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Chapter Text

December 27th, 2016

After multiple no-shows on various TV programs and a lack of response from any phone line, email, or social media account associated with famous idol and Detective Prince Goro Akechi, a missing persons report was filed by one Shinichi Yoshizawa and a formal investigation was launched today.

Yoshizawa affirms that the last time he saw Akechi was December 4th at a party at the TV station. Akechi was scheduled to participate in a Christmas Eve special of “Good Morning Japan,” but never showed. 

The report was submitted on December 26th. 

When asked why Akechi might be missing, Yoshizawa said: “He was always very private about his personal life. That being said, in all my 2 years working with him, he has never missed a single TV appearance. He’s not the type of person to leave me hanging when it comes to scheduled programming. So, I think it has to be he’s in some kind of trouble, which is why I filed the report. I’m a bit worried… I can’t help but be worried. I do hope he just forgot, or overslept, but my gut tells me that’s not the case. ”

When asked who might know Akechi a bit better, Yoshizawa said: “No, he wasn’t really close to anyone that I could tell. Well, being the Detective Prince, I imagine he had some connections at the police station where he worked. He might have some friends at his school. My daughters- my daughter was friendly with him as well, though not close. I think it’s because they were similar in age.”

Research for a juminhyo turns up nothing under the name Goro Akechi. Possible alias?

Lead Detective Gombei Nanashi has been assigned to the case. 

Follow up on:

Kasumi Yoshizawa, Tokyo District Special Investigation Dept, Jiyu High School

From the personal notes of Gombei Nanashi:

Goro Akechi.

I used to see him on the TV sometimes. To be honest, his face always annoyed me for some reason. 

Apparently, he’s been missing for a few weeks. If it were me missing, I’m sure no one would file a case, let alone take it seriously at the station.

But I guess it’s not every day a celebrity evaporates without a trace. Usually, they just die. 

The fact that no one’s been able to get in contact with Akechi supports my theory that he’s dead. There’s no good reason for a celebrity to suddenly drop out of their own carefully curated life that they made for themselves. 

But I digress, some people are worried, and I’m sure a lot of teenage girls will need closure. 

Chapter Text

December 28th

Figured we’d start closest to home and ask around the SIU about Akechi.

I went up a floor to talk to the department about it. I asked to see the new director first- apparently the former died recently of a stroke. 

The man seemed annoyed to see me at all (not that he looked busy), but when I asked him about Akechi, something changed in his eyes. 

“Akechi?” He parroted back at me. “Yes, we had that idol boy working for us, but his employment was recently terminated, about the same time I was appointed the new director.” 

“Idol boy? So you knew him?” I asked.

“Knew of him, more like. I was actually brought in from another branch to replace the director, may he rest in peace. I’d seen Akechi around, though. He was kind of hard to miss in a place like this.” He opened a drawer, as if searching for something.

“What do you mean, hard to miss?” I asked. I know that I was getting significantly off topic, but something in me just felt the need to needle this man until he broke. Note to self: delete this part of log later.

“Well, he was just some kid at the police station, always wearing his school uniform. He didn’t exactly fit in. I’m surprised you didn’t notice him, Gombei.”

Okay, that was enough needing. I switched gears. 

“Are you looking for something in your desk?”

His eyes widened only for a moment. “Why, yes, actually. I was looking to see if I have his records in here. But I don’t see them, right off the bat.”

That was awfully helpful of him. He had stopped looking, though the drawer was still half-open.

“If not here, where would his records be?”

The director sighed and dragged his hand down his face. “I told you, I wasn’t exactly watching the boy’s every move. If his file isn’t here, I don’t know where it is.”

I frowned. “But the other records of employment for the department are kept here?”

The director’s expression remained stoic. “That’s right.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” I said. He apologized for having not been more help. It was not sincere.
I paused as I stood by the door. 

“Oh, one last thing. Do you know why his employment was terminated? I hadn’t heard of it till you mentioned it.”

The director paused, too, for a moment, before his face lit up again- like a machine being turned on. 

“Like I said, I don’t exactly keep tabs on the guy. I don’t remember where I heard it from, sorry.”

I tried to smile at him, but couldn’t get my lips to move. Then I left the office.

While waiting for the elevator, the sharp sound of clicking heels got my attention. I recognized her face, kind of, but couldn’t place the name. I had definitely seen her around the station. It was hard to take your eyes off of her- she was gorgeous, a striking young woman with silver hair and an air of confidence.

“Excuse me,” she approached me. “I heard you were inquiring into the disappearance of Goro Akechi?”

Surprised, I nodded. “Yeah, but the Director of the SIU wasn’t really helpful.”

She looked to the side, troubled. “Of course.”

The latent animosity made me do a double-take. “Are you familiar with him?” I asked.

She smiled humorlessly- it was still a gorgeous smile, of course. “I was the leader of the Phantom Thieves Investigation in the SIU, up until about a week ago. That… was his doing.”

I nodded, not really understanding. I was never really interested in whatever the Phantom Thieves were up to.

She cleared her throat and offered a hand. “Oh, I’m Sae Nijima, by the way. And you are?”

“Gombei Nanashi,” I introduced myself.  “I’m assigned to Goro Akechi’s missing persons case.”

Her eyes widened. “There’s a missing persons case?”

The way she had been talking had me curious. “Hey, are you acquainted with Akechi by any chance?”

Sae paused. “We worked together in the SIU, actually. You know that he was very adamantly against the Phantom Thieves, and equipped with sound deductive skills, so his insight was… valuable on my case.”

Well, this was new information. “He worked on the Phantom Thieves’ Case?”

Sae frowned. “Do you watch the news? He says as much in his TV interviews.”

It appeared I needed to do my research.

“Anyways,” I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Do you have any information regarding Akechi? When was the last time you saw him?”

Her eyes grew distant again as she spoke. “The last time I saw Akechi… was probably at work. He wasn’t showing up to work as often; I don’t know why. I think the day was… December 14th?”

I wrote down what she had said. “Was he acting any different that day?”

She scowled. “Like he was going to evaporate and start a new life?” At her own words, she pauses. “Well, actually, he did seem a little different than usual. “

“Akechi… Akechi’s image is really important to him. It’s a key part of his appeal as an idol. And that day, Akechi’s image… well, I don’t think he brushed his hair.”

I stared, and Sae noticed.

“I know it’s kind of a weird thing to remember, but his hair was always brushed, and it always looked smooth and perfect. But on that day… Akechi just looked worn-down. Maybe he had had a rough night?”

I noted the hair. “What about his behavior?”

“What behavior?” She asked, startled, then cleared her throat. “Oh, yes. Um, he might have been quieter than usual. He usually tries to remain pleasant, but his resting… his angry look was really bad that day. Like I said, I assume something happened that caused him to have a rough night.”

Well, that brought the last known sighting of Akechi to December 14th, at the Tokyo Police station. In any case, it was better than December 4th.

“Okay, that helps me a bit. Do you know anyone who might know where he is? Any places he frequented, maybe?”

“Well, you can find his place of residence and other information in his file,” Sae began.

“The SIU director said he couldn’t find it.”

Sae got that same look in her eye as before. “Oh. I see.”

She took a beat to collect her thoughts. “Well, I knew Akechi pretty well, I think. I’d be happy to give you some locations and people of interest.”

I handed her my notepad, and she wrote some names and things down. 

She gave it back. 

“Thank you,” I said. “I have one last question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What do you think happened to Goro Akechi?”

She stared blankly, a stare similar to the one the SIU director gave me, but gave the question some thought.

“Akechi was a very private young man. He was an idol, yes, and he was a detective, and a student.”

She tapped one perfectly manicured finger against her chin. 

“If I were an idol like him, with all the stress in his life, I think just one bad day… all it would take is one bad day. And I would either go missing, leave everything behind and start a new life, or… well.” She cleared her throat and averted her gaze.

I noted the implication. “I see. Thank you, Ms. Nijima.”

Truth be told, I really wanted to ask her out to coffee, but I imagine the mood was not really right for that sort of thing.

In retrospect, I’m confident both the SIU Director and Sae Nijima are hiding information about the case. I might have to interrogate them later on, if Nijima’s leads don’t turn up anything.

Current Leads: 

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Jazz Jin

Chapter Text

December 29th

Went to Jiyu High School. No luck. The principal didn’t even realize he went there, but did, in fact, recognize his name from TV.  

Asking around yielded nothing as well. No one had seen Akechi at Jiyu High for at least a month, and no one knew him past a polite greeting. 

It’s interesting that the place Akechi made an acquaintance was his job, rather than at school. Children's lives practically revolve around school, and his was no different, from what I’ve seen of his grades. 

There was a home address listed, an apartment. Why was it not in the juminhyou system? Did his parents just never bother to register him? 

I intend to look up this address later to find who the head of household is. It’s concerning that we’ve heard nothing from Akechi’s parents.

Update:

The head of household is listed as Akira Kusuru. I can’t find any data about Akira. I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow. 

Update:

Since last night, I’ve been doing more research into Akechi. I watched a few clips from his interviews, looked at his social media stuff. Again, his face isn’t my favorite. 

It appears he was more involved with the Phantom Thieves thing than I thought. Every clip and discussion about Akechi seems to also be about the Phantom Thieves. Maybe the Phantom Thieves played a role in his disappearance? He got too close to the truth, and they had to take care of him? Heh.

His personality is interesting, however. He stays aloof and dodges personal questions, despite seeming outgoing and charismatic. That’s true to what Ms. Nijima said, as well as the information from the other sources. 

I guess it makes sense if he had his name scrubbed from the koseki, if he didn’t want any crazed fans to find out about his family and where he lived. Any crazed fans who also happened to work in the government, that is. 

I can’t shake the feeling that Goro Akechi is in itself an alias, though. Nothing about Akechi seems real. And without his records, it’s like he didn’t even exist in the first place.  

Current Leads: 

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Jazz Jin, Apartment

Chapter Text

December 30th:

Yoshizawa mentioned his daughter in the interview, so I talked to her today. Another confirmation of Akechi’s loner status- she didn’t seem to know much about him, either. 

I met her at the Yoshizawa residence. Shinichi welcomed me in and led me to the living room, where his daughter was waiting.

Kasumi was pretty young, younger than Akechi was, and seemed a bit surprised to see me. But she adjusted fairly quickly when I asked about Akechi. 

“Akechi?” She repeated. “We talked sometimes, after his interviews, or at the TV parties. I did see him outside of school once or twice. Why… do you ask about him?”

She smiled easily. I remembered Akechi’s smiling face on TV.

It was time to cut to the chase. “Your father mentioned that you were friends with Akechi. I’m investigating into his disappearance.”

Her mouth opened in shock. “Wh- what? Akechi disappeared? Why?” The smile was gone.. She looked down at her hands. “Where did he go?”

“Did your father not… um.” Uh oh.

“It’s possible this is all just a big misunderstanding,” I tried to calm her. “We… Akechi just hasn’t had contact with anyone that we know of for a while now. We’re trying to understand where he is.”

Kasumi shook her head. “I didn’t know he was missing…”  She trailed off. “I didn’t even… I didn’t even notice.”

Her eyes widened at the realization.

“It’s possible he’s just sick, or on a vacation or something,” I continued, because nothing I was doing was working. I did not tell her that I thought he was most definitely dead.

“I… I don’t think this is like Akechi at all,” Kasumi said suddenly. 

“How well did you know Akechi, exactly?” I asked. 

“Oh! Um, well… I think we were friends.” She blushed. “Not really close friends, that is, or anything. I think he tended to keep people at arms’ length anyway. But, yeah. We talked sometimes.”

Noted. “What did you talk about? Did he ever talk about going away?” Why not throw Nijima’s theory out there?

“Well, mostly we talked about whatever was going on at the time. Small talk, you know.” 

She paused. “Although I do remember having an interesting conversation about the Phantom Thieves, with him and- with him. And,” she mentioned loudly, “a couple of times, I did actually talk about how I was struggling with my gymnastics. I don’t think he was too interested, but still. He was polite.”

“And did he ever talk about going away?”

“No, actually, he was usually kind of quiet. Um, he did sometimes complain about his schedule, though. But I got the sense that it was more to come off as relatable and less as an actual confession.”

“Ah.” Another failed trip. “One last thing, Yoshizawa. What do you think happened to him?”

This caught her off guard. She bit her lip and thought for a moment. 

