"(Deux blancs plats s'il vous plaƮt)!"

Natsuki sat at the outdoor table with her hands between her thighs. Her back was hunched over slightly and she was idly looking around. There were around twenty people in total enjoying their morning coffee and breakfast, each at their own tables. Some couples, groups of university students and some lone writers on their laptops, taking advantage of the warm sunlight and cool air this place provided. If they weren't paying for the coffee, they were paying for the million dollar ideas that would sprout out of the atmosphere this place provided. She tried to soak it all in, whatever that meant. Like a plant absorbing sunlight. But her mind was racing with the events that would occur hopefully an hour from now.

With the paid vacation that Natsuki's boss had generously given her after she finished her latest assignment, she had chosen to go to Paris. Not for leisure, much to Sayori's disappointment, but to interview a witness Natsuki's killer had left behind. The only known witness that Lucas could find in the police database was...

Natsuki tip-tapped at her phone on the small, circular glass table and brought up his message. 'Seth Dodery', currently living in France, Paris. Street Rue De L Arceau, 33 Chemin Lacoume. It was a short walk from where she sat.

A few minutes later there was a mug of light brown coffee in front of her and a woman in a red floral sundress and a floppy straw hat across from her, pulling her chair in close so that her knees would touch against Natsuki's. Close enough so that Natsuki could and did poke her on the cheek before she took a sip.

She was positively over the moon. "Gah!," Sayori chirped.

"Back up missy," Natsuki said with her mouth covered by the white coffee mug.

"Playing hard to get?," she giggled. Sayori let her legs idly explore Natsuki's under the table. "Don't worry, I like that.~"

"Weirdo," Natsuki muttered back. She had her eyes off to the side, looking at the street where people walked and cars rarely appeared, while Sayori was doing the complete opposite. Eye tracking software would reveal her gaze darted on every part of her glowing figure- her hair, nose, ears, the sunglasses hanging off the white shirt which exposed her shoulders and collarbone, you name it. It had been too long since Sayori had seen her girlfriend wear anything other than a bland collared shirt or her nightgown.

She glanced at her wristwatch. "Are you nervous?," Sayori asked. Her profession as a therapist and psychologist trained her to note the different facial expressions in everyone's faces no matter how subtle they were.

"Why would I be nervous?," Natsuki replied, feeling a little defensive. "I've made mafia bosses break down in tears."

Sayori leaned forward and clasped her hand over Natsuki's, making her look away from the road. "This is different though," Sayori said in a low voice. "You're not interviewing just a witness here. If you really think that the FBI's helping this rampant murderer then they wouldn't be so careless as to let a murder witness go like that."

"I know."

"I don't like this Nat. It's too convenient...out of all the cases you've only got two witnesses- one of which being a little girl in shock. And I guess we'll just have to take the FBI's word for it? We can't actually speak to Eleanor?"

"Say, I think you're looking too much into this," Natsuki sighed. "We'll interview this guy. You'll help translate for me. And I guarantee nothing will come out of it. I won't end up getting shot in the head by some shady hitman. Because I know the FBI isn't corrupt."

Sayori's jubilant smile had slowly faded and was completely gone now. Natsuki had just mentioned her getting assassinated like it was no big deal, and she expected Sayori to just nod like it was no big deal? Even after years of getting to know her, it was clear that she didn't know if this woman was stupid or insane or brave or all of the above.

"Baby girl...," Sayori croaked. "Natsuki. Why don't you just...quit while you're ahead? I don't...no, I cannot have you getting...y'know. I mean, what if you're right? What if this conspiracy really is true? You're seriously gonna fight?"

"It. Won't. Be. True," Natsuki enunciated. "I'm certain this killer's just really good at what he does. All the more reason why I have to catch him."

Sayori made a face like she just bit into a lemon. "By the way, why a 'he'?," she asked. "Are serial killers usually men?"

Natsuki shrugged, and a tall twenty-something year old waiter set their plates of food down on their table. One plate of honey french toast and another plate of pancakes with lots of colorful fruits around it, each plate side by side fitting the circular table perfectly.

"(This looks delicious!)," Sayori gushed at the waiter. Natsuki dug right in to her toast. "(Thank you so much!)"

He smiled. "Are you from around here?," he asked in English.

