Who do you think I am?

    The demon’s brief pause did not escape her notice; brown eyes flicked to the side for a split second, observing him closely. As usual, his face and body betrayed nothing, but it was still evident that he was considering what she’d said carefully. Which was no surprise, honestly. Yako knew that the idea of someone’s mind turning on them in such a way would stick out to him immediately. For good reason, too, since despite all the strength he possessed as a being from Hell, Neuro’s mind was still the most impressive thing about him–the tool that he relied on the most.

    –So, how did that make him feel, she wondered?

    While he, as a demon, would probably never experience the sort of mental illness that would lead to his brain acting in the way that a human’s would, the mere concept alone had been enough to give him pause. That was significant. Did it bring him any sort of unease? Curiosity? Did it weaken his opinion of humans, or do nothing to affect it at all? Though she considered herself quite capable at reading her partner, the subject matter was unexplored and unfamiliar territory. She likely would not be able to guess his thoughts and opinions unless he shared them with her himself.

    The question he posed suddenly pulled her back to reality, and Yako blinked a few times before turning her head forward once more. Releasing one hand from its hold upon the files in her grasp, she brought it up to tap a finger against her chin in thought.

        ❝–Let’s see,❞ she said, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face. ❝From what I can remember, none of the articles that I read seemed to care that much about her claims, and mentioned the fact that she didn’t believe his death to be a suicide more offhandedly than anything else. I don’t think anyone even asked her that many questions about what she thought had happened, since they weren’t taking her seriously. All I ever remember hearing is that she’ll never accept “suicide” as her husband’s cause of death, and that she thinks someone framed it appear that way.❞

    His answer was all that she needed to shrug the issue off and continue forward with their work. She was well aware that her fame brought with it a certain amount of difficulty when working cases now, but generally it did not hinder them enough to cut into their success rate, of course. The only reason she had brought it up in the first place had been because the area they found themselves in for the case was far from the city. And while it still had a decent population and some tourism, it still lacked the amount of hustle and bustle of where they generally operated. Put simply: they stuck out a lot more.

    But if Neuro wasn’t worried about it, then it was easy for Yako to let it drop as well. While she had never wanted any fame and had even loathed all of the attention put on her for a while ( well, maybe still did sometimes ), she had learned to adapt. The stares and whispers and occasional sounds of people using their phones to take a picture had quickly become nothing but white noise to her over the years. She was much more interested in what they would dig up from asking around about the victim.

    And, as expected, it seemed that so far her partner’s thoughts were right on the money. They spoke to many people on the way to the police station, and very few seemed to have any sort of positive opinion of him. Certainly, not all of them were overwhelmingly negative, either; there were quite a lot of people that seemed very neutral about him. But when faced with emotions regarding him that weren’t neutral, they were almost always negative. He had very few, if any friends and a decent sized group that seemed to think very poorly of him. Just like both she and likely Neuro had been expecting.

    Though, there were a few comments that stuck out in her mind for some reason that she couldn’t quite place. And no matter how she tried to save contemplating them for later, they continued to nag at her even as they entered the police station. “Such a poor reputation, it’s no wonder he committed suicide. I heard even when he tried to see a professional, they couldn’t do anything for him,” one woman they’d talked to had recounted. It easily could be chalked up to gossip running wild–it was very unlikely they’d know any details of the treatment a therapist gave their patient. Yet, despite that, it still struck her as odd, and tugged at her mind even as they made their way back out with the case files and address from the police.

    Only when the demon at her side spoke did she manage to banish the nagging, and put her attention somewhere else. Unfortunately, it wasn’t at all a brighter topic for her to put her focus on.

        ❝–Well… yes,❞ Yako admitted with a sigh as she slipped a hand up to tuck some hair behind her ear. ❝It is. Japan’s suicide rate is fairly high compared to many other countries. And it’s been our leading cause of death for men in their twenties to early forties for some years now.❞ She paused for a moment, glancing up at him as they walked before looking straight ahead again to continue. ❝And Aokigahara… it’s one of the more “popular” places to go to do so. It’s become such a problem that they’ve started posting signs leading into the forest telling people to seek help rather than take their life.

        ❝There’s often search parties held by both police and volunteers to comb through the forest for victims who either succeeded for failed in their attempts. And the government even stopped publishing how many suicides take place in it each year in an attempt to stop the association between the forest and death. That’s probably why… no one even gave it a second thought.❞