the impression that they were doing something for him rather than the other way around, but he cleared his throat either way, gesturing his hand around the group. "Uh, well...I'm Ryunosuke, and this is―"
"Well aware, yup." Raiten snagged his phone into his hands, tapping out a set of notes. "Anything else?"
Ryunosuke, already slightly staggering to hold on to his tempo, lost it entirely. Blessedly, Kazuma cut in. "We were hoping to ask you some questions about the paper. Its temporary shutdown, and its 'new management'." He placed a hand to his chin, fingers curling. "'Expelled' answers some questions, but it does raise some others."
"Alright, listen―" His pencil tapped firmly against the desk, banging out an insistent rhythm. "―first of all, I had nothing to do with it. Get that on record. When I got back from lunch, I noticed the site was shuttered. Damn near gave me a heart attack."
Susato spoke up, tilting her head. "You mean you weren't told anything about it?"
"Not a word! Stronghart still hasn't answered my e-mails―" Ryunosuke felt a surge of immediate respect at the notion of being able to burden the principal with not just one, but multiple e-mails. "―but from what I could gather, some unusual documents went up on the site. Kinda...privacy-breaching stuff. Old staff, old students, grades and unused lesson plans..."
He seemed to catch the glint in Ryunosuke's eyes and waved a hand. "Nothing wild or anything, mind. Irrelevant, boring, but...confidential. So the charge is somewhere between breach of privacy and hacking, which, I mean, I can respect going across boundaries to get something out to the public like that..." He glanced to the side for a moment before rustling his head. "But yeah, anyway―I had nothing to do with it!"
Susato nodded, her pencil-scratching slowing to a halt. "So why were you suspected?"
"They were, uh..." He winced away, shifting his cap as he rubbed at the back of his head. "Posted under my byline. From my account. That's pretty much the sticking point. But, to reiterate here―"
"―nothing to do with it?" Rei proffered, to a rapid nod. She fiddled slightly with a strand of her hair as she continued. "But it sounds like it could've been, uh...a big scoop?"
A shrug. "I'm a journalist, not an archaeologist. Ancient records don't mean a thing to me." He cracked his knuckles, leaning back in his seat and beaming a wide grin at the ceiling. "Feet in the present, eyes on the future, that's one of the edicts of―"
Ryunosuke flopped forwards, feeling his patience rapidly evaporate. "L-look, Raiten, we're trying to investigate. Could you stop promoting your blog for a sec?"
Narrowed eyes met him, followed by a jabbed pencil. "Okay, so, first of all ― not a blog, Twitter bot ― and second of all, developing your personal brand is the key to success in today's sprawling multimedia landscape!" His fingers trailed across the desk before snagging a dog-eared notebook, glancing through it as he continued. "That stuff you did is clickbait gold, by the way. Junior detectives, folks went nuts for that stuff." A murmur escaped him, barely above a breath. "Just a shame it was Brett."
"Oh?" Susato flipped backwards through her pages. The disdain had been obvious from one side, but it being mutual was new data. "Is there some sort of animosity between you?"
He scribbled another set of notes towards the top, mumbling off-hand. "Sure. Have you met her?" That remark was met by a general air of awkward silence, except for Rei, who gave a series of vigorous nods. "Hotshot young student athlete, good looks, good grades, ego ballooned from every angle. She's a lost cause and that's all there is to it. I'm not wasting another breath on her."
Ryunosuke nodded and inhaled, ready to move onto the next question on the docket, before being intercepted by a sharp series of pencil-gestures. "And another thing―she's not even consistent about it! I know she's the type who thrives on being better than anyone else, but every time I ask her for an interview, she cold-shoulders me!"
"I...can't imagine why." Ryunosuke said, taking after Susato in an attempt to practice his diplomacy. He glanced to the side, finding that Kazuma was staying unusually silent. Maybe to force him to handle things on his own...? But then again, he'd never had much patience for bluster and prying, and the young journalist-in-training seemed to be nothing but. He tilted his head slightly, picking the thread up. "You know...we never did figure out who was responsible for that attempt to frame her, and you two seem to have a little bit of history..."
Raiten clicked his tongue and shook his head, glancing down at his phone. "Listen, that girl's a venomous ratbag, but I don't do defamation. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth―you should know a thing or two about that, right?" A grin came over him, inspecting a prominently placed post-it. "Besides, I've got no reason to try and get her busted. She'll be out by next year, anyway."
