The Swindler, the Vanishing Man, and the Pretty Boys

32. Epilogue

I headed to school half awake, hardly having slept─which made the events of the night before feel a bit dreamlike.

And in fact, they already belonged to a dream world.

That previous night was the last time the Reasonable Doubt Casino would ever open its doors─as Sotoin had announced after putting an end to Fudatsuki’s lucky streak and brilliantly seizing the right to run his casino.

“My friends, the fun and games are over. Please exit beautifully,” he pronounced from the epicenter of enemy territory, having claimed victory in what you might call the ultimate away game. Personally, I was shivering at the possibility that either the audience or staff might riot, but everyone took his (her) announcement that the venue was closing with surprising calm.

I guess they knew it was coming.

The defeat of the charismatic maestro equaled the end of everything─and indeed it was so.

Even as a first-time guest, I could tell at a glance that no one would be able to fill his shoes.

Or maybe they were just impressed by how Sotoin won.

In my rage, I signaled the suit and value of every card I saw to him, but he didn’t use that information to torture his opponent.

Instead, he quickly and cleanly brought the game to a close.

I doubt he possessed the subtlety to manipulate the flow of the game and get the audience riled up in the first place, but one thing I can say is that Sotoin didn’t humiliate the student council president of Kamikazari Middle School─and while I’m sure Fudatsuki’s pride was hurt all the same, the wound was as slight as it could have been.

Was that part of Sotoin’s aesthetic as well?

If so, then his generosity of spirit was immeasurably greater than my own, considering I’d abandoned myself completely to anger─but in any case, we managed to escape that “nest of vipers,” as the delinquent had called it, without any casualties (on the way home, Mr. Bare-Legs did violently tear off the pants that the child genius had sewn for him, but that’s another story).

For the record, the delinquent─who had demonstrated his trust in the leader by betting every yen on him that he’d taken out of an ATM on the way there─managed to win back everything he’d lost on our first visit and somehow come out even, which may be another sign of the leader’s skill in watching out for his subordinates.

Anyway─the next morning.

Monday.

I shook off my sleepiness, slipped out of my bunny suit and into my boy’s uniform, and headed to school─with my glasses on, of course.

By that point I was completely confused as to what I ought to be wearing, but at the very least, I knew my glasses were indispensable if I wanted every day to be everyday.

Since I’d used my eyes a bit too much the night before, the spot behind them was aching, but it wouldn’t last long─and anyway, my head probably hurt more.

Because even though we’d shut down the Reasonable Doubt Casino more or less according to plan, it wasn’t like everything was neatly resolved.

We’d prevented Fudatsuki from invading Yubiwa Academy’s territory or hooking our student body on the poisonous delights of gambling─but his economic activities were by no means limited to the casino.

We’d also succeeded in ending his tests, and now that word was out about a person with eyesight like mine, the company might have to start over from scratch in developing their invisibility suit─or their invisibility technology in general.

But we hadn’t severed the ties between Kamikazari Middle School and the Twenties─which meant the root of the problem still remained.

Both as student council president of Yubiwa Academy and vice president of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, Sakiguchi would no doubt continue to harbor a level of anxiety about this issue that equaled my anxiety about the age of his fiancée.

“Don’t look so down, Nagahiro. There’s more to see from that swindler. I’m certain another splendid showdown lies in store for us.”

The all-important club president was as light-hearted as always─but by “more to see,” did he mean Fudatsuki had beautiful aspects?

That scam artist?

Well… Regardless of what else there may or may not have been to see, now that he mentioned it, and now that the case was over, I realized Fudatsuki wasn’t driven simply by business and horse-trading and product tests after all.

I’d been so pissed off the other day that I hadn’t noticed─but he did have his own sort of line in the sand.

Perhaps it was only visible to him─perhaps the truth was that not Sotoin and not even I could see it─but looking back on recent events with a cool head, it seemed to me that while we’d implemented practically the only strategy available to us, Fudatsuki’d had plenty of options on the table.

And targeting my knowledge─or rather, lack thereof─was probably one of the riskier ones.

It was perfectly likely that I would go ahead and use my own dirty trick whether or not I realized he was using his invisible card scam.

He could instead have taken a firm stand and refused to bring Sotoin up on stage no matter how much he won, or he could have kicked the fake bunny girl (me) out of the casino.

And those were just the ones I came up with off the top of my head.

Instead, he chose a challenge and incited an incident.

Yes, I do believe this affair was the product of a playful spirit after all.

But if Fudatsuki got involved with the Twenties and even tangled with a private military contractor for the sake of amusement, then far from being reassured, I felt the situation was dicier than ever… For now, however, there was nothing more I could do.

Well, there was one thing─I might as well start by learning the rules of blackjack.

