A/N: Not much to say this time except that I dreamed that the sixth light novel of Koten Bu comes out on June 16th and a second season of the anime starts on September 2nd... It was the best dream ever until I woke up and realized it was only a dream...

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/faved/added to alerts! Seriously, one reviewer actually gave me an idea that I am now going to use. (:

Also, on a side note, this mystery isn't as much a 'whodunit', and more of a 'whatsthemotive'.

This is also the last chapter that Houtarou doesn't make an appearance. He'll be back in the next one though. (:

Disclaimer: I just said that I dreamed about more coming out... If I owned it, that wouldn't be a dream.

Have fun playing Detective. And Good Luck! ;)


Chapter Two
Pieces

"Fukube-san, you kept the key to Oreki-san's house after we searched it, right?" Eru inquired the following day as he entered the club room.

"Hai. Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking about going by there again. Maybe there was something we missed? Now that we have a few clues…"

Satoshi frowned, digging the key out of his school bag. "I'd volunteer to come with you, but I actually only came up to say that I have to be at Student Council today. Maybe Mayaka –."

"I can't either," said girl interrupted from behind him. "I just came up to say I have to be at Manga Society. Gomen, Chii-chan."

Eru smiled at the pair as she took the key. "Don't worry. I'll let you both know if I find anything." Hurrying out of the room before the other two had a chance to respond, she quickly exited the school, retrieved her bike from the rack, and started off for the Oreki home.

On her bike, going alone, the trip didn't take as long as the time before – or at least that was the way it seemed to her. Leaving her bike next to the one Houtarou had left behind, she continued to the front door, unlocking it quickly, and slipped inside. Everything still looked just the way it had the day before. Taking a deep breath, she started up the stairs. The silence unnerved her; Houtarou may not have been a talkative person, but the house still seemed eerily silent, as if it held a dark secret – which, considering the clues they had picked up, may not have been far from the truth.

Approaching her friend's bedroom door, Eru couldn't help but hesitate. Despite the fact that he wasn't here, she still felt like she was intruding on his personal space, what with most of his belongings still inside. Taking a deep breath, she pushed his door open.

Just like the rest of the house, nothing had changed from the day before. Houtarou's school uniform hung on a peg in the wall, a few other items of clothing littered the floor; all in all, the room was fairly neat and tidy. His school bag sat innocently on the floor next to his desk, and, though there were still wrinkles in the blankets, it appeared as though he had at least attempted to make his bed.

Eru sighed. What exactly had she come hoping to find? As she moved around his room, she searched for anything that seemed out of place – yet she wondered if she would actually notice any such thing since she had never even been to his home before this mess, much less been in his room. There were no photos or posters or other personal touches one might expect; the room was rather bland, if she were honest. The most colorful part of the room was the bookcase, a variety of bright bindings beckoning her to explore the contents. She shook her head, stepping away. Maybe in the future she would actually have time, but right now she had more important things to think about.

Scanning the contents of his desk did little to help the situation; the drawers and top held nothing out of the ordinary, either. A few random papers, pens, pencils… nothing that could be taken as a clue to their owner's whereabouts. Absently, she picked up the novel that lay on the floor next to his bed. Had he been reading it before he disappeared? Perhaps late at night when he couldn't sleep? Looking over the cover, it wasn't the one he'd had in the club room the last day he had been present. But if he wasn't reading it, why was it on the floor instead of on the bookcase? Reaching over to where his school bag sat, she unzipped it and rummaged through the contents until she found what she was looking for: the book she had last seen him with in the club room, place still marked at about the half-way point. She frowned. Why would he have started reading something else? Unless he wasn't reading it… But then it made no sense as to why it was lying on the floor next to his bed instead of sitting on the bookcase like the rest.

Unless…

Her deep violet eyes widened. Sitting on the floor, she dug her phone out of her bag and scrolled through the contacts. "Mayaka-chan!" she spoke excitedly as soon at the other person answered. "I remember you saying how you read Christie, right? So you would recognize the title And Then There Were None, right? What's it about?"

"Whoa, Chii-chan! Slow down; I can't follow where this is going… I thought you went over to the Orekis'? Why such excitement over a mystery novel all of a sudden?"

"I think it might be a clue! Just tell me what it's about, please, Mayaka-chan!"

