The Swindler, the Vanishing Man, and the Pretty Boys

1. You Dropped Something

To put it bluntly, the fourteen-year-old Mayumi Dojima was a girl, but she was wearing a boy’s uniform─not that she has a thing for dressing up as a boy, but if that’s what people think, so be it. Sorry if my outfit has caused some kind of misunderstanding.

On the other hand, I’d rather people misinterpret my motivations than figure out that I’m wearing a boy’s uniform so I can be part of the notorious Pretty Boy Detective Club, that shadowy organization operating behind the scenes at our school.

If you just can’t live without knowing the details of how all this came about, then I suggest you read the previous case file (Pretty Boy Detective Club: The Dark Star that Shines for You Alone). I’ll admit I was afraid that if I dressed like this people would give me even weirder looks than they had before, further reducing my already scant stock of friends, but surprisingly, that hasn’t happened.

In fact, it’s been the opposite─classmates I had no connection with up till now have started talking to me. Of course, part of it is probably the entertainment value of a girl dressed up as a guy, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.

The world is tolerant of eccentrics.

Surprisingly so.

Or maybe it’s just that Yubiwa Academy is the kind of place that lets “people like that” do as they please to begin with.

It’s a...unique environment, shall we say.

…What was my deal, anyway?

I spent all that time staring up at the sky by myself, afraid of changing but equally afraid of being treated like a changeling─but was all that struggle, all that warped thinking, just one big ego trip?

When I think about it, it all seems so pointless, but I’d like to believe that thought itself is the result of having roused myself and braved the first step forward.

Anyway, the fashion sense of the newly fourteen-year-old Mayumi Dojima may have changed a bit, but as she headed toward school, her personality was as grossly twisted as ever─and then.

A businessman walking up ahead of me suddenly caught my eye─needless to say, I was wearing my custom-made glasses at the time.

Glasses that restrict my vision rather than improve it─which means I didn’t see him with my “too-good” eyes. I just plain saw him.

I don’t know why this businessman on his way to work─this supposed symbol of a peaceful society─caught my attention, but he did.

I’m not suggesting I had some kind of premonition, nor am I getting too big for my britches and insisting I have a natural talent for detective work now that I belong to the Pretty Boy Detective Club or whatever.

But something about him caught my eye.

If I had to say, maybe it was the slightly unnatural way he wore his suit? With his briefcase in hand and his hair slicked back, he was the perfect image of a businessman, at least from the back, but something about him still struck me as ever so slightly off.

Still, the feeling was so faint that if he’d just kept walking, we probably would have passed each other without incident. So faint that five minutes after we’d passed each other I would have forgotten all about it.

After all, life is made up of such fleeting encounters─yeah right, like I’m really going to start writing enlightened crap like that.

Anyway.

Having this vaguely “off” businessman in my field of vision was making me uncomfortable, so I decided to speed up and pass him─which should have been easy even for a fourteen-year-old, if I took big steps.

And since I wasn’t wearing a skirt, it wouldn’t be improper. I’d probably even look like a jaunty young man. I hoped.

But just when I’d made up my mind, Mr. Businessman leisurely withdrew a cell phone from his jacket pocket.

Was he calling a client or something?

This early in the morning?

Man, Japanese businessmen have it rough.

But I didn’t have time to fully sympathize─because when Mr. Businessman took out his phone, something else fluttered to the ground.

The object seemed to have gotten caught on his phone and slipped out of his pocket along with it─but since he started talking right away, he didn’t notice.

Actually, it didn’t “flutter.”

It thumped.

“Ermph!” I sputtered before I could stop myself. Naturally, I was watching all this unfold with “regular” vision, but for a second I wondered if something had gone haywire with my glasses.

Was this even possible?

Mr. Businessman had dropped a wad of cash.

A bare wad of cash had fallen out of the pocket of his coat─with the paper band still around it, like it was fresh from the bank.

And it was composed of ten-thousand-yen notes.

The ones with Yukichi Fukuzawa’s face on them.

In other words, Mr. Businessman had dropped a million yen right in front of me─and to make matters worse, he just kept on striding along, talking on the phone, not noticing a thing.

