The alarm clock rang at 6:30. I was already awake. You don’t sleep sound when you’ve got a head full of loose ends. You just lie there, waiting for the bell to tell you what you already know — it’s time to move.
I sat up slow, like the weight of the night was still pressing me down. The sheets were cool, smooth cotton, tucked in properly. I keep them neat, always. I don't need chaos first thing in the morning — the world throws enough of that at you later.
Mornings come fast. Too fast. You close your eyes, and the next thing you know the sun’s breaking in like a burglar, cutting the blinds into stripes and dragging you back to the grind.
I stretched, arms overhead, joints popping like typewriter keys.
Pulled the curtains open. Morning light spilled in, soft and golden. The city outside was already awake: cars rolling, voices rising, a dog barking down the block.
The face looking back from the mirror was the usual suspect. Hair all over, dark as an ink spill and twice as unmanageable. Skin pale against the glass. Eyes heavy, shadows under them like bruises.
I leaned closer. Ran my fingers down the side of my face. Tilted my head one way, then the other. Cute enough. A bit too smug for my liking, but what can one do?
I finger-combed the hair and got it almost under control, except of that usual tuft on top of my head.
Shoes clicking on the pavement, bag strap snug against my shoulder, eyes taking notes of everything without even trying.
The morning crowd thickened near the intersection. Bikes, uniforms, chatter. Same scene every day.
That’s when I spotted her — Madoka Onguuchi.
I raised a hand. “Yo, Madoka.”
She looked over, smiled. “Yae! Morning. You’re actually on time today.”
I shrugged.
Madoka laughed, shaking her head.
The sidewalk was filling up with uniforms headed the same way. The rhythm of shoes on pavement made the morning feel like a metronome. Madoka and I matched pace without thinking.
“So,” she said, tilting her head at me, “you actually did the math homework?”
“Of course,” I said. “What kind of detective would I be if I couldn’t add two and two together?”
Madoka laughed. “Please, you probably waited all day to drop that joke.”
She wasn’t wrong.
We passed a crosswalk. Cars idled, drivers impatient. Madoka skipped ahead on the green light, waving at someone across the street. She turned back, grinning at me.
I caught up with her, tugging my bag higher on my shoulder.
“So, any plans after school?” she asked.
“The usual,” I deadpanned.
She smirked. “Translation: you’ll laze around, right?"
“Guilty as charged.”
The gate was getting close when a tall figure cut across the crowd. Broad shoulders, buzz-cut, uniform a little rumpled. Ran Nejima. He noticed us first, raising a hand.
“Morning,” he said.
“Ran!” Madoka lit up like a lamp. “Good timing. Walk with us!”
He nodded, falling in beside us, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Ran Nejima. Built like a tank, probably even tougher. A rough face, hard edges, but there’s more to him than the scowl. You can see it in the way his eyes soften when someone calls his name. A kid who’s trying hard to be better than the situation he came from. That’s the kind of fight that leaves marks you don’t see.
“So what’s up with you two?” Ran asked, glancing between us.
“Homework talk,” I said smoothly. “Madoka shot down my dreams of being a comedian.”
“Hey!” Madoka protested. “Don’t make me sound like a criminal.”
Ran chuckled.
“Practice today?” Madoka asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Coach has us running around again. Probably won’t even touch a ball till next week.”
We threaded through the crowd, the three of us moving as a pack. Madoka spotted someone across the yard and waved. Ran just hunched his shoulders, pushing through the crowd with care. I walked between them.
“Hey, Yae,” Madoka said suddenly, snapping me out of it. “You’re staring again. What’re you plotting in there?”
“Nothing,” I said lightly. “Just analyzing the crowd.”
“Translation: she’s plotting how to dump all the paperwork on someone else,” Ran muttered.
“So,” Madoka said, swinging her bag like it weighed nothing, “anyone else hear about the new café opening downtown? The one with the stupidly tall parfaits?”
Ran groaned. “Of course you’d know about that. Don’t tell me you’re dragging us there.”
Madoka grinned. “Dragging? Please. You’ll thank me. Picture it: the student council at a window seat, mountains of ice cream, everyone staring because we look amazing.”
