Chapter 23 - PK Academy Detectives
The life of a third-year high school student was no cakewalk.
There was studying, studying, and even more studying. Nearly half of the third-year students at PK Academy had cram school to prepare for the all-important College Entrance Exams that were to take place next January. The results of the entrance exams would determine, partially, the fate of nearly all students, whether they have the possibility of becoming a wealthy manager at a major corporation, making 40 million yen a year, or a meager trash picker who makes less than 2 million yen a year. It was so important that private institutions like PK Academy offered extra studying sessions for students and provided deep discounts at affiliated cram schools.
Since the test was now less than six months away, additional studying sessions were held before and after regular school schedule, at a referral cram school that was closer to the activity center of the town. The location appealed to student's extracurricular activities and study at the same time. It was there that the noted group of school friends decided to hold their utmost important meeting about their friend.
So under the pretense of studying, Kaido, Kuboyasu, Hairo, Teruhashi, and Yumehara entered one of the unused study rooms of the cram school and locked the door behind them. They dumped their standard issued blue school bag on the floor and sat around a large fold-out plastic table. Their butts settled in well-used gray plastic chairs.
"I call this meeting of Finding Saiki and One Other Scheme to order," declared Yumehara with the bang of a gavel. As the unspoken organizer of their friend group activities, she already had a sheet of paper out with stated activity and boxes to be checked. She peered to the crowd of their close friends, and asked, "Err...where is Mera?"
"She's at her part-time job," said Teruhashi. "Did you leave a bento in her locker from lunchtime?"
"I did that and had done one better. I got Saiko to leave her vouchers for the Endless Meat Grill Buffett," said Yumehara, checking off a box. "So she can take her family out if she wants."
"How did you get him to do that?" asked Kuboyasu, surprised at the Saiko heir's generosity.
Yumehara gave a mysterious smile.
"She called him 'stingy,'" said Kaido plaintively. "Over and over again."
"Kaido-kun!" cried Yumeahara.
While the two not-so-dating love birds had a minor spat over revealing manipulation secrets, everyone else nodded knowingly. Insulting Saiko's wealth was the way to get the man to do pretty much anything.
"Speaking of Saiko, where is he anyway?" asked Hairo.
"Some business meeting with his family," answered Kuboyasu. "He said something about something big happening to one of Saiko Congomerate's rivals. *Whatever* Industries or whatnot. He sounded very interested and looked more smug than usual."
Yumehara and Kaido had stopped their little yelling match that ended with both of them looking embarrassed and red-faced. Kaido looked more red and flustered than Yumehara. There was something faint in the shape of lips on his cheek.
"What about Nendo?" inquired Yumehara, her composure returned.
"I've sent him to Saiki's house," said Kaido. "Out of all of us, he knew the Saikis the longest. He also knows his next-door neighbor, the Iradatsus. Saiki's mom likes him and Saiki seemed to hang around him the most. They might be more receptive to talking to him."
"Are you sure he won't get distracted?" asked Teruhashi, concerned. Nendo was definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
"Well, I did promise him that I'll buy him ten bowls of ramen," said Kaido with his fingers crossed. "We'll see what happens."
Yumehara nodded and checked off a box on the sheet of paper before her. She looked to Hairo next. "What have you discovered, Hairo-kun?"
Good ol' Hairo was doing some inclined push up against a desk. He smelled strangely of fuel. "PK Academy uses a lot of kerosene, nitroglycerin, propane, alcohol and pentane."
"Oh. That might explain why we practice fire drills so often," commented Yumehara. She then shook her head, focusing on the task at hand. "That has nothing to do with figuring out where Saiki went!" She had originally expected more from Hairo, but she did not let that show. Hairo did do her probably thousands of favors by now. He was just that nice of a guy. She still checked off a box for Hairo.
Yumehara turned to the other woman in the room. "Kokomi-chan, what have you figured out from the administration?"
Everyone now looked at Teruhashi. The perfect goddess of PK Academy can work her charm on anyone, the administration included.
"I've talked to Shima-sensei. She said that Saiki-kun's mother had called the school saying that there's a family health emergency the day after midterms," said Teruhashi. "I'm pretty certain it was his grandparents. They're in their late sixties so it's not unexpected. Two days later, his mom called again and indicated that Saiki-kun himself was actually sick. She called every day, saying that Saiki is sick. There's no contact after Friday. So nothing last week." Teruhashi paused. "The school received the paperwork to withdraw Saiki from school this Monday to be effective immediately."
"So no one actually saw him since midterms," clarified Yumehara.
"I saw Saiki's mom a couple of weekends ago," Kaido offered. It didn't exactly answer Yumehara's question but it was tangential. He also looked suddenly pensive. "At the grocery store. She confirmed that he was sick."
"Yeah, you've told us," said Hairo. "And it sounded pretty serious. Didn't she say that he's supposed to come back last week, though?"
"That's what she said," said Kaido. "Nendo, Kuboyasu and I went over to his house every day after school last week. On the first day, there was a limo outside the house with a bunch of people in business suits. We overheard them and they spoke a lot of English and seemed really serious. So we didn't intrude. The other days though, we rang the doorbell and no one answered. We ran into Yuuta's mom next door, and she was saying that she hasn't seen Saiki's mom or anyone coming in or out of the house recently. Nendo goes past Saiki's house on the way to school and he said that didn't see anything either."
"Do you think he might've moved?" asked Hario.
"We don't know," said Kuboyasu. "The family name plaque is still outside the wall. Moving is usually a whole-day thing and we haven't seen any moving trucks or anything."
