Chapter 3

The Ending of the Case Is As Fucked Up As Expected

I feel a twinge of dread jostling in my gut when Yukinoshita and I arrive at the construction site.

Not as bad as a fresh crime scene, those tend to make my bowels vibrate and my palms sweaty, and only slightly worse than going to a party you when you could be at home.

Maybe it was the noise. So much happens in a construction site. Bosses barking orders. Steel hitting steel. And that overpowering hum of heavy machinery.

Loud noises aren't good for me. My medical tests back in the US told me that I might have more sensitive hearing than most people. Instead of a good thing as you'd expect, it just means I'm less tolerant to loud and sudden noise. My doctor advised me to avoid concerts and to always wear proper hearing protection when practicing my firearm since I could have a panic attack.

Just so you know, I've never once had a panic attack… at least not one caused by noise.

I take in a long breath of cold, cement mixed air as I look at the macho men at work.

So many orange hard hats and reflective vest.

The killer could have been here. Somewhere. Holding a heavy construction tool he could use to deconstruct my brain into a red Jell-O.

It almost makes me wish I had my gun on me.

Almost.

We're not here to interview workers, because chances are he's not even here anymore. The headline got traction, newspapers and major news networks have been running it ever since.

Serial killers sell. Fear is a great way to make money. Just ask the major news networks.

If he's as smart as I know he is. He won't be here. It's the hunter instinct in him that keeps him from staying too long in one place.

I'm confident we won't run into him.

Totally, don't need a gun. Nope.

We head for the administrative building where the manager and bookkeeping staff work, it was a small solidly built two-storey wooden rectangle with a door and windows, unpainted and easily demolished when the job would be done. I walked up the external flight of stairs to the door and enter without knocking. The lady in the front desk was on the phone, she had black hair in a style I've seen on most Korean women north of the border, she's smaller than me and ten to fifteen kilograms heavier.

She regarded me with a look of apathy I often get from most women that don't know me but nowhere near as powerful from the women who do.

But when she got a good look of Yukinoshita, I see the change in her eyes.

Yukinoshita looked like a goddess and she knows it. Insecurity hits her hard. I see it in the way she straightens herself, how she jerks around and tries to look presentable, her fingers instantly straightening her clothes, making herself look neat. Then a smile she didn't give me she flashes for Yukinoshita, trying to look inviting.

She must think Yukinoshita's her boss. I can't blame her, in a five figure outfit like hers, Yukinoshita looks like everyone's boss.

"Ma'am were with the police." I told her dispelling any misconceptions. I flash her a little plastic card with my name on it, a small piece of identification with the symbol of the National Police Agency that gets me into police buildings and pass police yellow tape, courtesy of Hiratsuka.

"We'd like all your resignation letters in the past week." I asked her, she looks at me, a split second of panic and paranoia manifests on her face.

It's a natural thing. Police scare innocent people as much as criminals. It's human nature to fear the sudden presence of authority crushing your freedom.

Cue drone strikes.

The secretary puts a hand over her phone's receiver. "Oh? What for?" she asked. And I debated internally if I should tell her.

"We're after a serial killer." Yukinoshita answers before I could make up an excuse.

The secretary takes her hand off her phone. "I'll have to call you back." she told the person on the other end before hanging up.

I sometimes underestimate the amount of files that comes with a business.

To put it into context, just the resignation letters alone would have enough paper to print a new text book for each of my twenty-five students. If the construction company wasn't so organized, we'd be looking through every file labelled EMPLOYEE for days.

We scanned through several boxes of resignations. We sorted them out by date. Looking for the specific resignation that fits in our suspect with the same timeline.

Out of the hundreds of workers, one name stuck out the most.

Tatsumi Tsurumi .

Plumber. Pipe Threader.

"Do you have anything more on this plumber?" I show the secretary the letter in question.

The secretary shakes her head. "We don't ask too many questions when hiring freelance, but we do check criminal records-"

"And he doesn't have one." I finished for her.

The killer wouldn't have a criminal record. He'd look like a sane, everyman that just seems a little off. Like a wolf wearing people's clothing.

"Does he have a daughter by any chance?" I ask the golden question. And the secretary shakes her head then as if realizing a mistake shrugs instead of committing to the clear "no".

"I don't know. Maybe? There's plenty of workers here. Some have daughters that bring them lunches, a few even have ones working down in bookkeeping."

Right. Too vague.

"She'd be around sixteen. Blue eyes. Black hair. Milk pale skin. Skinny like a stick but pretty in a cool beauty sort of way." I gesture behind me where Yukinoshita was working. "Like Yukinoshita over there."

No idea why I mentioned Yukinoshita as a frame of reference. Maybe I just wanted to compliment her without being to direct.

Damn, first the sudden confession now this stealth compliment. Seems my pants are doing the talking today.

"What makes…Tatsumi Tsurumi so suspicious?" Yukinoshita asks as she walked over to me and took a peak at the resignation form over my shoulder.

