Let Kaitou Kid Take the Fall

~

The next day was Monday.

That morning, inside the abandoned building where the gold coins had been hidden.

"The place written on this paper should be here, right?" Takagi yawned, holding the "treasure map." He looked down at the layer of dust on the floor, then turned and gave a goofy smile. "Looks like nobody's been here..."

The place really was very remote. No wonder the officers from the First Investigation Division had felt comfortable sending a rookie like him to lead the team here.

The group of officers took a few photos first, then quickly found several packages hanging from the ceiling.

Two officers slowly lowered the packages. Wearing gloves, Takagi untied the strings. When he saw the pile of rocks inside, his whole world seemed to collapse.

"These are... rocks? Huh? Where are the gold coins? Where are they? Shouldn't these be the Maple Leaf Gold Coins?"

Officer Takagi dumped out all the rocks. Looking adorably clueless, he even turned the package upside down to check inside. Then he opened the other two packages, only to find piles of pebbles in them as well. Among the pebbles was a white card, which stood out conspicuously.

Takagi picked up the card and saw a line of crooked handwriting:

"I took the gold coins—Kaitou Kid, who's occasionally short on cash and wants to make a quick buck."

Kaitou Kid?

Takagi stared blankly, thinking:

So Kaitou Kid's started stealing gold coins too?

Class 2-B, second year, Ekoda High School.

It was break time.

Kuroba Kaito was talking with Nakamori Aoko when his nose suddenly began to itch. "Achoo!" He sneezed.

Nakamori Aoko immediately raised her arm in front of her. "Gross! Kaito, do you have a cold? Darn it, don't give it to me!"

"Dummy! Why would I have a cold?" Kuroba Kaito retorted, bickering with Nakamori Aoko.

"You definitely have a cold! Did you sleep with your stomach exposed last night?"

"Dummy! As if!"

Koizumi Akako sat calmly in her seat, listening to Kuroba Kaito and Nakamori Aoko bicker as the tarot cards on her desk turned over one by one. When the last card flipped over, she looked at their arrangement with amusement. A smile suddenly appeared on her lips.

"How interesting. That Kuroba fellow... seems to have been framed."

Three days later, in the afternoon, after school.

Outside Teitan High School.

Shu Yunwen hurried out of the school, his bag in hand.

At the school gate, the passenger door of a car opened. A man stood beside it and greeted him respectfully. "Hello, Lord Yunwen."

"Hello, Secretary Adachi." Shu Yunwen nodded and got into the car.

Adachi Roppei closed the door for Shu Yunwen, returned to the driver's seat, and explained, "Hello, Lord Yunwen. There's a bit more going on at the agency today, and Vice President Matsushita is entertaining a guest there, so he asked me to pick you up..."

"Mm, that's fine. The agency's business is more important." Shu Yunwen raised his hand to check the digital watch on his wrist. "Please drive a little faster. I need to get home early tonight."

"Is something going on at home, Lord Yunwen?" The car started moving, and Adachi Roppei asked as a matter of course.

Shu Yunwen rummaged through his backpack. "Nothing's going on at home. But all my teachers assigned a lot of homework today, so I have to do it!"

"..." Adachi Roppei was speechless.

Only then did he remember that Shu Yunwen was still in high school.

The car pulled up at the Keqin Exorcist Agency. Shu Yunwen first went to the president's office to change, then entered the reception room.

Adachi Roppei followed him in and poured him a cup of coffee. After working with Shu Yunwen for a while, Adachi Roppei had learned his preferences. Compared to orange juice, cola, or tea, Shu Yunwen preferred coffee. A latte or cappuccino would always earn his approval.

The people seated across from him in the reception room were familiar faces.

Ono Yoko, her manager Yamagishi Eiichi, and the agency president Akechi Kunihito, who hadn't appeared in the original story. They were today's guests.

When the three saw Shu Yunwen, they immediately stood and greeted him together. "Hello, Lord Yunwen. We're sorry to trouble you by having you come in person."

"Hello to you, too. The agency's facilities are a little lacking, so please excuse us if anything isn't up to standard." Shu Yunwen nodded casually, then turned to Matsushita Heisaburo. "Matsushita-kun, President Akechi and the others are here to sign a contract, right? How did the discussion go?"

Matsushita Heisaburo answered at once. "Lord Yunwen, we've already prepared a draft of the contract. If you agree, we can sign it now."

"Didn't I leave all of this to you?" Shu Yunwen frowned. He didn't like dealing with this kind of tedious business.

He had told Matsushita Heisaburo two days ago to handle the matter.

"Yes! It was my mistake." Matsushita Heisaburo hurriedly bowed in apology.

Ono Yoko, seated across from them, quickly said, "Lord Yunwen, please don't blame Vice President Matsushita. There was something I wanted to ask you about in person, so... I'm sorry. I was being selfish."

Shu Yunwen pursed his lips and glanced at Ono Yoko.

Well! When a beautiful woman personally pleaded with him, even if he could tell she was putting on a bit of an act, he couldn't be bothered to press the matter.

"Miss Ono, was there something you wanted to ask me?" Shu Yunwen picked up the contract on the table and skimmed it quickly as he asked.

