It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and the snow was falling again in New York.
As the snow fell and blanketed the roads, then disappeared under the tires of passing cars, Jodie walked into a fast-food restaurant near the FBI branch, somewhat absentmindedly, into the blizzard.
She chose a seat by the window, and before her late lunch was served, she was still thinking about work.
The fast-food clerk had been a target of the killer for two weeks, and it had taken over a week from the time of the targeting to the time of the stalking, which meant that 'Messiah' had known about the victim almost from the first or second day of the stalking and had tipped off the FBI in advance.
This is a lot of possible information: maybe he went to see the killer, or the victim.
Possibly, he sensed some vital clues in the public reports, which led him to the murderer and then to the victim.
Human beings leave traces, and a young man with gray hair whose features are so distinctive that anyone who looks at him will be impressed, can't pass without a trace.
Unlike the last time when the victim was a celebrity who saw a lot of people every day and was unlikely to notice passers-by who seemed to be in disguise and could not provide any useful information, this time the victim was an ordinary person who was likely to notice someone who was paying too much attention to him or her.
So during the statement taking and interrogation, Jodie questioned both the killer and the victim.
The murderer didn't understand the repeated questioning, which indirectly indicated that he hadn't noticed any distinctive gray-haired young men in his life.
But the victim did.
After two or three sidebars, she stammered hesitantly: "If it's a strange man, well... I seem to have met him."
"But he wasn't a bad guy!"
"It's just that I noticed him unilaterally..."
Only after Jodie's keen questioning did the victim tell the full story of the strange man she had met: just a few days before the FBI found her, there had been a strange customer at the fast-food restaurant.
The customer looked very young, like a high school student, his hair was a long snow-colored wolf tail, wearing a duck-tongued cap, his blood red eyes hidden under the shadow of the brim of the cap, he stepped into the ordering room, walked up to the counter and bent his head down, carefully examining the menu on the countertop, and then slightly raised his head and smiled, ordering his food, making the victim think of the snow wolves.
The victim thought of the snow wolf, a fierce hunter who traveled through the snowy mountains in the cold wind in the midst of the bleak white sky.
There were two people at the counter of the fast-food restaurant, the cashier and the food preparer, and the victim was the latter.
The victim was the latter. The strange customer was talking to the cashier, but the victim, who was standing at the counter, somehow felt that he was watching her with his eyes, and, like a rabbit on a hunter's trail, she was so nervous that she couldn't make a move to get the ice cream, which made the ice cream look a bit ugly.
What made her even more nervous was that when she tried to pass the ice cream to her coworker, the customer naturally reached out and took the ice cream right out of her hand.
The ice cream was white.
The white-haired wolf-tailed customer spun the ice cream as if in thought and whispered to himself, "White matcha ice cream?"
In his order, the ice cream was matcha-flavored, but the victim had ordered it plain.
The victim's heart lifted, and before she knew it, she subconsciously and urgently closed her eyes and prepared to meet the ice cream with her face: just a few hours earlier, a clerk had made a mistake in the flavor of the ice cream, and when the customer expressed his displeasure, he had simply met the ice cream he had made with his face.
But no sooner had she closed her eyes, and no sooner had she heard her coworker's hesitant response to accept the ice cream, than she heard the customer's second self-referential comment, "Sure enough, everything in New York is sweet."
"Excuse me, is my other meal ready?"
The customer finished his meal at the restaurant and left.
In retrospect, the victim realized that she had subconsciously failed to take in the customer's face, remembering only the curved red eyes under the brim of her hat, and the tone of the questioning voice that had smiled a little, after she had opened her eyes in a bewildered manner.
"This is the only time I've met someone a little strange lately," The victim told Jodie, "but it was the weekend, and he was dressed casually, so he must have been a student out with friends, so he couldn't have had anything to do with the case, could he?"
"Anyway, it's not a student from our school..."
If it was a student from her school, she would have heard about it.
Jodie: "…"
Well, not without a trace, the 'Master' had quite frankly turned around in front of the victim and met him face-to-face.
It's a relief to know that since the trace was found, the gap between the other side and the FBI seems to have narrowed a bit, and that the criminal doesn't seem so scary...
No, it's not.
Jodie's brows knitted tightly, into thought, in someone carrying a tray over for their own food is still a little distracted, "Thank you."
She took the tray and placed it on the table.
But the delivery 'clerk' didn't leave, instead he took a seat across the table, "You're welcome."
