Seiko was always a cruel-natured yet pretty young woman. On many occasions, this brought misfortune to those close to her.
It was a particularly hot morning (if you could call the beginning of a day in 180 days of night a morning); hot enough to almost melt the ever-present ice and snow. Seiko and her closest friend (close enough that most would call her Seiko’s lover), Mai, were in a local casino, not gambling, but selling “an uncontrolled substance” (LSD laced with arsenic) to anyone stupid enough to buy it, while hidden behind Confucius masks. As usual, they sold out and disappeared before cops could show up to arrest them (the doughnut shop was next door…which was some distance away). The only difference between this time and all the others is that instead of hiding in their usual alley a mile away, they went to unfamiliar territory: A children’s ice-fort. It stood high enough that there could easily be a second floor and big enough to have at least one hundred children packed into it (assuming, of course, someone could get one hundred children of average size to stand still and stand shoulder to shoulder, front to back).
They still wore their masks (instead of putting them in their back pockets, like everyone else…if everyone had Confucius masks) as they approached the fort’s entrance and were greeted by ice-spear-wielding children on ground level and children above armed with snowballs (no doubt filled with jagged ice chunks). There was only one sentence to which any child, even the violent ones, would surrender and Seiko knew exactly what it was.
“We have candy.”
The snowball-wielders backed down and disappeared, but the spearmen did not. They told them to wait for the inspector. This was common practice for Antarctic children. The least-liked child (as elected by the child-king) was to go to the gate to visually and orally inspect all candy brought by new people. Luckily for the guinea pig, attacks on children were becoming increasingly rarer. This time was no exception, so Seiko and Mai were granted access to this “grand fortress”. Once inside, they removed their masks (a definite improvement in the eyes of some of the older boys, who were also the only ones who could have recognized the faces either on or in the masks). They were escorted to the child-king, a boy of twelve (the age of resignation, unfortunately for him. Thirteen was the point of “death”), and his queen (which she preferred to be called, as she was also everyone else’s queen, so it made her sound more important), a girl of eleven. The heavy coats of the mock royalty were clearly passed down for decades and were both yellowed and full of holes. Both majesties recognized the faces of the two girls immediately, despite not having seen them for nearly five years.
After a brief conversation and a secret business agreement (which contains details that have so far eluded your author’s ears), Seiko and Mai left the throne room. They had no more candy and had a giant bag of money, so they gave in to their impulses and left the fort. They had no particular destination in mind, so they elected to enter the proverbial third door on the left. Unfortunately for them, it was a restricted building to which they didn’t have age-access. Had this merely been a month later, Seiko could have entered. Instead, they were pulled by their scarves toward the metaphorical curb by a giant of a man in blue-dyed furs; the sign of a rent-a-cop.
They were surprised it was so easy for them to be found with their scarves up to their noses and their white, furry coats covering the rest, but it wasn’t their intent to be unnoticed. The guard who was “assisting” them out of the store caught a brief glimpse of Seiko’s blue-gray eyes. Instead of throwing the two girls out, he brought them to a dark room with a dim lamp, an antique wooden desk, and four matching chairs. Despite being a dark room on a windowless outside wall, the room had to be an easy twenty degrees warmer than it was outside.
Naturally, the girls removed their scarves and coats once the rent-a-cop left (locking the door behind him).
“How are we getting out of this, Mai? Why’d you get us caught?! Aren’t you the intelligent one?” Seiko yelled, hoping anyone outside the door would interpret that as, “Why’d you get us caught for coming into this store?”
“It wasn’t just me! It was BOTH of us! And I even if I am the intelligent one, you’re the pretty one! I wish I was as pretty as you!”
“Oh, stop it, Mai. We both know you’re only saying this to get me to admit it’s my fault. We also both know it’s not my fault. I’m completely innocent!”
“Ah, you two are still here. I’m surprised you haven’t managed to escape yet, like all those times at the casino,” a man had walked in unnoticed, somehow having opened the lock silently. He wore a fitted black suit and a tie, which looked very strange in such a wintery environment, “that is, if you’ll admit to that, yet. You dropped your mask; I found it right outside the door.”
