On the rooftop, all that the detective trio noticed was a grey water bucket, in which they found a white piece of cloud-shaped post-it blank on both sides.
"The clue… only comes out… when 'it rained'." Nico uttered between her puffs. "Would it mean… the paper has to get wet… for some sort of chemical ink to show? That would explain the bucket's existence."
"But if it wasn't, the wet paper would deform and the clue might be damaged." Mitsuki reasoned with a furrow.
Nico was becoming impatient since sweat was streaming down her dark pink cheeks from her pale forehead.
"The sunlight is burning hot." She leaned against the wall next to the door and stated in an annoyed tone. "Now that we've found what we need, we can just go straight back to the club activity room and think over it."
As they returned to the club activity room, Umi and Mitsuki handled the clues they had obtained while Nico was trying to operate the electric fan. When she successfully turned it on, she knelt contentedly before the heavenly source of cool wind and let the air current lift the sweated bangs off her face.
"So what are we supposed to do with the cloud?" Mitsuki asked.
"Here." Umi said as she scrutinized the cloud-shaped post-it under the fluorescent light. "There are imprints on the paper."
Nico jumped when she heard the new possible clue. Her flying bangs instantly fell and stuck onto her forehead. Umi picked up the pencil (a.k.a. magic wand) they found at the tree.
"That explains."
Umi gently shaded the post-it with the let's-call-it-magic-wand. A white message gradually emerged within the graphite shades.
x^2 – 2x = 2y + 3x - 4
10x – y + 2 = 0
y = ?
Nico dropped at the moment she saw math.
"So 'rain' doesn't imply water. What it suggests is to turn it into a grey raining cloud, and the pencil exists as the magic wand that helps do the trick." Umi concluded. "I see. It makes sense."
"Help, Umi… help…" all Nico cared was to escape from the serial killer of her grades.
"You ought to face it, Nico. Avoidance is detrimental in the long run." Umi rejected her senior's request and lectured, switching the hierarchies between them. "The designer of this game appears to be doing you good. Do you recall how your math grades almost terminated your idol activity and how the other μ's members had to help the three of you with your studies?"
The traumatic experience with Nozomi's Washi Washi Max punishment made Nico feel a pair of phantom hands around her chest.
"Nico, do you prefer begging Nozomi for computer use?" Umi provoked in a soldier-like tone.
"Hell no!" Nico answered immediately.
"Are you trying to get a ticket to A-RISE's live?"
Nico grabbed her pen and glared at the equations with a pair of determined ruby eyes. As she demanded her latent intelligence to awake, she poked her forehead with the upper end of her pen and bit her dry lips. When a flash of thought struck her, she made an attempt in simplifying the equations. Looking at the result, she forced a smile. She then added something but quickly crossed them out. Her brain got stuck and she started tapping the table with a finger. Soon, her mind went blank and she dropped her pen.
"I don't know what's going on…" she braced her head and mumbled hopelessly.
Seeing the chaos on Nico's notebook, Umi gave the sigh of a frustrated teacher. She took Nico's pen and guided the confused girl step by step. It seemed magic to Nico that Umi transformed the mess into understandable components. Nico was encouraged - she tried to work on her own as the other two quietly observed her seriously thoughtful face. She seemed to be on the right track and soon derived some answers.
"Is it right?" Nico asked her two juniors. She crossed her fingers and swallowed saliva as Umi and Mitsuki were checking her solutions.
"Yes." The two second-years exchanged eye contact and said unanimously.
Nico jumped up joyously and gave the two a big hug. Umi chuckled lightly at her senior's childlike display of joy.
"So the second part of the password is two five two." Nico jotted it down on her notebook said. "Okay, we have to find the –" she took a glance of the clue sheet, "the 'unstable bridge of darkness and light'."
"Is there any bridge?" Umi gazed out of the window and asked.
"I don't see any." Mitsuki shrugged and replied. "I only recall the covered walkway near the tree we went, but it doesn't seem unstable."
"Um… we can just walk around and see if there's any bridge-like stuff around. You know – considering Nozomi's weird logic, a bridge might not be a bridge."