I smirked. “You just want people to look at you.”
Madoka gasped, fake offended. “Rude! I’d never… okay, maybe a little.”
Ran shook his head, but I caught the corner of his mouth twitching.
We climbed the stairs with the rest of the crowd, the hallway buzzing like a hive. Shoes scuffing tile, lockers slamming, voices blending into white noise.
The door slid open, and the classroom was already full of students.
And there he was.
Shu Jinkō, president, hero, clown. Standing at the front of the room with his sleeves rolled up, earnestly demonstrating “the maximum effort way” to use a mop. The mop handle spun in his hands like a spear, bristles squeaking across the floor as he lunged and twirled. A crowd of students sat cross-legged like disciples, watching with rapt attention.
“Maximum angle!” Shu barked, thrusting the mop like a banner. “That’s how you get the corners clean! Corners are where the dust hides!”
Madoka nearly doubled over laughing. “Oh my god, he’s—he’s teaching mop-fu.”
Ran rubbed his face. “Why do you two look surprised? This is just Tuesday.”
I didn’t laugh. Not right away. I was too busy staring.
That face. Too sharp, too perfect. My memory’s flawless, every line, every detail, I can recall it all. But every time I see him, he’s better than I remembered. Like memory can’t keep up with reality. That’s cheating. And I can’t help but be thankful for it anyway.
He finished his mop kata with a dramatic bow, grinning wide. His litle audience erupted in cheers. Shu just basked in it, completely sincere.
…And that’s the part that gets me. He doesn’t play it cool. He doesn’t act above it. He dives in, ridiculous and unashamed, and somehow makes it shine. Anyone else would look like a fool. He looks like a star. And I… I just keep watching.
Madoka elbowed me. “You’re staring again.”
“I’m not,” I muttered.
Ran snorted. “You are.”
Shu caught sight of us then, his grin somehow even wider. He waved the mop like a flag. “Morning, Council! Hope you’re ready, today feels like maximum effort!”
Madoka waved back, laughing. Ran sighed.
And me? I just tried not to smile too much.
Shu leaned the mop against the wall like it was a sword he’d just sheathed. The gathered students scattered, some talking and laughing like they’d just witnessed history. He turned toward us, still grinning.
"And with that, I finished my morning training seminar.”
Madoka burst out laughing. “Training seminar? You were teaching mop kung-fu.”
“Technique,” Shu corrected, completely serious. “Every tool deserves respect. Even mops.”
Ran gave him a flat look. “Was this really necessary?”
“I think it is,” Shu said with a shrug. “Besides, if you can’t inspire the next generation while cleaning a classroom, what kind of leader are you?”
Shu noticed me then. His grin softened into something warmer, and for a second it felt like the whole room tilted in his direction.
“Morning, Yae,” he said, casual, like it was nothing.
My mouth went dry. “M-morning,” I managed.
Madoka smirked at me from the corner of her eye.
Pathetic. A detective who can keep a straight face under pressure, tripped up by a smile.
Shu excused himself with a casual wave and crossed the room. His destination: Tomaki Warumachi, sitting near the back.
The guy was hard to miss — wild hair that looked like it lost a fight with a whirlwind, sharp portruding lower canines, and a very solid frame. Solid, with no arms.
Madoka nudged me. “What’s with those two?”
“Shu makes friends with everyone,” I said lightly. “It’s pathological.”
Most people see the missing arms first. Shu doesn’t. Shu never does. He looks past it, and Tomaki eats it up. If Ran’s his right-hand man, then Tomaki’s quickly becoming his no-hand man.
Tomaki slapped the desk with his knee, throwing his head back in a laugh that rattled the windows. Shu laughed with him, like they were the only two in the room.
Shu left Tomaki with a handshake he somehow invented on the spot — more knee-bumps than handshakes, considering the circumstances — and headed toward the windows.
There was Takaishi, leaning against the sill. Shu clapped him on the back. Takaishi stiffened, then muttered something under his breath. Shu laughed, throwing his head back, loud enough that half the room looked over. Takaishi just scratched the back of his neck, trying not to smile.
Madoka leaned close, whispering in my ear, teasing. “Careful, Yae. You’re staring again."
