Ah~ why are these taking so long to write, now?
I guess it's just because I'm writing more per chapter than I was at the beginning.
Which means that instead of getting a LOT of updates in small doses...
Ya'll get fewer updates in large doses...
I'm not sure which is better. Probably the first since there's less waiting.
Oh well, I'm out of school now, so I have more time to write. :3
Still givin ya little bits and pieces of the plot... building up the suspense... what will happen next?
...I know. :3
Enjoy. <3
[Chapter Thirty-Nine -- Manipulation]It’s not everyday you come home to a half-naked girl on your couch.
Especially not one that happens to be related to the girl you’re romantically involved with.
And yet, there I was, standing in the main room of the basement house that I lived in from time to time, staring curiously at Sugaya’s sleeping form. Thankfully, she had rolled over onto her stomach, and thankfully, she still had pants on. However, the reason why she was even there in the first place and why she was somewhat indecent still remained a mystery to me.
I could think of but one answer to the problem.
Maiha… what did you do this time?I frowned and slid out of my jacket, draping it over the young girl napping on my couch. That was when I noted that she smelled strongly of alcohol—a scent that I’m not proud to admit that I’m pretty familiar with—and I put two and two together to realize something…
If drinking had been involved, it probably wasn’t Maiha’s fault. She absolutely could not
stand the stuff. But then again… there wasn’t any possible way that Sugaya would have made it into the basement without some help, so Maiha had to have been the one that brought her here…
Ugh.
It’s not that I’m stupid or anything, but… I’m not one for figuring out mysteries… The only way to solve something like this was to find Maiha and ask her about it.
If I was Maiha and I had a girl in the house, where would I hide?…In the closet of course.
I made a beeline for the small door that concealed various things that Maiha and I couldn’t find any other place for (old junk, new junk, clothes, pack rat sort of stuff) and opened it, watching with amusement as my friend’s curled up self rolled out with about as much grace as a drugged-up armadillo.
She looked pretty rough—though, I can’t imagine that sleeping in a closet would be comfortable—and she turned to glance at me with a vacant expression at first, as if she wasn’t awake just yet.
“Wha’…”
“Maihacchi…” I started, speaking slowly and in the clearest tone that I could manage, “…Do you realize that your potential love interest is in our house…?”
She was still under the influence of the deep sleep I had jolted her from, and so she was staring at me quietly, somewhat cross-eyed. I sighed, because I knew it was going to take a while before she realized what was going on. At least she was hearing me, because after a moment she finally responded.
“Socko’s here?”
“Yes… Are you aware that most of her clothes are gone and that she’s going to have a terrible hangover when she wakes up?”
It took a little bit, but I was sure Maiha was fully alert when I saw the color drain from her face and the panic fill up in her eyes. She jumped up from the floor so quickly that I barely had time to react and grab her in order to keep her from running away from me.
“I swear I didn’t do anything to her, Maa-chan!”
“Maiha-”
“I was just hangin’ out in the club like I usually do…”
“Maiha.”
“And all of a sudden I bumped into her and she was so freakin’ drunk and I…”
“Maiha!”
“I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t leave her there…”
“Maiiiiiiiiiiiiiiha.”
“So I brought her back here, and she started actin’ funny and once her shirt came off I panicked and I ran into the closet and-”
“MAIHA!”
“What?!?”
I had grabbed her shoulders and spun her around so that I could look directly into her eyes. If Maiha wasn’t making eye contact with you, she probably wasn’t listening, so that was the only way I could think of to get her attention.
“I believe you. But the fact still remains that when she wakes up she’ll be pretty damn confused and then we’ll have a hell of a time explaining all of this to Momoko.”
As if it was possible for her to get any paler… well… Maiha looked like a ghost after I said that.
