NOVEL NEXT Episode 8 - The Dark Room
Episode 8: The Dark Room
In Miyagi Aki’s hands were Otsuka Ken’s complete social records, along with internal hospital documents that even the police didn’t have copies of. Over eight years, this serial killer had undergone multiple treatments. Yet Otsuka Ken’s mental condition hadn’t improved one bit.
…But this wasn’t enough.
When dealing with a psychiatric patient, their thought patterns and behavioral logic were difficult to predict. After all, they were essentially two different people when “lucid” versus “frenzied.”
She needed to find the true basis for the murderer’s actions—the “signals.”
She lifted her wrist and checked the hands of her watch.
“…Time is running out.”
Miyagi Aki finished the last sip of coffee in her cup, licked her lips, and left the street with her handbag.
Half an hour later.
In a small alley about three blocks from the subway station, she finally reached her destination.
“Hmm, is this the place?”
Comparing it to the address displayed on her phone, she tilted her head back slightly to observe the old-style apartment building before her.
The white walls had taken on a dirty yellow tinge.
The entrance area was desolate—the flowers in the untended planter had long since withered and merged with the soil. Wild grass grew uncontrolled.
The weathered mailbox by the door overflowed with advertisements and newspapers, its paint peeling.
“No one’s here…”
She muttered to herself.
Despite standing there, she couldn’t sense any signs of life in the building.
Looking around to the side of the building, she found a narrow space barely wide enough for one person between the concrete walls, filled with garbage—abandoned bicycles, empty cans, and plastic bottles.
Miyagi Aki pressed the doorbell several times with no response. Unfazed, she walked to the elevator inside.
The linoleum in the elevator was worn, feeling strange underfoot. The non-slip rubber had been completely worn away—one wrong step and you could easily slip.
…
Third floor.
She gripped her handbag, took a deep breath at the door, put on a gentle business smile, and knocked.
After a moment, the sound of plastic dragging against the floor grew closer.
A small, frail elderly man pressed his gaunt face against the peephole, peering out with suspicious eyes.
His eyeballs were dull and lifeless, like the dusty, cheap glass marbles children played with.
“Excuse me… but does Otsuka-san live here?”
“…Who are you? I don’t need any sales pitches.”
Seeing a fashionably dressed young woman standing outside, he seemed to relax slightly but still rejected her coldly in his hoarse voice.
“No, that’s not it. I’m here about Otsuka Ken…”
“Ken? Has that good-for-nothing caused trouble again?”
The old man cut her off with a snarl.
“Come to think of it, is that brat even still alive? I haven’t seen him in seven or eight years. Thought he’d died in that mental hospital by now.”
“…Ah, yes, he’s still alive.”
Miyagi Aki’s smile tightened slightly.
“I’m Ken’s friend. He asked me to come pick up something. May I come in?”
“No! I don’t have anything that belongs to him here.”
The old man—Otsuka Yuuya—waved his hand impatiently, preparing to walk back inside.
“Wait… wait a moment!”
Miyagi Aki quickly stopped him.
“I brought a get-well gift… I wanted to give it to you personally.”
She clasped her hands in front of her chest, making a pleading gesture.
“Really… won’t you let me in?”
Her long eyelashes trembled, and her rose-colored contact lenses sparkled beneath them.
“Don’t bother taking off your shoes, just come in.”
Miyagi Aki nodded and walked into the house. Her leather boots made creaking sounds as they crossed the rotting floorboards.
No lights were on inside—only faint illumination filtered through the thick curtains covering the windows.
It was so dark it barely seemed habitable. The dim, damp room was filled with the mixed smell of cigarettes and alcohol, along with the stench of rotting garbage and vomit.
…A living environment completely intolerable to normal people.
Aki covered her nose, furrowing her delicate brows, her face showing disgust.
‘Hehehe, if a young chick delivers herself to my door, don’t blame me for not being polite—’
She smiled to herself as she imagined the villain’s lines in her head.
*THUD!*
A dull thud echoed behind Miyagi Aki.
The sound of a body falling backward.
The stun gun concealed in the girl’s sleeve, gripped reversed in her palm, sparked with azure electrical arcs in the dim room.
Miyagi Aki turned around, and as she planted her feet firmly, she swung her handbag high, mercilessly striking Otsuka Yuuya’s head with its metal-reinforced corner.
He had tried to suddenly rush forward from behind to tackle her to the ground, but now lay there like a dried-up wax figure. The old man’s body was temporarily paralyzed, unable to move, his head bleeding from the blow.
However, even in this state, he couldn’t cry out, as Miss Aki had already stuffed his mouth with an empty beer bottle she’d grabbed.
“Scum begets scum… or should that be the other way around?”
She crossed her arms, looking down at the old man.
Extortion, harassment of women and children, breaking and entering… Otsuka Yuuya’s life of numerous crimes showed no signs of improvement even at his age.
“This works out well. If you were a good person, I might have felt a bit bad about this.”
She smiled softly while viciously grinding her leather boot into Otsuka Yuuya’s hand.
Unlike the cheerful expression that a certain young man usually saw, the girl’s face now showed the smile of a torturer.
She continued applying pressure with her foot until there was a “crack” of something breaking.
With each such sound, Aki’s mood grew increasingly joyful.
…
Five minutes later, Miyagi Aki put on a face mask, walked to the balcony, unlocked and opened the window, and pulled back the curtains, letting sunlight and fresh air flood into the dark room all at once.
“Phew… that’s much better. This place is nothing but a garbage dump fit for rats.”
Miss Miyagi used a mop to gather the trash scattered across the room and floor into a pile, then took out her lighter and set the collected garbage ablaze.
The white smoke gradually built up and drifted out the third-floor window on the air currents.
This was the signal.
Miyagi Aki preferred to operate in the shadows and was well aware of the threats posed by human nature. So she would never allow herself to be in a dangerous position beforehand.
…
She returned to the room and took rubber gloves and tape from her handbag, placing them on the table.
Finally, she carefully brought out a wooden box.
Opening it revealed tweezers, scalpels, pliers, a small hammer, cotton swabs, and alcohol.
“Time is running out.”
Miyagi Aki softly repeated these words.
In the old man’s clouded pupils, dilated with fear and shock, reflected the image of the girl slowly walking toward him.
“Now then, I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer all of them properly, okay?”
Human communication was a symbol of rationality.
And one should never commit serious crimes that harm life, no matter the circumstances.
Because once that boundary was crossed, she would lose her observer’s composure.
This is what Aki warned herself.
While contemplating this, she picked up a blade with her crimson-painted nails, smiling as she inserted the sharp edge into the old man’s shoulder.