Finally a case? [open]

[Tsukino Haruhi]

Soon I will read it, it finally came out and soon I will be able to read it.. Haruhi was thinking as she was hugging the new book that her father published. She was too anxious since she had already read numerous mystery novels and she would not feel well if she could not read the newest book of her father. She always loved the tricks that her father would use in the books. But she could not read it yet. Just a few more minutes before I read this book too! she thought and for a minute she was not thinking at all.

The class was getting more noisy and finally the bell rang making her to jump from her chair and shout as she was stretching. "Finally I will read it!" making her classmates stop to look at her. Not only was she the new girl but now she is the new yelling girl who happens to be a detective. She slightly felt embarrassed and blushed but immediately smiled and sweat dropped. "That was just me being anxious about reading a book!" She explained backing a little and then started running. She was wearing as always the school uniform. Her hair were tied in a low-attached ponytail with some shorter chestnut brown strands falling on the sides of her face though the fact that she was running were making her hair waving behind her. But as she was running she decided against it and turned around to go back to her class and read there. The school was peaceful and it would not take less than a minute to read the book since she had the photographic memory.

"There is no need to be in a hurry now, I can go back and sit and relax hoping that I won't suddenly have people coming to ask me about cases!" She was babbling holding the book on her one hand and wearing her sack on her back.

That school was much more different that those she went to. Private schools were totally different and the most important was that her school was for people with special abilities like her so she was receiving special education thus the lessons for her classes would seem totally easy for her.

Haruhi smiled as she reached her class and went inside sat on her desk and started reading. After 10 seconds of looking at each page she was changing pages. Just looking at the page once was enough for her to remember it. The story was more and more interesting as she was going further in the book. three women were hung from the roof of a temple and there were no traces of someone being able to go 15 meters on the roof. Not footprints nor fingerprints. It was definitely too strange and she was also trying to think of the trick used for such disgusting murders. She was laughing at how the policemen were thinking that they did a suicide or how the priest said that it was a divine punishment or a curse.

She stood for a while without reading but just looking at the window to think of the trick used after analyzing the information in the book. In the end she realized that she needed to find more clues therefore she continued her reading but ended up reading the whole book in the rest 10 minutes being amazed by the complexity of the trick and how the main hero of the book managed to point the criminal.

"Amazing... he filled the temple with water and used a boat not to mention that he made an opening on the small side door to let the water pressure destroy part of the wall too and the water go back to the river. "Very smart bad, not bad at all!" She murmured and she just stayed in the classroom closing the book and leaning on her desk falling asleep peacefully until she heard a loud thumb from the outside and immediately jumped from her seat.

"What was that?" She wondered and walked to the window to look outside but she couldn't see anything. An accident? she thought... Or maybe a case? she deduced as her dark brown eyes sparkled from enthusiasm. She was thinking that maybe she should run outside and check what happened and without much thinking about it she ran outside the classroom only to hit her head on an obstacle and fall down like a sack of potatoes.

[guo cai mei]

Cai Mei was unhappy, and that didn’t happen often. Bag slung over one shoulder, she took the stairs from the ground floor in the west wing two at a time, trying to get away as quickly as she could from the offices of the school’s senior leadership team where she and her father had been called for a meeting with the head of third year following a horrendous score on a fairly ‘easy’ test. If that hadn’t been enough to disgruntle the young student, her aunt had insisted on dressing her up smartly for the occasion, and Mei absolutely hated looking like a real girl. Climbing the stairs in an outfit consisting of a frilly white blouse, new black skirt and – of all things – clip on elasticated braces, she was absolutely dreading the torment from her friends when they saw her, as she usually scurried about the place in hoodies and shorts. She once swore she’d never be caught dead in a skirt; today was clearly her unlucky day. The only free reign she’d had at all were her converses, which she stared at intently as she shuffled down the first floor corridor as though they were her security blanket.

Too caught up in her own sulking, Mei failed to notice in advance the staggering second year student tottering along the corridor with a stack of textbooks almost as tall as he was. Looking up only when it was too late, their shoulders collided and the second year student toppled forward, dropping the tower of books with a horrendous thump and soon following suit. Mei shrieked, her hands quickly clapping to her mouth to suppress the sound as she jumped back quickly, only to bump into another second year emerging from a classroom behind her. Quickly swishing around to see the latter student, a girl, fall to the floor, Mei began to panic, flapping her hands slightly at her sides as she looked over the disaster she’d caused.

