Holidays Gift for Jas!!! Tomoda x Kurumi
Tomoda had no idea why Kurumi wasn’t answering her phone. She always called him out of the blue when he was busy with something else but the moment he needed to talk to her, she was suddenly unreachable. It was often a bad omen, too. Whenever she didn’t answer her phone, she was either being kidnapped, confronting a murderer, or planning something troublesome. He did not like his odds.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the University’s math department and heard her voice from inside. She was safe, then.
“Oh!” She exclaimed, clapping her hands. There was a huge flat-screen TV in front of her, just beside the blackboard. She was so engrossed on whatever was on the screen that she didn’t notice Tomoda stepping into the room.
“This is it!” She pointed to the blackboard where a long and complicated equation was written. He had no idea what it meant, as usual. “I’m sure it’s Arata and Ai,” she said, rubbing her hands together like a diabolical villain. “I’ve calculated it perfectly!”
Tomoda watched as a couple on the screen stepped up towards a pedestal. After a long tense silence, the light under them turned green.
“See!” Kurumi exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement. “Math wins again!”
He had no idea what just happened, but it seemed impolite to not say anything no matter how fun watching her was. He cleared his throat.
She turned to the door in surprise, hands in front of her as if to defend against intruders. Perhaps he should remind her more to lock the door when she’s alone, what with criminals continuously coming for her. Or he could teach her self-defense. Maybe.
“Tomoda-san!” Her surprise turned immediately into unabashed joy as soon as she saw him.
It should probably not make him feel as warm as it did. He cleared his throat again, pushing down any unnecessary feelings. This was not the time for that. (It would never be the time for that.)
“Are you busy?” He asked.
She shook her head and happily turned off the TV. “I was just watching my favorite show,” she explained. “They use math to find compatible couples.” She giggled into her hands as if she thought of something amusing, staring up at him through her eyelashes. “I’ve been trying to figure out how they do it and I think I’m close to finding the basic formula.”
That explanation made him realize immediately how close she was to the investigation he needed to do. Again. If he didn’t know her better, he’d think she was a criminal mastermind who liked making his life more complicated. (As it was, he was not completely sure this was not the case.)
“You mean Perfect Match?”
Her eyes widened and she jumped forward, bringing her face uncomfortably close to his. Her smile was giddy with excitement.
“You know about Perfect Match?” She asked, pitch going high as she leaned even closer. “Tomoda-san, do you watch it too?!”
He leaned back and away, angling his face to the side to take his gaze away from those innocent pair of eyes. He knew this would disappoint her, and for a moment, he wondered if he should let her enjoy her favorite show in peace.
But then he remembered the look of fear on Mirai’s eyes when she handed over the death threat. He needed to solve this case as soon as possible.
“One of last season’s winners received death threats this week and she thinks someone tried to kill her earlier,” he explained as he stepped back. He looked towards the screen to make sure not to see her disappointed expression. “Someone tried to drop a flower vase on her.”
“What?!” Kurumi reached forward and grabbed his arms, shaking him slightly. “Is she okay?! Why would anyone do that! She was such a nice girl!”
“She’s fine!” He pushed her hands away and stepped even further back. “The death threat she received had a series of numbers on it and I thought… Well, maybe they meant something. Given her history with a statistics-based show, there’s a chance this is the work of a crazed fan.”
“Show me the numbers,” she said, rushing over to push the filled blackboard up so that the clean one was down. She picked up a chalk and gave him a what are you waiting for? look.
He sighed and took out his phone. He recited the numbers to her.
Knowing how useless he would be to her part of the investigation, he left to do the work he was actually good at. He made Kurumi promise to call him as soon as she got something. Hopefully, she would call him first before doing anything rash.
“Can you think of anyone who holds a grudge against you?” Tomoda asked, giving Mirai an encouraging smile. She didn’t look as shaken now but she still had a pale pallor.
“I can’t-” She frowned down at her lap where her fists were clenched. “I don’t understand why anyone would do something like this.”
“If it’s a genuine threat, there could be a serious grudge, but there’s also the possibility that this is something designed to make you scared. In which case, any reason could help us figure out who it is,” he said. “Can’t you think of any reason at all? Especially with regards to your appearance in Perfect Match?”
“Ah.” She looked at him with wide eyes as something came to her. “I think I… There is something about that show.”
He gestured for her to continue, clicking on his pen to write whatever she would say.
“I was one of the winners in the third season,” she said. “And I’m the only one who didn’t fall in love with my perfect match.”
