Hearing those words, Masumi Sera couldn't help but smack Yuu Hoshimiya on the chest.
"Sensei, someone just died. How can you make jokes like that?"
Beside them, Kazuha Toyama's brows furrowed slightly.
She could sense a distinct flavor of flirtatious banter between them.
No way... this girl looks like a total tomboy. Does she have a thing with Yuu-sensei too?
Since when did Sensei develop a fetish for that type?
While the girl was in a daze, a chaotic mess of footsteps rang out.
Inspector Juzo Megure, having been notified, arrived with everyone else from the villa.
The crowd gasped in utter horror at the sight of Serika Wakamatsu's corpse.
The officer who had run to get Megure panted as he reported: "Inspector, when the others left earlier, this lady was perfectly fine."
"The two of us were guarding the door; absolutely no one entered."
"It wasn't until Consultant Hoshimiya and his group passed by and heard a strange noise that we opened the door and found her dead."
Inspector Megure's brow creased instantly.
"You mean to say this is a locked-room mystery? That she committed suicide? Yuu-kun, what's your take?"
Yuu rolled his eyes and said helplessly: "It's a locked room, sure, but there are far too many suspicious items on that desk."
"The half-finished tea, the fountain pen with the cap off, the used eye drops, the documents waiting to be signed, and that open dictionary on the floor..."
"None of these were here when I left. I'll need you all to explain where they came from."
"After all, the victim died of cyanide poisoning, just like the last one."
"Since it's a poisoning, it can easily be achieved by cleverly designing the use of certain props."
Sakurako Yonehara was the first to speak: "I brewed the black tea. The Madam wanted something to wake her up, so I made a few more cups under the officer's supervision."
The gray-haired Manager Shiina added: "That pen is mine. The Madam's pen ran out of ink, so I lent her mine."
The yellow-haired Sumio Fujinami followed: "The eye drops are mine. She said her eyes were dry, so I lent them to her. If I knew this would happen, I never would have—now I'm a suspect for nothing!"
Yoshimi Satake, dressed in her OL suit, adjusted her glasses.
"That document is the contract for the big client tonight. I brought it for her to sign. As for the dictionary, it must have come from the bookshelf."
Secretary Satake glanced at the shelf and then added: "There is one more thing. Before she died, the Madam told me that if anything happened to her, I should open the safe and hand the letter inside to the police."
This caused a wave of murmurs among the crowd.
Masumi, who was giving instructions to Wataru Takagi, also shifted her gaze.
Satake provided the combination, and Inspector Megure—wearing gloves—opened the safe to find Serika Wakamatsu's "confession letter."
The letter confessed to the tragedy at the Karuizawa villa.
It stated that upon seeing her dead husband, she chose to protect her stepson and helped dispose of the murder weapon and the dying message.
Afterward, she claimed to be trapped in the shadow of fear, terrified that her stepson would kill her to silence her.
The letter even explicitly stated that if she died, the killer would undoubtedly be Ikuro Wakamatsu.
It was written entirely from the perspective of a victim, omitting any mention of her own sordid affair with her stepson.
Inspector Megure looked even more confused after reading it.
"So Ikuro Wakamatsu had a motive for murder... but the primary suspect died first. How does that work?"
"Forget it. Takagi, get the forensics team to check all these items on the desk for poison."
"Wait, Takagi? Where did you go?"
Masumi replied from the side: "He just took everyone's slippers for testing. Go get the forensics guys yourself."
Megure was speechless and had to lean into the hallway to shout for his team.
A moment later, a technician ran over with a toolkit to begin the careful process of collecting evidence.
Meanwhile, Yuu Hoshimiya pulled Masumi over to the computer on the desk.
Looking at the design files on the screen, Masumi suddenly realized something and gripped Yuu's arm.
"Sensei, this design requirement for the 'Wakamizu Financial Group'... isn't this what we saw on Ikuro Wakamatsu's computer?"
"Could it be that the 'big client' they mentioned was just a fake identity created by the stepson?"
Yuu gave a mysterious smile but said nothing. Masumi grew more excited, quickly flipping through the fifty design files.
The words "Wakamizu Group" appeared repeatedly in various forms and combinations.
A light flashed in Masumi's eyes. "Sensei, I've got it."
Yuu nodded in satisfaction. "Then keep going. This case is all on you, Masumi."
Masumi nodded confidently, checked the contract document, and then headed toward the bookshelf.