"Oh! No, we're from abroad! Here on vacation!"

"Your French is really good- how long did it take for you to learn? Or are you a native speaker?"

The two managed to chat through all of Natsuki's breakfast. She wasn't really paying attention until she saw him get closer and closer at which point she perked up like a cautious cat.

"(Come on, it'll be fun! There's a lot of albums at my place! Your friend won't even notice you're gone!)"

"(S-Sorry. Thanks for the offer though...!)"

He continued to pester her. One of the worst mistakes of his life would be grabbing Sayori's wrist and holding it, despite Sayori struggling to pull away. To which point Natsuki got up and punched him in the face, sending him tumbling backwards into a table where another couple sat. Plates shattered next to him, food splattered on his hair and clothes and people stood up to see what made such a noise. The small pink-haired woman towered over him, radiating absolute fury.

"Don't touch her," she snarled through her teeth. He laid there motionless, the punch hurting his ego more than his jaw, as the duo walked inside to pay for their meal and walk out of the cafe like nothing had happened. "Let's go Say," Natsuki said, not glaring at him like Sayori was. "We have a witness to interview."


The duo found the building in no time flat. It was an older, beige fortress made of bricks, designed for maximum utility and nothing else. It's sheer size made it impossible to miss. It was when they went inside that they had gotten lost in it's labyrinth like walls, because the place looked like something out of the Backrooms except more cramped. The hallways were only about as wide as Natsuki and Sayori's shoulders side by side. At one point, Sayori had to ask for directions and knock on a couple of doors. But they eventually found it. 33 Chemin Lacoume, the door to Mr Dodery's room. The right '3' hanging off the wooden door by a single nail pretty much summed up what they might expect.

Sayori thumped three times on the door with her fist. "(Hello?)," she called, the foreign language rolling off her tongue beautifully. "(Is anyone home?)"

They were met with deafening silence. "Weird. I was told he doesn't go out much. Living off of trauma funds or something."

"What should we do?," Sayori asked.

Natsuki looked left, then right, then pulled out her faded pink wallet from her purse. She fished out two metallic pins between her index and middle fingers and immediately went to work picking the lock. Sayori was looking around nervously. The brass lock rattled due to the improper fit in the wooden door.

Sayori crouched down next to her girlfriend. "A-Are you allowed to do this?," she whispered with a rattling smile on her face. She would be lying if she said she wasn't a little excited by what they were doing.

"If we get in trouble, it won't be for picking a lock," Natsuki muttered. Her nose was inches away from the door. Sayori later found herself leaning against the wall behind Natsuki, after realizing that picking a lock took way longer than it did in the movies.

"You said he watched his family get slaughtered?," Sayori questioned with her arms crossed.

"Yep. With a knife apparently."

"Y'know...I can tell what he's thinking."

"What's that?" Natsuki grunted when a pin fell stubbornly.

"He's thinking...why'd I get away? Why not me?"

"Survivor's guilt," Natsuki thought out loud. "Or he's thinking of the day when he'll be the one to die in the same fashion, when the killer realizes they left a loose end."

"No, I think this was deliberate. We need to be careful. What if the killer realizes that we're onto them?"

Natsuki thought for a while. "Let me get this straight- you think that Mr Dodery was left alive intentionally? So that Mr Killer will know which detective is snooping around?"

"I know it's a stretch. Either the killer left him alive or, if the conspiracy is correct, the FBI did. In which case leaving this witness alive and not letting anyone talk to him would be a good way to know which employees they can trust-"

Natsuki turned around and stared at her girlfriend with a raised eyebrow.

"-umm...which would be not you in a second."

"...be quiet you."

Sayori resisted the urge to jump up and cheer loudly when the lock turned with a crisp, satisfying 'click!'. She had been staring at her girlfriend's face of concentration as intensely as she was at the lock and pins. They scurried inside, leaving the door open behind them. The smell of alcohol, rotting food and burnt plastic was immediate, physically making them step back and gag like there was a glass wall stopping them from entering in fully. They used their phones as flashlights- the ambient light from the hallway wasn't enough to let them see, and the light switch didn't work for some reason.

