Evening and Winter (夕方と冬)

The Secret Admirer

"The second semester is starting..." Eve sighed as she was tidying her books in her room, while Chifuyu was sitting on the stool of her opened bedroom window with his back leaning against the window's casing and Maru in his lap.

"Of school?" Chifuyu asked her as she puts a few books into her bag, "Oh, right. Last few months was mid-year holidays," Chifuyu remembered, as his ferret climbed to sit on his shoulder.

"Yeah, don't you go to school?" Eve asked him curiously.

"Nope, it's too primitive for me." Chifuyu smirked.

"Alright, alright, Mister Crime Investigator." Eve rolled her eyes, "Well, I'm going to start the first day of the second semester tomorrow." She said as she placed her bag in front of the footboard of her bed.

"Which school do you attend?" Chifuyu asked her, as Maru let out a small squeak.

"Ly Condorcet," Eve replied.

"I see..." Chifuyu mumbled as he stepped his feet to the stool of the window he was sitting on, "Well, got to go now, au revoir." Chifuyu raised his two fingers.

"Au revoir, Chifuyu-kun." Eve waved back to him before he left the window, then sprinting out of sight.

***

Chifuyu stepped into Taylor's office, yawning and threw himself onto the sofa to let out a sigh, ignoring the senior investigator and his junior in the room.

"What's up with you?" Jeffrey had a slight annoyance in his voice.

"A neighbour's baby kept me up all night..." Chifuyu had his face buried in a pillow on the sofa, making his voice slightly difficult to hear.

"Tsuguha-kun, did you hear about the murder that happened last night?" Taylor stood up from his chair to approach Chifuyu, and Chifuyu turned his body around to face upwards.

"Yeah, I'm speculating it's The Reaper's doing." Chifuyu said, before sitting down and leaning his back on the backrest of the sofa.

"I think so too," Jeffrey agreed by nodding his head.

"The victims are Japanese immigrants, Toyoharu Mitsuba and his wife, Toyoharu Ranko." Taylor began to repeat the key information broadcasted on the radio, "Jeffrey and I already investigated the crime scene, the murder weapon was a knife and we already taken the DNA in for testing. We might need to wait for the results to find who did this, who was hired by The Reaper to murder the couple." He added.

"The crime took place around the train station, right?" Chifuyu's fatigue seemed to have faded away.

"That's right," Taylor nodded and Chifuyu stood up to stretch his arms above his head.

"Alright then, I shall perform my own investigation." Chifuyu said, and left the room.

"He's really invested in The Reaper, is he?" Jeffrey was marvelled.

"I'm not surprised, he is a victim of The Reaper after all." Taylor sighed, while Chifuyu made his way to the train station by his high-platform route.

"Eve~!" Charlotte waved her hand high above her head, waving to Eve who just jumped out of a carriage in front of the high school.

"Good morning, Charlotte." Eve approached her friend.

"Charlotte just read the board... We're in different classes..." Charlotte suddenly sobbed.

"Wait, really?" Eve was surprised and sad herself, "Aww, that's too bad..." she sighed heavily, when she noticed a boy walking pass her with anxiety and restlessness written all over his face.