Chapter 1:The meeting & encounter

*Huff *Huff

"Ah! It's almost time…..i hope I'm not late" picking up her pace, the grayish brown hair inspector ran through the gap of the crowded of people towards the Homura's café direction.

Once she arrived at the place, she let out a disappointed sigh. When she saw the café is already packed with customer as the place is well known due to its Japanese sweet specialty which was served within this café. Homura's café is managed by the Kousaka family and has been successfully stayed on top as well known for many generation, Kotori also happens to be good friends with the daughter of the café. As they happen to be childhood friends when they were little and used to play together.

Kotori already changed in to her casual attire when it's during her lunch time, since she would only wear her work clothes when she is on duty or doing something related to her work. Kotori attire now consists of short orange sweater which is waist length size and wears a long knee-length white dress inside the sweater. The white dress is decorated with green lines that surrounded the light yellowish semi-circle with a golden rounded zig-zag pattern at the chest area of the dress, there is also a green ribbon wrapped at her white dress. She also brought a medium size bag with her so she kept her files and other important things.

Either way, Kotori started to scan through the surrounding of the café. Hoping that she can find an unoccupied table for her to sit and for her luck she was able to find an empty table. Quickly she moved her two leg towards the target table, though as Kotori happily touch the top handle of the chair, she felt a warm hands overlapped her's, looking up to the owner of the hands. The Inspector then met a gaze of two pair of amber colored eyes which is similar to her eye colored, beside the opposite party eye color, the long dark blue hair which happens to be fluttering lightly through gentle blown wind makes the hair waved like the sea has made the inspector feel mesmerize of the person making her ended up staring at the person's face who seems to be flustering right now, as the person face looks red like a tomato from blushing.

Once Kotori manage to recovered back her mind after being daze for a few seconds, realizing the situation that is currently happening right now, both her and the owner of the other hands pulled back their hands at the same time out of embarrassment, the first person who open her mouth first was the blue haired girl, with a flustered voice and tinge of redness that still lingered on her face, the girl stuttering apologizes to Kotori.

"Ah! Sor-ry I didn't mean to touch you or anything-er how could I have done something shameless!"

Seeing the blue haired girl reaction, made the inspector giggle before taking her time to talk

"It's alright, and I know it's not like you did it on purpose right? or were you?~" snickered a bit of her tongue while pointing her index fingers, the young inspector felt like teasing the blue haired girl a bit just to see more the cute reaction of the girl

"Of-f course! Not! I would never dare touch a cute girl like you-! I mean a lady like you" still with a flustering respond, her face got even redder

Kotori was taken aback with the blue haired girl comment, making her slightly blushed for a moment there, then managed to regain back to her usual smiling expression

"Ahaha I was just kidding, beside things like this unexpected to happen since especially you know….." making a slightly troubled expression while looking around the café surrounding, the blue haired girl took the clue quite well on what the grayish brown haired girl was talking about.

"I understand what you mean, still I must apologize my rudeness for the act just now, you can have this table...…I will try to find other unoccupied table" the blue haired girl now has a calm reformed expression as she excuses herself to find another place to sit. As she was about to walk away…..

"Urm! Would you care to join me for lunch?" said the young inspector towards the blue haired girl.

"Joining you for lunch...as in sitting at the same table...together?" answered the girl with confused expression.

"Ah! I mean nothing like that…..it's just I think it be hardly for you to find any free seats now since its lunch time, also I feel bad letting you searching for another table"

"It's ok, i don't want to bother your precious lunch time since you are probably going to meet up with someone right?"

"Eh!? How did you know?" feeling a bit surprised with the blue haired girl , corrected guessing.

"I noticed that you have been shifting your eyes at random place around the café surrounding while we are conversing, so I began to deducted that you'll be meeting someone during your lunch time, am I'm correct?"

"Amazing! you were able to figure it from just a glance" said the grayish brown haired girl in astonishing manner.

"ahaha, well I'm just an observant person myself so yeah it's nothing much" while scratching lightly her right cheeks with a flustered face due to the compliment from the grayish brown haired girl.

"Anyways I don't mind as that person might slightly come late, beside I actually feel bad if I hog this table to myself even though we both reached this table at the same time" feeling a little guilty for some reason.

"Errr I don't like to be a bothersome because of my appearance being present ,when the person you are going to meet will be arriving soon, as your talk might be important or probably work related?"

"Like I said it's alright, so please~" said the grayish brown haired girl in a pleading manner showing the blue haired girl her powerful pleading looks.

Unable to resist the pleading face of the grayish brown haired girl, the blue haired girl gave in….

