Disclaimer: I do now own Evangelion.

Author's Notes: Hello everyone. As you might've known, this piece of fiction contains Detectivesuka and Assistant(lover)Shinji. I don't really want to have too many romantic developments here since the main focus of the story is the murder case, not romance. It's still AsuShin, though, just not an AsuShin story in the general sense.

The tone won't be dark as you may think – though it's gonna be dramatic.

This story isn't going to be very long. My current plan is to have it end around 50k words. I don't know about the upload rate, though, since I still have The One In Your Life to work on.

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: The case

"What are ya thinkin' 'bout Shin-man! Ult him! R him!"

Shinji grimaced as the irritated voice of his buddy – Kaworu Nagisa - came through the headset. Without further delays, he pressed R after four white lines showed up on his screen and the icon of ultimate ability lit up.

"Sorye Ge Ton!"

"Damn, that was a four men Yasuo ult," Shinji remarked. "There's no way we lose this team fi-"

Ring! Ring!

The sudden burst of phone ringing nearly gave Shinji a heart attack. Scared, his hands jumped away from the keyboard. Unfortunately, this one little distraction was long enough for his character to be slaughtered, his screen turned grey.

"Who is it?!" Shinji threw the headset aside before barking into the microphone without even taking a look at who was calling him. "I was-" Suddenly, his eyes went wide, his temper thrown out of the atmosphere after hearing a deadly calm female voice came through the speakers. "Ah, Hi Asuka. I can explain. Erm, I'm sorry! It's just that I was…wait, what? I'm needed by the Criminal Division? Takkabi Community, right? Okay I'll be there in a minute!"

Letting out a long sigh of relief, Shinji put the headset on his head again and spoke. "Ah, Kaworu. Asuka's demanding my presence. You know what happens if I'm late." Shinji winced as the memory of the punishment of last time resurfaced. Said punishment being one week of unreciprocated oral sex. "I gotta leave now, sorry for ruining the game. Duty calls!"

"What the fuck man, we were fucking winning! And you just got us to lose the game by fucking inting!"

Without even letting him reply, Kaworu sighed off the game. Shinji sighed; he didn't know why, but Kaworu was abnormally irritable today – he had never heard him swear before. He shook his head and picked up his laptop, heading to the apartment door.

Though the negative feelings were quickly overwhelmed by the excitement of what was to come. From Asuka's words, there was a new murder case that needed investigation. It wasn't like he was thrilled at the idea of another person's death; it's just that it was his first time participating in solving murder cases.

Of course, he had partaken in other cases along with Asuka before. But none of them was so serious.

The ride to the community was surprisingly smooth and fast since it was during the night when most people were asleep. The site was surrounded by hordes of people; the policemen had set up the yellow warning cordon tapes to prevent the people from causing unwanted disturbance to the site.

"Excuse me…sorry!" Shinji had to keep pushing people away to finally get inside the taped area. It was only then he had time to examine the site.

Through the half-closed metal rolling door, he could spot neatly placed cigar boxes on the glass shelf as well as bottles of red wine further back. Apparently this place was a grocery store.

A nameplate was suspended on the relatively small door front – Nagisa Convenient Store.

Shinji's face twitched, feeling a cold ball grow inside his stomach. He nudged one of the policemen standing beside him with his elbow, "Hey, mate…did…did someone die here?"

"Huh?" The police officer raised an eyebrow, scanning him up and down several times. "You look a bit unfamiliar, friend. You're new here, aren't you?"

"Not really, but it's my first time dealing with a dead person." Shinji tried to force up a smile on his face, but soon gave in. Trembling, he asked again. "Did someone die here?"

"Nobody told you in the briefing?" The criminal police look slightly confused, though he soon brought up a soothing smile, patting his shoulders. "It's okay, we all get nervous for the first time. Just let it go, you'll be fine later. As for your question, yes, the shopkeeper of the store is dead."

Shinji felt his knees wobble, his face turned pale instantly. He stumbled toward the door before the confused policeman could ask about what happened. Being driven to distraction, Shinji didn't keep his eyes on the road and promptly crashed into another person.

"Sorry!" Said Shinji without thinking or looking back before he continued running forward. Though this time, an iron lock grabbed his wrist and dragged him backward, making him yelp in pain.

Shinji turned his head to see the person and immediately stopped struggling as he saw a waterfall of red hair. "A-Asuka…" He whimpered like a brat who just did something wrong, keeping his head low.

The person who grabbed him was no other than Asuka Langley Soryu, his immediate supervisor, his tutor in criminal investigation, and last but not least – his lover. "What the hell you think you were doing? So reckless, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Don't tell other people it's me who taught you how to examine the site!"

"I'm sorry, Asuka. I-"

Asuka waved her hand dismissively. "As much as I love you, your professionalism is atrocious. You were doing great with me before, what changed?"

Hearing her sharp words, Shinji couldn't care less anymore. "I…this store is owned by my friend!"

The scowl on Asuka's face softened as she heard him talking. "Hm…the victim is your friend?"

Shinji gritted his teeth. The fact was hard for him to accept, to say the least. "The deceased…is he called Kaworu Nagisa?"

Several policemen around him could catch the unmistakable hint of hope in his voice that he wanted to get a negative answer. It may be assumed that he had a good relationship with the dead.

Asuka turned to look at one of the criminal police standing nearby, who gave a slight nod. She sighed, "Yeah. He is."

Shinji didn't need her paraphrasing for him since he could see the police's movements by himself. "But… it's impossible! How?!" This time, the sadness was replaced entirely by incredulity and bewilderment. "There must be something wrong!"

Asuka put her hands on his shoulder, trying to give him some kind of support. "I understand your emotions, Shinji. But the dead aren't going to-"

"No, it's not that! It's…" Shinji shook his head. "We were playing video games together just half an hour ago!" Agitated, Shinji's face turned from the previous pale to a deep shade of red. "When you called me, Asuka, he was still playing the game with me! We were talking, no less! How could he die?! How possible?!"

"What did you say?!" Someone was more agitated than him. A lab coat wearing forensic came out of the store, his gaze fixed at Shinji. "Half an hour ago, you were still gaming together?"

Seeing he had turned all of the heads at him, he hastily explained. "It's unscientific! The victim's rectal temperature is only 26 degrees Celsius with apparent rigor mortis and livor mortis! There's mild turbidity on his corneas as well! All of the sighs above indicate that it's been at least twenty hours since he had died!"

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AN: I hope you don't hate me for making Kaworu the victim. Don't worry, I've already got everything planned, including the whole plot.