Phillip

He was nervous, well, anyone would be if they had to face a childhood friend after leaving so abruptly. 

Chai stood outside the door of the Sunflower district's detective agency. It was an unfortunate place for the office, having it's entrance only be accessible via an alleyway and some rusty creaking stairs. The place often made one feel like a caged animal and the only source of sunlight was the window in the room where Reizo stayed. 

And yet, it was a place Chai would visit every few days back when things were harder, a refuge. 

The familiarity of the alleyway should be comforting, the signs, the mountain of cardboard, the bins, everything was where it should be. That wasn't the case though, Chai squeezed his eyes shut. 

Nothing could ever stay unchanged. 

He briefly hesitated before knocking on the door, remembering how the building's doorbell was always broken down. Chai waited to hear the faint sound of footsteps coming down the hallway, but after two minutes of staring blindly at the door, no one came. 

… Was no one home? 

That didn't sound like too much of a stretch, Simon and Rei used to take walks together all the time, usually to gather intel on whatever case they were hired on. However, an eerie sense of dread washed over Chai when he found the door not only unlocked, but left slightly ajar as well. How he didn't realise was beyond him. Reizo can be absent-minded enough to leave the door unlocked, sure, but it seemed unlikely he wouldn't close it at all. 

He slowly pulled something out of his pocket, the glint of a switchblade showing. 

Just in case. 

Very slowly, Chai enters the building and is immediately stunned by the vast array of papers scattered through the hallway. Pinned on the wall, tossed on the floor, stuck on the doors. He scrunched up his nose in discomfort, stepping all over stuff doesn't feel good, especially when they can make so much noise. Chai pushed away the urge to noisily kick away the papers and continued to approach what is supposed to be the main office, cringing at how frictionless the floor was as he struggled to sneak closer. 

Like the hallway, the room was also plastered wall to wall with newspapers, documents, sticky notes, and string. Quite cliché. The mounds of papers were multiplied by two in this room, they were on the tables, on the floor, on the couch, which Chai recalled was supposed to be beige in colour with coffee stains on the right seat. Almost nothing in the room was visible, looking more and more like a disorganised recycling plant than a professional investigation agency. 

This was when Chai finally noticed the dark mass that had collapsed on the floor. 

Blanketed in papers like everything else in the room, it would've been hard to spot without Chai's prior knowledge of the building's layout. He approached the anomaly, leaning in to cure his curiosity with the unnerving feeling of dread still looming above him. 

"R..Rei?" the words left his mouth in a whisper as Chai hurriedly knelt beside what looked to be Reizo's unconscious body. What happened? Did someone break into the office and attack him? Was that why the place was in such a state? 

Forgetting that he needed to stay calm, Chai shook the unmoving man urgently calling out his name. Why wasn't he moving? The worst possible scenario came to his mind and a flurry of emotions swelled in Chai's chest before the unconscious man abruptly sat up. 

Chai only stared at him in bewilderment as Reizo yawned. 

"Sorry you had to come back to uhm.." Reizo gestured at the landfill that was his office, "this." he muttered and cleared off the mess on the table to set down a mug of tea. It was covered in dust, the table, having lost it's familiar glint. 

"It's fine, it's fine." Chai replied simply, ignoring the tea and picking up the papers that littered the floor underneath his feet. 

"Looks like you've been busy."

"Y..yeah."

Only the sound of rustling papers remained in the room as the pair sat in silence. Why isn't he saying anything? Chai glanced up at his old friend from the documents in his hands, Reizo was awkwardly staring at the ground, he was always the more eager of the two when it came to words. 

Well, it was… understandable, Chai figured, holding in a sigh, he never really did tell Reizo about his departure. 

As expected, the werewolf had changed, it wasn't the most obvious, but he could tell. 

Chai furrowed his brow at the dark circles under his dead eyes. 

"You really have to sleep properly, you know." Chai said, straightforward whilst casually rifling through papers. Reizo only lifted his head up in response as Chai continued on; 

"Napping on the couch isn't healthy for your back, look at how you fell off too."

"Oh...no I was sleeping on the floor."

Chai paused, sucking in a breath. 

"Why..would you do that?" 

"The couch was too far away. So I just," his arm waved limply next to the desk "fell asleep there."

The couch is five steps away you absolute numbskull, Chai held back the remark and rubbed his forehead in agony. 

"I sleep regularly on the couch though." Reizo mumbled in an attempt to reassure his friend, sensing the judgement in his demeanour. 

"It's nice, really."

"I find it funnier that I'm the one who has to scold you to sleep healthily now." he shook his head in exasperation, leaning back on the couch, Reizo blinked. 

"Hypocritical, even. Sleeping on the floor like a dog after he forces me to take a nap every time I come by."

"I, I said I usually sleep on the couch…" 

"Don't you have a bedroom? Why aren't you sleeping there?" 

"Ah. I, uhm." 

Chai continued organising papers as the werewolf sitting opposite of him cleared his throat. 

"I sold the bed."

"You."

Reizo stood up, walking out of the room signalling for Chai to follow him with a nod. They continued up the stairs, leading to a door that had to be unlocked. The feeling of dread returned. 

The attic, which he remembered to be neatly organised and tidy, a twin sized bed tucked away in the corner illuminated by the sole source of sunlight in this building, was now completely occupied by several dozen stuffed toys. They were piled high, cartoonishly so, making it impossible to see the window anymore. There was no furniture but a lonely looking dismantled bed frame sitting up against the wall. 

Reizo coughed as he passed by Chai, who was standing agape at the doorway. "It got lonely," he muttered, "felt empty."

He would genuinely be ashamed if he was the younger Reizo, Chai determined, but no, the individual standing before him had no trace of any emotion in his face as he bent down to pick something up. 

"Look, it's Phillip." Chai eyed the stuffed bear Reizo had dropped in his hands. 

"You.. know you could've just placed them around the office if you didn't have any space." he sighed, tucking Phillip under his arm. Reizo tilted his head. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Huh? You sold the bed for space right?" 

"...I think so." 

Chai raised his eyebrows in confusion. 

"Anyways, I have work I have to finish today." Reizo coughed, obviously changing the topic, "Make yourself at home Hunter, but leaving is alright too. I'm afraid I won't be able to entertain you."

"Ah, right, right." Chai's mind was brought back to the disastrous mountains of documents downstairs. He found it odd, how much work the werewolf was getting was triple the amount the firm usually got years ago, Chai couldn't figure out why especially with one less person in the building. Nevertheless, he was glad Reizo was able to earn enough to support himself, the sleeping issues aside. "It's good, you need any help?"

Reizo's tired eyes lit up for a brief second before he shook his head, "It's, probably not a good idea."

"Ooh yeah I did see big red 'classified' stamped all over those files." Chai gave a small smile as he watched Reizo's eyes slowly widen, "I didn't read any of them by the way, not a good idea to leave those things on the floor though."