"Fucking-! I hate people who drive like this," Lisa grumbles, dropping back into her seat with a frustrated grunt as the crossing light ahead turns into yellow once more.
"Ginko-baby, you say that about everyone," Eikichi says from the seat behind both Lisa and Tatsuya, slouched in his seatbelt ("C'mon, Tatsuya, at least I'm wearing it!") and looking at something on his phone. "You ever get to one place without insulting everyone and their mama?"
"You ever drive through downtown LC on a Sunday? It's like everyone suddenly decides to clog the fucking roads!" Lisa glares up into her rear view mirror, staring at a disinterested Eikichi. "Don't put your shoes on my backseat, either."
"These are brand new, polished kicks, girl - you don't have anything to worry about."
"You are not about to pretend like just one step on these sidewalks won't cause your shoes to become more filthy than a garbage dump in July."
"Don't scare me like that, you know I try to stay as clean as I can." Eikichi seems to shudder, and then shifts how he sits against the car door, trying to find a position that keeps the belt across his torso while not sitting up. "How long are we gonna be?"
Lisa turns her head to glare directly at him this time, but mercifully, holds her tongue. She keeps the fixated scowl until Tatsuya taps her shoulder, prompting her to turn her head back to the road and continue to drive, sighing something out of relief when the car holding her back takes a turn she won't be following.
"Finally." When she can, she glances at Tatsuya, and her features soften to something much more pleasant and serene. "How was work today?"
"Fine."
"You haven't looked good all day, you know."
"It was - a little rough." Tatsuya leans against his window, arm hanging out to dangle in the low wind that rolls against the moving vehicle. "It wasn't busy, just… I didn't get much sleep last night. Added up."
"You haven't been overworking yourself, have you?" Lisa asks, looking at him directly when the car rolls to pause with another intersection. Her eyes are soft, just as much as her voice - for all of her old school pining, Lisa does care, which is a nice change. "Can your brother pull strings to help you out?"
"I'm not overworking myself," Tatsuya replies, looking back to her. "You don't have to worry, Lisa."
"Wanna go get something from a drug store? To help you sleep. I wanted to stop by one anyway, I need more formula."
"That wouldn't be too bad."
Lisa's smile remains a comfort, even when it is tested by a kick from Eikichi. It breaks when she shoots a glare back at him, who watches her with a fake innocence, grinning.
"Light's green," he says, and Lisa growls a sharp ugh.
"I'm going to make you walk if you kick me again."
He doesn't have much else to get once he finds the pharmacy at the back of the store and pays for a small bottle of sleeping pills, but Eikichi and Lisa have found the time to debate the purpose of energy drink formulae a few aisles down.
It's not a drug store, but more of a supermarket with an assortment of services - a pharmacy, a coffee stall, various stores that line the row of registers that buzz with small activity. Tatsuya stands at the foot of the health supplies aisle as Lisa walks down it, looking over her shoulder to insult Eikichi - something about his weight. Eikichi fires something back about Lisa's ass, and she elbows him. Tatsuya rolls his eyes.
"Tatsuya?"
Tamaki Uchida approaches him, with her arms full of a large bouquet, blooming with white lilies that open like stars. She's still in her uniform, which makes Tatsuya believe she came here right after her shift. Tatsuya pockets his phone. "Didn't expect to see you today. Everything alright after I left?"
"Yeah. Nothing came up or anything." She adjusts how she holds the bouquet, trying to look over the fresh cut flowers to look at him. "I just got off work. I'm going to be bringing these to Reiko's place."
"That's nice of you. Are you going to take her out later?"
"Oh - no, these aren't a gift." Tamaki tries to laugh, but the somber note is enough to burn out Tatsuya's innocent curiosity. "I mean - they are, but. It's mostly for her mother. Her brother died a few days ago - we're going to his funeral."
Tatsuya pales, a morbid epiphany threatening to break through his thoughts all at once. "Oh? I'm sorry to hear that."
"He was Ideo Hazama - you know, the businessman in the news?" Tamaki sighs. "I was even on dispatch to his apartment complex."
"I thought Reiko's last name was Akanezawa."
"It is - I think their parents split when they were kids." Tamaki fixes the arrangement again, her eyes drifting from Tatsuya's strained expression, who tries to mute it and remain as neutrally sympathetic as he can. "I don't want to get into it, but… Reiko's been pretty sad, even if she didn't get to grow up with him that much. I probably won't be at the station tomorrow, by the way. I'll be at the service."
"I'll let them know," Tatsuya says, and Tamaki smiles a little.
"I've already told them, silly. No need to do that." Her eyes are caught by the approaching duo of Lisa and Eikichi. "Oh - are you friends of Tatsuya's?"
"You bet," Lisa says, basket full of a single brand of energy drink formula - even if he was paying attention, Tatsuya wouldn't recognize the label. "Who are you?"
"Tamaki Uchida - I work with Tatsuya at the station," Tamaki says, bowing as best she can with a bustling bouquet of angelic white. "I'd stick around, but I should get these to Reiko before they start to need water. I'll see you next week, Tatsuya."
He nods, a stiff "See you," passed along with a wave. As Reiko walks towards the exit, Eikichi leads the three of them towards the lines of registers, occupying himself with a boxed container of water. Lisa loops her arm through Tatsuya's, and he doesn't have the focus to tell her to let go.
He thinks, deep to himself, of the mangled expression Ideo was left when he dragged himself off of his beaten corpse - the gouges in his skin and the swelling of his jaw, steel hooks that ripped the life out of him all for the demand of a man who had never met him. Tatsuya had just begun to push it from his thoughts - lingering on the precipice of his mind and subconscious, distant, removed. For several days it had been moved, but the flowers for Tamaki's girlfriend returned the reality of what he did to the front of his thoughts once more.