“I… “

She paused again. 

“I hope he’s okay.” She didn’t meet my eyes.

I gave her my phone number and asked her to send a message if she remembers anything important. Out of all the leads so far, she did seem the most promising.

All that about Akechi keeping people at arm’s length… it felt like he was keeping me at arms’ length, too, from beyond the grave. What did I even know about him? 

Goro Akechi (possible alias)

-18 Y.O. (?) Male (?) residing in Tokyo Area

-Detective Prince (basically idol) of the SIU Department of Tokyo Police

-Student at Jiyu High

-Worked on Phantom Thieves Case

-Reported missing by Yoshizawa after not showing for filming of “Good Morning Japan”

-Last seen December 14th at police station by Sae Nijima

-Friends (?) with Kasumi Yoshizawa

This investigation was a dead end, and I’d been assigned to it because no one else wanted to deal with it.

(Note: erase this later.)

Current Leads: 

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Jazz Jin, Apartment

Chapter Text

January 2nd:

The long weekend was nice. I got to see Dad again, not that he’s doing any better since when Mom passed. There wasn’t much to say. But I guess it’s the thought that counts. 

I figured the best way to find out more about someone was to see where they lived, so I went to Akechi’s apartment today.

I was… pretty sorely mistaken.

The outside of the building seemed pretty clean, like an office space converted into a living one. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and found the address that had been in the school’s record. 

Of course, I rang the doorbell. Once, and then over and over again until it became obvious no one was there. Then, I tried the doorknob, which was locked. 

A lot of detectives in my position then would have had to wait around for a locksmith. Not I. I got into lock picking as a kid because I knew that one day I’d have to get my way out of the locked trunk of a car. This wasn’t quite a car, but it would do. After a lot of trial and error (I forgot a lot of the stuff I learned as a kid), I was in. 

The lights were off, and the temperature was the same as it was outside. I tried the light switch. 

No luck. Did the power get shut off?

Luckily, my mobile phone had a “flashlight” function. Handy little things. 

The apartment appeared clean and barely lived-in, despite it having been Akechi’s permanent address for at least 2 years. There were no signs of anyone else living there, either- no parents or roommates. Seemed like Akechi really was the loner type. 

The type who… maybe didn’t have parents?

It was becoming harder and harder to refute the idea that Akechi had no living relatives that seemed to be in his life. Even if someone loses their parents, they’d usually be taken in by surviving relatives. But with him not being registered in the koseki, maybe he never even knew his.

How, then, had he survived? If he was an orphan, perhaps there was a record of his foster homes somewhere. 

But then I remembered I had found nothing under his name. 

Was it possible he had survived without anything? Maybe, but it was much more likely Goro Akechi was an alias.

Emboldened by my findings, or maybe lack thereof, I searched the place. 

It was pretty empty of furniture- what I assumed to be the living room had a cardboard box in the corner with a layer of dust on the top. The kitchen- clean, except for a bowl and spoon in the sink. Bottle of red wine on the countertop, nearly empty. (Underage drinking? Not quite as straight-laced as he seems.) Refrigerator had expired milk, eggs, and various frozen meals of varying degrees of edibility. 

The bathroom made the light glare badly off the mirror, but I made out lots of beauty products. Weird, for a man. Or maybe not so weird, since he was in entertainment. 

Bedroom had… well, a bed. At this point, I expected a sleeping nest on the ground.

It was made, albeit sloppily. Nothing really weird there.

There was a TV in front of the bed and another piece of furniture in the bedroom- a bureau with a lamp and a notebook on top of it. Finally, a possible clue. I tried to turn the lamp on, then remembered the power had been shut off 

I examined the notebook briefly. Inside was…  a list of dates.  That could be important.
 
I immediately pocketed it as evidence. 

In the first drawer of the bureau was a silver apache case with the letter “A” on it. A… for Akechi? 

I opened up the case, then quickly closed it.

There was a firearm in the case. 

What need would a kid have for a gun? How did he get it? 

Actually, why would he have left without taking the gun with him? No, this was just more evidence that Akechi had died somewhere. 

Well, that definitely had to be logged as evidence. I grabbed the case to take it with me. 

I searched the other drawers of the bureau, but didn’t find much else. Just a bunch of receipts, actually, in the bottom drawer. 

Why would a kid like Akechi keep receipts? It certainly went against his minimalistic approach to life.

Maybe these receipts were important. He also could have been crazy. 

I looked a little bit closer at the receipts. Records of purchases made at the Jazz Jin (seemed Sae was right on the money), an arcade (he never struck me as the type), “Penguin Sniper” (a possible connection to the gun?), a bathhouse, some coffee shop. 

A few coffee shops actually. 

The man appeared to really like his coffee. But most of the receipts were from one coffee shop in particular, called “Leblanc.”

Well. Maybe this “Leblanc” was significant to him. It was worth a shot, at least.

I added “Leblanc” to my list of leads and gathered the notebook and the case. Then I heard a weird sound. The doorbell. 

I froze up. Could Akechi have come back home? What I was doing… looked really bad, actually. 

So. What I did… I’m not exactly proud of, and it could have had severe consequences if my hunch wasn’t right. But I got the feeling something was off. 

Instead of approaching the door and apologizing for entering the apartment, I went to the window and opened it before diving out. 

I did bring the evidence, which I realize could constitute burglary, but I digress, let me finish. 

Then, I closed the window and headed around to the front of the complex, as discreetly as I could. I wanted to confirm who was at the door before speaking to them. 

I got in my car and waited to see who would leave the complex. It finally hit me why I had had my hunch- why would Akechi ring the doorbell to his own house?

Sure enough, a couple of guys in suits came out from the second floor and descended the staircase. 

A part of me wanted to question them. But again, my instinct was to sit tight. 

The car they entered was sleek and black- pretty flashy, actually. 

Why would people like that attempt to get in contact with Akechi?

Wait. 

As one of the men entered the car, I could see on his hip, was a firearm. Much like the one I was carrying in the apache case. 

It seemed like this was not just a friendly house call. 

The fact Akechi had a gun. The fact armed men came to his house. What did it all mean? 

Akechi, what kind of trouble were you in?

I got the license plate number of the car. Hopefully I can look it up and see who it belongs to. Also, I hope those weren’t Akechi’s relatives, because that would make things awkward.

I brought the evidence back to the police station and got it logged. There were different fingerprints on the journal, but just mine on the case. Fortunately, that mystery was easy to solve. 

Akechi wore gloves in all his TV appearances, and there was even one of the gloves inside the apache case. Along with the gun, of course. And, it seems, a laptop, and documents about cases. 

The laptop is password-protected, but I’m sure the guys will crack it. If they feel like it. 

The documents seem to be the for the cases Akechi was working on at the time of his disappearance. I’ll look into them for any clues, but I doubt there’s anything there. 

I won’t get the journal back until they’re done with the fingerprint testing, but I know there’s more stuff in there- with the dates, and also some more pages of writing. 

For my first day back from a long weekend, that was… a pretty big day. I got home and was so exhausted I almost fell asleep at the door. But… something kept me up. 

At first, I thought this case would be easy to solve. Either no evidence would surface, or too much evidence would show Akechi had gone off the deep end. Either way, he’d probably be declared dead within a few days. 

But now… I don’t know. Even if Akechi is dead, it seems he was wrapped up in something big. I know it sounds crazy, but I kind of feel like… I owe it to him? To find out what happened. I owe it to Yoshizawa. I owe it to his crazed teenage fangirls, even.

But is that really why I keep investigating these crazy leads? 

Maybe not. Maybe I just want to be the one to solve the mystery.

Current Leads: 

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Leblanc Cafe, Jazz Jin, Apartment, License Plate

Chapter Text

January 3rd:

This morning, I did a bit of research on some of the leads I had picked up. Akira Kusuru- the name Akechi’s apartment was under. My preliminary search revealed nothing about the guy, but that’s because I was only looking at government resources. 

Turns out, Akira Kusuru is the name of a fictional character in a kids’ TV series called “Featherman.” Or, more accurately, a character from a game based off of the TV show. The character is referred to most often in the game as “Grey Pigeon.” A pretty silly name for a superhero, if you ask me. 

What this probably means is that this “Akira Kusuru” is just another one of Akechi’s aliases. 

Which means this is just another failed lead. Why is this kid so damn secretive? What could he possibly have to hide this much?

At that point I was pissed off and didn’t really want to work so I The psychology of a person is just as important as any other evidence when trying to solve a missing persons case, so I decided to investigate the Featherman game further for more leads about this “Grey Pigeon”- why would Akechi have connected to such a character?

Grey Pigeon was a character that was experimented on by a scientist and underwent combat training until he was forced to go up against the main Featherman team. But he rebelled against his controller at the last minute, allying himself with good rather than evil. 

The character was pretty much just in this game- he didn’t really get any screen time besides some debatable easter eggs. Could this game hold more clues about Akechi? 

Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that Goro Akechi was a Featherman fanboy if he knew this much about the lore.

Thinking about this… made me feel a bit different about the investigation.

I had been seeing Akechi as an idol, a marble statue, unable to connect with the outside world and essentially beyond human. Heck, his cold relationships with his school and work support that. 

But Akechi being a fan of Featherman- enough of a fan to base an alias around as a little inside joke to himself- this makes me think of my niece, and her unbridled joy when she watches her favorite cartoons, and how she loves to make up stories with her favorite characters. 

Akechi… is still a child, at least partly. And this proves it. 

After some coffee and introspection, I ran the license plate number of the car that had been at Akechi’s apartment through the system. It’s registered under the name of one of the other cops in the precinct. Could it be there was a similar investigation concerning Akechi that I didn’t know about?

I brought it up to the head of my department and he confirmed it was, in fact, another investigation. 

But those guys in suits didn’t look like

The lab was being weird about giving me back Akechi’s journal (Director please look into this abject disregard for sensible timelines!), so I decided to visit the National Diet Building. 

One of the leads Sae Nijima gave me, and now, come to think of it, I hadn’t even considered the strangeness of it all. Akechi, the idol, the Detective Prince- also secretly a politician? 

It was a Tuesday, so the building wasn’t totally empty, but it wasn’t like there was anything big going on, either. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to do once I got there. But approaching the security gate, I got an idea.

I gave the security officer my ID and showed her my badge for good measure. Her face tightened just barely.

“Good afternoon. Do you mind if I ask you some questions pertaining to a case I’m investigating?” I asked in my most polite and upbeat voice.

She fixed me with a funny look. “That depends.”

I cleared my throat and tried to ignore the obvious hostility. “Are you familiar with someone named Goro Akechi?”

Her eyes widened for a brief second before her expression returned to normal. “Is this official police business?” 

My smile strained. I lowered my voice. “Look, ma’am, Akechi might be in danger. I’m currently doing everything I can to ensure he is safe.”

She smiled and laughed. “Danger? You can say that again.”

Rather than elaborate, she stared at me expectantly. 

“So you’ve seen Akechi?” I asked. 

She smiled at me tauntingly, which I took to mean a “yes.”

“When did he come here? When’s the last time you saw him?”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me check the database, Officer.” But she didn’t move.

My charming demeanor seemed to not be working. Maybe I needed the bad cop routine. 
“Standing in the way of official police business is a crime,” I said harshly. “If you don’t comply, I will be reporting you to your superiors.”

Her expression didn’t change. But after a while, her mouth opened, and words came out.

“Goro Akechi. I never got why we let a kid in here, to be honest. He’s in danger?” 

I nodded. She shook her head in response.

“He was always in danger. Maybe it was different on TV, but in here, the way he walked, the way he acted. You could tell he was going to get eaten right up.”

I frowned. “What do you mean by that? He was in danger from politicians?” I pulled out my notebook from my pocket excitedly.  “Were people using him for political means?”

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then, she said, “I think it’s just like TV, though. It’s all just the same.”

I stared at her. This lady’s cryptic words were really getting on my nerves. 

“When was he last here?” I repeated, hoping to maybe get some useful information out of her.

True to her word, she did finally check the system, going behind the counter to access the computer. After a second of scrolling, she looked up and said, “Goro Akechi. Checked in December 15th.”

“Did he have a reason for coming here?”

Her expression changed almost imperceptibly. I could have sworn for a moment, she looked afraid. But maybe it was just my imagination. 

