The day after that, in the middle of their evening route back to mansion—inside the car, the three of them still on light air and mood, Renji then asked casually.
"Well then, want to check other places or we go straight back, Rita-san...?"
"Oh?" Shira was the one who reacted first while glancing at Reika sitting beside her. She met her eyes in awkward manner, then winked at Shira.
"Hey…guys? Where are we going after this?" Then Renji glanced at the rearview mirror and look at the eyes of two women in the backseat, after five seconds, Reika coughs to clear the air.
"We'll go back to the mansion, it's getting pretty late."
"Okie-dokie..."
Then after the car easing into the main road and picking up the speed, Shira lean close and whispered to Reika.
"Is there something I should know while I'm away...?"
"Hehe... Nothing much... the way he's keep calling me Reika-sama just felt insulting in my ears overtime..." Reika whispered back, then adds with playful tone "Isn't that right...? Shira-san...?"
"Well, it's nothing big for me, but for you—"
"It's fine, Shira…"
"Heh, if you say so…"
Shira just left it with light smirk, both of them seems just like a close sister sharing equal secret.
What are they both talking about…?
Renji clutching the steering wheel with wonder, the backseat seemed more secretive than ever.
"Oh right, Renji… you'll have your free time in the evening, exactly next week."
"Oh, neat, what hour?"
"You can go on your own after 4 pm, then I'll be going with Shira, feel free to go back to your apartment or do whatever else you want to do."
"Okay, Thanks, Rita-san…"
"Just don't forget to show up back in the mansion by next morning at 9 as usual."
"Understood ma'am."
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Week passed. The apartment complex greeted him with flickering corridor lights and the faint smell of dusty warehouse.
"3 months... gone by so quickly…"
The metal railing under his hand felt unfamiliar, as if he were climbing someone else's life.
He stopped before his door. The paint near the knob was chipped where he used to miss the lock after late-night shifts.
"Last time I was here… I locked myself up for five days straight…Until—"
Reika-sama—Rita-san… knocked on this door—my door.
He let out a slow breath through his nose.
"That time… she was different."
That time… It hadn't felt like I was talking to 'Reika-sama.'
It had felt like speaking to a someone that listen to him.
He smiled faintly at himself as he recalled unexpected moments with her, especially their conversation when she's not trying to be a leader.
"…Rita-san…"
Get a hold of yourself… She's just helping me in her own way.
"That was just her… omoiyari…"
He stood, shaking his head to throw away any useless thought growing, realizing he's been standing outside for too long. His hand wrapped around the knob and he opened it—
"…What…?"
And he froze at the sight of a man sitting on his sofa, smoking nonchalantly, turning his head to him with a bored look.
"Yo. Tohara-kun."
Renji double cheeked the door number in reflex, it was indeed his own apartment room.
W—how is this guy, the door is locked, how the hell??
Last time he had seen the face, it had been under dull fluorescent lights, inside the suffocating police interrogation room. He recalls this man's eyes had watched him like a specimen.
"…You're… that detective?"
The man's gaze did not waver. His eyes were deep-set, shadowed, as though sleep had long since abandoned him.
His suit looked like it hadn't been ironed in weeks, wrinkled all over. As if someone who didn't care much about appearances, save only his hair that was combed neatly with pomade, white lines visibly weaved in between the dark.
"Makotoji Suwabe… Your newest fan, Tohara-kun."
The wording was playful. The way he said it was not.
"H-how can you get in??"
Ignoring him, Suwabe stood up, walk closer to him, and extended a hand.
"Can we get a handshake?"
Renji stared at it with eyes filled with confusion. Flinching back the more the man took step closer to him.
"…W-why?"
"I told you, right? I'm a fan…"
"F-fine…"
W-whatever, I'll have him explain after this…
He reached out in doubt, their hand met in ordinary handshake.
Then a pain shot through Renji's fingers as Suwabe's hold clamped down like iron. In one smooth motion, he stepped forward, pivoting his body. Renji's arm twisted sharply at the wrist, then at the elbow, forced up behind his back. And his face hit the floor with a loud thud as Suwabe slammed the door shut with his kick.
*Baaam*
"WHA??—GhkHH—!!"
Suwabe's knee pressed into his back, forcing his arm higher until white-hot pain shot up to his collarbone.
"AAggggGhh!!"
Renji's belonging—phone, notebook and keys slipping out from his bag, scattered on the floor.
"I'm curious about you… so let's have a nice talk, Tohara-kun."
"The fuck is this?!"
Suwabe leaned down slightly, his shadow swallowing whatever light left on his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, keep struggling, and you'll pop your shoulder. That's on you. Not me."
"Let me go you bastard!"
"Wow, youngster these days sure have no manner…"
The pressure shifted slightly—just enough to remind Renji who held the advantage.
"Just!! What the fuck do you want?? Ghh!"
"Tohara-kun, the day you were arrested. The drugs found in your bag."
"—They weren't mine!"
"…I know."
"Then why—"
"Who are you… Tohara-kun?"
"I'm just a normal civilian!"
"Normal civilian doesn't get bailed out personally by the head of Kokuren."
"She didn't—"
"In the first place, normal civilian doesn't get involved with Kokuren."
"I-I'm just her driver!"
"Strange, last time you said at the station you were just a delivery man… or am I getting old?"