"Ok ok, if you insist….i be joining you for lunch ,if you don't mind?" said the blue haired girl with a troubled expression as the she feel honor to be able to have lunch with a cute young lady.

They both then took their own seat at the table, choosing to sit facing each other as they can talk easily. Since the Menu has already been putted on top of the table, they both decided to slide open the pages of the menu to choose the food they wanted to have for their lunch.

After a few minutes has passed, a young energetic ginger haired girl with a side-tail hairstyle wearing the cafe's waitress dress, comes in to take their order….

"Welcome to Homura's Café, may i take your order?...Oh kotori-chan!" said the girl who seems eager to see the grayish brown haired girl in front of her present.

"Ah Honoka-chan, are you currently helping your parents right now?" answered the young inspector, when she saw her childhood friend appearance.

"Yeah, Since the café started to get a lot busy these days and Yukiho is busy studying up for her exam making us having less people to help, so yeah now I started to helping around when I have no work, it does looks tiring but I love to help around here for now and then"

"That's great to hear, hope you don't overwork yourself since it be bad for your health if you over push yourself, Honoka-chan" said Kotori worriedly

"Thanks for your concern, but its nothing to be worried...rather than about me~ what about you Kotori-chan?

"What do you mean Honoka-chan?" giving out rather a confused looks about her childhood friend question

"Well you know are you here for lunch...or maybe ~ on a D.A.T.E?" the ginger haired girl let out a mischievous smile, as she shoot a glance of the another person who seems to be with Kotori today .

"Da-te!? Of course not!-Don't be silly Honoka-chan ehehe, beside I just happen to invite her to eat with me since it's crowded here" Said Kotori with a flustered face when hearing her friends teasing.

Meanwhile the blue haired,trying not to get roped with the both of them just decided to rose up her left hands and gave a friendly wave to the ginger haired girl, while still holding in her blushing face. Honoka then waved back to the person energetically then noticed as new customer keeps coming, she decided to focus back on her job and take their order as she was supposed to do earlier.

Kotori ordered her usual meal, while the blue haired girl decided with coffee+ lunch manjuu set. Feeling satisfy with the order she taken, after nodding she bid her farewell towards the two people before heading to the next customer to take their order…..While waiting for their order to arrive, Kotori took this chance to review on who is the person that she is supposed to meet today, taking the dark blue file which she received from her superior out of her bag.

Though something made her unable to continue reading through the content of the files, which made her making a troubled expression once she realized something that should be in the file. But that certain thing seems to be missing from the file itself, which is the picture of her designated partner weren't there. She then tried to check inside her bag just in case if the pictures happen to fall from her bag but to no avail luck there isn't any sign of the small pictures. Kotori let out a heavily sigh of disappointment, however that sigh has caught the blue haired woman attention who seems to be reading a book (probably a novel, based on Kotori thoughts) while waiting for her order to arrive.

"Is there something troubling you?" questioned the blue haired woman

"Ah! It's nothing much…..it's just that the photo which was supposed to be attached within the content of this file, seems to be missing"

"Hmmm…..i presume that the picture have something to do with the person that you'll about to meet later?"

Kotori just nodded for an answer, then decided to shift back her eyesight to the content of files hoping that there is a helpful description in the information of her partner that can make her recognize the person who she will be meeting.

Firstly that caught her attention was the name of the person that was written there.

Name: Umi,Sonoda (Sonoda Umi)

Birthdate: 15/3/xxxx

Age: 24

Profile Info: Well known for her achievement on solving toughest cases that have been left unsolved from country to city, called as a genius detective for her title rank, achieving the title in the early career of being a detective. Moved back to Otonokizaka City, so that she can be a part of the Police Force to help them on the newest case which is relate to the Phantom Thief Elichika, she will be paired up with Inspector Kotori, Minami as her support just for this Operation.

Rest of the info,only contains a short background of her and nothing much important facts that caught her interest

But as kotori saw the name of her partner, made Kotori's eye instantly gazed at the person in front of her with a dazed expression, as that name had made her thought back of the sea like hair color, which belong to the person in front of her. Noticing the stares from the grayish brown haired girl, made her felt a bit uncomfortable as she can feel a few droplets of sweat oozing out of her skin due to the nervousness of being stared. Trying to break out of the awkwardness from being stared, she coughed a few times before speaking up…

"Urm, is there something wrong on my face?"

"Ah sorry!, it's just the name of the person that I'm supposed to meet made me think about your sea like hair when I see her name, ehehehe" letting out a troubling laughter as she got found out.

