***
“Why are you two following Rei-chan and me!?” The girl stood and pointed, mainly at Eiichi.
After gathering the girl, they had made their way across to a fountain within the market square to sort things out. Eiichi conversed with the loud and unwary fellow student, while Noda sat on one of the benches with his peacoat still over her shoulders.
Eiichi fired back, “You’re the one who followed us! Shouldn’t we be asking the questions!?”
“You did it first! I saw both of you at the shoe shop near the school! And when I dropped Rei-chan off at her house, I saw you leaving and knew there was something suspicious about you!”
“Kid, don’t just run up on a couple strangers like that! You have no idea what could happen to you! Just what to expect from a girl who looks like she’s still twelve.”
“Hey! I’m a second-year! I’m fifteen! And the proper height for both!” She stuck her tongue out at him while tugging an eyelid down.
“Oh yeah, you just ooze maturity.”
“At least I don’t look like a drug dealer, or some fashion hack!”
“What’s that, you little twerp!?”
This girl didn’t seem to have any kind of situational awareness whatsoever! As aggressive as she was, she should learn to consider the outcomes of her actions instead of just running blindly into something. However, her concern for Reiko was pretty genuine. Eiichi didn’t pick up anything suspicious upon her mentioning her friend’s name. None of the obsessive infatuations or repetitive loops of thought ever peeked out, and only worry and sympathy were present. This led Eiichi to believe that it was highly unlikely she was the stalker. So Reiko’s chaperone was off the hook.
“We’re private investigators.” Noda rose from her seat. “And we’ve taken an interest in your friend’s case.”
Eiichi and the girl were already up in each other’s faces at this point, but upon Noda’s bringing together of these two distinct words, they both slowly turned their heads and looked at her with mutual surprise for different reasons.
“We’re what...” muttered Eiichi.
He just had to see how she was going to follow this up.
“Oh wow!” the girl blurted out with clenched fists, unable to contain herself. “This is so cool! So you guys do missing person cases, and stuff like that!?”
“Um...” Noda scratched her cheek. “Well, yeah!”
“And you go after serial killers that the police can’t find!? And track down unfaithful lovers!?”
“Y-Yeah...all the time...” Noda’s expression dimmed.
The girl leapt and thrust a fist into the air. “This means we’re finally getting somewhere! We’ll be able to find out who’s been stalking Rei-chan!”
‘We? What do you mean ‘we’?’
“Um, yeah! You bet we are!” Noda was floundering.
Eiichi spoke up, “I think what my friend here is trying to say is that we have no idea what we’re doing, but we’re concerned for your friend. We’re actually students from your school.”
This put a damper on the poor girl’s mood.
“We bumped into her the other day, and she looked pretty terrified. And then we saw her shoe locker and figured this was worth looking into.”
She paused for a moment at this sour truth, and then her output turned a bit gloomy.
“Oh yeah...you saw that, didn’t you...”
Noda spoke. “I’m sorry if this is strange, and if you don’t want our help, we’ll leave it to the police, but...we thought it was the right thing to do.”
Then the girl’s output lit up with brilliant hope again.
“No way! You’re lying, right? To save your cover. You’re not wearing uniforms, and you don’t even look like you belong in high school!”
They actually looked that mature? Eiichi figured their cover had worked well, but not that well.
“No, we’re trying to tell you, we are students at Aki Guro! We don’t have anything that identifies us as private investigators!”
She was definitely not the stalker, she was too desperate for Reiko’s sake. She would grasp at anything that could possibly save her friend.
She looked pretty young. She probably thought they were in the same boat as her, that they were college-aged people who looked young enough to pass for high school students, which would make for a good cover, but was not what he was going for.
“Alriiight~,” she sidled up to Eiichi, flattening a hand against her cheek and nudging him with her elbow. “I hear ya, smooth operator.”
Eiichi smacked a hand over his eyes. There was no convincing her. This was so troublesome that he needed a smoke, and he pulled his pack from the back pocket of his jeans.
“I knew it!” The girl pointed as he lit up. “You are professionals! Though that is totally cliché, a chain-smoking PI—pff!—Come on!”
“I’m doing this because you’re annoying as—! Oh, whatever…”
He caught whiffs of Noda’s output chuckling at him from where she stood. She obviously was willing to go along with their new cover.
