Yuki Nekoyama's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Four suspects left. All boys. All seen near the short story shelf at closing. Yuki knew one thing for certain: the note-writer loved these books the way she did. If she could hear any of them talk about reading, she would know. But asking meant speaking first. That was the wall she couldn't climb. Morning came, and she made a plan she hated. She would stake out each boy and listen. No talking. Just listen. She started at the newspaper stand, where fresh copies sat in neat rows. Kai Ravencroft leaned against it, purple plaid loud in the grey hall. A crowd pressed around him. He noticed her and smiled. He was her friend, though the noise around him always pushed her back. She waited for a word about books. He talked about a valerian blend that had knocked him out cold in class. Nothing. She moved to the water fountain. Hiro Takeda stood there with his clipboard, green stripes down his sweatpants. He argued with a teammate about lane widths for a swim team the school hadn't approved yet. Panda crest, loud voice, not one word about stories. Yuki drifted away. The quad was her last stop. Akira Hoshino sat on a bench, yellow star bright on his white blazer. He frowned at his phone, then set it down. "Lindsey picks pens by some system," he said to no one. "I never cracked it." Math. Pens. A missing girl. Books never came up. By afternoon Yuki had heard nothing. Three boys, three dead ends. Her plan had failed completely. She couldn't wait around forever, and eavesdropping told her nothing without a book on the table. She gave up for the day. She headed to science class. Her chest still ached from the silence she'd kept all day. She passed Akira on the way, and this time he looked up. "You dropped this," he said. He held out her notebook. It must have slipped from her bag. The page lay open to her list of suspects. Yuki froze. Her throat locked. The old fear rose, the memory of her notes read aloud to a whole room. But Akira didn't read it out. He just handed it back. "I don't read other people's notes," he said. "Bad habit to have." Something in his plain voice loosened her. Before she could stop herself, she spoke. "Do you like the short stories? On the shelf in the library?" Her own voice shocked her. She had spoken first. Akira shook his head. "Never touched them. I return math books there at closing. That's it." He shrugged. "Ask the one who actually reads. Not me." Yuki's heart dropped and lifted at once. She had failed to catch the writer today. But she had spoken. And Akira just told her something no watching could: he wasn't the one. Three boys left. And now she knew she could ask.