“She’ll kill me…” Maiha squeaked, and I rolled her eyes as I felt her tremble a little bit. No matter how easy it was for her to strut about and act tough, she really was just a big softie and somewhat of a coward on the inside. Well, at least until a serious threat rolled along. …She could be strong when she needed to be. There were so many faces to Maiha: She could laugh, flirt, scream, cry… all within a matter of minutes if the situation called for it. I guess having a mercurial temperament was what made her such a good friend for me.
I was pretty much the same… all the time.
“No she won’t… I’ll explain it all to her later. Right now… It’s really, really late… and I’m exhausted, so I’m going to bed. We’ll worry about Sugaya at a more sane hour of the day.”
As I turned to walk into my room, I was met with resistance in the form of her clinging very tightly to my arm. I grunted in an aggravated sort of way, but that didn’t seem to scare her much at all, and so I lifted my arm above my head, raising her effortlessly off of the ground and bringing her to where she was eye level with me.
“You are keeping me from my well-deserved rest, and you know how grumpy I get without sleep.”
“But Maaaaa-chan… She’s sleeping on my couch… And being in that closet made me all sore… Can I sleep with you? Just tonight?”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Can you keep your hands to yourself that long?”
That familiar wolfish grin spread across her lips and a mischievous glint took control of her eyes.
“Well… I dunno, that’ll be kind of hard, all things considered-”
I shook her roughly, which made her only cling tighter to my arm and let out a distressed wail of sorts.
“Okay, okay, I’ll behave, I swear! Just please, I’m tired of being in the closet!”
“…Fine. But if your hands wander too far away from my waist in either direction I am so pushing you out of the bed.”
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For once it wasn’t the sun or Risako’s annoying alarm clock that pulled me so rudely from my sleep.
This time, I awoke to the sound of an electronical ringing coming from somewhere in the corner of the room, and as I reluctantly let myself slide out of the wonderful dreams I had been having, I realized that it was the phone that was making such a sound. Upon coming to that conclusion, I sluggishly rolled out of the bed and trudged over towards the device, managing to catch it just as the final ring was ending.
“Moshi-moshi? Tsugunaga Momoko desu…”
“Ah, Momoko-san. It’s me, Erika.”
“Mm? Erika-chan? Is everything alright? Why are you calling so early?”
“Early? Ah… Momoko-san… you do realize that it’s a little past nine, right?”
I blinked and turned to glare at the devil of an alarm clock that I hated so much, and sure enough, Erika was right. Perhaps I had slept much more soundly last night than I really realized…
“I guess it is. Sorry… Anyways, are you okay? You sound a bit… upset about something.”
“I was just wondering if Risako-chan made it back to her apartment… She sort of… disappeared while we were all at the amusement park, and I couldn’t find her for the rest of the day so I just assumed that she went home…”
And… that’s when it occurred to me, actually… Where
was Risako? I hadn’t even realized that when I woke up she wasn’t there… I thought she had just been out late with the others, and would have snuck in in the middle of the night, but… I never even entertained the idea that there was a chance she wasn’t coming back at all.
So naturally, I started to panic a little bit. Inwardly, of course, because I wanted the girl on the other side of the line to remain as calm as I would seem to be.
“Ah… Well… she actually isn’t here… I thought maybe she had come in while I was asleep, but I guess not… Don’t worry about it, though. I’m going to go out and look for her. Knowing Rii-chan, she probably either lost track of time or decided to be a little bit rebellious. I’m sure she’s fine.”
I heard Erika let out a sigh of relief, obviously taking some comfort in what I had to say.
“Okay, Momoko-san… I hope you find her. Please call if you need help, though. I’m going to tell the others just in case you get lost and we have to go looking for
you too.”
Yeah… that was probably a good idea.
“Alright. I’ll talk to you again later when I find her.”
She wished me good luck and then we both hung up, and I stood there, feeling much more awake and much more… apprehensive than I had been feeling before. I should have just stayed in bed with my dreams. It was safer there. But being as close to Risako as I was meant that I was considerably worried about her well-being and that if anything bad had happened to her, there was going to be hell to pay for the people involved.
