Hey! Say! JUMP Solves A Mystery - Chapter 3
Here comes Chapter 3! ^^
Chapter 3: Step By Step, We Go Through It All...AGAIN!
I followed Ryosuke into the backroom that he had pointed out, closing the door quietly behind me. The room that we were in must have at some point been a wardrobe room of some sort. There were long, metal racks riveted into the walls that could once have held many shining clothes, but were now left empty. A few rusted clothing hangers had fallen on the floor, but other than that, no other traces of the room’s previous purpose remained.
The other JUMP members were gathered in the center of the room, sitting in a circle as if they were at a show-and-tell. They looked up expectantly when Ryosuke and I entered the room. To my surprise, the boys of B.I.Shadow were there too. They must have followed after me when I left the bathroom with Ryosuke and then slipped into the room before we finished our discussion.
Ryosuke immediately sat down and joined the circle, but I hung back a little, still reluctant to embark on our mystery-solving adventure. However, I saw Chinen scoot slightly to the side and motion to the now vacant spot beside him. Smiling thankfully to the cute little acrobat, I moved to sit between him and Yuto. The tallest JUMP member nodded a greeting to me, and I nodded back.
“The first step to solving a mystery is first establishing everything we know,” began Ryosuke, his gaze landing briefly on each of the members in the circle before moving on again. “So, what do we know?”
“Well, we know that the director was stabbed in the upper back, or at least some sharp object impaled him. So, he wasn’t shot or anything like that,” offered Kota.
Kei added, “And we know that it occurred during our break, but before we went exploring, at around 2 PM.”
“We have four suspects,” murmured Keito. “Liz-chan, Aimee-chan, Takasugi-san, and Natsumi-san.”
“And that’s because they have no witnesses to back up their alibis,” replied Ryutaro.
Yuto nodded. “Yeah, all four of them were not on set during the murder. That’s why they are the most suspicious.”
Hikaru sighed. “I really can’t believe that Liz-chan would do such a thing.”
“You can’t let your own biases affect your reasoning,” cut in Ryosuke sharply. “If we do find out that Liz-chan is behind this, we’ll have to reveal the truth. Do you understand that, Hikaru-kun?”
Hikaru nodded forlornly in response. I immediately felt a sense of sympathy fill my chest; it was hard to believe that any of these people that we’ve been working with would do such a horrible thing. “Why don’t we focus back on what we know about the murder, Yama-chan. Maybe we can try to recall what the body was like when we first saw it,” I said quietly, trying to divert everyone’s attention away from Hikaru.
“Discovering the body must have been so shocking,” said Fuma, his sudden contribution giving us all a shock. The three of them had been so quiet that we had completely forgotten that they were there. We turned to look at the B.I.Shadow boy and were shaken to see the normally happy-go-lucky Fuma staring back at us with distress-filled eyes.
Yuya nodded, shivering at the memory. “Yeah, it was. Discovering the director…in that state was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.”
The ghost of a smile stole across Kento’s face. “That’s totally understandable. I would have been scared out of my wits if I had come across the director like that, in a creepy bathroom with the water running down on him and blood everywhere.”
“Yeah! It was beyond horrible!” exclaimed Chinen, holding his small hands to his face. “I think I was scarred for life!”
I felt myself zoning out as the rest of the discussion continued. Like an inconsolable child, my mind just wouldn’t sit still. A few little details that I had heard just didn’t add up. As mulled these seemingly unsolvable puzzles over in my head, I couldn’t help but glance sideways at the objects of my incomprehension. There was just something not right here.
I was finally brought back to the present when, suddenly, I heard the snap of someone’s fingers. I looked up and saw that Ryosuke had risen purposefully to his feet, straightening his clothes as if he was ready to leave. The other JUMP members and B.I.Shadow were doing the same.
Feeling slightly out of the loop, I tapped Chinen on the shoulder and asked, “What’s going on, Chii? Where is everyone going?”
Chinen stared back at me in disbelief. “Where have you been for the past couple of minutes, Dai-chan? Didn’t you hear Yama-chan’s suggestion to go retrace our steps to get a better understanding of what was happening during the director’s murder?”
“Um…I wasn’t really paying attention…Sorry, Chii,” I apologized sheepishly.
Chinen made an exasperated noise that sounded halfway between a flustered chicken and an angry parakeet, then grabbed my arm and led me out of the room to rejoin the others. As I allowed myself to be dragged out by Chinen, I tried to clear my mind of the cloying thoughts that kept dancing around tantalizingly in my head. Now was not the time to be distracted.
