Chapter Text
“Looks like he had a bad time.”
Goro Akechi pushed the printed copies of the photos back to his superior, rather bored than disgusted while every other person would be repulsed in his place.
“Any ideas?” Sae Niijima asked, obviously at a loss for any leads.
“Well, he’s dead. That’s for sure.”
Sae sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know. This is the 4th case in three months! There has to be something. Just anything. No one can commit a crime and leave no trace behind.”
Goro faked a charismatic smile that faded way too quickly, picked up the stack of photos again and started to flip through them.
A young man, around his twenties, was sitting propped up against a tree. His eyes were open but stared off into space and his mouth hung slightly agape. If it weren’t for the bloodless cheeks or the slit throat, one might think he was daydreaming on a calming walk through the forest.
“How old?” he asked without looking up.
“The man or the corpse?”
“The corpse.”
“He was dead for 3 days when we found him.” The prosecutor propped her elbow up on the table and let her chin rest on her hand. She was tired, the dark rings under her eyes were a solid proof. There seemed to be no end to the murders, all with no connection between them other than an absolutely spotless crime scene. She had been working days and nights, trying to crack the case but found absolutely nothing. At times she almost hoped for a new victim so she might find a lead for once after going through the same old evidence again and again which still wouldn't bring her any further. She was treading water and digging her way into misery if she didn’t crack this case anytime soon.
“Once again too late. What a shame.” Goro’s disappointment was an act, disingenuous even but Sae wouldn't notice. No one ever had.
He looked at the last photo in the stack, an image of the victim’s wrist and hand. It was clean, the skin pale like ivory and unharmed, just like the rest of the body you ignore the gaping artery in his neck.
“You still think that the name is important?”
“It’s the only lead you haven’t been able to check on either of them.” Goro scratched his chin as he thought out loud. “Since relatives and friends always proved as innocent or without a motive, knowing the soulmates name would be quite helpful, wouldn’t you think?”
He glanced back at the older woman on the other side of the table, who had a look of defeat on her face.
“But we aren’t able to find it out once it fades. Asking relatives won’t bring us any further either, it’s not usual to tell people about it.”
Like a subconscious reaction, she put her hand around her right wrist and stroked her thumb across the illegible signature of her soulmate’s name which Akechi had caught a glance of several times but couldn’t make out what it said.
“Plus, they change all the time, it’s not like a soulmate is set in stone. People die day in and day out, which means someone’s soulmate dies as well. It can’t be avoided that lot of them cease to exist before they can meet. Only a lucky few have a single one their entire life. So it’s only natural that you go through three or four different ones.”
The young man shrugged and tucked a strand of his light brown hair behind his ear. “Well, you asked me for ideas and that’s what I have. But in the end it’s your choice, what you deem as important and what you don’t.”
They both fell silent, Goro looking at Sae, expecting her to say something but she was just staring down at the photos on the table in her office, her eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. His classic, usually fake, charismatic smile was playing around his lips when she finally looked up and ran her hand through her ash brown hair like she always did when she had decided on something.
“Alright, I might look into the name thing. I’m not getting anywhere these days anyway so I might as well.”
“Glad to hear it.” Goro gave a friendly sounding laugh. “Though, do we even know who he is?"
“Not yet. The lab results should be here by tomorrow though.”
“If you would let me know once you have them, I would be quite delighted. Then I can go and investigate a bit on my own. Only as a way of practice of course. I’m glad to have gained the police’s trust this much, it’s not often they look for help in someone still in training.” He got up from his chair and picked his beige coat up from the armrest, putting it over his arm like a tea towel. “I’m looking forward to continuing to work on this case with you.”
With his other hand, he picked up his silver case that he brought with himself everywhere he went and excused himself with a short bow out of Sae Niijima’s office, gently closing the door behind him.
The leather of his gloves creaked quietly as Goro’s grip around the handle of his case tightened but he put on a friendly smile until he was all the way out of the building and in no risk of seeing anyone that he knew.
His place wasn’t anything special but it served its purpose, like all things should. He couldn’t really be bothered to decorate anything, he wouldn't even know what to put up to make it feel more like himself. Maybe the boring and unexciting interior is exactly what it needed to make it look like Goro Akechi lived here.
With a soulless laugh he put his silver case down on the dining table with the big ‘A’ that he had put on it facing up. ‘A’ for Akechi, something he figured could work as a trademark for him. Only too late he noticed how vain it would make him seem. But that wasn’t entirely wrong either. Just a bad look for the general public. Yet that was nothing that his overflowing charm couldn’t counter or even outweigh.
“Fools”, Goro muttered under his breath despite there being no one that could hear him besides the naked walls of his apartment. With a swift motion he took off his leather gloves, put them down next to his case and raised his wrists up in front of his face.
Blank.
Both of them.
His so called soulmate had died four days ago. The name had completely faded exactly 24 hours after a guy called Shinya Oda had taken his last breath. Shinya had had horrible penmanship, it took Goro several weeks to figure out the name that had appeared on his wrist.
