Please note that, while in some senses this is a stand-alone story, it also features some references to events and people met in a previous story, Quietly and Softly.
I seem to have let down a few people on the last mystery, and for that I am sorry. It wasn't my intention to have too intricate a plot, since I wanted to try to become as familiar with the characters as I could first. However, Today has a bit more of a complicated weave, one that I hope will satisfy more.
I still don't own these people, none of them.
As a child, Yako never really knew what she wanted to be. A cook, perhaps, or maybe an architect like her papa? Maybe a journalist like mama, or a skater.
She didn't ever really suspect that she'd end up as a detective. She'd always been somewhat inclined towards food, and while she nowadays knew that she just didn't have the competitive streak to go into that field, when she was a girl she'd cook up fish for her parents and pretend that she had made them lamb with mint and lime sauce.
They'd play along, of course, and after a while her mother continued the joke.
"Duck a l'Orange," Yako said, placing two cups of instant ramen on the table. Neither Yako nor her mother said anything, but they thought of the room upstairs, painted in blood, and shuddered. A stiff silence fell. Neither of them picked up their chopsticks.
Yako went to bed that night and, even though she hadn't eaten anything, she wasn't hungry.
A detective now and well past pretending to cook gourmet dishes, Yako surveyed the body in front of her. Neuro was leaning over her shoulder, squinting at the ice.
She knew she probably should have been paying better attention to the tracks, the marks, and the faces of the people that had been first to discover the body, but something was bothering her. She'd only thought about it much later, when they were back from Gigi's estate and she was lying in bed.
Neuro hadn't eaten Madam Ayame's mystery, and Yako didn't know what to think of that. She knew that the woman's hard words had even thrown her for a loop for a bit (what had she been thinking?! she asked herself on the drive home, understanding Miss Ayame's pain a little more). But it seemed absurd for Neuro not to eat a mystery, as unusual and not-mysteryish as it was. Surely he had eaten lesser things.
"Aha," Neuro breathed, standing up. Yako looked over at him questioningly- he had his serious face on. "This mystery tastes odd indeed. I can't tell if I want it or not."
"Eh?! Really? But doesn't this seem like just your sort of thing, Neuro?" Yako gasped, worry seizing her. Maybe Neuro was becoming anorexic!!
Neuro made an odd puffing noise. "I don't want to become fat and ungainly."
"N- Neeeurro! NO! I mean, eating is aaaAGGHK!" Being grabbed on the face was new, she reflected sadly. It hurt a lot more than her head, actually, and it was hard to get air. She sincerely hoped that he decided her head was easier to grab. He started to walk towards the benches, dragging Yako along. He was still making that odd puffing noise. Yako decided that he must be laughing at her without wanting anybody to hear- the acoustics in the rink were incredible.
"Oho, Slave Number One, do not think me so pathetic as to fall into such a human trap." Neuro cast her aside with enough force to push her across the ice and into the stands. "But ah, look how eager you are! If only I was as ready as sensei is to solve all these mysteries, perhaps I'd be a detective in my own right." Yako clambered to her feet, looked up to see Sasazuka and Ishigaki walking in.
"Nph, yeah, right..." She groused quietly.
"Sorry, what was that, sensei? She's so shy about sharing her knowledge, gentlemen," Neuro had turned earnest and puppy-eyed again, "that sometimes I barely even hear sensei telling me her thoughts!"
Sasazuka raised an eyebrow deliberately. "Yes, I've noticed that."
There was a sudden tense silence as Neuro and Sasazuka locked eyes. Ishigaki and Yako grimaced at each other in sympathy.
"Uh, Sasazuka, sooo about the victim..."
"... Apparently she was a rising star." Neuro and Sasazuka spared each other one more direct look before Neuro redirected his gaze to the rink and Sasazuka to Yako. "She was found dead this afternoon, and the medical report states that it was from heart failure. The main suspect is her older sister, who had a large, empty bottle of aspirin in her purse." Yako blinked.
"Aspirin? You can die of aspirin poisoning?" Sasazuka looked over to the rink, where a few tiny girls had just gotten onto the ice. Behind them, a tall man with a thick red beard followed.
"She was a figure skater. According to her parents, she'd been using aspirin to dull the pain of a number of injuries she had, so she had quite a bit in her system already." Ishigaki chose that moment to burst in.
"Miss Yumi, champion of last year's Nationals, winner of 'Ten Cutest Girls in Sports' three years in running, had overdosed on it, and she went into pulmonary edema that led to cardiopulmonary arrest!"
Yako stared at him. She could feel Neuro's 'I am going to eat your soul' look boring into her, and she thought she knew why.
"What does that mean?" Honestly, she didn't know either, but Neuro would probably throw her off the subway if she made him ask, and looking it up would take too long for his tastes.
"...I have no idea." Admitted Ishigaki, laughing sheepishly. Sasazuka gave Ishigaki a small frown and nodded to Yako.
"It basically means that her heart gave out on her. Pardon us, but we have to go question some witnesses."
"Mm, we should go do some work as well. Thank you, Sasazuka!" Neuro watched the three girls and their trainer wheeling around on the ice below for a moment before he acknowledged that the detectives were gone.
"Why on earth are all humans so self-destructive?" Turning to look at him, Yako had to admit to herself that it was a bit strange. They'd been free of cases that dealt with sicknesses like this until only recently; before Gigi's case, they hadn't had a single one that had anything to do with any sicknesses but plain old sociopathy. It was strange, Yako mused, and not a good trend.
