Shotaro hadn't spent much time with the Chief, comparatively. But he'd spent a lot of time alone as a kid, strange and too quick to fight, and in gratitude for waking him up from the road he'd been walking down, Shotaro had fixed his eyes on the Chief's back and tried to follow him as best as he could, for as long as he'd been able. Even now he's trying to follow in the Chief's footsteps, in his legacy. Leaving the office--after the Chief's death, and now--was a non-option. The place they were standing in was full of them both, and Shotaro needs as much of them as he can get.

Things keep moving, whether you're ready for it or not. That's certainly the way Philip's death had felt, after the days of terror inflicting by his father, the Evil Tail, that final case. One blow after another with no rest, and he was still reeling. "It's heavy," he says, "I couldn't--" He swallows, eyes clouding over. "I couldn't do it alone."

"No, I can't," he admits, snorting a little through his now stuffed-up nose. "Nobody can, you know her." He lifts his mug to sip tentatively at his coffee. "It's not really about, y'know, hiding. From you guys. I've already spilled things once when I shouldn't have." That was a truly spectacular spill, too. He's not proud of it. It weighs a little, too; the fact that no one's seen Wakana since tastes like the broken promise it is.