Kotani's Agency for finding things [case 2-1]

[OtakuNinja]

I see that you've read Shower Scenes.

[Ario]

And here’s the finale for case 1.
The dog with a hat
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Before I go to retrieve the dog, I decide to pick up my (rubber band gun sized like a) revolver from my room. Never know when you have to annoy, intimidate, or scare someone off with a rubber band or 3. Hopefully I’ll be back by the time Lilly finds Hanako. As I walk over to the room I need to, I go over the facts of this case.

Kenji was asked to steal Hanako’s jacket and hat by someone anonymous who gave him a bottle of whiskey for his troubles.
He also managed to steal a very lacey pair of bra and panties, but those were eventually recovered.
Whoever took Niji knew Hanako personally, and put whiskey at the scene to throw me off track.
This means they know I’m doing this case as well and needed to stall me for time purposes.
Niji and the clothing articles are now in the hands of a girl with teal hair and a knee brace.
Said girl is in the sewing club storage.

But what still isn’t clear is the why.

Why would someone hire Kenji?
Why would just a jacket and hat need to be stolen?
Why take Niji?
…Why hasn’t Hisao helped Hanako? I saw him earlier.

Wait.

Hisao couldn’t help because...
HE was the one who set this up! He hired Kenji to steal the clothes, and stole Niji also, along with putting whiskey at the scene to throw me off track. He must have known I was on the case when I had my beret on. The only part of this puzzle that doesn’t fit is why he gave it to the girl with teal hair. Wait… maybe he wanted them sewn up? But then again, Hanako may know how to do that herself or would have gotten someone to do it for herself.

As I enter the sewing club storage room, I notice the girl with teal hair is sleeping. Now that I have a better look at her, I realize who she is. Suzu Suzuki, someone from Hisao and Hanako’s class. She has narcolepsy, so she must have had a sleep attack between from when I saw her on the monitor and me getting her. She’s put out a few things on the table in front of her. A sewing machine, thread and needle, pincushion, fabric similar to Hanako’s jacket with said jacket next to it, fabric similar to Hanako’s hat and said hat next to it, a small note, and Niji.
I can’t exactly piece everything together yet, so maybe the note will give me a clue.

‘Suzu, if you truly do want repayment for my help in getting your science scores up, a hat and jacket for Hanako’s plush dog, Niji, would be nice. If you can base it off of her hat and jacket, which I have supplied you with, that would be even better.
-Hisao.’

It all makes sense now. I place down the note and notice Suzu is waking up.
“Mrrh… that was a good nap…” Her voice sounds tired and a little stuffy. Maybe she also has allergies?
“Hi Suzu.” Her head snaps at me, and she looks a bit frightened. “I’m not here to do anything more than ask questions.”
“You’re Kotani! Hisao was worried you may help Hanako a bit too fast…”
“You mean solve the case? Yeah. So what are you doing?”
“Well Hisao helped me with getting my science scores up exponentially, so I thought I should repay him for that. I’m good at sewing, I even made my own plush once… so I thought of sewing something up of his choice.”
I should probably write down the fact she likes plush things, it’s always a good idea to be on people’s good sides. “Well, that’s really sweet of you.”
She lightly blushes at this compliment. “Th-thanks… oh man, I haven’t even started…”
“Well I’ll just let you get to it; I found where the missing items are, so my part of the case is done.”
“Should I at least give you the jacket? I don’t think a jacket would work well unless I sew it directly on the plush… and I’d have to open it up to do that.” She picks it up with her left hand.
I take the jacket from her and carefully fold it before placing it on the table. “Sure, it could at least calm things down a bit. Did Hisao tell you he needs it done by the weekend?”
“He would?”
“Well considering he probably wanted to give it to Hanako then…”
“Ah… I wouldn’t even have time for the jacket then.” She picks up a sewing needle and the hat fabric. “Now to just hope I don’t fall asleep.” She starts getting to work.
“I’ll help even if you don’t fall asleep; this shouldn’t take too long, right?”
“Nope. Though I do need something stiff for the hat brim…”

Time passes at this point as she gets the hat done with my help.

A knock is heard on the door.
“I’ll go get it.” I get up from the chair I was in and open the door to see Hisao standing before me. “Ah, just the man I was going to look for.”
“Hello, Kotani. …What are you doing here?”
“Helping Suzu make the hat for Niji.”
His face is one of complete disbelief and shock. “What. But I thought you would-“
“Take the hat and jacket back? Not just yet, though I do have the jacket back.” I go back into the room and take the jacket from its place before giving it to Hisao. “You can take this back to her, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. The hat’s almost done; tell her I’m still looking for it.” He nods and goes off before I turn around. “So Suzu, how much more-“ I notice she’s fallen asleep. Thankfully, the thread and needle are away from her face. She must have felt this one coming up; the needle is a bit out of her reach. Or maybe she does things without thinking. I write this down on my profile for her, along with the fact she likes plush dolls. I get my iPod out and listen to some music while waiting for her to wake up. I needed to find music that I could write about, so I decided to listen to Rhapsody in Blue, again, though this time has a reason.

