Chapter 4

My Scent is Stronger than Expected…

Yui Yuigahama. She was, by tvtrope standards, the Gentle Girl to my Brooding Boy.

And she cheated on me.

That's all you need to know.

But if you're wondering why she's here…

Years ago, Yui told me about a nightmare she kept having. She dreamt that she woke up in bed without me, and in the dream, she got a call that told her I was in the hospital. Wounded on the job, some voice would say. She'd rush to the hospital with messy hair and no makeup, pairing the shirt she slept in with blue jeans and my field jacket.

She'd arrive at the hospital and I'm in intensive care undergoing surgery. A uniformed officer would tell her I'd been shot or stabbed or something above his pay grade to disclose. She'd be calm about it and wait but she'd feel distant or numb. Yui told me she'd probably do an imitation of me. Trying to be logical and strong-eyed as she called it.

I told her she'd probably just be nervous and a friend's hand would be there to keep her safe.

Alone in the waiting room, she'd cling to the sleeves of my field jacket and imagine it was my arms holding her. She'd fidget and look worried and beg with tears to any god that would listen to keep me alive and that the doctors would perform a miracle. Sometimes, to make it even more tragic, she'd be holding her pregnant belly, insuring my death with all the flags she put up.

She'd wait for a minute or an hour and then the doctor would tell her I'd died on the operating table.

And before she could cry, the whole hospital room would turn dark and then she'd be right back in our bedroom with me trying to calm her down.

In some sick way, I think I may have infected her with my overactive imagination.

No doubt, all the simulations have conditioned her to act in a certain way during my first on the job injury.

It explains why she's here. Why she's so worried.

She's conditioned herself to act this way. A looped mind simulation giving her the experience to react exactly like this.

This is her design.

There's no other reason why she came.

"I heard what happened." she approaches me as if I was a porcelain doll you could break by breathing too hard on. It was really hard to be civil when someone treats you like that.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt? Shouldn't you be-"

"I'm fine." I tell her, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Besides, she lost the right to backseat drive. She signed the papers.

Yui's wine-red eyes glisten and she gives me a disapproving head shake with a pout and everything. I haven't seen one of those in a while.

I almost forgot how cute it made her cheeks.

"Every time you say I'm fine you're never really fine!"

"...sorry." Apologizing is an unhealthy habit I fall into when I'm a conflict.

I'm trying to break it. "Won't happen again." I mumbled, hoping this will be the last time. "I'm sorry."

I give her my best assuring look. All I ended up doing was make her uncomfortable. Why would she be uncomfortable?

Then I notice something. She got here fast.

"Does he know you're here?"

I give her another once over. I smell her just a little bit more. She still uses the same generic soap and intensive care shampoo and…car freshener. Yui can't drive.

"He drove you here."

I look over her shoulder, expecting an Adonis in a womanizer suit to drape an arm over her shoulder. Every guy's worst nightmare.

Thankfully, the notebook paper white corridor was empty.

"He's waiting at the lobby." Yui answers, looking resigned. Her expression the same one she had the last time I figured something out.

It's always the same with her. I can observe her, really observe her and notice something. She takes it personally and there's just no winning. No calm explanation that will fix seeing what I saw.

This is why I hate nice girls; there's just no way to win against them.

And Yui is the nicest girl I've ever met.

"Just go." I tell her.

The painkillers have started to wear off. I need to sit down. The wound starts to burn from the disinfectant. It pulses. Beating with pain.

My perceptions get distorted. The hallway starts to look menacing, each step makes me feel like I'm walking to my impending death. Each step felt like my death.

Using the walls, I steady my two feet, each step an exercise as if I'm walking through mud. I reach Tsurumi's room.

I see her bleeding. Her neck gushing scarlet like her mother's. Her father's blade coated with two generations of women's blood.

"Oww!"

I somehow ended up on the floor. Not screaming but panting. My body shaking from my own heart's beating. I lay there on the floor wondering if the world was ending. That perhaps another earthquake was wreaking havoc on Japan. That would explain why I couldn't stand. If I could hear over the ringing in my ears, would I have heard the emergency sirens? I closed my eyes with my hands.

They still smelled faintly of blood. Could this be Tsurumi's work? Poison perhaps? It's not in him to use a poison laced knife on me but so was killing his family.

So this is how I die. I thought. Via dirty knife.

An orderly found me, he yelled a few things that sounded medical. Asked a few questions I barely managed to answer.

It was at that moment I underestimated just how powerful pain killers are. Action-movies don't depict just how physically painful lacerations can be on the mid-section. People expect the hero to still keep fighting after suffering several concussions and broken bones. I'm not a superhero in every sense of the world despite what content creators online think about me. I'm no Superman. Being dragged back to Emergency Care reminded just how vulnerable I really am.

Reality sucks.

Especially when the doctor told me I was suffered a panic attack of sorts. They're still not ruling out my painkillers as a cause. My pharmaceutical knowledge consists of ways to drug or poison someone intentionally, painkillers probably had a hand in my panic attack but unless I was having an asthma attack, I wouldn't count on the pill being the culprit. I was then under observation but I wondered if I was in the right type of medical facility.

I spent the night at the hospital worrying about my dogs. Their automatic feeder was set but I wasn't sure if I refiled it to take into account an extra mouth to feed. Seeing Yui again made me think of them. She loves the dogs as much me. The only reason she let me keep them was my place was better suited for them to run around.

She sacrificed her own happiness for them.

I selfishly kept them.

I don't know how long I mauled the thoughts racing and crashing in my head on a loop. Eventually my whole body just felt like lead and my eyes refused to stay open.