"Well, moving doesn't make sense either," said Kaido. "If he's moving, then he would be transferring schools, not just flat out withdraw." Kaido's expression took on a grimace. " But then again, maybe he did. I called every day last week too and no one picked up. I mean, I didn't just call the house phone either, I've texted his mom too. My own mom asked me how Saiki is doing since she hadn't seen or heard from Saiki's mom either."
There was glum silence about the room, except for Kuboyasu.
"Well, guys, I got something that might help us," said Kuboyasu with that mischievous look of a punk about him. He pulled out a nondescript evergreen-colored hanger folder, and laid it on the table and flipped it open.
Inside were several vanilla folders with tabs, paper clips, binder clips, and what seemed to a boat-load of paperwork. The very first vanilla folder was opened, revealing a passport-sized photo of Saiki's usual unsmiling blank face was on the upper right corner of the paper, as well as Saiki's general information like name, address, phone number and such.
"You stole Saiki's school file," stated Kaido incredulously.
"Borrowed," Kuboyaus corrected. "I'll give it back when we're done."
Hairo, ever the class the representative, gave Kuboyasu a disapproving look. "When did you take this?"
"When you were distracting the file room clerk with moving those fuel cans," answered Kuboyasu.
In a sententious tone, Hairo responded, "Kuboyasu-kun, this is wrong."
"Well, yeah. So is Saiki withdrawing from school," reasoned Kuboyasu, a hint of challenge in his voice.
There were also disapproving looks from almost everyone. A person's school files would sometimes contain privileged information. Sometimes, information that no one would willingly share.
"Look, Saiki withdrew from school," explained Kuboyasu further. "Anyone who withdraws from school in their last year of high school usually means something big happened and they had to take drastic measures.
"Saiki is our good friend," reasoned Kuboyasu. "Desperate time calls for desperate measures. We just want to make sure he's okay and let him know that we're here for him because that's what good friends do. We'll probably be able to find something here to track him down."
Many faces looked at Kuboyasu with moist eyes. Such a declaration of friendship was powerful and moving.
Hairo, however, deliberately stood up. "You guys, I want to help, and I really do. But as the class rep, I'm obligated to report this. Kuboyasu-kun, you can really get the file clerk in deep trouble if the administration thinks that they've lost a student's school file. You could get expelled over this if the school finds out that you're responsible."
"Kineshi-" started Kuboyasu.
Hairo held up a hand. "So here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to stand outside this room and not see anything so I can't lie if a teacher starts asking me questions."
Such heroic words immediately impressed everyone in the room.
Hairo being Hairo, paid no attention to such reaction. "Just look over as quickly as you can, so we don't get anyone in trouble, especially you, Kuboyasu-kun," said Hairo. "Let me know what you find and how I can help."
With that, Hairo marched himself out of the room, leaving just Teruhashi, Yumehara, Kaido and Kuboyasu.
"Well, let's see what we can figure out," said Teruhashi. She sounded surprisingly eager. It was odd, since Teruhashi was usually the goody-goody-two shoes.
Yumehara looked at Teruhashi sympathetically. She had several late-night phone dates with Teruhashi and knew that Saiki's absence had affected the perfect beauty in a way that was more than just friends. Still, Yumehara spoke up, "Well, before we start, let's establish some ground rules first."
"What ground rules?" asked Teruhashi, disappointed that she was not going to get her hands on those files any faster.
"Well, if you haven't figured it out by now, Saiki is an extremely private person and he might take all this the wrong way," said Yumehara. "We can't ever let Saiki know that we've snooped in his school files. We're just looking to see if we can figure out what happened to him or some other way to find him."
There was general agreement to that rule.
"Nothing embarrassing or incriminating," said Kuboyasu next. "We all have pasts that we don't want people to know. We only discuss if we think it's helpful."
Another general nod all around in agreement.
"We don't photocopy to take a picture with a phone camera or anything," said Kaido last. "Anything we find of use, we talk about it or copy with hand. No digital or physical trail."
They all nodded again.
With the ground rules established, the four remaining PK Academy seniors stood up and spread out the files, being careful to mark the order in which the files were put together.
Since there were four of them, they've divvied up the files among them to quickly look through.
General information went to Kaido. Academic history went to Yumehara. Physical health history went to Kuboyasu. The miscellaneous paperwork went to Teruhashi.
There was silence for a while as the friends delve deep into files, looking for anything unusual.
Yumehara was the first to break the silence soon after she flipped through a couple of pages. "Haha. Saiki almost flunked out of fourth and fifth grade?" said Yumehara with an ironic giggle. "How do you flunk fourth and fifth grade? When Saiki is so nerdy?"
"What? No way!" said Teruhashi. She moved to look at what Yumehara was seeing. "Oh my. He did nearly flunk...but, his test scores were all full points?"
"Wait...what?" uttered Yumehara. She leaned in closer to the file. "Oh wow. You're right. How did he almost flunk? He didn't do any homework?"
"Looks like it," said Teruhashi with a frown. "But that doesn't make any sense. Saiki always did homework."
"Well, Saiki missed a lot of school during that same time," said Kuboyasu, looking over the physical health history. He was in the elementary section. "He missed more than half of the days in fourth grade, and almost all of the first term in fifth grade." Kuboyasu quickly flipped through a bunch of pink carbon copy paper. His eyes almost bugged out. "That's a LOT of doctor's notes."
Everyone looked at each other seriously. Did their friend Saiki have some sort of chronic illness?
That didn't seem possible, since Saiki was never sick.
