Another Suicide

"Don't worry, Shinichi."

"I know where to draw the line."

Mouri Ran finally calmed down.

But her determination to "draw her sword to help" remained firm, because she possessed an innate, pure sense of justice.

When she saw something as unjust as school bullying, Mouri Ran would never simply stand by.

Even if she did not use her fists, she would still step forward and urge those two vile bullies to correct their mistakes.

Of course, whether they would listen was another matter. If they refused to listen and hurled insults back, or even started throwing punches at the slightest disagreement, then...

Hope they're okay. [Pray][Pray]

"Fine..."

Kudo Shinichi sighed helplessly.

"Just don't get anyone killed."

As soon as he finished speaking, before Mouri Ran could answer—

From the back of the group, the skinny high school student called Aoki suddenly said with a horrified expression:

"I-Ishikawa, look!"

"Isn't that guy standing at the edge of the Department Store rooftop across the street that kid?"

"Uchida seems to be..."

As he spoke the bullied victim's name, Aoki's face turned pale.

"It looks like he's going to jump!"

"Huh?" Ishikawa froze slightly.

He immediately looked in the direction Aoki was pointing, across the street.

At the same time, Lin Xinyi, Kudo Shinichi, Mouri Ran, and Miyano Shiho instinctively looked toward the rooftop of the Department Store across the road.

One look was enough to tell that Aoki was not joking.

At that very moment, there really was someone standing high up on the rooftop of the Department Store across the street.

He wore the same black high school uniform as Ishikawa and Aoki, with a brown baseball cap on his head.

The broad brim concealed half his face. He stood there with his head lowered at the edge of the rooftop facing the street, silently staring at the ground below.

They were too far away to see his face clearly, much less read his expression.

All they could see was the male student inching forward bit by bit, as though he might leap down at any moment.

"Hey, hey..."

Ishikawa's expression immediately changed.

All the arrogance and swagger of a school bully had vanished from his face, replaced by pure horror.

"No way, are you serious?"

"That kid actually went to kill himself?!"

The air immediately grew tense.

Other than Miyano Shiho, who merely frowned slightly, everyone's expressions changed dramatically.

Among them, Lin Xinyi was utterly shocked by what was happening before his eyes.

"What the hell? Another suicide?"

"Did I run into the God of Death today?"

Three suicides in one day—he had never seen anything like this even when he worked on the police force.

And now, no matter how stunned Lin Xinyi was by this bizarre reality, the male student whose face could not be seen had already gradually reached the edge of the Department Store rooftop.

Half a foot was practically hanging over empty space. He clearly was not up there to enjoy the breeze.

Seeing this, the delinquent high school student named Ishikawa visibly panicked.

"Don't screw around..."

"If that kid jumps, we'll be in deep trouble!"

He cursed in frustration, and even the cigarette butt in his hand trembled as it fell to the ground.

"Y-Yeah..." Aoki said, his face pale.

"He went to jump after we beat him up..."

"The police will definitely question us. Reporters might even come after us!"

"Ishikawa fell silent for a moment, then shouted nervously:

"Hey! Uchida, get down from the rooftop!!"

"Calm down—"

"We won't beat you up again, all right?"

Ishikawa shouted toward the rooftop across the street, his voice loud enough for the entire road to hear.

For a moment, pedestrians stopped in their tracks.

They all looked up at the Department Store rooftop and saw the male student called "Uchida," standing with his head lowered at the edge, half his face hidden beneath his baseball cap.

"Look, someone's on the rooftop!"

Cries of alarm erupted from all over the street.

Hearing that someone was about to jump, everyone could not help stopping to watch.

But just then, as everyone watched, Uchida at the edge of the rooftop took two small steps back.

He disappeared from the view of the people on the ground.

Uchida seemed to have given up on suicide and slowly stepped back.

And because their view was blocked, Lin Xinyi and the others on the ground could no longer see him or know what he did after retreating from the edge.

But in any case, Uchida's crisis of jumping to his death seemed to have been temporarily resolved.

"Whew, he didn't jump..."

Ishikawa let out a long sigh of relief.

