The Ink That Remains

In a small apartment in Kyoto, the soft hum of morning buzz slipped in through the half-open window, mixing with the quiet clatter of a distant tram. He blinked against the warm light spilling across the sheets, groaning as reality slowly kicked in.

He grabbed his phone from the nightstand beside him and looked at it. It was 7 a.m. and the day was Thursday, exactly a day after Christmas Eve.

"I should probably get up now," he muttered to himself in a tired voice. the man sat up on his bed, stared off into the distance, and went into a daze, but then he immediately snapped out of it when his phone's alarm started ringing.

"Seems like I woke up early by a minute today," he chuckled while speaking to himself. He then got up, shuffled to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and just stared inside, as if something magical would appear before him. Nothing, just disappointment and some questionable milk which had been sitting there for God knows how long

"Well, coffee it is then," he said to himself in a slightly disappointed tone. he set the kettle on while yawning and, while waiting for it to finish, went back to the living room of his cozy apartment.

In his living room, everything was messy. There were case files everywhere, some pages of newspaper articles, and a pen were scattered on the ground, with some open notebooks and a cheap old laptop on his work desk, with an open bag of chips beside it

He went ahead and started cleaning up the "random" case files from the floor and put them all on his work desk. he then closed most of the open notebooks on the desk, except one, and put them into a cabinet.

By the time he finished doing all of this, his coffee was ready, so he shuffled back into his kitchen, poured the coffee into a mug, and made his way back to his work desk and sat down on the chair. After turning on his laptop, he suddenly had a call on his phone. He saw it was Shun calling and immediately picked up the phone

"What?" he replied in an annoyed tone

"What? can't I say good morning to you, Renji?", Shun replied to him almost mockingly

"You can, but I just woke up, at least let me drink my coffee first", Renji replied while taking a sip of his coffee

"Anyways, you wanna know what happened last night?"

"Some guy jumped off the Shibuya 109 building at midnight. it's all over the news. People are saying it's a Suicide, but from what I've seen. There are some crazy fuckers online saying that it was a murder", Shun told Renji without even waiting for his reply

"Oh? What was the guy's name?" Renji asked curiously. He couldn't care much about what was going on in Tokyo. He had left all his problems there and didn't plan on going back.

"Uh, some guy named Souta Minami. Well, it's none of our business. How's the case you were working on going? You know. That woman who wanted to know if her husband was cheating on her?" As soon as Renji heard that name, he felt as if he knew that name, from somewhere. But he couldn't point out where he knew that name from...

"Shun, could you send me a link to the news article?"

"There, sent it to you just now. Check your messages", Shun replied to him after a few seconds...

As soon as Shun said this, Renji immediately opened his messages and clicked the article link...

"BREAKING NEWS: 22-YEAR-OLD MAN JUMPS OFF SHIBUYA 109 AT MIDNIGHT ON CHRISTMAS EVE. MURDER OR SUICIDE?"

The article described a lot about the case, at least what the police had told the reporters, and just like any news article. It was exaggerated by a lot, with some details even being left out or changed entirely.

Renji read through the entire article all the way while staying silent on his call with Shun; while scrolling through the article, he saw an Image of Souta Minami, the man who died. As soon as he saw that image, Renji felt his heart ache. Tears started flowing from his eyes, but he managed to keep them under control, at least enough so that it wasn't obvious to Shun. He understood. He understood why that name had sounded familiar to him. Why that person looked familiar... he had finally found him, after many years of searching.

 "Looks like I finally found you...", Renji muttered to himself with a faint smile. Shun couldn't make out exactly what Renji had said, but he knew that he had said something.

"Huh? What happened, Renji? Everything okay?" Shun asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, could you do me a favor?" Renji asked Shun. This question immediately alerted Shun that something was wrong because in the 2 years he had known him. Never once had Renji ever asked for a "favor". He knew something was wrong and that it was important.

"Go on... I'm listening", Shun replied, nervous as to what task Renji would give him.

"You know the case I'm working on? the Husband one.", Renji said while glancing at the case file of that case right beside him

"Huh, which one?" Shun was confused which case Renji was referring to...or that was maybe just his way of trying to avoid work, albeit that was a very stupid attempt.

"You Idiot, the one where the wife wants to know about her Husband's extramarital affairs? you literally just asked me about it a few minutes ago.", Renji said in a kind of sarcastic tone.

"I have to make a small trip to Tokyo for the next few days, so do that for me. Okay?" Renji said this and hung up on Shun without even leaving him any time to reply.

After hanging up on Shun, Renji leaned back in his chair and sighed

"I was too late.", he said to himself while tears flowed down his eyes, everything he had been trying to keep under control in front of Shun immediately came out like a river...

In a small café in the city of Kyoto, a young man sat alone. He looked skinny, as if he hadn't eaten in days. He was wearing some thick headphones and was furiously typing something on his laptop. The café wasn't that crowded, but a majority of the people in it were staring at him or giving him weird looks. The sounds of his keyboard clacking loudly resonated throughout the entire café. It also didn't help that people just heard him talking so casually about a suicide case and then saying it was a murder.

"Great, now I have to find out if a man is cheating on his wife", Shun said to himself while groaning...

"How am I even supposed to do this?" He muttered to himself

Meanwhile, Kyoto Station buzzed with the usual crowd as a man wearing a black shirt, dark jeans, and a charcoal black coat with a scarf loosely put on entered the station. A black duffel bag was hanging from his left shoulder as he made his way toward the Shinkansen platform, his eyes scanning for the Nozomi line headed to Tokyo. After a few minutes, he reached the platform. Moments later, the bullet train arrived, and the doors hissed open. passengers inside the train disembarked, and he stepped forward and entered the train and found his seat in the cabin near a window. That man was none other than Renji Kurosawa, and his arrival in Tokyo would bring about changes in the lives of many.