He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “What happened in the first two seasons?”
“Both couples are married now,” she admitted. “As the contestant who wanted to get married the most, they all assumed I would get married after a few months. I didn’t even go out with Masahiro-kun.”
That sounded like a shallow reason to kill someone, but he had seen enough fanatical people to know it was enough.
“Are you dating someone now?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said, cheeks reddening a little. “Another contestant from the show.”
Oh. That was another factor to anger whoever was doing this, for sure. The fact that they put numbers in the death threat made sense now. Maybe the person who wanted to hurt Mirai wanted to make her suffer for not following the perfect matching system? To fall in love with someone who wasn’t their perfect match…
It was definitely a flimsy reason, but something a crazed person would use.
“I think you should contact them,” he said. “I’ll put a police escort with you. It would be safer if you and your lover were together.”
“Do you think he’s in danger too?” The fear came back as was obvious in her stricken expression. She did not wait for his answer. Instead, she hastily took out her phone and called her boyfriend. After a few seconds, he answered. “Hello? Mikki? I’m… Yeah, I’m fine. I’m with the detective. Are you done with work? He said you should come to my apartment to make sure that…” Her smile turned warm and fond as she said, “Sure, of course, you’ll protect me.” She laughed. “I’ll see you later. Be safe, Mikki.”
When he came back to the Math Department, Kurumi was slumped on the table, moaning about something under her breath.
“Did you find anything?”
She looked up with a pout. “It was Perfect Match’s formula,” she said sulkily. “The one I’ve been searching for.”
“And?”
“The inputs are for Ryunosuke and Mirai,” she said. “They were the first ones to try the pedestal and they weren’t a Perfect Match.”
So his suspicions were right, then. “They’re dating now,” he said.
She grimaced and looked at him with betrayal in her eyes.
“Love can’t be quantified,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “They were in love. That was all that mattered.”
“But-” Her pout worsened as she crossed her arms like a child throwing a tantrum. “But the numbers don’t lie!”
“Maybe,” he conceded, thinking about the couples from the first two seasons. “But maybe they don’t say everything either.”
Her eyes widened. “Hidden variables!” She brightened up. “If we just find the reason why they’re together, we might…”
“That’s not the point!” He shook his head and placed a hand on her shoulder to get her back from her ranting. “We need to find who wrote that Death Threat.”
“Right,” she said, slumping down again. “I think it’s one of the staff of Perfect Match.”
“Are you sure? You understood it so wouldn’t some fans do too?”
She gasped in affront, pointing a finger at him. “You think anyone can just figure this out?! I researched this for weeks!”
Oh, yeah. She had a Ph.D. and everything. It might not be smart to think normal people could do what she did. His prolonged exposure to her weirdness was messing up his people-senses. He really should leave and stop coming to her for help.
“I’ll go find the suspect, then,” he said, turning away.
“I’ll go with you!” She stood up suddenly and took her bag from the table. “I’ll help!”
“You’ve helped enough,” he said. “There’s no need for you to come with me.”
“I’ll go with you,” she repeated in a tone that brooked no argument. He knew how stubborn she could be. It would be safer to go with her than have her poke her nose in businesses that would get her in danger without him around.
“Fine,” he sighed. “Don’t leave my side.”
She giggled, doing a little excited wiggle as she winded their arms together. “I’ll stay by your side, Tomoda-san!”
It was almost anti-climactic when he found one of the writers for Perfect Match following Mirai and Ryunosuke home. He grabbed the man and handcuffed him without difficulty.
“No!” He shouted. “It’s her fault! We’ve never been wrong before! She lied to us!”
“Shut up!” Kurumi shouted back at him, standing in front of Mirai to shield her from his insults. Ryunosuke had an arm around Mirai and he seemed to be comforting her properly. “Every hypothesis has an error value and not accepting that makes you a bad researcher. Blaming your subjects just show how little you know!”
“My calculations were right!” He continued as if Kurumi did not speak. “She doesn’t make sense!”
Tomoda pulled at his arms to drag him towards his car. Ignoring his ranting, he recited his rights and gave the others a nod. “I’ll bring him to the station.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Kurumi said, strangely eager. “I’ll make sure they go home safe.”
He had no idea why she would need to now that he had the suspect at hand, but this was easier than having her ride with them to the station. He didn’t want to have two crazy mathematicians in the car with him.
An hour later, he got a call from Mirai.
