Evening and Winter (夕方と冬)

Lucas

Chifuyu was sitting on the sofa and reading case files in Taylor's office while the investigator was out investigating other cases, while the discussion they had the night before replayed in Chifuyu's head.

"Because of the chaos you caused, we might have to wait until Ian lowers his security again. It'll be bad if we go to his estate now," Taylor told Chifuyu.

"Are you telling me to wait, old man?" Chifuyu raised a brow.

"Precisely, we have to wait until Ian Heir cools down his awareness. Because even if we have the SWAT team, it's still very dangerous going against that mafia gang." Taylor explained, "Since you're decided to work for me, why not put your impressive intelligence to good use?" he had a smile on his face that made Chifuyu somehow annoyed.

"What are you implying?" his right lower eyelid was twitching in irritation.

"You can work on other cases, let Eve help you with it too." Taylor didn't remove his smile.

Chifuyu clenched the pencil he was using to take notes on the case files, the peaceful reading atmosphere suddenly turned to Chifuyu getting annoyed over the previous night's events.

"That darn old man," he mumbled, breaking his pencil in half. "Oops, I didn't mean to do that..." he was surprised of himself.

"Have you heard of the Alabaster's latest act? His games are getting more impressive each night," Victor sips his tea, in the living room with Eve.

"The Alabaster really is popular for his games with the police, huh?" Eve smiled awkwardly, "I hope Tsuguha-kun will stay in Dad's office until Victor leaves..." she thought, hoping in her head.

"Not going to lie, his mischief is like no other. He's what I call 'a delinquent who isn't committing a crime', which what made him so famous." Victor said, putting down his cup of tea. "Well, I have a meeting to go to. I'll visit another time," he stands up.

"Thank you for coming, Victor." Eve thanked him as he walked to his horse carriage, then left out of sight as Chifuyu left the office to see Eve at the opened doorway. Eve shut the door quickly and let out a sigh of relieve, as if she just escaped from embarrassment.

"What was Victor Clark doing here?" Chifuyu asked Eve.

"Y-You know him?" Eve responded nervously, and let out another sigh.

"I know much more than you think, Eve." Chifuyu gave her his sharp look, where his brows were slightly furrowed. "His family owns Clark's Plaything, right? Was here for an investigation request or something?" he asked her.

"Not really..." Eve leaned her back against the closed doors, and Chifuyu gave her a raised brow to tell her he's waiting for answers. "He's... my fiancé," she lifted her hand to show Chifuyu her engagement ring.

"What the heck? You're 17, right? And he's in his 20s," Chifuyu was calmly surprised.

"23 to be exact," Eve responded, "I don't love him... But the engagement is already done, what can I do...?" she sighed heavily.

"Good luck with that," Chifuyu had a dumb look on his face.

"You're not even offering to help me?!" Eve still doesn't understand how Chifuyu could be stupid out of nowhere on some occasions, such as the current one.

"Excuse me!" there was a knock on the door that made Eve slightly jump, then she opened the door to see a young boy in front of the door.

"Ah, hello there, Lucas." Eve seemed happy to see him.

"Hello, Miss Evening." The boy bowed politely, but froze when he made eye contact with Chifuyu. "Oh, it's you from the other day. The one I bumped into," his amber eyes showed confusion as he pointed to Chifuyu.