"That's a lie."
He immediately told Kyouko-san, when she went the standard route of introducing herself as a city official. Right, among the over-fifty residents of Atelier House, only a single person saw through Kyouko-san's false self-introduction.
It was on the thirtieth floor, meaning not even near halfway from when we started, and I find it difficult to describe the panic I felt at the time—though upon including every floor thereafter, he was the only one to see through Kyouko-san's lie.
No, well, granted, it was just a bit pushing it to list that as his achievement—the reason being, he was acquainted with the man who was originally just supposed to put down pressure from behind Kyouko-san. If he knew my identity, then it was understandable that he doubted my compatriot Kyouko-san's introduction—if a former museum security guard about to be employed by old Wakui accompanied a worked from city hall, anyone would find it unnatural.
Meaning, the him I'm talking about—the resident of that room was a certain young Hakui. Right, an oversight on my part.
I should've properly informed Kyouko-san there was someone who knew me among the residents—if she knew, she might have put up proper countermeasures in advance, but even a detective couldn't act against what they didn't know.
"Huh? What's with your hair? Did you dye it with paint?"
Hakui said, crudely pointing at Kyouko-san's head—once he knew something was off, naturally, a paint specialist would notice the improvised browning.
"Yes, that's right. Isn't it pretty?"
When her disguise was seen through, I thought she might get into a panic, but Kyouko-san nonchalantly replied. She didn't seem moved in the slightest.
I see, I noticed. Just because her lie of coming from city hall was seen through, that didn't mean the fact she was a detective, and the incident in the basement had come to light—at that very moment, to Hakui-kun, her identity was shrouded in mystery.
Then there was no need to rush and confess everything—no need to tumble on your own, or so Kyouko-san was firmly dealing with this pinch. In that case, as the least bit of assistance I could offer,
"Hey, it's been a while, Hakui-kun."
Alongside his name, I emphasized he knew who I was—while it didn't come out casually at all, I thought Kyouko-san should know why he was able to see through it.
"A while? We just met yesterday, old timer—"
He said dubiously. His attitude as impertinent as ever.
"What? Did you already start working? Then is this lady over here—your girlfriend or somethin'?"
"Yes, something like that."
Containing my hurried attempt to deny it, Kyouko-san ambiguously affirmed the notion—while I didn't know her end game, as long as she said that, I couldn't disturb her pace any further.
"Hmmmm…?"
After staring fixedly at Kyouko-san a while, Hakui-kun looked to me.
"So why did your girlfriend lie to knock at my door? Are you trying to draw some information from me?"
I just got back from a museum, could you just let me rest—he said, raising his guar.
If he went to a museum, I guess that meant he was studying paintings again, like when he first met me. When he said he'd pretty much finished copying the ones he was after, yesterday and then today, looks like he's still got his work cut out for him—don't tell me he's on new game plus.
"Yes, to tell you the truth,"
Kyouko-san said with a smile. Just because she was dealing with a child, her attitude didn't seem to have changed—in the door-to-door visits up to then, she generally took the same attitude.
Granted, putting aside him seeing through her lie, at the point he lived at Atelier House, she probably presumed he wasn't just any young boy.
"Wakui-san put in a request. We're in the middle of investigating how work's going for the residents of Atelier House. I apologize for telling a lie, I'm sorry."
Kyoko-san lowered her brown head, but in essence, she was apologizing for her lie with a lie. I kinda get the feeling if I operate with this person for too long, I'm going to develop trust issues—but that lie didn't work on Hakui-kun either.
"That's also a lie."
He definitively declared. I had erased my presence to the best of my abilities, so that one was just him purely deducing a lie—even so, not flustered in the slightest, Kyouko-san simply raised her head.
"Oh? What makes you think so?"
She said, and he unraveled his basis.
"There's no way teacher would care about how our work's going. All that person cares about is the results we put out—though it'd be a different story if he was observin' if anyone was slackin' off."
"Hmm. Then that's the lie I should have gone with."
Kyouko-san didn't shy back. While she was smiling, she was definitely a bad influence to this child.
Hakui-kun seemed let down by that joking attitude, "Who the hell are you?" he threatened. Though his age chipped whatever intensity the threat might have…
"Who knows? Who do you think I am? I'm the one who wants to know my identity the most."
That evasive phrasing sounded like it was meant to rile Hakui-kun even further, but—surprisingly, that may have been her honest answer. As the forgetful detective with no memories beyond today, there was no greater mystery than her own identity—her own past.
