The Lost Old Dog
One evening, on the way back from the station to his apartment after school, Sagara Sousuke noticed someone tailing him.
“What’s wrong, Sousuke?” Chidori Kaname asked. Sousuke typically found himself walking home with her once or twice a week, especially on Fridays, when they stayed late doing odd jobs for the student council. Today was one such Friday.
While walking, they’d ended up in a fierce debate over whether the best accompaniment for curry was bread or rice. Kaname had mentioned, as they left the station, that she was thinking of making curry tonight, and offered him a rare invitation to stop by. Sousuke had readily agreed and requested bread to go with it. That’s how the argument had started, but now...
“Cat got your tongue or something?” she asked him.
Sousuke said nothing.
“Or are you ready to acknowledge that rice is the superior side?”
“Actually...” Sousuke responded vaguely, his eyes narrowed. They were walking along a city road that was light on automobile traffic. As they moved away from the hustle and bustle of the station’s surroundings and entered a residential area, old high-rise apartments towered over them to the right. The thinning of the crowds was what had made it so easy for Sousuke to notice that someone was tailing them. “This way,” he said, pulling Kaname by the arm to enter a small nearby pharmacy.
“What now?”
“Just act normal,” he ordered. “Pretend you’re shopping.”
“Huh?”
Sousuke pretended to root through the medical products on the shelf, grabbed one without looking at it, and headed to the register.
“H-Hang on a minute!” Kaname cried out in panic.
“What?”
“You really shouldn’t buy that!”
The item Sousuke had brought to the register was a pregnancy test. The middle-aged cashier narrowed her eyes at them. Her gaze seemed to say, Goodness, young people these days...
“Don’t worry about it. Leave it to me.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry about it,” Kaname insisted, “Listen to me!”
But Sousuke’s attention was focused outside the store as he went about absentmindedly completing the purchase. Kaname hadn’t noticed, but a figure in a coat was watching them through the glass door at the entrance. It was the same man who’d tailed them from the station.
He’s not passing by. Was he hoping to ambush me? Sousuke thought.
It was an old man with a beret worn low over his eyes. He seemed quite advanced in years, with a thick white beard, yet his back was ramrod straight, and his mouth was fixed in a tight line as he glared into the store. For a moment, Sousuke’s eyes met the man’s. The old man frowned in response, then turned away and disappeared from sight.
I didn’t detect any hostility... But what’s he after, then?
The woman at the register handed Sousuke some coins. “Your change: 450 yen.” Then she said to Kaname, encouragingly, “Make sure he does right by you, dear. When the chips are down, men always try to shirk their responsibilities.”
“I-It’s seriously not like that!”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s about your own body, after all. Hang in there.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not— oh, for the love of...” Kaname slumped over in disappointment.
Just then, Sousuke nudged her from the side. “Let’s go.”
Kaname kept grumbling but left the pharmacy with Sousuke. The minute they were outside, she tore into him. “Darn it, what’s wrong with you?! That’s the only pharmacy around here that’s open this late. Now I’ll be too embarrassed to ever come back!”
“Why would you be embarrassed?” he asked.
“Because! Buying that thing with me made it look like—”
“Look like what?”
Kaname stammered. “Like... Like you and I are...”
“Like you and I are...?”
“Well... er... like we’re doing that.” For some reason she tapered off at the end there, flustered.
Sousuke looked at her in suspicion. “I don’t know what ‘that’ is. Could you explain in precise and concrete terms? What exactly does it seem like we’re doing?”
“Er... do I really have to say it?” Kaname asked plaintively.
“I won’t know what you mean if you don’t,” Sousuke insisted. “Please explain.”
“...”
“What’s wrong? You’ve turned red.”
The next instant, Kaname’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and she smacked her bag into the side of Sousuke’s face, bowling him over. “Just get lost!” she hissed, then took off in the direction of her apartment.
