Glassy Stare
My dear whomevers: Hello again! Here comes yet another random and pointless one-shot, courtesy of yours truly.
1. I am not, nor will I ever be, any member of CLAMP. Card Captor Sakura does not belong to me. If only, if only...
2. Believe it or not, but this is not an AU. This takes place between one month and two years after Syaoran returns from Hong Kong. I'm using my personal amalgamation of manga and anime canon. Deal. No Original Characters were harmed in the production of this story.
3. Eeek, shoujo-ai. Eeeek, het. How dare someone write about CLAMP using concepts they would never have contemplated! *end sarcasm*
4. For once, Touya is not present by word, appearance, or vague allusion. Do not, I repeat do not, get used to it.
5. This is a Tsukimine Shrine fic challenge. Challenge: Mystery, canon-optional, 1000+ words, prompt 'glasses'. One of the main characters must wear glasses. That character may not be Eriol. I did my best.
6. Onward, fellow humanoids, onward to glory!
~ ~ ~
Naoko smiled brightly and waved farewell to Meiling, then turned and walked off down the tree-shaded lane. The summer afternoon was fading gracefully into evening, and late as it was there was still plenty of light. It wasn't an idyllic, romantic evening, just a relaxing end to a day like so many others.
Naoko laughed and sang a happy song as she walked through Penguin Park on her way home. As far as she was concerned, the day could not have been better, although--she paused for a moment--a trifle less math homework would have been nice. Still, something so trivial as that stood no chance of eclipsing her delight.
When she came to that point in her thoughts, she had reached the bridge next to King Penguin. Staring idly into the water, her mind wandered to a pleasant memory of the same spot, only to be called back abruptly by something she saw but only then noticed.
There was something hovering below the water's smooth surface, some pattern of light and shadow that didn't quite fit. Naoko leaned forward for a better look in the light that was suddenly far too dim. She saw...
...long legs in neat black shoes.
...the rippling white hem of a junior high uniform skirt.
...long-fingered, delicate hands reaching for the surface.
...dark brown curls flung out around a white face.
...staring back at her, the glassy-green gaze of a pair of brown eyes. Eyes she knew.
Naoko screamed.
"Rika-chan!"
~ ~ ~
The entire school was shattered. Rika had been well-liked, and news of her untimely death swept through the school like wildfire. Everyone naturally gravitated toward Naoko; as the one to discover Rika's body, she was besieged by both the sympathetic and the morbidly curious. Not until Meiling started to glare and crack her knuckles meaningfully at anyone who approached did they stop.
Naoko looked around the classroom. It was a disaster scene. Chiharu was crying with her head buried in her arms. Yamazaki was trying to make her respond to a long, obviously false story about people in feudal Japan who turned into fish, but anyone could see his heart wasn't in it. He kept losing the thread of his narrative and choking whenever he actually mentioned water.
Sakura was crying hysterically into Syaoran's arms. In the normal way of things he would have been blushing like a brunette tomato at the contact, but it seemed all the laws of nature had been suspended. He only held Sakura and sighed.
Meiling's mood had shifted abruptly from violence to grief. She had latched firmly onto Naoko's waist from behind and was crying quietly into her back. Her usual brash manner was absent for once; energy had no place in such a storm of sorrow.
Naoko could see Tomoyo as well. The other girl had clearly been crying, but she looked more composed than anyone else in the room. Certainly her quiet contemplation stood no chance of being marked for especial misery when Mr. Terada was staring ahead of him as if he had forgotten how to move. Tomoyo was quiet in a different way. It was almost as if...Naoko encountered Tomoyo's gaze, and she knew the same thought preyed upon them both.
Someone in this room-one of us-may be a murderer.
~ ~ ~
"Tomoyo-chan? Could I speak to you for a moment?" Tomoyo nodded and followed Naoko out of sight of the others. Once there Naoko began, without preamble,
"I need your help to find out who--killed--Rika-chan. The police aren't going to be much help. I had to talk to them, and they seemed to think it was suicide. Suicide! Rika-chan! I want to get to the bottom of this, but I can't do it alone. I'm asking you for help because I think you see this the way I do."
