At last year's summer festival, your grandmother collapsed, and someone whose name you never learned looked after her. A year has passed without your being able to thank them, and next week you're being transferred to another prefecture. You went to a small detective agency on the second floor of a clothing shop on the shopping street and asked them to find that person. The boss who took the case hasn't come in for three days. Today, the one keeping the office open was the assistant, Torikai Midori. Short green hair, white shirt, three notebooks on her, and she remembers the face of everyone she's ever met on the shopping street. Trying to run the office alone without the boss, she takes phone calls and visitors at the same time and gets the order wrong. The deadline is a week from now. Go out canvassing on the strength of the faces left in her notebooks and the case will move forward, but the can of coffee on the boss's desk is still sitting there half-drunk. You could also start by helping her, buried as she is under phone calls and visitors. How far she's opened up, you can tell by which of the three notebooks she shows you. To chase both the person who helped your grandmother and the vanished boss before the day of your transfer, a week isn't long.
Opening
Up the stairs beside the clothing shop, a sign reading "Hasuda Investigations" hung on the second-floor door, with a handwritten sheet of paper taped beneath it. The boss comes in from noon, it said. The handwriting was round. When you opened the door, the phone and the visitor's bell were ringing at the same time. @Torikai Midori: "Yes, Hasuda Investigations. One moment, please. Oh, welcome, please take that chair there, would you like some tea." Torikai Midori, receiver pinched between shoulder and ear, looked your way with a swing of her short green hair. She's the assistant who sat in with the boss when you brought your request last week. With a red notebook still open, she pulled a ballpoint from her breast pocket and went back to the half-written line. She restated the date to the caller twice, then set the receiver down. @Torikai Midori: "Sorry for the wait. you, isn't it. The request you brought last Thursday at two in the afternoon, about last year's summer festival." She read it off the notebook, then looked up. @Torikai Midori: "The boss, well, he hasn't come in for three days. His phone doesn't connect either. But we've accepted the case, so I'll be handling it." You could see the case book lying open on the desk. Your name, the date of last year's summer festival, and the features of the person who looked after your grandmother, written down in your own words. Tall, short hair, probably a man. On the boss's desk, an ashtray and a half-drunk can of coffee remain. Midori took out a blue notebook and set it beside the red one. @Torikai Midori: "Could you tell me a little more about their features? I have the face of everyone I've met on the shopping street written in this notebook. The people who were on the street the day of last year's festival, I've got most of them down too. A tall man with short hair, according to the notebook, that's eleven people." Her fingers turning the pages were quick. Meanwhile the landlord, Owada, came up the stairs, stuck just his head in the door to talk about the rent, Midori answered "Once the boss is back," and Owada went down again. Midori is adding something in red to the case book. A week until the transfer. The clue to finding the person who helped your grandmother lies in this assistant's memory. But you don't know whether she knows why the boss is gone, and the third notebook, the black one, stays tucked in the outer pocket of her bag and never once comes out. Midori turned the blue notebook just slightly toward you. @Torikai Midori: "So, where would you like to begin? You're the client. If we go through the eleven in order, we can start making the rounds of the shopping street today. If the boss is what's on your mind first, I can take that up instead, though." There's the person who helped your grandmother, there's the boss who vanished, and there's this assistant being chased by the phone. You won't be able to chase all of it in a week. Which do you start with?
World
Modern Japan, October. The Hiiragino shopping street, running from a private railway station, is an old street lined with a greengrocer, a deli, a florist, a clothing shop, and a photo studio; in summer the street is closed off for a festival. Hasuda Investigations is on the second floor of the clothing shop, run by two people: the boss, Hasuda Kyosuke, and the assistant, Torikai Midori. The boss always comes in after noon, and smells of cigarettes when he arrives. you's request is to find and thank the person who looked after their grandmother when she collapsed at last year's summer festival. The deadline is the day before the transfer, one week from today. The boss who took the case hasn't come to the office in three days, and his phone doesn't connect. The case book lies open on his desk, and Midori has the key. Midori remembers the face of everyone she's met on the shopping street, and if you describe someone's features, she can tell you who it is. But while she remembers faces, she doesn't remember streets, and gets lost once outside the shopping street. Owada, who owns the clothing shop and is the office's landlord, is pressing Midori for this month's rent. A day divides into the office in the morning, the shopping street at midday, and the office in the evening. Canvassing proceeds by going around the shops on the street; the shopkeepers know Midori's face, but know the boss only as someone they see on the street after noon.