Debut, Wen Yao Girls! - Chapter 4

Trap

Fujiwara Yuma adjusted his glasses. The embossed “Individual Creative Show” on the cover of the folder glinted under the lights.

The air in the practice room was tense. Matsuo Suzuko’s hair tie tassel no longer swayed, and Ishikawa Yuki’s combat boots unconsciously ground against the floor.

“The rules are simple.” The mentor’s voice was like a scalpel cutting through fabric. “Three minutes, solo stage. You must incorporate your ability—but not by overpowering the audience; you must make them ‘resonate’.” He scanned the trainees’ changing expressions, a hint of coldness on his lips. “Last week, someone used ‘Conceptualization’ to make it rain on the audience, and the resonance score dropped by five points. Do you know why?”

Ranpo’s pen tip paused over her notebook.

She remembered how Suzuko’s morning mist had once made the light sticks glow on their own. At that moment, the audience wasn’t being controlled by an ability; they were moved by “beauty.”

“Because you’re always thinking about ‘using your ability to prove yourselves’.” Fujiwara’s knuckles rapped the table, making Ranpo’s pen roll half an inch away. “But what the audience wants is to ‘be understood’.” He pushed the folder to the center. The words “Creative Proposal Form” on the cover were an eyesore. “Submissions are due by noon tomorrow. Think about it yourselves.”

When the practice room door clicked shut, Ranpo’s pen tip had already left a deep mark on the page.

She looked out the window at the cherry blossom tree swaying in the wind and laughed. Cherry blossoms, a locked room, deduction—wasn’t this the best stage theme?

“Locked room mystery + literary puzzle,” she gestured to the air, her fingertips tracing a path in the void. “The audience becomes a sealed room. I’ll use ‘Ultra-Deduction’ to solve the clues from The D-Slope Murder Case hidden in the set. For every puzzle I solve, a light turns on. When all the lights are on, they’ll find that all the mechanisms are classic tropes from The Psychological Test.” She flipped to a new page, quickly jotting down “Audience interaction buttons” and “Timed puzzle hints.” Her pen almost tore through the paper.

Until she heard faint footsteps in the hallway.

Dazai Osamu leaned against the doorframe, holding a cup of hot cocoa. The gold glitter in her hair looked like scattered stars in the backlight.

Her bandage had slipped to her elbow, revealing a stretch of pale wrist. “What interesting ideas are you thinking of, Ranpo-chan?”

Ranpo’s notebook snapped shut.

She looked at the amusement in Dazai’s eyes and remembered the shadow in the hallway last night—it turned out she wasn’t the only one observing others.

“Nothing.” She stuffed the notebook into her canvas bag, her movements a little rougher than usual. “After all, a fraud like you is probably going to come up with some superficial nonsense again.”

Dazai’s smile deepened.

She shook the cocoa cup in her hand. The condensation on the cup dripped down her fingers. “You never know.”

The next day at the proposal meeting, Ranpo’s pen tip hovered over the words “Locked room mystery” as she heard the host call out Dazai Osamu’s name.

“My stage is called No Longer Human: A Reality Spell-Breaker.” Dazai stood in front of the projection screen, the gold glitter in her hair fluttering with her movements. “Using haiku as a guide, I’ll use ‘No Longer Human’ to nullify the abilities of three trainees.” She pulled up a preview video. In the footage, Matsuo’s morning mist dissipated, and Ishikawa’s kicks lost the light-shattering effect. “When their abilities are gone, their most authentic performance is the truest light.”

Ranpo’s nails dug into her palm.

Her “locked room” and Dazai’s “spell-breaker” were like two magnets, sparking on the proposal form.

What made her frown even more was the audience’s reaction. The judges were whispering to each other, and the cameras were practically glued to Dazai’s face.

“This is plagiarism!” Ishikawa Yuki slammed her hand on the table, making her water bottle jump. “Ranpo just talked about doing an interactive puzzle last night, and today you’re doing ability nullification—”

“Yuki.” Matsuo Suzuko gently pulled her sleeve. “Dazai-san’s stage concept is different from Ranpo-san’s.” She turned to Dazai, the red mole at the corner of her eye trembling slightly. “Are you trying to… make us see ourselves without our abilities?”

Dazai’s gaze swept over Ranpo’s white knuckles, then returned to Suzuko.

