This is a story I heard from my master. It was the spring of my second year in university. That day, I was called into my part-time job at a detective agency early in the morning to do some cleaning and watch the phones. The cleaning was done before I even finished humming a tune, leaving me with the vague, lingering task of answering calls. Glancing toward the window, I saw a sticker stuck to the glass that read "Ogawa Detective Agency." Of course, it was written to be read from the outside, so the letters were reversed from my side. I let out another yawn. The warm, pleasant sunshine created a lazy, late-morning mood. The phone refused to ring at all. I was gradually losing sight of why I had even come here in the first place. Besides myself, two other people were sitting at the desks. One was Hattori-san, a senior part-time worker in his mid-twenties who acted as Director Ogawa's right-hand man at the agency. The other was Kanako-san, a female part-time worker around Hattori-san's age, and the very person who had gotten me this job here. Well-versed in all things occult and capable of doing things like clairvoyance, she worked in this industry as an investigator specializing in inexplicable cases they called "spooks." She was also my master in the occult path, and though she should have been off-duty today, she had casually dropped by the office for some reason. After teasing me about how idle and easy this job must be, she settled into her desk and began reading a half-finished magazine in detail. As for Hattori-san, he was supposed to have had an investigation in the city since morning, but perhaps he had finished early, because he returned and silently took his seat. Ever since, he had been tapping away at the word processor keys with a steady, monotonous rhythm. Director Ogawa had told me, "The answering machine is broken, and no one will be here in the morning, so I'm counting on you," which was why I came. If it was going to be like this, an office watcher wasn't necessary at all. In the first place, not a single phone call came in. Truly, the town was peaceful today. Which was a good thing. It might be a hard life for the detective trade, but it had nothing to do with me. Hattori-san was a man of few words and never opened his mouth unless spoken to—no, sometimes even when spoken to, he would ignore you as if nothing had happened. And my master seemed to dislike Hattori-san, often falling similarly silent whenever he was around.
Peaceful. Truly. As I was making my umpteenth attempt to build a house of cards out of my own business cards to kill time, the door opened without any warning. "Ogawa, you in?" Despite the warm weather, a man around thirty wearing an out-of-season coat stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. Something about his appearance felt off to me. It wasn't his clothes. To be sure, he was wearing a hunting cap and looked more like a detective than anyone else in this room, but that wasn't it. The door had opened with truly no warning. In other words, there were no footsteps coming up the stairs. This multi-tenant building housing the Ogawa Detective Agency had the kind of flimsy construction that matched its rent. Meaning, he had completely muffled his footsteps, well enough to compensate for that poor construction. Yet the man standing right before me was panting heavily through his mouth, looking as if he had just sprinted up the stairs two steps at a time. This contradiction was the source of my unease. "The director is out," I blurted out. With practiced, fluid movements, the man slipped into the room. After confirming that no one was hiding behind the desks or on the other side of the visitor partition, he finally gathered his shallow breathing into one long sigh and said, "I see, he's out." He looked disappointed. "A friend of the director? Or business for the Ogawa Detective Agency?" As Kanako-san asked this, setting her magazine down, the man winced and said, "It's bright. Close the blinds." I had no idea what underworld he had crawled out from, but since we followed his instructions anyway, the man painfully twisted his face in the slightly dimmed room. "Tell Ogawa that Tamura—no, Tamura's younger brother wants to see him," he said. Then he added, "Don't tell anyone else about this. Understood?" His tone was desperate. "Where should the director go to see you?" Kanako-san asked. The man's face stiffened. "I should've made some bar my regular hangout," he muttered, hesitating before declaring, "Actually, forget it. Everything I just said, too. I was never here." With that, he turned toward the door he had just entered through. He seemed to be dragging one leg. The tip of his shoe left a red trail. Blood.
The moment I thought that, the man stumbled and fell forward—even though the electrical cord that could have tripped him was still a few feet ahead. A heavy thud echoed through the room. "Hey, are you alright?" My master rushed over. When she tried to help him up, the man let out a groan. My master grabbed the hem of his coat and pulled it open. There was a tear in the fabric around the side of his shirt, and blood was seeping through. "Ambulance," my master barked out a brief order to me. I immediately reached for the phone on the desk, but a sharp voice stopped me: "Wait." "Wait," the man said, hiding his wound with his coat. "No ambulance." "I'll tell them to send one that isn't the kind you can't have," she replied. "Please." With bloodless, trembling lips, the man pleaded. Instead of answering, my master asked the same question as before: "Are you a friend of the director's, or a client?" "I just keep causing trouble. Neither." The man tried to stand up. "If you go outside right now, you'll roll all the way down to the first floor," my master said, giving me a look. Passing the baton of holding the man down to me, she picked up the telephone receiver. It wasn't 119. It was a much longer number. It started with the local area code. The moment the person on the other end picked up, my master suddenly changed her voice and began to speak. "It's me. Sorry. I messed up. Stabbed in the belly with a knife. It went right through. Yeah. Come quick. Please. No ambulance. Absolutely not. A friend stabbed me by mistake, so I don't want it to be a police case. The office above Boston." The moment she hung up, her voice shifted completely from the pained tone of moments ago, becoming light and breezy. "Last year, the average arrival time for an ambulance in the city was seven and a half minutes. Now, I wonder how long this one will take." Watching my master, the man relaxed as if relieved. Struck by pain once more at that instant, he grimaced.
