Haruto Nakamura sat alone in a quiet corner booth of the small diner on the edge of the city. It was late evening, the 20th of December 2010. Snow fell softly outside the large windows and turned the streetlights into glowing halos. The diner was warm and nostalgic, with red vinyl seats, chrome tables, and the low hum of classic music playing from an old jukebox in the corner.
He had come here for a date, or at least that was what he had told the girl he met online. He wore a simple dark sweater and jeans. His messy hair was combed back slightly, and he looked every bit the polite, unremarkable college student. A menu lay open in front of him, untouched.
The jukebox clicked and switched songs. Soft piano notes filled the air as Fly Me to the Moon began to play. The gentle, swaying melody drifted through the diner like a memory.
A young woman approached the booth. She was wearing a modest winter coat over a simple dress. Her dark hair was neatly styled. She smiled politely as she slid into the seat across from him without waiting for an invitation.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked. Her voice was soft and sweet.
Haruto looked up and returned the smile, though something in his eyes remained carefully neutral. "Not at all."
The woman, Mimo, settled in. Her expression was calm and pleasant. She ordered a cup of tea when the waitress came by, then leaned forward slightly, as if genuinely interested in conversation. The music continued in the background. Sinatra's smooth voice crooned about flying to the moon and playing among the stars.
---
Meanwhile, across town in his dimly lit office, Detective Hikaru sat at his desk with the phone pressed to his ear. The same song, Fly Me to the Moon, played as Ren's waiting tone. Hikaru had been trying to reach him for the past ten minutes and paced slowly behind his chair.
He hung up with a frustrated sigh and opened Mimo's file again, the one Ren had sent him. His eyes scanned the medical report from her childhood.
Mimo Takahashi.
Age at incident: 3–5 years old.
Disappeared during a family trip. Found several days later.
After the incident, she began to exhibit severe emotional numbness and dissociation. Behavioral changes noted: detachment from family, lack of emotional response to stimuli, occasional blank staring episodes that lasted for hours. These patterns persisted and evolved over the years into a consistently calm, almost unnaturally gentle demeanor that masked deeper detachment.
Hikaru leaned back and tapped his pen against the desk.
The attitude matched perfectly with the current Mimo: the soft smiles, the gentle voice, the complete lack of visible reaction even in the face of horror. It was not learned behavior. It was something that had taken root when she was a child and had only grown with her.
He stared at the file for a long moment, then spoke aloud to the empty office.
"I would follow my intuition then."
He stood up and grabbed his coat.
"I am going to arrest Mimo for the crime of serial killing today."
---
Back at the diner, Fly Me to the Moon continued to play softly. Haruto and the woman across from him talked quietly about the weather, about the holidays, about nothing important. Mimo's smile never wavered. Her eyes remained calm and unreadable.
The snow kept falling outside.