Rei blinked. Having been at least slightly acquainted for her the longest, it seemed to catch her the most off guard. "Wait, she will? Why?"
"She's here on a swimming scholarship, right? Well, she messed up her ankle during practice. Thought it'd be a one-off thing, but her times have been suffering since." Flipping through his notebooks, the grin grew wider. "Got this cloying write-up all set up to break the news. Freak accident during training session! Rising star sustains lasting injury! Premature end to a promising career! Oozing with sympathy, crocodile tears allround, top of the sports section." He cackled, adding a couple of notes beneath it. "It's gonna break her shrivelled little heart."
Ryunosuke put his hand to his chin for a moment, contemplating. He hadn't known her for long, and none of that time had been exactly positive, but... "That seems kind of...biased, Raiten."
A quick shake of his head, and an off-hand mumble."Pen's mightier than the sword, buddy. I'm not about to sheathe it."
There was probably more to cover there, but...so far they were just amateur investigators, not amateur counsellors. He cleared his throat. "Okay, well...do you know of anyone other than her that might've wanted to get you in trouble?"
His repetitive pencil-tapping across the pages trailed off, brows curling into a frown. "...What? No." Raiten glanced up, slightly stalled in his expression's shift from energetic verve to genuine confusion. "What, you think that's it? Not using my platform or anything, just trying to shut me down?"
"Maybe? I mean, well, you seem kind of, uh..." Ryunosuke coughed into his hand, drawing on the full experience of his recent practice with stilted diplomacy. "...overly inquisitive?"
He rustled his head and puffed his not-inconsiderable chest out, raising his pencil like he was readying a lance. "Listen, I'm a journo! It's my job to dig up the choicest dirt, and dig as deep as I can to get it! For example―"
Ryunosuke jolted back as he found himself in the crosshairs of Raiten's aim. "You shouldn't even have made the lawyer line, but enough folks dropped out before the year started that you got the backup spot―"
Susato glanced up from her notes, blinking, as he flicked his gesturing over towards her. "―everyone thinks old man Mikotoba's a calm, professional guy, but they don't know what he used to work with―"
The newly-targetted Rei jolted back in mild surprise then lunged forwards, unable to back away from a challenge; Raiten drew a circle in the air around her and Susato together, continuing. "―you went to archery when she did, judo when she did, and Yumei when she did―"
As the pencil indicated Kazuma his face was set into stony stoicism, fists tightened into a bundle of whitened knuckles at his sides. "―and your dad used to work here, but―"
It all happened so fast. In a flash Kazuma's hands shot to the would-be journalist's backpack straps, hauling him across his desk hard enough to scatter sundry notes and knock over a cup of stale coffee. His partner's eyes were steel-cold and steady, but there was an edge to his voice Ryunosuke had never heard before, emerging in a low growl: "Finish that sentence and I'll have your throat."
The genuine pang of fear that had flashed in Raiten's eyes melted away into a stiff grin as Kazuma let go, prompting him to launch himself backwards into the relative safety of his office chair. "Okay, I'll―" He ducked behind the desk, scrabbling for his dropped pencil. "I'll put you down as 'no comment'!"
Kazuma leaned back up in one smooth motion, straightening his back. Behind him, six sets of eyes were fixed in his direction. He turned sharply on his heel and passed through the exit, filling the hall with the fading rhythm of firm steps.
"W-Well, uh, we―uh―" Ryunosuke stammered, glancing from the door to Susato to Rei, before dipping out to pursue his rapidly-withdrawing partner into the hallway.
Susato threw a look after the two of them, furrowed her brow, and took over as the budding journalist re-emerged into view, flicking through the pages of one of his notebooks. "We'll do our best to look into it, and―and try not to make any more enemies in the meantime!" She gave a quick nod then pursued Kazuma with gentle-yet-hasty steps, and Rei, after throwing a slight glare in his direction, followed at her side.
Quick scribbling and a steady voice. "Listen, the press makes enemies wherever they go. One of the many insights of..." He glanced to the side, only to find they were already long gone. Grabbing a scattered handful of post-it notes, he grumbled to himself as he used cold leads to wipe equally-cold coffee off the edges of his laptop.
He'd gotten halfway down the hallway before Ryunosuke caught up, huffing breaths and concerned eyes darting after him. "Kazuma―"
Kazuma sighed, turning around. Tying up the edges of his scarf, he gave him a soft nod. "Hey, partner."
