The inside of the interrogation room was somewhat disappointing.
It was clean and well-ventilated—the air crisp, carrying a faint, chemical scent of polished wood that lingered at the back of my throat. Detective Yaguchi had been entirely casual since the moment the four of us sat down. We had each introduced ourselves by name and meaning, and the detective then pressed for our personal achievements, perhaps in an attempt to loosen the room's suffocating tension.
Since Masato and I possessed entirely empty trophy shelves, the conversation shifted entirely between Yaguchi and Hiro. For a moment, I found myself mildly invested, despite not even knowing what the "Yankees" were—only to discover it wasn't a single person at all.
"I'm telling you, Miura is the one to watch this season. Might even become a Hall of Famer," Hiro said with quiet pride, visibly suppressing a smug grin.
"He's durable, I'll give you that, but he ain't that special." The detective's formality dropped along with his leg, which had been crossed until now.
Hiro had seemingly bested whatever debate had grown between them over the last few minutes, though I couldn't say exactly how. I had given up holding a baseball bat after being struck out by a female pitcher in my third year of middle school; the sport had left my life right along with it.
I shifted in my seat. My right arm ached—a dull, spreading tension in the tricep that always surfaced whenever I felt cornered. I rubbed at it absently.
"How busy is your weekly class schedule?" The detective glanced over at Masato and me. His expression remained casual and easy, yet his eyes pressed hard for a response.
I had been entirely too guarded. I realized this before Hiro's easy banter had even begun. I hadn't once looked over at Masato, who sat at the furthest end of the room. Hiro, seated closest to the detective, effortlessly began answering for us.
"I often skip homeroom for extra practice," Hiro said, sitting up a bit straighter. "Conditioning for the heat of the autumn tournament, you know."
I noted his tendency to brag—the way his arms swung slightly when describing how he pitched a ball, as if he were still standing out on the mound. I glanced toward the detective to see how he received the performance. Yaguchi's face remained open, nodding along with Hiro, but his eyes held a faint, cold indifference. Then there was the pen in his hand, and the brief, deliberate pauses he made each time his gaze drifted back in my direction.
"If my team wins the autumn tournament, I'll get picked up by the big-name universities…"
I looked from Hiro back to the detective. Then it finally clicked.
The guarded version of Hiro from the hallway—the one leaning against the wall with arms crossed, silently promising to keep his mouth shut—had been quietly, involuntarily dismantled. All it took was a single thread of shared interest, pulled at just the right angle. From a single basic question, the detective had grasped Hiro's passions. More than that, he had mapped his flaws. Hiro loved to boast. He enjoyed controlling his own narrative. A detective's task is, in its simplest form, to observe the structural flaws of a person's character. Hiro hadn't realized that Detective Yaguchi was merely melting the frozen butter.
I let myself sink deeper into the chair. I should have focused on my posture, but my mind had begun to reel around a much harder question.
What have we done?Why are we here?
I looked up at the ceiling as though searching for the sky—then remembered that to find the sky in a place like this, I'd first have to look at the ground.
Was it really about Alison? Hiro had let that anxiety slip before we'd even walked through the door. It was a reasonable fear, and one with deep roots. Everyone gathered at the police station knew Alison. Everyone in Nagatoro knew Alison—the entire Wedding family, for that matter. Their mansion was hard to miss. But the people in this room knew her more deeply than the rest. We'd spent the summer with her. We'd been there when things first started to unravel.
Still, it was pure speculation. And for now, it remained easy enough to brush off, because Alison was simply at home, resting and unwell. Last night at the park, she had made a promise—something we would both honor. Those tears of hers had watered the seeds of a dream. I intended to nurture it.
Gripping the arms of the chair, I pulled myself forward.
"Detective—"
I wasn't sure whether I had cut through one of Hiro's tangents. Honestly, I didn't care. I looked past the man's glasses, trying to meet him exactly where he stood—to reach him at his level, just as he saw us.
He was already waiting for me. I noticed it immediately: a focus that had quietly sharpened the exact millisecond I moved. Had he known I would do this? That I would break first? No. More like he had actively orchestrated it.
I paused—not to steady myself, but in the way a diver holds their breath before plunging into an ocean, entirely uncertain of how far down they'll drop.
"Why exactly have we been called in? I feel like this stalling is just making things unsettling." I rubbed my right arm again. The dry pain had spread further up my tricep.
The detective replied blankly, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose as if his answer required genuine thought. "Straight to the point, huh? Well, Yoshi Taka, you shouldn't have to feel unsettled. I am not interrogating you, am I?"
It was an open challenge, a trap wrapped in an invitation, but I had no clue where it led. He spoke to me as if I were a guilty child, but beneath the paternal act, I felt the distinct weight of his viewing me as something far more dangerous.
"It's just—" I began, but stopped. I realized my response was a trail leading directly to a dead end.
I clenched my right fist. The phantom pain in my tricep intensified.
"Just what, Mr. Yoshi Taka?" Yaguchi pressed. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees, closing the physical distance between us.
Just what? I didn't know. I felt as if my integrity had been stripped away without a single word of accusation. Should a person know the answer to a completely blank question?
The thought circled back on itself, tightening around my neck like a noose. He hadn't accused me of anything. He hadn't even implied wrongdoing. And yet, the sheer weight of his undivided attention made me feel as though I'd already confessed to a crime.
I forced myself to breathe.
"It's just that if you have questions, Detective, I'd prefer you ask them directly," my voice came out steadier than I expected, "rather than waiting for us to incriminate ourselves through small talk."
The room went completely dead.
Hiro stopped mid-gesture, his mouth slightly open. Masato shifted in his seat for the first time since we'd entered the room.
Detective Yaguchi's expression didn't change. He simply tilted his head, studying me the way an archivist might study a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit the exhibit. Then, he smiled. Not warmly. Not coldly, either. Just… knowingly.
"Incriminate," he repeated, as if tasting the syllables on his tongue. "That's an interesting choice of phrasing, Yoshi Taka. I never said anyone here was guilty of anything."
My stomach dropped into a void.
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "But since you're so eager to move things along, let me ask you this: when was the last time you saw Alison Wedding?"
The question landed like a heavy stone in still water. I felt Hiro's eyes instantly snap to me. Masato did too.
"Last night," I said, keeping my voice flat. "At the park."
"And how did she seem to you?"
"Upset."
"About what?"
I hesitated. The promise we'd made—it wasn't illegal. It wasn't even inherently suspicious. But something about saying it aloud, here, in the dim air of this concrete basement, felt like handing him a weapon I didn't fully know how to wield.
"She was worried about her family," I said carefully, choosing words that felt safe. "About expectations."
Detective Yaguchi nodded slowly, as if I'd just confirmed a line of text he'd already highlighted. "And did she mention anything else? Any plans? Anyone she was afraid of?"
"No."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing that seemed relevant."
His eyes sharpened instantly behind those lenses. "Relevant to what, exactly?"
I realized my mistake the second the word cleared my lips. I'd assumed context—assumed this conversation was built around a specific tragedy. And in doing so, I'd revealed to a trained investigator that I believed there was a disaster relevant to the case.
The detective saw it instantly. The heavy plastic of his pen tapped once, sharply, against his notepad.
"Yoshi Taka," he said quietly, the casual warmth completely gone from his tone. "Alison Wedding didn't come home last night."
The air left the room, along with my soul.