by T L Brevis
“Sadly, my foolproof plans were for the most part not replicated, so I had no choice but to literally send them in fake email accounts I made, impersonating one of the organizers of the events in order to save those people’s lives. It was there that I found the joy of helping others.”
“Interesting. Quite a hefty amount of information you have not told me about that whole escapade. I would like to hear more of your stories in the future,” Hiroshi said before turning his head for the first time in the hours the two lay there.
“Hey, Makoto. Despite the circumstances of our meeting, you are my first true friend. You have been the first of my age group that I can really trust. Thank you,” said Hiroshi, in a perhaps overly serious tone.
“No problem, but don’t you get embarrassed saying those kinds of things?”
“No, those foolish social stigmas mean nothing to me. Anyway, I think it is about time we get back to work now. Kaito told me we’re about to move motels again this morning. I think a fresh new room will accompany a fresh new mindset quite well wouldn’t it?” said Hiroshi as he stood up and put his hand out to help Makoto stand as well.
“Sure, but why doesn’t he ever tell me anything? We live together now after all.”
The two walked the few blocks to return to their current motel room. They chatted playfully about the hassle of packing and moving so often, well, Makoto being the one to carry that conversation in particular. Regardless, Hiroshi could not wipe the now permanent smile off his face for those joyful, simple minutes.
∞
“Alright, fresh mindset, fresh mission, as I said,” Hiroshi told Makoto while turning on his now fully-charged laptop.
The two sat on rickety wooden chairs next to one another. The one Makoto was seated in being the one they had shifted from its original position of being opposite the other.
“It seems like just yesterday when you gave me two shocks of my life in just two meetings, you know,” said Makoto. He lifted his head up to face the ceiling with a melancholic smile.
“Firstly, you told me my uncle had been a criminal all this while, and secondly, you told me about those absurd eyes of yours. At first, I was convinced you were lying about those so called ‘magical eyes’. How very convenient it would be for only other users of that mystical thing to be able to see it? Something out of a fairy tale, and it certainly did not help your case much.
“You told me to test it out by searching for an image of someone you could not possibly know, and I searched for a random image of a man online while I forced you to wait outside of the room. You came back in, and I spent the next two hours watching you stare blankly at the image I had found. I was convinced all of your intelligence by this point had backfired and driven you to insanity, and I was unfortunately the one with you when it happened, but no.
“You proceeded to tell me everything about this man. From his full name to address. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I was astonished and knew instantly you were on another level from me, then you reaffirmed that thought with your outstanding display at my criminal uncle’s house party. You really are something special, you know, Hiroshi. Also, I’m glad I can say that without, as you call them, foolish social stigmas coming into play.”
As if right on cue, Hiroshi’s laptop finished turning on and everything loaded in only a few seconds. Hiroshi was relieved that his computer had rescued him from having to take any more of Makoto’s complements, and attempted to dodge those sentiments.
“That’s all well and good, but I think it’s about time to get to work now, don’t you?” replied Hiroshi.
“Yes. Let’s do this perfectly. Owari and those detectives are just obstacles in our goal to end this world’s suffering and we’re going to accomplish that goal no matter what it takes, isn’t that right?”
Hiroshi knew there was another goal, something far more personal to him, but he would not mention it and ruin Makoto’s words of motivation.
The two looked into one another’s faces for what seemed like an eternity, then turned in anticipation to Hiroshi’s laptop. Hiroshi opened the folders to reach his destination like clockwork, not missing a beat, but pausing just before opening the folder to view the next criminal's face. He paused for just a second, then opened it, and without even looking at the preview, immediately double-clicked on the image file.
Both boys were utterly stunned at what they witnessed. It was a boy, maybe a few years older than them staring back at them, with black hair and eyes of the same color with bags under them, accompanied by a blank expression on his face, seated in a dark room.
“W-Wait, this can’t be right, can it?!” exclaimed Makoto while turning to Hiroshi who just stared at the picture, frozen with his eyes widened to their limit.
“No... It must be a mistake. For a child to be working for Owari?! To be completely conscious of his actions, and working for Owari?! This can’t be, the closest person I've encountered was Masashi Mori, and even then, his father was undoubtedly mostly to blame, this boy obviously is acting on his own!” Hiroshi exclaimed with double the volume of the shaken Makoto beside him.
Hiroshi immediately clicked off the image and went back to the previous folder to open up this teenager’s supposed “crimes” as he had done with every criminal before, although not nearly as quickly as he was now.