Well, not true. Saiki had some sort of weird pollen allergy. But outside of that, Saiki was as healthy as a bucking horse.
"He was checked at a nurse's office in fourth grade because he wasn't responsive in class," said Kuboyasu. "This can't be right. Temperature readings at 95 C? Pulse at 200 beats a minute."
"It is elementary school," said Yumehara. "They usually have student helpers who do things like writing in the charts. You are talking about relying on nine, ten years olds here."
Everyone around the room nodded at that logic. That's right. It must be some stupid kid who had poor number sense.
"Well...it looks like someone named "Kuusuke" usually came to take him home from school."
Both Kaido and Teruhashi looked up from their files that they were skimming through. Where had they heard that name?
"And that's a REALLY long and weird looking emergency contact number," said Kuboyasu, flipping through to the more recent information on the health-history information. "That's not his house number, is it?"
"Let me see," said Teruhashi. Out of the group, she called the Saiki's house the most, owing to Kurumi's cooking lessons and that one time chance of guiding Saiki's grandpa back to the house. She was also a proper lady, and a proper lady made sure that the to-be-visited party was notified so everyone had enough time to get their act together for such a perfect woman as Teruhashi.
Saiki's guy friends usually dispensed with such an archaic method of communication. They just show up at his house instead, fully expecting to drag Saiki into whatever they were doing. Kaido had the phone numbers but like most, he relied on his cell phone to memorize phone numbers. Memorization of weird random personal information was a Teruhashi specialty.
Teruhashi read off the long string of numbers, "010-44-01223-55-5555?"
"Oh. That's an international number," said Kaido immediately.
"How did you know?" asked Kuboyasu.
"I used to live overseas, in America, remember?" said Kaido. "The '010' is the dial out of the country and '44' is the country code."
"I've just looked up the number on the internet," stated Teruhashi, scrolling through her phone. "It's a phone number out of Cambridge, England, to someone..." She held out the phone for everyone to see.
The result was in English, of course. And despite how English was a required course since elementary school, most people did not have a conversational understanding of it, much less the complicated rules surrounding proper nouns.
But that was not a problem for Kaido, whose English skill was one of his best subjects.
"Keith Psi," said Kaido. He made a face. "Who is that?"
Kuboyaus looked at the emergency contact information again. "Well, that kinda makes sense. It matches the name here." He showed everyone the line where the emergency contact information was.
Sure enough, everything was in English, down to the emergency contact address.
It was really all too unusual.
"That's just weird. Why is his emergency contact number be to someone in England? And not his mom and dad?" asked Teruhashi.
Kaido looked like he wanted to say something, but Kuboyasu spoke up.
"Why don't we dial the number?" suggested Kuboyasu.
"Well, we don't exactly have an emergency," said Yumehara.
"This is kind of like an emergency," said Kobuyasu. "No one has heard from Saiki in days. I mean, I'm about to file a missing person's report on Saiki."
"I get that, too, but I don't have international service on my cell," said Yumehara.
"I do," said Kaido. "I'll call."
Everyone looked at Kaido with interest.
Kaido didn't have the time to bask in the rare looks of admiration toward his direction. He dialed the number and had the presence of mind to put the phone on speaker.
All four friends sat and looked at the phone.
It took a while for the call to get through, probably an extra six seconds that felt like minutes.
The receiving ring tone was not the typical tone, and it was followed by a robotic message on repeat.
"Disconnected number," said Kaido. "That's not good."
Kaido tried again. Same result.
Everyone looked dejected and worried.
If they could not contact Saiki at his house, at his house number, or his emergency contact, how were they going to find him?
The group went back to looking through Saiki's files, determined to find something that would help them locate their friend. It wasn't long before Yumehara interrupted their focus again.
"Wait, Saiki attended Ten-Star before coming to here to PK?" declared Yumehara with a surprised look on her face.
Kaido looked up from his file. General information was that, general information and boring. "Are you serious?" He leaned over to look at what got Yumehara so excited. "Holy cow. You're not kidding."
"Ten-Star?" repeated Kuboyasu curiously. "What's Ten-Star?"
"It's the Ten-Star Academy. It's a super-elite school only for the rich and super talented kids," explained Kaido. "Like all the kids you see there are all like Hairo times ten. You get heirs of corporations, trust fund babies, pop idols, geniuses, star athletes, and kids of heads of state. And it's really hard to get into even for them because they have a really high academic and athletic requirement so you can't get in just on your family's money alone. Graduation from Ten Star is an automatic admission to any college of choice. I heard that Saiko was supposed to go there and even Saiko's dad had to pull a few strings to try to get him in, before Saiko decided to come to PK Academy. Ten-Star is definitely not a place that a normal person can even get into."
On the side, Teruhashi has a confused looked on her face. "Ten-Star. Why does that sound familiar?"
"That's because we met three cute guys from there, remember? At Imu-chan's mixer," said Yumehara.
Teruhashi blinked in recognition. "Oh Yeah! Amagi Byakuya, Saionji Kanemitsu and Kongouchi Mitsuru! The models and some rich medical group's kid. We hung out a bit at OK Karaoke. It was going great but then they stood us up after going to the bathroom!"
Now it was Yumehara's turn to blink. Seriously. Teruhashi's ability to remember people's names and personal details was on a god-like level.
Teruhashi's expression quickly morphed into a dreamy look. "So Saiki should've been wearing the Ten-Star Academy's maroon and black uniform with a full necktie?"
"Wait, you guys," said Kuboyasu, "So what you're saying is that attending PK Academy is like a major step down for Saiki?"
