Chapter 3.4 (1/2)

Episode 3 Under the Cherry Blossom Tree…

Part 4

It had been three days since Genjirou Fujinami came to the detective agency. The world still had no clues about the offender. Wide shows1 and news were suddenly putting efforts into making special programs for it.

In the dining room of the detective agency, Akira was staring at the TV because he was told to collect all the general information.

The door behind Akira was opened.

“Kid, is there anything going on in society?”

Kujou asked directly when he stepped into the room while holding several doc.u.ments.

“Hum~ I don’t think there was anything important. Well, compared to the ident.i.ty of  the offender, the mystery of a corpse buried under the cherry blossom tree is more attractive. People say that ‘Isn’t it one of the modern seven wonders?’”

“I see… Since people want the viewing rate. I thought that there should be programs that would only focus on the surface of the case… So the general public is attracted by mysteriousness the mysteries.”

“What do you mean?”

Kujou took out his phone and show the screen to Akira, who could not follow his train of thought.

“Is this Twitter?”

“Right. Look at the item under Trending.”

“Eh…What is this…”

Akira saw the item named ‘Under the cherry blossom tree…’ on the screen and there were millions of tweets about it.

“People are looking for the offender?”

“No.”

Saying that, Kujou sighed.

“There are rumors ranging from speculations that ‘Wherever there are beautiful cherry blossom trees, there must be some corpses buried under them’ to affirmations that ‘There are corpse buried under the cherry blossom tree over there.’”

“n.o.body cares about the victim. People are experiencing schadenfreude.”

Wearing a light pink jersey, Yui stood next to Akira without him noticing.

When Akira saw Yui in unusually scanty clothes, his face flushed.

Right after that, the corner of a phone hit Akira between his eyebrows.

“Don’t look at Miss Yui with l.u.s.t, you erotic kappa2!!”

“Ouch… Wait… You, how can you hit me between my eyebrow?”

While belittling Akira, who was on his knees, Kujou pulled out a chair lightly in the dining room for Yui.

Sitting onto the chair nimbly as if she was following Kujou’s action, Yui noticed the doc.u.ments Kujou was holding.

“Kujou, what are they?”

“The information regarding the victim I investigated these days. Here you are.”

After handing the doc.u.ments, Kujou went into the kitchen. He seemed to be preparing to boil water.

“d.a.m.n it… That violent butler.”

Akira was rubbing the area between his eyebrows and slowly sat down onto the chair next to Yui.

“So Yui. What’s written over there？”

She read the doc.u.ments aloud while slowly explaining them, so that there would be easier for Akira to understand.

“Arieru s.h.i.+mizu, eighteen years old. Female. The cause of her death was being pressured by something similar to a string, causing suffocation.The hyoid bone was found fractured, indicating that the string was bold. Also, from the rate it skeletonized, she was probably dead about one or two month ago.”

“Up till now, it’s still exactly the same as what Mr. Gen had told us last time.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Continue?”

“The victim had no delinquency history or arrest record. People living around her house said they were a good family because they had a good relations.h.i.+p.She went to coeducational elementary, middle, and high schools. Her grades were neither very good nor very bad, but she was a hard worker, so she left the teachers and students with a good impression. ”

“Eh? That means she had no problem that could lead to her death?”

“Just from reading the paperwork, the victim was not a person that would be hated by others.”

“Just like what Miss Yui said. She was a normal girl who was suddenly murdered and buried.”

Answering, Kujou placed the teacups, which were impressive due to their gold and blue lines, onto the table,