Fakes & Fiends

Chapter 01:

"Business & Bitches"

I hate hangnails more than anything in the world. In case of potential cosmetic disasters, I keep a nail kit in my purse and spend most of my petty cash on manicures. Never pedicures, though. I hate letting people look at my feet.

Yamamura Yoko, however, wouldn't quit looking at them, not that I blame her. I always prop my legs up on the desk in front of me when I sit down. Force of habit, I suppose. It shocks some of the more...shall I say 'refined' girls? The word I actually want to use is 'snotty,' but I never insult clients to their face.

Not unless they deserve it, of course.

"Um, well," she said, demure since I made her shuck her mantle of friends at the door. "Um, well, Makoto-sempai..."

"Call me Chiyo," I said, studying my nails with a frown. I had over-clipped the ring finger on my right hand; the others would have to be filed down to match. With a sigh I reached into the pocket of my skirt (I had added the pockets myself to hold my manicure gear) and pulled out my favorite emery board. Pink with yellow hearts and a wonderfully dense texture. It had been love at first file.

"Oh. Chiyo-san..."

"I told you to call me 'Chiyo.' No san, no chan, no anything. Just Chiyo."

Yoko looked like a frightened rabbit at that. I almost cursed; losing my temper was so not professional. I smiled my warm, practiced, professional smile to ameliorate her fears.

"Sorry, it's been a rough day," I said. "You're Yamamura Yoko, right? Can I call you Yoko-chan?"

Her cheeks colored below her fringe of dark brown bangs. Her big brown eyes wondered how the heck I'd known her name. Her lips just said: "S-sure."

Little did she know I knew a lot more than just her name. Like, a lot more. Blood type O, class 6-B, good at English and Japanese, a member of the cooking club. Favorite color was green and she was completely up to date on last season's fashion (whoops!). 157 centimeters tall, 51 kilograms in weight, and she'd just gotten her braces off. Snobby and self-important, Yoko had been handed everything she ever wanted. Lawyer-Mommy and car-dealer-Daddy never denied her a dime. She'd hate to work for a thing and would like cower in the face of any adversity.

I couldn't help but smirk.

Yeah, I knew Yoko pretty well.

"Well, great!" I said instead, forcing rainbows and sunshine and good cheer and shit. Another smile; this time she smiled back, if a little tentatively, and in a self-calming gesture I filed my nails a little faster. "Now what can I do for you?"

She took a deep breath. "Chiyo-sa—I mean, Chiyo...I'm in love with a boy." The resulting blush rivaled a ripening apple. "I was told...I mean, everyone knows that you can help."

I kept my head pointed at my nails while looking at Yoko through my lashes. All but my thumb on my right hand were the appropriate length at that point.

"I can," I said. "Usually, anyway."

Her face showed relief, but then she looked expectant. Obviously she thought I was going to say something. She obviously thought I was going to take care of everything—don't ya worry 'bout a thing, baby—but I stayed quiet. I waited until sweat beaded on her brow before asking: "What's his name?"

"Uchari Hideki." The name exploded from her mouth like vomit. It was as if she'd been just dying to say it this whole time.

"Uchari-san," I mused. "Really?"

"Uh-huh."

"And why do you like him?"

She blinked at me, stupefied.

"It's a simple question." I didn't even look at her at that point. My nails were just so much more interesting. "Why. Do. You. Like. Uchari-san?"

"I love him," she said, unable to say anything else.

I raised my head and my eyebrow at the same time. I knew Uchari-san very well. In fact, I possessed a dossier on that guy even more complete than the one I had on Yoko. Blood type AB, class A-2, baseball team stud with gorgeous honey-brown eyes, chestnut-colored hair he didn't even have to dye, a svelte and muscular physique, 175 centimeters tall, good grades, a poor family, an after-school job as a courier, and a penchant for melonbread dipped in soy sauce (ugh; so gross). He didn't like karaoke and he loved sporty girls (a category Yoko was definitely not a member of) and he was an upperclassman, to boot.

Frankly, I could not have picked anyone less suited to Yoko's tastes if I tried.

She gaped at me as I reviewed his file in my head. I raised my eyebrow even higher.

"Well?" I asked.

She looked at her lap, shame-faced.

My feet swung off the desk and hit the floor with a crack. Yoko flinched. I put my emery board in my pocket.