Moments later, Sousuke sat up, rubbing his head in confusion. I was just pretending to buy something in order to throw our pursuer off the scent. What in the world could the problem be? I’m analyzing the situation, but I’m coming up cold. Chidori Kaname is such a mystery sometimes...
He wouldn’t be allowed to eat her curry tonight either. Even Sousuke knew that following her to her apartment now was pointless. She’d probably just tell him to eat some dog food and run him off. It was a pity. Sousuke, who had grown up with a limited diet, always saw Kaname’s cooking as a true feast.
But who was that old man?
Just as he was wondering that... Crack! A walking stick came crashing down on his head from behind. Sousuke stumbled but righted himself and turned back quickly. There stood the old man from before. He must have been hiding in the alley beside the pharmacy.
Impossible. Sousuke was truly stunned by what had happened. As preoccupied as he had been with the thought of losing out on the curry dinner, it was unthinkable that he’d let someone sneak up on him and catch a hit on him by surprise. “What are you—”
“Shut up!” the old man barked at him, louder than seemed strictly necessary. “I don’t know what the situation is, but no man makes a woman cry on my watch! It’s an appropriate reprimand for your gutless action!”
“I don’t believe I made her—”
“Quiet, you! A real Japanese man doesn’t make excuses!” The old man puffed out his chest proudly and glared down at Sousuke.
Sousuke was well familiar with his type. Blustery and straight-backed, with a gaze that spoke of total confidence in its evaluation of any and every situation. This was a military man, and a commissioned officer, at that.
“And... who are you?” Sousuke asked, now cautiously.
The old man just sniffed and puffed up further. “Me? I’m Komura Shujiro.”
“Aha...”
“Former lieutenant of the Imperial Navy,” the old man continued, “one of the few survivors of the 302 Patrol Squadron destroyed at Solomon.”
Sousuke had rarely met a Japanese man willing to openly brag about serving in the forces of Imperial Japan. And a lieutenant at that... Had this man really taken part in the Pacific War more than fifty years ago?
“I see. Goodbye, then.” Sousuke turned around, his instincts warning him that getting involved with this man would be more trouble than it was worth.
“Hold it, you,” the old man, Komura Shujiro, snapped after him.
“Yes?”
“What kind of fool runs away after an introduction like that? I want to know who you are! State your name, rank, and affiliation!”
“Sergeant Sagara Sousuke. I can’t state my affiliation,” he responded instinctively. It was, perhaps, part of his NCO nature to do so.
Komura narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin in response. “A sergeant, eh?”
“I am a sergeant,” Sousuke affirmed.
“Not a student?”
“I am both a student and a sergeant.”
It wasn’t much of an explanation, but the old man seemed to accept it. Maybe he’d picked up on the particular air of alertness and gunpowder that always hung around Sousuke. “Hmm... I don’t know what to make of that, but you seem to have a little more backbone than the weaklings around you,” Komura decided. “Sergeant Sagara, was it? Come along!”
“Eh?”
The old man turned around and began walking back in the direction of the station he’d come from. After about ten paces, he turned back to Sousuke, who hadn’t moved to follow. “Well, don’t just stand there! Get to it! Chop chop!” he bellowed.
Left with no other choice, Sousuke followed the old man. A lieutenant outranked a sergeant, after all—even if their affiliations were different, the hierarchy was important.
Although... this old man was definitely tailing me earlier, Sousuke thought, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. Sousuke didn’t recognize him at all, and the old man seemed to be treating this as their first interaction. What in the world is going on here?
Kaname returned to her apartment, fit to burst with irritation. She tossed aside her bag and flopped onto the living room sofa.
Darn it. That idiot... Why does he have to be so dense and insensitive and stupid? It’s basically sexual harassment, even though I know he’s not doing it on purpose, she thought with exasperation. Isn’t there any way to make him more considerate? It’s not like I can exactly walk him through stuff like this...
She let out a sigh and was getting up to change out of her uniform when the phone in her room rang.
“Hmm?” A telemarketer, at this hour? she wondered as she picked up the receiver. “Chidori here,” she said casually.