“Um, detective?” She sounded awkward but there was a hint of amusement in her voice too. “Kurumi-san is still here.”
“What?” He groaned. He should have known she was planning something. “Why hasn’t she left?”
“I think she’s doing an experiment?” She laughed. “Or she’s getting data? She’s been asking Mikki some questions.”
“I’m so sorry for the trouble,” he said. “I’ll fetch her now.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to worry in case you searched for her and couldn’t find her. She’s…” She laughed some more before she finished, “funny.”
He couldn’t help but laugh as well. “She is,” he agreed.
“It’s time to go,” he announced when Mirai let him into her apartment where an increasingly flustered Ryunosuke was inching away from an excited Kurumi. “You’re bothering them.”
“She isn’t…” Ryunosuke denied, even as he sighed in relief the moment Kurumi stood up to rush towards Tomoda.
“Tomoda-san!” Kurumi brandished her notebook like it was a trophy she was proud of. “I got all the data I need! I think I’ll figure out the hidden variables from this!”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He figured this was the reason why she stayed but he still could not believe how weird she could be. And how stubborn. She never gave up as long as she had something to answer.
(He refused to think about how admirable it was. He’d rather think about how weird she was. To be safe.)
“Right,” he said. “You can explain it to me in the car.”
She smiled brightly and did that excited little wiggle again. “I will!”
It was a record-breaking seven days later before Tomoda saw her again. She didn’t even try to contact him. Instead, it was her friend who called him and asked him to please take Nanba-san out one way or another because she’s annoying me.
He had no idea what she meant by ‘one way or another’. He dared not ask. As weird as Kurumi was, he would never understand that friend of hers.
Worried despite himself, he went to the Math Department to see what was happening.
He found Kurumi lying on a fainting couch that wasn’t there the last time he was here. She was staring at the ceiling with a despairing expression on his face.
“Kurumi?”
She sat up and stared at him with wide eyes. “Tomoda-san?!” She looked around, from the TV still playing a clip of Perfect Match to both blackboards still filled with equations. He saw his name in one corner of the blackboard but decided not to look closer in fear of whatever it was. It was easier when he didn’t look too closely at Kurumi’s ridiculous ideas.
“Why are you here?” She stayed where she was, too shocked to stand up. She then looked at the blackboard and murmured, quietly but loud enough for him to hear in the empty room, “This changes things. If Tomoda-san has preexisting affection and went to find me out of his own accord…”
“Your friend told me to find you,” he explained to stop that train of thought. He might have some… affection, perhaps, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Oh,” she said with clear disappointment. Her shoulders slumped and she slid down the couch dramatically. “That makes sense. After all, we only have 20% compatibility.”
He nodded. “That sounds about right. We have nothing in common.”
She looked up at him with wide, sad eyes. “You really think so?”
“Well, yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Those are facts, right? Your calculations are never wrong.”
“I knooooow,” she moaned, curling in on herself and hiding her face between her arms. “The numbers aren’t lying.”
He rolled his eyes and walked closer, bypassing the chair to sit on the edge of the couch. He looked down at her and prodded her arm to get her attention.
“Didn’t I tell you love is unquantifiable?” He asked. “Didn’t you learn anything from Mirai?”
“They were 95% compatible,” she explained, still sulking and hiding her face. “They’ve changed since the show, so their compatibility is high enough to be successful now.”
“So…” He hummed. “They changed for each other and they became more compatible?”
She finally looked at him, expression scrunched up in confusion. As usual, she had no idea when it came to how people actually functioned. When there are no numbers involved, she suddenly becomes as clueless as he is when it comes to math.
“People aren’t stagnant,” he said. “They change when they interact with others and that makes love hard to figure out.”
She was quiet for a moment, gaping as if her entire worldview was changing.
“That means the variables are changing infinitely,” she said. “That would change the entire equation!”
He sighed deeply. “That’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?” She asked, eyes already stuck on the blackboard and the equation there.
“The point is. We should go out.”
Her eyes grew wide once again. “Go out?!” She leaned closer, watching his expression as if he was an experiment she was observing. “Like on a date?!”
He stared at her hopeful eyes and could not help but answer, “Sure.” He tried to tell himself it was to make sure she would come and be happy, and so that her friend would stop calling him to complain.
But then she smiled happily and hugged him lightly before standing up. He could not deny the warmth he felt in his chest.
(He still was not thinking about it. He had more important things to think about.
If he enjoyed their dinner more than he enjoyed eating out with anyone else, well, Kurumi was interesting, after all.)