"I get," I said, folding my hands on the table, "about forty girls in here a week. Most of them want to meet a specific guy. Over a third of them ask me for the same person. Lately, that person has been Uchari-san." I leaned toward her. Her eyes widened. "That's roughly thirteen-point-three girls a week after Uchari-san's tail. Do you get what I'm getting at?"

She didn't answer. Probably couldn't.

"Going after a guy because he's popular is one thing," I deadpanned, "but wasting my time to go after a guy you don't even like is another thing entirely. Why don't you actually try to get to know a guy before you decide to go after him? You'll save yourself and myself a lot of trouble." I put my feet back on the desk and picked up my file. Unfortunately, my nails were all the same length. I exchanged the file for a buffer out of my pocket. "You're not in love with Uchari-san. In fact, I bet the only reason why you came to me about him is because your friends pestered you into it. Isn't that right?"

She hung her head. She nodded.

"Well, now that that's settled," I said, "please leave. Feel free to come back, but only after you go after a guy for more reasons than his popularity." I waved a hand at her. "Now shoo."

To her credit, Miss-Gets-What-She-Wants didn't argue, which surprised me. She just got up and left, face solemn. Obviously she was thinking about what I'd said. Good. She needed to.

I leaned my head back against the chalkboard. "Aye, me," I said, the soft scritch-scritch of my buffer breaking through the perfect quiet. Around me, the abandoned classroom seemed to hum with silence.

The door opened not a second after it closed behind Yoko.

"Hi," said my new client uncertainly. "Makoto Chiyo-san?"

I looked up to find a tall girl with short black hair, a slender figure, and light glasses standing in the doorway. My brain supplied a name in half a second—I'd seen her name atop some schoolwork when we passed papers to the front of the class, image etched indelibly into the fabric of my memory.

"And you must be Uzumari Hotaru-san," I said. Her eyes popped open in surprise, but I just waved my buffer at her. "Dude, we had chemistry together last year. How's senior year treatin' ya?"

She sat down in the chair in front of me, looking relieved. "Right. I forgot we had that class together. It's been such a long time; I'm surprised you remember me."

"I never forget a face," I said, shrugging. Or a name, or a birthday, or a blood type, or an anything, for that matter. Hell, I know every last student ID number in this goddamn school.

"So I've heard. People say you know everything."

I laughed. "Not everything. Just enough to make people sweat."

She laughed, too, then sobered.

"There's something I need to know," she said.

I raised my hands to either side of my body, open. "I'm all ears, babe."

"I like a guy," she said. "I need to know if he likes me back before I make a confession."

"Are you talking about Akane Jun?"

Her jaw dropped, to my extreme satisfaction, and then she looked suspicious. "How did you know?" she asked in a low voice.

"Don't look so surprised. You two are always together in the halls." I shrugged, examining my shiny, just-buffed nails with satisfaction.

"B-but to notice something like that about a person you don't even hang out with..." She trailed off when she saw my steely stare, but she did not back down. "So it's true, then? You're eidetic?"

"Yup. Comes in handy with a job like mine." I jabbed my buffer at her. "But enough about me. Let's talk about you. How much do you like Akane-san?"

She visibly stiffened. Seems she was a bit subtler about her emotions than Yoko…

"A lot, I'm guessing," I surmised. "So tell me. What would you say if I said that someone else has come to me about Akane-san?"

Hotaru went as still as a corpse. I didn't let myself smile, even though I chortled on the inside. Time to play a little joke—the punchline of which she was sure to enjoy.

"Now answer my first question," I continued. "How much do you like him?"

It took her a while to say something. "And does my answer determine if you'll help me or not?"

I just grinned.

"Well, then," she said, and paused.

That pause spoke volumes. Ooh, this was juicy. I stayed quiet, trying not to show my interest on my face.

"I think," she said, swallowing down her nerves, "I would tell you, if you told me that another girl was interested in Jun, that I would let her have him if he liked her more than he liked me."

I stopped buffing my nails.

"I want him to be happy," she explained. She looked both radiant and borderline sick at once. "And if his happiness meant not having him as my boyfriend, I guess..." She shrugged. "Sorry, that sounded like something out of a sappy drama, I know."

I shook my head, smiling. "Mmm. I'll help you."

