Lost & Found - Episode 2 Part 1
Title : Lost & Found
Chapter Title : Let The Game Begin
Setting : Hidarime Tantei EYE - Post Special Drama
Summary : What if at the end, Ainosuke's resolve crumbles, leaving him vulnerable in front of his older brother. What will Ainosuke do? And how will Yumeto react to the drastic decision his baby brother had come onto?
Rating : K+
Disclaimer : The characters n original storyline are not mine. Only the changes in plot are :)
Sayama Hitomi felt she was a lot of things. A devoted school nurse, for one - when she was not busy shopping, calculating her debts or searching for her lost student that is. A good companion for people who wanted to share their problems - especially money!
Well, anyway, she realized now that she was by no mean a good mystery solver.
Sighing dejectedly, she continued to stare at the pictures in his hands. For some reason she didn’t really care about, Detective Fukuchi had allowed Kato-san to keep them and she had asked - demanded - that he gave her copies of each of them. Now, if only she knew what they meant…
“Those are good.”
The voice surprised her enough to make her jumped on her seat. She turned around, to see a boy standing awkwardly to the side and a bit behind the chair she was sitting on. The boy had a slightly guilty look on his face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that you weren’t answering when I called from the door.”
She put her hand to her chest to calm her furiously beating heart, smiling at the boy kindly.
“It’s okay, really. I was just too engrossed, that’s all.”
He returned the smile, looking so relieved that Sayama couldn’t help but giggled quietly.
“No doubt there. Those sketches look almost real. Who drew them?”
Her smile faltered.
“Tanaka Ainosuke.”
To her curiosity, the boy deflated a bit. Maybe he was friend with Ainosuke. For all she knew, Ainosuke was a bit of a loner boy. True, he had friends, quite a lot in fact. But no one was extremely close to him.
Still, she felt obliged to ask. Even if it was only for the sake of common courtesy.
“You know him?”
The boy - she really needed to get his name - looked surprised by her question. But he answered nonetheless, nodding slowly, as if not sure if he should tell her.
“We were classmates. Last year, during our freshmen year.”
She smiled a bit.
“I see.”
He hesitated a bit before opening his mouth, voicing his thought.
“I haven’t seen him in a long time though. Usually I saw him on the rooftop during break or under a tree after school. Sketching.”
She sighed again and glanced at the sketches in her hands, “Neither have I.” She blinked, finally realizing her mistake, and looked back at the boy, “Oh! I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about you yourself. Why do you come to the infirmary… uhm…”
The boy smiled slightly.
“Kaito Masaki. I just felt a little bit light headed, so I was thinking maybe I can lie down for a while here?”
“Of course! That’s the purpose of infirmary, after all. Feel free to take one of the beds.”
Masaki-kun smiled and turned to head to the bed. A flicker caught her eyes and she watched, as if transfixed, as a pure white feather fluttered, falling onto the floor.
She blinked in surprise when a hand hastily snatched the feather and her eyes fell on the hand’s owner. Masaki-kun offered her a nervous smile before retreating onto a bed, pulling the curtain close.
Raising her eyebrow at her student’s odd behavior, she shrugged and turned her attention back to the paper in her hands.
She would never understand teenagers these days.
xxx
He closed the door behind him slowly, careful to not make so much noise. Putting the tray on the nightstand, he let his eyes raked on the two figures - brothers - on the bed.
“How high is it now?”
The older brother looked at him, worry shining in his brown eyes, hand never leaving his little brother’s unmoving one.
“39.5, almost half a degree higher than this morning.”
Yoshida shifted his eyes on the younger of the two, who was sleeping restlessly, tossing his head every once in a while. He watched silently as Yumeto wrung out a small towel he just dipped into iced water before folding and placing it back onto Ainosuke’s forehead.
The kid shivered at the cold and gave a small whine. Yumeto reached out a hand to smoothen his brother’s hair and shushed him gently.
“I bring soup and some medicine.”
The crime planner nodded and was about to take the bowl when his phone rang. Yoshida raised an eyebrow as the younger man stood up and took out his phone.
“Sakisaka here… Understood. I will be there shortly.”
He looked at the boy on the bed with sad eyes.
“The third kidnapping?”
He turned around as the younger man had nodded. Returning the gesture, he set his mouth in a grim line.
“I’ll take care of Ainosuke. Do you want me to bring him there or are you going to?”
A contemplating look settled on Yumeto’s face as he stared at his little brother’s face.
“I think it’s better that you do it. We can’t risk anyone seeing me with him.”
He nodded wordlessly, eyes following the crime planner as the younger man bent down and planted a kiss on his brother’s temple.
They regarded each other with grim expression on their faces before, once again, the younger man nodded and strolled out of the room.
The ex-bomber sighed before taking a seat on the edge of the bed, flipping the towel onto the cooler side.
“Just a bit longer. Just wait a bit longer, Ainosuke-kun.”
xxx
Detective Fukuchi was not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed that another kidnapping case occurred. On one hand, he could now be sure that this was indeed a serial kidnapping. However, he could not help but angry that another family had to suffer the pain of losing their child.
He kept his face stoic as the victim’s mother pleaded with the police to help her, fighting the urge to sigh.
Why had he decided to follow his subordinates here, he wasn’t sure. The only thing he could say was that this case intrigued him. That, and a nagging feeling that something interesting was going to happen here.
And he was right.
He frowned when Kato pulled out something from his pocket and placed it on the table. Immediately, he recognized it as Tanaka Ainosuke’s drawing. The cartoon chick, one of the few pictures that had not really related to anything in the previous two kidnappings.