The detective trio explored the quiet corridors. As they walked past the music room an idea came to Nico's mind. She tried to open the door and succeeded.
"Hey, we can look through the windows to see if there's any unrecognized bridge." She suggested.
They entered the music room and gazed out of the windows. Beyond the glass were part of the school's structure, trees, benches, some small plants and the ground. No bridge.
"Oh." Umi spoke. "Isn't a bench similar to a bridge in terms of structure and function? Both are flat and have the purpose of supporting people."
"It's sounds reasonable…" Mitsuki remarked with a slight frown, "but wait, are those benches unstable? If so it would become one of the Student Council's concerns."
"But in what ways are those benches related to 'darkness and light'?" Nico questioned.
Umi looked down and organized her thoughts, but she failed to come up with a valid argument. Nico sat on the piano bench with her legs crossed and sighed. She unconsciously rested her elbow on the grand piano beside her.
"Eh?"
The detective trio uttered in unison as they noticed the resting piano. Nico lifted the keyboard lid, and on the keyboard of lustrous black and white keys, she found a slip of paper that said "clue".
"I feel I've never understood language…" Nico's comment.
Umi hid herself in the shade of the nearest corner.
"I bear the same feeling." She mumbled, flinching at the critical hit in her confidence as a lyricist.
Mitsuki came close to Umi. She held the Umi's arm with the other hand on the bluenette's shoulder to comfort her depressed companion. Nico on the other hand was reading the paper. The slip seemed to be half of a piece of paper torn out from a notebook. It was a small excerpt of a music score with only nine bars. It was colorful with notes of different colors.
"F… A… C… E…" she muttered, trying to understand the score. "Wait, which key?"
Score reading had not been an easy task for Nico who had no experience in learning classical instruments. Her brief knowledge in music theory acquired in school didn't make any significant contribution.
"Hey," Nico asked the two, "What's the song key when there are four sharps?"
Umi turned her head to Nico and looked at her with dull eyes.
"Hey Umi –" Nico approached the hiding girl worriedly. "It's alright, you're just too sensible to understand nonsense!" As if trying to comfort a child, Nico patted Umi's shoulder and attempted to rescue the lyricist's vanishing confidence.
The trio (basically Umi and Mitsuki) then studied the score and together figured out the note names and sol-fa names of the musical notes involved.
"Shall we play the song?" Mitsuki clapped her hands and proposed.
None took action. The three non-pianists stared helplessly at the still piano and at one another, waiting for someone to speak or volunteer.
"Actually it's not like I've no idea how to play the piano." Nico broke the awkward silence unwillingly. "A certain redhead has taught me a bit of the basics."
She pressed on the E above middle C.
"At least I can remember which key's which. Lemme see, E, then B, and B…"
"The password should contain twelve characters, right?" Umi said, reading the instruction slip. "We've found three at the alpaca shelter and three from the math, so there should be six left."
"What about that?" Nico asked.
"I just had a sudden thought that color might be part of the clue." Umi made her point. "Color was a hint at the alpaca shelter, which makes me wonder if it applies to this case."
"Now that you talk about color…" Nico said crossing her arms with eyes closed, resembling a contemplating detective. "It's quite unnatural that only the musical notes are in colored gel pen while the rest is drawn in pencil. The score could've been drawn in pencil alone."
"Exactly. Since there are six characters left, I guess we're expected to find six notes of the same color and employ their note names in the password."
"Yup, sounds reasonable." Nico crossed her arms and responded in agreement.
Though they found three sets of same-colored sextet.
"Red, purple and orange – is there any relationship among these colors?"
"This looks suspicious – "
Mitsuki who had been wandering around when the two talked found a folded piece of paper lying on the windowpane. Unfolded, the paper seemed a part of the score sheet as their tears matched. A message was revealed.
"The secret to the spell shall appear when the grey castle is turned upside down."
"What? – Oh wait, was the bucket grey?"
"Oops – I didn't pay too much attention to it." Mitsuki said.
"It was –" Umi confirmed.
