Chapter Text
Date comes home one day with a phone.
Not a smartphone, either. A flip phone, and a really old looking one at that.
The device is so ordinary that it almost just blends into the environment around Date’s incredibly messy desk, being placed right at its edge. There are some scratches on its body, a clipped corner at the very bottom, and the color is really not Date’s usual, that being a pale blue. Seeing it, Mizuki’s first instinct is to assume the phone is from an investigation Date is on and that he had brought it home for a related reason. Maybe he’s waiting for a suspect to call it, maybe he’s going to log the contents of it on his computer, that kind of thing.
But days pass, and days turn into weeks, and finally weeks turn into a month’s time, and the flip phone is still hanging around. Mizuki sees it every now and then, either charging at Date’s desk or being slipped into his pocket as he leaves to go to work for the day. Eventually, Mizuki begins to doubt it has any purpose in a case at ABIS— she’s never heard of an investigation lasting this long, and if it really were for one, Date probably would have mentioned it to her by now, by just a way of making small talk. He hasn’t even mentioned it once since its arrival.
Date doesn’t need a phone. Aiba can call and text people just fine, either from NILE or from spoofed numbers to hide Date’s identity. Mizuki has already received plenty of texts and calls from him both ways. Maybe he just got it for the sake of playing games every now and then on commute, but it’s a flip phone, not a smart phone. There’s no way Snake is such a riveting game to Date that he’d dish out money for it today.
Maybe he got it to take photos? But he has Aiba…
Access the internet? Again, Aiba is way more convenient…
He just likes the feeling of having a phone around? Date is definitely dumb enough to buy something just for appearance’s sake, but even so, a used, scratched up flip phone wouldn’t really score him any popularity points…
So why does he have it? It can’t be just for show. Date uses it, so it has some kind of purpose. It’s always on his person, snug in one of his coat pockets, and every now and then, he’ll take it out, flip it open, jot something into it, and close it. Mizuki hasn’t even heard the phone ring or vibrate once, so it doesn’t look like he’s getting any texts in the first place, at least, on the surface.
All of Mizuki’s questions about the mysterious phone that’s entered their apartment could be answered if she could just take a damn look at the thing, which might be the biggest mystery of them all— Date doesn’t let her near it.
He doesn’t leave it out on the counter and forgets it as he’s going off to work. He doesn’t charge it out in the open, but instead keeps it in his pocket at all times and studies it under a watchful eye, right next to his computer. And Mizuki isn’t even the only one on the other end of this defensive position— whenever Date brings the phone out, he closes his left eye.
Every. Single. Time.
It could be just a quick open and shut, or a moment where he types something out— Date’s eyelid is shut, obscuring Aiba’s vision.
Why is that?
“What’s Date hiding?” Mizuki wonders aloud, letting out a sigh as she falls back onto her mattress. All Mizuki wants to do is stare at the ceiling and try to solve this mystery that’s been plaguing her thoughts for quite a while now, though she knows she should be getting ready for bed.
Aiba, who happens to be sitting on Mizuki’s pillow, gets up and crawls over from her spot, eventually stopping to sit right next to Mizuki’s face. “What is the problem, Mizuki?” She asks.
Mizuki reaches over to pick up Aiba and place her on her forehead, where Aiba then decides to sprawl out and relax.
“You know that phone Date has? The more I see it, the more I wonder what he’s doing with it,” Mizuki huffs. At this point, not only has it been over a month since the flip phone's first appearance, but Date is currently going as far as to take it into the bathroom with him while he’s washing up for the evening. If he had left it in the main room, Mizuki could snoop all she wanted, but there’s no way she’s going into the bathroom for it and risking seeing something that will destroy her eyesight for good.
Aiba takes a small hamster hand and pats Mizuki’s forehead, as if trying to reassure her. “I assure you, it is nothing illegal, as my presence, regardless of my involvement, would make me an accomplice to his crimes. That goes directly against the contract he signed when he agreed to have me installed,” Aiba explains.
“Nothing illegal could be anything, though,” Mizuki pouts. “And don’t you think it’s weird that he’s hiding it from you, too?”
