Jeff's Breathless Investigation
Click, clack. Clack-clack.
A familiar sound. The faint noise slowly dragged my deeply asleep consciousness back to the surface.
"Mmm..."
My physical senses gradually returned. I rubbed my blurry eyes and sat up. Shine's and my room. My body lying on the bed. The blanket draped over me slowly slid down. I naturally reached my hand to the side to check on Shine, who should have been lying next to me. Contrary to my expectations, only the cold, empty blanket welcomed my touch.
Clack-clack-clack.
The familiar sound echoed again. It was the sound of keyboard typing. In one corner of the room, which should have been shrouded in soft darkness, a colorful light was flashing. I rubbed my eyes and turned my head toward it.
"Sh... ine?"
Shine. The girl who was supposed to be sleeping right beside me was sitting in front of the computer. Perhaps she couldn't hear my voice because she was wearing a headset, but she didn't take her eyes off the screen.
Slipping out of bed, I walked over quietly to peek at her monitor. It was the game we played yesterday—the online RPG she had taken an interest in. She was still playing it. What was going on? She had definitely gone to bed with me.
I stared at Shine in silence. She was desperately leveling up her character. Without a word, I crawled back into bed and tried to go back to sleep. Well, everyone has those nights, I thought, not wanting to disturb her.
Clack-clack, click-clack. The typing sounds didn't let up until I finally drifted off.
"Shine, are you sleepy?"
Early morning. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I asked Shine, who was sitting next to me. Dark circles had settled heavily under her eyes.
"Yeah..." she replied in a lifeless voice.
Her white hair swayed gently as her head began to nod. She was clearly dozing off. I gently pushed her shoulders to guide her back down onto the bed. Without resisting my touch, Shine crawled under the covers. It was breakfast time, but she desperately needed sleep. I slipped out of the room alone and headed downstairs.
Rain and Amy were already preparing breakfast. Rain was busily moving around, carrying dishes, while Amy handed her plates piled with food. Today's breakfast consisted of fried eggs, salad, and chicken breast. When I complained to Amy that eating nothing but grass every morning was too hard, she graciously added the fried eggs.
I really want pork cutlet, though.
With that thought, I sat down in a chair. A small mirror on the dining table reflected my face. A little girl with her lips pouted in discontent stared back. Looking in the mirror, I began to tidy up my hair.
"Morning, Jeff. Where's Shine?" Rain asked, placing a plate in front of me as I fixed my hair.
"Morning. Shine's going to sleep some more," I replied, thinking of her lying in bed. She probably wouldn't wake up until lunchtime.
"Shine is?" Amy asked, echoing my words.
I nodded. Amy walked over to the table holding the last plate. She was wearing clothes slightly different from her usual attire, and an ID card identifying her as a museum employee hung around her neck.
"I think she had trouble sleeping," I said.
Amy nodded and looked up toward the ceiling. "Was the bed uncomfortable?"
"No, it's not that."
"Right? She slept fine on the first night."
I busily worked my fork, wrapping all sorts of vegetables inside the fried egg, then stuffed the whole thing into my mouth and chewed vigorously. My cheeks puffed out so much they looked ready to pop, but I managed to swallow it down.
In the end, Amy stood up, went upstairs, and carried Shine down in her arms. Cradled in Amy's embrace, Shine looked around with hazy, unfocused eyes, still completely out of it.
"Why is she so out of it? Did she drink coffee by any chance?" Amy eyed me suspiciously. She was likely remembering the time back at headquarters when I had secretly sneaked a sip of her coffee.
I shook my head frantically. "No, she didn't!"
Amy sat Shine down in a chair, dampened a handkerchief, and wiped her face. Hating the cold sensation of the wet cloth, Shine flailed her hands, trying to push Amy's hand away.
"Rain, I have to leave soon, so make sure Shine eats. Okay?"
"Got it!"
Satisfied with Rain's energetic response, Amy smiled and popped a piece of broccoli into Shine's mouth. Unable to even resist, Shine chewed a few times before starting to doze off again.
"I'm off!"
It was the start of the day. Giving us a wave, Amy opened the door and left for her job at the museum. Having quickly devoured her own food, Rain fed Shine just as Amy had requested. Shine accepted every bite, gulping down the food even while half-asleep. In the end, completely intoxicated by sleep, she managed to eat everything. By the time Rain and I started clearing the plates, Shine had faceplanted onto the living room table and fallen fast asleep.
"Shine doesn't look so good..."
"She stayed up all night playing a game."
"A game?"
"Yeah. She seems to really like it."
Rain looked at Shine worriedly at my words.
"I guess we can't go out today."
"Yeah."
"We should move her to her bed."
Rain and I each took a side of Shine's body and began to carry her up the stairs. We wobbled precariously, which was quite dangerous, but fortunately, we managed to get her into bed without any incidents.