Kaido nodded. "Like majorly. Like a fall from grace, fired publicly, getting eggs thrown on you, the whipping post, type of step down." He looked thoughtful. "How were his grades there?"
All eyes turned to Yumehara who still had the academic records folder. Her eyes almost fell out. "Straight S's."
"No way!" said Kaido. "Let me see!"
Kaido snatched the file away from Yumehara. His eyes darted up and down quickly, from his right to left.
"Holy shit," Kaido cursed. "He made full score on everything. He completely aced the general and the school-specific high school entrance exam!" Kaido blinked several times. In a much quieter voice, so quiet that others didn't hear, he muttered, "But that makes no sense. He said he didn't want to compete with him 'that way.'"
"Well, that is in-line with what Akechi a couple of weeks ago," said Kuboyasu. "Didn't he say that 'Kusuo-kun always made first place?'"
"But...Saiki's been getting Bs and Cs since he's been at PK, except for the most recent midterm exam" said Yumehara. "How did he go from that," Yumehara pointed to Saiki's general grades and test scores from middle school to the first year of high school. "To this?" then Yumehara pointed to Saiki's PK Academy's academic record during second year of high school. Since it was July, and they were still in the first term of their third year, Saiki's current scores had not been entered into his files yet.
The mood in the room dropped at that and there was silence at the shocking discovery of such information.
Their ordinary, quiet, scowly, man who rounded the wackiness of their group, was secretly an academic genius.
"Well, it doesn't matter," said Kuboyasu, breaking the mood.
"How does it not matter?" asked Kaido. "Saiki's been..." he lowered his voice a little for the next word before returning to regular volume. "cheating and lying to us this entire time!"
"So what?" Kuboyasu challenged.
Kaido huffed. "Well, I can't be friends with someone who doesn't tell me the truth."
Teruhashi and Yumehara looked at each other before looking at Kaido. Did their resident Jet-Black Wing, Knight of Judgement upon Dark Reunion hear himself?
Kuboyasu made a face, taking Kaido seriously, "You think what grades Saiki gets at PK Academy is somehow purposefully directed toward lying to you?" asked Kuboyasu rhetorically. "That his grades before coming to PK Academy, at another school, somehow made him building a fort with us, getting motorcycle license with us, him allowing us to copy his homework for the cheap price of six cup of coffee jelly, any less meaningful?"
Kaido looked at Kuboyasu helplessly. "Well...if you put that way..."
"Don't get me wrong. I am a little bit mad about it, too. But a man's past is a man's past," said Kuboyasu, looking like he was telling himself that rather than Kaido. "Saiki will tell us, when he's ready. And if it's 'never' then it's 'never.' His past grades doesn't change the fact that he's our friend."
Kaido made a rueful face. He remembered wondering if his own grades mattered to his friends and coming to the conclusion that it didn't and finding relief and refuge in that. "Still, I just can't get over the mental image that he's laughing at us like we're idiots," he tried to justify.
"You really think so little of Saiki that you think that he'd do that?" asked Teruhashi softly. "When's the last time you saw him laugh? or smile? Outside of eating his sweets?"
"Well..." Kaido thought over Teruhashi's questions.
Realization overcame Kaido's face.
When had he seen Saiki smile? That wasn't associated with sweets?
Never?
"Maybe he's laughing at us in secret?" offered Kaido weakly.
Teruhashi shook her head. "Something major must have happened between him being at Ten-Star and PK," she reasoned "I mean, something must've happened to force him to come here to PK academy. It might be out of his control. We don't know and we shouldn't jump to conclusions."
"That's right," agreed Yumehara. "And what kind of friends are we that we're not happy that he got really good grades? That he got first place in the midterms. We're making assumptions of what he's thinking and doing, when we simply don't know," The girl's eyes narrowed at Kaido and her voice took on a wheedling tone. "Isn't that right Shun-kun? Do I like you? Or do I like you? Wasn't Saiki the one who help you out with that? When we had the birthday party for Saiki back in May?"
Kaido gave a rueful smile as a deep red sink colored his face like someone had just splash paint on his face. "Chiyo-chan," he said in such a squeak that it was barely audible. "Not in front of everyone."
Yumehara smirked evilly.
The spectators of Teruhashi and Kuboyasu also smirked knowingly.
As close friends, they've heard the story of how Kaido really misinterpreted Yumehara's love chocolates from their second year and how both were so mature and did a soft reset on their relationship so neither one was confused.
Once they got into their third year though, during one of their traditional 'celebrate Saiki's birthday,' events on May 13, Saiki, out of uncharacteristic frustration, spelled it out for Kaido, in front of all their friends. There were timed confetti throws, kazoo zoots, and a reveal of a written banner proclaiming 'Yumehara likes Kaido!' The words were written in Kanji, with the matching hiragana, a bunch of small letter translations into different languages just in case Kaido suddenly forgot his native tongue. And yes, there were sets of three exclamation points everywhere, too.
Since then, Kaido and Yumehara's relationship evolved to now in this weird place of 'not-dating' super special so-not-boyfriend-and-girlfriend-friends.
The status seemed to suit Yumehara just fine. Making Kaido's face turn red with something as simple as holding hands or a spontaneous kiss on the cheek had been very much fun for Yumehara these past couple of months.
So far, Kaido had been too overwhelmed to reject her antics. He generally treated her as one of his guy friends and it seemed to work out well. He also had not realized how he became male gossip central of PK Academy since Yumehara generally tells him everything that went on.
