The Locked Room

[boblemon]

Thank you to everyone that participated in the contest! :D
Title: The Locked Room
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sho/Nino
Disclaimer: I guess Johnny’s technically owns Arashi, huh? Not me.
Summary: Sho has come to rely on Nino for help in solving a series of difficult cases involving locked rooms, but this time everything is becoming too personal to be comfortable.
Notes: Thanks to r_tenou for putting me back on track on this.Think of this as the final episode to “Kagi no Kakatta Heya: Season 2.” Names from the original drama have remained the same for authenticity, so forgive my inconsistency. *Spoilers for the end of Kagi no Kakatta Heya, and some implications for things that followed.*



It was not part of his job description, but Sakurai Sho found himself playing detective more than a lawyer should.

Not to say that lawyers didn’t need skills of deduction and reasoning, because they did. It just seemed to be that the cases Sho got caught up in were out of his jurisdiction, involving murder more often than not, and all over they should have been left to the police instead.

But whenever the client came up and told their story, Sho could just never quite say no.

“But the doors were all locked! All of the windows and air vents too, not to mention there was a brand new security device installed last week!”

“I didn’t necessarily say the culprit had to be in here to kill her,” Nino replied smoothly with that signature smirk of his that told Sho he had solved the case down to the last hair out of place. “Your grandmother came into her room last night, ready to go to bed, and locked everything as per her daily habit. Without thinking anything was out of place, she laid down here.” He illustrated his words by waving his hand towards the bed.

The occupants of the room, Sho and his partner Aiba, along with his boss Serizawa and three of the suspects of the case, turned to watch Nino as he took a step closer to the bed and pulled back the covers carefully.

“She laid her head on the pillow, as usual.” Nino patted the pillow, looking at one of the suspects in particular, the woman’s grandson. “And the trap was triggered.”

True to Nino’s words, in a few seconds a thin line appeared against his palm, becoming more distinct as time ticked away. To prove his point, Nino reached into the air with his other hand, revealing a thin plastic fishing line coming from the ceiling that was otherwise invisible to the rest of the room.

“Taking into account the sleeping powder that was slipped into your grandmother’s dinner, it was no surprise she didn’t feel something that subtle until it was too late. Given her health, something this simple would have been enough to kill her and put the forged will into action.”

That’s right, the only reason this case had even landed on Sho’s desk to begin with was because of that will. Just like the slew of previous mysteries he’d solved-with Nino’s help-there was no piecing the clues together enough to make a case out of it for the police, who had deemed it a natural death. The prime suspect, the woman’s middle aged daughter, had begged their law office to re-check the case. Serizawa had a reputation for solving these kinds of problems after all, a job that somehow got dropped onto Sho’s shoulders once Aoto was transferred.

“Why was there nothing found at the crime scene, then?” Aiba asked curiously, and Nino glared at him coolly for the interruption.

“That’s simple. See this air vent located under the bed,” Nino said, leaning down and pointing to indicate the one he meant. “There are miniscule abrasions on the filters.”

Sho almost gasped when he realized the reason Nino had been so curious about that area when they had come to examine the crime scene together two days earlier. Nino really was a genius, and worth putting up with his quirks and anti-social behavior for the help he provided in return.

Since Aiba (and several other people, including his boss, Serizawa) still looked confused, Nino continued smugly, “This line is thin enough to fit through the filter. So the culprit simply pulled it all out of the room when she was dead.” Nino tapped on the wall and someone in the other room began to retract the line, Nino holding it to illustrate how it was disappearing. “Pull it tight to make sure it does its job, and it’ll snap when enough pressure is put on it. It explains the thin bruise on her neck that the police dismissed as a sign of ageing.”

“Amazing…” Serizawa mumbled under his breath in wonder. “I knew it all along,” he added after a pause, giving an arrogant smile to Sho which Sho immediately dismissed. His attention was taken up by the concluded perpetrator, who was shifting around, slipping his hand into his pocket as subtly as he could under the circumstances.