Her voice was as light as a sigh. “It’s like peeling away the candy wrapper to taste the sweetness of the core.”

On the day of the performance, Ranpo stood in front of the backstage monitor, her nails tapping a frantic rhythm on the metal railing.

When Dazai’s stage began, her “Ultra-Deduction” activated automatically. In 0.1 seconds, she sorted through all the possibilities: the rhythm of the haiku corresponded to the light’s brightness, the “No Longer Human” ability was released at the end of each line, and the trainees whose abilities were nullified would have a 0.3-second moment of disorientation… But the images on the monitor screen were like crumpled paper.

Dazai’s voice was like a reed touched by morning dew. “Cherry blossoms fall, when the mist disperses—”

Matsuo’s morning mist “whooshed” and vanished. She froze for a moment, but then she tiptoed and twirled.

Without the mist to support her, the hem of her skirt fanned out in a sharper arc.

“Swordlight shatters, sound has not ceased—”

Ishikawa’s kick didn’t shatter a light beam, but her combat boot kicked solidly into the air, and the gust of wind ruffled the hair of the audience members in the front row.

“The human world, most authentic.”

Dazai’s bandage lifted on its own, and the audience erupted in screams.

Ranpo leaned closer to the screen. Only then did she realize that the audience wasn’t being controlled by an ability. They were standing up on their own, their eyes shining with the same light as Matsuo and Ishikawa.

“She’s not trying to win,” Ranpo said.

The staff member next to her was startled, but Ranpo was oblivious. “Her real-time resonance score is climbing, but it’s not aiming for first place. She’s testing.”

Testing what?

Testing whether the trainees and the audience could form a connection based on their “authenticity” when their abilities were nullified?

When the backstage door opened, Ranpo’s notebook was already filled with three pages.

Dazai’s hair was still dusted with gold glitter. Her bandage was wrapped crookedly around her forearm, but she was smiling like a child who had stolen candy. “Were you looking for my flaw, Ranpo-chan?”

Ranpo closed her notebook and propped her chin on her knuckles. “Your rhythm has no logical chain.” She stared at the loose bandage on Dazai’s wrist. “My 0.1-second deduction tells me that you either have a second ability, or—”

“Or I’m following my heart.” Dazai interrupted her, her smile fading a bit. “Do you know? Since I was little, I’ve been told to ‘perfectly replicate Dazai Osamu,’ even my crying had to be like what was written in The Twentieth Century Standard-Bearer.” She reached out and touched the cherry blossom sticker on Ranpo’s notebook cover. “It wasn’t until I awakened ‘No Longer Human’ that I realized that nullifying other people’s abilities was actually me trying to nullify my ‘defined self’.”

Ranpo’s breathing hitched.

She remembered being called a “monster” and “heartless” as a child. She remembered the world she had built with mystery novels and understood the hint of obsessive light in Dazai’s eyes.

“Then why did you weaken others on stage?”

Dazai’s fingertips gently brushed the cherry blossom sticker on Ranpo’s notebook cover. “Because I wanted to see their true selves. Just like…” she looked up and smiled, “I want to see yours.”

The next day during public practice, Dazai proposed a duo dance with Ranpo.

“I’ll release ‘No Longer Human’.” She shook her wrist. The bandage gleamed white under the lights. “Suzuko’s ‘Conceptualization’ will be nullified, so you’ll have to adjust the choreography.”

Ranpo’s pupils contracted.

When the music started, Suzuko’s morning mist indeed didn’t appear. The stage backdrop revealed its bare metal frame.

She instinctively frowned, but then she saw Dazai reach out—not to lift her as planned, but to gently tug on her sleeve.

Ranpo’s 0.1-second deduction instantly activated: Suzuko’s movement would be 0.2 seconds faster than usual. Ishikawa’s kick would be delayed by 0.1 seconds because there was no light beam. Dazai’s center of gravity was 15 degrees to the left… She smiled, her fingertip tapping Dazai’s palm. “Follow me.”

At the climax of the music, Ranpo pulled Dazai and they twirled.

There was no morning mist, no light beams. Their shadows were long lines on the metal frame, yet they were more dazzling than any ability.

“One is deconstructing the world, and the other is rebuilding order,” Fujiwara’s voice came from the audience. “You two are a perfect match.”