"So you're asking me to go all the way up again just to take a look at the bucket?" Nico exclaimed with a grimace. She was on the edge of crying but she forced herself not to surrender to her negative emotions. "Argh – I hate this!"
She ran off grudgingly.
Nico struggled to climb up the series of staircases. Luckily, they were not as physically demanding as the one at Otokozaka – where the μ's members often had fitness training. However Nico's long-sleeved sweater and uniform were hindrances to her under the summer heat. The weight of sweat and heat was hauling her down and she longer had the strength for going against the resistance – she stopped on the third floor, lay against the wall and slid down as lactic acid pulled her legs towards gravity. As she sat, an invisible current of heat escaped from within her head. She panted, inhaling warm air and exhaling warmer breaths. The acute feeling of her heart beating the inside of her left chest discomforted her. To distract herself from her physical exhaustion, she rolled her misted eyes and stared at the aged ceiling, which was then blocked by a blue shadow.
"Nico, are you all right?" the blue-haired girl knelt before her and asked worriedly. She then offered the exhausted girl a bottle of water. Nico hesitated, thanked her and had a gulp of the cool water. "Perhaps you might want to wash your face?"
Nico touched her inflamed cheeks that had become sticky with heavy sweat. She listened to Umi's suggestion and visited the nearest washroom. While standing at the staircase waiting for Nico, Umi heard footsteps from the other staircase. Footsteps themselves were nothing abnormal, but as the footsteps ceased, no one appeared from the staircase. Umi wondered – if that person had intended to come up, she should have entered Umi's sight – but it was impossible that the person was going downwards, as Umi had not seen anyone else on the floor since she had come to Nico. Before Umi could think of an explanation, Nico was back from the washroom.
"It helped." Nico said, her face less red. "But I just can't get rid of the heat..."
"I suggest that you take your cardigan off." Umi advised, putting the suspicious footsteps aside.
"Come on, who doesn't know?" Nico countered. She then explained matter-of-factly. "But don't forget, I'm an idol. An idol shouldn't let fans see her sweated shirt or else her image – "
"Take it off." Umi took a step forward and commanded with a stern glare.
Under the shade of the taller girl's ghostly figure, Nico shrieked and immediately took off her cardigan. Her short-sleeved shirt was indeed soaked with sweat and the fabric had become translucent.
"Man… can you try not to sound like a pervert?" Nico complained half-jokingly, and without waiting for a reply from the puzzled junior, she hung her cardigan over her shoulders and mounted the stairs. It was then Umi realized how wrong her forceful persuasion had sounded.
Nico's face was already twitching when she reached the top of the building. She panted from the fatiguing run and supported herself against the wall. She saw through thin vapor Umi arrive. The blue-haired girl had a few sweat drops on her forehead but she breathed as if she was sauntering in a garden. She elegantly wiped her sweat off with a handkerchief and looked at Nico who seemed to have run a marathon. The drained senior inhaled deeply and forced her tremulous legs towards the bucket. She knelt, turned the bucket over and found a small pink musical note sticking onto the bottom of the bucket.
"It's pink, right?" Nico edgily asked for Umi's verification.
"Yes, it is –"
"Argh, never mind!" Nico impatiently took the bucket and ran desperately for the exit. "There's no way I'm gonna come back anymore!"
They left the rooftop and walked hurriedly down the stairs. Towards the end of the stairs, a student emerged from Nico's blind spot. Luckily Nico managed to come to a halt before bumping into the taller girl, though her hand had already collided with the other student's arm.
"Don't run around! You're breaking school rules!" the blonde scolded with a serious frown.
"Eli?"
"N – Nico?" Eli's stern face turned into a surprised one. "Umi… What are you two doing here?"
"Oh, we're in a hurry." Nico remembered the detective game. "Talk to you later!"
She half-ran off.
"I apologize for the trouble we've caused, Eli." Umi bowed to Eli and said.
"Um…" Eli rolled her eyes and said in an awkward tone. "Just try not to run okay?" She then darted her gaze elsewhere. "Sorry, I'm a bit busy at the moment. See you later, Umi!"
