Chapter 5: A Gift for Senpai
The hallway of the inn was dimly lit, the faint hum of fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Kagehara Tetsuya moved quietly, his footsteps barely audible against the worn wooden floor. As he approached room 216, his pace slowed almost imperceptibly.
The metallic tang in the air was unmistakable here—sharp, coppery, and thick. Blood. His instincts prickled. A murder? The thought flickered like a struck match, but he extinguished it just as quickly. This wasn’t his business. Not now. Not with the weight of his own situation pressing down on him.
The hallway was empty, he quickened his steps, his eyes fixed on room 221. When he reached the door, he rapped his knuckles against the wood.
Knock, knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Senpai?”
Silence.
He frowned, his hand hovering over the doorknob. A twist confirmed it—locked. The inn’s doors were simple, designed to open from either side unless secured from within or with a key. He stepped back, his jaw tightening. If only he had Yomikawa’s number. But since leaving the detention center, his phone had become a silent relic. The rumors had seen to that. People avoided him, their faces twisting into awkward masks whenever he approached. Over time, he’d stopped asking for contact details altogether.
Maybe Yomikawa Tsuko wasn’t here. Or maybe she was, sitting in the shadows, choosing not to answer. Either way, he was on his own now.
He had things to do—a wig to buy, a disguise to assemble for his chest. June’s heat would make it tricky, but he’d manage. He always did.
But before that...
But as he passed room 216 again, he paused. The scent of blood was stronger now, almost inviting. An idea sparked in his mind, dark and tantalizing.
What if there *was* a corpse behind that door? What if he could plant fingerprints—his fingerprints—stained with the victim’s blood? Then, at the right moment, if the police were to obtain this strong piece of evidence, no matter what the previous investigation results were, the murderer would have to be "Kagehara Tetsuya," right?
According to the legend of Lord Mask-Taker, he and Yomikawa were to exchange fingerprints in twenty-one days. He wondered, with a grim amusement, how the “Kagehara Tetsuya” arrested by the police would explain *that*.
The thought lingered as he walked away, the faint hum of the fluorescent lights following him like a shadow.
“Senpai gave me a surprise today,” he mused, his voice low, almost a whisper. “It would be rude not to return the favor.”
He pressed his sleeve against the doorknob, cushioning his touch as he turned it slowly. The latch clicked softly, and the door gave way. Luck was on his side—it wasn’t locked. The absence of surveillance cameras in the hallway was another stroke of fortune.
Kagehara Tetsuya slipped inside, using his elbow to nudge the door shut behind him. He locked it from the inside, the faint *snick* of the bolt echoing in the stillness.
The room was dim, the curtains drawn over the window directly across from the door. To the left of the window, a small alcove hugged the wall—likely housing a shower and sink, if the layout matched the rooms downstairs. Against the wall to his right was a double bed, its sheets stained a deep, unsettling crimson.
A headless corpse lay sprawled on the bed, naked and grotesque. The man’s severed neck had bled profusely, soaking the sheets and pillow in a dark, coagulating pool. Near the head of the bed, an empty wastebasket sat on the floor, its presence almost mocking in its ordinariness.
The rest of the room was sparse—a standing coat rack, a square table, and a half-height cabinet.
“I should’ve brought gloves,” he muttered under his breath. Disposable medical gloves—thin, skin-tight, and perfect for situations like this. He’d used them often enough in the past, dealing with the Pit Bulls.
Cursing his oversight, he used his sleeve to cushion his fingers as he pulled open the cabinet drawer. If there was a wastebasket, there might be trash bags. Sure enough, the drawer held a few scattered items, including a half-used roll of black trash bags.
He worked quickly, fashioning makeshift coverings for his hands and feet. The smell of blood was oppressive, metallic and thick. He moved to the window, intending to air out the room, but found it already slightly ajar.
“Whoever did this noticed the need to air out the smell but underestimated the bleeding,” he thought. He opened the window wider, about a third of its capacity, and adjusted the curtains to cover the gap.
Turning back to the room, he steeled himself, thinking about the possible mistakes the careless culprit might have made. If he was going to give senpai a proper surprise, he had to ensure the real murderer wouldn’t be caught. The Japanese police were notoriously inept, but it didn’t pay to take chances.
Kagehara Tetsuya stood still for a moment, his mind racing through the steps the police would take when they arrived. First, they’d confirm the victim’s identity. Then, the medical examiner would determine the cause and time of death. After that, they’d analyze the scene to infer whether the killer was an acquaintance.
The inn’s check-in records would provide a starting point, and DNA comparison would seal the deal. Even without the victim’s head, tampering with this process was impossible.
He reached out, touching the corpse through the trash bag. The body was still warm, the blood not yet fully congealed. Less than an hour since death, he guessed. The room was devoid of tools, and his knowledge of forensic science was too rudimentary to manipulate the medical examiner’s findings. The time of death would be clear, no matter what he did.
As for the cause of death, he couldn’t be sure. But the blood told a story. It hadn’t sprayed across the walls or floor—it had pooled, soaking into the sheets and pillow in a dark, spreading stain. That suggested the decapitation had happened shortly after death, not during a struggle.
That left him with the third point: the relationship between the victim and the killer. If he wanted to muddy the waters, that’s where he’d have to start.
Judging from the state of the room, and what Kagehara Tetsuya was piecing it together, the murderer and the victim had known each other—that much was clear. The victim had likely let the killer in willingly. There were no signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds on the victim’s hands. The man’s nails were untrimmed, dirt caked beneath them, and the pinky nail on his left hand was oddly long, yet unbroken.
Kagehara moved methodically, examining the body. The front showed no external injuries, but when he turned the corpse over, he paused.
“Is this… a stun gun?” he murmured, his eyes narrowing.
On the right side of the lower back were the telltale marks of a stun gun—fresh, with a faint burnt smell lingering in the air. He’d seen these marks before, on the bodies of Pit Bulls he’d dealt with. The degree of charring suggested the stun gun had been very powerful, and the victim hadn’t been wearing a shirt when it was used.
What struck him as odd was the victim’s physique. The man was slender for an adult male, his ribs faintly visible beneath the skin. He couldn’t have been more than 170 centimeters tall. Many high school athletes were more muscular than this.
Yet, the murderer had still felt the need to use a stun gun.
The tool’s use spoke volumes. It suggested the killer lacked confidence in their own physical strength. Stun gun typically incapacitate people through pain, and achieving that effect inevitably left marks.
Putting it all together, the murderer was likely smaller and thinner than the victim—or perhaps a woman.
And they had known each other.
The Japanese police were nothing if not thorough. With just these two pieces of information, they might actually piece something together. Of course, that was assuming no one interfered with their work. As the thought crossed his mind, Kagehara Tetsuya frowned. He glanced down at his hands, wrapped in wrinkled, blood-stained black trash bags.
“I really need to start carrying gloves,” he muttered under his breath.
After a moment of consideration, he shook his head. No, not just one pair. He should carry two—one as a backup.
He swapped the soiled trash bag for a clean one and made his way to the shower alcove. Earlier, when he’d opened the window, he’d spotted a toiletry bag tucked in the corner. Likely the victim’s. “Lucky the victim was a man,” he thought. “If it were a woman, things would’ve been more complicated.”
Rustling through the bag, his fingers brushed against something cold and metallic. He paused, then smiled faintly. “Jackpot.”
It was an old-fashioned razor, and tucked inside was a fresh blade. Perfect.
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