COTE: One Shot Shenanigans

1 ~ Detevtive Koji

The office was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that meant every one of my employees was focused, but the kind that came after the printer stopped humming and everyone else decided to take lunch at once.

I sat alone in my office, half-finished reports stacked beside a coffee that had gone cold twenty minutes ago. The building was a few stories above the main street, far enough that the city's noise faded into a dull rhythm-cars, conversation, and the occasional siren.

I was planning on getting a boring and quiet job that didn't require me to do much of anything. Then I realized I could just start my own business and do nothing but with a lot of money.

I really didn't have to considering the assets I inherited upon my father's demise, but there was nothing wrong with having more money than you need.

I glanced at the clock. 12:47 p.m.

My phone buzzed once, a notification appearing on the screen. An email to be specific.

Subject: Request for Assistance
Sender: Chabashira Sae

For a moment, I wondered if it was a prank. Teachers didn't usually email their former students, especially not two years after graduation. And definitely not with a subject line that formal.

I opened it anyway.

Ayanokouji Kiyotaka,

I hope you've been well. The school is conducting a new type of "practical exam" of sorts for first-year students next week—a collaborative mystery-solving exercise. Chairwoman Sakayanagi requested me to ask for your assistance. She said something along the lines of "He blocked my email so I can't". You'll be partaking as a consultant or detective of sorts—listening to the students theories and pushing them in the right direction.

You will, of course, be compensated (within Chairwoman's desire).

Please reply if available. — Chabashira

I stared at the message for a while, then scrolled down to see the attachment: a very poorly drawn fake crime scene that I imagined they planned to create. Someone had apparently been "murdered" with a rubber knife.

Compensation "within reason." I could almost hear her saying it with that same unbothered tone.

I leaned back in my chair. Two years since I'd last seen that school. Two years since I'd told Arisu to keep me out of her shenanigans.

Then again, I have nobody to answer to, and my curiosity had a bad habit of ignoring reason.

I typed back:

Understood. I'll be there.

——-

The gates looked smaller than I remembered. Maybe I'd just grown taller, or maybe nostalgia exaggerated everything.

A few students were walking across the courtyard, wearing the same uniforms I used to. The place hadn't changed. Same clean buildings, same precise landscaping, same faint pressure in the air that made everyone stand a little straighter.

Chabashira was waiting a little inside from the gate, tablet in hand, pretending not to be relieved I'd actually shown up.

"You came," she said.

"I was promised compensation," I replied.

She gave a dry smile. "You haven't changed either."

It's only been two years... what did she expect?

We walked through the main hallway. The faint echo of shoes on tile felt too familiar. Posters lined the walls—all about future sporting events or a club or something else of the sorts.