The mission was simple. Goro Amarao was to assist in Interpol's apprehension of Lupin III and retrieve the guitar of one Haruko Haruhara a.k.a. Raharu before she managed to
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He didn't question the new arrangement of the dummies. Hell, it looked...kind of organized. The cogs in his head were spinning, though, the cork on his rantbottle dangerously close to popping. He gave a snort.
"He's a marvel, that guy," He said, though it hardly sounded complimentary, "And trying to catch him is like trying to catch water with a net."
The drags on his cigarette became a little more purposeful and his eyes more hard set, attracted to some newspaper clippings on a cork board.
Had any of the other people from the office been in there, they likely would have started whispering Get out! Get out while you still can! to Amarao.
"And he thinks he's so damn clever, whenever I'm a step ahead of him it seems like he just made that part of his plan all along! It's infuriating to no end! My life's work is devoted to this baboon that doesn't know how to match and what do I have to show for it?"
The dummies aside, he began to pick up other things off the rapidly appearing desk, plopping piles to the side as his voice steadily got louder. Was he even talking to Amarao anymore?
"Everyone just underestimates his abilities and none of them will believe old Koichi, oh no! But who is it they cry to when he makes off with their fortunes? I don't really give a damn if they listen anymore, bring on the jewels, bring on the stacks of gold bars, whatever, just as long as it's one more chance to get him-!" A wide gesture to point an accusing finger at a dart board with a mugshot of Lupin on it. "-behind bars for good!"
His fist hit the newly cleared desk, ending the rant off on a loud note. There was a lingering moment of silence as Zenigata seemed to collect himself, tossing the butt of his cigarette towards the ashtray.
"...so what is it you're after that he has?" A calm and cool look in Amarao's direction.
His eyes got a little wider, jaw dropping a little further the louder that Zenigata got. The more passionate that Zenigata got. There was that silent voice of warning in the back of Amarao's mind, that semblence of the sane man that he could have been had he not been driven down the path that he was.
But there was another voice... a stronger voice... that behind his shock he had starry-eyed admiration.
To think he had been determinedly chasing Lupin for that long! Ceaselessly! And with that much passion and conviction.
He only hoped he could last that long.
"Er...." he muttered, staring. And then glancing away self-conciously. "The guitar. He has a guitar that he's stolen. It has a history, and I need to find it."
Zenigata paused to look up at the ceiling for a moment. "A guitar, huh...sounds new to me." It sort of surprised him that the other desk was there. He wracked his brain trying to think of who had used it.
"So what's the deal with this guitar?" he asked, idly wandering to check some file cabinets for any space at all.
His mind flitted through all the young, naive faces of the people that worked beneath him, names he tried to make himself forget not coming too quickly.
"Was it owned by some old rich collector and you're their undercover assassin?" He suggested slightly ridiculously, but his tone said he wasn't joking, "Is there something about what it's made of and you're after that, or some dirty secret it contains that you can't allow to get out?"
He found some space and put a stack of papers from his own desk in there, having to throw out a box of questionable content to make room. He plopped back in his own chair, setting his elbows on the desk to look over.
Oh right, that had been Melon's desk, now that he thought of it. She'd only even used it once, but he distinctly remembered trying to get work done with her sitting there. He remembered it being impossible, because he couldn't stop looking at the way she made herself as unattractive as possible. She wore those big, nerdy glasses without an after thought, hair tied back in a nom-nonsense bun, clothes that could use some serious updating, and a brown trench coat that pinched at the waist. He remembered toying with the idea of asking the Frenchwoman to show her around Japan while they were there, or to take her out to eat. The memory was instantly followed by the bitter one of her resigning, giving up on her vendetta with Lupin, saying she was still young and her grandfather's honor wasn't worth throwing away her life over.
He huffed to himself and turned his head away, suddenly less thrilled about having another partner that would ultimately give up/betray him/be reassigned in short time. But, likely it would be betray him, that seemed to be the popular one. He checked the time. Almost time to go, for the whole rest of the department anyway.
"Well, Mr. Rock Star?" He asked, turning his eyes back towards the other man, "Or am I being purposefully kept in the dark so I can't ask questions?"
"If I was an assassin, I would wear a better coat. But that one is vintage," Amarao commented, moving some things around.
"Another criminal is going to come for that guitar," he said flatly. "One that I've been chasing for as long as I can remember."
Which was probably odd. Amarao looked young. He shouldn't have had to chase anyone for more than two years. Especially assigned to one person. "He stole it from her and is going to sell it. He doesn't know he's playing with fire. That woman will go off like a powder keg. She's a real menace. A walking disaster..."
