The Life Of Normal-Taro

"Okay, I'm done." Lonappan spoke.

"What?" Ponnappan asked, since he didn't get the context.

"I said I'm done! You took a lot of time. And that pissed me off. You shouldn't have done that. I don't even wanna hear out your stupid reasoning now." Lonappan scoffed as he began to exit.

"Wait, wait! I apologise. I shouldn't have wasted your time like that. It's my bad. I don't know what got into my head but I thought it would look cool. And by the looks of it, it certainly didn't." Ponnappan spoke as he grabbed his junior's hand.

Lonappan initially struggled to make him let go off his hand. However, that was when he was reminded of how strong Ponnappan actually was, underneath all the grumpiness and lame theatrics. This made him change his mind—not entirely, but he stopped at his tracks, at the very least.

After that, Lonappan got into a deep thought considering the possibilities if he were to punch Ponnappan's face to let go of his hand. And since the odds didn't look favorable to him, he decided otherwise and thought of hearing him out.

"So, you're not gonna do your so-called theatrics again?" Lonappan asked.

"Nope. I promise you that." Ponnappan spoke.

"What if you break that promise?" Lonappan asked again.

"Well, a free hit on me. You've been wanting to have that on me, right?" Ponnappan asked.

Suddenly, Lonappan's eyes glimmered. "Deal. Now screw up." He replied.

"Haha, I'm not stupid enough to screw up like that once I promise something to someone." Ponnappan chuckled.

"Then tell me the reason why you believe that the Crimson Robber is among us." Lonappan replied.

"Hmm, not among us per se, but he certainly is in our jurisdiction." Ponnappan spoke.

"They." John corrected.

"Huh?"

"They. You should call the Crimson Robber 'they'. The people from Crimson Planet are androgynous, so." John shrugged.

"Very well. 'They' certainly are in our jurisdiction." Ponnappan corrected himself, which was appreciated by both John and the invisible alien.

"So, hit me up with the reason behind your belief." Lonappan replied as he took a seat nearby.

"Okay. You gotta look at this." Ponnappan spoke as he handed a headshot of Scarlet to him.

"Ah, it's in the case file. So I've already seen it. Don't worry." Lonappan answered as he handed back the headshot to his senior.

"I know that. I just wanted you to have a good look at the alien's face before you see what I'm about to show you." Ponnappan replied.

"Okay, cool. Now show me what you wanted me to see." Lonappan said as he nodded his head along.

"Here." Ponnappan handed the next image to him.

"This…" Lonappan looked shocked as he saw the image.

"Yup." Ponnappan nodded his head.

"... Is just some random hippie, isn't it?" Lonappan asked.

"No! What makes you think that?" Ponnappan asked as if he heard something absurd.

"I mean, what doesn't? Look at his costume, the beard and that weird bag that he's holding. I'mma tell ya right now, the dude probably got a shitload of marijuana in that." Lonappan spoke.

I don't smoke shit like that—was what Scarlet wanted to say once he heard Lonappan's words, however since he was meant to be silent in this scenario, he didn't lash out his emotions.

"Hmm, now that I look at it, he certainly looks like a hippie." Ponnappan agreed with Lonappan this one time, which made Scarlet feel like he was betrayed. "But hippie or not, do you recognise the man?" He asked.

"It's the Crimson Robber, isn't it?" It wasn't Lonappan who answered it. Instead it was John, who looked like he was totally gonna fanboy on Scarlet before beating him into a pulp.

"Right! It's him. It's a CCTV image of the guy. You know where it was taken from?" Ponnappan asked.

"Well, since you're asking me like that, I'm pretty sure that it's in our jurisdiction." Lonappan replied.

"That's right. But do you know where exactly though?" Ponnappan asked again.

"Hmm, no idea. Where is it?" Lonappan asked back.

"It's in Kunnamkulam." Ponnappan replied real slowly. 

At this point, Lonappan could probably count it as part of theatrics and get his free hit on Ponnappan, but he knew why his superior did so. It's because there are few people who make frequent visits to Kunnamkulam these days and he wanted Lonappan to take notice of that.