Yuu walked out of the study and stood in the hallway between Sakurako and Secretary Satake.
Sakurako whispered: "Yuu-kun, do you know the truth already?"
Secretary Satake also glanced over curiously.
Yuu chuckled softly. "It's not time to reveal the answer yet."
"But Sakurako, your Madam is dead. She doesn't need your company anymore. There's no one left in the Wakamatsu family. Isn't it time you came to my house to be a maid? Or a housekeeper, if you prefer~"
Sakurako was dazed: "Didn't we agree I'd only consider it after you found the truth?"
"The truth is already out. That confession letter shows Ikuro killed his father and Serika helped hide it. Actually, we have Secretary Satake to thank for that."
"Without her, Kohei Wakamatsu's death wouldn't have been cleared up so easily!"
Yoshimi Satake gave an embarrassed smile.
Sakurako immediately protested: "No! That doesn't count! At the very least, you have to find the truth behind the Young Master and the Madam's deaths too."
"This is definitely a curse! Otherwise, the Master, the Son, and the Wife wouldn't all be dead. I might be next! Yuu-kun, what should I do?"
Sakurako looked at Yuu with fear, but her brows soon furrowed with annoyance.
Yuu had draped a large hand over Secretary Satake's right shoulder, leaning into her like a total rogue hitting on a decent woman.
Sakurako was furious. He just did those outrageous things to me in the guest room, and now he's already hitting on another woman? He's too much!
And that's a 'bad woman'—she had a suspicious relationship with the Master!
But before Sakurako could speak up, the "Two Leaves" made their move.
Kazuha and Momiji pinched Yuu on both sides of his waist and hauled him back.
Secretary Satake, seeing this, covered her mouth and giggled, finding Yuu Hoshimiya quite entertaining.
Beside them, Inspector Megure's face was as black as a charred pot.
Brother Yuu, I brought you here to solve a case, not to pick up girls!
However, he was long since used to Yuu's lecherous ways.
In fact, if Yuu weren't such a playboy, Megure's own plan to "offer his wife to borrow a seed" would never have worked.
A moment later, Secretary Satake's expression shifted suddenly. Her hand instinctively pressed against her wrist, and she began frantically feeling around her body.
Her eyes behind her glasses stared at Yuu with shock.
Yuu, while dealing with the jealous Kazuha and Momiji, flashed a smile at the secretary but made no further move.
Suddenly, Takagi's voice rang out.
"Inspector! We found it! We found it!"
He came sprinting back with bags of slippers, completely out of breath.
"We found traces of cyanide on Serika Wakamatsu's slippers."
Just then, the elderly forensics technician looking at the desk spoke up.
"Inspector, none of the items on this table tested positive for poison."
Megure was completely lost.
"What do you mean? No poison on the desk? But poison on the slippers? Does Serika Wakamatsu like licking slippers? That makes no sense!"
Masumi couldn't help but laugh. "Inspector Megure, you're too slow."
"The cyanide on the slippers relates to the poisoning of Ikuro Wakamatsu."
"As for the poison that killed Serika Wakamatsu... it was placed on the dictionary."
"Look, right here in the book jacket—there's a small packet of poisonous powder!"
Everyone crowded around and saw the powder inside the cover.
The forensics officer inspected it and declared: "It's potassium cyanide."
Masumi began her deduction.
"I've pieced the whole thing together. It was a case of the mother wanting to kill the son, and the son wanting to kill the mother. Both chose cyanide, and both succeeded, creating this bizarre scene."
"We've all seen the confession. Kohei Wakamatsu's death was a crime they committed together."
"But because they weren't blood-related, even as accomplices, there was no trust."
"Each worried the other would leak the truth, and both wanted to inherit the company for themselves. Thus, they both developed murderous intent."
"Living together for years, their habits were similar, and they thought of the same method: poisoning. Both purchased potassium cyanide."
"Serika knew Ikuro liked to eat with his hands, and she knew he was hungry. After Manager Shiina brought the cake, she sprinkled the poison on Ikuro's doorknob."
"Some of the powder drifted down and landed on her own slippers. That's why her slippers tested positive."
"We've already told the technician about this, and he's recorded the evidence."
The technician nodded, handing the report to Megure.
Masumi continued: "Ikuro took the cake with his bare hands and ate it, dying from the poison. The capsule in the tea was purely a red herring to misdirect us."
"As for Serika's death, it was designed by her stepson, Ikuro."