My ears were the last to give, there was someone behind the door of my tiny hospital room. I could hear him just standing there, his radio buzzing on the ready.

Hiratsuka must've sent him.

Before I fell asleep something nagged at my mind.

They weren't going to arrest me, would they?


The next day was a blur of interviews and thankfully no arrests while I stayed in my hospital room while the doctors observed me. Hiratsuka and her team came to visit. They brought me pre-packaged get well soon gifts filled with melons and other goodies I don't plan on eating. The only enjoyable gift I received was news that my dogs were being well cared for.

Hiratsuka wanted a personal debriefing so I gave her one while on the hospital bed without me under medication. The heightened sense of feeling was a dreadfully painful but she made it easier by being quick enough to not need me repeating myself.

It was then I realized just how freaking cold Hiratsuka could be, as vivid and gory as my details were. She showed no sign to any discomfort. She took it all like an eager freshman in my lectures but with the stoicism of a veteran. I wonder if I should've recorded this for my next class. Nah, too advance. Maybe for the third years. Keep them interested.

Speaking of my next class, I returned to my day job by the second day. I made a show to the nurses that I was perfectly fit to leave. Honestly, being cooped up in a tiny white room felt worse than my injuries.

After a nice afternoon playing fetch with my dogs, I managed to not get fired from my job at the university Hiratsuka had a hand in this, I think. She did manage to get herself in my lecture hall even though law enforcement and academia don't always see eye-to-eye.

On the third day my affairs and paper work were in order and I was basically free to ask around the university. Old habits, you see. I talked with my department dean. He mentioned that my consultations were taken into account and that my position was still stable. I could still go around calling myself "Professor Hikigaya" without consequence. My absences wouldn't be a problem as I had years' worth of paid leave available. So, my hospital trip saved the school a lawsuit.

I'm old fashioned when it comes to work, my Japanese sensibilities don't like the sound of paid leave. Usually that's frowned upon by your co-workers but our shrinking population made the practice normal by the time I was fully entrenched in the working world.

Perhaps I'm just overcritical. I just don't like it because they're still called "Child Making" weeks.

And as a single man, I had no desire to be sucked in by that.

It was a dark, rainy night when I got out of the campus, it gave me the urge to find a bar cheap enough for my salary and hunker down till the sky stopped pouring. That bar was Sato's, Sato's Bar I liked to call it. Don't ask me the rest of his name, I forgot, I don't even think I ever asked.

Sato was a respectable guy with more silver than black, kind grandfatherly features but overshadowed with eyes sharper than a civilian should have. He gave me the three things I needed; a cold one, a tough steak, and a pair of ears to listen to my sorrows. It was a quiet night, so I had the old guy mostly to myself.

His age was indiscernible. My best guess is fifty at least, he just had that way of listening to you that made you believe he's been around long enough that already heard it all.

Maybe that's why he likes me so much. I'm original. Or at least, what happens to me is. Not many hard-boiled and partially cracked ex-detectives/profilers in the area apparently.

I was half-finished with my bottle when she arrived, her yellow umbrella dutifully wet as she placed it on the rack by the door. The rain barely touched her coat when but still she removed it. Our eyes locked as she stripped out of it. Those green eyes of hers have a way of getting your attention from a cross a dimly lit bar.

She made her way over to me that way with near frictionless ease. Her scent drove off the smell of liquor and brought me back to the good old days, those small moments when my life wasn't a homicide case waiting to happen.

Even know, Yumiko still looked as good as she did in college. Her face was still fierce and never been given a "No" by a man, her curves were still in the right places, her blonde hair tied in a loose working woman bun looked even better than it is loose, and those legs of hers, still toned from all those years on the tennis court. If she had any imperfections, I didn't notice. And I notice everything.

When she finally sat beside me, I knew I was trapped. Between a gorgeous woman and a wall, many men have been broken by less, with an entire bottle in me, I was doomed.

"I'll have what he's having." Her voice came like a dish of cream for a tired tomcat. A nice change of taste compared to the mice and rats he eats for a living. Fucking cats.

Her eyes gave me that once over you'd get reported to HR for if our genders were reversed or if I cared. Yumiko has seen me in less and with less tamer eyes. The blonde kept her face angled downwards while she purposely met my eyes by looking up. It gave her a youthful appeal. Like a naughty child. Her easy smile sold the juvenile nature of our…rituals. If you'd call it that.

"Buy me a drink and you might get lucky." I knew I wasn't lucky and made sure her whistle got wet with something strong. Miura was a (former) party girl, her tolerance made mine whimper in a corner. She drank me under the table once during a grad party I was forced into joining, it wasn't a surprise that she finished her beer before I could make a comment.

"How're you holding up?"

I wanted to feel outraged but she never explicitly said she wasn't here to ask about my mental condition. So begrudgingly I let my guard down. Just this once.

The words came out my mouth. "It's fine."

No, it was not.

"I'm alright."

At least, I wish I was.

"I did what I had to do."

I killed a man.

Correction. I watched a man kill his wife who died in my arms and found the same man about to kill and eat his own daughter. Then I killed the man.

"I'm dealing with it."

I'm saying everything I can to get you to stop prying. All the tricks and special phrases psychiatrists want you to hear.

Or at least in my line of work. The kind that makes a detective rule you out as a deranged psychopath.

I took a gulp.

Detectives or HR, whichever comes knocking.

"That's great. Let's celebrate." Miura does a magical sign that all pretty girls do to get waiting staff's attention.

"Steak please."

Sato nodded and went to the kitchen to make her steak. I could already smell it. Miura's the kind of girl who likes hers with way too much salt and garlic. Probably to ward off the demons and vampires in the school board.