Ryunosuke stumbled to a halt, slightly thrown off. After an outburst like that he would've thought he'd go for explanation or apology, but Kazuma remained steadily silent. He tilted his head, trying to puzzle out the best angle of approach and settling for the obvious. "Are you...okay?"
"Yeah. Never better." A taut smile pulled across his lips, folding his arms tight.
Clearly not something he wanted to linger on, but Ryunosuke didn't feel quite strong enough to shove down the unease rippling around his heart. He twiddled his thumbs, meeting his eyes in awkward glances. "It's just, when he mentioned your dad..."
His spirits dipped further as Kazuma's brow furrowed, shutting his eyes. As he glanced away his fists curled, bunching up the fabric of his jacket sleeves. "Not right now."
Ryunosuke's hands shot up in front of him, waving in an attempt at de-escalating gestures. "Oh no, sure, yeah, it doesn't have to be right now! But I just..." One hand went to the back of his head, looking intently, trying to evaluate any shift to Kazuma's expression. "If you ever want to talk about it, you know?"
The pause lasted as long as one deep breath, and at the end of it, Kazuma opened his eyes and fixed Ryunosuke with their targetted stare. "...You know when I recommended you come to Yumei with me, right?"
"Y-yeah, of course." He said, bucking up a little as he dipped into memories. The road to the university had been a fairly winding one, full of late-night cram sessions and rigorous quizzes, but Kazuma had somehow seen him through to baseline competence in just under two months. "I'm still kinda surprised you did, honestly―I was all geared up to do the English line, but when you insisted, it did seem pretty fun."
"There's something I have to do here." His eyes narrowed, voice level and steady. "And I knew I'd need you at my side to do it."
"Yeah!" He'd heard this speech a hundred times, ranging from ornate debate club arguments to sleep-deprived 2 AM rambling, and he pumped his fist in an attempt to re-stoke the fires in the heart of his boyfriend. "Reform the legal landscape, and all that!"
"...Yeah." A tight smile.
The situation seemed to call for more, but he wasn't entirely sure what direction to take it in. He substituted actions for words, stepping up and giving him a soft kiss. "I'm here for you, Kazuma. You know that, right?"
He grinned and kissed back, brighter, cheerier. Ryunosuke didn't really know what to do about that smile―it seemed, all at once, to be a sword and a shield. "Of course I do, partner."
Some stumbling steps later Susato and Rei had caught up, and with the slight buffer provided by Ryunosuke's concern, Kazuma had the time to pull himself together by the time of their arrival. After some semi-awkward reassuring, they assembled a rudimentary summary of the case so far; a set of mysterious documents, an alleged set-up, and, hovering in the wings, a mutual loathing.
"...so Jezaille's probably our best lead, huh?" Ryunosuke concluded, throwing a slightly-too-obvious glance in Rei's direction. She sighed, getting her phone out and starting to tap away at her keyboard.
"I'll ask if we can meet up, but I wouldn't expect much. I mean, you know she's..." She paused for a moment, brows raising as the ever-unshifting 'Seen' on their scant assortment of one-sided messages shifted into a speech bubble with three dots. Her eyes scanned slowly across her screen before she looked up. "...She says she's in the café."
There were a fair amount of those tucked into the various buildings of Yumei U, offering anything between swift between-lecture coffees and late-night-group-project oversized sandwiches, but the one belonging to the chemistry department seemed like their best bet. Rei led the way through the hallways, Susato at her side; Ryunosuke and Kazuma made sure to stick close behind this time.
Other than the novelty Erlenmeyer-flask smoothies on proud display, it was a relatively unremarkable and cozy little place. The quartet trudged their way onwards, passing by assortments of study groups as they went. Tucked away in an undisturbed corner was Jezaille, a gym bag at her side and an expansive arrangement of textbooks and notebooks spread out to cover the whole table in front of her, indirectly and effortlessly blocking anyone else from taking a seat. Ryunosuke only glanced over briefly, but saw enough to discover the elaborate cursive within was absolutely indecipherable to him.
Her eyes barely flitting over as the four drew close, she finished up a series of notes. "I suppose our business isn't concluded, then." She angled to the side, folding her arms. "What do you want?"
Once again, Ryunosuke found his mental checklist of questions evaporating in the face of a new prompt. He tapped his chin, tilting his head to the side. "...I-it's really only 'business' if you get paid, is it?"
"Always thinking about money? That's law students for you." Her lips curled into a serene smile, prompting Rei to grit her teeth.
