Shirakawa & Associates

The Old East Wing smells like chalk dust, warm radiators and a decision you don't remember making.

What you do remember is this. It was the first week of April, the blossoms were still on the trees, and you took the Library annex shortcut because it was quiet. It was quiet because it was empty. You have since learned these are not the same thing.

Something small and golden hit you at knee height.

"GOT YOU!" The corgi girl wrapped around your leg is beaming up at you with the radiant satisfaction of someone who has just landed a very large fish. Long golden hair, amber eyes, and a tail like a feather duster going in two directions at once. "Sorry! Sorry, it's nothing personal, we need members and you looked nice. Do you like melon bread?"

Before you could answer, a figure stepped out from behind the nearest pillar. Trench coat. Fedora tilted just so. Large barred owl wings folded against his back like a second, more theatrical coat. He let the silence settle for a full three seconds. It was clearly rehearsed.

"The city has a thousand stories," said Shirakawa Rento, in a low, gravelly rasp. "Most of them are boring. A few aren't. You look like someone about to be in one of the few."

There was a clipboard. There was a pen. You are fairly sure you signed. The form is in your handwriting, which is the problem.

Which is how you end up here, standing in the doorway of a room with a frosted-glass door that reads SHIRAKAWA & ASSOCIATES, NO MYSTERY TOO SMALL, NO HAT TOO BIG*.*

Inside: two desks facing each other. A corkboard of red string connecting nothing to nothing. A coat rack with an alarming number of hats. A couch that Mugi has already claimed. A vending machine humming in the corner, which nobody seems to remember installing.

At the far desk, a girl with short messy black hair, red streaks and black-and-white wings glossed blue-green is sorting paperclips by size. She does not look up.

"Recruiting by tackle is unethical, Mugi."

"But Mirei-san, it was a gentle tackle!"

"A tackle is a tackle, Mugi," says a flat voice from the back wall.

A tall boy sits tipped back in a chair with his hands in his pockets. Olive skin, black and grey hair, wolf ears tilted slightly flat, a heavy grey tail hanging over the seat. Jin. He looks at you once. Then at the fedora on the hook by the door. Then he sighs, quietly and for a long time.

Rento steps in behind you and takes his place at the front desk like a man taking the stand. From his coat he produces a walkie talkie, a codename card, and a fedora of his own that he sets on the desk with reverence.

"Every member of the agency receives a codename. Radio discipline. Yours," he says, sliding the card across, "is Wildcard."

"The hat is not mandatory," Mirei says, not looking up.

"Not mandatory," Jin agrees.

"The hat," says Rento, "is a matter of professionalism."

The door bangs open. A small girl with long pale pink hair and feathery gill-frills at her temples stumbles in with a mister bottle in one hand and a sealed jar labeled BABY POWDER: DO NOT OPEN in the other.

"Sorry I'm late, the lab was dry." Sui stops when she sees you. "Is that the new one? Has anyone touched the evidence?"

"There's no evidence," says Mirei.

"That is not a reason to touch it."

Mugi has already flopped onto the couch with a battered notebook. She flips it open, clicks a pen, and looks up at you with sparkling, unholy cheer.

"Okay! Before the first case, do you want in on the book?"

"What book?"

Mirei's pen stops. Rento adjusts his hat, quite unnecessarily. Jin closes his eyes.

The walkie talkie in your hand crackles.

"Wildcard," says Rento's voice, from four feet away. "Do you copy?"

It's the third lunch.

The first time, you assumed you'd forgotten it. The second time, you blamed the cafeteria. By the third, standing in the second-floor corridor with an empty bag and a growing sense of professional betrayal, you are forced to admit this is a pattern.

It is not a good pattern. It is a very specific, very personal pattern, and it ends every day with a stomach making noises it should not be making.

A classmate passing by glances at the bag, then at your face, then does the math. "Keeps happening?" You nod. "You should hire Shirakawa & Associates."

"The what?"

"The detective Club, Old East Wing. Frosted glass door. Ask for the owl." They are already walking away. "Bring snacks."

Which is how you end up knocking on a door that reads NO MYSTERY TOO SMALL, NO HAT TOO BIG and hearing a low, theatrical voice say, "Come in. And leave nothing out."

The clubroom is exactly what the sign promised. Two desks. A corkboard of red string. A coat rack with an alarming number of hats. Behind the nearest desk sits Shirakawa Rento, trench coat, fedora tilted just so, large barred owl wings folded behind him, a notebook already open. He gestures to the chair across from him like a man who has waited a long time for someone to sit in it.

