POV: Yabuta Junzo

Date: 21st Nov – Friday

Timeline: *After Naoki turned himself in*

"Jun!" Shino called as I entered the police station, so I started heading toward him and said, "I can't believe my eyes, you are not late for once!"

The man with his shirt sleeves rolled up is Kurata Shino, my paired partner whom have made a habit of always showing up late for work as a routine.

"Shut up! What if the chief heard you!?" he shushed me panickily while inspecting his surroundings, I opened my laptop after I sat on my desk and sighed saying, "don't tell me that you think Maco-san doesn't know already? It won't be weird if any day he forced you to resign."

He slammed his hands on the desk and yelled at me, "don't jinx it!" I nodded my head sarcastically and asked, "but really will it rain pigs today? Why are you here before me?"

With a grin on his mouth, he bragged, "my cute adorable daughter is coming to visit me today on her career day~ so I have to show her my cool side fufu."

"Mai-chan is coming? Although we text all the time, I can't believe she's already in middle school! Time sure fly by so fast, I still remember when she was just a newborn and you were crying more than her," I reminisced while waiting for my old laptop to turn on.

"It couldn't be helped! How could I have known that she will be that beautiful!" Shino bragged in a loud voice, I said mocking "you really are such a hopeless doting father, Shino"

Suddenly, a sniffing sound came from Shino and he gave me a pity look and said, "You pitiful thing! You're 30 years old and still don't have a pretty wife or a beautiful cute adorable fluffy daughter like me... you'll die alone!"

"You don't have to worry about me," I said as I smiled at him and continued, "since I won't be the only one who will die alone."

He shrieked in a loud voice and cried out, "I knew it! MaiMai told you she hated me didn't she!? Will she leave her papa!? Did she tell you that!?"

"She did tell me that she wished her father wasn't so annoying," I said with a grin on my face watching tears slip on Shino's cheeks and I continued, "well, enough chitchat, I heard someone turned himself in for murder?"

"Oh, that," Shino got serious and sat down on a chair and continued, "this guy is really weird though, have you ever seen someone who says that they killed someone but there is no corpse?"

"No corpse? You mean it vanished? Did he hide it and is refusing to say where?" I asked surprised by his statement. Shino crossed his arms and backed his back on the chair and said, "Not that, the person he claimed to have killed is alive! Moreover, we inspected that person for injuries and such but there was nothing of that sort, but that guy is insisting he killed him. He's so troublesome so the chief is interrogating him separately now."

"Interesting, a murderer without a victim, kuku" I laughed with a smile on my face and got glared at by Shino and he scolded me saying, "'Interesting' you say, but this just increases our load of work because of a guy that is playing a prank on us!"

"Prank? You think it's a prank?" I asked giving him a serious look and he stared back confused asking me, "what else can it be?"

"Junzo-kun!" someone called me making me shift my eyes from Shino toward it to see Maco-san, he said while pointing at a guy with eyes like he just saw the end of the world, "good timing, I heard you are a friend of a psychiatrist, can you take this guy there?"

"This guy? Who is he?" I asked confused by the sudden request, and Shino poked me and whispered, "he's the one I just told you about, the murderer without victim guy..."

"But to a psychiatrist... is something wrong?" I asked worried about the blank expression the guy was showing, Maco-san answered me, "when I asked him more about the details, he just broke and stopped making sense."

"What about the person that he claimed to have murdered? Why don't you question him instead?" I wondered, "a friend of his was an ex-lawyer so he refused to let us talk with him, he is a witness so not like we can issue a warrant either," Maco-san said as he let out a sigh.

"What a troublesome case!" Shino complained then patted my shoulder and said, "why don't you take him to psychiatrist? I'll be here waiting for my lovely daughter~"

"Eh!? You want me to take him to THAT woman alone!?" I asked hoping for Shino to change his mind, but he only nodded with a smile on his face.

"Then Maco-san, will you come with me instead?" I asked giving him puppy eyes, but got met with confused eyes and he asked, "why do you need company to go there anyway?"

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I stood up from the chair and said in a loud voice, "you don't know how scary it is to go to that woman! But if a stranger come she will definitely switch her interest toward them instead! So, please come with me, Maco-san!"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm the chief here, I don't have all day long to stay on a case like this," he scolded me and moved to the coffee machine and while pouring a cup he scolded me more, "and as I always tell you, don't call me Maco-san! Call me chief instead!"

"Impossible, I got used to calling you Maco-san, switching now is uncomfortable," I refused and started heading toward the gloomy guy and said, "well then, shall we go?"

-----

*One hour later when they reached the hospital the psychiatrist is at*

After a long hallway in Juwan Hospital there is a section for mental diseases, and in there, there is an office for a renown psychiatrist who is known for having healed 100% of the patients who visited her, Ikehara Mirai.

