The next day, Ryuu headed to work as usual. It was the day after Yolan had been laid to rest at a public cemetery in Surabaya, with nothing more than a quiet, modest ceremony. Before making his way to the station, Ryuu decided to stop by Lindsey's place... just to check in. He drove at a slow, steady pace, pulling up to the small boarding house where she lived on the outskirts of the city.
Inside, a girl with long black hair sat hunched over on the sofa. Her expression was hollow and bleak, and the one thing that was noticeably different from any other day was the absence of a teacup on the table. Lindsey hadn't moved at all... her arms were wrapped around her knees, as though mourning something she knew would never come back. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, seeing nothing.
Ryuu climbed out of the car slowly, carefully. He stood in front of her door and studied the house for a moment. His hand hovered in the air, hesitating... unsure whether to knock or simply walk in. He stood there, thinking hard about what the right thing to do was.
Inside, Lindsey caught the sound of footsteps outside, clear and close. She lifted her head slowly from where it had been hanging. Her gaze drifted toward the door. "Come in," she said, her voice quiet and tired. "I know you're there."
Ryuu startled. His body jolted back slightly, caught off guard by how calmly she'd said it. He reached for the doorknob with a hand that trembled just a little, turned it with a feeling of deep uncertainty, and pushed the door open halfway. "Excuse me..." he murmured, stepping inside.
Lindsey shifted in her seat, slow and heavy. She stretched both legs with a faint exhale that was just barely audible in the stillness of the room. "What brings you here?" she asked, keeping her voice as flat as she always did.
Ryuu studied her face for a moment, biting his lower lip with worry. "I... I just wanted to see how you were doing," he said, his voice stumbling over the words.
Lindsey let out a long breath that filled the quiet room. "I see... Thank you," she replied, barely above a whisper. Then, as though trying to shake herself out of it, she rose abruptly from the sofa... standing straight, rolling out the stiffness in her arms. "So, has your sister found anything new on the case?" she asked, already walking toward the kitchen with Ryuu trailing behind her.
Ryuu blinked, as if he'd just been yanked back to a responsibility he'd forgotten about. "Huh? Oh, that... I haven't checked," he admitted, his voice unsteady.
He followed after her, fidgeting with his hands in the air. "Look, I figured you were still grieving, so I just came to check in and... be here for you," he said, a slight defensiveness creeping into his tone.
Lindsey stopped in front of the small kitchen cabinet. Her whole body tensed at his words. She exhaled slowly, the sound swallowed by the silence of the house. "Grieving won't bring Grandfather back," she said, her voice sharp and clipped, her head turning just slightly to glance back at Ryuu.
She turned fully and kept walking, her steps quicker now. "I'm not going to waste my tears on something pointless," she continued, her tone deliberately flat... even though somewhere inside, she knew those words contradicted exactly what she'd just been doing. Her eyes stayed on the floor as she moved.
Ryuu lowered his head. His shoulders sagged. "I see..." he said, his voice barely a thread.
Lindsey crouched in front of the small cabinet beside the counter, moving carefully, without rushing. She pulled the door open with a soft creak. Inside sat several jars of dried tea leaves, kept there for a long time now. "Would you like some, Ryuu?" she asked, already scooping tea leaves with a small spoon.
"Huh? Oh... yeah, sure," Ryuu answered with a slight stammer, then walked over and lowered himself onto the sofa slowly.
A storm of emotions churned quietly inside him. His hands shifted restlessly on his thighs, fingers rubbing against each other with nowhere to go. He looked like someone wrestling very hard with a question that had no good answer. This is so awkward... I don't know the first thing about comforting someone. She looks the same as always, but I can see it... there's something deep and broken behind her eyes right now, he thought to himself, his gaze still cast downward.
A few minutes passed. Lindsey came back into the living room carrying two cups of tea arranged neatly on a small red tray. She set both cups carefully on the wooden table, then sat down beside Ryuu... closer than he expected. He jolted slightly at that.
Lindsey blew gently on her tea, watching the steam curl and drift. "You don't have to," she said softly, though Ryuu didn't quite follow what she meant.
He stiffened. "D-don't have to what?" he asked, his eyes darting around uncertainly.
Lindsey exhaled again, deeper this time. She could read it clearly in him... the heaviness wrapped around his shoulders, the guilt burrowed somewhere in his chest. "I mean you don't have to grieve on my account," she said, her voice calm but firm, lifting the cup and blowing on it again.
"I'm... I'm not grieving," Ryuu denied quickly, though the slight tremor in his body said otherwise.
Lindsey let the silence settle over the room as she sipped her tea. Then, without warning, she stood up in one swift motion... the sofa creaking under the sudden shift. "I'm going to move my plans forward," she said, walking toward the window with her cup in hand, her footsteps steady and deliberate.
"P-plans?" Ryuu asked, confused, his body instinctively leaning back a little.
Lindsey turned to face him and gave a single, firm nod. "Yes. I want to meet your sister... soon," she said, her gaze shifting to the window, focused and resolute.
Ryuu stood there stunned. He took a half-step back, his footing slightly unsteady. She just lost the person she loved most, he thought, watching her carefully.
