As Morofushi Hiromitsu told his story, everyone's thoughts were pulled back to that night fifteen years ago.
Back then, the seven-year-old Hiromitsu thought this would be just another ordinary, warm day like any other. He was eating dinner with his parents at the dining table, chatting about trivial daily matters. His father was talking with great enthusiasm, and his mother thoughtfully brought over a glass of the beer he liked.
However, a sharp and urgent ring of the doorbell tore through this peaceful scene.
What made them let their guard down was that the uninvited guest outside the door seemed to be an acquaintance of his father. At first, the two men were just talking quietly at the entrance. Hiromitsu focused entirely on his dinner and didn't notice anything unusual.
But gradually, the visiting man's tone became aggressive. Not only was his voice rough, but his volume suddenly shot up. His mother looked worried and stood up, wanting to go check.
"Ahhhh—"
Hearing his father's sudden groan, his mother's expression changed instantly. She grabbed Hiromitsu before he could even react and shoved him into a closet in the corner used for storing miscellaneous items.
"Hide here first, and unless I call you, absolutely do not come out!"
Darkness swallowed Hiromitsu instantly, leaving only a thin sliver of light. He curled up in the narrow space, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst right through his chest.
In no time at all, his mother and that man began to argue, and her tearful shouts kept ringing out. Then... the sounds of the argument stopped abruptly.
Amidst the dead silence, an unfamiliar smell of rust spread through the cracks of the closet door, entering his young nose. It made him feel an instinctive terror, and he longed for his mother to call him out like a person grasping for a lifeline.
It wasn't until later that he learned that the unfamiliar scent was actually an incredibly thick smell of blood.
His mother gave him no response at all. The only thing Hiromitsu could hear was a bizarre humming. The voice was deliberately pressed thin and high, repeatedly humming the exact same tune, which felt thoroughly chilling.
Hiromitsu held his breath in fear and pressed his eyes close to the tiny crack in the closet door—
A man holding a blood-stained kitchen knife hummed while pacing around the living room that was filled with the smell of rust.
"It's already fine~~♪ Come on out~~♫"
This terrifying scene and song made his hair stand on end, to the point where he didn't even dare to look at the man's face for more than a second.
"Was that man coming for your whole family? Is that why he wanted to find you and eliminate you too?"
"No... the person he was looking for wasn't me." Surprisingly, Morofushi shook his head. "The name that followed 'Come on out' was a girl's name!"
Everyone reacted immediately. "Could it be..."
"Exactly, that name was 'Yuri.' She was my childhood playmate who looks incredibly similar to the girl on that missing person flyer!"
Date Wataru's eyebrows knitted tightly together. "Going to your house to look for a young girl? That's way too strange. Do you know that girl's last name?"
"No, I only know her first name... When I attended her funeral, we were both only in the first grade."
Oh my gosh, Hiromitsu's childhood memory is way too tragic, QAQ.
That killer is simply out of his mind! To not even spare a little girl!!
Hiss... I always feel like something is off, my brain is about to start working!
Summon the little death god student, there's a case, come quickly!
"Even though you didn't see his face..." Hagiwara Kenji brought up a crucial point. "But you saw a tattoo on his shoulder, right?"
"Yes. That man seemed to step on the blood on the floor and slipped, crashing his entire body right against the closet where I was hiding."
Due to extreme fear, Hiromitsu curled up inside, holding back his tears and not daring to move a single millimeter. "I saw it very clearly! There was a tattoo on his left shoulder, and the pattern was a standing goblet!"
"Are you absolutely sure there really was that tattoo?" Matsuda Jinpei asked.
Hiromitsu said with absolute certainty, "There's no mistake. After that man left the closet, he used a blood-stained hand to cover his shoulder because of the pain... It happened to cover the exact spot of the tattoo, so I couldn't see it anymore."
After that, he was terrified of being discovered and didn't dare to look around anymore, eventually falling asleep from exhaustion. When he woke up again, it was already noon the next day. His older brother, who was in middle school, returned from a summer camp. After witnessing their parents lying in a pool of blood, he found Hiromitsu hiding in the closet.
"Is that your brother who works as a detective?" Hagiwara asked.
Furuya Rei helped introduce him, "Yeah, he's currently a key figure in the Nagano Prefectural Police, known by people as 'the Koumei of Nagano.'"
Matsuda let out a "Ha." "Koumei? I prefer Guan Yu."
Gojo had been resting his cheek in his hand while listening to Hiromitsu's story. Hearing this, he couldn't help but tease, "As expected, compared to the brain-power types, Jinpei seems more like the brute-force type."
Matsuda refused to accept that. "Hey, you're not trying to say I have no brains, are you?"
Date was stuck between laughing and crying. "You two, why are you chatting about the Three Kingdoms at a time like this!"
Am I the only one who thinks the title 'the Koumei of Nagano' is super cool?
It is cool, but when the older brother discovered the bloody case, his expression was way too calm! Anyone who didn't know better would think he was the actual killer.
