Move Toward Tomorrow (5)

There was only one thing to do now.

Get the register.

I just hope nobody beat me to it...

Oreki had a bad feeling.

He hoped he was just imagining things.

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Kiyoko since that day.

Sakayanagi had said she'd finished investigating.

And she'd submitted her answer...

But was that really true?

She'd been able to deduce in an instant that the tennis ball belonged to Tachibana Akane, the Student Council secretary.

Yet she'd concluded that the culprit was the sponsor's daughter.

That was hard to believe.

Either Kiyoko had deliberately given the wrong answer, or there was more to the story.

If it was the former, that was fine.

It would mean Kiyoko simply wanted to hide her abilities and put Oreki's suspicions to rest.

But if it was the latter...

"Ding, ding—"

—Oreki, are you there?

A message from Shiina Hiyori.

Oreki was a little surprised.

He'd only asked her to find out what the staff thought of the previous curator, but she couldn't have finished that quickly.

After all, some voices were too sharp.

And those high above couldn't hear sharp voices.

That was right. They couldn't hear them.

But they could make them go away.

Make whom go away?

The people making those sharp noises.

—Yeah.

—I ran into someone interesting.

—Someone interesting?

—Yes. I think you'll find her very interesting.

—...

—I'm not teasing you. Here, answer the phone.

"Brrring—"

Just after Shiina Hiyori's message came in, Oreki's phone rang.

He hesitated for a moment.

Based on what he knew...

Shiina Hiyori probably wasn't setting him up.

And even if it was a trap, springing it now seemed far too late.

She'd had plenty of chances before this.

And her odds of success would've been much better then.

"Let's hear what she has to say..."

With that, Oreki pressed the answer button.

After a brief silence...

"Stop investigating."

"Click."

The call ended.

?

Oreki hadn't had time to react.

Just now, was that...

Judging by the voice, it hadn't been Shiina Hiyori.

But if not her, then who?

Could it have been the "interesting person" she'd just mentioned?

If so...

And with that affected tone...

There was no doubt...

"Kiyoko...?"

"She's still following the trail leading to Sakura Airi, just as I thought."

"Has she already figured out who the previous curator was?"

Oreki checked his call history.

If Shiina Hiyori had run into Kiyoko, then she must've gotten into trouble.

With Kiyoko there...

It would be hard to complete the task.

The only solution was to wrap things up at the art museum as soon as possible, then go help Shiina Hiyori.

That was the safest plan.

Inside the art museum.

Oreki had just come in through the main entrance and was looking around.

He remembered the receptionist was...

—There.

He looked to his right.

An old man sat there with his hat pulled low over his face, fast asleep.

Oreki walked over.

He knocked on the desk.

"Hello."

"Zzz... zzz..."

"..."

"Zzz... zzz..."

Were you here to work?

Or to sleep?

Oreki wanted to haul him up and demand an explanation.

Didn't this make him look like an idiot?

He'd gone to all this trouble, only to find an old man at reception today—and the guy was sleeping on the job.

Oreki could simply deduce where the register was and swipe it.

As for the surveillance footage...

He could get Sakayanagi to delete it later.

—What a pain.

Oreki was in a hurry.

He didn't have time to figure out where the register was.

He slammed his hand down on the desk.

"!"

The old man woke with a start.

He scrambled to his feet, then put on his hat.

"Heh heh... I'm Tanaka's uncle, you know..."

"Shh—"

"Wait, you're...?"

Seeing that his visitor wasn't one of the supervisors on patrol, the old man immediately got cocky.

He tossed his hat onto the desk.

"Well, aren't you a hothead? I wondered who it was. Just some punk kid."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"You knew my hearing was bad, old man, and you still knocked that loudly."

Oreki looked at the old man before him, speechless.

He understood.

He understood perfectly.

Give a fool even a little power, and he'd become arrogant and domineering.

After all, he'd once had neither power nor money.

Usually, he was the one sucking up to others. No one ever sucked up to him.

Sakura Tanaka—the previous curator—had climbed into the good graces of a powerful person.

Naturally, a crowd of people had started currying favor with the old man.

But that didn't mean he was anything special.

Those people just wanted something from Sakura Tanaka.

For all he knew, they cursed the old man behind his back as soon as they left.

What a pathetic, impoverished stink about him.

He hated bureaucracy, yet the moment he got some power of his own, he immediately started practicing it.

That kind of behavior...

Couldn't be called anything but clownish.

Oreki didn't want to waste words on someone like him.

He went straight to the question.

"Where's the other register?"

"Oh, I'm not telling you. What are you gonna do about it?"

"...Fine."

Oreki slipped his right hand into his pocket.

He "accidentally" dropped his terminal.

Then he "accidentally" turned it on, letting the old man see the millions of points displayed on the screen.

That was a lot of digits!

The old man's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

He surely knew what that meant.

Several million yen.

About three hundred thousand yuan.

It was hard not to get ideas.

Especially when he was just a poor nobody showing off because of his relative's influence.

"Ahem!"

"If you want to know where the register is... it's not that hard."

"But... maybe..."

The old man rubbed his right thumb and index finger together.

His meaning was obvious.

He wanted money.

"I see. But wouldn't that violate the rules?"

"No, no, not at all."

"But I don't have much money."

"Oh, it won't take much. I only need a little something, heh heh..."

The old man held up a number of fingers.

"Two hundred?"

"Two hundred?! Two hundred thousand!"

The old man snapped.

Two hundred yen?

Did he think he was tossing a beggar a few coins?

Give me a break.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Oreki looked at him with contempt.

Just as expected, set a trap and these petty people riding on someone else's influence would jump right in, one after another.

Not a thought in his head.

How should I put it?

What doesn't belong to you will never be yours.

A person's intelligence is like a bridge.

Everything is on the other side of the bridge.

On this side is your little house.

Inside the house are the things that will always belong to you.

If you want something new, you have to carry it across the bridge from the other side.

But things have weight.

If your intelligence isn't great, then the bridge can't bear much weight either.

Exceed that limit...

And the bridge will collapse.

Naturally, nothing new will make it across.

And with the bridge broken, you won't be able to gain anything new for a while.

The time it takes to rebuild the bridge.

People generally call it...

"A slump."

--To be continued