My Service Club was not Dead as I Expected

Chapter Two: Blues

Recommended Listening: Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue'(Basically, that was what I listened to(on repeat in various parts) as I wrote this chapter.)

My retreat from the spiteful succubus known as Hiratsuka-sensei was, thankfully successful. Or, at least, successful in that I managed to only get one more gut punch when I easily could have been on the receiving end of a flurry of her body punches. Yes, in this scenario, my saliva still being majority water indicates that I made it out successfully.

Back in my office at the Chiba police station, I was able to chug down a can of MAX Coffee.

'Ahh... Only you can heal my pain... Love of my life.'

After finishing the can after about 30 seconds ('Not even close to being my record I set back in high school, but I'm working my way back'), I shot the can into the recycling basket like some washed-up National Basketball League player trying to prove that he could shoot his most basic shot. Needless to say, I missed, and the can joined its nearly 50 brethren next to the can, which is weeping in misery while it starves with maybe 10 cans, if that.

My office really wasn't as messy as my MAX Coffee can situation suggested. Really, that's the only part of the room that's a mess. Besides that, it was your run-of-the-mill cramped office room, with wood accents, a hum from an outdated desktop, and ambient lighting from a single light bulb, made necessary in the day by my absolutely justified choice to buy the best set of blinds I could in order to never let the sun in.

'I've seen enough of it for one lifetime.'

I turn my attention to what's in front of me on my desk. On it, I have my initial write-up for the Sobu High case, and my yearbook from my final year there, ten years ago. I dug it out from my file cabinet in the office. Some may wonder why I would keep such a relic in my office. Well, perhaps I keep it because it was the final time I was truly happy, and in some of the cases I had to solve in the past, I needed a little bit of a reminder that I was capable of being happy. Recently though, when I whip out this book while not having a case, or the case is just some petty crime one, I reminisce over all the mistakes that were made, all that could have been, and all that is lost.

'Or I could just be in the mood to look at Totsuka again. My interest will never die!'

Of course, now I have a justifiable reason for taking out the encapsulated form of what was once my life. The culprit has their name in this book, most likely. If not in this one, then it'd be in the one from the year before.

'I bet Hiratsuka-sensei still has a volume somewhere'

I flip open the yearbook, and am immediately greeted to the signatures I had managed to wrangle out of people when I first got the book the week before graduation.

'Hikigaya-kun- I'm not certain why you are having me sign this book. This seems like the kind of vain social exercise that you would have railed against in some speech you would give about your embracing of being a loner some months ago. However, if this is your catharsis, then I'd be happy to oblige. Oh look, I've used up all the space I should already. -Yukino Yukinoshita'

'HIKKI! Thank you for asking me to sign your yearbook! You've been so nice to me, so this is the least I can do for you! Remember to call me at Phone number repeatedly scratched out, so me, you and Yukinon can hang out often when we're in college! 'Kay? -Yui Yuigahama'

I quickly turn to the next page. Those words hurt to read, and every time I decide to read through those signatures, I slam the book shut and throw it to the ground. This time, though, I need to progress in the book.

'Are these... Tears? Nah, must be the A/C blowing in my eyes... Yeah...'

On the next page was some blurb from our principal, spurting out his usual congratulatory spiel about his pride in this year's class or whatever.

'Could he be the culrpit? Nah. He's probably dead. Besides, he never came into the Service Club room while we were there, so he doesn't fit the motive of trying to get to the members.'

The next page comes the main attraction, the picture of the senior class. Perhaps in normal yearbooks, the lowest class is first, and then it goes in ascending order. But I guess the yearbook people decided not to save the best for last.

'The yearbook people seem like the kind of people who I would have roasted if I ever talked to them longer than a period of 3 seconds.'

I decided to first focus my search on people I knew well during my time at Sobu. After all, they were the people who came into the Service Club the most, right?

The first familiar name I came across was Ebina's. Her picture displayed a shy girl with a small smile, which hid her cunning nature and her violent fangirl tendencies.

'I bet she is running an empire of BL games and hitting it big in the game shops of Akihabara.'