The woman blinked before answering in hesitant voice.
“It’s… It’s not a chick. It’s a reindeer, the symbol of the company where I am currently working at.”
His eyes narrowed and he looked at his subordinates’ shock faces. Kato seemed to be expecting it, however and just nodded.
He frowned deeper. Kato had asked him whether they could help her raise money to pay the unreasonably high ransom and he had said that, as policemen, they could not interfere with the case.
But now, it was clear to him that somehow, the company played a part in this case as well, if the drawings were to be taken seriously. So far, it had seemed to be the case.
Just how on earth can that boy, Tanaka Ainosuke, managed to find out what the criminal organization was planning and dropped a hint or two to the police?
The boy was a mystery.
And as a detective, it was his job to solve that mystery. Whatever the cost was.
“Maybe,” he said aloud, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. “You can ask him to lend you money to pay the ransom.”
He was aware of the alarmed looks his subordinates were giving him, but the woman nodded, albeit hesitantly. Giving order to the still stunned police officers, he walked out of the small house.
He was going to see this case through, no matter what he needed to do to achieve it.
xxx
Kato tried to look impassive but attentive as he watched the exchange between his superior officer and the company’s owner, Kamiya-san.
Never had he thought that the strict Fukuchi-san would get into all the trouble of convincing the other man to lending money to his employee, let alone assuring that the money would be returned without any yen less. And Kamiya-san had agreed too.
Fukushi-san was acting really weird tonight. The Fukuchi-san he knew would have never gone through such difficulties to help a victim of kidnapping. Maybe his superior officer, just like himself, was intrigued by these kidnapping cases.
A sudden tone cut his musing and he fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket, muttering apologies all the while. He walked to the corner of the room, away from the other occupants.
“Yes?”
“Put it on speaker.”
His heart nearly stopped at the mechanic voice rang through his phone. How did the kidnappers managed get his number?
“S-sorry?”
“Your phone, Kato-san. Put it on speaker.”
Bewildered - how on earth did they know his name? - he walked to Fukuchi-san and squatted beside his superior officer. The older frowned and turned to him.
“What is it?”
“It’s from the kidnapper, he wanted me to put him on speaker.”
The frown on Fukuchi-san face got deeper before he turned to the other occupants of the room.
“Kaito-san, Kamiya-san, we had just received a call from the kidnapper. If you don’t mind, we are going to put it on speaker so you can hear what he had to say.”
Both adults nodded. Kaito-san looked scared and worried, but that was to be expected. After all, this was her son’s life on the line.
After receiving a nod from Fukuchi-san, he put the phone on speaker and laid it down on the coffee table.
“Fukuchi here. You are on speaker. What do you want?”
“I am going to tell you what to do with the ransom money. I want it ready at 10am tomorrow.”
Kato furrowed his eyebrows. This was different than the previous two kidnappings. In the previous cases, the kidnappers always sent a letter to the victim’s house about what to do with the ransom money and used phone call only to tell where their child was. Why had they changed their method?
“Where and who will take the money?”
Fukuchi-san’s question had him out of his musing.
“Let’s play a game, Detective Fukuchi.”
“What?”
“If you play my game correctly, I will give you a bonus.”
Kato’s eyebrows furrowed further at this statement and he saw Fukuchi-san frowned. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Kaito-san stared at his phone in panic and his heart went out to her.
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t be fun if I told you, now would it? Don’t worry, I am sure that the police would be ecstatic with this bonus.”
The silence in the room was deafening as the occupants digested the information.
“As I said, I want the money on the road at 10am. I will contact the person via this phone as to what to do with the money afterwards.”
“You want the victim’s mother to be on the road with the ransom money and the phone at 10am tomorrow?”
“Let’s make this game more interesting, shall we?”
He exchanged a glance with his superior officer. This situation was getting weirder and weirder by the seconds.
“I want one of your subordinates to carry the money. I believe his name is Kato Takashi.”
His eyes widened almost comically at the sound of his name. His astonished eyes met the others surprised ones and he gulped involuntarily.
“Well, then. I will look forward to our game tomorrow, police officers.”
“Wait-!”
Before anything else could be said, the line was cut, leaving them with the long keening noise. Fukuchi-san reached for the phone and closed it with a snap. He watched in silent, still stunned at how things had progressed, as the older man offered his phone back to him.
“Any idea what that was about, Kato?”
He took his phone gratefully and shook his head.
“No, sir. None at all.”
He did not mention how, for some strange reason that he himself did not fully understand, his mind wandered to a certain junior high schooler with messy brown hair.
He would need to call Sayama-sensei after this.
xxx
He stirred when he felt himself being laid down on a mattress. Weird, he did not remember having gone out of his bed. He was struggling to open his eyes when his ears picked a shushing sound. A cool hand smoothing his sweat soaked hair.
“Niichan?”
The shushing noise was getting louder and he heard a familiar voice whispered softly.
“Go back to sleep, Ainosuke-kun. Everything is alright.”
That was all the push that he needed. Within seconds, he was back to slumber.
k59: i know that this is so very late n i'm sorry.. but really, mid year exam was freaking me out.. it's over now, though.. now i just have to face prelim n finally A lvl.. gosh, i'm stressed out! anyway, as my apology, i'm going to post an old writing of mine.. i wrote it about, one and a half year ago...? so, i'm sorry if it was bad.. i was very new to writing back then.. anyway, thank you for those who are still with me n i hope u enjoy this *bows deeply*