Takemura Itsuki
“Takemura-kun!” A middle-aged lady shouted as she clapped.
Another old guy shouted, “Best of luck with your future endeavors, Takemura-kun!”
The applause was filled with such vibrant comments. “Great work!”
“The prices are gonna fall down here too!”
Kurayami then stood on my right, looking into my eyes with a smile as he clapped, and then turned to the crowd. He then stopped clapping, and raised his right hand up, to close the applause. The applause started to fade down little by little as Kurayami turned to his left, looking at me again, and then turned to the front, where the clapping settled down. “The shine of The Bar, Takemura Itsuki, has collected about seventy-seven points in just two days, surviving through hell in these forty-eight hours. These uneasy forty-eight hours have secured him a berth in ABOVE THIRTY!” The thunderous claps began again right in front of our eyes. Kurayami turned his head at me, and then to the front again. “IT’S TIME FOR A PARTY!”
Right in between the thunderous claps which filled the aura of the restaurant, Kurayami tilted his head to his left, and whispered in my ears, “The Bar is gonna win again. The Bar gotta win again, and all of it rests upon your shoulders, kiddo.”
***
“… And all of it rests upon your shoulders, kiddo.”
The words echoed in my mind as I was lying on top of my bed, my eyes wide open, my hands behind my head. The room was completely dark, filled with the faint shine of the moon which came over from the wall at my back, where the window was kept open. The curtains were also moving up and down a little as the wind passed in.
I recalled the last night, when I was looking at the open sky with the moon shining over my face as I lay on the green grass, my eyes narrowed with sleep.
I then snapped out, my eyes completely open tonight, glaring at the roof above me.
“I gotta keep on going. There’s still a long way to go.”
***
Miura Daisuke
I was sitting in front of my table, scribbling the quill in my right hand on a paper on the table, which was surrounded by more papers. The office had turned dark, with the lantern on top of my table the only source of light. I then turned my head to the front, looking at two guys—one of them sitting at the table and the other standing in front of the table with his back tilted down, his eyes fixed on the papers on the table—some desks away from me. The lantern hanging on top of the two figures was burning too. “When are those two gonna leave?!” I whispered to myself irritably. “I gotta get a hand on the case file of my father’s murder!” I turned my head down at the papers again, patting the middle finger of my right hand on the table silently which was on the right side of the paper some inches away. The paper was filled with nothing but random scribbling of ink done with a thin quill.
“I had already planned it all, and was even shameless enough to execute it. I had thought that when everyone in the office would leave, I’d get my hands on the case file of my father, and then start my own little secret investigation. I’d keep it where it was, noting down the information, and then I’d repeat the activity again, tracking any recent thing which took place in the investigation, and then keep on going doing my own thing with their information. But… I never thought that my plan would have so many defects.”
***
“W-W-What the hell is written in here…?” I thought as I stood right beneath the lantern, the table where the two worked right behind me, as I glared at the papers inside the folder open in my right hand with my eyes frowning, my mouth open. “And how the hell am I supposed to note all of the information contained in this ten page file?!”
“WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!”
“… Yeah, I need Hideyoshi with me.”
***
Takemura Itsuki
The sun was still sleeping inside, with its faint blue rays falling over the sky, like it could rise up any minute. The street in front of The Bar was still sleeping as the sun was about to rise up. It was empty, with no movement anywhere. The shops were closed. The aura of the sleepy was everywhere. Suddenly, a man emerged, walking with a bundle of newspapers in his right hand. He stood in front of the building of The Bar, crouched down, took out a newspaper from his bundle in his right hand, and then swept it in from the narrow gap between the door and the floor. As the newspaper suddenly arrived at the footsteps of the inside of the wooden building, the first headline—half visible due to the fold of the newspaper from the left—was ‘… Named Suzuki Tadashi at The Top of The Rankings!’