Ryunosuke, possessing a keen sense for hitting a dead end, started on the process of reversing out of it. Kazuma took over before he could shift gears, slicing through the brief pause with practiced technique. "We'll get to the point, then. Are you familiar with what happened with the Yumei Gazette this morning?"
"Yes, I saw!" She grinned with unabashed delight. "Getting kicked off of his little pet project, huh? I'm sure he's devastated. Wish I could've seen it."
"He's, uh...holding up." Ryunosuke said, figuring that overwhelming denial was at least one coping mechanism of many. The next point was one he was going to try to lead into in a more subtle way, but since she'd already blown the hinges off the topic, he probably didn't need to bother knocking. Scratching at the back of his head, he continued. "Why do you hate Raiten so much, anyway?"
"Oh, please. Have you met him? There was a general air of awkward silence, except for Kazuma, who gave a curt nod. "He's always poking around where he doesn't belong, as if it's going to get him anywhere. Nobody's going to care about a school newspaper, anyway. Getting his grubby hands all over some stupid documents and airing it out is definitely something he'd do." She let the incisive set of statements hang in the air for a moment, took in their serious expressions, and gave a sharp sigh. "...But I don't like owing people, so here you go. He didn't."
"Huh?"Denial of guilt, but not the guilt he'd expected. Ryunosuke, being in possession of the most perpetual confusion, also happened to be the first one to voice it. He cleared his throat, attempting to rephrase it ― 'huh' seemed unbecoming, for a lawyer. "Wait, how do you know?"
"Look, those articles are timestamped, right? It all went up around twelve-something, but every day around lunchtime, he goes to the local gym. And every day around lunchtime, I go there too, to..." Her fingers curled around the tightly-bound loops of her hair. There seemed to be a sharper tilt to her brows, but her extensive make-up made it difficult to tell. "...keep an eye on him."
Ryunosuke blinked, having to take a moment to unravel this social tangle. "Sorry, I kind of...got the impression you didn't like him?"
Susato flipped through her notes, looking up with a blank neutrality. "'Miserable little dumpster-rummager' were your exact words."
She nodded, curt and quick. "Oh, he is, he is―but have you seen his chest? It's out to here." A wave of her hand provided helpful visual aid, and her lips pursed with a tiny note of wistfulness. "Ugh, if only he had less personality, he'd be perfect."
Ryunosuke felt sweat starting to bead on the side of his head, feeling they were on the verge of careening from mystery novel to soap opera. "...Great, thanks." Witness testimony was a start, he supposed, but he had the distinct sense that this meeting could've been a text message. "I guess that about covers it?" He ran one hand through his hair, rummaging around for any stray thoughts that might justify the long walk over, then snapped his fingers. "Oh! Actually, we heard about your ankle thing, and..."
A flash of shock came over her face, and then, just as quickly, a slicing sneer. "...You've been out digging in the garbage too, huh?" She hissed, locking a set of vanishingly-narrowed eyes on him. Should've known."
...This was rapidly turning out to be a bad decision, but he saw it through to its conclusion. "Well, we're, uh..." He coughed into his hand. "Sorry about your scholarship?"
She scrutinized their faces intently for a moment before shaking her head. "No, you're not. You're nice, so that's what you're supposed to say, but you hate my guts, same as the rest." Ryunosuke tried to rummage around his head to voice a counterargument, but he could already tell he wouldn't have enough conviction to make it sound believable. As was its custom, awkward silence descended; Jezaille, taking it as a 'yes', folded her arms and kept going. "...Didn't matter if they did. I was the best." Her eyes flicked away. "...Doesn't matter if you do, either. I'm not going to be here much longer."
Through the silence, a deep breath cut through the air. Ryunosuke's eyes flitted over to see it was coming from Rei's direction; her fists were clenched, her eyes were sharp, and after a few tense moments, she spoke up.
"Jezaille..." There was a bowstring tension to the way she spoke her name, which tapered out into a sigh. "You're not, like, a bad student. I know you know what you're doing, you're just so..." Her tones were peaking up too much to linger on that subject, so she shook her head, starting over. "Look, I―maybe those competitions were important to you. Maybe you used to be the only smart girl in class. But we're not kids anymore. And..." Her fingers fiddled, for a moment, with a strand of her hair, before her brows furrowed and her voice lowered. "Either you're going to have to catch up to that, or people are going to leave you behind."
