#dearloque

↳ non-stop.

↳ representative.

↳ ruinous.

↳ burn out, sleep in.

→ she is undeniably the tenth circle of hell. it's called "holmes". he willingly went to the burning inferno. →

a daughter of an elite englishman and a billionaire detective joined forces to halt the coming of a criminal dystopia.

At my respone, Erebos repeated the question, saying, "What I asked was, 'How good is your Japanese'?"

I was... Baffled, to say the least.

Why would he ask such questions to me?

But I decided to humor his question by answering with, "Not as decent as my Korean, honestly speaking. My comprehension isn't as good as I would think but my speaking skill could pass."

Erebos looked thoroughly pleased. To my surprise he asked me in Japanese, responding, "That's good to hear. I would have told Mourgane otherwise."

I wiped the remnants of the breakfast from my lips and replied with, "Tell Mourgane the opposite one. We'll see who's going to flip."

Erebos laughed at my response and, in normal English, he retaliated, "We'd better talk normally. Jordan might feel out of place."

By then, Jordan had already left the table and was seated comfortably on the armchair, her medical notes in her hands and her reading glasses atop of her nose's bridge. Overhearing our conversation, she said, "I already felt out of place."

She was, by birth, normal in any way. The blood of Holmes ran through me, Erebos and Maurgane like coursing rivers, rich and strong, deep and untouchable. It was a curse, to say the least.

"At lease you're respected," Erebos airily said to her. He turned to me and looked straight into my eyes. The same eyes each Holmes child had - a heartless shade of steel grey. "How would you like to work with two men from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?"

To say my curiosity was grabbed was an understatement. My full attention was laser focused on Erebos alone that I didn't mind when Jordan returned to her seat at the dining table. Even if her attention was caught, she was mainly there to make sure my nerves won't work up out of the blue.

Such a kind friend she was.

"First of all," I said. "Why is a Japanese police force is involved here? What part are they playing in the ordeal you haven't even told me yet? What is my role that coincided with them? What responsibility do we withhold if we cooperate to work?"

My questions were smartly answered. Erebos took out his phone and opted to FaceTime Mourgane. When I had thought she wouldn't answer, she finally picked up at the fourth ring.

I was hoping for a 'hello' or a good greeting whatsoever, but her sentence spoken to us was, "Erebos, I assumed you haven't told her everything yet?"

Erebos grinned, showing off his smug face to our irritated cousin. He said, "I love to withhold things unless they are direly needed to be shared. I'm sure the news aren't even that perilous."

"Can it, Erebos," Mourgane snapped, her American lingo glimmering through with irritation and frustration.

"Well, at least, I have inquired her about her Japanese. She speaks fairly well."

"But that's as far as you can go to help me," Mourgane said through gritted teeth. "Hand her the phone."

Erebos shrugged and handed me his phone.

"Hello, good morning, Mourgane. Jaljaseo?"

In wonderful Korean, Mourgane grumpily replied with, "No, I did not have the best sleep. Not when this had been itching my patience to hair-thin."

"Listen, Mourgane," I said, sighing. "I have absolutely no idea what is going on right now. Care to explain all the kerfuffle with me? I was trying to recover from my last nerve attack for the past week."

"I thought I could trust Erebos to do that but it seemed I had wrongly put my trust at the wrong hour."

"Trusting Erebos would put us in the wrong hour. So, please, for the love of everything good and wondeful, tell me what I had miserably missed."

Erebos had the audacity to squish into frame, dragging a chair beside me. He said, "Put the phone in landscape and we four will have an impromptu meeting."

"Excuse you, good sir, I am here to look after Cher, not butting myself in this business that sounded so international," Jordan said. But, nevertheless, she, too, dragged her chair beside me. She sat on my left while Erebos sat on my right.

"Let me lay the facts before you, ladies and gentleman," Mourgane said, almost dramatically. "Facts that are known to the world... And facts known to private ears and eyes only."

Oh, yes, the event that I categorized as a joke. Or as I had hoped it could have been a joke.

