Hey! Say! JUMP Solves A Mystery - Chapter 5
This chapter's not inappropriate...I swear! ^^;;
Chapter 5: We All Take a Trip to the Shower
The next day we all showed up at the studio at seven in the morning. As the JUMP members all gathered in the room where we were shooting the PV, all of us rubbing the sleep from our eyes, I noticed that most of the members still had bedraggled hair and clothes hanging messily off of their thin frames, as if not much thought had been put into their preparations for the day. Well, all except for Kei, who was dressed in his normal hobo-chic style with a large, cool-looking hat perched on his hair, accentuating his small face.
“What?” he said when he noticed all of us staring at him in disbelief. “I usually wake up much earlier than this to go to my classes at Meiji University.”
Before any of us could respond, Ryosuke changed the subject. “Okay, guys, we’re here to investigate, remember?” His profound gaze held each of us briefly before he spoke again, “Anyways, to my understanding, Yuto-kun has made a discovery since we saw each other last. Would you care to explain, Yuto-kun?”
“Sure,” replied Yuto, happy to have some input on the case.
As he proceeded to explain the events of the previous night, without meaning to, I found my mind replaying the fake fights I’d had with Raiya. Both times, Raiya had deliberately tried to attack me, and both times, something hadn’t added up right with the PV director’s stab wound. There was something strange about the whole thing. Something just didn’t feel right!
I scratched my head vigorously in frustration with both hands, ruffling my hair in the process. The others stared at me in incomprehension, wondering what had brought on my unexpected fit. I stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Um…Hey, guys,” I said awkwardly.
“What the heck are you doing, Dai-chan?” asked Chinen, his eyes wide.
“I-it’s nothing,” I replied a little too quickly. When everyone else remained unconvinced, I added, “I’m just a little frustrated, that’s all.”
“Frustrated?” Kota asked worriedly, coming over and placing an arm around me comfortingly.
I nodded unhappily, my head rubbing against our Yabumama’s shoulder. “Yeah, there are two bits of the case that just aren’t making sense to me. I don’t know if I’m overthinking it or if there really is something suspicious going on.”
Ryosuke fixed me with one of his gazes and said seriously, “Dai-chan, if there’s something bothering you about the case, you should bring it up. Sometimes, a detective just has to trust his gut instinct.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “What really bothers me is the state of the director’s stab wound. From what we know, the director’s stab wound is horizontal and is located on his upper back, near his shoulder.
“But, from the play fights I had with Raiya, I realized that that can’t be completely ‘normal’. When Raiya stabbed me with the ruler, Yuto realized that the wound should have been vertical since wire cutters are usually held vertically, but the wound was not. And when Raiya pretended to shoot me and poked me in the stomach, I realized that he had poked me with his arm from about shoulder height. Normally, when a person stabs another, their upper arm is at least at shoulder height. But the director’s wound was angled downwards, which makes stabbing from shoulder height difficult. Most people wouldn’t stab overhanded with wire cutters, which means that either the person who stabbed him was really tall or the wire cutters somehow came from the air above the director. Either way, both of these details seem strange to me and don’t seem to add up right, which makes things seem so frustrating!”
I finished my speech feeling a little short of breath. The others seemed to be deep in thought; none of them had bothered to respond verbally to what I had said. Nervously, I waited for someone to break the silence. I was afraid that my speech had singled me out as being paranoid or psychotic for reading so much into pretend fighting with a kid who was still in elementary school.
Finally, Ryosuke spoke, “Thank you, Dai-chan, for sharing. What you just said was very intriguing.”
“Yeah,” agreed Yuto. “I hadn’t thought of all that when I saw you and Raiya play fighting.”
Hikaru added, “Even if it was me playing with Raiya, I’m not sure I would have gotten all that either!”
I felt color rushing to my face; I really had not meant to come off as such a know-it-all. These were simply observations that had been bothering me. That was all! I had never thought of myself as being particularly special in the brains department anyways.
Suddenly, Yuya suggested, “Guys, what if the wire cutters had fallen on the director?”
“What do you mean by that, Takaki-kun?” asked Chinen.
“Well, from what Dai-chan has said, it seems unlikely that a person had intentionally stabbed the director. If he or she did, then the wound would look more ‘normal’. All this time, we’ve been assuming that the wire cutters came from the toolbox. Isn’t it possible that they were somewhere else and that they had fallen onto the director from that place? The murderer could have placed the wire cutters in the toolbox afterwards,” proposed Yuya, a determined expression on his face. He gestured at me. “Dai-chan’s idea of the wire cutters coming from the air made me think of it.”
