LU Chapter 19

# Chapter Nineteen - "Parkour!"

    I opened my eyes in annoyance at the tiny little idol poking at my arm. "Yeah… I'm great… Maybe it was a bad idea to eat such a rich lunch before my big fight scene though…"

    "I told you not to overdo it… All my meals are kind of huge so I make it look easy, but I'm a professional at it."

    "I don't want to eat meat again for like, a whole week…"

    "Really? So you don't want to get chicken for dinner?"

    "No thank you, Yume… You can have mine…"

    "Deal! I bet I'll be starving again after all that farming…”

    Lunch had been really fun! Until we got back on set and the regret started setting in. Several of us thought it would be fun to treat a bunch of the girls helping on the project to a nice lunch to celebrate our successful first week, which was really fun because I got to make a bunch of new friends I didn't know very well beforehand! We had about a dozen girls crowded around a large table eating far too much to be comfortable dancing around vigorously for the next four hours. An ‘amateur mistake’, as Yume is calling it. Of course only a few of us were actually going to be dancing, and it turns out that both Kazue and Yume can pretty much eat their own weight in meat, veggies, and noodles without suffering any difficulties, so mostly our idea just led to some slightly sluggish stagehands and one very slow idol.

    "Um, D-Dam-Bi?"

    "Yeah, Aoi?"

    "Ms. Rossi sent out a memo a couple days ago, and, um, we're not supposed to let anyone lay down on the props. Specifically not on the, um… the giant…"

    "Kanon started it though."

    "Hey, leave me out of this…" A small voice piped up from deeper in the fuzzy, peach-colored crater Kanon had curled herself into.

    "Out! Get off the hamster! They put ***us*** in charge of the props and there's no sleepin' on 'em allowed!"

    Our very comfortable bed started rocking back and forth, though not very much because the Mega-Momo is huge, and one feisty idol isn't really enough to move it more than a slight ripple. If not for the boorish yelling it would actually have been kind of nice, like sleeping in a hammock or on a boat.

    "Asa, that's not going to do anything but mess it up more. Dam-Bi, will you get up off of the hamster for me? You too please, Kanon. They said they're going to start locking the gate and making us sign out the props to the set if anything else gets broken. Pretty please?" My course mate turned stagehand Minori asked me extremely nicely, making it hard to say no, even if I wanted to stay right here in the Mega-Momo’s fuwafuwa embrace.

    "You're k-kinda getting makeup on it, too. Actually, all of you are… Asa, you too…"

    I groaned loudly. Filming is mostly done for the day, but our director is overly optimistic that they may be able to squeeze in another scene once they finish their current one. They won't be able to. Not even close. Even if they finished now they'd need to change the set dressing and make sure the lighting was right, and if the past days' shooting has been any indication those alone would take longer to do than the time we have left for the day. All I want is to change into my comfy clothes, head home, and maybe take a nice long nap… But Minori and Aoi did ask nicely, and I'd hate to ruin the friendly vibe most of us have going by being more of a diva than I need to be…

    "Okay, I'm getting up… Come on Kanon, on your feet too…" I rolled off of the Mega-Momo, stumbling to my feet and grabbing onto Minorin and Yume to steady myself, though the difference in their heights made me stumble an extra step anyway. It took all three of us to pull Kanon out of her fuzzy hiding spot smack dab in the center of the giant plush rodent. For such a tiny thing she's surprisingly hard to budge when she doesn't want to.

    "That's what you all get for eating too much…" My friend's blonde friend muttered. How rude. I'm starting to think there's something wrong with blonde idols in general. Kazue, of course, being the exception.

    "It's your own fault, Asa. I'm sure you could have come along too if you hadn't had secret business to get up to." Minori chastised her groupmate while absentmindedly running her fingers through her deep purple wig. Apparently she got bored of being a blonde since lunch. Though like I said, with the way blondes are acting lately, I can't blame her. Maybe I should get a wig… I bet I'd be cute with purple hair… Ooh! Or peach, like Momo! The surly blonde girl responded to her group mate by sticking her tongue out. I hope she gets Momo fluff on it.