Despite his yearning for it to be, it was not a mistake. It was much too detailed to be a mistake. Hiroshi had thoughts about this kind of thing occurring before, more so after meeting Makoto. Another child with intelligence like theirs, but one who used that intelligence for crime. This boy, named Hakku Noroi was the personification of that. It all left Hiroshi confused and disheartened. What was worse was the thought that if Hiroshi did not stop Owari with Makoto and Kaito, they would go on to abduct and brainwash the future generations of Noromi users, and kill countless more children through their murderers as well.
It was decided. Although unspoken, Hiroshi and Makoto both knew what had to be done. They would kill this boy as they would any other criminal that had committed crimes as heinous as he, and prevent as many other children from doing the same as possible, especially Noromi users. Their actions would be vital for the future, and that was put into perspective now more than ever before.
“Let’s treat this like a normal case. There was always that possibility of someone around our age-group using their intelligence for crime and we have got to accept that and prevent it in the future,” said Makoto.
“Well, if there's any humor in this, I guess it would be how scarily similar our mindsets are,” said Hiroshi with a faint smile, now looking down at his laptop’s keyboard.
“I figured you would think along those lines too. Alright, hurry it up and get his information. I’ll go buy us snacks at the convenience store,” said Makoto, obviously attempting to lighten the mood.
“Well, now you’ve done it. That’s all I'll be thinking about for these two hours you know,” replied Hiroshi with a smile, also trying to join in, but a hint of sadness naturally entered his tone in the process.
“Oh yea, make sure to fill me in on that plan of yours for this case. You did say you went over almost every single possibility in your head, didn't you?”
“Well, I did, however, I unfortunately did not account for people our age. I apologize for my optimism, but I simply could not face the reality of it being possible.”
“Good to hear I could at least be somewhat helpful with this. Well, I'm off.”
“See you later.”
“Alright, I suppose it is time to begin,” Hiroshi thought, the sense of motivation he had felt any number of times when repeating this meticulous process flooding back to him. He would take this boy down to prove to the world, as well as himself that he would stop at nothing to protect the innocence of this world and get closer to annihilating Owari, even if the perpetrator he would have to kill belonged to the same group he was attempting to protect.
∞
“A
ny minute now, my friend. Any second and we can begin planning,” said Makoto childishly, while staring directly at Hiroshi.
Hiroshi was just ignoring him. He had been teasing Hiroshi ever since he had returned from the convenience store. Waving around the snacks he had purchased, teasing Hiroshi on his slouched position, and many more infuriatingly juvenile comments.
The previous one hour and twenty-five minutes had been the period in time that Hiroshi truly began to understand how utterly childish even the most incredible minds could really be. He had realized that Makoto’s incredibly formal behavior when they had first met was precautionary and now he was showing his real side. Hiroshi suspected his comment about social stigmas being nonsense only fueled the fire.
Hiroshi, of course, knew this meant he had to be one of the few, maybe even the only one that Makoto trusted enough to show this side to, and it truly displayed how close they had gotten. However, that had not made his behavior any less insufferable. He was counting the seconds until he could punch Makoto square in the face to get him to finally quiet down, and just then, the moment in question was only ten seconds away.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,” Hiroshi was counting the last seconds until his moment of retaliatory glory was to come.
“Three, two, one,” Hiroshi smiled and curled his right fingers into a fist, turned to Makoto, who was still spewing grade-school level taunts and threw his fist towards his face, grinning widely all the while.
However, Hiroshi stopped, a hair’s length before he had struck Makoto’s nose with pin-point precision. He froze as the information that was at the back of his mind sprung to the forefront in an instant.
Makoto had a stunned expression on his face, and Hiroshi’s matched his own.
“So, you realized the error of your ways, trying to strike the great, genius, Makoto Waru, huh? That’s alrig-”
Hiroshi placed his index finger directly in the middle of Makoto’s lips, forming a “shh” sign to quiet him, making direct eye contact with him.
“I got it. I know everything we need,” said Hiroshi almost in a whisper.
“I’ll give you the rundown of everything I know now. From the information Kaito included on him, where it is specified that he is a school dropout, I can deduce he is a social recluse as well due to his technological-related crimes.
“He works for a number of organizations, selling off information on their competition, and as a result, severely damaging them, and in some instances, even causing them to shut down, leaving thousands unemployed and homeless,” Hiroshi continued, gritting his teeth now and hardening his expression, in unison with his resolve.
“So what have you come up with to counter that? It will be much more difficult than simply getting in a crowd as we did with my uncle.”
“Well, I have executed missions on my targets in their own homes before, however, this is a different case. All of those people lived alone but this boy does not. Despite that, this will be easily avoidable. I was able to discover that this boy’s father died and that he lives with his mother. As a result, she almost definitely works. Even though the boy most likely makes more than enough to sustain the household, I doubt his mother would willingly go along with it. Therefore, he most likely hides the fact from her.
“Anyway, getting back to how we will estimate our best window of time to strike, we will have to examine a number of things related to an average Japanese occupation.