“And who was the only one with access to the next room…?” Nino asked slowly with a vicious smirk on his face, turning to the family huddled together against the other wall.

“No…” the original suspected whimpered, turning to her son just as he threw himself at Nino, an expression of rage on his face.

But Sho made it in time, planting himself in front of Nino, who stumbled back in surprise, his legs hitting the side of the bed with a thud. Sho grabbed the son’s wrists, thankful the thing in his hand was a small knife and not a gun, and fought to hold him back. Who the winner would be was obvious-Sho attended the gym twice a week in his free time, and this boy was barely twenty years old and unseasoned in fighting.

Within a few seconds, Sho tackled him to the floor and accepted the pair of handcuffs Aiba rushed over to give him. They’d started carrying a pair around, since it seemed like this happened whenever Nino revealed the locked room trick-unlike Enomoto had been, Nino was ruthless in delivering the truth, and reveled in that moment when he knew without a doubt he was right. Because of that, Sho had been faced with violence more often than emotional breakdowns, although he couldn’t deny the fact that Nino hadn’t been wrong yet.

“The police should already be on their way,” Aiba told him quietly, then went straight over to comfort the mother, who had begun crying when she realized the truth.

“That was brilliant, Nino! Just like Enomoto!” Serizawa complimented him, striding over to give Nino a pat on the back.

Immediately Nino pulled away with an irritated look. “I told you not to touch me,” he said sharply, averting his eyes. He glanced over at Sho quickly, but when Nino realized Sho was looking back, he turned away from him too, probably embarrassed at the fact that he couldn’t defend himself, even though this had happened at least three times during the cases they’d solved together.

“Sorry, sorry,” Serizawa replied quickly, although he didn’t sound like he meant it at all. “How about going for drinks tonight to celebrate? On me,” he offered with a grin.

“Not interested in going out with anyone,” responded Nino in the same neutral tone. “Except Sho,” he added under his breath shyly and shot Sho another look that held a bit more meaning this time.

Sho looked away quickly.

The first time he’d met Nino was months ago, when he’d gone to Tokyo Sougo Security to ask several employees about Enomoto and his disappearance.

Enomoto had left next to nothing behind once he’d gone, other than two clues that were not nearly enough to piece together a case against him and the diamonds he’d stolen. A few conversations led Sho into the basement, where Enomoto’s office had once been. Now it housed another employee, the only one with lock skills comparable to Enomoto.

Nino.

If it wasn’t taboo enough for him to be using a potential criminal’s old office, everyone else in the company avoided Nino due to his sharp attitude. Because of that, the first time Sho came, he swallowed his anxiety and met him alone. That meeting was still a blur, but, although Nino didn’t have any insight on Enomoto, he helped Sho with another case that had been plaguing him, and that had led Sho to come back time and time again.

It didn’t help that Nino seemed unwilling to aid anyone else but Sho.

“Maybe it’s better if you wait up here,” Sho told him hesitantly, when they arrived in the lobby of Tokyo Sougo Security.

“No! Sho, you promised-“ Aiba whined, with a pout sent straight to the heart. “I want to see Nino’s office!”

Sho couldn’t say no to most people, and he was particularly weak to Aiba.

“I tried,” he sighed, and strode off past the reception desk, where the woman greeted him, but didn’t stop him from entering. He’d only been here a few days ago, on the day Nino had revealed the wire trick. It took less than twenty four hours for the police to get a confession out of the grandson, who had tried to frame his own mother using the forged will.

“Ah, Sho-san!”

Sho looked over at the man coming towards him from the large room filled with people on their computers, and bowed in a formal greeting.

“Matsumoto-san.”

“And Aiba’s here too!” Matsumoto grinned, and patted Aiba on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. “You guys are here to see Nino again?”