I could hope that she was safe and sound… but knowing her… she had probably gotten herself into a lot of trouble.
Or she was asleep somewhere.
Either way… It was my job to go out and bring her back, and then give her a good scolding afterwards.
Even if I didn’t have any idea about where to start looking…
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“Hey Nono? Could you like… chew your gum with your mouth closed for once? That smacking noise is starting to get on my last nerve.”
The elder of the two officers snorted and looked up from the magazine she was reading to glare over at her companion, who was reclined lazily in her chair, staring up at the ceiling as if she was waiting for something amazing to happen.
“Well, excuse me, Miss Yankii-Pants. I’m sorry that the way that I chew my gum bothers you. Perhaps if you were off somewhere, making yourself useful, you wouldn’t have to sit here and listen to it, hm?”
Well,
that hit a nerve.
Nozomi watched as Reina turned her head to give her one of the most angry expressions she had witnessed all day, and that was a miracle in itself, considering her chief happened to be the infamous Nakazawa Yuko. In fact, she wondered if their captain would be proud to know that her little yankii-in-training was glaring hard enough to rival the big dog herself.
…Nah. She’d probably just kick Reina and tell her to get back to work.
“It isn’t
my fault that you and I are stuck here together all day, everyday, seven days a week, twelve months a year, but the truth of the matter is is that until the captain sends us out there, that’s how life’s gonna be, m’kay? We don’t have the power to get tangled up with the city’s crime lords between just the four of us, so the best we can manage is keeping the small stuff to a minimum, as boring as it is. And until the higher-ups give us more funding so that we can add some extra manpower to the force, all we’ll get is what we’ve got now. So I suggest—since this is the boat we’re in—that you knock it off and do what you can to keep from annoying me or I’ll tear a new mouth-hole into your face, got it?”
Reina had risen out of her chair during that ardent exchange of words, and inched closer and closer towards Nozomi until the older officer was forced to slide down into her seat and was pressing against the cushion of it like she wanted to sink into it and disappear. Thankfully, as soon as the younger female was done she returned to her own seat and flopped down into it, taking to her former position as if nothing had happened.
Nozomi didn’t relax until she was sure that the other girl wasn’t going to bite her head off for doing so, and she realized just how hard she had been gripping the armrests of her seat.
For future reference… Reina’s a little sensitive about work right now… steer clear of that subject for a while, Tsuji…As the room returned to silence, she decided that she didn’t have any desire to return to browsing throw her magazine, and as she marked her place and began to put it away, both she and Reina were alerted to the station’s front doors as a figure stepped inside. Nozomi’s eyes widened as her mind registered who the person was, and almost immediately she leapt out of her seat and over the side of the desk (she had been through training, of course, no matter how inactive things were at times) in order to run over to the newcomer and take her in a tight hug.
Such a reaction might’ve been considered unnecessary, but when your best friend and partner had been away for over a year doing detective work… well, you tended to react just like that.
“Nono!” The girl laughed and returned the officer’s embrace just as tightly, though she didn’t seem like she was holding on for fear that the other could disappear into thin air at any second. “Well, I missed you, too.”
“Probably not half as much as I missed you, Aibon…”
Nozomi pulled back from the hug to hold the other girl out from her at arms’ length so that she could subject her to brief, but intense scrutiny. Ai hadn’t changed much appearance-wise, though she noted that her former partner was looking a bit thinner than normal… perhaps the stress of the job she had taken was a bit overwhelming. However… she looked much happier than she had been before, holed up in this small station with the rest of them. Nozomi couldn’t help but be just the slightest bit jealous… but she understood better than most how good Ai was at what she did, and had been the one to encourage the other girl to take the opportunity that had been offered to her.
…So she was slightly confused as to why the other was back, unannounced like this.
Apparently Reina was wondering the same thing, because she had walked up behind the two and cleared her throat, trying to get their attention.