"Come to think of it, on the way back, I passed by 'n ambulance—don't tell me, did something happen to teacher?"
With that suddenly pointed out, I froze up—perhaps Kyouko-san would have succeeded in warding it off, but it looked like my reaction alone was enough for Hakui-kun.
"Tsk…"
Clicking his tongue, Hakui-kun turned his back to us.
"So that's what's up—I always thought it would happen one of these days."
"N-no, what are you talking about, Hakui-kun? Wakui-san isn't particularly—"
"Don't hide it."
His back still turned, he spoke.
"If you plan on hiding it, why don't I invite a few other residents in the area, so we can all pay a visit to the basement?"
I shut my mouth. If he did that, all of Kyouko-san's schemes would collapse—a huge ruckus was unavoidable, and even if that wasn't the case, if they saw the bloodstains in the basement, surely someone would immediately report it to the police. Kyouko-san's intent was the identify the culprit before the case went public, we couldn't have Hakui-kun do anything at this stage.
I panicked, but,
"We don't plan on hiding anything. If it pleases you, I'll properly speak on the matter—but the entranceway is not the best place for such matter, won't you let us into your room?"
Kyouko-san literally stuck her nose in.
When she was found out and the lie was practically exposed, she didn't intend to slow the investigation, forget that, she brazenly used it to push her way into the boy's room—her heart was way too strong.
"OK. Get in."
Hakui-kun said, before walking right off into the room—Kyouko-san followed behind, and with nothing else to do, I trailed her back. In the process of visiting every apartment in Atelier House, there were a few others who invited her in—as I've said before, but even among them, Hakui-kun's room was strange.
A child was living alone, so you could call the mess inevitable, but without much exaggeration, there was absolutely nothing that wasn't a painting too. The trash cramping up the floor space, nothing but crumpled up balls of paper, broken pencils, old art magazine—it was a room that made me anxious at whether or not he was properly eating.
"Make somewhere to sit on your own."
Said Hakui, lowering himself into a seat before an easel—despite his invitation, this was a room I didn't feel like sitting in. With barely anywhere to step, it was a chaos I didn't want my shoes mixed up in if I could avoid it.
After intently observing the room, Kyouko-san reached a hand towards the floor—I thought she intended to clear away things to make a place to sit, but instead, she began separating garbage. It seems she had arbitrarily begun cleaning the room—is she supposed to be his mother or something?
Her dexterity was impressive when she was inspecting the basement room, but it seems she was good at keeping things tidy to begin with—or perhaps mysophobic.
Fitting of a boy his age, Hakui-kun grimaced at having his room cleaned up, but after he had said, 'Make somewhere to sit on your own,' he was unable to stop that action. At most,
"It's almost like Des Glaneuses."
He spouted some incomprehensible insult—certainly, as she slouched over the clean the room, Kyouko-san's form was quite like that painting even I knew about.
"So? What's going on? What happened to teacher? Down from illness—don't even go there, in that case, you wouldn't go around lying and investigatin' would ya?"
Hakui-kun spoke with detective-like deductive reasoning. As someone who saw his sketchbook at the museum, I knew I couldn't make light of him for being a child, but was an artist's sensitivities really something so sharp?
Kyouko-san said she wasn't going to hide anything, and as things stood, even if she did, perhaps Hakui-kun would perceive it again.
"The owner of this Atelier House, Wakui Kazuhissan, was stabbed by someone with a knife."
Perhaps thinking the same, Kyouko-san clearly started out with that—though her cleaning hands didn't stop.
Even if he half-expected it, it must have been quite a shock, Hakui-kun was silent—no matter how you cut it, that was too honest, or rather, was that phrasing not lacking in tact?
"… Is he dead?"
Eventually, quietly, Hakui-kun asked.
"In critical condition. He was brought to the hospital senseless, and is in the midst of an emergency operation—"
As if she was more absorbed in the cleaning, Kyouko-san answered in a curt tone—I felt an off sense at those expressions.
Critical condition. Senseless. Emergency operation.
They were all quite shocking, strong words—while they were definitely the truth, he's alive for now, he's being treated right now, there were other ways to put it. Of course, that didn't mean anything would come of softening it—but if Kyouko-san purposely chose to say it strongly here, that was quite a brutal strategy.
By purposely expressing Wakui's state as blatantly as possible, cornering Hakui-kun's mental state, contriving to make it easier to draw out information, from a third person perspective, it looked transparent—just exciting someone to put them in an abnormal state would make it easier to leak information in and of itself.
