Romantic Troubles of Duanmu-kun

“…Is…is she dead?”

“Yes, she’s dead.”

Misao swallowed her hot tea and exhaled deeply, a relaxed expression spreading across her face as she melted into the blanket.

“I see, so… the protagonist in the story was ultimately silenced by murder.”

Class Rep wore a contemplative expression.

The Novelist quietly observed her profile. Itou-san’s expressions when thinking or feeling troubled were equally adorable—truly flawless from every angle.

“What do you think, Liang-kun?”

Class Rep suddenly turned toward him, startling him slightly. It seemed she rather enjoyed this sort of game, perhaps because she’d never experienced it before? She had quickly immersed herself in the atmosphere of the deduction game.

“Hmm…”

The narrator had finished telling the story, and now the remaining two players needed to deduce the outcome.

The Novelist thought for several seconds.

“Generally speaking, the truth behind a crime consists of several parts: the culprit, the method of murder, and the motive.”

And in this story’s conclusion, the protagonist died when the culprit struck the back of their head with a deer antler wall decoration.

“The method and the weapon have already been revealed by Fujishima-san. Class Rep’s suggestion of ‘silencing a witness’ is indeed the most likely motive…”

“I can tell you directly that the culprit’s motive was to eliminate a witness.”

Fujishima Misao agreed with his conclusion.

“In that case, the question is who the culprit is, right?”

Class Rep thought for a moment, a slight blush appearing on her fair cheeks.

“Um, was it… was it because of an affair?”

“The residents of Building One were an elderly husband and his young wife. Due to work, they were rarely together. It’s quite normal for a young wife to feel lonely without her partner’s company. So she eventually chose to have an affair?”

The Novelist nodded.

“Besides, the protagonist mentioned it in the story, right? A young man secretly entered the mansion, and the wife showed no reaction. What’s more, this person came twice. It’s very likely… that man was her lover.”

Itou Maho recalled Misao’s narration as she continued.

“A week later, an argument broke out between the couple. Perhaps the husband discovered his wife’s infidelity. If so…”

The man the ‘protagonist’ had witnessed the night before being killed—

“It must have been the husband, right? He probably accidentally killed his wife during their argument. And then, he took advantage of the night to move all his wife’s belongings out. During this process, he didn’t turn on the lights to avoid being discovered by others…”

“He might have also buried the body. The garden outside the door would be the best choice. The unusual soil that ‘I’ noticed might have had the wife’s body buried underneath.”

The Novelist casually added.

“Yes… th-that’s it. Then, the next day when ‘I’ went to visit their home, the husband thought I had discovered the truth about him killing his wife, and in a moment of impulse, killed ‘me’… is that it?”

“But if the man was the husband, who was the woman who appeared at the end of the story?”

“Um… probably the husband’s lover? Actually, both the husband and wife were having affairs, that must be it, right?”

The Novelist set down his teacup and looked toward Misao, who was snugly wrapped in the blanket.

“I think the logic checks out. Fujishima-san, what do you think of Class Rep’s deduction?”

“Well… that’s certainly true. But in these kinds of deduction games, it’s generally not possible to arrive at the answer so smoothly, is it?”

The corners of Fujishima Misao’s lips curled slightly upward.

…That’s right.

The fun of mystery games lay in contradicting common sense, pursuing “twists” and “surprises.” From this perspective, Class Rep’s deduction was unlikely to match the answer Fujishima-san had set up. After all, considering the motive from the angle of “infidelity” was the first reaction most people would have upon hearing this story.

“So, the husband is not the culprit.”

Far from being discouraged by having her answer rejected, Class Rep’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the boy beside her, eagerly asking:

“The answer Misao wants to hear, Liang-kun would definitely know it, right?”

“Aren’t you placing too much trust in this guy?”

The girl revealed a dissatisfied expression.

“He’s not a mind reader. How would he know what I want to hear?”

The Novelist thought for a moment.

“I truly don’t know what Fujishima-san is thinking. However, following our previous analysis, there is another possibility—”

The story itself wasn’t long, so there must have been a core “key” that appeared in the narration.

“I believe the key lies in the identity of the two people the ‘protagonist’ witnessed during the final confrontation with the killer. A man and a woman—the man was ‘someone familiar,’ and the woman was ‘someone unfamiliar.'”

Throughout the entire story, only a few characters appeared, so using the process of elimination would bring them closer to the truth.

“Excluding ‘myself’ and ‘my mother,’ the female characters include the wife and the woman who appeared at the end. The male characters include the husband, the young man who secretly entered Building One, the man from the night before the incident, and finally, the culprit who killed ‘me’—with the last two confirmed to be the same person.”

“Of course, there’s a possibility that the culprit is neither the husband nor the young man. But considering the story itself, it’s more likely to be one of these two.”

Since Class Rep’s assertion that “the husband is the culprit” was denied, the culprit should have been the young man.

“With this premise, if we follow Class Rep’s previous speculation, how would this incident unfold? The affair is exposed, the couple has a fierce argument, and ultimately the person killed is the husband—murdered by the wife and her lover working together. The body would still be buried in the garden. The next day, the young man killed ‘me’ to silence any witnesses.”

The Novelist noticed that Fujishima-san seemed unconvinced. It appeared that even up to this point, the deduction was still incorrect. Fortunately, his reasoning was far from over; in fact, this was where the real discussion began—

“—But this creates a contradiction. If the husband died, the one who survived should have been the wife. Yet the ‘protagonist’ said that the woman was ‘someone unfamiliar.’ Isn’t that strange? Moreover, before going to the mansion, the ‘protagonist’ had considered the possibility of being killed. For either the husband or wife, to avoid raising suspicions, they wouldn’t do anything to ‘me’ during the daytime… right?”

Although this point was merely the ‘protagonist’s’ own speculation within the story.

“So, that means…”

Class Rep seemed to understand something.

“Yes, I think that among the man and woman who appeared at the end of the story, neither was from the couple. The man was the young male, and the woman was a stranger the ‘protagonist’ didn’t recognize. As for the couple… they were probably both killed, weren’t they?”