Before I knew it, people started filling in Sato's bar. Men whose names I don't know with faces that look familiar but I can't place. Most of them middle aged and reaching senility, slaves of the corporation that come for the liquid escape. Sato's bar had plenty of regulars, most of them prisoners to his well-done steaks.

Except Miura.

She eats hers rare.

"Sure you don't want a bite?" she offers as if she wants to feed me. I bought her a shot of Bacardi so she might think it's fair.

Once again, I politely declined her offer. Red meat is the last thing I want in me.

We were in polite silence, I leaned against the bar wall with my 3rd bottle barely sipped. Weak alcohol tolerance.

"I saw Yui today." She said as Sato removed her plate. I watched it go behind and dark curtain to the kitchen and wondered if that was also on me.

"Oh?" I try to sound surprised.

"Judging from your face just now, you saw her too, right?" She saw right through me.

"That and she called me on her way to the hospital."

She starts slouching. Her posture trying so very hard to make me believe she's exhausted.

I want to leave, but I don't have the energy to leave. So I just wait for what Miura has to say before I force myself to pass out with just three beers in me.

"God it was so awkward." She complained, slouching further.

"Do you know how weird it is with either of you know? Every time I see her, all she ever asks is about you. And when I'm around you, it's like I'm walking on eggshells when Yui is in town."

All I could do was shrug. That sounds an awful lot like an emotionally abusive relationship to me. I should know, I've had more than a few. Does being Yui's friend and being my co-worker bring Miura resentment?

"Or is this the extra shot of Bacardi talking?"

"You're right, it is." Miura fakes a helpless pose and leans on me "I'm drunk, take me home."

Apparently my thoughts weren't internal.

"Hi Drunk, I'm Hachiman." I say to lighten the mood before I ruin it by saying. "Can we not talk about the case, Miura?" I say in advance. I knew it was coming, she's a psychologist, making it her job to make sure I'm not going through any of this alone.

"I wasn't." Miura snapped "Stop reminding me about work."

"Sorry."

"Buy me another round if you mean it."

Before I could even open my mouth, Sato just sends another shot her way.

Miura I chat the same way we always do. Nothing deep. Just petty things. Most of them complaints about a certain thing. It makes her feel better when I agree with her on topics.

I don't. But it's a good way to pass the time than argue and try to fix her problems.

I say a word or two. A few make her laugh a little. The humor is lost on me but I feel my chest swell a bit from the achievement.

"You, know it's getting pretty late." Miura remarks, playing with the shot glasses, stacking them like a child would. Something resembling jealous washed over me, I'd be laying on the floor after than many.

"I'm aware of the notion of time, thanks." I said, drinking from a bottle that's almost out

With my third bottle not completely empty, I wondered if my tolerance had actually weakened. All this alcohol just reminds me of my dad, how he'd tell me a man's not a man unless he can handle his drink and only a boy drinks more than he can handle.

He certainly acted like a boy when Kimochi was finally found.

"I'm free tonight, you know." She says, not sounding annoying anymore.

I perk up, finding my standards lower than usual.

My alcohol tolerance might be gone but I've still got something that's strong.

I wasn't at my best, as I was afraid my stiches would open but Yumiko was more than accommodating. She's a more hands on kind of girl. We don't cuddle after we're done. We both just pass out on our predesigned parts of the bed. Mine was always closest to the window or door if the need ever arises. It never did. Miura hasn't had a serious relationship in years. If she did, I wouldn't be here.

Besides, this is my house. No one really visits me all the way out hear. Until recently that is.

Turning to my left against the tangled sheets, I see Miura sleeping soundly. She drools in her sleep, she's got that kind of jaw that slacks easily after heavy use. I pull up the blanket to cover her up some more being very careful not to wake her seeing as I can't handle round three.

Sex was meaningless for the both of us. Just another way to clean each other's pipes. And I'm not even sure I was her only plumber. But she never left unsatisfied or she wouldn't have come back for more.

Morning came and so did the slight soreness and shame that comes after the ordeal. I left the warmth of my bedroom and cooked her a protein-scramble, trying to make it resemble the one Yukinoshita made.

It didn't quite taste the same, but Miura made no complaints, though I did catch her tossing a few burnt pieces of sausage for my dogs. I've asked her to stop doing that as it instills bad habits but I relented as they only flocked to her. Almost everyone does.

We ate quietly but with a tension that came with dining with me. Miura understands that I don't enjoy too much eye contact. For her, my neurosis became a casual hindrance. As a fellow student of the mind, she knew not to pry too often with that. Despite that, she makes it clear that any silence between us is awkward and tried to make it less so by keeping her face looking down at her phone; looking at distractions on social media or reading emails.

As I rose to refill my coffee, I was just about to ask her if she wanted some when her phone rudely rang. Giving her some privacy, I enjoyed my coffee in my living room. Enjoying the sunbeams coming in through the high windows. My dogs loved the spot where the light hits, basking in the direct heat while I stayed on my leather recliner a few feet way.

The chair was the most expensive furniture I owned, I bought it after taking furniture advice from a grouchy half-French half-Japanese snob named Fabron, the semi-infamous detective that mentored me and sponsored my studies in the FBI. To quote the professional dick, "In this line of work, a good chair is worth its weight in gold, detective. For bright minds think best when at the brink of falling asleep."

That was true, I've solved more problems on this chair than I could count. Helped me deal with them too. There's a clarity you can find only when in complete comfort.

I reviewed the case in my head again, now within the comfort of my home, and the blessing of a satiated sex drive, I could finally understand what was gnawing at the back of my head. What detail I had missed or overlooked?

For my own sake, I simplified my question.