The voice on the other end, meanwhile, was as formal and brusque as could be. “Kaname-san? It’s been some time.”
Kaname’s face fell. “Oh... hello. It’s been a while.”
It was her aunt who lived in Kanazawa, the older sister of Kaname’s mother who’d passed away three years ago. The woman hadn’t even come to her funeral and had merely called sometime after to say that it was ‘a regrettable loss.’ Even though her own sister had died! This was the first time Kaname had heard from her since then.
“Are you alone right now?” her aunt asked.
“Yes, why?”
“Then I have nothing to say to you,” the woman said briskly. “So sorry to call.”
Click. Beep beep beep...
“What the heck? Darn it...” Despite her aunt’s incredible rudeness in hanging up on her like that, Kaname wasn’t especially angry. Her relatives in Kanazawa had always been like that. Her parents had effectively eloped, she’d heard, which was why she so rarely interacted with her mother’s family.
In fact, she’d met the family in Kanazawa just once when she was little. Kaname remembered their house being a big, quiet, traditional Japanese estate. Even as a child, she could tell that she and her mother weren’t exactly welcome there. Her relatives had looked at them with scorn, and all of their interactions were curt and cold. According to her mother, family tradition prevented them from even meeting her grandparents then.
The only thing she remembered clearly from that trip was the figure of a little old man. Kaname had been alone, watching the koi in the garden pond when the old man came up and scolded her. “That’s not safe. You’ll fall in and drown.”
The old man had squatted down then and peered into Kaname’s face with a sullen expression. Kaname had been so small then, and the man so intimidating, that all she’d been able to do was deliver a panicked apology and run straight away. After reaching the mansion, she’d then turned around to see the old man still standing starkly at the pond’s edge. He’d seemed almost sad.
Who was that old man, anyway? she paused to wonder.
It was just then that she noticed the light blinking on their answering machine. Curious, she pressed the play button.
《The ninth. 3:54 pm. One message,》 the electronic voice stated, giving that day’s date before playing the message.
“Ahh. Ah, ahem...” A speaker could be heard clearing their throat, then went silent. She could hear the sirens of the station platform and the distant sound of trains in the background. Then, about fifteen seconds later... “Geh?! H-Hey, you!” the same person barked. Then the recording cut off.
《Message complete.》 The machine let out a beep, and then went silent.
After several minutes of walking, Sousuke and Komura arrived at a kiosk near the station, and the old man said, “Here we are. It all began here.” The sun had begun to set and the town grew darker as students leaving school and shopping housewives filled the area.
“Komura-san,” said Sousuke, “I don’t understand what’s—”
“Lieutenant, please.”
Sousuke hesitated. “Lieutenant.”
“Well done, Sergeant,” said Komura.
“Very well, Lieutenant. What exactly started here?” Sousuke asked after a pause.
Komura narrowed his eyes up at the sky. “I had my luggage stolen.”
“Luggage?”
“Yes. I got off the train and was using that prepay phone over there, when...” He pointed towards the nearby payphone. “The bag I’d left at my feet was stolen by a thief. He was a youngster about your age, wearing a strange school uniform.”
“A school uniform...” A middle or high school student from the area, perhaps? “And you want me to find the culprit?”
The man nodded as if this went without saying. “That’s right. You’re a local. I’ll bet you know the area well.”
“I’m not sure that’ll be enough,” Sousuke had to admit. “Do you have any other clues?”
“Nope. That’s it.” Komura puffed out his chest. “The bag was that famous brand. I forget what it’s called... Louie Vito.”
“‘Louie Vito?’” Sousuke repeated. “And what was inside?”
“Something extremely valuable. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, the consequences would be dire.”
Valuables with dire consequences; the old man’s choice of words set Sousuke on edge. “A gun or a bomb?” he guessed.
“Nothing so trivial,” said Komura. “Something much more important.”
Something more valuable and important than a gun or a bomb, already so difficult to acquire in Japan? “You mean...?”
