D-4 until Minwoo's MSTEP Concert! I'm excited!!! So while waiting the days count itself, enjoy this new chapter. ^^ Oh, and there will be acronyms that will always be placed beside the new terms inside the bracket signs. Later on, i will use the term in acronym only. I'm not sure if the Japanese Police Department use those terms in their works. So, i applied the terms that i often saw in any mystery drama TV series. I know, i should've use NYPD instead of TMPD. It would have make more sense. But i still can't imagine if this story is done in New York. So... Be patient with me. Feel free to critic me over those terms or maybe tell me about new terms, so i'll try to write it better next time. Thank you.

2 days ago, 11.13 a.m

It was a scorching hot summer noon in Tokyo. Bustling crowd in queue at public transportations stops didn’t help cooling the temperature down, as passengers were competing and hustling to enter trains or busses. For once, despite a slight traffic jam in earlier roads, Shin Hyesung felt lucky to have opted driving his pristine white Toyota Hybrid Prius downtown. His house and the crime scene where he needed to be was closer had he gone by train. Only two stations away. But he knew he wouldn’t have survived the fervour, mingling with other people’s drenched sweat.

Supposedly, today is his day-off, seeing yesterday he was writing a closing report for his latest case until 3 in the morning. The 28 years old Inspector Hyesung—the youngest inspector in Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department—had been lazily spending his morning in bed, tucked under the warm bed cover, when a call from the station had shattered his plan on sleeping all day. It can’t be helped though. His occupation ran in a tight schedule and needed him to be available at anytime. He began to regret not shutting off his iPhone while he was sleeping.

Nearing the location which address was texted by his subordinate, Hyesung took the left lane and parked his car alongside police cars lined up just up front. After getting out and making sure his car was locked, he strode towards the yellow barricade tape.

Several police women were standing near the tape, presumably in duty to guard the spectacle inside crime scene from the public. One of them suddenly changed her demeanour after seeing the handsome inspector walking toward her spot.

“Ah, Inspector Hyesung, good afternoon.” She greeted with a little bit flirty tone and hint of red shades on her cheek. The other female cops did the same, batting their twinkling eyes out.

“Afternoon.” Hyesung replied curtly and lifted the yellow tape up to enter the scene, sparing no glance on them. From other people’s sights, clearly these group of female cops were throwing themselves out to get the man’s attention. From other people and their own sights, obviously the inspector didn’t have a clue towards these women’s hinted gestures. They heavily sighed and continued guarding the scene, while having gloomy convo between themselves yet again.

“Hey, Kujaku.”

A golden haired man—standing not too far from barricade—was waiting for him. Unlike Hyesung who clothed up in blue indigo suit jacket, white shirt and black slacks, despite the crazy heat lingering, Kinomoto Kujaku appeared very casual. With simple red t-shirt, doubled with white cotton vest and dark blue jeans—both hands inside his jeans pocket. Too laid-back for an assistant inspector.

“Wow, you really didn’t spare them a glance at all!”

“Who?” Hyesung asked confusedly.

Kujaku could only shake his head, seeing his boss’ blurry and blasé self. “Nope. Never mind. Come on, the crime scene is over there. We need to walk for a bit.”

“So, what do we got?” Hyesung started the conversation.

“Remember about the government’s neighbourhood rebuilding plan that we talked about yesterday?”

“Yeah, the one that was scheduled next week, right? This is the area.”

“Yup. Several officials were canvassing the area, skimming through the houses. They were looking around this old traditional house that had a very old wooden flooring. When they walked on it, it just broke down to the ground, pretty deep. That’s when they came across some bones underneath.”

“Bones?”

Kujaku nods fervently, replying his boss’ questions, “U-huh. Skeletons.”

