Disclaimer:

Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!


x.

FS

x.

x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.

(new version)

x.

Fate seemed to pull the strings

I turned and you were gone

While from the darkened wings

The music box played on

("Charade", lyrics by Johnny Mercer)

x.

Enticed by…

(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)

x.

Enticed by the brilliant sun, Saguru and Chiba Mamoru have moved to the terrace of the Gritti Palace, where the stunning view of the Grand Canal makes even Saguru feel a sentimental tug for the people who have been affected by the tragedy last night. Kaioh Michiru, for instance, the "empress of the sea" with her mermaid's hair and her unfathomable eyes, makes an ideal tragic heroine, who must be mourning her life partner's death at the moment. Even if she had made her lover drink a mysterious poison in the belief that it was a painkiller specially designed for her, thus committing a murder from afar, it wouldn't make her less pitiful to Saguru considering how openly and insistently the love of her life had been courting Miyano Shiho during the past years. While Kaioh doesn't belong to the suspects (since she couldn't have removed the fingerprints in the dressing room), she could have found a partner in crime in Seiya Kou, who could have cleaned the dressing room between his flirts to draw the investigators' attention away from Kaioh. He could also have cleaned the dressing room to draw attention away from himself—the only person who wouldn't have had to clean it if he had committed the murder. It would explain why he had to "steal time" while talking with Gentile and the usher even though he couldn't have stolen more than a few minutes.

Where did the rest of the time go?—Saguru wonders, dismissing this theory. The most important clues are the undetectable drug and the missing time, both of which lead to Miyano Shiho and Seiya Kou's doorstep. Yet Miyano Shiho, who would have had the means, doesn't have a motive… And Seiya Kou's many motives seem too small to explain such a risky murder.

Why at La Fenice out of all places? Why not in Tenoh's apartment or during a friendly gathering instead? It would have been child's play to make it look like a natural death in Tenoh's apartment. They could even have committed a locked room murder. It would have been easier to plan, especially for people who can disguise themselves like Seiya, who is a first-rate actor, and Miyano, who is an ex-Black-Organization-member. Was Kaioh the culprit? It would explain why she didn't want to kill her lover at home, as she would have been the number one suspect in that case.

Having spent a few minutes going through several hypotheses in his mind, Saguru gives his brain a break. He is not at his best at the moment due to the previous sleepless night. After a long nap, he is going to walk to La Fenice to replay Seiya Kou's and Luigi Gentile's actions before continuing his investigation. Kudo might have solved the case by then, as staggeringly fast as he always is. Moreover, Kudo must have dug out more information than Saguru since Kudo was at the scene of crime.

Saguru's main quest in Venice is still the search for Tenoh Akira alias Jean Black, the man who has shot Watson to lure Saguru to this city, even though the villain seems to have disappeared without a trace. If this case is related to Pandora's Box as it looks, why hasn't Kuroba been "invited" to Venice as well? Kuroba played a much larger part in it—he was the one who impersonated Kudo to distract the Black Organization's spies. Saguru, just like Hattori Heiji, whom Saguru impersonated, remained in the background during the whole operation.

For the first time since his arrival in Venice, Saguru wonders whether Hattori's death was really an accident or whether the hot-headed detective had stumbled over something (or someone?) he shouldn't have seen. What did Hattori do after Kudo left him on the ship? Hattori was an impatient, resourceful young man, who needed to stay awake in the darkness despite the autopilot—just in case something unexpected happened. Miyano Shiho—or rather Haibara Ai, as she called herself at that time—was there, but Kudo once mentioned during the search for her that she was wounded.

Most probably, Hattori had been whiling away the time by talking to Miyano or studying the files. And then something must have happened (during the storm, before the storm?) which resulted in Hattori's death and Haibara Ai's survival…

A familiar sound from his phone startles Saguru out of his dark contemplations. It's a message from Natalie, who knows all sorts of dubious people (one of whom is the anonymous hacker who has managed to copy Lele Carrara's minute of the Tenoh Haruka case, which the commissario has carelessly backed up in his online storage).

"Akira Tenoh is a notorious flirt among the art students in New York, Tokyo, and Paris," Natalie wrote, "although the pretty jerk tends to let his girls down by dropping them after the second or third date like a hot potato. Must be a real tease just like his sister was! He usually leaves his private number on a small artist trading card although there isn't a drawing but a small art print on it. Isn't it classy?"

Suppressing a sigh, Saguru notes once again that, as terrifically hard-working and fast as she is, Natalie is also unbearably vague and tends to miss the most important clues.

