"How many times have I told you to have an article checked before you send it for online publication?" He snarled.
"Sorry, sir," Furusawa Emi apologized. "But my sources were reliable."
"Your sources? Like with the elementary school principal's case? Do you never learn or what?" He scolded her, pounding his fingers on his desk.
Chief Editor Kuroba was once again angry with the young woman, and it wasn't the first time this had happened. Because of the repetitiveness of these warnings, it was a long time since anyone had paid attention to the mood swings of their superior.
Nor to the more than inappropriate and irresponsible repartee of the young woman.
"Sir! I'm really sure of what I'm saying this time!" She contradicted him. "I still have evidence that I can use to support my article, and people that I can question, if you give me time! "
"In that case, why didn't you do it all along?" He exclaimed. "It's always the same with you, you just go for it without caring about others!"
"I wasn't sure enough yet to use the other evidence I could gather, but I know now-"
"You know what? That you're going to make a fool of us again with a story that has no basis in fact?" He said, cutting her off in her sentence. "I'm tired of getting complaints, and really, this is the last time."
The editor-in-chief's very sharp tone would surely have discouraged or intimidated more than one reporter. But not the young woman, who took it as just another challenge.
"In that case, my next article will be foolproof and absolutely ironclad!" She exclaimed.
"It better be, otherwise it might be your last one!" He warned her.
She was already convinced that her next subject would be the right one.
Certainly, she should have been more careful the previous times. But each time, witnesses recanted, or the lack of evidence made her articles look like slander and affabulation.
However, she was sure that the next topic, which she had been working on for two months, would bear fruit.
Confident, she decided that she would once again stake out the entrance to a certain karaoke establishment. If her source was reliable, this person would eventually show up; she was convinced of it.
No time to change, or to go home, though. And she needed some documents.
Quickly, she picked up her cell phone and started dialing her sister's number.
After a while, she finally got an answer, a tired voice answering her.
"Ah, Kazue? It's me, Emi! Am I bothering you?" She asked hurriedly.
"Disturbing me? It's the middle of the day, there is nothing to do," replied her sister.
If Emi was a journalist and didn't really have fixed hours, Kazue, on the other hand, worked at the reception of a luxury hotel and saw most of her activity concentrated in the morning and in the evening, when the customers arrived and left.
"Did you take your break yet?" Emi asked.
"Not yet, no... What do you want?" Kazue asked in return, a little annoyed.
She already knew that her sister wanted to ask her a favor again.
"Ah ah, I can't hide anything from you, can I?" Said Emi, a little embarrassed.
"If you call me in the middle of the day, it's usually for this, right?"
Emi smiled. Even if Kazue didn't dare to admit it, the two young women were very similar emotionally.
In fact, they were more alike than that, since they were twins. This made their complicity even deeper, even if their behavior could sometimes seem distant to some people who did not know them well.
"I need some documents that I left at my apartment, can you go get them for me and bring them to the office?" Emi asked.
"That should be able to be done," Kazue conceded. "What exactly do you need?"
"It's a dark blue folder in the first drawer of my desk," replied Emi.
"Okay, I'll get that to you as soon as I can." Said Kazue quickly before hanging up.
Even though Kazue was much stricter than Emi, she was still a very caring person towards her sister. Consequently, Emi knew perfectly well that these short discussions were not due to her sister's deplorable mood, but rather to a certain reserve that the latter had when she spoke about personal matters in public.
Still, she could have said 'goodbye', or 'have a nice day', before hanging up...
Grabbing her camera equipment and a backpack to hold her microphone, camera lenses and various documents - notebooks, and an envelope containing photographs that had been provided to her - she left the editorial office, ready to begin a new surveillance.
She just hoped that this person would eventually show up, even though technically she was elusive to begin with.
Her informant, one of the employees of the karaoke establishment, did seem to know some pretty specific things.
She had been able to find out from him the existence of a man taking contracts, and who seemed to be involved in a death recently reported in the press.
The president of a construction company had been found dead on one of the building sites for which he was responsible. He had apparently jumped from the top of one of the buildings still under construction, leaving a digital suicide note that he had programmed to be sent from his e-mail account.
At least, that's what everyone thought, until Emi's source told her what she had heard.
Two weeks before this person's 'suicide', several men had discussed the murder together in one of the karaoke's private rooms.
The key words 'suicide', 'contract', and 'payment' had been mentioned several times.
This left no doubt as to the identity of one of the men.
A hitman, hired to murder the man in question, and make it look like a suicide.
She had heard of him before, although it sounded at first more like a rumor than a real person. However, she was now convinced. Her instincts rarely deceived her, and they told her that this lead was real.
The person standing at the end of the path, elusive as the wind, was none other than Kazamidori, the weathervane.