Ryutaro asked, a skeptical expression on his face, “But, where would the wire cutters fall from? They can’t fall from midair!”
“There is that shelf,” muttered Keito quietly, staring at the floor.
“Shelf?” asked Ryutaro.
Keito looked up in surprise. “Yeah, that big metal one that had fallen over. Don’t you guys remember it? Maybe the shelf had been upright at one point.”
“If that’s the case, then the wire cutters could have fallen from there,” I agreed, getting excited at the prospect of possibly solving some of the anomalies of the director’s stab wound.
“But you guys are forgetting on thing,” cut in Kei. “Wire cutters can’t move by themselves. What would cause them to suddenly fall from the shelf and impale the director? And what would cause the shelf to also topple? Is it okay for us to assume so much?”
Kota sighed heavily. “Inoo-chan is right. I think we’re getting a bit too ahead of ourselves. We’ll need to figure out more of this case before we can really pursue this wire cutters falling from the shelf theory. For all we know, the director might have really been stabbed by a human hand. We don’t know for sure.”
Ryosuke nodded. “I agree with Yabu-kun. There’s too much uncertainty. A detective’s job is to get rid of all uncertainty before putting forth his reasoning.”
My heart sank. For a second there, I thought we had been making progress.
“Well,” said Hikaru, “if we can’t pursue the falling wire cutters theory, then maybe we can address something else. Am I the only one mystified as to why the showers were on when we first discovered the body?”
Keito volunteered, “No, it’s not just you. I was confused by that too.”
“I thought the showers had been on so that the murderer could wash off the blood from the body and hide that the murder had actually happened in another room,” said Chinen.
Yuto murmured, “It’s possible…However, could there be other reasons? For some reason, I feel like Chii’s explanation isn’t enough to explain it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Yuya, “I know what you mean, Yuto-kun. If someone had walked in on the murderer washing the blood away when he had the showers on, that would have killed everything!” When he realized what he had said, the childlike adult added quickly, “No pun intended, of course!”
“Maybe we can all take a trip to the abandoned bathroom to look for more clues,” suggested Yuto.
Ryosuke said, nodding, “That sounds like a good plan.” He glanced at his watch. “We still have around another hour left before shooting starts at nine. If we get a move on, we should have plenty of time to investigate over there. Let’s go, guys.”
* * *
When we arrived at the bathroom where we had discovered the body, we were a little surprised by the changes that had occurred since the last time we had been there. The entire bathroom had been sealed off with police caution tape and there was a stark, white outline where the PV director’s body had been. However, even with just the white outline, we still couldn’t block out the memory of the PV director’s body being in the same position the day before.
Ducking carefully under the caution tape, the other JUMP members and I entered the bathroom, one after the other. We were trying to be super watchful of our actions because of our promise to Detective Yoshida. We had said we wouldn’t get in the police’s way, so in no shape or form were we considering going back on our word. Being idols from such a young age had taught us an important lesson: you must be responsible for your own actions.
“Okay,” said Yuya, standing nearest to where the director’s body had been. “We’re where we first found the director’s body. Now, what?”
Chinen suggested with a cutely curious expression on his face, “Why don’t we try to figure out why the murderer felt the need to move the body over here? He or she could have just left the body at the actual scene of the crime.”
We all stared at the white outline for a while, contemplating Chinen’s question. While it was true that moving the body over to the bathroom meant that the murderer could wash off most of the blood coming from the director’s stab wound, it still didn’t seem like a completely legitimate reason to move the body, a difficult feat considering that the director was a full-grown man.
“Maybe there is something special here in the bathroom that the murderer needed,” said Kota at long last.
“Like what?” Hikaru asked skeptically. He gestured at his surroundings. “There’s nothing here!”
Keito nodded in agreement. “Yeah, nothing but bathroom stuff,” he said grimly.
“Bathroom stuff?” asked Kei, snickering at Keito’s choice of words.
The English boy reddened visibly in embarrassment, and said shyly, “Yeah, like stuff you find in a bathroom. You know, faucets, and stuff like that.” Yuto put his hand consolingly on Keito’s shoulder, and Keito looked slightly more reassured.
“Could that be it?” asked Ryutaro wonderingly. “Maybe the faucets have something to do with it. After all, they were the reason why we came over here in the first place - Keito had heard the showers running.”
“But why would the murderer want someone to come to the bathroom and discover the body?” asked Yuto from his place at Keito’s side. “That seems kind of bad for the murderer, right?”