Damn it.
After school.
The sun was low enough to paint the council room in amber stripes, cutting between the blinds and laying shadows across the desk.
Everything was the same as usual.
The room, the files, the silence.
Even the mysteries.
There’s always one hiding in plain sight. Always something that doesn’t add up.
I was organizing records — the boring kind of work that I wasn't able to push onto someone else, the kind that keeps your hands busy while your mind wanders — when I found it. Shu Jinkō’s student file.
At first glance, it was fine. Crisp pages, proper stamps, all the right signatures. Official, clean, boring. But that’s the thing about forgery — it never shouts. It whispers.
The ink density was off, faint in some lines, darker in others. The seals weren’t aligned by instinct — they were measured, placed. The signatures… perfect. Too perfect. Same pen pressure, same stroke rhythm, no micro-variations.
Someone built this file. Manufactured it. Wanted him here.
I leaned back, eyes on the folder., then turned toward the window.
Outside, Shu was dangling upside down from a tree branch like a bat that had gotten too ambitious. His legs were tied at the ankles, a rope looped around the limb. Below him, a bucket smoked, full of burning weeds and dried leaves. The heat shimmered in the air.
And below him, Sayaka Koujin stood with her arms crossed, shouting encouragement like a drill sergeant who thought cardio was a moral test.
He was doing sit-ups.
Upside down.
At risk of burning his hair if he stopped.
Madoka had said earlier that Sayaka and Momo had agreed to “help” with his training. I should’ve known what that meant. When the martial freaks get involved, “help” usually translates to “mild homicide.”
I pressed my chin to my hand, watching him pull himself up again and again, sweat catching the light, his expression somewhere between agony and joy.
I smiled to myself, faintly. I guess I could spare some effort today.
Kaoru was at her usual corner of the room, pen gliding in steady strokes. Her expression, though, was harder to read: polite, restrained, with that faint shadow behind the eyes. Distrust disguised as diligence.
Yaya sat across from her, legs swinging under the chair, humming a tune that didn’t match the rhythm of her paperwork. Our happy little prodigy. The only person I’d ever seen take minutes for a meeting while eating jelly cups and somehow file everything correctly afterward.
I closed Shu’s file, slid it back into the drawer, and leaned on my elbows.
“Hey, Kaoru,” I said.
She didn’t look up right away. “Mm?”
“I was thinking of going out later,” I said casually, like I wasn’t plotting anything. “There’s something I want to check on. Thought it might be a good idea if you tagged along.”
That got her attention. Her pen stopped mid-word. “Tagged along?” she echoed. “You mean, like… an errand?”
“Sure,” I said, smiling. “An errand. Let’s call it that.”
Yaya perked up immediately. “Ooh! Is this another investigation? Can I come?”
“Not this one, secretary-chan,” I said with a grin. “You’ve got enough on your plate. This one’s top-secret.”
Yaya pouted dramatically, then went back to humming. Kaoru sighed softly.
“Where exactly are you planning to go?” she asked.
I tapped my chin with the end of my pen, thinking it over. "Oh, just one of the forbidden districts."
Kaoru’s brows furrowed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain president, would it?”
I smirked. “You catch on fast.”
She exhaled, slow. “I knew it.”
I stretched in her chair, the smug smile already creeping across my face.
Kaoru noticed immediately. That was her curse — noticing.
"Why me though?” she asked warily.
I steepled my fingers. “What I want to do today has to do with Ai Suishi.”
Kaoru’s pen paused mid-stroke. “...Ai?”
“Mm-hm.” I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You and her have been awfully chummy lately.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
Kaoru gave me that tight smile that said she was restraining the urge to sigh. “We’ve spoken a few times after I had that talk with her about PE classes."
“So I thought,” I continued, standing and slipping my jacket on, “if we’re going to pay Ai a little visit, it’d be wise if you came along. You know, to… keep her on her best behavior.”
Kaoru blinked. “You mean as a wrangler?”
“As moral support,” I corrected brightly. “You’ve got that calming treasurer aura. She likes you.”
“I highly doubt that.”
Finding Ai was almost too easy.