Both men finally arrived at the core of the crime scene, backyard of an old traditional house. It was packed with lots of people, mainly from the Crime Scene Unit (CSU). Several people on the backyard were in outside, meanwhile only one man appeared to be examining inside of the house. To his left side, Hyesung saw group of people in black neat suits were questioned by a young woman, clad in black jacket suit, white v-neck t-shirt and blue fitted jeans. It was not long until the group left the scene using the same route where Hyesung & Kujaku came in, signalling they finished being interviewed with. The young woman walked over to their spots.

“I take it those were the officials.” Hyesung spoke with his eyes shifted for a moment towards the group of men.

Yamamoto Shiho nodded as she closed her little black cover notes, “They were quite shook up, especially one who fell into the ground.”

“Well i bet it will be a great first experience on the field for them.” Kujaku said nonchalantly.

“How come you know this is their first time, Kinomoto-senpai?”

“It’s easy, Shiho-chan. Tidy black suit, neat tie and nerdy glasses. Not to mention they were walking away with hunched back, avoiding any eye-contact. Desk workers are all like that.”

Looking a bit perplexed, Shiho nodded slowly. She almost believed Kujaku’s serious statement if not for Hyesung’s continuation, “Not all desk workers are like that, Yamamoto. They just look the part, that’s all.”

Shiho almost immediately side-eying the giggling blondie. “Hahaha, come on newbie, don’t make that look.” Kujaku said as he patted the woman’s red brown hair.

The blondie was having so much fun ever since Shiho became the new assistant inspector. Despite the mature look and refine speech, Shiho unexpectedly has a very gullible side. It was very refreshing for either Kujaku or Hyesung, who were always in their calculated and conscious selves. Though for Kujaku, it felt more like he was having new ‘thing’ to tease on in the field.

“Is that… Takao-san, examining the hole alone? Why aren’t his assistants helping him?” Hyesung asked as he walked by and stop near the house.

“Seems like the flooring was so old that it’s about to crumble anytime soon with any excessive weight, hence Takao-san is up there by himself.” Kujaku explained, pointing towards a man in his late 60s, squatting very close to the hole inside the opened room. “They could tear down the floor, but it will take lots of time. Plus, those bones will be compromised big time.”

The 60-something years old medical examiner (M.E), namely Takao Saito, very carefully stepped away and out from the old house, ready to give his report to the man in charge. “The bones were crushed a bit due to the official’s falling, but that could be taken care of. That is, once we bring the remains to the lab.”

As she was writing in her notebook, Shiho says, “I’ll tell CSU to tear down the floor.” Then she took off before Saito reminded her to give message to CSU to use their creativity regarding of breaking down the floor without compromising the corpse.

“Any idea how he/she was killed?” Hyesung asked calmly and curiously. Manner that he always have whenever he’s working cases.

“It’s a she, judging by the pelvic bones’ wide. And no, i don’t know how she was killed.”

“So there’s a first for everything. The mighty Tokyo’s forensic analyst, Takao-san included.” Kujaku said as a-matter-of-fact-ly which was given side-eyes by the said M.E. Saito himself was famous in Tokyo Metro Police for his fast and precise examination at one glance of the body. Hence, the younger men were in awe when they heard the word ‘i don’t know’ came out from the older man’s lips.

“I don’t know because the body doesn’t have the head.” Saito strictly informed.

“There’s no head?!” Hyesung and Kujaku shouted in surprised, only to be talked back annoyingly by Saito. “Yes, no head. I did tell you that the first time. Didn’t you young men hear it? So without the head, i can’t determine the cause of death (C.O.D). It’s probably on the head itself.”

“Kujaku, tell the CSU to widen their search area. The head might be buried not far from this house. And see if we can find out about who owned this property back then and who owns it now. ”

“You got it.”

“I did, however, found this near the bones. Good thing it was easy to reach by.” Saito continues his explanation as he held an evidence bag. Inside, it’s a gold necklace with a gold square locket pendant, discoloured by the dirt cause of buried too long. A beautiful old artwork embossed on top of the locket.

“That looks vintage.” Kujaku said as he peered the object behind the plastic barrier.

