[Summary: Kanji and Nanako explore the TV World.]
[6/20: Monday]
Nanako was tinkering with the piano in the music room when her cell phone rang. It didn't have a ringtone associated with it (yet), but it was someone in her contact list: Kanji Tatsumi.
"'Sup?" she answered, feeling much like a mechanic as she wiped away the sweaty hair stuck to her forehead.
"Hey, S-Senpai? Err..."
Nanako straightened and held the phone closer. She could hardly hear him, and he'd sounded worried. "Kanji-kun, are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just... That detective boy is over here, at the shop, and he wants to talk to you. Well, err, he tried talking to me, but I'm not... He's making my head spin, Senpai! I figure you'd be the one to talk to."
"Shirogane!? Tell him I'll be right there!"
Damn, why was the shopping district so far from the school? Okay, it wasn't actually that far, but when you were in a hurry, it sure felt like it. She wished she had a bike. Too bad Yosuke hadn't spent the day watching her work on the piano again. Then she could just steal his bike, but no, he'd been forced to pick up yet another shift at Junes.
"Hi Tatsumi-san are they in the back?" Nanako asked breathlessly upon entering the store.
"Yes, my dear—"
She was already moving towards the back door. So single-minded in her mission, she was completely unaware of her rudeness.
"Shiroganeeeee!" she cried upon seeing the detective at the tea table, sheaves of papers strewn in front of him. The boy was wearing casual wear today—an aqua button-up dress shirt with a bright yellow tie.
Naoto's gray eyes, so focused on the paper he was looking at, brightened upon seeing her and almost made her swoon. "Ah, Nanako-san. We were just discussing the case. I was attempting to see if Kanji-san could identify his attacker's uniform, assuming he'd been disguised as blue-collar worker of some sort. No progress so far, unfortunately."
"S-sorry," Kanji said, looking down at his knees from where he sat at the couch in the room. "It coulda been blue... Or maybe gray... I'm not sure."
Nanako sat across from the detective at the table and glanced at the various papers, but reading upside-down was difficult.
"Here," said Naoto, handing her a sheet. "These are the connections I've become aware of."
Nanako stared at the paper in puzzlement. It looked like cryptography to her. The writing was nigh-illegible, and all the words were circled and connected to other words with microscopic notes along the connecting lines. Her eyes were starting to spin. Was this the mind of a genius? She set her jaw in determination and pulled out a magnifying glass and made her best attempt to make sense of it all.
"Ah, Nanako-san," Naoto said, "that's unnecessary. I'll summarize. Every connection between the victims—murder and kidnapping—is tenuous at best. I suspected as much a long time ago. If, for example, it was a grudge against high school students, Mayumi Yamano should not have been targeted."
"Yeah," Nanako said. "And the fact that Naoki-kun had discovered her body has long since been rendered irrelevant due to the kidnappings. Kanji-kun had absolutely no tenable connection." Phew! She was pulling out the big words here to stay on par with the Detective Prince.
"Indeed. Both males and females have been targeted, and the attacks do not seem to be motivated by sexual desire. The motive is the key, and I suspect in this case the motive is something unusual."
"Yeah, I can imagine a guy pushing people in the TV just because he can. I mean... I kinda pushed Yosuke in—but I went in after him and got him back out!" she quickly appended.
"Yes, you are my prime suspect, Nanako-san," Naoto said dryly. "Nevertheless, in my research I have discovered that none of the victims had been seen associating with anyone unusual for them, as far as their closest friends and family seem to be aware."
"I've been working at the gas station to, uh, maybe identify the most active types of trucks in the area and get some idea on their traffic pattern. It hasn't been that useful," she admitted. "I haven't been all that consistent in my work schedule there."
"I have compiled a list of trucks registered in the area," Naoto said, holding up another sheet of paper. "There are more than one would expect from a town this small."
"Damn," said Nanako as the detective handed the list to her. She pored over it until she found the number of the truck she'd seen at the gas station. She pointed it out to Naoto, informing him that at least one truck was still active around the town. The detective had her mark the name for further investigation.
"What I would like to do," he said, "is obtain a list of people who've bought large televisions, and then cross-reference the names with those who own trucks."
"Junes is the only place that sells large TVs around here," Nanako noted. "Those records shouldn't be hard to obtain."
"Unfortunately, there is a customer privacy act. For such records to be released, I would need a better reason than I can provide with the evidence we currently have."
Nanako waved away his concern. "I have an inside hand with Yosuke. He's the manager's son. He can get us those records, I'm sure."
