"No money, just my life!"
Watanabe Shun’s first reaction was that this group truly had the courage of a leopard, robbing a policeman.
But then he thought again, the kidnappers asked, "Where’s my money?" That’s when he realized something was not quite right. Those few coins of his hardly seemed worth the trouble... By the time he tried to recover, it was too late. The other side snapped their fingers, and two strong men gagged him with a rag.
"It’s good you admitted it," the other person said, pressing down the desk lamp, casting a sinister face in backlight: "There are always ways to make you speak."
Watanabe Shun thought, admitted what?
He stared wide-eyed at the person’s face, feeling he had seen it before.
After recalling for a moment, Watanabe Shun finally remembered: he had seen this guy before at the police station, while making a record after being knocked unconscious by the Yakuza at the airport. This guy’s name was something like... Sazaki Gen? No, Sazaki Gen! Yes, this guy is a cadre of the Inakawa Association!
Watanabe Shun mumbled, trying to push the rag out with his tongue. Seeing this, the kidnappers wrapped more tape around his mouth.
Sazaki Gen laid a briefcase flat on the table, flicked open the latch, opened the lid, and inside was an array of odd-looking tools.
Watanabe Shun glanced at them, seeing a cylindrical curling iron, sharp slender scissors, a cold-reflecting razor... He swallowed and thought, what is this guy planning? Gouge out his eyes? Or peel his nails?
Sazaki Gen slowly put on latex gloves, took out a roll of plastic cape, tied it around Watanabe Shun’s neck, and said with confidence, "Don’t be fooled by how I look, I’m quite skilled at interrogation."
Watanabe Shun was getting more and more panicked; this guy seemed very professional, knowing to cover with a plastic cape to block the blood splatter before starting... This is bad. What’s he going to do with the scissors? Cut off his ears?!
"Since I was a child, I had a special talent: even without talking to people, I can see their weaknesses at a glance."
Sazaki Gen stood behind Watanabe Shun, his left hand pressing on his shoulder, feeling his body’s instinctive trembling: "What mortals cherish, are all their Achilles’ heel."
Watanabe Shun vaguely guessed something, his eyes widened in fear as he vigorously shook his head, but the two strong men held his head still. He could only watch as the scissors got closer and closer, until they reached his beloved pompadour.
Watanabe Shun’s pupils contracted, his chest emitted a painful howl. He struggled fiercely, his chair rattling and almost falling apart from his shaking.
Sazaki Gen’s glasses reflected cold light, he smiled and spoke softly: "No rush, the night is long, we’ll take our time..."
A silent night passed.
The next day, business as usual at work.
Fushimi Roku called Kitahara Affairs Officer to explain the situation, confessing that Taira Sakurako had run away from the welfare home and was suspected to be his long-lost sister, so he planned to do a legal paternity test.
Kitahara Affairs Officer didn’t mind, as they never expected to get any valuable information from this child, arranging two patrol police just for the aftermath, to prevent any friction between the Child Protection Association and the Police Department.
After obtaining permission to slack off, Fushimi Roku took advantage of Minamoto Tamako’s hangover to get money from the third-floor kitchen and took Taira Sakurako out to get documents.
The registration process was smoother than he imagined. The district office registration officer knew what he was up to the moment he pulled out the paternity test report. The two hit it off, chatted for a while in the tea room, agreed on the price, and Fushimi Roku painfully lost more than one million three hundred thousand yen.
Twenty thousand yen were for the paternity test report, more than ten thousand yen for covering Taira Sakurako’s social security, and the district office took the rest for household registration, name change, and archiving. They even helped him with Taira Sakurako’s birth certificate, sent back to the district office in Hokkaido, without needing Fushimi Roku to go back home himself. It was a full service.
Of course, sometimes even money can’t buy such convenience. The reason he managed it so smoothly was mostly because of his civil servant status.
Having a civil servant status makes things much easier in society.
The only trouble was that Taira Sakurako didn’t want to see anyone. If it weren’t for the cardboard box, she would be like she’d lost her soul, becoming dumb as a wooden chicken.
Fushimi Roku didn’t want people to think he was abusing a child, so he put Taira Sakurako in his travel backpack, just like Tanjiro bitterly carrying her around.
A huge sum of money with an unknown source easily draws attention, so Fushimi Roku used the excuse of inheriting an estate to launder some money at the tax office. Without going into details, he spent five million to wash thirty million and got two hundred fifty million yen in hand.
He ran back and forth between various departments, finally getting it done before civil servants’ work hours ended.
"Look, ’Fushimi Sakurako,’ from now on when people ask, we’re family."
Fushimi Roku put away the residence certificate and household register copy, hung the travel bag on his chest, and said with a stern face: "Privately, you listen to me, got it? I spent a lot of money to get you properly registered."
The reason for all this trouble is mainly due to Japan’s strict adoption policy.
If an unmarried man wants to adopt a girl, he must be forty years older, without a mental illness history, undergo a financial review, and have no criminal record... As for why, let’s just say it’s due to Japan’s unique circumstances, keeping a strict watch against Lolicon.
Taira Sakurako sat with her knees up in the backpack, through the zipper’s gap, revealing lively eyes. She was silent for a moment and handed out a piece of paper.
"Alright, alright, I know, stop rushing me, okay? That thing’s in the evidence room, I can’t get it until the case is closed..."
"How should I know when it will be closed? I’m warning you not to push it, really tick me off, and even Minamoto Tamako can’t save you..."
Fushimi Roku muttered to the travel bag, attracting stares from passersby. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he took a cab back to the police box.
Meanwhile, Minamoto Tamako was pacing anxiously in the police box, feeling as if the sky had fallen when she woke up.
First, she overslept and was late for work, then found Senior Watanabe and Fushimi were missing. She called around and found out that Fushimi Roku had gone out "working." That lazy bum was secretly competing; not even waking her up during work time, it was as if the sun had risen from the west.
...Could it be that Fushimi finally felt threatened because she was praised by the chief?
Before Minamoto Tamako could figure it out, Kazama Tatsuya notified her with a stern face: the police station had received an anonymous report, someone had witnessed a kidnapping at the police box entrance, and the patrol police were to follow up and investigate.
Kazama Tatsuya had a bad feeling; after getting up this morning, he couldn’t find Watanabe Shun anywhere, only half the tableware on the table was collected, and no response to his beeper messages... It might just be that Watanabe Shun was kidnapped.
When Fushimi Roku returned to the police box, the two had been investigating for most of the day.
They walked around, collected a lot of depositions, but found nothing.