“What took you guys so long?” whined Kei, waving his arms about impatiently. As he was doing so, his slender arms almost hit Kota and Hikaru, who had to quickly sidestep to avoid him. “We’ve been waiting forever!”
“Sorry, guys! Dai-chan was being a space case,” said Chinen, jerking his thumb back toward me.
I replied sarcastically, “Thanks a lot, Chii.”
“No problem!” Chinen treated me with his most sugary smile, and I promptly returned the favor by punching him softly on the arm.
Just as our group was going to retrace the steps of our exploring adventure, we heard a shout and Detective Yoshida appeared before us, looking rather agitated. “Where were you all?” he demanded. “You guys were supposed to wait in the bathroom!”
“We’re going to go investigate the murder!” declared Ryosuke. I looked at him in astonishment. Never would I have thought Ryosuke would be so brave and outspoken, especially against a figure of authority.
Detective Yoshida blustered, “You’re going to what?”
“You heard him. We’re going to do some investigating of our own,” said Kota, his protective Yabumama instincts telling him to go back up his fellow JUMP member. He moved to stand beside Ryosuke, a determined expression on his face.
Detective Yoshida stared at us in a sort of helpless shock. Clearly, he had never had to deal with such a large group of kids at a murder scene. After a long period of silence, in which he was undoubtedly mulling over how to deal with the present situation, he finally sighed and said, “Fine. I guess you guys can go ‘investigate’ on your own if you want, since you aren’t suspects. Just don’t get in the police’s way, understand?”
“Of course,” replied Yuto immediately, happy that the detective had agreed to allow us to continue.
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” added Ryutaro.
Keito bowed deeply and we all followed suit as he said, “Thank you, Detective Yoshida, for allowing us to investigate.”
The detective looked abashed at our sudden show of respect, but waved an arm dismissively at us. “It’s alright, kids. Just, please, don’t get in our way.”
We all voiced our agreement in a loud chorus of “thank you”, “we won’t”, and “don’t worry about it”. But as we were about to move past him, Detective Yoshida brought out an arm, blocking the way before B.I.Shadow could come with us. “However,” he said sternly, “this doesn’t extend to you three. Hey! Say! JUMP can stay here in the studio because they were the first discoverers of the body. We might need to question them some more later. You guys, on the other hand, have been ordered to go home. Johnny-san just phoned in and said that you boys have done enough observing for the day, and I agree. It’s best if you just go home and recover from the trauma of being at a murder scene. Got it?”
The three boys of B.I.Shadow nodded their heads sullenly, and after brief goodbyes from the other members and I, were lead away by Detective Yoshida. As their footsteps faded away into nothingness, Ryosuke gestured toward the opposite direction. “Let’s go, guys. We started our exploring over there.”
As we reached the first room that we had explored, Hikaru once again assumed the position at the head of our troop. We quickly went through our path once again, all the while going over what we knew of what everyone else was doing at the time and what we thought the murderer must have been doing. By now, it was getting late, so Ryosuke pulled out a mini flashlight that he had brought with him. Although its lone beam was barely enough to keep us from tripping over our feet in the darkness, the sight of it bouncing along ahead of us in what almost seemed like a playful manner was encouraging and brought us hope.
Before long, we reached the backroom that had creeped out Kei so much when we first saw it. Seeing it for the second time in the dark didn’t help matters at all. The shadows only became more pronounced and murky. I’m pretty sure that all of us were grateful for the other nine members’ company as we all unconsciously drew a little closer to each other in the semi-darkness.
At the head of our group, Hikaru fumbled around for the light switch, his search aided by Ryosuke’s carefully directed flashlight beam. After a couple of minutes, Hikaru found it and flipped it on, flooding the room with a stale glow. The room was pretty much the same as we had left it this afternoon. The broken film equipment still littered the floor and there was the old toolbox in the corner. Even the large metal equipment shelf had been left in its fallen state. Nevertheless, Ryosuke moved into the room, examining the room with sharp eyes. We all followed suit, spreading out throughout the room’s extremities.
Absentmindedly, I found myself wandering away from the others and towards the fallen shelf. Without thinking, I ran my hand over the wall next to it, brushing against a large rust stain that had dyed it a deep reddish-brown. Realizing what I had done, I drew my hand back in revulsion; some of the rust had gotten onto my palm. I hurriedly rubbed my hands together in an effort to get it off, but stopped suddenly. The “rust” wasn’t the right color, nor was it the right consistency. I stared at my crimsoned palm in confusion until the comprehension sunk in.
“Guys!” I yelled, my voice breaking in horror as I stared at my outstretched palm.
