Nabe walks into the front entrance of the police station. He had been debating whether he should have done this yesterday or the day before, but thought it was too early. But now it is Monday morning, and Miyuki still hasn't come back to their apartment.
But that's why he's here right now. To file a missing persons report to the police so they could hopefully find his wayward roommate. He knows he probably should have done this yesterday, after Miyuki didn't come back Saturday night, but this wasn't the first time his roommate hadn't spent the night somewhere without telling him. And he already tried calling the people Miyuki usually hangs out with, they all said they haven't seen him.
"Hello, may I help you?" A young officer asks as Nabe approaches the counter.
"Yes, I would like to file a missing person's report for my roommate," Nabe says.
The officer frowns at Nabe. "Can you tell me who your friend is? And how long has he been 'missing'?"
"His name is Miyuki Kazuya," Nabe starts to answer. "And I haven't seen him since Saturday, when he went out for a run."
"Alright, just one moment please." The officer replies.
As soon as he's gone, Nabe looks at the clock on the wall, 8:27 am. Should he have come by earlier? Later? Looking around right now this place seems very busy, full to the brim with people.
The young officer returns carrying some papers. "I'll need you to fill out these forms," the officer says, passing them to Nabe. "Afterwards we'll have someone come and ask you some questions."
Nabe nods as he takes the forms, along with a pen and sits in one of the chairs by the entrance as he starts to fill out the forms. It's all the standard information. Name, address, most likely place they'd be, most likely people they'd be with. Now that he thinks about it, some of the information Nabe might not be one hundred percent certain of.
He just tries to fill the forms out to the best of his ability. The police will probably ask questions about what he writes down anyway.
Once he finishes he goes back up to the front desk. Getting the attention of the officer sitting behind the desk, he places the forms down. "I've filled out the forms," Nabe says. "Now what?"
The officer takes the forms from him. "Just let me take these to one of the detectives in the back. They'll probably want to ask you some questions," the officer says. "If you wait here, I'll be right back, alright?"
"Okay," Nabe replies. "Thanks."
Nabe waits for the officer to walk away before looking around the room again. There is only one other person in the lobby. And he seems to be asleep on one of the small chairs. Seeing as the only other chairs are the two on either side of the sleeping man, Nabe reluctantly sits beside him. He feels like he is going to be waiting here for a while.
So he picks up a magazine lying on the chair next to him and starts reading through it with disinterest. It doesn't take long until the officer returns followed by another man. They both walk towards Nabe.
"This is Detective Takigawa," the officer introduces. "He'd like to ask you some questions about your report… if you don't mind."
Nabe looks at the man standing behind the officer. He's tall, at least a head taller than himself, broad chest, slightly curly hair slicked back. Definitely fits the description of a police detective.
"So," The man begins saying, his voice is deep. " Why don't you follow me to one of our conference rooms? There's some questions I need to ask you."
Nabe follows after him as the man leads him into a small conference room. In the center is a table with six chairs surrounding it. The detective motions for Nabe to sit at a seat across from him. The detective sets a folder down on the table. When he opens it, Nabe sees the form he filled out earlier, along with some other papers.
"Why don't you begin," the detective says. "Tell me about the last time you saw this… Miyuki Kazuya?"
And Nabe begins to tell the man about how Miyuki left their apartment a few nights ago, saying he was going out on a run, and how he didn't come back.
"Do you know where he usually goes running?" The detective asks.
"I think he usually goes out in one of the forests on the edge of town," Nabe says as he thinks about what Miyuki told him once a couple months ago. "He says there's a lot of good running trails out there…."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
"Hey, Sawamura," Eijun hears someone call out his name. Both him and Raichi had just returned to the station after going around on their morning route.
Turning around, Eijun spots Kanemaru walking into the break room, followed by one of the station detectives. Wait a minute… wasn't that… Oh! That's Chris!
"What are you two doing down here?!" Eijun screams out as he runs across the room they were in. Kanemaru is a crime scene technician, he's usually in one of the labs upstairs doing… crime scene technician thing (stuff he can never hope to understand).
"Would you stop yelling?" Kanemaru says as he walks across the room over to where Eijun and Raichi are standing. "As to why we're here..."
"Let me guess!" Eijun interrupts him. "You both need my expertise and superior skills for help in a case you're stuck in!"
He finishes with a proud smile.
Kanemaru sighs and rolls his eyes, but still manages a small smile at Eijun's comment. "Well... yes... and no."
"The Chief wants us to bring you along for a case we were just assigned," Chris explains. "He says this will be a good opportunity for you to gain more experience."