Usually I'd shudder at the subtle invasion of privacy because it's usually unintentional and I've learned to accept that not everyone understands or has the same level of personal space, but this woman was completely aware of my discomfort. Acting on it would simply prove her right on the matter of my personal space.

Being so close, I couldn't help but take a whiff of her, she smells expensive, the beeswax mixed in with a hint of rich body wash and perfume I can never afford. Just her smell makes me feel guilty. Far below her station. A street urchin gazing upon an empress.

"Nothing." I quickly tell her without looking at her directly, just peaking at her general direction, catching glimpses of her hair. "Just the fact that he didn't write down his address. Only his name and phone number."

It was a small insignificant fact. But being a detective for so long, you'll never know which insignificant fact solves a case. Source: Not Me.

"And that makes him a suspect?" Yukinoshita asks skeptically.

"It shouldn't. But he wrote it down with a glitter pen." It was the kind of stationary teenage girls carry, the novelty item that makes boring ink shine sparkle in just the right light.

A detail that's way too suspicious, given the context of the suspect's profile.

"So you're basing this purely off ink?"

"No." At least not legally. What would people say if I did? I can already hear the lawyer trying to breed skepticism in the jury, making me out as a delusional, overworked professor looking for a way back in the police force.

I look at the paper again, putting more effort into my observation. You never know what you might find on a second look.

It pays off. "Read the date." I told her. She leans down to read the paper, the ends of her black hair brushing against my skin, sending nerves a flutter close to being tickled.

Her voice brings me out of the delusion. "Tuesday. The day after the profile was released." Her voice held it, the tone of voice I love to hear when I'm in an investigation, she sees the dots align. The insignificant details slowly leading to something of significance.

I scan the other resignations. "Everyone else quit on or after a Saturday. Payday."

"Why would he loose a few days of pay to leave earlier?"

"He's not the only to quit on Tuesday."

"But he's the only pipe threader who quit on Tuesday."

"Hmm…" Yukinoshita hums at my rhetorical. I can't help but imagine if I can make her let out other noises.

Oh hell yeah I've thought about it. Sue me.

"Do you suspect Mr. Tsurumi of being the killer?" she asked looking right at me.

No, at least not entirely. This is a huge jump, the kind I frown on making, he could have many reasons for leaving. But…

"It warrants for a visit don't you think?"

Yukinoshita pauses a bit, crossing her arms and bringing one hand neatly over her chin in thought.

A habit of intellect, I guess. All us smart people have them. Like, totally.

"Should we inform Commissioner Hiratsuka?" she asked after much thought.

I thought about it. Hiratsuka didn't expect me to find anything of significance. Chances are this leads to nothing. By telling Hiratsuka, however, I could put cops in a nice family's house. That's an image you don't want to associate yourself with. Housewives gossip, and a police car parked outside someone's house can fuel allot of it. I want to keep the Tsurumi family's image relatively blemish free so I should just play this by the ear.

"No. We'll just be performing a home interview."

I feel like rookie all over again, performing home interviews. I might as well entertain Yukinoshita with it, it would be a shame if her first time on a case would be a paper work run.

"Let's get the papers loaded in the car for processing and we can go." No need to drop it off at the precinct, they'll be safe in the back seat.


As I watch Hachiman store another box of files into his car, I find myself, rather disappointed in what I assume would be thrilling look into Hachiman's thought process.

And I abhor such dull events, for my mind should always be stimulated, yet through all the rumors and intellectual discussions circulating around Hachiman's famed profiling I'm still unconvinced, or to be more precise, anticipating a show of his truest abilities.

Why, you might ask? That I grow close to such skill when those very abilities might one day be used against me one day.

Perhaps it's to prepare for such an event. To gauge the limits of his abilities. "To know thy enemy" as military historians say.

Rationally, that is my best answer. But if we were to fall into the realm of law and order, of morals and justice, you could even say I feel obligated to aid the police.

As a woman with black hair and blue eyes, it serves my best interests to apprehend this selective killer and to do right by those poor, unfortunate, girls whose deaths were brought on solely for their appearance.

Call it a matter of principle, if you will. As a woman, it's an injustice to be judged on our looks alone.

Or perhaps I'm simply curious as to what would happen.

Which leads me to this course of action. If Hachiman won't entertain me, perhaps I'll make my own entertainment.

I pick up the last box of resignation letters, and carry them only making it through the door before I suddenly feel my hands become slippery.

Oops.

I drop the heavy pile of files. Sheets of white spread across the ground, brown files open and release more white all over the ground.

"I'm so sorry." I say with a few octaves higher, as high as it was when I was in high school, and it put the desired affect into Hachiman's male brain.

My voice acting lessons pay-off as I hear Hachiman from the car.

Being the gallant gentleman, Hachiman stops what he was doing and comes to my aid. Picking up the papers that I dropped.

"It's fine. I'll handle it." he says like a chivalrous knight and makes the fair maiden in me smirk.

The obnoxious secretary joins in. Either to curry our favor or to speed up our departure from her place of work.

While they're busy cleaning up my mess, I make my way back into the office where the phone is.