"Please excuse me!"

After explaining to Chiba Mamoru that he couldn't allow any delay in replying to this special message, Saguru asks Natalie in chat: "What art print? Are the cards always the same?"

Natalie's answer arrives so fast that Saguru almost suspects her of withholding the information just to tease him.

"Always the same! One of the finest paintings by Van Gogh. The super-famous one with the black cypress and Venus directly next to it, you know. The one with the crescent moon."

Moon, star, cypress… There are several names the card could allude to.

"Seiya Kou's name is written in katakana," Saguru remarks. "Do you know the kanji for his name?"

"Why are you so interested in his name?" Chiba, who has been silently watching him in the meantime, shoots him another mistrustful look.

"Because all your friends have speaking names: Tenoh Haruka—the 'distant ruler of heaven', Kaioh Michiru—the 'mature ruler of the sea', Hino Rei—the 'beauty of fire' or the 'spirit of fire'… It's hard to decide since her first name is written in katakana as well."

"It means both, she once told me." Chiba smiles at the remembrance. "The ambiguity is intentional."

"Very nice! Kino Makoto—'sincerity of wood', Aino Minako—'beautiful child of love'. Your name is a speaking name as well: Chiba Mamoru—'protector of earth'."

"Usako has a speaking name, too," Chiba remarks. "Before our marriage, her name was 'Tsukino Usagi'."

"The 'moon rabbit'—interesting!" Natalie did mention that there was a crescent moon on the painting. Still, the sky on the painting could be a reference to Tenoh Haruka's name—the "distant ruler of heaven"— while Venus, the planet whose name is also the name of the Roman goddess of love, could be an allusion to Aino Minako, the "beautiful child of love". The cypress can be read as the equivalent of "wood", which can be found in Kino Makoto's name, whereas Seiya's name, if it contains the kanji for "star" as Saguru believes, is evocative of a starlit night.

"In katakana, the meaning of Seiya Kou's name isn't clear," Saguru muses. "Also, he reversed his name—Kou Seiya—and changed it into 'Seiya Kou' onstage. But since you obviously don't know it, I'll just ask someone else."

Chiba hesitates, knits his brows, debates with himself whether he should talk or would rather keep the knowledge to himself…

"Seiya-kun always wrote his name in kanji whenever he sent Usako a postcard," Chiba says at last. "The kanji 'sei' in Seiya-kun's name is the same as 'star'. The 'ya' is the same kanji as 'no', and means 'field' if it's pronounced like that. Hence I think his name is supposed to mean 'the light of a starfield'. But I see you can ask him about his name since he is coming here."

x.

Apparently, the wildly popular Seiya Kou belongs to the type of man that women immediately love and men immediately hate. From the first moment since his arrival, all the men on the terrace have been shooting disapproving glances at his battered accordion. The dedicated actor must have disguised himself as a street musician this morning, as evidenced by the remains of make-up on his right thumb. Even without the mask, which Seiya must have removed before going to the Gritti, his disguise is remarkable.

Despite himself, Saguru is momentarily distracted by the singer's dishevelled hair (a dusty bird's nest of short loose locks curling in all directions if one overlooks his ponytail hidden by his jacket—not even Kuroba's hair has ever reached this level of messiness!), his unpolished, worn shoes, his shabby leather jacket (on which not only professional detectives and weather experts can read the rain of the last weeks), the tiny fresh injuries on his slightly stubbly chin (drunk shaving with a blunt razor is never a good idea!), and his conspicuous shirt, which must have been part of a d'Artagnan theatre costume once. His long ponytail, stuffed into the half-open jacket above the waist-high vintage belt, also creates the illusion of a hump. Next to Chiba Mamoru, whose black tuxedo is as smooth as his polished gold pocket watch and his gelled hair, Seiya looks like a vagabond (albeit a pretty one) who has just woken up and been tottering through the city before coming to the Gritti in a post-drunk haze… And yet—even though the singer is barely recognizable to the people who only know his flamboyant alter ego onstage—the blonde waitress, like all the other women in the vicinity, is already throwing longing glances in his direction.

Trying to see him with the eyes of a neutral observer, Saguru acknowledges the man's peculiar attractiveness, which the bohemian outfit has not managed to hide. Apart from its most felicitous proportions and contours, nature has also bestowed on him its most radiant colouring. Saguru's generosity towards Seiya, however, undergoes a trial by fire when the blonde waitress minces to their table to offer the singer a cup of cappuccino and to admire his d'Artagnan shirt: Such an original idea! She has never seen anyone wearing something so gorgeous now that all men have become so buttoned-up and boring! Smiling sweetly at him with her sparkling emerald eyes, she lets her fingertips trail appreciatively along his cuff and touches the back of his hand so fleetingly that it could have passed as an accident. Oblivious to her advances, the singer only murmurs a genial, "Thank you."