The next familiar name was Hayama's, and of course he was displaying his killer smile that probably could have killed the chastity of 3/4ths of Sobu's population.

'Scratch that, make it 95%. Even I can remember just how potent that smile was... If anything, Hayama came to hate the Service Club by the time graduation came around... Yes, perhaps I could see him threatening the room with messages written in blood.'

I'd like to say that I wasn't familiar with a name that wasn't too far away from Hayama's. But in fact, the name that I read, sadly, was my own, and staring back at me was the grin of a person who honestly didn't want to be there, but who still had hope for the future.

'Take out the hope, and it practically becomes my police ID card photo.'

Next one was...

'Oh, her name was Kawasaki? Huh. I would have never guessed! Considering my dear sister never came around to dating Kawasaki's pest little brother, she didn't inevitably break his heart... So she has no reason to go after us.'

'Miura... Hmmm... She had the hots for Hayama in those days, and I'm still not sure if they ever got together... Well, Hayama was never a member of the club, and she decided to choose a path of peace with Yukinoshita on who was Sobu's true alpha.'

'Sagami... Heh, she definitely could harbor hate for the club, and at me, in particular. I would hope she would have calmed down by now, but I've had the unfortunate experience of knowing there's people out there who just won't let go. I won't eliminate her, then, but I'm not so certain she is a prime suspect.'

'HAHAHA, I can't believe I almost forgot about Tobe. What a guy. What a guy. I somehow get the impression that if he tried doing these kinds of stealthy activities, he'd get busted bysome beat cop on a midnight shift and sent down to the police station immediately. Although I can't rule him out, because who knows? He may have had good luck.'

'Totsuka... God... My love... I might just include him as a suspect so I have the excuse to meet him again in an interrogation... Mmm... Abuse of power never seemed so appealing...'

I already knew there were three familiar names left in this section of the yearbook.

'Well, I need to have one more moment of happiness before I drown myself in a sea of sorrow.'

I flipped to the end of the senior section of the yearbook, looked to the last picture, and sure enough, the last name I saw was none other than the great one himself.

'Ah, yes. Yoshiteru Zaimokuza. A fine specimen of what happens when being a chuuni is hardwired into your DNA. He probably is some obscure light novel writer, writing under some pen name that will take decades of deciphering by linguists before a pronunciation is even produced. "This room holds my heart" even seems like a line he'd write for his shitty lead heroine. And it fits his dramatic style to write that message in blood. God, Zaimokuza, just how far can you fall? I can't even eliminate you as a suspect.'

Looking up closer to the top of the page, I saw the pictures of two women, side by side, who have continued to haunt my nightmares for the past ten years.

Those faces, those eyes, staring back at me, was almost too much to bear. Trying to look into their eyes almost made me want to vomit.

'And I was friends with them once...'

No, we were not friends. Friends are people who maintain superficial relationships for a couple of years, talking about the weather or how shitty the local sports team is doing. Perhaps, if they were lucky and really had a deep bond, they'd talk about how their spouse doesn't put out enough.

Friends are people who you leave behind in school, and when you meet up again at your class reunion, you try to one-up them by whatever means possible, whether that be a high salary or a smoking-hot wife.

The relationship the three of us had in high school was, by the end, nowhere near that superficial level that someone like Hayama reveled in. What we had would probably lie somewhere between love and lust. Not on the extreme end of either, but somewhere right in between.

A love and genuine caring for one another, but a lust for romance that existed in all three of us.

Perhaps it was the presence of that sin that made our collapse inevitable.

'No... The blame still likely lies with me.'

I had to sigh. This happens every time I think about those two longer than a passing second. I have to remind myself sometimes that there were times that we had fun. That there was more to it than the end.

Again, I got sidetracked.

'Could it have been them? Honestly?'

'As Hiratsuka-sensei mentioned, they did fit the profile I made out for the POI perfectly. It very well could be one of them trying to send me a message. The red message certainly seems applicable to their life in the Service Club. Hell, it really only fits the three of us. That room did hold our hearts in those times. '

'It likely still does.'

I stole another look at the pictures.