    Yeah… I've definitely had my fill of blondes for the week. Eimi is enough without dealing with knockoffs…

    "Do you think they'll be done soon…?" Asked Kanon in her usual drowsy tone. The current scene involves a few of our friends, but I had a feeling that her current impatience was due to her best friend and roommate being among them. Kanon is always a little bit protective of Chiyo, but ever since the weirdness that happened earlier this week she's been downright anxious anytime she's been out of her sight.

    "I'm sure they won't be long. At least not if Rinko can stop adding extra swordstrokes to the choreography…" Yume mimed a few sweeps of her arm. What is it about toy swords that turn everyone into wannabe ninjas? I'm so glad I got a bow instead. Pew! Pew!

    "So they'll probably be there for a while…"

    "They must be finishing up. There's Eimicchi." I pointed to the side of the storage area we were languishing in where ‘everyone's favorite idol’ was fiddling around with the carts of props and set dressings needed for the next scene.

    "Hey! Don't mess with the props!", the annoyingly buxom, self-appointed propmaster bellowed toward Eimi. Eimi froze. I was kind of hoping Eimi would do the Eimi thing and this would lead to a fight between the two of them, because that would be kind of hilarious to watch. Instead it was almost as funny watching the girl run off after Eimi who took off in a sprint herself, hurdling over a table full of our props then ducking under the half-closed mesh gate before disappearing into the depths of the studio.

    "W-We'd probably better go after her…" Muttered my new friend Aoi. The look on her face made me think that this wasn't the first time something like this has happened.

    "Right." Minori sighed and they walked briskly after Asa and Eimi, shouting "Thank you again for lunch!" before ducking under the same gate and following after them.

    "We should probably go after Eimi too… Shouldn't we?" Yume half asked.

    "Yeah…" Kanon agreed, though she took a step back toward the now unguarded Mega-Momo before Yume grabbed her by the shoulders.

    "Eimicchi can take care of herself…"

    And if not, what are two of the tiniest idols ever and one regular-sized but sleepy idol going to do about it?

    "That was weird, right? Eimi's usually sort of well-behaved on set. It's one of the better things about her." Yume, her interest piqued by the strange events we had just witnessed, walked over to the carts next to the exit which Eimi had just been rifling through. "Guys, she did it again! I can't believe we fell for it!" Yume held up a familiar rectangle of blackness for us to see.

    "I thought we were done with this nonsense…" I guess at least the excitement will wake me up a little. "Who is it this time?"

    Yume flipped the envelopes around one after another, reading them aloud. "Anette, Megumi, Chiyo, and… huh? Why would Eimi write a letter to herself? It's heavier than the rest, too."

    Kanon, an idol of few words, walked with me over to Yume. She tore the letter with Chiyo's name on it out of her hands and folded it into a little ball. Lacking any functional pockets in her costume she did the only logical thing, stuffing it down her shirt where she could safely retrieve it later.

    Before any more could transpire, the stage started to empty out into the area backstage and several of our friends appeared almost right next to us to return their props and give us the all clear to go change out of our costumes and head home. A wave of nervousness washed through them as one after another noticed the envelopes in Yume's hand.

    "Awhoa, more of those things? I thought we were done doing that?" Akira asked, rather rhetorically. "Who're they for now?"

    "There's one for Megumin, one for Netti, one for Eimicchi, which is really strange, and-" Kanon cleared her throat especially loudly to intercept me before I accidently ratted her out now that Chiyo was here. "And… that's it! Just those three!"

    "Yeah, and you'll never guess who we saw hiding them here. Again."

    "W-Was it the same mystery blonde as before?" Chiyo chirped nervously.