"Um...guys," said Kuboyasu, still looking at his health history folder. He was quickly flipping through pages of Saiki's nurse visits where all the temperature readings were impossibly high. There was a puzzling theme in all these nurse visits. "Speaking of birthday parties, why did we celebrate Saiki's birthday in May? When he's born in August?"
There was a collective "What!" from about the room.
Kaido quickly looked at his general information folder. He quickly skimmed to the part on age and birthdays and the such. "Holy shit!" cursed Kaido for the second time in half an hour. "You're right! He was born in August!"
Oddly enough, it was Teruhashi who looked the most crestfallen. "You mean, he's a Leo instead of an Aries? I got all the astrology wrong!? I've should've been looking at a Leo to Leo match instead of a Leo to Aries match?"
Kaido hit his forehead on the desk several times. "Gah! We've got it all wrong! We threw both his seventeenth and eighteenth birthday party on the wrong day! He let me plan his surprise party for the wrong day! Twice!?"
"Why didn't he say anything?" cried Yumehara. "He isn't even eighteen yet. So that's why he said he can't go into a pachinko parlor last month!"
Teruhashi looked glum, "I'm older than him. I mean, by like, 10 days, but I'm older than him! He let me think that he's older than me!"
"Guys, guys!" said Kuboyasu. When it seemed like no one was paying attention, he took Yumehara's gavel and banged it hard against the table. "Guys! Focus!"
The clamor died down quickly.
"Look. We don't have all day," said Kuboyasu, "We're 'borrowing' these files, which means I have to get these files back, preferably sooner rather than later. Before we get anyone in trouble. Hairo has been waiting outside for an hour already. He's probably cracked the hallway floor from all his bunny hopping."
That seemed to have gotten everyone back to their senses, but not before another plan germinated.
"Well, I'm reserving August 16 for another surprise birthday party," said Kaido with a voice that suggested that it won't be a joyful occasion with magenta pink and purple balloons, but more like a public hanging with a jeering crowd. He quickly went through his phone and placed a reminder, his eyes twitching.
"Yeah, it might be the middle of summer vacation, but we'll throw him a birthday bash that he won't forget," said Yumehara. Her voice suggested an event akin to a medieval public torture.
"It's going to be the party of a lifetime," crooned Teruhashi with a cackle in her voice, rubbing her hands like a witch over a wicked brew of a pink-haired person.
Kuboyasu only widen his eyes and sucked in a breath.
He could definitely see why Saiki didn't bother correcting their friends about the birthday thing.
Their friends really were wacky sometimes.
What would Hairo do?
Maybe make Saiki compete in a marathon?
Nah. Hairo was too good of a guy. Maybe just a 10 kilometer run.
Wait. They had mutual friends. And wasn't Saiki known for being oddly good at track? Knowing Hairo and his crazy drive for a challenge, the marathon might just turn into an ultra marathon with bleeding nipples and toenails.
"Okay. Let's get back to it. I gotta return these files before school closes tonight," said Kuboyasu, trying to hurry up the time table and not get distracted.
Seriously, they were going to be here all night if they kept this up. Kuboyasu was glad that he was the only one with enough balls to borrow *cough* steal *cough* someone's personal school files. He could not imagine how his friends would react if they knew how much of a punk he really was before coming to PK Academy.
The birthday matter did get dropped and the friend group went back to looking at Saiki's school records.
There was silence about the room again.
Outside the weird academic records and a lot of doctor's notes from fourth and fifth grade, Saiki's school records were generally unremarkable. He went from grade to grade as expected. His physical education marks were all 'pass.' Typically, showing up to a physical education class would earn the 'pass,' even if they did nothing.
Well, there was the fact that he moved a lot and transferred schools several times, but Kaido, who had the general information file that listed the address changes, didn't think that was important. Kaido himself had done several school transfers due to his dad's job so he didn't make a note of it.
"Oh my goodness!" Teruhashi gasped as she got to a specific document in her files. "Is that what happened?"
"What, Kokomi-chan?" asked Yumehara.
Teruhashi had the pile with the miscellaneous information, which had the original applications, paperwork, and documentation of things like the report from the Occult Club.
Teruhashi laid down the folder and flipped to the page of interest, being careful to preserve the page orders of loose paper. "This is Saiki's withdrawal notification. Here is the listed reason for the withdraw. 'Death in the family.'"
Yumehara gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
Teruhashi thought through everyone she knew in the Saiki family, trying to figure out who. "But this doesn't make any sense though," said Teruhashi after a little while. "Death in the Family usually means that you might be out of school for a few days, but not withdraw."
"Well, who died that could've caused Saiki to drop out? His dad?" postulated Kuboyasu. "I mean, if Saiki had to get a full-time job to support the family, that could a reason why he withdrew. My dad did that."
"That can't be it," said Kaido. "I saw both his mom and dad two weekends ago. They look fine. And it doesn't look like there's been a funeral at his house."
"It could be something sudden, like a heart attack," reasoned Kuboyasu. "Or a car accident."
"Yes. That's true. But like you've said, withdrawal from school is usually a result of something major happening," said Kaido, "Even if something happened to Saiki's parents, Saiki has an older brother who already graduated college. Saiki's older brother should've taken care of any arrangements."
Kuboyasu and Yumehara both made a confused face. "Saiki has an older brother?" they asked simultaneously.
"Yeah, about yea tall," said Kaido stand up, his arm raised above him. "Blonde. I heard that he has a really cushy job at a big company so I can't imagine Saiki dropping out due to money."