"Convenient, but it would be a violation of law." The detective paused. "Tell him to be careful." He went on to note that it hadn't rained at night in some time. "I haven't been able to verify the Midnight Channel. Quite frustrating... Oh, but before you arrived, I asked Kanji-san for further information on this 'TV World.' A world behind the TV... It is fascinating. Would you be willing to investigate it for me?"
"Of course, Shirogane-san!" she cried with cheery enthusiasm. "But you can always come with!"
"As exciting as that sounds, I would rather stay within the realm of the familiar for now. Here." He handed Nanako a gadget. "I'm told digital devices do not work there, but analog should be fine. It's a pedometer, but it also has some other functions. Apparently the TV you regularly enter by is in the local Junes."
"S-sorry, Senpai," Kanji said. "I told him a lot."
"Saves me time," Nanako replied, unconcerned. "What exactly do you want me to do with this?"
"I would like you to find out how far each of the locations in the TV World are from each other. I understand there are few landmarks within it, and it seems to be mostly empty space... Still, I'm curious about something, and I was wondering if you could map out the areas you are familiar with." Naoto proceeded to show her the pedometer's functions. It had a built-in compass and thermometer.
"Map it out," she repeated. "Are you thinking it's a parallel to our world?"
"To think I'd ever entertain the idea of parallel worlds..." He sighed. "But you are correct. I'm wondering if the location of the television the victims are placed in is collateral with where they end up on the other side."
"The apartment was very close to the castle," she remarked. "Both Yamano and Yukiko were at the Amagi Inn when they went missing. Huh... I wonder if the backlot is as far away from those places as Junes is to the Inn. Man, Kanji-kun, we gotta get on this today!"
"Sure, Senpai," Kanji said, lifting his head. "I don't mind going in."
"Oh?" said Naoto. "In that case, would you mind—"
"Bringing you along?" said Nanako. "Of course!"
"—taking these with you," the detective continued, unfazed by her interruption. He pulled out three jars and a net from his laptop bag. "That fog within the TV World. I would like to perform some tests on it. Please capture some of it with the fog collector for me."
"At this rate, you'll want Shadow goo, too, won't you?" Nanako sighed. "Yeah, sure, we'll do it." She took one of the jars, and he demonstrated how to ensure that it was air-tight.
"And what is 'Shadow goo'?" Naoto then asked, and Nanako wanted to kick herself. She told him it was an inside joke. Apparently Kanji had not mentioned Shadows in his explanation. "Oh, and I would like one of those lenses that can see through the fog, if that can be done."
Nanako agreed. "A-anyway, Shirogane-san, you could at least see us off into the TV, maybe?" She looked at him hopefully, and his mouth quirked into a half-smile, but he declined once again.
The first thing Nanako and Kanji did while in the TV World was set the fog collector up just outside the backlot area. The fog seemed thickest around there, and Nanako had high hopes of collecting its condensed form into the jars Naoto had provided. She'd opened one of the jars out of curiosity and found they were lined with plastic bags to create a sort of dual-layer to keep the fog contained. The detective had thought this through, that was for sure.
It really was too bad he didn't want to join them inside.
The next thing they did was ask Teddie for directions. Compasses didn't seem to work in the TV World. Likely it didn't have magnetic earth under it. The floor seemed firm and dirtless everywhere. Maybe one day she would bring a shovel and pickaxe and see what was underneath it all.
Without a working compass, then, they'd have to decide the cardinal directions arbitrarily. She asked Teddie which way Yukiko's Castle was and set that as 'north.' The Amagi Inn was north of Inaba in the real world, after all, and they knew Yukiko had been near the inn when she was thrown in. The best way to see if the TV World mirrored the real world was to match up their maps.
Nanako then asked where the apartment was from the backlot.
"Same way!" Teddie declared, bobbing his head in excitement. He was so glad to see them again that Nanako almost felt bad. They hadn't gone into the TV World in a long time, but it had been so quiet. He hadn't sensed any new large Shadows, so they had no real reason to go in except to keep up their training.
She drew a circle on the ground with a permanent marker and drew a line pointing there. She labeled it 'N' and then proceeded to mark the other cardinal directions in relationship to it.
After that, she asked Teddie where the replica shopping district and the bathhouse were. The bathhouse was northeast of the backlot—yes, their hypothesis seemed to be working! The real world's shopping district was northeast of Junes, and that's where Kanji was thrown in...!
But the replica shopping district threw her for a loop. It wasn't near Kanji's dungeon at all. Maybe Naoki hadn't been thrown in a TV near his home. Yeah, they didn't know much about his kidnapping. He hadn't returned home the day he'd went missing. The replica shopping district was south of the backlot, so he'd presumably been thrown into a TV somewhere south of Junes. Interesting. Naoto would have to be told about that.