You don’t track Ai Suishi by schedule. You track her by orbit. Wherever Shu Jinkō is, Ai’s not far, never close enough to be seen, never far enough to lose sight.
Outside, the late sun caught the field in gold. Shu was there, still training with Sayaka, doing god-knows-what form of suffering that counted as “exercise.”
I stood at the edge of the walkway, scanning the area. My eyes traced the line of light across the trees, the fences, the blind corners. The logic was simple: best vantage, minimal exposure, clear angle on Shu.
I pointed toward a cluster of shrubs near the far bench. “There.”
Kaoru followed my gaze, squinting. “You can’t possibly—”
“Trust me,” I said. “That’s her nest.”
We walked over quietly, and sure enough, behind the hedges — there she was. Ai, crouched low, notebook in hand, hair falling forward, eyes locked on Shu as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
“See?” I whispered. “Predictable as clockwork. You just need to think like her — which means thinking about the best lighting for ogling Shu.”
Kaoru sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I can’t believe this is real.”
Ai froze the second she realized she wasn’t alone.
Her head jerked up, eyes wide, hair half-hiding her face like a curtain. For a moment she looked ready to bolt straight into the bushes.
“...S–Student council…?” Her voice cracked. “I–I wasn’t—"
I smiled, stepping forward, hands in my pockets. “Relax, Ai. We’re not here to scold you. I just wanted to talk.”
Ai blinked up at me, suspicious and terrified all at once. “T–Talk? About… what?”
“About Shu,” I said simply.
That made her flinch. Like the name itself was a gunshot.
“W–what about him?”
I crouched slightly so we were eye-level, letting the detective’s smile do its work, soft enough to calm, sharp enough to make it clear I wasn’t messing around. “I was thinking about investigating the assault he suffered a couple of days ago.”
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of the wind through the grass and Shu’s distant, stupidly cheerful training noises.
Ai’s lips parted. Her breath hitched. “T–the… the assault?” she whispered, like saying it might make it happen again. “Do you—do you know who—?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But I plan to.”
Her fingers twisted in the hem of her skirt, eyes darting to the ground. “I–I… I could help.”
Kaoru’s reaction was immediate and silent, a small, disbelieving exhale through her nose, the look of someone who’d just been told the school’s most unstable student was being invited to a bomb disarmament.
I could hear her thoughts just from the glance she gave me:
“You’re bringing the dangerous stalker along to the investigation that might lead to the people who hurt her obsession?!"
I just smiled wider.
“Good,” I said to Ai, straightening up. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Kaoru pinched the bridge of her nose again. “Yae. You can’t be serious.”
“Completely,” I said. “Ai is good at paying attention to these things. You could call it… dedication!"
Ai looked between us, uncertain whether this was a trap or an invitation. “I… I don’t want to cause trouble,” she whispered. “But if— if something happened to Shu, then I—”
Her voice trailed off into something that wasn’t quite a word.
I nodded, calm as ever. “Then it’s settled.”
Kaoru groaned softly, adjusting her glasses like she was already seeing it all going wrong.
Most people think detectives chase answers. But really, we chase trouble, because that’s where the truth hides.
Nothing about it said crime scene, but that’s the thing about these places.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and wandered the curb, eyes moving over the building fronts, the angles of the alleys, the cracks in the pavement.
“Alright, Treasurer,” I said lightly. “Tell me what we actually know.”
Kaoru looked at me, letting out the kind of sigh that’s halfway between patience and resignation. “You already know everything I know,” she said.
“Humor me,” I replied. “Out loud.”
She paused, clearly restraining the urge to point out that I could probably recite the report word-for-word myself. Then she did as I asked.
“Kaicho said he saw a girl being pulled into a building by a man,” she began, monotone, professional. “He ran in to help. Inside, the girl was gone. It was a trap. He got jumped. He fought back, as he always does. Two floors collapsed during the struggle. He saw the girl escape through another exit and then managed to get away.”
I nodded slowly, letting her voice hang in the air while I looked at the building, the cracked facade, the lower windows still boarded up.
Behind us, Ai hadn’t said a word.
She stood a few steps back, head bowed, fists trembling. Her hair covered her eyes completely.
