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Our time together in the past year has been so short, and I miss our conversations. I’m sure you’re very busy, but I look forward to hearing from you when you are able to write back.
Take care of yourself,
Susato
Kazuma slipped the letter he had received three weeks ago back into his pocket as Gina returned from the evidence room. “Thanks for finding that report, Lestrade.”
“Sure thing, ‘Sogi!”
He nodded to her and left the main part of the police station through the door by the reception desk, heading for the public entrance. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a splash of pink in a small interview room off to the side. He doubled back. “Miss Wilson?”
Iris looked up from her chair wide eyed, then brightened. “Kazzy! What a pleasant surprise.”
He had met Iris only a handful of times, including a couple visits to Baker Street for tea. While he still didn’t know her well, it was easy to see why Ryunosuke and Susato adored her. Leaning against the door frame, Kazuma put his hands in his pockets. “What brings you here? Lestrade is at her desk if you were hoping to visit.”
“Oh no, that’s not it,” Iris said. She struggled to smile as she hugged herself. “I’m just waiting to give a statement.”
“…Is everything all right?”
“Yes, it’s fine, I was just…a bit frightened earlier.” She looked very small as she closed in on herself in the empty room.
“Where is Mr. Sholmes?”
“He’s away on a case. It may be another day before he gets back,” Iris explained. “Bad luck, I suppose. Say, do you have the time?”
“It’s half past two.”
“Oh…”
“Do you have somewhere to be?”
“No, just I’ve been here since one. Is the station very busy?”
“Not busy enough,” Kazuma growled, pushing off from the door frame and stalking over to the reception desk. He folded his arms at the desk sergeant. “Excuse me, can you explain why this young lady has not been seen to yet?”
“Who are you? Not a relative, obviously.”
“I am a prosecutor. Leaving a child unattended for hours following a frightening experience is unacceptable. Find whoever is supposed to speak with her at once.”
“Hold on, who are you to come here and give orders? You don’t look like any prosecutor I know.”
Kazuma suppressed a sigh at having to use his mentor’s status. “I am Lord van Zieks’ apprentice. He is waiting for me and you are delaying my return, so I insist—”
“You’re not van Zieks’ apprentice.”
“I-I beg your pardon?”
Another sergeant came up behind the desk. “What’s the trouble?”
“He says he’s van Zieks’ apprentice.”
“Van Zieks doesn’t have an apprentice.”
“Yeah he does. But this ain’t him.”
Kazuma’s eyes narrowed.
“Van Zieks’ lad has that mask, remember? And he doesn’t say a word. This guy won’t shut up.”
“Lestrade can vouch for me,” Kazuma said through gritted teeth. “For goodness’ sake, you just saw me come from the back of the station.”
“Oh yeah. Suppose that’s it, then. What is it you wanted?”
Fighting to keep his frustration in check, Kazuma took a breath. “Miss Wilson has been waiting an inexcusable amount of time for someone to take her statement. What is taking so long?”
“Who? Oh, the little girl? I’ll see if Constable Goodman’s back from lunch.”
Kazuma kept his expression flat but inside was fuming. Idiots. If they knew Iris was of noble blood they wouldn’t dare forget about her like this. But of course that was a secret from everyone, including her. He went back to the interview room. “He’s on his way.”
“Thank you, Kazzy! Will you be going back to the office now?”
Kazuma didn’t answer right away, seeing a different question in her eyes. “Would you like someone else to sit in?”
She practically melted in relief. “Would you? I’d feel much better with a friend.”
A friend? “Certainly.” He sat beside her silently as the officer came in and she recounted her story. She had been the sole customer in a shop when someone intent on robbery entered and bludgeoned the shopkeeper to the ground. While the robber made threats to keep Iris quiet, another customer discovered them and shouted for a nearby constable. The robber made a run for it and Iris was luckily left unscathed.
