Chapter 33

*A fight on the beach!*

## Summary

Matsubase and Yashiro have arrived at the beach. Onii-san asks what they want, but when Matsubase refuses to tell him, he says it’s a real shame. Sachi appears behind him and swings a shovel at him. But he blocks the blow with his briefcase. Matsubase sees Onii-san approaching Yashiro with a bottle and yells at his assistant to watch out. Yashiro dodges being hit with the bottle, but falls onto the sand in the process. As Mastubase comments on Yashiro being clumsy, Sachi uses the shovel to snatch Matsubase’s briefcase out of his hands. She swings at him again and he catches the shovel in the palm of his hands. But he loses his balance and ends up on the sand too.

Onii-san looks over and sees Sachi struggling with Mastubase, so he abandons Yashiro to go help her. Matsubase notices that Onii-san abandoned Yashiro to help Sachi, even though Yashiro was a vulnerable target.

When Onii-san gets close to Matsubase, Sachi yells for him to finish him off. Onii-san still has the bottle in his hand, but hesitates. Sachi demands he kill him and Matsubase taunts him, saying to “do it, if you can,” knowing that Onii-san won’t kill him. Sachi is confused. She wonders how she can trust Onii-san if he can’t kill for her? She needs him to kill for in order to gain her full trust. Is this his answer-- that she can’t trust him?

Before Onii-san can do anything else, Yashiro grabs the bottle out of his hands and tosses it aside. He tells everyone to stop fighting, and says that they didn’t come here to break them apart. But before he can finish speaking an older man appears at the top of the stairs leading to the beach, asking if they are setting off fireworks. They say no, they are tourists, and all leave together.

Onii-san tells them to leave them alone, but Matsubase says that they must know the law won’t excuse their actions because of their feelings for one another, and that they can’t keep running away forever. He says he was curious about the nature of their relationship, so their fight just now was a test.

Matsubase formally introduces himself and Yashiro, his assistant, as detectives hired by XXX-san’s parents. Sachi says they really should kill them, but he tells her that he knows her mother has been lying about everything since her disappearance.

Matsubase explains to her that the police still think she’s been kidnapped, but he deduced that she ran away from an abusive home. He says that they are lucky he and his assistant found them before the cops did, or they’d be in real trouble. He says he can also offer them a little information with the police investigation.

Matsubase says he wants to see how their escape will end, so he and Yashiro will live next door to them for a while.

Onii-san says this is all stupid, and they are leaving the city. But Sachi says they’re going to stay. However, they are going to put cameras all over the detective’s apartment, even in the bathroom. And she and Onii-san will confiscate all of their electronics, so they cannot have any contact with the outside world. Matsubase agrees and they all head back to their apartments.

As they walk back, Onii-san seems a bit unsteady on his feet. Yashiro asks if he’s okay and is ignored.

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