Simon rang the doorbell. Mrs Limone greeted them.

"Oh! How nice of you to visit! Do come in, you and your friends. "

Simon nodded his thanks. "It's a bit sudden to come at short notice but
do you mind if we ask you some questions?"

Mrs Limone nodded, "Why don't we do that over tea?"

Thomas and Floe sat at the table sipping their tea silently. Simon had
excused himself to go to the toilet and it was awkward talking to
someone they didn't know.

"You two are his friends?" Mrs Limone asked in an attempt to start
some conversation.

They nodded. There was a pause before Floe broke the tension.

She put on a small smile and said, "Why don't we get over this
awkwardness. Simon has a bad habit of ignoring other people when he's
interested in something. I'm Floe. He's Thomas. Nice to meet you, Mrs
Limone, and thank you for your hospitality. "

Thomas and Mrs Limone laughed. "Yeah, he does have a tendency to do
that. So what was it you wanted to ask?"

Thomas said for Floe, "You don't have any children do you?"

Mrs Limone shook her head, "No, we don't. "

"Why not?" Floe asked, quite untactfully.

"Floe…" Thomas chided her a little, seeing Mrs Limone's slightly pained
expression.

"It's a personal question and I'll prefer if you don't ask further. "

Floe shrank back a bit and muttered an apology at Mrs Limone's
annoyance. Perhaps I stepped too far.

There was a bump from the floor above them. They looked at the ceiling.
A scraping sound followed. What in the world is Simon doing?

Simon pulled open the drawer in the desk. There was a full strip of sticker
photos on top. He took the photos, looking at them in disbelief.

The door opened and Mrs Limone came in, Floe and Thomas right behind.
The room was decorated with pink wall paper. A shelf of books was
across the room from the chair and table right under the window. Simon
currently sat in the chair staring at something on the table, oblivious to
their presence.

Floe looked around at the rumpled bed and scattered stationery on the
floor. What had Simon been doing?

"Simon? What are you doing?" Thomas asked him. "Oi! Listen!"

Simon looked up with a pale face. Before he could reply however, Mrs
Limone sighed and shook her head, saying in a stern voice, "I don't recall
giving you permission to mess up the spare room. Would you please ask
before looking other people's belongings?"

Simon closed his eyes and looked as if he was about to say something.
Instead he lowered his head and nodded apologetically. "Sorry for
troubling you. We'll clear it up and return right away. "

Floe asked Simon as they waited at the door. "Why did you have to do
that? It was very rude of you, you know? … Hey! Are you listening?!"

Mrs Limone had called Simon's mother and his parents were coming to pick
him up. Floe didn't want to leave until she had got an explanation.

Thomas pulled her back, knowing Simon better than that, "Why don't you
give him a chance to explain?"

Floe shrugged irritably, muttering to herself, "He could at least just tell us
what's going on, instead of messing around with all this," she raised her
voice again, "You know, it's this attitude that you have that makes other
people hate you!"

Simon pulled out the roll of sticker photos from his pocket. "It's this. The
next clue. But it's weird. "

Floe and Thomas looked at the photos. Floe asked, "What's so weird
about them?"

"Two things. Why is a roll of sticker photos of me in Mrs Limone's drawer?
Secondly, I never took sticker photos of myself. "

Simon's parents pulled up on the kerb and his dad gestured for him to get
in. It seemed they were quite angry at him.

Floe watched the car go off down the slope to Simon's house. "He is right,
you know? I find it weird that Simon would have taken sticker photos of
himself. It's the kind of thing only couples do," Thomas commented.

"I wouldn't put it past him. He's weird enough as it is," Floe huffed her
irritation at being chased out of Mrs Limone's house.

"Well, there's always tomorrow. It's late; I'll walk you to the station. "

"Why do you always make trouble for other people? Can't you be more
normal?"

Simon sat on his bed looking at the roll of stickers. It wasn't nice getting
scolded by his father but he had learnt to respond automatically while
thinking about something else.

There's more than those two things wrong with it. The photo is done on a
flowery background which makes it useless for identification. You can't use
this for official documents. And I would never use a flowery background this
pink.

And what's with that cheery expression on my face? Why would I be this
happy to be taking a sticker photo?

He frowned at it a bit longer. There was something else wrong with his
pose in the photo. Not only was it too cheerful, the Simon in the photo
seemed to be leaning a bit too much to the left. It wasn't centered either.

Hmm…? If the me in the photo was leaning a bit more to the left, it would
have been impossible to stay upright without support. He tried to copy the
pose and nearly lost his balance. Supporting strings? Why would I do that?

He was still pondering the photos the next day in class, despite the heavy
rain that poured outside. The class chattered away as the history professor
droned on unaware of the class's lack of attention. It did seem to Simon
that the whispering was less than usual but he paid such mundane matters
no mind.

Someone smacked him on the back. Floe said cheerfully, in a vague attempt
to cheer him up, "Hey, you had an entire night to think. Solved the case yet,
Sherlock?"

Simon turned around as Thomas chided her gently, "That's a bit rude of you. "

"I haven't solved it. In fact, the photos are intractable. It isn't possible to
take such a photo. Nor do I have any memory of taking it. From the back of
the paper, it's from the photosticker machine in the Yard Mall. "

Floe shrugged, "But you haven't been to the Yard in the last month. "

He nodded. "It's an impossible puzzle. "

They blinked. Simon said a puzzle was impossible. That couldn't be right.
"What do you mean?" Thomas asked, "It's not like you to give up like that…"

The bell chimed the end of class and the start of lunch. Simon got up from his
seat, sighing, "But it's plainly impossible for such a thing to happen. Anyway,
I'm going to buy lunch. I didn't wake up early enough to prepare sandwiches. "
There's no answer. Everything comes out as impossible.

Floe looked at Thomas with some concern. It was unearthly behavior for Simon…

Author's Notes:

Introducing final main character, the last clue and identity of missing person next chapter.

Also, Simon is not meant to be a like-able guy. Yet.