Even if that wasn't a strategy to take against a child, turning it around, that just showed that Kyouko-san was serious, and she didn't think of him as a child. Just how much of it was intentional? Regardless, I couldn't determine how effective the strategy turned out, but Hakui-kun remained silent a while.
"Lady."
He called out to Kyouko-san. Lady; the way he called someone he was seeing for the first time was quite overly familiar—I did think, but come to think of it, Kyouko-san had yet to tell him her name. In the visits up to then, she had used a fake name (If she called herself Okitegami Kyouko, there was the slim chance someone would recognize it as the name of a detective), but Hakui-kun had penetrated the falsehood before she even reached that point.
"You just said you wanted to know your identity, didn't you?"
"? I sure did. Something wrong?"
"No…"
Hakui reached and took the sketchbook left hanging against the easel and opened to a new page. He held up the pencil he had kept in his hand the entire time.
"If you're up to it, I could try capturing' that identity of yours… could you model for me?"
"Model… is it?"
Hearing that, she raised her face—with her multitasking, her cleaning still hadn't stopped, but Hakui-kun's statement had caught her interest.
To tell the truth, up to that point—and beyond as well—when visiting, quite a few Atelier House residents had brought up similar proposals. Whether their artistic creative urges were stimulated, or they simply thought Kyouko-san was cute, or perhaps as an aspiring artist, it was something of social courtesy, but what I'm trying to say was that Hakui-kun wasn't the only one to try drawing Kyouko-san.
It's just the way he said it was unique. Capturing her identity— of all things.
All requests of that sort had been softly, yet immediately declined, but perhaps the reason Hakui-kun was the only one whose request she showed interest towards lay in his phrasing.
"Just a rough sketch, it'll be one in no time. I won't hold you up… one minute."
As he said that, Hakui-kun's pencil was already racing around his sketchbook. Those movements closely resembled the day I first met him at the museum—he had finished forging a painting on display before I could stop him, those speedy pencil strokes.
No, he was even faster than back then—he was at his fastest to depict the fastest detective, with that in mind, what a tasteful scene. Why Hakui-kun suddenly tried to draw Kyouko-san was something I didn't understand, but with his mind cornered by those strong words, perhaps drawing was a sort of ritual to regain his composure.
Or perhaps Kyouko-san was simply appealing as a model—and he was just curious.
"If you let me draw you, I don't mind tellin' ya what you want to hear."
"But you're already drawing… what do you think I want to hear?"
"Don't play dumb. You're tryin' to find the residents involved in teacher's final work, aren't you?"
With one eye closed, using his pencil to measure out the distance to Kyouko-san (?) Hakui-kun spoke.
"Don't know the reason, but you and that old timer are searchin' for the culprit… I heard ambulance sirens but never heard no police. You haven't reported it… am I right?"
"Oh I wonder."
"I'm tellin' you, don't play dumb… if anyone had a motive to stab him, it would have to do with 'is final work, it's easy enough to guess."
By the way, I'm completely irrelevant to that, he added on—I already heard that yesterday. Forget the real painting, he wasn't even told to paint one of the disguise paintings—at the time, I felt like the high level of Atelier House had been hammered in.
"Do I have to take a pose?"
Said Kyouko-san. She gave implicit consent to the modeling—"If you want to, you can pose however you want—if you really want, I don't mind if you take off your clothes," Hakui-kun jokingly chimed in,
"I'm great at nude sketches."
"Oh my, this child says some mature things."
Kyouko-san giggled.
"I wouldn't mind stripping but, well, I'll give up on that for now—we don't have the time, and I've got some circumstances preventing me from stripping down."
A reason not to strip? That was a strangely roundabout way to put it.
"Just like this, if you will. Don't tell me you're to stop at a rough sketch are you? If you think—you can capture my identity."
"Hmph."
With a scoff, Hakui-kun faced his sketchbook—with the drawing time that had suddenly begun, I felt like I'd been left to the wayside. For some reason, in what seemed like an exchange between geniuses, there was no space for a pleb such as myself to enter.
Did these two humans of superior talent connect with one another—or were they in conflict, a space hard to approach was birthed between them, and I could only wince.
"You said you always thought this would happen someday—has there been any similar trouble before? Between Wakui-san and the residents?"
"Trouble's day in and day out. Nothing but fights between me and teacher… you know how teacher is, and the folks living in Atelier House are, generally a bit off. There's a lot of collisions… but if ya ask if it was enough to stab the guy, naturally, I'd have to say no."