"...what?"

"I said I'll help you."

Hotaru didn't seemed to buy it. "You mean you're gonna abandon the other girl just like that?"

I wagged my buffer at her. "Ah, but I never said there was another girl, now did I? I just asked you what you'd say if there was another girl."

Her mouth fell open again. I chuckled.

"Yeah, I pull that trick on most girls. To check if they're sincere or not, ya know? It makes some of them mad, but in the end it helps me weed out the ones looking for attention or the girls who are just after the popular guys." I rolled my eyes. "One of them just left, actually, and stop looking so shocked. You passed my little test, for what it's worth." I leaned back on my chair, front legs lifting off the floor. "Oh, and yeah: he likes you back. It's pretty obvious."

She blinked, smile breaking like slow dawn across her cheeks. She covered her mouth and ducked her head, eventually lifting her eyes to meet mine. Her smile morphed into an uncertain frown.

"But..." she said.

I scowled. "But what?"

"It's just," she said, swallowing, "that this was so... easy."

"What, you were expecting a questionnaire?"

"Well...kind of, yeah? An explanation of my relationship with Akane, at least."

The flabbergasted look on her face made me smirk. "I'm eidetic, remember? I remember everything. The way Akane looks at you is no exception." I motioned to the door. "You can go if you want. You got what you came for."

She stood up. "Do I owe you anything?"

My finger drummed against my chin. "I usually charge for my time, but in your case, just spread the word about my little business and I'll consider us straight." I laughed. "I didn't do any work, after all. Just noticed stuff."

Grateful, elated, anxious—that's what I read in her pretty oval face. "Thank you," she said. "I mean it."

I tipped an imaginary hat her way. "Welcome. I wish you every happiness."

More clients surged in over the course of the next two hours. Boys and girls looking to put their crush's name in my Match Box walked away hopeful and optimistic; I didn't have the heart to tell any of them that the odds of having a match reciprocated via the Match Box were never very good. If indeed a boy submitted the name of a girl who had previously submitted his name, or vice versa, there was fanfare and more than enough positive publicity to send a surge of hopefuls in my direction, but the Match Box gimmick wasn't what I was known for. Rather, lonely people (many rejects of the Match Box who never had their crushes reciprocated) trusted me to choose for them another lonely person who could be more than just a Saturday night blind date. My matches had an almost perfect success rate. Using my keen eye for observation (and instant memorization of student files thanks to my eidetic memory) I was able to pair people up with great partners whose sparks didn't fizzle out the way most teen romances did.

One of my first couples—two high school students I had matched as a middle schooler, still a fledgling to the game of love but showing a knack for it regardless—was still together, even after weathering a long-distance relationship during their college years. I'd received an engagement announcement at the beginning of my final high school year, and I'd pinned it to my bulletin board as proof of my service's legitimacy. I can't tell you how many of my classmates had fawned over that thing when I first put it up. Speaking of which...

"I should probably call a meeting soon," I said to myself during a lull in the customer flow. "Hosting this in the schoolyard would suck."

I set up shop after school (from school's end to six in the evening, day in and day out except for weekends) in an empty classroom. According to school administration, a club used this classroom during those hours. The club, however, was nothing more than a front for my business. I asked some of my most satisfied couples to sign up for the club so I could have a proper place to matchmaker, and with their names (given as willing payment for my services) on a petition I had started Psychology Club. I had to host little meetings with those couples from time to time to appease the faculty, but otherwise I was pretty much in control of things. It was a real improvement from lurking in a seldom-used PE equipment shed, gotta tell you.

By the time I was ready to wrap up for the day and go home, I had completely trimmed and smoothed the nails on my right hand and I was just about done with my left. I had just packed my file and buffer into my pocket when she walked in. Without a word she sat in the client's chair, knees pressed tight together and hands folded demurely in her lap. She looked bored, mostly, but under that I sensed something else: coiled tenseness, a goal, and maybe a touch of nerves if I read her right. I couldn't be sure, though. She had a face like a mask, except for the eyes.

The eyes burned, with a smoldering fury of which only the living are capable.

"What can I do for you?" I asked. I knew her face, but her name came slowly: Ojuro Saiyuri. I didn't know much about her, excepting what I had seen on her student information sheet. The realization that I knew nothing of her personal life irked me. It was my job to know.

