***
The entire time Noda had been inside the office, Eiichi could sense the two outputs moving about in the room and the changes in their mood. It had been difficult, with the several sensei in the room, but he could pick out the two from where he could place his focus. From the change in Noda’s output, which had a tinge of red added to it from being irritated with him, and the ashen-white output of the girl, he had a vague idea of how the conversation played out, even if he didn’t hear it.
When Noda’s output separated from the girl’s, this signified the conversation was over. His conclusion was that Noda had not been able to coax much out of her. She didn’t even get her name. In a funny way, he recognized Noda’s reaction to this, and her own memory of it from when they first met.
Noda stepped out of the office.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not a thing. She was too scared to even give me her name. I even gave her my number.”
“That’s a response to losing control. She feels she doesn’t have control over much else, so for her own safety, she’s withholding her name, because it’s one of the few things she feels she has control over. She’s definitely paranoid.”
He figured it best if he didn’t mention Reiko’s name right off the bat.
“What should we do now?”
He stepped away from the wall and Noda followed.
“I suggest we go to the roof to talk this over some more. No one else should hear this.”
After migrating to their destination, Eiichi lit up a smoke and sat on one of the benches against the perimeter ledge. Noda had planted her knees on the seat of the same bench, and was taking pictures of a lonely sun above the mountains through the chain link, probably to get her mind off the images from earlier.
His elbows were planted on his knees, his cigarette hand supporting his chin. “She doesn’t know who it is, and that’s causing her to be suspicious of everyone...”
“Well since we don’t know much about her, why don’t we focus more on the stalker instead?”
“There’s only so much we can do with that. We can look up all kinds of information about the mind, but that’s only going to tell us his likely frame of mind, not how to find him.”
Noda was silent, her legs moving subtly in the corner of his eye as her camera made a series of mechanical clicks.
“Why are you suddenly so interested in helping her?” she asked.
Eiichi rolled his cigarette between his fingers before taking a drag. “Why were you so interested in that tech thief situation?”
Her voice swayed sardonically. “You could try to answer my question first~”
He smiled.
Noda leaned in excitedly. “So what was it? When she bumped into you, was she synonymously knocking you off your feet?”
Eiichi heaved an exhausted sigh.
“Did she steal your wayward heart and run off with it? Or are you just into girls with glasses?”
“You wear glasses!”
He had whipped around to face her. She gawked back at him with wide open eyes and a gaping mouth.
“Ack!...Uh!...That’s not my point!” her eyes shut tight and she waved the camera above her head threateningly.
Eiichi was immediately seized by loud belts of hilarity.
“Oh, he laughs. I thought he’d never laugh. That’s good~...healthy and...immature...”
She went back to looking through her camera. After he calmed down, she looked back at him.
“So, you gonna’ answer my question or not?”
“If you’ll give me a chance.” He wiped his eyes and gave his burning chest a chance to loosen up.
He needed that. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that.
He couldn’t tell her exactly why, so he had to ease in his ‘suspicions’.
“Well, why shouldn’t we? She needs help. We have no idea how long she’s been dealing with this, it could be too long.”
He knew it had been too long. Her output was unstable. If she went any longer without help, no matter how it turned out, the results could be permanent and disastrous. And the evidence of what was taking place revealed the consequences could be dire, if something was not done about it. Her pursuer was moving in, closer, every day.
“What makes you think it’s been going on for so long?”
“You remember what she was like. And there are so many stalking cases in Saitama alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t gotten around to hers yet, depending on what’s been submitted to evidence.”
Noda stopped taking pictures. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t help her, I was just curious about why you had the sudden change of heart.”
“I went along with you the first time.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t until after danger was present. Those guys came after us, and you were suddenly all ‘gung-ho’. I thought it was because it hurt your pride or something.”
“My pride?”
“Well, I don’t know...” She was still mad with him. “I’m just saying it’s weird that you suddenly decided to side with me.”