The others immediately ran over to where I was, their faces betraying their fear and perplexity. “What’s wrong, Dai-chan?” asked Kota worriedly.
“M-my hand…” I stuttered.
Yuya raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Getting your hands dirty isn’t such a big deal, Dai-chan. I’m sure one of the staff members has hand sanitizer on them.”
“No, that’s not it!” I blurted. “This stuff on my hands…it’s not rust. It’s blood. Dried blood.”
Yuto couldn’t hold the fear back from his voice. “What? Are you sure Dai-chan? It’s blood?”
I nodded. “I think so. If you feel the stuff on the wall, it doesn’t feel flaky like rust would be like. The color’s wrong too! Don’t you think it’s a bit too red to be rust?” I held out my hand for the others to see.
Ryosuke examined my palm carefully, and then snapped a picture with his cell phone. “I think Dai-chan’s right,” he said, once again the calmest of the group. “If you smell it, the scent is wrong too. There’s no metallic smell.”
Keito asked, “Why do you think there’s blood on the walls here? Didn’t the murder take place in the deserted bathroom?”
“Well, that’s what we’ve been assuming,” replied Ryosuke. “However, when solving a mystery, one must never be too dependent on assumptions. It’s possible that the murder took place somewhere else and the director’s body was simply moved there.”
Kei inquired, his voice trembling, “Would there be enough time for that? I mean, wouldn’t they have to go through a lot of trouble to move the director over to the bathroom? He is a full grown man.”
“The murderer would also have to cover up his tracks,” added Ryutaro. “Other than the blood we found on the walls, the other areas are clean.”
Chinen piped up, his face scrunched in concentration, “It’s possible! There was at least an hour for the murderer to move the body and cover up the evidence. We didn’t go exploring until an hour after break was called, remember?”
“Yeah, and even then, they could have still been covering up while we were exploring. It’s not like we were in this section of the building the entire time,” reasoned Hikaru, raising a finger as he did so.
Grimacing, I rubbed my soiled hand on the side of my jeans. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I couldn’t help but feel as if I had become dirtied, as if I was somehow responsible for the director’s death. The blood was like an unwanted mark that I couldn’t get rid of, regardless of how much hand sanitizer I could get from the staff.
“Well, now that we know that this is the possible scene of the murder, why don’t we look more carefully again,” suggested Kota. “Maybe there are other remnants of blood around here that we missed the first time.”
Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, and we all spread out to search the room once again. I headed toward a different corner this time, trying to avoid the “blood wall” that I had encountered before.
After a while, I heard Ryutaro exclaim something somewhere to my left. I turned and saw him bending over the corroded toolbox that had been sitting in the corner. “I found something!” he said excitedly, pointing into the toolbox. “Look, there are some traces of blood on the inside of this.”
We all gathered around the youngest JUMP member, craning our heads to see what he was gesturing at. Ryosuke smiled and patted Ryutaro on the shoulder. “Good work, Ryu-chan.”
“Why are there bloodstains in there?” I asked. “This is pretty much at the opposite end of the room where we discovered the first ones.”
“Maybe when the director got stabbed, the blood sprayed all the way over here?” said Hikaru questioningly.
Kota shook his head. “I don’t think so. The director was stabbed in the back, right? So, the blood would probably only spray backwards onto the wall, not also across the room. That seems a bit far for the blood to travel.”
Our spirits sank as we realized the truth of Kota’s logic. After we all pondered some more about the meaning behind the presence of the bloodstains, Yuya finally suggested, “Maybe there’s something significant about how the blood got there.” He pointed at the blood traces. “See, these don’t make it seem like the blood’s been dripped or sprayed onto it; they’re not round-shaped.”
“Oh, yeah,” breathed Yuto, his large eyes widening. “They look like they’ve been smeared on, like something bloody came in contact with the sides of the box.”
“Did the murderer put something bloody in this toolbox?” asked Kei. He smoothed some of his hair out of his face as he leaned in for a closer look.
Ryosuke furrowed his brow as he assumed his “thinking pose” again. “Maybe,” he muttered. “But, what would you put in a toolbox?”
“What, other than tools?” I asked jokingly.
“That’s it!” exclaimed Chinen, his cute face lighting up in understanding. “Tools!”
Hikaru asked, “What do you mean, Chii?”
“Think about it,” said Chinen, getting more excited as he spoke. “We’ve been thinking all along that the director’s been stabbed, right? Well, what do you think of when you hear the word ‘stabbed’?”
Keito replied simply, “I think of a knife.”
