Chapter 0.5 : Trust

                                    

                                          
   It had been three weeks since Mishima had left his work with Toru. He now worked as a translator at the port, where he spent most of his days, including when he wasn't working, admiring the water and feeding the many stray cats in the area. He seemed to enjoy their company and be appreciated by them. He had even named one of them Hayashi, after one of his former teachers. He had found this new translator job in an office at the port, where there were translators, journalists, reporters, and even a post office. When he occasionally spent time in the office, he appeared quite sociable and smiling to his colleagues, but his eccentricity and obsession with cats made him and his intentions rather difficult to understand, especially since despite this sociable aspect of his personality, he spent the majority of his time alone.
Toru, on the other hand, continued to keep some distance from him, not really stepping out of her bubble, despite having lived under the roof of a house, comfortable enough for the area, which she shared with him in the heights of the district. She spoke to him only rarely but was extremely helpful, not wanting to be a burden to him and wanting to repay him for the favors he had done her. She had been allowed to stay in the only bedroom of the accommodation. Mishima, on the other hand, lived in the main room, which served as a living room and kitchen, and which was directly accessed through the front door. There was a sink and a table with three chairs. In one corner of the room, there was a wardrobe where he kept his clothes and the few books he had insisted on taking with him. It also contained some sheets and blankets as well as the inflatable mattress he laid on the floor every night to sleep comfortably. The only bed in the accommodation was occupied by Toru in the small bedroom, according to Mishima's decision. She had received some clothes before their departure, and that was enough for her. She wasn't really one to pay attention to appearances or even the clothes she wore. As long as they were comfortable, she was satisfied.
She would have preferred to spend her time at home, but Mishima had explained to her that staying in one place like this could be dangerous if someone with malicious intentions found out that a young girl was here alone in his absence, as the office was at the port and quite far from Suribachi. She had then suggested working at the office too. This would allow her to stay around Mishima and therefore avoid being alone in a neighborhood like Suribachi. She had then started working as the assistant to a reporter at the office. She was an extremely curious woman, a little too much for Toru's taste, who found her almost nosy. This woman named Yuki was particularly interested in Mishima. She asserted with conviction that this man had a lot to hide according to her "reporter's instinct". Many employees of the office avoided her while Mishima seemed amused by this woman's desperate attempts, in search of answers to her questions. He was even confident enough to entrust Toru to her as an assistant, whom he had introduced as his daughter Noriko. He risked nothing by entrusting her with a child as distant and silent as Toru. Most of the answers one could get from her were quite short and simple, without too many details, and didn't really open up conversations. Toru mainly did administrative work and typed reports and drafts of articles. Although at the young age of only 11, this did not prevent her from writing texts with vocabulary and length suitable for the requirements of a worthy newspaper article. She quickly noticed that Yuki mainly worked on military and political scandals, publicly denouncing political corruption scandals, for example. Although Toru didn't necessarily appreciate Yuki's extremely talkative and nosy character, she couldn't help but be a little admiring of the risks she could take in her work. As she was the only child working in the offices, she received attention from everyone, making sure she didn't overdo it. At the speed at which she could work, they preferred to assign her a specific number of tasks rather than a number of hours, which allowed her to have free time as she finished quite early. They even found her a uniform her size, similar to Yuki's: a white shirt, a brown skirt that went down to below her knees, and a dark blue vest. The only difference was that Yuki's skirt was gray and she also wore a pair of glasses. The only other employee of the office who was about the same age as Toru was a 13-year-old boy, Shû, who had been hired to deliver mail in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. He was a nice guy, but Toru didn't really have the desire or the energy to befriend him, despite his attempts to get closer.