"I will, but you have to promise you'll explain after."

"Hai!"

"Okay. Well, the best way I can think of to summarize it would be that ten people are invited to this island, and, one by one, someone kills them off. The thing is, they know the killer has to be one of them because no one else is on the island, but by the end of the novel, any of them had yet to know who it was. It's quite the mystery; when you get down to the last three people alive and, while two of them are in each other's presence the third dies, it truly makes you wonder what's going on…"

Eru was silent for a moment. "So, even in the end, no one really understand what was going on?"

"No one but the murderer. Chii-chan, what is this all about?"

"I'm… not sure… I thought it might be a clue, but now I think maybe I'm wrong… You see, it seemed out of place to me, sitting on the floor by Oreki-san's bed, when everything else is really pretty orderly, and it's not the same book I saw him reading that last day we saw him." She sighed. "I guess I was just hoping I'd found something worthwhile…"

"Chottomatte," Mayaka responded. "You might actually be onto something, Chii-chan…"

"Hontouni?"

"Hai… As much as I hate to admit it, Oreki is smarter than most people give him credit…"

"Do you think he knew we'd come looking?"

"Maybe. If he did, I think he'd have left some indication of what was going on since, for some reason, he obviously isn't allowed to contact us – unless he doesn't know what's going on either!"

Eru gasped. "Just like in the book, you mean? No one knew what was going on…"

"Exactly. Maybe he didn't have any idea what was going on, why his family was packing up and leaving, just like that…" A pause in which Eru could hear her friend sigh on the other end of the line. "Unfortunately, Chii-chan, it also means the end of the line for us."

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? If Oreki didn't even know why he had to leave, how are we supposed to find out? We can't go any further without Oreki here – and I get the feeling we aren't going to be seeing him anymore. Sumimasen, Chii-chan."


Eru had never felt so defeated in her life. Houtarou had always – although grudgingly at first – been there to solve everything she had brought to him. She had taken him for granted. And now he was gone – possibly forever. Just like that. Gone without a trace.

So lost was she in her thoughts as she locked the door and started for home that she very nearly ran into a man as she rounded the corner walking away from the Orekis' front door. Stopping short, eyes wide, she hastily gave her apology.

The man chuckled softly. "Think nothing of it. I was hardly paying any mind to my feet either." He paused. "Say, you don't live there now, do you?"

"Huh?" The question – a rather strange one in her mind – took her completely off guard. "No, I – I don't." Eru looked wistfully back towards the house. "I friend of mine does – or did, at least. They left suddenly… I don't know when – or if – they'll be returning…"

"I see. That's really too bad."

"Hai." She turned back to the man. "Uhm… I don't mean to be impolite, but I'm curious as to why you wondered if I lived there?"

The man smiled. "When I came by and no one was home, I wondered if I had the correct address. This is the Oreki residence, right?"

Eru nodded. "May I ask why you were looking for them?"

"I happen to be acquainted with the family," he responded. "Since I was passing through Kamiyama, I just thought I'd stop by but… I wasn't aware they were leaving, you see, and Houtarou-kun didn't say anything about not being here when I spoke to him on the phone." He shrugged. "Well, guess I won't stay in town any longer – no reason to now. Arigato, miss." With the tipping of his wide-brimmed hat, he started off down the street, hands buried deep in the pockets of his trench coat despite the pleasant weather.

As she watched him leave, Eru couldn't help but feel relieved that she didn't know where Houtarou was. The man had seemed nice enough, but something just didn't quite feel right. She shook her head, turning in the opposite direction from the man to start her journey home.


She couldn't stop thinking about it – any of it. The sudden leave, the cell phones left behind, the mystery novel on the floor, the strange man outside the Orekis' home. It swirled in her mind, and, no matter what she did, she just couldn't stop thinking about it.

But the worst part of it all was knowing she couldn't do anything about it. The only person who could ever satisfy her curiosity was now the source of her curiosity.

And she, Chitanda Eru, was powerless to figure out why.

"It doesn't quite add up to me," Satoshi mused, breaking through her thoughts. "If Houtarou thought to leave some obscure clue, then why didn't he just spell it out for us?"

"I wondered that too," Mayaka sighed. "But, then again, nothing is really making sense right now, so why should that either?"