He was definitely detecting a hint of jealousy. Not the big, fiery, passionate kind, just the sort of feeling one gets when they feel their place has been overrun. Before, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with what she had to offer, and suddenly, after bumping into a random girl, he had started giving orders while she just played along.
Even with his abilities, there were things he missed from time to time.
He turned his head. “I’m sorry.”
Noda looked back at him, “For what? What could you possibly have to be sorry for?”
Refraining from giving her a smirk, he stood up.
“I mean it. It was your idea from the get-go, and I suddenly took control without considering how you felt. I truly am sorry.”
She lowered her camera and stepped down from the bench. There was a red imprint across her knees from the planks, how could she stay like that for so long!?
Ignoring this, he extended his hand, “If we’re going to help her, I want both of us to do it.”
She set her camera against her hip and looked at him.
“I forgive you.” She placed her hand in his, but looked down. “But I don’t know about this...I’m worried we might be jumping in too early. What if the police finally get involved and we’re caught in the middle?”
“There are risks. I need you to be able to respond if an opportunity presents itself. If you don’t, we could miss something vital, or get in trouble. But I’ve got your back.”
“But how do you want to tackle this?”
“Well...first step would be observation.”
She repeated his own words, “I don’t think I like where you’re going with this.”
“It’s the best thing I can think of.”
She thrust her hand out of his. “You want us to stalk the girl that’s already being stalked!?”
“You tell me if you’ve got a better idea.”
“Do you know how insane that sounds!?”
“How else are we going to get information from her?”
“Why don’t we just talk to her?”
“You said it yourself, she’s too scared to say anything.”
“I can understand wanting to help her, but that is not cool!”
She began feeling a twinge of guilt about something, but was able to brush it off before he could get a good read on it.
“I’m just...not sure about the way you’re suggesting we go about this.”
“That’s why I wanted you to talk to her, but that didn’t work out so well, so now we have to do this.”
Placing her hand over her chest, Noda stared back at him with intense resolve. He wasn’t used to this from her.
She spoke, stern fear making her voice waver. “Listen, I know you might think just because I’m a photographer that I would be okay with this. Yeah, I’ve watched people from afar and I’ve even taken pictures of them, but I never did
it to any one person, and I never followed anyone around for the sake of ‘observation’ or to satisfy some sick urge!” Distraught, she searched in her mind for something as an alternative. “Can’t we...I don’t know. Ask around about her?”
He wondered if he was already asking too much of her. She had been fine stalking criminals, but now he was asking her to do the same with an innocent person in a state of suffering. He felt her convictions, and empathized that they were very much his own. The subtle irony that greeted him was that it seemed their roles had been reversed.
“I know that’s not who you are, Noda...but who would we ask? Not only do we not know who’s associated with her, but we would stand out, asking questions about a girl who’s so bashful that not many people know of her. Whatever friends she has would pick up on that, fast.”
“But if we follow her, one slip-up, and we could end up in a lot of trouble. She, and anyone else who knows, would think we’re the ones stalking her.”
“That’s why we need to be absolutely careful. I told you, we’re taking a big risk going into this.”
“I just don’t know...”
Understandably, there was too much she cherished, so many factors and elements in her life she did not want to risk losing. Before, the risk level had been high, but there was a difference. The people they were pursuing had been avoiding police involvement, and Noda had relied on the police to help. The danger had still caused her to take what she held dear into consideration. But now, if Reiko or someone else made them, there was the possibility of facing harassment charges for a crime they didn’t commit.
“I have to think this over...”
Her output clammed up, and he knew she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
Without another word spoken, they decided to leave. He held the door open for her and they silently made their way down the dark stairwell to the top floor.
At the bottom, he held the door for her again, and could see the early evening sunlight just shining in through the windows of the hall. It was likely there were other clubs operating right now, but some of them were probably beginning to pack up for the day.
They had just stepped into the hall when a very faint sound met their ears.
