the beauty of water: deep end | o. dazai ✔

chapter twenty-three.

"Ma'am—"

"Aimi."

"Aimi, what makes you think that? Is there something I should know?" (Y/n) pressed her arms against her legs. "What does your brother do? Or rather, what did he do?"

"Well... what didn't he do?" she laughed a bit, waving (Y/n)'s questions off. "He did all sorts of stuff, and not always the legal kind, ha ha! He was quite the personality."

"Uh huh..." (Y/n) stood up. "Please excuse me for a moment, I'm going to grab a notepad and a pen."

"Yes, of course. You go do that!"

(Y/n) stepped out, passing Tanizaki as she went to grab a notepad and pen. Tanizaki followed her to her desk and asked, "So? What's going on?"

"A missing brother who's probably a crook," (Y/n) responded in a whisper. "Go get Dazai and Atsushi, I think something's happening."

Tanizaki nodded and immediately went to fetch the two. (Y/n) walked back to the area she left Aimi in. The second she stepped into the closed space, cold tingles shot up her leg.

She stumbled slightly, causing Aimi to stand up and grab her arm. "Woah, there! Don't go tumbling on me now!"

"Sorry 'bout that," (Y/n) said, sitting back in her seat. Aimi let go of her arm, a cold tingle remaining there as Aimi sat back in her seat.

(Y/n) looked down at the leg of her chair, noticing a small black backpack resting there. It wasn't big enough to hold anything like a notebook or laptop, but was small enough to act as an average purse.

How did I not see that before? (Y/n) internally questioned, her eyes flicking back to Aimi.

"Your purse is really cute," she said, pointing to it with her pen.

"Oh, thank you! It was actually a gift from my brother." Aimi picked it up, resting it on her lap. "He always liked to buy us expensive things..."

"'Us'?" (Y/n) flipped to a blank page in her notebook.

"Yes, my husband and I."

"Ah, and what is your married name?"

"Davidson."

"American? Are you both foreigners visiting here? Did you come here with your brother?" (Y/n) began to scribble on her notepad.

"My brother and I are originally from Tokyo. Pete, my husband, is from Texas," Aimi answered. "We live in Austin, but we like to come and visit often since it's still my home."

"Okay, so how'd you know your brother was missing?"

"We'd often call and send gifts to one another. But when the gifts stopped coming and he didn't answer my calls, I knew something was wrong." Aimi's cheerful, almost bright expression, turned to sadness.

"When did you come here to try and find out what was wrong?"

"A couple weeks ago. I've been traveling around Tokyo and Yokohama endlessly to find leads – and when I didn't find any answers, I found out about this place and came here to try and get someone who could."

"Which led you to me."

"Yes, Detective."

"For the record, could you also tell me your maiden name."

Aimi unzipped her bag, beginning to ruffle through it. "Of course: my maiden name is Aimi Fujinuma."

(Y/n) instantly froze.