'Nonetheless, I really do believe that they, in the positions of success they are in, wouldn't throw it all away on somecrime of desperation to get my attention. They should know that any contact with me would do the trick. Then again, they could be sending me the signal that they've finally grown weary of my existence, and are enacting a plan to finish me off, once and for all.'

I smirked.

'That plan would fail for them though. I haven't feared death for a long time. I'd willingly embrace it if it came to my door, whether it be in the form of a house fire or my old high school clubmate.'

'Focus.'

'Alright... So although I see it as unlikely... I can't eliminate them from the pool of suspects...'

'Unless...'

I moved around the mouse that sat on the side of my desk, lighting up the prehistoric monitor, and I was greeted with the cave paintings known as Windows XP.

'Jeez... I know the budget has never been good... But this computer is 25 years old, for Christ's sake!'

Seemingly taking ten minutes to respond to my singular requests, the computer finally gave me access to what I was looking for. For what I needed to exonerate my old club mates from high school was not a hunch. Rather, I needed hard proof. And that hard proof, conveniently enough, was the Chiba Police records of the activities of Yuigahama's and Yukinoshita's security details.

Even though security details like to fashion themselves as some kind of independent force, for all practical purpose, most are merely approved franchisees of the police department. And as such, I had access to all of their records, which, not in the least, included their movements. And considering just how well-known Yuigahama and Yukinoshita are, it is a very safe assumption to make that their security details and their bodies would be in the same location at all times.

I clicked through what was likely some stalker's dream trove, and found their details' records for the past month, which was the timeframe the crime must have occurred in. Otherwise, the custodian would have found the crime scene first.

My hunch was, thankfully, confirmed. Those two hadn't come anywhere near the school in the last month, not even on some drive-by while on their way to some local Chiba event.

With that, I slammed the yearbook shut, and put it back in the file cabinet.

'Thank God, it's over.'

I leaned back in my leather swivel chair, hands behind my hand like the people who are one ride away from getting booked in the police station, or like those default background anime characters who do it annoyingly.

'I'm not sure why the hell that caught on.'

I closed my eyes, trying to either finally have my moment of zen, or perhaps trying to convince myself that this case only gets easier from here.

'But don't you need to contact them?'

I suppose that was my conscience talking. But it can shut the hell-

'You know you have to contact them.'

"Agh, but why?!" I said aloud, and once again, I had another reason to be thankful I wasn't out in the mutual office space, where my fellow detectives would start diagnosing me with schizophrenia.

'This case involves them as much as it does you.'

'They're fine, though. Knowing about this would only distress them, and they don't need to worry. They have protection second only to that of the prime minister and the emperor.'

'You know you're just making excuses.'

'But aren't they well justified?'

'Not really. You had much better ones in high school.'

'Don't remind me.'

I once again sighed, depressed that I would stoop so low as to war against my conscience in a mental battlefield.

'After all, this is your home turf, conscience.'

I knew I had no choice but to get in contact with them.

'But how I exactly do I go about doing that?'

I am pretty certain that their contact information wasn't the same as it was in high school. Those numbers probably were leaked out into the public domain by their 'friend', and their male gawkers make their daily calls, all in the main hope of talking to their role model or idol. Thus, I had to consider how exactly I'd get their contact information. I decided that I should start with the easier one to get a hold of information for, and that would be Yukinoshita. That information, however, wasn't something I could get from my computer. This time, I had to be a bit more proactive.

I got up from my chair, and walked out of my office, abandoning the safety it provided me from the outside legion of blues, most of them filing paperwork, a disproportionate amount likely being to settle cases of abuse of force.

I walked with a determined pace, not wanting to spend a second longer out here than I needed to. I walked up to a door to an office enveloped in a glass cube, and I knocked.

"Come in." The gruff voice beckoned.

I opened the door, and walked in, and I bowed slightly to my rough, mustachioed, middle-aged police sergeant.

"No need to have a stick up your ass, Hikigaya. You know I'm not one for all this formality. Take a seat."

I sat in the chair opposite to the sergeant.

