"I'm curious!" The unofficial catchphrase of one Chitanda Eru echoed throughout the mostly empty room belonging to the current Classics Club. On the receiving end of this outburst, Oreki Houtarou bristled at the rather passive aggressive onslaught. Sighing in defeat, he backed away from the glittering eyes that currently captured seventy percent of his field of vision due to their proximity. He heard Satoshi and Ibara snicker to his left, he grumbled silently feeling as if doing otherwise would only waste energy.

Holding out his hand expectantly, Chitanda perked up considerably and rushed into her school bag to retrieve a single piece of paper. Handing it to him, he promptly sat down and studied the sheet. It was nothing of the sort that would have attracted his attention but he realized that the words written on it must have been like a beacon for Chitanda. Succumbing to the inevitable he scanned the paper.

It read:

This may not be

UUUU

C

Yourself

Yourself

Yourself

Yourself

If you

STAND

YOU

this, then this is a

Mary

+Mary

Of what we do.

RoMeetOm

321

Most certainly, this was a rather odd message to be found lying around the halls. Unless, of course, it wasn't. In any case, he'd have to decipher the code before he decided exactly how abnormal the paper was.

"Where did you say you found this Chitanda-san?" Oreki heard Satoshi ask and then quickly realized that the boy was leaning over his shoulder to look at the object of conversation.

The ever helpful Chitanda answered with a quick, "On the floor by the recycling bin" and afterwards Oreki diverted his attention back to the riddle. He figured if it was found by the recycling bin then in must have been intended to be thrown away. He wondered if possibly it was just a note, passed between another student, which had served its purpose and was thrown out. However, he knew that answer would neither satisfy Chitanda nor what he initially set out to do. In any case, figuring out what the note meant would most likely reveal its reason for existing.

"It's some kind of code," Ibara mused behind him to the left of Satoshi. Oreki found that much obvious, however, he wanted to know what the rest of the group thought before he began speculating so he listened to their theories.

"It looks like word puzzles to me." Chitanda said, "I'm just not sure how to solve them." Oreki waited for Satoshi to say what he, as the database, formed from the evidence so far.

Far from disappointed, Satoshi piped up, "Ah! They're Rebus puzzles!" He exclaimed. Taking the prodding silence as a sign he should continue he added, "They're like word puzzles that you solve based on how the words are arranged." Satoshi looked back down at the paper and read from the top "Let's see… the first line 'This may not be', is exactly as it is, next is…" he paused, the room was silent for a couple beats before Oreki spoke up.

The front tufts of hair firmly grasped in his hand he murmured, "'right for you'" He began working down the list systematically solving each of the puzzles which ended up being quite obvious once he understood the method to solving them, but then again, that's how everything worked.

"How do you figure that, Oreki?" Ibara asked breaking his train of thought. Oreki groaned removing his hand from his hair and resting it back on the table. He tapped a haphazard beat on to the wooden surface and turned to face the girl in question.

"The 'U's' are all the way on the right side of the page, there are four of them and 'U' is to the right, 'right four U'." He explained, "They're about how the words are positioned, remember, so it's significant that it's way on the far side of the page."

"'This may not be right for you'. Do they mean the note?" Chitanda queried, a dainty finger coming up to tap her chin in thought.

Oreki shrugged and continued on, "the 'C' and each 'yourself' are mostly centered so it probably isn't anything to do with where the words are on the page, but again there's more than just one since there are so many of 'yourself' so that's also important."

"Hmm there's four of them." Satoshi said, understanding the system, "four 'yourself' or I guess 'see for yourself'!" He shared. Oreki nodded in acceptance.

"The next one is easy," Oreki continued their momentum, "it's 'if you understand', the 'YOU' is under the 'STAND'."

Quietly, Ibara read aloud all that they had decoded so far, "This may not be right for you, see for yourself, if you understand this, then this is a". She ended abruptly and began thinking of what the next answer could be.