Leaning over, she grabbed Haruhi by the arm, tugging her to her feet as she apologised profusely, repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over as she dusted the other girl off, before she quickly dashed to the initial accident and began to collect up the fallen books, still apologising repeatedly and beginning to sound like a broken record.

Mortified, she clambered to her feet with most of the books in her arms, handing them over to the male student with an embarrassed laugh and waving awkwardly as he headed off down the corridor. Her waving faltered and her hand slowly collapsed to her side, her head hanging as she visibly crumbled with embarrassment.

“Not my day, really not my day.”

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>>outfit: here <<

[Tsukino Haruhi]

Haruhi rubbed her butt and mumbled something about hating feeling pain while she was looking the poor girl apologizing and haruhi bowed her head to the girl showing her gratitude for helping her up. She could not help but smile to her but she was sure that she did not see it unfortunately because she was still worried about the small accident and immediately went to help the male student gather his books. She was ready to tell him off though when she saw that he was laughing at the poor girl. "Baka, be happy you left before I opened my mouth!" she murmured and looked at the floor only to find a piece white of paper that he had dropped with some words written on it with red pen. It looked like a code but she just folded the paper and put it in her pocket to examine it later.

Walking to the girl who seemed troubled making Haruhi feel sad about it she spoke to her kindly. "Don't worry about it! That idiot doesn't know his place really!" And there she clicked her tongue. "He did not even apologize! After all it was his fault that this happened!" She continued having a face that could totally show that he disgusted her. "Men.. what do you expect, they do not realize that we are higher beings!" She concluded trying to joke a little. Her smile was bright and her eyes were trying to calm her, she could deduct from the way that she was behaving that her day did not go very well for her.

Haruhi leaned to her offering her a helping hand but at the same time some of her brown strands fell in front of her eyes blocking her vision a bit and thus she used her other hand to tuck them behind her ears.. "I was on my way to investigate what was going wrong outside since I heard a loud thump from the streets but it seems like it will have to wait a little! I am Tsukino Haruhi, Class 2-A, and you are?" She asked her in a warm tone trying not to seem too girly and not to seem like an unapproachable girl.

Haruhi being new she needed to make at least a few friends and the girl seemed to be nice and not one of those who squeak and annoy the heck out of her with their noisy attitude and high pitched voice that pierved her sensitive ears like needles and judging by the muscles of her feet the girl was probably in the football team since the muscles of the lower part of her legs seemed more trained and judging by that she immediately guessed that she was not that brillliant of a student but such a thing was quite unimportant anyway.

[guo cai mei]

Slightly taken aback by the second year that had approached her, Mei laughed nervously, trying not to appear too intimidated by the girl’s up front jokes when she didn’t even know who she was. She thought to herself, some people are just nice like that, and decided just to accept that this bizarre girl had decided to come over to have a laugh with rather than at Mei and her absent mindedness.

“Guo Cai Mei, class 3B,” she smiled openly, nodding her head slightly in acknowledgement of the other girl as she straightened up her blouse. She was clearly uncomfortable in the clothes she was wearing as she began to fidget with the frills around the collar of the shirt and her toes wiggled inside her shoes, but tried not to look too awkward in front of her new acquaintance. “I haven’t seen you around before, are you new?”

Mei was pretty good at knowing who was who at the school. She wasn’t terribly good with science or numbers, her Japanese wasn’t so great and her grammar wasn’t 100%, but she was brilliant at remembering faces. Students who came to her restaurant, students she passed in the corridors, she could remember their faces, though not always their names and classes (that would be too much for her poor brain). She was therefore absolutely certain that she’d never seen Haruhi around before and so, being the busy sprite she was, couldn’t help herself from offering her assistance.

“I can be like your guiding beacon!” She beamed, propping her hands on her hips almost triumphantly, a bright smile spreading across her lips. “If you need anything, to know where anything is, just ask me. I’ll be your personal information centre.”

She offered the girl her trademark infectious smile, pausing for a moment before her eyes lit up as though a thought suddenly occurred to her.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” She began slightly sheepishly, pausing again, then continuing more firmly. “Are you any good at football? It’s just our goalie’s broken her leg and I need another player…”

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>>outfit: here <<

[Tsukino Haruhi]

Haruhi grinned when she heard that she was a year older than her and could not help but grin even more and raise her eyebrows from the excitement. “That is great! I am Tsukino Haruhi, Second, class A. I am your kouhai, apparently.” She spoke in japanese and nodded. “It is very nice to meet you!” She added still having that grin that could make her seem a little terrifying but still interesting. She found that girl very interesting and she was sure that somehow she could be a good friend to her. She had that something cheerful about her.

