Kentaro burbled happily on the other end of the line.
✦ ✦ ✦
He was a year younger than Nagi.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You free?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Couldn’t be freer! What do you need? I’m up for anything!” he yelped, excitedly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi managed a pained smile, “Right, then I’ve got a favor to ask. Check out the garbage piles around the west side of town and see if there’s something there.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Garbage piles...hmm, and what am I looking
✦ ✦ ✦
for?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Dead animals.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ick! Why?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I’m not forcing you to do anything.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“N-no, I’ll do it! Sure! Dead...like what?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Anything. Just see if anything’s there, no need to bring any samples back.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She did not bother to mention that she would do that.
✦ ✦ ✦
“ok. If I’m on the west side, will you be checking the east?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Yeah. Meet me at the usual place on the national road. In two hours.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Sure. Oh, hey...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“What?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“When we’re done, mind if I eat at your place?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi smiled her pained smile again. “Hitting on Aya?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“O-of course not!” Kentaro stammered, flus-
✦ ✦ ✦
tered.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Just kidding,” Nagi said, amused. “I’ll call her.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Great, thanks.”
✦ ✦ ✦
She should be thanking him, she thought, but I hung up Without saying so.
✦ ✦ ✦
Her smile vanished, and she glared at the garbage pile again. “So,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
✦ ✦ ✦
2.
✦ ✦ ✦
It had been nearly five years since Kirima Nagi began secretly helping people.
✦ ✦ ✦
She started right after she had abruptly recovered from the illness that kept her in the hospital for six months. Exactly why she had recovered remained a mystery. All she knew was that her body was healthy once again, and there were several months to go before she could reenter school.
✦ ✦ ✦
She honed her weakened body by training with an old friend of her father’s, her guardian, Sakakibara Gen. He was a karate expert, and in no time her physical instincts were sharp as a blade.
✦ ✦ ✦
Afterward, Gen had found himself in a spot of trouble. It was serious enough that he had to leave Japan. When he left her, Nagi felt like she might have been able to save him if she had tried.
✦ ✦ ✦
That event, along with a few other things, started her on her current trajectory.
✦ ✦ ✦
When she began only he knew what she was do-
✦ ✦ ✦
ing, but now she had friends like Suema Kazuko, Niitoki Kei, and Habara Kentaro, who’d gotten mixed up in something she’d dealt with and afterward pledged to help her out when she needed it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi was doing her level best to avoid putting any of them in danger. In the past she had lost a very good friend because of her choice to involve the person in her business. Habara Kentaro, in particular, was continually sniffing around after her, poking his nose into dangerous places. That was exactly why Nagi had begun asking for his help when she was fairly sure matters would not turn out to be too dangerous.
✦ ✦ ✦
Not that Kentaro’s abilities weren’t impressive...he’d taken care of one big incident all on his own.
✦ ✦ ✦
Even so, Nagi was constantly reminding herself not to rely on him unless it was absolutely safe...or absolutely necessary.
✦ ✦ ✦
When Nagi and Kentaro had finished their investigations and returned to Nagi’s home, her housemate Orihata Aya greeted them brightly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, Aya-Chan! Long time no see!” Kentaro
✦ ✦ ✦
called out.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya snorted, “Habara-san, you were just here last week.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh? Was I?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Both of them laughed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“That smells good. What is it?” Nagi asked, pull-ing her boots off.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Beef stew. I was making a lot anyway, so when I heard Habara-san was coming. . .it was kind of a relief, honestly.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re so nice,” Kentaro said, nodding earnestly.
✦ ✦ ✦
Then he suddenly asked, “Oh, right...mind if I wash my hands?”
✦ ✦ ✦
He was off down the hall before anyone an-
✦ ✦ ✦
swered. He’d been over often enough to know where the washroom was.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi shook her head.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya stared blankly after him. “What’s with that?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Probably touched a dead cat or something,”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi said.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya’s eyes widened, “O-oh..."
✦ ✦ ✦
“More importantly, dinner’s waiting, right? Sorry we were late...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, no, not at all,” Aya said, shaking her head and smiling.
✦ ✦ ✦
Looking at Aya, Nagi marveled again at how
✦ ✦ ✦
much happier the girl seemed. When they first started living together she had been very stiff, but she had opened up considerably since then.
✦ ✦ ✦
She had originally been friends with Nagi’s step-brother, Masaki. But a certain incident had left her alone in the world, and Nagi had taken her in. Nagi was only a minor, but she was also wealthy.
✦ ✦ ✦
No sooner had the three of them sat down to
✦ ✦ ✦
eat than Kentaro, spoon still in his mouth, moaned,
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’re getting even better, Aya-Chan!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thank you!” she said, beaming.