"Do you mean that, until we know for certain-"
"-All of us are under suspicion, our own if not the police's. It's not so much who's guilty that matters, as who's innocent. I came to you because I felt you need to know, as much as I do, before either of us can feel safe. Besides-"Naoko broke off and turned half away, fiddling with her glasses.
"Besides…? Is there something the matter, Naoko-chan?" Tomoyo wondered for a moment if Naoko might have been about to say something, to confess to some dark and guilty secret. To her eyes it seemed that a cloud hovered dark over their heads, only to be banished by Naoko's next words. She began to cry, slightly hysterical.
"How can you ask? Everything's the matter! There's nothing in this whole horrible world that's right! Rika-chan's dead, and nobody knows why, but she's not coming back, not ever!
"I see her, Tomoyo-chan," she continued more calmly, "every time I close my eyes. Just like I found her, pale and cold, with water weeds twining in her hair. She's there, under the water. I can see her perfectly, but I can't quite reach her. And she stares, Tomoyo-chan, just stares at me. Her eyes are cold and clear, like the glass lens on a telescope, but they don't seem to see me. I have to find out who did that to her."
Tomoyo nodded, her face grave.
"We will find out, Naoko-chan. I promise."
~ ~ ~
Naoko and Tomoyo sat together at Tomoyo's double desk. Two days of investigation had borne fruit in a convoluted list of times, places, and people, all of which they were attempting to assemble into coherence. Finally, Tomoyo sat back with a sigh.
"I think this is everything." The paper on the table read:
Opportunity-3:30 to 8pm.
3:30-school ends. Rika, Naoko, Chiharu, and Sakura got to cheerleading practice. Li and Yamazaki have detention with Terada-sensei. Tomoyo has choir. Meiling stays around to watch the cheerleading.
4:30-practice and detention end. Rika goes home alone. Chiharu and Yamazaki go home together. Meiling, Li, and Naoko go to the Lis' together. Sakura waits for Tomoyo.
5:00-according to Tomoyo, she is supposed to have a private lesson, but the teacher doesn't show up.
5:30-Sakura and Tomoyo go home together.
7:45-Naoko leaves the Lis' house.
8:00-Naoko finds Rika in Penguin Park.
Sakura: 4:45-5:30. Claims she was waiting for Tomoyo. No witnesses. She was there at 5:30-witness Tomoyo.
Tomoyo: 5:00-5:30. Claims she was in the music room, waiting for the teacher. No witnesses. She was there at 5:30-witness Sakura.
Naoko: 7:45-8:00. Claims she walked very slowly. Accounted for up to then-witnesses Meiling, Li, Chiharu, and Sakura.
Meiling, Li, Yamazaki, Chiharu: None. Witness each other, Naoko, and Sakura.
"I suppose," said Naoko, "there's one more name we should add, even if we haven't spoken to him." Tomoyo nodded, and affixed to the bottom of the list;
Terada-sensei: 4:45-8:00. Left after detentions. No witnesses.
"It looks bad for him," said Tomoyo. "He is the only person whose time is completely unaccounted for." Naoko nodded.
"Rika-chan's sixteenth birthday is--would be—in three weeks. If he wanted to break it off with her, he would have had to hurry before the engagement was made public. But you can bet the police will be asking those sorts of questions already. Our part is to use knowledge they don't have."
"In that case, we should begin by looking at out list of potential murderers and see whom we can reject out of hand, based on our own acquaintance with them."
"Let's start at the top. Sakura could, I suppose, have gone around behind the building and followed Rika-chan, but that would put her a good bit out of the way. Sakura's a fast runner, so she could have caught up, but it's a long shot. More to the point, she hasn't the strength to do that to Rika-chan. Do you agree?"
Tomoyo did, leaving in the back of her mind the knowledge that, had Sakura wished it, she could have done anything. Her Cards could have crossed the distance more swiftly and held Rika under the water more strongly than any human living.
