May 6th, 2018

"You know," Sakusa deadpanned. "I didn't expect the next time we meet to be at the hospital, Kindaichi." It was warm enough for him to forego his usual long coat today, leaving him clad in only his black slacks and dark grey turtleneck sweater. Standing across from him with a bandage stuck on his cheek was Kindaichi, a sheepishly weary smile on his face.

"Heh. I didn't expect it either... What're you doing here, Sakusa?"

When he had been brought to the hospital last night, he'd been examined. After finding no signs of internal bleeding or any other internal injuries, they had treated his external ones and let him stay overnight. A nurse had popped into his room an hour or so ago to inform him that he was allowed to leave today, and had brought his clothes—which the staff had kindly cleaned for him—to him.

After that had been a much needed shower, and now...

"You look terrible."

Kindaichi's eyebrow twitched. "Blunt as always."

"Sawamura filled me in on what happened last night," Sakusa told him. They walked together, his hands in his pockets as he recalled the phone call he had received last night from the inspector. "And I have to say—you're insane."

"Gee, thanks."

Sakusa chuckled under his mask. "It was noble, though. To protect Shimizu-san like you did. It makes sense—for a Gemini."

His eyes widened. "When did you—?"

"I've known since the day I met you."

Kindaichi felt his ears burn, shoulders sagging. "Huh... So you knew the whole time. How?"

"Your date of birth is on your student profile, idiot."

"Geh! Wait!" Kindaichi said, accusatory. "Then why did you ask me all that stuff about my zodiac?"

But Sakusa didn't answer, merely walking ahead to the elevator. Muttering under his breath, Kindaichi strode after him, stopping an arm's length away from the prosecutor, just like how Sakusa liked it. It was then he finally realized something—that this was the first time he was seeing him dressed in casual wear. "I'm glad I met you, Kindaichi. Lesser men would've allowed for Chen to have his way with her."

"Y-yeah..." The thought of such a thing happening to anyone made his stomach stir. "Say, where are you going now?"

"I have a meeting with Sawamura." Sakusa turned to him. "Including you, multiple witnesses were interviewed last night. Oishi Ryoka and Tsukishima Kei are two of them. Sawamura will be relaying their testimonies to me, as well as other additional information."

"Right. Uh..." Kindaichi shuffled his feet. "I just have one question."

Sakusa arched an eyebrow.

"Why did you get rid of me? Wait, I meant like—gah. Why did you terminate my internship?"

"Ah." Sakusa stepped into the elevator along, Kindaichi following along. "Press for the fifth floor."

He did.

"I'm sure you're curious about what led up to my suspension," began Sakusa. They began to rise, and Kindaichi briefly pondered just why he was following Sakusa when he was meant to be heading home. His phone was out of charge and the guys were surely wondering where he was. But he quickly shook the thought away—he wanted answers, and Sakusa was iffy on text.

"Well, yeah," Kindaichi said. "Okazaki-san didn't really have time to explain anything. Just that you were suddenly suspended and that I needed to work the case by myself..."

Sakusa grumbled. "That woman... I never took myself off the case to begin with." He paused. "She might have, but something's clouding her judgement. Tch. Not that it isn't usually absolute shit anyway."

"Who is this 'she'?"

"Her name is Hirakawa Noriko. You may have heard of her; she's the Prosecutor-General."

"Ah," Kindaichi's eyes lit up in recognition, "The 'Owl-face' person?"

Underneath his mask, Sakusa smirked, amused. "Yes, her. She's the daughter of a powerful man, and I can't even begin to count the amount of illicit strings she must've pulled to be where she is."

"A powerful man, huh...?"

"Mm. She's the second daughter of Hirakawa Daizen."

"Oh, I learned about him," Kindaichi said. "He and Midorima Mahiro sponsored the National Youth Offender's Rehabilitation Program in 2013. They were the ones who brought it to life, basically. Huh... I didn't realize he had two daughters." A ding sounded, and the elevator doors opened up. Sakusa stepped out first, followed by Kindaichi. "Wait, you said you had a meeting with Inspector Sawamura. Why did you come up here...?"

Sakusa halted in front of the door, his hand hovering above the door handle as he hesitated; behind him, Kindaichi cocked his head, puzzled. "There's no reason," he said evenly. He opened it, calmly issuing a greeting to Daichi, who was seated at the table by the window with a cup of steaming hot tea and scrolling through something on his phone. He must have gotten it from the nearby break room. "Sawamura."