"I see. Then do you have any idea why it came to that this time?"
"Gots to be because he went too far."
Hakui-kun said without stopping his pencil.
"Being partial to a single resident, having them craft up a painting, that's all well and good—but making loads of fake paintings to hide it was going too far. Treat aspiring artists like that, and there's no way it'll end well. Mass production is what an artist hates most. There's no way teacher didn't know that—"
Hakui-kun explained with a cynical air—it also felt like he was saying there was no room to sympathize with old Wakui. While just like Kyouko-san, he thought the motive of the crime lay in trouble surrounding his final work—because they were close, perhaps I felt the idea more keenly when it came from his lips.
However, following Hakui-kun's logic, the culprit would have to have been a painter put up to painting a fake—one of the residents made to paint. It was a reasonable thought, but in that case, it would become difficult to identify the culprit—the fakes made to conceal the real painting would become fakes to conceal the culprit.
"Do you really have to think so hard about it? If the police investigate, they'll identify the culprit in no time. Then that's a wrap."
"Then there won't be any meaning. What I want is for the culprit to turn themselves in."
Kyouko-san said—bluntly.
"If you're the culprit, I'd very much like it if you told me now."
"… Are ya suspectin' me? I already told ya. Unfortunately, I wasn't even put up to paintin' a fake. If I hated teacher for that, that's what ya would call not knowin' where I stand."
"I see."
"So, now about who was involved with the final painting… as promised, I'll tell ya all I know. I don't know all 'f them, and obviously, I don't know who was the real one."
Said Hakui-kun, before bringing up a few names and room numbers—that was the first time we gained any concrete information, so I hurriedly tried to note it down, but Kyouko-san stopped me. I wondered why, but, oh, I see, that was the Forgetful Detective's regulation—to cleanly forget everything at a later date, whether it be handwritten or digital, leaving any records was taboo.
She could only memorize it in her head.
While it may work for her, remembering all the names and numbers I heard was impossible for me; I could only leave it all to Kyouko-san. How pathetic—if that's how it was, I really was just standing here.
"I see, that should prove useful… however, Hakui-kun."
After she'd finished hearing them all out—by the time I noticed it, the area around her had been completely tied up. It wasn't as if she actually took out the trash, so the number of items hadn't decreased in itself, but there wasn't even any use comparing the room's floor space to how it was when we entered—when she arranged it to this extent, I wondered if Hakui-kun would actually be able to tell what was where anymore.
"There was actually something else I wanted to hear… will you be able to answer that question as well?"
"Huh?"
For a moment, Hakui-kun's hands stopped.
"There's somethin' else…? What is it, my alibi or somethin'? Proof I wasn't at the scene? I said it before, but up to a moment ago, I was at the museum."
"Ahaha. Unfortunately, we have no idea when exactly the crime took place. Alibi? You're reading too many mystery novels."
What was to come of a detective saying that? Whatever the case, Hakui-kun's stagnant hands once again began moving with the speed of a hawk. "Never read one in my life," he said.
"So what is it you want to ask?"
"Well, thinking I might be able to figure out who was drawing the real picture, I had a look through the documents in Wakui-san's room."
Rather than having a look through, more precisely, she arbitrarily stole a look. She said it as if she got permission and filled out the proper paperwork—her ability to implicitly lie was also soaring, it seems.
Quite likely half-figuring that, "And so?" the young boy urged her on—more than his conversation with Kyouko-san, he looked to be prioritizing drawing his picture.
"Did you learn anything?"
"No, I didn't learn anything. It does seem he made so as not to leave records. If I searched harder, I might be able to find some sort of information, but—"
"Don't think that'll work out. He was a wary old man, in that area. Wary, 'r maybe devout—from how he didn't even tell the person paintin' the real one, and how he hired that old timer only in his final job, can't ya tell?"
Certainly, running contrary to his broad-minded bearing, there was no doubt he was a dainty, discrete person—his tendency to anger, turn it around, and you can take it as delicate to boot.
"Yes. However, instead, and I'm not sure if I should say this, but I noticed something strange."
"Something strange?"
"Yes. The papers were filed in a certain binder—it was a photocopy of a purchase order."
Kyouko-san said.
The binder documents… that matter we discussed in the elevator. The sold document that stopped Kyouko-san in her tracks—its identity was a purchase order?