Like an angry ghost.
Tatsuya asks Eikichi to sit in the passenger seat, to be alone with his thoughts.
"You said he didn't have any family," Tatsuya snaps into his phone before Reiji Kido can even slur out a greeting.
"Correction: I said he didn't have any family associates." He can't tell what he's doing, but Tatsuya realizes he doesn't want to even know. He could be cutting a man's throat open, could have a gun to the head of a child, could be in the vault of the Bank of Liberty and he wouldn't want to know, wouldn't want to think of whatever terrible thing Reiji Kido is doing. "He also didn't talk to any of his family. He doesn't talk to his mother, his father died a few years ago - look him up. Why does it matter?"
Tatsuya's silence is marked by heavy, deep breathing, and Reiji must be rolling his eyes. "Look. You weren't supposed to kill him, I know. I'll needle Inaba some more so he can bear the burden of fucking it up. But he was going to die anyway, Suou."
"He didn't have to die," Tatsuya says, gripping tight a fist and leaning against the wall of his apartment. "You wanted him dead. That doesn't mean he was going to die."
"Toudou and Inaba were there. If it wasn't you, it was going to be one of them. You wouldn't want to make Toudou do that, would you?"
"Bastard!" Tatsuya pushes himself off the wall to pace to the other side, staring out the window in a furious whirl of panic and frustration. The burden of what bears on him sits deep in his chest, aching and swelling and threatening to choke him. Tatsuya runs his hand down his face as Reiji continues, speaking clear and calm, yet taunting all the same.
"I know what I am and what I'm doing, Suou. Our work isn't finished." The creak of a chair sighing when someone sits up - Reiji must be pacing somewhere, and Tatsuya can imagine him lingering outside his apartment window. "You want me to wait while you write it down?"
"What the hell makes you think I'll work for you again?!"
"Because this time, Inaba's not going to be on the fucking gun, so you don't have to be the one to smash the poor fuck's head in! If you don't -" Reiji's furious tone settles itself, and the crystal clear, sinister prodding returns. "I turn myself in, and you lose it all. Winning battles, winning wars, you understand?"
"Get to it."
"Her name is Chizuru Ishigami. She's an actress, but I can't say I've seen anything she's in recently. She lives in a mansion in Beachgate, on the other side of town. You'll be doing the same thing you did with Hazama - taking everything on her laptop, sort through her office, or wherever she keeps it."
"Is she another financially corrupt socialite? Or are you going to tell me what she's really doing?"
"What are you talking about? Hazama was financially corrupt. No, this woman isn't like that, but you're to do it anyway. I'm getting very tired of reminding you of our agreements, Suou." Reiji's voice is as irritating as they come, and it remains clear in Tatsuya's ear as he glances around, walking inside of his bedroom to his bedside drawer. Inside, he sifts through several empty envelopes placed, to recover the papers swiped from the late Ideo Hazama's laptop bag.
The bag remains in Reiji's possession. Everything he possibly needs is on the machine, anyway. "Keep talking," Tatsuya says, cradling his cellphone against his shoulder and ear as he begins to separate envelope from document. He didn't bother to look at the names of any letter, or the title of any document - but maybe there's something here.
"I'm afraid it's got to be a more hands-on excursion. Make it a little less bloody this time, please. I like your quick thinking, but I don't want you to get too excited, Suou. You understand?"
"Of course," Tatsuya says, opening a once-torn envelope to remove the letter inside - a bill, from the Bank of Liberty. He takes note of the man Hazama sent payment toward - Takahisa Kandori. "I have a question."
"Yeah?"
Tatsuya takes pause. Then, he considers there needs to be a little more prodding. "… Nevermind. It doesn't matter."
"Whatever. I'll call you again when Toudou and I scope her place and give you a route. Bye-bye."
Tatsuya drops his phone into his bed, and opens another half-closed letter, stuck shut with a drying mailing sticker. The name Takahisa Kandori crops up every couple of letters, and his mouth falls to a pensive frown at the repeated bank payments. It would help if Tatsuya could recognize the name - he crosses his bedroom to his open laptop, tapping the power button to wake it from sleep, folding his hands and pressing his mouth against them while he waits for his computer to wake.
He types the man's name into the search bar - and he is surprised to discover a lengthy search.
Who are you, Kandori…
He clicks a page - president of Saeki Electronics, Biological & Energy Corporation. A news article - Chizuru Ishigami Finds Love in Wealthy Businessman. Another article - Takahisa Kandori Delivers Keynote At Swiss Summit.
Chizuru must be his fiancée. The information regarding the Swiss summit fails to interest Tatsuya, but he does note it lacks any obvious corruption - associating oneself with the Nanjo Conglomerate, however interesting they may be, often does not indicate any criminal activity.
Publicly, at least.
Tatsuya isn't quite sure he is prepared to uncover the skeletons hanging in Nanjo closets, however. SEBEC is smaller, much smaller - that much he knows, even without being familiar with the business empires of the country. The tab bar of his internet browser becomes crowded with various articles and pages soon enough - surface links to Chizuru herself, the late Ideo, the smile of whoever Kandori must be.
Tatsuya stares at the image included with a public dossier. Scruffy hair, black. A wide smile. Japanese. All black clothing. The shape of his nose seems familiar.
Tatsuya frowns, and glances back at his phone. He considers, for just a moment…
And then, turns back to his computer, and looks at a tab involving Chizuru. He can always ask later.