A few minutes go by before Suzu wakes up on her own.
“Music…?” She yawns and gets her head up before processing the hat still isn’t done. She must have heard it while sleeping, I didn’t use headphones, so I pause it.
“You heard it? It’s Rhapsody in Blue, a classic.”
“I liked how it gave me happy thoughts in my dream.”
“Jazz can do that. It looks like the hat’s almost done.”
“…You’re right. Though I do need to finish this last stitch.” She takes her needle and finishes her work before cutting the excess thread and putting the hat on Niji for size.
“It fits perfectly! I’m sure Hanako will love this gift, and maybe even open up a bit to you.”
“Hanako? Opening up to people?”
“She’s dating Hisao and she doesn’t mind being near me or Lilly.”
Her face looks little shocked at this info. “Huh. Guess Miki forgot to mention the dating Hisao part. Maybe I should give this to her then?”
“It wouldn’t be out of the question.” I offer her a hand out of her chair.
“H-Hello?” after hearing this, I pull back a bit too hard in shock, and Suzu ends up falling on top of me.
“Ow… Hey Suzu, are you alright?”
“S-Sorry if I caused anything…” I look to the origin of the voice, and see Hanako standing at the door with Hisao and Lilly behind her. It’s apparent her jacket wasn’t put back into her room, as she was wearing it. Isn’t it a bit hot for that, though?
“I-I’m fine, Kotani. I’ve been through worse.” She gets up with an embarrassed blush on her face. We must have been in a really awkward position without me realizing. As I get up, I notice she’s picked Niji up and has it behind her back while walking over to Hanako. “Hanako, I do believe this plush dog belongs to you.” She brings Niji out from behind her back and Hanako gets a shocked look on her face.
“I-I… He’s very cute… thank you, Suzu.” Hanako then gives her a quick hug, resulting in Suzu hugging back. As Hanako breaks the hug, I notice Suzu has her eyes closed and her body isn’t responding.
“I think she fell asleep. Again.” I go over to Hanako to try and help Suzu get off of her, asking for Hisao’s help in the matter.

Eventually, Suzu is wrapped around me instead of her. “I’ll lead her to the dorms; it is kind of getting late. And Hanako…” Her head turns to me. “You should really thank Hisao. It was his idea.”
“I-I think I c-can do that later.” She blushes slightly. Is she thinking of thanking him by wearing that lace?
That is bolder than the coffee I have to drink in the morning since I wake up at dark o clock. It’s a habit I never got rid of after doing so when on vacation with my family. Mostly because I never got around to resetting my alarm clock to sensible hour.
“B-but do I have to r-repay you?” Hanako’s voice snaps me out of my train of thought.
“Erm… Normally I’d ask for dried fruit, but I think if you showed up to the band concert, it would be sufficient. I didn’t really do anything except piece things together.” She fidgets a bit at this. “I can make arrangements to give everyone here a seat in the balcony and to the right. Music shouldn’t go unshared.” She seems to like the idea and gives me a smile.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea. It’s after exams, right?” Lilly steps into the room, carefully pacing herself to not run into anything.
“Yup. Music is good for relaxing, even if it gets loud and thunderous.” I look at the clock on the wall. “Oh man, we should get going before curfew takes place.” Hanako’s the first to leave, Dragging Hisao with her, and Lilly follows afterwards. I close the door on my way out as Suzu wakes up.
“So… am I going to your dorm or what?” She gets a smug grin on her face, forcing a very obvious blush from me.
“W-what? I was just getting you off of Hanako, you fell asleep while hugging her.”
“Right… but I wouldn’t mind having someone to help me back the dorms safely, Kotani. I wouldn’t want to fall asleep and hit the concrete with my knee… again…”
“Hrm. So that’s how the knee brace got there. Ow. Well, I can help you get back to the dorms.”
As we walk to the dorms, I can feel a smile forming across my face. All is well, and the case is solved.
Too bad this was only one of my recent ones, the ones I had in the past were a bit more interesting.