Teruhashi interrupted the next set of natural follow up questions. "Oh wait, here's a number to call and an address for the return of any Saiki's possessions at school," said Teruhashi. "That's definitely his house address but that's not his house number"
Everyone crowded at the next set of contact information.
"You guys, this is Saiki's handwriting," said Kaido, after about ten seconds of examining the one-page application. He had copied homework from Saiki enough times to know what Saiki's handwriting looks like. "But the signature is different. It's Kuniharu so it's his who dad signed it and it was dated Monday."
"Could something had happened to his grandparents?" suggested Yumehara. "For 'Death In the Family?' I mean, they're old, right? Didn't they have health problems?"
"Yeah. But if that did happen, Saiki would've come back before last week. Even the bone picking ceremony would've happened over the weekend. I mean, it's grandparents. You don't drop out of school if it's grandparents," reasoned Kuboyasu. "That'd be weird, even if you're really close to them."
"The phone number registration information is not public," said Teruhashi, looking up from her phone after doing a brief sleuthing on the internet.
"Should we try the number?" asked Kuboyasu? "It wouldn't hurt."
There was a general nod around the room.
Again, Kaido was the one who tried the number.
The number rang and rang. No one picked up before going to a voicemail notification where a prerecorded message about reaching the number and that they may leave a message after the beep.
Surprisingly, Kaido did leave a message. "Moshi Moshi. This is Kaido Shun with Kuboyasu, Teruhashi, Yumehara and..." Kaido trailed off for a brief moment before continuing. "Hairo, Nendo and Mera. We're Saiki Kusuo's friends and we're trying to reach him. This number was listed as the contact number for Saiki Kusuo. Can you please call us back? If we got the right number? Please call back at XXX-XXX-XXXX. We'd really appreciate it."
Kaido hung up on the call.
Kuboyaus and Yumehara looked at Kaido, impressed. They didn't think their resident chunnibyou knew how to talk like a real adult.
There was silence about the room again.
By now they had been at this for a couple of hours and it was getting late, toward dinner time. It had been a full school day and they were getting tired and hungry. They had skipped the usual after-school snacking at a ramen or coffee shop in order to have their Saiki-Finding meeting.
"So we're at a dead end?" concluded Teruhashi, looking sad.
"Maybe not," said Kaido. He looked to his cell phone with that same pensive look from earlier. "That number was Saiki's cell number."
Again there was a collective group utterance of "What?"
Kaido looked like he had come to a decision. "When I saw his mom a couple of weekends ago, his mom said that Saiki has a cell phone and she shared his number with me. That number from the withdrawal paperwork was already saved on my phone."
"Wait, you knew about his cell number all this time?" asked Yumehara, outraged.
Kaido grimaced more than he thought possible. "Well. Yes. I just didn't think it'd help."
"We could've called him directly!" yelled Yumehara. "Kokomi-chan didn't have to put herself out there and Kuboyasu-kun didn't have to borrow *cough* steal *cough* Saiki's school files and risk getting in trouble! Hairo did't have to stand outside the hall."
"You think I haven't tried contacting him directly?" asked Kaido. He quickly scrolled through the text application. "Look. I've called him and texted him every day for the last couple of weeks." He thrust out his phone and turned it so everyone can see the history. "Saiki hasn't responded since two weekends ago. Even when I asked him to come join Aren and I at the local arcade. Or go to ramen with Nendo. Or when I just ask what he's doing. He doesn't respond. I don't even know if he read these messages or not."
"Wait," interrupted Teruhashi. "You've said he hasn't responded since two weekends ago." Her eyes widen. "Did he pick up? Did he answer? Did you talk with him? Did you see him!?"
Seeing the undisguised look of guilt, Teruhashi nearly screeched. "You did!"
Kaido scratched the back of his head in the universal look of guilt. "Well...he did meet me at Sukiya's on the edge of town..."
"What!? Why didn't you tell us?!" asked Kuboyasu.
"Because he looked really sick," said Kaido. He paused a bit, seemingly flustered but not at the same time. "Like 'he was all white and had lost weight' type of sick. He usually has some really witty, really dry comeback for everything but he barely said anything. He even moved really slow. Whatever he had really bothered him. I mean, his mom didn't want us to visit him because he wasn't well. He had to sneak out of his house. I never heard if he got into trouble for doing that. My mom took him home and she didn't tell me anything afterward.
"And it's Saiki Kusuo. You all know how weirdly private he is. He had a phone for months but didn't tell anyone about it. So I didn't think it was my place to share his number...until this all happened."
Teruhashi looked like she was ready to have a breakdown. She took in what Kaido said and automatically assumed the worst. Her lower lips begin to tremble. "So. What if...what if..."Death in the Family" is Saiki-kun himself?"
"No. NO. NO! Kokomi-chan Don't think that way," said Yumehara. "Saiki will come back. And when he's back, he'll be Baron de Eclair and you'll be Baroness de Eclair," She quickly glared at Kaido and Kuboyasu, as if to say -find, say, something, quick!-
Yumehara did not have to glare at all. Angel Tears from Teruhashi had the immediate desired effects. It was good that they were inside a building, so that the effect didn't draw an army of men trying to rescue Teruhashi.
Kaido went back to the first page of the general information, flipping through in a panic.
Kuboyasu quickly swiped the miscellaneous file from Teruhashi. After a minute he shook his head. "Um. Yeah. I think he's okay. There should've been a pile of certificates and another stack of paper if that happened. Since the school would have to pay out life insurance."
Kaido and Yumehara scrunched their faces. That was so unexpected. "How did you figure that?"
