At 7:00 a.m., the news is on TV.
"At 6 pm yesterday, Prime Minister Uemoto made a public announcement at the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly..."
"During public speeches, Prime Minister Uemoto lamented several times..."
"At present, the international conference is still in progress, and the participants are having heated discussions on the issue..."
Takagi Wataru walked out of the shelf, took a yakisoba bread and went to the front desk to pay. He looked at the TV hanging in the air.
On TV, the host was smiling as he told the news about the Prime Minister, and next to him was a video replay of part of his public speech yesterday.
On the replay, Uemoto Tarō was smiling gently as usual, and every child under the age of ten who had a kindly grandfather would subconsciously say 'Grandpa! He is the kindest prime minister in the eyes of the people of Tokyo.'
With his left hand pushing a glass of water away from him, his right hand adjusting the microphone on the table, and his arms crossed, he spoke with a calm and unhurried air, with eyelids that were a bit fluffy due to his age piling up over his warm black eyes.
Seeing Takagi Wataru watching the news, the clerk yawned quietly and offered a smile, "It's cute, isn't it?""
She looked over at the TV and smiled, "The Prime Minister has been so kind for as long as I can remember, and I've grown up treating him like family."
"Who would have thought that such a kind Prime Minister would have suffered such a terrible assassination."
The clerk didn't say 'such a horrible assassination' too clearly, but rather, in a way that everyone could understand, he was referring to an assassination ten years ago.
At the time, Uemoto Tarō was apologizing for bowing at the Metropolitan Assembly, and at the end of the meeting, he encountered an extremely horrific assassination by a sniper, which killed more than 30 citizens that day, but fortunately, Uemoto Tarō himself was not injured.
Officials have been vague about the assassination and have not publicly released all the details of the case.
As a result, many detectives and folklore enthusiasts have been reviewing the assassination through various channels, and have realized that the sniper's ability is so horrifying that it ranks among the best in the world.
With the ability of a world-class sniper, Uemoto Tarō's survival was no mere 'luck'.
Then how did Uemoto Tarō manage to survive?
After all the hard choices, everyone came to the conclusion that it was a trick.
It was a trick from the devil's bad taste. The sniper carelessly tugged on Uemoto Tarō with his sharp claws, laughing as he ran for his life, getting a sense of pleasure from watching him run for his life, so he didn't take his life.
"Ah, yes," Takagi Wataru replied, ''Satan's Decending Moon'."
'Satan's Decending Moon', the unofficial term for both the terrorist attack on the residential area and the assassination of Uemoto Tarō, was so apt that even the official personnel used it in their accounts.
"Yes, 'Satan's Decending Moon'," the clerk said, handing back the yakisoba bread with an arched eyebrow, "in any case, it's quite fortunate that Mr. Prime Minister has remained safe."
"I heard that up until now, the Prime Minister has had a lot of secret police protection whenever he appeared in public."
Takagi Wataru puts away his wallet and takes the yakisoba bread, "I think so, thanks."
He was actually quite sure: yes.
The assassination ten years ago had caused such a stir that the then Inspector General of Police had stepped down, and there were still countless police officers in office who feared a repeat of the assassination.
The one who is most worried is the new police inspector general who was appointed after the assassination, so Uemoto Tarō is always assigned enough protection staff.
Takagi Wataru was able to buy bread at 7:00 a.m. because he had been on emergency protection duty for more than half a month and had a half-day off today, so he was resting.
He walked out of the convenience store, took out a post-it note and glanced at it, saying his next destinations in order, "First, I'm going to buy a bouquet of flowers from the florist, visit Mr. Date at the mausoleum, then go to the dessert store and buy a tiramisu and an iced Americano for Inspector Inoue, and then go back to the police station."
'Mr. Date', whose full name is Date Wataru, was Takagi Wataru's predecessor in Search Division One, and died in a car accident a year ago, and is now resting in the mausoleum.
Date Wataru took care of Takagi Wataru when he was alive, so when he had the time, Takagi Wataru would go to the mausoleum to pay him a visit.
When he arrived at the mausoleum, it had just opened and was so cold that even the wind blowing over the tombstones had an icy flavor.
Each tombstone was of the same style, the only difference being the blood-red lettering on it. Date Wataru's tombstone was in the middle of the rows of tombstones, and Takagi Wataru stopped in front of it with a white bouquet of flowers in his arms, and gazed at the red lettering on the tombstone [Date Wataru] for a moment before greeting him in a low voice, "Good morning, Date-senpai."
"As per your wish, I went to the bank some time ago to pick up the box you kept."
Date Wataru had died in a car accident, and before he died, he had left a message, the most important of which was that he had deposited a box in the Beika Bank, and hoped that if he were to pass away, Takagi Wataru would take the box out and keep it for a short while, but not try to open it.
"Someone will, someone will come and take him away, Takagi, for sure," was how he broke off to give his account, "I believe in those, those, guys who haven't heard a word from them."
Obviously losing a lot of blood, and coughing up blood from time to time as he spoke, Date Wataru's eyes were amazingly bright, and then dimmed again, "If... if no one comes looking for you, in two years..."
"In two years, no one will come looking for you..."
"Please, help me with an unsolved case."
He didn't tell me what the case was, what it had to do with Date Wataru, or why he wanted to find out. He just said that if Takagi Wataru opened the box when the time came, he'd find out everything.
Then he was put in an ambulance, and after failing to save him, he was put to sleep in a mausoleum.
"There's still some time until two years," Takagi Wataru's arm tightened a bit, causing the bouquet to rattle, "and no one has come to me yet to ask about the box."
After a moment's hesitation, he added, "I received a letter some time ago rejecting your previous request for 'additional honors for the two deceased police officers' on the grounds that the cases from seven years ago and three years ago had not been completely closed, and therefore were rejected on discretionary grounds."
The letter didn't specify which two officers Date Wataru had applied for additional honors for, and the reason for the denial was only seven years ago and three years ago, so it was hard to pinpoint what the cases were, but Takagi Wataru had a guess: Mr. Date's classmates from the police academy.
Once at a dinner gathering after work, he heard Date Wataru speak in an indescribable tone of voice about his academy days and the people he knew during his academy days.
If he had to describe it... it was a bitter tone, like looking back after working so hard and not seeing familiar faces, friends and family that were no longer there.
Only once.
Date Wataru only mentioned it when he was very drunk, as if he had something to worry about, but Takagi Wataru could tell that Date Wataru cared, and could guess how disappointed he was when he heard that the application was rejected.
He placed the bouquet of white flowers in front of the headstone, "Mr. Date, I, uh, toothpick...?"
In front of the headstone, a toothpick was placed squarely.