“Well, I’ll admit it’s enervating...”
Sousuke’s stomach sank. “A nerve agent?!”
“Yes, enervating. Depressing to think that thief took it without knowing its worth!” Komura lamented. “He might think it’s garbage and do something we’d all regret!”
“I can’t believe it,” Sousuke said. “A nerve agent...” A nerve agent: something like Tabun, Sarin or VX gas... These were tremendously deadly weapons, their use forbidden by international law. If breathed in through the lungs or skin, they could fatally interfere with the functions of the nervous system.
“What’s wrong, young man?” The old man scowled as he noticed Sousuke trembling in fear.
“Why were you walking around with something like that?!” Sousuke exclaimed. “It’s exceedingly careless!”
“Well, what do you want from me?”
“We need to call in the police. You can’t possibly attempt to retrieve it on your own.”
The old man furrowed his brow in response. “You can’t count on the police. Look at the newspapers. Nothing but corruption and abuses of power.”
“Not all of them are like that,” Sousuke told him. “We need the local police to evacuate the citizenry and bring in JSDF specialists. Many people could die if we don’t.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Komura wanted to know.
Sousuke found his attitude extremely frustrating. “How can you be so calm about this? Don’t you even care what you’ve unleashed?”
“Eh? You’re not making any sense, son.”
“You’re the one who’s not making any sense!” said Sousuke. “I need you to acknowledge the severity of this situation.”
“Are you making fun of me? I won’t have a little sprout like you—”
“My age is not the issue! I just think we need to deal with this the right way.”
“Enough! I don’t need a lecture from some NCO!” Komura bellowed.
“Then as a lieutenant, you should behave like a proper officer and give the appropriate orders!” insisted Sousuke. It was rare to see two people talking past each other to such a degree.
“Argh! Now you’ve asked for it!” Komura grabbed Sousuke’s collar, completely enraged.
Sousuke struggled to knock the man’s hands away without being too rough. “Let me go! Lives are on the line!”
“I don’t care!”
“It’s that attitude that caused you to lose to the US forces!”
“Oh, you’ll pay for that one!”
Their pointless sparring was interrupted by a low voice nearby. “Excuse me, you two.”
They looked up to see two uniformed police officers looming over them.
“Picking a fight, in a place like this?” said the first.
“You’re making trouble for the neighbors,” said the second. Their tones were awfully high-handed.
Sousuke pushed the old man away and addressed them. “Perfect timing. We have an emergency situation. This man had an extremely dangerous substance stolen in transport. A deadly military-grade nerve gas.”
“Eh?” said Komura. “What are you talking about?”
“Apparently it was in a Louie Vito bag, stolen by a young man in a school uniform,” Sousuke pressed on. “That’s all I know, but you need to put out an emergency notice to apprehend him at once. You must apprehend the culprit, dead or alive—”
“Whatever, kid. Just come along with us to the station. We’ll sort it out there.” The two officers waved him off dismissively and started herding Sousuke and Komura along.
“We don’t have time to lose on discussion,” Sousuke insisted. “You must issue the evacuation order.”
“Right, we’ll do that. Later.”
“We don’t have time for ‘later.’ If the nerve gas gets out before then, it’ll be too late!”
“Shut up and walk!” said one of the officers, giving Sousuke a shove.
“What are you doing?”
“Shut your mouth,” the officer warned him. “Don’t give us any more trouble or we’ll give you worse than a lecture.”
“I don’t need a lecture. I need to secure that nerve—”
“That’s enough outta you!” The two officers moved forward to restrain Sousuke.
“Ngh...” Sousuke moved away instinctively, his sidestep catching one of the men off-guard.
That man was thrown off-balance but caught himself, while the other barked at him furiously. “Are you resisting arrest?!”
“Of course not. It’s just the gas—”
“Damn you!” The officers flew at Sousuke, who was now clearly intent on resisting. Just as he was wondering if he should resist or turn himself in...