Chinen grinned at Keito. “Exactly. But what if the murder weapon wasn’t a knife? After all, there are other things in this world that can stab people. What if it was -?”
“A tool,” cut in Ryosuke, realization dawning on his beautiful features. “That makes sense! Then, you would stash it in the toolbox to try to camouflage its presence!”
Chinen made a “you got it” motion with his hand. “Exactly.”
“So, that means that the only question now is which tool is the murder weapon,” said Kota slowly, his eyes sweeping over the old tools in the box.
“Yup!”
Kei suddenly asked, “Could it be that one?” We all looked down at what the BEST member was pointing at and saw a pair of upended wire cutters sticking out from amidst the other tools.
“Why do you think it’s that one?” questioned Ryutaro. “There are plenty of other tools in the box that could have been used to stab the director.”
“Well,” answered Kei, his tone unsure, “it’s one of the sharper tools in here. And also, it’s the only one that does not have a thick layer of dust covering it, which means that it probably has been moved recently.”
Ryosuke pulled out his phone, quickly pressing the buttons on it. Then, he pulled out a handkerchief and carefully removed the wire cutters from the toolbox. He brought his phone over next to the wire cutters, and as I looked at the phone’s screen, I realized that he had pulled up a picture of the director’s stab wound. “From what I can tell from this picture, the wound looks like it could have been made by the wire cutters, so I think it’s a pretty safe bet that this is the actual murder weapon,” he said. He pushed some more buttons, exiting from the picture. Quickly, he snapped a new picture, this time of the wire cutters.
“But, Yama-chan, how come the wire cutters are clean now?” I asked quietly.
Ryosuke looked up from his picture taking, and replied, “Maybe the murderer cleaned them to get rid of fingerprints or something. I’m not sure. The point is: the murderer missed the bloodstains on the toolbox, which was lucky for us. The bloodstains plus the lack of dust are pretty good evidence of someone messing around with something that had to do with the murder in the toolbox. And that something is the murder weapon, or the wire cutters, as we’ve found out.”
Ryutaro sighed. “At least we got that much established.” He pulled up his sleeve slightly to look at his watch, and groaned. “My school report…” I heard him grumble hopelessly to himself.
I placed my hand encouragingly on Ryutaro’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Ryu-chan. The teachers ought to give you an extension for being wrapped up in a murder case.”
Ryutaro’s downcast eyes remained fixed on the ground. “I hope so,” he said sullenly.
I didn’t like seeing Ryutaro in such a depressed state, so, before he could duck away, I wrapped my arm around his neck, placing him in a playful chokehold. “Ah, come on, Ryu-chan! Cheer up! We’re on an adventure, remember?”
“Dai-chan!” he protested, trying to push me off. “I don’t want to go on an adventure! I want to go home and finish my report!”
“You’re such a drag, Ryu-chan.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are!”
Kota intervened, “Okay, guys. Break it up! Or, do I have to ask Yama-chan to sit on one of you like he did with Kyuu in ‘Tantei Gakuen’?”
We both looked back at our Yabumama in disbelief. “You thought we were being serious?” I asked incredulously.
“No, not exactly,” replied Kota. “However, it’s fun to ask Yama-chan to sit on people. It’s such an effective way to shut people up!”
We all laughed as Ryosuke looked at us with an indignant expression on his face. More likely than not, he probably thought that sitting on people was not worthy to be one of his talents; it didn’t make him seem cool at all.
Just as our laughter started to subside, Kota’s cellphone started ringing. He immediately picked up and said, “Hello? This is Yabu Kota speaking.”
After a bit of conversation, Kota hung up and put his cellphone back in his pants pocket. “That was Detective Yoshida,” he explained. “He says that the investigation is ending for the day, so we can all go home now. We still have to come here tomorrow to finish shooting the PV. Apparently, Johnny-san has decided that the death of the director does not mean the end of the PV. We’ve still got work to do.”
“I guess that’s what they mean by ‘the show must go on’,” muttered Hikaru.
“Guys,” said Ryosuke, addressing all of the JUMP members, “you all agree that we’re not done investigating here yet, right?” He waited expectantly for confirmation from us. When he got it, he continued, “Then, why don’t we come here early tomorrow to continue our investigation? That way, we’ll have the studio to ourselves.”
We all agreed, even though by doing so, we were sacrificing our own personal time. Since most of us were students still, we had to deal with balancing our work with Johnny’s and school. This usually meant that we had little or no time to ourselves. However, this case had become so intriguing and important to us that there was no hesitation or uncertainty in our agreement.
This was something Hey! Say! JUMP would solve together.
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Wow, I just realized that this part is kind of long! XD I hope you had fun reading it!