“He was consulting with a politician,” she answered after some time. “The cabinet minister of the United Future Party. Well, former.”

I shook my head at her, betraying my lack of knowledge. 

A real frown crossed her face as she said his name. “Masayoshi Shido.”

Masayoshi Shido had been in police custody since he confessed to a slew of crimes on live TV following his landslide election victory on December 18th. I don’t get out much, and even I know that. 

That was three days after Akechi’s supposed meeting with him.

“Can I visit his office?” I asked, before realizing that I was a cop and could do what I wanted.
“I’m going to visit his office. Where is it?”

She gave me directions down an underground passage to another section of the building. She wasn’t smiling anymore. 

“Hey, for what it’s worth, thank you for your help,” I said, even though she had kind of been a pain. 

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “I hope…”
 
She trailed off. 

I got the idea and turned away, down to the underground walkway.

What that woman had said… she had expressed some kind of pity for the boy. Saying he was going to get eaten, just like TV? I was beginning to get a clearer picture of what she meant, walking down the hallway. Everything was just so big. The difference in power was something I could practically taste, and everyone I passed seemed aware of it as they looked down on me. Like wolves eyeing vermin.

But  maybe she was also talking about something else, too. If Akechi really was an orphan as I assumed, he’d likely have faced abusive environments pretty early on. And the entertainment industry…. You could say it was abusive, too. All I had to do was look at the numerous sexual coercion cases to see that. 

In a sordid industry like entertainment, you did what you had to do to survive. It was probably similar in politics.

As I kept walking, I started to get uncomfortable. I didn’t want these people looking at me like this. Like they were worth more than me. Like

I got to Shido’s office and, of course, had to employ my renewed lockpicking skills. Luckily, there was no one around to question me. 

When I got the door open and could see the room, I realized that I might be out of luck. The office already looked completely ransacked, probably for Shido’s case. Papers on the ground and on the table, file drawers pulled out.  A plastic plant toppled on the ground. I checked and they took the computer, too, but left the monitor. 

There was also a cabinet filled with bottles of wine- mostly red, as well as glasses. I got an itch behind my eyes looking at the wine. Was that even allowed? It was a whole cabinet, with nothing but wine in it. What? 

I crossed the room and picked up a bottle. I didn’t really know what I was looking for till I picked up one bottle and recognized the label. It was the same brand as I found in Akechi’s apartment. 

I looked out the window. 

Was it too much of a stretch to say that, maybe, Shido had given Akechi the alcohol? Was a brand a big enough connection between the two? 

Well, there was also the connection of Akechi visiting Shido. But if he disappeared on December 15th, he would have had no time to take the gift home and consume the whole bottle. 

If I assumed Shido had given Akechi the wine, I had to assume that Shido and Akechi had a deeper and longer-standing relationship than I thought.

This thought… made me uncomfortable. Because there was really only one reason a rich and powerful person would give red wine as a present to a young and handsome TV star. I had considered the possibility of Akechi being sexually coerced during his time as an entertainer, but this wasn’t just a theory. This was… pretty much proof. 

I took a breath. Even if the theory was false (I hoped it was), Shido was absolutely a person of interest for Akechi’s disappearance. I was sure he knew something. And I was sure that, if the answer wasn’t in his testimony, it was in the evidence the department gathered for his case. 

After I got back to the station, I looked a little more into Shido’s case. He’s being held in the police station, and apparently the case is being prosecuted by… none other than Ms. Sae Nijima. 

This is just getting weird.

They have Shido’s computer here, which is ALSO password protected, and is ALSO being worked on by the guys. 

Apparently. I’ve never seen them actually working, though.

I still have a few leads to go through. But my gut is telling me to go for Shido, full force. It’s also telling me to talk to Yoshizawa again. I need to know if I’m right.

Current Leads:

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Leblanc Cafe, Jazz Jin, Apartment, License Plate, Masayoshi Shido, Yoshizawa

Chapter Text

January 4th:

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I kept thinking about Mom. 

I started the day by checking on the computers. It appears the guys are still working on them. 

I’m sure they’ll be done… any minute now… 

I asked the lab for Akechi’s journal back. They were still being weird, but eventually gave in. I think something weird happened with the fingerprints because the tech looked at me weird when I asked about the results. 

Is there something going on that I don’t know about?

I had my morning coffee while I looked through the journal. Like I remembered before, the first page was all dates. 10/15. 11/21. Seemingly no pattern to them at all. 

12/15. 

That was the date Akechi met with Shido. 

I frowned and turned the page. What I saw almost made me choke on the coffee.

“I, Goro Akechi, resident in the City of Tokyo in the country of Japan, being of sound mind, not acting under duress or outside influence, and fully understanding the nature and extent of all my property and of this disposition thereof, do hereby make and declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament. I revoke all other wills, of which I have none. 
A funeral will not be necessary. If the body needs to be disposed of, I authorize my Personal Representative to settle the matter at her discretion. I further authorize her to pay out of my estate any taxes payable in respect of the items included.
I nominate and appoint Sae Nijima of Tokyo, Japan as the personal representative of my estate. 
I trust she will assure my wishes are adhered to. 
To Re”

The will ended abruptly there, with a blacked out section. There was no signature on it. 

I turned the page. 

Empty. 

I flipped through the rest of the book. 

At its back was another bit of writing, sloppy and scribbled over.

“Mother, I’m sorry.”

I think that’s what it said. It was hard to read through the scribble. How-

Frowning, I went through the book again. There was nothing else. 

I put the book on my desk and took a sip of coffee. 

This new information… it raised more questions than answers. Although I thought I knew what the dates finally meant, after visiting the National Diet Building. 

They were meeting times, probably all with Shido. 

The will, though. 

Why didn’t he finish writing it? 

Why did he write it in the first place? He must have had a reason. 

I picked up the book and looked at the will again. The answer had to be here. He wanted to give something to someone, but he decided not to. 

This “Re-“ person, and likely Sae Nijima as well. Who was popping up everywhere as of late.

I reread the will again. My brain stuck on the words “a funeral will not be necessary” and “if the body needs to be disposed of.” 

“If,” not “when.” Did he expect there to not be a body? 

With this document, I had pretty good grounds for a suicide argument. Not only had Akechi prepared for his death by writing a will, he had outright said there might not be a body in the first place, which is exactly what had happened. 

And there were other details that supported it, too. Like the fact Akechi had no friends in school, no one who knew him, except for a coworker. The fact he seemed to live a minimalist life, as if he had no reason to keep living besides his work. He was probably an orphan, and if that alone wasn’t grounds for suicide, the likely sexual abuse was. 

But, despite everything, it didn’t ring true to me. I know, I said at the beginning of this report I thought Akechi was dead, and I still do think he is. 

But… suicide? And at the height of his popularity? Unless he had a nervous breakdown, it didn’t make sense. And what’s more…

I couldn’t ignore the fact that Akechi seemed involved with some very dangerous and powerful people. People who likely wanted to hurt him, for whatever reason. 

Now, I know, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh, Gombei, you’ve read too much detective fiction. Not everything is a sensational murder case!’ 

But… I just think something smells here. Something that is my responsibility to investigate.

The note at the back... it addressed his mother. But if Akechi was an orphan… 

Ah. More evidence for the suicide argument, then.

I flipped through the book again, just to be sure. I always investigate things thoroughly. I noticed something weird about some of the pages, though- it looked like some of the pages had been torn out. 

I thought back to how the lab people acted when they handed me the journal… did they - ?
Well, it was probably nothing.

After locking up the book again, I tried to get the department to let me see Shido, or at least some of the evidence they collected for his case. 

No dice. That new director in charge of the SIU just smiled at me and said lots of words that ultimately meant nothing. 

So I decided to investigate the Jazz Jin today. It’s somewhere that Sae Nijima wrote down for me AND somewhere that was mentioned in Akechi’s receipts. 

When I got to Kichijoji, I found out that the Jazz Jin actually doesn’t open until evening. That was… kind of my fault for not checking beforehand. 

I headed out for the TV station, hoping I could catch Shinichi Yoshizawa in between sets. To be honest, I was surprised he was never interviewed after the initial response to the report. He was, after all, seemingly the only one who cared enough about Akechi to file a missing persons report.

I told the receptionist I needed to see Yoshizawa about some important business. He asked if I had made an appointment. I said yes. He then asked for my name. I proceeded to run for the elevator. 

Luckily, there was a legend in the elevator that told me where the offices were. Once I reached the right floor, I wandered around a bit until I found the door to Yoshizawa’s office. Then I knocked. 

I waited for a few minutes. I didn’t want to be rude. After looking around, I grabbed the doorknob-

“Can I help you?” 

I spun around like a top to face the man. Shinichi Yoshizawa, with a winning smile on his face, like he was greeting an old friend. Which wasn’t too far off, because we had in fact seen each other before.

“Good morning, Mr. Yoshizawa! If you remember me, I’m Gombei Nanashi, the detective on the Goro Akechi case.”

“Ah, so that’s why I recognize you!” The man gave a hearty chuckle. “Sorry, I just see so many faces every day it’s hard to keep them straight!”

I laughed along even though I felt that was a bit insulting. “Yes, I had some more follow-up questions about Akechi, if you have the time to talk.”

“You’re in luck, Mr. Nanashi. We’ve just wrapped filming the Good Morning Japan section for tomorrow, so I’ve got time.”

He walked around me a bit awkwardly and opened the door to his office. He definitely saw me try to get in. 

Once inside, we sat down opposite each other, like in the interrogation rooms back at the station. 

A shiver went down my spine. I cleared my throat.

“Mr. Yoshizawa. I’ve gathered some information about Akechi that I’d like... clarification on.”

“Of course.” Despite his open appearance, Yoshizawa looked kind of tense. 

Maybe that Good Morning Japan special didn’t go so well. Or maybe…

“I know you said your daughter knew Akechi. Do you know how the two met?”

“Oh, I think she probably knows the story better than I do,” Yoshizawa deflected. “But, I believe their first official meeting was here, in the TV station. At least, that’s around the time I remember seeing them together.”

I frowned. Maybe it was worth contacting Yoshizawa’s daughter again for more information. 

“How long has Akechi worked in entertainment, do you know?” 

At this question he sat back in his chair and thought for a moment, pushing up his glasses. 

“Akechi… The first time I remember working with him was about a year ago. That was just about the same time as his TV debut- I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a family name until then. But he had been gaining a pretty big following on social media beforehand. That’s part of the reason we actually reached out and contacted him. That and his impressive detective record.”

“Right. The Detective Prince, that was his title?”

“The second coming, actually, but close enough. The first Detective Prince retired a while ago.”

“Who gave him that title?”

Yoshizawa laughed. “Well, I’m not sure, actually. It could have actually been one of our reporters, because I don’t remember it before last year. Are you curious about Akechi’s role as a celebrity?”

I paused as I thought about what I wanted to say. “You know, children in the entertainment industry often get taken advantage of.”

That… was not what I wanted to say. 

Suddenly, Yoshizawa looked very serious. “You’re absolutely right. Child exploitation in the entertainment industry is a huge issue, even today. One that the TV station is taking every effort to avoid. Most of our content doesn’t even include children, and when it does, we have extensive protections in place for them, as well as places where their parents can supervise.” 

Yoshizawa paused and fidgeted with his glasses. 

“If I may ask, how does this relate to Akechi?”

I frowned, confused. I thought it was obvious? “He… he’s 18, correct?”

“Akechi may be 18, but he has shown surprising maturity for his age. He handles everything himself, all the preparations and scheduling, without even requiring an agent. In fact, I’d say he’s more capable than many adults out there.” Yoshizawa gave another smile, but it felt forced.

“Okay, but have you seen any weird behaviors around? Like, creepy-”

“I would fire any offending employee on the spot. Mr. Nanashi, what does this have to do with the Akechi disappearance case?”

I stopped and considered my options. Yoshizawa seemed defensive about this topic, for either understandable or suspicious reasons. If I told him about my suspicions, would he understand and help me? Or would he see me as out to get him?

I bowed my head. “Thank you, Mr. Yoshizawa. You’ve been very helpful.” Not.

He smiled. “It’s always a pleasure to work with those who uphold justice here in Tokyo.”

Well, that was a waste of time More information is always a good thing, even when it feels like time was wasted. 

I passed the receptionist as I walked out of the station. He glared at me. (Law against glaring at officers?)