Now to pinpoint how far, exactly, these locations were from the backlot and from each other. Before heading off into the fog with Kanji, she told Teddie to make another pair of glasses, and the bear set about the task with obvious enjoyment.
She decided to head to the replica shopping district first, since the location of Naoki's kidnapping was of prime interest. As she was walking there, she realized Kanji had never seen the place. It was pretty eerie, so she warned him he might not like to see it.
He shrugged. "Gonna take a lot to scare me, after all these Shadows we've fought."
"True enough," she said. "Still, you've lived in the shopping district all your life. I don't want to give you nightmares. Besides, Naoki-kun was your friend."
"An' that's why we gotta do this," he replied, his face set in determination. "It's not like I want revenge, but..."
"Truth and Justice," she murmured mostly to herself.
"That bastard had a lot of guts going after me. Wish I'd taken your warning more seriously. You know, prepared myself more, got more for you all to go on."
"Don't blame yourself. I should've stayed with you the whole day. Even if it would've given your mom the wrong idea."
Kanji smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, she's real happy I got friends, even though she's no idea what this's all about."
"Better for her, of course. By the way, did you finish those pot holders?" she asked curiously.
"I did," he admitted, "and we sold them to Kujikawa-san down the road. She and Ma are pretty close."
"Kujikawa," she murmured. "Name sounds familiar."
"Yeah, she's Rise Kujikawa's grandma. I don't pay attention to that sort of thing..."
"Oh! Risette!" Nanako perked up in surprise. "Heh, so the infamous pop star Risette is from Inaba, huh? That's cool. A country girl at heart. Surprised they never used that in an ad campaign."
"She and I are about the same age," Kanji remarked, "but I never really knew her. She's been away from town ever since she got a contract."
"Out of here like a rocket. Can't really blame her. Aaaand we're here!"
The replica shopping district was so quiet that it felt like a true ghost town. The red and black lines rotating in the sky could induce motion sickness. It was almost better to look at the place without the anti-fog glasses on.
"There's my shop," Kanji said quietly as they passed by it. The windows were dirty and they couldn't see inside the store. The door wouldn't open, not because it was locked, but because, Nanako suspected, it wasn't actually a door.
"And then there's the totally out-of-place Junes." The theme music sounded too loud in the empty street.
"Some creepy shit," Kanji admitted, his shoulders hunched as if to ward off chills. "But Senpai, I know it isn't real, so..."
She told him that she thought it might be how Naoki saw Junes, and Kanji said it made sense to him.
"The liquor store is where Chie's Shadow came out. Chie apparently didn't get a dungeon because she wasn't in here long enough. Or because I brought her in. Teddie wasn't very clear on how the dungeons form... Anyway, we don't have to go in." She checked the pedometer and recorded its distance on a notepad. "Kanji-kun, can you sense the bathhouse from here? Maybe we can go right there instead of heading to the backlot."
"Yeah, Senpai. It's this way."
"One moment!"
Nanako took her marker and drew another circle in the sidewalk, marked the cardinal directions again, then brought out a protractor to help her define the angle between the backlot and the bathhouse from the shopping district. With the help of triangulation, perhaps they could narrow down the location of Naoki's disappearance in the real world. This was all her own idea. It would impress Naoto so much!
Her excitement was euphoric. They were making progress once again! It was a stark contrast to her melancholy the previous week.
When they reached the bathhouse, Nanako did the same thing: mark out a circle and mark the direction they'd come from, labeling it 'shopping district.'
While Nanako was still doing that, she noticed Kanji looking at the bathhouse entrance with a mix of emotions on his face. "Something on your mind?" she asked.
"Naw, it's just... a bathhouse? Man..."
"It was a pain going through it to rescue you," she said, "but then I got to see Yukiko's legs and Yosuke's tiger panties and, well, your Shadow in a fundoshi. Heh heh. Uh, anyway, I think the bathhouse represents your desire to be seen as who you are. Like since you're naked in a bathhouse, you can't hide your appearance from others, and they can't hide from you."
"Maybe..." Kanji hadn't altered his gaze from the bathhouse.
"Wanna go in?" she asked, straightening up from her work. "We can take a break. We've still got the apartment and castle to visit, but they're near each other, so..."
"That's okay, Senpai. I don't want to go in."
He said it so quietly that she capped the marker put a hand on her hip. "Kanji-kun. Your Shadow... are you a little bit jealous of it? I mean, it was so open, even if that openness isn't an accurate representation of how you'd ever act or even want to act."
"Senpai... I don't really want to think about it." He held his lower lip in his teeth.