This way to Chapter 4~
Chapter 3: Step By Step, We Go Through It All...AGAIN!
I followed Ryosuke into the backroom that he had pointed out, closing the door quietly behind me. The room that we were in must have at some point been a wardrobe room of some sort. There were long, metal racks riveted into the walls that could once have held many shining clothes, but were now left empty. A few rusted clothing hangers had fallen on the floor, but other than that, no other traces of the room’s previous purpose remained.
The other JUMP members were gathered in the center of the room, sitting in a circle as if they were at a show-and-tell. They looked up expectantly when Ryosuke and I entered the room. To my surprise, the boys of B.I.Shadow were there too. They must have followed after me when I left the bathroom with Ryosuke and then slipped into the room before we finished our discussion.
Ryosuke immediately sat down and joined the circle, but I hung back a little, still reluctant to embark on our mystery-solving adventure. However, I saw Chinen scoot slightly to the side and motion to the now vacant spot beside him. Smiling thankfully to the cute little acrobat, I moved to sit between him and Yuto. The tallest JUMP member nodded a greeting to me, and I nodded back.
“The first step to solving a mystery is first establishing everything we know,” began Ryosuke, his gaze landing briefly on each of the members in the circle before moving on again. “So, what do we know?”
“Well, we know that the director was stabbed in the upper back, or at least some sharp object impaled him. So, he wasn’t shot or anything like that,” offered Kota.
Kei added, “And we know that it occurred during our break, but before we went exploring, at around 2 PM.”
“We have four suspects,” murmured Keito. “Liz-chan, Aimee-chan, Takasugi-san, and Natsumi-san.”
“And that’s because they have no witnesses to back up their alibis,” replied Ryutaro.
Yuto nodded. “Yeah, all four of them were not on set during the murder. That’s why they are the most suspicious.”
Hikaru sighed. “I really can’t believe that Liz-chan would do such a thing.”
“You can’t let your own biases affect your reasoning,” cut in Ryosuke sharply. “If we do find out that Liz-chan is behind this, we’ll have to reveal the truth. Do you understand that, Hikaru-kun?”
Hikaru nodded forlornly in response. I immediately felt a sense of sympathy fill my chest; it was hard to believe that any of these people that we’ve been working with would do such a horrible thing. “Why don’t we focus back on what we know about the murder, Yama-chan. Maybe we can try to recall what the body was like when we first saw it,” I said quietly, trying to divert everyone’s attention away from Hikaru.
“Discovering the body must have been so shocking,” said Fuma, his sudden contribution giving us all a shock. The three of them had been so quiet that we had completely forgotten that they were there. We turned to look at the B.I.Shadow boy and were shaken to see the normally happy-go-lucky Fuma staring back at us with distress-filled eyes.
Yuya nodded, shivering at the memory. “Yeah, it was. Discovering the director…in that state was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.”
The ghost of a smile stole across Kento’s face. “That’s totally understandable. I would have been scared out of my wits if I had come across the director like that, in a creepy bathroom with the water running down on him and blood everywhere.”
“Yeah! It was beyond horrible!” exclaimed Chinen, holding his small hands to his face. “I think I was scarred for life!”
I felt myself zoning out as the rest of the discussion continued. Like an inconsolable child, my mind just wouldn’t sit still. A few little details that I had heard just didn’t add up. As mulled these seemingly unsolvable puzzles over in my head, I couldn’t help but glance sideways at the objects of my incomprehension. There was just something not right here.
I was finally brought back to the present when, suddenly, I heard the snap of someone’s fingers. I looked up and saw that Ryosuke had risen purposefully to his feet, straightening his clothes as if he was ready to leave. The other JUMP members and B.I.Shadow were doing the same.
Feeling slightly out of the loop, I tapped Chinen on the shoulder and asked, “What’s going on, Chii? Where is everyone going?”
Chinen stared back at me in disbelief. “Where have you been for the past couple of minutes, Dai-chan? Didn’t you hear Yama-chan’s suggestion to go retrace our steps to get a better understanding of what was happening during the director’s murder?”
“Um…I wasn’t really paying attention…Sorry, Chii,” I apologized sheepishly.
Chinen made an exasperated noise that sounded halfway between a flustered chicken and an angry parakeet, then grabbed my arm and led me out of the room to rejoin the others. As I allowed myself to be dragged out by Chinen, I tried to clear my mind of the cloying thoughts that kept dancing around tantalizingly in my head. Now was not the time to be distracted.