After the TV station visit, I thought again about contacting Yoshizawa’s daughter. Maybe she would be willing to tell me what Yoshizawa wouldn’t. 

I sent her a text, asking if she’d be willing to talk at the Jazz Jin tonight. It made me feel kind of weird, texting a child like that, as if we were going out on a date- especially considering the kind of things I wanted to ask her about. But I think I had a pretty good reason to not want to go through her father in order to speak to her. 

I expected her to say no instantly. Instead, I got an almost instant affirmative. 

Now I had two objectives for the evening: Investigate the Jazz Jin and find out more about Akechi’s possible exploitation. With any luck, it would lead me to the people who he seemed to be in danger from.

Update: 

The Jazz Jin club finally opened up around 7 PM. I had to pay an entrance fee.- was Akechi rich or something? Maybe that was another lead, where he was getting his money. 

The bouncer was kind of intimidating-  I went in and approached the bar, hoping to get some information before Kasumi arrived. 

This place was totally different from Akechi’s apartment, and totally different from any of the other places I’d been investigating. Not cold and empty- warm and vibrant and full of life and comfort. It was like the room wrapped you up in a thick blanket and told you everything was going to be alright. 

True to its name, jazz music was already playing on the overhead speakers. I never really listened to jazz before, but I think I might like it.

At the bar was a youngish man wearing a fedora and glasses, despite the fact it was pretty dim already in the club. 

“H-“ I began.

“I haven’t seen you around before. You new here?” The man interrupted at the same time, leaning across the counter. 

“Um- yes,” I answered, a bit startled. “Yes, I’m new. I was, uh, wondering-”

“Well, welcome in! My name’s Muhen, what can I get you?” The man interrupted again. 

“Um-“ I looked at the menu. The cocktails did look pretty good, so I ordered one to placate him. 

Muhen got right to work making the cocktail.

“So, Mr. Muhen.”

“Just ‘Muhen’ is fine.”

“Muhen. Right. I’m a detective investigating a case and I was wondering if you knew anyone by the name of Goro Akechi?” 

As he poured pineapple juice into a metal container, Muhen raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What kind of case brings you here?”

“Well, Akechi’s… disappeared,” I said, not wanting to reveal too much about the case. Not that I’d learned much.

At that, Muhen hummed. “Disappeared? How could a celebrity disappear?” He poured some soda water into the shaker.

I shook my head. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” It could be suicide, murder, or even just an escape from a past identity- I didn’t say any of that, but I thought it.

“Okay,” Muhen said. He added some syrups and things to the shaker. “Well, Mr. Akechi did come here pretty often. You know, I didn’t recognize him when he first came here, because he looked… well, people look different offstage.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Tired. More… normal. He didn’t have that spark.”

I hummed, not really getting it. “So, when did you last see Akechi?”

“Had to have been… three weeks ago maybe? He always comes to see the live singer.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You have live music here?”

Muhen nodded. “Of course. You should come back when we have a performance; it’s worth it.”

I opened up my journal to take notes. “So Akechi was a fan of jazz music, then?”

“I assume so,” Muhen responded. He shook the cocktail. “He didn’t really talk much. He would just come in and sit at one of those tables, over there. He’d order a drink and watch the performance. Sometimes he’d be writing something, but usually he would watch. A lot more respectful than some of our patrons, I’ll have you know.”

“Alcoholic?”

“The drinks? No, Akechi is underage. They were all mocktails.” Muhen paused for a second as he prepared to pour the mix into a glass. “Actually, it’s funny. One of his favorites was the one you ordered.”

So it was likely the wine was a gift, then. I took the drink.
 
“And he always came here alone?”

Muhen paused at this. “It’s funny you say that, too. He came alone for most of the year. And I mean religiously, almost every week, sometimes every other day. But during the summer, he started bringing this other kid here. The only other kid I’ve ever seen with him. Probably a close friend or… something like that. I assume he doesn’t have many, what with the job.”

My eyes widened. Another kid. A close friend. 

“Did she have red hair?” I asked.

Muhen shook his head. “Nah, it was a guy with dark hair. And that kid actually started coming here a lot recently, with some other people.”

He laughed. “Maybe he’ll come here tonight, and you can ask him your questions instead.”

Another friend. 

Akechi had… another friend? How did no one know about this?

I left my tab open and went to a table to sit down. 

The drink was… good. Pretty sour, but good. 

After a few minutes, Kasumi Yoshizawa walked in. Her ponytail and outfit looked neat and tidy, but her expression seemed… a bit off. That smile I had noticed the first time we met was back.

I waved her over. She spotted me and smiled brightly, then moved to join me.

“Wow, I’ve never been to this place before!” She remarked as she sat down. “This is amazing!” 

That… hadn’t been the attitude I was expecting. 

“Thanks for coming, Miss Yoshizawa,” I said. “I asked around a bit, and it sounds like Akechi came here alone a lot during the past year, but also started bringing a friend along.”

“Akechi,” Kasumi said, trailing off. Her eyes clouded over. “You wanted to talk about him, right? Um, can I ask why you didn’t just interview me at my house like last time?”

I stirred my drink. “Before we start, do you want me to get you anything?”

“Um, just water is fine,” her expression dropped a little. “How long… How long is this going to take?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t just come to your house, but-" How did I put this? “I talked to your father earlier, and what he said gave me some cause for concern.”

Kasumi frowned. “Concern? About what?”

Here it came. I took a deep breath. “Do you- Are you familiar with- um, sometimes the entertainment industry can be kind of… exploitive, especially for children.”

Her frown deepened. “How does this relate to my father?”

“Well, when I asked him if he had seen anything like that at the TV studio, he shut me down. And I… I do understand why he would be touchy about that. I wasn’t trying to accuse him of anything, I was just asking for the investigation.”

Kasumi’s face didn’t change. Then, she closed her eyes and sighed. 

“I know, it’s a heavy topic. But… that’s part of why I didn’t feel comfortable going though your father for this.”

“I understand,” she said. “But… does this mean you think Akechi was being…”

I pursed my lips for a second. “I found some evidence in his apartment. I think he might have been having… inappropriate relationships with powerful older people.” Should I name names?

“So… you think he was groomed?” Kasumi asked. I blanched.

“Uh, well…. I didn’t say that, exactly…” 

“It’s what you were getting at, right?” She responded. “A powerful older person… whatever the relationship entails, sexual or no, he would have been groomed for some purpose. There’s no other reason to form the relationship at all.”

Her deduction surprised me. “Uh.. yes, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.” I wrote down her observation. She could make a good detective one day.

Kasumi paused, as if weighing what to day. “I… I thought my father…. Well, I’m sorry he wasn’t
exactly forthcoming with anything. He… he’s been under a lot of stress, lately…”

She trailed off, eyes glazing over, and I could tell I was losing her.

“Miss Yoshizawa, can you tell me about how you and Akechi met?” I asked in a hurry.

Her eyes widened. That appeared to snap her out of it.

“Um, yes! We.. We met at the TV station. It was about a year ago…” She shook her head. “A year ago. I was there, with…”  She took a deep breath. “My younger sister. Sumire.”

“Ah,” I breathed.

She took a moment before beginning again.

“We were there to promote a gymnastics exhibition later on in the year. We weren’t anything like Akechi, of course, but in that community, we were… moderately well-known. And, of course, when your dad runs a TV station,” She trailed off into laughter, then frowned. “We were always together, always doing the same things.”

“And I feel like Sumire hated me, because I was a better gymnast than her.”

The words hung in the air. The music played on.

“Sorry, I got off topic there, haha,” Kasumi laughed. “Anyways, Akechi was doing one of his first interviews for Good Morning, Japan, on that same day. So… we just bumped into him backstage. He seemed… a bit nervous, but when he saw us, it was like a switch flipped. His face turned into… a happy mask, almost.”

“A happy mask?”

“Yes, like the one he wears on TV,” Kasumi nodded.

I frowned. “What kind of things did you talk about?”
 
Kasumi looked down at her hands, her posture faltering. “Um.. well, I don’t remember much about that. I think he asked us how we were, you know, that kind of thing. We told him not to stress too much, talked a little about school. “

I noted the important parts. “So, you didn’t see any signs of abuse going on or… anything?”

She shook her head. “No, although it was kind of weird to see someone our own age at the station. I pretty much told you all of this already, huh?” She forced a laugh, not big enough to span the awkwardness.

It looked like this train of thought was going nowhere. I considered some of my other theories. 

“Did Akechi ever talk about being in danger?”

Her head snapped up. “Danger?”

“Yes, like, of physical violence, or something like that?”

She looked down, thinking again. “Not really. But… what with his government job… and what with the mask he kept up… He did seem to be in the middle of something very serious. It would make sense if it was dangerous as well.”

She sat still for a moment. “Do you- do you think he’s alive? Akechi, I mean?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. But she shook her head and answered herself. 

“I.. I think he is. He’s more than capable. He’s strong, and really smart. There’s no way…”
There’s no way he’s really gone.”

I cleared my throat. “Miss Yoshizawa, please think hard. Can you tell me anything else about Akechi that might help me find out where he is?”

She looked up. “I’ve told you pretty much everything I can remember… and my memory has gotten pretty hazy lately. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. You should ask R-”

Her mouth snapped shut. She looked to the side, trying to hide the fear on her face. “Um, nothing. That was…. I was thinking of something else.”

I wanted to believe Kasumi.

But what if this R- was the same as the Re- in Akechi’s will?

I looked down. “You know, I’m trying to do everything for Akechi’s case. If we don’t have all the information, we may never be able to locate him. So if you know anything, anything at all…”

She stayed quiet for a moment, a war in her eyes.

Then she spoke.

“Akechi… I really want him to be safe. I really want him to still be here.”

She sighed a long, deep sigh.

“I… can’t tell you this. It would be a betrayal, so I can’t tell you who it is. But Akechi had… another good friend. He might have been the only one who really knew him. “

This confused me. “Why would it be a betrayal to tell me Akechi’s friend’s name?”

She looked me in the eye, and I could see her hesitance, and her determination. “He’s already in danger, too.”

She had to get home pretty soon after that, and I couldn’t think of a way to convince her to tell me his name.

I ordered another drink. 

And then another. What was the point, anyways ?

Current Leads:

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Leblanc Cafe, Jazz Jin, Apartment  License Plate, Masayoshi Shido, Yoshizawa, “Re”, Sae Nijima

Chapter Text

January 5th:

They didn’t let me talk to Shido today. Even weirder about the evidence- not just Shido’s, but Akechi’s too. 

I knew going to Leblanc was probably a long shot, but it was the one place I had on my list that wasn’t making itself a problem. After today, I would have to start pushing back against my superiors. It wasn’t going to win me any promotions, so… I was waiting until I was out of options.

After trying and failing to get access to the evidence room, I took the bus over to Yongenjaya. It was crowded with people going to work, going to school, going and going and going. 

Did Akechi know where he was going? Or was he stumbling blindly in the dark, like most of us?

I felt claustrophobic, so I tried to make a list of what I knew.

Akechi Goro

• Detective Prince famous for his position against the Phantom Thieves (who were they? Are they watching me?)
• Had a relationship with Masayoshi Shido (Director, I need access to him to do my job)
• Likely was an orphan (False names and lack of official record and relatives)-
• Likely was abused (conjecture)-
• Likely was suicidal (state of apartment, unfinished will, attitude towards peers, gun, lack of friends)-

But he did had a friend, besides his acquaintanceships with Kasumi and Sae Nijima. And this friend had to be the key that I was looking for. 

The missing piece. 

I arrived at the bus station and began walking to Cafe Leblanc. It was a quaint little part of Tokyo I hadn’t been in before, but I wasn’t here to sightsee. 

The outside of the cafe seemed to glow in the light of the sun, despite the way the alleyway was lit. Some dead plants decorated the porch outside. 

It probably looked better in the summertime.

The bell rang as I pushed open the door. Inside the place was much cozier, despite being empty except for a bright-haired girl at the bar.

A man behind the counter turned around a few moments after I game in, drying a mug. He wore small round glasses to cover his sad eyes. “Welcome in, can I get you anything?” He greeted gruffly.

I remembered I was in a cafe. “One cappuccino, please.”

“Oh, you’re missing out if you’re not getting the curry,” piped up the girl at the counter loudly. 

She glanced at me briefly through her own thick glasses before turning back to her own plate, as if she had said nothing at all.

