The school bell rang, signaling the end of the final lesson for today. Rin slowly gathered his things and put them in his bag. He wasn't particularly in a hurry. He had already texted his and Haruka's coach and told him that they would both be absent today. He didn't want to practice without Haruka. It would give him an advantage that he didn't wish for. It won't be fair to Haruka if he went to practice. That was at least the excuse he gave himself for this.
"Oi, Rin," Sousuke stood in the door to the classroom by now. All the other students had already left and Rin was alone, now with Sousuke.
"What is it?" he asked as he got up and flung his bag over his shoulder. "What are you doing here anyway?" he started walking towards Sousuke.
"Yazaki-san, Ai and I wanted to speak to you about what to do next about Nanase," Sousuke answered.
Rin nodded. As he reached the door, he could also see Aki and Aiichirou standing behind Sousuke. Both wore more serious expressions than usual.
"Okay," Rin said. "Then let's go somewhere more private. The school is gonna be full of club activities anyway," he started walking past them and down the hallway, towards the exit of the school building. The other three followed.
"Where would we go?" Aiichirou asked.
"Any of you who know your parents won't be home for a while?" Rin asked.
"My mother is always at home…" Aiichirou said in an apologetic tone.
"Apparently my parents have asked Miyano-san to go check up on me every half an hour, so I'm not sure my place works either," Sousuke answered.
"We'll go there unless Yazaki-san has something better," Rin said.
"Well…" Aki trailed off. "My brother is home at my parents' place at the moment… but I've got the key to his apartment," she said. "We could use that,"
"Where's that?" Rin asked.
"In Shibuya, close to Shinjuku," Aki answered. "It's not too far from here either, only 10 to 15 minutes by train I think," she said.
Rin smiled. "That's where we're going then," he said cheerfully as they headed out the school building. He led the way to the nearest station while everyone else followed. After travelling through the subway, Aki started leading the way though.
They started walking down the streets, towards Aki's brother's place while discussing what to do in their search for their missing friend.
"It might be a good idea to search Shinjuku for clues," Aki said somewhere along in the conversation.
"But do you have any idea of how big Shinjuku actually is, Yazaki-san?" Aiichirou asked.
Aki nodded. "It's the capital district of Tokyo prefecture," she answered. "We were taught that at the beginning of elementary school," she said. "I know Shinjuku is big,"
"How long do you think it would take for us to search?" Sousuke asked.
Aki seemed to give that matter some thought before giving her reply. "If we divide Shinjuku into four even areas and searched individually… I think… maybe a day or so?" she suggested.
"That's too long," Rin dismissed. "I have a feeling we won't have that much time to find him,"
"How do you know that, Rin-san?" Aiichirou asked curiously.
"I don't know… twin's intuition?" Rin shrugged. "I just really want to find him soon or I have a feeling it might be too late to ever get him back…" At this Rin stopped and looked out in the distance, as if he was trying to spot Haruka through the buildings, but of course he didn't find anything.
Suddenly his phone buzzed and he picked it up and looked at the display. Sousuke peaked over his shoulder, sensing that this could be extremely important. Rin slid his finger across the screen and opened the message.
Aiichirou and Aki couldn't see the message itself, but they could see the expressions on both Rin's and Sousuke's faces. Sousuke showed a slight hint of frustration and concern, the latter most likely for Rin, while Rin showed a rainbow of emotions. Anger, frustration, worry, concern, sorrow, all of it was part of the expression he wore.
"R-Rin-san?" Aiichirou stuttered. "Wh-What's going on?"
"That… That bastard!" Rin yelled as the grip around his phone tightened. He then turned to Aki. His eyes were lightening with determination. "Yazaki-san, where are we right now, which district?"
"Eh… Shi-shi-Shinjuku…" the girl stuttered, taken aback by Rin's expression and tone. She had never experienced him like this before and it scared her a little bit to see this side of her friend.
"Let's search this area then," Rin said. "We need to find him, now!" his tone turned from determined to demanding and both Aiichirou and Aki were almost shivering from it while Sousuke was just surprised. He hadn't seen this side of Rin since he had pulled that prank on Haruka two and half a year ago. Apparently it only appeared when his closest family was threatened.
Rin led the way through the streets of Shinjuku while the other three did their best just to keep up with his quick speed. Aki managed to reach Sousuke's side and started looking at him like she wanted to talk, but she couldn't find the correct words to start the conversation.
"You want to ask something?" Sousuke asked.
"What did that message hold that made Matsuoka-kun act like this?" Aki asked concerned.
"A photo," Sousuke said. "More precisely a photo of Nanase," he explained.
"Is… Is he okay?" Aki asked.
"Hard to say," Sousuke answered, marking the end of their conversation.
They walked for about an hour at that speed. Rin was getting more and more frustrated and angry by each second. It seemed like they had gotten nowhere through all this time of walking up and down the streets of Shinjuku.
"Matsuoka-kun, don't you think we should-" Aki started saying but she was cut off when an object fell from above and hit the sidewalk where they were walking, right in front of Rin's feet.
Rin stopped immediately and the others had to stop just as suddenly in order to not bump into Rin. He bend down and picked up the object, and then he just stared.
"Rin-san?" Aiichirou asked carefully, but Rin didn't answer right away.
"Rin," Sousuke said, attempting to get Rin's attention, but Rin didn't look up from the object.
It was a phone, a phone of an older model. More precisely it was a Nokia, and it was still intact despite falling from what seemed to be a great height. It was light blue, so was the display when Rin hit one of the bottoms. It looked like the ocean was the background, but it wasn't quite clear because the screen had taken a bit of damage.
"There's no doubt," Rin said despite that fact. "I know this phone… This is Haru's," He turned to his friends. "Can any of you see where it fell from?" he asked.
All four of them looked upwards, to the building they were right in front of. There were about five storeys in the building, but there was only one open window, right above their heads, on the fourth floor.
Rin saw it and nodded to himself before looking back at his friends. "I'm going in," he said. "There's nowhere else Haru could be,"
"You're not going alone," Sousuke said.
"No," Rin said. "You guys stay behind,"
Sousuke just shook his head. "That's not gonna happen. Ai, Aki, you two hang onto Rin's and Nanase's phones and stand out here. We need someone to call the police if the guy escapes, and perhaps inform Tachibana if something goes wrong," he said. "Rin and I will head in,"
Aki nodded once. "Be careful, both of you, Matsuoka-kun, Yamasaki-kun. Please get Nanase-kun out safely," she smiled encouragingly at them.
"We will do our best, Rin-san, Yamasaki-san," Aiichirou said.
"Thanks," Rin said, then he looked to Sousuke. "It's now or never," he said before running into the building and up the stairs, with Sousuke right behind him.