There were curtains on the other side of the room- most likely it covered a sliding glass door to a balcony outside. But it wasn't drawn fully where the end of the curtain met wall, letting a single vertical beam of light inside the den. Natsuki shone her phone light around. The singular square living room held litter up to the ceiling. Towers and towers and towers of takeout containers, cup noodles and pizza boxes from five years ago lined the walls and gradually sloped downwards to the middle of the room, where a coffee table and a sofa was. The detective thought it looked like something from Wall-E.

"N-Natsuki...?!," Sayori called. She had wandered left towards the bedroom since it was the only place apart from the sofa where the floor wasn't covered in trash. Natsuki scuttled over as well and she dropped her phone in response to what she saw.

There was a bloodied man, tied up to a metal chair. Directly in front of whoever would open the door to the bedroom. There were more rays of sunlight leaking through the curtains- large chunks of it were missing, and it was enough to let the two see his face clearly. And while Sayori stood there like a deer in headlights, Natsuki quickly ran over to undo his restraints.

He lifted his head tiredly and looked at Sayori. "(Que fais-tu ici?)," he coughed.

Natsuki laughed in helplessness, seeing how thoroughly his wrists and legs were first duct taped, then handcuffed. She swore she saw his fingers turning purple. "Sayori?!," she panted. "What's he saying?"

"I-I don't know!"

CRACK!

His head snapped to the side with such force that his chair-tied body fell down on the ground. Pink mist; Natsuki knew it all too well, lingered in the air and fell slowly like snow, along with bits of curtain and dust the bullet had ripped through. Everything was everywhere. It was silent chaos. Sayori looked at his dead body, then towards Natsuki, then at the gaping hole in the right-side spiderwebbed window. A sniper shot through glass and curtain and through human skull, and he had probably already left the country before the gunshot stopped echoing in the sky.

The bullet hole; crater more like, allowed sunlight to light the room fully. For a while, they just stood there and stared at his corpse. Natsuki had her hands on her head while Sayori was as still as when she saw him. Her eyes slowly drifted upwards, towards Natsuki. And she couldn't get over how...intact her head was. Last she saw, Natsuki was crouched down behind him, far too close and defintely in someone's crosshair. She practically tackled Natsuki to the ground and held her. Natsuki's petite pink head was smothered in Sayori's chest.

"I...did not...expect...that," Natsuki got out. "Say? Babe...?"

In the split second that Sayori let go of Natsuki, she caught a glimpse of her face. Her teeth was grit like she was being electrocuted while her eyes were flooding her face with widower's tears. It was no depression sadness Natsuki had ever saw. No, she was in pain and unable to breathe, and the only thing that seemed to give her some relief was slapping Natsuki in the face. When she tumbled backwards on the carpet holding her cheek in pain, Sayori scrambled on top of her and let out this primordial, violent concoction of rage, heartbreak, sadness and worry all at once.

"OW! SAYORI!," Natsuki yelled, shielding her face from any more punches. "STOP!"

"YOU BITCH!," Sayori screamed. "HOW?! CAN! YOU LOOK! ANY MORE CASUAL?!"

"STOP HITTING ME!"

Sayori slapped Natsuki yet again. "FUCK YOU! YOU AND I ARE GOING HOME, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Wha...I..."

"NOD! DO IT!"

Natsuki might as well have been held at gunpoint. She complied, nodding her head in defeat, and it seemed to calm the terrifying force of nature down just a little bit. But it was obvious to her that Sayori was barely keeping it together. She stood up and covered her mouth with a cupped hand, still unable to stop her tears.

"Say...," Natsuki began, still on the floor. "I'm sorry."

Sayori couldn't bear to even look at her partner, fearing that she would see her meet the same bloody fate. She walked out with Natsuki trailing behind a few feet from her, all the way until they could reach the safety of their hotel.


This was when paranoia would set in for Sayori. She drew the curtains of their room and sat on the neatly made bed. Her eyes darted up, down, left, right, like a prey animal in unfamiliar territory. There was a black dot on the wall- "Are they watching us?," she thought. "Have they been watching us this entire time?"

Natsuki followed her gaze. She got up, shooed the fly away and returned back to her spot on the bed. Where she would feebly try and spend the next hour trying to get her lover to calm down.

