Chifuyu was sitting on the sofa and reading case files in Taylor's office while the investigator was out investigating other cases, while the discussion they had the night before replayed in Chifuyu's head.
"Because of the chaos you caused, we might have to wait until Ian lowers his security again. It'll be bad if we go to his estate now," Taylor told Chifuyu.
"Are you telling me to wait, old man?" Chifuyu raised a brow.
"Precisely, we have to wait until Ian Heir cools down his awareness. Because even if we have the SWAT team, it's still very dangerous going against that mafia gang." Taylor explained, "Since you're decided to work for me, why not put your impressive intelligence to good use?" he had a smile on his face that made Chifuyu somehow annoyed.
"What are you implying?" his right lower eyelid was twitching in irritation.
"You can work on other cases, let Eve help you with it too." Taylor didn't remove his smile.
Chifuyu clenched the pencil he was using to take notes on the case files, the peaceful reading atmosphere suddenly turned to Chifuyu getting annoyed over the previous night's events.
"That darn old man," he mumbled, breaking his pencil in half. "Oops, I didn't mean to do that..." he was surprised of himself.
"Have you heard of the Alabaster's latest act? His games are getting more impressive each night," Victor sips his tea, in the living room with Eve.
"The Alabaster really is popular for his games with the police, huh?" Eve smiled awkwardly, "I hope Tsuguha-kun will stay in Dad's office until Victor leaves..." she thought, hoping in her head.
"Not going to lie, his mischief is like no other. He's what I call 'a delinquent who isn't committing a crime', which what made him so famous." Victor said, putting down his cup of tea. "Well, I have a meeting to go to. I'll visit another time," he stands up.
"Thank you for coming, Victor." Eve thanked him as he walked to his horse carriage, then left out of sight as Chifuyu left the office to see Eve at the opened doorway. Eve shut the door quickly and let out a sigh of relieve, as if she just escaped from embarrassment.
"What was Victor Clark doing here?" Chifuyu asked Eve.
"Y-You know him?" Eve responded nervously, and let out another sigh.
"I know much more than you think, Eve." Chifuyu gave her his sharp look, where his brows were slightly furrowed. "His family owns Clark's Plaything, right? Was here for an investigation request or something?" he asked her.
"Not really..." Eve leaned her back against the closed doors, and Chifuyu gave her a raised brow to tell her he's waiting for answers. "He's... my fiancé," she lifted her hand to show Chifuyu her engagement ring.
"What the heck? You're 17, right? And he's in his 20s," Chifuyu was calmly surprised.
"23 to be exact," Eve responded, "I don't love him... But the engagement is already done, what can I do...?" she sighed heavily.
"Good luck with that," Chifuyu had a dumb look on his face.
"You're not even offering to help me?!" Eve still doesn't understand how Chifuyu could be stupid out of nowhere on some occasions, such as the current one.
"Excuse me!" there was a knock on the door that made Eve slightly jump, then she opened the door to see a young boy in front of the door.
"Ah, hello there, Lucas." Eve seemed happy to see him.
"Hello, Miss Evening." The boy bowed politely, but froze when he made eye contact with Chifuyu. "Oh, it's you from the other day. The one I bumped into," his amber eyes showed confusion as he pointed to Chifuyu.
"You know him, Tsuguha-kun?" Eve turned to Chifuyu.
"No, I don't." Chifuyu replied, looking away.
"You're a terrible liar, Tsuguha-kun." Eve did not buy his response, "Anyway, why don't you get to know each other? Lucas works here, so two of you would see each other often." She smiled.
"Okay," Lucas gladly accepts with a smile.
"Ergh..." Chifuyu was reluctant.
Lucas was piling up firewood at the back of the house and sweeping the fallen leaves while Chifuyu was leaning against the stone wall, listening to Lucas sweeping the leaves into a pile with his eyes gazed at another direction.
"Lucas Peters," Lucas extended his hand as he gave Chifuyu a big smile, Chifuyu eventually gave in and shook the boy's hand.
"Chifuyu," he responded.
"Nice to meet you, Fuyuchi." An out-going and friendly grin was on Lucas's face, showing his positive personality.
"Fuyuchi...?" Chifuyu was confused of the nickname Lucas gave him.
"You're the Alabaster, right? You're impressive," Lucas didn't remove his smile, "You've got guts to play with the police like that, and spreading the stuff you stole all over town for the police to search themselves. That's really cool," he nudged Chifuyu, teasing him.
"It's fun, want to join?" Chifuyu smirked, teasing Lucas back.
"Hey, you can do parkour and other martial arts stuff. I can't do that, and you'll probably end up ditching me." Lucas playfully pouted, "I'm looking forward to your future 'games', Fuyuchi." He winked.
"Sure," Chifuyu smiled, finally relaxed around the boy his age.
"Your family got murdered, huh...?" Lucas was putting the leaves he swept into a trash bin, "I guess that's worse than me," his bright smile turned into a sorrowful one.
"You're an orphan too?" Chifuyu asked him.
"Yeah," Lucas's smile turned into a smile that Chifuyu could understand, an 'it's alright' smile. "Do you want to come with me somewhere?" he asked Chifuyu.
"Um, I have cases I have to take care of-"
"Come on, it won't take long." Lucas takes Chifuyu's hand and dragged him out of the building, to the sidewalk and began walking to a bar. Lucas stopped in front of the big window of the bar, looking into the bar with their shadow casted into the building from the afternoon sun. Lucas's amber eyes were focus on a woman in the bar, who was chatting and laughing to the bartender and a few men.
"You're into this kind of thing?" Chifuyu slightly rolled his eyes, uninterested while Lucas's eyes were lightly sparkling. "You want to go in there? You can go to her if you want, but I'm not going." Chifuyu told him, while fixing his unbuttoned vest.
"You're not?" Lucas didn't take his eyes off the woman.
"I'm not a party person, it's too loud for me." Chifuyu shook his head, "Your woman or something?" that his guess when he saw Lucas's eyes.
"Nope, she is my mom." Lucas's smile didn't turn into a frown, while Chifuyu paused in surprise, that was not what he expected at all. "Everyone calls my mom a 'slut', she gave me up to an orphanage as soon as I was born and I grew up becoming a pageboy, until Miss Evening offered me to work for the house not long ago." Lucas told Chifuyu.
"You like visiting her like this?" Chifuyu tilted his head, curious yet sad for him.
"She got mad at me when I went to see her for the first time, she said I am not her son, she pretty much disowned me." Lucas responded, "So I just like to see her through the window like this, imagining she would say nice things to me if we meet again, stupid I know..." he gave Chifuyu his sorrowful smile, making Chifuyu feel bad for him even more.
"Just give it up, Lucas." Chifuyu gave Lucas a hard pat on his back, "She's not worth your time and effort, she's just another rot-hearted person." He told Lucas as he began to walk down the sidewalk, back to the Andersons' residence.
"You think so?" Lucas followed behind Chifuyu.
"Definitely. You're a great person, Lucas, it's better to spend your time with those who actually appreciates you." Chifuyu turned his head to his friend, and Lucas was dazed at him for a few seconds. "Are you judging me or something?" Chifuyu's face showed playful annoyance.
"Ha-ha, not at all." Lucas jumped to Chifuyu to twine his arm around Chifuyu's neck, "Thanks, Fuyuchi." He smiled.
"For what?" Chifuyu had no idea what Lucas was thanking him for.
"For being my friend, of course." Lucas gave Chifuyu a grin, and Chifuyu smiled back to him.
"Why are you thanking me, silly." Chifuyu nudged Lucas, and the two of them shared a laugh as the sun sinks for the moon to rise.
***