"But you have been thinking about it, haven't you?" she pressed. "You haven't told me to stop sending you manga, anyway."
"Senpai, where do you find your strength?" he asked, turning his head to look at her suddenly.
"My strength?" She snorted. "Did you see me last week? Before the camping trip, I was a hot mess. I skipped class that Monday! That's not like me at all."
He asked her what happened. She thought of waving away his concern, but then decided that she might as well be honest. Kanji knew what it was like, keeping it all bottled up. And although he held her in high respect as his senpai, they hadn't interacted enough for him to be super disappointed in the truth about her.
"Kanji-kun, you might not expect it," she said, "but I'm one hell of a pervert. Think of the creepiest guy creeping on a girl, only substitute me for the guy and everyone under the sun for the girl." She paused, visualizing that, and said, "Okay, maybe it's not that bad."
His brow furrowed. "Pervert, Senpai...?"
"Yeah. I don't really like these things called 'social mores.' I just do whatever shit I feel like doing, and then deal with whatever shit comes after. Kiss someone else's boyfriend, flirt with a hot cheerleader, steal underpants from the locker room. Well, that was only once, but yeah. I do what I want, because otherwise life would be too boring."
Kanji was blushing, maybe at her admission or maybe at her choice of language. She didn't care.
She crouched down, uncapped the marker, and began to draw on the floor while she continued to speak. "I never had any doubts about that until I came to Inaba. After seeing everyone's ugly sides, I'm starting to wonder... about myself... and... stuff." She paused and put the end of the marker against her chin. "Things are so different from Tokyo, y'know? Everyone's so buddy buddy and friendly. I feel like everyone wants to get up in everyone's noses. Maybe it's why this place exists, right?"
"I think Teddie said something like that," Kanji contributed with a hint of worry in his voice.
She went back to drawing. "Yosuke says he's closer to his friends here than he was in the city, but that's because he's your average sixteen-year-old dudebro. People hold Junes, of all things, against him. Junes!" She barked the word, and then shook her head. "It's not even a part of who he is. Back in the city, no one would give two shits about the store he works at and whether or not the manager is his dad or his pimp. But here, he's Junes boy. And that's his shtick. He complains, but honestly, he's nothing to worry about. Y'know... his Shadow didn't surprise me in the least."
"Yukiko-senpai told me it was like a frog..."
"Ninja frog with shurikens and everything! It even tried to look up our skirts." She smiled at the memory. That fight had been fun, seeing Yukiko's fiery Persona in action for the first time. "But anyway, yeah, he's nothing to worry about. But us? Hah. You know how others see you, Kanji-kun. You know how you saw yourself! I doubt we'd ever know about your problems if this place hadn't forced us to. Your real problems, not what everyone thinks about it."
She glowered down at the drawing. It was an outline of a body, just like those at the TV backlot. She thought of adding a vulgar bit of anatomy to it, but just sighed instead.
"And I'm the same," she muttered loudly. "Nanako is a big joker! She seems so innocent, but her mind's in the gutter, teehee. She's just so fun to hang out with. No one really knows me." She tilted her head at him. She'd avoided looking at him during her rant, pretending to be focused on her impromptu art. Now their eyes locked. "Well, I guess you do now, huh?"
"Senpai," he said slowly, "do you want people to know the real you?"
"Sometimes yes and sometimes no," she replied. It was a question she'd been trying to answer ever since last week. She hadn't changed her behavior at all since then, not really. But the camping trip had been a distraction, as well as Naoto's contact out of the blue, so she hadn't too much time to think it over yet. By now she was at least used to everyone's summer school uniforms. Well, as used to them as she could get.
"Ya know, Senpai... I think everyone's a bit of a pervert," he said. "You sent me more from that mangaka, yeah? Well, you didn't have to, because I'd already gone and found the rest of the guy's work myself."
Nanako blinked at him. "All of it?"
"Yeah. All of it." He was blushing again, but there was a big grin on his face. He was happy to have been able to tell her. "Yeah, I like it, and I ain't afraid to tell you at all. An' I'm thinking, maybe... maybe we could take a break in the bathhouse. If you want to, Senpai. I'm not about to let the symbolism or whatever shit stop me from havin' a good time with a friend."
She capped the marker and tossed it to the floor. "Hell. Yes."
When it came right down to it, the castle was basically in the apartment's backyard. If you looked hard enough, you could even see one place from the other. Yeah, now there was no doubt in Nanako's mind: someone at the Amagi Inn that cold April night had pushed Mayumi Yamano into the TV. Had it been another guest there? Or an employee? Oh, god, she couldn't wait to tell Naoto this!