As they took their bow, Dazai leaned in and whispered in Ranpo’s ear, her warm breath brushing against her lobe. “You’re not a deduction machine, or a prodigy. You are… a living person.”

Ranpo’s heart skipped a beat.

She looked at the gold glitter in Dazai’s hair and felt for the first time that the logical chain in her notebook didn’t seem so important anymore.

The practice room’s broadcast rang out: “Please note, the official team will be releasing an important announcement at 8 PM tonight—”

Ranpo looked up and saw the evening glow painting the window honey-colored.

Dazai’s hand was still on her shoulder, the warmth seeping through her shirt.

What would tomorrow bring?

A cross-group battle?

Or an even more difficult puzzle?

She lowered her head and opened her notebook. On the latest page, a crooked little flower had been added below the name “Dazai Osamu.”

The sound of the practice room’s broadcast was like a stone dropped into the lake of her heart, making Ranpo’s eyelashes flutter.

She looked up at the speaker on the ceiling. The honey-colored evening light was streaming through the glass window, casting a warm golden glow on the back of Dazai’s hand on her shoulder.

“Please note, the official team will be releasing an important announcement at 8 PM tonight—”

As soon as the automated voice finished, Dazai’s finger lightly poked her lower back. “Want to watch it together?” The end of her voice had a hint of playfulness, like a feather brushing against Ranpo’s tense nerves.

Only then did she realize that she had been clutching her notebook tightly, her knuckles turning blue-white.

“Okay,” she replied curtly, her throat bobbing.

Next to the name “Dazai Osamu” on the latest page of her notebook, the crooked little flower now had a faint crease from where she had unconsciously squeezed it.

At 8 PM sharp, the two of them crowded in front of the small TV in the practice room.

Ranpo’s knee was almost touching Dazai’s. She could smell the faint jasmine scent in her hair.

The moment the screen lit up, she heard her heart pounding like a drum.

“Idol Resonance Project Cross-Group Battle officially launched!” The host’s smiling face was particularly glaring in the blue light. “Each team will draw a limited theme for their stage. Professional judges and the audience will score in real time. The last-place team will be completely eliminated.”

Ranpo’s nails dug into her palm.

The word “eliminated” was like an ice pick in her spine. She remembered the empty lockers she saw when she first entered the training camp—left by the trainees who had been eliminated before.

“Now, we will announce the theme lottery results for each team—”

The camera cut to the transparent lottery box. Ranpo watched as the host picked up her team’s number card. “Bunyo Group, theme: Literary Maze.”

“Your opponent is the elite team led by Kurozawa Haruto.”

The TV then showed an interview clip of Kurozawa.

The boy, who was always wearing a silver-gray turtleneck sweater, leaned against the window of the training room. “Edogawa’s ‘Ultra-Deduction’?” He let out a light laugh, tapping his temple. “It’s just a flashy gimmick that disassembles the stage into pieces. A real stage requires a spiritual resonance, not a logical puzzle.”

The comments section instantly exploded into a sea of white.

Ranpo saw a few stinging comments drift by: “Ranpo always cheats on stage with her ability, right?” “Can she still dance without the morning mist and light beams?”

“Click.”

Dazai reached out and turned off the TV.

The practice room fell silent, with only the low hum of the air conditioner.

Ranpo stared at her reddened eyes in the black screen and heard Dazai say, “Are you going to get angry?”

“Angry?” She forced a smile, her throat tight. “He’s half right.” Her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the cover of her notebook. “A stage needs a soul, but he doesn’t know—” She suddenly looked up, a sharp light in her pupils. “My deduction is never about disassembling pieces.”

After that day, the practice room lights were always on until 3 AM.

Ranpo squatted in the stage prop pile with her notebook, repeatedly measuring the angles of the spotlights with a measuring tape.

She discovered that when the spotlight hit at a 45-degree angle, the shadow of the metal frame would form a gradient of light and shadow on the floor, similar to In Praise of Shadows—which was the visual interference principle of Kurozawa’s ability.

“Stealing my secrets?”

A familiar jasmine scent wafted over. Dazai leaned against the curtain rod, holding two cups of hot cocoa.

She wasn’t wearing her bandage today. The faint pink scar on her wrist was like a faded flower.

Ranpo reached out on an impulse and touched it, then pulled back as if she had received an electric shock.