I laid the man down on the visitor's sofa, and at my master's instruction, set about boiling some water. My master grabbed a rag and went outside the door, wiping the floor. Apparently, she was cleaning up the man's blood. She went all the way down and returned, and right as she did, the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs could be heard. "Hey, are you alright?" A woman carrying a large first-aid kit burst into the office. She was around fifty years old. Breathing not just from her shoulders, but with her whole body. Beside her, my master clapped her hands together in front of her face with a *clap* and apologized, "Sorry." Looking at the clock on the office wall, a little over ten minutes had passed since she hung up the phone. "Seriously, 'sorry'—" "Don't talk to me. You'll make my hands slip." Brushing off my master—who was half-hindering rather than apologizing—the woman efficiently began treating the man's wound. According to what I heard later, her name was Nomura-san, a nurse. They had a fateful connection ever since she nursed my master during a hospital stay in the past, and their relationship had continued ever since. She would fuss over and worry about my master—who was always doing reckless things and was about her own daughter's age—while my master cunningly took advantage of it. Even setting aside the fact that she had been dragged out of bed right after a night shift, this incident must have truly crossed the line into a nuisance. Though her face was pale, she still did what needed to be done. The man silently let her do as she pleased. Finishing the first-aid, Nomura-san stood up with her shoulders stiff. Cutting off my master, who was about to offer some explanation, she ranted: "I don't want to hear anything. It's bound to be something good-for-nothing anyway! The wound isn't deep. It missed the blood vessels and there's not much bleeding. Fainting from this much is proof you don't get enough nutrition normally! And if you're sleep-deprived, get proper sleep. That's all!" Roughly picking up her first-aid kit, Nomura-san headed for the door without a moment to spare. Then she spun around and said, "That wound needs stitches, so go see a doctor through proper channels as soon as possible. And I was never here! Understood?" With that, she left.
Staring at the office door through which Nurse Nomura had departed, my master gave a bitter smile. "It's getting to the point where nobody was ever here." She looked at the man with his abdomen wrapped in bandages. The man had a faint stubble on his face, and dark circles under his eyes. Even without the wound on his stomach, he looked exhausted enough to collapse. Still, he raised his head, looked toward us, and opened his mouth. "Investigators from Ogawa's place?" "Just part-timers. This guy is her assistant." "I see." Lying flat on the sofa, the man stared up at the ceiling. "A guy who can use people instead of money makes a good detective." Ignoring that muttered comment, my master interrogated the man. "Are you the director's informant?" Hearing that, the man let out a low laugh, *kukuku*. "I'm a freelance writer. You could call me a hack for hire." "In other words, an informant. If you have business with the director, why don't you come back later? Go to the hospital already." "Ogawa-san took care of me. Well, I just kept causing him trouble." "If you know you're a nuisance, won't you get out of here already?" "That man is an amazing detective. Nobody could ever rival the combination of him and my big brother. Truly. They were always cool. Until Takaya-san's daughter ended up like that..." The man's words trailed off into a delirium halfway through, and I gradually lost track of what he was saying. *Creeak.* The moment I sat down on the desk chair, the man's eyes snapped open. "Where's the other one?" He said, hoisting himself up. For a split second, he winced in pain. "Where's the other man?" Repeating the question, my master glanced at the desk where Hattori-san had been. "He smelled trouble and went home early." On top of the desk was a stack of completed reports. "Is he going to snitch?" The man let out a growl and stood up from the sofa. "Hey. Calm down. There's no way he'd do that," my master said, but the man paid her no heed and ranted.
"The nurse is fine. But that man is no good." "Right after the ambulance, I suppose?" At my master's quip, the man clicked his tongue and reached for the coat hanging on the wall. "You can't trust people at a detective agency." "You understand us so well." As my master laughed with her hand over her mouth, "O-ho-ho," the man glared at her, quickly putting on his coat and pulling his hunting cap down low. "Oh, are you really leaving without even a thank you?" My master blocked his path. The man shoved his shoulder against my master with a *thump* and said, "Thanks a lot, part-time lady." Slipping past her side, he vanished beyond the door on unsteady legs.
Aside from that little incident, time passed quite peacefully. My master and I chatted idly about what had just happened while sipping tea. Before long, as the clock hands passed noon, Director Ogawa returned. "Huh, did something happen?" As he pulled his tie off from around his neck, he twitched his nose. Prompted by that, I did the same and realized the smell of alcohol used for disinfection still lingered in the room. "It smells like blood." I hadn't noticed. Even though I should have known. My master briefly explained what had just happened. The director listened with a troubled look. "Tamura?" He muttered after she finished. He even let out a deep sigh. "Is he an informant?" When my master asked, the director gave a vague nod. "I had an older brother seven years my senior. He was a brilliant informant. He helped me out with a lot of things, too. But he died four years ago." Sitting on the edge of the desk, he pulled the ashtray closer and lit a cigarette. "A car accident, I think. Too soon. We lost a talented man." Smoke drifted away in rings.