“What took you guys so long?” whined Kei, waving his arms about impatiently. As he was doing so, his slender arms almost hit Kota and Hikaru, who had to quickly sidestep to avoid him. “We’ve been waiting forever!”
“Sorry, guys! Dai-chan was being a space case,” said Chinen, jerking his thumb back toward me.
I replied sarcastically, “Thanks a lot, Chii.”
“No problem!” Chinen treated me with his most sugary smile, and I promptly returned the favor by punching him softly on the arm.
Just as our group was going to retrace the steps of our exploring adventure, we heard a shout and Detective Yoshida appeared before us, looking rather agitated. “Where were you all?” he demanded. “You guys were supposed to wait in the bathroom!”
“We’re going to go investigate the murder!” declared Ryosuke. I looked at him in astonishment. Never would I have thought Ryosuke would be so brave and outspoken, especially against a figure of authority.
Detective Yoshida blustered, “You’re going to what?”
“You heard him. We’re going to do some investigating of our own,” said Kota, his protective Yabumama instincts telling him to go back up his fellow JUMP member. He moved to stand beside Ryosuke, a determined expression on his face.
Detective Yoshida stared at us in a sort of helpless shock. Clearly, he had never had to deal with such a large group of kids at a murder scene. After a long period of silence, in which he was undoubtedly mulling over how to deal with the present situation, he finally sighed and said, “Fine. I guess you guys can go ‘investigate’ on your own if you want, since you aren’t suspects. Just don’t get in the police’s way, understand?”
“Of course,” replied Yuto immediately, happy that the detective had agreed to allow us to continue.
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” added Ryutaro.
Keito bowed deeply and we all followed suit as he said, “Thank you, Detective Yoshida, for allowing us to investigate.”
The detective looked abashed at our sudden show of respect, but waved an arm dismissively at us. “It’s alright, kids. Just, please, don’t get in our way.”
We all voiced our agreement in a loud chorus of “thank you”, “we won’t”, and “don’t worry about it”. But as we were about to move past him, Detective Yoshida brought out an arm, blocking the way before B.I.Shadow could come with us. “However,” he said sternly, “this doesn’t extend to you three. Hey! Say! JUMP can stay here in the studio because they were the first discoverers of the body. We might need to question them some more later. You guys, on the other hand, have been ordered to go home. Johnny-san just phoned in and said that you boys have done enough observing for the day, and I agree. It’s best if you just go home and recover from the trauma of being at a murder scene. Got it?”
The three boys of B.I.Shadow nodded their heads sullenly, and after brief goodbyes from the other members and I, were lead away by Detective Yoshida. As their footsteps faded away into nothingness, Ryosuke gestured toward the opposite direction. “Let’s go, guys. We started our exploring over there.”
As we reached the first room that we had explored, Hikaru once again assumed the position at the head of our troop. We quickly went through our path once again, all the while going over what we knew of what everyone else was doing at the time and what we thought the murderer must have been doing. By now, it was getting late, so Ryosuke pulled out a mini flashlight that he had brought with him. Although its lone beam was barely enough to keep us from tripping over our feet in the darkness, the sight of it bouncing along ahead of us in what almost seemed like a playful manner was encouraging and brought us hope.
Before long, we reached the backroom that had creeped out Kei so much when we first saw it. Seeing it for the second time in the dark didn’t help matters at all. The shadows only became more pronounced and murky. I’m pretty sure that all of us were grateful for the other nine members’ company as we all unconsciously drew a little closer to each other in the semi-darkness.
At the head of our group, Hikaru fumbled around for the light switch, his search aided by Ryosuke’s carefully directed flashlight beam. After a couple of minutes, Hikaru found it and flipped it on, flooding the room with a stale glow. The room was pretty much the same as we had left it this afternoon. The broken film equipment still littered the floor and there was the old toolbox in the corner. Even the large metal equipment shelf had been left in its fallen state. Nevertheless, Ryosuke moved into the room, examining the room with sharp eyes. We all followed suit, spreading out throughout the room’s extremities.
Absentmindedly, I found myself wandering away from the others and towards the fallen shelf. Without thinking, I ran my hand over the wall next to it, brushing against a large rust stain that had dyed it a deep reddish-brown. Realizing what I had done, I drew my hand back in revulsion; some of the rust had gotten onto my palm. I hurriedly rubbed my hands together in an effort to get it off, but stopped suddenly. The “rust” wasn’t the right color, nor was it the right consistency. I stared at my crimsoned palm in confusion until the comprehension sunk in.
“Guys!” I yelled, my voice breaking in horror as I stared at my outstretched palm.
