A/N: Hahaaa totally took inspiration from the American Girl Mini Mysteries series for some of the stuff in here. I read through those books so much when I was a kid :3

Ten Days Left

"Kanji-chan!"

"What, Ma?"

"You should get going now! It's ten minutes before ten!"

Kanji sat up in bed instantly. His mom must have been playing a joke on him. He set an alarm last night to go off at ten minutes to nine, not ten, and daylight saving time didn't start for another month if he remembered correctly. What was the saying, "spring forward, fall back"? It wasn't spring at all; it was still January and definitely still winter, if the light dusting of snow on the ground outside said anything.

He looked at the alarm clock next to the futon, and saw 9:51 AM staring back at him, without a sign of emotion or remorse.

Shit.

Two minutes later, he was running out the front door, holding a container full of leftovers. His mother had insisted that he bring along what was left of dinner last night as exchange for not having enough time for breakfast.

The Samegawa flood plain was ten minutes away by walking, but if he ran as fast as he possibly could, Kanji could probably make it there in the seven minutes he had.

Breaking out into a run, he must have bumped into at least three people, but thankfully not anyone he knew really well.

"Hi, Kanji-kun!"

Never mind.

"Uh, hey, Yukiko-senpai!" He chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head, still using the old honorific from high school. "Listen, I kinda have to be somewhere, and I –"

"It's been so long!" Yukiko said, laughing the way she always did. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Kanji said, "If ya don't mind, I really need to go now..."

Yukiko's eyes widened. "We should hang out sometime! Chie's coming to visit next week, we should all catch up!"

As if he wasn't already late enough. "Yeah, that'd be great. Um, I'm kinda busy for the next two weeks, starting right now, so I'd better go!" At least he wasn't lying.

"Oh," Yukiko said, "Then I'll see you later?"

Kanji was too busy running to respond. In that conversation, he'd probably lost a minute that he should have spent running. Now there was no way he'd make it on time. Hopefully Naoto would understand.

After almost sprinting for a few minutes, he arrived at the Samegawa at 10:01. Not bad, considering he woke up ten minutes earlier.

"I was wondering when you were going to get here." Naoto was sitting on a bench, holding a book and what seemed like about twenty pencils.

"Ah, about that..." Kanji chuckled. "My alarm didn't go off and I woke up ten minutes ago."

"Mistakes happen," Naoto said. Despite what she said about not being late yesterday, she seemed surprisingly calm about it. "You may just have to get more work done on your own time."

"Dammit, Naoto! You never said there was going to be homework!"

"I also never said that there wasn't going to be homework. Do you want to prepare for next weekend or not?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Then you may have to put in more effort than you initially thought."

"Fine."

Naoto held out one of her pencils to Kanji and opened the book to the first page.

"What's this?" Kanji asked, "The damn homework?"

"Yes, essentially, but it's more than that." Naoto smiled fondly. "I used to read this all the time when I was younger."

Kanji looked at the book. The first page was filled with a collage of brightly colored shapes, and read "The Hundred Cases of Kenta Morimoto" on the top. Naoto had written her name in huge letters on the bottom of the page. "How long have you had this?"

"I believe I was six or seven when I first received it." Naoto chuckled. "I probably went through this book around thirty times by the time I turned eleven. There is definitely some valuable information in these pages." She flipped through the pages, briefly staring at the pictures littered across them. "It may seem a little childish, but it works well for learning the basics."

"What's the book about?"

"It's more of a workbook, if we need to get technical about it. The basic premise is that Kenta Morimoto is an eleven-year-old boy who solves little 'cases' in his hometown." Naoto turned to the back cover of the book and read aloud, "'Need help finding a lost puppy or getting to the bottom of a fight between friends? Kenta Morimoto is always there!' It's more of a community service task than an actual case, but the point is still there." She turned back to the second page. "Care to try solving one?"

"Not like I have a choice," Kanji said, taking the book and sitting down on the bench. There was a picture of a little boy – he guessed that was Kenta Morimoto himself – sitting in a bed, looking an alarm clock, reading 7:52. There was an exclamation point over Kenta's head and his eyes were widened in shock. The title of the case was "The Faulty Alarm". Kanji sure knew what that felt like.

"'Kenta Morimoto's summer vacation was lots of fun,'" Naoto read, "'But school starts again tomorrow and he has to set his alarm. In order to get to school on time, he has to set his alarm for 7:00 AM. He starts at midnight, and presses the button to skip an hour, to 1:00, 2:00, et cetera. He starts going so fast that he skips 7:00, but decides to keep going around until 7:00 appears again and goes to bed. The next day, he wakes up at 7:52 AM.'" She looked at Kanji expectantly. "So?"