"Lots of stuff happened, dammit!!"
"Again, really convenient for you…" Suwabe continued quietly, ignoring his protest.
"I didn't ask for it! She hired me. That's all!"
"Why?"
"Why do you want to know!?"
Suwabe went silent for a long moment, then he asked.
"It seems you don't know your position, right now, I ask the question and you just answer me nicely."
"Why should I?? You're the one broke into my apartment, I could call police for that!"
"Hoo, getting cocky are you…"
"Or what?" Renji pushed, adrenaline sharpening his voice with taunt. "You'll arrest me again? Plant something this time yourself?"
"…You're just garbage, Tohara-kun."
The insult was quiet. But beneath it, something seethed. Something that had been festering long before this room.
"What??"
"A pitiful garbage that floating wherever the current pushes you. Pretending you don't know what water you're swimming in." Suwabe's eyes darkened, his tone down with mockery. "Guess Tetsuo's death wasn't enough for you."
Renji's breath caught, as his eyes widen at the mention of that name.
"…What do you know about that?"
"Well, I am a detective."
Renji's hands curled into fists. "Do you have anything to do with him??"
"Have to do?" Suwabe echoed mildly. "What? I asked him a few questions."
He met with Tetsuo?? When? Why?
"What kind of questions…?"
"The kind that you struggle to answer too. He was nervously sweating though."
"…What have you done to him…?? Are you the—"
"I just… questioned him."
At his cold answer, Renji gathered all his strength and break free from his joint-lock—
"Whoa, easy there."
—Suwabe lose his balance, then his grip loosened that give Renji the opportunities to roll his body deeper into the room, taking distance between them as he stood up.
"You… killed him…?"
"I just questioned him. That's all." Suwabe copying the way Renji answer his question with a sickening smile.
"You… BASTARD!!"
Suwabe's expression hardened, staring at Renji's eyes as if searching for something in between. "So, you really do believe that I'm the one killing him… interesting…"
"The fuck you're talking about!? Why did you—Tetsuo never deserve any of that!!"
"Heh, not like you'll believe anything I said. But well, I already got useful answer."
Suwabe stood up, fixing his collar, then as he about to turn into the front door—
"Where do you think you're going??"
"Oh, I thought I'm trespassing your private space?"
"Explain what you did to Tetsuo, dammit!!"
"Told you. Just questioning him."
"You killed him!"
"You took that answer from your own head, you brat." Renji mouth opens and closes in anger, then as Suwabe took one bored glance at him, he sighs. "Still ignorant as ever. You blame others for your own deeds."
"Huh? I'm not the one who did it!"
"That's what it means to stay beside power, and you delude yourself and anyone around you to think that you're just a driver."
The fuck he's talking about!?
"Fine, let's say you're just a 'driver'. You think driving for Kokuren's head won't affect anyone around you?"
"I didn't ask for any of this!"
"No one ever does."
The words slipped out with something dangerously close to bitterness.
For a heartbeat, something flickered in Suwabe's eyes—an image of a high-rise balcony, sirens in the distance, white sheets drawn over still bodies.
He blinked, and it was gone.
"It amazes me at how well you play this role, Tohara-kun."
"I'm not playing anything!"
"Then you're being played by your boss."
"You're just blindly accusing everyone for your convenience!"
"Stay away from Kokuren—" he said finally, then adds with thick sarcasm. "—if you're as innocent as you believe."
Renji let out a humorless laugh. "You break into my place, throwing me into my damn floor, interrogate me without clear reason, and now you're giving advice?"
"It's a warning."
"Why the hell are you so fixated on Kokuren anyway?"
Suwabe's jaw tightened.
"Because they're yakuza. And they're the cancer of society. What other reason do you need?"
The moment he heard that, Reika face and the way she lived her life flashed in Renji's mind, and fueled more anger to his response.
"Not all of them like that—!"
"Not like what? Heh, come on pick side will you. Now I'm confused whether you're just naïve or a pro accomplice, or even worse… an actual mastermind."
"It's not like all police are good—"
"—Do you know how many bodies I've seen tied to Kokuren?"
Silence. And Suwabe asked again.
"Do you know how many times case against Kokuren just disappear like they never existed?"
Another silence. But Renji already knows the answer.
Is that… because police cover up… like the other day Shira-san talked about…
Suwabe watched that hesitation closely.
"There it is… you do understand, you lowly yakuza's dog."
"I'm not a yakuza."
"…" The weary detective still glaring at him, then sigh, as he crouched and pick up Renji's notebook on the floor.
"Hey! Put it down!"
Ignoring him, Suwabe opened the book, and write something inside it, then throwing the book to Renji's feet. He then turned toward the door with a scoff, pausing with his hand on the knob.
"If you really what you think you are, then you're already too close." The door opened, with cold light spilled in, and Suwabe added softly, "And if you're not, then I'll make sure you're getting what you deserve."
Renji could only stare at his straight back. Then the detective shut the door with a click.
"The fuck??"
Renji stood alone in the dark apartment, his limbs sore all over, his heart still hammering inside his ribs—uncertain which part is which from that unwanted conversation.
He then picked up the notebook thrown to him, looking at it, inside the book cover, there's a rough handwriting, there's a contact number and one, cold line—
'I know who killed him.'
"…What…?"
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