    "No, not a mystery blonde. A regular blonde. It was ***Eimi. Again.***"

    "B-But we already proved that it can't be Eimi! Right? M-Megumi, tell her!" Chiyo started to get upset at the accusation. Kanon probably made the right decision here. My bun buddy is pretty fragile…

    "Yume, Mademoiselle Eimi was on stage with us right until she got called to the costume shop."

    "Ayeah, she keeps popping the seams on her top. Didja know they have to sew her into that warrior outfit? She was complaining about it all afternoon. There's no way she had time to pop back here and cause trouble."

    "Ms. Hoshino is correct. I kept her company in the costume shop yesterday after her final fitting. Unless Ms. Nana's assistants have gotten significantly faster, she'll be there for another ten minutes at least. This must be another case of mistaken identity."

    "But it looked just like her again… Come on Dam-Bi, Kanon, back me up."

    "She was blonde and in a skirt like Eimi usually wears… but…"

    "If you guys saw her leave through the set doors to go see Nana, it seems pretty likely that it wasn't actually Eimicchi."

    "I guess it could have been someone else… But someone really wants us to think that it's Eimi doing this! It's getting annoying! Why is it so hard to figure out who keeps doing that? There can't be so many blonde girls helping with the video that we can't figure it out."

    "Last night I took a look through some of the files in Ms. Fujimura's office and compared them to the job sheets for today's filming. I wasn't able to access all of them thanks to her recent upgrades to security, but I found exactly three girls on set whose profiles confirmed blonde hair. In addition to Ms. Ono and Ms. Inagawa, of course."

    "Uhh, how did you get access to Lina's files? She'll still barely let me into the office for regular business since Anette filled the back pocket of my jeans with squid ink and ruined one of the couches. And my favorite pants!"

    "I told you! We need a larger couch in Madame Lina's office, so we needed to find a way to destroy one of the current ones."

    "She just made me try to clean it up and then flip the cushions over! It took a whole Saturday! The stains were on my legs for almost a week…"

    "Oui, but now that the cushions have been flipped, once something stains them *again-*"

    "Akira, you know that we voted and decided that was a great prank, so you're not allowed to be mad anymore. Anette, that was still one of your best ever pranks, but I think we should talk about what Megumi found."

    "Thank you, Ms. Zhou. There's no need to question my methods. The important thing is that we've narrowed it down to three prime suspects."

    *"Plus Eimi."*

    "If nobody has an objection, since it seems whoever is behind this mystery wants us to suspect Ms. Inagawa, and because we've already cleared her of any suspicions once before, I think it would be best to put your new doubts to bed once more as quickly as possible. Ms. Zhou, if you wouldn't mind, could you please walk us through exactly what it is you saw?"

    "We saw what looked like Eimi messing around with the prop carts. Some of the stagehands yelled at her and chased after her, so she jumped over the prop table, ducked under the gate, and took off who knows where."

    "How curious. Ms. Han, Ms. Mitsuboshi, is that what you saw as well?"

    "Yeah…"

    "That sounds right!"

    "Then, may I ask for your assistance in testing a theory, Ms. Hoshino? Would you please act out the scene as Ms. Zhou recalls it?"

    "Uh, me? Sure. Just go for it?"

    "If you would, please."

    "Ohhkay…"

    Akira did her best impression of the girl we had seen, breaking out into a flat sprint before performing a one-handed vault over the prop table and ducking under the half-closed exit at full speed. It was pretty impressive, even more so when she retraced her steps and did it all in reverse.

    "Was that an accurate recreation, Ms. Zhou?"

    "Yeah, that's basically what happened."

    "Then can you assist me with testing a theory as well? Would you be so kind as to repeat Ms. Hoshino's exhibition?"

    "Okay, but why?"

    "I'm just testing a hunch, if you would indulge me."

    Yume shrugged and took a few steps back. She got a running start, hurdled clear over the table, and ran directly under the storage room gate.

    "What did that prove? Except that Yume is better at jumping than Akira." I think all of us were confused at what Megumi was up to, but Anette asked first.