He put his elbow on the table, propped up his head, and exclaimed with a smile, "That's great,"
"I waited from eleven o'clock until now, more than four hours."
Under the long brim of the cap, the red eyes smiled, "The FBI has been going out to dinner since ten o'clock, and I thought I was late."
It's Ichijō Mirai.
The living Ichijō Mirai.
Jodie was stunned.
She wasn't just stunned, she was dumbfounded and tongue-tied, staring straight at Ichijō Mirai for a few seconds, opening her mouth but not being able to speak, and then subconsciously looking around her like an escaped criminal as she hurriedly scanned the area for people and objects.
Finally, she reacted and looked at Ichijō Mirai again, her hand pressing down on the table, "You..."
Ichijō Mirai smiles and repeats, "I."
His eyes fell to Jodie's other hand under the table, tempted to casually tease the FBI investigator with something like 'So you were thinking about me, I guess I'm very close to your hearts' or something that would not change his face and distort the truth and make his blood pressure go through the roof.
But thinking about 'Ichijō Mirai' and the ring, and the mysterious fiancée, and scanning the slender, obviously female wrist at the table, Ichijō Mirai restrained his bad taste and became detached without moving, "You brought a gun?"
"You're not going to shoot me, are you?"
The second half of the sentence that was supposed to follow this one was a whine with a touch of familiarity and intimacy: 'That would hurt me'.
Before saying it naturally, Ichijō Mirai remembered 'Ichijō Mirai', and paused for a moment to once again curb the natural overflow of mischief, "It's on the street."
"A gun in public would cause the crowd to scream and panic."
He reflected on himself: he was accustomed to his usual unbridled bad taste, and suddenly he was a little rusty and uncomfortable with the need to keep a distance, and if he didn't pay attention, he would say things that would cause misunderstanding.
He cautions himself that he's not dealing with male victims like Gin, Morofushi Hiromitsu, Akai Shūichi, etc., so he should watch what he says.
Jodie noticed the subtle framing of Ichijō Mirai's words, and how he seemed to have changed his words on the fly.
Her eyes flickered, and her right hand rested on the tabletop as she grasped the pistol, "Coincidentally, I was thinking about you, and how you've managed to find those criminals ahead of time so many times."
"I didn't think you'd come to see me, I thought you were going to see Mr. Akai."
"Because of you, Mr. Akai has a standard schedule of three meals a day and commute to work, he gets off work at five o'clock every day, you might want to go see him in the evening, he'll be home."
As she said this, Jodie tried to lighten up the tense atmosphere with a bit of flirtation, and try to get some of her own words out of the situation that was clearly dominated by Ichijō Mirai.
But she was nervous now, and her tone was a little too calm.
"Ah, don't," Ichijō Mirai casually rejected, "If we go to that guy at night, won't we probably dream about that face that's even more unmoving than a corpse when we go to sleep?"
"It's a nightmare."
He ran his eyes over Jodie's body, assessing it: not bad.
"No lunch? You're..."
Ichijō Mirai pauses again, pausing the conversation.
He had to rethink his behavioral issues again, pausing for two or three seconds before dropping his hands, sitting up straight, and saying lightly, "You're my alternative,"
"Want to cooperate, alternative?"
Jodie: "..."
Inevitably, her eyelids fluttered.
Alternative, what did that mean?
It means there's an opportunity to work with this criminal.
This is a very dangerous opportunity, some of the FBI has little ambition and ambition, but also very self-aware of themselves and know how to be contented, will immediately reject, afraid of a step late, they will be swallowed by the lion.
Others who are ambitious or unaware will be ecstatic and want to say yes right away.
Neither of which mattered to Jodie, who had to weigh up the more realistic possibility that Ichijō Mirai's first choice was Akai Shūichi.
They don't seem to have a good relationship, and Ichijō Mirai sounded disgusted when Akai Shūichi was just mentioned.
But that doesn't mean that their partnership is on the rocks, on the contrary, Jodie thinks it proves that it's strong.
The fact that Akai Shūichi was the first choice even though he was so disliked meant that Ichijō Mirai was really happy with the strength he was showing.
So as long as Akai Shūichi's strength doesn't decline, or as long as someone better than Akai Shūichi doesn't appear, he'll always be the first choice.
Alternate, I guess the use is...
When they've reached the end of their patience with each other, and Ichijō Mirai can't stand it even with his nose pinched, it's a way back, he'll come back to work with the alternative once or twice, and then work with the first one when his mood improves.
Or, when he gets tired of eating one meal, he'll take a bite of another type of meal to ease his mind.
