to my reviewers:

I'm glad that most of you are a little supportive of Ryu/Shizuko, XD

Don't worry, when I meant a Minoru-Shizuko scene, I meant it one-sided. Minoru is interested in her….for a very strange reason, actually. XD

That reason may be revealed. VERY soon, I hope. To be honest even I don't know where my story is going, but my killer was decided a long time ago. So I know my ending.

This chapter is short. Very short. i intended to post this at the same time as chapter 12, but i HAVE to do this.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q.

Chapter 11: Questions Answered and Unanswered

Ryuu waited outside the room as Shizuko got ready for the day. He could hear her muttering and grumbling as she puttered about the room.

Inside the bedroom, Shizuko was mumbling annoyed phrases under her breath. Her head was throbbing from her not-so-pleasant wake-up call, and to make matters a little bit worse, her stomach was rumbling with hunger. She remembered that she hadn't eaten anything last night. Then again, she remembered, neither had Ryuu, but well…maybe that's why he was kind of thin. Thinking that maybe he had had breakfast already, she decided for herself that she needed to eat.

However…she still needed to know who among the students were pissed off by her presence. She thought about it as she brushed her teeth, washed out her hair in the little bathroom, and quickly slipped on a white sweatshirt and jeans.

She came out the door with crossed arms, still considerably goaded with Ryuu over their little conversation earlier.

"Who did you hear talking about me earlier?" asked Shizuko directly. Her head throbbed, protesting starvation, but she kept her face straight as her stomach gave another very unpleasant—and painful—roll.

"I remember Satoshi," said Ryuu. "And Yui, Yamato, and Kazumi."

"What about Minoru?"

"He wasn't there. They were actually blaming him for letting you—and the rest of us—into the school."

"I see. I wonder what he's up to. He's been a little out of the way since we came here."

"Well, he is technically still a suspect. His behavior is a little shady. Don't you find it odd that he only comes out to tell us about the other students, and yet disappears conveniently when an investigation has to happen?"

"That is true, but he was with me for a time yesterday, at least that's one time he's not conveniently disappearing."

A memory of Shizuko and Minoru in the practice room flickered across Ryuu's memory.

Before he could ask her about it, though, she had already gone down the hall.

He strode quickly after her along the corridor. "Hey, you can't just go off like that."

"I'm hungry and I need breakfast. Sorry if I left you hanging back there."

"It's all right. Do you want company?"

"Sure, yeah…I'm starved; I didn't eat anything last night…"

"Neither did I."

"I know, but you've probably eaten already…"

Ryuu looked at her uneasily. "Uhh…actually…"

"You didn't."

He made a face.

"I don't believe you." Shizuko stared at him in disbelief. "You haven't eaten?"

He shook his head, a little embarrassed.

She sighed as they entered the kitchen. "So what do you want to eat?"

"I'll eat anything, I guess…" Ryuu replied, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Shizuko took down some pans from the nearby rack. "Well, I'm going to get cooking, you just sit there and—"

Before she could finish the sentence, she slipped on a puddle that had formed on the floor near the sink.

"Ow…" she said with a wince, having landed on her side. The entire left side of her body was probably bruised now.

"Shoot," said Ryu under his breath. "Are you okay?" he asked, getting up.

She got up, placing a hand on the counter for support. "I'll live."

She set a pan down on the stove with a thump. "I really need breakfast now."

Kinta hung upside down on one of the trees in the garden. Kazuma was typing on his laptop at the base of the tree, completely ignoring Kinta, who was trying to comprehend everything the young programmer was encoding.

"Don't tell me you're trying to use your little program to solve this case again," said Kinta, his eyes squinting even further to read the text.

"It doesn't hurt to try," argued Kazuma. "My 'Detectivesoft' can always use a couple of improvements."

"A computer can't have all the answers," replied Kinta, doing a couple of sit-ups, his knees strongly gripping the tree branch he was hanging off of.

"Sure it can," said Kazuma stubbornly. "I can always make it that way."

"And how many times have you succeeded?"

Kazuma winced. "None."

"And don't you think it's about time you started thinking on your own?"

"How am I supposed to think on my own when you're hanging off a tree branch watching over my shoulder?"

"I'm here to make sure you don't fall prey to your old habit. You always—"

"—think about it too much," Kazuma finished irritably. "While you—"

"—don't care about details," Kinta muttered in annoyance.

Kazuma looked up at the brawny martial artist with a smirk. "Face it, Kinta. Even you have a bad habit in solving cases."

"Well, how do you think people solved cases without computers in the old days? They used intuition! Hunches! And they didn't obsess over details, either!"

"Well, we're not in the past, this is the 21st century. Or maybe you haven't evolved yet, you big ape."

Kinta nearly fell out of the tree "What did you call me, you little brat?"

"Well if you don't like to think in the confines of the era you're in then maybe you must have missed a step in the evolutionary chain!"

"Why you little—"

A scream pierced the quietness out in the garden.

This time, Kinta really fell out of the tree—but he managed to control his fall and avoid landing face first. "What the heck was that?"

Meanwhile, the town below the violin school was just about bustling with activity.

Kyu was busy asking a fruit vendor, "Hey, have you heard about the things that happened in the violin school up there?"

Meg heard the reply, "Well, yes, there've been rumors goin' about town lately about the Maestro's death. Poor old man, and he was a fine musician too. We'd hear some of that music sometimes, if we were lucky that is."

"Is there anything else you might have heard about the students?"

"Well some of them come down here for errands, food and other personal comings and goings, but I don't know them very well."

Kyu thanked the vendor and walked back towards Meg. "I think the people down here thrive on rumors."

"Yeah, since there isn't much they can tell us," she replied.

"Do you think they even know much about that school?"

"I'm not sure. The Maestro may have lived there but maybe he didn't do too well at around before the time he died…"

Meg suddenly shrieked. A strong gust of wind suddenly whooshed between them. As expected, the skirt she was wearing suddenly decided to fly upward, revealing a certain something that Kyu almost always seemed to be interested in:

"What's with those flowers on your—OUCH!"

Meg slapped him, her face turning almost the same shade as her hair.

"Jerk!" she snapped at him. She stomped off, her pigtails swishing behind her as she left Kyu writhing in pain on the ground.

Shizuko and Ryuu had heard the scream from the breakfast table, their heads jerking at the same time to the direction of the noise.

"Who was that?" Shizuko said, getting up.

"It sounded like Kazumi," Ryuu replied, pushing his chair backward almost violently. The chair almost clattered to the floor, but he caught it just in time before it hit the ground.

As the two of them rushed towards the direction of the shriek, they nearly bumped into Kinta and Kazuma, who had just rushed through the front door.

"You heard it too?" Kinta asked by way of greeting.

With a serious nod from each of them, they all got up and started making their way to wherever the cry had come from.

The location wasn't too hard to find—already, a small crowd had gathered at the door of—

"The music room," Shizuko whispered.

All the students were gathered in front of the music room except for one.

As the four DDS students came closer to the scene, they saw precisely what it was that completely immobilized the violin students.

Shizuko placed her hands over a mouth to stifle a soft gasp.

On the floor of the music room was the dead body of Yui. A large kitchen knife was lying on the floor nearby, with blood dripping off its edge. A pool of darkened blood surrounded her body, which seemed to have flowed from a stab wound underneath her rib cage.

But it wasn't only that scene which had everyone completely in shock.

Because kneeling next to Yui's dead body, hands dripping with crimson blood, was…

Rants: Oops. Sorry. Really, i am. I need to leave you hanging. i can't help it. this HAS to be done. i'll put up chapter 12 as soon as i can. i promise. thank God for vacations.