“O… kay then. I guess I’ll get a plate of curry, too.”

The man at the counter half-smiled fondly. “Sorry. We haven’t gotten a lot of customers lately, so my daughter hasn’t had many people to talk to.”

“Hey!” The girl exclaimed. 

“I don’t talk to very many people either,” I said to try and make the conversation less awkward. Not because it was the truth.

“People are hard,” the girl agreed. “Well… most people.” She took a long sip of her coffee.

I paid for my order. 

“Are you the one who runs this cafe? Cafe Leblanc?” I asked the man.

“Yes -?” the man responded, a question in his tone. 

“I’m Gombei Nanashi, a detective on a missing persons case. Um, do you mind answering a few questions?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Do you want the coffee and curry or not?” 

Not waiting for an answer, he turned around and began preparing the espresso machine. I took a seat next to the girl. She blew away a section of orange hair from her mouth and turned to face me. 

“You’re a detective?” She asked.

“Um, yes?” I answered.

“Heh,” she smiled to herself. “How do you feel about sweater vests?”

“Futaba,” the man scolded, plating up some curry. It did, in fact, smell delicious. “I’m sure every detective doesn’t dress like him.”

“Like who?” I perked up.

The man looked right at me. His eyes were sad, yes, but they also felt piercing- like he could see right through me, like he knew who I was, why I was there, my memories, everything. Then he said, “Just a repeat customer.” His mouth turned up in a slight crooked smile. 

“Okay,” I said. I was beginning to get a bit nervous, both from the intense attitude of the man and the quick-wittedness of the girl. 

The man set down the plate of curry. “The coffee will be up in a minute. It’s better if you drink it with the curry.”

I couldn’t wait. It was, indeed, delicious. 

“Told you,” the girl snickered next to me.

“Futaba, please don’t harass my customers,” the man said, but his eyes were smiling as he said it. 

“Not a customer- a DETECTIVE, Sojiro!” She specified with glee. I looked at the coffee she was inhaling and thought that maybe a child this hyper should not be given a caffeinated beverage. 

“Right. So, what person has gone missing to lead you to my cafe?” Sojiro poured the milk into the coffee. He slid the cup to me. “Better not have been one of my regulars.”

“Goro Akechi,” I said plainly.

Futaba choked on her coffee. “Guh!”

Sojiro, too, whipped around with a wild look in his eye. “Akechi? He’s missing?”

Futaba avoided looking anywhere but the floor. She tugged at her hair. “I, uh. I got some homework to do.”

“You’re not in school,” Sojiro said. Futaba made a face like a kicked puppy.

“So you know him?!” I said, looking from Sojiro to Futaba and back to Sojiro again.

No one said a word for a moment, and then Sojiro sighed.

“Ahh… it’s complicated,” he ran a hand across his face. “He’s missing?”

“Yes,” I look between the two of them. “He was last seen a few weeks ago. December 15th.”

At the mention of the date, Futaba sat up straight. Then she resumed eating curry.


“Akechi came here pretty often, after Ren introduced him,” Sojiro began.

“Dad!” Futaba exclaimed. 

“Wha- oh, um, I assume you know of Ren already, right? Damn.”

I quickly ascertained that the right response to this was “Yes, of course.” It wasn’t entirely untrue, however- I did get the letters “R” and “E” after talking to Kasumi and reading Akechi’s will.

At this, Futaba sagged, but Sojiro’s gaze focused a bit. “Right, well, um, before I go on, how much do you know? I… don’t want to get anyone in any trouble; you understand, right?”

Nothing about a disappearance case should get anyone in trouble. Unless, of course, they had something to do with said disappearance. 

I cleared my throat. “I understand you want to protect him, but you know my primary objective is finding Akechi, and defending a criminal will not look good for you in court.”

Sojiro scowled. “Hey, the kid’s not a criminal, and- wait, no, the charges were dropped- he’s just trying to help!”

“Sojiroooo…. “ Futaba whined.

The way Sojiro talked implied he had a parental relationship with Ren. It made sense, if Ren had a prior criminal record, that Sojiro would want to defend him from further scrutiny. After all, repeat criminals often got a very harsh sentence. 

I sighed and used my limited knowledge to craft a response. “Look, this case is about Akechi Goro, not Ren. As long as I’m able to locate Akechi, I’m… willing to overlook anything Ren may or may not have done.”

This, of course, was a bit of an exaggeration. If Ren was involved in Akechi’s disappearance through criminal means, I would have no choice but to turn him in. 

I felt there was a good chance- don’t ask me why- that he was innocent in this case, however, and I would not have to go back on my word.

Sojiro’s expression hardened, and he stayed quiet for a second, weighing his options.

This time, Futaba spoke first.

“Do you really mean that? Or are you just like all the other corrupt policemen?”

And she fixed me with a determined gaze that told me she would not back down.

(I understand not all policemen are corrupt. This is a direct quote.)

This made me pause. Wasn’t I thinking like a corrupt policeman when I had said what I said? 

Wasn’t she right?

I decided then that I wasn’t going to be like that while I still could. That this case was not the one I would sacrifice my integrity over. If we can turn a blind eye to that case, then I can turn a

I repeated what I had said, with more conviction than before. This seemed to satisfy her.

“Okay,” she looked back to her curry, now probably lukewarm. “But if you don’t keep your word…”

“Futaba, no threats!” Sojiro admonished. 

“Not a threat. A promise,” she responded, and giggled. 

It occurred to me that she seemed kind of young for this kind of discussion- not quite high-school age. 

These two appeared to know a lot about both Ren and Akechi and could be very big assets to the investigation. I had to be careful what I said next.

“When was the last time you saw Akechi Goro?” I settled on a basic line of inquiry. 

“Oh, it was over a month ago,” Sojiro answered immediately. “He hasn’t been by recently at all. I think he had a bit of a falling-out with… well, you know.”

He looked to Futaba to pick up the story, but she averted her gaze.

“Ren?” I guessed with the only name I could think of. Sojiro’s mouth twisted, but he nodded.

“All of us.” I almost jumped. It was Futaba who spoke. 

“We… my friend group kinda took Akechi in towards the end of last year,” she started slowly, not meeting my eyes. “He acted nice at first. Well, as nice as a Redditor with incorrect opinions about Featherman can be. Always overly polite, you know, like on TV.”

That lined up with what everyone else said about him.

“Wasn’t that strange, to have an idol in your friend group suddenly?” I asked.

“Um… Well, he still wasn’t exactly our friend. We just had similar goals at the time. A… group project. Extracurricular,” Futaba explained. “But, to what you’re saying, yeah, it was weird! He acted like he was acting for the screen all the time, even when out of range of my hidden cameras!”

I pretended like that was a normal thing to say and nodded for her to go on.

“Yeah, so… the guy kinda betrayed us, big time. Betrayed our trust. And we didn’t really hang out much after that.”

A pause.

“ So… yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

“Betrayed your trust?” I prompted. This was… new.

She stayed silent for a moment. Sojiro polished an already-clean countertop. 

“He hurt Ren,” she said. Then she looked at me, slightly afraid, slightly angry. She had the same kind of eyes that Sojiro did, the kind that could pierce right into your soul and transmit her feelings straight to you, a direct line of empathy. 

I could feel that what she said was genuine. 

But, Akechi betraying his only group of friends? That didn’t make any sense. Akechi was a person with no connections in his life. 

Surely he would hold onto what little he had.

So I asked. “Why would he hurt Ren? Why would he get rid of what little connection he had?”

Futaba stayed silent. Her hair covered her expression. 

After a few moments, Sojiro cleared his throat. “My daughter and the rest of the group were never friends with Akechi. But Ren… Ren was different.”

He sighed and gave up cleaning the countertop, sitting down in a booth heavily. 

“I suppose, if Futaba trusts you, it’s okay, right?” He chuckled weakly. 

“Ren is my ward. I took him in last April, after… a misunderstanding with law enforcement. He’s been here ever since, going to school, working at the cafe, making friends. Honestly, I was expecting him to be a problem, but… he was actually a good kid. Polite, too, and funny. Though cheeky, at times.”

I was talking to Ren’s guardian? I couldn’t believe my luck!

“May I speak to him?” I asked.

I realized Futaba had been finishing up her curry, because all the sound stopped just then.

Sojiro’s expression darkened. “I thought you said you knew about Ren?”

My heart jumped. I needed to backpedal, quick. “I… I’m familiar with Ren, yes, in the context of Akechi. I’m not familiar with… any other circumstances.” 

That was the truth. Hopefully they believed me.

Sojiro’s face didn’t change. After a moment, he asked me a question. “Are you a father?”

I was taken aback. “No… ?”

He shook his head. “When you’re a father, you protect your kids. You protect them, even if it means your own neck on the chopping block. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I didn’t, exactly, but I could tell what answer he wanted, so I nodded.

After a moment, he nodded back, and the nostalgic mist had come over his eyes again. 

“I think Akechi first came here... August or September. We made small talk, I think he mentioned his job, and Nijima, but it was obvious he was just here for the coffee.
Until Ren came in. And Akechi just… lit up. It’s like he wasn’t even really alive until he saw Ren.”

A stray giggle came from Futaba.
Sojiro ignored it. “Anyways, he came more and more often. Ren never talked much about his friendships or anything- he was a private kind of guy. But… well, even I could tell they were close. They had private jokes, hung out all the time… and, I probably shouldn’t speak on this, but their dynamic was kind of… unconventional as well.”

“You can say that again,” Futaba muttered.

“They would always reference some sort of competition they had. I guess they had a sort of intense rivalry thing going on. You wouldn’t know it from the way they talked, though.”

“More like a bickering old couple.” Futaba interjected.

Sojiro didn’t shut this thought down, instead just paused for a moment.

“He stopped coming around sometime in November. That was… I presume, when he betrayed them. And I haven’t seen him since.”

With that, Sojiro started to get back up again. It was obvious the interrogation was over, and the two wouldn’t say anything else, likely out of loyalty to Ren. 

I had assumed Ren was important, but this new information implied he was an integral part of Akechi’s disappearance. And Akechi’s only real friend, backed by Kasumi’s implications and Sojiro’s outright testimony. 

But Akechi supposedly betrayed his only real friend. He supposedly, in Futaba’s words, “hurt” his only friend. 

Why?

It occurred to me that Futaba had omitted any details of the project her friend group was working on with Akechi, along with of course the obvious omission of what Akechi did to hurt Ren. Maybe this information would shed light on why Akechi did what he did. 

Or maybe… Akechi was just an asshole who pushed people who cared about him away. 

The evidence supported that conclusion. It made sense considering orphan psychology. 

But was that really the kind of person Akechi was?

He had written up an entire will, promising something to Ren. Did that sound like pushing someone away? 

Maybe, in that death is the ultimate push over the cliff’s edge.

I drank my coffee as I thought about what they had said. The two let me stew in silence. 

It was a damn fine cup of coffee. 

 Update: 

After I left, it occurred to me I hadn’t addressed all the implications with Ren, so I thought I’d do that here. 

Ren was likely an orphan, as he was somebody’s ward- much like Akechi, actually. (Was this why they got along?) Sojiro’s comment early on implied that Ren had a criminal record, but the charges were dropped. 

Sojiro’s caginess might have just been chalked up to parental concern, but with Futaba and Kasumi? Ren was likely in danger of some sort already, and any implications would make his situation worse.

It was also implied that Ren was no longer residing with the Sakuras. Could Ren also be missing? 

No.The Sakuras cared too much about him and would have filed a report by now.

So, Ren was somewhere else. Possibly dead, by the same danger that haunted Akechi. 

Possibly with Akechi, if the two were as close as was implied. But no, if they had a falling-out, why would they work together again?

There was another possibility, just speculation from what I had learned about Ren’s history. Maybe he was in prison for a different crime. 

Sojiro and Futaba obviously know more than they’re telling, but I felt it cruel to push them. I’ll come back if I need more information. 

But right now, I’d better spend my time on investigating the other leads.

Update: 

I realize I never asked Futaba the last time she saw Akechi.

Current Leads:

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Leblanc Cafe, Jazz Jin, Apartment, License Plate, Masayoshi Shido, Yoshizawa, Ren, Sae Nijima

Chapter Text

January 6th:

When I got in today, I headed straight for the evidence room. 

I was done waiting for permission- I needed to look through what I had found in order to further the case.

