Ten in the morning. Mikage Town had a sleepy face. Aiko pedaled through the arcade on Kagerou Street, dragging the hours from last night's reasoning board with her. Three days of delivery logs. Fried chicken bento. Toshiko Mifune's testimony. The stacked memo notes spinning in circles inside her head. (The next thing to confirm would be FreshLine's detailed delivery history——but I don't have access.) That spinning thought was cut short by a smartphone notification. FreshLine's in-app chat. The sender: "ねこたみな☆". "Aiko!! I registered you for this month's regular meeting!! !!" Aiko stopped pedaling. The bicycle wobbled, and she guided it toward the roadside. (……Registered. Without asking.) "It's online tonight at eight using the station monitors! Your ratings are the highest, so I absolutely wanted you to come as the courier rep!!" "Please don't register me without permission." The reply came in three seconds. "Already done!!" "……" "Also I already set up a seat at the station!! Your seat! I left a paper cup with your name on it!!" Aiko looked at the screen. She kept looking for three seconds straight. (A paper cup.) Just the fact that it existed somewhere gave it an oddly real weight. The thought that right now there was a paper cup sitting on the station counter with "Aiko's seat!!" written on it in marker, that other couriers were seeing it and thinking "who's this?"—— "I'm going to go remove that paper cup." At eight at night, Aiko opened the door to FreshLine Mikage Town Station——a waiting area for couriers in a renovated former pachinko parlor at the north end of the shopping district. In a space about thirty square meters, delivery bags lined the shelves. A charging station. A vending machine. A desk in the back marked for Takayuki. The paper cup was in the corner of the counter. "Aiko's seat!!" written in marker. With emoji, no less. (How many people saw this.) Aiko quietly pushed the cup to the edge and pulled a chair into the station's blind spot——a position just barely outside the monitor's frame. From here she wouldn't be on camera. Just her voice would come through. This was Aiko's calculated "minimum unit of participation." Mina slid in beside her. Her mint-green twin tails swayed. Her golden eyes sparkled. "[gentle]You came!!" "I came to retrieve the paper cup." "But you pulled up a chair!!" "……" Five or six other couriers had gathered in front of the monitor. They all sat normally in their chairs facing the screen. Only Aiko sat half-hidden in the station's blind spot, her body angled away. "[whispers]Does hiding even do anything?" "[serious]It does." The other couriers apparently heard the exchange, and a few of them chuckled. Aiko's expression didn't change. The screen connected. The man on the monitor was in his mid-thirties. His hair was a pale platinum color, almost silver, cut short and neat. Blue eyes. He smiled gently, naturally. Black shirt, thin gray jacket. His bearing was economical, composed. "[gentle]Thank you all for your hard work. I'm Takayuki." His voice was low, warm. A voice with an enveloping quality to it, Aiko thought. Takayuki Kutsuki——FreshLine Mikage Town Area Manager. She'd heard his name come up often in the horizontal connections between couriers, but this was the first time seeing him on screen. The meeting proceeded matter-of-factly. This month's delivery count totals. Announcements about expansion into new areas. Discussion of the increased rates for late-night deliveries. Takayuki's facilitation was smooth. Seemingly matter-of-fact, yet there was a way of phrasing things that preempted courier anxiety. Converting "there's a possibility the payment transfer will be two days late, please check" into "it might be delayed a bit, but we'll definitely get it to you"——that kind of word choice. From her spot in the station's blind corner, Aiko tracked that word choice. The report on delivery errors came up. "[gentle]Mina, you had seven this month, right?" Mina flinched. "[scared]……I'm sorry!!" "Well, it takes time to learn the routes, doesn't it?" On the other side of the screen, Takayuki gave a wry smile. A smile without malice. He added only, "I was the same way at first." The atmosphere in the room softened. The courier next to Mina nodded in understanding. (Skillful.) Aiko started to continue the thought, then stopped. "Skillful" wasn't the right evaluation. Skillful referred to technique, but this was—— "Now, a business notice," Takayuki's voice tone shifted slightly. Or rather——it settled. That was closer. "Regarding the 704 incident, the police requested submission of delivery data, but we've already handled it." Aiko's thoughts crystallized into a single point. (The phrasing is too precise.) Sylphide Mansion, Room 704. The room where Aiko had discovered a body last week. She'd known the police were involved. But Takayuki's single sentence——he'd processed a delicate topic like police cooperation at a temperature that wouldn't make couriers anxious, containing only the minimum necessary information. Not "no problem" or "details are confidential," but "we've already handled it." The phrasing of someone who'd prepared in advance. Aiko placed her fingertips on the edge of the counter. It was an unconscious gesture. She moved her chair forward a few centimeters. Until the monitor came into her line of sight. Mina noticed. Her golden eyes widened. She said nothing. Just turned forward silently. That silence transmitted something to Aiko. ——This might be suspicious. It was a wordless signal that existed only between the two of them. ＊ The meeting ended. Couriers filed out. Two people checking their chargers at the charging station. One person heading to the vending machine. Aiko immediately opened the app. FreshLine delivery history. Users around Room 704, past thirty days. She tried to expand the data——and hit a wall. (No access permissions.) The detailed