With a tissue I grab the phone and dial in the number on Mr. Tsurumi's resignation letter with my knuckle.

The phone rings for a while…

"Hello?" a young woman's voice answers. From her voice, she'd be around her teens. Perhaps this is the daughter that inspired so many deaths?

His little muse of murder?

Hmm, I should write that one down

"May I speak with Mr. Tsurumi, please?" I ask politely, altering my voice slightly, enough that it isn't similar to my speaking voice while still average enough to sound natural.

After a rustle, I hear it. "Oh…Dad it's for you."

So she is the daughter. Oh my. This home interview is starting to become an exciting prospect.

I hear the passing of the phone. I almost hold my breath for the sound of Mr. Tsurumi's voice.

"Hello?"

"Is this Mr. Tsurumi?" I asked.

"Yes, this is Tsurumi Tatsumi. Who's speaking?"

Finally. A voice to add to the profile.

A soft, timid timber of his voice perfectly masking the ravenous hunger deep within. From his choice of words alone I can tell right away that he's an educated man, but the subtle meekness in his voice tells of an introverted soul longing to roar and devour.

I feel like rejoicing, for it is a rare thing to hear the voice of someone who shares the same niche tastes as yourself.


When the phone rang, Tsurumi Tatsumi was enjoying his little piece of heaven; an afternoon cooking with his two favorite girls.

Tatsumi isn't some corporate slave hunched over in some cubicle waiting for the workday to end to plug himself out of the system just to be trapped by it again the next day. No, Tsurumi Tatsumi actively fights the fast-paced, corporate world of Japan by simply being simple.

He's a simple man who enjoys simple things. Being from a fairly wealthy family, he could've studied at any university he wanted and gotten a job at a corporation pushing pencils and bowing his head at the higher-ups. Instead, he works with his hands, going to a vocational school and being a jack-of-all-construction-trades.

He built his home himself, the small haven from the urban clamor of Chiba and closer to the outdoors. And closer with his family. His wife Reiko shared his love for nature, and so did their daughter Rumi.

His two favorite girls. His greatest loves.

They were once described as the commercial family, a family so perfect that they might as well be advertising cereal or noodles. As if the never argued or shouted at the table. They weren't perfect. Just average.

But it was moments like these, cooking together, reconnecting with each other that made average feel perfect.

As the sausages where nearly done, and the pancake version of egg's in a basket where just about ready, the phone rang, it's ringing ruining the pleasant sound of sizzling and splatter of hot oil.

Rumi, being the closest to the phone, answers it. A second later she tells her father.

"Dad. It's for you."

Tatsumi took the phone, while his attention was on mostly on the sausages that were just about ready. He lazily presses it between his head and shoulder.

"Hello."

"Is this Mr. Tsurumi?"

That question shouldn't scare him. But it did. Tatsumi felt it like an accusation, like his own name was a curse or insult. It shouldn't he told himself. Relax.

It was the voice, it was one he didn't recognize and there's something about your name in all its special, personal, intimacy when said to you in full that can render a man fearing something.

"Yes, this is Tsurumi Tatsumi." he said and found some ground back under his feet.

Then nothing. Only phone static.

Tatsumi found himself twitching in nervous impatience for the reply.

"Good."

The next minutes became a blur. Just rapid heartbeats and ragged breathing; a chase. Something Tatsumi knows allot about.

"Listen closely." The voice on the other end told him.

Tatsumi just nodded.

"Consider this a courtesy call. We've never met, nor do I suspect we shall ever meet."

Tatsumi Rumi was a hunter. A predator. He stalks his prey, patiently and stealthily. Like a wolf in the forest stalking and chasing down dear, he's the apex predator.

He should fear nothing.

But right now, hearing the voice on the other end. A chill the size of a winter ran into his spin. Making his blood run cold. Something dark and foreboding was coming, his instincts could sense it.

As if he was the deer and something else was in his forest.

Something out there prowling.

Something sinister.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes." And so Tatsumi listened to God-his new one at least, hoping for mercy and fearing the fires of judgement.

"They know. And they are coming."

At that moment. Tsurumi's world became dark. Empty. Ugly.

…And very, very, cold. As cold as the voice he was speaking to. He felt icy hands pierce his soul and turned his blood blue with frost.

"Do you understand?"

With his mind racing a million meters a second, Tatsumi could barely utter a reply. "Yes."

And the phone goes dead.

Tatsumi stood there with a phone in one hand and a knife in the other.


The drive to the Tsurumi house was quiet and Yukinoshita and I were both comfortable with it. Relishing it in fact.

I checked on her a few times on the way, and she looked completely relaxed and so was I.

Apparently, Yukinoshita and I share the same trait wherein we could both say or do nothing to each other and not find it awkward.

Call it lack of social skills but for me, nothing's better than quiet and long drive.

It was a little over five when we arrived at the Tsurumi's neighborhood. A suburban piece of prime real-estate that used to be forest land. I drive by big houses with fairly large lawn space. Each house was two lots apart from each other, each with a different design in mind, giving it the benefit of not having the assembly-line-home feel like the neighborhood I grew up in.

