Tokyo Detective Chronicles

The two walked side by side down the corridor; there were hardly any people left in the school building at this moment.

Fushimi Iori put her glasses back on (without prescription), raised her hand and swept her bangs down to cover most of her eyes, returning to her previous unremarkable appearance.

Rina Hoshizaki quickly walked to a spot half a step in front of him, glanced at his school attire, and couldn't help but mutter to herself:

"What is this? A superhero disguise?"

"You can think of it that way."

Whether it's detective work or other things related to the psychic community, it's not really suitable to expose them to the public.

In all these years that Fushimi has been a detective, it's hard to guarantee that he hasn't offended some psychics. If they want to take revenge on him through the school, that would be troublesome.

Anything involving ordinary people, especially students in schools, requires extra caution.

Therefore, Fushimi also hoped to completely separate his two identities and spend his student life peacefully and harmoniously.

Most psychics, whether low-key or flamboyant, blend into ordinary society in their own way.

Rina Hoshizaki, who was walking briskly to the side, suddenly felt inexplicably happy. If Iori continued like this, wouldn't no other girls notice him?

With these thoughts in mind, the two walked all the way to the first floor of the teaching building.

"You should go back now."

Fushimi stopped in his tracks: "I still need to go to Takeda-sensei's office."

"Eh—" Hoshizaki Rina drawled, puffing out her cheeks in dissatisfaction.

"I want to go too! Being a detective sounds so cool!"

"Not cool."

Fushimi Ruthlessly shattered her illusions:

"You should know that stalking, taking photos secretly, rummaging through trash cans, and writing reports are the daily work of a private investigator, right?"

"I'd like to see it too..."

Just then, a group of stylishly dressed girls walked by, chatting and laughing together.

Upon seeing Hoshizaki, one of the short-haired girls waved and shouted:

"Rina! Over here!"

They are Rina Hoshizaki's classmates and friends.

"We're going to the newly opened dessert shop in Shibuya, and then we'll sing karaoke!"

The short-haired girl said excitedly:

"Rina, why don't you come too? You've been spending all your time in the archery club lately, it's been ages since you went out with us!"

Hoshizaki looked at his friends' expectant eyes and hesitated.

Fushimi spoke up at the opportune moment: "I can go by myself; you'll only cause trouble if you come along."

"Eh..."

Hoshizaki puffed out her cheeks, but she knew Fushimi was telling the truth.

"Oh well!"

Rina Hoshizaki bit her lip, but was eventually pulled away by her friends.

Before leaving, she turned back and waved to Fushimi: "See you tomorrow! I'll have my lunch ready!"

"Um."

Watching the girls chatter and laugh as they walked away, Fushimi let out a soft sigh.

He turned around and walked alone towards the faculty and staff office building.

……

Yuko Takeda's office is on the third floor of the teachers' building.

Fushimi unlocked the door with his key. The office was dimly lit, with all the light blocked by heavy curtains.

He only turned on the lights after confirming that there were no surveillance devices in the room.

In the room, six desks were neatly arranged, and the bookshelves against the wall were crammed with folders and textbooks.

Fushimi walked up to Takeda's desk.

The sound of shoes stepping on the floor was particularly clear in the silence.

He slightly pulled back the tightly closed curtains; from this spot, he could see the ginkgo trees in the school courtyard. In another month, the leaves would turn yellow, and the view from here would be beautiful.

The desktop was very clean, with a picture frame in the upper right corner.

In the photo, Yuko Takeda stands side by side with a bespectacled man in front of Meiji Shrine. Both are wearing kimonos, and Takeda is holding a fortune slip with a bright smile.

They look like a very loving couple.

Fushimi put down the picture frame and began to inspect the drawer.

Lesson plans, student attendance sheets, and club activity plans.

He opened the bottom drawer, inside which was a box of nutritional supplements for pregnant women and several parenting magazines.

The cover of the magazine at the very top is titled: "Are You Ready for Your First Time as a Mom?"

Fushimi stared at the line of text for a few seconds, then closed the drawer.

He straightened up and glanced at the items on the table.

Pen holder, stapler, a small pot of succulents... No matter how you look at it, it all seems so normal.

Just when Fushimi thought the trip had yielded no results, his gaze fell on a very ordinary-looking thermos.

He unscrewed the lid and brought the cup close to the rim. He subconsciously sniffed it and suddenly sensed something unusual.

There was a very faint, unusual fragrance in the cup.