Ryunosuke felt a tight breath draw through him, nerves wound in anticipation of a fight, but all that unfolded was silence. Jezaille craned her head around, looking out the window across campus. Her hand went up to her face, and when she pulled it back down to her side, Ryunosuke couldn't help but notice the faint stain of smudged eyeshadow on her fingertips before they curled into a tight fist. "Don't you guys have a case to crack or something?"
Their departure was swift, filing back into the hallways. Ryunosuke threw one last glance towards the café before he put a hand to his chin. "Well, I guess that's a step in the right direction, but...it's not exactly watertight, is it? We still don't have any evidence, as such. And since the paper's all-digital, it could've been edited from anywhere. Like, if this was an actual case, the prosecution would say he could've brought his laptop and done it on the way, maybe...?"
Kazuma nodded, probably having picked up on Ryunosuke's none-too-subtle glance over in his direction. "True enough. Less likely, but not impossible."
"So proving it came from a different computer is going to be the main thing, right?" He tilted his head, already feeling unequipped enough in his chosen field without having to venture into another. "But I don't really know the first thing about―"
"Oh! As a matter of fact..." Ryunosuke looked over to notice Susato focusing her attention towards her phone, already entrenched in the flurry of a rapid chat message exchange. As she glanced up, her smile was remarkably serene. "I think I know just who to ask!"
As fortune would have it, one of the latest crop of students dedicated to the calling of computer science was a young woman with whom Susato was fairly well acquainted. She was bright, cheery and determined; she was also eight years younger than the customary entry age, but as this didn't affect her other traits substantially, it hadn't proven a problem. A great deal of universities considered the prospect of her application too much bureaucratic hassle to deal with, but Yumei had proven remarkably keen to be the fostering ground of a child prodigy.
Her choice of passions existed, largely, with the aim of supporting her father. During all the time Susato had known him Mr. Sholmes had been alternately hostile to, skeptical of and useless with technology―which made sense, considering that his abject distaste for irrelevant information combined with his consistently-flickering attention span made the internet something of a custom-constructed and eminently lethal trap for him. She vaguely remembered that the one time Iris had shown him how to use a computer he'd burrowed down a rabbit hole of increasingly-insular subcommunity drama for long days and sleepless nights, adrift on a tide of caffeine and sugar, puzzling out a neverending series of social intrigue; when he'd managed to reassemble his willpower enough to hurl the monitor out the window, Iris had concluded that his education in electronics might best be saved for another time.
Still, not about to give up the vast array of usefulness the digital sphere could have for his investigations, Iris had embedded herself in it and found a constant spiral of unfolding fascination within. At the present moment, the budding programmer strolled down the corridors at a leisurely jaunt. Adjusting her backpack ― festooned with keyring USB drives, each categorized by an individual lucky charm ― she threw the waiting investigators a wide wave.
After a cursory explanation the now-quintet pushed their way back into the cramped confines of the Gazette headquarters, to be greeted by the sight of Raiten with his back hunched towards the door, rifling through an assortment of old notebooks. This time, he was quicker about whirling back towards new guests, his eyes sparking into a flash of recognition as he went. "Hey hey, if it isn't little miss Sholmes!" He tipped his cap backwards, slumping into his seat. "I covered your admission, y'know―'10-Year-Old Youngest Student Admission in Yumei's History'!" Leaning back with a nostalgic grin, he folded his arms. "Wild story, wild story."
"Oh, yes, I read it!" Her smile was bright and sweet, clasping her hands as she continued in cheery chatter. "Your descriptive language was factual but dull, and your segues could use a lot of work."
The grin stiffened, and he pulled his cap slightly over his face. "Uh―great. I'll put that in the suggestion box." Out of the corner of his eyes, Ryunosuke could notice Susato's brows furrow slightly as she glanced towards Iris ― out of the other corner of his eyes, he saw Kazuma put a hand to his mouth, concealing a twitch to his lips.
Without further ado Iris grabbed his laptop and spun it around to face her, wielding a practiced ability to help herself to other peoples' belongings that she'd probably inherited from her father. "And..." A few minutes and a handful of clattered keystrokes later, she nodded. "...no doubt about it! This account was accessed by another computer."
Ryunosuke, having expected his Hollywood perceptions of hacking to be woefully inaccurate and the process to take at least half an hour, found himself blinking and dubious. "W-wait, already? How can you be sure?"
"Oh, it's easy!" She beamed with a radiant smile, brandishing her finger. "First, it's important to realize that..."