“Yes,” Sho replied, and Aiba added, “We brought cake!” happily.

“Well, he’s in his office as usual. He’s in a particularly bad mood today.” Jun was just about the only person in the office that dealt with Nino, and by his expression, he was glad Sho and Aiba were there to take some of the heat away from him.

“Cake will cheer him up!” Aiba said with a grin, but Sho and Jun just sighed.

“Bring him some coffee too, would you?” Jun asked, motioning towards the break-room.

“Aiba,” Sho directed, motioning for him to do it, and Aiba nodded without hesitation. Sho was the senior, if only by a year or so. “I’ll go down first.”

“Okay, see you in a minute!”

Sho was glad about the distraction for Aiba, and hurried towards the stairs in the corner. He headed down the flight as fast as he could, and past boxes that indicated a storage area, before he reached Nino’s office. It still looked like it had when Enomoto had been there, full of the things he had left behind, but the company had taken over some of the extra room, and of course Nino’s things were there too, making a bit cluttered.

“Nino,” he called out, not waiting for a reply before he walked past a platform on his right and into the wider area of the room, where the other man would no doubt be playing video games. It was a wonder they hadn’t fired him for that, but then again, losing a man like Enomoto must have been a huge blow to a company like this.

“Sho!”

As expected, he’d been sitting in a rolling chair in front of the oversized TV-a new addition to the room along with all the consoles and the wide game collection surrounding it-but stood as soon as Sho entered the area.

“Sorry to bother you,” Sho said politely with a quick bow.

It was awkward, because Nino’s face looked so open and cute right now, completely different from times he was around other people. Sho remembered the first time Nino gave him that look-in their first case together, after Sho had saved him from a firm beating from their targeted suspect. The man had been a mansion’s bodyguard and Sho had walked away with bruises and a fractured forearm, but he didn’t want to think of the damage that could have been done to Nino in his stead.

“I’m never bothered when you come to spend time with me,” Nino replied shyly, his full attention still on Sho. “What’d you come for today? Did that kid confess to everything?”

“Well, yes,” Sho replied unsurely. Although part of his reason to come today had been to thank Nino for his help-again-there was also a much more serious topic he wanted to discuss, and hopefully before Aiba came back-

“Sho-kun! Nino!”

Too late.

The door banged open, and Aiba came crashing in, as if he’d run all the way there.

“What’s he doing here?” Nino asked with irritation, the expression on his face changing instantly as he glanced towards the back of the room with narrow eyes.

“Nino! I came to see your office! Wow, isn’t this neat?” Aiba babbled as he came towards them, the box of cake and a cup of coffee in hand. Jun came behind him with another two cups, looking vaguely annoyed. He placed them on the table and promptly left.

“Who said you could come in here?” Nino demanded in a low voice. He was acting like a cat trying to protect his territory from an oversized dog. “I hate when people come into my office!”

“Look at this glass case! Are the things in there expensive?” Aiba asked, ignoring Nino’s comments, since that was the easiest way to deal with him. In fact, Nino basically treated everyone like this-except Sho, by some miracle. Of course the first time they’d met he had-it’d taken Sho a lot of convincing to get Nino to help-but after the first case something shifted and Nino suddenly became willing. Sho had learned to appreciate the affection over the course of the rough cases they’d gone through.

“Oh, what’s this? A lamp?” Aiba asked next, without even bothering to wait for the answer, moving around the room in a circle and examining everything. “And videogames?!”

Sho watched with exasperation as Aiba started reaching for game cases on the shelf, and Nino as he furiously tried to stop him.

“Don’t touch them! No one touches my games. Not even Sho-san!” Nino sounded genuinely angry this time, tearing the case out of Aiba’s grip and immediately buffing the plastic on his shirt to rid it of finger prints. “Everything in here is first edition! These are my babies! You can’t even buy this anymore!” he ranted with a red face, and Aiba finally gave in and turned to the table standing in the middle of the room, leaving him alone.