Ever since the population boom a few years back, there's been a demand in houses far away from urban areas. A place you could raise a family of more than four per government…incentives.

Pretty soon, they might even reach all the way to my little house in the woods.

I shudder at the thought.

Following the address, I came by a secluded house that could have been on the cover of a home owner's magazine. The lawn was mowed perfectly with bushes of exotic looking flowers lining the walls protected by a tall picket fence that was tastefully varnished wood instead of the typical white, the coal black car parked in the drive way told me that the family was in, it was a pickup truck just like mine, but it was the outdoorsman variety judging from the mud and vegetation on the wheels and bumper.

The house itself looked like it was built from scratch. While the house I grew up in was just one from an assembly line of houses, the Tsurumi home looked designed, built by a craftsman and not a foreman.

I didn't study architecture, nor will I ever, but even from a glance I could tell this house was unique. From the strong earthly colors, to the fancy looking chimney peeking at the top.

This isn't a typical Japanese home. More European actually. Perhaps German judging from how solid it all looks.

I've heard of Chinese tourists being able to replicate the buildings they visited on vacation.

Don't know why I mentioned that, but it was a completely useless fact that suddenly appeared in my head. Anyway, this is dream home. Built with love and care. A dream house that took years of love- genuine familial love to make this place into a beautiful home.

Tsurumi might not be the killer after all. I thought, feeling really stupid driving all the way here.

Then I hear a scream.

The door opens and a plump woman steps out, scarlet red flowing from her neck, getting all over her yellow apron and grey turtle neck.

She screams a hauntingly guttural note that dies in her throat as blood starts to go into her lungs. She falls to the pavement of the walkway.

She screams again, a cry for help all human beings are programmed to respond to. I see the door open and catch a glimpse of a man with a knife.

Our eyes meet and I know him.

We've never met before but I know him.

I see it in the look in his eyes. Eyes are said to be windows to the soul. I didn't see his soul but I saw how well he aligns. He aligns himself with the image of the profile I've made perfectly.

He's the one I've been getting to know. The owner of the head I've been trying to get inside. The madness of pedophilic, incestuous, spirit of cannibalism that has terrorized Chiba and has left his bloody finger prints all over the spaces of my mind.

He's the cannibal killer.

Tatsumi Tsurumi is the cannibal killer.

He retreats into the house, like a startled monster retreating back into his cave.

My first instinct was to run after him, my training told me to go to the woman bleeding on the ground.

"Stay in the car," I told Yukinoshita.

I got out of the car and came by Mrs. Tsurumi's side, crouching. Blood was everywhere. Covering the ground. The smell of human blood is nauseating in large amounts, explaining why I feel like throwing up.

I put pressure on the wound. My palms on the cut in her neck.

It was me against a leak of red. And the leak was winning.

I try to say something. Something to calm her down, and it just came out as a whisper. Like I was soothing her.

Her eyes locked with mine, then drifted slowly beyond me.

And then her eyes lost their light.

I saw a human being. A wife. A mother. Someone's daughter at one time. She was full of life once.

Now her life was soaking the ground four feet from her home. A step away from being another corpse I'd have examined.

She died. She stopped being a human being.

It was another dead body sprawled in front of me. Out of instinct, my mind goes through its motions, she was no longer a woman I wanted to save but a victim I needed to study. My brain does what I've trained it to do; analyzing the crime scene but with the cheat of being a witness.

And I came to one conclusion.

Her injuries. I noted. She didn't get them from defending herself. The angles were too wrong.

She received these wounds from protecting someone else.

"The daughter!"

I look to the door, and I hear it the scream that awakens all my chauvinistic, male dominated, white knight instincts; the scream of a helpless girl, right behind that door.

A teenage girl was in danger.

With a shaky, bloody hand I reach for my gun. Only to find nothing there.

That's when my situation dawned on me.

No gun. No backup. No partner. If I went in there I'd be killed. If I didn't, a teenage girl gets killed by her own father and God knows what else might be done to her.

I don't know what to do. There I said it!

I've been trained for these situations. Trained!

Years of Judo. Courses of Krav Maga. A few boxing lessons. The countless times I've had to defend myself against bullies.

Even with all that, I can't decide whether I should go in there. There's too many possibilities. Too many variables.

He could be laying a trap for me.

He could have a gun.

The daughter could already be dead.

There's just too many things I haven't taken into account. Me, the daughter, and even Yukinoshita could all loose our lives if I make the wrong decision.

From the house I could hear a young girl's shrill scream.

Ah, fuck it.

I hate myself enough to die trying.

I take off my glasses. Put them on my shirt pocket and like some infantile hero with something to prove, I ran to the door.

Locked. It was a push door. That meant I could kick it open. Aiming near the lock and just left of the door knob, I kick the door.

It splinters but holds.

Damn thing is sturdy. I kick it again. I made it crack loudly. The thing still holds.

On my third try, I kick it with everything I had in me. I think I could have pulled something but I don't feel it. It splinters, cracks, then finally it opens.

