It had been about a month since the incident with Krone at Sun House. As the Ace Detective, I'd continued my investigation of Seed's organization SPES and learned that their reach had finally extended to Japan.
On that day last month, Boy K. had said that he wanted to become the type of person who'd reach out to help those in front of him. However, the area he could reach was already being eroded by an invisible poison.
His middle school was being flooded with a certain drug that was being backed by low-level SPES supporters. Back when I first had the Men in Black investigate this town, signs of that incident had already been showing.
It's time, I thought.
Boy K. and I would change the future. The phrasing may have sounded grandiose, but it was true. This wasn't an empty dream or a fairy tale.
To us, this was indisputable reality.
That was why I was sitting here now, waiting for something new to begin. What's that? You're asking where "here" was?
Well—
"We are waiting for one final passenger on this flight."
As the announcement indicated, this was a plane. If all went according to schedule, a certain incident would take place while we were at ten thousand meters in the air. I was sitting in this window seat so that I could resolve it, as a detective.
The seat next to mine was empty.
I was waiting for the person who was supposed to sit there.
That said, we hadn't arranged to meet. Even if he appeared on time, he probably wouldn't notice me.
Right now, I was my true self.
I'd stripped off the mask of Gekka Shirogane and was there under my code name, Siesta.
"I wonder what you'll think when you see my real face," I murmured. It wasn't the first time I'd had that thought.
Will he think I'm beautiful?
Never mind that. As long as he showed up, nothing else mattered. I'd see him again, and then, and then—
"..."
I held my left hand down with my right.
This wasn't like me at all. My hand was trembling slightly. Would the kid really come?
This was him, after all. Had he gotten pulled into some other incident before he could get dragged into my plan?
It was entirely possible that he wouldn't come.
Earlier, Mia had told me that he was the Singularity, the person who could change the future written in the sacred text. Due to his nature, no matter how much I wanted to meet him again or how hard I tried to become his partner, there was no telling whether it would actually happen. The Singularity couldn't be reproduced. My deductions couldn't predict his actions.
Still, I thought. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did. If I managed to meet him, in spite of his predisposition…couldn't I call it fate? Or was I thinking like this because I'd seen too many movies and TV dramas?
"It's your fault, though," I murmured, gazing absently out the window of the grounded plane.
I'd originally decided to choose Boy K. as my partner simply because he was the Singularity. When I'd snapped at Ice Doll over the phone and told her I was about to acquire a companion, that was my reasoning. He could turn the tide for all sorts of global crises, and if I had him by my side, I'd be able to pull off even bigger jobs as the Ace Detective. …That was what I'd had in mind, anyway.
However…
"It's because you saw right through me." He'd said he'd break my mask someday.
Kimihiko Kimizuka. At first, I would have said he seemed vaguely similar to
me, but we were fundamentally a little different. I'd started wanting to know how that personality of his had been formed, and as I'd worked with him, I'd found the answer. Or that's how it felt to me.
The next thing I knew, his mask had come off, and he was gazing at me steadily. Then he'd sworn he'd break my mask next time. For some reason, that had made me…well, happy. So happy that the Singularity aspect had stopped meaning anything to me.
And so—actually, I wasn't sure if "and so" was the right phrase to use.
Even so, today, I was going to tell him what I hadn't been able to say last time. "Be my assistant." Deep down, I was sure I'd always wanted to say that. Not
as Gekka Shirogane, not as the Fiend with Twenty Faces, but as myself. "Even that may be selfish of me, though."
I hadn't made any companions since becoming the Ace Detective a year ago. Charlie and Mia were precious to me, of course. There was no mistake about that. However, I hadn't wanted to bind them with the word companions and drag them into the reckless things I did. They were both important to me, but I did my best to keep a certain distance between us.
When it came to the kid, though, I doubted that would work. While he was traveling with me, the chances were high that I'd end up dragging him into a whole lot of danger. Would he really go along with that adventure of mine, and was it okay to let him do it?
It wasn't the first time that question had raced around in my mind. But through all my contemplations, the answer had never presented itself. All I'd come up with was a compromise of sorts: I'd invite him to be my partner on this journey, and if he refused, I'd give up with grace.
"I wonder if he'll accept."
I understood it wouldn't be easy to accept an invitation like that, of course. Hence, I'd given myself a maximum of three recruitment attempts. "…Maybe I'll make it five."
Taking my own clumsiness into account, I decided to give myself a bit of a margin of error.
In exchange…even if he did accept, if I determined that the journey would only affect him negatively, I'd part ways with him at once. That alone was nonnegotiable.
Coming to that decision, I waited quietly. My heart was pounding in my ears, and I tried to calm it down.
"Say, kid."
What should I call you?
I got to work on the next tough question.
If he did come to me, what should I call him? "Kid"? No, that would be weird; we were actually the same age.
"Kimihiko," then? That sounded overly familiar.
"Mr. Kimizuka"? It didn't seem like something I'd say. "I wonder if he has a code name."
If he did, it would be easier to just call him that… Now that I was thinking about it, this was surprisingly hard. Why did I have to stress out over this, of all things? I was getting increasingly annoyed.
Actually, since I hadn't seen him lately, I'd forgotten his face. What did he look like? I was pretty sure he'd had relatively normal features, but his eyes had seemed kind of spiritless and lonely, as if he'd given up on everything. That smile he flashed sometimes was a little cute, except it was only one of his masks. I was sure that last smile he'd shown me had been his real one, though.
And then, that's right—
That profile. The one that seemed specifically designed for sighing.
The relief almost made my face relax into a smile. Desperately curbing that impulse, I pretended to be asleep.
I couldn't let him figure it out.
He couldn't know Gekka was here right now.
I couldn't let him notice this feeling, even if it was making me giddy enough to dance.
With my eyes closed, listening to the sound of my own racing heart, I felt him there.
It really was him. Someone like me was here, right now, right next to me. "Yeesh. Unfair," the boy grumbled. He was probably recalling the events that
had brought him here.
The word I'd heard on that earlier occasion seemed to have become a habit for him.
In that case, I'd keep using the simplest words to cancel out all the disasters that fell on him. I'd tell him this world, with all its unfairness, was ridiculous.
Soon after that, with all of the flight's passengers onboard, the plane closed its door and began to taxi down the runway.
We would soar upward of ten thousand meters.
Our—no, the detective and her assistant's—dazzling adventure was about to begin.
First…
When I listened carefully, I heard a voice. "Is there a detective on the plane?"