Rain, the smell of gunpowder, the cold and slimy dirt of the trench. My hands, cold and shaking, fumbled to change the lens on my camera. One false move and my chance to capture the horrifying beauty of this chaos would be gone. A rebel fighting for a dream of a better future for his people I had interviewed an hour ago was manning a machine gun. My hands moved slower than they should as if time itself slowed down. The rebel fell with his head snapping back. I froze, the lenses slipping from my grasp, I didn't want to capture him lifelessly lying on the ground.
The mid-day sun greeted me as I woke up from my nightmare, drenched in sticky sweat. The sunlight glared down on me through the small window, reminding me once again how uncomfortable sleeping on a futon was, but this apartment didn't have beds. My legs hurt from the hours spent standing at the bar, my back ached from my poor sleeping arrangement, and my body was doing its best to remind me that I was no longer 21. At least my bartending job covered most of my expenses. The pain in my back suggested that maybe, just maybe I should have taught English to children instead. I put a black pin on the Crematorium on my map and took a deep breath.
Deciding to check the salaryman addresses, I dressed in a hat, wig, eye lenses and a medical mask and grabbed a package with a delivery firm sign on it. It was a poor disguise considering I am still 185cm tall white man, but it was better than going in plain sight. I played the part of a delivery man, making an excuse that a package had arrived late from abroad, months after the deaths of the recipients. The first two flats were rented out to new tenants. The third had been sold off by the extended family. The fourth flat was for rent, which I managed to lockpick my way into, only to find it thoroughly cleaned. Of course, it had been five months since the accident. I put the lockpicks back in my pocket and moved on.
The apartment complex of Kento Yamamoto, the next on my list, was a bleak one. No CCTVs near the entrance, much to my relief. Yamamoto's name was still on the mailbox placard. As I was about to get out of the elevator on Yamamoto's floor, a familiar face appeared, about to step inside. Nakamura from the bar who had given me the clues on strange municipality behavior. She glanced at me, and entered after I stepped outside, I barely avoided showing off the surprise. I guessed that I did, but hopefully not.
I slowly made my way to Yamamoto's flat and picked the lock to enter it, checking for any people around. It was a 35sq m flat, dusty, but extremely tidy. A cursory search of the bathroom revealed a few long black hairs in the bathtub drain, possibly Nakamura's, though only 1 toothbrush and 1 shampoo bottle, so I wasn't sure. The kitchen revealed a mostly empty fridge with mostly pre-prepared supermarket food and untouched knives indicating that he was rarely cooking at home.
The first thing standing out in the main room was that there was no TV here: a drawer containing a futon and his clothes, and a working table on which I found financial reports, some partially filled and dated up to his accident.
I looked in the drawers. There was only one book called "Sun and Steel" on his desk next to a gym membership card. The small book had around a dozen or two page markers in it. The man had eight of the same shirts, sleeveless shirts, underwear, and even socks and pants that were all the same aside from his training attire which was in a sports bag.
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His computer was probably with him at the time of the accident, but it still made sense to check his working desk. Oh, there was a handheld gaming device with a collection of about two dozen game cartridges. When I was a teenager, I had always wanted a handheld. "Otome Heaven" was the game cartridge in the console. All the game boxes featured a few young attractive men and a young lady. I quickly searched on my phone, and I learned that otome games were visual novels for women usually involving attractive men. I turned it on to check the account: the device was on his email.
A drawer filled with medicine revealed various anti-cancer medications in weekly organizers. I wrote down the daily dosages and sent them to my family doctor asking him if maybe he knew what this meant. While Yoshiro's house had revealed a dramatic tale, this place held nothing more than clean rooms and TEEN-rated romantic games.
I looked up a synopsis of "Sun and Steel", it was something akin to a philosophical book on exercising and sunbathing.
"Whatever," I told myself.
I wrote down my findings and went home getting feedback on my way home. The drugs in said dosage were used in terminal stages of brain cancer. Before going to my evening shift at the bar, I quickly wrote down all I'd found, and I relayed it back to Josh and others.
"Yamamoto. A very organized, overworked salaryman who brought his work back home. He spent his free time playing romantic games, most likely knowing his days were numbered because of his late-stage brain tumor. Despite all that, he was still doing some physical activity. This, I believe, does not add up with the government program for spies theory. Why would anyone stage the death of someone who was about to die anyway?"
Before I was able to finish writing, my phone rang. It was my boss from the bar. In an angry tirade, he accused me of trying to seduce Nakamura the previous day, and a few others before, "You're fired, pervert!" he bellowed.
Well, I indeed was pouring her spiked alcohol to open her up... but not in that way. I needed to turn the tables at him to shut him up, or I would gather unnecessary attention.
I shouted back at him, "Your clients are drunkards! That woman who you are accusing me of trying to seduce is a whore. She was staying late at the bar to seduce me for a week already, and I was fending her off. But you closed your eyes on her harassing me because of how much she spent, you greedy prick! I am gay, I am not interested in women! You know what, I don't want to deal with you, you can suck your own flaccid cock!" I hung up the phone, confused about my actions.
The old intelligence tactics had kicked in instinctively - turn the tables, gaslight, create confusion. It was a dirty trick, but effective. I had just accused an innocent woman and pretended to be gay, yet in that moment, I had believed every word I said. For a moment I felt as if the instructor patted me on my back saying “God job, Yossarian!”
Was this investigation pushing me too far into old habits? Was it that after war correspondence I didn't consider my case serious? No matter what the reason for my outburst, energy was flowing through me. I felt akin to how I did when I started my MI6 service. I felt 21 again.