The contract stated that Ono Yoko's agency would pay the Keqin Exorcist Agency fourteen million yen a year to handle paranormal incidents involving its artists and at the agency. Of course, that was just the consultation fee. If an exorcist had to intervene, the fee would be 250,000 yen per case for an ordinary exorcist. If Shu Yunwen himself went, the fee would start at one million yen, with practically no upper limit...

The contract was extremely generous.

Ono Yoko spoke up. "Lord Yunwen, actually, I still want to know how Fujie Akiyoshi's vengeful spirit is doing. I asked Vice President Matsushita, too, but it seemed he didn't know..."

Beside her, Matsushita Heisaburo's nostrils twitched. It wasn't that he didn't know—he just didn't dare say, all right...

Shu Yunwen frowned, then said, "Miss Ono, I've already told you twice. Fujie Akiyoshi took his own life, and then he tried to frame you and ruin you. He doesn't deserve so much of your concern."

"...Lord Yunwen, please!" Ono Yoko stood and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

Deep down, Ono Yoko was a very kind woman.

After Fujie Akiyoshi killed himself, he had tried to frame her. Even after his death, he had continued to harass her. But he had once been someone she dated, and they had shared good memories. She wanted to know what had become of him.

"..." Shu Yunwen was silent for a while before speaking. "...All right. Since you want to know, I'll tell you. I sent his vengeful spirit away. He's completely disappeared from this world."

Beside him, Matsushita Heisaburo rolled his eyes.

Sent him away? You ate him, didn't you?

Mm... That wasn't quite right either. It would be more accurate to say that after Shu Yunwen ate Fujie Akiyoshi, he decided he didn't like the taste and spat him right back out...

Of course, Matsushita Heisaburo wouldn't tell anyone about this, even if they killed him.

Ono Yoko asked again, "Really?"

"Of course it's true! I'm a professional exorcist. We have a way to make spirits like that disappear. But if you want more details, I'm sorry, I can't tell you. That's a secret among exorcists." Shu Yunwen's words made it clear that if Ono Yoko kept asking, he wouldn't answer.

He couldn't say any more!

"Thank you, Lord Yunwen." Although Ono Yoko was disappointed, she finally stopped asking.

With two quick strokes, Shu Yunwen signed the contract and handed it to Akechi Kunihito. "President Akechi, I look forward to working with you."

Akechi Kunihito nodded quickly. "We'll be counting on your help from now on, Lord Yunwen. By the way, my friend, Mr. Manaka, has been troubled by something lately. He's waiting outside right now and hopes you can help him."

"Mm, I understand," Shu Yunwen replied.

After the contract was signed, Ono Yoko and Yamagishi Eiichi left first, while Akechi Kunihito stayed behind.

The guest waiting outside was Akechi Kunihito's friend, the one called Manaka. Manaka entered with two others behind him. One was an older, balding man with long, thick eyebrows and a face covered in gray whiskers. He was the director of an art museum called "Chusei," Director Ochiai. The other was much younger, looking to be in his early thirties. He was an employee of the museum, named Kubota.

Of the three, Manaka came across as arrogant and rude, Director Ochiai was humble but taciturn, and Kubota was a shameless flatterer.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Shu Yunwen glanced at his watch. Not wanting to waste any more time, he got straight to the point. "Boss Manaka, what brings you here?"

Boss Manaka's expression stiffened. He glanced at Akechi Kunihito beside him, and only continued after Akechi Kunihito gave him a meaningful look. "Well, Lord Yunwen. I bought the Chusei Museum a while ago and wanted to turn it into a restaurant. But over the past few days, strange noises have often come from inside the museum in the middle of the night. We checked the security footage and saw that a suit of medieval armor wanders around the museum at night..."

"Uh..." Shu Yunwen looked at the people in front of him again, at a loss for words.

An art museum called Chusei, a suit of armor that walked, Boss Manaka, Director Ochiai, and a fellow named Kubota...

Damn!

Wasn't this the case from some murder mystery? One of them had been the victim, one the killer, and one the person wrongly accused of being the killer. But as he recalled, Boss Manaka in that case had been a real jerk, the sort who deserved to die. Now, the Boss Manaka standing in front of him was a little arrogant, but not that irritating...

Shu Yunwen was still lost in thought when Boss Manaka's voice reached him. "...I'm not interested in what might happen in that damned museum, and I couldn't care less about the junk inside it. In fact, the rumors might even keep some customers away, making it easier for me to close the place down later..."

"But those rumors could still affect my restaurant business in the future. So if you can, please go to the museum and take a look. If there really is something unpleasant there, please get rid of it for me!"

"If you can make all the bad publicity disappear, I'll pay you a lot of money. Please!"

As Boss Manaka spoke, he seemed to be begging, saying "please" over and over. But he carried himself as if, You'd better solve this for me, as though Shu Yunwen owed him a favor in a previous life.

Shu Yunwen rolled his eyes.

All right, he had to admit that Boss Manaka had suddenly become very irritating in his eyes.

Who do you think I am? You can't just order me around!

No wonder someone killed this guy!