last flowers | rohan/reader

2。 azalea

She pondered for a moment. Reorganizing the records room would take an entire day, if not two. [name] didn't want to waste her time doing that, but working on a case while this room sat in a disorderly chaos seemed unfair to not only herself but the few officers that worked here. They were the ones who made it this way, though.

Moving a few containers around didn't take too much effort, but finding a clear spot for the heavy cardboard boxes to sit was another story. She went ahead and kept stacking them up sloppily, just like everyone else had been doing, and stopped once she had spotted the 'Ki' box she'd been looking for.

"Kima, Kimura, Kira— ha! Kishibe." She whipped the aged folder out a bit too carelessly, and the tired crease that held it together began to tear after viciously taking a beating in this box after several years. [name] returned the folder and took out the paperwork inside, one by one, drudging through the meaningless task.

Rohan Kishibe as of Spring 1999

Gender: Male
Age: 20 – born in 1979
Occupation: Manga artist
Blood Type: B
Surgical history: none reported

All irrelevant. The real background check began when she flipped the page to his criminal background—

Criminal history: none reported

"Fuck." It's not that [name] was truly disappointed with the fact that her new acquaintance wasn't a felon, it was the anticipation that killed her mood immediately after seeing nothing noteworthy. She looked over his record one more time, and something caught her eye.

Criminal history: none reported

–Witness in Sugimoto Family homicide (1983), age 4. Deemed too young to testify.

"1983... I would've been eight then. But I can't remember seeing anything about this. Probably because I didn't care then." [Name] scanned the records room for an unused folder to stuff Rohan Kishibe's record inside, and tucked in under her arm for safekeeping. She had begun searching for the 'Su' box when a sharp turn of the doorknob frightened her.

"Ah, [name], what're you doing?" The chief stood in the doorframe, looking as gloomy as ever. His eyes were too easy to notice his stares as she frightenedly fumbled around the room, caught red-handed where she shouldn't have been. Like a guilty child trying not to cry after being scolded for their behavior.

"I was just, uh, looking into some of the victims' histories." She nonchalantly pulled Rohan's folder out from under her arm and held it behind her back. [Name] was bound to seem suspicious with a technically unrelated man's file, and she was already starting to get too deep into this case to just drop everything and go home for insubordination.

"I see..." He didn't seem keen on the idea of her wasting the day away in the records room just soaking up information like a sponge. "Don't hole yourself up in here too long. All the dust in here'll get you sick! We can't have you falling ill on us, alright?"

His skepticism was replaced by brief enthusiasm, and he laughed to himself gently before taking on a more serious attitude. "And don't stay in here all day just to avoid fieldwork. I'm your old boss [name], I know how you like to operate."

"Of course, sir. I won't be in here much longer." That was true, but not for the reasons her old chief would hope for. She had to follow this potentially pointless lead with Rohan Kishibe out first before officially starting on the actual case.

•••

The location her artist acquaintance had asked her to meet at was too... typical. The small separation between the Owson convenience store and a boutique [name] had never seen before was incredibly obvious, but as Rohan would state, it was unmarked on the map.