Aiba loved to tease Nino, or at least did it unconsciously, and that’s why Sho hadn’t wanted him to come in the first place.

“So, yes, the case from last week has been concluded,” Sho told Nino firmly, trying to get the situation back on track. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“It was nothing,” Nino pouted in return, still upset but making an effort to be polite to Sho. He continued to check the game case with scrutiny under the lights hanging overhead.

“Thank you, Nino!” Aiba said peppily, and sat his coffee down next to the other two cups in order to undo the box the cake was inside. “I brought your favorite!”

“It’s not like I asked you to,” Nino insisted, finally putting the case back on the shelf where it had been a few moments ago, his actions careful and controlled.

“Don’t be that way,” Aiba replied, pulling out one of the stools stored under the table and sitting down to organize things more easily.

“Nino, there’s something else we need to talk about,” Sho said seriously, taking a step closer. “Enomoto was sighted last night.”

That got Nino’s attention, his eyes wide as he looked at Sho for confirmation. “What?!”

“A train station employee submitted a report to the police office this morning, and they contacted me about it, since it’s my case.”

“That’s…” Nino composed himself and forced an awkward smile. “Impossible. You know as well as I do that Enomoto isn’t that careless.”

“He was caught on the surveillance camera. I have a copy,” Sho explained, placed his briefcase on another one of the stools so he could open it and pull out the folder he’d put together for Nino just before they’d come over.

Nino immediately started looking the information over, sitting on his rolling chair and joining them so they were all crowded around the table.

“It looks like him… But this could have been faked,” Nino declared.

“I know.”

“And the picture’s not that crisp anyway!”

“I know,” Sho said patiently.

“So what are you saying, then?”

“Nothing. I just needed to know that you weren’t hiding something.”

Nino’s mouth dropped at the accusation and he shot Sho an offended look. “I can’t believe you! I promised I’d tell you, didn’t I? If he contacted me?”

“I just needed to confirm it myself,” Sho said dryly, and took the file off the table to return it to his briefcase. “I trust you, you know that, right?”

“Sho…”

“I trust you Nino, so if you hear anything you’ll contact me right away, won’t you?” he asked, piercing Nino with his best sincere look. With the way Nino had been treating him up until now, Sho didn’t think he had any reason to worry, but it was scary to consider that Nino was deceiving him. Out of everyone that had come up in the Enomoto case, Nino was in the position closest to the culprit, based on the testimonies of his co-workers. Aoto had attested to the same thing.

Nino hesitated, but eventually replied, “Yes, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Sho sighed in relief, and grasped Nino’s hand for a second to show his good intentions. He just wanted things set right, and would do what he needed to in order to capture Enomoto and make him face the crimes he’d committed.

At the touch Nino’s tension melted away, and he slumped a little in his chair. He grasped Sho’s hand so hard in return that Sho couldn’t pull it away without using enough effort to make him embarrassed, so he left it there, trying to add to the equity he had with Nino.

“Well, I’m glad everything worked out,” Aiba commented with a grin, digging into the piece of cake that belonged to him-he’d picked it out himself at the cake shop, along with one for Nino and Sho. Nino followed suit and docilely nibbled at his desert while Sho decided to go for his coffee instead.

There was still a long road to catching Enomoto Kei, but Sho could feel something shifting. The conclusion was coming, faster than he had expected it to.

The afternoon sun was streaming through the cracks in the closed blinds, giving Sho even more of a headache than he already had. He rubbed his temples with both hands, slumping against his desk in exasperation.

He’d gotten a phone call twenty minutes ago, and it’d ruined his day. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this coming, but the blow hurt more than Sho had thought it would.

The report for a piece of evidence against Enomoto had come back from the lab, and he’d sent Aiba over to pick it up. As soon as his partner got back to the office Sho would look over it in detail, but from what Aiba had told him on the phone…

He took a sip of lukewarm coffee from his mug and sighed angrily.

