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“Don't get distracted, Isshiki,” Kawasemi Omito whispered sternly.
Toto nodded, looking down at the cracked floor. There was a thin trail of blood on it, leading deep into the abandoned building.
“I'll give you that, you're a very good shot,” Kawasemi praised in a focused voice. “Not everyone can hit Moriarty.”
Toto swallowed. Did he really do that?.. Did he really shoot that brat? His heart began to beat faster, and he adjusted his grip on the gun.
They moved silently along the trail of blood. It was worth hurrying before the criminal escaped. However, very soon the blood trail ended, and there was deathly silence throughout the building.
“What the... where did he go?” Toto muttered, looking around, but there was no trace of blood anywhere else.
The room where Kawasemi and Toto were staying was littered with dusty furniture and wood boards. The floor creaked slightly, but apart from their footsteps, there were no other sounds.
Kawasemi frowned. “The others have already surrounded the building and will probably be here soon. For now, we need to carefully look around and…”
There was a rustle that made them both freeze and point their guns in that direction. Kawasemi raised one hand, signaling for Toto to stay put. After that, he moved toward the sound.
A tense silence fell. As Kawasemi approached the fallen boards and bent down, he let out a sigh of relief.
“It's a cat. It's eating fish.”
The ruffled cat hissed from its hiding place, and Kavasemi didn't bother it anymore.
“Then where did Moriarty go…” Toto began, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark figure.
Before he could even scream, the figure was already behind him. His hand instinctively clenched on his gun, but someone's fingers tightly gripped his wrist. Toto froze.
“We’ll meet again, Officer~”
A playful whisper brushed against his ear, and in the next moment, the figure disappeared. Kawasemi’s gun fired, but the bullet only made a hole in the wall.
“He escaped,” Kawasemi said dryly. He looked at his subordinate. “Are you okay, Isshiki?”
Toto nodded silently and put his gun away. He still felt the pressure on his wrist, and he wondered, “Didn’t I hit him? Why was he moving so easily?”
Kawasemi patted his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. He could only hope that Ron Moriarty wasn't the type to pay attention to petty grievances that didn't affect Moriarty as a whole.
-
Toto's body ached for days after the mission, but even Amamiya praised him for being able to hurt Moriarty. Although Ron's appearance was still shrouded in mystery, it was a clear improvement...
“Isshiki.”
Toto shuddered and looked up at his boss, who was standing at his desk. His pen almost fell out of his hands when he realized that it was clearly not the first time she had called him.
“I-I'm sorry, senpai!”
Amamiya sighed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Stop thinking about Ron Moriarty, there's a task for you,” she said, and nodded toward the hallway. Her voice softened. “Kamoo-sama came to us, he needs help in finding his cat.”
“Finding a cat?!” Toto exclaimed when he heard what the case came to Tokyo's investigation department.
“That's right, finding a cat, do you have anything against it?” Amamiya raised an eyebrow. Toto quickly shook his head.
“Okay, I'll help!!”
He quickly turned off the computer and put aside all the papers he was working on. Amamiya nodded in approval.
He put on his jacket, straightened his hair a little, and went out into the hallway to meet this Kamoo.
On the couch, a guy with messy black hair was lounging around. With his head tilted back, he was drinking brown sugar syrup contentedly. His clothes were also not particularly neat — a black jacket, a white t-shirt, sweatpants, and... slippers?
When Toto approached, Kamoo looked up from his treat. The officer noticed the sky-blue eyes under his bangs, which somehow gave him a sense of déjà vu.
“Kamoo-san, my senpai asked me to help you,” Toto said with a slight bow. “I'm Totomaru Isshiki, and I'm here to listen to your problem. Can you tell me more about it?”
Kamoo broke into a smile and stood up from the couch, keeping his eyes fixed on Toto.
“Of course, Officer Isshiki. My cat is missing. It always came back within a day, but it's been three days, and I can't find it anywhere.”
“I see. Where did you last see him, and what does he look like?”
Toto decided that since he had been sent on this unexpected mission, he should at least try to find the missing cat. While Kamoo showed pictures of the cat, so as not to describe its colour, and explained that he had last seen his pet on the roof of the house, Toto listened carefully and memorized these bits of information.
“It would be considerably easier if the cat had a GPS collar,” Toto muttered.
“I had hoped that my cat was smart enough that it wouldn’t be necessary. It seems that curry-flavored food isn't enough for him anymore, and he's rebelling,” Kamoo snorted, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.
“I think you should put a collar on him later, Kamoo-san,” Toto replied politely, “to prevent this from happening again.”
As they stepped outside, Toto noticed that his "client" was limping slightly on his right leg, but he didn't pay much attention, too preoccupied with finding the cat.
-
When they came to a small building, Toto couldn't imagine where the cat could have gone if there weren't any fish shops or other places where cats usually congregated nearby.
“Then we'll look around the house first. Maybe your cat is already back,” Toto suggested, holding the door open for Kamoo. “Have you asked the tenants?”
Kamoo nodded. “Yeah, I have. No one had seen it, and I don’t think their answers would change.”
“W-well… Then let’s search the surroundings first.”
Toto turned away, starting up the stairs, and didn't notice the both penetrating and mocking gaze that Kamoo gave him.
After that, the owner of the lost cat followed, never letting the focused officer out of his sight for a moment.
