Chapter 182
On this day, at the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Division, Shiratori Ninzaburo suddenly came to find Inspector Megure.
"Inspector Megure! The fax machine received a strange document... it seems to be accusing Samukawa-kun..."
Inspector Megure didn't even look up: "Someone else reporting that Samukawa-kun is a corrupt cop, right? What's strange about that? Isn't this perfectly normal?"
Shiratori Ninzaburo: "...Having a police officer constantly reported as a corrupt cop is already very abnormal... No! Inspector Megure, that's not what this is about at all. Look!"
Saying this, Shiratori Ninzaburo forcibly placed the paper in his hand on Inspector Megure's desk.
Inspector Megure took it with confusion and fell silent.
Hagiwara Kenji, who heard the commotion, also curiously came over to look: "What happened to Little Shinryu?... Uh."
The fax painfully accused Samukawa Shinryu of being irresponsible, not knowing what he was doing after work every day, never going home, suspected of doing something unspeakable, and recommended police investigate thoroughly.
The three people gathered around this paper and fell into silence.
Inspector Megure spoke first, somewhat restlessly: "What is this person's demand?"
"That's not the point, Inspector Megure." Shiratori Ninzaburo said speechlessly. "This is different from previous complaints about Samukawa-kun. This person is practically a stalker, even monitoring Samukawa-kun's front door daily..."
Hagiwara Kenji frowned: "This person seems to really want Little Shinryu to go home, so discovering Little Shinryu doesn't go home made him this angry because his plan was disrupted... I suggest investigating his home situation—there might be some problem."
"Mm, Hagiwara-kun makes sense." Inspector Megure's expression also became serious. "Samukawa-kun easily offends people. Maybe he provoked some bad guy. You should accompany him home once."
"Alright."
Hagiwara Kenji agreed, then called Usuha Izuki to go home.
Usuha Izuki was initially confused, but after getting in the car and hearing Hagiwara Kenji's explanation, he suddenly understood and said somewhat speechlessly: "...How idle."
"So you haven't been going home these past few days?" Hagiwara Kenji asked while driving. "Where did you go?"
"Somewhere else."
Hearing this halfhearted excuse, Hagiwara Kenji had black lines on his forehead: "Can you come up with a better reason? What will you tell Inspector Megure when he asks later?"
Usuha Izuki readily accepted the suggestion: "Then I'll say I was staying at your apartment."
Hagiwara Kenji: "..........."
Making him an excuse and fabricating lies to fool their superior right in front of him...
Hagiwara Kenji took a deep breath: "What exactly were you doing? Can't you even tell me?"
"...It would somewhat affect my image in your mind."
Hagiwara Kenji immediately became alert.
Over these years, although Samukawa Shinryu seemed fine on the surface, because he knew some illegal organization had definitely contacted Samukawa Shinryu, Hagiwara Kenji had always worried that organization would make Samukawa Shinryu do bad things.
But although Samukawa Shinryu had been promoted, he wasn't really a high official. This position didn't know any important secrets. The cases he handled were solved when they should be solved, with no covering up or concealment. He even improved the Criminal Investigation Division's work efficiency and case-solving rate... Except for being somewhat unfriendly to criminals, constantly getting complaints, and never writing his own self-criticism reports, he looked like a qualified police officer in every way.
Plus, Hagiwara Kenji felt that with Samukawa Shinryu's intelligence, he couldn't possibly let that organization manipulate him. Maybe he'd long ago found ways to escape their influence, so Hagiwara Kenji had gradually relaxed.
...But this consecutive nights of not going home immediately made him feel something was wrong.
Yet Samukawa Shinryu wasn't being evasive—he directly said it would affect his image, which made Hagiwara Kenji think maybe things weren't so bad.
So Hagiwara Kenji thought for a moment and asked: "Are you dating someone?"
Usuha Izuki: "...........Ah?"
Hagiwara Kenji felt his guess was quite reasonable.
After work hours, staying out all night, seemingly not worried about others knowing but just concerned about affecting his image... Dating really seemed quite possible!
After all, with Samukawa Shinryu's image, everyone thought he'd definitely be single for life. But suddenly being exposed as actively leaving work every day to date his girlfriend, tough guy's tender side... that image would indeed be quite devastating.
Just imagining a girl standing intimately within one meter of Samukawa Shinryu made Hagiwara Kenji feel his worldview would shatter.
"No wonder you didn't care when I organized group dates without bringing you. You really have a girlfriend, don't you?"
Usuha Izuki held his forehead: "No, you're thinking too far."
"Then what is it?" Hagiwara Kenji rarely pressed for answers. "If it's just affecting your image, then it's not something completely unspeakable, right? Really can't tell me? Am I your friend or not?"
Usuha Izuki was silent for a long time, looking out the window: "I went to play games."
Hagiwara Kenji: "...Games?"
"Mm."
Hagiwara Kenji was speechless: "Is this worth hiding?"
Just playing games—this was much more normal than dating!
Although their colleagues at the Metropolitan Police might be somewhat surprised to know, having known Samukawa Shinryu for so many years, how could he not have noticed this guy liked playing games?
He and Matsuda Jinpei also liked playing games during breaks—board games, console games, everything. They'd occasionally invite Samukawa Shinryu to join them.
Although Samukawa Shinryu looked very aloof and played games without expression, seeming like he was just giving them face to make up numbers and wasn't interested in games, with Hagiwara Kenji and Matsuda Jinpei's observational skills, seeing through this guy's actual enjoyment was too simple. After all, game addiction was hard to hide—even hesitating a few seconds when putting down the controller was crystal clear. Data didn't lie.
