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Sherlock is angry. She is enraged. Furious! She storms out of the building and paces down the street with no actual place in mind. She’s fuming! How could they-?! Gah! She feels like plucking her hair out but it would be so foolish of her. The case was so simple. Could be so, so!! simple.! If only They didn’t lose the effing Key evidence! Ah! What a band of.. of.. of imbeciles! Incredible! Truly, who could lose a bright red Ferrari in Tokyo where there is monitoring on every street corner?! A surveillance camera on every crosswalk and every other street lamp. Who could? Police, that’s who! Imbeciles! So unprofessional, and a Ferrari too! How does one lose a Ferrari! That’s not right... Sherlock's pace slows. Surely some tourists must have taken a picture of the car. Tourists always take photos of fancy cars…
She pulls her phone out of the coat’s pocket and searches Instagram. #ferrari, location: Tokyo. Scroll scroll. Ah! There it is! She stops. A bright smile stretches on her face only to fade a second later when she notices it's an older model. That's when a fat raindrop lands on the top of her head.
Sherlock looks up. The sky is covered with heavy dark grey clouds. The wind catches the ends of her coat and makes them flow rapidly changing its directions. More droplets land on the pavement around her. People rush to hide from the rain; to arrive in the underground or home before the rain settles down for good. A drop lands on her phone distorting the picture of a red car. The ends of her hair begin to drip. Sherlock stares mesmerised at the grey sky until a peppermint green colour covers it. Huh? What? An umbrella? She turns to the source of the cover. And sure enough, someone is holding the umbrella above her head.
“Terrible weather,” the person says in a sweet voice.
Sherlock looks at the person. A woman. Short. In her late twenties? Thirties rather, she looks quite tired. She’s dressed in baggy suit pants and a patterned shirt, an oversized coat hangs on her looking well-worn. Her hair is gathered in a low ponytail, the bangs are flying with the wind. She must have been on her way from work… and she was.. a waiter maybe? The service sector, surely. She smiles at Sherlock and it reaches her eyes like she's delighted to see her. Sherlock looks away.
“Not at all.”
“Rain has its charms, I suppose, but it’s easy to come down with pneumonia standing like that.”
“What are you a doctor?”
The person stumbles in making a sentence then sighs and nods, not very assuredly. “I studied medicine.”
“How very exciting,” Sherlock replies sarcastically. “You don’t look very happy about it.”
“Erm, yes. It’s a long story. Are you going to Ginza station? My umbrella is big enough for two, I would hate for you to get sick.”
“Why?”
“Being sick isn’t fun?"
Sherlock looks the stranger from head to toes.
"Do you mind stopping at the café?”
“Oh!" The woman brightens. "No, not at all, lead the way.”
After two minutes of awkward silence with the rain's accompaniment, the person, who is almost running trying to keep up with Sherlock's step, chimes in:
“Hope you’re not some sort of a murderess leading me to some dark damp aisle to kill me.” She chuckles somewhat nervously.
“Oh, quite the opposite actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a detective.” Sherlock smiles.
“And you’re saying medicine is exciting? Hah! A detective! It’s almost as cool as being a spy. What do you do? Do you catch the killers? No, no, you solve cases, right? Are you solving one right now? A mysterious case of a cloudburst…” Her eyes are big and dreamy as she gestures to the sky.
Sherlock decides she likes her. She opens the café's door and looks at her.
“Come on in, take a seat, do you want anything?”
“Oh, no, no, don’t trouble yourself--“
“It’s no problem at all. Machiatto with two sugars and almond milk, right?”
Her brown eyes widen in surprise.
“Yeah,” she breathes out, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.
“Great. Go pick a table, I’ll come to you in a sec.”
And that's just what she did. A few minutes later, Sherlock comes to a small table beside the window with two coffees and strawberry cheesecake. She puts the tray down and takes a seat opposite the stranger. She picks up her coffee and pushes the macchiato and the cake towards the girl. Her face colours? in ... embarrassment? Sherlock won't lie, it was quite easy to read what type of cake she'd like and that she didn't eat anything since morning.
“Oh, oh, how much did it cost? I’ll pay you back right away” She dives into her bag to grab a wallet.
“I said it was no trouble.” Sherlock takes a sip of her coffee. It's overly sweet and pleasantly hot. She hadn't realized how cold she was due to all that wind and rain. She looks at the stranger, she looks embarrassed to be the one receiving altruistic kindness (is it altruistic, though? To find an excuse to spend more time with a pretty kind stranger?) and it makes Sherlock feel warm but that's probably just coffee. “Although you could give me your name while we’re at it...”
“Oh, of course, how rude of me. Wato, Tachibana Wato.” She holds out her hand.
“Sherlock,” says Sherlock, pointedly ignoring the hand and gesturing to herself instead.
“Oh! Like in the books. Sherlock Holmes the detective, how clever!”
Sherlock does not blush at that.
“Futaba. Sherlock Futaba.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Sherlock.” Wato smiles. Sherlock looks away.
“So what happened to medical studies?”
She looks out of the window as Wato starts to talk about her past. It really is pouring outside. Terrible weather, huh. The rain formed a stream on the side of the road and the raindrops that fell on the blackboard inviting to the café are washing away the chalk-like looking paint… Washing away the paint.? Wait a sec, Paint? Sherlock looks down at her phone. Paint! Of course! What if the car is no longer bright red?
She stands up so abruptly it startles half of the café, and the chair almost falls.
“Is everything okay, Sherlock?”
Huh? Taken out of her mindscape, she looks at Wato. Big brown eyes are staring up at her.
“I need to go. Work.”
“Oh! Do you know who the killer is?”
“The thief. Yes. I need to—“ she hastily grabs her coat.
“I’m coming with you.”
She looks back at Wato. There’s a glint in her eyes a twitch in her smile.
“You can’t go back without an umbrella, I won’t allow it” She smiles mischievously.
Sherlock feels herself smiling back.
“You’d better keep up my pace because I won’t slow down.”
“Wasn’t betting on it.”
Sherlock holds the door open for the Wato before treading down the street, a concrete place in mind, a stable body next to hers.