ɪ ꜱᴛᴏʟᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ, ꜱᴏ ɴᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴍ ꜱᴀᴛɪꜱꜰɪᴇᴅ || SAIOUMA

Chapter 1 - The Letter

'Another bank has been robbed for the second time this week. There is zero trace of the thief, and we have no idea whether they had to resort to violence. Until we find out who this is, keep your guard up at all times. Thank you.'

The TV flickered to black as my uncle pressed a button on the remote.

'Come on, they can share more information than that,' he said, 'They don't even say which bank got robbed, or what area the thief is in!'

'Calm down Uncle,' I said, trying to stop him getting worked up, 'They probably have reasons for not giving out information.'

'Reasons, my ass,' My uncle scoffed, 'Come on, I run a detective agency for god's sake! The least the authorities can do is give me some info.'

I sighed. 'I've told you everything I've been told, and I got told all they know.'

'How do you know that? How do you know they aren't keeping things from you?'

'Listen, I trust Kirigiri,' I reassured him, 'She told me everything they know, and I know it isn't much, but the investigation only started a few days ago.'

'If you trust them so much, why don't you start dating her? It's about time you got a girlfriend.'

I rubbed my temples, exhausted at my uncle's teasing. He was always telling me that I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone.

'Kirigiri is my boss,' I explained, 'Besides, they already have a girlfriend.'

'Ah...' My uncle paused, thinking. He spoke up a second later, 'What about that Kaede girl from your old school? She seemed nice enough.'

'Kaede isn't looking for a relationship right now. She's busy working on her career,' I said, 'Which is exactly what I'm doing, focusing on my job. I'll bother about relationships later.'

'If you don't get a girlfriend or boyfriend soon, you're gonna spend the rest of your life alone, like me.'

I started to get angry. 'Well why don't you try to get a relationship? Stop living through me!'

'Listen Shu, I'm a 53 year old man with back problems and cancer,' My uncle began, 'I can barely run the agency at the moment, let alone go out and date someone. I know well that I won't live forever, and all I want is to be at your wedding before I inevitably die.'

His words hit a soft spot, and I felt guilty for yelling. 'Sorry... I'm gonna head home now.'

I started to walk towards the door of his apartment, but stopped as he called my name. 'Shuichi?'

'Yeah?' I replied, turning back towards him.

'Please try and date someone.'

I smiled as I opened the door. 'I'll try.'

*****

Instead of going back to my own apartment, I drove towards the Kirigiri Detective Agency.

I had lied to my uncle before. I'd known a lot more about what was known as the Phantom Thief than I'd told him.

At the scene of every robbery, there was a small, handwritten card left behind. It always had the same message.

My thanks

-The Phantom Thief ♡

After doing a DNA test on one of the cards, we found that the card had come from a normal store, and was written with a purple sparkly gel pen. It had fingerprints from multiple people on it, however, one name caught my eye.

A few years back, my uncle had done a small investigation on robberies from a joke store. No money ever got stolen, only harmless pranks.

After only a few weeks on the case, my uncle discovered that the culprit was a 14 year old boy by the name of Kokichi. Strangely, his surname wasn't on any of the systems, and still isn't now.

Kokichi managed to evade capture for his small crimes and vanished without a trace.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and walked into the agency where I worked.

I signed in at reception before heading to my

office. To my surprise, Kirigiri was there, leaning over something on my desk.

'Kirigiri? What are you-'

She turned around with a serious expression, holding something in their hands. 'Saihara. Did you know about this?'

'I... What is that?'

'It's a letter. Addressed to you,' Kirigiri said, their serious mask slipping to reveal a more concerned expression, 'I think... you should read it.'

I took the letter off her, and turned away to open it. Before I opened it, I turned it around to look at who it was addressed to.

To Shuichi Saihara

From The Phantom Thief