Kuboyasu's eyes darted left and right. He had that look of a delinquent again. "Um... My mom is a...um...an insurance adjuster. Yeah. That's right. She's an insurance adjuster," he offered. He was back to the diligent Kuboyasu again. "Anyways. Student life and health insurance is part of the standard fee to attend PK Academy. The school would have to pay out if that happened and there's usually a mountain-tall paper that comes with it. I don't see any of that. So you don't have to worry, Teruhashi-san. Saiki is still out there. He'll come back."
Such reasoning seemed to have calm Teruhashi down. She did sniff once.
At that moment, the door to their room started to rattle. A loud, brutish banging that sounded like a gorilla was trying to break in.
"Eh!" called out the muffled-but-still-loud voice of Nendo. "Open the door!"
"Nendo-kun!" Hairo's muffled-but-still-loud yell was crystal clear. "Wait! They're um...studying!"
"Quick! Hide the files!" whispered Kaido urgently.
Yumehara and Teruahshi looked confused. "Why?"
"We can't trust Nendo," said Kaido, quickly putting his files back together. "He's too stupid to know what we're doing, but he might still get Kuboyasu and Hairo in trouble by accident."
Kuboyasu was already in action. He quickly retrieved the files from everyone's respective areas, stuffed the files in the big hanger file, and shoved it in his school bag.
"Eh!" called Nendo again from the other side of the locked door. "I got ramen for everyone!"
The promise of food got everyone's attention. Kuboyasu quickly zipped up his bag. The door to the study room was unlocked very quickly.
The ramen came in clear plastic tubs and take-out bamboo chopsticks and plastic spoons. Once the lids came off, everyone could smell the savory, salty, and heavenly goodness of noodles. Since everyone was hungry, they helped their stomachs first.
For a brief period of time, there were sounds of slurping and sipping of noodle soup.
While they ate, they updated Hairo on some of the details, like how Saiki used to attend Ten Star, which seemed to really impress Hairo. They told him how someone had passed away in Saiki's family, but they now have Saiki's cell number and Kaido had verified that it works.
Yumehara, ever the organizer, still pressed on with their special meeting by getting a report from the one soldier who was sent out on a special mission. "Nendo-kun. What have you discovered?" she asked once she ate about half of her ramen.
"Uhhhhhhhhh," Nendo grunted, with food in his mouth, in varied gruff pitches, almost like he was trying to talk. "Uhhhhh-Uhhh-Uhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhh." He was at least good enough to grunt with his mouth closed since he was in the presence of Teruhashi.
Yumehara gave Nendo one of those 'whaaa?' looks. Was that supposed to mean something?
"Wow! That's great to hear, Nendo-kun!" said Hairo. "Yuuta saw Saiki-kun going about in the house as recent as yesterday! So Saiki is okay!"
Now both Teruhashi and Yumehara looked confused. "What?"
Fortunately, Nendo had his trusty guy buddies who could translate his grunts.
"Nendo said that he went over to Saiki's house and no one responded to the doorbell," translated Kaido. Surprisingly, he finished his ramen first. "He saw Yuuta playing in the streets so he played with Yuuta for a bit and that's when Yuuta said that Saiki was spotted yesterday. It got a little late so Nendo knocked on the Iradatsu's door but then Yuuta's mom almost called the cops on him so he ran away. On his run over here, he saw a ramen store with a long line and thought that the ramen must be really good. So he waited an hour for ramen and got takeouts for all of us then came here."
Yumehara blinked at Kaido. "You got all that from a grunt?"
"What? Didn't you?" Kuboyasu peeped after he slurped in his last bite of noddle. Since he was in Teruhashi's presence, he was more polite than usual, too. "And he was very detailed. He also tried to help someone to find their pet cat during all of that."
Both Yumehara and Teruahshi looked at each other, sweatdrop formed on the back of their head. Guys really do talk in caveman grunts and groans, don't they?
Suddenly, Mera barged in. "I smell food!"
Everyone looked at her like she had grown another head, except for Nendo.
"Here your share of ramen," said Nendo, pushing a bucket-sized take out of ramen toward her. "Since Aibou isn't here to get you an onigiri, I gotta do his work for him."
"Thank you, Nendo!" cried Mera. She plopped down in a chair and practically inhaled the ramen in ten seconds. "Alright. Off to my next part-time job! Let me know how I can help you find Saiki~" Her voice trailed off.
As suddenly as she appeared, Mera, was, just as suddenly, gone, leaving several very confused-looking high school seniors in her wake.
Good thing Kuboyasu was a socially and physically aware young man. He sighed happily once he finished the ramen soup. He looked at his empty take-out container and a question came to his mind. "Umm...Nendo, where did you get the money to be so generous with ramen?" asked Kuboyasu.
"Oh, Chibi handed me this plastic card thingy earlier," said Nendo, without missing a beat, now that he finished his ramen. He pulled out the plastic thing that he was carrying loosely in his pocket. "He said to buy Yuuta some ice pops and a gift basket for the kid's mom while asking for Saiki's information. I never got the chance so I thought I can get ramen for everyone instead."
Kaido looked like he was about to faint. "That's my credit card! How did you? When did you? Arg! Never mind. How much was all this ramen?"
Nendo gave a blank look. "Err...1,000 yen."
"For six people and a Mera?" yelled Kaido. "That can't be right!"
Kaido, ever the teenager who used a lot of mobile services, quickly checked his banking app. This time he did faint.
"Shun-kun!" cried Yumehara. "Are you okay?"
"Ug...kill me now," Kaido mumbled. "Before my mother does."