While we had breakfast that morning, which Hudson (nephew of the late Mrs Hudson of Baker Street 221B) had graciously made, Erebos brought up his reason for his early visit. By then, I had already changed into a dress shirt and silky square pants. Just to prove I'm not a fashion slouch to Erbeos, I topped my collar with a fancy, little black bow. It pleased him and didn't further comment about my simplistic style.

"First of all, have you watched or read the news?"

I quirked a brow at him. I said, "Of course, I do. And that's why I keep my television off and throw away my newspapers." Surprised, my cousin inquired the reason of my actions. I replied, "I have been suffering lately with a nervous condition. The last case had done me and flayed my nerves as thin as paper. Of course, I had taken my rightful break for a week now and Uncle John said that if I keep up the habit, I would be fine as whistle and be finally allowed to go back to work before we knew it."

Jordan piped in after she sipped a healthy amount of her ornamental green tea, saying, "Papa told her to rest for at least ten days. She's only pushing through her eighth."

I clanked my eating utensils. I mentally hit my face with my palm. I exclaimed, "And I only have gotten six hours of sleep - Good heavens, Erebos, don't you have any mercy for my well-being?!"

Erebos said, "Excuse me, cousin dear, but you didn't tell me any of this - your condition and your supposed habit to cure whatever illness you acquired."

"Didn't Mourgane spoke of this to you at all?" I asked, crossing my arms. My face had turned sour and disdainful at the plain thought of my cousin's insensitivity to my current state. Even though it wasn't that extremely severe to send my arse to the hospital, my parents - typically, my father - had reckoned with my uncle (father's brother) and his daughter, Mourgane, to exempt me from any criminal cases until I made full recovery. Or in this case, because I'm stubborn as a mule but still wanted to preserve my lifespan, until I made a decent recovery. (But I don't Mourgane had gotten the message as expressed in the following narrative.)

"It might have slipped off from her mind," Erebos suggested, but it didn't help one bit.

I gave out an exasperated exhale and pinched the bridge of my nose, my two hands enclosing on it.

"Unbelievable," Jordan muttered.

"Utterly," I bitterly added.

Mourgane, of all people, should definitely had known better. But, of course... Her work mattered more than anything; more than her own well-being (again, a Holmes thing), more than her own family, including me. She'll do anything to get me back on track, even if it meant to take damn risks.  

"Wait, doesn't Jordan read the papers? To keep you up to date with all the going-ons of the world? Or at least around England?" Erebos pressed, crossing his foot over his knee.

I flicked one of my hands in the air, saying, "I always tell her not to or else my curiosity will piqued and the next thing we all know, I'm in the hospital, barely functioning rationally because my nerves are burned to crisp due to heavy fatigue, burnout, stress, and caffeine addiction."

Erebos took a sip of his coffee, then said, "Tough luck then. But you looked healthy now."

Jordan tapped her fingers on the table, a look of displeasure across her face. She mumbled, "She barely looked healthy at all."

She made a truthful point.

Despite of making through one week of recovery, I still had the appearance of a dreaded haggard (a little bit; for the sake of dignity and decency). My eyes were still a bit sunken and black. My skin had its color back, though, Jordan said I have turned paler a few times during the faithful recovery. The condition of my nerves had successfully returned back to normal... Alright, almost of my nerves since I sometimes experience sudden shock pressure and sudden unresponsiveness. But that happened rarely now. It only had happened once or twice and that was during on my third day.

If you, gracious reader, thought this wasn't a normal condition for a grown 24-year-old Englishwoman, you're ultimately right.

Erebos shrugged. Yes, as if he cared at all for me. He lightly said, "Same, different."

Oh, how the Holmes blood shone through like a glittering ray of sunlight.

"Can you please cut the chase and get to the point, Erebos?" I impatiently said. "Just spill whatever Mourgane had told you to share to me so this will be all over."

Erebos sighed. He briefly gave my kitchen a once-over, his eyes darting from object to object with little interest. If I can, I could have smacked his face with the glass flower vase on the table. He knew damn well how I hated being treated with suspense. He smacked his lips and asked without meeting my eyes, "How good is your Japanese?"

"Excuse me?"

At this juncture, I really should have known the punchline. But, remember, I barely connected with the world for a week, and all my memories about a particular subject prior to the last case were flushed away down to the drain.

And, honestly?