But that’s for another day.
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Case complete!
Finally. I think this one is about twice as long as other chapters. Good for a finale of a case, I suppose.
For anyone who wants to try and place things chronologically, this is the only case that you can accurately do that with. (somewhat. it's apparent I indirectly referenced the pseudo-pseudo Suzu route when Hisao's helping Suzu with her physics score, but that was before I read that far into the pseudo-psuedo Suzu route.) The other ones won’t happen at a specific time in relation to KS canon or even this own fic’s canon. Heck, in some other ones, Hisao will be dating someone other than Hanako. So if any discrepancies to canon I established are broken, it’s because Kotani making a detective agency is pretty much the only constant. Or y’know, I’m just saying ‘Screw canon, Hisao is here at Yamaku during Halloween time for plot purposes’ which he might be when holidays roll around and I do themed cases. I'm noting this right now because I wanted to establish it before the next case, a Lilly one, hopefully with more action and detective work.

[Ario]

Case 2: The rainbow of red

part 1: the painting of a wizard
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It was an odd day today. Class was boring as usual, even in science. But something just felt… off. It wasn’t until I left class to head to the music room that I figured it out. I saw a certain armless redhead staring at a blank spot on the wall. I recall her name being Rin Tezuka or something like that. I go up to her and stare at the wall.
“Is something the matter?” I ask her, not understanding what she’s staring at.

“Yes. Something is missing. The problem is what isn’t here.” She replies, looking at me with a half sleepy look.
I go up to the blank spot and upon closer inspection find that there’s a huge square on the wall that’s slightly lighter than the rest on the wall. There’s also a small nameplate on the wall. ‘Rainbow wizard’ is what it says. I also notice that the nameplate is splotched with dark red over black, but I never paid attention to those, so maybe they’re all like that.

“The painting is missing.” I know I’m stating the obvious here, but I usually say things out loud so I remember them better.

“That much was obvious, Kotani. The question is why it was taken.” Man, she can be blunt. But she does have a point, the question is why. “Maybe you can help me find it. I heard you help people with finding things. Maybe you are an object listener and can find objects by hearing them.”

“Not exactly, Rin, I can just piece things together quite nicely to see the big picture.”

“But the big picture is missing.” She points at the wall with one of her feet. “It’s hard to see the picture if it isn’t there.”

“Very true. It looks like I’ve got another case on my hands. But I must ask you something: Have you talked to Nomiya about the missing painting yet?” I take my notepad from my pocket to write down any info I have so far.

“He said he didn’t know either, but he’s trying to get a replica up for the time, or something.” She tilts her head to me. “Shizune might know something, she wrote a note to me saying she saw it last night and was the last one to leave.”

“That’s… a really good place to start, actually. Do you want to help me with this case?”

“Case? I thought we were finding a painting, not a case.” She shrugs. “But I’ll help with finding the painting.”

“Alright then. Now we just need to find Shizune… or Misha.” I turn around and see a familiar head with pink hair in drills. This… probably will not help with my hearing anytime soon. “Hey Misha!” I call out to her, causing her to turn around. I walk over to her and see Shizune behind her.

“Kochan! You still haven’t found those lost files yet have you?” Oh no, Misha’s out of the loop.

“I actually found them yesterday and personally handed them to Shizune. Did she not tell you?” I then turn to Shizune and sign a bit to her. [You didn’t tell her you got the file?]

[I thought she would have noticed it, it was at the top of the stack today.] Shizune signs back. She then gets a shocked expression before signing back to me. [You know sign language?]

[A bit. My mom’s friend has a Deaf son, so I picked some language from him.]

[Does he go here?]

[He graduated from Meisei Gakuen some time ago and went to the states.]

[Okay then. Hey, I think Misha’s talking to you.]

“Kochan! Why didn’t you tell me you knew sign?”

“Because I’m not all that good at it and haven’t used it in nearly a year.” It was true, I haven’t had to sign in a year.

“Oh. Well. Erm…” Hah, I got her there. It's really rare to see a quiet Misha. “So what did you need me for?”

“Actually, I was wondering if Shizune knows what happened to the missing painting.”

“Which one?” She turns around, trying to see it. She probably wouldn’t from here. “I don’t see a missing painting…”

“That one.” Rin says before pointing to where the blank spot on the wall is with a foot. It was a good distance away, Misha had to follow Rin’s directional foot to find the spot, and Shizune followed.

Misha and Shizune sign back and forth for a bit, too fast for me to keep up with.
“Shicchan said she knows it was here last night and that the red on the nameplate is new.”

“So it’s not usually like that. Hrm. Paint wouldn’t easily come off the canvas would it?”

“Wrong color,” Rin says after looking at the nameplate. “This red is more like my blood when I got a cut. The red hair is more of a pomegranate red. Maybe rotten ones. Not sure, I didn’t paint it.”

“So we have a missing painting, and no leads.” I sign noticeably before writing some notes down. “This may take a while.”
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I just feel like this one's a little meh, but that's only because it's setting up for something bigger.
feedback/comments are appreciated as always.