The Case of the Severed Head Balloon Pt. 1

**The Case of the Severed Head Balloon Pt. 1** is the 49th chapter of the *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga.

## Summary

At night, on a mall's rooftop, a group of people get ready to do a photoshot when the model notices that blood is dripping from a severed head balloon that has somehow gotten mixed with the ordinary ones. They scream, and the model lets go of all balloons, releasing them into the sky.

The next day, Totomaru is shopping in the same mall. When he spots the Hokkaido goods, he looks whether they have Press Butter Sand which his grandmother likes. At the same time, he hears someone ordering a kaisen donburi (seafood sashimi rice bowl). He ponders whether to get one himself for lunch before he notices that Amamiya was the one who ordered the seafood bowl. Totomaru calls out to her and asks if she is shopping too. Amamiya tells him that today is her maintenance day; once a month, she works out at the mall's gym on the fourth floor, gets a massage on the third floor and a haircut on the second floor to relieve stress. He understands why she gets so stressed. After all, she has so much responsibility at work. Amamiya replies that it is fine and adds that hearing about Kawasemi's accomplishments is the true cause of her stress.

Toto and Amamiya head to a café where she continues to complain that Kawasemi is doing exceptionally well after he bounced back from his slump after the Mad Chameleon Murder Case. Everyone is talking how he has the most arrests in the entire country and it is driving her insane. Amamiya blames Totomaru for this; after all, he helped Kawasemi out of his slump. After listening to her complaints, Totomaru wants to cheer her up. He suggests calling "Kamoo" whom Amamiya likes. She blushes when she hears his name, but insists that she cannot possibly meet him in workout clothes. She stands up and is about to buy new clothes and makeup when Ron replies to Toto, telling him that he is busy right now. Upset, she sits back down.

A moment later, they overhear a woman telling her friend a severed head mixed in a bundle of balloons. The balloons and the head floated away; because the story sounds so unbelievable, she and the other witnesses did not go to the police. Amamiya has her doubts about the story—after all, who would go through this trouble? However, when Toto remarks that this seems like a good chance to show up Kawasemi, she decides to look into the case, but not without telling Toto that he will take responsbility for ruining her day off if the matter turns out to be nothing.

Amamiya and Toto go up to the mall's roof with the woman from the café who has called two more people who were there yesterday. They tell them about their photoshot yesterday at 11 p.m. and how they noticed the head among the balloons; the model was so startled by his discovery that he let go of the strings and the head and the balloons floated away. Some of the head's blood dripped onto his clown costume though which he has brought with him. He gives it to Amamiya who orders Totomaru to send it to forensics. He complies, and afterward, he asks her what she thinks of the story. Amamiya says that she does not think they were lying, but it is hard to imagine how the head ended up between the balloons because there is nothing on the roof and the closest buildings are dozens of meters away; thus, the head could not have been lowered down from above. She theorizes that it might have been an optical illusion—a billboard's image that was reflected by the nearby building's glass facade and onto a balloon. However, because so many witnessed the same illusion, it is unlikely that this is the solution; Totomaru correctly guesses this as well.

Amamiya asks him if the reason why he has been arresting so many people lately is because he investigates cases nobody else wants to touch. Toto affirms this, and Amamiya tells him that because the missing person case she has been working on is at a standstill and because she cannot sit by while Kawasemi arrests one criminal after another, they will continue the investigation. She orders him to asks everyone in the area to find out where the head balloon went. He takes on this task. Together, they ask various people who have not seen anything of note until they get to a man who spotted a drone flying above the mall. At first, Amamiya and Toto think that this could be it, but after the man clarifies that he saw the drone in the evening and that it was too small to carry a watermelon, they discard that thought. Toto suggests that the head could have been carried by a balloon, but Amamiya informs him that, because of the head's weights, hundreds of balloons were needed to lift it.

Afterward, they sit down on a bench. Amamiya eats while Toto ponders over the case. Their only lead is a black cloth that was on the roof, and he even texted Ron about the case, though he has not replied yet. Totomaru then apologizes to Amamiya for ruining her day off, but she replies that it is fine as this has happened to her quite often. She adds that she finds it funny: She never imagined that she would ever investigate a case as eagerly as this one with Toto, especially not on her day off and without her wearing any makeup. Toto remarks that he thinks she looks good even without makeup, and she tells him to shut up as her investigating a case without wearing makeup is only a mark of her devotion to work. Shortly afterward, Toto gets a call from forensics who confirm that the stain on the clown costume is human blood.

After the confirmation that there was indeed a floating severed head, Toto and Amamiya immediately start to work on the case again and ponder how the head ended up among the balloons and then floated away. In this moment, Ron approaches them. He says that it looks like he showed up at the right time: snack time. Toto and Amamiya are surprised by his sight, and Ron asks Toto if this is what he wanted to say before he cut him off: Why did the killer have to go through the trouble of making the head appear in mid-air?

## Characters in Order of Appearance

* Totomaru Isshiki
* Amamiya
* Ron Kamonohashi

## Trivia

* Press Butter Sand and some specific versions of kaisendon are specialities of Hokkaido. Both food items are in the higher price range: A box of only five Press Butter Sand cookies costs 1,026 yen, while the price of kaisendon can range from 500 to 2,500 yen, depending on the restaurant and the toppings.

## References

1. ↑ "If you are reading Kamonohashi Ron, in chapter 49, Toto mentions he wants to buy butter sandwiches for his grandmother.
It is not bread and butter. He's referring to a cookie sandwich filled with buttercream and caramel. It's called Press Butter Sand." — Amano News on Twitter
2. ↑ "Delicious Hokkaido Food You Have to Try" — Sakuraco
3. ↑ "History, meaning, definition and recipe of Kaisen-don" — Piece of Japan
4. ↑ "Products" — Press Butter Sand
5. ↑ "Is Japan Really That Expensive? 8 Cheap Things in Japan that Will Probably Surprise You" — tsunagu Japan
6. ↑ "Best kaisendon in Tokyo" — TimeOut