Kindaichi gave the blond man laying unconscious on the hospital bed a curious glance.

"Ah, Sakusa." Daichi looked up, grinning. "Eh? You brought someone else." Sakusa moved aside for Daichi to get a clear view of Kindaichi—his eyes became round. "Kindaichi-san!" They got seated at the table, too. "How're you holding up?"

"Could be better, but I'm pretty much fine," replied Kindaichi, returning his smile.

"That's great. Although," Daichi glanced at Sakusa, "I didn't think you'd bring him here, Sakusa."

"It wasn't intentional," admitted Sakusa, flippantly. "We just happened to run into each other in the lobby. Now talk to me, Sawamura."

"Right." Daichi reached down, opened up his black bag, and removed his laptop. He set it in front of him, Kindaichi moving his elbows off the tabletop to make room for the device. "Before I get into the details of last night, though, I emailed you a list of all the staff members and contestants that were in KidProdigy 2008."

Sakusa nodded. "Thank you."

"Anytime. Anyway... As you know, Chen Jianhong attacked Shimizu Kiyoko last night." His face soured as he said this. "Multiple testimonies—some about Chen's behavior prior to and during the attack—were given by Kindaichi Yuutarou," he gave Kindaichi a look, "Tsukishima Kei, Oishi Ryoka, Kageyama Tobio, and Tanaka Ryuunosuke. We have two victim testimonies. One from Kindaichi, and the other from Shimizu." Daichi typed something into his laptop before scratching the collar of his green sweater. "I'll start off with Shimizu's. She was walking through Hibiya Park from the Public Prosecutors Office—a route she takes to and from Hibiya Station every working day she has—at around seven in the evening, she started getting the feeling she was being followed. Apparently, she had experienced this feeling more than once in the span of one and a half months, and has even seen a tall figure standing outside of the office building. Her description of the stalker matches Chen. Chen approached her soon after that feeling, and confessed to..."

As Daichi went over Shimizu's personal account, Sakusa and Kindaichi listened attentively, the latter's knuckles whitening as he gripped the edge of the table.

"Wait," Kindaichi interjected at one point, massaging his temples, "Let me get this straight. Chen's been stalking Shimizu-san since 2008? What the fuck?"

"More like he's been dedicating his morning wood to her since then," Sakusa chimed, rather crudely; he sounded nothing short of disgusted.

"This is headache-inducing."

"Welcome to your future career."

"This is so fucked up," Kindaichi mumbled. "Please tell me that guy's gonna rot in prison for the rest of his life."

"Interrogation was still underway the last I was at the station," reported Daichi, not saying much else on the matter. "He's not cracking easily. We won't have anything solid from him for a while."

"That's fine," Sakusa said, even though they all knew that it was anything but that.

Daichi proceeded to recount Tsukishima's testimony to them. Apparently, the model had always been wary of Chen's behavior, and had noticed that the man disappeared often during the evening—around the same time that Shimizu normally clocked out. When Chen had excused himself from last night's party with little explanation—an expedition that breached his contract with Oishi Ryoka's company—Tsukishima's suspicions had heightened enough for him to follow the older man out. He had kept up with Chen all the way to Hibiya Park, a good half an hour away from where the company party had been taking place, before calling the police as soon as Chen assaulted Shimizu by grabbing her hair. From there, he had watched Kindaichi and Kageyama step in to defend Shimizu from the treeline, and then intercepted the officers and marched with them.

"He saw me getting beat up and didn't step in?" Kindaichi demanded, outraged.

At that, Daichi smiled lopsidedly. "Tsukishima... He's always been the logical type. The kind to wait things out. Most likely, he knew that he would've been outmatched if he had come to blows with Chen. From what we know, he lived on the streets for a while—he would've picked up some fighting tricks here and there."

There was some truth in that, Kindaichi supposed, remembering with a slight wince the heavy blows Chen had landed on him. He would've been a goner if Kageyama hadn't intervened. Kageyama... Now that's a whole other can of worms...

Sakusa spared his former intern a glance. "What's the matter?"

Kindaichi shook his head. "It's nothing big. Just something I can deal with another time."