"The younger brother, who could only idolize his brilliant older brother, couldn't get over that death in his own mind and chose the most straightforward path. In other words, he decided to take over. I give him credit for the effort. And for the courage to boldly barge into places where even I would hesitate. But that was it. If I had to call it a lack of sense, well, that's that... If I had the backbone to grab him by the scruff of the neck and force him down a different path, he'd probably be a much more decent human being by now." It was the tone of a guardian talking about a child as if he knew everything. For some reason, it felt so un-salvageable that I wanted to tell him: *'He didn't just idolize a brilliant big brother; he idolized the big brother who shone when he was partnered with you.'* As I stared at him in silence, Director Ogawa flicked away his ash and turned his face toward us. "I don't know what kind of dangerous mess Tamura got himself into, but you guys stay out of it." Even without being told. "It's gloomy in here." It was only when the director said that I realized I had left the window blinds down. As I moved to stand up, the phone rang. "Yes, Ogawa Detective Agency." The director picked up the nearest receiver. Since I'd been on phone duty all morning, it meant I didn't get to answer the very first call of the day. My master smiled as if to say the exact same thing. "Oh, hello there. Huh? Yes, that's right. I just got back now. That's scary. Were you watching?" His tone was light, but the director's words carried tension. Noticing this, I felt a jittery premonition, like a bad hunch. "Tamura? I have no idea. Haven't seen him in a while. Did he do something?" While saying that, the director picked up the phone and dragged the cable smoothly toward the window. "Huh? Like I said, I haven't seen him. Really. Harboring him? Come on, Matsuura-san." The director raised the blinds and gently cracked the window open. A pleasant breeze wafted into the room, which had been filled with the scent of alcohol and blood. The voice of a bamboo pole seller could be heard outside.
Matsuura. I recognized that name. It was the name of a yakuza. The Ogawa Detective Agency was a "decent" detective agency, but this kind of industry inevitably cast the shadow of organized crime. Even if they weren't simply the financial backers, the influence of such antisocial organizations was present to some degree or another. Especially the more underground the investigations got. My master's face had also tightened. She hated the yakuza to an abnormal degree. She hated them so much she'd declare it right to their faces, which always kept me on edge. "Sorry about that. For not being of help. No, no. If I happen to see him, I'll let you know. See ya." The moment he hung up the phone, the director told us, "Run, quickly." "Eh?" As I faltered, my master poked me and said, "Let's go." "I heard the voice of the bamboo pole seller through the phone. He's calling from nearby. Damn it, that bastard Tamura brought trouble." As my master and I headed out the office door together and dashed down the stairs, a group was rushing up with equal momentum. "Yeah, yeah. Stop right there." They were a bunch of men whose clothing practically screamed, *We are definitely not law-abiding citizens.* "Come on up, come on up." The man in the lead, who had long, dyed brown hair and wore a flashy purple jacket, gestured as he spoke. He looked like a punk, but the guys behind him had a much more authentic yakuza style. As I froze on the spot, "I said come on up, didn't I?" the brown-haired man said, his eyes squinting into a friendly, Ebisu-like smile as he placed his fist against my stomach. It was a light punch, barely touching me, but the fear of unknown violence froze my spine. "Understand? Now that you understand, understand it one more time." *Thud.* Something heavy dropped into my stomach. My breath caught instantly. "Now, now. We've got people waiting behind us. Hurry up and go on up." I'd been hit. I'd been hit. My mind was a storm of confusion.
Watching my master, who reluctantly began walking back up the stairs looking utterly annoyed, I followed along without thinking. Seeing us return, followed closely by the men who had emerged right behind us, Ogawa-san covered his face. "Sorry." To my apologizing master, Ogawa-san gave a weak, "No, I'm the one who's sorry." At the tail end of the men filing through the door one after another came a man dressed noticeably plainly. He wore a double-breasted black suit, but unlike the other men, his chest wasn't bared, the shirt underneath was plain white, and he wore no necklaces. Though he naturally lacked a necktie, his hair wasn't permed into a punch-perm either, but was slicked back to a modest length. And he wore black-rimmed glasses. He was a man I had seen a few times in connection with the Ogawa Detective Agency. If I recall correctly, he was a yakuza from the "Ishida Group." Among them, he was someone who inhabited a truly dark place—not the kind of person you'd casually run into just hanging around town. "Matsuura-san, what is the meaning of this?" The director demanded in a sharp tone. "Just what I said on the phone. I'm looking for Tamura." "And I told you just what I said on the phone. I haven't seen him for a while." When the director retorted, the brown-haired man raised his voice in a shriek. *Who the hell do you think you're talking to like that to the boss?* He must have said something like that, but his tone was so violently idiotic that I could barely understand a word. "Ogawa-san. It doesn't matter to us whether you know or not. This office has nothing to do with Tamura. We just need to know that." The yakuza named Matsuura jutted his chin out. If I remember right, his rank was assistant to the wakagashira of the Ishida Group. The men scattered around the room. The kitchen, the bathroom, the lockers. Any place that could hide a person...
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