[It had been three years. At last, there was some good news.
That bombing case was completely over. No one had been injured or killed this year. Only the culprit who had blown your close friend to death had died in an explosion.
The investigation so far had ruled out murder. The others all said that good and evil were repaid in kind, that it was the Will Of Heaven, but I always felt things weren't that simple.
Oh, right... are you still alive?]
"..." Alive?
Matsuda Jinpei lowered his head and looked at his translucent chibi hand.
Dead as dead could be. What a way to rub salt in the wound.
Matsuda Jinpei looked at the text message and sighed with mixed feelings.
Then he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be another text right after it, also from Sato Miwako.
Matsuda Jinpei: "..."
As a follow-up to the previous text... surely this perceptive former colleague hadn't found some proof that "Matsuda Jinpei is still alive!" and come to question him about it?
Just as he was worrying over it, Jiang Xia tilted his head curiously. "Open it and see."
"..." Matsuda Jinpei remembered showing up as Uzo's Double without filing a report, and stopping Sato Miwako from shooting the culprit. He felt even guiltier.
He glanced uneasily at Jiang Xia, then at the tiny phone, and slowly tapped it open.
But the situation was different from what he had imagined.
Sato Miwako was not some glasses-wearing elementary schooler next door, and she apparently did not have a habit of digging to the bottom of everything. She was talking about something else—something that had been weighing on her heart, something she did not know who to tell.
[When I was chasing that culprit, I actually wanted to kill him.