    "Did anyone pay careful attention to how Ms. Zhou passed under the gate?"

    "She didn't have to duck…"

    "Exactly, Ms. Mitsuboshi. And if Ms. Zhou didn't have to duck her head under the fence then we can ascertain that neither would Ms. Inagawa, or yourself for that matter. We can thus assume that the culprit is taller than Ms. Zhou and, consequently, taller than Ms. Inagawa, once again proving her innocence."

    "Great, so we've ruled out anyone shorter than Yume, which means, ahhhhhh, basically no one."

    Yume gave Akira a sour look for her joke before continuing the discussion. "But it means that Eimi *couldn't* have done it. So why do they keep getting caught trying to make us think Eimi did it?"

    "As I learned in my studies, 'The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.'"

    "Is that some old British proverb or something?"

    "Not at all, Ms. Han. It simply means that whatever the goals of our mysterious culprit, they are obviously trying to keep us confused as to their true motives. Trying to turn us against each other would be an excellent way to do this, provided we were petty enough to fall for their taunts."

    "But what about the new envelopes… What do you think they say?"

    "I'm sure they contain nothing good. It seems that this may be more than just a schoolyard prank after all, given the lengths that someone is clearly going to for the purpose of keeping us confused. Ms. Zhou, may I have the letter addressed to me?"

    Yume handed all of the letters over. As far as this mystery goes Megumin is playing the role of detective, as much by her own choice as because she seems to be the only one having any real breakthroughs. She daintily opened the envelope addressed to herself, finding the expected letter, which she read carefully to herself.

    "How interesting. Ms. Chanel, would you mind opening your own letter? I have another hunch to test."

    "Moi? Do I… have to? I already received one. Perhaps this one is mislabeled, non?"

    "If my theory is correct, you'll find little to be concerned about."

    "Okay…" Netti hesitantly took the envelope from Megumin and opened it. She started scanning through her letter, moving her lips slightly as she did so.

    "Would you mind reading it out loud, please?"

    "Okay… To Anette Chanel. I've been a fan of yours for a long time, and I have to say that I'm disappointed." Like some sort of witch, Megumi started reciting the letter along with Anette. **"Your solo work was much more impressive than your current projects. You really need to go back to your old producer so you can make worthwhile music again. Signed, an adoring fan."**

    "Whoa! Megumi! You're psychic!" My mind was completely blown by this stunt.

    Unless maybe Megumin is the culprit?!

    Wait, no. She was onstage when these were delivered with Akira and Chiyo.

    *So she **is** a witch!*

    That's the ***only*** explanation that makes sense!

    "Awhoa! How did you do that?"

    *How did she do that?!*

    "Y-Yeah! If psychics are real, then maybe ghosts are real afterall…" Fretted Chiyo, forgetting that the only ghost we've ever gotten proof of was Kazue.

    "I'm pretty sure they both just got the same letter…"

    "Very good again, Ms. Mitsuboshi. Whomever the culprit is, it seems they didn't consider it worth changing the letter between us, merely copying it verbatim. Of course, it's a curious demand. Ms. Chanel, please tell our friends what's wrong with the admirer's suggestion."

    "Oui! Mademoiselle Megumi and moi do not have the option of returning to our old producer even if we wanted to! Monsieur Kumasawa fired both of us. He would not want us back."

    "So, as for these first two letters, they're essentially pointless. We now merely have to deduce which of the three girls with blonde hair are behind their delivery and the mystery will be solved. If their motives weren't so vulgar, this would almost be fun."

    "There was a blonde girl back here with us when it happened. The one who looks kind of like Eimi, but even ruder and louder. With those big scraggly ponytails." Yume took a chunk of her hair in each hand and made an angry face, capturing the stagehand's look surprisingly well. "She was fighting with Dam-Bi and Kanon, so it can't have been her."

    "Her name is Asa. She's kind of a jerk a lot of the time, but Yume's right. She must be innocent too." Which is a shame, because that would have been awfully convenient.