Unconsciously grabbing the same spot on his bangs, Oreki began to break the puzzle down into its pieces, "There is 'Mary' written twice. It's written as an addition problem. The answer is blank. Mary plus Mary. He thought trying to find the trick in the words. "The sum of Mary." He muttered quietly, "It's the sum of Mary, or rather 'the summary'."

"'This is the summary of what we do'," Chitanda read, "So these people must write or solve puzzles!" she offered. Oreki agreed and quickly confirmed it by reading of the last line.

"'Meet in room 321' since the word 'meet' is in the word 'room'. It must be some type of club."

"But then, why was it being thrown out?" Satoshi pondered, "Do you think the person reading it got frustrated and gave up by tossing it?"

Oreki shook his head, "Look at it, it's not crinkled at all," he gestured to the paper which indeed looked as if it had just been fresh out of the printer. "Also, why would they throw it in the recyclable bin? If they were really frustrated they wouldn't have went out of their way to go find something other than the trashcan."

"Maybe it was an accident," Ibara said, "It could have been hanging above the bin and fallen down sometime throughout the day which is also why it was on the floor."

"But there are no pin holes from where it could have been pinned to a bulletin board and there's no tape residue either." Oreki explained. "Chitanda-san," he then called, gaining said girl's attention, "You only saw one of these right? There were none in the bin or hanging up anywhere else were there?" He asked her, knowing that she would definitely remember such details as was in her nature.

She shook her head, "No this was the only one, why Oreki-san? Did you figure it out?" He question did little to hide her excitement.

Oreki only replied back with, "Maybe…" He paused collecting his thoughts, "Why would a club only print one copy of their notice? Wouldn't they want more than that to help get the word out better?" He asked, pointing out what was wrong about the scenario.

"Maybe it got separated from the other ones?" theorized Satoshi. Oreki nodded his head in agreement.

He let loose a quick sigh and then began to share his findings, "That's what I thought too. Then I noticed something else odd about this flyer." He gestured to the notice, "look, there's nothing else on here but the club's message. Think about it, what do all flyers that get hung up at school have in common?" He asked the group.

There was a short stretch of silence where each of the other occupants racked their brains for an answer until "A stamp!" Ibara proclaimed, "Every flyer hung up on the school's boards needs the student council's stamp of approval!"

"That's right," Chitanda agreed in realization, "but this one doesn't have it? Is that the reason it got taken down?" She asked.

"No, it was never hung up, none of these flyers have been and that's why we haven't seen them yet." Oreki began explaining. "This might be the only one we see but there are probably more."

"Really? Where are they?" Ibara questioned picking up the paper and examining it herself as if the answer would come to her that way.

Oreki expected that question and had his reply ready, "They're in the student council room, probably getting stamped so they can be hung up tomorrow." He allowed himself a breath before continuing, "The flyers must've been made today and on their way to deliver them to get approved one of them slid off the stack and landed where Chitanda-san found it. The recyclable bin isn't far from the door so it could have easily fallen while the student was walking out of class today."

He finished and then turned to face those ever curious violet eyes, "Chitanda-san, is there anyone you know in your class who is really into puzzles and word games?" he questioned her, "That is most likely the person who is advertising the club."

The girl thought for a couple of seconds before coming up with a possibility, "Yoshida-san is always carrying around a Sudoku book and I think I've heard her talking about the weekly crosswords, it must be her!" She smiled happily at the discovery.

Sensing the mystery had been solved to "Chitanda standards", Oreki took the flyer that was lying on the desk and handed it back to her. He let out a deep sigh showing the small bit of irritation for having to work out the puzzle in the first place and then rested his cheek against his palm.

Eyes shut trying to recover some of his lost energy he heard Chitanda express a soft but sincere "Thank you, Oreki-san." He didn't even have to open his eyes to know that she must have stood there with sparkling eyes and a lightly dusted blush, instead he allowed the tiniest of smiles to slip onto his face before letting the Classics Club slip back into a far more energy conservationist friendly environment.