Women—or human beings in general?—are inherently shallow creatures! Smitten by Seiya's voice, the waitress (who until now has offered unobtrusive, impeccable service) ignores both Chiba's and Saguru's empty cups to make small talk with the singer.

An accordionist! They've become so rare these days. She absolutely loves these Parisian melodies they always play.

Yes, but he is just an amateur accordionist, and a new one to boot—as of today.

Why, his accordion looks so old. She could have sworn he has been playing it all his life!

It's a new purchase, actually. The accordion belongs to an old acquaintance, who has just given it up for the guitar, as it's too heavy to tote around.

So what is he going to play first? Can he already play it, or is he learning it? Will it be a no-strings-attached, on-and-off relationship, or will it be something more serious to him?

He played it for a few years when he was small. Hence he is going to play a few simple tunes on it and improvise until he has the motivation and time to practice more. After all, one can't be serious about too many things at the same time without neglecting the important ones.

Ten minutes and forty-three seconds later—after Chiba has gently reminded the blonde beauty that they are thirsty and the poor woman has finally woken up from the spell—the three of them are sipping their cappuccinos and chatting like old acquaintances who are taking a Venice trip together, an illusion heightened by the spectacular view and the summery weather. Seiya, who is on the way to Kino Makoto's shop to buy flowers and cakes for tea ("Shiho's order!"), has come to the Gritti to talk with Chiba about Chiba's wife. Since Yaten and Taiki, Seiya's brothers, have decided to grace Venice with their presence tomorrow to admonish Seiya for the scandal, "Odango" can come with them in their private jet if she doesn't mind canceling her flight. They both like her very much, and Seiya thinks she would prefer flying with them to flying alone. He has already talked with her on the phone, but she still hesitates to say yes because she doesn't know whether Chiba would like it.

He is going to talk it over with his wife the next time they chat, Chiba agrees, although he doesn't think that it's possible. "Ami-chan is busy, so she can only come over on Monday night. And you know Usako—she can't bear to leave Luna on her own for too long."

"Ah, Luna… Well, Yaten would like to bring her here to play with Artemis, if you don't mind. Since she is so tough, I don't think she will suffer from the long-distance flight."

Luna and Artemis are two cats, as Saguru can make out during the conversation. Luna is Chiba Usagi's black cat while Artemis is the white tomcat of Aino Minako, the actress who has sung the main role in Beauty and the Beast and who has been cast as Meg Giri in The Phantom of the Opera. She wanted to attend Tenoh's opera yesterday but couldn't come due to a minor cold she had to sleep off before the opening night. As always, luck was on Minako-chan's side, Chiba dryly remarks. If she had come to La Fenice yesterday evening, she would have become another suspect instead of Makoto-chan's alibi.

Thankful that Chiba has unintentionally provided him with a smooth transition from small talk to the La Fenice case, Saguru grabs the chance to interrogate Seiya Kou. However, the singer is a much harder nut to crack than Chiba despite his open attitude. He has a terrible memory for almost everything, Seiya cheerily asserts. "If I didn't practise so much and repeat my repertoire so often, I'd forget even my own lyrics."

"But I suppose you know the exact time when you returned to La Fenice? Since you tried to come in time to watch the third act, you must have paid attention to it."

"Did I say I wanted to watch the third act?" Seiya throws Saguru a genuinely bewildered glance.

"So you didn't want to come back in time to watch the third act?"

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. I don't know, I've forgotten." He looks suitably embarrassed. "After a few hours of sleep, everything has been wiped out. My memory is very selective. It chooses to remember only the good things and weeds out all the negative ones."

After a few failed attempts at grilling Seiya, who is as oblivious and inaccessible as a green salad without dressing, Saguru begins to pity Kudo, who must have interrogated the singer last night. It wouldn't be the first time that a perfectly competent detective has been stymied by an uncooperative witness. In this case, however, it's hard to say whether the singer knows too much and only plays dumb or whether he really doesn't know anything at all.

"I see you usually don't wear a wristwatch," Saguru observes, indicating Seiya's immaculate wrist.