...and Iris had gone on a long shpiel about holes in security and backdoor handshakes that made Ryunosuke realize a ten-year-old had a better grasp on IT than he did, which maybe made sense but sent him down a sentimental rabbit hole about how quickly everything was changing these days, a big jumble of altering logos and unfamiliar startups and needing to make a new account every time there was a big social media migration so he didn't get left behind. He'd gotten a grasp on Vine, but then Vine had closed down and now it was TikTok and he couldn't get a hang of the filters and interface and all that, leaving him feeling like a confused but well-intentioned fifty-year-old father of two at nineteen―and he zoned back into reality just in time to hear Iris mention an IP address, at which he went "O-oh, right! Okay, I get it!"
"I knew you would!" She said, beaming with pride. Susato leaned over, scratching a few details of the incomprehensible-looking mess of code into her notebooks ― he supposed that in her time living with Iris, it seemed she'd picked up enough to sort out the relevant bits. "But the interesting thing is, that's not all." The would-be programmer continued, highlighting a sentence with her cursor. "Whoever published these documents also took the time to edit a little."
"What, they changed―" Raiten grabbed a hold of the top of his laptop, whirling it back around. Inspecting the indicated words, he furrowed his brow. "Oh, that's...that's low. Oh, that's practically criminal." His voice dropped into a seething snarl, hands slamming over his desk. "It's interference with the free press! It's the tightening fist of a dictator-state! It's―"
Ryunosuke intercepted him in a hasty cough, too used to frying his brain over long tirades on their subject of study to want to to put up with extras. "What―what's it about, anyway? This..." He leaned over, angling for a glance of the screen, studying the short handful of words that had been snipped from the record. As he looked back towards Raiten, a small sliver of curiosity glinted in his eyes. "...Professor incident?"
His fists unclenched and he looked up, one hand flitting out in a dismissive wave. "Oh, that? Old scandal. Big news at the time, threw the whole place into an uproar." Ryunosuke leaned back towards Kazuma and, on throwing him a curious side-glance, found his face decidedly more stony than usual. Raiten continued, jabbing out with his pencil. "If you want to know more, just ask―"
At Kazuma's hip, the flick of a thumb drew his shinai slightly outwards. Arcing his gesture seamlessly up to scratch at his now-sweat-covered temple, Raiten trailed off. "―around. Just ask around." He beamed up at the rest, back to a wide grin. "Do your own research! It's what you're good at, right? Much obliged, folks. I'll put some screenshots together and explain the situation―don't think Stronghart's going to put up a fight against evidence, and with any luck, the Gazette should be back in business by the end of the week."
Wielding a brandished finger, he rose to his feet. "Now, what do you think―" He strode over to the whiteboard, uncapping a marker with his teeth and drawing up a vast panorama of potential perspectives. "'Swan Dive For Star Swimmer', or something else? A play on 'broken wings', maybe?"
That was that, more or less. Mystery solved. It had gone by in just about an hour, but still, that was time they could've put towards getting on top of things before winter break. But they lingered for a moment, and Ryunosuke scratched his chin, drawing a deep breath. "You know...Jezaille's the one who gave you your alibi."
The cap clattered from between his teeth to the floor as his jaw dropped. Inch by inch he turned to face them, blinking slowly. "She, uh―she what?"
Susato finished off her notes with a gentle flourish, slamming the covers of her notebook together. "Of course, it's up to you to determine if the liberty of the free press is more important."
"...well, uh..." His fingers drummed an uneasy rhythm at the back of his head. "...maybe―eh, I mean, it's not much of a story, is it? Not a lot of public interest. Kinda..." In quick and darting motions, his thumb began flicking out across the writing, wiping it off the board. "...slow news day stuff."
Ryunosuke couldn't help but feel a little bit optimistic as the budding reporter dialled it down. He had the enthusiasm, he had the instinct ― and as he smeared out his smear campaign, it seemed he might've obtained a slight smattering of journalistic integrity.
As he whirled around again, Ryunosuke wondered if he'd been overly hasty. The wide grin at his face seemed slightly too much like a fox spotting a rabbit. He strode over to his desk, hands waving in wide motions. "Besides, I've got a better headline lined up! "Yumei Investigators Do It Again! Enterprising Editor Cleared of All Wrongdoing!" With a few quick taps on his phone he set it to the side, rolling some sort of record function. "Now, if any of you folks would agree to an interview―"
Fortunately, the reflexes he used to click a camera served him well in immediately leaping under his desk. The thunderous bang that resounded through the room as Kazuma's shinai slammed against the wall didn't die down for a good few seconds; Raiten crawled cautiously back into view, scooping his hat up off the floor and glancing towards the scratched paint and freshly-formed cracks up the wall. "Cripes, that's gonna...leave a mark."
