On Sunday, I decided to examine the small card that Senpai had given to me. The only detail I could tell that was in the least bit peculiar about it was the surprising thickness of the thing. Sitting in my desk chair, I inspected it up close with a magnifying glass. I searched for any sign of text that would have been too small to read with the naked eye, but as I had suspected, the card was completely blank. There were no marks on it whatsoever. I tried holding it up to the sunlight to see if, perhaps, there was something embedded on the internal layers of the card. Still, no noticeable results were shown. I was stumped. Why would someone send me a plain business card with no words, no picture, not even a mark? What did this have to do with me? Who was that man in the shopping district that Senpai had seen? Beginning to grow frustrated, I sighed heavily and drew the card about an inch from my eyes. There was absolutely nothing to it. However, when I inhaled, my nostrils seemed to detect a faint smell of citrus. Finding this odd, I sniffed the card once more to confirm it. Indeed, it was definitely citrus-scented. The reason as to why, however, I had no means of determining. I thought briefly of asking my grandfather or Yakushiji-san to inspect it, but I decided that I did not want them to become involved or concerned. Plus, as far as I could tell, the blank business card was beginning to seem like a mere practical joke on my part. I decided not to investigate any further. There was nothing more I could do.

The next day, Monday, I was informed by one of my fellow female students at lunchtime that the results of the exams had been posted in the hallway. Since it was my first time reviewing test results at this school, it took me a few moments before I found where they had been posted. I saw a group of first-year students, including Rise-san and Kanji-kun, all crowded around the billboard. As I had assumed, there was a large series of grids tacked up where everyone was looking. I inched my way through the crowd and inspected the grid. There were three separate tables reading "Year One," "Year Two" and "Year Three." Looking under "Year One," I found my classroom, 1-1, and scanned to find my name. My eyes kept going down, down, down… Until I became seriously concerned that I had not yet found my name. What the… How could I have ranked so low…!? Did I miss a question and throw off my entire test!? I finally reached the bottom, and my heart froze over when I realized that I had not seen my name. This was preposterous! How could they have not graded me!? Why wasn't my name on the-

"W-woah! Great job, Naoto-kun!" Rise-san was staring at the grid with wide eyes. Kanji-kun was speechless.

I frantically tried to find my name again, and when I finally laid my eyes on "Shirogane Naoto," the characters "白鐘 直斗," my lungs involuntarily sucked in a small gasp. It seemed that I had overlooked the first name on the list, not expecting to get the highest score in the class.

"You got the highest score," Rise-san cooed in awe. "Wow, you really are a genius child detective, aren't you?"

My cheeks went hot as I let out a small laugh. "I suppose my studies have paid off.

"Well, obviously!" said Rise-san, "Ugh, I wish I could say I did as well." I looked for Rise-san's name, and saw with a wince that she had gotten 46th place out of less than 90 students in the class.

I placed my hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "I'm sure it will be okay, Rise-san."

Kanji frantically pointed to his own name. "Look, that's nothin'! I got 67th place! See!?" He looked disappointed and frustrated, yet flustered.

I turned and looked at him. "Well, in that case, you should have studied instead of putting your effort into animal crackers."

Kanji's face went pale, and then he threw down his arm and began to storm off again. "That's it, I'm out!"

Rise-san giggled as she watched him stomp away. "Kanji-kun is such a character."

"That's what comes of not studying," I said, turning up my nose in a "serves-him-right" fashion.

When school was dismissed, I found Yu-san in the hallway again, and decided to confirm with him the results of my inspection. I asked him politely to come with me to Samegawa again to talk. Once we sat down at the picnic table in the wooden rest area, I laid out the card in front of us again and began to speak.

"As you can see," I said, "Nothing is written on it. It's just a plain white card. But it does feel a bit stiff, given its thinness… Without any indication of its contents, however, I have no idea who sent it." I sighed silently to myself. "I'd chalk it up as a prank."

"That's no fun," Yu protested.

His words brought a playful smile to my face. Indeed, I had wished for some sort of clue. I truthfully had been hoping to get a case out of it. I began to laugh. "One would expect there to be more."

Suddenly, my cell phone began to ring from inside my pocket. I did not want to inconvenience Yu, but if the call was important, I must answer. "Ah, excuse me," I said apologetically before taking out my phone and answering it. "Yes, it's me.'

