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Kishitani let out a long sigh as she stared down at the new batch of receipts that she needed to reclarify with Professor Yukawa. Just when she thought she was done with these kinds of mundane tasks once and for all. Considering lately the professor had steadily grown less hostile to her presence, she thought that maybe the man would go easy on her now. But right now it felt like that wish would not be happening anytime soon.
She let out another long sigh.
On the bright side, Detective Utsumi has finally returned from Oklahoma. And she didn't hear anything about the possibility of the senior lady officer being transferred out of North Kaizuka station (she did hear that Detective Utsumi will be getting a promotion regardless!) So perhaps after this, she wouldn't have to personally deal with the physics professor anymore now that Utsumi-san was back.
Without warning, Kishitani sensed a presence behind her as a shadow suddenly loomed over her. She glanced up to see Detective Utsumi looking over to see what she was doing. After a while, an amused smile flashed on the older lady's lips.
"Settling expenses for accounting matters, eh? How nostalgic..."
Kishitani immediately stood up and as she greeted the lady detective, Utsumi gave her a knowing look.
"Did Yukawa cause you much trouble while I'm gone?" asked the lady detective as Kishitani immediately cry out to her.
"Yes! I thought I'm finally done dealing with all these but the department accountants still insist that I needed to resubmit my reports to them. They said something about how it's not enough that I listed properly what types of equipment or materials were listed in the receipts, but I need to also include what and how these expenses were related to the cases I've investigated before. How the equipment and materials were used and so on." She started to pout at Utsumi without thinking. "I swear that Professor Yukawa just likes seeing me suffer from all this!"
Utsumi just snorted at her before picking up some of the receipts. The older lady shrugged. "Well, why don't you just ask Yukawa to help you?"
Kishitani immediately blanched at the idea. "I've tried that... before. But afterwards, I kinda got on his nerves a bit so it's a bit tricky now to go ask for his help again."
Utsumi just scoffed at that as she placed a hand on her shoulders.
"Nonsense... I doubt Yukawa was THAT spiteful to not want to help you. Come on, since I was planning to visit him anyway today you might as well tag along with me to settle this issue."
As soon as Detective Utsumi said that the woman ushered Kishitani to gather her things before dragging her out of the station.
×××
"Heh... did something like that happen before?"
Kishitani could barely keep her surprise hidden as she silently observed the way Professor Yukawa had behaved around Detective Utsumi, which was totally different from how the man used to behave while she was here by herself. For one thing, the professor was a lot friendlier to Utsumi when she started to talk about the details of past cases that caught her notice. Somehow Kishitani couldn't help feeling a spark of jealousy towards Utsumi. Why was there even such a difference in preferential treatment?
Utsumi shrugged as she picked up one of the receipts on the table. "Still, a lot of thoughts must've been put to convince that actress to use that method to execute that alibi trick. Not just to figure out the right angle and timing to get the trick to work, but also to find the place to allow such a trick to be used in the first place. And this was pretty cool, you got to see the pyrotechnicians at work to set up those fireworks to recreate the situation."
Utsumi put down the receipt as she turns back to Yukawa. "That reminds me of a case I encountered in Oklahoma. A suspect used a similar trick to try to fool the police but instead of a camera phone, they used a Polaroid camera. The suspect in question used a double exposure trick using the polaroid camera to give them a false alibi—"
Professor Yukawa looked thoughtful "Ah yes, that made sense. Under normal circumstances, one wouldn't have thought that you can manipulate the photos taken from a polaroid..."
The two continued chatting about other cases back and forth between Tokyo and Oklahoma, to the point that they barely remembered that she was even nearby, taking notes by herself. It almost made her feel depressingly invisible but Kishitani convinced herself to see the positives in the situation. At least with the professor rattling all the explanations to Detective Utsumi, she could freely focus on noting down anything of importance with regard to her task. And she wouldn't keep being reminded of the blunder she made last time which the professor tried to use to NOT help her.
She also should count her blessings that she was good at using shorthand.
Kishitani glanced up again as the conversation of her two seniors reverted back to yet another case that Detective Utsumi had encountered that almost become a cold case like other occult-like cases similar to it. Utsumi started laying out the base outline of the case before listing out the few strange occurrences and odd observations that she noticed. And with reference to past experiences she had during some old investigations with Yukawa, Utsumi explained to Yukawa in length how she tried to solve the mysteries of the case. The older lady detective also told him some of the interesting techniques used by the Oklahoma State police to investigate and analyze the data that they've acquired during the case. And all this while, Professor Yukawa gave Detective Utsumi his absolute attention and focus, barely interrupting her with any questions.
For some reason, Kishitani couldn't help noticing this.
Professor Yukawa had taken off his glasses. While the professor's sight wasn't especially bad that he needed to wear it at all times, she often noticed a few times in the past that he only really took it off on a few occasions. In which, it was usually whenever something surprised him so much or intrigued him a lot that he tends to want to take a closer look at it with his own eyes. It happened a lot in the past, to be honest, whenever the professor started leaning over very close as if to study her face—only to turn out later that he was actually trying to look at something she was holding that 'happens' to be in front of her face. That odd behaviour of the professor used to bother her so much because it always made her wonder if the professor was trying to get close to her... despite how the man kept on insisting that he didn't find her attractive because she was not a pretty or beautiful lady.
He was doing the same thing right now, staring at Detective Utsumi. Yet unlike before, there was nothing between Detective Utsumi and Professor Yukawa to indicate there was anything of interest that could have drawn the professor's focus to it. So the only other explanation was that the professor's current subject of interest was actually Detective Utsumi herself! And that by itself was really strange to her because Professor Yukawa rarely was that interested whenever she started talking about any of the weird cases she got until she pointed out WHAT were the very mysterious phenomena that she wanted to use to hook his attention to her.