His insane fury wasn't quite like Zenigata's. He kept it buried, and he could really use that stress ball right then.
"People are like that, though," he said, not facing the man as he organized around the desk to free it up. "They do those things. They're selfish and immature. They don't care who they hurt as long as they get what they want. A lot of innocent people learn the hard way that they can't count on them... and yet people still seem to fall for it-" fall for them "-over and over again, even when you warn them. It's the same old same old since the dawn of time."
He spoke with his back to the older detective, talking like he'd forgotten he was there, just lost in thought as he looked through old files- and then picked up a rather questionable picture from some other something Lupin had done involving barely dressed women and blushed brightly.
Zenigata's office was littered with so much unintentional porn.
The Inspector was silent as he listened, eyebrows pulling down further. He was surprised to hear the conviction and the wisdom that seemed like it should have been coming out of someone twice his age. He actually leaned in a little towards the end, lost in the familiarity of it all and Amarao's storyteller voice. His stern, grumpy expression had melted to a sort of blank enchantment, blinking once. It took him a second to realize Amarao had stopped talking and was fussing over some picture that had far too many boobies in relation to how many faces were there. He cleared his throat and sat back in his seat.
"So...we're going to be stopping Lupin so the person who owned it in the first place won't get it, but since that person is a criminal, we can't allow it to be re-stolen." Mentally he made a chart, keeping it all straight in his head. "Or are you trying to get it back to use as bait for what's-her-face?" He asked, putting his hands behind his head as he kicked his legs back up on his desk.
Ooh he couldn't sit still. Talking about Lupin always made him fidgety. He crossed one leg over the other and rocked slightly.
"We plan this right, we might just get ourselves two jailbirds with one pair of cuffs," He said with a small smirk, messing up an already terrible analogy, "Problem is she has an advantage over us on Lupin, cuz as long as she has boobs and a pulse he's a sucker."
"She has an advantage over everybody," he explained simply, futiley attempting to hide that gratuitous blush as he shoved that picture underneath another few pictures.
"Her name is Haruko Haruhara." It was difficult not to call her Raharu. He was so used to it. But Haruhara was the name that Zenigata needed to know. "She has pink hair and rides a Vespa. The guitar is a navy blue, left-handed Rickenbacker Bass 4001S."
She was stronger than cuffs. He didn't want to say that... Regular cuffs anyway.
"Consider it sentimental, but there's something personal I'd like to see her shackled in. Just to know that it was this that trapped her." He patted his jacket, a pair of highly magnetized titanium alloy D.I.I. issue shackles beneath.
After all that work uncovering his own desk, he still went over to Zenigata's to sit on the edge of it.
Koichi mouthed the name Amarao told him, either trying to see if it rung any bells or was just quite the tongue twister. He only raised a brow at the description of the guitar. Uh...blue, got it.
He tilted his head at the shackles, whistling once. "That's some heavy duty hardware, Inspector. But I can't blame you. Do it right the first time, huh?"
He reached backwards to pull open his jacket, the multitudes of handcuffs in there clinking together. "I have yet to find the pair that can hold that slippery bastard Lupin."
Stretched just far enough he flicked the bill of his hat, flipping it through the air and catching it. He placed it on his head and sat back again, folding his arms as he looked up at Amarao. Again he calculated those steel blues, peering out from underneath his hat. "So I'll look up Lupin's last known locations and start figuring out where he could be headed. Shouldn't take too long," He said absently, having done that same thing millions of times it seemed like, "Mm...guess we'll plan on from there." And yet again he stared, pinching up one eye slightly.
"Your eyebrows kinda remind me of piano keys." Black rectangles remind you of piano keys. Genius, Koichi.
He was so busy gaping at the incredible assortment of cuffs (how much did that man's clothes weigh?!) that it took him a moment to catch that last statement.
That was the strangest noting of his eyebrows anyone had made.
And obligingly, they twitched independently in surprise.
"....I'll keep an eye on Haruhara's whereabouts. My guess would be she would be after the guitar, and if there's a pattern, then she could lead us right to him." But it was important to make it to Lupin first. Before Raharu did. Damn, it was still difficult to call her by that ridiculous human name.
Zenigata grinned in that way only he could, everything about it charming except that small almost unmistakable ounce of crazy determination in the corners of his eyes.
"Thanks. I'm not quite the dottering old man that I look like, mm?"