When I opened up the assigned locker, it was empty, so I assumed maybe the evidence had been moved. Unfortunately, that meant I had to ask for permission again.  

The usual guy I talked to wasn’t there, so I approached one of the other guys who were working on cracking Akechi’s laptop and asked him where it all was. 

He looked confused and asked, “What laptop?”

Apparently, neither he nor the others had seen any signs of the evidence I collected since I brought it in.

I asked if it had been transferred somewhere else, and we looked in the system for anything pertaining to his case. 

But it was all gone. There was no sign of the evidence logged in our system, and no sign of Akechi’s missing person case.

It had been completely wiped. 

Panicked, I looked up Shido’s case. That one still existed, but there was no assigned locker for that case’s evidence, either. 

So where was it being kept? 

How deep did it go?

I had felt there was something off before, but this was just a gross disregard for procedure. It even pointed to signs of corruption within the force.

I couldn’t just go back to square one. I couldn’t just pretend that Akechi’s case never existed, not after I did so much research, not after I met so many people who knew him and were concerned.

I remembered Ms. Nijima was leading the case against Shido. Maybe she knew where the evidence was moved to. 

I took the elevator up to the SIU department. Sure enough, there was Nijima, sitting at a desk, looking intently at something on her computer. 

I cleared my throat, then greeted her. “Good morning, Ms. Nijima! How are you today?”

She looked up after a moment. “Oh. Hello. Gombei, right?”

“I was just wondering if you know where the Shido case evidence is being held,” I asked politely. 

Her pleasant expression dipped. “What? It’s in the evidence room, of course.”

My heart sank. “It’s not logged in the system.”

She typed furiously on her computer, confirming what I had seen. Then she fell back, at a loss for words. 

“There’s… How? What? Did he…. Was it moved? No. Why?”

“All the evidence for the Akechi case is missing as well, “ I told her. “Actually, the case isn’t even in the system anymore.” 

Sae tapped a manicured nail to her red lips. “If it’s happening to you, too… Could someone have messed up the program?”

I shook my head. “I checked the locker for the Akechi evidence. Nothing there.”

Sae shook her head slowly. She rubbed her temple. “This… this is very bad. Without that evidence… “

Her head snapped up. Her red eyes burned with recognition. “The SIU director. We need to talk to him.”

For once, I was happy to be told what to do.

Sae approached his office with a confident stride that had me wondering why she hadn’t been made Director. She knocked on the door and promptly opened it without waiting for a response. 

Inside sat the new SIU director, looking exactly as he had that day I attempted to interview him with limited success- at ease deep in his chair, though slightly startled at the interruption.

“Excuse me?” He asked, leaning forward as if to stand.

“Director Saito,” Sae addressed him. “The evidence for both the Shido and Akechi cases appears to no longer be in the system.”

The Director scowled. “That’s why you burst in here? The Akechi case isn’t even in our department. It’s obviously some kind of bug. Call IT and figure this out.”

His eyes flicked to me, finally noticing my presence. “Ah, Detective Gombei. Good to see you again.”

The way he talked to us rubbed me the wrong way. Like being in the National Diet Building again.

“All evidence related to the Akechi case has disappeared,” I said. “Even the case itself is no longer on the books.”

The Director shrugged. “That seems like a pretty big bug. Maybe you should talk to IT, too.”

“The evidence itself is no longer in the locker. It has either been moved, or destroyed.” I continued. “Which would be a crime.”

“I don’t see why any of this is my problem,” Director Saito sighed. “Don’t you two have something more important to be doing than bothering me about departmental mishaps?”

“Director Saito,” Nijima spoke up again. “Only you have the clearance, other than me, to move the Shido evidence or adjust the digital catalog.”

Saito gave her a look. “Don’t tell me things I already know, girl.”

It was barely perceptible, but Nijima flinched.

I cleared my throat with increased vigor.  “Director Saito, we’re asking if you know where the evidence is located, or what happened to the system. Surely something this directed can’t be a coincidence, or a mere bug in the system.”

The Director’s expression shifted into something guarded. “Even if that’s true, it’s not in my jurisdiction. Now, I’m quite busy-“

“Director,” I stated firmly, trying to disguise the anger in my voice and likely failing. “Where is the evidence? We have proof you tampered with it.”

Nijima turned to me with widened eyes but I kept my expression still.

Despite the fact we didn’t have any proof, I thought that was what Nijima was going for by the direction of her inquiry. Maybe we could get something out of him by pressuring him. Plus, he was really beginning to piss me off.

His false smile flattened. He sat a while, staring into space at something we couldn’t see. 

“Proof?” He chuckled to himself. “How dare you. There is no proof. You’re lying to me. And you should both expect to turn in your badges and guns by the end of the day. Get out.”

Nijima moved for the door. But I was far from done.

“I knew there was something strange about you. How you were brought in from another branch when there were perfectly good replacements for the SIU Director right here. Goro Akechi’s employment records are in this very room, and you refused to turn them over when I interviewed you because you are covering up something. You are a criminal, plain and simple.”

It was pure conjecture. But it was also something I knew was the truth, even at the time of interviewing the man. What else would he have been looking at in his drawer? 

I looked over at Nijima. Despite the fear in her eyes, she nodded at me.

A fire lit in the Director. “Gombei, I’d suggest you be very careful with what you say next if you know what’s good for you.” 

“Or what? You’re going to kill me like you killed Akechi?” I shouted. “Those men in black were your men! You were checking to make sure the job was done!”

The man snapped up, anger twisting his features. “I said, be quiet!” He hissed. He glanced at Nijima for a moment. “I wasn’t a part of this! You’re… taking shots in the dark!”

“But you knew about it, right?” I goaded. “You knew about the plan to kill Akechi. I bet you were in league with Shido, too- Akechi was going to publicly accuse him of sexual abuse, right? So he had to be silenced.”

“Shido?” The director broke out in a disturbing grin. “Haha! Akechi, accuse Shido, of sexual abuse! Are you a moron?”

“It’s more likely he’d accuse me, or literally any of the others he fucked to make his way to the top. And that would never happen. Shido! Hah. What a joke.”

Sae let out a little gasp. My stomach plummeted, then twisted up. 

“You,” I began. “You …slept with Akechi Goro?” 

Age 18. Orphan. He said he didn’t even know him in the interview.

At this, the Director looked genuinely confused. 

“Yeah? I mean, who didn’t? Was pretty much a total whore. All the idols are. I’m surprised you never slept with him, Sae.”

Sae made a sound of disgust and covered her mouth. “You…. you….. oh my God.” 

“Then again, it’s not surprising, what with his mother and all. Probably got a taste for it as a kid. Wait… is he still considered a kid? How old was he, again?”

He laughed, a sickening laugh, as he watched our faces writhe in disgust. “Fucking prudes. Neither of you have ever gotten some, I can tell. If you want, I’ll tell you what it’s like.”

“SHUT UP!” Sae suddenly shrieked. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! DON’T TALK ABOUT HIM LIKE THAT!” 

She moved suddenly, as if to launch a punch in his face, but stopped short of the desk, thinking the better of it. 

But the effort of it showed. Her face was contorted with pain, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Akechi,” she said in a broken voice. 

The Director’s face dropped into a neutral expression. He barely even regarded Sae. “If we’re done talking about my sex life… Is that it, then? Is that all the leads you have, Gombei?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t really have strength left.

Something twitched in his face- not exactly a smile and not a frown. “You’re not qualified to be a detective. Get out of my office. Both of you. And don’t come back.”

Update:

I shouldn’t expect anything to be done about this. I know this. But I hope anyway. 

Update:

We sat together for a while by the vending machine and ate snacks. I drank some soda. Sae didn’t want any. I will probably get gas later.

It was a while before I tried to say anything. 

“Ms. Nijima?” I asked. “Can… can you help me get Akechi’s file?”

“Yes,” she said, then paused. “And I will get you in to talk to Shido and Ren.”

Update:

Ren has been in custody this whole time.

Update:

We broke in after midnight. 

Sure enough, Akechi’s file was in the drawer the Director looked at, that first time I interviewed him. 

The relevant details:

Given Name: Hino Hikaru
Alias: Akechi Goro
Phone Number: (disconnected)
Juminhyo: N/A
DOB: June 2nd, 1998
Status: Emancipated Minor

Employment Info: 

SIU Detective Intern (on request)
Hired: Dec 2015

Additional Info:

Cases Solved: 29
Current Case: Phantom Thieves crime spree

Current Leads:

SIU, Jiyu High School, Kasumi Yoshizawa, National Diet Building, Leblanc Cafe, Jazz Jin, Apartment, License Plate, Masayoshi Shido, Yoshizawa, Ren, Sae Nijima, Hino Hikaru

Chapter Text

January 7th:

Sae and I haven’t been fired yet. Maybe the Director’s threats were empty. 

Last night, I think someone followed me off the subway, though. Another guy in a suit, maybe- I didn’t see him too well; he stayed quite a bit back. Even when I started running, I could hear him behind me. 

Thankfully, I think I lost him at the station- at least, I didn’t hear him follow me home. But I did watch the window for a while, just in case.

I couldn’t sleep. I had to drink just to get myself tired. Too scared. I miss her. He’s still outside, isn’t he? I miss her. I miss her. Why. Why. Wh

I started the day with some coffee and research on the name “Hino Hikaru” as I waited for Sae Nijima to come in. 

There were a few, but none that fit his age range. And a lot of Hinos. 

The registry system was getting me nowhere, so I looked up his name on the regular search engine in desperation. 

One page stood out to me- an obituary for a Hino Fumiyo, survived by a “Hino Hikaru,” dated to 2007 on an event board. Hino Hikaru, a 9 year old son. 

The obituary was extremely vague and short, probably posted by a relative, although notably not referencing any other relatives besides Hikaru, not even a father. No details about her life, no cause of death. No flowery words about how she was a kind mother and beautiful soul. Just  the facts- her date of birth, death date, and surviving son. 

If Hikaru was 9 in 2007, he would be 18-19 today. Which happens to be Akechi’s age.

All the details lined up. But the obituary told me nothing I didn’t already know.

Well, except for…

I looked up Hino Fumiyo in the police database, hoping to find her family records, or really any information whatsoever about her. 

She had been arrested only once and let off with a warning. The alleged crime? Solicitation of sexual services.

I swallowed. Suddenly, the Director’s disgusting comment about Akechi’s childhood began to make sense.

The orphaned child of a prostitute, stricken from the family record and by all accounts nonexistent. In any other case, the child would be dead on the street by now. 

So how did Akechi do what he did? How did he carve out a place for himself in a world that didn’t even recognize him as a person?

(How did he have the strength?)

Sae came in late, but to her credit, she did come in. Her eyes were bloodshot and lined with dark circles, despite the makeup. 

It must have been even worse for her, hearing all those things about the kid she was mentoring- a coworker she obviously cared about.

I offered her coffee, which she downed at an alarming rate. After responsibly disposing of the cup, she turned to me. “Come on. Let’s go see Shido.”

As we waited for the elevator, I remembered that I still had some questions for her. 

“Ms. Nijima,” I began. “You seemed very protective of Akechi yesterday. Were you… friends?”

At once her entire body tensed. She averted her eyes and her red mouth twisted up into a knot.  Still trapped in what happened yesterday. 

The elevator arrived, and we boarded. She remained silent until the doors closed. The bluish light made her look ghoulish. 

“I don’t know if Akechi ever considered me more than a coworker,” she began after a moment, chancing a look at me. “He was… often quite rude, or overly formal. A strange combination to be. But despite that, he…” She trailed off. 

“When I looked at him, I saw a version of my little sister.” Her eyes widened and she turned to face me head-on. “Don’t tell her I said that. They’re not very alike, it’s just…”

“I want to protect him.” She paused, and her brow tensed. “Wanted.”

“We don’t know what happened to him,” I tried to reassure her. 

“You forget I’m a cop, too. I know how these kinds of things work.” She sighed. 

I didn’t know quite what to say to that. “Did you ever see him outside of your job?”

Surprisingly, she smiled. “Not exactly. He was always begging me to take him out for food. He liked the expensive stuff, but only if I paid for it.” 

Her face fell a bit. “Always so stubborn. I wonder sometimes…”

I waited for her to continue.

“I wonder if he could have turned out different. If I’d been there for him, as more than a mentor. Would he have-? Or would it even have mattered?”