Why had Tsurumi snapped?

I tried to dwell into it. Imagine myself killing my own wife and daughter. I pictured myself in Tsurumi's shoes. I was tired and full of anxiety. Desperate, even. Nihilism and cruelty became my only ideals. Nothing mattered. Not my beautiful home, not my above socio-economic status, not even my loving family.

I just wanted it to end.

…because it was going to end.

That makes sense, I told myself. He knew what he had was going to end so he wanted it to go out his way.

His design.

A though came. As insidious as the last with far reaching consequences.

I put the coffee down, my body refusing anymore intake but air.

"He knew the end was coming. Hiratsuka's tight ship has a leak."


"That was Hiratsuka." Miura told me as her phone call ended. I had a feeling they knew each other enough to trade contact info. Contrary to my usual self, my worlds don't feel like colliding. Just brief unpleasant insecurity you feel well when girls talk about you behind your back.

"She wants a word with you."

A word in Hiratsuka's dictionary meant I needed to get back to work and wrap up this case. I was already planning to.

"She's coming here. Get off your butt and help me find my skirt!"

I watched her fumble around my living room for a bit before finding the decency to help her. It was much harder to find than her skirt as I quite liked the show.


Hiratsuka arrived long after Miura left. Apparently, my directions via text were too vague and she got lost a few times, oops.

When she did arrive, she drove me personally inside her American muscle car to the latest active crime scene; a huge honor apparently judging from the looks the others gave me I wonder what new nickname they made for me. Along the way, I told her of my suspicions regarding the events that led me to Tsurumi. Hiratsuka didn't say it but like any good captain, she remained calm as I told her that her ship was leaking. Her knuckles on her steering wheel were white though.

Something tells me a few heads will get knocked in the next few days.

We got the lodge the Tsurumi family owned. Tsurumi could afford one. Bank records showed that he inherited a huge sum of money after his parents died.

Tsurumi wanted to look unmaterialistic. Wanted to work a trade. Get his hands dirty. He succeeded and became his persona.

That didn't mean he didn't know how to spend cash. His piece of real estate wasn't anything to scoff at, its mountain location made its price tag lower than most homes, especially the killer costs in Tokyo but the sheer size Tsurumi owned made me sweat. The property was close to a golf course, a traditional looking Japanese farmhouse, the kind my grandparents described their grandparent's homes to be like. Unpainted wood dominated the home as the main building material, to both pay respect to the natural form and as a pragmatic consequence to living in an earthquake prone country. There was a small rice patio on the side, though I'm not sure if crops would be good this year.

I stood at the outdoor corridor surrounding the home, imagining Tsurumi sitting on this wooden veranda. I pictured him just calmly sitting with some tea on this raised corridor while looking at the mountain's base. I imagined his wife joined him out here a few times, she must've been happy then, having a quiet, tender moment with her husband.

Maybe she had a clue what he was, perhaps a part of her knew he was going to kill slit her throat and leave her to bleed to death. Perhaps she didn't care.

Tsurumi used to hike up here with his family once a year. But they've been here recently.

I ask the locals and they're sure the house is occupied more than vacant in the last few months.

While the police were swarming the main residence. I ventured off to the back of the property. I found a trail of flattened grass that lead to the wooded outskirts of the property and followed it.

Hiratsuka shadowing me silently the whole time. Usually I enjoy this kind of silence but not right now.

"Did you check the sheds?" I asked, hoping to start some sound.

"We checked one."

"There's two." I stiffly pointed at a trail leading further into the woods, I wouldn't have noticed it either but I've spent time in places like this and know what trails look like near my own farmhouse.

She took the lead and radioed some back-up as we entered the wooded area. Something about this forest puts me on edge. Not because it's eerie or haunted but because they remind me of home way too much. Hiratsuka was tense, preparing to fight or run. Her training telling her to keep her guard up like a good police officer.

Me, I couldn't help but imagine my dogs were running free and chasing balls I throw. They'd really like it here. If the urban development blight does reach my home, I'd probably move somewhere like this. Grass, cool breeze, open-spaces, no noise. What more could you ask for?

It was only when we found the shed did that feeling of home dissolved.

"It looks new." I spoke. It clearly wasn't here a generation ago like the Tsurumi farmhouse. The whole thing looked like a prefab structure, the kind you could order online, have it shipped to your home and assemble it by yourself in less than a day.

Totally not suspicious.

"Yeah." Hiratsuka sounded cautious. I could almost hear the iconic revolver cocking but I'm probably hearing the memory of the gun cocking.

"How do you want to deal with this?" she asked, not wanting to mess with what I had in me that makes me valuable in her eyes.

"We open it and look inside."

Her eyes squinted, probably weighing the pros and cons of punching me until I said.

"Could be dangerous. Rigged with explosives. Bobby trapped. Cursed."

The last one was probably true so I let the police handle it for now. When Hiratsuka got the clear from a big man wearing too many layers of protection, I was allowed to go in.


I theorized that he had at least one pair of antlers he could use to bleed the girls. I was wrong. Tsurumi had more antlers than wall.

The four walls of the shed gave me privacy, no natural light, just a dim fluorescent bulb, it made it easy to get into Tsurumi's headspace. The room was filled with signs of obsession, madness. A miasma that filled every corner with evil and made the transition into his state of mind so easy that it shook even me. I didn't tread lightly into Tsurumi Tatsumi, I jumped right in.

"My name is Tsurumi Tatsumi. I'm a loving husband and father. I bought this property to be away from the world. And I built this hunting shed because I don't want the world to see what I'm going to do."

Perhaps it was the ambience of his dwelling. Or my familiarity with his brain matter. It no longer mattered as those were the thoughts of Hikigaya Hachiman.

