He paused the game after making it through the level he’d died on earlier and looked over his shoulder. “Well, that was it.”
Yukawa nodded deeply. “You do appear rather skilled.”
“‘Appear’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know how difficult the game is, nor do I have anyone to compare you to. Thus, I lack sufficient data to properly assess your skill.”
“You try playing then, Professor,” Kyohei said, handing him the controller.
A bewildered look came over Yukawa’s face. “I’ll pass.”
“Why?”
“I prefer my trials and errors in the real world.”
“Oh, come on, give it a shot. Or maybe you’re chicken.” Kyohei grinned.
“I’m not ‘chicken.’”
“Then play. None of these adult hang-ups of yours.” Kyohei nudged Yukawa in the shoulder with the controller.
Yukawa grabbed it, a reluctant look on his face. “You’re going to have to tell me how to play.”
“It’s easy, just go with the flow,” Kyohei said, starting the game over.
“Hey, wait! You can’t just throw me to the wolves—” Yukawa squawked as his eyes widened behind his glasses and he stared at the screen.
“Not wolves, zombies,” Kyohei said, but the physicist’s thumbs were already furiously working the controller. Every muscle in his body was tensed.
Yukawa burned through his allotted three lives in less than a minute. Kyohei rolled on the tatami mats, laughing out loud.
“Wow, you really suck! Even my mom’s better than you. What was that? I’ve never even seen anyone bomb so hard.”
Yukawa set down the controller, his face expressionless. “That was very informative. As far as this game is concerned, you possess a much greater amount of skill than I do.”
Kyohei propped himself up on his elbows. “Sorry, Professor, but I’m not sure you’re the one I want grading me on games.”
“Speaking of which,” Yukawa said, suddenly pointing to a stack of thin notebooks on the table behind them. “What’s that?”
Kyohei sat further up and made a bitter face. “Japanese and math.”
“Summer homework?”
“Yeah, and that’s not even all of it.”
Kyohei pulled a cardboard box on the floor closer to him. The package had arrived the day after he got to the inn. It held a few changes of clothes, his games, and all of his dreaded homework.
“I have to do this life schedule thing. It’s where you plan out every day, and then you write down whether you did what you said you were going to do. It’s a total drag. I also have to do a book report. And then some self-study project … I’m not even sure what to do for that. I don’t get why they make us do all this stuff anyway. It’s supposed to be vacation, right? Don’t they know what vacation means?”
Yukawa picked up the book of math drills and flipped through the pages. “Looks like you haven’t even started yet. Are you sure you’ll finish on time?”
“Probably not. I’ll get home and Mom will yell at me the day before school starts and I’ll do it then. It’s easier that way, because in between the yelling she helps me by doing some of the problems.”
“I wouldn’t call that helping. I’d call that getting in your way,” Yukawa said. “She’s impeding your academic progress.”
“Yeah, but if I didn’t do my homework, I’d just get in trouble at school.”
“Then get in trouble. You’d learn a valuable lesson.”
“Easy for you to say,” Kyohei grumbled, reaching out to snatch the book of drills back from Yukawa. Just before his fingers touched the book, Yukawa pulled it away.
“How about I help you with your math? We can probably finish this workbook in two or three days that way.”
Kyohei sat up straight. “You’re going to do my math?”
“I said help, not do. What I’m offering is instruction. I will teach you how to properly approach the problems, so you can do it yourself.”
“You mean like a tutor?”
“I suppose you could call it that.”
“Blargh,” Kyohei said, making a face. “I didn’t come all the way out here just to study.”
“You have to do it sometime,” Yukawa said, opening the book of drills. “‘Find the sum of the angles of an eighteen-sided polygon,’” he read. “Someday, you’re going to have to be able to answer this question on your own. Graduate without learning how to do that, and you’ll get yourself into trouble later. The obvious solution is to learn how to solve it now. Besides, I’ve already helped you complete one of your homework requirements.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“The rocket we used to see the bottom of the ocean. That was a perfect self-study project. I still have all the data, you only need to collate it and write it down.”
“Hey, you’re right. But it was kind of you who did the experiment, Professor. Isn’t that cheating?”
“I’m startled at this sudden ethical rigor from someone whose mom does his math homework. Besides, you were a full participant in the rocket experiment. That’s not cheating.”
“Cool! One down,” Kyohei said, pumping his fist enthusiastically.
“You’re on a roll. How about another?” Yukawa said, lifting up the book of math drills.
Kyohei wrinkled his nose and scratched his head before shrugging. “Fine. It’ll be more fun with you teaching me anyway.”
“I guarantee it. Which brings me to a question I had for you. In exchange for me helping you with your studies, I was hoping I could ask a favor.”
“Sure. What?”
“Are you familiar with a master key? It’s a key that opens all the locks in a hotel or inn such as this.”
“You mean the one in my uncle’s room? I’ve seen Narumi going there to grab it.”
“That would be the one. I’d like to use it, if I can. Just for a little while, of course.”
“Sure, I’ll go ask for it,” Kyohei said, standing. Yukawa put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“You don’t have to get it right now. And I don’t want you to ask for it,” he said, wetting his lips and lowering his voice, “I want you to steal it.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Nishiguchi parted ways with Isobe and made it back to the Hari police station just after eight o’clock in the evening to find it bustling with activity. Apparently, whatever strings needed to be pulled to set up a special investigative task force had been pulled, and everyone with a free hand had been deputized. Officers were carrying computers and office supplies into the main conference room.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see Hashigami with a gloomy look on his face.
“Stand around like you don’t have anything to do and someone’s going to put you to work, Nishiguchi. You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Let’s go.”
“You sure we shouldn’t stay and lend a hand?”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that once the prefectural guys get here. Let’s live a little while we can.”
Hashigami walked out of the police station without waiting for an answer, so Nishiguchi followed. They went to a small place near the station and Nishiguchi ordered the yakiniku dinner set, fuel for the long slog ahead.
“Well, this case has gone from a simple accident to a full-blown disaster,” Hashigami grumbled. “That director from Tokyo threw us a curveball. The prefectural guys can’t stop dropping comments about how we screwed up the initial investigation. I mean, who would look at that and say it was something other than an accident? You can bet we’d get in trouble if we called for an autopsy on every single one of our cases.” He stabbed at his baked fish with his chopsticks.