"It's okay, Shun-kun, we can get killed by our mothers, together," Yumehara's look turned all sparkly and misty. "Wouldn't it be romantic? Like Romeo and Juliet?"
Kaido only groaned pathetically.
"No one is killing anyone," Kuboyasu interjected. "Kaido, We'll pitch in to help pay off the credit card payment for the ramen and Yumehara-san, you'll be doing extra cram school with Kaido. Hairo will enforce it with a thousand situps if you don't go."
"No!" Hairo disagreed vehemently. "Ten thousand situps! We'll get Nendo-kun and see who can do the most situps!"
While Kaido looked a little bit relieved, Yumehara's eyes turned into heart-shapes, thinking about future time spent with Kaido. Even if she got too lazy to attend cram school, she would be forced to do so many situps and other exercises that she was sure that she would have a body that would knock the socks off Kaido. It was a win-win.
In all of this, Teruhashi watched her friend's antics with a smile. "I wish Saiki was here," she whispered wistfully to herself. "I think he might even smile at all this, and not just sit there with a blank look on his face."
Apparently, her whisper wasn't quiet enough. It was loud enough to be heard by Kuboyasu and Kaido.
"Don't you worry, Teruhashi-san," said Kaido. "We'll get Saiki back in school. By force, if we have to. And we'll make sure this Shinoda creep keeps his hands off of you. We promise."
"That's right," Kuboyasu concurred. "We gotta protect Saiki's woman while he's gone. That's what good bros do."
Oddly enough, Nendo peeped up. "We gotta make sure Aibou's chick is a-okay."
"Saiki's woman?" repeated Teruhashi curiously and a little jealously. She was certain that Saiki didn't have a special person. Maybe Aiura since the fortune teller always seemed to get Saiki to go out to cafes more often than anyone. But Saiki always seemed more wary than excited by the fortune teller's presence. Then again, it was so hard to tell, since Saiki barely emoted on his face. "Who's that?"
"Well, You, Teruhashi-san, of course," confirmed Kaido like it's common knowledge. "Although I would call you Saiki's girl. Saiki's woman just sounds so...yakuza-ish." He looked thoughtful, in his chunni fashion. "Maybe we should call you Saiki's hime, instead? The consort of a fellow Knight of Judgement should have a proper, dignified title."
"That's a little over the top, don't you think?" asked Kuboyasu.
"You guys, don't you think you should ask Teruhashi-san how she feels about that?" dropped Hairo. "Teruhashi-san should have a say."
"What? Saiki's queen? mistress?" proposed Kaido. "Lover?"
During the exchange, Teruhashi's face turned bright red. Her eyes were swirls of indignant confusion. Steam was positively coming off the top of her head. Her lips were doing a weird smile and gasp of dismay.
"How dare you!? I-I-I'm not...I-I-I'm not...I-I-I'm not..." Teruhashi huffed, trying to get the rest of her sentence out but she could not.
Maybe she didn't want to.
Teruhashi suddenly glared at Yumehara, looking betrayed. "Chiyo-chan. How could you have told them!? You were not supposed to tell! It was supposed to be a secret!"
"I didn't say anything," said Yumehara. "The only person who hasn't figured this out yet is Saiki."
"Wha...Wha...What?!" Teruhashi huffed again, too surprised and mortified.
This was so not how she imagined any talk of her and Saiki to go. It was supposed to be a quiet thing, with just the two of them.
Teruhashi buried her face in her hands, feeling the heat on her face, the almost painful smile on her lips that she could not banish. Their friends knew how she felt about a mutual friend of theirs. They knew!
She felt that she was going to die of embarrassment. If these weren't her close friends, she would have already run away, completely frantic, swearing to never speak, mention, the issue. She might even transfer schools, take up acting and singing and become a famous idol, move to France. Anything but being confronted in this manner!
Only Teruhashi's years-long practice, her mastery, her sheer will to being the perfect woman kept her from screaming from being discovered. No perfect woman would be so silly as to let her feelings for a mere boy reduce her into a hapless puddle.
Yumehara, that cold-hearted woman. She had the look of a diabolical, take-over-the-world villainess. "I think I know how to get Saiki back for his banner stunt of that he pulled at his not even-his-birthday birthday party. Don't you think, Kaido-kun?"
Despite being called by his surname instead of the much more intimate given name, Kaido had the same look as Yumehara. "Yes. It will be the birthday bash he won't ever forget."
Nevermind. Teruhashi did turn into a hapless puddle. She laid her upper body on the desk, muttering incoherant words, unable to regain her compsure.
Her most helpful friends ignored her.
"But first," began Yumehara. She looked around for her gavel and found Kuboyasu twirling it like it was a weapon. "We got to finish our initial plans."
Yumehara snatched the gavel from Kuboyasu and slammed the gavel on the table, getting everyone's attention.
"Alright, since everyone's full, let's start the second part of this meeting," declared Yumehara.
"There's a second part to this meeting?" asked Hairo. "I thought we figured out Saiki's thing already."
"We did. We have his cell number and we know he's still at his house. Now we just have to stalk him, work him, and convince him to come back," said Yumehara. "Meanwhile, we need to prepare for Saiki to come back. And that means we gotta make sure he can come back to Class 1 again."
This time, Yumehara whipped out a paper stand board. She pulled off the cover page to reveal the title of their next meeting. She then took out a chrome retractable pocket pointer from her school bag and extended it to its full length. With all the determination of a military general, she whipped the pointer against the board, pointing at the title of their very important next meeting.
"The meeting of 'Ways to Kick Shinoda Takeru Out of Class 1,' starts now."