history page was protected by a layer accessible only with Area Manager credentials. As a courier registered on Aiko's account, she could only see her own delivery records. (It's the right design. But it's in the way now.) Beside her, Mina was operating her smartphone. The app's chat screen. Sending a direct message to Takayuki. "What are you sending?" "[excited]Just a sec!! I got it worded really well!!" Mina showed her the smartphone. The message to Takayuki read: "Aiko's been researching delivery optimization, and she wanted to use our area's data as reference……could we maybe see the data or something?" "……" "Did it not work?" "Research." "It was easier to say that way!" "You know I'm only nominally enrolled at university, right?" "Oh, I didn't know that!! But that makes it more convincing!!" A reply came. Less than three minutes. "Of course. I'd be happy if you used it for research. I'll send it right now." (Fast.) Aiko quietly filed away that response speed. No deliberation, no verification, immediate approval. A CSV file was attached. Aiko stepped outside the station. A moment when fewer people were around. She stopped her bicycle under the arcade's eaves and expanded the file. Rows of data. Date and time. Order number. Courier ID. Customer ID. Status. Delivery confirmation time—— Aiko scrolled vertically, tracking the rows tied to Room 704's customer ID. Found it. October 23rd. October 24th. October 25th—— Blank. (Blank?) The rows themselves didn't exist. The dates jumped. The line after the 22nd went straight to the 26th. Three days, no data. Or rather—— Aiko checked the format. She looked for blank dates in other customer IDs. Days with no orders had a flag indicating "no order." But the rows for the 23rd through 25th had no flag, no rows at all. (Deleted, or never written out in the first place.) Counting backward from the estimated date of death——those three days overlapped with the period when Room 704's resident was most likely still alive. Her fingertip remained touching the edge of the smartphone screen. (This is curated data.) This CSV had been prepared "for Aiko to see" before being sent——that possibility seeped into her mind. Without checking the original data, she couldn't tell if the blank meant "no orders that day" or "erased." And the original data was——in Takayuki's managed server. The station door opened, and Mina came out. "[excited]How was it!? Is the data useful!?" "……There are blanks." "Blanks?" "Data for three specific days is missing." Mina leaned in to look at the screen. "……Is that weird?" "I can't tell if it's weird without cross-referencing with the original data. But," The words paused for a moment. "The original data is only in Takayuki's hands." Mina went quiet for a bit. "……I'll try talking to him more since his chat's still open!!" There was no time to stop her. Mina was already operating her smartphone. A few minutes later, Mina let out an "Ah!" Aiko looked at Mina's screen. The casual chat with Takayuki continued. In response to Mina's innocent "What did you do before, Takayuki?", he'd replied: "I was at city hall. In the urban planning department. But something happened and I quit, came here instead." Aiko checked the screen, almost snatching the smartphone from Mina's hand. (Urban planning department.) Suirei City Hall's urban planning department——the department that handled the redevelopment plan for the Mikage Textile Factory ruins. That is, the processing of the abandoned site that had been left to rot for eighteen years. The land tied to that bankruptcy case with suspicions of improper financing, where the investigation was shut down. The "something happened" part made her eyes stop. "Give that back." "Right." She returned the smartphone. From the arcade ceiling, night air flowed in. The streetlights on Kagerou Street glowed orange. A cat crossed in front of a shuttered shop. "[gentle]Takayuki seems like a good person, you know?" Aiko paused for a moment. "Whether someone is a good person and whether they're involved are separate things." Mina didn't respond. There was a few seconds of silence. "……Maybe," Mina continued after a beat. "That means you want to believe in Takayuki, right?" Aiko's thoughts stopped. Just for an instant. But they definitely stopped. (Whether I want to believe——) Reasoning should be conducted in a place separated from emotion. Aiko had always believed that. But now, faced with Mina's words, she couldn't reflexively answer "no." There was a part of her that couldn't. What that meant, she couldn't name immediately. "……We're not at that stage yet." Even as she said it, she realized the answer was incomplete. Mina didn't push further. ＊ Back at Copo Mikage, Aiko hung her jacket on a chair and stood before the reasoning board. She printed a screenshot of the blank data and pasted it on the board. Next to the red sticker. Below Toshiko Mifune's testimony memo. "Takayuki Kutsuki → Suirei City Hall Urban Planning Department → Reason for resignation unknown → Transferred to FreshLine" She wrote it on a new memo sheet in ballpoint pen and pasted it up. The data blank and the career blank. Two "absences" lined up side by side. The next step was——obtaining the original data for those three blank days. But the original data was in Takayuki's managed server. Which meant either contacting Takayuki again, or finding an alternate route. Aiko wrote out both options. Added a small "?" beside them. Her smartphone vibrated. A chat from Mina. "Today you said you came to the station just for the paper cup but you actually watched the whole meeting. You seemed kinda like a normal person for a bit." Aiko read the message. She started to ask back what "normal person" meant. Drafted a response, deleted it. Instead, she sent this: "Thanks for the help with the data today." She was about to set the smartphone down——but didn't. She kept it in h