Hahaha, Matsuda, don't be so quick to take it personally! Where are your manners? jpg.
We're solving a serious case here! Stop getting sidetracked, hey!
He forcibly pulled the runaway topic back onto the right track. "Morofushi, did your brother know anything about that tattoo?"
"No." Hiromitsu pursed his lips. "The trauma left by the case was too massive, so I suffered from amnesia and mutism because of it..." He added, "Later, my brother and I were adopted by relatives in Nagano and Tokyo respectively. Although the environment changed, I still couldn't speak for a very long time, until I met Zero in Tokyo. After we became friends, it slowly got better."
Saying that, he looked toward Furuya, and the two shared a silent, subtle smile.
Hagiwara nodded. "So the reason you entered the police academy is indeed to find the culprit, right?"
"Yeah, my memory loss was quite severe, and many details of the case were only remembered recently. I wanted to learn from what angle police officers judge the situation back then, and then pass this information to my brother in Nagano."
"Actually, I have already narrowed it down to three suspects with tattoos..."
Just as Hiromitsu was about to say it, he saw Matsuda crossing his arms with a sly smile on his face. "Hehe, don't worry! Those three guys, we already split up to help you 'visit' them long ago!"
"Huh?" The cat-eyed youth was stunned. "How... did you guys know about this?"
Matsuda said without holding back, "It would be strange if we didn't know! You've been investigating the 'Nagano family death and injury case' like someone possessed, anyone could see the connection, right?"
However, this was the first time they heard Hiromitsu say it with his own mouth, which made it highly meaningful.
Gojo shrugged. "Although Hiromitsu always pretends like nothing is wrong... it can't hide from my eyes, you know?"
Morofushi scratched his head. "I actually thought nobody had noticed."
"Since everyone knows, let's try to judge the killer together." Date cleared his throat and pulled out a notebook, intending to read out the information on the targets of their investigation.
"The first one, Irie Kadao, forty-six years old, lives with his wife. Fourteen years ago, he opened a hardware store in Tokyo. He has an eccentric personality and is a man of few words, but according to nearby residents, his skill at sharpening kitchen knives is incredibly amazing. The tattoo on his left shoulder was done ten years ago, and the pattern is a trophy he won after taking first place in a table tennis tournament. He speaks the Nagano dialect, so he might have lived in Nagano."
"Wait!" Matsuda sharply caught the key point. "Didn't the case with the Morofushi family happen fifteen years ago? If the tattoo was done ten years ago, the timing doesn't match up, right?"
"Yeah... but we can't completely rule out his suspicion yet." Hagiwara thought for a bit and pulled out his own notebook. "Let's take a look at the other targets of the investigation."
"The second one, Tofori Hajime, fifty-five years old, lives alone. The laundry shop he runs now originally belonged to his uncle. After his uncle fell ill, he initially just helped look after him, and after his uncle passed away, he has been running it ever since. The tattoo on his upper arm is a statue of Guanyin. According to the man himself, it was done to commemorate his wife and mother who died at the exact same time in a traffic accident twenty years ago. He deliberately had the two Guanyin figures designed to look at each other face-to-face."
"Twenty years ago?" Furuya rested his chin in his hand. "In that case, the timing matches up... but a Guanyin statue and a goblet don't match up at all, do they?"
Hagiwara nodded. "This Uncle Tofori also has a pretty good reputation among the neighbors, especially for his repair skills. He even teamed up with Irie before to play doubles, supposedly because the two are from the same hometown."
"Hometown... Nagano again?"
Matsuda took over the conversation, "The third one is a customer from that motorcycle shop, Monobe Shuzo, thirty-five years old, lives alone. He has a scorpion tattoo on his neck, which was supposedly done when his brain wasn't working right in his youth and he joined a yakuza organization called 'Scorpion Cup.' He was twenty years old when he got the tattoo, which barely matches the timing of the case."
"Scorpion Cup... that sounds like it might look quite similar to a goblet? But it's tattooed on his neck, which doesn't match the position on the shoulder!"
The information on the three suspects came together, but due to different doubtful points, the case fell into a complete deadlock. The group looked back and forth at one another, their thoughts feeling a bit blocked.
Gojo, who had known the standard answer long ago, glanced at the comments in the air and nearly let out a laugh.
Hahahahaha, with that yakuza attitude of Matsuda's, how exactly did he get the customer data out of the shop clerk's mouth! I would like to call this an unsolved mystery of the police academy arc.
Here it comes, here it comes, the classic choice of three is here.
I swear on my grandfather's name, the killer is absolutely among these three people.
Normally in a choice of three, the one who looks most suspicious is ruled out, but these three feel pretty much the same?
While he was thoroughly enjoying browsing through those increasingly ridiculous theories, the remaining few people seemed to have thought of something and approached him.
Date opened his mouth to ask, "Kuno, you're also from Nagano Prefecture, right? Do you have any impressions regarding this case?"