"We're not all this way, Neuro. Look at Godai and I!" He turned his gaze onto her suspiciously.
"You..." He looked at her for a moment more before grinning widely. "I'll have to be a bit more careful around Sasazuka, won't I?" They began to walk towards the exit.
"Uh, well... I guess so. That was so strange... He's normally not so, you know. Aggressive about it." Neuro quirked a brow and flung opened the door, letting the cold winter breeze sweep over them. Yako eyed the sky for potential snow before shaking her head and racing to catch up to Neuro's larger stride. When she did, he grabbed her head lightheartedly and twisted it around before releasing it.
"Sasazuka is aggressive in his own right."
"Nn," Yako shook her head to ease out the kinks, wondering when it had stopped hurting so much to get her head twisted, "no, there was something strange there. I think he suspects something odd about you, but he never pushes. Today he seemed... on edge, maybe? He didn't stop and chat at all, and he didn't scold Ishigaki at all for going on and on about Yumi's achievements."
They stopped to wait for the cross signal.
"Maybe he got in trouble at work because all his mysteries are being solved," Neuro finally chuckled. Even though she told herself it wasn't funny, that Sasazuka could be at risk of losing his job if that was the case, Yako had to let out a tiny chuckle of her own at the thought of his division at a lack of work to do solely because of them.
"Humans hurtling around on a sheet of ice using sharp metal bars? It sounds dangerous." Neuro first commented when they received the request via e-mail. Yako had been trying to explain the concept to him but, she sadly reflected, it seemed like a lost cause already. "Is it a combat sport?"
Godai, in the corner e-mailing Gigi, let out a large sniffle.
"Always up on the latest dying star, eh, Slave Number Two?" Godai's spine stiffened. Neuro, baring his spiky teeth in a blank smile, pressed on. "Aha, perhaps I should find your latest girlfriend and tell her about your obsession with other women."
Yako bit her lip. When she was coming in, she'd seen the contents of Godai's e-mail. She didn't want to say anything to Neuro, but at the same time, his comments were hitting a little too close to home for Godai to be okay with it.
Sitting in the office now, having gotten back from the rink, Yako looked at Godai's couch. The man wasn't on it, of course, but she hoped he was somewhere comfortable: it had started to blizzard just as Neuro and she had arrived at the office. Maybe he was meeting up with his girlfriend. She could probably use the comfort, at the least.
"Eh, Neuro," she sat down on the couch, watching him watch the snow. "Why didn't you eat Madam Ayame's mystery? Really?" Neuro looked back at Yako.
"...It wasn't much of a mystery. It was more of a riddle." Yako puffed out her cheeks in protest.
"What difference does it make?"
"Oh?" Neuro covered distances very quickly when he wanted to, Yako decided sadly. Standing over her with bared claws and wet, sharp-looking teeth, she certainly could appreciate that. The thing was (and this she would never, never tell Neuro), she'd started to get used to his posturing and threats. It was something like the boys on the playground pulling girls' pigtails, though with a rather more significant level of threat. It was to the point where a simple grin or a sharp finger being held up didn't really instill much fear in her.
But, Neuro was male, and Yako had experienced firsthand that no matter the species, men were men. If he decided that she was no longer frightened of him, he might come up with an even worse method of terrorization. For the sake of her own sanity, Yako acted frightened when in fact she knew he wouldn't harm a hair on her head past a little discomfort. Male pride, when trodden upon, was a terrible thing. She didn't want to get the demon equivalent of mud thrown at her.
"That's funny, I could have sworn that I heard a shrimpy little wood louse questioning my dietary needs!" He was so close to her that she could feel his hot breath on her face. While in any other circumstance and with anybody else that might be considered romantic, here, it was just terrifying. His teeth were looking awfully sharp up close, and his eyes awfully demonic.
He still, Yako mused, was sometimes genuinely terrifying.
"No, I eat mysteries, not idle riddles." Yako swallowed tensely, feeling the sharpness of his claws at her throat. How like Neuro to instill fresh fear in her just as she'd mused on how the old was dead. "A demon's diet is very important. If I eat the wrong thing, I will lose many abilities." Yako blinked. Was he actually volunteering information on himself?
(What was up with everybody today? They were all acting so strange. It just had to be the storm.)
Neuro withdrew and hid his claws away with a slick noise not unlike a knife through meat. Yako shuddered and decided, quite firmly, not to ask.
"I don't really like the way this is shaping up. It seems like the girl probably overdosed herself by accident and her sister was just caught up in it all by mistake." Yako lay down on the couch, trying to calm her still-racing heart.
"But why would it attract you in the first place, then?" Neuro swung around so quickly that she jumped a bit. If she didn't know better, she would have said that Neuro had jumped a little too.
"It didn't attract me, though. You were the one that suggested the case to me." He fixed her with that same odd stare he'd taken to using when they were alone and conversing seriously- not glowing but not dim, something studious and unsettling.
"So what are you saying, Neuro?" Sleep was close enough that the words came out in a tired mumble, "that this isn't your kind of food?"
"...No," she heard him saying, "...I'll eat it, but..." She missed the rest of his sentence, even though she was sure what he had said was important. She could always ask Akane later.