The others immediately ran over to where I was, their faces betraying their fear and perplexity. “What’s wrong, Dai-chan?” asked Kota worriedly.
“M-my hand…” I stuttered.
Yuya raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Getting your hands dirty isn’t such a big deal, Dai-chan. I’m sure one of the staff members has hand sanitizer on them.”
“No, that’s not it!” I blurted. “This stuff on my hands…it’s not rust. It’s blood. Dried blood.”
Yuto couldn’t hold the fear back from his voice. “What? Are you sure Dai-chan? It’s blood?”
I nodded. “I think so. If you feel the stuff on the wall, it doesn’t feel flaky like rust would be like. The color’s wrong too! Don’t you think it’s a bit too red to be rust?” I held out my hand for the others to see.
Ryosuke examined my palm carefully, and then snapped a picture with his cell phone. “I think Dai-chan’s right,” he said, once again the calmest of the group. “If you smell it, the scent is wrong too. There’s no metallic smell.”
Keito asked, “Why do you think there’s blood on the walls here? Didn’t the murder take place in the deserted bathroom?”
“Well, that’s what we’ve been assuming,” replied Ryosuke. “However, when solving a mystery, one must never be too dependent on assumptions. It’s possible that the murder took place somewhere else and the director’s body was simply moved there.”
Kei inquired, his voice trembling, “Would there be enough time for that? I mean, wouldn’t they have to go through a lot of trouble to move the director over to the bathroom? He is a full grown man.”
“The murderer would also have to cover up his tracks,” added Ryutaro. “Other than the blood we found on the walls, the other areas are clean.”
Chinen piped up, his face scrunched in concentration, “It’s possible! There was at least an hour for the murderer to move the body and cover up the evidence. We didn’t go exploring until an hour after break was called, remember?”
“Yeah, and even then, they could have still been covering up while we were exploring. It’s not like we were in this section of the building the entire time,” reasoned Hikaru, raising a finger as he did so.
Grimacing, I rubbed my soiled hand on the side of my jeans. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I couldn’t help but feel as if I had become dirtied, as if I was somehow responsible for the director’s death. The blood was like an unwanted mark that I couldn’t get rid of, regardless of how much hand sanitizer I could get from the staff.
“Well, now that we know that this is the possible scene of the murder, why don’t we look more carefully again,” suggested Kota. “Maybe there are other remnants of blood around here that we missed the first time.”
Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, and we all spread out to search the room once again. I headed toward a different corner this time, trying to avoid the “blood wall” that I had encountered before.
After a while, I heard Ryutaro exclaim something somewhere to my left. I turned and saw him bending over the corroded toolbox that had been sitting in the corner. “I found something!” he said excitedly, pointing into the toolbox. “Look, there are some traces of blood on the inside of this.”
We all gathered around the youngest JUMP member, craning our heads to see what he was gesturing at. Ryosuke smiled and patted Ryutaro on the shoulder. “Good work, Ryu-chan.”
“Why are there bloodstains in there?” I asked. “This is pretty much at the opposite end of the room where we discovered the first ones.”
“Maybe when the director got stabbed, the blood sprayed all the way over here?” said Hikaru questioningly.
Kota shook his head. “I don’t think so. The director was stabbed in the back, right? So, the blood would probably only spray backwards onto the wall, not also across the room. That seems a bit far for the blood to travel.”
Our spirits sank as we realized the truth of Kota’s logic. After we all pondered some more about the meaning behind the presence of the bloodstains, Yuya finally suggested, “Maybe there’s something significant about how the blood got there.” He pointed at the blood traces. “See, these don’t make it seem like the blood’s been dripped or sprayed onto it; they’re not round-shaped.”
“Oh, yeah,” breathed Yuto, his large eyes widening. “They look like they’ve been smeared on, like something bloody came in contact with the sides of the box.”
“Did the murderer put something bloody in this toolbox?” asked Kei. He smoothed some of his hair out of his face as he leaned in for a closer look.
Ryosuke furrowed his brow as he assumed his “thinking pose” again. “Maybe,” he muttered. “But, what would you put in a toolbox?”
“What, other than tools?” I asked jokingly.
“That’s it!” exclaimed Chinen, his cute face lighting up in understanding. “Tools!”
Hikaru asked, “What do you mean, Chii?”
“Think about it,” said Chinen, getting more excited as he spoke. “We’ve been thinking all along that the director’s been stabbed, right? Well, what do you think of when you hear the word ‘stabbed’?”
Keito replied simply, “I think of a knife.”
Chinen grinned at Keito. “Exactly. But what if the murder weapon wasn’t a knife? After all, there are other things in this world that can stab people. What if it was -?”