“Yeah,” agreed Chinen, nodding his head up and down. “That would make the police’s reckoning of the time of death closer to the actual one. If the murderer had no alibi for that time, it would ruin everything!”
Ryosuke said, lifting his head slightly from where he had rested his chin on his fingers, “Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe the murder had the perfect alibi.”
We all stared at Ryosuke, chilled by his words. Could the murderer be someone else outside of our four suspects? Could he or she be even more devious than we had initially supposed? As the others pondered this new train of thought, I couldn’t help but flash back to the image of Misaki’s angry fists. Maybe the murderer thought that he was safe, that he would never be suspected.
After all, kids can’t commit murder.
I shook my head fiercely in denial. No way. No way in heck could it have been B.I.Shadow! They are our juniors! They are just kids! There’s no need to be paranoid about them now! Who cares that they were not in the main part of the studio during the supposed murder time? Like Detective Yoshida had said, they are just kids; they could never have been strong enough to stab the director.
My attention was suddenly diverted when Ryosuke spoke again, “It’s either that, or there was an ulterior purpose for the showers to be on. Like Ryutaro had mentioned earlier, the water noises from the shower were what originally drew us over here. It’s possible that they were meant as a distraction.”
“A distraction?” asked Yuya quizzically.
Kei replied, looking over at Ryosuke, ignoring Yuya’s question, “You mean the murderer might have been doing something else while we were in here freaking out about the PV director’s body?”
Ryosuke nodded back at Kei. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“Oh,” said Yuto, the idea dawning on him. “Maybe that’s when the murderer came back to the other backroom and hid the wire cutters.”
“Yeah, and when he or she tried to clean up the blood stains,” I muttered bitterly, reminded of my unpleasant blood wall experience.
There was a pause as we all thought about the possibilities put forth by the members. “Well, I guess that’s plausible,” said Kota at last after considering what everyone else had said.
Hikaru suggested, “Then, wouldn’t that make whoever came to showers last the most suspicious, since the murderer would have to complete whatever he or she needed to do before coming back over to the showers?”
I shook my head vigorously. “But that can’t be right! If that’s the case, then the murderer would be -”
But before I could complete my sentence, Ryosuke interrupted, his glare the most condemning I’ve ever seen.
“B.I.Shadow.”
---
*duhn duhn duhn!!* I ended on a cliffhanger! XD
This way to Chapter 6~
Chapter 5: We All Take a Trip to the Shower
The next day we all showed up at the studio at seven in the morning. As the JUMP members all gathered in the room where we were shooting the PV, all of us rubbing the sleep from our eyes, I noticed that most of the members still had bedraggled hair and clothes hanging messily off of their thin frames, as if not much thought had been put into their preparations for the day. Well, all except for Kei, who was dressed in his normal hobo-chic style with a large, cool-looking hat perched on his hair, accentuating his small face.
“What?” he said when he noticed all of us staring at him in disbelief. “I usually wake up much earlier than this to go to my classes at Meiji University.”
Before any of us could respond, Ryosuke changed the subject. “Okay, guys, we’re here to investigate, remember?” His profound gaze held each of us briefly before he spoke again, “Anyways, to my understanding, Yuto-kun has made a discovery since we saw each other last. Would you care to explain, Yuto-kun?”
“Sure,” replied Yuto, happy to have some input on the case.
As he proceeded to explain the events of the previous night, without meaning to, I found my mind replaying the fake fights I’d had with Raiya. Both times, Raiya had deliberately tried to attack me, and both times, something hadn’t added up right with the PV director’s stab wound. There was something strange about the whole thing. Something just didn’t feel right!
I scratched my head vigorously in frustration with both hands, ruffling my hair in the process. The others stared at me in incomprehension, wondering what had brought on my unexpected fit. I stopped, suddenly self-conscious. “Um…Hey, guys,” I said awkwardly.
“What the heck are you doing, Dai-chan?” asked Chinen, his eyes wide.
“I-it’s nothing,” I replied a little too quickly. When everyone else remained unconvinced, I added, “I’m just a little frustrated, that’s all.”
“Frustrated?” Kota asked worriedly, coming over and placing an arm around me comfortingly.
I nodded unhappily, my head rubbing against our Yabumama’s shoulder. “Yeah, there are two bits of the case that just aren’t making sense to me. I don’t know if I’m overthinking it or if there really is something suspicious going on.”
Ryosuke fixed me with one of his gazes and said seriously, “Dai-chan, if there’s something bothering you about the case, you should bring it up. Sometimes, a detective just has to trust his gut instinct.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “What really bothers me is the state of the director’s stab wound. From what we know, the director’s stab wound is horizontal and is located on his upper back, near his shoulder.