Kaoru’s tone softened, just a touch. “You really think this is worth?"
I looked over my shoulder. Ai still hadn’t moved. Her breathing was shallow, her gaze fixed somewhere past us-
Her lips parted slightly, soundless. Her fingers curled and uncurled, nails digging into her palms.
I turned to look at the street. A forbidden zone.
I’d been here before — not this street, but enough like it to know the rhythm. Every city’s got places it pretends don’t exist, where the rent, the rules, and the law all stop at the same corner.
"Nobody checks this place after sundown. That’s the good part.”
“The good part?”
“Less noise. Less people walking over the evidence.”
I stopped at the base of the building — three stories of crumbling concrete, the windows blacked out, the entrance surrounded by scattered warped planks. The boards were splintered, nails bent. I crouched, tracing the grain with my finger.
“See that?”
Kaoru leaned in. “They were pried off.”
“Yyyyup. Someone opened this place up on purpose.”
A gust of wind pushed past us into the doorway.
Inside was dust and silence. The air was heavy, old air, trapped too long. Light leaked through the cracks in thin, sharp lines.
“Welcome to the scene,” I said quietly. “Let’s start from the entrance. Whoever built the trap, they knew he’d charge in headfirst. That means they were counting on the kind of hero who doesn’t stop to think. Lucky for us, that also means they had to make it obvious enough to bait him. All in all, I'm getting the feeling that they were targetting Shu specifically.”
The climb up was slow, the railing felt like it might give out if you even looked at it wrong.
When we reached the third floor, there wasn’t much left to see. Half the wall had given up and collapsed inward, and what used to be a hallway was just splinters and sunlight leaking through the holes. Plaster crumbled underfoot like wet paper, beams hung down like ribs.
I let out a low whistle. “Well. Whoever took on the president must’ve been a beast.”
I crouched near the edge of the debris, eyes tracing the pattern of cracks along the floor — force, direction, collapse. My mind started sketching the scene backward: Shu charging in, ambushed, the following scuffle, the fall. All in fragments.
Behind me, Ai was moving quietly, delicately. She wasn’t really investigating so much as tracking.
Kaoru gave me a look. I just nodded once. Let her.
A minute later, Ai crouched near a beam, hair hiding her face. “...Here,”
She reached down and plucked a few strands of hair off a splintered piece of wood. Pale brown, faintly gold in the light.
Kaoru squinted. “How can you even tell—”
Then Ai leaned closer, and before either of us could stop her, she brushed the strand against her nose, inhaled softly, and—
“Oh for—” Kaoru’s sentence cut off halfway as Ai’s tongue darted out, touching the strand with eerie precision.
“...It’s his,” Ai whispered, eyes glassy, voice distant. “Shu’s.”
Kaoru froze, expression caught somewhere between disbelief and horror.
I didn’t move. I just folded my arms. “Efficient,” I said.
“Efficient?” Kaoru hissed, straightening her glasses. “She licked evidence.”
“Better results than half the labs I know,” I said mildly.
Kaoru stared at me, exasperation replacing disgust. “You can’t actually be condoning this.”
I smiled.
She sighed and turned away, muttering something about insanity and resignation.
Ai didn’t even notice the exchange. She’d found another patch — a smear along the edge of the collapsed wall. A dark rust-brown stain nearly lost in the color of the dust. She touched it gently with her fingertips, then pressed them against her lips, eyes closing like in prayer.
Her whole world’s narrowed down to that one boy. Every scent, every mark, every heartbeat she can’t hear but swears she can feel. Most people would call it madness. Maybe it is. But madness this pure has its uses.
I stood in the center of the wrecked floor, turning slowly, letting the picture build in my head.
Ai was still at it — crawling over the cracked floorboards like a ghost sniffing out the past. The way she moved was methodical in its own, unhinged way, her fingertips gliding over splinters and stains as if they whispered back to her.
Then she froze.
“There’s… more,” she muttered, half under her breath.
Kaoru and I stepped closer. Against a chunk of collapsed plaster, she’d found another streak. Dried, almost black now.
She touched it, lifted her fingers, frowned. “Not Shu’s.”