But when she was about to say something else she was asked if she was new and she heard her speaking and telling her how she had never seen her before. Well it was normal for people not to notice her from the beginning of the year, she was actually lucky for meeting her because Haruhi usually doesn't stay behind and goes straight at home hiding her face. Of course with her photographic memory Haruhi knew who she was. “I have seen you before, but it is normal that you haven't seen me. I have seen you once but since I have a photographic memory I can remember anything even if I looked at it only once in my whole life!” She said laughing a little awkwardly.

Hearing her offer Haruhi could not help but bow to thank her for her kindness. “Thank you very much, the truth is that I will need you!” She started and then in order to confirm that others weren't listening she looked around and walked to a corner gesturing her to follow her.

“I need someone to write something like my memoirs. I have solved a lot of cases so far, of the police here and in America but I haven't kept track of them. I want someone to write the events for me, even from now on too and I want one day those memoirs to be published. Of course since you will be spending sometime with me I will be probably paying you for your services, I could not have it another way.” She whispered those words to her. She did not really know if she had heard her name from the newspapers but she did not mind after all she was not a detective because she liked fame.

Listening to her other question Haruhi smiled to her kindly. “I do not play football Cai Mei-san. I can only kick the ball but I cannot chase and kick like a pro.” she said having a disappointed look on her face as she looked down letting a sigh escape her lips. Sometimes she really wished that she could be the athletic type more. The only thing that she could do perfectly was Karate and deductions. Excellent grades do not count since they are supposed to come to someone who has a photographic memory after all.

[guo cai mei]

Class A. Mei immediately began to panic. She was perfectly away she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and talking to most class A students sent her into a whirlwind of worry. “Nice to meet you,” she replied with a cheerful smile that successfully overcame her brief moment of realising her own insecurity. She was good at that. Cai Mei tended to have flashes of doubt, but it was in her nature to dispel them which, although keeping her fully optimistic and upbeat, wasn’t always a good thing. She loved to worry about things that needed to be done, but always tried to refrain from having any worry for herself, her appearance, her intelligence, believing that none of those things were as important as trying your best.

So when Haruhi said that she needed Mei, she was a little taken aback but not intimidated. She immediately agreed, blurting out “Of course I can help you” without a second thought. She lived to help others, regardless of the mess it usually got her into. Her priorities were rarely reasonable or sensible.

There was just one thing Haruhi said that unnerved the third year.

“I’m happy to help you,” she began slowly, chewing the corner of her lip as she paused before continuing. “But I won’t accept your money.” Her tone was firm, adamant. She wanted to help out of her own kindness, not because she was a charity case. She couldn’t accept money, especially not from someone younger than her.

Actually, there were two things.

“And I don’t want anything to have my name on it,” she added hastily. She went silent, in which she was clearly thinking hard (a rare occurrence). “Are you… sure? You know I’m a class B student and I’m near the bottom of my class. On second thought, maybe you should ask someone else,” she laughed lightheartedly, propping her hands on her hips. “You’ll get a big jumble of characters and bad tenses and grammar in my writing, you might want someone whose Japanese is actually good.”

Despite living in Japan since she was 8 years old, Mei’s written Japanese was only JUST understandable. She’d learnt a very colloquial Japanese through the friends she made, so when it came to formal writing she was poor. On the other hand, her Mandarin was perfect, though she didn’t think Haruhi would want her stories written in another language.

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>>outfit: here <<

[Tsukino Haruhi]

Haruhi noticed at some point that Cai Mei started panicking and she didn't really know why. It got her worried for a second until she saw that she was fine. That releived her because when people would panick around her, she always had an urge to scold them and shake them and she didn't want to scare the third year. Without much thought though she smiled to her again closing her eyes to make it a warm one. It was instictive actually,Haruhi was never the kind of person who smiled because she had to. All of her smiles were as natural as possible.

Noticing that she somehow became very happy to help with what she asked her Haruhi grinned. That was the best, she never really expected her to say yes but if she did it was fun. It seemed though like she did not want to be paid. Well, it was not like Haruhi was doing it because she was feeling sorry for her. She had figured from the uniform that she was not the richest girl of the school but the reason why she offered her money was mostly because when you do a work you have to get paid. But if she saw it as helping her then she did not want in any way to insult her therefore she just nodded to her request.

