Library

There were few people in the library on Saturday afternoon. The row of seats by the windows was cut diagonally in half by the afternoon sun. Kiryu Yume chose a spot out of the sunlight, spread open the dark blue notebook Mashima had given him, and began drawing up a historical timeline.

Starting from the Onin War, he filled in keywords in the blank space on the right after each year. If he could not think of one, he left it blank for the time being, then looked it up once he had accumulated five. His pen moved haltingly across the paper. By the Edo Shogunate entry, he had already left four blanks, and just as he drew the fifth, someone pulled out the chair across from him.

Kamuro Masumi placed a reference book on the table, sat down, and opened it. Throughout the entire process, she did not make eye contact with Kiryu Yume even once, as though there were a potted plant sitting across from her.

Her long black hair fell over one shoulder, concealing half her face. Her uniform sleeves were rolled up once, revealing a slender, pale wrist. She turned the pages at an unhurried pace, occasionally stopping to trace a line with her fingertip as she read it silently.

Kiryu Yume lowered his head and continued filling in the timeline. By the Battle of Sekigahara, there were only two blank boxes left. His gaze drifted up from the notebook and flicked toward the other side of the table.

Under the table, Kamuro had crossed one leg over the other, her calves wrapped in sheer black stockings. In the natural light streaming through the window, the stockings shimmered with a softer, dimmer sheen than they did beneath fluorescent lamps. Their surface had less of a mirror-like gloss and more of a velvety delicacy. The knitted texture stretched faintly where her calves overlapped, while the shadow cast by her skirt above her knees concealed her thighs, leaving only that small patch behind her knee exposed—the very patch he had last seen before being kicked at the convenience store.

"Have you seen enough?"

Kamuro Masumi's tone was as flat as the pace at which she turned pages. Her eyes remained on the reference book, but her left foot had already come down from her right knee, the tip of her loafer aimed at Kiryu Yume's shin—then she gave him a neither gentle nor hard kick beneath the table.

Kiryu Yume's knee struck the table leg, making the open notebook on the tabletop jump. Kamuro had already resumed crossing her legs and turned to the next page, the whole sequence so smooth that flipping a page and kicking someone seemed like two frames of the same motion.

"I wasn't sneaking a look this time."

"This time, I was looking openly."

Kamuro paused for a beat while turning the page and looked up at him. Her expression translated roughly to, "What are you so proud of?" but she did not say it aloud. She looked away and continued reading.

Kiryu Yume rubbed his calf and lowered his head to continue the timeline. He suddenly remembered two of the entries that had been blank moments ago and hurriedly wrote them down. Only after he finished did he realize that, after getting kicked, his attention had somehow become more focused.

For about ten minutes, silence lay between them, broken only by the rustle of pages turning and the scratch of pen on paper.

From the direction of the library entrance came the faintest footsteps and the sound of a rolling bookshelf being pushed open. Kiryu Yume looked up. Before the innermost row of shelves in the lending section stood a girl, her side facing him as she craned her neck toward a book on the top shelf.

Her short silver hair reached just to her chin, its ends curving slightly inward. Afternoon light streamed in from the side of the bookshelf, brightly illuminating half her profile while the other half remained hidden in the shelf's shadow.

Her uniform was neatly worn, and her skirt was about the same length as most girls'. Below her knees, her calves were covered by white ankle socks. The cotton socks sagged slightly around her ankles, their edges leaving a faint ring above her ankle bones. Her lips parted slightly as she rose onto her toes, but her fingertips were still short of the book's spine.

Kiryu Yume put down his pen and walked over. Hearing his footsteps, the girl turned around. Her silver hair swayed gently with the movement, revealing a pair of extremely pale gray-blue eyes, like ink diluted in water.

"The one on the top shelf?" Kiryu Yume asked.

The girl nodded and stepped back half a pace to make room for him. Kiryu Yume reached up and pulled out the book. Its cover showed a Western-style mansion half-hidden by maple leaves, with a black-and-white cat perched on the window frame. The title was Seishi Yokomizo's The Devil's Flute Murders—a mystery novel, and one of the Kindaichi Kosuke series books that was not easy to come across in an ordinary school library.

"You read this series too?" Kiryu Yume asked, handing her the book.

The girl's eyes lit up for an instant when she took it. The sudden brightness was a stark contrast to her earlier quiet demeanor. "Have you read this one?"

"I read it before that case at Honno-ji. It has the most unusual structure in the Kindaichi Kosuke series: a Western-style mansion and a traditional Japanese family, two elements that do not fit together at all, forcibly twisted into one without falling apart."

The girl hugged the book to her chest. The last traces of reserve in her gray-blue eyes were pried open by the topic. "I came looking for this one after reading The Honjin Murders first. The library's mystery section is too out of the way. Seishi Yokomizo only gets this one shelf, and they put everything on the top row."

"Probably because not many people borrow them."

"Not many people borrow mysteries to begin with." There was a faint note of indignation in her voice, though she still spoke softly, as if her volume had automatically adjusted after spending too much time in libraries. "I'm Shiina Hiyori, Class C."

"Kiryu Yume, Class A."

Hiyori's eyelashes fluttered at the mention of "Class A," but she did not pursue the subject. She opened the book to the table of contents and slid her fingertip down the chapter titles. "The locked-room setup in this one is actually more complicated than The Honjin Murders, because it isn't a physical locked room—the killer used an auditory locked room. Everyone was on the same floor, but no one heard a sound. That trick was copied by many people later."

"Using the flute as a timer," Kiryu Yume said, leaning against the bookshelf. "The killer was never at the scene."

Shiina Hiyori looked up at him. For the first time, something more than politeness appeared in her gray-blue eyes. The book she had recognized had just been recognized by another living person—and he could even follow up on her favorite detail of the deduction.

She flipped the book back shut and held it out to him. "Do you want to borrow it first? The last time I read it was last year."

"You take it first. I haven't finished my timeline yet. Let me know when you return it next time."

"Okay." Shiina Hiyori put the book into her canvas bag, lowered her head, and tugged at its drawstring. The ends of her silver hair slipped down to cover half her face.

After checking out the book at the lending desk, she paused as she passed Kiryu Yume's table. She glanced at the timeline spread across it and at Kamuro Masumi reading her reference book opposite him. She said nothing, merely gave Kiryu Yume a slight bow before turning, pushing open the door, and leaving.

The strap of her canvas bag slid down her shoulder a little before she pulled it back up. Before the door closed, her silver hair flashed once in the gap, like the final glint on the back cover of a book.

Kiryu Yume returned to his seat. Across from him, Kamuro Masumi had turned her reference book to a new chapter. She had not reacted in any way to the interruption just now. Yet the moment Kiryu Yume picked up his pen, she lightly kicked him again beneath the table.

"What was that for this time?"

"Preemptive." Kamuro Masumi's gaze never left her book.