“Sho-chan! Here I am-“ Aiba burst through the office door, and Sho stood up immediately to meet him, his tranquil mood shattering. “I came as fast as I could.” He must have been telling the truth, because he was panting for breath and sweat was dripping off of him.

“Thank you, Aiba,” Sho replied formally, and didn’t wait to reach for the envelope when Aiba offered it to him.

He tore it open and began glancing over the results on the page.

Inaccurate match. Forged document.

Those were the words that stood out against everything else, and Sho cringed, feeling like he was about to have a mental breakdown.

Sho fell into his chair, throwing the papers onto the table and closing his eyes as he leaned back. One of their two scare pieces of evidence was gone.

“Maybe it’s a mistake…” Aiba asked tentatively. “We can take it to another office…”

“No,” Sho rejected the idea immediately. The one he’d sent it to he’d trusted entirely, otherwise he wouldn’t have used them in the first place. “It’s probably accurate.”

“I mean, how can it be fake?” Aiba whined, sitting down in the chair in front of Sho’s desk that was meant for client use. “The police found it!”

Poor, naïve Aiba. He was still too green, and it was Sho’s job to fix that.

“The police were probably the ones to forge it. If not for the purpose of creating evidence, at least using it to get a search warrant.”

Aiba looked appalled at the idea, but Sho was convinced that was the case. He’d seen it happen more than once in his line of work.

With this blow, their case wasn’t going to be able to hold up to anything. From the start it had been flimsy at best, but Sho had been hoping that he could piece something together, or that something else would show up.

Without warning, his office door opened again, this time it was Serizawa coming in, looking disgruntled.

“You are dropping that case, do you hear me?” he demanded. “It’s a waste of time, I’ve told you from the start!”

Sho clenched his jaw, in the most terrible mood possible for dealing with his boss. “How can you just let him get away? He shamed your name with his crime, not to mention the police have already given up on bringing him to justice!”

“Exactly! The police have given up. They’re not cooperating with you, and now you don’t even have any evidence!” he replied. “I got the report, they called me not five minutes after your partner here picked them up the results! You’ve been left high and dry!”

“It doesn’t matter! We still have the second piece of evidence, the carpet with his prints on it!” Sho shot back. The prints hadn’t been clear-they weren’t even from his fingers, but his feet where he had been walking in socks-but it was enough to prove that he had been in the house. They just needed a more detailed report, one that they couldn’t get within Japan. They were on a waiting list for a university in Sweden, and Sho didn’t care if he had to pay for the report out of his own pocket anymore.

“Give it up,” Serizawa demanded with an irritated look. “As your boss, I’m telling you to give it up. Stop wasting your time.”

“Boss, could it be that…” Aiba broke in with wide eyes, “That you actually don’t want Enomoto to get caught?”

Serizawa scrunched up his face and shook his head in disgust before shrugging his shoulders. Sho already knew of his boss’s affection for Enomoto-he’d never admit it for fear of public backlash, but the trail of cases they had solved together with Aoto had left Serizawa with a soft spot for the other man. It wasn’t something that Serizawa would admit out loud, especially not to Aiba, whom he considered too low on the company hierarchy for a serious conversation.

“What I’m saying is that Sakurai could be actually working for me with that time,” he said sharply with a pointed glare at Sho. Aiba glanced at him too, looking offended at the insult and ready to defend his partner, but Sho motioned for Aiba not to push the topic anymore.

“My productivity is as high as ever,” Sho assured him in a stern voice, and began putting the report spread on his desk away to show that he was willing to leave the argument there for today.

“Listen to my advice, Sakurai. Drop the case,” said Serizawa as a final warning before turning on his heel and heading back out the door.

Once they were alone again, Aiba watched him and Sho gave him a determined look in return.

“Check out that waiting list would you? See if there’s anything we can do to speed it up.”

