Chapter 21

"We're almost there, Alice, darling." Mori Ougai smiled at Alice. "But before we go, we need to stop at one more store."

Alice pouted angrily. "Another clothing store? That's what you said before!"

"I promise this is the last one!" Mori Ougai promised without a trace of sincerity.

Just as Alice began getting angry with him, Mori Ougai frowned slightly. His expression fell away, and he looked beyond the crowd.

On the other side of the street, he saw a familiar figure. The man was dressed in black as always, his hair so white it was almost transparent in the sunlight. A black crow perched on his shoulder, its beady black eyes fixed on the sky. Seemingly sensing Mori Ougai's gaze, the young man turned and glanced his way.

His red eyes were full of gentleness, yet that gentleness was as empty as ever.

Why was Kamiki Yūhaku here?

Mori Ougai immediately grew wary. After all, within a month of returning to Yokohama, this man had blown up a Port Mafia warehouse and tried to send Kajii Motojiro to prison. No one knew what Kamiki Yūhaku was thinking; it wouldn't be surprising if he suddenly attacked Mori Ougai himself.

But Kamiki Yūhaku didn't seem to care about him. After meeting his gaze for a few seconds, he looked away, turned around, and left.

"Alice, darling, wait here for me a moment. When I get back, we'll go have some sweets, all right?"

"Huh?"

"Sorry, Alice." Mori Ougai set the shopping bags he was carrying on the car, then hurried across the street. By the time the light turned green, Kamiki Yūhaku was already out of sight. Following the direction he'd seen him go, Mori Ougai entered a small alley across the street.

The alley was rather empty, with a trash can off to one side. Mori Ougai looked around, then turned his gaze to the wall beside him.

A playing card was wedged into a crack in the wall. Mori Ougai walked over and pulled it free. When he turned it over, he saw words written on it.

"Beware of the police."

"Beware of the police?" Mori Ougai was somewhat puzzled, but Kamiki Yūhaku had definitely left it there.

Before Kamiki Yūhaku resigned, he had liked to write strange things on playing cards. Every so often, Ango Sakaguchi would thoroughly clean the office, and every time, he would find a jumble of playing cards in all sorts of corners, each bearing some strange piece of information.

For example, the person a certain squad leader was having an affair with, or a low-ranking member's desire to resign.

After learning about them, Mori Ougai had asked Ango Sakaguchi to hand over the playing cards he found. It had to be said that Mori Ougai had indeed benefited greatly from Kamiki Yūhaku's jumbled bits of intelligence.

Though it was a little strange, Mori Ougai didn't think this was a message he could simply ignore. He emerged from the alley, and just as he stepped out, there was a boom. Mori Ougai watched as his car exploded, the shopping bags on it caught up in the blast and torn to pieces.

Mori Ougai rushed over. "Ah! The cute little dresses!"

"Rintarō!" Alice stamped her foot angrily. "Where did you go? Something terrible happened."

"It did!" Mori Ougai hugged Alice tightly. "Alice, darling, let's go buy some more cute little dresses!"

"Huh?"

More and more onlookers gathered, and Mori Ougai led Alice to the side. Just then, he noticed a police officer pushing his way through the crowd. The officer looked somewhat panicked. He said a car explosion had been reported and urgently asked what had happened.

"My child just poured orange juice into the gas tank. She said she wanted Mr. Car to have a drink too," Mori Ougai said, keeping his eyes on the officer who had arrived.

He recalled the card Kamiki Yūhaku had left behind.

"Beware of the police"?

Yokohama Forest Park was a large park. It was popular because a flock of pigeons lived there, and newlyweds often chose it as the setting for their wedding photos. On ordinary days, many young people also came to feed the pigeons.

But now, the man selling birdseed kept watching a young man nearby. People around them also glanced over from time to time, surprise in their eyes.

A crow stood conspicuously among a flock of white pigeons, flapping its wings as it ate the birdseed the young man tossed it. The white-haired young man sat on the ground, unconcerned by the dust, smiling at the crow and paying no attention to the looks people were giving him.

He seemed completely unconcerned that white pigeons and crows were entirely different kinds of birds, or that he was using birdseed to feed a crow while everyone else was buying it to feed the pigeons.

In short, everything about it was odd.

"Let's not shoot here today after all," a newlywed in a wedding dress nearby sighed. "I wanted an all-white scene. Let's shoot the next scene today and come back tomorrow."

"The pigeons seem really afraid of that crow. They don't dare come close at all. I thought we'd get some nice photos."

"Oh, you're right! Does that crow belong to that person?"

Watching the white pigeons around them gradually fly away as though afraid of the crow, the birdseed seller could stand it no longer. He cautiously approached the young man.

