“Kimizuka, what are you looking at?”
When I came back to his hospital room from putting fresh water in the vase, Kimizuka was sitting on the bed, gazing out the window. He’d been facing forward a moment ago, but apparently he’d turned toward the window on his own. That meant he wasn’t in what you’d call a vegetative state. His eyes were open, too.
Those eyes weren’t seeing anything, though, and of course he didn’t answer me. The fact that he seemed to be looking out the window might just have been an involuntary human habit.
“Those are definitely autumn clouds, aren’t they?”
It had been over three weeks since the code of loss had done this to Kimizuka, and so far, almost nothing had changed.
“The second-semester classes have started at university already. If you don’t show up soon, you won’t get your credits.”
I knew he wouldn’t respond, but I kept talking to him anyway.
Rill had told me that my word-soul reached every cell in the bodies of people who heard it. Mia had told me the achievements of past Ace Detectives had collected in me. Yui had asked me for a favor: She wanted me to be the one to save Kimizuka. Nobody else.
And so…
“I’ve got to do it.”
Just talking to him like this probably wouldn’t be enough, though. I needed to come up with some sort of method. I wasn’t able to reach Charlie or Ms. Fuubi at this point. They were probably both actively working on their missions. I didn’t have the time to take it slow.
Taking a small, deep breath, I gazed at Kimizuka’s profile. He was still looking out the window. Copying him, I looked that way as well, and saw the tiny silhouette of an airplane in the blue sky.
“Is that what you wanted to see?”
Come to think of it, Kimizuka had done this at the same time the day before, too. His eyes had been blank, yet he’d been looking at the sky. The sky ten thousand meters up—
“I see. You want to go back there, don’t you, Kimizuka?”
He hadn’t been looking out the window because of some unconscious human habit. As the detective’s assistant, he was still following that distant sky with his eyes.
“That’s right. You’re…”
Kimizuka wasn’t just a client who was waiting to be saved.
He was constantly searching for the one route that would let us all be happy in the end. That was Kimihiko Kimizuka’s will.
“Hang on a sec!”
I flew out of the hospital room—and almost crashed into somebody. “I’m sor… Noches?”
It was the maid who looked identical to Siesta. She was carrying a paper bag with a change of clothes for Kimizuka. “Nagisa. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Um, I need to change clothes, too!” I couldn’t be more specific than that; it was too embarrassing.
At first, Noches tilted her head, looking perplexed. Then the corners of her lips curved up slightly. “I don’t really understand, but I like that expression on you.”
“Yours is good, too!”
Leaving Noches to keep Kimizuka company for a while, I hurried back to my place.
Kicking my shoes off in the entryway, I made a beeline for the closet. What I was here for was tucked away carefully in the very back.
“I’m glad I kept this.”
I snatched it up, then went straight back to the hospital, clutching one more important thing tightly in my hand.
When I returned to the hospital room, Kimizuka was still sitting up in bed, although he was facing forward. Maybe Noches had made a tactful exit; she wasn’t here now. Closing one of the room divider curtains, I started to change clothes.
What I’d retrieved from my closet was my high school uniform.
It was the sailor uniform I’d worn during summer term. My figure hadn’t changed much since then. It still fit, no problem. But…
“Wh-why is it this embarrassing?”
Up until last year, I’d just worn it as a matter of course. It didn’t look like cosplay already, did it? Just to check, I opened up a hand mirror and inspected myself.
“Maybe I’m a little too desperate.”
I was out of breath, my face was red, and I’d even put on my high school uniform. Charlie had been mystified by that at some point, hadn’t she? She’d wondered why I got so desperate for Kimizuka’s sake.
“Because he’s my friend. My business partner. My classmate. My assistant. And…”
Because I like Kimizuka.
I didn’t say it out loud. There was a tiny possibility that someone would hear, and I didn’t want that. As long as I knew it, that was enough.
“Hmm. I guess it’s not long enough for a ponytail yet.”
Looking at myself in the mirror, I fiddled with my hair. It was still a little short.
“Well, let me off with this, okay?”
Using that promised red ribbon to tie back what I could, I opened the curtain again. Kimizuka was sitting on the bed, right where he’d been earlier. He wasn’t looking at anything, he wouldn’t hear anything. There was no heat or energy to him. Briskly, I walked up to him.
“You’re the ace detective?”
He didn’t answer. Of course he wouldn’t. In that case…
“Don’t just stand there—answer me. Are you Kimihiko Kimizuka, the ace detective people are talking about?”
I hauled him up by his shirtfront.
This wasn’t the sort of thing it was okay to do to an invalid. This was how we’d met, though, in that classroom after school.
He still wasn’t responding, though. Back then, I was pretty sure Kimizuka had said, “You’ve got the wrong guy” and tried to leave. I’d gotten really irritated and…goaded by the heart there in the left side of my chest, I’d hauled him in close and gotten tough with him.
“If you’re going to ignore my question, don’t expect mercy: I’ll—”
Right, just like this.
“I’ll kiss you on the lips.”
…Kidding.
A joke. That was a joke. Clearing my throat a tiny bit, I gazed at Kimizuka again. “Even if you can’t be aware of me at all anymore, I’ll meet you for the first time as often as it takes.”
It was just like what we were planning to do with Siesta, if she’d forgotten everything when she woke up from her surgery. I’d tell him how the detective and her assistant had met over and over, reenact it again and again.
The detective and assistant had had all sorts of meetings.
For example, Kimizuka and Gekka Shirogane had met at a police station. After that, Kimizuka and Siesta had met at ten thousand meters. In London, he’d met Alicia, the proxy detective. I thought all those events had been significant for Kimizuka. I trusted that they had been.
But this was the meeting I’d chosen. I didn’t compare myself to the previous detective. I didn’t act as the proxy detective. Taking pride in my current identity as the Ace Detective, I held out my right hand to him.
I believed that these words, which I’d never properly said before, would become a word-soul that was certain to come true.
“Say, Kimizuka—be my assistant.”
There was a long, long silence.
I waited, waited, kept waiting, got just a little scared, and let my gaze fall. The wind blew; I saw the curtains stir out of the corner of my eye.
“What’s your name?”
I heard a voice. I couldn’t look up.
All sorts of feelings had gotten tangled together, and I couldn’t raise my head yet. Five seconds passed, then ten, and then I screwed up my courage and looked toward the voice. At his face.
The young man looked rather mystified, but also as if he were hoping for something. Curbing my racing feelings, I searched for words.
“My name is…”
I sucked in a small breath. Holding it for just a few moments, I looked down at the floor one more time. Several options rose to the surface and vanished, but this really was the only answer.
Raising my head decisively, I spoke with a smile.
“My name is—Nagisa!”
Nagisa Natsunagi! I proudly gave the name that belonged to me, only me, the Ace Detective.
For a moment, Kimizuka’s eyes widened in surprise. “—I see.” He sounded convinced. He might even have sounded as if he understood everything. As if he’d remembered.
Smiling softly, he spoke.
“Then from now on, I’ll call you ‘Nagisa.’”