“Now this is the proper way to thank me!” Nino sighed happily, taking a gulp of his beer as he stared at Sho dreamily across the table. The air of the Japanese bar they’d met at was heavy with smoke and condensation, but that simply made the atmosphere more perfect.

Sho had been in the mood to drink, and figured he might as well treat Nino as thanks for his help over the last few months. As expected, Aiba had wanted to come too, but Sho had managed to find a plausible excuse to leave him out. Dealing with Nino was a lot more trouble when Aiba was with him.

“It’s nothing,” Sho assured him with a tense smile. He’d already explained everything about he forged evidence to Nino earlier over the phone. Nino hadn’t been surprised either, but had sympathized with him about the loss.

“It’s really too bad about your case, though,” Nino replied with a consoling expression. “And then they moved the last piece of evidence out of the police headquarters and to that storage room…”

“It’s cruel isn’t it?” Sho sighed. Everything had gone to hell that afternoon, so it was no wonder he wanted to get drunk tonight. “And then getting chewed out by my boss…”

“That Serizawa guys a real jerk, huh?”

The comment made Sho’s smile turned more authentic, but he shook his head. “No, he’s right. It’s my fault for not letting it go.”

“No, you’re admirable for being so avid about following things through,” Nino assured him. “It’s one of the things I like about you.”

Sho wanted to ask what other things there were, but he refrained himself. Obviously it had to be about his handsome face, because there was no other reason he could come up with. All of the women who had admired him from afar backed off when they realized that Sho being unable to say no didn’t necessarily translate to gentleness.

Besides, with the ways his emotions were tonight, Sho would far too susceptible to Nino’s empathetic words, and wanted to avoid a compromising situations if possible. Not only was Sho an infamous pervert when he drank, but he recently found himself thinking of Nino far too intimately.

Nino took his silence as something else though, and smirked before teasing with a face flushed by alcohol, “Are you going to take me home with you tonight, Sho? Because I’ll go if you ask me to…”

“Of course not,” Sho let out a nervous laugh and averted his eyes. “This is an outing between colleagues, Nino.”

“Of course,” Nino replied, but his tone didn’t sound like he thought that was the case at all. He leaned forward and began dishing food onto Sho’s place with a charming smile, and Sho’s face was red from more than the beer. He should probably stop at one, or he’d do something he’d regret tomorrow morning.

Nino got himself some food too, and began nibbling at it as Sho did his best not to down the alcohol in one go. Nino’s gaze was pleased for a moment, but Sho saw the instant he changed, the light dimming a little and Nino’s expression becoming tight.

“Hey, Sho?” he asked quietly, averting his eyes.

Sho gave up and gulped down the rest of his beer before turning his attention fully to Nino, wondering what was wrong.

“Yes?”

“I know it’s not my place to ask, but… Why do you hate Enomoto so much?”

Sho’d never met Enomoto before, but Serizawa, Aoto, and Nino seemed to think he was a decent person, despite his long list of crimes.

From his standpoint, though, Sho could see the plain truth of the situation, and wasn’t fooled.

“I’m telling you this because I trust you,” Sho said slowly, making sure Nino knew what he was getting himself in to. Nino’s eyes widened, but he nodded solemnly in understanding.

Sho sighed and signaled for another beer.

“My younger sister was working as a security analyst for the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art three years ago,” he started quietly. “She worked closely with Enomoto for several months to upgrade their system. Before the update could be finished, a priceless ruby brooch was stolen from the display and my sister was immediately fired. Her career was ruined. She blames herself for all of it.”

There was a moment of solemn silence, interrupted by the cheerful waitress bringing another pair of beers to the table. Sho immediately took his, but refrained from drinking any of it right away.

“It was my first case as a lawyer under Serizawa. There were no clues left behind, not one finger print or hair out of place,” Sho eventually continued. “I was helpless and could only give up in the end.” The self loathing and shame was coming back and Sho felt the urge to hide his face from Nino, but he didn’t. Nino held his eyes, and Sho knew he could trust him. He had to trust him.

