While trying to illuminate the shadows of the past...

"Yah, Arin-chan~"

Damn it.

A huge, Damn it.

She was here.

I held a plate of raspberry cake in my hand, and she sat in a chair opposite two burly men –Sanzu, whom I undoubtedly recognized from before, but who had changed so much that I wouldn't recognize her now if I hadn't reviewed the Bonten reports, and Ran, also from Bonten's execution squad– her profile visible from the side. Even if Ran hadn't used that name, I would have recognized her.

The way her long, almost black, navy blue hair cascaded in waves over her shoulders, her upright posture, her expressionless gaze. So different, yet it screamed it was her. Even if nothing else, the tiny moles on her neck, whose locations I knew by heart, would have been enough to remind me of her. Arin. Here. Twelve years later, while I was searching everywhere for a way to catch a glimpse of her from afar, she was right here, in the cafe where I work...

"You're the only one who can convince Mikey about this!"

Ran Haitani, the elder of the Haitani brothers, was asking Arin for something with an expression that, to an outsider, might be considered disturbing. Sanzu, meanwhile, was puffing on his cigarette while sipping his filter coffee. I was frozen. The order in my hand, a slice of raspberry cake, was his. Remembering that it had been his favorite when he was little shook me even more. I gasped, I just stood there. The other two at the table —perhaps the two most dangerous men in Bonten— the cafe, the rest of the world, seemed frozen for a moment.