Pwsssh! A jet of white smoke hissed out beside him.
“What?!”
“Cough... cough!”
The smoke continued to billow, quickly reducing visibility to zero. Sousuke then realized that it wasn’t smoke, but a plume from a fire extinguisher.
“Hey, Sergeant!” Komura emerged from the mist and rapped Sousuke with his walking stick, holding the spent extinguisher in his other hand. “Let’s make tracks,” he said. “Hurry!”
The old man dropped the extinguisher and ran swiftly away. Sousuke hesitated for a moment, but then, left with no other choice, followed after him.
“Wah ha ha! That’ll teach him!” Komura laughed heartily as they hid behind a nearby bicycle rack.
“Why did you do that?” Sousuke asked plaintively. “Now we can’t ask the police for help.”
The old man just snorted. “Oh, shut up. If I hadn’t acted, you’d be on your way to a cell right now, boy.”
“So you broke out a fire extinguisher?”
“Yeah. More than enough to take out those hooligans of local law enforcement.”
“Well, I can’t argue there, but—”
“Oh? So you can be reasonable, eh?” said Komura, who seemed to be in surprisingly good shape for having run that far at his advanced age.
Even so... Sousuke thought. He’d only just met this old man, yet he felt like he knew him quite well. No... Perhaps it was more like there was something familiar about his various idiosyncrasies. The way he walked along, fists balled. The way he barked at him to shut him up, the tremendously stubborn and hard-nosed personality, the decisiveness that seemed to explode in the clutch... Sousuke felt like he knew someone very much like him, but...
Wait... The name and face were on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get them to manifest. At last, he gave up on the attempt, shook the uncertainty out of his mind, and told the old man, “Anyway, our only option now is to find the bag ourselves. We must do what it takes to prevent a nerve gas explosion.”
“There you go again with that nonsense,” grumbled Komura. “Though I’m glad you’re finally on board, at least...”
“Let’s hurry, before it’s too late,” said Sousuke, who began walking swiftly.
But even with their minds made up, they had very little to go on. Komura had only seen the culprit from behind, after all, and because the policemen were still searching for them, their attempts to ask around at the train station were slow going. Over and over they nearly ran into the fuming officers, and each time they were forced to hide behind something or duck into the crowd.
“Hard to make progress with them stalking us like that,” Komura said as they were hiding behind a minivan in the parking lot following a third near miss.
“It’s your fault that they are,” Sousuke told him.
“What? Don’t you blame this on me!”
“It’s the truth!”
“Oh, pipe down!” Komura ordered. “Why do you have to argue about everything?”
Both of them were panting hard.
“A-Anyway, let’s continue our search,” Sousuke suggested.
“G-Good idea.”
And so, undeterred, they resumed their questioning.
At last, about an hour later, they found something like a clue. It was around 7:00 pm, just after the sun had gone down. A young man handing out fliers for a beauty parlor said he might have seen the culprit.
“You did?” Sousuke asked eagerly.
“Yeah. When was it again?” the young man mused. “I was giving out flyers, and some kid with a bag crashed into me... I was about to tell him off, but he ran away and didn’t look back.”
“A Louie Vito bag?” Komura pressed him.
“Actually, old man, it’s called ‘Louis Vuitton.’”
“Oh, is it? Was he in a school uniform, then?”
“I think so,” the young man told him. “One for West Chofu High, if I’m not mistaken.”
West Chofu High was a municipal school located close to the station.
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s about it. I didn’t really see much of him.”
“I see,” said Sousuke. “Thank you anyway.”
With that, Sousuke and Komura turned around in perfect sync.
The young man called after them. “Oh, wait.”
“What is it?”
“If he really is from West High, head for a cafe across from the north entrance called Alabama. The West High delinquents always hang out there.”
“You know a lot about it,” Sousuke observed.
The flier guy grinned. “I graduated from East High. We tussled with the West guys all the time.”
“Hmm...”
“It might be a little rough for a Jindai student like you,” the young man advised. “Be careful.”