"Is that so, hmm it's a 'her' huh….say do you mind if I take look at the file…but if its private info then I understand" after hearing the grayish brown haired girl explanation, the girl had managed to intrigue her curiosity about the probability that the person she was supposed to be meeting would be the cute looking girl in front of her. Just like the grayish brown haired girl, she also supposed to be meeting with someone today and that person supposedly is going to be her so called 'partner' as it was stated at the mail that she received.

Though after hearing enough clues from the conversation that she had so far with the girl, she can concluded the possibility that the person that she supposed to be meeting is actually the person in front of her, plus with the name that she heard from the ginger haired girl from earlier that called the grayish brown haired girl as "Kotori" and name is also similar to name of the person that she is going to meet. That name is already a proof enough for her to recognize that the person in front of her is inspector that she going to be paired with.

Meanwhile in Kotori mind, she thought a while on whether she should let the person read the content of the files, since it's consider to be a confidential files towards an outsider and addition that person is the one who she just met…thought she did find the person in front of her attractive and thinking that girl in front of her looks trustworthy. After thinking it thoroughly, she decided to let the person read the content of the dark blue file, as she passed the file...

"Here, I guess it couldn't hurt to let you see it a bit since you said you are quite an observant person right? Maybe you could help me find the person that I'm supposed to be meeting?"

"Ahaha, is that so? I'm glad to be of help...though I don't think that is actually necessary for me once I able to really can confirm if the person I have in mind is actually accurate" letting out an amusing laughter as she receive the dark blue file from the grayish brown haired girl.

Once she read the content of the file, nodding out of satisfaction as her deduction turns out to be correct when finding the name is actually her's, making Umi couldn't help but to giggle out for her discovery.

Seeing the blue haired girl reaction, made Kotori pondered on what so amusing about the file content. Kotori then urged the girl to tell what is the thing that she find, so amusing that made her laugh for this matter due to her own curiosity even though she kind of taken attracted of this side of the blue haired girl.

Umi giggle until a small drop of tears flow out of her eyes, after that thinking that it's enough giggling. Umi swipe off the happy tears with her right index finger and started to reveal who she really is.

"Just like I said a while ago, you really don't need to search for the person because that person is actually-"but just as Umi were about to reveal herself something else alarmed them….

"SOMEONE HELP! THAT GUY STOLE MY PURSE!"

Hearing the sudden scream for help, made them both instantly look at the direction source of the scream. Not even required to take a single second waste, Kotori instantly chased after the purse snatcher. She ended up leaving her stuff at the café and managed to apologize to Honoka as she ran past through her with both her hands cupped together with a pleading expression hoping Honoka would understand the situation during her chase, kotori gladly feel assure after seeing a glance of her childhood friend giving an understanding nodding during her pursuit.

Luckily for kotori she didn't wear any high heels today if not she would have a hard time chasing the perpetrator. During the whole duration of the chase,Kotori had a hard time at first trying to evading the crowded people at the street during her chase as she don't want to accidentally push off the pedestrian but the perpetrator instant just ran over the people just so that he can ran off with the stolen purse. Feeling unforgivable of the purse snatcher action of stealing, eventually kotori was able to steady her breathing making her more alerted of her surrounding as a result,Kotori was able to swiftly evade the pedestrian and is almost cutting in close with the purse snatcher.

Unfortunately the purse snatcher was able to notice Kotori close distance between him, decided to take an alternative route which leads them to the back alley near the area of café. Kotori also realized that this would be gives her an disadvantages as the back alley is filled with corner and multiple lane which is why most of the people here would called this part of the back alley as the "Alley of Maze" since literally place itself is like a maze due to the other buildings construction shapes.

Kotori almost about to lose the sight of the purse snatcher, as she went past another corner...a certain unexpected movement of the culprit made her halt her steps immediately when she saw the culprit who she was pursuing is currently had his face hitting the hard ceramic ground and his body ended sprawled all four after he fall due the impact of getting his kneecap getting striked by a stiff wooden stick making him easily topple due to unbalanced stability of being beaten at a certain part of his body, trying his best the person was about to raise up his sadly for him, he felt another strike though this time at his neck area which ended up him being unconscious.

Kotori then spotted the person who has successfully taken down the culprit feel surprised as it was the blue haired girl earlier from the café. Feeling amaze and shocked at the same, left the young inspector with lots of question in mind like "who on earth is she?" and "how did she arrived here?"

The blue haired girl, who noticed the young inspector presence, let out a genuine smile towards her as a sign of her hard work of her pursuit of the purse snatcher. Her appearance consisted of a lightly blue colored one piece with white stitches pattern and a white turtleneck with black border on top of the collar area also a black with silvering metal belt that is wrapped at the waist area of the one piece, also wearing a well-designed brownish colored coat that's fits well with her one piece dress. She also wear a long black colored panty hose which covers up all her legs and wear a white and dark blue lining pattern sneakers.