Of course, if Ichijō Mirai were a master of serving water, he would treat both the first and the second in the same way, not favoring one side over the other, but balancing the opportunities for cooperation to make them both happy.
Wait, there's something strange about that...
Ichijō Mirai was still smiling in a good-natured way, and Jodie locked eyes with him, collecting her thoughts and falling silent.
She had already analyzed the disadvantages, and with little ambition and self-awareness, she should have rejected it out of hand.
However, just because you don't have ambition doesn't mean you don't have something to ask for, and just because there are obvious disadvantages doesn't mean there aren't advantages.
For example: Ichijō Mirai is a very powerful criminal, but does he know about other criminals, or the existence of the organization?
Even the FBI is aware of it, so it's likely that he knows about it.
Even if he doesn't know, given his behavior in New York, a serious investigation could yield a lot of clues in just a few months.
So...
"You're hesitating," Ichijō Mirai's voice was low, a whisper, a self-talk echoing in the human heart, "reason tells you to refuse, but emotion tells you to agree,"
"You are torn between refusal and consent, with the hesitation of opening Pandora's Box, and in your opinion, I am Pandora's Box."
He paused for a moment, without changing his expression, pausing for words like 'open me', and said faintly: "You seem to have concerns, but you're willing to take the risk because of something."
"Can you tell me what it is?"
It was harder to control the tone of voice in almost every sentence than it was to ask a cat not to push the glass on the table, or a cunning fox not to coax the meat from the crow's mouth.
By controlling nature one after another, Ichijō Mirai almost had a natural tendency not to smile, "You know me."
Jodie knew what Ichijō Mirai was capable of.
After a brief silence, she spoke slowly, "What exactly is the partnership?"
"I'm to assist you in getting a more favorable attitude from the FBI?"
"To be precise," Ichijō Mirai smiled, "a position."
...What?
Jodie furrowed her brows, steeped in discomfort, "You mean, you want to start with."
Ichijō Mirai absently tapped his finger on the tabletop and responded in the affirmative, "Yes, I don't want to stay in prison and work with the FBI,"
Something Jodie already knew.
"And I don't want to be out there, wandering around like a poor unemployed person with no place to go and no permanent address," Ichijō Mirai sighed without changing his expression, "that's just pathetic, isn't it?"
"I don't get unemployment benefits."
"So, can the FBI give me a job, a legitimate job that will help me with my identity, get me legal paperwork, pay my taxes, and allow me to show my landlord proof of contract when I rent an apartment?"
Jodie: "…"
Her expression was colorful, "You,"
That's a bit much, isn't it?
"I still want a voice," Ichijō Mirai sighed again, "and don't want to listen to stupid bubbles from empty-headed superiors,"
"You understand me, don't you, Ms. Jodie?"
Jodie continued: "..."
Understandable. She didn't want to take orders from some bastard.
But how could she possibly help Ichijō Mirai achieve the rare accomplishment of not having to listen to shit and condescendingly point at it, when even she had to hold her nose and listen to shit?
Just as she was about to make her refusal clear, she heard Ichijō Mirai say, "You can."
"You, Akai Shūichi, seem to have a special status within the FBI?"
He smiled and repeated, "You can."
"Only, at a small price,"
"And as compensation... why don't you tell me what you want me to do? Perhaps I can help you out."
Jodie swallowed her words, and she fell silent again, gazing at Ichijō Mirai's smiling face, her eyes flickering?
After a few moments, she said, "Do you know of a 'non-existent' organization?"
"That organization seems to be hidden in the shadows, few people can detect their traces, even the FBI knows almost nothing about them, the members of the organization are like an unknown crow that eats carrion."
"..." Jodie took a deep breath and said solemnly, "I want you to help me find that organization."
She paused before the words left her mouth, "What are you laughing at?"
Ichijō Mirai was smiling, smiling down, half on the table.
The long brim of his hat made a high-frequency tapping sound on the desktop as he laughed uncontrollably, little by little outlining this silent, but large, uncontrollable laugh.
This laugh was silent at first, as if he heard something incredible and couldn't help it, but maintained the politeness not to make a sound, and then gradually sound, but still politely kept in a very low voice, only Jodie can hear the low laughter.
Her brow furrowed, vaguely aware of something, she asked again, "What are you laughing at?"
After a half-laugh, Ichijō Mirai looked up and replied, "Ah, I'm heartily pleased with your and Mr. Akai's sensational affair."
He said politely, "Mr. Akai is truly something."