The sergeant was the culmination of all the stereotypes ever made about police sergeant. So much so that if my life were ever adapted by some American film studio, they'd get Tom Selleck to play the sergeant.(1)

"So, what do you want? It's rare to see you not in your office or on your way out the door. Did you finally remember my birthday?"

"I think we both know that'd it be for the best if I didn't remind you what your birthday was, sergeant."

"I almost missed how much of a smartass you were, Hikigaya."

"I need to get in contact with a National Diet member."

"Oho really? Why's that?"

"It's for the Sobu case. The member is someone I went to school with, and I think she'd know some information that would be useful in finding the culprit. Also, I have reason to believe that she may be targeted by the culprit."

"Isn't the Sobu case some petty crime, though?"

"That's what we originally thought, but if the messages are really written in blood, then we have a very serious case."

"Hikigaya..." The sergeant began "I wish you weren't forced to doing these low-level cases. You were our best guy. Hell, you were too good."

"Sergeant, I already told you that I had no objections to continue investigating murders."

"But the threats those Yakuza were making against you were just too much. I won't lose one of my men to those bastards if it's the last thing I do. I couldn't let you continue doing that."

"In the end, then, it came down to the choice you made."

"If you weren't so good, I wouldn't be forced to have to do it."

"If I weren't so good, I would probably be some failed literature teacher or lecturer."

"Fair enough. So who's the member you need to contact?"

"Yukino Yukinoshita."

The sergeant's mouth dropped down to the floor like an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon character.

"W-what?! Hikigaya! Why didn't you ever tell me you went to school with the Cold Queen of Chiba herself?"

"I never saw the need to mention it."

"Damn you."

The sergeant pulled out a file from his own file cabinet, and slapped it onto his desk. He opened it, looked down the column a bit, and circled something with his pen. He flipped the file back around to me, and handed me a paper from it. He pointed to what he circled.

"This is the number you're going to want to call. That'll go straight to her office. Good luck, Hikigaya."

I got up to leave "Thank you, sergeant."

I made a bee line to my office, carrying the paper given to me by the sergeant.

I made it back to my refuge, and I slammed the door shut. I then sat back down in the chair which probably has a permanent imprint of my ass in it, and I let my eyes look for...

'Ah, there it is.'

I set my eyes on maybe one of the last ten office landline phones in existence, and I wheeled the chair over there. I picked up the handset, dialed the necessary connection numbers, and pressed the handset up against my ear.

It'd be a lie to say I wasn't a little nervous. After all, I would be talking with the woman whose heart I practically destroyed ten years ago.

'I think if I'm lucky, I'll vomit 15 seconds in, rather than 5 seconds in.'

Ringing... Ringing.. And then

"Hello! You have reached the office of Diet Member Yukino Yukinoshita! How may I help you today?"

I breathed a sigh of relief.

'Thank god for secretaries.'

"Hi, yes, I'm a detective with the Chiba Police. I need to talk to Diet Member Yukinoshita about a local case I'm investigating, and I think she could provide some useful information. May I make an appointment for tomorrow?"

"Yes, that will work, detective. How does 3:30 tomorrow afternoon sound?"

"That's all good, ma'am, thank you."

"Have a great day, detective."

"You too."

I hung up the phone, and exhaled all of the air my diaphragm could contain.

'I think it's time I call it a day. I'm exhausted.'

I packed my briefcase, put on my coat, and made my way out of the office, and out of the station. My lonesome apartment and soft bed awaited me.

'Oh yeah, I forgot to check my Kouhais in the lower grades. Well, the only possible one would be Isshiki... And I would think that if she were going to do something like this, she'd do it a lot more... Cuter... I suppose I can't eliminate her as a possibility...'

A/N: Wooo! I wrote a longer chapter(longer than I had written before), and got it to you guys 2 days early! Feels good, man.

I'd just like to say, thank you all for the high level of support I received when I released this chapter. I hope I can live up to your expectations, and perhaps exceed them.

(1): Reference to the CBS police drama 'Blue Bloods'. And Tom Selleck was practically my visualization on what the sergeant would look like, so there's that.