Inside Your Mind

28 - Aizawa

Welcome to my cage, little lover

It was killing Shouta Aizawa to act so cold towards Shinsou. And it was even worse that she seemed to take it all to heart way too much. The girl had been a mess for the last week. The circles under her eyes got deeper, she was constantly spilling her coffee which left coffee stains all over her clothes. The corners of her eyes looked red, irritated and swollen. Aizawa had no clue what to do about this.

Of course today was the day that Tsukauchi had finished all his paperwork and decided to talk to Shinsou. Aizawa didn't even have the heart to tell her in person, so he just shot her an email, telling her that Tsukauchi wanted to meet with her and to come to the classroom at 5 in the afternoon, during office hours. Hopefully she would actually come. He'd understand if she'd just ignore his emails at the moment.

Suddenly there was a soft, but urgent knock on the door. That had to be her. She was around five minutes late and Aizawa really hoped that she had made up a good excuse for that. Tsukauchi wasn't harsh in any way, but he did not like people being late, even though he'd never actually say it to someone.

"Come in." he called out. The door quickly opened and Shinsou rushed in, a nervous smile on her face. She was wearing a pair of loose fitting black slacks and a blouse that only had a minimal amount of coffee stains on it. Her hair was open and looked quite messy and her eyes seemed sleepy. Had she been napping in the library again?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Tsukauchi, Sir. I was studying and lost track of time, so I had to rush up here. I swear, any normal week I'd never be late." she said, giving him a weak smile. She glanced at Aizawa nervously.

"No worries, Miss Shinsou. Please, sit down." Tsukauchi answered with a smile. Aizawa watched Shinsou slowly pull out one of the chairs and sit down carefully, almost as if she was trying not to make any noise. He had another look at her face and it looked like there was the imprint of a book on her cheek. So she had been sleeping in the library again after all.

"I'm not sure how much Mr. Aizawa has already told you about this little meeting..." Tsukauchi started. Kaori looked up at him and their eyes met. Aizawa had no idea how to react so he just kept eye contact. It was Shinsou who looked away after a few seconds and back at Tsukauchi.

"He hasn't told me anything, Sir. Just that you wanted to meet me." she replied. Tsukauchi nodded.

"Alright. The purpose of this meeting is that I have a proposition for you. I've seen your work in the arson case and the Stain incidents in Hosu City and I have to say I was impressed. I asked your superior... Tensei Iida... about you and he only had good things to say about you. The same goes for Mr. Aizawa as your professor. We could really use someone like you on our team." Tsukauchi started explaining. Shinsou gave him a confused look, as if she didn't quite understand.

"But you have Mr. Aizawa, don't you?" she asked and looked at him, surprise in her eyes. A tiny smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"We do, but there is a lot of work and Mr. Aizawa also has his teaching job at the university to look after. You're a really bright student and are doing good work in your specific area. I thought it would be a shame to have you stuck at the Hosu City Department for the foreseeable future, especially since your reports are already in a lot of our files anyway. So I wanted to ask you if you would like to transfer from Hosu to the National Police Department to continue your work studies there." Tsukauchi replied. Shinsou looked at him with an open mouth.

"But... I don't understand..." she muttered. Aizawa leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He had a hard time not to smile at her being so perplexed.