Was it because Detective Utsumi and Professor Yukawa had worked together in the past that they've become so close now? Was it because the two of them were friends that he didn't want to be rude to Detective Utsumi while she retells her stories? Or were there some other reasons?
Kishitani blinked again as she caught Yukawa staring directly at Detective Utsumi while wearing a very pleased look on his face. A sudden wild thought popped into her head at that very moment.
Did Profesor Yukawa... really LIKE Detective Utsumi?
The thought seemed strangely hard to imagine to her somehow since she used to see the man showing no interest in other women in the past—or any of the female students who attended his classes in droves to see him. She used to think that the man didn't have even the slightest interest in romance to the point she stopped caring about it whenever she gets bullied by the professor too much.
But could that really be true? That Professor Yukawa liked Detective Utsumi? It couldn't be that simple, right? How could it even—
"A numerical basis referred to as the golden ratio exists..."
Kishitani flinched immediately, as an old memory clawed back out from the back of her mind. An annoying memory where she used to argue with the professor about whether or not being called cute was as good as being called a beauty. Because she refused to think that she was not as beautiful or attractive as some of the few beautiful-looking suspects they'd encountered during their many investigations. It ended up with them arguing back and forth about it with the professor telling her about what was called the golden ratio—the Fibonacci sequence—and how those numbers applied in determining whether or not someone could be called a beauty. The argument was so intense that she ended up crying, despite the professor trying to reassure her that it was fine if she was satisfied that someone had called her cute. That it was good for her if she thinks that being called cute was enough for her. Even when he didn't think evaluations of cuteness that were based on subjective opinion were worth anything.
Kishitani turned her eyes towards Detective Utsumi, as her senior detective continued chatting comfortably with Professor Yukawa and not minding her presence. They weren't even bothering to acknowledge the arrival of the professor's usual group of students or Kuribayashi walking into the laboratory. Not that Kuribayashi even tried to interrupt the two from continuing to catch up on the past year they haven't seen each other. Honestly, her being absolutely envious of this situation was quite an understatement right now.
She stared at Detective Utsumi's face again. Then again, why wouldn't Professor Yukawa find Detective Utsumi to be beautiful? Even she herself found it hard to look away from her senior detective. Now that she thought of it, Detective Utsumi was far more beautiful than most of the pretty women she's met this past year since she started working alongside Professor Yukawa. Why would Professor Yukawa be swayed by say... Nogi Yuko's looks... or Mashiba Ayane... or even that actress she forgot the name of when he had Detective Utsumi? Honestly, the only ones that came close to matching Detective Utsumi's beauty were perhaps that pair of twins that they met last time. Even when she thought of herself as pretty, Kishitani had to admit that her pretty looks were nothing compared to Utsumi-san.
The golden ratio... perhaps Utsumi-san did have that. She forgot already what Professor Yukawa used to say about how a person's beauty was determined by the length of their face. Like what percentage of the distance between the eyes or nose or mouth or how everything was proportioned together. But it felt like perhaps she could see that Utsumi-san's face had that golden ratio...
Come to think, had she last time tried to make herself look more like Detective Utsumi without thinking to make herself look pretty? It was that one time when she tried to spot a new look and hairstyle, and she did that during the time they were involved with the case in Hari Cove...
"—tani-san?"
Kishitani blinked.
"Kishitani-san?"
Kishitani hastily shook her head as she finally noticed that now everyone was looking at her with concern, including Professor Yukawa and Detective Utsumi.
"Is something wrong?", Utsumi asked worriedly as Kishitani hurriedly waved away the concerns.
"Oh, it's nothing! I just got distracted for a bit!"
×××
Kishitani got into the red Pajero and she placed her briefcase on her lap. She let out a long sigh as she was finally able to recompile the records to be submitted to the department's accounting divisions.
The car engine suddenly roared alive as Detective Utsumi got into the driver's seat and started the engine.
"What a relief, eh? I assume there shouldn't be any other problems after this?"
Kishitani immediately turned to face Detective Utsumi and she thanked her profusely.
"Thank you, Utsumi-san. I really appreciated the help. Now the accounting department shouldn't have any more reason to raise a fuss over the expenditures used in the past cases."
Utsumi just smiled at that before she started driving out of the university's compounds.
"But honestly I couldn't understand why you didn't just ask for Yukawa's help from the very beginning..."
Kishitani just chuckled nervously before looking away.
"W-well... it's because last time I made him angry when I assembled one of his dinosaur models without permission."
Utsumi stopped the car, almost abruptly at the traffic lights before turning towards Kishitani.
"Was THAT the reason he asked me to get him another model kit?" Utsumi started to laugh as the traffic lights turned green again. "Oh dear, that silly idiot..."
Kishitani turned her eyes silently towards Detective Utsumi before smiling slightly. Detective Utsumi was probably the only person who could call the man an idiot without receiving any kind of repercussions from the weirdo in question.
"You're so beautiful, Utsumi-san..." said Kishitani without thinking, just as they were about to reach the station.
"Wha—?" Utsumi exclaimed before shaking her head. "You're flattering me, Kishitani-san. I'm not really that pretty..."
"No, I disagree. I bet even Kusanagi-san and Yukawa-sensei would agree that you're really a beautiful lady."
That made Utsumi laugh even harder as she shrugged. "Well, I guess Kusanagi-san would think like that... but Yukawa? Haha, that idiot wouldn't care to notice if anyone was beautiful even if they were standing right in front of him!"
Kishitani just chuckled softly as the two of them got out of the car.
"No, really..." thought Kishitani to herself, "I bet that Yukawa-sensei would think that you're the most beautiful lady in this whole world, Utsumi-san."