Chapter 12: The Yellow Jacket

By nine the next night, Emi had a plan, a borrowed hat and Haruka.

"Explain it again," Haruka whispered. "Slowly. I'm eating."

They stood at the back of a noodle stall in Shibuya, under a red lantern, behind a rack of dripping bowls.

Emi pulled the hat lower.

"The man in the yellow jacket. The one who buys two coffees. I need to follow him."

"Why?"

"Because I think he's in the photo."

"What photo?"

"The one from the magazine."

Haruka stopped chewing.

She looked at Emi for a long time.

"The idol," she said.

"The photo is of the idol."

"The idol's the girl in your closet."

"I knew it."

She put down her chopsticks.

"Is it Kokone Arai?"

"Haruka."

"It's Kokone Arai."

"You can't tell anyone."

"I run a fan account for a different group," Haruka said, hurt. "I'd never. It's a matter of professional ethics."

She wiped her hands on her jeans.

"Okay. What do we do?"

Emi had spent the whole day on one idea.

Kokone's alibi was four million witnesses, and the magazine photo still had a face in it that was not hers.

The only person who could say whose was the man in the jacket.

She had no idea how to make him talk.

But he came to the store every night at three, and tonight she had called in sick.

She had stood outside his building with a hat on and watched where he went.

He had gone to the Kitamura Entertainment building.

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