Leave Me Alone, I’m Really Not a Detective

In 1991, as the neon glow faded after the bubble burst, an old folding table appeared on a street corner in Aoba City. Then one day, an energetic girl who called herself “the future great detective” and could kick a wooden post in half sent his fortune-telling stall flying with a single kick. “I caught you! You charlatan, pretending to be some kind of mystic!” “Miss, the fee for disrupting my business is 2,000 yen, and the table will cost you another 3,000. IOUs accepted.” From midnight ghost stories in the old school building to a battle to protect the shopping district’s secret family recipe; from a deadly blind spot in the station timetable to an isolated-room murder mystery on a bridge cut off by torrential rain. The Nth time the girl detective kicks open the clubroom door, covered in mud: “Shuji! There’s been a murder! Come help me solve it!” Shuji, who is making udon in the kitchen, silently takes out his abacus. “I’ve told you how many times? I’m really not a detective. And your errand fee from last week, minus depreciation, is 200 yen. The two bowls of food you mooched last night come to 600. Your IOU is already on page three. Want me to lift a finger? Start by mopping the clubroom floor tonight!”