“Oh? And I thought I was on to something Ryuzaki said, dejected. It was hard to tell how much of his reaction was genuine.
He appeared to be sulking, a trait which, in him, was not at all cute. An absolutely terrible way to present oneself.
“I mean, you yourself are Rue Ryuzaki—R. R.” “Oh! I hadn’t noticed.”
“This is pointless.”
She should never have expected anything from him. All that nonsense about him leading her through the deductions yesterday had been nothing but paranoia.
R.R.? “Misora.”
“Eh? Oh, what?”
“Since my deductions have come to naught, do you have any good ideas?”
“No, not really. I’m in the same boat as you... can’t think of any real course of action except looking for another message, like we did yesterday. I feel like I’m dancing on the killer’s palms, which irritates the hell out of me, but...”
“Then let us dance. Playing your enemy’s game until he relaxes and lets a hint drop is a perfectly good strategy. So, Misora, if there is a message here... then where?”
“Well, we can at least guess the contents. Presumably the message has the third victim’s name, Backyard Bottomslash, or her address. The crossword puzzle led to the first case, the book pages led to the second case, so...”
“Yes, I agree.”
“But where that message is hidden, I have no idea. If we can figure out some sort of pattern, that would help us catch him, but...”
Something that should he here, but wasn’t. Ryuzaki had described it that way.
Referring to the victim, and to the bookshelves.
Was there something like that here? Something that should be here, but wasn’t? Something that should be here but isn’t here was starting to sound like a linguistic Mobius strip.
“So,” Ryuzaki said. “If whatever we find will simply point us to the third victim, then perhaps it would be more effective if we skipped this scene and went right to the third one. After all, our goal is to prevent the fourth murder as well as solve the case.”
“Yeah.”
She was the one who had pointed out the chances of a fourth murder... but Ryuzaki’s reaction had suggested he had been well aware of this possibility, which was why she hesitated now.
“The third murder has already happened, and we can’t prevent that, but there is a chance that we can stop the fourth. Rather than waste time looking for a message when we already know what it says, it would be far more constructive to look for a message leading us to the fourth victim.”
“But that just feels so submissive ...like we’re following his lead. I mean we might miss an important clue to his identity if we skip this room. Even if there isn’t some clear evidence, we might get a feel ing or a hunch that will help us out later. I agree that preventing the fourth murder is important, hut if we focus on that too much, we’ll lose the chance to get aggressive, to take control of the situation.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a top.”
“A top?”
“An aggressive top,” Ryuzaki said. “I have never once been submissive. One of the few things I can boast about. I have never even been submissive to a traffic signal.”
(Madi says: LOL YAOI WUT) “You really should,”
“Never.” Adamant.
“Preventing the fourth murder should lead us directly to identifying and arresting the killer. This is what my clients want, more than anything. But I see your point as well, Misora. I’m already finished checking the room over, so while you are doing that, I would like to think about the third murder, Do you mind if I look at the file you showed me yesterday once more?”
“Work different angles? Fine by me...”
lol yaoi wut
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