    "There was a blonde girl working with the camera crew!" My favorite unit partner excitedly added. Way to go Chiyo! "S-So it probably wasn't her, right?"

    "Ayup I saw her too. She was definitely still busy with stuff when they told us we could leave."

    "I noticed her as well, Ms. Watanabe. Excellent eyes." Chiyo's face lit up proudly at Megumin's praise. "I believe that she is Ms. Hashiji, based on the job sheet. That means our epistolist, by process of elimination, must be a Ms. Tomiko Wakabayashi."

    "I'm sorry, Megumin, but I don't believe for a second that Tomi would do something like this. We've been in the same class together for two years. We eat lunch together a couple of times a week. We even had lunch today! Yume, you remember meeting her, right?"

    "There were a lot of people I'd never really met before, but I do remember sitting next to a blonde. But that doesn't mean anything without an alibi, right?"

    "I'm afraid Ms. Zhou is correct. Ms. Asakura was with you, Ms. Zhou, and Ms. Mitsuboshi at the time the culprit was caught planting these letters. Ms. Hashiji was in clear view of those of us still filming at the time. Those two girls thus have not only alibis, but multiple corroborated witnesses to verify. Eimi's innocence was established via its own reasoning, and Ms. Ono's hair is far too short to be reasonably confused for Ms. Inagawa. I'm sure that we can all agree on that point."

    "Plus Mademoiselle Kazue's feelings were very hurt by the awful letter she received. She could not be the one responsible. Non. Très impossible."

    "P-Plus she's still on stage right now, so she couldn't have been back here too."

    "I get all of that, but Tomi's hair only goes down to about…" I held my hand level around the center of my cheek. "It's an overgrown bob with cute little highlights. Plus she's Yume's size, so doesn't the height thing rule her out?"

    Everyone, including Megumin, suddenly looked a little confused. Did my argument work?

    "The blonde girl I remember from lunch was a lot taller than me. She definitely would have had to duck under the gate. Come to think of it, she did actually look like maybe it could have been her. She was built a lot like Eimi, and she had longer blonde hair. If she put it in tails then with a little distance she'd probably look a lot like her.

    "A tall, long haired blonde…? That's definitely not Tomi…. Oh! You're thinking of Minorin. In that case, she was back here with us when the letters arrived too. You remember? She helped us get Kanon off of the Mega-Momo."

    "But that girl had purple hair…" Kanon looked at me like I'm crazy, but I promise I am not.

    "The purple hair is a wig. We aren't allowed to dye our hair that sort of color at Kikyo so she does it when school's out for fun. She's another classmate of ours. She's a real sweetie too.”

    "So, uhh, the blonde is her real color? Why dye it just to wear a wig over it?" Kira-Kira also seemed confused, but they just don't seem to be understanding me.

    "No, the blonde was a wig too. Her real color is a pretty boring brownish, like most of the girls who go to Kikyo. But today at lunch she was *definitely* wearing a blonde wig, and then she changed it once we got back! I remember because it's always the first thing I compliment her on when I see her outside of school."

    "My, how interesting…" Megumin made that strange, subtly grinning smile again. "Ms. Han, it seems you've made the most important breakthrough of anyone regarding the letter writer's identity."

    "I did?"

    I don't know what it is, but yay!

    "Indeed you did. I came to work today thinking that we had to investigate three prime suspects, but thanks to your observation that theory has been rendered incorrect. You see, I hadn't taken into account that the guilty party may be concealing their identity with a disguise for the purpose of framing Ms. Inagawa. With that possibility, we no longer have a trio of persons to investigate."

    "How many did I narrow it down to?"

    "Nearly everyone else working in the studio, Ms. Han."

    "What?! But that's not a good thing at all…"

    "Ahah! Well, at least there's a silver lining."

    "And what would that be, Ms. Hoshino?"

    "Whoever did it, at least we know they're taller than Yume!"

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