"This is my design."

My mind goes through the premeditation, the fantasies. The first times. The Many firsts I've done in this oasis of solitude.

"I bring my kills here. They are my prizes. My trophies. They are beautiful and must be honored"

"This is my design."

Antlers of varying sizes and ages. I counted at least a hundred antlers crammed into such a tiny space.

"I honor every part of the kill. Every part is to be respected. Used to its fullest."

"This is my design."

At the center was a massive head of a stag mounted on the wall. Tsurumi's trophy. I stared at its eyes. There's blood on this stag's head.

I remembered my dream, vividly. How Kayo was impaled. How her lifeless body floated above the mists in my dreams.

I had a feeling she was bleed in the woods but of course he needed a shed.

Privacy.

"On this stag I bleed my kills. My girls." Victims one to eight line up. Each one a better kill than the last. A closer resemblance to my special girl.

They look so peaceful. Like little angels hovering. Their meat perfect for cooking.

But where were the rest of the girls?

I opened one of the cupboards the police marked. A complete butcher set of knives inside along with a chopping board and a sharpening stone. Native American buffalos and Tibetan yaks hoped into my mind.

"I honor every part of them or it is murder. This is not murder. Murder is destruction of life. This is the continuation of life. A cycle."

I suddenly remembered that organ meat is super nutritious. That intestines make great sausages. Skin can be turned to leather. Bone into broth or handles. Even finger nails can be used to make medicine.

"This is my design."

Brain though, I wouldn't know what to make with brains…

I find a clever among the knives. The memory hit me like a truck-kun. I was reminded of Tsurumi. How I left him. What I did to him.

My own design.


I couldn't take my eyes off the cleaver until the door creeped open, filling the shed with warm sunlight. My lungs grasped at the fresh air. Outside, I could hear birds chirping and people talking. Grounding me back to me. Silencing my mind's imagination.

Then I heard knocking.

"You were quiet for a while, came to make sure you were okay." Hiratsuka said softly as an explanation. She's been gentler with me since the hospital. It's insulting that she thinks I'm a porcelain tea cup. It's nothing personal, it's just that when women try to act maternal around me, I get irritable.

I rubbed my eyes. My feet aching like I'd been standing for too long.

"Just thinking." I put a hand on my wound. "Quietly."

"Think louder, then." Hiratsuka ordered, somehow that sounded much better than her bedroom voice. "What we learn from learn from Tsurumi Tatsumi will help us catch the next Tsurumi Tatsumi." She says as a way of explaining why I was here and not at home with my dogs.

Yeah, I know more than you, Hiratsuka. More than anyone, really. In death, Tsurumi's legacy- his horrors will live on to be poked and prodded, studied and put into circulation. Movies and tv shows will star or at least reference him with my role in all this replaced by either likeable newbie fresh out of the academy or a cute anime girl. The news articles being posted and printed today will be the looked up by people for years to come.

My work here will probably be taught in universities. Projects or homework by students of the macabre. What I do now might be what criminal science students cheat about in school thirty years from now. It's very possible one of my students would teach a class on this specific case, bragging about how they were in the very lecture hall I used.

I might be quoted on Wikipedia when all this is over. I admit, after donating a dollar every year to that site, it feels good to have myself mentioned.

Hiratsuka's fumbling around made me exit my headspace. "There are still seven bodies unaccounted for."

None where here. "Because he ate them."

Hiratsuka glanced around Tsurumi's interior design choices. "Had to be parts he didn't eat. Couldn't eat. I throw out bones all the time."

"Not necessarily, deer velvet or rulondin is used for treating male sexual disorders"

There was a pause, Hiratsuka's spine laxed and let out an exasperated sigh. "You think, he ground these girls' bones to make his own Viagra?"

"Jeffrey Dahmer injected acid into his victim's heads to make them his mindless sex slaves." I regurgitated information, perhaps it's my body's psychological immune system trying to rid itself of harmful or toxic thoughts that's why I can never stop when it comes out.

"The Boston Strangler is infamous for strangling with nylon stockings. Jerry Brudos had a shoe fetish. Serial killers have needs. Desires. Psychological gratification is something we all have gotten into trouble for. A serial killer's just at the extreme end of the spectrum. Tsurumi even tried to fight it."

I gesture to all the mounted antlers, how their sheer numbers made the shed cramp.

"Hunting was something Tsurumi did to contain the urge. Like eating candy instead of cigarettes." Hiratsuka faced away from me, no doubt hiding her stash of mints from my view.

"Until it wasn't enough and he changed prey."

I tried remembering another serial killer with sexual motivations, an article came to mind.

"And I'm betting Chiba Ripper is a fan of BDSM or torture porn, or at the very least likes watching Caligula growing up."

Hiratsuka got quiet at that pseudonym, her eyes got darker. I saw something behind her eyes as she stared off. Eyeing the cutlery. I'm…not surprised.

The Chiba Ripper is our country's most infamous ACTIVE serial killer

There's probably a few of them in every country. Statistically, it's actually incredibly frightening just how many serial killers you could run into in your life. Most would-be SKs are caught just after their first spree or victim. Some get taken down by their targets. A few with the same mindset lead successful careers as bankers, lawyers, or businessmen.

It's the ones you don't hear about that are terrifying. The ones who kill and keep killing that fills every walk home at night with terror. They're the ones who can hide what they do, or try in Tsurumi's case, and do so to continue their depraved lifestyle.

Then there's the Chiba Ripper. A serial killer who makes literal works of art out of his victims. A serial killer whose ego is so massive that just killing a human being and exhibiting their mutilated body is not enough, he has to show the world that he can keep doing it and not get caught.