"It seems Wakui-san was a detailed, or perhaps—a methodical person. He bound his purchase orders chronologically, and what caught my eye was the latest entry—I presume it was meant for the final project he would start on, an order for the materials and ingredients to make the frame. Though it seems it hasn't been delivered yet—"
"… What of it? Yeah, of course he'd be methodical. Even if he's a frame maker who can raise the price of a painting, he's no magician, 's not like he makes a frame from zero. It's only natural he'd need materials."
"Yes. I understand that—but, it's too much."
"What?"
"The quantity of material he ordered is too much. Wakui-san ordered so much it can't eve be explained away by spares and surplus—I can't think that the culmination of a framer, the last job of his life consisted of only a single frame."
That's the part I don't get, Kyouko-san raised her face—by stopping her cleaning hands, and looking straight at Hakui-kun, she changed from her multitask to her single focus mode.
Similar to how she fixated on the binder.
At the time, it looked like Kyouko-san was reading the same document over and over again, but it looks like she wasn't just reading it, she was mentally calculating out the quantity of material ordered…
It was like a single question had thawed, but then the question she presented was a plausible one.
"… Ain't that also just a camouflage? If he just ordered exactly what he needed, it'd get out what sort of frame he was making—by purposely ordering unneeded ingredients and meaningless materials, maybe he was tryin' to make it so even the company he ordered from would be ambiguous on what he was plannin' on makin'. Teacher has the financial power, you can already tell by the size of Atelier House, this mansion he built on a whim, right?"
"Yes, of course. Of course, I thought so too, and naturally, I'm sure he included that in his intentions—but even subtracting that, it's still too much. An order of that degree wouldn't even fit in that basement room."
That definitely is startling.
Kyouko-san, who was placing things so orderly as she tidied, as if deliberately forming a wooden mosaic, was the one saying it, so if she predicted it 'wouldn't fit in that basement room,' it was probably alright to trust her.
On top of having financial leisure, he was the one who actually did have Atelier House's residents paint numerous camouflage paintings, so it was hard to think he would consider anything 'a waste'—but even ignoring that, ordering so much material it would hinder his movement in the workplace surpassed the bounds of camouflage.
It was only normal to think he had a separate goal—what's more, that was the main goal.
At first, it seems Hakui-kun classified her question as, 'nothing special, just the usual teacher,' but when she pushed it that hard, even he felt something was off. In desperation,
"… Then wasn't it an orderin' error? Like he carelessly was off by a digit when he ended up placing the order…"
He voiced his theory. While it was a plain theory, that would be the realistic deduction—I couldn't find another answer either. On a stage as grand as his final job, I wondered if he really would make such a boneheaded slip-up, but to not know what mistake you'll make on what field is human.
It wasn't good to blame it on his age, but old Wakui was at a year where it wouldn't be strange for him to make a careless mistake—that's precisely why he resolved to retire as a framer.
"I don't think that's the case. The quantities were far too detailed to be off by a digit—they were clearly indicated down to the one's place, so there is no mistaking the numbers were intentional."
After silently thinking,
"Then what do you think, lady?"
In the end, unable to think up any other ideas, he returned the question to Kyouko-san.
"This is also just a hypothesis, but—"
Kyouko-san took the pose she was told she didn't have to take. Just because she was done cleaning, even if she took a pose not, it wasn't as if Hakui-kun could change his composition… and as an amateur, I couldn't tell in the slightest what sort of pose that was supposed to be.
I got the feeling I'd seen it somewhere before, but… that pose she took back at the café? No, that's not it—and Kyouko-san doesn't have any memories of that day.
Keeping that mysterious stance, Kyouko-san continued on.
"—The orders were all real, is that not a possibility?"
"…? All of them? What do you mean? He intends to use all the materials he ordered? Just how big would that make it?"
"I'm not talking about the frame materials, I'm talking about the orders he issued to the residents of Atelier House—perhaps he intended to make a frame for every single one of them…"
"There's no way that's true!"
He yelled. Hakui-kun—reflexively, and emotionally.
His emotions exploded much like old Wakui, when he rampaged at the museum—therefore, I thought he might have a go at Kyouko-san, so I immediately took a stance, but luckily, Hakui-kun quickly returned to his senses.
"ah."
He awkwardly faced his sketchbook. With a grinding sound, he moved his pencil even more intensely than before—as I thought, the act of 'painting pictures' was something of a mental therapy for him.
"Sorry, I raised my voice…"
He apologized in a faint murmur.
While he didn't take on an apologetic attitude, when it came to Kyouko-san, who'd just been screamed at, she didn't even stir from her bizarre pose.
"Oh no, I don't mind it at all."
She answered at ease.