In the end, we had no choice but to cancel all our morning plans. I couldn't go out without Shine. Rain might be a different story, but I had to stay with Shine. I had promised to always be by her side, after all.
Sitting on the living room sofa, I used my laptop to gather information. I organized the incidents that had occurred in District 2 and categorized them by date. Among them, I filtered out any information that mentioned the museum. I began collecting everything—articles, blogs, community forum posts, without exception. Rain sat next to me and started playing a game.
Information about the museum was ridiculously scarce. Most of it consisted of posts from ten years ago, or a few brief mentions on community bulletin boards. If there was no information on the museum, I just had to approach it from a different angle. This time, I started searching for the person who had compiled the city's records into a book. The compiler's name was Kazan.
I immediately grabbed a phone book and checked every number belonging to someone named Kazan living in District 2. All that was left was to search through the numbers one by one. Simple, repetitive work wasn't particularly difficult. Out of fifteen phone numbers, I narrowed down the ones that had even a slight connection to books or the museum. There were three potential suspects, but I managed to single out the one with the highest likelihood of being our guy.
Name: Kazan
Age: 62
Occupation: President of the publishing company responsible for printing the city's historical records.
Nice. I nodded and drew a circle in my notebook. Once Shine woke up, our destination was set.
Shine didn't wake up until well past lunchtime. As she came downstairs rubbing her eyes, I jumped up from my seat, ran over, and pulled her into a hug.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah."
Shine nodded blankly. Though fatigue still lingered in her voice, she seemed perfectly fine to move around now.
"Is that game really that fun?"
"I have to get revenge."
"On that character?"
"Yes."
Good. Now that all three of us were together, it was time to carry out our mission. We all changed into our outdoor clothes and slung our bags over our shoulders. Not forgetting to activate our bracelets, we stepped out of the house.
"Since we're starting late today, we're going to take a different route." I pulled out my notebook and explained our plans to the other two.
"A publishing company?"
"Yeah. It's a place that publishes all kinds of books."
"Like the comic books Rain has?"
At Shine's question, Rain gave an awkward laugh and nodded. Shine turned to me, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. It seemed she wanted a new book.
"So, we can get new books there?"
"Well, it's not like there aren't bookstores nearby, but that's not our goal."
"I know."
Did she really know? It was a bit concerning that both Shine and Rain seemed to have absolutely zero interest in the mission. Sighing, I led them toward the bus stop. Since the publishing company was quite far, we had to use public transit. I had learned how to ride the bus from books. Using the map function on my phone, I checked the bus route to the publishing company and we boarded.
Shine sat in her seat, staring blankly out the window. After riding the bus for quite a while, we finally arrived at our target stop. Across from the stop stood a massive building—that was the publishing company.
"Is that it?"
"Yeah."
Approaching the front of the publishing company, I placed my hand against the building's exterior wall and closed my eyes. It was time to use the ability I had been intentionally holding back. Blue currents of electricity slowly began to rise. As the power sleeping within my body awakened, all the surrounding noises rushed into my head. It was loud—incredibly loud, in fact.
I began to focus even harder. Blocking out the information flooding in from the surroundings, I channeled my senses to receive only the data from this building. My mind began to delve deeper.
But that was as far as I could go. I hit the limit of my ability.
Crackle!
A spark flashed before my eyes, and the flow of energy shattered.
"Ugh."
Groaning, I pulled my hand away from the wall. It looked like I needed to get deeper inside.
"Jeff, did you find out anything?"
"Mmm, no. I think we need to go further inside."
Shaking my head at Shine's question, I headed into the publishing company building with the others. Passing through the large automatic doors, we entered a wide hallway. In the center of the hallway was a spacious information desk, flanked by men who looked like security guards. Their gazes immediately locked onto us.
Feeling the weight of their intense stares, I tightly squeezed Rain's and Shine's hands and walked toward the desk. The employee sitting on the other side was yawning out of sheer boredom. I approached the desk, raised my hand, and knocked.
Knock, knock.
The quiet sound snapped the employee back to reality. He blinked and looked around.
"Down here."
I raised my hand high and waved at him. Only then did the employee look down at me over the desk. A brief silence hung in the air. He adjusted his glasses, then spoke with a small smile.
"Welcome! How can I help you today?"
"Is it possible to get a tour of the building?"
"A tour?"
"Yes!"
At my question, the employee's expression turned troubled. He tilted his head slightly with an awkward smile.
"Well... could you wait just a moment?"
He immediately began typing on his keyboard. A soft *clack-clack-clack* echoed through the wide hallway. He seemed to be exchanging messages with someone.
"They say right now is a bit difficult, but next Thursday is fine. Would you be able to come back then?"
"Next week?"
"Yes."
It was disappointing, but there was nothing we could do right now. I nodded and wrote my name and phone number on the tour application form he handed over.
Shasha Charles Jane.
It didn't look like anyone else had applied besides us. Once I finished filling out the application, we immediately left the publishing company.