Eiichi stopped, looking down the two halls that met at the corner, where they had just left the roof access stairwell. It sounded rather out of place, unless a club had begun watching a sci-fi flick, or it was some kind of alien research club experimenting with alpha waves.
Noda had stopped as well. She could hear it too.
It was synthetic, definitely some kind of computer-generated sound. The sound seemed to flux and contour itself, making minimal, repeated notes that overlapped each other. It was accompanied by a melody of single, extended notes that must have been an imitation of violins, playing a slow, woeful melody, only, too synthesized to sound like the real thing. Nonetheless, the sound was intriguing.
Noda’s curiosity had flared up and out of her previous convictions from earlier.
“Do you hear that…?” she asked.
“Yup…”
“It’s down this way,” she said, pointing to the left, where instead of windows facing outside, there were class doors on both sides of the hall.
Following her lead, he observed as the sudden stimulus caused her to take her mind off of the decision that had been so troubling for her.
Walking through the hall, Noda peeked through the door windows of club rooms. Eiichi would follow after, noticing they were dark and empty. A few still had people inside, having discussions or working on projects.
The more rooms they peeked into, the more curious she became, and she slowly forgot Eiichi’s proposition from earlier. This made him smile a little.
The further up the hall they traveled, the louder the sound became, until they passed two more rooms that had no one inside, and came upon one that did.
The door had been cracked open, and Noda knelt down to peek through, while Eiichi leaned over her and looked as well.
The classroom was completely empty, save for one lone individual. A boy with fair, blond hair sat on top of a table that he had pushed up against one of the windows. He was facing out toward one of the courtyards, but they were on the top floor, and the outer perimeter of the school was visible, as well as the buildings of the nearby metropolitan area, that sat against the horizon.
Aside from the boy, the first thing that was visible was the white guitar in his hands. He had such a small frame that it looked bulky and cumbersome in his arms. Next to him on the table were a cell phone and a bluetooth speaker. On the floor, facing him, was what must have been some kind of small amplifier.
His right hand hovered over the back of the instrument, with his left cradling its neck. The synthetic sounds had continued, accompanied by more futuristic additions to its melody line, when momentarily, the melody became silent, and only the brief electronic pulses were left.
All at once, his right hand shot off at a lighting pace, the palm rested against a black, metal device that the strings were attached to. It had a black, metal rod sticking out of one end.
The kid’s hand fluttered in a mechanical repetition of a specific procession of notes. A drum beat resounded from what must have been the speaker, and the guitar being filtered through the amp created a chunky, chaotic sound that Eiichi was more familiar with from his favorite metal bands. The kid’s left hand pinched its fingers down on the neck in places that seemed random to them, but must have been important to its owner. At the end of each rhythmic pattern, the kid played an odd note that made the instrument sound like it was screaming.
The player stopped, and an echo of what he had just finished playing rang out at a distant volume for a couple seconds. Then his hand shot up the neck and began playing a procession of sustained notes.
For a moment, Eiichi thought it was a guitar solo, but then he realized the kid was really playing a melody line.
A frantic, unseen drummer kept a chaotic tempo, with unseen guitarists attacking the rhythm, and backing synthetic sounds, while the kid played. His left fingers moved simply, but methodically, while his right gripped the rod that had been hanging there. Every time he pushed it down or up, the notes he played seemed to fall or rise in conjunction.
Eiichi pushed the door open some, and Noda looked up at him questioningly. Pursing his lips and placing a finger over them, he quietly stepped around her, and she followed after him.
The kid was so focused, they were able to get as close as a few feet from the table without him noticing.
Eiichi knew exactly who it was now.
His glasses sat folded on the table next to his phone. His head was leaning down, eyes closed behind his locks, but simply from his output, Eiichi knew.
All of the backing music was being played through the bluetooth speaker. The guitar in Yukichi’s hands had been the only instrument in his control.
Eiichi P.I., Vol. 1 Page 22