“Admit to what? Why would we be at a casino? Do we look like the gambling type? And even if we were, gambling’s not illegal! Besides, I don’t even know what kind of mask you’re talking about.”
“Let’s see; it’s a Confucius mask. I saw you wearing it at the casino. Two girls in Confucius masks walking around with a giant bag of money. I don’t know how I could possibly believe that was suspicious at all! Where did you get all that money?”
“My name is Mai Odagiri. If you’d bother to check, you’ll see that my family is very rich. I just wanted to go out and spend some of my allowance and time with my friend, Seiko Yagi. So now you know our names, our relationship, that I have a wealthy family, and that we like philosophy. Need anything else? We’re ready to go.”
“What were you doing in this store? You’re not old enough to be in here.”
“We decided to go into the third store on the left when we were walking through the ice field. I’m almost old enough! In a month, I’ll be eighteen. Isn’t that close enough! And…why exactly does this store have an interrogation room?”
“Well…it’s technically not an interrogation room. It’s…not important. You two could have waited until Mai was old enough. You two are still too young to come in here. When you saw that you weren’t old enough, you should have gone to the fourth door on the left. Now, are you going to admit to what you’ve done? We already know you did it, we just want proof. And right now, you’re digging yourself a hole so deep that you couldn’t get out of it if you had wings.”
“Fine. I’ll admit it for both of us. We, Seiko Yagi and Mai Odagiri, admit we walked into a place we’re not legally allowed entrance to yet and were caught. There, happy? Do we have to do time for that, too? I mean, accidents like this shouldn’t be a crime.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. You’ve been poisoning people. I bought some of your,” he hesitated with a look of utter disgust on his clean-shaven face, “product. I had it tested. There’s arsenic in it. Admit you did it, now.”
“You bought drugs? Shouldn’t someone like you be a good role model? You should probably go to rehab instead of abducting minors to talk to about your drug use. It’s a little weird. You should let us leave so you can do that, ‘k?”
“I bought it to have testing done on it. But, sure, why not let you go,” there was a very powerful (and pungent) scent of sarcasm (or maybe it was sweat) emitted from the interrogator, “and why didn’t we just let Dahmer and Manson go decades ago? That sounds like a great idea! Well, as they say, ‘hindsight’s 20/20.’”
“Umm…we’re not crazies like them! You just happened to see us near a casino and thought you saw us do something, but it was really some other kids wearing masks just like ours. They sell those masks in a lot of stores. If you want one that badly, we’ll take you to the store where we bought them. It’s, like, not even a mile from here.”
“Fine, fine. Then it’s just a coincidence that the dealers were two females in fluffy white coats and Confucius masks carrying a bag exactly like that one, got it.”
“Good, now can we go? We want to go home. There’s no proof we did anything, since we didn’t do anything. You can’t hold innocent people! That’s not fair,” Seiko whined, a crocodile tear running down her cheek, “if we wanted to get blamed for something, we’d do it!”
“You can’t go home until you spend time in prison. I know you’re guilty. You’ve already accidentally admitted to it.”
“We didn’t do anything! We’ve been too busy! Ask the kids at the main ice-fort! We’ve been with them all morning!”
“I’ll do that. My kid plays there. He left right after you two did so I could bring him to work today. I can go outside and ask him. You two stay in here; I’ll be right back,” he said as he left, locking the door behind him.
“He’s probably just going to stand outside the door, listening for us to admit something, then he’ll make up something he thinks his son would say.”
Seiko suddenly stood up. She walked quickly but silently to the door and put her ear against it. All she heard was the loud rock music from the store.
“If he’s out there, he’s too quiet. Maybe he really is going to ask his son. But why’d he bring his son to this store?”
She heard the door unlock and jumped backward, still with both hands and feet on the floor. She barely managed to scramble into the chair before the cop turned around.