“Exactly. Last time i’ve seen this type of artwork is 40 years ago, around my prime years. I actually bought a similar necklace like this back then for my mommy.”

“Uhhh… Don’t you mean your girlfriend?” Asked the blondie again.

“Yes. Back then, we already used mommy and daddy as our nicknames. Though we got married much later in our mid 30s.” Saito rambled on, “What are you boys snickering about?”

Both younger men had their face glance to the side, hiding and holding their laughter on their knowledge of Saito’s cheesy teenage years couple nicknames. Hyesung is the first to straighten himself up and broke the awkwardness with another order to his subordinate, “We should run the necklace for prints. If we get lucky, we might be able to match it with anyone in our old and current databases. Who knows, we also might be able to identify her with it.”

“Okie-dokey.”
 
“Well, i suppose you might need to revisit old cases similar to this one, Inspector. Who knows it’s… connected.” Saito gave his advice as he walked again near the house, working with the CSU team to figure out how to take the body back to the morgue.

Hyesung gazed upon the old house and the surroundings around, whilst thinking it’ll be hard to solve a 40-years-old case. Especially without the victim’s head present.

Yesterday, 9.26 a.m

New day arrived. Morning rush hours had passed by for some times. Employees and workers had gone back to their duties, trying to buried their minds into it while waiting for lunch break to come. Another luck seemed have to set upon Hyesung, since he didn’t have to wake up real early today. Being an inspector meant he needed to stand on guard in any time if a case came in. But there’s nothing waiting for him to arrive early in the morning in the station. He was still waiting for the prints and identification and both took quite a while until the results come out. Not like it could be hurried.

‘You can't rush science, Kid. You can yell at it and scream at it, but you can't rush it.’

Hyesung remembered how wise Saito’s advice was. It was his first day becoming an assistant inspector, yet his first case was a big one. He recalled how desperate that particular case was, that he asked Saito to rush the forensics. Though later on, he found out Saito’s advice was quoted out from an american drama TV series, NCIS. Nevertheless, it was wise and it was true.

Currently, Hyesung was waiting for his morning coffee in Starbucks cafe near the station. Unlike any other days, he easily stepped in the cafe and immediately ordered his drink. Probably due to the day had gone by quite late, not many people occupied the cafe. Usually, he needed to queue for about 30 minutes and waited another 5 minutes until he got his coffee. The sound of glasses clicking together, smell of freshly grounded coffee beans, and sight of baristas busy making the drinks were several things—aside from caffeine—that built up his brain to start the day.

His ears suddenly picked up a familiar ringtones and he could feel something vibrating against his chest. Recognising a call had came in, Hyesung pulled out his iPhone, swiped the screen to take the call. “Yeah?”

Just when he picked the call up, Hyesung heard his name addressed. “Hyesung-san. Venti non-fat caramel macchiato, four pumps of vanilla syrup, extra foam?” Hyesung nodded on the barista’s call and took his coffee.

“… You’re in Starbucks?”

“Uhuh.”

“Get me a latte, please? Venti, soy milk, extra double shot, triple pumps of hazelnut sugar-free syrup.”

“You do realize you’re my subordinate, not my boss, Kujaku? Get your latte yourself.” Hyesung retorted with an annoyed voice.

“Yeah, you’re gonna get me that latte because you owe me. I have a lead with the house owner now. Anyway, we’re same age, no big deal.” Hyesung could already imagine Kujaku’s smug face while talking with that overbearing tone of his. “I did say please. Hurry get your and my latte to the station.”

Heaving a huge sigh, Hyesung could only accept the blondie’s request while gritting his teeth. Locking his iPhone screen, the inspector went back in front of the cashier, ordering his friend’s coffee. Another 3 minutes to wait until he walked out from Starbucks. And after another 8 minutes walk, Hyesung finally arrived in his station with two venti cups in his hands.

“My coffee has arrived! Halleluyah! I thought i was going to die without caffeine.” Waving his hands up like a child, Kujaku ran towards his boss and picked up his coffee from Hyesung’s right hand. He took a sip and he said about how the taste is like heaven on earth. The words that got Hyesung sick of hearing it everyday, every morning.

