#i think it would be funny if mia and yagami were investigating the same people but thats up to u phoenix is just along for the ride

[natorika]

it would be unbecoming of phoenix not to tap into the digital local news tablets on his pre-barring hurrah to japan. mia had claimed she could use the break, and had nobly vetted the bill in wake of phoenix's broke-college-graduate absent stare. just don't buy anything too expensive without asking me, she'd warned, then, phoenix, i know you're bad at math.. you do remember the conversion rate, right?

so there he was, browsing the last half-year of headers that interested him in the archives of a legitimate journalism website, or so the header touted in hiragana. (he understood it better than kanji. mama had made sure he could read and speak the language, but they only ever had time for flashcard lessons with kanji.) approximately a year beforehand todays date, phoenix follows a link trail about a murder and acquittal of waku koichi. the article promotes an updated hyperlink. this one is dated approximately six months ago. waku killer, proclaimed 'innocent', murders girlfriend, the title reads. the article is framed by a photo of the defendant and his lawyer, six months prior, okubo shinpei and yagami takayuki.

' woah, ' phoenix blurts aloud, then casts his gaze up to swivel about the room, thankful he was only one of three customers holed up at this 'girl cafe'. the staff didn't care who patroned, but the interior was clearly aimed at a feminine demographic. not ten minutes after closing out of the article does a man shoulder into the cafe sporting a leather cut-off jacket, a size too small, phoenix thinks, hand flying to his ear. he speaks very quietly when he does, but phoenix hears it so close to him--and he understands the japanese, natively spoken. i'm in the cafe, he says to some unknown person on the other end of the blutooth.

phoenix stares. he stares and stares and stares, his open sketchbook neglected, his half-eaten meal coming to a halt in progression. he swears he's seen this guy somewhere before.

then it hits him. the article about the lawyer who'd disgraced himself with a conviction on a murder case. this is the guy. has to be--his hair is a little longer, and it's certainly no longer neatly coiffed back, and he's traded out the formal suit, but the face is the same, the same consternated look. what was the likelihood he was going to walk into the very same cafe phoenix had just read about him in?

' aren't you that guy who won the waku murder case? '

@entomic