Then, having recovered from his shock, he could not help cursing again.

"I knew that kid didn't have the guts to jump!"

"He probably just went upstairs to scare us..."

He had barely gotten halfway through those self-comforting words.

From the deserted alley beside the Department Store across the street—

Bang!

There came a sudden, muffled thud of something heavy hitting the ground.

The sound was like a heavy drumbeat, making everyone's hearts jolt.

"Th-This?!"

Aoki, standing nearby, was so frightened that his face turned green.

"Ishikawa, d-did that kid..."

"Did he jump from the other side, the side facing the alley?!"

Silence fell over the scene.

Although they had not seen Uchida leap down with their own eyes, everyone knew what that dull impact had meant.

"Go check it out!!" Ishikawa shouted in panic.

Without the slightest hesitation, he sprinted out, crossed the road, and ran toward the Department Store opposite them.

"Wait for me, Ishikawa!"

Aoki reacted a beat late, then quickly chased after him with a pale face.

Kudo Shinichi's eyes flickered, his face full of an emotion called concern.

Then, without hesitation, he followed Ishikawa and Aoki across the street.

Mouri Ran naturally followed her childhood friend.

And Lin Xinyi also instinctively started toward the scene across the road.

But at that moment, someone called out to him. "Wait."

When he turned around, Miyano Shiho was gently tugging at the corner of his clothes.

"Why are you following them?" Her icy voice carried a trace of confusion. "To watch the spectacle?"

"Because someone died, of course I have to..."

Lin Xinyi answered instinctively, but his words caught in his throat halfway through.

That was right. He had forgotten that he was no longer a forensic examiner.

He no longer had to deal with corpses no one wanted to approach, enduring filth and stench that ordinary people could not bear.

Someone might have died before his eyes, but it had nothing to do with him.

Besides, he had now easily obtained the easy, worry-free, well-paid job he had once dreamed of.

Compared with rushing to the scene immediately, taking care of Miss Miyano was what he ought to be doing now.

"You're right. Let's just leave..."

Lin Xinyi wanted to stop walking.

But for some reason, he simply could not bring himself to say, "Let's just go."

"You care that much?"

Miyano Shiho keenly sensed Lin Xinyi's emotions.

But she found it difficult to understand.

"Why should you care?"

"This is nothing more than an ordinary death."

"And people like us..."

As she spoke, Miyano Shiho seemed to think of something, and her words became inscrutable again.

"People like us have never had the right to call ourselves kind."

"To mourn for a life we never knew... we are not qualified for that."

As usual, Lin Xinyi could not understand what she was talking about.

He merely assumed that Miss Miyano's literary melancholia was acting up again.

That was understandable. Just like the dark, edgy subculture that had been popular years ago, or the later overused phrase, "I'm sorry for being born human"—what young person had not gone through an angsty phase?

Still, once those bafflingly profound remarks were stripped away, what Miyano Shiho meant was completely correct.

This matter truly had nothing to do with Lin Xinyi now.

There was absolutely no need for him to meddle in it.

"People whose job it is to handle this will handle it."

"And I'm just an ordinary citizen now. All I need to do is trust society, trust the police... Uh..."

Lin Xinyi's mouth twitched slightly.

Given the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's investigative ability this morning, they were really hard to trust.

And although he tried hard to forget—

The image of that male student pacing desperately at the edge of the rooftop kept surfacing in Lin Xinyi's mind.

Come to think of it, during all those years of work, he had not never considered quitting outright and changing careers when the pressure became too great.

But every time he received a call to a scene and saw a victim's body, his body would move of its own accord.

Once I finish this case, I'll definitely quit next time.

That was what he thought every day.

He kept putting it off until he had gone from a rookie to a seasoned veteran.

If not for this sudden transmigration, he would probably still be standing beside an autopsy table.

"Miyano."

"Please wait for me."

Lin Xinyi sighed softly, his gaze turning serious.

"I think I need to go to the scene."

"Why?"

Miyano Shiho understood even less.

"Who knows?"

Lin Xinyi looked across the street, toward the place where the male student had leaped down.

"Maybe someone there is waiting for me to speak for him."