Sousuke and Komura thanked him again, then headed for the north entrance and the cafe in question.
They found their destination in a more or less empty corner of the shopping district. Kaname had once told Sousuke that, ever since the large commercial center was built near the station ten years ago, business had been slowly dying down in that area. It had grown more and more run-down as a result.
“What a grimy little place. Seems riddled with disease,” Komura said with a scowl. Indeed, the sign looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. The glass in the windows was yellow with tar, making it hard to see inside. “Ah, well,” he finally relented. “Let’s go in.”
“Sure,” Sousuke said with a nod.
They opened the door and stepped inside. As expected, it was thick with cigarette smoke. There were a few old poker arcade game cabinets in the corner, as well as a number of well-worn tables. There were seven men present, shifty-eyed, all hanging around the game cabinets. They wore the Chofu West uniform, but it was the kind modified to go with a delinquent style—it was clear at a glance these were far from model students.
“Do any of them look familiar?” Sousuke asked.
“Ah, can’t be sure,” Komura said.
“You two lookin’ for something?” one of the men asked. His attitude was haughty but not especially aggressive.
“We’re looking for a thief,” Komura said before Sousuke could. “Seems there’s a good chance it’s one of you lot. Stole my bag at the station earlier.”
Sousuke added on, “There’s a very dangerous object inside. If you know anything about it, please tell us.”
“Ah, it’s not that dangerous,” Komura contradicted him. “No one’ll hold it against you. Just help us out here.”
The men exchanged a blank look.
“You know anythin’ about it?”
“Nah, nothin’ here.”
“Who’d even want some old man’s stupid Vuitton bag, eh?”
They all laughed mockingly.
In that instant, the eyes of both Sousuke and Komura flashed.
“Did you say Vuitton?”
“How did you know what brand of bag it was?”
The two experienced combatants spoke with perhaps unnecessary forcefulness, and the delinquents in the shop all glared at the idiot who’d spilled the beans.
“Well, seems we hit a bullseye right out of the gate,” said Komura.
“It appears we have,” said Sousuke. “I’ll have to thank that advertising man tomorrow.”
The two took a single step forward in unison, then said together, “Hand it over. Now. Don’t try to resist.”
At this, the Chofu students sprang to their feet.
“I said we don’t know nothin’ about it!”
“Get lost before we gotta get rough!”
“You wanna fight us? Well, do ya?!”
Sousuke and the old man took another bold step forward.
“Geh...” Though momentarily cowed by their intimidating auras, the students found their courage and glared back at the two.
“S-Screw you!” It wasn’t clear who’d shouted it, but in that moment, all seven men leaped into action.
Sousuke didn’t even bother drawing his gun. Instead, he used minimal movements to slip to the side as the lead man struck at him, then smashed the heel of his hand into his jaw. Tables and game machines were overturned. Cups, ash trays, and mugs all fell onto the floor with a crash.
As the one man fell, another came at Sousuke. He knocked this second man down with another spectacular move, twisted the wrist of a third and elbowed a fourth. This one went crashing through the glass door and out the shop.
Sousuke had survived a hundred battlefields. He didn’t need a gun to fight hoodlums like these. But what about the lieutenant? he wondered. While knocking out a fifth man, Sousuke turned in time to see a man grabbing at Komura.
“Old bastard!” the young man shouted.
“Heh.” The old man calmly drew back and caught his attacker’s ankle with his cane. With his feet swept out from under him, the delinquent flipped end-over-end and hit the back of his head on the floor.
“Oh?” Sousuke was impressed. The man had a sense of balance that spoke to more than just natural athleticism. He must have studied some kind of martial art—judo, perhaps.
The last man marched up to Komura.
“What is it, young man?” the old man asked with a smile. “You look scared. I’ll bet you’re not good for much more than kicking puppies. Though that might still make you tougher than the US soldiers I’ve fought.” The old man planted his walking stick on the floor, his feet placed shoulder-length apart. That was all he did... and yet, the young man seemed frozen to the spot. He’d clearly never faced a killer aura like this before, and it was filling him with feelings he’d never experienced.