I glanced around the living room, Tsurumi isn't here.

A rustling and a cry comes from the other side of the house.

"Idiot." I tell myself. "Just follow the blood trail." With only my wits and a shaky confidence in my martial arts, I follow the trail of blood to the kitchen.

That's where I found them. Joined together.

What awaited me was crazed monster and a damsel. At least that's what my pop-cultured mind perceived.

Tsurumi stood in the kitchen, hiding behind his daughter, clutching her like she was his prey. Pressing a knife against her throat, pinning her to him. Keeping me away.

He looked straight out of a monster movie, a misshapen creature who bathes in blood. Mental sickness making him to commit acts of murder and a combination of lust and incestuous impulses compelling him to do worse to his own daughter.

I stood still and looked at her. Just to see what could make such a monster.

She was pale in an almost unhealthy kind of way, probably from spending too much time indoors like a shut-in. I noticed she's got the black hair like most of the girls, hers just seems less maintained, just naturally as-is with no hidden features or special care necessary.

Maybe that's because it's disheveled from her dad holding her hostage, you idiot. I told myself.

She has a cute face with gentle almost fragile features, contorted in a look of pure shock and horror as her mother's blood is spread on her.

And her eyes…

They're so blue. Like sapphires. Big, blue, sapphires with a leak, tears of panic and confusion flowing freely from them and going down to her cheeks.

I just stood there and said the first thing that came to mind. I raised my hands to get his attention and show I was unarmed and said, very clearly.

"Hey, pedophile!"

It wasn't a good plan. More like a sudden, desperate attempt to put Tsurumi's attention on me and not his daughter's throat.

It sort of worked, Tsurumi stopped whispering insanity into his daughter's ear and looked at me.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you. The pedophile pinning his own daughter against his ragging erection."

Oh, God. What am I doing?

Tsurumi's eyes went to me, I had his full attention now. He looked like he wanted to melt me with his stare, make me combust into flames or something.

I know I did when I got pissed off by a know-it-all.

Yukinoshita really pissed me off the other day, after feeling humiliated I came to the realization that anyone would be pissed by that.

Who wouldn't be pissed by someone you've never met talk down to you, tell your whole life story like she was reading a grocery list. Reveal every thought and action you've ever had. Dissecting it for the world to see.

And, right now. My taunting is working.

I know the basics of hostage negotiations. And this wasn't going to end well. His motives were clear as a dying man's browser history.

He wants to die together with his wife and daughter. I knew it. It had to be it. I can't afford to doubt myself right now.

For whatever reason, he wants all three of them to die right here, right now.

That's what he wants and I can't allow that.

But I can get him to point that knife at me and not pressed against his daughter's jugular. Talk him down, not calm him down. Get him so angry he might just let go of his daughter and attack me where my raised hands can catch his attack.

I just needed to get him angry enough to lunge at me. Make him hate me more than anyone in his entire life.

This must be the stupidest plan ever but I know for a fact that people have hated me before and I wasn't even trying, so this should be easy.

Play by your strengths, right?

But I'm not an idiot. School yard taunts won't elicit that much rage. No, I need to say something else, something personal.

Yukinoshita's smug face came to mind.

I've profiled this guy for days, I had to explore every dark thought he had and what lead to them, what Freudian excuses and insecurities that could lead you to killing and eating eight teenage girls.

"Your daughter doesn't belong to you, Tsurumi."

Tsurumi looks up. He craned his neck and suddenly, his eyes were right on me.

Are these the eyes of killer? I wondered. Were they the last things those eight girls saw?

I don't care. I found the button to press. So I keep pressing until something happens.

"I know what you are." I told him. I'm bluffing of course but it's a well-known fact people don't like to be told who they are.

"I see you for what you are, Tsurumi." I felt both pairs of eyes on me, one wanted help, and the other was a morbid fascination.

I'm a profiler. I see details and make a story, a portrait of who I'm profiling. When I've caught you, I won't be surprised of who I see, for I've already figured you out.

Tsurumi was an unfinished piece.

Very rarely do I get the opportunity confront my profile before I've even finished.

I hold my gaze on the former, eliciting a violent response from the latter.

And now I've got the last piece. I needed.

"She's not yours, Tsurumi."

The look of shock told me everything I needed to know. Tsurumi's mouth opened partly, like a jet of cold realization suddenly went through him.

I found it.

The answer.

"She'll find someone else to love, old man." I told him.

Tsurumi begins shaking his head, I've snapped him out of his little homicidal trance.

"I'll put you away for life, you know that right?"

Tsurumi grips his daughter tighter.

I retain eye contact.

"She'll get over you, eventually after years of therapy. She'll get over what you've done to her and she'll find some boy…"

He's a father. An overprotective, overbearing, incestuous piece of shit. And what he hates most in the world…

"Who knows, after I arrest you, she might fall in love with me."

…is competition.

A scream was the only warning I got before he slits his daughter's throat.

Have you ever seen a throat get slit? It's the same as putting mascara on a cat.