Her voice carried a strange certainty, like she didn’t even need to test it.
I crouched beside her, studying the shape of the smear. “He landed a hit, then,” I said. “But…”
Kaoru was already a step ahead. Her finger pointed to the floor. “It stops here,” she murmured. “There should be more. The way it’s smeared, he was still bleeding — this isn’t where it should’ve ended.”
No trail, no splatter, not even a drag mark. The thin line of red ended clean, as if someone had drawn it to the edge of existence and then erased the rest.
Kaoru looked over her shoulder. “You think the attacker managed to staunch it. Mid-fight?”
I nodded, barely registering what she said. "Thinking, sorry."
I probably sounded more dismisive than I wanted to, because Kaoru left to check out other things.
While Ai lingered over the stain and I tried to make sense of the weird feeling that the fight gave me, Kaoru moved to the broken wall where sunlight cut through the dust. She leaned out slightly, scanning the outer structure, the fire escape.
“She left through here,” Kaoru said. “The girl. The one Shu saw. The dust is disturbed along the edge — and there's a piece of wire dented inward. She climbed down fast.”
There is something very weird about the choreography.
"I think it's weird, she left, and didn't call for help. I have a feeling she might have been in on it."
Shu is unpredictable, to the point where this whole scene should have been even more disorganized.
Kaoru stepped closer again. Her voice had that sharp, matter-of-fact tone she used when she was about to explain something precise.
Wait, that's it.
I looked toward the window. Most of the fight happened near the edges, the walls facing the street.
But before she could get halfway into the theory, I straightened up and said, “We should probably check the front building next.”
Kaoru blinked, clearly annoyed. “Excuse me? I’m still—”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, brushing my hands off. “But if they staged the trap here, they needed a vantage. Somewhere to keep watch. Front building’s perfect for that.”
Kaoru frowned, her jaw tightening just a little — the look of someone who’d just been neatly cut off mid-conclusion.
“Yae,” she said flatly, “you have a terrible habit of interrupting people right before they make a point.”
The front building leaned like it had grown tired of standing. Its paint peeled in ribbons, its windows dark but unbroken. Inside, the air was heavy, stale, laced with the smell of mold and dust that hadn’t been building up for years.
We entered through a side door already hanging off its hinges.
Kaoru had her notebook open — of course she did. She’d been writing since we came in, page after page, neat as a ledger. The scratching of her pen was the only sound besides our steps.
Kaoru hesitated at the threshold. “You really think they were in here?”
I didn’t answer. I let the quiet speak for me.
Dust blanketed everything — floor, tables, broken chairs. But what mattered wasn’t what was covered. It was what wasn’t.
Near the windows facing the other building, the floor was marked.
Circular spots where the dust had been rubbed away by the weight of something — chairs, maybe, or crates. Faint outlines of footprints leading to the edge.
I walked to the window, standing in the same position they would’ve been in. From here, the angle matched perfectly — the third floor’s broken wall lined up like a stage. You could see everything: the collapse, the movement, even the exits.
“Perfect sightline,” I said. “They watched the whole thing."
Kaoru and Ai trailed behind me while I crouched near the big window overlooking the wrecked third floor across the street.
“Four people,” I said, brushing a line through the dust with my sleeve. “Two stood here by the window. See the scuff marks? Same angle, different soles. Other came later—bigger prints, heavier step. And one more, smaller. Probably a girl. See the way the prints tilt inward?”
Kaoru crouched down beside the larger tracks. "Same footprints and sole pattern as in the other building,” she murmured.
I looked up at her, impressed despite myself. “Yup. So the perp came in to meet with his group.”
She nodded, already scribbling notes. “He fought Kaicho, then came here afterward?”
“Before and after,” I said.
That made her stop writing. She glanced up, brow furrowed. “How do you figure that?”
I stepped past her, following the line of footprints. “Look here — two sets of passes. These prints have plaster dust ground into them. See the white grit in the treads? The others don’t.”
Kaoru leaned closer. I could see the moment she saw it — the faint flecks of gray-white embedded in the ridges of the shoe marks, like powdered chalk.
“The ones with dust came from the fight,” I said. “He tracked it here after tearing the wall apart. The clean ones came first — before the brawl.”