“Wh-What the heck is with this old man?!” The delinquent’s face contorted with terror, and he quickly turned to scramble away, right out the door.
“Ah, boring.” The old man’s body, which had seemed towering moments ago, now shrank back to its original size. “Pathetic bunch. No guts at all.”
“It would be cruel to expect any more of them,” Sousuke said with a shrug.
This time, old man Komura smiled with glee. “You said it. But the same’s not true of you, I’d say. You’re not bad for a young sprout.”
“And you fought well for a senior citizen.”
“You bet I did.” The old man smiled with even more glee.
Just then, a haughty voice rang out through the pulverized glass door. “Another fight?! Hey, where’s the staff... Ah, you two?!” The uniformed officer who stepped in turned crimson at the sight of the two combatants.
At first, it seemed like another fight would break out, but the rather formally dressed Komura explained the situation, and the officers both deflated and shared a look.
“Oh, so...”
“Yeah. It’s one of those.”
Apparently there’d been a string of luxury bag thefts of late: Hermès, Vuitton, Hartmann... All brands that would fetch high prices at a pawnshop. Upon realizing that they’d stumbled upon the ring behind it, the police had forgotten all about the fire extinguisher incident.
The officers questioned one of the beat-up men, who revealed that the stolen bags were being stored in an alley behind the building. He said everything they couldn’t sell was still inside the bags. Then, hoping for special treatment under the circumstances, Sousuke and the old man asked if they could search through the stolen goods for Komura’s bag first and were given the go-ahead.
Behind the dumpster sat a tarp, under which they found a mountain of luxury bags. There were roughly fifty of them, of various sizes—together, they’d fetch a small fortune.
“Now we just need to find the bag with the nerve agent,” Sousuke said as he picked through the mountain of bags.
“That nonsense again? You really are a strange one,” Komura said with a sigh. “I think I just realized... Sergeant, do you think what I’m looking for is some kind of dangerous weapon?”
“You said it was,” Sousuke told him.
“Did not. What I’m looking for is far more precious.”
“What do you mean?” Sousuke asked, tossing aside a Seeger briefcase.
“It’s a diary,” Komura told him, “kept by my dead daughter.”
Sousuke paused for a moment. “Your daughter?”
“Yeah. She got sick and died about three years back. It came as a shock, as no one had said a word about it to me. Such a disloyal daughter.” Komura Shujiro sat himself down on a nearby fire escape with a bit of an arduous manner. Gazing up at the narrow strip of sky visible from the alley, he spoke haltingly. “She was as strong-willed as I am... eloping with a young Waseda graduate like that. Some kind of UN bureaucrat or something. A boring, stupid man.”
“What’s ‘eloping?’” Sousuke asked, tossing aside a Tanner Krolle bag.
“You don’t know? Eloping is... ah, getting married without permission,” Komura told him. “Even though she’s a descendant of an old warrior family from Kanezawa, she left us behind to run off to Tokyo with some nobody.”
“I see.”
“Even though she had two children with that man, I never really met them. I don’t even know what my grandchildren look like. Only once, over ten years ago...”
“That sounds troubling,” said Sousuke.
“That’s right. She was troubling— ah, but it wasn’t just her. I was at fault too. I couldn’t simply say I forgave her, in the name of preserving family face or something foolish like that. And now that she’s dead, it’s too late.” Old man Komura’s voice took on a hint of vulnerability. “But the other day, I chanced upon my daughter’s high school diary. It got me thinking of her and the grandchildren she left behind... And I don’t have much time left, after all. Before I bite the big one, I thought... I might try just one more time... so I came to Tokyo on my own to hand over my daughter’s diary.”
“And the bag it was in was stolen?” asked Sousuke, who had finally grasped that there were no chemical weapons inside the bag.