The stories of each witness all came together eventually. Kindaichi did a live retelling of his testimony, and Daichi relayed Tanaka, Kageyama, and Oishi's testimonies. Being the worried husband he was, Tanaka had hobbled all the way from the apartment he shared with Shimizu to rescue her at Hibiya Park when she didn't come home. Kageyama's appearance at the scene of the crime was merely a coincidence—he jogged frequently at the park, and had been on one of his evening runs when he inadvertently stumbled across Chen assaulting Kindaichi. Oishi hadn't been present during the incident, but she had agreed to talk to police and had given some rather spectacular insights into Chen's character.

"I'll keep you updated," Daichi promised, packing his laptop away as their consolidation session finished.

"I'd appreciate that," replied Sakusa, politely.

Daichi closed the door behind him, Kindaichi watching with curious eyes when Sakusa didn't make to leave as well. "You're staying?"

"Yeah." Sakusa didn't look up from his laptop, which he had gotten out while Daichi had been retelling Tanaka's story. "I still have some things to do."

Puzzled, Kindaichi looked around, gaze finally resting on Atsumu's unconscious form. "In this guy's hospital room...?"

"Yes," Sakusa said tersely. "What of it?"

"Who even is that?"

"Hm?" For the first time, Sakusa peered up, frowning. "Ah, right. I guess you wouldn't know." He stood, his back curving in an arc as he stretched. "This is Miya Atsumu—he's Miya Osamu's twin brother."

"What?!" Kindaichi gaped. "For real?" Quickly, he scuttled over to the bed, taking in the blond man's appearance. The resemblance was certainly too uncanny for their relation to be anything other than identical twins. "So this is Atsumu... What happened to him? Why's he... y'know."

Sakusa hummed as he opened something on his device. "There should be a summary report in my bag, in the back slot of the main pocket. Go sanitize your hands first before you even think of touching it."

"Yessir!" It was all too easy for Kindaichi to forget that he wasn't technically working under Sakusa anymore. He squirted a large blob of sanitizer—a large bottle of it sat on the empty wall shelf next to the door for guests—and rubbed it into his hands like Okazaki had shown him.

Once he had the summary report, he sat down and began to read. It wasn't a particularly long report—just one and a half A4 pages. If there was anything Sakusa had taught him, it was not to gloss over important details and to be as pedantic as possible when it came to these things. He read the report over and over again, trying to absorb every last detail that Sakusa had bothered to include in his writing.

By the time he was done, it was already high noon.

"Sorry," Kindaichi excused himself. "But I think I should go now. My roommates are gonna be worried—"

"It's alright," Sakusa interrupted. "I was about to leave, too."

Kindaichi waited patiently for Sakusa to pack his things up before they left together. They kept a sizable distance apart; Kindaichi caught Sakusa looking back over his shoulder at Atsumu's room more than once.

"You know," Kindaichi started, slowing down as he passed through the automatic doors, silently relishing in the fresh air blowing against his face. "You never answered my question. Why did you terminate my internship?"

Sakusa halted, clutching his keys in one black-gloved hand. "I did it," he said slowly, turning around. "So the Owl-face wouldn't come after you, too. If anything had happened to me, at least the case would still be in good hands." He made to start walking again, but paused. "Need a ride?"

Kindaichi raised his hands, almost defensively. "A-ah, I'd planned to take the bus or the metro..."

"Tch. Just ride with me—public transport is disgusting."

Five minutes later, Kindaichi got into the passenger seat of Sakusa's obscenely spotless car, unable to resist a smile.

Shirabu scrunched up his nose just as he stepped into the room, important papers in hand. His boss and one of the best coroners in Tokyo, Dr. Miyazawa, was in the middle of pulling shrapnel from a recent mugging victim's rib cage. "Shot twice in the chest and torso," Miyazawa murmured to himself, setting the bits of metal aside.

"Miyazawa-san," Shirabu spoke up, making his presence known. The good doctor turned around. "Miya's autopsy report's been processed and copied. Here," he set it aside on the counter, "the original copy."

"Thank you." Miyazawa turned back, adjusting his goggles. "Say, Shirabu-kun."

Shirabu, who had been about to duck out, paused. "Yes, Miyazawa-san?"

"Miya's death is certainly peculiar, isn't it?"

"I don't see how."

Miyazawa nudged his head toward a rolling stool. "Grab it and come sit next to me."

Bewildered, Shirabu obeyed. Once he was settled and had a close-up view of the nameless victim's torso. "Sir...?"

"You're my only assistant, Shirabu-kun," said Miyazawa, not taking his eyes off from the body as he continued to work. "One day, I expect that you'll be taking over my position. It won't be immediate—it may take months, or years after my retirement... But one day, you'll find yourself stooped over a cadaver with a backache like me."

