Freefall Ch. 3

Chapter 4
	Mutou’s lecture droned on and on.  I wish I didn’t have to be in class, but at least gave me time to think.  And opportunity to stare daggers at Lamperouge’s back.  I understand he has aphasia, but would it kill him to point out one of the five if they were in room?
	Sight for Sore Eyes… Suzuki?  Sleeping through half her life would certainly bring in some interesting views of the world and ‘sore eyes’ sort of fit.  But it wasn’t perfect.  Deckard of the Track?  I didn’t know where to start with that one.  Two Van Gogh…  Van Gogh was an artist.  Should I be looking for an artist?  Maeda was Lamperouge’s friend, perhaps he had educated him about great artists.  But wait…  Ah, I’ve got nothing.
	So I waited out the rest of the class period until lunch.  Had I not been out late last night I probably would have been able to ask them earlier, but work came first.  The bell came sooner than I expected, trying to parse out the riddles with nothing to go on at all wasted a lot of time.
	After it run, I stood up and called out to the pair, I really wasn’t sure who too address.  A binary being, it was hard to tell who to look at and who to talk to when dealing with Hakamichi and Mikado.
	“Uh, Shizune, could we talk for a minute?” I asked from my seat behind them.
	Mikado spun around in her chair, drill-like formations of hair spinning around her.
	“Oh hello Ricchan~!  Did you have a question for Shicchan?”
	The nicknames.  How I hated the nicknames.
	“Uh… yeah, Shiina,” I replied, “Can you ask Shizune if she knows someone?”
	“Oh~ Investigating a big story?  And call me Misha, everyone does~”
	“Something like that.”
	Mikado signed something to Hakamichi, who responded with what seemed to be overly long sentence.
	“Uh… Shicchan says… that you aren’t a member… of the newspaper club anymore… and that she’d be glad to answer your question… if you’d join the student council~ wahaha~” Mikado laughed once she put together the entire sentence, like she’d just completed a challenge or something.
	For my part, I sighed and rubbed my eyes, then dragged my palm down my face.
	“Look Shizune, I’m just looking for someone.  I don’t want to be part of any club at all right now.”
	Mikado signed my response to Hakamichi, whose brow narrowed, then relented.  She signed to Mikado.
	“Shicchan says fine, one question~  Everyone is entitled… to a little help from the Student Council… once in a while~”
	“I’m looking for a girl,” I said as Mikado signed along, “Silver or white hair.  Possibly with a heart condition, possibly not.”
	Hakamichi tapped her chin, apparently thinking hard.  She lifted her finger to the air and smiled, then signed back to Mikado.
	“Shicchan says~ there’s a girl in 2-3… with a heart condition and silver-white hair.”
	“What’s her name?” I asked, impatiently.
	“Shicchan doesn’t know her first name, but her last name is Katayama.”
	That was enough to go off of.
	“Thank you, both of you.  You’ve been a great help.”
I moved to leave when Mikado spoke again.
	“It is the duty of the Student Council President… to inform all students that we are entitled to a right of privacy here at Yamaku… and that all non-sanctioned student investigations… into the private lives of students – Shicchan that doesn’t sound right – are against school policy.”
	“I’m not doing anything, I swear.”  I crossed my heart.
	Hakamichi raised an eyebrow and corrected her glasses.  Then she signed something to Mikado.
	“Then~ as you were, Ricchan.”
	I took my leave of the pair.  Hopefully I wouldn’t have to deal with them ever again.
	Then it hit me.  Van Gogh.  Two.  The pair of them.  Van Gogh, besides his amazing works of art, was quite unstable.  He cut off his ear and mailed it to his lover.  Two Van Goghs, one with both ears, one without either.  Hakamichi and Mikado, the pair was inseparable.  They were fourth name on the list.  Now I had to speak to them again.  Just not now.
	As I stepped out of the classroom, a voice peeped up behind me.
	“R-Ritsu?”
	I turned around and saw Ikezawa standing a few feet from the door to the classroom.  She must have been waiting for me.
	“Hey Hanako, what’s up?”
	“J-Just w-wondering… h-how are things g-g-going?”
	“Can we not talk about this here?  Some of the things are pretty outlandish, I don’t know if it’s best to talk in public about it.”
Never mind that she was now a suspect, as one of the five to be investigated.  A common ploy (or so I’ve heard).  Pretend to be a client when you want to take down someone.
“O-Okay… s-sure.  I’ll c-c-come by your d-dorm… after c-c-class.”
“Thanks Hanako.”
She nodded to me, then walked off.  Detective mode, engage.  I stayed about twenty paces behind.  Throngs of students crowded the hallways during the lunch breaks, working their way to activity rooms, the cafeteria or outside.  I was able to stay mostly unnoticed, but Ikezawa’s paranoia almost reached the levels of that Setou kid.  She couldn’t walk past a classroom without glancing back and forth.  We’d been in the same class all year but, sheesh, she had some issues I’d never noticed.  In fact, I would have picked her for the truant type, considering how often she failed to show up for class.  I figured I might be able to bum a cigarette off her.
Eventually, she found her way to a small classroom by the library.  I waited a minute, then peeked in through the square glass window in the door.  She was sitting at a table, chessboard out and pieces arranged.  Two or three moves had been made.  Her opponent was a tall, tall blonde girl.  She never seemed to look at Ikezawa, always staring out at the wall behind her.
Wait, I knew her.  That was Lilly Satou, class representative from 3-2.  Or she was.  I remember Natsume and Naomi talking about it last year, there was apparently some kind of falling out amongst the student council.  Naomi had done some digging; Satou was Hakamichi’s cousin.  There was some kind of bad blood between the two and the council fell apart as a result.  Now it was just Hakamichi and her shadow Mikado.
Sight For Sore Eyes.  Satou was blind, and had a reputation as a goddess amongst humans – the prettiest girl in the school, by traditional standards.  I liked to think I wasn’t half-bad looking.  Satou was the Sight For Sore Eyes.  The second riddle.  So Satou and Ikezawa were friends, then?  I wonder how that got started.  Why that got started.  How did they each know Nakai?  Were they a group of friends, together?
Moreover, Hakamichi and Satou had a history.  Had Nakai uncovered something about the student council?  Did he know too much?  Or was it a rivalry, both girls pining after the new kid?  There were a lot of possibilities.  I just wasn’t sure which was right yet.