It was bordering on evening and the club room was soaked with the orange glow provided by the sunset. Oreki and Chitanda were the last club members left as Satoshi and Ibara had left half an hour previously. Both sensing that now was a good time to head home they quickly gathered their things and headed for the exit.

On the walk home, the sun was on a steady decline as the pair approached the diverging path. Chitanda bid him farewell while Oreki offered up a slight wave, not feeling the energy to muster up a more suitable goodbye. He walked onwards instead, down the path so ingrained in his memory by now he knew the most optimal corners to cut and a backways to go down.

It was on one of these very same back ways that he was now currently trekking through. Knowing from experience the alleyway pass was a little hidden (and thus far less used as indicated by its rather unbecoming appearance) it still served to cut his walking time by at least three minutes. It was by far worth having to smell the dumpster trash for an easy shortcut home.

In hindsight, he should have noticed right away that the typical dumpster smell was far, far different than usual. In fact, how the scent didn't immediately sendoff warning bells in his mind was a difficult thing for Oreki to believe after the fact.

It just so happened that he remained blissfully unaware of his predicament until he quite literally fell into the mess. Tripping on a decidedly hidden pothole in the darkness trapped in between the brick walls, he didn't notice where he was heading until he'd already fallen. The sounds that invaded his ears were the first thing he discerned. Eye scrunched up in pain the sound came back to him with a sickening splat that sounded as if he'd landed in a puddle. The fact that it hadn't rained in three days didn't seem to matter either, he'd definitely landed in liquid.

The dark alleyway nearly blocked out all the sunlight, especially with the sun sitting on the horizon rather than at its zenith. However, none of that mattered, for when Oreki sat up he was finally graced with the presence of his returning senses.

The smell was like nothing he'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing. Thick copper like bitterness mingled with the salty scent of sweat and Oreki knew by then that this was no ordinary puddle he'd fallen into.

If the odor was bad however, it was by far ignored by the much worse feeling of the sticky serum trailing down his arms and legs, some even weaving its path through his hair. He cringed at the realization that this was far too big of a puddle.

Finally opening his eyes, but feeling an overwhelmingly hesitance to do so, he allowed all his senses to work as team. The first thing he notice was that this current place of residence was a darkening scarlet pool. He lifted his hand out of it and confirmed for certain that this substance running through his fingers was blood. Somebody else's blood. And a lot of it. Before the thought sunk in, he continued to sit there, unable to process exactly what the situation he was in really meant. The ease of putting together information that once gifted his brain seemed to have taken a vacation.

It wasn't until the rather human shaped lump made it into his line of sight that he finally snapped out of his daze. Quickly getting up, nearly slipping in the pool of scarlet, (much too dark a color, he mused in a detached manor) Oreki clumsily rushed toward to the figure. Once he was close enough to make out the detailed features he realized it was a girl. Ignoring anything else he might observe in favor of checking her pulse he quickly reached an arm forward. His hand brushed along her neck, fumbling a bit with the placement out of sheer inexperience. He waited with baited breath, thinking that maybe his hand just wasn't in the right place.

Moving it up and down a couple more times, pressing his fingers desperately against the woman's neck, inevitably he came to the conclusion in abject revulsion. A conclusion that he knew all along, from the moment the pungent odor invaded his nose. This woman was dead.

He wasn't quite certain how to react, in fact he was almost certain that the emotional part of his brain had yet to catch up to the rational side. That aside, he still knew what he had to do. Pulling out his cellphone, not caring about the blood that was seeping its way into the electronics crevices, he dialed the police.

It rang only once until the sound of an urgent yet not unkind voice fill his ears, "110 what's your emergency?" It was phrased like a question but spoken like a demand.

Oreki only wasted a second to inhale a breath before answering, "There's been a murder."


A/N: So this is just a little something I cooked up. Yes I realize the Rebus puzzle is kinda lame but really the little mysteries that the anime focuses on isn't what I wanted to write about. That aside, I just wanted to post this to see what kind of reception it got, I can't say I'm really going to dedicate myself to it all the much because, well, I'm pretty much traveling around all summer but I will write when I can.