NOVEL WEB Ch. 7
Chapter 7
"Is there a hallucinogen in the sea-turtle soup?" Tamako asked.
"No."
"Has the boy ever had sea-turtle soup before?" Tamako asked.
"No."
"Is the boy's suicide connected to someone else?" Tamako asked.
"No."
She rattled off a dozen more questions, built four or five theories, and every one collapsed—none of her questions had hit the mark.
"Why is this so hard?" she thought, clicking her tongue.
One person keeps asking questions to help the other cross off wrong answers and find a path. If even she was stumped, Fushimi must be completely lost. The guy hadn't said a word; his brain was probably smoking...
She turned to look—and discovered he wasn't thinking at all.
At some point he'd picked up his pencil again and was hatching lines on a fresh sheet.
Tamako's teeth clenched. How arrogant could he be, treating this duel of wits like background noise? She should have made a bet, forced him to kneel and regret defeat!
"Fushimi," she tugged his sleeve, "don't you have any questions?"
"You're done?" He set the pencil down.
"Pretty much."
"So you've worked out the truth?"
"N-not yet..."
"Then let me ask." Fushimi slid the sketch board aside and said casually, "Does the boy hate sea-turtle soup?"
Hidenori hesitated a second. "Yes."
Tamako blinked. What kind of question was that? Personal taste counted as part of the answer?
"Does the boy suffer from depression?" Fushimi continued.
"Yes." Hidenori's replies were coming faster now.
"Then the answer's obvious," Fushimi said. "He drank the soup he hated most, felt even worse, and killed himself."
"Eh?" Tamako blurted. "That can't be it..."
"Correct." Hidenori nodded. "That's the solution."
The Q&A had ended too quickly; Tamako's mind was still buffering.
Her little head buzzed. That's it? Where were the clues, the twist, the dramatic reveal? A depressed kid ate soup and jumped?
"W-why did your riddle mention a blind boy? Blindness has nothing to do with the solution!" she protested.
"Because the blindness caused the depression," Hidenori murmured.
Seriously?
Tamako refused to accept it. Fushimi had just gotten lucky—blind squirrel finding a nut—and she insisted on a rematch.
He didn't raise the stakes or demand an entry fee; he simply looked at her the way an adult humors a child and agreed.
The next thirty minutes became the worst nightmare of Tamako's life.
Hidenori served up three original puzzles. She lost every round.
No matter how she guessed, reasoned, or schemed—even sneaking Fushimi the first question—nothing worked. Within three questions he always nailed the answer.
For the first time, someone had crushed her intellectually. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would pop, her brain throbbed with blood, and she was still powerless.
Once might be luck, twice a fluke, but three times in a row? She couldn't lie to herself anymore.
What terrified her most was that she still couldn't see how he won.
"Do you read minds? Some kind of superpower?" She stared at him. "Is that why you keep glancing above people's heads?"
"Is admitting defeat that difficult?" he asked.
Tamako chewed her lip and finally lowered her head. "Fine... I lost."
She grabbed his sleeve again, cheeks scarlet. "But how did you do it? Explain your reasoning—please?"
"Consultation fee: 500 yen per explanation," Fushimi said, palm open. "Cheap—about the price of a bowl of ramen. No haggling."
Life at the academy was dull; teasing her was a decent stress reliever.
"Fine."
Tamako pouted and pulled a pig-shaped coin purse from her uniform pocket.
Fushimi glanced at the plump little pig stuffed with ¥10,000 notes bearing Fukuzawa Yukichi's face. She dug a single 500-yen coin from its belly and slapped it into his hand.
A rich girl slumming it at police school—interesting.
He flicked the coin; the silver disk arced through the air and landed in front of Hidenori, who fumbled the catch, muttered an apology, and carried his chair away.
"Huh?" Tamako blinked.
"Still haven't caught on?" Fushimi said. "I bribed the referee. Whatever you asked, he'd answer 'no'."
Above Hidenori's head, Fushimi saw only four characters:
"Money-grubbing to the bone."
Tamako's voice trembled. "S-so your answers..."
"Exactly—pure nonsense. Whatever I said, he'd reply 'yes'." Fushimi's mouth curved in satisfaction.
"Th-that's fraud!"
Tamako's stutter flared when she got emotional.
"Crime itself is fraud that steps outside the rules. Do you think a murderer will play an intellectual game within the lines?" Fushimi replied matter-of-factly.
"Every homicide leaves traces—" Tamako started.
"Let me give you an example," Fushimi interrupted. "Say a man climbs a mountain on impulse, gloves on, and shoves a stranger off a cliff. How do you investigate?"
"Who kills without motive? The premise is flawed—"
"In 1983 in Fukuoka Prefecture," Fushimi said, tapping her with the pencil, "a hiker went over a cliff. No witnesses, no suspects. After a massive dragnet, police found one other climber that day. Under interrogation, he confessed to the push."
Tamako opened her mouth, but Fushimi pressed on.
"Then! He hired a lawyer, recanted, claimed police coercion. The prosecutor lacked solid evidence. Result: acquittal, resignations, and the legal precedent that a suspect's confession alone isn't enough."
Fushimi raised two fingers. "Know what percentage of Japanese homicides are these inexplicable impulse killings?"
"E-eight percent?" Tamako stared at his fingers.
"Eighty percent."
He set the pencil down and looked down at her.
"There aren't many tidy, puzzle-box cases. Investigation isn't evidence first, suspect second; it's guess a suspect, then look for evidence that fits."
"Once the suspect is locked in, the game's over."
"That's why detectives became obsolete. The profession was never valid—just a logic game. It's criminal psychology that replaced them. Police consultants aren't detectives anymore; they're experts in criminal psychology, because human beings are the most chaotic variable in any equation."
"Free lesson number one."
Fushimi blew the graphite dust off his drawing. Today's portrait assignment was done.