“The average working times in Japan are 8 am until 5 pm with a one hour break usually at 12 pm. To be safe, we will strike at a time with at least a two-hour difference from break time, as his mother’s company’s schedule could vary. The reason we are taking breaks into account is because a fair amount of adults take their lunch breaks at home, and we can never be too careful.
“So anywhere from 8 am to 10 am or 2 pm to 5 pm. To make things simpler and to ensure we have a larger window of time for the mission, we will go with the 2 pm to 5 pm window.”
“Alright. Sounds good. Do you have any more information on him?”
“Well, I discovered that he lives in quite a standard high-rise apartment, does not require anything abnormal to survive and of course what I mentioned about his mother. Let us begin planning”
∞
The two boys casually made their way to Hakku Noroi’s home, one step at a time. They were trying their best to blend in, a stack of posters in each of their right hands, wearing casual T-shirts and shorts. Makoto’s childish side did prove beneficial in this scenario, and although it annoyed Hiroshi to no end, he nonetheless mimicked the behavior and began to “act his age” as well, something he was not fond of, but on few occasions such as this, was forced to do.
They were swiftly closing in on the apartment complex in question, the time being 3:14 pm. As they got closer and closer, Hiroshi’s resolve grew, and although Makoto was making juvenile jokes beside him, he knew that same sentiment definitely held true for him as well.
They were finally about a block away from Hakku Noroi’s apartment and Hiroshi’s determination only grew more colossal with every passing moment. Seconds later, they both stopped in unison at the first apartment building in the complex they had encountered. This was necessary as to not seem suspicious and Hiroshi had adopted this tactic when carrying out missions similar to this prior. It was unlikely he would ever be suspected and much less likely that anyone would find his choice of which building to enter as incriminating, but nonetheless, this type of caution was necessary for Hiroshi now.
The pair quickly made their way through the entrance and to the elevator. As was necessary, they ascended through the building, floor by floor, unit by unit, handing out the flyers they had on hand to any resident that would accept them. It did not matter if they did or not, so long as the pair at least made an attempt to distribute them. In only a few minutes of being shouted at, greeted with smiles and everything in between, they had finally visited every door on the first five floors of the apartment building.
They quickly entered the main elevator and successfully made it to the first floor without anyone else entering. They did not falter in their act of being as childish as possible during this time either.
By repeating this process in the next four buildings, they had finally poised their strike on Hakku Noroi, whose building was the 6th. They did not break character however; they were being loud and obnoxious through and through as if nothing had changed at all. They did so all the way up to the third floor where Hakku Noroi’s home was located. If this Hakku Noroi was anything like how his crimes made him out to be, he would despise immature people, presumably viewing himself as a prodigy, with others his age not being worth his time, and would angrily storm over to the door, which would make their plan all the more convenient to execute.
Despite such close proximity, they still kept up the same routine by visiting each apartment in the proper order. Hakku Noroi’s apartment was the third unit on the third floor, his being at the end of the corridor, one of the many found after exiting the elevator on every floor, while the other two were found along that same corridor.
Hiroshi and Makoto proceeded to the apartment on the right, which was also the closest to the corridor's entrance, as the two doors were not completely parallel to each other, but rather split up for convenience's sake.
However, Hiroshi and Makoto did not have a moment to spare to consider this intelligible architecture, which had also been found on every floor before this one, but instead continued as per normal and knocked on the door they had to turn their bodies 90 degrees right to stand directly in front of.
They repeated the same phrase they had every time previously, essentially word-for-word to the elderly man who had answered impatiently. He slammed his door in the two boy’s face, but that hardly mattered to them.
They repeated the process at the next door in the corridor and were met with the opposite reaction from an elderly woman who graciously accepted their flyer, the
n proceeding to glare at the door of the rude man for a good few seconds before shutting hers as well.
Their heartbeats quickened ever so slightly as Hiroshi raised his left hand to ring the doorbell of the final, most important door in the entire complex, bending it across his chest to reach the right-leaning doorbell. They did not allow their playful expressions and conversation to falter, as they hadn’t for the entire time before this.
They waited with bated breath as they heard fast-paced footsteps come closer and closer toward the door a few seconds after Hiroshi had completed the action. He was confused. A recluse with this much of a spring in his step? Well before he had any more time to ponder on the strange occurrence, the doorknob turned and the door itself flung open.
The two boys’ eyes widened and their smiles faded from their faces as quickly as their hearts were now beating. The person who stood in front of them did nothing less than leave them both speechless with only their very appearance. It was not the boy whom they had seen on Hiroshi’s laptop. It was a stunning, middle-aged woman with black hair, matching her eyes, paired with a wide, warm smile.