As I walked toward school mulling all of this over, I spotted an unfamiliar figure in a school uniform─a Kamikazari uniform. Well, speak of the devil (or at least, the middle schooler).

No way, could the next wave of the invasion be starting already? I was immediately on my guard, but the boy greeted me amiably.

“Top of the morning, Mayumi Dojima.”

I recognized that voice.

“It’s me. Here,” he swept his bangs back from his forehead─yes, it was Fudatsuki.

Seeing him in a school uniform after only having seen him in a suit or a tuxedo was weird, to say the least, but I recognized one thing about him for sure─that reassuring smile, which is to say, that swindler’s smile.

Come to think of it, we were in almost exactly the same spot where I’d picked up the million yen─which couldn’t be a coincidence.

He’d been lying in wait for me.

…And not only that, he knew my name even though I’d never told it to him.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t come here for revenge─the damage you and your associates did to me was far greater than you might imagine. We’ll be good boys and girls until things cool off─please tell that to Sakiguchi.”

“O-Okay…”

Dressed in his school uniform, he looked more like the boy he was─but I couldn’t let my guard down. He wasn’t the type to actually behave well just because he said he was going to be a good boy.

And once those doubts set in, the part about not coming for revenge and the damage being so severe started to sound suspicious, too. But even if it was true, he and his associates might already be laying the groundwork for a comeback.

“S-So… Why’re you here?” I asked timidly. I figured this might be my only chance to drop the formal language.

“To deliver a love letter. Not from me, of course. From one of our bunny girls.”

Ohhhhh, that bunny girl.

She sure was pushy─first the phone number, now a love letter.

“I won’t tell her you’re a girl, so please, give her a call─she worked hard for me at the casino. And by the way, she was the one in the kuroko outfit last night.”

Interesting… She must have been busy, with two jobs to keep on top of.

Anyway, he didn’t have to keep my gender a secret. I’d rather he told her, actually. My life is complicated enough already.

But when the student council president himself handed me the letter with a heart drawn across the flap, I felt like I had to take it.

Crap, now what do I do…

“Oh, and not just Sakiguchi─please give my regards to the pretty girl who lectured me on aesthetics as well. Consider this a flirtatious reply. I don’t intend to exact revenge, but tell her I’d love to go around again someday.”

I had a feeling his “flirtatious reply” might be the real reason he was here─it sent a shiver down my spine, like the proverbial dagger hidden behind a smile, but it also suggested that whatever he knew about my real identity or the existence of the Pretty Boy Detective Club, he hadn’t yet figured out who Sotoin was.

Which made sense, since he was still in fifth grade.

If Fudatsuki investigated Yubiwa Academy for the purposes of an inter-school turf war, Sotoin’s name wouldn’t come up─so despite the weirdness of the student council president of Kamikazari Middle flirting with a fifth-grade boy in drag, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Speaking of which,” I asked. “I never did get your full name─I’ll pass on your messages, so do you mind telling me?”

“Lai. Lai Fudatsuki. That’s L-a-i, not L-i-e. Please, don’t hesitate to call on me if you ever have a problem, and don’t think twice about the division between our schools─I’m always ready to consult, especially if it’s about money.”

“O-Okay. Consult, huh.”

“Take off those colored glasses, and you may find I’m not such a bad guy after all. Anyhow, it’s up to you,” he said, and turned on his heel.

I didn’t have a reason to stop him, and if he was leaving then I guess we didn’t have anything else to discuss, but still, I felt like I had some lingering questions, so I reflexively called out, “W-Wait,” and chased after him.

I didn’t know what I’d say when I caught up to him─but fortunately, I never did.

Because when I followed him around the corner, I stopped short─it was a long, straight road without any side streets to turn down, yet he was nowhere to be seen.

“…Okay, okay.”

Had I seriously fallen into the same trap again? He was a real one-trick pony.

I took off my (non-colored) glasses and scanned my surroundings to see if I could spot Fudatsuki in an invisibility suit─but…

“Huh?”

No matter how hard I looked, nothing changed─I scoured the scene in every direction, but Fudatsuki failed to appear.

Like a scam─like the air itself.

Lai Fudatsuki had vanished completely.

“…”

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

What if the “essential” thing Fudatsuki was referring to when he so shamelessly quoted Saint-Exupéry wasn’t his transparently obvious invisible cards, but his ultimate trump card? Apparently, he’d managed to bring the show to a close without revealing his strongest suit, even to me.

If so, then this hadn’t even amounted to a preliminary skirmish─and it made sense that he wasn’t thinking about revenge: he didn’t think he’d lost.

The showdown between beauty and fraud, between a boyish spirit and a playful one.

The real struggle between the detective club and the maestro─was yet to come.

And yet, I still wasn’t at all sure whether a person like me, who couldn’t even see her own self clearly, could bear witness to that battle─I can only wrap things up by saying, it’s opaque to me.