Chapter 36: Brewing Storm

  “What did you get?” Ace asked Kazuya excitedly as they compared the charms they got from the gachapon machines at the arcade.

  Kazuya held out his toy. It was a thumb-sized penguin tilting doll. He pushed over the toy and watched it spring back upright in his palm. “That’s cute! I got a dragon one!” Leonhart exclaimed, showing hers off.

  While the four students were having the time of their lives, Felix watched over them from behind. Dante shifted his attention back to his phone, scrolling through the news for the day. There was an opinion piece about the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks, even though commemorations would only happen in a couple of days.

  “Quit phubbing!”

  Dante clicked his tongue as his phone screen turned dark. Felix had forcefully shut off his phone.

  “No,” Dante grunted, still not very pleased that more people knew about his return.

  Ever since the news about Ace’s condition was leaked, things had been a lot more complicated. Dante struck a deal with Felix to arrange for Ace to spend time with his friends once a week.

  Felix also made sure to let slip the Divine Comedy’s glory days. This led to a long-winded and animated debate on what they should name themselves.

  “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!” Leonhart suggested enthusiastically.

  Jude smacked her head. “We aren’t bringing calamity, you dumbass!” she exclaimed.

  “Spoilsport!” Leonhart pouted.

  “The Wayfinders!” Kazuya chirped.

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Ace said. “Wayfinders, Fearsome… foursome?”

  While Jude and Leonhart bickered, Kazuya held out a deck of cards he bought. It was a plain deck of cards, nothing too special. “Ace, could you teach me how to uh… play some card games? You said that you used to be in the Bridge Club, right?” he asked meekly.

  “Oh, okay!” Ace nodded and started shuffling the cards expertly. “There are tons of games that you can play. The most basic one is Blackjack, where you win if the sum of the numbers on the cards adds up to twenty-one…”

  Kazuya's eyes lit up like fireworks, and he lunged forward, grabbing Leonhart's arm with both hands. "I got one! Blackjack! We can call ourselves the Blackjacks!" he exclaimed, practically vibrating with excitement.

  Leonhart froze mid-breath, her eyes going wide as she turned the name over in her mind. The word seemed to click into place like the final piece of a puzzle. "Kazuya! You're a GENIUS!" She grabbed both his arms, her fingers digging in with enthusiasm, and before anyone could blink, they launched into a happy little dance – hopping clumsily from one foot to the other, nearly tripping over themselves in their excitement. Their laughter rang out, bright and unrestrained.

  Jude and Ace exchanged amused glances. Jude's shoulders shook with quiet laughter while Ace grinned, shaking his head at the spectacle he had accidentally created.

  Crazy Daisies would be a better name, Dante thought. Kids on a sugar rush.

  The quartet celebrated their christening as the Blackjacks at a nearby ramen restaurant where they stuffed their faces. Dante sat with Felix in silence, quietly savouring the ramen broth he had saved for last. “Hey Dante, do you want some meat?” Felix asked, picking up a slice of pork with his chopsticks.

  Dante pulled his bowl of noodles towards himself, silently rejecting Felix’s offer. He cleared his throat and tapped his watch covertly. Felix’s shoulders slumped. “After the kids are done with their food?” he whispered. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket…”

  “We agreed that their routines cannot be compromised.”

  “Alright, alright,” conceded Felix. “It looks like they are nearly done anyway. I’ll settle the bill.”

  Dante took out his wallet and took out enough money to cover his own share. He pressed the bills under his gloved hand and slid them across the table, making sure to use their bowls to conceal the exchange. “It’s my treat,” Felix said.

  “I do not want to owe you anything,” Dante said in a hushed voice. His hand remained on the money.

  “I told you it’s my treat,” Felix insisted as he reached out to reject the money.

  The warmth of Felix's hand seeped through the leather of Dante's glove, foreign and unwelcome. His first instinct was to yank back his hand – to put distance between them – but Felix gave him a look, sharp and pointed. His eyes flicked deliberately toward where the students were seated, a silent warning. The students might notice, he seemed to say, his expression carefully neutral even as his grip tightened ever so slightly.

  However, Felix was a bit too late. Dante's gaze swept across the room and landed on Kazuya, who was watching them from beneath his dark lashes. Those keen grey eyes flicking between them with unsettling awareness. The boy's expression remained innocent enough, but there was something in the way he observed. This boy is like slime, Dante thought with a mixture of irritation and grudging respect, picking up everything.

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  Slowly, Dante withdrew his hand, making the movement seem casual, unremarkable. But his jaw remained tight, and the ghost of Felix's warmth lingered on the back of his hand like an accusation.

  Felix clapped his hands, drawing attention to himself. When he mentioned leaving, Leonhart ordered more desserts. They had to wait until she stuffed herself to the brink of exploding before they could make a move. Yet, even when they had to part ways, Leonhart continued dragging her heels. “Wait!” she exclaimed and shoved a new staff in Ace’s face. “I spent lots of time making this from scratch. I’ll smack you upside down if you lose or break it.”

  “U-Uh okay… I’ll try my best,” Ace said sheepishly.

  Kazuya grasped Ace's wrist next and placed something in his palm. “I made this to thank everyone for saving me,” he said, holding up his wrist. He wore a quaint bead bracelet, and seven of the beads were of different colours.