Putting mascara on a cat and pulling off a nice slick assassin-style throat slit are roughly the same, both the cat and the person would have to stay perfectly still and relaxed while the action should be one fluid motion.

But cats move, allot. They'll never hold still long enough for something as alarming as mascara. Even the slightest action causes them to overreact and jump away making applying any make-up on those angry creatures extremely difficult.

People are the same, they won't hold still, not when there's a knife pressed against their throat. They struggle and move around making it hard for a knife to smoothly travel for that dramatic, blood spraying shot.

That's why soldiers just opt to stab the throat.

His daughter's throat didn't turn into a gushing spray of red like in the gore movies.

No, she struggled and moved, not giving the knife the one straight line, somehow the knife got stuck somewhere in her tense neck muscles. Tsurumi had to physically pull her off to get the knife out of her.

That's when the red started coming out. Slowly, like a small leak that starts to grow. She starts covering her neck, tiny hands trying to stop the bleeding.

No gurgling sounds. That's good. It means the wound wasn't deep enough and she's not choking on her own blood. She might just make it.

I might not, though.

Tsurumi's eyes looked right at me, the look of a man who's lost everything by his own hands. Who dug his and everyone he loves' grave.

I see the abyss in those eyes. The alluring, bottomless terror men could fall in.

I had enough time to stare back at them to know he blames me for everything.

Then he came at me.

He's angry. Frantic. A wild animal cornered. His sanity is a rubber band stretched to the limit and finally snapped.

All he is now is the stored potential energy put into sudden motion. Like a whip.

He slashes at me frantically, judging from his angle he's aiming for my neck and missing by a mile.

I follow my training and keep my distance, pulling my body back every time he swings. Hoping for an opening to plant my foot and pivot as he over lunges.

He's untrained but he knows what he's doing. The way he holds his knife speaks for itself. His misses start getting closer to target. I have to stop him now before he can finalize on his adjustments.

He stabs at me, I counter. I pivot and grab his wrist, keeping control of his weapon-hand.

I've been trained by the best, sparred with people who are better, and fought worse odds than this.

Tsurumi yells and knees me. Missing my crotch but hitting my hips.

But that was a long time ago…

I lose my grip on his hand. I let out a grunt of pain.

My hip feels numb all of a sudden. My knees buckle.

I haven't had a fight in years. Not since brawling in the dog fighting den have I had a real fight with something on two legs. The rust shows. Painfully.

He keeps coming at me with the knife. My timing is off, I can't grab the knife without injuring myself. I keep my distance, that's all I can do. Back then I could have disarmed him by now.

His swings are wide and sloppy. But I'm slow and rusty.

He screams again.

I back step from his incoming slash.

But I dodged to short this time. Something tugged at my pants and held me in place as Mr. Tsurumi's blade met the distance.

I got cut in the gut. Right below my belly button.

It doesn't hurt. I must be tougher than I thought.

Then I felt it.

At first it felt like getting pinched really hard, then it became pins and needles on my fresh wound. Sending waves of pain to my head and ears that I could almost hear it.

My hand goes to it first, for every second exposed to the air it stings like iodine, like the breeze had lemon in it. Putting pressure on it helps too.

It's wet, a hot moisture that can only be blood. My blood. Thick rich red pouring right out of me.

Thank god it wasn't overflowing. A millimeter deeper I'd be holding back a fountain. An inch, and I'd be holding my guts.

It hurts but I'll live.

Then it came. A white light that replaces my vision. The sudden excruciating feeling of your flesh being cut finally hits in full force.

I stumble back some more. And I realized my pants loop was stuck in a drawer handle.

Of all the times…

The drawer couldn't pin me in place forever, I stumble back, my feet disappearing from the waist down right when I needed them the most.

The drawer comes out and falls, its contents coming down and making a mess on the floor.

Kitchen utensils clattering as like ugly chimes as they fell.

Kitchen utensils between me and a serial killer with a knife.

Oh, God, please let him trip on a spatula or something.

Tsurumi doesn't care, he just jumps over them and pushes me down as he lands.

My legs were already giving up on me, he didn't need to jump and put all eighty kilograms of his weight on me to make me fall.

From noodles to paper, I fall.

Pinned down.

An arm pushing down on my throat.

Tsurumi raises his knife high, wanting to stab my eye out.

A weapon. I need a weapon!

My hands are still free. I just need something that could hurt enough when I jam it into his neck.

In my panicked state, I pulled out the glasses that were still in my pocket.

Remembering my very first self-defense class, I held them in a reverse-grip and brought one end into the middle of his throat. Imaging my glasses going through his neck.

It didn't go through.

But it sure as hell must've stung for Tsurumi to wince in pain and clutch his neck like I shot a dart right through his larynx. His spit flying freely as his mouth opened in shock as if he were choking.

I must've hit him mid swallow.

Never has the sound of someone choking brought so much relief to me.

I seize the moment. Punching him off me. He falls to my left side, in a prone position. I throw away my glasses and reach for a sharp utensil I could use. My blind searching finds something heavy with a wooden handle.