“Well, I don’t care if you’re professionals or not. Rei-chan is in trouble and needs help, but her family hasn’t requested any aid from freelance investigators that I know of. I don’t even know that there’s any pay in it for you, so why are you choosing to help her?”
This was a question Eiichi wasn’t sure how to answer himself. Maybe it had been easy when Noda had asked, but that had been personal. He left it up to her, it was basically her show anyways.
“Because that’s what we do...” Noda said. “My friend here, though he may not look it, is very perceptive when it comes to people. He has experience with what your friend is going through and knows that she’s in danger.”
Eiichi backed this up. “The things that your friend has been experiencing are only going to get worse if nothing is done about it.”
“It’s good that you say that...” the girl muttered. “Because we don’t know what the police have been doing, or if they have been doing anything. She hasn’t received a phone call or anything...”
She played with the hem of her school coat and stepped over to the fountain.
“At first I thought you two were the stalkers, but then I saw you put your coat on your partner there, and I figured there’s no way you can be the stalkers!”
They tensed up, “We’re-we’re not going out!”
Eiichi touched his head and sighed. “Jeez, don’t lower your entire guard just because of a kind gesture...”
The girl giggled and with a flourish of her skirt, she turned to face them.
“Rei-chan has been scared for a very long time...and I don’t want to see her suffer anymore. She’s my best friend...and I want to see the old Rei-chan from before...she’s always quiet, but you can tell when she’s happy.”
Her eyes glimmered in the lights of the market, the woeful sign of her plight. “You are the only people who have come forward to help her. So I will let you, under one condition.”
Eiichi grimaced. “And what’s that?”
She smiled, pigtails waving as she nodded to the side.“You let me help too?”
“No.”
Suddenly, all the pomp and bravado sank away from her expression. “Oh, come on! I’ll do anything! Even if it’s getting coffee and donuts! I’ve been her friend since we were little! I can tell you anything! I can get her to talk with you too, she trusts me!”
Noda pleaded as well. “Hear her out, Eiichi, this is the farthest we’ve gotten.”
“Eiichi?” The girl’s eyes popped out at him.
Eiichi took a drag and exhaled before glancing sideways at her through the white smoke.
She stared a moment, and then placed a hand upon her chin, “Ya know, you do look kinda’ like a guy I know about. He goes to my school. You’re not as skinny as him, and you don’t have the facial hair, but you match his description.”
“What’s his name?”
“Eiichi Kozuka.”
“That’s because I am Eiichi Kozuka!” he flared.
“Psh! No you’re not!” she giggled. “You should really work on your disguise. I heard Eiichi Kozuka is skinny and really ugly. He has facial hair, and a scar on his face from a knife fight. Oh! And he has a sleeve of freaky tattoos running up and down his right arm!”
‘Do they just make this stuff up and pass it on to the next to add to it!? Human comprehension is not what it should be.’
Eiichi would have nothing to worry about by the time he started his third year! Everyone would have their own wacky idea of what he looked like, they wouldn’t recognize the genuine article! This must have been what he got for avoiding the other students.
“Eiichi Kozuka is a hypo...something-er-whatever, but he’s always faking illnesses. He’s a total nut-job! There’s no way you’re Eiichi Kozuka. You may look a little bit like him, but he wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. So if you’re not Eiichi Kozuka, then what should I call you?”
Eiichi could feel that stress twitch coming back in his right eye. He looked to Noda, who smiled back. It would have been a lot easier to argue with her if she still had the braids. He couldn’t believe he was about to submit to this.
He turned his slumped shoulders and blank stare back to the girl. “Just call me Eiichi...”
“Oookay, whatever dude.”
“Eiichi...” Noda pressed. “You still haven’t answered her other question.”
Reiko’s friend gazed at him with watery, puppy-dog eyes, hands pleadingly clenched together. Somehow he felt like he was being played like a fiddle. He couldn’t argue with any of the points made. He did pin her as a possible lead, and she had not proven them wrong so far. Because she and Noda were optimistic types, they didn’t cause him a pain in his head, but somewhere else.
“Fine, do whatever you want…”
“Yaay!” the girl made another leap and rushed over to spontaneously embrace Noda.
The two cheered and laughed together while Eiichi stood by, pushing away the ‘super-happy-fun time’ thoughts, wishing he was home and in bed.
He sighed and another cloud of white exited between his lips. “What a long day...”
Eiichi P.I., Vol. 1 Page 29