From the smile she made, I couldn't read her mind in the slightest.
"But, if you could, would you please tell me your basis of saying 'there's no way that's true'?"
"Personally, I think it's a relatively proper deduction—while placing the orders saying they were camouflage, they were all actually real. Instead of evaluating only a single resident of Atelier House, he evaluated a great many of them—doesn't that sound like Wakui-san?"
Kyouko-san had never met Wakui, so that final portion was arbitrarily tacked on, but along the way, I grew to accept it a bit. Right, just because it was his final job that didn't mean it was limited to a single piece—wasn't it possible he planned on making multiple frames? His camouflage was in itself a camouflage, and he actually ordered a great many real pieces from the residents of Atelier House—
Was that malicious spirit like old Wakui, was it not?
"That ain't him."
Hakui-kun said.
"Atelier House is a place for competition—there's no way teacher would ever think up somethin' like 'let's all get along and cross the finish line together'. And—"
"And?"
"… I get it, if he wanted to choose one person, one picture, I could see it, but if he was thinkin' to make frames for so many paintings,"
There's no way I wouldn't be chosen.
Still directed at his sketchbook, yet with a strong tone, Hakui-kun asserted—I see, so those thoughts were linked to his previous outburst. While a young boy, while still a beginner painters' egg, he still had a firm clasp on his pride—if we were to accept Kyouko-san's theory, then the fact he wasn't even entrusted a fake would weigh on him even heavier.
No, if he wasn't entrusted a fake, he could maintain his pride by saying he never wanted to paint a fake in the first place—but if the ration was actually one to one, it would be an unbearable disgrace for an artist.
This wasn't an entrance exam, so I'm not sure if art could be measured with rations, but…
"Hypothetically,"
Kyouko-san pressed him further—her posing hadn't changed, so she still maintained a somewhat foolish atmosphere, but her tone was the epitome of seriousness.
"If something like that happened—would you hold murderous intent towards Wakui-san, who didn't choose you?"
"I would."
An extreme answer for an extreme question.
"I think I'd want to kill him… anyone would."
He violently declared before clapping his sketchbook shut with comparatively delicate hands—The pencil that barely had any lead left was left on the easel.
"Oh. Have you finished drawing? Then let me have a look—at my identity."
"Unfortunately, it's still unfinished… no way I could capture it in a minute, who you are. After I calm down a bit, I'll finish it up, so come for it later."
Like that, Hakui-kun rather blatantly drove Kyouko-san out—I couldn't blame him. Kyouko-san's questions had gone beyond what was permissible in a detective's questioning—even ignoring the fact she was dealing with a child, she was at a level that would need a warrant.
Before the crime was reported, it wouldn't be strange if Kyouko-san herself was reported—from Kyouko-san's point of view, this conversation had already largely gone over the planned one minute.
It seemed she decided it was time to pull out.
"Well then, I'll drop by eventually. I can't wait to see it completed."
She undid her mysterious pose. While she surprisingly really did sound like she was looking forward to it, she was far too good at lying. I couldn't tell her intentions.
Anyhow, Hakui-kun seemed fed up with her words, but even so, as a painters' egg, before he drove her out, he couldn't stand but to ask.
"Lady, what sort of pose was that?"
He tossed the question to Kyouko-san. I held the same impression, and, "I get the feeling I've seen it somewhere before, but…" I added on.
"Oh, this?"
Kyouko-san took the pose again. It was identical down to the finer details, just like shame memory alloy—that power of reproduction didn't bring to mind a forgetful detective.
"As you can clearly see, it's Milo's Venus."
"Milo's… ah."
Hakui-kun let out a plainly surprised voice—while it didn't reach my voice, I also recalled upon the mention. It was hard to make out with the arms, but the turn of the torso and tilt of the neck really did belong to the Milo de Venus. That statue that was world famous by no exaggeration—
So this time a statue was the right answer… come to think of it, for her to personally impersonate Venus, while she looked so unassuming, Kyouko-san was quite the brazen one.
"… If you've got arms, it ain't Venus anymore."
Hakui-kun said, but, "You think so?" Kyouko-san spoke maintaining the pose.
"One side says Milo's Venus is beautiful because she lost both arms, but—don't you think that's quite a selfish argument? Now that they're gone, that's all they can say, but I'm sure the maker would have liked someone to evaluate the statue in its completed form—Hakui-kun, you wouldn't be happy if an unfinished, or broken, or failed painting was evaluated, would you?"
Upon hearing that, Hakui-kun—couldn't answer.