The elevator doors opened. She looked up and cleared her throat scratchily, then moved forward. “This way.”

“Is there a reason we’re holding him here at the police station?” I wondered aloud.

“The same reason you probably won’t be able to get anything coherent out of him.” She approached the jail door. “That ‘change-of-heart’ thing the Phantom Thieves do. We have no idea if he’s aware of what he’s saying, and that kind of thing doesn’t hold up well in court.”

The guard took a moment to look up from his empty desk at us. “Why are you here?” He asked.

“We need Shido brought to Interrogation Room 1. More questioning. ” Sae said confidently.

The guard gave us a tired look. “I just sat down. Are you getting coffee?”

Sae walked till she was right in front of the guy’s desk. Then she slammed her hands down. 

“My name is Prosecutor Sae Nijima,” she shouted, “and out there is a missing child, and every minute that goes by is another minute closer to death for him. Get Shido up, now.”

The guard jumped up, shaking a bit. “Y-Yes ma’am.”

“And don’t ever speak to me like that again,” she called out. 

She whipped around and looked me right in the eye and I might have flinched. I had never seen anyone stand up for themselves like that, let alone Sae, and to be honest, it was pretty scary. 

She took in my expression and deflated. “Alright, let’s go back up.”

We got back in the elevator. She stood silent for a while, deep in thought. 

“I just wish I could stand up for myself like that to the Director. But it’s always easier to be mean to subordinates,” she said at last. And I didn’t really think she was mean to the guard, per se, but I got what she meant.

I wondered, for a moment, if anger passes through people like electricity, and one person has to transmit it to another person with less power, or risk burning out themselves. 

Where does the circuit end? What kind of terrible device are we powering?

Back on the main floor, Sae led me to Interrogation Room 1, even though I already knew where it was.

She looked at me for a moment after I sat down. “I can’t tell you everything. I don’t have the right to.”

“I know,” I said. “But thank you for helping me anyways.”

She nodded stiffly. “I’ll- be outside. Good luck.”

The door opened only a moment after she left, with the shaken guard from before escorting Shido.

… Shido.

The man… didn’t look like the Shido I saw on TV. 

He looked thin. Small. The cruelty in his face had wrinkled into desperation and pain. I was expecting to talk to a self-made God, and here was this… pathetic creature, sitting across from me. 

This was Shido? The man arrested for bribery, corruption, and conspiracy? 

(The man who turned Akechi into what he became?)

“You are Masayoshi Shido?” I began.

A muffled sob. I was beginning to see what Sae had meant. 

I cleared my throat. “Are you familiar with Goro Akechi?”

His head whipped up from where it had been hanging. “A-Akechi?” He asked, new tears blooming in his eyes. “Akechi, I’m so sorry… I’m…”

“Shido, what was the nature of your relationship with Goro Akechi?” I was not going to let him dissolve into a puddle if I could help it. 

“I’m so sorry. My poor son.” Shido asked, on the verge of crying again.

Slowly, slowly, his words sank in. 

Masayoshi Shido… is Goro Akechi’s father?

…

How?

If Akechi wasn’t an orphan…

“Tell me about Hino Fumiyo,” I demanded. I think I was starting to lose my cool, because he jumped at my voice.

“Fumiyo?” Gradually his breaths grew less labored. “Fumiyo? I remember Fumiyo.”

He stopped, and for a minute I thought he wasn’t going to move again. 

But he continued on. 

“I… didn’t treat her right. I can see that now.” Real regret in his voice.

“Tell me about her,” I asked again. I wasn’t going to let the lead get away from me. I was going to find out everything I possibly could from this criminal and wring him dry.

He shook his head. “I met her at a bar… we went home. She didn’t know who I was, I think. I liked her. Dumb and pretty, and… I liked the power I had over her. “ He took a breath that sounded more like a choked sob. “So I… took her out a few times. Then just… dropped her after a few months, and she tried to tell me she was pregnant, but I didn’t believe her. Thought she was just trying to make me stay.” His eyes clouded with tears again. “Oh god. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, a real edge in my voice. This time, I knew he was afraid of me. Another conduit in the circuit.

“She- he was left all alone. It was my fault. I drove her to do that… It was my fault,” he whimpered. But he still wasn’t telling me anything.

“What did she do?!” I shouted. “Tell me what happened! Stop avoiding it!” 

I might have hit the table for emphasis. My coworkers have done much worse.

That made him even smaller. But he finally opened his mouth. 

“She killed herself,” he breathed, barely audible. “Because of me. Because of me.”

Some part of me had known this already. But still, I couldn’t believe it.

“…Her son,” I said. “She… left him alone?”

She did. She left him alone. Just like how she left me

He choked out an animal whine. “Akechi… I’m so sorry. I failed you.”

Back at the start again. I was beginning to consider giving up on the interrogation. 

“Shido,” I began. “I need you to answer clearly so we can locate Goro Akechi. He’s currently missing. I understand he did some work with you…?”

“… missing?” He looked up. There was fire in his eyes again. “You have to find him. If he’s still alive, they’ll be… he’s in danger.”

I had pretty much gathered that. “Yeah, suits have even been tracking me because of whatever you had Akechi doing. So what was so secret that even learning hearsay made me a target?”

He was quiet for a moment, processing what I said. Then, he spoke. 

“I’m not sure how much I should… say. But… I owe you an explanation. And I owe him honesty about my role in it all.”

“I’ve already heard about your son sleeping his way to the top,” I said, getting tired of his evasiveness yet again. “Like I said before, I’m trying to find him. I’m not interested in following up on other related crimes.” 

“He..? Oh,” Shido’s eyes widened. “No, that’s not what I was getting at. I hired Akechi when he was around 14 because he approached me. He claimed… well. He… claimed he had a special power that no one else did, one that could be used to manipulate and even destroy.”

I rolled my eyes. “A special… power?” There was no way this testimony was going to be remotely useful. Sae was right.

“I know how it sounds,” Shido sighed. “I’m… sorry I don’t have proof, or anything. But I did have fair cause to believe him. Independently, I had been working with researchers on accessing the collective unconscious. To manipulate it, of course. God…” He let out a joyless laugh.

“They’re all dead now, of course. Because I told him to do it,” Shido raked his hands across his face, like he couldn’t even look me in the eye. “I hired a teenager, my son, to kill people, for my agenda. My stupid, worthless agenda.” 

He laughed again. It was even worse. 

Unfortunately, it made sense. 

It explained the gun. It explained why Akechi would be in danger from Shido’s people. It explained the will.

“Why on earth would you do that?” I asked. Didn’t people have Yakuza professionals for this sort of thing?

“Because I knew how he could be controlled,” Shido put simply. “Just like his mother. That’s all he was to me. A tool. And by God, how I used it.”

He sighed. “I’ve… already admitted to a lot of charges. Conspiracy, sabotage. I think they’re adding sexual assault, if the kid is testifying. Another innocent life I destroyed. But the murder charges I’ve admitted to, the police think they’re just… nonsense. A side effect of the change-of-heart.”

He paused, contemplating. “Do you remember hearing about those psychotic breakdowns, on the news?”

I nodded reluctantly, not liking where this was going.

“That was the work of Akechi. In the other world, with his… power. The psience team called it a “persona.” Jungian terms, of course.” 

“It was… so easy. I’d send him into the other world. He’d come out and report what he’d done. Later, they would die. No evidence, no charges. The perfect crime.”

“But when the Phantom Thieves came out, we knew that somehow, they had accessed the same power. Only, they were using it to make others repent, not kill them.”

“Naturally, I told Akechi to eliminate them. But… well, things didn’t go my way, as you may have inferred,” he laughed and gestured to himself. “Akechi never had a problem before. But, I suppose when he had to go up against something real, that fought back, he was too weak. Which is how I made him to be.” He gurgled pathetically.

“The Phantom Thieves,” I pressed for more info. “Wasn’t Akechi a public dissenter of theirs?”

“Oh, the TV thing. Yes, Akechi was to play the role of Detective Prince in order to open up new parts of the collective unconscious, as well as influence public thought generally. He wasn’t a natural public speaker, of course, but he was a quick learner.”

“One of his tasks was to infiltrate the Phantom Thieves, so we had prior knowledge of their targets. He didn’t talk about it, but I got the impression he got too… chummy with the leader of the group. He started to report less frequently. So… I… I made some contingency plans.”

Everything finished processing. “Wait. Those were your guys? Those were your people, impeding my investigation, stalking me?”

He shook his head. “I’m… not sure if they’re working for me anymore. Probably just trying to keep things from implicating the others in any way. Akechi was a big loose end.” 

He stayed quiet for a moment. “Akechi stopped reporting some days before my… episode. I thought the Phantom Thieves took care of him, too.” His eyes welled with tears. They looked just like a performance from where I sat.

“I was… responsible for him. I failed him. I’m so sorry, Akechi.”

I shook my head. 

I was prepared to walk into this meeting full of anger, to have to fight against the crafty criminal to get a testimony. 

But… when I looked at the mess of a man, I didn’t feel much at all. 

Every day, every minute, the man was paying for what he had done, reliving his worst crimes, maybe even feeling more guilt than was naturally possible, thanks to the work of the Phantom Thieves. 

What more could I hurt him? He had nothing left.

I rose from my chair to leave, then remembered that, in my frustration, I had almost forgotten to ask him the most important question. What does it matter, if he’s already dead? If she’s already gone?

“You say that Akechi stopped reporting some time before your breakdown. Can you give me a date?”

Still in tears, he choked out, “Dec-December… 14th? 15th? Oh, Akechi… Fumiyo…”

I ignored him and tried to think.

Akechi fit the profile for the psychotic breakdown cases. With Shido’s testimony, he had the motive and the means. 

But.. that was relying on the testimony of a likely insane man. 

A man who no longer had any reason to lie.

Which also meant… Akechi was almost definitely dead, likely at the hands of the Phantom Thieves. I had read about only one casualty at their hands- Okumura, CEO of Okumura Foods. 

It was… messy. And very public. Which had been increasingly the way the Thieves had liked to do things.

I had already assumed from the beginning Akechi was dead. But hearing it from Shido… It felt so wrong. 

After everything I had done, the guy was just… gone? 

All my detective work, for someone who couldn’t be saved? 

Is this really how it ends?

Logically, the answer to that was yes. 

But I still had one more witness. Maybe they knew more. Maybe we could at least find a body for Sae to bury.

Sae was waiting outside of the room, like she said she’d be. She stood up from the bench when she saw me come out. 

“Did you get anything?” She asked. 

“A little,” I admitted. “You were right; he was a pain to interrogate. Kept breaking down and apologizing.”

I told her a little about what I’d learned- about Akechi’s past, his deceased mother, his… father, still in the interrogation room.

At the mention of Shido, she brought her hand to her mouth in surprise, but waited until I had finished to say anything. 

“How did you- Did he tell you anything else about his relationship with Akechi?” 

I sighed and told her what he had told me about the alleged murders. Apparently, most of it wasn’t news to her- but Akechi’s involvement was. She was quiet for a while. 

“Did I fail him?” She asked aloud.

 Like Shido, claiming again and again he had failed Akechi. 

She looked at me, as if realizing I was there. “I think… I think I’ve failed everyone, Gombei.”

“… not everyone,” I said. “You haven’t failed me.” 

And though the words did make me blush, I meant it. 

Without Sae, my investigation would have ended long ago. I owed everything I knew to her. 
“With what I’ve learned… we can give everyone who cared about Akechi closure, finally. We didn’t fail in that.”

She was quiet for a long while. 

“You should speak to Ren now,” she began finally. “I… didn’t want to tell you about him, at first, because I needed to protect him. Because I didn’t want to fail him, too.” 

She took a deep breath. It sounded… strangely human, out of the strong, almost infallible-seeming woman. 

“Ren Amamiya. He’s in custody. He came willingly, to testify against Shido.”

I remembered she mentioned Ren earlier. And I remembered that everything I knew had fit around a Ren-shaped emptiness. 

An essential piece of Akechi, protected by Sae, protected by Yoshizawa, protected by the Sakuras, protected by Akechi himself.

I began to ask Sae more questions, but she shook her head. “He can tell you everything himself,” she insisted.

Shido was taken back to his cell. He hadn’t stopped crying since I’d left. 