"A-alright, I'll try to ask her," he replied, his voice uncertain, his nod slow and weak.
Lindsey turned back to face him fully. "Good. Shouldn't you be heading to work by now?" she added, tilting her head to the side, her hair swaying with the movement.
That snapped Ryuu out of it. He glanced at his watch and his eyes went wide. "You're right..." He grabbed his bag from the small table in a hurry and made a dash for the door, his footsteps loud and uneven.
"See you, Lindsey!" he called out, already inside his car, waving through the open window.
Lindsey raised her hand from behind the window glass... a slow, weak wave. Her hair fell forward, half-covering a face that looked tired and dim. She watched until his car disappeared down the road, then turned back to face the empty house.
Tears began to slip from her eyes without a sound, tracing quiet lines from the corners of her eyes down her pale cheeks. "S-stop it..." she whispered, her voice frail and shaking, her hands moving fast to wipe them away... but they kept coming. "Hic... Hic..." she sobbed, her shoulders trembling with a grief she'd been trying so hard to hold down.
"Stop!" she said louder, slamming both fists against the floor with everything she had, the sound cracking through the stillness of the empty house.
"I promised myself I wouldn't cry for him. S-so why... why won't it stop!?" She struck the floor again, harder... and the dam broke. The crying deepened, swelled, became something raw and unrestrained, her voice filling every corner of the quiet, hollow house.
~ ~ ~ ~
Several hours later, Ryuu sat at his desk in the police station, staring blankly at the monitor in front of him... not really seeing it, clearly lost somewhere far away in his own thoughts. His colleague Daniel approached, carrying a thick stack of papers in both arms.
Ryuu sensed someone coming and turned, slowly. "D-Daniel? That you?" he asked, pretending to refocus on his screen.
"Here," Daniel said flatly, dropping the entire stack in front of Ryuu with a loud thud that made him jolt backward in his chair.
"T-that's a lot," Ryuu said, staring at the pile with wide eyes.
"Yeah, since you're not on a special assignment right now, they loaded you up," Daniel replied, hands on his hips, eyebrow raised in an expression somewhere between pity and amusement.
"Be grateful I handled half of it for you," he added, eyeing Ryuu with narrowed eyes.
"By the way, what are you thinking about? You've been completely out of it since I got here," Daniel asked, tilting his head and studying Ryuu's face.
"Nothing," Ryuu said quickly, glancing away to avoid Daniel's sharp gaze.
Daniel sighed and pressed two fingers against his temple, massaging it slowly. "Alright, suit yourself," he muttered, his tone caught somewhere between irritation and concern.
"Have you seen the news today?" Daniel asked, leaning casually against Ryuu's desk.
"The news?" Ryuu repeated faintly, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, pen still in hand.
"Yeah, something weird's been going on in Malang," Daniel said, his expression shifting to something more serious.
"Something weird? Like what?" Ryuu asked, propping his chin up on his right hand, his free finger tapping the desk in an anxious rhythm.
Daniel glanced around the room a couple of times, making sure no one else was within earshot. "So..." he started, dropping his voice into something low and dramatic, letting the pause stretch on purpose.
"...What makes it strange is the deaths. Unnatural ones... and most of them happened outdoors," Daniel continued, his tone settling into something heavier.
"Most of them? So there's more than one victim?" Ryuu asked, sitting up and raising his brow.
Daniel gave one firm nod. "Right. And because of that, this isn't being treated as a regular homicide. Some people think it's a virus," he said, rubbing his chin slowly, eyes narrowing in thought.
Ryuu went rigid. His eyes widened fast. His mind jumped immediately to the virus that had attacked Yolan at Roya Hospital... the connection hit him like ice water. He went still, hand frozen, lips parted slightly.
Daniel waved a hand in front of Ryuu's face a few times, letting out a low whistle to pull him back.
"You said... a virus?" Ryuu repeated weakly, turning toward Daniel with eyes that were still somewhere else entirely.
Daniel nodded. Though Ryuu had a strong feeling it was the same virus that had brought Yolan down, he couldn't say it out loud... not yet, not with the incident in Surabaya and this case in Malang being cities apart.
Suddenly, a breaking news banner lit up the large television mounted in the corner of the office. Everyone in the room turned to look... including Ryuu, who rose from his chair. On screen, a female news anchor in formal wear read from her papers with a grave expression.
"All entry and exit routes into the city of Malang have been officially closed until further notice, following the outbreak of a virus designated 'Subject-X,' which has caused widespread alarm in recent days," she reported.
"At least nineteen confirmed fatalities have been recorded, with more than one hundred and fifty individuals currently in critical condition, receiving emergency treatment across hospitals in Malang," she continued, her eyes moving across the teleprompter.
"All citizens are urged to take every precaution necessary to protect their health and limit the spread of this and any related illness," she added, her tone carrying the weight of a warning.
Ryuu trembled from head to toe, locked onto the screen. Others in the room were shaken too... their faces pale, their bodies tense at the news of something this dangerous spreading through a city. But only Ryuu carried a reason far more personal than any of them for the way his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"There's no mistaking it..." he murmured, barely a sound, his eyes dropping to the floor... wide, hollow, and full of a fear he didn't yet know how to name.