“But, from the play fights I had with Raiya, I realized that that can’t be completely ‘normal’. When Raiya stabbed me with the ruler, Yuto realized that the wound should have been vertical since wire cutters are usually held vertically, but the wound was not. And when Raiya pretended to shoot me and poked me in the stomach, I realized that he had poked me with his arm from about shoulder height. Normally, when a person stabs another, their upper arm is at least at shoulder height. But the director’s wound was angled downwards, which makes stabbing from shoulder height difficult. Most people wouldn’t stab overhanded with wire cutters, which means that either the person who stabbed him was really tall or the wire cutters somehow came from the air above the director. Either way, both of these details seem strange to me and don’t seem to add up right, which makes things seem so frustrating!”
I finished my speech feeling a little short of breath. The others seemed to be deep in thought; none of them had bothered to respond verbally to what I had said. Nervously, I waited for someone to break the silence. I was afraid that my speech had singled me out as being paranoid or psychotic for reading so much into pretend fighting with a kid who was still in elementary school.
Finally, Ryosuke spoke, “Thank you, Dai-chan, for sharing. What you just said was very intriguing.”
“Yeah,” agreed Yuto. “I hadn’t thought of all that when I saw you and Raiya play fighting.”
Hikaru added, “Even if it was me playing with Raiya, I’m not sure I would have gotten all that either!”
I felt color rushing to my face; I really had not meant to come off as such a know-it-all. These were simply observations that had been bothering me. That was all! I had never thought of myself as being particularly special in the brains department anyways.
Suddenly, Yuya suggested, “Guys, what if the wire cutters had fallen on the director?”
“What do you mean by that, Takaki-kun?” asked Chinen.
“Well, from what Dai-chan has said, it seems unlikely that a person had intentionally stabbed the director. If he or she did, then the wound would look more ‘normal’. All this time, we’ve been assuming that the wire cutters came from the toolbox. Isn’t it possible that they were somewhere else and that they had fallen onto the director from that place? The murderer could have placed the wire cutters in the toolbox afterwards,” proposed Yuya, a determined expression on his face. He gestured at me. “Dai-chan’s idea of the wire cutters coming from the air made me think of it.”
Ryutaro asked, a skeptical expression on his face, “But, where would the wire cutters fall from? They can’t fall from midair!”
“There is that shelf,” muttered Keito quietly, staring at the floor.
“Shelf?” asked Ryutaro.
Keito looked up in surprise. “Yeah, that big metal one that had fallen over. Don’t you guys remember it? Maybe the shelf had been upright at one point.”
“If that’s the case, then the wire cutters could have fallen from there,” I agreed, getting excited at the prospect of possibly solving some of the anomalies of the director’s stab wound.
“But you guys are forgetting on thing,” cut in Kei. “Wire cutters can’t move by themselves. What would cause them to suddenly fall from the shelf and impale the director? And what would cause the shelf to also topple? Is it okay for us to assume so much?”
Kota sighed heavily. “Inoo-chan is right. I think we’re getting a bit too ahead of ourselves. We’ll need to figure out more of this case before we can really pursue this wire cutters falling from the shelf theory. For all we know, the director might have really been stabbed by a human hand. We don’t know for sure.”
Ryosuke nodded. “I agree with Yabu-kun. There’s too much uncertainty. A detective’s job is to get rid of all uncertainty before putting forth his reasoning.”
My heart sank. For a second there, I thought we had been making progress.
“Well,” said Hikaru, “if we can’t pursue the falling wire cutters theory, then maybe we can address something else. Am I the only one mystified as to why the showers were on when we first discovered the body?”
Keito volunteered, “No, it’s not just you. I was confused by that too.”
“I thought the showers had been on so that the murderer could wash off the blood from the body and hide that the murder had actually happened in another room,” said Chinen.
Yuto murmured, “It’s possible…However, could there be other reasons? For some reason, I feel like Chii’s explanation isn’t enough to explain it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Yuya, “I know what you mean, Yuto-kun. If someone had walked in on the murderer washing the blood away when he had the showers on, that would have killed everything!” When he realized what he had said, the childlike adult added quickly, “No pun intended, of course!”
“Maybe we can all take a trip to the abandoned bathroom to look for more clues,” suggested Yuto.
Ryosuke said, nodding, “That sounds like a good plan.” He glanced at his watch. “We still have around another hour left before shooting starts at nine. If we get a move on, we should have plenty of time to investigate over there. Let’s go, guys.”
