“Well, it’s a one-man company. But as long as that one man is raking in the cash, who cares?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah, any deal you make with them turns into gold. Everywhere else you get paid late, if at all..."
✦ ✦ ✦
Everywhere he went, he heard nothing but positive comments.
✦ ✦ ✦
There were no problems of any kind. The first instruction all Towa Organization terminals received was to avoid suspicious activity. Clearly Teratsuki Kyoichiro adhered to the command with diligence.
✦ ✦ ✦
The closest thing to an issue he could find was that they were a little too high profile. The Towa Organization frowned upon any sort of attention...good or bad...but having a good name was hardly something to be concerned about. Fame is fleeting. It would only take a little information manipulation for everyone to forget about MCE.
✦ ✦ ✦
He investigated further, but found nothing particularly notable. Yet Shinpei was beginning to be bothered by just how perfect his results were.
✦ ✦ ✦
The sheer ingenuity of it was beginning to smell like something he ran across in his work as a detective...alibi construction.
✦ ✦ ✦
This guy's too good to be true...
✦ ✦ ✦
He could not shake the feeling that something was amiss.
✦ ✦ ✦
He reviewed Kyoichiro’s cash flow again. His eyes caught on a property investment he’d overlooked the first time.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was a donation to a prefectural general hospital. Not too uncommon, really. Private enterprises often voluntarily helped out hospitals and medical organizations.
✦ ✦ ✦
But was this done entirely to incur good will? It wasn’t the most efficient way to provide aid to a public services organization. Compared with the flawless performance everywhere else, this seemed. . .nice He had no real reason to be suspicious, but even so, Shinpei decided to check the hospital out.
✦ ✦ ✦
Thus, he was walking through the streets, covered in dark gray, heading for the hospital.
✦ ✦ ✦
On the way he bought a bouquet of flowers,
✦ ✦ ✦
disguising himself as a visitor. He amused himself by making a whimsical bouquet of peonies, golden lace, and garden bride. Roses were too hard-boiled for him...he preferred to avoid them.
✦ ✦ ✦
The hospital was large. The building was an
✦ ✦ ✦
octagonal prism, thirteen stories tall. It was a strange shape, but presumably chosen because of space limitations combined with a desire to fill the available volume as effectively as possible.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Teratsuki-shi certainly has a penchant for
✦ ✦ ✦
strange buildings...” Shinpei muttered as he went in. Due to the large size of the complex, there were a number of security guards monitoring the grounds. However, the main hospital area was open to anyone.
✦ ✦ ✦
He wandered around briefly, searching for nothing in particular.
✦ ✦ ✦
The first floor lobby was filled with people waiting for their prescriptions to get filled. Cleaning staff were scrubbing the tile floor. Children cried for no reason in particular. Upstairs, patients were sleeping, but recovering women were laughing loudly with visitors, heedless of the suffering around them. Nurses rushed back and forth, always on their feet.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nothing out of the ordinary.
✦ ✦ ✦
Was I overthinking it? Maybe it was just a fiiendly gesture...
✦ ✦ ✦
Still holding the flowers, he headed downwards.
✦ ✦ ✦
Glancing at the floor guide near the entrance, he noticed an arrow pointing into the building next to the word “Garden.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"......?"
✦ ✦ ✦
Curious, he followed the arrow.
✦ ✦ ✦
The center of the octagonal prism was hollowed out, and there was a garden in the middle. The beautiful patch of green came as a shock here in the heart of the city.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wow...” Shinpei said, impressed, as he stepped out into the garden.
✦ ✦ ✦
He looked up and saw an array of mirrors de-
✦ ✦ ✦
signed to focus sunlight down into the center of the building.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Fancy. . .did Teratsuki-shi do that?” he muttered, and began wandering aimlessly around, admiring the lush vegetation.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Heh heh,” he heard someone chuckle.
✦ ✦ ✦
He glanced toward the sound and saw a girl of about thirteen sitting on a nearby bench. She was looking at him and laughing. Judging from her pajamas, she was a patient here.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re quite the passionate man,” she said. Her manner of speech sounded strangely masculine.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s very impressive,” Shinpei said, with no trace of embarrassment. Something about gardens put people at their ease.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Let me guess. You came to visit someone, but they weren’t here, right?” she said, suddenly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Eh?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You went upstairs, and then came back down, but you still have your flowers. I saw you up there from here,” she explained.
✦ ✦ ✦
He had been walking next to the windows, he
✦ ✦ ✦
realized. But he had not happened to look down.