"Naoto-sama?" The deep voice on the other line was none other than that of Yakushiji. From his tone, I could tell that he sounded somewhat frantic.

"Ahh, Yakushiji-san. What's the matter?"

"Naoto-sama… I-I'm terribly sorry, but… Th-there's been a theif!"

A pang of urgency struck through me. "A thief…? In the Shirogane estate?" My first thoughts were of Grampa. My heart began to race inside me, and in my mind I prayed desperately for him to be unharmed.

"Your grandfather was not home when it happened," said Yakushiji-san, "So he is alright."

"Yes…" I said, nodding once as I listened.

"I just walked in after running some errands," he continued, "And the front door was wide open. I did not get back in time to see who it had been."

"Yes…" I said again.

"I searched the estate. No money was stolen, not anything of extreme value… It actually seems that your room was the thief's main target. A few small items of your grandfather's were also stolen, but they were not of any real value. They did relate to you, however..."

"I see," I said, remaining calm.

"Is there anything you suppose the thief could have been trying to steal?"

I tried to think of anything the culprit could be after, but nothing came to mind. I didn't have many material items of much value, and even the files I kept about the Inaba Serial Murder Case were of no particular use. They were only folders filled with newspaper clippings and notes about past theories of mine, since discarded. The most valuable case information I possessed was written in my small notepad, which I always kept with me in the same pocket in which I kept a pair of sterile rubber gloves, in case I happened upon an unexpected crime scene (which happened much more often than one might presume). I was seriously confused as to why anyone would steal anything from my room. I didn't even keep money in there, and my laptop was currently with me in my school bag, where I usually kept it. The only thing I could possibly think of that might be of any value to a thief was my small television set, which was not even of any late model. For this reason, I began to calm down. If anything had been stolen from my room, it certainly wouldn't have been of any value to me.

I told this to Yakushiji. "I don't keep anything in that room that I'd miss terribly."

"Ah, yes," Yakushiji-san said, "I assumed so. I see."

"You have already reported this to the police, I assume?" I asked.

"Indeed, I have."

"Then I'll leave the rest to you."

"Very well. I don't want to interrupt you."

"As long as Grampa is safe, it doesn't matter. I can't take my eyes off this case yet." I hurriedly hung up the phone, not wanting Yu-san to have to wait much longer. I glanced at him and saw that he looked concerned, and then suddenly realized that I had mentioned the case to Yakushiji. Damn it, I thought. Well, hopefully he didn't question me.

"What happened?" Yu asked.

"Oh…" I blushed slightly, "I'm sorry. You heard, didn't you…?" I stared down at the table awkwardly. I supposed that I should have told him. "That was from Yakushiji… My Grampa's secretary… It appears someone has broken into the Shirogane estate.

My room was targeted, and he wanted to know if I could think of any particular item the thief might have been after. Several items pertaining to me were also stolen from Grampa's inventory. I don't know about those, but my belongings aren't of any particular value, so…" My eyes suddenly latched themselves onto the small, white card sitting between us. A smirk began to lift up the corner of my mouth. Perhaps they were connected somehow.

"Remember that card?" Yu said, as if reading my mind.

"Yes," I grinned, "That is precisely what I was thinking." I nodded to him, half-excited. Still, I did not want him to have to get involved. This case was about me. "Regardless, you don't have to worry about me. We both have more pressing matters to attend to."

Then, for a brief moment, my eyes caught his. It was only for a mere fraction of a second, but in that fraction, I swore that I could almost see my own bluish eyes as they connected with the silver of his. I could see the concern for me that he harbored in these eyes. When this happened, however, I immediately pulled away and looked back at the card between us. My cheeks became hot as if someone had poured coffee on them. An unknown feeling began to brew inside of me. I didn't understand it, and I felt as if I were frozen in place. It was only a matter of seconds, but it felt like an eternity before I found the heart to speak. "I'm not sure how to react to you… Err… Worrying about me…"

Yu-san smiled, and then stood up, walking around to my side of the picnic table and holding out a hand to help me up. "Come on. I'll walk you home."

"W-walk me home?" I said, "No, no… You don't have to do that. I will be fine by myself."

"Come on," said Yu, "I don't mind."

"No, really! It's alright!"

"I'm offering."