"I booked the flight," Natsuki uttered quietly. Sayori didn't say a word. She got up and began collecting every article of clothing in their hotel room and stuffing it in their suitcases, something which Natsuki hadn't ever seen before. It made her uncomfortable the way she didn't fold them neatly like she does or laugh about that one time when something years ago happened when that shirt was worn or put the toiletries in their respective pockets. By the way Sayori was acting, Natsuki really did feel as if she was dead. Like she was a ghost watching how her lover would cope.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. She was on the verge of tears. "Please stop. I-I'm okay, see?"

She pointed to herself but Sayori was having none of it. "Are you?," she shot back. "Are you okay? What about our kids, will they be okay? Will they be used as hostages when you get involved with the wrong people?"

"This will be over soon..."

Sayori laughed in pain. "Hahaha...! That's the thing Natsuki! It won't! After this is over, you'll just find some other criminal to chase, and eventually it'll kill you!"

She just sat there and lowered her eyes towards her shaky fingers because it hurt Natsuki seeing Sayori stray so far from her usual bubbly self.

"Y'know...," Sayori began. "I really do think you care more about that life than this relationship."

"How could you even say that?!," Natsuki shot back. "You're the thing I'm fucking fighting for!"

Natsuki stood up and Sayori walked closer. She wore a depressed smile and her limbs were loose. The way she walked made it look like she was almost dancing. "No, you're not," she whispered. "You're fighting for your work. You enjoy your work. You enjoy chasing criminals, terrorists, psychopaths. Because you're fascinated by them. You watch anime about them. You read manga about them. You want me to pretend to be one in bed. You don't have to justify it."

Natsuki shoved Sayori back. "Don't start your master's degree psych bullshit with me!," she hissed. "I. Didn't. Get. Shot! Okay? We're fine, and we're going home!"

"...don't you get it?," Sayori sighed, shaking her head. "The only reason why you didn't get shot, was because I was there. If the goal was to stop you from finding out- two things could've happened. You could've been shot, or Seth could've been shot." She gradually lowered her voice, but the tinge of heartbreak was still there. "I think the initial plan was to take you out. You're snooping around, and the FBI want you dead."

"Or it could've been the killer," Natsuki interjected.

"No. No, it's the FBI for sure. Or some organization who doesn't want you finding out."

"What makes you so sure?," Natsuki snorted through her nose.

"Well, first of all, I don't think any good killer would leave witnesses alive. Even as supposed 'detective bait.' You even said that he never leaves witnesses behind right? So what's up with Seth? And Eleanor? He just forgot about them? Unlikely."

"Okaaay?"

"Second of all, you're an important asset to the FBI. They really don't want you dead, but they don't want you snooping around their private affairs, and it seems to me like their affairs are more important. They were going to kill you, for sure," Sayori explained.

"By sniping me in the head?," Natsuki snorted. "The FBI, with millions of dollars in their pockets, couldn't find a more subtle way of killing me?"

"They're the FBI. I don't think they care about subtle. Besides even if they did, I was here with you this whole time, remember?"

Natsuki let her body fall backwards on the queen-size bed while Sayori continued to theorize.

"But when they saw me walk in with you, they couldn't just shoot you and risk me getting away. I mean, they could, but a better solution was right there."

"Shooting their witness?"

"Thus, keeping one of their prized detectives alive while also warning you not to look into this. Remember, I could've been shot too. In the leg or thigh or whatever. I mean...if I died...you wouldn't stop at anything, would you?"

Sayori made herself comfortable on the bed right next to Natsuki. The taller girl had her head propped up on her elbow, staring at Natsuki, while the shorter girl stared at the ceiling in contemplation. It looked therapeutic, but Sayori had an agenda and she knew it.

"That's some pre-tty heavy conjecture there Say," Natsuki groaned.

"Baby girl," Sayori whispered in her ear. "Let's go home. Let's just leave this alone. You don't need to hunt down evil monsters for me to love you. You're already a hero. I don't want to see you die."

Natsuki rolled over on her side so that she too could gaze into her lover's eyes. It was the billionth time they'd done this but it never got old and it never would. Natsuki always felt nervous and lovestruck around her, and vice versa. Without saying a word, they pressed their lips together and held each other in their arms as if they hadn't seen each other in years. Their tongues continued to dance around one another, until Sayori eventually broke off and got on top of Natsuki so that she could pin her wrists down.