"I do not have a problem! If you are going to keep log of my cases without getting paid I do not have a problem." She said to her bowing slightly to thank her for accpeting. "Just saying yes to my request makes me happy. The world after all needs to read about the cases I have solved. The mysteries were so difficult for others but not for me?" She said as she did the gesture with her finger to point to the 'negative' aspect of her sentence.

When she heard that she was not that good in Japanese Haruhi frowned slightly and blinked. "Then, we will do this! Write it in the language you are most comfortable with. I do not really mind! If it is successful then people will translate it in Japanese too!" She said nodding and looked outside. "Anyway, now that this is settled, I heard a weird noise from outside which really has me wondering, would you like to come with me and check it? Maybe it was an accident!" She said frowning a bit. "Or even worse a murder that someone made it look like an accident!" She said having the suspicious look in her eyes as she touched her chin thinking."You might have a chance to write about it too!" She added nodding and started walking away from the window of the corridor to the stairs.

[guo cai mei]

Mei was baffled by the second year in front of her. She couldn’t quite work out whether she was serious about this detective business or not. Was this for real? She wasn’t sure whether she was just facing a girl who was rather overenthusiastic about everything (even more so than herself, she was shocked to consider), or whether there was some real work going on here. Being a simple, hard working, manual labour kind of girl, she didn’t understand how anyone so young could have the mental capacity and the respect from others to muster such an occupation.

But, to be honest, she was happy to go along with it. It was nice to have friends, right? She liked to be busy, and she did love to write…

“Okay, I hope you know some Mandarin,” she chuckled half heartedly, ruffling her hair and pulling out the low bunches her aunt had insisted on tying. She’d forgotten they were there, but was so relieve to tug the girly remnants from her, stuffing the bows into her bag and shaking her head in an almost dog-like fashion to rid herself of them. Whilst listening to the other girl, she pulled an oversized navy sweater from her shoulder bag, which she then held locked between her knees as she pulled the shapeless article of clothing over her head and stuffed her arms through. It was so baggy it covered the majority of her skirt, which poked out of the bottom hem of the sweater like a petticoat.

Slinging her bag back over her shoulder, Mei chewed her lip at the word murder. “I’m don’t think anyone’s died, there would have been some screaming. Anyway, what kind of weapon is there here, a ruler?” She chuckled, though she supposed people had been killed with less obvious weapons than rulers. She blinked, snapping out of that weird thought. It was a high school, for goodness sake. The worst thing that could happen would be someone’s head being flushed in a toilet bowl.

“Um, okay…!” She resigned cheerfully, entangling her wrists in the strap of her bag as s he followed the younger girl with a spring in her step. “So… detective eh?”

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[Tsukino Haruhi]

Haruhi was thinking very carefully about the sound she ahd heard walking and at the same time hearing the sound Mei’s shoes were making on the floor while she was following her. It was normal for her to get excited over cases because she believed that the more criminals would get in jail the better it would be for the world. She didn’t know what had happened but apparently she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be simple.“Mei, what you said earlier about Mandarin..” she started remembering that she should let her know that she could not speak Mandarin at all. “Even though I recognize every letter and understand it I cannot speak the language! When I was ten my father was writing one of his novels based on a code that he had created, a code based on the chart of Mandarin and I happened to look at it along with the Japanese translation next to each character. Since then the picture has been in my head!” She explained to her. She didn’t like to make people think that she was ignoring what they were telling her and especially someone that she had just met and was about to help her with what she wanted.

And later she remembered how she was wondering about what it could be used as a weapon and Haruhi blinked while she was still walking. “A ruler can be used as a weapon if you bend it, put a rock and set your goal. Even a bag can be used or the chemicals in the chemistry classroom. Killers have a big imagination!” Haruhi told her nodding. “In New York, there was a case of someone who used dry-ice dagger as a murder weapon. It didn’t leave water behind. He almost escaped. We had no clues but he got caught in the trap of the police. Of course she could not tell her that it was an FBI case of her mother it would be weird. Haruhi didn’t want people to think that she was some kind of secret agent. “So, I have been a detective for a while. I even look for kitties!” She said grinning and looked at Mei while she was also walking outside of the school to see what caused the noise. Apparently none died since there were no sirens. So it was probably something weird.