"Is this crow yours?"

Kamiki Yūhaku looked up, his red eyes resting on the man, like a child at play looking curiously at an adult who had tapped him on the shoulder.

"Why did you buy birdseed to feed a crow?"

"Because the birdseed shop nearby wasn't open," Kamiki Yūhaku said. "I searched for a long time and found that the birdseed sold here comes from the same place as the one over there. Little Crow likes their birdseed, so I had to come here to buy it. Is there a problem?"

"No, it's not a problem." The birdseed seller held out the birdseed in his hands to Kamiki Yūhaku. "I'll give you two portions. Could you take this crow somewhere else?"

"Look, with this crow here, the pigeons don't dare eat."

Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head. "...Huh?"

Before Kamiki Yūhaku could object, the man stuffed two portions of birdseed into his hands, then ushered him out of the park. Kamiki Yūhaku blinked as the crow dropped from his mouth onto his arm, flapping its wings and pecking at his hand to tell him to hurry up and feed it.

"All right, I'll give it to you now." Kamiki Yūhaku opened another packet of birdseed.

Humming a song, he walked on, feeding the crow as he went, his expression full of gentleness.

After leaving the park, Kamiki Yūhaku stood by the road waiting for the traffic light. Just then, a gun barrel pressed against his back.

"Police," the person behind him said clearly. "Put your hands up."

Kamiki Yūhaku didn't turn around. He simply looked calmly at the traffic light ahead. "Officer, shouldn't you check whether this is your jurisdiction first?"

"When the police are handling a case, they don't worry about jurisdiction, Kamiki."

"Of course, that's assuming you really are a police officer, Fedya."

Kamiki Yūhaku turned around. Fyodor Dostoevsky stood looking at him in a police uniform, a smile on his lips but killing intent in his eyes.

"Even if I'm not a police officer, I can still shoot."

Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. "Then please, go ahead and shoot."

The crow stood on Kamiki Yūhaku's shoulder, Fyodor Dostoevsky's figure reflected in its beady black eyes.

Chapter 21

Fyodor Dostoevsky put away his gun and sighed.

"Could you stop disrupting my plans, Kamiki?"

"What are you talking about, Fedya? I don't think I understand." Kamiki Yūhaku smiled calmly, though the smile went no further than his lips. "I haven't done anything."

Fyodor Dostoevsky looked into Kamiki Yūhaku's eyes. "I see. It seems that if I want you to let this go, I'll have to pay a small price."

"All right," Fyodor Dostoevsky said. "You're looking for the Number Seven Agency, aren't you?"

Kamiki Yūhaku leaned against a nearby tree, his red eyes fixed on Fyodor Dostoevsky, looking as though he were saying, Go on, I'm listening.

"The Number Seven Agency is an organization within the government, established to eliminate evidence of crimes that would harm the government. Just as you suspected, the Number Seven Agency has already erased the evidence of the French Concession explosion fifteen years ago and the artificial ability experiments. That's why you haven't been able to find anything."

Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head, his red eyes utterly devoid of emotion. "Fedya, have you misunderstood something?"

"Hmm?"

"What I want isn't the name of this place or why it was established, but where it is."

Fyodor Dostoevsky laughed. "Then what would you do if I told you that your friend is actually the head of the Number Seven Agency, Kamiki?"

"Ango?"

"You know, don't you? This friend of yours once caused the death of his own friend." Fyodor Dostoevsky leaned toward Kamiki Yūhaku and tried to pat him on the shoulder, but the crow perched there stared fixedly at him. So Fyodor Dostoevsky withdrew his hand and merely smiled as he whispered in Kamiki Yūhaku's ear, "You know better than anyone what their friendship was like."

"But Ango Sakaguchi still stood by and watched his friend die for the government's sake. You should have understood what kind of person he was back then."

Kamiki Yūhaku met Fyodor Dostoevsky's gaze. "You're saying Ango became the head of the Number Seven Agency for the government's sake?"

"Of course." Fyodor Dostoevsky stepped back. "If you want to know where the Number Seven Agency is, you'd be better off asking him than me."

"After all, he directly used the Number Seven Agency's power to clean Dazai's record."

"Kamiki, you should know I'm not lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky turned and left. Kamiki Yūhaku didn't follow him. He tilted his head, and the crow tilted its head along with him. Man and bird stood there in the same pose, like a child copying movements on television.

Kamiki Yūhaku pulled birdseed from his pocket and fed it to the crow, murmuring, "Ango is the head?"

"Fedya can't even make up a lie."

Kamiki Yūhaku thought, How could Ango Sakaguchi possibly be the head of that so-called Number Seven Agency?