“Why do you think it was Enomoto?” Nino asked in a low voice. He didn’t accuse him of being wrong, and for that, Sho was grateful.

“I didn’t consider it at all, until the case with Shiina Akira. Aoto was keeping me up to date on it-probably because I was the only one who’d listen. Then Enomoto suddenly disappears with fake diamonds in his wake? I talked to Kouno from police investigations and he filled in the gaps for me. Even if I can’t catch him,” Sho stopped when his voice suddenly got passionate, and paused to collect himself. “Even if I can only prove it was Enomoto, that’s enough,” he said in a more controlled voice.

“Enomoto, the perfectionist,” Nino whispered, as if he knew exactly what Sho was getting at.

“Even when I confronted her about it, my sister told me it was her own fault, that Enomoto had nothing to do with it. Unless I can make a case against him, she’ll never forgive herself,” Sho ended quietly.

“I understand,” Nino told him with a consoling expression, leaning across the table to gently touch Sho’s wrist, where his hand was still holding his beer. “I’ll… I’ll do my best to help you.”

The expression that met Sho’s own was honest and a little painful-Sho knew how high of a regard Nino held for Enomoto. They’d been work partners for years, when Sho had only known Nino a few months. So he was grateful that Nino was so willing to help him despite that.

“Thank you,” Sho finally smiled, and touched Nino’s hand lightly with own. Nino’s face softened and he looked down at Sho’s fingers bashfully as they pressed into his skin.

But it was that moment that the cell phone in his pocket started buzzing, and Sho pulled it out immediately, hoping it wasn’t a call from Aiba demanding his attention because he hadn’t been invited tonight. When he answered it Nino frowned at him as if he was thinking the same thing.

“This is Sakurai,” he said as professionally as possible. The noises from the bar were probably audible, but it was late and not like he was expected to be on shift, assuming it wasn’t Aiba.

“Sho-chan!” It was his partner after all, and his panicked voice immediately sobered Sho up. “There was a break-in at The Annex!”

“What?!” he gasped, mind going blank.

“They stole it, the carpet with Enomoto’s print!”

“Impossible…” Sho couldn’t think straight from shock. The day they’d moved it, the only piece of evidence left…

“What is it?” Nino asked with worry, examining Sho’s face as he spoke with Aiba. But Sho didn’t have a moment to answer him, too worried about the news.

“What are we going to do, Sho?” Aiba asked through the receiver.

Sho’s eyes twitched back and forth without focusing on anything while he thought about it. What was there to do? The whole case seemed dismal from the beginning, but it was unfathomable to continue without even one piece of evidence.

Sho was never one to give up though, and he managed to find the ray of hope in such a terrible situation.

“We’re going to find out who did it,” he replied without reserve, anger flooding through his veins, accelerated by the alcohol he’d consumed. “If we can it might lead us to Enomoto himself.”

“Enomoto?” Nino whispered with a look of startlement, and leaned closer in order to keep up with the conversation.

“Can we?” Aiba seemed doubtful, but Sho knew he would do anything that Sho asked him to. He could trust Aiba, and use his pure intent to his advantage. Nino was there too, and even if he couldn’t get along with Aiba, they were still a team. They would figure this case out together.

“Fine out as much as you can and meet me back at the office. I’ll head to The Annex tomorrow as early as possible.”

Sho hung up and began collecting his things before he paused, Nino’s hand on his shoulder.

“Stop for a moment,” Nino said calmly. “Finish eating dinner, and drink some water. We’re going to need our wits about us if we’re not going to get any sleep tonight.”

“We?” Sho asked, not sure if he could allow himself to read into Nino’s words like he wanted to.

“I’m coming with you, of course,” confirmed Nino with a signature smirk on his cute little lips.

Part Two