Aiba rolls down Mizuki’s face, passing over the bridge of her nose, the length of her nose, her mouth, and her chin. She unceremoniously comes to a stop with a squish on Mizuki’s collar bone. “Well, it is not like I do not know what he is doing,” she says simply.
Mizuki’s eyes widen, and she nearly jumps off the bed before remembering if she did that, Aiba would go flying. So she just jerks up slightly, startling Aiba into hanging onto Mizuki’s neck with her paws. “What? Then what’s he doing? Tell me!” She insists.
Just as Aiba is about to respond, the audibly running water in the bathroom shuts off, and the apartment falls silent. Rather than a typical Japanese bathtub, Date had been insistent that they have a shower installed in the apartment, as he prefered being able to wash up quickly and leaving for whatever he had to do at ABIS. So he’ll be in the main room in just a minute, if not less.
“Instead of me telling you, I think it would be best if you asked Date yourself,” Aiba says.
“What? There’s no way he’d tell me. That’s why I’ve never asked.”
“He will not tell you, yes. But I think his reaction will explain enough for you to be able to fit the pieces together.”
Before Mizuki can even ask what that means, Date emerges from the bathroom, body wrapped in a purple towel and hair wrapped in a slightly washed out purple towel. Normally, Mizuki would yell at him for coming into the main apartment without already being in his change of clothes for the night, but she decides to let it slide when she hones in on the matter at hand— in his hands, which happen to be completely dry, is his god forsaken flip phone. Of course.
Without giving him enough time to even take a couple steps in, Mizuki grabs Aiba and sits up on her bed, then places the tiny eyeball hamster on her shoulder. “Hey, Date,” Mizuki calls out to him. “Can I ask you something?”
Date turns his head, eyebrow raised and looking as tired as ever. “You better not be asking me to go to the store to buy that Precure themed curry again. I don’t care if it includes a limited edition sticker or whatever, it tasted awful.”
Mizuki makes an internal note to ask him to buy said curry at a later date to annoy him. She points to his hand. “What do you use that phone for?” She asks. “I’ve seen you use it all the time, but you have Aiba to use for calls and stuff, right? So…”
The response Mizuki is expecting is Date telling her to mind her own business, or give some other snarky comment that’ll make Mizuki wonder why she even asked regardless of what Aiba said. Or maybe that the phone really is part of some investigation that’s gone on for an absurdly long time, and he’s actually been conversing with a suspected killer in an attempt to catch them in a crime.
However, the response she gets is…
Date freezes right in place.
His mouth starts twitching back and forth from a nervous smile and a very concerned frown. After having his eyes dart from the phone screen, to Mizuki, and then Aiba, Date opts to keep his stare focused to the side, past Mizuki and instead glaring at the wall behind her.
“Uh, n-nothing,” he stammers out, then clears his throat, clearly not proud of how hurried he sounds. Regardless, he still isn’t looking her in the eyes when he speaks. “Don’t worry about it.”
…It’s not at all what Mizuki expected, but she can’t say this turn of events is all that bad. Being that Mizuki is a devilish girl, she sees Date’s embarrassment as not only information, but entertainment. As if his body language isn’t enough, the way his cheeks are reddening is pretty funny. It’s pretty easy to tell what this is actually about.
Mizuki cups her hands around her mouth and asks, “You got a special someone you’re texting?” It isn’t such a hard thing to guess, given the fact his reaction is on par with most fourth graders when you ask them who they like.
She hits the nail on the head of course, judging by how Date’s expression and body immediately go rigid. When he regains composure a few seconds later, it seems like he knows Mizuki’s figured him out, but he still shakes his head to deny what she’s said. “N-Nope, not at all. And I just remembered I gotta, uh… Clean the sink, so…!” He adjusts his towel, then quickly turns on his heel to go back into the bathroom.
And then Date bolts out of the room at full speed. And then Mizuki can hear him slip on the floor outside, which is probably wet because Date never dries off properly. And then there’s a loud BANG, and Mizuki doesn’t know if it’s from Date hitting his head on the floor, or the neighbors trying to tell them to shut up by hitting their wall from the next apartment over.
Mizuki stares at the doorway from her mattress in silence.
“...So he’s using the phone to talk to someone he likes?” She asks.
“How could you tell?” Aiba responds.