That wasn't the aroma of tea, coffee, or any other beverage.

It's a strange, indescribable flavor...

If I had to describe it, it's like a mixture of some old medicinal herbs, aged paper, and temple incense, yet with a subtle, almost imperceptible sweetness.

It's so sweet it's uncomfortable.

Fushimi closed his eyes and focused his senses on his smell.

Unlike clairvoyance, which requires a lot of mental energy but is easy to learn, enhancing the sense of smell or hearing is relatively more complicated.

However, through years of practice and application, Fushimi had long since become accustomed to it.

If needed, he could even maintain enhanced full perception for several hours, but there were very few situations where he would need to do so.

The aroma in the cup becomes clearer with amplified perception.

Fushimi frowned.

This smell caused him some physical discomfort. It didn't seem to be a product of the mortal world. Perhaps only those with a keen sense of smell, spiritual mediums, and monsters could vaguely smell it.

Fushimi put down the cup and took out a small glass bottle and tweezers from his small tool bag.

The tool bag looked like an ordinary waist bag, just big enough to fit in one corner of his bag, and inside were various strange tools neatly organized.

Tweezers, sealed test tubes, a folding magnifying glass, and several stacks of talismans in different colors.

Fushimi carefully scraped a little white residue from the cup with tweezers, put it into a glass bottle, and then held it above his head to observe it carefully under the light.

It's very fine, like the dust or powder of some kind of tea leaves.

After doing all this, Fushimi took a deep breath and amplified his sense of smell to the limit.

The world's scents became complex in an instant.

The smell of dust, the smell of floor wax, the smell of instant noodles coming from the next office, the stench of the toilet wafting in from outside the window... a flood of information rushed into my nostrils.

He forced himself to endure the discomfort and tried to find, amidst the cacophony of smells, whether there were any other similar odors in the school.

Surprisingly, I actually gained something from it...

Fushimi tidied up the scene and left the office.

The corridor was deserted, except for the green emergency exit indicator light at the end. The scent traveled along the corridor, turning at the third-floor corner and leading to the western teaching building via a sky bridge.

That's a classroom for the first-year high school students.

He slowly moved forward, following the scent.

They stopped when they reached the classroom of Class 2-C, which was clearly the place in the entire school where the smell was strongest.

The classroom was filled with the sounds of girls laughing and joking, mixed with the dull thud of something heavy hitting a cabinet door.

"—I just love bullying unwanted sluts like you."

"Don't you know why your father abandoned you and your mother?"

A shrill female voice drawled out, "Because you and your daughter are both unlucky things!"

A loud "bang!" was heard as the cabinet was kicked.

A suppressed gasp came from inside the cabinet.

"Do you think you can seduce Yuren-kun by feigning helplessness just because he has a gentle personality?"

Fushimi stopped outside the back door of the classroom and tilted his head to look inside through the small window in the door.

Three girls were surrounding a mop cabinet. The one in the lead, with dyed brown hair, was rhythmically kicking the cabinet door with the tip of her shoe.

The other two people sitting at the nearby table laughed, pretending to stop him, saying, "Alright, alright, you'll miss your date if you're any later!"

"You should go inside and reflect on your actions."

"Bang!"

The brown-haired girl kicked one last time before stopping, then clapped her hands and said, "We're leaving now, see you tomorrow!"

They walked out of the classroom, chatting and laughing, and left via the stairs on the other side.

With just a few words, Fushimi could roughly guess the cause and effect of this very clichéd and vicious Yingzhou-style school bullying.

After a while, once he was sure they were far away, Fushimi pushed open the door and entered the classroom.

The lingering fragrance in the air was completely masked by the girls' perfume and the smell of dirty water from washing the mop.

Even with its enhanced sense of smell, a human being cannot pinpoint a specific location in such an environment and is simply tormented by various odors.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief when his sense of smell returned to normal.

No matter which aspect of perception is amplified to the limit, it is definitely not a pleasant experience; Fushimi initially even vomited repeatedly as a result.

He rubbed his temples, thinking about finding a monster with a keen sense of smell to go to the school with him to investigate after he got back today.

Fushimi looked around the classroom.

The setting sun bathed the area in a warm orange hue, and fine dust particles floated in the air.

The desks and chairs were neatly arranged, and the blackboard listed the students on duty for tomorrow.

Everything seemed so normal and harmonious, if you ignored the mop cabinet that was still wobbling slightly and had sewage seeping from the bottom.