“W-Wait!”

In a panic, I started running after him.

I’ll never forget the way I scooped up that bundle of cash from the asphalt like a seasoned rugby player.

Of course, I’m not a particularly good person, and my moral compass is nothing to brag about─I like to think I have enough class to resist picking up money and sticking it straight into my own pocket, but I also know myself well enough to realize that I’m not so conscientious as to deliver every single lost item I find to the police.

But this was a lot of money. Too much money.

I’m not so emotionally stunted that I’d stand passively by as someone drops a million yen─so I kicked myself into action and managed to catch up with the surprisingly speedy businessman.

“Hello?” I said, like I was answering the phone or something.

The person placing the call obviously shouldn’t be saying that, but Mr. Businessman finished up his own conversation just at that moment─and when he turned around, I saw that he was much younger than I’d imagined.

His slicked-back hair made him look grown-up, yet there was something, I don’t know, childlike in his eyes.

He definitely didn’t look formidable enough to be walking around with a million yen in his jacket─and come to think of it, not even the presidents of major corporations walk around with a million yen sticking out of their pockets.

Okay, slow down.

Get a hold of yourself.

I’d reacted reflexively in the face of that big pile of cash, but what kind of person drops a million yen in the street?

A sketchy person, right?

In a sense, the money had dazzled me into acting rashly, but could Mr. Businessman be─

“Well, well. Whatever is the matter?” he asked in an exceedingly gentlemanly tone, accompanied by an exceedingly gentlemanly smile─and at least for the moment, that gentle smile reassured me.

Though not so much that I actually managed to calm down.

“U-Umm... You, you d-dropped this,” I stammered, holding out the bundle of cash.

“Goodness me, I did?” Mr. Businessman replied, winking at me.

He had a sort of “my bad” look on his face, but at the same time he was a little adulty for that (to use the current slang), so it wasn’t exactly charming.

That childlike first impression must have been a figment of my imagination.

“How very careless of me! Thank you. You’ve done me a real favor, young man.”

My heart skipped a beat at the words “young man.”

I didn’t have the stage presence to say, “I’m not a young man, I’m a pretty boy”─so I mumbled something like, “Oh, um, you’re welcome,” and handed him the bundle that was weighing so heavy in my hands.

Mission accomplished, I began to feel vaguely self-conscious, so I muttered, “Well, anyway…” and was getting ready to make my escape─when he called out, “Just a moment,” foiling my getaway.

“Please, young man, don’t vanish so beautifully without at least allowing me to give you a token of my thanks.”

“A t-token of your thanks?”

Go ahead and ask me not to vanish beautifully all you want, but it’s against club rules to depart awkwardly, so...

“The going rate for returning a lost item is ten percent of its value, I believe.”

“T-Ten percent?” I parroted again like an idiot.

With a practiced hand─a hand practiced at handling bills─Mr. Businessman extracted exactly ten ten-thousand-yen notes from the million-yen bundle and slipped them into the breast pocket of my uniform. The gesture was as crisp as if he were punching a timecard.

Ten ten-thousand-yen notes?

Which is to say, a hundred thousand yen?

A hundred thousand yen, like one of those hundred-thousand-yen coins that are worth a hundred thousand yen?

“I-I can’t take this, I mean, I would never accept a reward for what I did, I don’t need it, in fact, this puts me in a difficult position, please take it back.”

My frantic protests were too late, however─by the time I looked up from my breast pocket, Mr. Businessman had already turned and started walking away.

Hey, come on!

It was me, not him, who ended up put out by a beautiful vanishing act. I ran after him in consternation. This was no joke─somehow, I had to return that money.

“Please, wait! Hey!”

He sped around the corner, and I followed close on his heels, only to be thrown into consternation once again─What the...?

Logically speaking, I couldn’t have lost sight of him because the street in front of me was long and straight, with no side streets to turn down for quite a ways─in fact, I’d been relieved when he turned that corner─but nevertheless, the vaguely unsettling form of Mr. Businessman was nowhere to be seen.

He had disappeared.

Not so much beautifully as completely, unsettling aura and all─like a puff of air.

“Huh? Wha...?”