"I can walk home by myself…" It seemed that before I could get those words out of me, Yu-san was yanking me to my feet. "W-what are you… Hey! Stop that! I-I can get up myself…" But by the time I said that, I didn't need to. I looked up at Yu, severe reluctance showing on my face. Sighing, I eventually gave in.

"Fine," I chuckled nervously, "For a nice guy, you're exceedingly stubborn."

My grandfather stayed late at the prefectural office that night, and I didn't get to speak to him about the break-in. I was quite tired, anyway. I went to sleep after inspecting the mysterious card once again. The next day, during lunchtime, I was walking through the first-years' hallway when I suddenly spotted Yu-san walking down the staircase. I figured that I would stop and greet him, seeing as I didn't usually see him here.

"Good afternoon…" I said when I approached him, "I'm not quite used to meeting you here."

"Have you found anything out yet?" Yu asked.

"Ah, yes…" I said, "There haven't been any further developments regarding the card. I suspect that it is mostly a prank in poor taste. I apologize for troubling you with it."

Yu looked as if he were about to say something, but simply nodded. I nodded as well before walking off.

After school, when I was about to get my things from my locker and head home, I saw Yu come around the corner from the staircase and walk toward me again. We both smiled at each other, and I tipped my hat to him before saying "Good afternoon, Yu-san." I still felt a little awkward as I had the previous day, but for some reason, I quite enjoyed Yu's company. He was rather soft-spoken, as well as a hard read, but perhaps that's what I liked about his presence. I wondered if he would like to spend time with me again…

"...Ah, yes," I began awkwardly, "Do you have time you can spend with me today?"

Yu seemed to be deep in thought. Then, he said, "Maybe I should walk you home."

He still seemed concerned for me, but I didn't want him to worry. "Oh, n-no, I'll be fine by myself!"

"Don't worry about it," he said, "I insist."

I wasn't used to having people worry about me, and I didn't want him to, but I honestly thought it would be nice to have him around. "Umm, well… If you don't mind…"

"I don't," Yu said calmly, and we both turned and walked to our lockers on our way out.

The normal routine of opening my locker had become so second-nature to me that when an out-of-place white envelope fluttered out of it, I jumped in surprise. I caught it, however, and inspected the thing with a confused expression. It was a normal-sized letter envelope, and on the back of it was written in pink gel pen:

Kimiko Tetsuya

First Year Class 1-2

"This…" Sealing the envelope was a small, pink, heart-shaped sticker. This clearly was not related to any police business, or even that card, for that matter. I turned to show Yu the letter. "This was in my shoe locker."

Yu-san turned and looked at the envelope. "A challenge for a duel?"

His words were completely unexpected, and they prompted me to laugh out loud. "You're quite old-fashioned, aren't you?" I laughed a bit more before calming myself down. "Judging by the name and the handwriting, the sender is a woman. She thoughtfully provided her year and class.

When one factors in the heart-shaped seal as well, it's hard to imagine that this is related to my job in any way. In other words… There is no need to read it." I considered throwing the card away, but decided against it. If someone had found it in the trash, the sender could be exposed and ridiculed throughout the school. Instead, I placed it in my school bag before sighing to Yu-san. "I apologize. I wasted your time with this pointlessness. How misleading… A sealed letter at a time like this…"

"What'll you do with it?" Yu asked.

"I cannot dispose of it on school premises, of course," I said, "I'll take it home and feed it to the shredder."

He raised his eyebrows and nodded.

"Whether the sender is male or female," I continued, "I have no intention of responding. I have no time to be dilly-dallying with callow love affairs… I assume the same is true for you?"

Yu shrugged and nodded once.

I looked down at the floor beside his feet. A wave of hopelessness seemed to wash over me, and the feelings I had had a few days ago about others only wanting me around for my detective skills or for how "cool" they seemed to think I was began to burn a hole in my stomach.

"Saying they love me without even knowing me…" I mumbled to myself, "Ludicrous." I glanced at him, seeing that he was watching me with yet another face full of concern, yet it was a different kind of concern. I didn't want to keep him waiting. "…Let's go."

The two of us turned toward the front door. Rain was pouring down and splashing against the windows, and I supposed that I should get out my umbrella. Come to think of it, though, the thought of staying close to Yu-san made walking through the rain seem quite less depressing. Part of me wanted him to stay with me, though I didn't want to ask him that directly. Instead, "Would you like to stop somewhere on the way? There are still some questions I have regarding the murders."