Back at the jail, Sae requested Ren from the same man as before. This time, she was met with instant compliance. Maybe even fear.

Chapter Text

The boy they brought into the interrogation room looked nothing like what I’d expected. 

I’d pictured Ren as a strong, confident young man who looked people in the eye and stood up straight. 

Someone who oozed charisma, who could charm anyone with a casual conversation. How else could he have amassed so many devoted friends?

But the kid they brought was just a kid. 

And frankly, he looked a mess- too skinny, hunched over, sinking into the shadows, as if he needed to make himself smaller to survive. 

He avoided looking directly at me as he sat down. But the dark circles were clear, even though his broken glasses.

I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “What happened to you?”

His eyes flashed alive, then averted again. After a beat, he spoke up. “Not good with… police business.” 

The voice. That must be it. 

It didn’t fit him at all- dark and deep, and rich with some kind of indiscernible energy that made you wary. 

I sat up a little. He cracked a smile at that.

“Police… business?” I prodded.

He nodded slowly. “On my record. You can look.” He sat back in his seat and did not elaborate. 

Already, I was starting to see a shift. He looked more like the cocky hero I had pictured. 

I cleared my throat. “I’m Detective Gombei. I’m not here as a part of the Shido case, so I don’t have access to your record currently. I’m investigating the disappearance of Goro Akechi. Can you-“

He sat forward in his seat. “Disappearance?”

I stopped. “Yes. He has been missing for a few weeks now.”

He made a noncommittal sound and sat back again. 

After a minute of silence, I decided he wasn’t going to speak, so I continued. “I’ve been told from multiple sources that you had an unusually intimate relationship with Goro Akechi. Do you know where he is, or what happened to him?”

“What… happened to him,” Ren repeated. He looked off at something I couldn’t see. 

I frowned. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

He was quiet. “Are you with Shido?”

I sighed. “I already told you, I’m not part of the Shido case. One of Akechi’s employers filed the missing person’s report. Look, I already know you’re involved. Can you at least tell me when you last saw him?”

He looked at me. It felt… uncomfortable. “You really want to find him?” He asked.

“Don’t you?” I said in disbelief.

He did the thing again- the eyes widening, the look to the side. 

“I’m sorry,” he started. “He’s… gone.”

“What happened to him?”

He shook his head. “You… wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

He looked down at his hands. They were cuffed, of course. “Do you… know why I’m here?”

“Something about the Shido case? You’re supposed to testify? But then, why are you in custody…” I trailed off.

“Why, indeed,” he agreed. “Probably my record. One account of assault, from almost a year ago- I was on probation this year. And, of course, the many, many charges against the Phantom Thieves.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re-?”

He smiled. “Their leader. Allegedly. Nothing can be proven, of course.” 

The Phantom Thieves. 

I was in a room with the leader of the famed terrorist group who brought the powerful to their knees. 

Right away, some things started clicking. Everyone’s loyalty. What Futaba mentioned about a mysterious “group project.” The reason Akechi was so entangled with him.

Of course I wanted to ask him how he did it. What he did to people to make them confess their deepest and darkest secrets. Was it truth serum? Torture? Manipulation?

But then I remembered how badly Sae and the others had wanted to protect him.

My curiosity was not important to the investigation. I needed information about Akechi, not the methods of the Phantom Thieves. I want to be better than the others.

So I bit my tongue. “What does this have to do with Akechi’s disappearance?” 

“Everything," he said, and began to tell me a… story. A story that made sense in the way that dreams make sense. 

I don’t know how to put it into words without sounding crazy, but it began with Kamoshida, a teacher from Ren’s high school, in a world where teenagers could use magical powers, and someone could be made to repent for their crimes when the right item from the world was stolen. Ren alleged that the Phantom Thieves used this world to enact the changes of heart. 

He also alleged that the psychotic breakdowns were instigated in that world.

“You’re talking about Akechi,” I noted, and he looked at me, surprised. I told him what Shido admitted, and he looked down for a minute. 

“I didn’t… “ He began. “I don’t want to… taint his name. Akechi’s. He… He did a lot of bad things. But he was much more than that.”

He shook his head. “I.. I know what it’s like to only be known for your worst moment.”

“You were his closest friend,” I said.

He stopped, as if he was frozen in time. Then, he looked at me. “Who told you that?”

I… didn’t remember. 

I thought back to everyone I had interviewed. Shido, Sae, the Sakuras, Muhen. Maybe no one had told me at all.

We were both quiet, and then he spoke up. “I don’t know, really. I don’t even know if we were friends.” 

He looked at the ground. “He told me he hated me, actually. But… I never really believed that.” 

“It’s funny. I wasn’t going to tell you anything, when I saw you first. It was a setup, obviously, and even if it wasn’t, it was too risky.”

“But… I haven’t talked to anyone in so long. Even before that, I haven’t been able to talk about him, maybe…. ever… And… it just… “ he took a breath. 

“Well, it hurts, to put it simply.” 

He looked up. “So, I’ll tell you what you want to know. I’m selfish. I think I deserve to be, right now.”

I thought about where to begin. Maybe with what I already knew.

“Akechi… you said he was gone,” I said. “Shido said the Phantom Thieves killed him.”

“No,” Ren shot up. “No. That’s wrong.”

“Then… how did he die?”

He clenched his hands into fists. “He died in that other world. That’s why you can’t find him. No one can.”

“But the Phantom Thieves… didn’t kill him?”

Ren shook his head fervently. “The Thieves were trying to save him. They don’t kill. They change hearts.”

“What about Okumura?”

“That wasn’t them,” he insisted. And the way he said it, I wanted to believe him.

“Then what happened to Akechi?”

He flinched, grimaced. “That… It’s complicated.”

I waited.

“You talked to Shido,” Ren said. “So you already know Akechi was on his payroll.”

“Yes. Though I’m not sure why Akechi would have wanted to work with someone like him in the first place. Maybe he did want to be close to his father, in some way.”

Ren barked out a laugh that made me jump out of my seat. He didn’t apologize.

“Sure. Akechi wanted to be close to his father. He had to get close enough to utterly destroy him.”

Ren gave a disappointed sigh and looked off again. “I guess Akechi told himself the end justified the means. I’m not sure he completely believed that story, though.”

A revenge story with no ending. A cycle of violence that went on and on. Everything took on new meaning. Everything began to finally make sense. 

“Anyways. Shido had a… job, for Akechi, to neutralize the Phantom Thieves. Akechi at first attempted to take down the Phantom Thieves leader. That plan… well, to put it shortly, it failed. Later, Akechi confronted the Phantom Thieves in the other world, while they were attempting to trigger a change of heart in Shido.” He stopped.

“It was… strange, but at the same time, I’d expected it, because I knew him, to some degree. He… he broke down. Was angry that the leader had survived. Was angry that the leader had everything he didn’t.” 

Ren paused again. “He attacked the group. The Phantom Thieves won.”

I waited.

Ren was frowning. His face twitched slightly. 

“I… “ He muttered something to himself. “…owe it to him, right? Gotta tell you.” 

He breathed in, breathed out, like an exercise. 

“It got… it got bad, all of the sudden. Monsters from the other world. They tried to attack us. But Akechi… When it came down to it, he saved us. He hit the bulk door button. I heard…”

He trailed off. “He’s gone, now.” 

Killed in the other world. A story we could never confirm. A disappearance guaranteed unsolved.

My frustration paled. It had taken a lot out of Ren to tell that story. He was breathing slightly heavier. Whatever pain I felt, it was nothing compared to the people who knew Akechi. And I owed it to all of them to tell them what happened to him. 

Even if the story was unbelievable, Ren had no reason to lie. 

And he wasn’t lying. I could feel the depth of it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. What else was there to say?

He didn’t say anything.

“You know,” he started. “I wonder sometimes if he planned this. A final puzzle for us to solve. A puzzle with no answer.” 

He stared at the floor. “It would be just like him, wouldn’t it?”

“… How did you meet him?” I asked.

He looked up slowly. A funny grin spread across his face. 

“At the TV station. I thought his Phantom Thieves theory was bunk. And he thought what I thought was… interesting.” 

His grin faded. “Looking back on it, it might have just been a way to get close to the Phantom Thieves group. And Akechi likely suspected me already, for what I had said.” 

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I blurted. “He was your friend, not your enemy.” 

Was he? Hadn’t Futaba said that he betrayed Ren?

Ren bit his lip. It drew blood.

“Akechi called us rivals. Sort of a mix between friend and enemy. That’s… the closest thing to describe it. Always trying to one-up each other, always taking jabs at each other, but… always coming back, too.” 

He stopped and smiled. “Wasn’t all that, though. Sometimes, he’d confide in me. That felt pretty good, like I was finally getting past the mask. Wonder if he got past mine.” 

He looked at his caged hands again. “Don’t think so. Wish he did, though.”

“What did he talk about?” I asked.

“Sorry, I’ve gotta be selfish again,” he said. “Those moments- they belong to me now. I want to keep it that way.”

“Besides,” he smirked. “Where’s the fun in giving a detective all the answers?”

“I’ll let you in on the general idea. Akechi and I…” 

He stopped, looking at something I couldn't see again. Worried the bloody lip between his teeth. “We were hurt, in a lot of the same ways. We grew in a lot of the same ways. We became kind of the same angry thing. I was the lucky one. He was…” Ren trailed into silence. Either he didn’t have the words anymore, or he just didn’t want to say them.

“So, when I looked at him, I realized I was the first person to see him. And I saw myself reflected back…” 

He shifted in his chair. “Sorry. I don’t really wanna talk about this anymore. What did you need to know, again?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. 

“What?” Ren asked.

“You…” I didn’t know how to say it.

He got quiet again. 

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” He asked suddenly. 

“What is it?”

“They don’t let me have anything in here. Not even sentimental stuff. Could you… can you get something out of the lockers? It should be in my stuff. It’s just one glove.”

Gloves. 

“Akechi wore gloves, didn’t he?” 

Ren seemed so far away. 

His eyes refocused. He smiled, really bright, a real smile, with all the imperfections and gums and teeth. “That’s right.” 

And then he laughed. 

I got up after that. I still had more questions, but the laugh broke my heart, and I couldn’t let him see my face.

Sae wasn’t waiting outside the room, like she’d said she’d be. 

Everyone was at the jail, panicking, collecting testimony, watching Shido swing from a noose he could never have created. 

It would still be ruled a suicide. 

It always was.

Chapter Text

January 8th

Sae and I booked a hotel after. 

We had already guessed we were being watched, but what happened to him was a message that could not have been more direct. No way we could go home after that. 

Even at the hotel, we couldn’t sleep most of the night. 

They were going to find us eventually. We were just buying time.

So we stayed up. I told her everything I knew, just in case something happened. She told me about the Shido investigation. 

And after that, we talked about the evidence, how it had been destroyed deliberately, likely by the same people who had killed Shido, likely by the same people who were after Akechi. 

Shido’s people. Or, rather, the “others” he worked with. 

I had worked so hard to find the truth about Akechi. Even after I’d been dissuaded, stalked, taken off the case, I’d kept going, even found probably the closest thing to the truth. 

And now, I could never speak it, or I’d be risking my life. 

I’d end up like Shido. 

It hurts so bad, knowing they’ll get away with it, just like they always do. My actions changed nothing. And here, at the end of it, I’m just as bad as the rest of them. 

I understand, now, I think, a bit how Sae feels. 

I’ve failed him.

I’ve failed every single one of them. 

I’m sorry. 

I know that doesn’t make it better. But it’s the truth. 

…

(-and what’s the truth really worth?)

We’re in front of the police station. I’m turning in my log, so… hopefully they’ll be satisfied with that, and stop going after us.

It’s the only real evidence left, anyways. 

I never got rid of all those parts I wanted to. 

Guess I’m going to have to live with it. Like I’m going to have to live with everything else.

I’m sorry, Mom.

Chapter Text

January 13th:

The missing persons case concerning Goro Akechi is officially closed due to lack of evidence and admissible testimony. In accordance with protocol, the legal status of Goro Akechi has been changed to deceased. Detective Gombei has refused to comment concerning the accuracy of the log. 

This document may be filed for data analysis purposes.

May 23:

CONFIDENTIAL NOTE FOR OFFICIAL PSIA DATA COLLECTION:

It should be noted that since this document has been recorded, an individual with the legal name HINO HIKARU has applied for and been granted a change of name.