He had no problem with the the eyebrows at all it seemed, because that was the only comment he had to make about them. He went straight to business as he pulled out various files and pulled a phone out from underneath some pile of papers. Hopefully Amarao wasn't expecting to sleep that night. Zenigata would likely be keeping him up 'til the wee hours of the morning unless he made an escape.
Amarao could probably easily find out things a hundred times faster on his own systems, but Koichi never claimed to be efficient. Who needed million dollar machinery when you had your gut feeling?
"You'd be amazed what you pick up camping out a spot for a couple of days."
((OOC: I dunno how you'd like to go about opening up the next scene, so I'll talk to you about it later, 'less you has it figured out already~))
He gave a snort.
"He's a marvel, that guy," He said, though it hardly sounded complimentary, "And trying to catch him is like trying to catch water with a net."
The drags on his cigarette became a little more purposeful and his eyes more hard set, attracted to some newspaper clippings on a cork board.
Had any of the other people from the office been in there, they likely would have started whispering Get out! Get out while you still can! to Amarao.
"And he thinks he's so damn clever, whenever I'm a step ahead of him it seems like he just made that part of his plan all along! It's infuriating to no end! My life's work is devoted to this baboon that doesn't know how to match and what do I have to show for it?"
The dummies aside, he began to pick up other things off the rapidly appearing desk, plopping piles to the side as his voice steadily got louder. Was he even talking to Amarao anymore?
"Everyone just underestimates his abilities and none of them will believe old Koichi, oh no! But who is it they cry to when he makes off with their fortunes? I don't really give a damn if they listen anymore, bring on the jewels, bring on the stacks of gold bars, whatever, just as long as it's one more chance to get him-!"
A wide gesture to point an accusing finger at a dart board with a mugshot of Lupin on it.
"-behind bars for good!"
His fist hit the newly cleared desk, ending the rant off on a loud note. There was a lingering moment of silence as Zenigata seemed to collect himself, tossing the butt of his cigarette towards the ashtray.
"...so what is it you're after that he has?" A calm and cool look in Amarao's direction.
Reply
But there was another voice... a stronger voice... that behind his shock he had starry-eyed admiration.
To think he had been determinedly chasing Lupin for that long! Ceaselessly! And with that much passion and conviction.
He only hoped he could last that long.
"Er...." he muttered, staring. And then glancing away self-conciously. "The guitar. He has a guitar that he's stolen. It has a history, and I need to find it."
Reply
"A guitar, huh...sounds new to me."
It sort of surprised him that the other desk was there. He wracked his brain trying to think of who had used it.
"So what's the deal with this guitar?" he asked, idly wandering to check some file cabinets for any space at all.
His mind flitted through all the young, naive faces of the people that worked beneath him, names he tried to make himself forget not coming too quickly.
"Was it owned by some old rich collector and you're their undercover assassin?" He suggested slightly ridiculously, but his tone said he wasn't joking, "Is there something about what it's made of and you're after that, or some dirty secret it contains that you can't allow to get out?"
He found some space and put a stack of papers from his own desk in there, having to throw out a box of questionable content to make room. He plopped back in his own chair, setting his elbows on the desk to look over.
Oh right, that had been Melon's desk, now that he thought of it. She'd only even used it once, but he distinctly remembered trying to get work done with her sitting there.
He remembered it being impossible, because he couldn't stop looking at the way she made herself as unattractive as possible. She wore those big, nerdy glasses without an after thought, hair tied back in a nom-nonsense bun, clothes that could use some serious updating, and a brown trench coat that pinched at the waist.
He remembered toying with the idea of asking the Frenchwoman to show her around Japan while they were there, or to take her out to eat. The memory was instantly followed by the bitter one of her resigning, giving up on her vendetta with Lupin, saying she was still young and her grandfather's honor wasn't worth throwing away her life over.
He huffed to himself and turned his head away, suddenly less thrilled about having another partner that would ultimately give up/betray him/be reassigned in short time. But, likely it would be betray him, that seemed to be the popular one. He checked the time. Almost time to go, for the whole rest of the department anyway.
"Well, Mr. Rock Star?" He asked, turning his eyes back towards the other man, "Or am I being purposefully kept in the dark so I can't ask questions?"
Reply
"Another criminal is going to come for that guitar," he said flatly. "One that I've been chasing for as long as I can remember."
Which was probably odd. Amarao looked young. He shouldn't have had to chase anyone for more than two years. Especially assigned to one person. "He stole it from her and is going to sell it. He doesn't know he's playing with fire. That woman will go off like a powder keg. She's a real menace. A walking disaster..."
His insane fury wasn't quite like Zenigata's. He kept it buried, and he could really use that stress ball right then.
