AN: A humorous story: the other day I walked up to my friend Nikki and asked her, "If you randomly saw L on the street, would you think he was a hobo?" At first she looked at me like I was a nutcase (nothing new there), but then slowly she was like, "Oh my God, YES! He kinda does look like a hobo!!"
(For those of you who actually read that, it becomes a bazillion times more significant if you pair it up with this chapter and it's title.)

February 14, 2011
9:36 AM

Yamamoto wasn't a particularly diligent officer, but he did his job, and he did it thoroughly. If you were working at the NPA, after all, it meant you were good at some aspect of investigative work.

And his particular strength was at interviewing witnesses and suspects.

It wasn't so much that he was good at grilling out information: he just happened to be so carefree and relaxed that people forgot he was an officer. Consequently, they usually let their guard down and slipped something useful that would never have been dropped.

Today, Yamamoto wasn't trying too hard. It was obvious right away that none of the witnesses were currently connected to the corpse, who had been identified on scene as Misa Amane (interestingly enough, it had been Matsuda who had recognized her).

He interviewed the woman first, who was essentially a wreck over what she saw. Nothing that came out of her mouth was at all helpful.

Then came a man. There wasn't anything special about him: he seemed more concerned about being late to work than seeing a dead body. He was useless too.

The third and final witness looked like a hobo.

That was the first word that popped into Yamamoto's head when he saw him. Wearing a beat-up jacket and nondescript clothes, he looked like he had never brushed his hair in his life, like he had never slept in his life, like he had never gone outside in his life, and--judging by the way he was uncomfortably shuffling his feet around--like he had never worn shoes before.

"Um, please sit," he said when the hobo came in.

Well, he got in the chair, Yamamoto would give him that much credit. But he didn't really sit-- it was more like a crouch on both legs with his feet pressed to the very back of the chair.

Yamamoto had go idea how to react. Is that how hobos sit...? He didn't know. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the homeless people in the subway station...

"Erm..."

Before he could say anything else, the man began eyeing a bowl of candy on the desktop. "May I?" he asked politely.

"Well, um... Sure, I guess."

Before he had even finished that thought, the entire bowl had been all but devoured.

Well.

If he's a hobo he probably eats all the free food he can get...

But that was unimportant at the moment: he had to ask this guy--hobo?--questions about what he'd seen this morning.

"So, um..." Yamamoto took a deep breath. "...Okay, first: what's your name?"

"Ryuzaki."

Yamamoto wrote that much down and waited for more. "Ryuzaki...?"

"Hmm?"

"Isn't there anything else?"

"No. It's just Ryuzaki."

...

No last name...?

His hobo idea didn't seem so far-fetched anymore.

"O... 'kay... And where do you live?"

Yamamoto was surprised when Ryuzaki rambled off an address. He probably doesn't even live there, the officer thought absently as he scribbled the street name and number down.

"Phone number?"

"I don't have access to a phone at this time."

Yeah, this guy was probably a hobo.

"Alright, then. Um, what's your occupation?"

"I don't have one at the moment."

Figures.

"And could you tell me what you saw and heard this morning of February fourte--"

"I heard a scream," Ryuzaki interrupted, "and I saw Amane fall. What more is there to add?"

Yamamoto rolled his eyes but wrote it down just the same. Saw... Amane... fall--

"Wait a minute!" he practically shouted. "How'd you get her name?!"

Oh crap, did I let something slip?!

Ryuzaki stared at him in a rather creepy way, and slowly he answered, "She used to live in the same apartment building as I did."

Oh.

That was a weird idea: since when would a million dollar model/actress/singer live in the same building as a bum like him?

Even weirder: Yamamoto got the feeling that there was more to it that Ryuzaki wasn't telling him.

"And, um, where is this apartment building?"

He rambled off another address.

"Sooo... How long ago did she... erm, you... uh--?"

"Six years."

The answer was so quick that Yamamoto considered briefly that he might not have been a hobo, but was instead one of those celebrity stalkers. He quickly decided the notion was stupid.

"And on what floor?"

With an over-exaggerated expression, Ryuzaki looked at him like he was insane. "Do you really expect me to remember such a minuscule detail?"

"Erm... I meant you, not Amane."

Then his face became completely unreadable. "I changed floors frequently. But about 37% of my time was spent on the first floor."

He figured out a percentage for that?!

Or maybe it was a lie and he hadn't lived in the building at all.

"And, um, you haven't seen her since then."

"Correct."

"That means that this morning was, um, the first time you've seen her in six years... right?"

Ryuzaki nodded.

Okay... Granted, he'd gotten more information from this guy than the other two, but if it was six years old...

"Well," Yamamoto slowly said, "I suppose you can go now. We'll come talk to you if we need anything else."

"Thank you." Ryuzaki got out of the chair. He began to head for the door, but then he turned around. "Could I ask you something?"

...? "Uh, shoot."

"How well do you know Matsuda-san?"

Yamamoto froze up. How the hell does he know who Matsuda?! I don't think Matsuda knows a lot of hobos...!

"Goodbye, Ryuzaki," he said curtly in an attempt to hide how freaked he was.

Ryuzaki cocked his head. "That's what I thought."

Somehow, Yamamoto knew exactly what he meant by that.

AN: Here's an extra fact for y'all (even though nobody has asked me about it)... Yamamoto isn't actually an OC!! Well, he practically is, because you meet him in the series literally on about the third page from the end of chapter 108. Seriously. He seems like a nice guy, though, but he's maybe a little confused and probably quite stupid. And then I read somewhere that the only purpose of introducing him at the end was so that we got to see Matsuda bossing someone around... Which explains why the little bit that we saw (erm, heard) of him was different.

Sorry to dissapoint, but I think that Yamamoto is gonna be the new stupid person in the series. THINK, no guarentees. :( But don't fret! I'll throw in a couple Matsuda antics somewhere that are DONE BY MATSUDA!! YAY!!

(But I am getting exceedingly tired of typing Yamamoto's name over and over and over and freaking over...)