"You're not that old, Miyazawa-san."

Miyazawa scowled. "I'm sixty-three this year—I'll be retiring in five or six years from now. I'll make sure of it. Anyway." He cleared his throat. "One day, you'll be like me, and you'll realize... That not everything in front of you will," he gestured at the body with his gloved hands, "Give you the correct answer. It can point to many ways, but only one way leads to the truth of the crime."

The truth of the crime? Shirabu repeated in his head, brows furrowing slightly. Cautiously, he turned his head to look at the original copy of Miya Osamu's autopsy report, which was sitting—sealed in a packet—on the counter.

"It's not the body that's strange," continued Miyazawa. "Bodies are probably easier to work with when you know what you're doing. It's not your job to be running the investigations, Shirabu-kun, but this is something to keep in mind anyway."

"What's strange to you then?" asked Shirabu. "The fact that he died at all?"

"That and the suspects that Chinen-san has on her case board. She showed it to me the other day."

"And who are they?"

"They haven't gotten awful far, but their top suspect is the victim's twin brother, Miya Atsumu. From what I can remember," Miyazawa hummed in thought, "Testimony from Oishi Ryoka says that Miya had lost his apartment key card at the restaurant they dined together at some weeks ago in March—one where his brother was hired just days later. He received a new one after paying a fine, but the original key card was never recovered. Additionally, the twin is currently in no condition to provide an alibi, nor has anyone that's usually around him stepped forward. As for motives... Just a basic internet search will tell you that Miya Atsumu has plenty to choose from. So what do you think, Shirabu-kun?"

Feeling a prickling sensation stinging his skin under Miyazawa's wizened gaze, Shirabu fidgeted with his hands. "What about the other suspects?"

"The Yamazon worker who discovered the body and the building officer have also been questioned and listed as suspects, though the evidence Chinen-san has on them is considerably weaker." Patiently, Miyazawa added, "All signs seem to point to Miya Atsumu."

"Fine then. It looks like he did it." Shirabu let out an aggrieved sigh. "He's not the main suspect for no good reason. Yeah, let's say that he did do it."

"And what about this unfortunate fellow?" Miyazawa pointed at the cadaver in front of them. "How did he die?"

Shirabu squinted. "Looks like he died from his gunshot wounds. I'd wager the one on his chest—it's almost directly above the heart."

"At first glance, certainly. But in reality..." The old man hovered his finger above the corpse's head. "This man died from a stroke. His body killed him before the bullets did."

"I see."

"The cause was nigh invisible," Miyazawa stated. "Alas, it was not outside forces which led to his death, but inside ones."

"Right. Well," Shirabu stood, "You've been in here for a few hours already, and it's almost break time. Do you want me to get you something from the store?"

"A cucumber, chicken and mayonnaise sandwich would be nice, thank you."

Shirabu left the autopsy room, fetching his wallet from his personal belongings locker before heading out. Inside forces, huh? Secretary Jay passed by him on the way out, and they said quick greetings. As he walked past the Public Prosecutors Office, he could not help but stop for a moment to peer up at the towering buildings. Inside forces...

In aisle three of the convenience store, he lifted his phone to his ear with one hand, his other hand snatching up two pre-made sandwiches chilling in the fridge section. "Hello? Yua, it's me, Kenjirou." His jaw clenched as the woman on the other end laughed something. "Fine. Superintendent Yua, you marvelous woman... I'm cashing in on that favor. Yes, the one from three years ago." Insufferable bitch. "Not now. I'm out. I'll tell you what I need later."

Shirabu hung up and paid for his sandwiches (and some chips).

The bag of food thumped against his thigh as he stalked back to the forensics building, which existed as a side office to the police station. Inside forces... Tch.

"What. The. Hell."

Kindaichi grimaced as Kunimi marched up to him. "I can explain—"

"Where were you the whole night?! And what happened to your face?!"

Kindaichi rarely saw Kunimi angry. The latter man was usually an expert at controlling his emotions—to the point where Kindaichi, even having known him for several years, had a hard time reading him at times—and to see him unraveling before him was sobering at best. "My face? What happened to yours?"

Self-consciously, Kunimi raised a hand to graze the pad of his thumb against his bruised jawline. "I can explain everything. But where were you? What happened?"

"Eh? Is Kindaichi back already?"

"Huh?"