"I cannot believe Sakura would kill anyone. Not under any circumstances," she said, trying to reassure herself more than Naoko. "So we move on to me. I suppose that I could have left quietly through the side door, but I am much, much slower and weaker than Sakura-chan.
"Here's an idea, though—Mother employs several people to watch out for me. What would stop me from telephoning one of them from the choir room? I could have sat there peacefully while they did anything I wished. A wonderfully simple solution, is it not? However, honesty compels me to confess that I did no such thing. It would be pointless to discuss my truthfulness, since I am hardly likely to declare my own guilt, so we are forced to accept my statement for the moment."
"Fair enough. Next, me. I'm probably the least likely of the possibilities. If this were a detective novel, that would mean I did it, but it isn't, so it doesn't. I could have gotten to Penguin Park at about 7:52, if I'd hurried. Presuming that for some reason Rika-chan was still there, it might be possible. But it's an improbable-possible.
"Tomoyo-chan, do you think Terada-sensei could have—killed—her? He always acted like he really loved her, And since she died, he's been such a wreck. I went back to the classroom for my math book yesterday, and he was still there, crying. He looked so helpless. Was that all an act?"
"No," Tomoyo reassured her, "I don't think it was. He was alone, you said. Why would he have bothered to act if there was no one to see? I'm sure Terada-sensei is as miserable as he seems.
"If we assume for a moment," she continued, "that everyone we have considered thus far is innocent, where does that leave us? Either two or more people are lying to protect each other, or there is someone we have not yet regarded. For the moment, we may as well focus on the latter prospect."
"What we need," said Naoko, "is a clue. Only I have no idea where to find one. How does one look for an invisible person? Wait—Tomoyo-chan, what's that song?" Tomoyo had begun to murmur the words of a song under her breath. She glanced up, startled.
"It's my solo in the song we're learning for competition. I still have trouble getting the high note right. Tsujitani-sensei said she would help me with it after choir tomorrow, to make up for forgetting on the day Rika-chan…died."
"That's it! Tomoyo-chan, you're a genius!" Tomoyo blinked, bemused. Naoko quickly explained, "We've been thinking about whether or not you told the truth about your voice lesson that day, but we never thought to find out where the teacher had been. Choir ended at 5; Rika-chan would have just about reached Penguin Park by that time. If Tsujitani-sensei left then-"
"-She could have caught up easily," finished Tomoyo. "Yes! Tsujitani-sensei told us only last month that she used to run in marathons. It would have been easy for her."
"The only difficulty is why," said Naoko. "She barely knew Rika-chan; why would she want to kill her?" A thoughtful, measuring expression appeared on Tomoyo's face. After a moment she said,
"Well, I thought nothing of it at the time, but once or twice I saw Tsujitani-sensei looking at Terada-sensei when she thought no one was looking. The way she gazed at him makes me suspect that she might have been rather in love with him herself. With Rika-chan's sixteenth birthday so soon, she may well have been desperate to keep their engagement from becoming public knowledge. So…" Tomoyo paused, contemplative. "She really loved him so much as all that. I never understood before what Shakespeare-san meant by 'loved not wisely but too well.' Now I do."
~ ~ ~
They were right. Shouko Tsujitani was arrested 'on information receive' for the murder of Rika Sasaki. Sakura cried hysterically for another week. Chiharu and Yamazaki spent more time together than ever. Syaoran glared at everyone without blinking—at least, that was the excuse he gave when his eyes watered. None of them learned what Naoko and Tomoyo had done; they never thought to ask.
Meiling did ask. More than that, she confronted the two girls and angrily demanded to know why they had been spending so much time together. After they explained, Meiling clung leechlike to Naoko, insisting that she never abandon her like that again. Naoko, smiling, promised not to.
That night, for the first time in a week, Naoko closed her eyes without being met with Rika's glassy stare.
~ ~END~ ~
There goes another challenge. It now wants me to expand it to a novella, as there were a lot of scenes I didn't have time for. Go figure.
This challenge succeeded in making me do what no English teacher has ever been able to manage--prewrite. I actually had to write down all the times, places, motives, etc.
Please tell me something I can improve in this piece. Thank you!