Seeing Eli walk hurriedly off, Umi remembered the detective game and chased Nico – who had already returned to the music room with the bucket. Nico put the bucket aside and read the score sheet again to find two pink notes in the fifth bar. Slowly, she attempted to play the music note by note. She shifted focus between the score and the keyboard and cautiously poked each key to ensure she could follow the score. Umi entered the room and stood silently beside Mitsuki who was apparently clueless about the song. When Nico completed the fourth bar, she stopped and became lost in thoughts.
"Good piece." Mitsuki complimented.
"Is there a problem, Nico?" Umi asked, observing a sign of surprise on Nico's face.
Nico opened her mouth slightly, shut it, switched her focus back onto the keyboard and continued to play the music. With her index finger sustaining the last note, she stood in the remaining echoes with a knowing face.
"I think I know it." Without jotting down anything on her notebook, she ran off.
As Nico had dashed back to the club activity room she snatched the seat before of the computer. In the login bar, she entered "722252banzai".
"You gotta be right –" Nico anxiously muttered and pressed "enter".
Loading. Nico yelled, raised her lower legs and put two Nico Nico Nii hands up into the air.
"Umi, Mitsuki, we got it! Thanks so much, you two have saved my life!"
As Nico turned to her back with high-five hands ready, her anticipation faded in the emptiness of the room. Her arms slowly dropped, and she turned back to the computer screen with dull eyes. When she was making a mental note to thank the second-years later, her mind was distracted by the unfamiliarly cute wallpaper before her. The screen displayed a nicely drawn picture with nine cute girls in costumes. Nico immediately recognized the costumes as those from Korekara No Someday, the first song she performed as a member of μ's. She found the girl in black pigtails standing in the middle with a blissful smile, surrounded by eight other smiling girls. Nico then noticed the large words shown on the other screen -
The side door was opened forcefully with a sudden bash. Petrified, Nico turned to her left to find two orange shadows advance in high speed towards her. Before she could figure out what was happening, the passionate duo had dragged her into the other side of the club activity room and placed her on a chair in the middle of the room. Nico sat dumbfounded, barely able to process in her brain the bombardment of external stimuli – the colorfully drawn blackboard, the delicate cake, the birthday song sung by her fellow μ's members, the dizziness in her head when the orange-haired duo were shaking her from her back, the wallpaper she had seen that said "Happy Birthday Nico"… and many other details.
"Make a birthday wish, Nico-chan~" Kotori told Nico with an angelic smile.
Nico stared at the cheesecake that was presented in front of her. There were nine lit candles on it – to be more exact, it was eight colorful candles surrounding the pink candle at the center. Nico closed her eyes, mentally stated her wish and blew off the candles. Her unrealistic feeling had not subsided with the others' applause.
"Idiot, did you just forget about your birthday?" Maki asked in a nonchalant tone.
"Yeah, I did…" Nico uttered in the remains of her astonishment.
Rin was clinging onto Nico's back while Honoka was waving her hands in front of Nico to catch the club president's attention.
"Wait – so Umi, you knew it?" Nico turned to her detective companion and questioned.
"No, I didn't," Umi answered calmly, "and sorry, I hadn't known it was your birthday. It was when you were leaving the music room for the club activity room that Mitsuki informed me of their birthday surprise plan."
"So Mitsuki knew everything?" Nico was even more surprised.
The short-haired Student Council member showed up with a video camera in hand.
"I'm sorry, Yazawa-senpai~" she said without genuine guilt. "Eli-senpai and Nozomi-senpai sought me for help so I was there to assist you in playing the game. But they didn't tell me everything, just some tips like where they hid the clues. I have to say – you two are smart! I didn't mention a hint!"
"You're willing to help with such a troublesome plan?" Nico asked with a sarcastically curious face.
"They promised to treat me dinner at a dumpling restaurant so it's totally worth the effort!" Mitsuki explained in a blissful tone with eyes gazing at her wonderful envisagement. "And I got to know more about our school idols! Look, I've become your fan, Yazawa-senpai!"