"I don't need one," Seiya claims. Shiho always reminds him of the time and drags him out of their apartment whenever it's time for him to go to his rehearsals and performances. Watches are usually redundant, as time is a personal experience one can't measure.

"You can check the time on your mobile phone," Saguru suggests.

He does it sometimes—very seldom—but usually he would just set a timer. Since it makes him nervous and ruins his attention span in the long run, he refuses to succumb to the annoying habit of checking his phone every few seconds, Seiya calmly asserts, visibly amused by Saguru's attempts to question him about the time.

"So you don't wear a watch and seldom check the time on your phone," Saguru moves in for the kill. "But I bet you're carrying a pocket metronome around like many musicians do!"

In spite of the sudden change of topic, which should have been confusing to anyone who hasn't overheard the talk between Saguru and Chiba before Seiya's arrival, Seiya's eyes light up in delight, revealing that the singer is not as clueless as he pretends to be. At the same time, Saguru is struck by the realization that the man has very intriguing opalescent blue eyes, which seem to shift between startlingly bright and mysteriously dark depending on the angle of the light, and that he would only need a pair of gold or amber freckled contact lenses to turn them into a blueish shimmering hazel.

"I never use a metronome," Seiya declares in youthful arrogance, "I don't even own one." A metronome fosters bad habits and leads to stiff performances, he explains, as the beat should never stay the same during the whole song.

The longer Saguru talks to Seiya Kou, the more confusing the case becomes. Seiya sounds honest when he claims that he never wears a watch and doesn't even own a metronome. He doesn't think that anyone disliked Haruka-san enough to kill her, as nasty as she could be at times. As for Shiho—she spent so much time with Haruka-san that he was almost jealous, which says a lot about her friendship with Haruka-san since he isn't a jealous person. He can remember that she was fast asleep when he found her on the sofa he took from Haruka-san. He didn't consider it stealing, as Haruka-san used to complain about the clunky redundant sofa while Shiho used to complain about the uncomfortable chairs.

"It was a win-win situation." Seiya smiles, which causes the women in the vicinity to swoon and the men to sigh. A five-year-old girl impulsively leaps from her chair and runs to him to grin at him with her large imploring eyes. Unable to resist her gaze, the singer surrenders and gives her the cookie on his saucer.

Such a nice man—her mother beams. Why don't you say "thank you"?

The makings of a future femme fatale can be recognized at an early age. The five-year-old shows considerable potential when she—ignoring the cookie, which she has pocketed like a trophy—boldly draws Seiya by his shirt down to her and gives the startled singer a smacking kiss on the lips. This time, the women sigh while the men start laughing.

"I'm going to tell Shiho-san!" Chiba threatens, laughing about Seiya's predicament, whereupon Seiya blushes and murmurs that the home wreckers are getting younger and younger.

Learning from other people's mistakes as quickly as from his own, Saguru eats his cookie himself and studiously ignores the little precocious brat—who has shamelessly made herself comfortable on Seiya's lap—before she can turn whatever she has learned into a pattern.

"So, when did you find Miyano Shiho in your dressing room?"

After he left the backstage café. Shiho was curled up like a cat as always when she is napping, Seiya smirks in reminiscence. As scatterbrained as he is, he had been running through the whole opera house to search for her instead of going straight to his dressing room after his return (he had come through the back entrance and walked across the backstage area to the concert hall). He admits it was stupid of him, but he didn't expect that it would look suspicious enough for other people to accuse him of murder…

"Do you remember everything you did yesterday?" Seiya flashes Saguru a prepossessing smile, nonchalantly stirring his cappuccino without drinking it. "I don't, especially not before a musical when I'm extremely busy. I know I had been running around, talking with Gentile and an usher who wanted an autograph from me. But to be honest, those things were so random and unimportant that I can't remember them anymore."

But perhaps he can still remember the order?—Saguru refuses to give up. Did he talk to Gentile or to the usher first?

"I told the commissario that you talked to the usher first," Chiba interjects. "But since you said that you talked to Gentile first, everyone thinks that I was wrong!"

The girl on Seiya's lap throws a tantrum when she has to leave, and her mother only succeeds to coax her away with the lie that her new love will be around when they return from their trip.

"Ah, then you must have been right," Seiya concedes after a thoughtful pause. "I thought you were distracted by Odango and misremembered it… But now that I'm thinking about it, I think you must be right because I can't remember it anymore." Flashing Saguru a mischievous smile, he apologetically adds, "Sorry for the confusion, but singers aren't exactly famous for their high intelligence, are they? Since we need a lot of free space in our body for a great sound, only a minimum of braincells are allowed to stay."

