***
Several feet underground in the middle of the night, Ame's heels laid elevated on the computer desk as she occupied the surveillance room for today's intrusive reconnaissance. She was cozy, in her blue blanket leaning far back into her chair. The thermostat on the outer wall of the room was the main source keeping the place at a hospitable temperature, but studious as usual, her eyes lay glued to the bright monitor illuminating the dark room with intense focus. She hadn't the thought of increasing the temperature of the room. She just rubbed her feet together using the friction to heat herself up a little.
Earlier she had inserted the disk that she had gotten from Chiaki into the DVD player on the desk. Properly prepped for the occasion, she wore her pajamas with the pink polka dot pattern and a pair of fuzzy socks. She had the face of someone who had done this a thousand times before. Confident enough she'd find something within this tape like she had experienced it already and was just trying to figure out when. That being said, that confidence was always second guessed by Suzuki's hyper-potent womanly charm that she couldn't replicate. To help alleviate some of her accumulating stress, she held tightly onto her salt & vinegar flavored bag of chips, crumbling it rather often. Her emotional state could practically be deciphered by the frequency of the sounds made by the bag whenever she saw something she didn't like.
The desk had a few stacks of DVD cases sprawled about, with names written on them in order by date and time. They were taking up enough space to need a new place to be put, but you normally wouldn't expect that level of tidiness from a sister carried around by her emotions. The footage being transmitted to the monitor displayed the events of Kaze and Suzuki's date. The camera was pointed from the eastern side of the store while their table was over near the western wall. It covered everything up until the two of them left and it gave a clear picture of the windows on that side as well. Considering the ceiling wasn't higher than what you'd expect from a typical bedroom, you could see a side profile of everyone who sat in the booths. The cameras were installed as a part of the store's new security system, but they weren't a thing yet two years prior.
How Chiaki was able to extract that much data and burn it into a disk within seconds after they left, was beyond impressive. Normally that amount footage would take three to four hours. Chiaki had a familiarity with electronics that not even Ame could match. Ame had been working with various tools since she was young to spy on her brother, so there wasn't many people who could stand up to her, yet Chiaki was on a completely other level. Everything she touched behaved liked a billion dollar super computer with its processing speed maxed out. Over the years, Chiaki and Ame worked together on plenty of projects, in and out of school, which has netted them plenty of funding money for their inventions. At first their partnership was for financial gain, but as they grew closer, they would help each other out of simple love for one another. Chiaki would provide Ame with the supplies she needed to 'protect' her brother and Ame would come over and help her with special tasks of her own: like designing systems and coming up with common sense shattering visions of a very plausible future.
"Aside from her bust, she's really got no weak points to exploit. Why does she have to be so cute?" Ame grinds her teeth in disbelief.
I hate to admit it, but if I can't find anything I'll have to... No there's got to be something. She was absent-minded a few times. When was that again?
I pull two chips out of the bag and put them on my tongue savoring the strong taste of the vinegar before crushing them between my teeth. I glance at the remote putting together the idea to increase the speed of the playback. The remote on the desk is too far to reach with my hand, so I use my right foot's toes to grip onto it and bend my knee to bring it in contact with my right hand. Grabbing hold of it, I press the Fast-forward button and wait for the perfect moment.
"There it is!"
I pause the recording and look at the figure of an androgynous purple-haired person that had been running past right outside the window. On their shoulder is a rabbit with dark brown fur and huge ears. Is this why she was talking about the toroise and the hare or does she know that person and that's why she reacted the way she did? Maybe she was just surprised to see someone with purple hair or a rabbit on someone's shoulder? This isn't helping. There's too many questions to work with.
She looked relieved at some point too, out of nowhere, like she saw something again that she'd been waiting on. Maybe that section will give me some sort of clue. Curious as to what would show up, I pressed the play button and watched till the end. I got to see her face shift in relief, but nothing else showed up in the recording that I haven't seen already. Maybe she's just weird. You'd have to be quite the character to pick on my cute little brother back then, but then again I don't know. It's often said that people pick on the people they like. I need more information. I'll have to keep watching her for now.
Reaching for more chips from within the bag, I pull my feet down from the desk and stand up to turn off the monitor. I put the remote down on the desk along with my bag of chips. After wrapping the blanket around me like a towel, I grab the chips and head to thermostat to increase the temperature to a cozy level. Too tired to do anymore critical analysis, I head to my actual bedroom. I have a nightstand with my diary on it and a small desk where I keep my project ideas in a few notebooks. The diary is pink and locks with a key. The room doesn't have any windows but there are light panels that are sound sensitive and a family photo of our small family by my diary. The other furniture includes a bean bag chair and a chest by the bed's feet. Laying on the unmade up bed is a photo album of Kaze and me over the years. I tend to go through it before bed. Crawling into bed I look toward the ceiling and a sickening memory of Kaze in a hospital bed sweeps through my mind.