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The following content is the intellectual property of the
Yamaha Corporation and its respective subsidiaries
as well as any participating organizations that own
various designs and concepts that will be featured. The
Author in no way claims to be a part owner of any of
the characters that will be portrayed, and writes with
the full authorization of the ffnet website.

WARNING:
The following content is rated M for Mature, and may
contain graphical descriptions of mature scenarios
that viewers may not find suitable. This is a work of
fiction: Any and all similarities to real life situations is
purely coincidental.

~Act 5: The Fifth Day~
~Scene: III~

The windows of the shop were dark. The faintly lit hallway leading into a back room provided the only lighting in that venue. The OPEN sign was off, too. But it was only Rin checked fifteen minutes to seven. Alright, so it wasn't unreasonable to consider closing early on a slow day. But the shop closed early enough as it was, and Rin didn't think it was doing all that badly. Was Teto really the kind of person to go home early on the promise of holding an item for someone?

Maybe out of hopefulness or more likely out of desperation, Rin tried the door. It opened. For a split second she anticipated there to be an alarm, and yet there was none. She looked around: Although the street was busy, nobody was paying any particular attention to her. She needed that contact list, badly. It was important that she find Len as soon as possible. Caution nothing more than ash in the wind, she stepped inside quietly and listened, closing the door gently behind her. It was silent. The ventilation system hummed in the background.

She took a tentative step forward. Then another. And another. And slowly made her way to the counter. Now she could hear whispers. Voices, actually, but they were muffled. It was coming from the hall in the back. So there was someone here, after all.

She couldn't make out what they were saying, so she edged slowly behind the counter and ducked behind the corner. Louder, but not quite enough. She stood full in the hallway and strained her ears.

"...running out of time. I don't know what to do anymore."

That was Teto. She took another step forward.

"If you had just explained this to me from the start we might have figured something out by now."

She didn't know whom that voice belonged to, but it was female. Teto answered the other woman's accusation. "What could you possibly do that I haven't already tried?"

"A lot more than you, if you keep thinking that way."

"You've witnessed the messages. I really think he's in over his head, this time. He trusts her too much."

"I believe you. Now that I know all of that, I definitely believe you."

"You're not going to tell them, are you?"

"Not them... Her."

"And what if you mess up?"

"I'll settle for a guaranteed one percent than gambling on a fifty-fifty shot."

"You're five years too young to talk like that."

"Just follow through on your promise. Tomorrow is fine. I need to think about this some more."

"That's reassuring..."

"Congratulations, you just learned how to use sarcasm."

"It wasn't sarcasm."

"I'm not being sarcastic..." It was quiet again. The door creaked. Rin froze.

But it was a different door than any of those in the hall. She could faintly hear the wind blowing. Teto's voice filled the halls again.

"Is there any point to having her along?"

"...not really. I can already tell how this is going to end..."

A long, long silence. Rin wondered how long they were going to keep the door open. The stranger's voice, once more.

"It's the only shot we have. I know the type. I used to be like that, once. You just need to trust me."

"And if it turns out you're wrong?"

"Did you stop to think about right or wrong? Don't answer that, I already know."

The door closed as Teto was about to say something else. Rin heard her cursing, sitting down in a chair, which groaned something she only knew who it was Teto had been talking to... or if they had mentioned any names... It seemed too cliche. She pondered the possible outcomes, filling in the blanks, and then realized that there was only one which was was capable of wrapping her head around.

If this was about Len, then Teto was also searching for him. The promise was obvious: Len's phone. Or was it? It was also plausible that this was a different matter entirely. Maybe Teto was involved in something bad. And that wasn't her concern right now. Something shook in her pocket. DAMN!

It was her phone! She had forgotten to turn it off, or at least silence it. Any second now, it would start ringing. It would vibrate two or three times first, but then it would alert Teto that someone who wasn't supposed to be in the store had heard everything. And there wasn't time to pull it out and stop it either.

Thinking more slowly than her body, she was already scrambling out the door and reaching for her phone at the same time on the gamble that she would be lucky and hit the right button at the exact same time.

Luck was indeed with her. But in the adrenaline rush, she had gotten careless and swung the door too quickly. It made a little tapping sound as it shut. The lights of the store turned on. She ran to the corner of the store and answered her call, breathless.

"Kagamine, speaking."

"Whoa, Rin, you sound like you've been running. You alright?" It was Riza.

"Yeah," she swallowed in some air, seeing a shadow behind her. The door opened. She acted as though she wasn't tired at all, nor that she could feel Teto's wary eyes behind her. She made a point of saying Riza's name loudly. "Sotone, I'm at the phone store."

"Oh. Did you just get there? Where were you?"

"Miku and I went to the bank. You mean you haven't gone back to the hotel yet? She went home before I did."

"No... Actually, I'm in the hotel right now. Miku's not here."

"But she said," Rin was a little surprised. "Anyway, the store is closed already, so I'll just go back now."

"Okay. Hey, I'll give Miku a call, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks. I'll see you later, Sotone." She hung up. Then she waited.

"Rin?" Teto called. They faced each other. Rin feigned a look of pleasant surprise. "Oh, good, it's you."

"Hey! I thought you were closed so I was gonna go home."

"Oh, sorry about that. I thought you weren't coming so I started cleaning up the shop." Eyes still wary, Teto invited Rin inside and commented on how cold it was to be out at night. "You weren't standing out there for too long, were you? I left the door unlocked."

Mustering up the courage to meet Teto's gaze, Rin lied. Teto decided that it couldn't be helped and asked Rin to wait while she printed out the list.

"I can't give you a working phone, but I was able to retrieve all of the personal data. Come on into the back. The store's closing now so I don't mind."

Rin felt uneasy as, for the second time, she walked past the counter and entered the hall. She thought about everything she'd heard, wondered what she'd missed. Teto opened the door to her office and let Rin in. It was nothing more than an office. There was a calendar and a clock and a dry erase board hung on the back of the door. On a quaint tv monitor she could see where the security cameras were pointed. To her great shock, she saw that the hallway, the front counter, and the storefront, were all viewable within a decent radius that it was impossible for her to have not been recorded.

But if Teto had seen anything, she acted as though she hadn't. A printer buzzed to life and spewed out several pages of raw text. Teto scanned them to make sure everything was correct, and then handed the little stack and Len's phone, in a zip bag, to Rin.

"Well, have a good night, sweetie." She smiled warmly. Rin heard again her panic stricken, desperate voice. Exiting the store, she couldn't help but feel that Teto was watching her back through the little black tinted orb which she had only now noticed for the first time mounted in the archway over the door.

"..."

"...I found you..."