I don't really know much about the Ripper. Only second and third hand information from colleagues telling war stories or asking for advice. One of them even thought I was the Chiba Ripper, she didn't say it out right but Hiratsuka and I used to have that kind of antagonistic relationship.

All I know is that the Ripper became active a year or so before I got fired, back when there wasn't a connection to the victims yet. Never really got the chance to investigate it as I was stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare.

Call it coincidence or luck, I'm just glad I didn't have to deal with the bronze statue covered in human skin. Hiratsuka though, with me out of favor from the higher ups and with a few retirements that year. Hiratsuka must've gotten a front row seat.

Woe to whoever had my job when that shit show ran.

Back to my point. "To them, torture is the turn on. Not like Tsurumi, he had problems getting it up. He just got a few problems downstairs which lead to a ton upstairs. He found no pleasure in causing pain. Even went so far as to find himself an outlet." I stared at the antlers, each one was a dear. And each one meant a girl wasn't killed.

If Tsurumi had found a better outlet? Would none of this have ever happened? I thought regrettably. My eyes wander to the smallest pair of antlers at the far corner.

How many would-be killers are prevented by the right hobby? How many lives could have been saved if the right thing showed up and changed the lives of someone like the Chiba Ripper.

The same way profiling changed mine.

Hiratsuka eyes me suspiciously, hands on her hips. "I thought you said you've never faced a serial killer like this before."

"I have now. And that's all I need."

You can't get any closer to someone than by being their killer.

"Torture was a "turn-on" for these individuals but not our individual. In some way, Tatsumi Tsurumi was motivated by pleasure too; by being a daddy to the girls he butchered not butchering them." Literally.

Disgust mares Hiratsuka's face. I dumbly wondered if whoever listens to my recordings will make the same expression.

"How do you think it started?"

Not one to beat around the bush are you, Hiratsuka? Knowing a serial killer's origins is like finding the Holy Grail. If you could determine and isolate the trauma or abnormality, you can paint a much better picture of the next spree of killers. In this messed up world, the more serial killers you catch, the better you are at stopping and preventing new ones from being made.

Personally, I blame bad fathers and shitty mothers.

"He didn't start out monstrous." I've read up on his family history, both parents inherited large sums of money, met in college, had one child, gave him a coddled life, no expectations as you'd imagine since their fortunes and investments allowed them to live any life they wanted. Father ironically worked a 9-5 corporate job, perhaps to keep respectable appearances, mother was a consultant, mostly at home. Both died when he was around my age. Relationships with both parents seemed…lax. I'd call them lazy but if I had their life, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my body for money I didn't need.

"He seemed…happy."

In my opinion, serial killers are never happy.

Most serial killers had no friends, no lover, spent most of their time alone. It's one of the reasons I could understand them so well. So could plenty of young Japanese men, really.

And why Tsurumi was so difficult for me to profile. I don't factor in happiness. Can't really.

He married his wife sometime around his late 20's while she was barely out of college. I can't get much information on this part but it seems they knew each other way before that.

Gross, by the way.

"So, when did he go from father of the year to the Gray Man?"

That made me scowl, I never liked Albert Fish and I disliked the movie about him even more. In terms of crimes, he seems like a perfect match to Tsurumi, but in terms of profiles it would be like comparing a starving wolf to a werewolf. Tsurumi was a hunter; his murders were the means to serve his hunger and not the ends. Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish was a monster who molested, tortured, and killed children all because he found it as the ultimate sexual thrill.

"It's hard to say when the slope got slippery." I answered her original question. "It's not like he kept a journal." A serial killer's journal or memoirs are a treasure throve into their psyche or at least the psyche they want us to publish about themselves, but a man as introverted as Tsurumi wouldn't dare keep one. He doesn't want the glory. Just the pleasure. "Something happened that made it difficult for him to be happy. Something that blocked him."

The antlers again, perhaps we could date each antler and if there's a spike in his hunting patterns we might have a clue.

I have a feeling who it might be though. But I don't want to blame the poor girl, she's had enough trauma to last her a life time.

"And his daughter? How does she fit into all this?"

"She's his special girl. He loved her"

"You think something was going on between them?"

"Huh?" Oh. "Not that kind of love, Hiratsuka."

"It's Japan. It's a fair question."

I unintentionally let out a tired laugh. Hiratsuka followed suit. The both of us sharing our dislike for our nation's reputation in a murder shed.

"He loved her. Perhaps he had sexual feelings for his daughter."

"Mother and daughter do look strikingly similar. Petite, black hair, blue eyes. Fragile features. His type, right?

I nodded, remembering my own type.

"He pushed it down. The urges. The impulses. That suppression blocked him. To unblock it, to be happy, Tsurumi hunted dear in place of his daughter."

"And when that stopped working, he began hunting and eating girls that look like his daughter instead." Hiratsuka was getting it, I sometimes envy her intuition. It feels so much more professional than mine. Neat and precise.

"I'll try to get medical records. Maybe we can find something there. A tumor, maybe?"

Hiratsuka's change. Even if she hated the guy, Hiratsuka was still willing to look past that to see if Tsurumi's actions weren't wholly his. A tumor would explain a sudden shift in behavior.

"That's not necessary." Besides, I opened him up myself. Nothing there. "Knowing Tsurumi, he wouldn't go to the doctor for his problems." It feels weird talking about Tsurumi like we were close. Then again, I did kill him, you can't get any closer to a person than that.

"Especially not this one. It's…a guy thing." I'm a bit embarrassed with that similarity, it was a hard thing to say when I'm alone in a murder shed with a woman.

