Canary of the gods

As she spoke, the woman covered her face and burst into tears at the door. It seemed that the pressure and negative emotions accumulated these days had weighed heavily on her.

"You, you... oh...that..."

Tanizaki Junichiro was at a loss for this, and didn't know what to do for a while.

Just at this moment, someone patted him on the shoulder from behind.

Tanizaki Junichiro looked back, "Mr. Dazai?"

Osamu Dazai said calmly, "Leave it to me."

saved!

Tanizaki Junichiro breathed a sigh of relief, stepped back and gave up his position.

"It's so distressing."

While talking, Osamu Dazai took out a neatly folded handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and handed it to the white-collar woman.

"Looking at your tears, my heart feels like it has been cut open by tens of thousands of knives. The pain is so unbearable that I can't breathe."

Tanizaki Junichiro: "..." He knew it.

"Tsk, this guy..."

Kunikida Doppo smacked his lips, as usual.But he didn't stop him. Seeing that Osamu Dazai coaxed the female white-collar worker to calm down with a few words, he led her into the office and walked towards the reception area where they were.

"Should I avoid it?" A priest took his messenger bag and got up from the sofa.

"Huh?" Kunikida Doppo glanced at him, and said strangely, "What are you avoiding? Maybe you will be part of the next commission."

Ok?

So, he passed the application?

Ichijo Jijiu blinked, and stood beside Kunikida Doppo with his bag, watching Dazai Osamu help the female office worker who was wiping tears to sit on the sofa.

Tanizaki Naomi poured a cup of hot tea for the female office worker, "Please use it."

"Thank you."

After venting out the negative emotions accumulated in her heart these days, the mental outlook of the female white-collar worker is much better than what Junichiro Tanizaki saw when he opened the door just now.

"It was so rude, I'm sorry."

Her cheeks were slightly red, and she looked very embarrassed, "I have caused you trouble."

Osamu Dazai held her hand with a smile, and said tenderly: "How could it be? It is our honor to share the worries of the beautiful woman."

The female white-collar worker's face turned even redder.

"Ah...you are so beautiful."

"The silt-like suffering did not tarnish your brilliance, and the tears that fell were like the dew in the summer morning, and they were like crystal clear pearls, adorning your flower-like face..."

He squatted halfway in front of the female white-collar worker, his fingers gliding gently on the back of the female white-collar worker's hand, like a collector touching and appreciating a priceless treasure, "I think our meeting is destined by heaven, may I ask you to die in love with me... "

With a "boom", Kunikida Doppo punched Osamu Dazai on the head, grabbed him by the back of the collar, and threw him back mercilessly.

Osamu Dazai, who was in a daze, was about to pounce on a temple, but instead of catching him, the latter kicked him...

"Oh!"

This is the third time his nose has suffered today.

"Aww! The bridge of my nose is going to break! It's going to be broken!"

A temple repairman scoffed: "It deserves it."

Kunikida Doppo pushed his glasses, and said to the unexplained female white-collar worker, "I made you laugh, please don't mind."

"Uh-huh……"

"By the way, you just said that someone followed you recently. What's going on?"

In order to prevent the detective agency from leaving an unreliable impression in the mind of the client, Tanizaki Junichiro quickly changed the topic to the right track.

"Ah, it's like this..."

The female white-collar worker began to describe the ins and outs of her coming to the detective agency for help.

"My name is Rina Mihashi, and I'm a bank clerk."

Mihashi Rina just joined the job last month.

At that time, there happened to be a house for rent in a residential area not far from her work place.The owner is going to move to Tokyo due to a job change, but he doesn't want to sell the house for the time being, so he plans to rent it out.

Rina Mihashi rented this house, so she didn't have to go out early every morning to squeeze the bus or subway to work.

The fly in the ointment is that the space in the house is not large, and the home appliances are relatively old.However, Rina Mihashi only lived alone, and although the equipment was old, it was more or less usable.Furthermore, considering that it is close to the place of work and the rent is not expensive, these flaws are still acceptable to Rina Mihashi.

After moving into the rented house, everything was normal for the first two weeks, but after that, Rina Mihashi gradually discovered some strange things that could be called supernatural.

Half a month ago, Mihashi Rina's friends celebrated their birthday. Considering that the next day was a rest day and they didn't have to go to work, they played outside a little later and didn't return home until midnight.

Tired from playing, she fell asleep not long after taking a bath, and didn't find anything wrong in the house at that time.

She is allergic to alcohol, so she always drank drinks when she had dinner and singing K with her friends, probably because she had too much fun tonight and didn’t pay attention, she drank too many drinks, so she fell asleep and woke up again at night, Go to the bathroom to use the toilet.

When she lay back on the bed in a daze, she suddenly woke up for a moment, as if something in her subconscious prevented her from falling asleep.But she also felt sleepy and tired, and wanted to fall asleep quickly, so she lay motionless on the bed, no different from her usual sleeping appearance.

