Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 2.0

Chapter 2

  What these two hands hold

That day, I visited Siesta’s hospital room for the first time in a while.

“How are you feeling? Having any good dreams?”

Lowering myself onto the stool, I gazed at my former partner’s face.

Her breathing was gentle and relaxed, and her chest rose and fell slowly beneath the comforter—proof that she was spending another day napping. “Sorry I haven’t been by lately,” I told her.

It had been about two weeks since the last time I saw her face. My previous visit had been last year, late on Christmas Eve, the night I’d been attacked by that grotesque phenomenon. I’d been visiting once a week until a little while ago, but I hadn’t been able to manage that lately.

“My new partner’s pretty demanding, see.”

Reloaded, the Magical Girl.

For the two weeks since she’d roped me into this, I’d been helping her with her job. I’d done it over the New Year’s holidays, of course, but even after school started up again, Rill kept riding her motorcycle to the schoolyard, grabbing me after class, and taking me off to hunt Pandemonium. Naturally, the other students were stunned every time it happened.

I complained to Rill, of course, but for some reason, I kept doing what she said. If the sleeping detective had been awake, I knew she would have told me not to abandon a job I’d already agreed to.

I also wanted to help Natsunagi now that she was a Tuner. There was a possibility that Rill’s information on vampires would help her carry out her new mission.

That was why, for now, I had to stick with the demanding but reliable magical girl. Her personality might be a problem, but she was definitely good at her job. I did think she shouldn’t keep charging ahead by herself without any regard for the danger, though.

“Why do you suppose she’s so desperate?”

Siesta had once said that, as a detective, helping people was in her DNA. Mia and Natsunagi had both become Tuners because they’d admired the way she lived.

Then what about Rill? Had the Magical Girl lived by a hero’s code from the start, like Siesta? Or had she picked it up later, like Mia and Natsunagi?

“I was wondering who was here. Hello, Kimihiko.”

A voice joined the room with me and Siesta. Then its owner walked in, carrying a large paper bag.

“It’s been a while, Noches. I guess not that long, though, huh.”

The girl could have been Siesta’s identical twin. She came to take care of her mistress, and she was here more often than everyone else, but this was the first time we’d met face-to-face since the year had begun.

“What a surprise. I didn’t think I’d ever see you here again,” Noches said expressionlessly (although that was her default).

“Just how heartless do you think I am?”

“You’ve forgotten Mistress Siesta and grown infatuated with another woman, you know—”

“Don’t talk like you’ve seen it! There’s never been a single day when I forgot Siesta…”

“—or so Nagisa said.”

So Natsunagi was the one putting crazy ideas into her head, huh?

Well, she probably did have a bone or two to pick with Rill.

“By the way, what were you about to say? What came after ‘There’s never been a single day when I forgot Siesta…’?”

“Don’t bring that up again. Just put your stuff down and have a seat.”

At that, Noches finally smiled (or that’s how it looked). Briskly, she took a towel and a change of clothes out of the bag. Apparently, she wasn’t planning to sit down and take it easy.

“I wanted to wipe down Mistress Siesta’s body, but I suppose I’ll leave that for another time.”

“Why are you shooting looks at me, Noches? I’ll turn the other way; you don’t even have to tell me.”

Wiping Siesta’s body down and changing her clothes were jobs Noches and the other girls always took care of. That meant the only thing I could do when I came to visit her was tell her about all the super-duper fun things that had happened lately. …Was I being a nuisance?

“I’m joking. No need to turn,” Noches said, putting the towel and clothes away in the cupboard.

That’s weird. She hadn’t trusted me after all.

“You don’t really need my trust or confidence, do you?” she said as if she’d read my mind. “It’s fine. The one whose trust you really need is sleeping peacefully here.”

“…I’m not so sure about that.”

Was it still okay to assume Siesta trusted me?

“Have you forgotten that day?”

Noches meant the day Siesta had fallen asleep.

The last words I’d exchanged with Siesta had been something like this:

“Someday, I swear I’ll wake you up.”

“Yes, I’ll be waiting.”

Siesta was still waiting for me to keep my promise. She was believing in me and sleeping. That meant I couldn’t let her down.

“At this rate, though, Siesta’s gonna be disappointed in me,” I said ruefully.

I’d sworn I’d wake Siesta up one day. That wish was real, and my heart was in it.

The question was—how?

“Stephen said the seed in Siesta’s heart has already begun to sprout. The sprout has tangled around the muscle so that they’re basically inseparable.”

“Yes. That’s why even a brilliant doctor can’t simply remove the seed. The one way to save Mistress Siesta is…”

A heart transplant.

That was the simplest way. Problem was…

“Not that I expected anything else, but donors aren’t that easy to find.”

“That’s right. Even if Mistress Siesta’s body is special, there’s no way around that.”

It wasn’t as if just any heart would be compatible with Siesta. Quite a while back, Hel had been in a similar situation. A year and a half ago, her heart had been damaged; she’d attacked Londoners one after another in search of a new heart, but none of them had been perfect matches. In the end, the heart she’d taken had belonged to Siesta, another girl who’d inherited Seed’s DNA.

“For starters, I’d like to talk to Stephen more.”

I wanted to ask him if there was any way to save Siesta, but the Inventor hadn’t visited this hospital lately. Not since Siesta had fallen asleep, in fact. Natsunagi and I had recruited the Men in Black to look for him for the past three months, but there was still no news.

As I was thinking, Noches set a chair beside mine and sat down. “Frankly, you and I aren’t really friends, Kimihiko.”

“Way to bring down the conversation.” Between this and that, we’d known each other for almost half a year…

“That being the case, I can say something harsh to you. And I will.”

As Noches continued, she kept facing straight ahead, without looking at me.

“Kimihiko, haven’t you been doing everything by halves lately?”

For just a moment, I sneaked a glance at her.

She wasn’t angry, but I knew her blue gaze wasn’t about to let me weasel out of anything.

“Who do you consider your partner now? Is it Nagisa? Mistress Siesta? Or is it the Magical Girl?” Before I could answer, she added more questions. “What is your current mission? Is it averting the vampire rebellion? Is it stopping Pandemonium? Or is it apprehending the Phantom Thief? How far down the list is your wish to awaken Mistress Siesta?”

“Well, it’s—”

The answer was simple.

What my first wish was went without saying, but the current situation was enough to give Noches cause for doubt. That was undeniable; I couldn’t make excuses.

“I’m not blaming you,” Noches said.

She was watching me now.

“But if you try to hold everything at once, something precious may slip through your fingers someday. If nothing else, remember that.”

She’d warned me she was about to be hard on me, and her gentle lecture resonated somewhere deep inside me. Her words would stick for a while.

Who would I stand beside, and what wish would I make come true? I was the only one who could choose. As far as I was concerned, this was probably the story of my choice.