Hiratsuka stared at me for a bit and I couldn't help noticing how feminine she was. How her face looked as she contemplated my words. "Oh…"

"I see."

Please don't look at my crotch, Hiratsuka.

"So, he liked to do things alone, then?"

Suddenly I didn't feel sexualized but confused. "Are you implying he had an accomplice?"

"It's a theory." Hiratsuka travels from her side of the room to mine as easily as if she had choreographed it. We were close, close enough for me to smell her. She smelled faintly of cigarettes and wore perfume, just not strong enough to make men think she was stupid, it was floral, the cheap kind you can smell when you pass by the stalls in the mall.

She looked at me, something stirred in her.

"There's room for two in here." I watched her lips say.

It wasn't an erotic come on. But a statement. Implying something I did not want to hear.

"You think his daughter helped him?"

"Helped. Groomed into it. There wasn't a description of a man resembling Tsurumi around the fourth victim, but a girl Rumi's age? She would've easily slipped passed."

"You think Rumi's a suspect?"

"We've been conducting house-to-house interviews at the Tsurumi residence and at this property seems Tsurumi spent a lot of time here, sometimes with his daughter."

I turned away from Hiratsuka's onslaught of accusations. It was more gossip than detective work. So, this is what it feels like on the other end? I don't like it.

"He's a hunter. Don't they use bait? Besides, they seemed close, father-and-daughter hunting trips aren't off the table."

"She's on life support, Hiratsuka!" I really hate raising my voice. It's the way it sounds.

"Exactly." Despite how angry I sounded, she barely even flinched, keeping her eyes steady on mine. She turned off the recording device on my shirt, I barely had time to flinch from her touch. "I'm wondering if I should have Nijima pay her a visit."

Something colder than the outside air hit the pit of my stomach.

"You sound more like a mob boss than a cop, Hiratsuka."

She didn't give me that look of denial. All I could see behind her eyes was a focus, a willful source of power I would typically envy but it just made we worry. "You've met the parents of one girl, Hikigaya." She said, calmly.

"I've met the parents of all eight."

I dumbly stood there, steadying myself.

There are times when you just have to let things go, or as the Cosa Nostra would say "Just forget about it." I don't act until I get the full picture. You see, the systems we depend on to keep our society from collapsing are more fragile than we can imagine. Police are still people, who just happen to have to deal with the worst of humanity. That kind of job has its own culture, politics and rules. There are things that are inexcusable, real or imagined. Proven or unproven. It's not a perfect system, but it works, and it's why our country has the lowest crime statistics in the world.

But sometimes…sometimes, you've just got to put your foot down.

"She's a kid, Hiratsuka."

"Are you saying her age makes her less guilty, Hikigaya?"

"I'm saying she's not guilty…" I stay firm. "…because of her age."

She wasn't convinced but I had another ace up my sleeve, the one thing I know Hiratsuka can believe. "If I was Tsurumi, I wouldn't make my daughter do any of this." I remember her vividly, the blue of her eyes, the gentleness of her features, the purity. "Maybe when she's older but she's too young to understand, too innocent…"

I was talking out of my ass.

Hiratsuka began nodding. "Because he loves her."

Finally, we agreed on something. "And for all intents and purposes, it would be so much easier to just eat her if she wasn't."

Hiratsuka finally agreed. "He wanted her just the way she was. Keep her clean and pure. Or if she didn't stay clean and pure, stay his ideal, he'd eat her." Hiratsuka connected the dots I made up.

I nodded. "It was his design."

It was a lie.

The first one I ever told regarding a serial killer's profile. It could end up jeopardizing future profiles in the future, long after I'm gone.

Luckily, Hiratsuka had faith enough in me to believe it. And so, the profile was finished. But as expected, it was never truly complete.

Because of me.

Because I couldn't let Hiratsuka hurt a teenage girl even if there was a slim chance, she helped murder other girls.

My inner-scientist cried out in shame and I looked away trying to distract myself. That's when I spotted something. I turned my recorder back on.

I knelt down, it was small tiny detail. A single strand of red hair. "Someone was here."

Hiratsuka knelt beside me with a pair of tweezers and a plastic evidence bag ready.


I thought getting back to my real job would finally get rid of the headache the Tsurumi's case gave me. I was so wrong. My students heard of my exploits and wrongly assumed I was some kind of heroic figure returning from a battle and showered me with a round of applause.

I admit, I should have acted more mature...

"Thank you." I started out cordial but they still kept applauding, "That's enough." The noise was getting worse, I'm not used to a positive response. The sound their clapping made assaulted my ears, the echoes they generated sent my nerves a buzzed, eventually a few began a high pitched sonar attack they called cheering which drove me to close to my breaking point.

"Stop!"

The cheers died down rather awkwardly. I would maul over this social misstep later. But for now, I have a job to do educating my future replacements.

"This is how I caught Tsurumi Tatsumi."

I began the slide show, projecting the most boring piece of evidence in the history of my class.

"A letter of resignation. Does anybody see the clue?"

Several hands raised.

If this was an exam, they'd all fail.

"There isn't one." I explained, "The only difference between this piece of document and the countless others is the ink used, the date, and the lack of address. Luck. Plain and simple."

Tsurumi beat himself. "Anyone could've caught him, it just happened to be me who walked in that bookkeeping room. If he'd waited a few days, used another pen, or just stuck around, he'd never even be a suspect." I tend to rant to my students; most teachers just share personal stories, mine's no better but at least educational.

"He read some dumb article online and panicked."

Instead of being a lesson on how to spot a murderer I end up giving a lesson on how I shouldn't be applauded.