✦ ✦ ✦
“He’s right. Your training’s paying off,” Nagi agreed, once she’d tasted it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya was attending a cooking school. It was pretty intense...designed specifically for would-be professionals. Aya had decided that the best way to plan for her future was to ensure her employability, so she had quit high school and enrolled there.
✦ ✦ ✦
“But I’m afraid it does taste a little burnt. That’s a problem for stew,” Nagi said.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kentaro sighed dramatically. “Harsh, isn’t
✦ ✦ ✦
she?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“No, I actually prefer to have people come right out and tell me if something is wrong. Helps me improve,” Aya said, smiling.
✦ ✦ ✦
“She keeps pushing you too, huh? Bet it would be a lot more fun to cook for Masaki,” Kentaro teased.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya turned bright red. “N-no, I..."
✦ ✦ ✦
“Shame he’s been confined to the dorm as punish-ment for truancy. You never see him!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, but I don’t...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“She calls him every day,” Nagi interrupted.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, she does? Hee hee hee.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Augh. . .” Aya moaned, softly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“But you do miss him, right?” Kentaro said,
✦ ✦ ✦
insistently.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya didn’t answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
Instead, Nagi said calmly, “They’re better off apart for the moment. Give them both some time to cool their heads.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Maybe so. Oh, Nagi, what’s going on with the Taniguchi house? With Masaki in the dorm and you in the apartment, is anyone living there? Masaki’s parents are still abroad, right?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s empty,” Nagi said, simply.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kentaro grimaced. “That’s a shame. If his parents come back and find the place deserted they’ll be shocked.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Do you want to live there...look after it? You can take the rent out of your pay. You should end up getting about fifty thousand yen a month.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“You always were stingy,” Kentaro sighed, then began plowing through his stew. “Mm, this is so good?’
✦ ✦ ✦
“There’s plenty more!” Aya said, and Kentaro quickly held out his empty bowl.
✦ ✦ ✦
Despite her complaints, Nagi ate steadily as well.
✦ ✦ ✦
She felt very much at home.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nagi said, glancing over the notes Kentaro had taken.
✦ ✦ ✦
They were done eating and had moved to the living room.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Like you said, a decent number. They’ll probably be eaten by other animals by tomorrow, but...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“So many different kinds, too. . .” Aya said, glancing over the data. “Crows, rats...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“The garbage areas...the animals would only
✦ ✦ ✦
have been able to feed for an hour or two before the garbage was collected. It was collected this morning, but then why didn’t they take the dead animals? Or were they placed there after the trash was picked up?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But what for?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hmm. . .maybe it was just a prank?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But if you put dead crows and rats in a garbage pile, nobody would notice. Pranksters would go for something more obvious.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Good point.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"........."
✦ ✦ ✦
Based on the notes, Nagi began breaking down the data.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Find anything?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“The only noteworthy fact so far is that there are no corpses in the larger collection areas,” Nagi said.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Ah!” Aya exclaimed. “You’re right!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“I didn’t notice. Yeah, they were all in narrow residential streets, nothing near big apartment complexes or office buildings,” Kentaro shook his head, bitter that he’d overlooked the pattern.
✦ ✦ ✦
“But what does it mean?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hmm. . .” Kentaro thought hard. “Maybe they were poisoned? The poison could’ve been mixed into the garbage. Maybe it was some sort of sick prank...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“But if it was poison, the bodies wouldn’t be damaged. Instead, they would have thrown up, and.
✦ ✦ ✦
you’d see evidence of that,” Aya pointed out.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Urp,” Kentaro said. “M-maybe the rats got
✦ ✦ ✦
them afterward?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Rats would have taken the whole body some-
✦ ✦ ✦
where safe before consuming it.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Urp.” Kentaro clutched his head. “When Nagi first called I didn’t think this was a big deal, but. . .the more I look at it, the less sense it makes.”
✦ ✦ ✦
"............" Nagi silently pored over the information.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nagi, what do your instincts say?” Kentaro
✦ ✦ ✦
asked.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aya nodded, clearly wanting to know. Both of them stared at Nagi.
✦ ✦ ✦
“The Corpses were not taken away, probably
✦ ✦ ✦
because it was against regulations,” Nagi said quietly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Regulations? What do you mean?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“No, wait...you mean the garbage collector’s contracts? Corpses don’t count as garbage?”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, that makes sense,” Aya nodded.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kentaro did as well, continuing, “If you put out oversized garbage it just gets left there as well.
✦ ✦ ✦
Dead animals are probably the same. That explains why they aren’t left in the big places as well. Those places would have different people collecting, and it would all get hauled away together.”