* * *
When we arrived at the bathroom where we had discovered the body, we were a little surprised by the changes that had occurred since the last time we had been there. The entire bathroom had been sealed off with police caution tape and there was a stark, white outline where the PV director’s body had been. However, even with just the white outline, we still couldn’t block out the memory of the PV director’s body being in the same position the day before.
Ducking carefully under the caution tape, the other JUMP members and I entered the bathroom, one after the other. We were trying to be super watchful of our actions because of our promise to Detective Yoshida. We had said we wouldn’t get in the police’s way, so in no shape or form were we considering going back on our word. Being idols from such a young age had taught us an important lesson: you must be responsible for your own actions.
“Okay,” said Yuya, standing nearest to where the director’s body had been. “We’re where we first found the director’s body. Now, what?”
Chinen suggested with a cutely curious expression on his face, “Why don’t we try to figure out why the murderer felt the need to move the body over here? He or she could have just left the body at the actual scene of the crime.”
We all stared at the white outline for a while, contemplating Chinen’s question. While it was true that moving the body over to the bathroom meant that the murderer could wash off most of the blood coming from the director’s stab wound, it still didn’t seem like a completely legitimate reason to move the body, a difficult feat considering that the director was a full-grown man.
“Maybe there is something special here in the bathroom that the murderer needed,” said Kota at long last.
“Like what?” Hikaru asked skeptically. He gestured at his surroundings. “There’s nothing here!”
Keito nodded in agreement. “Yeah, nothing but bathroom stuff,” he said grimly.
“Bathroom stuff?” asked Kei, snickering at Keito’s choice of words.
The English boy reddened visibly in embarrassment, and said shyly, “Yeah, like stuff you find in a bathroom. You know, faucets, and stuff like that.” Yuto put his hand consolingly on Keito’s shoulder, and Keito looked slightly more reassured.
“Could that be it?” asked Ryutaro wonderingly. “Maybe the faucets have something to do with it. After all, they were the reason why we came over here in the first place - Keito had heard the showers running.”
“But why would the murderer want someone to come to the bathroom and discover the body?” asked Yuto from his place at Keito’s side. “That seems kind of bad for the murderer, right?”
“Yeah,” agreed Chinen, nodding his head up and down. “That would make the police’s reckoning of the time of death closer to the actual one. If the murderer had no alibi for that time, it would ruin everything!”
Ryosuke said, lifting his head slightly from where he had rested his chin on his fingers, “Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe the murder had the perfect alibi.”
We all stared at Ryosuke, chilled by his words. Could the murderer be someone else outside of our four suspects? Could he or she be even more devious than we had initially supposed? As the others pondered this new train of thought, I couldn’t help but flash back to the image of Misaki’s angry fists. Maybe the murderer thought that he was safe, that he would never be suspected.
After all, kids can’t commit murder.
I shook my head fiercely in denial. No way. No way in heck could it have been B.I.Shadow! They are our juniors! They are just kids! There’s no need to be paranoid about them now! Who cares that they were not in the main part of the studio during the supposed murder time? Like Detective Yoshida had said, they are just kids; they could never have been strong enough to stab the director.
My attention was suddenly diverted when Ryosuke spoke again, “It’s either that, or there was an ulterior purpose for the showers to be on. Like Ryutaro had mentioned earlier, the water noises from the shower were what originally drew us over here. It’s possible that they were meant as a distraction.”
“A distraction?” asked Yuya quizzically.
Kei replied, looking over at Ryosuke, ignoring Yuya’s question, “You mean the murderer might have been doing something else while we were in here freaking out about the PV director’s body?”
Ryosuke nodded back at Kei. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”
“Oh,” said Yuto, the idea dawning on him. “Maybe that’s when the murderer came back to the other backroom and hid the wire cutters.”
“Yeah, and when he or she tried to clean up the blood stains,” I muttered bitterly, reminded of my unpleasant blood wall experience.
There was a pause as we all thought about the possibilities put forth by the members. “Well, I guess that’s plausible,” said Kota at last after considering what everyone else had said.
Hikaru suggested, “Then, wouldn’t that make whoever came to showers last the most suspicious, since the murderer would have to complete whatever he or she needed to do before coming back over to the showers?”
I shook my head vigorously. “But that can’t be right! If that’s the case, then the murderer would be -”
But before I could complete my sentence, Ryosuke interrupted, his glare the most condemning I’ve ever seen.
“B.I.Shadow.”
---
*duhn duhn duhn!!* I ended on a cliffhanger! XD
This way to Chapter 6~