A knife?

My hand closes around the handle and found it's too heavy to be a knife. Damn.

It's a cleaver.

The cleaver was in my hand and that was everything I could register.

I let out of scream of my own, directly from my gut, giving me the power to make this work, to stay alive, I screamed and gripped the cleaver's handle tightly as I swing.

I bury the cleaver into Mr. Tsurumi's head, splitting it open. Blood sips through his skull, flowing freely into his face, his eyes looking at me in shock right before the blood covers them.

For a moment, everything's frozen in place then I saw him twitch, he must be still alive so it's not over yet.

Pulling out the cleaver was hard, I buried it too deep into his skull. I had to push against him to finally pry the cleaver out of him.

Then I buried it into him again, this time I hit something mushy- soft. It made a sound I've only heard in a meat processing factory.

But I don't stop there.

I keep at it, the repetitive strikes make the action easier, like clockwork.

The map of those girls flashes in my mind. All their deaths, all the loved ones grieving. He caused it all! And that just made me swing harder. Angrier.

I scream again. Something primal came out of me.

Eventually, I found a rhythm as I hack away.

The impacts send tremors into my arm, almost numbing it.

I keep hacking, and I don't stop. I just keep hacking his brain wide open.

Because isn't that what I do? Get into criminal's heads?

I only stop when the cleaver hits something hard and it gets stuck, this time I can't pull it out. I've chopped all the way to his mouth. I could practically see the blade's edge come out of Mr. Tsurumi's mouth, right between his two front teeth.

There was no time for me to react to what I just did.

Crawling, I came to the daughter's side. I could see the life in her eyes. She's hanging on but the blood was still flowing.

I put my hand over the red gash on her neck, trying to remember all those first aid lessons.

"It's okay…It's okay….It's okay…" I mantra as I put pressure on the wound. This is beginning to feel oddly familiar. Her head moves to the side, eyes following to where her father lay. I think she may have tried to scream but blood must've clogged her throat.

She struggles against me, causing her to bleed more and more, her skin growing paler, like she's fading out of existence.

No.

I put more pressure on the wound, still unsure of what I'm doing. All I do is pin her in place to keep her from moving too much.

But once again, it was me against a faucet. But this one seems to be going on empty. Her movements quickly die down, growing limp.

"Hey!" I call out to her, getting no physical response. "Stay with me. Hey!" In desperation, I tried slapping her awake.

Then I see movement out of the corner of my eye and see her standing there. Dr. Yukinoshita was in entrance of the kitchen, watching me. For god knows how long, she's been watching me!

My heart fell out as I realize what I must look like. A man covered in blood on top of a teenage girl bleeding to death.

Oh, God! I must look like a bloodsucking demon to her.

Self-consciously, try to hide my eyes with my glasses. A sad habit I've developed from all the ridicule my eyes have brought me.

But I forgot I threw away my glasses during the fight. And instead of thick, plastic frames, my bloody hand just smears more blood on my face.

I'm just making this worst. Fuck.

"Here Hachiman."

I feel the familiar plastic stems sliding to my temple to the top of my ears, I look up to see blue eyes looking at me through my glasses.

Yukinoshita's blue eyes.

They say eyes are windows to the soul. I didn't see a soul. Just the color of calming blue. The promise of clear skies and free open spaces. I don't know how long I looked right at them, normally I would have averted my gaze. But I couldn't stop looking.

I could get lost in her eyes.

"Hello, Dr, Yukinoshita." I don't- I don't know why I said that. Is it the blood loss talking? I've never lost this much blood before.

As if she's rehearsed it, she responds. "Hello, Hachiman." she said with the same casual sophistication and courtesy I can't help but admire.

Yukinoshita takes my hands off the girl's neck, inspects the wound for a few seconds, and then puts her two fingers into the wound, blocking off the circulation with her slender digits. With her other hand, she stops the blood flow by holding the girl's neck like she was choking her from behind.

"I've already called an ambulance." Yukinoshita told me softly while keeping the girl alive with just her petite hands.

I relaxed a little and sat on the floor, leaning on the kitchen counter and just watched her.

No longer was she standing over me with pride, but on her knees helping someone, getting her perfectly manicured nails, perfectly washed hands, and perfectly laundered suit dirty trying to save a young girl's life.

I couldn't look away at what I was seeing. I was actually admiring the sight of Yukinoshita instead of the morbid fascination I have with other people's actions.

I watched her like that until the sirens began to grow close and the paramedics came rushing in. Yukinoshita explained to them in the way only a medical professional could, the paramedics nodded, knowing a doctor when they hear one barking orders.

My mind drifted to Yukinoshita's voice like that one sad mellow song you play before drifting off to sleep, I didn't focus on it.

I blinked for a really long time and suddenly found myself outside and strapped to a stretcher, sitting upright.

I watched as paramedics carry the girl to an awaiting ambulance, Yukinoshita followed them, holding the girl's hand as the paramedics haul her into the medical transport vehicle.

I rode with the other ambulance on the way to the next hospital, keeping the same blank expression I didn't bother to change.