The two men whipped around to see Goshiki standing at the doorway with a cardboard box in his arms, something cream-colored and fluffy poking out from the inside of the container. Goshiki blinked, confused, before saying, "The tape broke."

"It's on the counter," Kunimi told him, sounding exhausted.

Goshiki cast him a sympathetic glance before placing the box down on the kitchen island and grabbing the roll of tape.

"Wait a second," Kindaichi narrowed his eyes, "That's Yahaba's quilt in there. What..." He looked around, doing a double-take when he noticed that Yahaba's bed had been stripped bare and that most of his belongings were missing. "What are you guys doing?"

Kunimi and Goshiki exchanged a look.

"Last night," Kunimi sighed, tilting his chin; the dark circles around his eyes became accentuated. "I, um... Dammit, how the fuck do I even explain this—"

"Whoa!" Goshiki barely managed to dodge Kindaichi charging toward him and ripping the freshly-taped box open to pull out the quilt. "Darn, and I just resealed that, too..."

"Where is Yahaba?" demanded Kindaichi, hugging the heavy blanket to his body. It still smelled like Yahaba's body wash, though the scent was beginning to fade.

"I was just about to tell you, so just stop, okay?!" Kunimi snapped. "Yahaba's gone, Kindaichi. You wanna know how I got this?" His finger trembling, he jabbed it at his bruise. "He gave it to me. I tried to save him from himself, but...! He lost himself. It didn't work—he lost himself and now... He's not gonna be with us here anymore, okay?!"

"Then where is he?!"

"As far as I know, he's somewhere else! He needs to get better, but he can't do it here. Kindaichi, please. Put the blanket back."

Suppressing a groan, Kindaichi palmed his forehead, taking a deep inhale of breath to try and ebb away the pain. "Okay, okay... Lemme get this straight... You and Yahaba fought? Like, threw hands fought?"

Stiffly, Kunimi nodded.

"Shit."

In the backdrop, Goshiki tapped his fingers on the kitchen island, waiting for them to sort themselves out. His face was unreadable, revealing nothing about his thoughts about the current situation.

Kunimi began his tale. About his suspicions of Yahaba, and how he had planned to confront him but couldn't do so without cornering him first.

"And you didn't tell me anything?" Kindaichi accused.

"It's not like I could've just casually brought it up—"

"That isn't the point!"

"There wasn't any point of dragging more people into it!" Kunimi snarled. "Now it's your turn! Where. Were. You."

Kindaichi barked a laugh. "This isn't over."

"Yes it is."

"Guys," Goshiki said loudly. "His parents are coming down to pick up his stuff. We have to get ready by then, remember?"

Neither Kindaichi or Kunimi seemed to hear him.

"Fine, you wanna know where I was?! Remember Hanae-san? Yeah, well, she's a victim of a sick fuck, and someone else I knew would've been next if I hadn't stopped him! He beat me the hell up, and you know what happened next?!" Almost hysterically, Kindaichi guffawed. "Kageyama showed. Kage-fucking-yama. He nearly kills Chen, who's not even the killer, and then he tells me he's been to juvie. I don't know, man, I'm still trying to wrap my fucking head around it!" His arm shot out then, sending a water bottle on the coffee table skidding toward the front door.

A muscle in Kunimi's face twitched as his fury slowly retreated, his lips pressing into a grim line. "Kindaichi—"

"Stop."

"Look," Goshiki tried again. "We just need to calm down and—"

Knuckles rapped on the door, and three heads turned to see a tall man with messy black hair standing at the door.

"Ah, oops," the man said, a lazy grin spreading across his face as he pushed some of his hair back. He peered down at the water bottle that had rolled to his feet before glancing back up. "Bad time?"

Kindaichi nearly dropped Yahaba's quilt on the floor. "Uh... And you are...?"

"The name's Kuroo Tetsurou. And I'm gonna be your new roommate."

Sakusa let out a low groan as he massaged his temple, narrowing his eyes at the screen in front of him. After hours of work and some sleep sacrificed, he had narrowed down Daichi's list of crew members and contestants (and their parents) to those mostly likely to have been involved in Oikawa's death, and a few names stuck out to him.

Shō Shinya

Chen Jianhong

Miya Akari

Miya Atsumu/Osamu

Hanae Miyo

Hanae Ichika

Oikawa Himari

Takagi Chiasa

Kageyama Miwa

A/N: This chapter is more of a standard size one, but I hope y'all like it anyway! This is a bit of a turning point in the fic. Kinda like the end of 'part 1'.