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“Roulette is normally a game played with red and black spaces. Red is blood, and black is darkness, which I don’t find particularly pleasant. I would like to make this game more wholesome, which is why I’ve opted to use red and white spaces. Those colors have a more pleasant association, don’t they?”
Fudatsuki Rai-kun was the one talking. With his hair swept back neatly and a white suit on, he looked exceptionally adult for his age as he stood behind the roulette table facing me and explained the color change while keeping a smooth smile on his face the whole time.
Oh, right, sorry, I’ve skipped ahead a bit. So to quickly recap, the infiltration was an immediate bust. To put the most positive spin possible on it, the plan was going wonderfully right up until I tried to enter the gymnasium.
I, a male adult public employee, was wearing my little sister’s old school uniform to try and infiltrate a middle school, which sounds like the setup for an entirely different crime from what I was trying to investigate. Oh, and just so you know, I ended up not wearing Karen’s uniform. I instead had to borrow from the strategist of the Fire Sisters (who was not in Japan at the time).
Karen’s uniform had proven to be too baggy on me, even though she had worn it back in middle school. So anyway, with a fitting uniform on, we took a photo to edit the school ID, and with that in hand, I was able to enter the casino.
I was let inside and welcomed.
It was so showy and brilliant that I doubted what I was seeing.
“Showy and brilliant” didn’t seem to capture it properly. Maybe it’s better to say “gaudy and gorgeous”?
It left me speechless—that was the most accurate way to express my feelings about it.
Was this really a gymnasium? Did people really play basketball and volleyball in this same place during the day? It didn’t seem possible.
There was a glittering stage with lights shining down on it and background music playing that made you feel energized whether you wanted to or not. Slot machines, poker, blackjack, baccarat, craps, and roulette… Well, there were also some other games that a non-gambler like myself couldn’t recognize. There were tuxedo-clad dealers and colorful bunny girls. Were they really middle school students?
Bunny girls.
This was a form of culture not found in our worldview. From what
Karen had told me, this whole thing was put on by middle schoolers, so I had imagined a much more “homemade” casino, but this place was on par with Macao or Las Vegas. The only difference that I could spot was the lack of alcohol. They even had cameras set up along the ceiling to watch for cheating!
Wait, no, I can’t let myself be impressed.
This must have cost a fortune to set up?
What was the house doing spending this kind of money? With this kind of investment, there’s no way that fleecing some middle school students of their allowance was going to make up for it... Was the objective not to make money?
Was there another goal?
Was the point just to keep money moving between hands? Yes, just like roulette…
Damn, this didn’t seem like something that I could handle on my own… I thought that I should retreat and come up with a new plan. I thought I might even need to consult with my senior, Inspector Kizashima, since she had more experience and might better understand what to do…
And as I tried to back out…
“Oh? Going home so soon after arriving? Won’t you stay for a while and see more of my Tsuganoki branch of ‘Reasonable Doubt’, Assistant
Inspector Araragi?” Yep.
The gambler had caught me.
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