-
The time was slowly approaching evening, and the cat seemed to have disappeared. Toto looked around tiredly, but he didn't see anything unusual again. No one had seen Kamoo's cat. No one. No matter how much they expanded the search radius, there was no sign of the cat.
“God, you really should put a GPS collar on him!” Toto groaned as Kamoo sipped brown sugar syrup and gazed at the bright sky.
Although it was his cat that had gone missing, Kamoo didn't seem concerned. Either he was good at hiding his emotions, or he was more angry at the cat, but Toto was never going to know the real reason.
He glanced at Kamoo and the bottle in his hands. It seemed like he had every pocket filled with the sweet mess, as he was drinking it almost every minute.
“How can he even drink that much syrup...?" Toto thought as he looked at Kamoo's serene expression. Somewhere deep in his mind, there was a thought that he reminded Toto of someone, but the officer couldn't place it.
He studied his features, his casual attire, his disheveled hair, and his captivating eyes, but a clear answer eluded him. Kamoo was simply a handsome and slightly enigmatic young man of Toto's age who needed assistance in finding his cat.
Noticing Toto's intense gaze, Kamoo remained silent and smiled, and there was something dangerous and playful in that smile.
After a brief respite, they resumed their search for the cat, but they didn't make much progress.
Just as Toto was about to give Kamoo a lecture on why pets should wear collars, a young girl approached them. She gently tugged on Toto's sleeve. “Officer, are you looking for a missing cat?”
Toto smiled kindly and squatted down, nodding. Kamoo watched him curiously.
“That’s right. Have you seen this one here?” Toto asked gently, showing her a picture on his phone.
The girl nodded and proudly replied,
“I have!” She beamed at the joy on Toto’s face. Kamoo grinned beside her. “It was sleeping on this bench yesterday, and today it was in the sandbox. I almost buried him by accident!”
“Really? It probably only lacked the sea, didn't he?” Toto joked, patting the girl on the head. She laughed and looked at him with even more affection. “How long has it been in the sandbox? Where did it go after that?”
The girl bit her lips and looked away. “To be honest, I don't know... My mom and I went to get ice cream, and when I came back, the cat was gone from the sandbox.”
Toto sighed, still smiling. “Okay, it's okay, you helped us a lot anyway. Go play with your friends.”
As she ran back to the playground and started bragging to her friends about helping the police officer, Toto straightened up.
“Okay, now we know your cat is okay,” he said, “but we still don't know where it is.”
Kamoo smiled indulgently and put the bottle of brown sugar syrup in the inner pocket of his jacket.
“Yes, that's some progress, Officer Isshiki. What now?”
“Let's keep looking…”
He wasn't going to give up so easily and return to his superiors with an incomplete mission. Even if it's a task to find the cat that Toto initially underestimated!
-
As the sky turned orange-pink, Kamoo suddenly pointed to a nearby bench. A cat was lying on it, basking in the sunlight with its furry belly exposed.
“Mine,” Kamoo said firmly, sitting down on the bench next to the cat. The cat lazily climbed into Kamoo's lap and went back to sleep, hiding its face under Kamoo's jacket.
Toto sighed in relief.
“Finally… Even though it was all for nothing…” The officer rubbed his neck, sighing a second time. “Don’t forget to put a GPS collar on him, I don’t want to repeat this half-day adventure.”
“Of course,” Kamoo nodded nonchalantly. “Thank you for keeping me company on this search.”
Toto smiled, but didn’t have time to respond. His phone rang, and an incoming call from Amamiya appeared on the screen.
“You're welcome, Kamoo-san! And now I have to go. Goodbye!” he said hurriedly, taking the call on the way.
Kamoo watched him go, his lips curled into a thoughtful, sly smile, and a dangerous gleam appeared in his eyes.
“I promised you that we would meet again,” he chuckled softly and ran his fingers over the smooth fur of the cat. "I think I should thank you with a double portion of treats for helping me stay near Totomaru Isshiki for so long... But I'll still put a GPS collar on you.”
Ron Moriarty stood up from the bench, picking up his cat in his arms, and for the first time, he decided not to struggle. Apparently, for the sake of the double portion of treats that he was promised.
-
After locking the apartment door, Ron put the cat on the floor and went to the bathroom. There, he sat down on a chair and rolled up his right trouser leg, revealing the blood-soaked bandages underneath.
Realizing that the wound had opened up from the long walk, Ron hummed and began to untie the bandages in order to change them for new ones. He didn't like going on stupid dangerous missions on his own, but he also didn't want to stay indoors.
“He's a surprisingly good shot,” Ron thought to himself as he examined the gradually healing bullet wound.
The cat looked into the bathroom, but when it saw what his owner was doing, it lay down on the floor in the doorway, as if it wasn't afraid of being stepped on.
“I underestimated him in that,” Ron muttered to himself, “but I can't make that mistake in the future.”
-
After finishing all the household chores, Ron lay down on the bed and turned on his laptop. For a few seconds, various windows appeared on the screen, until finally all the video images opened up — the cameras he had managed to install in his new acquaintance's apartment...
It was at this moment that Totomaru Isshiki returned home. Ron's gaze moved from one camera to another, following the officer's routine. The cameras were strategically placed to capture every corner of the small apartment and every small action.
He ran his fingers across the screen, ignoring the cat resting on his back.
“I'm going to find out everything about you, Officer…” Ron whispered with an intriguing yet gentle smile.