You tell him everything. Three lunches. Three days. No witnesses. The bag, the corridor, the dread. He writes every word. When you finish, he closes the notebook slowly.

"Case number twenty-seven," he says, with such gravity that you almost feel better.

"It's probably someone hungry," says a dry voice from the far desk. A girl with short messy black hair, red streaks and black-and-white wings glossed blue-green is sorting paperclips by size. "This doesn't need a detective."

"Everything needs a detective, Mirei."

"Where did you leave the bag?" asks a flat voice from the back wall.

A tall boy with wolf ears and a heavy grey tail, hands in his pockets, chair tipped back. He has not moved. He is, however, looking at you with the sharp attention of someone who is actually interested.

Rento nods once. "The agency accepts your case. Speak to my secretary about the rates."

A corgi girl with long golden hair and a tail like a feather duster slides a notepad across the desk, beaming.

"Hi! Okay, so, fees. Bylaws say we can't take money, so the rates are one bento, two vending machine snacks, and one melon bread from Kishida Konbini. Is that okay?"

You look at her. She looks at you. She follows your empty bag with her eyes.

"...Oh," says Mugi, softly. "Oh no."

A pause. Then she pulls a wrapped rice ball from her own bag and presses it into your hands.

"A loan. I'm putting it in the case file." She says it in the voice of someone who has just made a very serious legal decision.

Rento rises. His wings shift behind him. Somewhere on the corkboard, a single red string finds its first pin.

"Wildcard," he says, trying the word out like a new hat. "If you join the agency, we will find your lunch. That is not payment. That is a partnership."

"He just invented that," says Mirei.

"It is policy," says Rento.

"It's not policy," says Jin.

Everyone is looking at you. Mugi has her pen out. Rento's pen is already moving.

"Now," says Jin again, patiently. "Where did you leave the bag?"

One week.

Seven days since the fedora, the walkie talkie and the codename, and the files of Shirakawa & Associates have grown by two entries. Case #17, Furball the black cat, was found again on Monday asleep in the greenhouse seedling trays, which means Kobayashi-sensei bought five hamburgers at Terminus Burger and the case remains, by tradition, open. Case #30, the anonymous letters, turned out to be a shy Year 1 thanking the cafeteria staff.

Rento has called both "warm-ups". He is not wrong. He is also not happy, because a man in a fedora who has spent his entire life looking for a real case does not enjoy being handed a cat.

It's Wednesday afternoon. The room smells of cold coffee and old paper. Rento is mid-monologue about rain on a city that never sleeps when the door opens, and a small girl in a rowing team jacket steps in. Round otter ears. A thick tail dragging a little behind her. She does not sit down.

"I'm Mizuno Hina, Year 2C. I cox for the rowing team." She is gripping the strap of her bag like a railing. "I'm sorry. I didn't know who else to ask. Every Saturday morning, there's someone in the reeds by the canal, on the park side. He's big, and he hides, and he has binoculars. And a camera, maybe. When we looked straight at him, he ran." She swallows. "We think it's Buta-sensei."

The room goes silent.

Mirei's pen stops tapping. Her wings go very still. "How many times?"

"Four Saturdays. Maybe more."

Jin is already on his feet. He pulls a clean folder from the back wall, writes one word on the tab, and puts it on the desk where everyone can read it: OGURA.

"Dates," he says, flat and quick. "Times. Who else saw. Don't tell anyone else."

Mirei nods slowly. "If this is real, it isn't ours to solve. It goes to a teacher, and to Principal Ogura. Until then, we gather facts. We don't guess."

"Buta-sensei?" Mugi's tail has stopped wagging. "He lent me his umbrella last week."

"There's no prior pattern," says Sui quietly, a mister bottle in her hand. "I've never seen him do anything like this. There's no evidence."

"There's a witness," says Jin.

"One witness," says Sui corrects.

Rento has not said a word. He takes off his fedora, holds it against his chest, and stares at the corkboard for a long, long moment. Then he puts it back on.

He slams his notebook shut.

"Ladies, gentlemen, Wildcard." His voice has dropped to a rasp you have never heard him use. "Every open case in this office is on hold, effective immediately. Furball can wait. The letters can wait. This is what we've been waiting for."

"Rento," says Mirei.

"This is the one."

"This is a teacher, Rento."

"I know," he says, and for once nobody hears the theatre in it. "Which is why nobody outside this room hears a word until we crack it. Not a whisper. Not a joke. Agreed?"

A pause. Mirei sighs and nods. Jin nods once. Mugi, slowly, nods. Sui nods last, mister bottle clutched to her chest.

Hina looks around the room. Then she looks at you.

This is it, the training wheels are off, welcome to your first case.