Red Camellias

Chapter 3

"The fuck is he doing here?!"

That's Kunikida. Annoying most of the time. Not saying that I don't like him! He just acts too much like a mother sometimes but instead of complaining because of undone house chores, he complains because whatever he does that involves me is not written on his notebook.

"Don't you know? It's bring your Chuuya to work day!"

So apparently I was not allowed to bring Chuuya to work. Guess what? I didn't care. I wasn't going to leave him alone at home. He himself wouldn't even agree to that to start with. Either way, excepting Kunikida, none seemed to be bothered with Chuuya's presence at all. In fact, they were all chatting happily.

"We're at peace with the Port Mafia so chill a little will you?" I told Kunikida who was standing next to me watching Chuuya with his arms crossed and all grumpy.

"I don't care. He is a member of the mafia. I don't trust them"

"But you trust me" He fell silent. "You can trust Chuuya. If you do really trust me you can trust him. Actually, in your place, I'd trust him more!"

"Why? Because unlike you he does fill in reports?" My turn to be silent. I hate those reports, OK? Actually, I hate all kinds of paperwork! Always did! In the mafia I'd always push it down to Chuuya or Akutagawa. It is boring. I ain't got time for boring stuff.

Kunikida sat at his desk hitting the 'on' button of his laptop. I stood next to him, leaning against the desk, facing the rest of the room. "Check this" He tossed me a file to read and started typing away on his laptop. Inside the file were various profiles of missing girls, some more detailed than others. I stopped at a certain profile. It only had basic ID info like name and age yet I recognized the girl in the photo.

"This girl was in the van. She died"

He sighed and I handed him her profile so he could mark it as deceased. I continued scanning the profiles and found another familiar face. The poisoned girl.

"She is dead too" I informed handing him the papers.

Meanwhile, everyone seemed to be having fun, even while working. Ranpo had Chuuya's precious fedora on and was doing silly impressions and being the huge dork we all know him to be. However, I was much more interested on the ginger boy sitting on a desk with his back turned to me. He was actually enjoying himself. Bickering with Ranpo but still wearing his trademark grin. I was so focused on him that I didn't hear Kunikida trying to bring my attention back from Chuuya planet.

"Chuuya!" Kunikida called and the other turned. I flinched as I was caught staring, quickly turning my attention to the file in my hand again. "Mind giving us a hand here?"

As tiny mafia joined us I remained as professional as ever as if I hadn't been dozing off a second ago. He sat on the desk in front of me. Kunikida had to spin on his chair to look at him. "Could you check these files for me please?" He asked and I passed the folder to Chuuya. He recognized at least half the girls.

"Alright. So we finally found our guy" Kunikida sighed, turning to his laptop again. Chuuya got serious all of a sudden.

"What is it?"

"There are some really old missing dates here..."

"It is possible" Kunikida spun again. "Those files were with the police before coming to our hands. I don't know if you are aware but the police's pride can be easily hurt so they avoid working with us. Last week they sent us that case to solve"

Chuuya let out a sarcastic 'wow'. Probably thinking about the worried and distressed families to which the police said pretty lies to like "Don't worry ma'am, we are taking care of it" or simply told them straight out "We have too much work to do and cannot take care of your case right now" sending those poor people back home shaking for excessive crying. That was our police. Calling themselves heroes while completely neglecting a citizens need.