They just worried that exposing this would make the face-saving guy stop playing, so they'd tacitly pretended not to know.
He'd also discovered that small animals seemed different from people—they all liked Samukawa Shinryu. Just waiting for a traffic light outside, stray cats would come over and rub against Samukawa Shinryu's legs...
If he really disliked it, he could just push them away with his foot, but Samukawa Shinryu pretended not to see and let the cats rub around, clearly meaning he liked it.
Hagiwara Kenji reasonably suspected Samukawa Shinryu privately fed cats and dogs.
But in front of others, this guy pretended perfectly, very aloof... Hagiwara Kenji even thought this guy did it on purpose to scare others and satisfy his own twisted amusement.
However, out of caution, Hagiwara Kenji still confirmed: "What games? Not games with suspects or criminals or strange people, right?"
"...Ordinary console games."
Only then did Hagiwara Kenji relax.
He could roughly guess the reason for not buying a console to keep at home—probably didn't want him and Little Jinpei to see it. Otherwise, Little Jinpei would definitely dig up dirt and list all of Little Shinryu's previous pretenses of disinterest one by one.
Going to shops that provided console games, these places had private rooms where you could stay overnight, even with showers and laundry facilities. Probably got addicted—not going home these past few days was normal.
Actually, Usuha Izuki had been staying at his other house these past two days, with dinner and peeled fruit prepared by Miyano Akemi. Much more comfortable than those game shops...
The car stopped downstairs at Samukawa Shinryu's apartment building.
The mailbox on the first floor was overflowing with letters and advertisements. Usuha Izuki said he never looked there, just periodically threw everything away in one go. After all, he saw his acquaintances basically every day—if anything came up, they'd call. There was no one who needed to write letters to contact him.
Hagiwara Kenji had Usuha Izuki take out everything from the mailbox to check.
Walking upstairs while checking, they found it was indeed all advertisements with nothing strange, not even anything that looked like codes.
But when they reached Usuha Izuki's front door, they noticed something wrong.
Some letter had been stuffed into his door crack, with a corner showing.
Considering the strange fax the Criminal Investigation Division received today, Hagiwara Kenji's expression immediately became serious: "This might have been left by the person who sent the fax."
No wonder he knew Little Shinryu wasn't coming home at night. Coming once and finding the letter still in place meant no one had returned!
However, just a door crack couldn't fit any dangerous items. After checking that the lock hadn't been picked, Usuha Izuki directly opened the door and went inside.
Inside was still the same as when he left two days ago, but the two still cautiously checked around the entrance and windows, confirming there was just one extra letter.
Hagiwara Kenji complained: "I guess he originally might have wanted to put it in the downstairs mailbox, but discovered you hadn't cleaned your mailbox in ages. Worried you wouldn't see it if he put it there, he could only put it here..."
But since the person didn't come home, he still didn't see it. Who knew what business the letter-sender had that made him so angry he sent a fax to the Criminal Investigation Division.
"Definitely nothing good." Usuha Izuki said with certainty.
"Not necessarily. Maybe he heard you have high case-solving efficiency and wanted to privately commission you for something," Hagiwara Kenji said. "Do you remember that senior we met when skiing? When he was still a police officer, people often heard about his reputation and came to consult for help. So after he resigned, he thought being a detective was good—he could investigate his friend's case and continue helping others..."
Usuha Izuki looked quietly at Hagiwara Kenji: "...Do you think anyone would willingly be alone with me outside the Metropolitan Police?"
With the "Black Screen Aura," most people would definitely choose to talk to him with other police around, or in a place with explosive security like the Metropolitan Police! Who would seek him out privately!
Hagiwara Kenji: "...You're right."
By this time, Hagiwara Kenji had finished checking that the envelope was fine—just a sheet of paper inside. So wearing gloves, he opened the envelope and took out the letter.
No toxic powder or anything—just a simple sheet of paper.
The general meaning was things like hearing you understand bombs well, even FBI experts come to ask you questions, so do you dare accept my challenge, full of provocative intent. Anyone with a bit of temper would want to teach the letter writer a lesson after seeing such a cheap tone.
And this was exactly the bomber's purpose.
He was trying to provoke Samukawa Shinryu's anger. Every line was full of belittlement and doubt toward Samukawa Shinryu, as if he were a righteous bystander whose only purpose was exposing that Samukawa Shinryu wasn't really a good police officer.
Later, when he sent an open challenge letter to the Metropolitan Police naming Samukawa Shinryu specifically, Samukawa Shinryu would remember this letter and definitely want to prove he wasn't a coward.
If Samukawa Shinryu valued his own life more and didn't want to participate knowing it was a trap, then this letter's contents would be simultaneously sent to reporters and TV stations—being insulted like this and still so cowardly, is he even a man?!
It would equally cause Samukawa Shinryu's social death!
As for why he didn't send the fax directly to the Metropolitan Police, the bomber actually wanted to scare Samukawa Shinryu, meaning to tell Samukawa Shinryu he already knew where his home was and could easily do anything, making Samukawa Shinryu live in daily paranoia and wearing down his will...
He thought everything through perfectly, except he didn't expect Samukawa Shinryu wouldn't go home these past few days!!!
The bomber discovered his letter was still in place for several consecutive days, feeling all his effort was wasted. Today he finally broke.
Why! Why don't you, a police officer, go home at night when you're not even working overtime?! He couldn't believe that reporting to your superior wouldn't make you come back!
The bomber was heartbroken. Without Samukawa Shinryu reading the letter, his plan was stuck at the first step...
Somehow felt like a bad start!