Taking A Turn For The Inevitable Worse

Chapter 2: Taking A Turn For The Inevitable Worse

“Hajime? Oh, he’s a nice guy, I guess. I didn’t know him that well.”

“Didn’t he kill himself? Or was that another Hajime?”

“Definitely not, though I heard this little rumor from one of the guys in the kendo club that he got admitted to that hospital in Tokyo.”

“That far?’

“Yeah, they said that ambulances arrived and everything, carried him away.”

“What was he even doing?”

“Beats me.”

The girl to which he had asked turned towards him, giving him a bashful scratch of the head. “Sorry, that’s all I know.”

He nodded, writing down what he had heard into his journal, after that was done, he bid the two teenage girls goodbye, with them returning to their gossip.

It was raining, and it was indeed a bad day for rain, even he had to admit that. It had poured down quite rapidly and suddenly, and he had forgotten to bring an umbrella.

Sighing to himself, he took off his trench coat and used it as an improvised umbrella, shielding himself from the pouring rain above. By the skin of his teeth, or more accurately, by the thread of his coat, he got into his car and sat there for a minute, head down and har wet from the rain.

“So, what’d you find out?” His partner of 15 years, and also his best friend when they were off duty, Yosuke, asked him. He had his hand on the steering wheel, tapping his fingers to the beat of some pop song as he waited for him to speak.

Wiping off his glasses with his shirt, he pushed them up his nose, taking out the journal from earlier. He flipped to a familiar page, “Not much, just what we already knew.”

“I fucking knew this case was a dud,” Yosuke sighed out, lighting up a cigarette in the car, inhaling the smoke that was emitted from it. “Why’d you even take this case in the first place? If I were you, I wouldn’t take cases that I know can’t be solved. Just saying.”

“It’s the second day, Rome wasn’t built in a day, Yosuke.”

“And cold cases are never going to be solved, case in point, this one.” Yosuke took a big puff of his cigarette, and once he finished it, threw it out into the pouring rain. “Let’s head back to the station, tell the big boss that we found nothi’n, and head down to a ramen place.”

“Maybe, go without me,” he said, getting out of the car, using his trench coat once again as a shield from the rain. “I’ll meet with you later!” He yelled out, as Yosuke called out towards him from the car.

He was going to solve this case, even if it meant sacrificing a good bowl of Ramen to do it.

“And you say you haven’t seen him in months?” He asked the landlord, to which the man nodded twice. “He’s up to date with his rent correct?”

“Yeah, he’s one of the only tenants to pay a couple of months upfront,” the portly man said, taking a swig out of a flask. “Doesn’t make all too much of a ruckus either, so I let him do his own thing. The room smells like a bitch sometimes, but that’s all.”

“I see.” He wrote that down. “And how is he? Personality wise.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Meh, I’ve seen mute people talk more than that guy. Totally silent, no word whatsoever. Just gave me a text message, and a shitload of cash and I just let him do as he does.”

“Isn’t that a bit irresponsible?” he asked. “Letting a teenager buy an apartment building. Have you asked him how exactly he got the money?”

“Apparently, he’s one of those ‘vidya game’ champions or something my son likes to talk about. Won a ton of cash and used it to buy an apartment here,” the man said, taking another swig of his flask and burping right after. “As long as isn’t doing anything illegal, I let him stay here.”

He nodded, tightening the tie around his neck as he looked around the apartment complex. “I think that’s enough questioning, how about you continue on with your…uh…drinking.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” the man said, before walking back to his room, opening the door and slamming it right at his face.

He walked towards the room that he knew belonged to the victim, room number 42, and rang the doorbell. As he waited, he analyzed the front door of said apartment room.

It was….oddly normal. With a simple sign that said Hajime, and by the looks of it, was rusting at the corners and one of the screws was coming off.

The shoe rack placed in one of the corners was empty, with several spiderwebs forming in it. The only thing that looked new in some shape or form was the carpet, in which it had the tag from the store still on it.

Seeing as he knew no one was going to answer the door for him, he unceremoniously barged into the apartment complex, making sure to at least be polite as to take off his shoes before entering of course.

“Damn, he wasn’t kidding when he said it smelled like a bitch.” He used his hat as a makeshift mask, as he slowly threaded through the room, taking note of anything that was out of place.

So far, other than the stray rat or two, there was absolutely nothing that screamed suspicious to him. It was your typical recluses’ bedroom, full of garbage, the sink full of unwashed dishes, and the likes.

The only thing that was relatively clean was a set of dual monitors that sat atop a wooden table. It was still fully lit up, with the light that emanated from it being the only source of light in the dark room.

“And there goes Arslan Ash, with that amount of spacing and careful thought put into his moves that you expect from him.”

“Don’t forget about Knee, rocking his iconic character, it’s only a matter of time before he finds the perfect opportunity-“

The monitors displayed a game of sorts, it was probably a live stream of some fighting game he didn’t know. He wasn’t all too well-versed in those video games, and the most he knew was his own memories playing Pong.

The banter from the commenters served as the only sound in the background as he dug around the dirty room, taking pictures and writing down the smallest of things to make note off later.

After he was done, he placed a gloved hand on the monitors, and saw his own face reflected in it. He wasn’t a handsome man, far from it, and the years of police work had made his once innocent face be marred with tiny scars and cuts that if stared at for a long time, he can still feel the pain as if it was just yesterday that he had received them.

“No need to reminisce on the past,” he said to himself, closing the apartment door behind him. “A job to do is a job you have to finish.”

Even if it meant that he had to skip ramen that night.

"And you’re sure he disappeared right in front of your eyes?” He asked a young woman, who was the manager of the nearby convenience store in front of the scene of the crime. “When was this, if I may ask?” The woman nodded, her arms crossed. “It was probably approaching midnight at that time. I was outside, taking a quick smoke break when I saw a boy crossing the road. Next thing I knew, a truck ran the boy over.”

“And there was no body?” He asked.

“Absolutely none,” the woman said, flicking her cigarette butt into a bin. “It was as if his body vanished into thin air.”

“And you didn’t report it to the police?” This case was truly shaping up to be something so unprecedented, a case he had never received before in all of his days. “May I know the reason.”

“It was late, I was tired, sometimes you think you see something then poof.” She made a pantomime of an explosion in front of him. “It wasn’t there anymore. I thought it was a trick of the light, didn’t know a missing kid was involved with it.”

Well, that was certainly helpful. “Okay then, I’m going to leave now. Have a good day.”

“You too officer,” she said.

He headed for the street right next to the convenience store, the exact scene of the crime. Calling it a crime was a little too on the nose.

It was less of a crime and more of a mystery.

He had personally looked at the nearby security footage and had seen nothing he hadn’t heard before. The truck that had slammed into the victim was never identified, with the license plate being too obscured by the darkness to see properly in the tapes.

And just like the lady had described juts moments ago, right at the moment of impact, instead of the bloody and dead body of a teen, instead, it seemed as right as the two objects collided, the body magically disappeared, as if it wasn’t there in the first place.

“You’re getting old, pal” He could hear his partner say. No, it wasn’t a problem with his sight or anything from him.

He vanished, as simple as that. Straight up pulled a disappearing act and left this world to god knows where.

“This is actually getting tricky now,” he muttered to himself, writing it down in his journal. “Might have to actually think.” He chuckled to himself, but stopped after a few seconds.

He stared at the street, and at the exact place in which the victim disappeared.

“Wherever you are Hajime, I’m going to find you. Even if it takes a few days, weeks, months, I will find you.”

“And that’s a promise.”