After reaching the door of the office while pulling the guy who was dragging himself along with a blank expression, I knocked on the door and whispered to the guy, "don't worry, I won't let her hurt you." But the guy's expression didn't change, and he kept looking at the floor aimlessly.

Is a prank really able of affecting a person like this? As I thought, there might be more to it after all.

"If it isn't Junzo! Welcome! Welcome!" a loud voice said as the door creaked open and the owner of the voice appeared with her long purple hair fluttering.

"Mirai-san... today, I need you to make this guy talk..." I said in a faint voice avoiding eye contact with her.

"Mirai-san!? Mirai is fine! Don't add the -san, why are you acting like we're strangers!?" She said in her loud voice that was filled with excitement, to which I mumbled, "it's because I wish we were..."

"Did you say something!?" she asked me, piercing me with her stare, "n-no I didn't" I answered while breaking in cold sweat.

She invited us in and after the guy sat on the sofa inside the office she started inspecting him, looked at his pupil and felt his heartbeat, then she looked at me and asked, "what did this guy go through?"

"Apparently, he thinks that he killed his best friend," I answered her, and she asked another question, "apparently? Thinks? What do you mean?" I answered her, "his friend is still alive, and he is denying the fact that he got murdered by this guy... or his ex-lawyer friend who is denying that."

"heh, interesting," she said as she inspected him with her eyes, and then she asked, "so the name?"

"His name is Hisakawa Naoki, his best friend whom he claimed to have killed is called Isozaki Izumi," I read the casefile Shino handed me before leaving the station.

"Good, I'll start then, do you want to see?" She asked grinning at me, I stood up and started heading toward the door, "I-I'll pass on that, just tell me the results. I'll be waiting outside," I answered before going outside and closing the door.

After a few moments have passed, Mirai opened the door and told me to come back inside. I entered the room and saw the guy sleeping on the sofa, so I took a chair and sat across Mirai waiting for her to announce the results, "Listen, I dove in thinking that I'll find an amusing prank or a pitiful lie... but what I actually found was totally unexpected."

"Unexpected? Is the guy really dead after all and that lawyer is hiding that fact?" I asked rushing her to say what she discovered but she was dumbfounded and slowly raised her head till her eyes met mine and said with a voice shivering with excitement, "he said he have killed him, he wasn't even lying I made sure with his Innerself, but then... I asked him-"

"What did you ask him?" I rushed her unable to handle the suspense that is going on, and she said with her usual excited tone, "I asked him if his friend was still alive, and he didn't deny it!"

"So, he is saying he really killed him, but that guy is still alive? Is this guy crazy?" I asked confused by her statement.

"Idiot, is that what you concluded!?" she said showing her disappointment and then continued talking slowly, "that kid...hasn't gone crazy or anything of that sort."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked triggered by her tone of speech.

Mirai moved her lips slowly, saying,

"He... has met one of us."

Shocked by her statement, I stood up and asked, "You don't mean a Veiner!?"

"Not just any Veiner," she answered before pausing for a bit and she continued saying, "a Veiner with a vein that if got combined with yours, a miracle- no, miracles will happen."

"Y-you're kidding me..." I said surprised unable to believe the fact I'm presented with.

"You must not waste this golden chance, find that Veiner, he is the key that will make your ability useful," she said with her excited tone turning serious.

"t-thank you, Mirai..." I bowed my head down thanking her, she laughed and said with playful voice, "what are you acting like a stranger for!? this is what friends are for, right?"

"U-uh, y-yeah..." I said avoiding eye contact with her again, she shifted her eyes toward the guy sleeping, "that guy is a good guy, if we were late, he would have fell into depression and suicided, well, I don't think that I crossed the idea of him suiciding completely, but I tried to lessen the pain he's going through."

I looked at him with worried eyes and said in a low voice, "he reminds me of myself, when... Saku-san died... He must have gone through a lot, as much as I want to help him get through the pain he's feeling, the truth is that he is a murderer, he is just lucky the one he killed was a Veiner."

"He wasn't lucky, he killed him because he knew he was a Veiner," Mirai said with a devastated look on her face and she continued, "because of the nature of my ability, I liked to believe that the humans are way kinder than this, but this just proves it, we don't really belong with humans."

I swayed my hand slapping Mirai and yelled at her, "we are humans too!"

Mirai smiled and sighed saying, "you're usually a coward in front of me but in these times, you just have to show off, huh? Well, I have to admit that this was my mistake, you are right, we are humans as well."

I moved toward the guy sleeping and told her, "I'll be going then, if I meet the Veiner I'll bring him here."

She got up and started closing the door behind us as she said with a playful voice, "be careful, that Veiner is being protected by a sleeping lion~"

As she closed the door, I mumbled confused by her last statement, "sleeping lion?!"

-End of Chapter 18-