"Tsurumi Tatsumi is dead. The question now is how to stop those his story is going to inspire." Sensational crime inspires the worst in people's collective fascinations. I admit, most are just trolling; just people on the internet making a joke out of a tragedy cause they're going through depression masking as boredom. But among the edgy majority who make memes out of a cute girl who kills her boyfriend cause it's funny, there's someone sinister lurking behind a screen.

The mind who wants more than just the news articles. They want that full picture, they imagine what it was like. Even picture themselves doing these violent acts. Eventually that turns into a fantasy.

And like all fantasies…you'll want the real thing.

"He's already got a copycat."

The slide changed, depicting the grisly murder of Kishima Kimiko exactly as her murderer wanted me to see. Her body naked and impaled on the center of a field. Her back arched, her arms wide, legs spread. Breasts and vulva exposed. Her torso surgically opened. Like some medieval torture art.

Because it was a work of art, inspired by Tsurumi Tatsumi's work.

Out of all the types of killers people fear, I hate copycats the most. Inspired by media coverage, these people recreate crimes for the shock-value. Most are just emotionally undeveloped, these are the Heath Ledger Jokers and Taxi Drivers of the world. They watch Fight Club once and think they can be the anti-hero too if they ruin enough peoples' lives, giving them the precious, precious dopamine, they can't get from their typical lives. A few are prior criminals, these are the Walter White Wannabes; individuals who just think crimes depicted on tv or film are a good idea to make a profit. One of my first ever homicides involved a shooting, that was in fact a hit, and the guy they caught thought that he could be the next John Wick and make money being a professional assassin. He even wore the black suit and everything, too bad his suit wasn't bullet proof.

I blame the entertainment industry for this, they over glamorize crime. Because if it was realistic then it wouldn't be entertaining. Not everyone can make meth or be an assassin. Life doesn't work like that. You get arrested or shot, end of story. No sequel. No reboot.

But the Kishima Kimiko's killer was none of these.

He was organized, intelligent, and even artistic. The kind of killer that preferred to express themselves. A creative serial killer who used a poor girl as his canvas. A work of murderous art that seems to have been made specifically for me. Taunting me. Challenging me.

My whole professional career has been spent finding people like him.

"I really hate cats."


Cats are a rather sadistic monster we've domesticated. Even as kittens, deep within their DNA is evil. Unlike dogs who are bred for violence against other animals. All cats share the same pleasure centers in their brains that light up when they inflict pain to rodents, insects, or birds. It's within their nature to enjoy prolonging the suffering of their prey out of sheer boredom.

The boredom of being the apex predator in a world that has nothing in it to stop you.

Perhaps boredom is why Yukinoshita is tending to Rumi. Almost all doctors know each other in some way or form, the medical field is a niche community. It wasn't hard for Yukinoshita to gain certain privileges in the hospital when the Head of Surgery owes her a favour from their time in medical school.

Gently, Yukinoshita tended to the comatose girl. Fussed over her hair, checking her vitals, and using every second of her time keeping poor Tsurumi Rumi alive and dignified. An ironic change from her usual past time.

Or perhaps Yukinoshita is experiencing other impulses.

That may have explained a few things.

Following her train of thought, Yukinoshita remembered her past. Children had never been a priority for her as none of her relationships bore any desire to pass on her genes. No maternal instinct.

Obviously, she's enjoyed taking care of children but that's another story and far off topic.

Yukinoshita had an inclination as to why, obviously it was the jacket wrapped over her shoulders. A messy thing she'd have thrown out if the person who placed it on her sleeping form had not done it so gently and tenderly. With her keen sense of smell, it was so obvious as to who it belonged to.

It reeked of Hachiman's scent. An over powering mixture of different smells that she now associates with the intrepid investigator.

Generic laundry soap means that he cares about his appearance but not too much. His skin isn't sensitive. Yukinoshita finds that trait attractive.

Japanese red pine needles from where he lives. He hangs his clothes out on a line downwind of a forest.

The cologne was an uncommon scent to her Japanese sensibilities, it smells far too Western European. A gift, perhaps?

His body odor was the most overwhelming thing. His deodorant was mild, like his clothing, he cares enough to look presentable but never too much, Yukinohita found that she liked that in a man.

The jacket had a quality in it she did not immediately appreciate. A toughness in the material, she found amusing. A durability in the buttons and zippers she didn't expect. It's well-worn too and still in good shape, it's far older than many of her designer brands yet still retains an unsurpassed quality.

So, Hachiman values quality over quantity.

Of course, she searched through the pockets, nothing illegal unfortunately. No signs of narcotics. Or rolled up notes for narcotics. She found the receipts to be enlightening, either he keeps a record of his purchases or forgets to empty out his pockets. Yukinoshita wondered if it was too soon to judge that he fell into the latter.

Very recent purchases of aspirin, dog food, and fried chicken tell her that he's stressed, remembered to keep his dogs fed, and has poor eating habits. Yukinoshita frowned deeply at the last discovery.

He's an unmarried man, she reasoned and an old saying makes it's way surfaces. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." she said aloud softly.

Which is strange since Yukinoshita always found it easier to stab through the armpit instead.

Wrapping herself around the jacket, Yukinoshita inhaled deeply once again and found herself attracted to the sour scent of Hachiman's body odor and found herself enjoying it. It didn't take a medical degree to know why.

"Perhaps I'll do what Tsurumi did. Mother and child. Always wanted to make oyakodon."

Boredom may be terrible to some, but often times, we find our best ideas when you're on the verge of sleep.

When the muse of murder heals, the Chiba Ripper will strike again.

Woe to the investigator chasing her.


AN: Account got hacked. Fixed it. Will update another story first.