Shiho who had been sitting there the whole time observing the situation, raised her arm, wanting to ask question, “How come you know which cup to choose, Kinomoto-senpai?”

Contrary to his wide grin with those thick lips of his, Kujaku answered the question seriously, “I have a sixth-sense. I know which one is mine.”

“Kinomoto-senpai has a sixth sense?! Then, you must be able to know who is the man behind this 40 year-old case, right?”

“Yeah, Kinomoto-senpai, you must know who is the culprit, right?” Hyesung said while stood leaning against his desk, smirking in satisfaction seeing the blondie squirmed in his seat because of Shiho’s innocent counter.

“… My sixth sense isn’t that strong to… solve a murder case.” Kujaku said with faint voice while sipping his latte once again.

“But you do have a sixth sense, Kinomoto-senpai?”

Hyesung let out a huge sigh for the second time today, “No, Yamamoto. He does not have a sixth sense. The cup has his name on it.”

Feeling dejected, Shiho slowly sat down from her exciting standing just seconds ago. Seeing Shiho puffed her cheeks out, Kujaku laughed in amusement. “Oh newbie, it’s cute the way you fall every time for my jokes. Keep up the innocence, Shiho-chan.” On the side, Hyesung slipped out a faint chuckle to himself, wondering how many times would it take for the red haired woman to figure out the blondie’s teasing.

Hyesung cleared his throat and began to delve into his serious mode. “So, what about the house owner?”

“Ah! So i’ve checked the old traditional house status. Since the time it was changed hand to the government, turns out it had never been resided for nearly 30 years. Before that, the house belonged to a man name Miyata Kousuke. He held a job as a private detective in early 1950s. The house itself was passed down from his deceased parents. Had no relatives, he had a wife though.” Kujaku explained as he gave a folder of files to Hyesung. “Her name is Mitou Satsuki.”

“Why they have different family names?”

“Actually, it’s Miyata who enter the Mitou family, not the other way around, where the wife usually enters into the husband’s family. Even before they got married, Miyata had already been working as a private detective with his original family name. Hence, he did not changed it. Most of his legal documents were also still in his original name.”

“Okay, see if you can contact him. He’ll be 80 years old by now, but…”

“Yeah. He is waaay passed 80 already. He died of an unknown illness in his 50s. So, unless you want to talk to his tombstone, i don’t think we can contact him. Then again, you can get somebody to connect with his ghost spirit.” Kujaku said while snapping a finger and with a tone of enlightenment.

“…Why don’t you try it? You’re the one who has a sixth sense.” The inspector sneered back.

“Hey, i just told you an alternative way. In case you really want to get to the source.”

“How about the wife? Mitou Satsuki?”

“There’s not much about the wife. There’s even no record about their children. I’m guessing, they didn’t have one. If there’s anything, only that she left the world even faster than he did. In her death certificate, it was written that she died fairly young over a fire incident in his neighbour’s house.”

“Basically, there’s nobody that we can get a hold of.” Hyesung faintly spoke.

“Or maybe not.” In this point of conversation, Shiho jumped in as she seemed to have an idea, “Did you happen to stumble any of Miyata-san’s cases which have any cross paths with Tokyo Metro’s old cases?”

“For a newbie, your thinking is the same as mine. One step ahead! Nice one, Shiho-chan!” Kujaku said excitedly as he ruffled Shiho’s red hair locks, “But the answer is no. I’ve checked in any cases which involved any private detectives or agencies, but i came up empty.”

“We should broaden the search. Have Shirakawa follow it up.”

“I’ve been following up.” A child-like voice stepped into the conversation. The three parties shifted from where they stood, surprised by the sudden appearance of a petite young lady next to them. The 15 years old technical analyst genius, Shirakawa Yanagi, stood in confusion from snippets of convo she heard just seconds ago.