Even dodging the swordsman's steely eyes, a few darting looks would reveal that Susato and Rei had folded their arms and were glaring down at him. He swallowed, raising his hands in concession of defeat. "O-okay, okay, no interview―but, like, I can still run the story, right?"
As Ryunosuke darted after Kazuma into the hallway, he heard behind him the slam of fists on the desk and Susato's insistent voice: "...and make sure Rei's included this time!"
Frantic scribbling, pencil on paper. "Yeah, sure, got it―"
Their voices faded into the background as Ryunosuke tried to keep pace with his partner, quick, clipping footsteps across the polished floor. "Kazuma―" He grabbed at his hand, only to have it twitch away from him in uninterrupted reflex.
"Not now, Ryunosuke. Later." He threw him a glance over his shoulder. The firm glare in his eyes seemed to shift, just a little, at the sight of his stunned expression...but before he could really confirm it, Kazuma had turned his back to him once more. Billowing behind him, the ends of his scarf flapped low as he walked away.
Ryunosuke stood there for a moment then sighed, rubbing at the back of his head. 'Later' had been cropping up for a long time, and he wasn't sure when it'd roll around into 'now'.
The now-trio strode back into the hallway. Susato threw a glance down the hallways, but the sound of Ryunosuke's footsteps had already long vanished, and...besides, Kazuma would probably be more forthcoming with him than with her. The bout of contemplation would be interrupted by a bright voice from below, prompting her to look over. "So that's how your investigations work, Susie? I'm very impressed! Dad's never brought me along on one of his, but I'm sure it's all the same principle."
She thought back to their haphazard interrogations and aimless stumbling, tapping her cheek. "Well, we're not in the best of practice yet, I fear..." Pumping her fists to her sides, she pushed a smile. "But we're learning as we go! How's Mr. Sholmes been, by the way?"
"Oh, well..." In a flitting glance Iris looked towards Rei, who jolted back, her hand going up to her mouth.
"Oh, s-sorry! This is family stuff, isn't it? Got it!" She leaned over to plant a light kiss on Susato's cheek before she'd even got the chance to confirm it, before setting a hasty pace away and throwing a wave over her shoulder. "See you at the bus stop!"
Susato waved back with a faint smile. Iris watched her as she scurried off, brows furrowing. "Oh dear...I hope I didn't make her feel unwelcome."
"I-I'm sure it's fine..." Some lingering concern had settled in the back of her head. Iris and her family had become closely enough interwoven with hers to consider them her own, and Rei instinctively seeing herself as an intruder to that was undoubtedly disconcerting...still, she shook her head and turned back around to the young girl, trying to focus on what was in front of her for now. "What did you want to talk about, Iris?"
"Well, it's just, there's been something odd about dad today. Ever since he rolled out of bed..." Her index finger rested against her temple, musing gently. "And then rolled down the stairs...and then rolled next to the dinner table. I dropped some toast on him, but he didn't even chew." She settled into a soft pause then tilted her head. "...He's in a downcast mood today."
"Oh dear..." Her hands clasped together in front of her, one thumb rolling restlessly across her knuckles. "Yes, it certainly sounds that way."
"And it's not just that, either." Iris glanced to the side, gaze fixed on some elusive middle-distance point, as she pursed her lips. "Dad's been looking over old case files, and...sighing."
Susato could recognize that look in her eye―the girl was sharp and doing her best, but she was, at heart and core, still a child. Mustering her courage and her optimism both, she felt pushed along by the big-sisterly urge to provide a comforting smile, but...she thought back to their days trading stories after school, and couldn't deny that she'd missed her old confidante more than usual these past few days. She drew a deep breath. "...Father's been feeling rather melancholy, too. He's been locking himself in his study here and there―usually he buries himself in his work whenever he's feeling moody, but one night I was passing by and..."
She paused, wavering on the boundary of hesitation. It was a private matter, technically, one that she felt uneasy prying into, but...it was a family matter, too. She looked up, her gaze steadying. "...I could hear the sound of violin music coming through the door. He was listening to Mr. Sholmes' song."