Kotori also noticed that the blue haired had her hair tied up in low pony tail style now instead of her free hair during earlier at the café, other than that she noticed that the girl is holding her bag that she had left at the café which is currently now resting on the girl left shoulder at same time she also saw the dark blue file at same hands that is holding her bag.

Thinking that it's the right time for her to explain who she is, judging from the reaction of the stunned inspector. Letting go of the wooden stick that she luckily found at the back alley, making sure it was rolled towards the other direction and not nearing the purse snatcher for safety reason, if incase the person manage to regain his conscious. The blue haired girl walk towards the inspector then presented the bag to its owner which Kotori graciously accepted it unconsciously.

"It a good thing that you act quickly to chase after that purse snatcher, but do mind that you should not forget your stuff especially if it contains important stuff like this 'handcuff' here" using her eyes pointing at the handcuff which she is holding at her left hands which she took it out from her left pocket of her coat.

Kotori then remembered that she usually brings some of the stuff she used to capture criminal with her, even when she is on lunch break or off duty, since she need to be prepare with an incident like this that could happen anytime or anywhere. Hearing that kotori felt disheartening due to her own carelessness. Seeing the saddening look of the grayish brown haired girl, the blue haired girl quickly tried to find a way to cheer her up and then offered back the handcuff to the inspector and told her to cuff up the purse snatcher as for security reason to not let the culprit run away during their conversation.

"Though I have to apologize for rudely, searching into your personal belongings and taking your handcuff since I had to prepare it, if things went out of the plan" giving her a sincerely apologetic expression.

The inspector told her that it ok since she did told her and then doing as the blue haired told her to, Kotori take the handcuff and cuffed up the purse snatcher hands at behind his back. Once the handcuff is securely being cuffed and isn't loosed, kotori let out a satisfying smile and then remembered something that she supposed to ask the blue haired girl. Now turning her face back to girl, kotori cautious look around her surrounding incase of the girl in front of her is some sort of an enemy that waiting for the time to just ambush her with other tactical way. Also thinking why on earth did she listen to the girl order?

Wearing a tightly cautious expression, Kotori asked the following questions to the blue haired girl.

"Who on earth are you?"

She then ready her stance in case of an ambush, but a dark blue file which is in the girl hand were pointed at her direction instead. Looking at the girl face, she saw her making a smirking smile...

"I have been trying to tell you since earlier though but we kept getting interrupted with various event that have been happening today, I could say it was troublesome but quite amusing at the same time" she let out a tiredly sigh but still retaining her smirked expression.

"My name is Sonoda Umi,the detective that supposed to be meeting you today and you're to be 'partner' I'm really pleased to make you of my acquaintance and hope to be working with as your partner, Inspector Minami~" offering her right hands for handshake with the dark blue file still within her grasp.

Hearing that explanation, the only word that managed to came out of the stunned inspector was…..

"EHHHHHHHHHH!" as the sound of the shocked inspector resounded the whole alley of the area with her shrieking scream.


Meanwhile at the Homura's café

At the table where Kotori and Umi had been sitting before, was now sitted by a gingered color side tail haired girl while making a pouting face expression until she heard scream even it sounded fade she could still recognized the ownership of the voice. Loosen up her pouting, she picks up the white paper that saw being attached on the table when she was trying to serve up the meal that was order by those two, but as she reached the table she didn't see the blue haired girl but instead a piece of paper which is scribble with the following word...

"Do you mind guarding up our meals until we get back? –Sonoda Umi"

Since the Café has calmed for the rate of the customer, Honoka didn't mind so she had been guarding the food since those two have left…but the waiting is kind of killing her off boredom making her ended up eating up the cheesecake and manjuu which is actually for the two the girls.

"That girl name is Umi-chan huh?,she seems to be a good person I hope those two would get along fine...…still Umi…..i think I have known a similar person with that name long time ago—Ah! This is bad I ended up eating up their food,sorry Kotori-chan and Umi-chan I will replace your food once you two come back" Talking to herself while still eating the remaining bits of the manjuu and cheesecake.


Hope you guys enjoy reading chapter 1 of the seagulls duo,so far at this chapter i'm just writing about their meet up scene and the investigation will be starting at the next chapter,also i want to apologize for my bad grammar and hope it isn't too boring for you guys to read my long ass chapter lol

Please do give me some reviews on what do you think of this chapter, also i'm a noob writer so please be gentle with me _(:3_

Until next update~ see ya at the next chapter