Inside Your Mind

20 - Shinsou

With a whisper, I'm there, over your shoulder

Kaori Shinsou was sitting in the office, trying to pass the time. She had been hoping to be sent on patrol, but Iida - from his hospital bed - had ordered her to only get involved if she absolutely needed to. So now she was sitting in the office, opposite Hirota who was having a power nap, sipping on her coffee. The whole situation sucked ass. She had been restless since the beginning of the week.

But Stain was taking his sweet time, not killing anyone. And even if he did, chances were she wouldn't get called out. Hirota was pretty happy about this development. Since he was always partnered up with Kaori, it meant he got to stay in the office to do some random paperwork and didn't have to do overtime. Which in turn meant his girlfriend wouldn't be mad at him.

Kaori hated it. She kept monitoring all the requests from the dispatcher, ready to pick up anything that seemed interesting or exciting to her and get going at a moment's notice. But there was nothing. It was like the whole criminal underbelly of Hosu City had decided to take a break.

She took another sip from her coffee mug when she heard a knock at the door. It was a strange, unfamiliar knock - Kaori had been spending so much time in night shifts she knew everyone's knock, but this was a new one. Shit. Who the fuck could that be? And Hirota was fast asleep.

"Hey, Hirota." she said quietly. Another knock. Fuck. She needed to wake him up before whoever that was came in. She grabbed a pencil from her table and threw it at him. Hirota woke up startled and looked around him in confusion.

"Shinsou, what the fuck?" he said, as she gestured for him to be quiet. There was another, excessively loud knock at the door. Hirota seemed to understand the predicament and quickly made himself look busy.

"Come in!" Shinsou said, as the door opened with a creak just seconds later. Someone was eager to get inside.

"Night, Hirota, Shinsou." said a figure of moderate height in a trench coat. Tsukauchi. What the hell was Tsukauchi doing out here?

"Oh, Detective. We weren't really expecting an official visit, we'd have tidied the place a little otherwise." Kaori replied with a forced smile. Tsukauchi laughed and walked into the room. There was another figure behind him. Dark clothes, face buried in a thick scarf. Shouta Aizawa. Kaori's smile was about to turn into a genuine one.

"No need for that, we're just checking in. You know we've been expecting Stain to attempt another kill in Hosu soon, right? It's been awfully quiet, hasn't it?" Tsukauchi commented. Hirota nodded, leaning back in his chair.

"It has been. Well, I'm not complaining, our last run in with him was quite a lot of paperwork." he commented. Tsukauchi seemed to be smelling something. He took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulders.

"What's brewing in here? Smells amazing." he wanted to know. Kaori smiled and glanced back at the coffee machine.

"Colombian Arabica. The cheap one from the convenience store. It's really good, though." Kaori answered. She was the police station's specialist on anything coffee related. At first, it was kind of a patronising thing - hey, you're the new girl, right? Why don't you go and make some coffee, sweetheart?

But Kaori had been so annoyed by this attitude that she had made it her goal to make the best fucking coffee in the entire police force, so people would actually fucking appreciate her for something, at least.

"Really? I usually make a large bend around those, but it does smell great. Would you mind if I had a cup?" Tsukauchi asked.

"Not at all, Sir." Kaori said and got up to pour the detective a cup of her coffee. She saw Mr. Aizawa smiling into his scarf.