When I got to the E.R. the first thing I did was ask about the Tsumrumi girl. None of the nurses gave me a straight answer. It was only when I saw Iroha that I got some answers. I had to be slightly physical with a few scrubs to get me to talk to her.

"She's stable." Was all she said, and it was enough. I relaxed and let the nurses and doctors have their way with me, thinking of Chiba as they drugged me up, put me in a room, and stitched me back together again.

I tried very hard not to make a Professor Stein joke.

The doctor said I'd be good to go in a few days. She told me to take it easy and I can stay overnight if the meds they gave me were too strong. I told her I'd be walk off the anesthetic and blood loss all the way to Miss Tsurumi's room.

In ICU room 201, I found the young girl elaborately woven in wires of life saving technology, a fly wrapped in a robot-spider's techno web. The machines the wires were attached to gave a low rumble while her heart monitor beeped every second-and-a-half, a hypnotic rhythm that drew me in a trance as watched her at peace.

It's an awful sight, but I felt relieved.

And so very, very guilty.

On her bed side, sleeping on a chair was Dr. Yukinoshita, her hand still holding on to the girl's tenderly, having never let go. Giving the young girl some tiny bit of comfort.

It was a sight that warmed my desensitized heart.

I couldn't help but stare at the sight of Yukinoshita, the abrasive psychiatrist looks cute when she's asleep.

Sorry. Creepy, I know, but I can't help but notice how she looks completely different when she's asleep. The lines on her face look softer, gentler even. People did say a resting bitch face requires effort, perhaps being at ease lowers the tension her perpetual better-than-you expression has on her face has.

How Yukinoshita could sleep next to that much intensive care I'd have to learn myself if I want to stay with them. Without thinking, I put my flak jacket over Yukinoshita's shoulders, the least I could give her if she wanted to sleep here. A small comfort I wanted to give forward. A rich girl like her would probably have a spoiled constitution and hospitals can get very cold at night.

Sitting down on the vacant chair I tried not thinking about today, but it's considered a bad habit for your mental health to go into denial so I did what all detectives should do and review the case in my head.

I woke up to home cooked breakfast courtesy of Yukinoshita, went on a paper run with her, coincidentally found the murderer Tatsumi Tsurumi and arrived in his house just in time for him to find him about to murder his whole family. And then I…had an altercation with him which ended badly.

It could be the drugs or the pain talking but something doesn't feel right.

I looked at Tsurumi's daughter, her file said her name's Rumi. She was the special girl. The one her father couldn't kill and that made him turn to killing other girls instead.

Wrapping up the case into a nice little package. But that doesn't mean there weren't any loose ends.

Why did Tatsumi try to kill her and his wife? What could have set him off? And how did I arrive just on time? Could it all just be coincidence?

No, simple answer is there's no such thing. Coincidence means I was on the right trail but got hit by a cheap shot before I could notice.

Something in my gut tells me that there's more to this. Something I'm not seeing, an angle to this whole thing I can't picture yet.

After about an hour of deep thought, I stepped outside for a bit and walked over to a vending machine to clear my thoughts. No Max Coffee, just the healthy kind that has ZERO percent of everything that made coffee good and comes inside a recyclable cup instead of a can.

I bought the cheapest one there, and took a sip of the iced not Max Coffee.

"Hikki."

I stop drinking, pushing the coffee down my throat just to avoid spitting it out.

There's only one person in the world that calls me by that.

"Yui." I say her name like it forever haunts me. Maybe it does and I'm just starting to get over it.

Looking at her made me realize how much I've missed her. Her light orange hair looks longer now, already past her shoulder, in a loose side bun that looks just about to unravel. She wore blue jeans that's a size too large on her but she can still make it look great the only way her natural beauty can. A modest pink sweater left her upper half to the imagination to hide the bountiful flesh she's so shy about.

My training kicks in and I figure out why she's wearing that, they're easy to put on. I imagine she got a call from home and rushed to the hospital.

"What are you doing here?" I asked and then she frowned.

That came out wrong, but no matter how I could have said it, it will sound wrong.

"That's rude!" she said a few octaves to high, even in a hospital, she doesn't care about being too loud. "I'm still your emergency contact, you know?!" she reminded.

"Sorry." I wave off, going into the motions we've both rehearsed and practiced long ago.

Then the implications dawned on me "That's right." I spoke slowly. I'm an idiot for forgetting to change it. Now she must think I kept it that way on purpose, that I'm still pining over her. Hell, I probably faked my injuries so she'd have to come visit me, like the sad, lonely, loser she thinks I am without her.

But I'm not doing her justice. Yui's not that kind of person, she deserves so much more than what I think of her. So I'll try again, better this time.

Meet Yui Yuigahama. Dog lover. Pre-school teacher. And the former Mrs. Hikigaya.

I looked at her hands and tried to smile. "That's a much nicer ring than the one I got you."

Or at least… there was a time I wanted her to be.

End of Chapter

AN: I'm back and I've decided to update my stories as my 2019 New Year's resolution.