Her description was thorough and well ordered. While she delivered it calmly, Kazuma saw her fidgeting with her gloves in her lap.
When she finished, they walked outside together.
Kazuma glanced at Iris. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Well, mostly,” she admitted.
“And there’s no one at home?”
Iris shook her head. “The landlady is at her niece’s all day.”
Kazuma put a hand to his chin. “Well, I really should be getting back to the office, but…you can come along if you like, and I’ll see you home later.”
“That would be lovely! I would like to see Mr. Reaper anyway.”
As they stepped onto the busy street, the hand Iris slipped into Kazuma’s was just shy of trembling. He pushed aside the surprise of her trusting him so easily and held it firmly. At this time of day the streets between Scotland Yard and the prosecutor’s office were plenty busy, so Kazuma walked purposefully and if anyone came too close or even looked at them the wrong way, he met them with a glare and a hand on his sword hilt. It gave them a wide berth.
“Wow,” Iris giggled. “Runo carried around a sword for months and never did that.”
Kazuma grinned. “Ryunosuke couldn’t intimidate a mouse.”
When they arrived at the prosecutor’s office, Kazuma led the way to Lord van Zieks’ door and opened it. “You certainly took your time,” he heard, before opening it wider and admitting Iris.
“Miss Wilson!” Irritation giving way to surprise, van Zieks immediately stood and greeted her.
“How do you do, Mr. Reaper? It’s been too long!”
“To-to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Kazuma held back a smirk at seeing his boss, the feared Reaper of the Bailey, become shy at the presence of a young girl. “I met her at Scotland Yard when I was picking up your report. I intend to take her home later.”
“I won’t interrupt your work, I promise!” Iris said. “Ooh, might I have a look at your bookshelf?”
“Yes of course, please help yourself to whatever may strike your interest,” van Zieks said.
With her occupied, Kazuma slid the report onto van Zieks’ desk. “She was giving a statement of a crime she witnessed,” he murmured. “She’s unharmed but shaken up and there’s no one at Baker Street.”
Van Zieks nodded. “Better she has company, then. Thank you.”
I’m not doing this for you, Kazuma grumbled internally. He went back to work, writing a document he had begun before he went out. Keeping an eye on Iris, who was content to read all afternoon, he found it took longer than usual. After van Zieks reviewed it a second time to see his revisions, he dismissed him for the day.
“Sir, it’s an hour before I leave.”
“Perhaps, but there is nothing more I require of you today.”
“I still have a pile of work on my desk.”
Van Zieks gave him a pointed look.
“Wha—oh. Yes, my lord. Miss Wilson, are you ready?”
Replacing the book she was reading on the shelf, Iris gave van Zieks a cheery goodbye and followed Kazuma out the door.
At Baker Street, Iris unlocked the door to the flat, which was still and empty. Without Sholmes there to fill it with its energy, it was eerily quiet. Iris deflated. “I guess Hurley isn’t back yet.”
“Hmm. If you want someone to stay the night, I don’t mind,” Kazuma offered, sensing her discomfort.
“Oh! Are you certain? I’m sure you’d rather be at home, and I hate to ask so much.”
Kazuma brushed it off. “It’s no trouble. I can stop by my flat before work tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to leave you alone when you’re still unsettled.”
“Well in that case, I’ll cook something special for supper!” Iris said, the beginnings of a grin on her face. “Before I start, I’ve been meaning to show you the attic. Runo left some things behind—law books and such—and asked if I’d pass them on.”
The attic she took him to was swept clean, but the bookshelf against the wall was littered with an assortment of trinkets. Odd gaps stood out as if Ryunosuke had chosen a few favorites and left whatever didn’t fit in his luggage.
“It hasn’t felt right to rearrange it,” Iris said. “I got so used to Runo’s and Susie’s desks here and I hate to put them back into storage. Everything on the shelf and desks was theirs, and then this large trunk.”