Then it donned on her. "Maybe he couldn't…"

The other two heads in the room swiveled to stare at Eru. "Why do you say that, Chii-chan?"

"Well, I don't know for sure but… What if he was afraid of someone else searching the house besides us? That would be a good reason to not spell it out…"

"He'd have no reason to think that if he didn't know what was going on either, but, just for a second, let's assume that could be true."

"If you knew someone else might search the house, why leave an obvious clue? To someone who doesn't know Oreki-san, it might not seem strange for a mystery novel to be lying on the floor next to his bed, no matter how tidy the rest of the room is… But someone who knows what he was reading…"

"Might find it strange and out of place, like you did," Mayaka finished. "I suppose that could be true. But why would someone else have reason to search his house?"

"For the same reason we did." All heads turned to Satoshi now, the boy's face completely serious. "Think about it: When he disappeared so suddenly, our first thought was to check out his house, wasn't it? Going back to your phone theory, Mayaka, what if they left because that person was after them for some reason? When wouldn't he, too, search their house for clues to their whereabouts?"

"Hm. I hadn't thought about it that way. But why would someone be after them in the first place?"

"I don't know," Satoshi sighed. "I'm just the Database, remember?"

"I definitely think you're right, Fukube-san," Eru declared. "As I was leaving yesterday, I ran into a man outside the Orekis' house who was looking for them."

Mayaka's eyes grew wide. "You didn't tell him anything, did you?"

She shook her head. "Just that they had left."

"What else did he say?"

"That he was an acquaintance of the family and that he had talked to Oreki-san on the phone."

Mayaka's eyes grew wider, as did Satoshi's. "That phone call…"

"That's what I thought too, but it seemed like he must know them fairly well. He called Oreki-san by his first name…"

"Houtarou did say that he talked to someone claiming to be a relative – if they really are running from that guy, he might have been trying to make you think that there isn't any hostility between them."

"Is it really possible they left just to get away from that man?" Eru mused. "That seems awfully extreme. He must have really hurt them somehow, if that's the case…"

Mayaka shook her head sadly. "Whether it is or it isn't, I think that Oreki is the only one who can solve this mystery; we've run out of clues."

Eru pulled a novel from her bag. "But… if he really did leave this as a clue, then maybe..."

"It doesn't matter if he did; we don't have anything to go on, Chii-chan."

"Maybe there's something more we missed…" Eru muttered, absently flipping through the pages.

Mayaka frowned. "I don't know what it could possibly be…"

Eru gasped, instantly drawing the others' attentions. With a smile, she triumphantly held up a folded piece of paper.

Mayaka's mouth dropped open slightly. "Nani…?"

Satoshi smiled slightly. "So he did spell it out for us…"

Quickly unfolding the paper, Eru scanned the contents, her expression falling with every word that she read. When she had finished, she passed it to Mayaka, who passed it to Satoshi after reading the note's contents.

Minna,

I hope this note finds you, though if it does, it means I was unable to contact you myself for some reason. As soon as I walked through the door after school, my father was here waiting to tell me to hurry and pack because we were leaving as soon as possible. I don't know what's going on here – I don't even know where we're going; all I know is that there is something they aren't telling me – something that, for some reason, they don't want me to know. Either that or it really is a long story that I'll find out after we leave; I really don't know at this point.

Satoshi, Chitanda-san, Ibara; I'll contact you as soon as I can. I promise.
Oreki Houtarou

Satoshi frowned. "He wasn't sure he'd be able to contact us right away. Why, I wonder…"

"He promised to contact us," Eru whispered. "So what happened that he had to break that promise?"

Mayaka put a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder. "Who said he has? Oreki said as soon as I can. Maybe he just hasn't had the opportunity."

"If that's the case, then what is keeping him from doing so, Mayaka-chan?" Eru shook her head. "Something tells me that he hasn't because he can't. For some reason, he just can't – for the same reason he had to leave, and for the same reason his whole family left their cell phones behind. There's something here that we're all missing – including Oreki-kun. For some reason, he can't – no, more like he isn't allowed to contact us."

"But… why?"

Satoshi sighed. "Now there's the mystery…"


~Puzzle Pieces That Don't Fit Together~