“A tool,” cut in Ryosuke, realization dawning on his beautiful features. “That makes sense! Then, you would stash it in the toolbox to try to camouflage its presence!”
Chinen made a “you got it” motion with his hand. “Exactly.”
“So, that means that the only question now is which tool is the murder weapon,” said Kota slowly, his eyes sweeping over the old tools in the box.
“Yup!”
Kei suddenly asked, “Could it be that one?” We all looked down at what the BEST member was pointing at and saw a pair of upended wire cutters sticking out from amidst the other tools.
“Why do you think it’s that one?” questioned Ryutaro. “There are plenty of other tools in the box that could have been used to stab the director.”
“Well,” answered Kei, his tone unsure, “it’s one of the sharper tools in here. And also, it’s the only one that does not have a thick layer of dust covering it, which means that it probably has been moved recently.”
Ryosuke pulled out his phone, quickly pressing the buttons on it. Then, he pulled out a handkerchief and carefully removed the wire cutters from the toolbox. He brought his phone over next to the wire cutters, and as I looked at the phone’s screen, I realized that he had pulled up a picture of the director’s stab wound. “From what I can tell from this picture, the wound looks like it could have been made by the wire cutters, so I think it’s a pretty safe bet that this is the actual murder weapon,” he said. He pushed some more buttons, exiting from the picture. Quickly, he snapped a new picture, this time of the wire cutters.
“But, Yama-chan, how come the wire cutters are clean now?” I asked quietly.
Ryosuke looked up from his picture taking, and replied, “Maybe the murderer cleaned them to get rid of fingerprints or something. I’m not sure. The point is: the murderer missed the bloodstains on the toolbox, which was lucky for us. The bloodstains plus the lack of dust are pretty good evidence of someone messing around with something that had to do with the murder in the toolbox. And that something is the murder weapon, or the wire cutters, as we’ve found out.”
Ryutaro sighed. “At least we got that much established.” He pulled up his sleeve slightly to look at his watch, and groaned. “My school report…” I heard him grumble hopelessly to himself.
I placed my hand encouragingly on Ryutaro’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Ryu-chan. The teachers ought to give you an extension for being wrapped up in a murder case.”
Ryutaro’s downcast eyes remained fixed on the ground. “I hope so,” he said sullenly.
I didn’t like seeing Ryutaro in such a depressed state, so, before he could duck away, I wrapped my arm around his neck, placing him in a playful chokehold. “Ah, come on, Ryu-chan! Cheer up! We’re on an adventure, remember?”
“Dai-chan!” he protested, trying to push me off. “I don’t want to go on an adventure! I want to go home and finish my report!”
“You’re such a drag, Ryu-chan.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are!”
Kota intervened, “Okay, guys. Break it up! Or, do I have to ask Yama-chan to sit on one of you like he did with Kyuu in ‘Tantei Gakuen’?”
We both looked back at our Yabumama in disbelief. “You thought we were being serious?” I asked incredulously.
“No, not exactly,” replied Kota. “However, it’s fun to ask Yama-chan to sit on people. It’s such an effective way to shut people up!”
We all laughed as Ryosuke looked at us with an indignant expression on his face. More likely than not, he probably thought that sitting on people was not worthy to be one of his talents; it didn’t make him seem cool at all.
Just as our laughter started to subside, Kota’s cellphone started ringing. He immediately picked up and said, “Hello? This is Yabu Kota speaking.”
After a bit of conversation, Kota hung up and put his cellphone back in his pants pocket. “That was Detective Yoshida,” he explained. “He says that the investigation is ending for the day, so we can all go home now. We still have to come here tomorrow to finish shooting the PV. Apparently, Johnny-san has decided that the death of the director does not mean the end of the PV. We’ve still got work to do.”
“I guess that’s what they mean by ‘the show must go on’,” muttered Hikaru.
“Guys,” said Ryosuke, addressing all of the JUMP members, “you all agree that we’re not done investigating here yet, right?” He waited expectantly for confirmation from us. When he got it, he continued, “Then, why don’t we come here early tomorrow to continue our investigation? That way, we’ll have the studio to ourselves.”
We all agreed, even though by doing so, we were sacrificing our own personal time. Since most of us were students still, we had to deal with balancing our work with Johnny’s and school. This usually meant that we had little or no time to ourselves. However, this case had become so intriguing and important to us that there was no hesitation or uncertainty in our agreement.
This was something Hey! Say! JUMP would solve together.
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Wow, I just realized that this part is kind of long! XD I hope you had fun reading it!
This way to Chapter 4~