"Dammit," Kanji said, "Did ya choose this just cause I was late?"

"No," Naoto said, "But it is a nice coincidence."

Kanji furrowed his eyebrows and looked back at the book. He didn't know where to begin. Who gave a shit about this Kenta kid anyway? He sure as hell didn't. Everything looked normal about this. So what if Kenta had slept in? Kanji had done the same thing this morning.

"Do you require my assistance? You do look confused."

Naoto was looking up at him, the concern showing in the frown on her face and her widened eyes.

Was he really that bad at this that she needed to ask that before a minute had even gone by?

"I could give you a hint," Naoto continued, "If that would help you."

"Yeah." Kanji had officially surrendered. There was no way he could do this on his own.

Naoto nodded and scooted ever closer to him on the bench. "The clock doesn't go backwards, so Kenta loops back around to the next 7:00."

"I get that! I just don't know where to go with it!"

"Don't get frustrated, you are fully capable of solving this." It was a surprise that she thought he could handle this, even though he really couldn't. In the years they had known each other, Kanji never would have expected Naoto to be this optimistic.

"Hell, no," Kanji said, "I can't get anything out of this!"

"Kanji." Naoto looked right at him. "How many hours are there in a day?"

"Twenty-four. Everyone knows that." Did that mean anything? Was she just messing with him? But she wouldn't do that, would she?

"That's all you need to know," Naoto said, "Think about it for a few minutes." She smiled. "Maybe it will also tell you something about why you were late."

"Will you just let that go already?"

"Punctuality is very important."

Kanji sighed and looked back down at the book. How did twenty-four hours matter? Every day had twenty-four hours.

Would the answer come to him if he did nothing but stare at the damn book for ten minutes?

Probably not.

However, he probably could do this with a little thinking.

Kenta had to wake up at 7:00 on the dot. But he didn't. Just like Kanji had to wake up at 8:50. But he didn't.

It wasn't like there was much of a connection between him and this Kenta guy.

Or was there?

The best way to go about it was to retrace his steps earlier this morning, if there was a connection. This probably wasn't the correct way to do it, but he was used to breaking the rules. How was this any different?

He had woken up after his alarm was supposed to go off – almost exactly an hour afterward, because he was lucky enough not to have slept in any later.

The red flashing numbers of 9:52 AM came back to him as he remembered shooting right out of bed, and -

Wait.

9:52 AM.

Holy shit, he just hit the jackpot.

"Yes!" Kanji shouted, a lot louder than he intended to.

"I assume you have an answer?" Naoto asked.

"Yeah," Kanji said, "So Kenta wanted to wake up at 7:00, yeah? That's 7:00 AM. Am I getting it?"

"Yes, actually," Naoto said, "Please continue. You are definitely on the right track."

"I got this." Kanji grinned. "If he starts at midnight, the first 7:00 he gets to is 7:00 AM. If he skips that, he goes around the clock again to get to the next 7:00, which is 7:00 PM, which means the alarm goes off at 7:00 at night!"

"Nicely done," Naoto said, "I told you that you would do well."

"And I probably should have listened to ya."

"Was it that difficult?"

"Nah, not really, once I got it."

"See?" Naoto smiled. "You do have an affinity for this after all."

"And ya think that's what happened with my clock. I set it for 8:50 PM instead of 8:50 AM."

"Precisely."

"Dammit, you think of everything."

"That's my job."

"Right."

Naoto flipped a few pages forward in the book. "We can do a few of the harder 'cases' here, together, but it would be good practice for you to read through this by Friday." She chuckled. "As far as homework goes, this is pretty tame."

"Sure." Kanji crossed his arms and sat back against the bench. "If you say so."

"How about you give this one a try?" Naoto pointed to another page. "This one was always my favorite when I was around eight." This seemed like the case focusing on the missing puppy the back cover mentioned, as the picture showed Kenta chasing a small dog through a street.

"Mmkay." Kanji's narrowed in concentration.

"If you don't mind." Naoto looked at the picture with a smile. "I'd like to work through this puzzle as well."

"Good," Kanji said, "I'm gonna need the help."

"Then we can work on it together," Naoto said, "I can show you my method of working through problems like this, and I do have the story memorized."

"Really?"

"I read through it many times as a kid."

"Yeah."

Naoto smiled and began to read aloud again. "'Kenta's next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ishiyama, has a dog named Ichigo...'"