Their eyes locked for a moment in shared silence. Iris was the first to break it, slow and tentative. "...They still like each other, don't they?"
"Very much, I believe." A soft sigh before she repeated a sentiment she'd heard many times over the past year, constituting the main piece of information she had to go on. "But father says it's complicated."
The young girl folded her arms, deploying the counterpoint to Susato's careful diplomacy. "Well, I think it's nonsense!"
Susato glanced away, before giving a firm nod. "Yes...you may be right about that, too. But sometimes, even when you like someone, you don't want to be with them all the time." On seeing Iris' suddenly downcast look, and feeling her own heart sink slightly in response, she kept going. "Or...they may need to talk, to sort things out."
She looked up, tilting her head. "But they're not talking, are they?"
"...No." She tapped at her cheek, quiet and contemplative. "I'm afraid not."
A soft sigh, a brief bout of silence, and a pair of inquisitive eyes fixing on Susato's. "Susie, do you think you could come over for a sleepover? Some company might cheer dad up―" She clapped her hands together, breaking into a bright grin. "―oh, and Rei's invited too, of course!"
"I'd like that, Iris." A warm smile, and the gentle sprout of an idea. "Perhaps we could discuss it more then?"
With nods exchanged and Iris returning to the tranquil haven offered by the school's library, Susato advanced down the hallways and ran a hasty comparison between her notes of their two cases so far. As she went to advance down the stairs to the exit she found Ryunosuke seated at the top step, chin pressed into his hands. She furrowed her brow, tucking her notebook away into her pocket. "Naruhodo-san, are you alright?"
"Oh, um, yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking." He paused, looking back at her. He'd only known Susato for a couple of years, introduced via Kazuma in sixth form, but he felt he had a good enough grasp on her to be able to come to her with things like this...and besides, she'd probably know better than he did. He drew a deep breath, sifting through his thoughts. "You've known Kazuma since you were kids, right?" She gave a gentle nod. He glanced away, trying to hide his more overt concern. "Was he...different, back then?"
She settled down next to him on the staircase, shuffling slightly further to the side to avoid blocking too much thoroughfare. "Well...of course, yes, when we were young. He was a great deal more enthusiastic then, always full of passion and gusto, but...that hasn't exactly faded, either." Her finger tapped restlessly across the back of her hand, dipping into temporary reminiscence. "We drifted apart for a while during childhood. When I saw him again in school, he seemed...more mature, I suppose." She paused for a moment, before shaking her head. "Still, we all change as we grow older, don't we?"
"I guess, yeah. It's just, like..." He stared into space, letting his fingers dig into his chin. "Something happened. Something he doesn't want to talk about."
She tapped her finger against her cheek. Secrets, suppressed feelings...a little bit too close to home, in more ways than one. "Yes, that can be complicated, can't it? You want to give them space, but you also want to signal that you're there."
"Yeah. And I guess it's just...like, I love him and everything―" He'd couched the sentiment in slight avoidance without meaning to; he was still slightly nervous dropping the same phrase to Kazuma, even though he was pretty sure he knew. He wanted to be able to scatter it quickly and casually in here-and-there statements, but everything that involved his partner seemed to get so...intense, without meaning to.
Still, he wasn't here. Deep breaths, focused nerves, steady eyes. "I mean, I love him. I really do. He's great in all these ways, and he's always there to help me out, but..." He scratched at the back of his head, sending a rippling wave through his spiky hair. "...it kind of seems like he never trips up, and that makes it kinda hard to catch him if he falls. I don't know, it's just―I want to be there to help him out too, you know?"
Susato paused, sinking back into her own thoughts. Rei's habitual compliment-deflection, and downplaying of her importance. What the journalist had said―'archery when she did, judo when she did, Yumei when she did'. A soft sigh escaped her. "Yes...I think I do."
The pair of them remained there for a little bit longer before departing, with slow and silent steps, down to the bus stop. Solemn in mood and uncertain in conclusions, the second case of the increasingly-less-impromptu investigators drew to a close.
"Uh huh. Uh huh..." A slender figure moved through the halls of the university after hours, well-lit but well past empty. Tapping at the walls brick by brick as he passed, he pressed a cell phone to his ear. "Of course. Got it. Yes, I'm very grateful for―yes, I recognize how precarious―aye, loud and clear, sire. Whenever you give the word." A wrist-flourish in triplicate as he hung up, closing off the conversation with a stage whisper. "Boldness be my friend, my liege."