Kazuma recognized it instantly. “That’s the one I bought for this trip. It held some rather important cargo,” he smirked. Undoing the latches, he opened the lid and found a collection of clothes and books. I’ll just borrow a fresh shirt from Ryunosuke, he thought. He dug through the clothing, perplexed by the button up shirt he found. “This looks just like…this is mine!” Beneath was his maroon kimono, and all the other clothes he packed over a year ago and forgotten about. Some of the books were his as well, full of markings from university studies, and others Ryunosuke must have bought here. “He kept all of this?”
“I suppose it’s like me and the furniture,” Iris said. “Keeping your friend’s things makes it easier to pretend they’re still with you, for a little while. Help yourself to whatever you find. I’m going to start on supper!”
After going through the rest of the packing case and questioning Ryunosuke’s taste in the junk he obviously bought (since Susato would never), he found some paper on Susato’s desk and decided to start on his reply to her. He sat at her desk and pulled her letter out of his jacket pocket, smoothing it out on the surface. Dear Susato-san, he began, and stopped. Why he thought the words would come to him now, when they hadn’t for days, he didn’t know. He skimmed her pages again. No new inspiration came to him. Resting his chin on his hand, he stared off in the distance and imagined she was there beside him, as she was so many times while he worked. Her faithful presence as she assisted him never failed to bring him back to the present whenever he lost his direction.
“—to wake you, I didn’t realize you’d fallen asleep,” Iris said.
With a start, Kazuma realized he had unintentionally drifted off and the room was much darker than before. “It’s fine,” he mumbled, still getting his bearings.
“I just wanted to tell you supper is ready. Ooh, it’s freezing up here without the stove burning.”
It was chilly. Kazuma followed Iris downstairs and was soon warmed by the cheery fire and hot food. To show her gratitude, Iris cooked him a bit of pheasant she had been saving for a special occasion. While it was not at all to his taste, he refused to let any disgust show. He insisted on sharing it with her, and covered up the taste with bites of potato. Iris was excellent in the kitchen, and Kazuma appreciated the home cooked meal. He never bothered with cooking much for himself, sticking to a few simple meals he learned as a child and relied on through his mother’s illness, repetitive though they were.
Iris ate slowly and pushed around her food in distraction. “I wonder if the shopkeeper is all right. It looked so painful.” She bit her lip, then tried to shake it off. “So, Kazzy, were you writing to Susie?”
“Mm. Trying to, at least,” he said, then to her questioning look, added, “I haven’t thought of what to say.”
Iris assessed him. “You used to live together, didn’t you? You’re her brother?”
“…Did she tell you that?” It wasn’t exactly a secret, but Kazuma had never advertised that he lived with the Mikotobas, especially once he went to university.
“She didn’t have to. And, well, she was too sad to talk about you much before when she thought you had died, so you were obviously very important to her. But when Professor Mickey talked about you, he had the same look in his eye as when he talked about Susie. Then when I woke you up a bit ago, you called me Susato-san.”
“O-Oh.” That was all news to Kazuma. Later he would have to parse out what that meant to him. “Yes, I lived with her family when I was in my teens.” To take Iris’s mind off her day, and off of any other questions she might have about him, he tried to remember the lighter times of those first years. “She was six when we met, and always curious. Once when her father was away, she took apart his pocket watch to see how it worked, but couldn’t put it back together. She was so worried her father would be angry, even though Professor Mikotoba doesn’t get upset that much, and begged me to fix it. I spent all afternoon at the library before I found a diagram of how to reassemble it. A couple weeks later she wanted to do it again, so she asked her father to borrow it, declaring, ‘If I can’t put it back together, Kazuma-sama can!’”
He pitched his voice a little higher for Susato, making Iris giggle, then lowered it for Mikotoba. “’I didn’t know you were interested in mechanics, Kazuma. When did this start?’ and I had to explain that it was a very fleeting interest and I really didn’t need any books or a class on the subject when all I wanted to study was law.”