"That 'Wakamizu Financial Group' proposal you were all rushing to finish today? It was a fabrication commissioned by Ikuro!"
Hearing this, Secretary Satake's face filled with horror.
That demanding design requirement was entirely her own work—how did it suddenly become Ikuro's?
The OL secretary struggled to remain calm, her gaze fixing on Yuu Hoshimiya.
Yuu just smiled and said nothing—hiding his merit and fame.
For Noah, creating a few pieces of fake evidence on a computer was child's play.
"Ikuro pressured her to sign tonight, forcing Serika to finalize the plans. She spent hours staring at those dozens of files on the computer with the words 'Wakamizu Group' on them."
"Repeating the same single font causes Semantic Satiation. It makes a person feel like the words are becoming unfamiliar, eventually causing them to forget how to write them."
"You've all experienced this—staring at a kanji for too long until it doesn't look like a word anymore. It's the same principle."
"The effect lasted until Serika went to sign the contract. She only managed the top radical of the word 'Waka' (若) before she couldn't continue, because the 'Waka' in Wakamatsu and Wakamizu are the same character."
"She forgot how to write it, and since she was bad with computers, she went to the bookshelf to check a dictionary."
"Furthermore, Serika had a very specific, bad habit: she liked to lick her finger to turn the pages."
"That is how she ingested the poison Ikuro had sprinkled on the dictionary pages, leading to her death."
"The proof of this twisted mother-son relationship is on Ikuro's computer. Inspector Megure, you can check the files yourself later!"
After hearing Masumi's deduction, the crowd was left in a state of shock.
Son kills father, mother kills son, son tries to kill mother... it was horrifying. What was wrong with this Wakamatsu family?
Yuu Hoshimiya gave Masumi a thumbs-up. "Great job, Masumi!"
Masumi smiled shyly and walked back to Yuu's side, obediently watching as Megure collected the relevant evidence.
Secretary Satake, however, was filled with confusion and inner turmoil.
Does this Consultant Hoshimiya know the truth or not?
If he knows, why did he praise that girl for a deduction that was logical but clearly wrong?
If he doesn't know, why did he 'steal' my bronze watch that was oxidized by the cyanide?!
The whole situation felt incredibly eerie to her.
The OL secretary eventually approached Yuu and whispered: "Hoshimiya-san, can we talk privately?"
Yuu had no objections and followed her into a nearby guest room.
The other women watched them go, their brows furrowing in unison.
Inside the room, the two faced each other. Secretary Satake was the first to lose her cool.
She asked urgently: "Yuu-kun, can you return my watch?"
Yuu tossed the bronze watch over, and she caught it with both hands.
"That oxidized bronze watch would have raised suspicions if that girl saw it. I've handled it for you; you shouldn't wear it for a while."
Looking at the watch, she saw it was as clean as new, the plating smooth and flawless—as if the previous chemical corrosion had been a hallucination.
Secretary Satake was stunned. Her mouth hung open, but no words came out.
Finally, she managed to gasp: "Why did you help me? We've never even met!"
Yuu chuckled: "Sakurako said your relationship with Kohei Wakamatsu was 'suspicious.' She was wrong. He was actually your father, wasn't he? He was divorced twice; you are the daughter of his first wife."
"Kohei Wakamatsu was a flawed genius, but having an affair would have been too much for a man like him."
"In my view, there is nothing wrong with taking revenge for your father."
"Plus, I find you quite agreeable, so it was just a small favor."
Gratitude instantly flooded Secretary Satake's eyes.
"You're quite clever. You have a real talent for murder, knowing how to use those illusions to commit the crime. That's commendable."
"But let it end here. Live a good life from now on."
With that, Yuu Hoshimiya turned and opened the door with style.
Secretary Satake's looks were average, she wasn't young, and she wasn't a virgin; he had no designs on her.
This was a pure favor.
Momiji, Kazuha, Sakurako, and Masumi all tumbled into the room, falling into Yuu's waiting arms.
The four eavesdroppers all laughed sheepishly.
Yuu sighed helplessly and gave each of them a playful "chestnut" flick to the head.
If they hadn't been eavesdropping, he wouldn't have spoken so quickly.
After all, if they misunderstood, it would have taken forever to explain.
Watching Yuu Hoshimiya surrounded by the four beautiful girls, Secretary Satake was deeply moved.
No wonder Hoshimiya-san is so popular. He's handsome and so kind. If I were younger, I would definitely have fallen for him too!