“Well… y’know… I hate to break up this mushy… um…
thing that’s going on here… And it’s not that I’m not glad to see you, Kago-chan, but… What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be off solving mysteries and junk like that?”
Nozomi turned back to look at Ai, the same question mirrored in her eyes, and the other girl opened her mouth to respond when Yuko entered the room, answering for her.
“I called her in. We need the best-of-the-best to catch the Miracle this time, and who better to help than her? Besides… having only one half of our infamous duo this whole time has been useless…” She continued to stroll over towards the group, and Mari materialized from the room the captain had been in, trotting along obediently behind her with a small stack of papers in her hands. Yuko stopped as she neared the others and slung an arm lazily around Reina.
“We’re only at our most efficient when we’re a team… the
whole team.”
…Nozomi was really resisting the urge to tackle her captain in a fierce hug and declare just how awesome the woman was, but… she decided against it. She wanted to keep all four of her limbs intact.
“So… what’s our assignment?”
“We got a report about some dead bodies found in the red light district. Some of Yajima’s group. …Care to investigate?”
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I… was an idiot. I had absolutely no idea where I was going, and at that point I couldn’t have gotten back to Risako’s apartment on my own even if my life depended on it. There were just too many people around and too many buildings that all looked exactly alike.
The only thing I was entirely sure about was that I hadn’t found my cousin yet.
And even though I had taken the liberty of ‘borrowing’ her cellphone just in case… I refused to call Erika for help. The girl had sounded worried enough at first, and I didn’t want to make that any worse for her. Besides, I shared a bit of Risako’s stubbornness in that I was sure that I could do this on my own.
Still… I was getting very frustrated. I let out a groan and flopped down onto a bench next to a large fountain, resting my feet while searching my mind for some sort of solution to my problem.
…I had no idea that help would come to find me so quickly.
“Excuse me… miss?”
I was pulled from my thoughts by a pleasant, cool voice, and I turned to look up at two girls standing in front of me, both appearing to be roughly my age. The taller of the duo was grinning at me in a friendly sort of way, and I couldn’t help but notice just how charming she was. Her dark eyes were deep and innocent, and I felt myself calming down almost immediately as I looked at them.
Her companion was also very pretty, but she seemed to be stiff and uncomfortable, her posture rigid as she stood patiently behind the other girl. She would fidget and play with the ends of her long-sleeved sweater every now and then, and her eyes had this dull, uninterested look about them, like she was extremely bored and wanted to be elsewhere. I noticed that there was a fairly dark bruise that colored one of her cheekbones, but she was wearing a baseball cap and so I assumed that perhaps she was athletic and had gotten it by playing sports.
I was so deep in my examination of them that I hadn’t realized that my mouth was hanging slightly open and that I was staring, and as soon as I finished and became aware of this, I blushed a bit, embarrassed.
“Yes…?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before… Are you lost, maybe?”
I let out an inward sigh of relief. Perhaps I was getting a break and these two would help me out.
“Yes, actually… I was looking for my cousin, but… I don’t know my way around very well, and so… well… I ended up here. Wherever
here is…”
“Would you like some help? Kirari-chan and I aren’t really doing anything, and I bet with our help we could find your cousin faster and get you back home in no time.”
I thought about her offer really hard. Charming strangers or not, they were still strangers… And yet, my intuition was telling me that I was in absolutely no danger at all, and was being silly by even
considering that these two would do me any harm. After all… who could say no to such a welcoming, kind expression? …Not me, apparently.
“Yes… I would like that very much.”
I got to my feet, returning that brilliant smile with a happy one of my own.
“My name is Tsugunaga Momoko.”
The taller of the two only grinned wider and nodded, turning to put an arm around her companion and pulled the much-less-enthusiastic girl towards us.
“This is my friend, Tsukishima Kirari-chan.”
The stoic female only offered me a grunt and what I took as a glare in response to my polite smile, but I shrugged it off. Perhaps she was just having a bad day…
“And what do they call you?”
“Kusumi Koharu, at your service.”