With the piece of paper containing the numbers of the rest of SPR safely tucked into his pocket, Naru decided to leave the office for the night. It was either spend sleepless hours in his office or in his apartment; at least he could lay down in his apartment had try to at least rest his body even if his mind refused to settle. With that thought he shrugged on a light coat and locked the office up.
He paused on the stairs, looking around the streets, empty, which he guessed wasn't that unusual for this time of day, but he had gotten used to the nonstop buzz that London seemed to emit, compared to that Shibuya was a ghost town.
No, wait, he was wrong. Someone was walking out from what was really nothing more than a glorified alley. She was a teenage girl, with bleached hair and wearing a school uniform. If Naru was right, that was the same uniform that Mai's school used.
He briefly considered going to talk to the girl, to ask her if she by any chance knew a girl named Mai Taniyama, but he quickly reconsidered. The girl's skirt length and hair told him that she was most likely a yanki. Naru was sure that if he moved closer to her he'd see piercings and a sullen expression and if he dared try talk to her, he'd probably be cursed out or yelled at. He supposed yanki were somewhat justified in doing such things to a well-off, teenager who essentially dressed as a business man. Most encounters they probably had with business men were probably during paid dates or burusera shops.
That thought left a bad taste in his mouth, how could teenage girls stoop so low as to letting men buy their underwear or worse in many cases. There had to be other ways to make money.
The yanki seemed to have spotted him; she froze as he caught her eye, before coming to her senses and glancing back down to the can in her hand.
Naru walked slowly down the stairs, keeping an eye on the yanki, but pulling out his expensive phone and pretending to fiddle with it. The phone was really nothing more than a glorified toy, something Naru really had no use for other than to call a handful of people and text even less. But his mother had bought him such a new model, saying it wouldn't do to have the owner of a company using a flip phone like a child.
As he walked down the street, preparing to pass her, the yanki seemed to be preparing to say something, should he pause or should he just continue along at a fast pace. The latter is normally what he would do to any yanki or sukeban he passed in the street, why was this one any different?
Her hair was fried from bleaching it so much, eyes heavily ringed with liner, and he was right about piercings up and down her ears; just an average yanki.
There was something about her but he certainly couldn't place it. Of course if she did indeed go to Mai's school it was possible that he'd just seen her in passing as he worked there on his first case with Mai.
"Excuse me," Naru asked, what in God's name had possessed him to stop? "Do you by any chance know a girl named Mai Taniyama? Your school uniforms are the same."
"Nah, don't know anyone with that weird name." She mimicked a Kansai accent; it was a good attempt, but obviously a fake. Naru briefly considered why she'd pretend to have such an unappealing accent, but chalked it up to her being just another idiot yanki.
"Are you sure? You're in what? Third year? It isn't that large of a school."
"Maybe I've heard of her maybe I haven't. I don't keep tabs on everyone in school."
She seemed to be panicking, looking for a way out with her eyes darting wildly, "Listing gramps, I've got somewhere to be. I don't know who that Tani-whatever chick is."
She began to turn and walk away, "Wait," Naru quickly grabbed her arm, halting her movement.
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