"I see. Kunnamkulam, huh? It could be a coincidence though." Lonappan spoke, to which John looked confused, since he didn't have the context behind what he said like Ponnappan had.

"I didn't say it wasn't. It's just that there are a whole lot of coincidences when I looked into it." Ponnappan spoke, almost indicating the involvement of a certain group of aliens.

"You gotta remember, Kunnamkulam is an attraction place for the aliens because of the shop." Lonappan reminded his senior.

"That may be so, but-" Ponnappan was about to refute the statement, but before he could do so, John interfered.

"What shop though?" He asked, which stumped both of the people beside him. After all, Ajish's spare parts is an illegal establishment.

"Hmm, well. You see, we established a shop for the aliens who miss their homes. Like we got all the stuff for them—food and all." Lonappan lied since that's one of the few things that he was pretty good at.

"Ha, that's a pretty great establishment. Nice! Giving something to the aliens who miss their home planet! That's really amazing. I would like to suggest this plan to the headquarters as well—that is, if they are to call me anytime soon. For some reason, they haven't called me for the longest time. Do you know the reason for that?" John asked.

"Huh? No, no! I have no idea at all! I guess they're a bit busy these days. You know, with the Crimson Robber and stuff." Lonappan shrugged. After all, there's no way he could tell that they were the reason for him not getting any calls from the headquarters.

"Hmm, I guess that's the case. It's pretty weird though. I used to get calls for every international mission that I went for. But they asked me not to call them unless it's that important. So, it's not like I can call them back as well." John sighed.

"I guess it's that insignificant of an investigation for them." Lonappan shrugged.

"Well, even if they aren't gonna call you back, don't worry. We love your work and will be more than happy to invite you in our small squad." Ponnappan gave out his pleasant looking business smile that swindled a lot of people just like right now.

"Thank you. Those words mean a whole lot more than you think." John gave out an honest smile unlike Ponnappan, which made the commanding officer feel a bit guilty about certain things.

"... Let's go back to our topic shall we?" Lonappan spoke up seeing the unease in Ponnappan's face.

"Let's do that!" Ponnappan hurriedly replied. "So, this image was taken near the said shop a day before the person resurfaced in America. It seemed as if they were waiting to meet up with someone. Any idea who it might be?" Ponnappan asked, clearly indicating the involvement of the Holy Land aliens once again.

"How would I know that? And how the hell do you know that as well. It's a freaking image! How can you decipher something like that from an image?" Lonappan asked.

"Well, it isn't just the image. The camera captures video too, you know? And the video clearly shows that they met up with someone that day. And the next day, he's gone to America trying to steal ships, as if someone spoke to him about it. Weird, isn't it?" Ponnappan asked, while Scarlet silently gulped in the corner as he heard it.

Lonappan knew it. Someone in the Holy Land has involved themselves with Scarlet and gave out a crazy plan to the guy which almost became a success. However, he wasn't ready to just blame it outright on them just yet.

"Hmm, if you're so sure about it, then why not catch the person with whom the robber met up with. I mean, you caught him on the camera, right?" Lonappan asked.

Ponnappan took a deep breath. "Okay, here's the thing. We saw the person but it wasn't clear enough to get the actual person." He replied.

"I have no idea what you mean by that!" Lonappan sighed.

"Well, we couldn't catch him in the camera. I mean, we did… But that was the person's shadow." Ponnappan replied.

"Hmm, how did you know that it was a man. It could also be a woman, you know?" Lonappan spoke.

"It could be. I just used man as a reference." Ponnappan answered.

"Is that so? Fine then. Let's assess the situation. From what you said and what I've seen, we can confirm that the Crimson Robber is in the vicinity—or at least, was in the vicinity. And now we're stuck with no evidence pointing out to where they could be and the one piece of evidence—which could not even be called that, is literally a freaking shadow. I summed it up pretty nicely, right?" Lonappan asked.

#