She didn't say anything, but her eyes appraised me the way a butcher judges a piece of meat. With a start I realized something, something I did not like: Ojuro Saiyuri intimidated me, and she hadn't even said a word. I was not accustomed to that.

To comfort myself, I focused on what I did know. My hand snuck into my pocket and brought out my emery board as I conjured a mental snapshot of her school info sheet. Ojuro Saiyuri, class A-1, blood type A, only contact listed was her father. Birthday, December 1. Height, 170 centimeters. Weight, 54 kilograms. Grades above average and counselor's note just said 'quiet.' A real enigma all right.

I studied her, matching her stoicism with my own as I absentmindedly filed my thumbnail. Long black hair to her elbows, stringy and in need of a wash, cut with little style (probably by herself, if the uneven bangs were any indication), uniform skirt hanging well past her knees, no makeup, no jewelry, quiet shoes, a bookbag with no key chains or distinguishing marks...in fact, the only noticeablethings about her were her eyes dark charcoal gray that bordering on burnished silver. Everything else appeared...ordinary. Nerdy. Like she had never cared about her looks or popularity or boys before in her life.

With that in mind, I could think of no reason for her being in my presence.

Maybe even ice queens got the hots now and then? I suppressed a smirk at the thought. I conjured every unforgettable memory that included her in it, and none of them showed her with any sort of friend—let alone and boyfriend or girlfriend—in the picture. That dried up my joke real quick, and when she spoke it shriveled up and vanished altogether.

"I need your help," she said in a low, scratchy voice.

"I figured," I told her.

She did not seem to get the sarcasm, but if she did she did a hell of a good job not showing it.

"I want to know everything about an individual at this school," she said. Her stiff and formal manner of speaking made me think of Victorian movies acted by robots. "I was told that you excelled at such affairs."

"You were told right, Ojuro-san."

A ripple passed over her features.

"Class A-1, right?" I said, feeling better now that I was intimidating her.

"Correct," she said, face retreating into smoothness. "I see the rumors were true, then."

I shifted in my seat, sliding my feet farther onto the desk and my butt further down into my chair. I was using the teacher's empty table, of course—it looked better for business if I seemed like I was in a position of power.

"You're a crass girl with an eye for detail and information," Saiyuri went on. "You can read people well, using your eidetic memory to analyze personalities, and you don't take kindly to being played. Your likes include fashion and your own fingernails—" she glanced at my hands "—and you dislike social climbers."

"We're not here to talk about me," I said. "We're here to talk about you. What do you want?"

"Your help, of course," she said, speaking as if to a small child. "I believe I already told you that."

"Can't help if I don't know what you want," I snapped—and then I had to suppress a curse. Don't lose your cool, Chiyo. Keep it professional.

Saiyuri's lips pursed. "I see your point. Allow me to cut to the chase." She leaned forward, eyes still full of glacial chill. "I want to know everything—and I mean everything—about Minamino Shuichi."

The emery board slipped from my fingers and fell into my lap. I stared at her, stricken, and picked it up again. But I did not continue filing.

"I don't do Minamino," I said coldly.

She smiled without showing her teeth. "I had a feeling you would say that."

"Then why'd you even come here?" I said, not bothering to hide the venom in my tone.

"Because you're the best. And because I need your help."

I started filing again, viciously attacking my nails.

"Let me explain something," I growled, accidentally grinding the board into my skin. "I get roughly sixty clients a week, forty of which are girls. That's a little less than nine girls a day, and I'm not counting the Match Box people in those numbers, either. Most of the sixty in-persons are repeat customers who need to consult with me about a match I'm working on, but a quarter—an entire 25 percent of them!—come here asking me about Minamino fucking Shuichi." I looked up at Saiyuri, who didn't bat an eye even in the face of my most ferocious scowl. "I turn down each and every one of them, and do you know why?"

She didn't say anything.

"It's because he's just, not, interested, that's why." I waved the emery board in the air, punctuating my simmering anger with jabs and thrusts. "By my estimates, I've had at least 98 percent of this entire school come to see me or use the Match Box. The remaining two percent of people are either nerds so caught up in cram school they don't have time for a relationship, or are people who've had the same girlfriend since kindergarten. And one of the nerds I mentioned is none other than Minamino Shuichi." I pinned Saiyuri with a glare. "I don't force people into relationships, and he's never volunteered. Stop wasting my time with this."