Iris laughed, tension leaving her as she smiled for real. “It’s so funny to imagine Susie getting into mischief when she was little! But if you’ve known her since then, what’s hard about letter writing? I always have lots of things to say, and we haven’t been sisters for nearly as long. I’m sure Susie would want to hear about everything about her brother.”
“I’m not sure I’m very much like her brother.” Kazuma admitted. “At least not anymore.”
“Why not? You still care about her, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” he said quickly. “Very much. But after…that trial, she knows I’m not exactly someone to look up to. You know how if you’re the oldest you’re supposed to set a good example for your younger brothers and sisters?” He tried to laugh it off but it came out flat.
“But that assassination business with Gregsy, you never actually wanted to do that, right?”
Debatable. “Well, er, it wasn’t the only thing.” Kazuma watched the fire crackle in the hearth. He had seen Susato’s horrified face across the courtroom, though he ignored it at the time. His admissions and conduct came as a great shock to her, one that she certainly could not set aside too soon.
“Kazzy, I think you’re a great older brother,” Iris insisted. “Do you know why? We’ve only met a few times and you went out of your way to take care of me today. You knew just how to make me feel safe.”
He shrugged. “Anyone would have done the same.”
Once the food was cleared away, Iris busied herself at her desk and Kazuma sat on the sofa where he would be sleeping later. He declined the offer of an attic bed, saying there was no reason to build up the stove for only one night, but more so wanting to be near if Iris had any trouble sleeping. Staring at the blank page in front of him, he once again tried in vain to write but spent most of the time staring at the fire, imagining what he might say and then abandoning it.
He decided to give up and find a book to read instead, if Sholmes’ shelf had something both interesting and accessible without bringing the whole mess tumbling down. But before he could get up, he noticed Iris hovering tentatively. When he caught her eye, she came and stood next to him.
“Here, I made this for you.” She set in the palm of his hand a small felt doll. “I like to sew little animals for people—like the ones on my knapsack are me and Hurley.”
“So you have dubbed me a cat?” Kazuma chuckled, turning it over. “It’s charming. You made it just now? Thank you, that’s very kind.”
“Everyone in my family has a mascot so you needed one too. And I was thinking…” Iris hesitated. “Maybe you just need practice being a good big brother again. And maybe…you could practice with me.”
Kazuma didn’t know what to say. This child, so bright, so kind, wanted him as a brother?
He had spent some time considering Klint van Zieks’ final requests. Iris’s father had first entrusted her to Kazuma’s father. If fate had been kinder to the Asogi family, perhaps it would have grown with the addition of a precious infant, rather than shrunk until Kazuma was left alone. Until Iris learned of her heritage and surviving family, he felt some responsibility toward her to fulfill his father’s promise when he could not. And it was impossible not to grow fond of the sweet girl.
“I…I am honored,” he said, staring in awe at the little doll in his hand.
“So you’ll come back, won’t you?” she hurried to add. “You’ll have to if you want to pick up that trunk. But you should come for tea as well! I need someone to try my new blends besides Hurley. But really, you mean so much to Susie, and Runo, and Professor Mickey, and since they’re family to me, I think you and I could at least be friends!”
Kazuma smiled at her, and found it was genuine. “Yes. I would like that.”
Dear Susato-chan,
Thank you for your letter. It is almost as if I can hear your voice through your brushwork, and I too miss our conversations. I have stories I think you will find amusing: Last night I stayed at Baker Street and in the morning was rudely awoken by Mr. Sholmes playing a horribly off-key violin. “I had hoped to wake you with a gentle concerto, my dear fellow, but the old thing needs tuning,” he said. What rot! But my ears are still ringing from his later cry of despair, when he discovered that the pheasant he expected for dinner was gone. Apparently this has been somewhat of a trend for him. I’m sure you have many stories of him and Iris from your stay, and I’d love to hear them…