"Ohhh… So Boss has recognized my superior skills and expertise and needs me to help you…"
"Sawamura," Kanemaru sighs under his breath before grabbing Eijun's shoulder and dragging him out of the room. "Just follow us, We'll explain it to you on the way."
The first thing the small group does is visit the last place their missing person was thought to have been. Which, according to the cell phone logs Kanemaru found, and what the guy's roommate said, was a forest along the edge of town. This forest was popular among many trail runners in the community due to its extensive network of trails. So it made sense that this person would be out here if their roommate said they had gone for a run.
"Bakajun, what are you talking about now?" Kanemaru asks, looking at Sawamura with a confused look.
"I was telling you that I went for a run out in these woods just yesterday, Shinji! And I found this little tanuki stuck in a bear trap! He was hurt really badly and-"
"Okay I get the picture," Kanemaru cuts him off. "Does anything help us with this case though?"
"Um, no, I don't think so," Eijun says, thinking. "Maybe you can ask the little tanuki? He's currently resting at Harucchi's place!"
"Ask the tanuki? As in ask a wild animal? Are you serious right now?" Kanemaru says with a dumbfounded expression.
"It's just a thought!"
"A stupid thought."
"Well do you have any better ones?!"
"I can think of a lot of better ideas, Bakajun."
"Oh yeah? Name one!"
"How about we start actually looking at what's around us?" Chris cuts into their conversation, effectively shutting them both up. "You can continue arguing later," he adds when Eijun continues to glare at Kanemaru.
They three all turn around and begin to walk around, scanning for anything on the forest floor that could give them a clue as to what happened to Miyuki Kazuya. About thirty minutes into their search, Eijun sees something. Underneath a couple tree branches, and now covered in a layer of snow, he sees the bright colors of clothing.
"Hey! I think I found something?!" Eijun calls out to the other two men.
"What is it now?" Kanemaru asks as he walks over.
"Under the sticks," Eijun says, pointing at what appears to be a red shirt of some kind. When Kanemaru squats down to get a closer look, Eijun leans over his shoulder. "Well, what do you see?" he asks.
"Would you give me some space?" Kanemaru says as he shoves Eijun off his back. He takes his camera to take a picture of the scene before reaching over to grab the clothes.
Moving aside the branches, Kanemaru pulls out a red hoodie. It was nice and folded up sitting underneath the branches. "That's weird," he comments.
"Hey, there's more clothes under there," Eijun says, pointing back at the spot on the ground.
Kanemaru looks over where Eijun is pointing; he sees what the other is pointing at. There's another piece of clothing beneath the leaves. Sweatpants to be exact. Folded up in the same fashion as the hoodie was. Kanemaru grabs hold of it, and slowly pulls it out from under the bush. Dark gray sweatpants, now soaked from the snow and wet ground. "It's almost like these were put here on purpose," Kanemaru mumbles out loud to himself.
"What do you think it means?!" Eijun yells into Kanemaru's ear
Kanemaru pushes Eijun away from his shoulder and the brunette falls into the snow behind him.
"I don't know, maybe there's a naked guy out running through the woods," Kanemaru states sarcastically without turning his head. His focus solely trained on unfolding the sweat pants when he feels something in one of the pockets. "Oh, somethings in here."
"What is it now? Another thing you'll push me in the snow for?" Eijun grumbles as he stands up, brushing the snow off his butt.
Kanemaru fishes whatever it is out of the pocket of the sweatpants. It's a cell phone.
"A phone?!" Eijun yells when he sees the object. "Who's is it?! Can you turn it on?" he begins rapid firing questions.
"Phone's dead," Kanemaru comments as he tries to turn it on with no success. "The cold probably killed the battery."
"Do you think this is this … Miyuki Kazuya's stuff?" Eijun asks, trying to remember who again they were looking for.
"Possibly," Chris says. "I don't know who would just leave their phone and clothes out here like this, including the guy we're looking for."
"Oh, I found something else," Kanemaru says as he pulls a wallet out of one of the pockets in the sweatpants. As he opens it up he pulls out an ID. "Yep, this is Miyuki Kazuya's stuff," he says as he shows it to the other.
"Okay… But why are his clothes out here? All folded up and hidden like this?" Eijun asks, rubbing the back of his head, thinking.
"That's a good question." Chris says from behind them. He had stepped away briefly to see if he could find anything else in the area, but he had proven unsuccessful. "This looks like he didn't just throw the clothing out randomly. Something must've prompted him to keep them there."
"But what?"
"I don't know," Chris says and turns to Kanemaru. How about we bag this stuff up and see if we can get anything from it. We can also see what's on his phone.``