Y.A. Confidential (Katawa Shoujo Noir)

Y.A. Confidential

04-18-2012




Part I

The name's Kenji, Kenji Setou, private investigation is my profession. At least that's what it says on my tax return. Truth is, in my line of work, you lie, cheat, and steal to dig up dirt. The dirtier the dirt, the bigger the pay. Add in the unhealthy habits that comes with the territory (i.e. cancerous nicotine smoke, liver destroying alcohol, the ungodly hours most assignments require) and you get a job that kills early and often.

Though never explicitly told to, you're also paid to to shut your fucking mouth. Especially when the good men and women of the law comes in and asks questions that you full well know the answers to. Because my clientele don't come to me to help find an estranged relative. There's plenty of legitimate avenues for that. They come to me for dirt. They need dirt. I give them dirt. What they do with it (and I full well they intend to do bad things ... horrible things ... things that will make children cry ... and monks and nuns faint ... et cetera et cetera) is between them and God.

I don't directly do the evil deeds, but I certainly enable them. Whiskey usually kills any time remorse tries to rear its ugly head. My first case, a scorned wife paid me a lot of money to uncover her husband's, a prominent local artist and teacher, adulterous affair with his star pupil. I disavow all knowledge when the television and newspapers broke news about the poor teenage girl and her severed arms. She'll never paint again. Whiskey. Then there was a track star with aspirations for the Olympics. Her legs were amputated, and she'll never run again. Her replacement happens to have the same last name was the man who hired me (Miura) and that, I know, wasn't a coincidence. Whiskey.

But then it happened. I was a fool to think it wouldn't. A man with a gambling debt. His house was set ablaze, and he and his wife died in the fire. His daughter, Hanako Ikezawa, was badly scarred. The artist that fooled around with a married man and is now armless and the rich, cocky runner who is now legless - they will be fine. They have parents and/or money. But the burned girl, she has nothing. No mother, no father, no living relatives. I used all of the money gained from finding her father's whereabouts and pulling some strings from the Yamaku Police Department, to help her as much as I can. She has a trust that will be available to her upon her 18th birthday. I send her some money as much as I can every so often ... anonymously of course. Her schooling will be also paid for at a private school that caters to the disabled by me as an anonymous benefactor.

And now I'm doing what the Internal Revenue Service thought I was really doing for years. Private Investigating. Finding estranged relatives and such. Legitimate. It also pays very shitty. I lament that fact over another bottle of whiskey looking out towards the town from the dirty windows through a thick haze of cigarette smoke. The landlord's deaf daughter (she was born that way, not a victim of one of my past life's sins) letter in my mailbox remains ignored. I already know what it says anyways. Rent is late. Again. Helping that girl pretty much wiped out all my finances. I'd like to, but it does very little to satiate my conscience. Whiskey.

I take another look at the town, small but still full of lights and life. Where I am, is just on the outskirts, where the lights do not illuminate, where the proper citizens don't dare tread, it is where dreams go to die. This is the refuge of the beaten and the damned. I was about to sigh when I hear the timid tapping on my door. Three soft but measured knocks. Feminine. Synonymous with trouble.

“Come on in, the door's unlock,” I responded.

The door slowly creaks open, and I did a double take on what appears. Trouble alright, trouble with a capital fucking T. Tall, blonde, pale, white, flawless foreign skin with a nice rack, and long, sexy legs that my groin wants to instantly get to know better, and a figure with curves on all the right places. I gulped. This is bad.

She taps a walking cane in front of her as she approaches and feels around for the chair. She's blind.

“Sorry for not having an appointment, but I have a problem that's rather urgent. My name is Satou. Lilly Satou,” she says as her perfume wafts to me. After seeing the goddess before me and now the intoxicating aroma, it all does funny things to my brain and my senses are dulled. I must have just spent an awkward, uncomfortable few minutes not responding before she jerks me back to reality.

“Mister … ?”

“Ah, yes. Satou. Good. Name's Setou. You can call me Kenji,” I say as I fish out a pack of smokes from my pocket. It's the only thing I can do to keep my hands from trembling.

"What can I help you with today, Miss Satou?" I offered a smoke to her but she politely declined.

"I would like you to find an old friend I've lost contact with, Mr ... Kenji," her soft, well bred speech completely out of place here in a decrepit office of a decrepit building of a decrepit part of town.

I audibly sighed and she perked her petite chin upward. "Miss Satou ... there are plenty of P.I.s in town who can do just that. In fact, every single one of them can do it better and faster and more efficient than me. Why are you here?"

"I ... I ... I heard you can help."

I'm never doing this shit again. Not after what happened to the innocent girl that is now an orphan because of it. I don't care if I lose everything and have to beg for money on the street.

"Miss Satou, let's cut the bullshit,as I said, I'm probably the worst in town for the job. I don't know what you heard I can help you with, but please leave."

I turned away and puff on my cigarette. I don't hear her getting up and leaving and sure enough she was still there when I turned back to face her. I take another puff.

"Mister Setou," she begins as I begin to turn away from her again before remembering the futility of it on account of her sight, "I'll pay you hundred thousand dollars. Here is half, and the other half when you find my friend."

The cigarette drops out of my mouth. She pulls out a letter with a name on it. Did a courteous farewell bow and begin to leave. As the tap tap tappings of her cane grow ever distant out of my office, I looked at the thick stack of bills.

"Miss Satou, I have to ask," and she stopped before reaching the doorway

"If I find your 'friend' and some unfortunate things happens to him or her ... I'm going to the police."

She turns to face towards the direction of my voice, as best as she can, anyways.

"Mister Setou ... I sincerely only want to find my friend. Nothing more, nothing less."

I study her for a little bit, I'm not particularly good at it, but maybe she's telling the truth.

"But the amount of money you offered,' I finished the smoke and discard it into the ashtray, "that is above and beyond my ... or any private investigator's fee."

"Like I said, Mr Setou," she started to answer until I cut her off.

"Call me Kenji," and I lit up another cig. If I don't get lung cancer, it would be considered a miracle.

She took in stride and continued," Kenji, like I said, I don't have much time, that's why I was hoping you can find my friend as soon as possible."

Taking my silence as the conclusion of our conversation, she did a courteous bow and turn to leave again.

What should I do? I closed my eyes and picture the image of the young girl with her full life ahead of her if not for me. But this stack of bills ... money doesn't buy happiness, but it can surely solve a lot of headaches. Like rent.

I sigh.

"Please forgive me, lil Hanako Ikezawa."

I just have a feeling deep in my gut I'm surely going to regret this.