“Speak of the devil. How long have you been standing there? And why we didn’t see you coming, Yanagi-chan?” Kujaku asked carefully.

“I suppose because you really don’t have any sixth sense, Kinomoto-san.” The petite girl answered him with straight face and serious voice, made out a snickering response from both Hyesung and Shiho.

“Yanagi-chan, it’s quite rare to see you here. Is there something you need?” asked the red-haired assistant inspector.

“I’m here to return this book to Hyesung-niichan.” Yanagi said as she presented a thick leather hard-covered book to Hyesung.

“You’ve done reading it? That’s fast, Shirakawa”

“What the hell is that thick book you read? Hm? What is this language? Can you even read it?” The blondie viewed over Hyesung’s shoulder.

“A Grimm’s Fairytale, in its original german transcript. I have it stocked in my house, unmoved and seldom read by any of my family. Thought Shirakawa would love it, since she always like scary folklore.”

“I did. I have a great time reading it. Thank you for lending it to me, Hyesung-niichan.” Yanagi said cutely, 180 degrees different than her attitude with Kujaku. Hyesung only response was patting the young woman’s head with a warm smile on his visage.

“It’s creepy enough that a 15 year-old reading such scary folklores, in german no less. Don’t add the creeps by having this… sweet warm moment inside the station, ‘kay?” The blondie snarled.

It was no surprise for everybody in the station that Yanagi opened herself up the most with Hyesung. Not because they were romantically involved. Yanagi had her own past which she preferred to hide. But it was no secret that the inspector had somehow helped and turned her life for the better. Yanagi might be a genius with an IQ of 185—even her attitude and manner of speak had fully grown like an adult—but the technical analyst is still the youngest member of whole Tokyo Metro Police force. Not to mention an underage. Hence, Hyesung always had a soft spot for Yanagi. His role in his team isn’t restricted only as an inspector, but also as a guardian for Yanagi at her workplace. At least he tried to be, every time he’s available at the station.

“Oh, Hyesung-niichan, i also have the results from Takao-san, the prints on necklace that was buried with the remains.” The young girl said again while handed out a brown paper map files to Hyesung.

As Hyesung flipped open the case file, Yanagi continued her explanation. “There are two sets of prints there, but one of them is too degraded to get an early match. Takao-san is still trying to process it though. Meanwhile, the other print belongs to a man name…”

“Miyata Kousuke.” The inspector said the name out loud as he read the forensic report.

“What? The house’s deceased owner?” Kujaku snatched the case file to his hand and skimmed it through.

“Yes. I had dug into his profile as well and it came up exactly as Kinomoto-san’s initial search. I also had opened my search national wide. See if we could find anything that would link Miyata-san’s cases to the murder. Or getting identification on the female body. Yet, still nothing.”

“Is it possible this Miyata-san is the killer himself? If we think about it, his prints were on the woman’s necklace.” Shiho spoke as she was contemplating the answer herself.

Hyesung shook his head lightly. “It’s too early to tell. We still haven’t know who is this woman yet, not to mention other set of prints that is still in process.”

Glancing over the files in Kujaku’s hand, Yanagi had a confused look all over her face. “It was kind of weird though.”

“What was weird, Yanagi-chan?”

“He’s a private detective. No matter how small or big he is, there must be a case that would intersect with ours. If not in Tokyo, then there would be a report somewhere in other region’s police department. At the very least, an initial report that the police had submitted. Regardless it was a small incident or an unsolved case, where the man would continue to investigate by himself later on. But i can’t seem to find any reports or old articles of anything mentioning this man’s works. What ever cases he solved, he solved it through and through. Like there wasn’t even a case or a client in the first place.” Yanagi clearly explained.

“It’s like he doesn’t want other people to know about the cases he worked on. Yet he left a trace of himself that might lead other people to investigate about him, his own title as a private detective.” Shiho pondered out loud. Slamming down the file lightly on the table, Kujaku asked the one question in everybody’s mind.

“Who is this guy?”