  “I tried to match them with the colours of the planets,” he added meekly, blushing as he distributed the bracelets. “I even made one for you, Mr Higashino. Thanks for taking care of Ace for us.”

  “It’s very pretty,” Ace said, putting it on immediately. “Thank you.”

  “Dante, we have friendship bracelets!” Felix grinned widely as he flexed the bracelet on his wrist. Dante pulled up his scarf and turned away, feeling the tips of his ears warm. He slid on the bracelet but quickly stuffed his hand into his pocket.

  “You’re thirty,” Dante muttered. “You don’t need friendship bracelets.”

  “Says the one who has it all to himself,” sang Felix. “But yours… what do you call them? Friendship rings?”

  It took everything in Dante not to evaporate on the spot. The replicas on his right hand suddenly felt like two balls of lead. “Leave now,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Spoilsport,” Felix huffed.

  “We agreed on this.”

  “Just five more minutes?”

  “There were at least twelve ‘five-more-minutes’ before this,” Dante hissed. “They will meet again soon. Same spot, same time.”

  “Alright, it’s about time we headed back, we still got our training to do!” Felix coaxed his three students in the direction of the Beacon. “See you guys next week!”

  The group complained but relented anyway. Ace waved back as they left. The initial reluctance to see them go quickly faded away when he saw a deal for cheesecake. “One-for-one for cheesecake! You want one?” he asked Dante.

  “You still have space for more food?” Dante remarked. “If you want it, you can have both slices yourself.”

  “Huh? Who doesn’t like cheesecake?” Ace remarked as he got his order. “It’s a good deal too, getting free food and all.”

  “I’ve never found them palatable.”

  “Orh,” Ace said between bites.

  Dante pulled the scarf around his neck, breathing warm air into it. The fingers on his right hand were trembling slightly, but wearing extra gloves when the season had not fully turned was a bit overkill.

  While Ace savoured his cake, Dante’s mind drifted to the bodies that they found offshore three weeks ago. It was the only thing that could distract him from the ghost of Felix’s grip on his other hand.

  There had been no leads thus far. Every phantom he and Ace had exorcised held no clues and thus no breakthroughs. There had been no new cases of unusual deaths either.

  Perhaps the initial hypothesis was wrong.

  It would be a waste of energy to continue on this wild goose chase, Dante thought, pursing his lips. I am not obligated to help the Sanctum or anyone else.

  “Dante!”

  Ace’s voice broke Dante’s train of thought. “Your phone’s been ringing,” Ace said.

  Dante fished out his phone. True enough, there were several missed calls from the same number. Before he could call back, it called back. A loud sniffle and gurgle of phlegm greeted him. “Ahem-hem, is this Dante Higashino?” the caller asked.

  “Yes. You are?” The question was merely a formality. Dante knew who was addressing him just by the sniffle and the ‘Ahem-hem’.

  “This is Detective Mikami. Do you remember me?”

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  Dante could hardly forget Michio Mikami. Years ago, he had saved the detective from a phantom, dislocating his own shoulder in the process as he caught Michio mid-fall.

  It’s been more than ten years, and he’s still in the same spot, Dante thought.

  “First of all, I wanted to send my condolences to you,” Mikami said.

  “Why?” Dante asked, confused. “No one died.”

  “I know it’s been a while, but that’s how I got your new number.”

  “Huh?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line, filled only with what might have been Mikami's shallow breathing. “W-We got your number from RKEI Eldercare Centre, where your father used to live until he passed on,” Mikami admitted, his words coming out in a tumble. “It’s strange, I know. But with the case we have on hand, it’s easier to get special permission to do the unconventional, like contacting a civvie to help out.”

  Dante's grip tightened imperceptibly on the phone. All of a sudden, he was transported back to 2016. He shifted his feet, feeling the phantom waves crashing against his shins as he dumped his father’s ashes into the sea and spat on them. “Okay.” The word came out clipped and neutral as he tried not to get carried away with that memory.

  Dante turned his attention to Ace, who was putting up a terrible act of pretending that he was not curious about the conversation. His ears were practically swivelling toward the conversation like a cat's.

  “A-Anyway...” Mikami cleared his throat. Dante could picture his neck turning beet-red, one hand probably tugging at his collar.

  “Get to the point,” Dante said flatly, throwing the man a lifeline before the awkwardness suffocated them both.

  “That’s what I like about you!” Mikami chortled, his relief palpable even through the phone. The nervous energy seemed to drain from his voice, replaced by something more like a detective.

  Still, Mikami was reluctant to share details, skirting around them like they were landmines. All Dante managed to extract was that it was a murder case at the nearby hospital, and there were a total of three victims. No names. No method. Just the bare bones. “I would like you to come to the scene,” concluded Mikami in a grave tone. “You’re the only one I can entrust this case to.”

  “Got it. I will be there in twenty minutes.”

  “What is it?” Ace asked the moment the call ended.

  “A call from the police,” Dante replied.

  “Like the real cops? Not the pretend ones?”

  “Yes,” Dante said. “Unlike the Sanctum, I believe in some form of cooperation with law enforcers.”

  “Does it have to do with the bodies at the beach?”

  “We will find out soon enough.”