"I...love you...," Sayori said. There was no smile or giddiness. What she said seemed to be involuntarily, like how her face was getting redder each second she stared into Natsuki's vibrant pink eyes.

"I love you too," Natsuki whispered. But just as Sayori leaned in to kiss her some more, Natsuki said out of her agape mouth: "But I have to ask..."

"What is it?," Sayori breathed.

"What did he say? Before dying?"

Sayori kissed Natsuki's small, delicate forehead. "I didn't hear him."

"I did. He said (Que fais-tu ici)." Sayori cocked her head in confusion. Word for word, it flowed out of her mouth perfectly and without flaw. And soon she realized that this night would not go as she had hoped. She continued to kiss Natsuki's neck and shoulders. "What does it mean?," Natsuki asked.

Sayori sat up and crossed both her legs, and Natsuki did the same. Despite Sayori's posture, her eyes were pointed down at her lap and her back was hunched, she couldn't help but smile at her situation.

"What does it mean?," Natsuki repeated again, a little more forceful this time.

"Knowing you..."

Natsuki threw down a French to English dictionary that she hid under the pillow in front of Sayori.

"...there we are. Did I tell you how much I love you?"

"You're a fucking liar."

"Hey, I just said I didn't hear him!"

"Well ya heard me! And you damn knew what I said, and you had the audacity to look at me like what I said was incomprehensible garbage, so again, you're a fucking liar!"

"Natsuki-"

"-he knows you!," she croaked. "You know him! Before I did!"

"He was a client of mine, okay? Since I'm the only person in the company that can speak French, and his native tongue is French, it would only make sense that I would be his therapist!"

"Okay. Okay, I see. So he must've told you? He must've told you what happened to him? Who the killer was?"

Sayori was defeated. She rolled her eyes back and laid down from where she sat. She closed her eyes and wished that she could be somewhere else. On a farm or in the mountains...no, she thought about a cabin. Yes, a cabin- and it would be snowing and there would be a fireplace too. They would be in...Finland. Country with the highest happiness index. But if it's with Natsuki she could live anywhere and be happy. She and Natsuki would sit by and read manga together. It would be peaceful. There wouldn't be men in suits trying to kill them, or regular killers trying to kill them. They could just live. If they lived close to a town, they could hopefully start their own quaint little family together. And life would be good.

But right here, Sayori felt as if all of that was close to being taken away from her. "Please...God...," she whimpered. "Don't take her away from me..."

Natsuki got up and paced back and forth. "I can't believe it. You knew all this time."

Sayori might as well have lost her lover. "I don't want to lose you," she sobbed. The tears stained the sheets surrounding her head like a pool of blood.

"You won't." Natsuki sat back down next to her, so that she could run her fingers through her long coral pink hair. "I promise."

"T-There is no winning this baby girl. Don't play. That's the only way to win."

"I can't do that."

"We'll be fighting the FBI."

"We'll run away. Far far away."

"Can we really live like that? What about our friends? Our family? Our children? They'll live in fear."

Neither of them were angry. They were never angry really. Only very, very concerned. Sayori got up to brush her teeth and Natsuki followed suit. As habit would have it, as soon as they finished spitting out their mouthwash and rinsing their mouths out, they gave each other a quick kiss and hopped into bed. Sayori noted that she felt so much lighter now. Now that the truth had at least shown itself like a turtle peeking out of its shell, she felt like the world has been set right. The same could be said for Natsuki.

Their eyes gradually adjusted to the dark. They turned on their sides and held each other- Sayori was the one to cuddle into Natsuki this time. Her hair was pet by small, slim fingers.

"I...would've done the same," Natsuki whispered just as Sayori was about to fall asleep. The petting was too relaxing.

"Oh?"

"If I was living with someone as stubborn as me...I don't think I could ever tell them who it is," she continued. Her voice was cool and calm and collected. "Are you going to take this secret to the grave? You know I'm going to find out eventually..."

"...I don't know," Sayori whispered.

"...is it Arthur Warner?," Natsuki asked.

"...who?"

"I just wanted to see your reaction."

"Nat?"

"Hm?"

"What are we going to do?"

Natsuki thought for a minute, spoke and drifted off into slumber. "Dunno. We'll figure it out tomorrow."

AN: Ignore the google translate French, I don't speak French.