He proceeds to drink his cappuccino in blissful silence, beholding the scenery on the other side of the Canal with the appreciation of a true aesthete without paying much attention to Saguru's questions although he continues to answer them with the absent smile of someone who tries to be polite without feeling the slightest interest in them. Why did he go out during the opera? To buy Shiho painkillers since he has lost all their painkillers while cleaning the apartment (he has probably thrown them away with the trash). He is terribly disorganized, and she hates him for it so much that she has more than once ended their relationship just to return to him a few hours or days later. It's a classical case of opposites attract. They can neither live with nor without each other.

Which painkillers do they have at home?

What shall he say, he can't remember. He has just admitted to Saguru that his memory is substandard, hasn't he? Shiho usually buys the stuff. He would have bought the strongest painkiller he could find for her, but the stores were all closed when he came. It doesn't help that he still loses his way in Venice despite having lived here for four years.

How long have they been together? It must have been hard to hide it from the reporters.

Almost four years, which doesn't seem long to him since they see each other much too seldom. They are both so busy that they're happy whenever they manage to snatch a few free minutes for each other between his rehearsals, performances, and travels.

They are both busy? What does she do?

She teaches ballet at Michiru-sama's academy.

Ballet, how interesting! She must have received formal training since her childhood then—or did she do something else in the past? Saguru has heard that she has attended Infinity like Tenoh Haruka.

Ah, yes, she was at Infinity once. But he doesn't know much about that—and he is only interested in the future and the present while Infinity was so long ago…

Just when Saguru tries to steer the conversation towards his girlfriend's chemical studies at Infinity, Seiya excuses himself to go home, claiming that in their relationship, Shiho is undoubtedly the one who wears the trousers and that he has promised her to give their apartment a good scrub before Kudo Shinichi's visit. Paying his cappuccino despite Chiba's protests, Seiya prepares to leave, pretending not to notice the small piece of paper the blonde waitress has discreetly tucked into a fold of his accordion case after pocketing her tip.

"I sincerely hope that you will visit us again some day." She smiles at him, her beautiful eyes overcast with sorrow at his departure.

"I will." He smiles back, giving her name tag a wondering glance. "Lucia Michelini? You have a pretty name!" The observation sounds honest but also perfectly spontaneous, almost unintentional, not even faintly evocative of a pick-up line or a flirt. Nevertheless, the waitress blushes deeply at his small display of attentiveness.

"Apropos names," Saguru breaks in. "What does your name mean? The light of a starfield. Or the light of a holy arrow?" Written in katakana, "Kou Seiya" can mean both.

"'Seiya' means 'starfield' or 'starry night'," Seiya gloomily replies, proving Chiba Mamoru right. "My parents had always loved a starry night. Hence all of our names allude to it in some way." He rises from his chair and steps aside in one single movement, taking care not to touch either the pretty Lucia Michelini or Chiba Mamoru.

"Have a nice day!" he says with a last smile, addressing Chiba, Saguru, and Signora Lucia Michelini at the same time. With that, he takes his old accordion and leaves. The waitress silently follows him to the door, gazing after his retreating figure in defeat.

"She has just given him her number although he hasn't even asked her for it!" Saguru mutters in disbelief.

"You get accustomed to it with time." Chiba smirks. "But it doesn't endear him to you, does it?"

"Do you remember the name of the famous oil painting by Van Gogh?" Saguru asks, distracting himself from his frustration with the singer by returning to their previous topic. "The one with the cypress, the crescent moon, and Venus on it." Too lethargic and sleep-deprived to look it up, he might as well make use of this living encyclopedia sitting opposite him.

He doesn't know all of Van Gogh's paintings, Chiba Mamoru claims. Hasn't Van Gogh painted plenty of cypresses and even more crescent moons?

Tired of Chiba's evasive answers, Saguru succumbs to Google—a less emotional and, at least in this case, certainly a less biased informant—and finds only two paintings when he searches for "Van Gogh, Venus, crescent moon, and cypress". One is the famous Road with Cypress and Star, and the other, which must be the painting Natalie means, as it depicts a crescent moon and several bright stars among swirling masses of clouds in the night sky, is the even more famous The Starry Night.

Even though it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't make Seiya Kou seem more likable in Saguru's eyes.

x.


A/N: Thanks a lot to everyone who has reviewed. :D I appreciate your patience.

SavingPrivateRya: My notes have been gathering dust as well (literally ;_;). I'll be working on this fic more regularly again. Thank you a lot for reading and reviewing!