"This is different," Saiyuri said, so softly I almost didn't hear her.

"Oh, I'm sure it is," I said, laughing with unchecked derision. "You and all the other ones asking about him say the same thing, that they're special or different or whatever, but guess what? You're not. None of you are. That guy has never opened up to anyone in his entire life and I don't think he wants to, either. He never makes friends, he never steps out of line, he has a perfect face and perfect grades, and he's never so much as taken a second glance at a girl that wasn't because she was standing in his goddamn way."

"This is different," Saiyuri repeated, tone stronger this time, "and you will help me."

"No, I won't." I shoved my file in my pocket and stood up, grabbing my bag from under the desk with shaking hands. The Minamino addicts never ceased to infuriate me. "If there's one thing I've learned in eight years of matchmaking, it's that that guy's a lost cause and you can't force love. Goodbye, and don't you dare come back to me with him in mind."

I got halfway to the door when she said the thing that stopped me.

"What if I'm not interested in love?"

I didn't turn around. "I don't do hookups."

"What if I'm not interested in sex?"

I turned. She stared at the desk in front of her.

"Call me dense, but what else is there?" I asked. "Friendship?"

"Never."

She voiced that word in whisper so deadly, so vehement and intense, it made me shiver. Her head moved just enough for our eyes to meet. They had not thawed one bit.

My mouth went dry. "Then what?" I said.

She stood up and turned my way.

"I need to know everything about him," she said. "My reasons are my own, and you will help me."

"No, I won't," I said for the second time. "You're in class A-1, right? So's Minamino. Just talk to him there, why don't you?"

"You will help me," she said, "if you want your secret to stay that way."

I laughed. "You trying to blackmail me?"

"I'm not trying anything," she said, disgust showing that I had insulted her.

"Oh, my bad," I chortled.

But then Saiyuri's eyes hit me like bullets, and my blood ran cold.

"I'm not trying to blackmail you," she said. "I amblackmailing you."

"You're not the first," I said, trying to speak lightly despite my growing unease. "What makes you think you know anything about me that could qualify as blackmail material?"

She inclined her head back and to one side. "I know your secret," she said.

"So do most people, if you're talking about my memory."

"I'm not," she said.

"Then what?" I asked, because there's no way she could know about the one possible thing she could use, and I'd been so careful—

"I've been watching you for a few weeks," she said. I raised an eyebrow. "I kept out of sight, however, because I knew you'd notice me following you."

"Oh, how clever," I said, mocking her.

"And as I watched you, I noticed one thing. You would have picked up on it faster, of course, but I do not have your genetic resources." She paused. "Pity. They would come in handy."

"Get to the point," I snapped.

"You avoid pools," she said, cutting to it, "even during PE at school on pool days, which most girls love. You always wear socks, even when it's hot. You never wear open-toes shoes, not even on weekends and despite your love of fashion." Her head tilted to the side; her eyes traveled down my body. "I read a psychology book on phobias and paranoia, just to be sure. I think you know what I'm getting at."

Her eyes settled on my feet.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said faintly, trying not to vomit.

"You do," she said, and then she smiled with her teeth. The shark from Jaws had nothing on her. "And rest assured, I will tell everyone about it if you refuse to help me get what I need."

My breathing hitched.

"You bitch," I said, calmly. "You utter, utter bitch."

Her shark-smile faded into mere pleasantness.

"It was nice doing business with you, Chiyo," she said, and she breezed past me into the hall. "I will see you tomorrow to discuss my plans."

I waited until the bitch was out in the hall to look at my fingernails.

They had all been filed to the quick.

Note:

This is an edited version of the first chapter. Posted 1/15/2019.

Chiyo: a hard-boiled detective mixed with a fashion magazine editor. Photographic memory. Short. Chestnut hair, trendy side-braid. Very particular about her nails. Foul-mouthed and short tempered.

Saiyuri: a cold-blooded mafia hitman mixed with a shark. The dame who walked into Chiyo's detective agency, if we want a noir metaphor—only this dame has an axe to grind that involves Shuichi Minamino. Little is known about her... yet. Tall, skinny, sullen, stringy hair.

Stay tuned...