It was still scientifically unexplained how evolution found a way to have your soulmates’ name appear visibly on your wrist in their own handwriting by the time they were around twelve years old. These days it was assumed that it was part of the same natural transition into adulthood as voice break or growing hair in places where you don’t need it.
Goro didn’t believe in soulmates. To him, it was a social construct. Who knows why that name appears on your wrist but society needed an explanation so someone spat out the idea that it must be destined to be soulmates.
Mythomania had become the public’s illness and Goro felt like he must be the only one spared from it. Everyone is so caught up in telling themselves those names are your soulmates, they ended up believing in it. And so they are forcing themselves to make it work.
But just as Sae Niijima had said: people die.
And with that, someone’s soulmate dies.
So they get assigned a new one. The former name will fade away like an old bruise and a new one will appear like a fresh tattoo.
Shinya hadn’t been Goro’s first soulmate. In fact, he had been the eighth. Fed up with society’s expectations of him and how he is supposed to live his life, Goro had decided for himself that;
Soulmates? they're bullshit.
And he would rid himself of every single one of them that crossed his path.
Goro woke up the next morning to the vibrating of his phone on his nightstand. He wasn’t one to sleep in, quite the opposite in fact but Sae Niijima was an even earlier bird than him. Though however much of an early bird she was, she would never fetch a single worm. It didn’t surprise him at all that she would call him at such an early hour.
“Goro Akechi”, he answered, immediately wide awake.
“Akechi, it’s Niijima.” the by now familiar voice on the other end of the line said in a stern tone.
“Oh, good morning Sae.” Goro smiled at himself in his wardrobe mirror that he could see from his bed as he talked but as soon as he was done, the smile dropped and he just glared at his reflection.
“I just received the results from the lab.” Sae almost sounded like a mother that had found out her child had hidden a bad grade from her and is about to reveal that she knows what’s up.
“That sounds promising.” He forced himself out of the warmth of his bed and out into the cold hallway, heading for the kitchen and the coffee machine.
“The victim’s name in Shinya Oda. 19 years old, lived in Setagaya. I’m having someone go over there and break the news to the parents right now. I’m gonna stay in the office for today. If you want to go out to Setagaya yourself, you're free to. In case you do, you know the drill though, right?”
“Yes, of course I do. I’m not yet authorised to talk to anyone potentially involved in the case.” Goro recited his instructor’s didactic reminder after he was pulled out of the academy to help bring some unconventional ideas into this case. The assigned investigators, including Sae Niijima, were utterly stuck in their investigations and had asked the higher ups for help. They didn’t expect to get a rookie from the academy but Goro was neither a rookie nor inexperienced. He excelled in all subjects and was incredibly talented in his detective work.
If anyone would know how to find someone given only the smallest of clues, it would be him. Those soulmates didn’t find themselves after all.
“I’m only allowed to think, add my ideas and talk to uninvolved possible acquaintances.” Goro continued as he filled up his coffee machine.
“Exactly. Fill me in on anything that you find out, got it?” Sae had something demanding in her voice that would have been intimidating if she had spoken to anyone else but Goro.
“Of course, Sae. I am as determined to find the culprit as you are. Rest assured that I will let you know about any detail that I can find.” The buzzing of the coffee machine echoed through Goro’s small kitchen and the smell of hot coffee started to waft through the air.
“Thank you Akechi, your help is appreciated.”
Sae hung up without saying anything else which left Goro a bit confused. She must be seriously stressing out about this case. No one could blame her though; four victims and no leads in three months is rough, especially now that the press started to express interest in the case, asking questions that no one but the victims knew the answers to.
Goro didn’t want to waste any time. Now that he was already awake and out of bed, he might as well get started with work. The freshly made coffee got poured into his travel tumbler and he was out the door before rush hour started. He hated heavy traffic.
The trains were already well occupied despite the early hour. Goro had offered his seat to an elderly woman halfway through who couldn’t stop thanking him for being “such a wonderful gentleman” and a “charming young man”. How could anyone ever think of him as anything else?
He wouldn’t head directly to Setagaya but instead passed by prosecutor’s office to drop off a coffee to go he picked up on his way there. Sae was surprised to see her young assistant come by but also thankful for the free coffee. She looked like she had once again barely gotten any sleep over the night, her hair was a lot messier than it usually was and there were three emptied coffee cups sitting on her desk already.
“I’ll buy you lunch sometime for all the coffees you bring me, Akechi”, Sae’s muffled voice reached through the door as Goro was on his way again already.
He tugged on his leather gloves to pull them further over his wrists, carefully hiding his blank skin under the black leather. It was only a matter of time until a new signature would appear there, but until then he had to be extra careful, not letting anyone see that his wrists were a blank slate, wiped clean like a blackboard in a classroom between lessons.
It was the fifth day now, it usually took five to seven days for the name to appear, usually with a stinging feeling on the skin like he had burned himself.
Goro had to admit that he was kind of excited, almost like a child on Christmas Eve that was constantly peeking through the keyhole to the living room, unable to see anything and with the only option available being to wait patiently until the time had come.