Nico had not expected to hear that.
"Nico Nico Nii!" in response, she did her signature gestures to Mitsuki. "Thank you for being my fan, Mitsuki! Nico-nii will do my best in becoming a super idol and making you feel proud of yourself for being my fan!"
"Thank you!" Mitsuki said with glowing eyes. "I should keep what happened among us a secret or else the other fans would be so jealous of me!"
Nico pointed her fist at Mitsuki and beamed to her. Mitsuki smiled and did a fist bump with her detective teammate.
"Nico-senpai, I really hoped I could be here to celebrate your birthday but I have to go now." She said after looking at her watch. "Thank you for such an exciting experience! Have a nice day!"
After responding to Honoka's wave, she jokingly drew her smirking face near Umi's before leaving, making the latter's shoulders stiffen.
"I doubt you could finish the puzzle if I didn't send someone to help you." Nozomi teased Nico who was still bathing in contentment. "I hadn't expected Umi-chan to be with you, though."
"Right. Why did I know nothing?" Umi asked in an apparently normal tone.
The surrounding air froze instantly.
"Well… You don't seem to be a good secret keeper." Nozomi explained. "So we decided to leave you ignorant of this."
"Sorry, Umi-chan –" said Honoka with a not-so-apologetic sheepish smile.
"But you aren't very good at hiding thoughts~" Kotori added with an expression that resembled Honoka's.
Umi's mood became that of her hair color and Nico tried to comfort her with a side hug.
"Look, Umi – it can be fate." Nico comforted her junior. "It's when playing the detective game that we got to know each other better! And you figured out a lot of things that I wouldn't have guessed alone! Really, thanks for being there!"
Exchanging a glance, they did a fist bump. Without realizing, Umi's melancholy had been alleviated.
"And so, Nozomi. You did design that fuss." Nico turned Nozomi and accused with joking anger in her tone.
"I do feel proud of carrying it off, but not exactly in the way you phrased it." Nozomi calmly claimed. "Maki-chan should be given the most credits~"
"Nozomi, it was your idea in the first place!" Maki defended. She began fidgeting and twirling the locks of her scarlet hair nervously with eyes avoiding the raven-haired senior, partly because she could almost see through the shorter girl's sweated shirt. "I – I'm just trying to make sure the clues and questions are easy enough for you to understand, stupid birthday girl! It's not like I enjoyed participating in such a troublesome surprise plan –"
"Nico could tell it's you~" Nico smirked and said in a teasing tone. She then winked to Maki and spoke in her cute idol voice. "Thanks for the effort!"
Expecting Nico to counter her, Maki was startled upon the senior's endearing words.
"She's been highly enthusiastic, Nicocchi. She designed like eighty percent of the game." Nozomi added with a smile, drawing a knowing glance to the red-faced redhead. "I only wrote the instructions."
Nico wanted to further tease the cute redhead by pulling her into a tight hug and poking her soft blushing cheeks, but with seven other people's presence she refrained from putting it into action or she could make the tsundere faint from embarrassment.
"Oh, and the new wallpaper you saw is Hanayo and Kotori's masterpiece." Eli noted. "They also baked your birthday cake."
"We set up the game early in the morning Nya!" Rin claimed with childish enthusiasm.
"I woke up at six for this~!" with a goofy grin Honoka shot a fist into the air and stated triumphantly as if it was a glorious accomplishment.
"It seemed a suitable task for the two of you who had remedial classes this morning." Umi said to the orange-haired duo with a smile too gentle that made them tremble in terror.
"Forgotten to mention." Nozomi picked up her video camera and said to the two game detectives. "Eli and I had filmed most of your performance!"
Umi's face twitched. She then recalled the mysterious footsteps she heard at the staircase. She also realized suddenly that Eli had sounded slightly unnatural when they met her.
"It was you – Nozomi – who filmed us furtively on the staircase!" Umi accused in a detective's tone.
"Yeah, that was one of the most interesting scenes~" Nozomi replied with a suggestive grin.