She and Kanji returned to the TV backlot after mapping out the final two locations, fairly pleased with the results of their investigation. The map had come along nicely. It wasn't perfect, but it would do until they had better tools. The pedometer felt imprecise, and she'd been as accurate as she could with the protractor, but a fair amount of it was still guesswork. It was such a pain that electronics didn't work in there. She'd wanted to take pictures of the apartment to show Naoto, and of the replica shopping district to determine if it was a 1:1 scale.
"Boss! I did it, I did it!" Teddie's round form was hopping from foot to foot as they approached. He handed her a pair of navy blue glasses.
Nanako stared at them in surprise. "H-how did you know they should be blue...?"
"I've made pink ones, and green ones, and yellow ones, so..." The bear's arms moved up and down in as much of a shrug as his stout body could manage.
"But how did you decide on this particular shade of blue?" she inquired. Kanji agreed—they matched Naoto's clothing perfectly. Maybe Teddie had sensed their thoughts somehow when making it. It was kind of creepy!
"I... I dunno, Boss! Do you like them? I could make another set just for you!"
"They're... they're perfect!" she declared. "Thank you, Teddie. And if you wanna make another set, go ahead. Wait a sec... What else can you make?"
His giant eyes blinked at her. "What else...?"
"Like, can you make contact lenses instead?" Though she wasn't sure she'd want to put anything he made directly into her eyes. Then again, if he could make them yellow, the results could be hilarious. She could trick her friends by pretending to be her own Shadow. "Or maybe, uh, clothes? I mean, you made that costume, right?"
"This was grown, not made," he said, toying with one of his big red buttons. "It's my body, after all! But sure, Boss, I could probably make something neat. Something Boss would want to wear! Rawr, now I'm raring to get to work!"
Nanako encouraged him, and after he walked off to apparently get on that, she went to check the fog collectors. Disappointingly, they hadn't collected even one drop of water. The fog had never felt cold, so it was possible it wasn't moisture at all. Some successes and some failures, hmm... Well, maybe it needed more time. They'd let it sit overnight.
Actually, the fog was thick enough in this area to catch at least some of it by simply moving the jar through the air. She filled all three of them this way.
She and Kanji exited the TV and landed in the electronics department. Nanako dusted her blouse off, but couldn't hide the reek of sweat from all the walking they'd done in there. Pocket deodorant was something to pack in the future, heh. Maybe mouthwash and toothbrushes and toothpaste, too? They'd spent long hours in the TV World before; it was about time she finished fleshing out their emergency supplies within it. Besides, if one of the group accidentally fell in and Teddie wasn't around, they might need it. The bear did seem to wander, sometimes.
"You know, Senpai," Kanji said, getting to his feet, "that was fun!"
"I feel so refreshed," she agreed. "You have no idea, Kanji-kun!"
"And we didn't even fight any Shadows or nothin'!"
You don't always need to fight, she thought, but he knew that. She smiled back at him. He'd followed her around all day, even though his help wasn't really needed. She could have forced any of the others to come, but he'd volunteered without hesitation, and he hadn't been upset when she was honest with him about herself. He was going to be a loyal friend, she could tell already.
"Were you guys... in the TV World?"
Nanako blinked and saw Yosuke standing there with a broom. Apparently he was on sweeping duty for the store. She checked the time. Yeah, it was really late! The store might even be about to close.
"That's right, Yosuke," she said. "We went to the bathhouse. Right, Kanji-kun?"
Kanji nodded. "Yeah! We did, senpai."
Yosuke's face colored, and Nanako grew an evil grin. "Heh heh..."
"And the other places, too," Kanji, truly an innocent, went on. "We went everywhere. That Junes in there... I'm glad we can't get inside it. It's just wrong."
"We were investigating," Nanako admitted, and it took a moment for Yosuke to be convinced. The clipboard and pedometer in Nanako's hands were probably what finally did it. Too bad for him that they really had gone into the bathhouse! Heh heh. "Speaking of, Yosuke, I need your help with something. It's for the investigation. I'm serious!"
"Yeah? What is it, Nanako?" Yosuke asked. "Did you guys find something?"
She told him about the much-needed list of people who'd bought a big TV in the last few months. He said it wouldn't be too hard to look up sales records.
"I could probably do it tonight, even," he mused. "I'm on the closing shift."
"If you can, bring it to me in class tomorrow," she said. "With all that we've learned today, we might have a lead!"
[AN: Any bets on how long it's gonna take until Nanako pushes Naoto into a TV? hehe
Thanks again emelian65 for leaving a review~
Next Chapter: Blueberry Cheesecake Brownie
It's just sweetness all over.]