Behind us, Ai’s footsteps shifted restlessly as she combed through the rest of the room. Kaoru kept jotting down notes, the pen clicking rhythmically in her hand.
Something caught the light at the edge of the windowsill. Kaoru pointed at it. “Cigarette,” she murmured.
I turned my head slightly. “Ai.”
She startled, nearly dropping the hairs she’d been clutching still. “Y–Yes?”
“Check the rest of the floor,” I said. “See if you can find anything. Trash, prints, wrappers, ashes — doesn’t matter. Anything that doesn’t belong.”
She hesitated for half a second, then nodded. “O–Okay.”
And just like that, she drifted off into the shadows, barefoot quiet.
Kaoru waited until Ai was out of earshot before she spoke, her tone low but sharp. “Yae… are you sure about this?”
I raised an eyebrow. “About what?”
“About bringing her into these things.” She kept her voice even, but her pen hovered mid-air like she wasn’t sure whether to keep writing or throw it at me. “You’ve seen her. She’s unstable. She gets that look in her eyes when it’s about Kaicho. If she loses control and this actually leads to the people who hurt him…”
I let her trail off. She didn’t need to finish the sentence; I could hear it anyway.
“She’s right to worry,” I thought. “Ai’s devotion’s the kind of thing you can’t buy or teach. It’s pure, and purity always burns hot.”
Aloud, I said, “She’d have done this anyway. You know it. You can't tell a stalker like her to wait. You know she’d be investigating this even if I told her not to. You think a word from me stops her? She’d crawl through broken glass if it meant getting a peek at anything Shu-related.”
“That’s not reassuring,” Kaoru muttered.
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it’s reality. This way, she knows what we know. No more, no less. If she’s part of it, we can steer her. Reign her in, point her where we need her. Control through inclusion.”
After a while Ai called out from outside.
“Yae-san… Kao k... Kaoru-san… over here!”
We followed it, stepping over debris until the dusty floor gave way to cracked pavement and the thin evening light. The back street behind the building was narrow, almost claustrophobic, a strip of asphalt wedged between leaning walls, littered with broken glass and weeds.
Ai crouched near the curb, her hair hanging forward, one hand hovering over the ground.
I joined her, crouching down. A cigarette butt lay half-pressed into the dust, the filter damp from dew. Near it, faint streaks in the dirt, lines with a small, shallow groove between them.
Kaoru squatted beside me, adjusting her glasses. “Tire marks,” she said. “Thin tread, shallow imprint. Motorcycle."
Ai picked up a crushed bit of foil from the ground. It was a cigarette pack, flattened and dirty but still legible.
“So after a hard day of ambushing the Prez he finished a pack before going home,” I murmured, turning it over in my hand. “The brand is not exactly rare, but evidence is evidence.”
We stood there for a moment, the three of us. The trail didn’t go any farther — just the faint tire scuffs leading to the street, and the cigarette pack that didn’t tell us much except that someone was speedrunning lung cancer.
Kaoru looked at me, expectant. “So? What’s next?”
I straightened, brushing the dirt from my hands. “Nothing. We’re done for today.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Kaoru’s brow furrowed. “We just found physical traces tying the scene together and you’re—”
“Calling it a day,” I said simply. “We’ve seen what we needed to see."
She opened her mouth to argue, but I’d already turned to Ai, who was clutching the empty pack like it was a clue to salvation.
“You did good,” I told her. “That’s enough for now.”
Ai looked confused. “We’re… stopping?”
“Yeah,” I said lightly. “You’ve earned a break. I’ll bring you along for the next one.”
That seemed to hit just the right note — her shoulders eased, the wild gleam in her eyes dulled into something more like anticipation than madness. She nodded, almost meekly. “Next one… okay. Fine.”
Kaoru shot me a sideways look that said you’re manipulating her again.
I smiled faintly. “Not manipulating,” I thought. “Managing.”
Sometimes the best way to stop someone from running off the rails is to give them a track. Let Ai think she’s part of the case, and she’ll wait for me instead of chasing ghosts alone. That buys us time. Time’s the only thing you can never collect enough of in this line of work.