In such a state, she discovered a very terrifying thing - besides her, there was another person in the room.

At first, she just heard a rustling sound coming from the window.She thought it was because she didn't close the window completely before going to bed, the wind blowing in through the gap, and the sound of the curtains being rubbed.

But then she got more and more wrong.

Because after that sound, she even heard a very light footstep, getting closer and closer to her, walking towards her bed!

"?!"

Hearing this, everyone's expressions were solemn.

As if recalling the feeling of horror back then, Mihashi Rina paused here, the hand holding the teacup shook, and the tea almost spilled out of the cup.

She put the cup back on the table, took a deep breath, calmed down, and then continued: "I feel that person has been lying on my bed and staring at me. I felt terrible at first, and didn't dare to move , worried that any movement from me would irritate him, and then make him do extreme things.”

"But then that guy refused to leave. The more I thought about it, the more frightened I became, and I was almost driven crazy by fear. I thought that no matter what, I must drive him away. However, however..."

"After I got up, I didn't see anyone beside the bed at all!"

"what?"

Everyone in the detective agency was obviously surprised.

"I turned on the light and searched around the rental house, but still found nothing abnormal. Besides, the door was locked, and the direction from which I first heard the noise was also closed. There is no possibility of the curtains being blown by the wind."

"Here, I thought it was because I had just joined the job recently and was under too much work pressure, so I had hallucinations, so I turned off the lights and went back to sleep."

"This time I didn't hear any strange noises again, so I fell asleep quickly."

This incident seemed to be over, but the next day, when Rina Mihashi got up and opened the window, she found that there was half a handprint on the window frame.

"I check to see if the windows are closed every day when I go out, so I can be sure that there were no handprints in that place before I left the house the day before." Layers of wrinkles are left.

Kunikida Doppo wrote down the details in his notebook, and asked, "Then when you turned on the light the night before to check if anyone was in the house, was this handprint there? Were the windows locked?"

Mihashi Rina replied: "At that time, it was probably because the light was shining from behind, and the shadow would be cast on the window frame, so I didn't have any impression of the window frame. After I got up and turned on the light, I checked the locks of the doors and windows to be sure. The windows were locked. I was so tired when I got back that night, I wasn't sure if it was locked before going to bed or if I hadn't opened the windows at all since I got home..."

Kunikida Doppo nodded, motioning for her to continue.

Mihashi Rina: "The palm print is bigger than my hand, and it is not my own at all. After moving into the rented house, I have never invited anyone to my house as a guest, so I also rule out the possibility of being friends or other guests .”

Kunikida Doppo's first thought was: "Could it be a thief? Did you lose something at home?"

Mihashi Rina shook his head: "Nothing was lost."

Everyone in the detective agency couldn't help but fell into deep thought.

Kunikida Doppo asked again: "If traces were left at the scene, you should be able to call the police directly. But now you still appear in the detective agency... Could it be that something happened after that?"

Rina Mihashi nodded, "I did call the police and told the landlord about the situation. Then, accompanied by the police, we went to investigate the monitoring of the elevator and the corridor on the first floor, but..."

"Didn't find any suspicious person?"

"Yes."

Tanizaki Naomi said: "Since Ms. Mihashi has the habit of checking the windows before going out, it should not be through the window. But why did she leave her handprints on the window frame? Could it be that when you were out, someone unlocked your house, and then walked out the window before you got home?"

Rina Mihashi shook her head, "I live on the sixth floor, which belongs to the middle floor, and there is no balcony. It should be impossible..."

Osamu Dazai interrupted her: "No, what Naomi meant is, is it possible that this person is your neighbor, Miss Mihashi, on the same floor, or next to each other up and down."

Tanizaki Naomi nodded, "If it's a neighbor, it should be easy to understand your living situation. I know that you are a resident who has just moved in not long ago, a woman who lives alone, has a fixed job, and the commute time is stable."

In addition, Kunikida Doppo added: "The time of committing the crime is roughly the time between when you went out the day before and when you came home. In addition, if you can leave from the window, you must also meet the physical requirements. In this way, The scope of the investigation has been narrowed accordingly."

Rina Mihashi frowned, and said, "The police also thought of this, but after investigation, there were no suspects who met the requirements, so in the end they had to let it go."

"Is that so..." Everyone in the Armed Detective Agency fell into deep thought again.

"Since I called the police that day..." Mihashi Rina paused, organized his words and continued, "I began to notice that someone seemed to be sneaking behind me on the way to and from work every day. But every time I Looking back, I couldn’t find the so-called stalker at all.”

"It feels to me... exactly the same as when I was stared at by someone lying on the bed that night!" Rina Mihashi said with his hands on his head, his voice trembling, and a little collapsed, "I still thought it was an illusion for the first time, but the two Three times... After countless times, I even began to suspect that this person does exist, but for some reason, everyone around him can't see him, just like a ghost!"