"People are like that, though," he said, not facing the man as he organized around the desk to free it up. "They do those things. They're selfish and immature. They don't care who they hurt as long as they get what they want. A lot of innocent people learn the hard way that they can't count on them... and yet people still seem to fall for it-" fall for them "-over and over again, even when you warn them. It's the same old same old since the dawn of time."
He spoke with his back to the older detective, talking like he'd forgotten he was there, just lost in thought as he looked through old files- and then picked up a rather questionable picture from some other something Lupin had done involving barely dressed women and blushed brightly.
Reply
The Inspector was silent as he listened, eyebrows pulling down further. He was surprised to hear the conviction and the wisdom that seemed like it should have been coming out of someone twice his age.
He actually leaned in a little towards the end, lost in the familiarity of it all and Amarao's storyteller voice.
His stern, grumpy expression had melted to a sort of blank enchantment, blinking once.
It took him a second to realize Amarao had stopped talking and was fussing over some picture that had far too many boobies in relation to how many faces were there.
He cleared his throat and sat back in his seat.
"So...we're going to be stopping Lupin so the person who owned it in the first place won't get it, but since that person is a criminal, we can't allow it to be re-stolen."
Mentally he made a chart, keeping it all straight in his head.
"Or are you trying to get it back to use as bait for what's-her-face?" He asked, putting his hands behind his head as he kicked his legs back up on his desk.
Ooh he couldn't sit still. Talking about Lupin always made him fidgety. He crossed one leg over the other and rocked slightly.
"We plan this right, we might just get ourselves two jailbirds with one pair of cuffs," He said with a small smirk, messing up an already terrible analogy, "Problem is she has an advantage over us on Lupin, cuz as long as she has boobs and a pulse he's a sucker."
He moved one hand to rub his chin.
"Just what chick we talkin' about, anyway?"
Reply
"Her name is Haruko Haruhara." It was difficult not to call her Raharu. He was so used to it. But Haruhara was the name that Zenigata needed to know. "She has pink hair and rides a Vespa. The guitar is a navy blue, left-handed Rickenbacker Bass 4001S."
She was stronger than cuffs. He didn't want to say that... Regular cuffs anyway.
"Consider it sentimental, but there's something personal I'd like to see her shackled in. Just to know that it was this that trapped her." He patted his jacket, a pair of highly magnetized titanium alloy D.I.I. issue shackles beneath.
After all that work uncovering his own desk, he still went over to Zenigata's to sit on the edge of it.
Reply
He only raised a brow at the description of the guitar.
Uh...blue, got it.
He tilted his head at the shackles, whistling once.
"That's some heavy duty hardware, Inspector. But I can't blame you. Do it right the first time, huh?"
He reached backwards to pull open his jacket, the multitudes of handcuffs in there clinking together.
"I have yet to find the pair that can hold that slippery bastard Lupin."
Stretched just far enough he flicked the bill of his hat, flipping it through the air and catching it. He placed it on his head and sat back again, folding his arms as he looked up at Amarao.
Again he calculated those steel blues, peering out from underneath his hat.
"So I'll look up Lupin's last known locations and start figuring out where he could be headed. Shouldn't take too long," He said absently, having done that same thing millions of times it seemed like, "Mm...guess we'll plan on from there."
And yet again he stared, pinching up one eye slightly.
"Your eyebrows kinda remind me of piano keys."
Black rectangles remind you of piano keys. Genius, Koichi.
Reply
That was the strangest noting of his eyebrows anyone had made.
And obligingly, they twitched independently in surprise.
"....I'll keep an eye on Haruhara's whereabouts. My guess would be she would be after the guitar, and if there's a pattern, then she could lead us right to him." But it was important to make it to Lupin first. Before Raharu did. Damn, it was still difficult to call her by that ridiculous human name.
"Smooth move with the hat, by the way..."
Reply
"Thanks. I'm not quite the dottering old man that I look like, mm?"
He had no problem with the the eyebrows at all it seemed, because that was the only comment he had to make about them. He went straight to business as he pulled out various files and pulled a phone out from underneath some pile of papers.
Hopefully Amarao wasn't expecting to sleep that night. Zenigata would likely be keeping him up 'til the wee hours of the morning unless he made an escape.
Amarao could probably easily find out things a hundred times faster on his own systems, but Koichi never claimed to be efficient. Who needed million dollar machinery when you had your gut feeling?
"You'd be amazed what you pick up camping out a spot for a couple of days."
((OOC: I dunno how you'd like to go about opening up the next scene, so I'll talk to you about it later, 'less you has it figured out already~))
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