He turned to me and nodded once. Yes, he was soft-spoken indeed. But I suppose I liked it that way. He felt somewhat like a journal in which I could write down my ideas… Mind you, I still felt sometimes like that journal could be exposed to others, but it was still a nice feeling. There was some other sort of thing that I could have found myself comparing him to, however, I could not wrap my brain around it at the moment.

"Then, shall we be off?" I grinned before we retrieved our umbrellas and left the building.

We stopped by the shopping district, which was empty except for us due to the rain, before going home to discuss some aspects of the case. "Where shall we go?" I asked loudly over the sound of the pouring rain.

"Come with me," Yu said, motioning for me to follow him. I did follow after him for quite some time, until I became tired of holding the umbrella against the wind and the splattering raindrops, which were getting my shoes and the ends of my pants wet, as well as the tail end of my gakuran, which was blowing behind me in the wind. I held on to the umbrella with one hand, and to my hat with the other hand.

"Senpai," I called out to him, "Where are we going? This is getting awfully tiring…"

"It's just a little farther up ahead," Yu said, "We have a battle to fight."

"A… What? A battle!?" I was about to cry out in rejection, but he suddenly took me by the arm and pulled me into the Chinese Diner, Aiya.

"Here we are," Yu said, closing up his umbrella.

The sleigh bells on the door jingled behind me as it closed. I lowered my umbrella too, and sighed in relief at the warmth and dryness of the diner. "Senpai, why did you want to come here?"

He was already seated at the bar. Patting the seat next to him, he said "Come on. I said we have a battle to fight."

I stared at him for a moment, thinking of him as a complete imbecile, but suddenly let out a quick chuckle. "Whatever you have in store, I'm already regretting it."

"Two orders of the Rainy Day Special," Yu said as I sat down next to him.

"What's that?" I asked him. I had only been to Aiya a few times since moving to Inaba, and I'd never heard of a Rainy Day Special.

"You will see," Yu-san replied.

A few minutes later, I almost jumped when two massive bowls were dropped down in front of us. When I observed the contents of the one in front of me, I felt the blood drain from my face. I was completely speechless.

Before me, in a gargantuan, white porcelain bowl, there was quite literally an entire mountain of beef. I grew seriously concerned and wondered just how one could manage to fit an entire cow into one dish. I looked helplessly to Yu-san, as if to ask him "Why are you doing this to me?"

"In order to finish this bowl, you must have understanding of your limits, knowledge to control your pace, courage to face this unrelenting tide of beef and the diligence to preserve against this colossal challenge. All these traits are necessary to master the Rainy Day Special Mega Beef Bowl Challenge!"

I stared from the bowl, to him, and back to the bowl. This was the "battle" he had been talking about? I felt like I should have been enraged, but instead, I began to laugh. "Very well," I said, "I'll try my hardest to crack the case."

He glanced at me as if I had ruined his train of thought.

"You are quite hard to read," I decided to tell him, "You don't tend to say much, but when you do speak, you always seem to take everything as if it were an adventure."

"Life is a series of major events," Yu agreed.

I took a pair of chopsticks, snapped them apart, and began to pick through the massive pile of beef. "It seems that underneath the first layer of meat is only more meat. And underneath that layer, it is still more meat. Perhaps this is a carnivorous analogy of some sort, or even, to some degree, a species of deep-fried initiation?"

"It's whatever you make of it," Yu said. "Now, eat up, Detective Prince."

I wondered for quite some time how, in all of the world, I could possibly fit such an enormous amount of meat inside of me. The answer came to me in due time: I cannot. We talked about the cases for a bit, but then seemed to all but forget about them once our stomachs began to bulge. After laughing, delicately so that I could still retain the tremendous amount that I did manage to down, and harshly insisting to no avail to pay my 3,000 yen share, I hesitantly allowed Yu to walk me home, just as the rain seemed to be letting up a little. When I finally got home, made my way upstairs to my room and plopped down lethargically on my bed, I realized that I had been acting rather childish. Beginning to doze off due to all the meat inside me, I decided that I didn't care at the moment.

Yu's words kept ringing in my head, as well, and I repeated them before drifting off to sleep. "Life is a series of major events…"