Prey and Predator [Ranpo x Reader] + Bonus ✓

12. The Cellist Fraud

It took a while to brush away all second-hand embarrassment, but eventually, this was tackled when he agreed to listen to whatever theory I may have come up with - 'Not that much can be done at the moment, anyway' he added.

Something about his tone contradicted his phrase. He was teasing me. 'You're trying to provoke my brain cells.'

'What if I am?'

Then my brother is not guilty. But, the evidence all led up to it: the left-handed trick, the glove, not quite the knife (but still, relevant), the list of names and their crossing out -

'The crossing out!' I reached for the list under the filed report and squinted at it. 'He's got a red pen - the same one he used to write you that note. The note that said A.D.A should look after me - Yes! That one!' I affirmed as he brought the spoken note out of the pocket of his pyjamas. I pointed at its folded properties. 'See how the ink bleeds through? I bought it with my first wage because it was cheap and -'

'That list you have is a photocopy.'

Oh. There goes my last piece of evidence that may prove his innocence.

'But do carry on, this is amusing,' he grinned as he folded his legs together while sitting on the bed.

'This isn't an amusement show, Mr Diabetes.'

'Mr Diabetes?! What better are you, convenience store woman!'

I took a breath in; be the bigger person, be the bigger person.

'Does the original list have the red ink bleeding through?' He nodded at my question. But I presume there's more to the pen than the bleeding. I questioned the superficial such as asking whether my brother had had the pen present in his pocket alongside the note if this had only got his fingerprints on it and if the ink found on the note was the same found on the list: he answered all of these affirmative. 'But did you do paper chromatography?'

'I'm not a scientist, but whatever that is, yes,' he said, later admitting that he actually did know what the practical consisted of and how the coloured spots had indeed matched. 'You're focusing too hard on the pen. What about its use?'

The use? What does the use have anything to do with this? It was used to cross out names, so what? Am I thinking too hard about it?

He stood from the bed and made his way towards the table, taking from me the list of names and stealing a pencil from a small pen holder placed on top of a small bookshelf beside the table. He leaned over the paper and made a single quick line somewhere near the bottom. 'There,' Then he dropped the pencil beside the paper and looked at me.

'You made a stroke, kudos,' I let out sarcastically, but he told me to look harder. A stroke... a stroke... I looked between his pencil stroke and the one previously present on the paper, trying to figure what these may have represented - 'They're different...?'

'That's exactly it,' he praised as he pointed back at the strokes. 'Has he ever helped you with homework when you were younger? He has? Good. Now, how many times has he crossed out wrong work?' - That's an embarrassing number, really.

'You're saying these weren't done by him?' I analysed these further. 'That's it!'

Often, when one made a pen stroke, the ending side would always be thinner. In this diagram, that thinner side was positioned on the right - started from a thick dot from the bottom left and gradually made its way up towards the top right of the name. This was not the work of a left-handed person. If it were done by him - a proud leftie - these may have started from the top right. Or simply put, the curve his wrist would have to make to simulate the stroke a right-handed person would do might be uncomfortable and painful.