It was just as he remembered, the scene of perfect calmness. This was the place where most of his childhood memories took place and stayed there.

The 26 years old Nanase Miyuki offered him a little smile as she too had regarded the time spent here as one of the best memories of her life.

“Ne, Hajime-chan,” Nanase Miyuki asked quietly while facing the sea, “have you ever regretted your decision to leave here?”

'Or us?'

The unspoken part of her question was never asked, but Kindaichi Hajime knew her so well that he could read her mind without her saying.

'Or us?'

If there was anything constant in his life, it had to be his beloved childhood friend, Nanase Miyuki. She was the only person he knew who would support him in whatever decision he made, even though if it meant that it would hurt her in return.

The only believer he has, and yet he had pushed her away on purpose.

He wanted to be known other than that unmotivated lazy bum to Miyuki because as unconcerned as he pretended to be, he did know of the underlying tender feeling his childhood friend had for him then. Kindaichi Hajime wanted to be more mature enough to protect Miyuki, because somehow rather she was often the one caught helpless in his endless pursuit of criminals.

More than often, he realized, Nanasa Miyuki was the unintended victim because of his actions. The innocent, smart, beautiful straight As student, Nanase Miyuki had far too many close shaves with death because of her stubborn loyalty to her beloved childhood friend, Kindaichi Hajime.

He never gave her the second button she most desired during their high school graduation day. Instead, he bided her farewell and set off on his bicycle tour around Japan alone, leaving her no indication of return at all.

It was a necessary evil to be done with.

Leaving her and home were the hardest things to do but they had served his purposes well. Because by leaving her and his family, he had saved them from the constant danger. In a world without Kindaichi Hajime, Nanase Miyuki was able to blossom into the model star student he knew she would be by graduating with a degree and a safe, down to earth long-term boyfriend.

That somebody he could never be no matter how he tried to be because he had collected too many enemies in his pursuit of justice.

“Why would I?” Kindaichi Hajime grinned with a slight tightening of muscle at the sides of his mouth, “I am the top case-closer in Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and you are happy with Keiji-san. That’s for the best, isn’t it?”

His unspoken worries for her and his family were never mentioned, but Nanase Miyuki knew him better than anyone else. Because she had been the recipient of his looks of regret and pains whenever she had been warded into a hospital because of him too many a time.

'Poor Haijime-chan,' Nanase Miyuki thought to herself.

The Kindaichi Hajime she knew was a boy who often cared more about his surrounding people and friends than himself. Hence,  it was a bitter pill to swallow when he left them, she could understand why he made that decision to leave them. He was too scarred from having to watch how people he cared for dying or hurt by his enemies.

It was how the fun-loving bubbly childhood friend of hers grew to became the lonely man he was now.

Or at least that was what she thought when she learned of Kindaichi from his mother. Words of how the young detective had grew distanced from his family and no longer kept in touch with his friends had reached the ears of Nanase Miyuki, causing the young lady to be worried about her oldest friend. The boyish Kindaichi was fading and becoming someone they no longer recognised.

She had requested a meetup when she heard from Kindaichi's mother that her friend had returned. She had expected him to be nothing of the Kindaichi Hajime she once knew because everyone kept telling him that he had changed. But looking at the man in front of her, she had her doubts.

His features might have changed into a mature look, but there was always something boyish and warm about Kindaichi that has never changed. It was that same old caring gentleness in his eyes whenever he laid his eyes on her in the past.

Except that he was no longer looking at her in that way, or even keeping his eyes on her at all. There was somebody else who occupied his attention now.

“Is that so?” Nanase Miyuki wondered out to herself while taking a look at the young boy whom Kindaichi has been keeping his eyes on since they met up.

“Are you truly happy?” She could not help but ask.

Nanase Miyuki was not surprised to see Kindaichi froze at her question; the Haijime-chan she knew was never good at expressing himself.

Hoping for a distraction from the question, Kindaichi turned around to set his eyes on someone in distance and frowned for a second.

“Sho-chan!” Kindaichi Hajime shouted suddenly before taking off to chase after the young boy, completely ignoring Nanase Miyuki's question. While surprised at his sudden action, Nanase Miyuki was even more surprised by the tone of worry and concern in his voice as he cautioned the boy, “don’t you dare wander off without me!”

“Sho-chan?” Nanase Miyuki repeated the mentioned name in wonder, “Hajime-chan has never called any boy by that honorific before. Unless… the young boy is actually a girl in disguise?”

 Nanase Miyuki widened her eyes at her sudden realization and started to laugh at the seeming cluelessness of her childhood friend.

“Or perhaps he already knew….”  Nanase Miyuki observed as she watched him picked up Sho-chan easily and proceeded to walk toward her with the young girl struggling to get away from him.

The teasing smile on Kindaichi’s face answered Nanase Miyuki’s unanswered question in many ways which Kindaichi Hajime could never ever answered her in words.

She thought that he had lost that spark of life in his eyes when she met him again to inform him that she was getting married to Keiji after all these years.

But she saw hints of that familiar spark and his boyish grin again when he picked that girl up.

“Be happy, Hajime-chan,” Nanase Miyuki whispered her last wish for her oldest best friend, "Arigatou, Sho-chan."

Fighting off Aoyama’s vain attempts to get escape from his hold made Kindaichi H