“He said you paid them off. You gave them candy to stay quiet.”
“What?! That liar! Why would he say something like that?! You need to teach him some manners. And why did you bring him in this store if we can’t even be here? You’re a horrible father, you know that?”
“He hasn’t left the car, but my parenting skills aren’t in question here! As I recall, you’re the one who commanded me to ask him. Why don’t you get your coat on and come with me to the station, Mai? He didn’t say anything specifically about you Seiko. You’re free to go.”
“Why are you letting her go?! I didn’t do anything, either! Your son’s probably not even in the car! You’re making it up! If he is out there, you probably bribed him with candy to make him say we were innocent!”
The cop took Mai’s arm and pulled her up, ignoring her insubordinate remarks and dodging her fist. He let go and ordered her to get her coat on and cooperate with him. She bowed her head in submission and started to put it on, then turned, jumped at him, and stole his gun. She quickly turned the safety off and pointed it at him.
“I’m not going to jail,” at first, Mai was deep in thought and looked confused, but she soon refocused her attention on the cop and smiled, “and I’m not guilty!”
“If you weren’t before, you are now.”
“Mai, you don’t want to do this! Come on, you’re being childish. I thought you were the intelligent one, but you’re doing something I would do,” Seiko looked concerned and backed off. Her nerves were quickly making her feel sick.
“I am not being childish! I’m serious, Seiko! I’m not going to jail and making my family look bad! I’m not ready to suffer through prison the rest of my life! Take this off my record and I’ll let you live,” Mai yelled, but she was starting to feel guilty already.
All of a sudden, as if he was watching the whole time, the rent-a-cop burst through the door carrying a standard-issue pistol and shot Mai three times in the chest. Seiko ran over to Mai and looked down at her.
“Mai! Get up! Getupgetupgetup! Don’t die! You’re not allowed to die! Listen to me! I…never told you…”
“She’s dead, Seiko.”
“She can’t be! I forbid it! I need to tell her I love her,” Seiko hesitated for a second before yelling, “I did it! I poisoned them! Let that get out in the news! Tell everyone she’s innocent! He should go to jail for shooting an innocent person!”
“That’s not how this works, young lady. You see, she was guilty. You were innocent. So is this man here. He killed a violent criminal. He did his job. You see, I control the law. I’m not going to make an innocent person guilty. It doesn’t work like that. A cop can’t be guilty for killing someone if that person was about to kill a fellow officer.”
“So the law is so corrupt that the person who admits guilt and a murderer can go free and the person who gets killed is marked as a criminal?”
“It’s not corruption. There was proof she was guilty. There’s not enough to say you are. Besides, who begs to go to jail? Just because she was guilty and died doesn’t mean you should go to jail. Go home and get some rest…maybe even some psychological help. We’ll contact your school and explain everything to them if you want. We can even call your parents and tell them. Just ask.”
Seiko removed her forehead from Mai’s and walked angrily up to the interrogator. She barely came up to the middle of his chest, but fury in her eyes was no less threatening than if she were Satan himself, “her record will be clean and she will be innocent. Just because that murderer is a cop doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be tried for killing Mai.”
“He was protecting me. Preservation of life is seen as a redeeming quality…at least in the eyes of the law. He was doing his duty as an officer,” the interrogator was starting to feel a little frightened by the girl, but didn’t thing she’d do anything to him now that her friend was dead. The rent-a-cop tightened his grip on his gun, hoping he wouldn’t have to shoot anyone again, “now, go home, Seiko. Sleep this off and you can go see a shrink afterward. I’m sorry she had to die, but there’s really no way I can convince you of that. I understand.”
“Then kill me, too. I am just as guilty as her and I could kill you before he could point his gun if I really wanted to,” She ran to Mai and pointed her gun at the interrogator, “and if you shoot me, you’ll have two deaths on your mind…not that you’ll care or anything. We’re not cops after all,” She stood up with the gun still aimed at the intended target. The other cop raised his gun instinctively. Several shots were fired and a second body fell to the floor.
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