Looking from afar as shei reached the scene she noticed two cars that hit each other. The one was parked and empty already while the other had hit the other. Both cars were empty. Looking at the scene though she was intrigued by it. “If my deduction is correct the owner of the blue car forgot to use the brake after parking it.” She started and looked at the back side of the car on the bumper to see a footprint.
“It seems like someone sat on the back of the car and put his food on the bumper leaving that footprint. Judging by the size and the fact that you can see the whole footprint that person was just sitting there and resting his foot but someone pushed him. Or something caused him to lose his balance and while trying to find it his leg pushed back the vehicle causing it to roll down here. It is just an accident!” She said clicking her tongue. Taking out her mobile she texted inspector Nanami to send someone to gather the destroyed cars.

She was thinking that it was already noon and had consumed a lot of her energy. She needed to recharge her batteries and the only way was to eat. She was thinking if she should invite Cai Mei at her home for dinner. It was not one of the easiest things she could do and she did not want to seem even stranger to her. How could she ask her, and what if she had work to do? ‘What do you do now baka tantei?’ she thought to herself.

[guo cai mei]

Still a little befuddled by this whole detective business, Mei decided it was probably better if she just kept her mouth closed and her ears open to try and understand better what it actually was that Haruhi did. She guessed that because she herself wasn’t such a high achiever, she found it a little difficult to comprehend how others were able to achieve so much so young. But still, what Haruhi did was beyond anything she’d heard of before…

She followed the younger girl down the stairs, rolling up the sleeves of her baggy jumper and flashing a smile at people who passed her, offering an enthusiastic hello to one girl who sat at a desk close to her in her homeroom. As she followed Haruhi outside, she wavered slightly. She was pretty certain nothing bad was ever going to happen on school grounds, especially not a murder of all things, but she was easily influenced in her way of thought and so the mention of a ‘case’ or whatever the second year she was with had said had made her begin to doubt.

Reaching outside, she didn’t see anything wrong until Haruhi pointed it out. Feeling a little silly, she smiled and nodded sedately as her new friend recited her judgment on the situation. “How on earth did you think all of that?” she questioned quietly, a little out of character for the bubbly third year, though she was a little in awe and still slightly unsure how to act in her new friend’s presence.

The silence was interrupted by her stomach clock going off. In an attempt to cover it up, Mei suddenly burst with nervous laughter, pressing a hand to her cheek as she swung her bag around to rest against her hip, searching in it’s depths and pulling out a small box with her family restaurant’s logo plastered all over it.

“You fancy heading to the cafeteria? I could eat a horse, weeeeeeell, not literally, but still?” She beamed at the other girl, before quickly adding “Unless you have other plans, I really don’t mind.”

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>>outfit: here <<
>>notes: was thinking that seeing as we've got the intro of haru & mei done and all that, we could probably close this thread up soonish? possibly your reply being the last? that way we can start another one, as we've set up in the IM that they're friends already. just like... a time progression. x3<<

[Tsukino Haruhi]

Haruhi looked again inside the car to confirm that the hand brake was indeed loose. And it was just as she thought. It was just an accident. The stick was also in the neutral position which meant that the car was indeed off when that happened. She heard Mei's question and smiled to her eager to explain to her how she thought of it. It was just about time that she could show the way she reasoned the situation.

"If you look frm the window you can see that the brake is loose and the stick is still in teh neutral position, which means that it was not someone who was driving the car. Additionally, normally, when you drive, you keep the car in the middle of the road, but this car if you draw a line from this side you will see that it is very close to the pavement of the road crossing this one. Meaning the car was parked, the engine also is not warm meaning that it was parked up there a little before the road starts getting declivitous. Since there is a footprint on the bumper but an upside down one , it means that someone was sitting on the back of the car with his foot touching the bumper. Apparently when he pushed a little to stand up the car moved and as the wheels started getting on the dip it started falling. " Haruhi explained but the moment she heard her stomache's rumble she blushed and hearing Mei's also she realized that she should tell her to go somewehre to eat.

Mei though asked her about the cafeteria first. And she was thinking that maybe she should tell her about going to her manor. But she did not want to show off to her how rich she was. It was not like she was super rich but she was wealthy enough because of her family and showing of the house that she was living in on her own would not be the best idea. Apparently the girl didn't know who Haruhi's father was and it was better this way because she really was not much into showing off.

"Cafeteria? Sure sounds like a good idea to me! I am starving!" She said nodding and looked around. "So let's go!" She said grinning widely at her.

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notes: Sure XD we start a new one