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s a very good observation. Yeah, that’s basically what happened,” he said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Liar,” she replied, teeming with confidence.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re just pretending to visit. You’re only here to snoop around.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Am I? What makes you think that?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Visitors only go to one floor. If you were trying to find a room, you would’ve looked more confused.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She spoke calmly. Having such a conversation with a stranger did not appear unusual for her.
✦ ✦ ✦
A strange child. For some reason, he felt like she was a little witch.
✦ ✦ ✦
Yet despite her blunt manner of speaking, Shinpei was not at all put off by her. “I don’t know what else to say...you got me. I’m a detective. Here for work.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“A detective? You have a card?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Shinpei sat down next to her, and handed one over. “Here.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hmm, I see. Kuroda-san.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“What’s your name, little Holmes?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’m Nagi. Kirima Nagi.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She used a masculine pronoun to refer to herself.
✦ ✦ ✦
It seemed to fit.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nagi-chan. . .strange name.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“My father was eccentric. He gave me that name so I would remain calm and unflappable no matter what the situation.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I think I like that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I don’t. Not when I get teachers at school who can’t read it and call me Kaze.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ha ha ha! That’s fantastic!” Shinpei laughed.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi chuckled too. She looked down at his card again. “Kuroda-san, what exactly are you investigating here?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Can’t tell you that. Trade secret.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nothing to do with me?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Aren’t you self-important! I run a serious business, you know. I don’t have time to harass junior high school girls.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That sounds particularly impressive coming
✦ ✦ ✦
from someone who was just slacking off work to wander around muttering, ‘How pretty’ while staring at plants,” she retorted, grinning.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’ve got me there.” They both laughed,
✦ ✦ ✦
shoulders shaking.
✦ ✦ ✦
For a while they gazed at the flowers in silence.
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s easy to relax here,” Nagi said, expan-
✦ ✦ ✦
sively.
✦ ✦ ✦
"You sick or something? You don’t look all that..."
✦ ✦ ✦
Halfway through the question, Shinpei trailed off, realizing that she might not want to talk about it.
✦ ✦ ✦
But Nagi did not appear to mind. “Yeah, well. I’m here for a kind of pain, really. Been here six months already.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Six months? Then school.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Leave of absence,” she shrugged.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“They don’t know what’s causing it. My body just suddenly starts to hurt a lot. The doctors keep telling me the problem’s in my mind, not my body.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The way she spoke was so straightforward he
✦ ✦ ✦
couldn’t believe she was mentally unstable.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Doesn’t seem likely.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, my family background is worse than the symptoms. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to blame the problem on that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Huh...” was all Shinpei could say. He didn’t know how to react. But there was one thing that bothered him. “Your body hurts? Like. . .how much?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Indescribably,” Nagi said, grinning. She seemed at ease with it, but that just drove home how bad it must be. “I’ve told the doctors, but they just keep comparing it to growing pains. Pain-killers don’t do much.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Growing pains...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Growing pains,” she explained, “are a kind of nerve pain borne from the rapid changes in a child’s body and activities during growth periods. There’s no treatment for them, but they vanish eventually when the child stops growing.”
✦ ✦ ✦
This was exactly what Shinpei had imagined she meant, and it rattled him.
✦ ✦ ✦
Could She be...?
✦ ✦ ✦
He must have looked grim, because Nagi slapped him on the back. “Don’t look so gloomy!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“S-sorry,” he said, meaning it.
✦ ✦ ✦
She broke up laughing. “You’re quite a character, Kuroda-san.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Am I?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Most grownups would never dream of apologizing to a kid like that.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Detectives take everyone seriously. Anyone can be a criminal,” he joked.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Even kids?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s a very basic trick.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi cackled, “Oh yeah? Guess that makes me
✦ ✦ ✦
your number one suspect.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nah. The beautiful mysterious girl is such a cliche’ no mystery writer would go near you.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Beautiful? So you’re flirting with me now?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well...”
✦ ✦ ✦
At this point their conversation was interrupted by a voice behind them. “Kirima-san, time to go back to your room.” It was the voice of a young woman.
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s Dr. Kisugi. Gotta go,” Nagi said, standing up. “See you later, detective.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah. Hey, take the flowers?” he suggested, holding out the deranged bouquet of peonies, golden lace, and garden bride.
✦ ✦ ✦
“No thanks. I never take anything I don’t need.
✦ ✦ ✦
she grinned, and continued, “is what I’d usually say, but why not?” Nagi took the flowers from him.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thanks,” Shinpei said, smiling back.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Say, detective. . .if you’ve got time, you should check me out. You might find something interesting,”