Umi was too embarrassed to imagine how the video depicted the way she had asked Nico to strip off her cardigan. On the other hand Nico had been a bit astounded to hear what her fellow μ's members had done for her. She had never expected such a birthday surprise since most of her previous ones involved only her family. She put on a proud smile and swept her pigtail aside.
"Well - Nico's indeed such a popular idol that my friends would do so much for my birthday~" she spoke in a pompous tone.
"Because you're our beloved President!"
Nico's face resumed normal upon surprise. Staring at the others' genuine smile, she felt moist invade her eyes. She turned to her back, giggled and wiped her tears with a finger.
"Thanks." She spoke, holding her tears so that super idol Nico-nii wouldn't be seen crying.
The organizers of the birthday surprise exchanged gleeful smiles.
"We should eat." Eli clapped her hands and proposed. "It's already a quarter past twelve."
Eli's statement hit Nico's mind. Without hesitation the birthday girl dashed towards the computer. Sitting down was a waste of time so she stood there and quickly opened the browser and entered the page for A-RISE's Summer Live and clicked onto the link for ticket sales –
"SOLD OUT".
The saddening phrase popped up with an electronic banner beneath presenting A-RISE's members and "We look forward to see you next time!". Nico froze on spot – Her mind went blank. Her fingers shuddered. She dropped. She sat powerlessly on the armless chair as her limbs reminded her brain of the fatigue from her intense physical activities. Chill circulated in her veins, and she chuckled sarcastically.
Hesitantly, Hanayo entered the room of dreadful air and gave Nico a gentle pat on her shoulder. Nico made no response. She was in a withdrawn state.
"Nico-chan…" Hanayo tried to put on a smile despite her nervousness. "Don't worry... I got you a ticket!"
"Ah." Nearly motionless, Nico uttered emotionlessly, but when her brain had processed Hanayo's words, she slowly turned to Hanayo. "Eh?"
"I have tickets to the middle of Row E." Hanayo elaborated with a smile. "Before you were back... I was here striving for tickets with my laptop. I thought you might not be able to make it... so I bought an extra ticket for you. Then Rin-chan, Maki-chan and Honoka-chan said they wanted to have a glimpse of A-RISE's live performance so I bought five. We can watch it together!"
Nico re-processed her junior's words and stood agape. It would be a first time for Nico who was too used to going to live performances in solitude. A pair of ruby eyes gleamed with bliss and its owner hugged her chestnut-haired friend, bursting into tears.
"I love you! Hanayo… You're an angel!" Nico yelled in a tearful voice as she cried in Hanayo's arms.
As the others watched the two idol-maniacs' heart-warming interaction, some chuckled, two orange-haired girls clung onto each other and one twirled the ends of her hair.
"You truly are a caring friend, Nozomi." Umi turned to Nozomi and remarked.
Nozomi replied to Umi's gentle smile with a humble smile of gladness. She then walked off silently to prepare food and drinks for the birthday party to begin.
Nico Nico Nii~ Happy Birthday, Nico! Sorry I'm more than a week late… Hopefully you've had a great time with your loved ones~ I wish I could hear how they actually celebrated your birthday~ *angelic smile* And hey readers, thank you for reading my very first fan fiction! I hope you enjoyed reading and were at least a bit surprised at the ending! Feel free to tell me your thoughts!
The main reason for choosing Umi and Nico to play the detective game is that their seiyuus' are members of Milky Holmes. Although Umi and Nico rarely talk to each other in the anime, the two have some notable interaction in the radio dramas and their seiyuus' are close companions. Come to think about it, Umi and Nico do share some significant similarities. Besides, the more the ambiguity, the more we can explore *evil grin*, so I find UmiNico a duo full of potentials! I hope more people will see charm in this pairing, friend or romantic-wise (so that I can have more UmiNico fanfics to read)!
By the way, I'm more of a NicoMaki shipper as you may tell from the details but I'm having a bit of inner-struggles after writing this… Aw Maki, you just have to stop denying your feelings. You know, maybe you're not the only one who cares for Nico~ but I may write a side story for you two so be prepared~ *smirk*