“Yes. I’m growing timid in my old age, so I thought... unless I brought something like that with me, my granddaughter wouldn’t want to see me. It’s my fault my family treated her the way they did. She probably hates me,” Komura admitted. “She might not even remember me, in fact.”
Sousuke said nothing.
“And so, after the bag was stolen, I wandered hopelessly around the station until I happened upon a girl who was the spitting image of my daughter.”
“The spitting image?” Sousuke repeated.
“Yeah. I knew at a glance that it was her. She was walking with a classmate who seemed about her age. So I found myself following them quietly for a while. The girl and the young man looked awfully happy together. Even I could see that. And the young man has also been of great service to me,” Komura hinted.
“I see.” With that absent reply, Sousuke found the Louis Vuitton bag toward the back of the mountain. Inside were clothes, toiletries, and an old diary.
“He’s a truly fine young man,” Komura went on. “Stuck it out for ages with some old man he’d never even met. Knowing my granddaughter had such a man at her side has put me at ease.”
“Aha...” What is he talking about? Sousuke thought. But before he could turn around to say that he’d found the bag...
The old man said, “Ah, enough. Do you know that young man’s name?”
“Eh? No...”
“It’s Sagara Sousuke,” Komura told him with a meaningful smile that befit his age. “And it’s rare to see a true warrior like him in this day and age.”
Kaname had just poured hot water into her cup noodle and set the timer for three minutes when she heard the doorbell’s pleasant chime.
“Coming...” She picked up the intercom phone.
A familiar voice answered. “Chidori, it’s me.”
Kaname grimaced. “Sousuke? I don’t want to see you. Why don’t you go eat dog food or something?”
“Ah, I’m not trying to get dinner... Could you come out a moment?”
“What now?”
“I think you’ll find it worthwhile,” he told her.
“Hmm?” Suspiciously, Kaname headed for the door. She removed the chain and poked her head out unhappily. In the apartment’s communal corridor stood Sousuke and an unfamiliar old man. “Yes?”
“Lieutenant, the offensive is on. Go on.” Sousuke gave the old man a nudge.
The old man had just been standing around nervously, but now he cleared his throat and spoke. “Ah, ahem. I am Komura... Shujiro... from Kanezawa.”
“What?” asked Kaname.
“Well, you see... I am your mother’s... father. This might be hard to understand, but I recently found... my daughter’s diary. I knew it would be trouble to drop in on you so suddenly, but I thought... while I’m still healthy, I should... make sure you got it...” Komura spoke haltingly, the words coming in fits and starts, as he held out a diary.
“Um... Grandpa?” said Kaname.
“Y-Yes...”
“You’re really my grandpa?! What were you doing out so late?” Kaname asked, eyes wide, throwing her arms around the old man.
“Oh. Well, there were circumstances...”
“That’s awful! Come in, quickly. Sorry it’s a little messy,” Kaname told him. “You dropped in so suddenly. If you’d called me, I could have picked you up... Honestly!”
“Oh... sh-should I have?” Komura asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. Mom told me all about you... That you were stubborn, but a good man. She said you’d come around someday. So... Grandpa.” Kaname choked up for a minute, but quickly pushed through it. “Come on in, hurry. You’re tired from your trip, right? I’ll make you tea. And are you hungry? I’ll whip up something.”
“Oh... I suppose. I’m embarrassed to say I am rather... hungry. I’m glad I came. I really am glad I came...”
He couldn’t say any more than that. Komura Shujiro just stood there, eyes down, one hand pressed to his eyes and shoulders trembling.
While coaxing her unexpected guest inside, Kaname looked over at Sousuke, her eyes red and puffy. “What happened out there?”
“Ah.” Sousuke stared with great interest at the ceiling and said, “I simply did my duty as an NCO. It’s not an issue. Goodbye.”
Sousuke saluted them smartly, then turned away. But lastly, he said with some slight regret, “Circumstances being what they are, I’ll go without the curry for today.”
〈The Lost Old Dog — The End〉
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