“Solving the puzzle,” she said, holding up her notebook. It was filled with notes on “visual retention 0.3 seconds” and “motion blur threshold.” “He uses shadows to create illusions. I’ll make illusions my weapon.”

Dazai laughed. “Then do you want to try dancing with your eyes closed?” She tilted her head. “If you can’t rely on your eyes, what else can you believe in?”

The next day, all the lights in the practice room were turned off.

In the darkness, Ranpo’s breathing was exceptionally clear.

She could hear the faint scuffing of Dazai’s sneakers on the floor, a regular rhythm like a drumbeat. “Thirty centimeters to the left.” Dazai’s voice came from the front left, with a slight echo. “Yes, another half-turn—”

Ranpo’s fingertips brushed against a cold curtain rod.

Without light, her “Ultra-Deduction” was like being blindfolded.

But strangely, the sound of Dazai’s footsteps, the intervals of her breathing, and even the faint rustling of the gold glitter in her hair, all wove a web in her mind.

When she leaped, following the sound, her landing was perfect.

“So ears are more honest than eyes,” she said, taking off the eye mask. Sweat dripped from her chin onto her collar. “How did you think of that?”

Dazai tilted her head and wiped the sweat from Ranpo’s forehead. “Because you always say ‘logic is the only light’.” Her thumb rested on the mole at the corner of Ranpo’s eye. “But when the light is too harsh, you always have to try a different path.”

On the day of the dress rehearsal, Mentor Fujiwara stood in the first row of the audience with his arms crossed.

Ranpo stood in the center of the stage, looking at the mirrored walls that had been erected on all four sides. This was the “maze” she had designed over three sleepless nights.

When the music started, Kurozawa’s “visual interference” effect cast overlapping shadows on the mirrored walls, but it actually made every reflected figure a clue to the deduction puzzle.

“Pay attention to the tilt angle of the third mirror,” Ranpo said softly.

Dazai’s “No Longer Human” unfolded at the right moment. All the special ability effects collapsed into specks of light.

The reflections of Ranpo’s clones in the mirror walls simultaneously raised their hands, their fingertips pointing in the same direction—where Kurozawa’s usual interference source was located.

“Beautiful.” Fujiwara adjusted his glasses, and a slight smile finally curved his lips. “You two have woven a perfect knot between literary and logical on stage.”

On the night before the competition, Ranpo found a note in her locker.

The handwriting was shaky, as if deliberately disguised: “Be careful of your ankle.”

Her pupils contracted.

Her memory flashed back to a practice three days ago—Kurozawa stood behind the side curtain, his gaze sweeping over her slightly twisted right foot as she landed. He had been observing her weakness all along.

“Ranpo?”

Dazai’s voice came from the door of the dressing room.

Ranpo quickly stuffed the note into her pants pocket. When she looked up, she had already recovered her arrogant smile. “Yes?”

“Here.” Dazai tossed her a can of energy drink. The aluminum can gleamed silver in the warm yellow light. “Don’t lose, or I’ll have no one to play deduction games with.” She leaned against the doorframe. The gold glitter in her hair floated in the air like a fine mist. “After all…” her voice softened, “I want to see you win.”

Ranpo squeezed the can. The coldness seeped through her palm to her heart.

She remembered the nights Dazai stayed up with her over the past three days, every command she gave to guide her in the dark, and how Dazai’s eyes had looked at her during the dress rehearsal—like a deep pool filled with starlight.

“Then you have to help me guard the finish line.” She lifted her chin, but her lips curved into a smile without her control. “After all…” she lowered her head, staring at the condensation on the can. Her voice was as light as a sigh. “I want to see you win, too.”

The electronic screen backstage began to count down.

Ranpo looked at her flushed ears in the mirror and heard Dazai adjusting her hair accessories behind her.

On tomorrow’s stage, the mirrored walls would reflect their shadows. Kurozawa’s shadows would be crushed by their footsteps, and those voices of doubt—

She touched the note in her pocket, folding it into an even smaller square.

“It’s time to go on,” Dazai’s hand landed on her shoulder, the warmth seeping through her performance outfit. “This time, let’s break his maze together.”

Ranpo looked at their overlapping reflections in the mirror and smiled.

She opened her notebook. Under the little flower next to “Dazai Osamu,” she drew a small key.

A corner of the backstage curtain was lifted by the wind, revealing the dense audience outside.

The red light of the countdown reflected on their faces, like a spark about to ignite.