#auti stuff

Se was stolen young, too young for sym to remember being whole. Syr hands cannot hold still, always tapping or twisting or waving wildly, no matter what syr parents did. Periodically, se would loose all sense, crying and screaming in a facade of distress with no rhyme or reason. Se could hardly speak, needing to script syr conversations before they actually occurred, or else se would forget syr lines, revealing the truth of the interaction as nothing more than a play at life. When others felt sad or hopeless, when syr mother was crying or syr father panicking over their failed harvest, se felt nothing. Se never felt anything; no joy, no sadness, nothing at all, and syr face reflected that, still and emotionless as the dead.

Despite this, se lived. Villagers parted for sym, whispered as if se couldn’t hear, talked to syr parents as if se wasn’t there - which, to be fair, se might as well not have have been. But still, se went to the market, even if se had a fit right after. Se walked by another house where a mother cried while a father sharpened his knife, their child nowhere to be seen, and se walked past, breathing in a way their baby soon would not. Se walked by the forest, its branches looming, and se walked past, ignoring the graves between its roots.

Once a week, se went to a healer. Syr parents still held hope se might be cured, you see, and even though Netel doubted them sometimes, the healer actually agreed. See, she had explained to syr parents, Netel had made a friend.

The friend in question was the healer’s son, a boy so kind he could almost jolt Netel’s heart from its eternal slumber. They’d played together as children, and now they talked, the healer’s son not minding that Netel could barely speak. With him, Netel almost felt alive. With him, Netel almost believed the healer, that se might be cured some day.

And then, the healer’s son proposed.

He was on his knees, saying he didn’t care se might never be healed, that he loved sym all the same. He was smiling up at sym, giving sym a chance for love other corpses would never even dream of, and se felt nothing.

Later, back home, after having weathered syr former friend’s curses, se looked up at the ceiling. Netel didn’t love. That was abundantly clear, now that se had refused syr only chance to gain it. Se couldn’t love, and that had been syr last hope. Now, se could only wait for the healer to pronounce sym officially dead. Even if se was still breathing, even if se lay in a bed instead of the ground, no one without love could possibly be alive. And there were no feelings to be found in the empty cavern of syr heart.

Well, no feeling but one.

It burned syr chest, a bonfire setting sym aflame. It had smoldered there for as long as se could remember, flames rising every time syr parents cried, every time se saw a new forest grave, every time se saw the tower.

And now, syr last tether to the village had been destroyed. All se had left was this burning hatred for the monster that had stolen syr soul.

When the healer came to syr parents’ house to deliver the sad news, se was already gone.

It was time for someone to kill the monster.

///

In town, there had always been a cacophony of noise; chickens and children screeching, horses and people neighing, bells being rung and carts being pulled over unstable stone roads.

In the forest, there was quiet. Aside from the few birds singing their song (too cheerful for creatures living in the kingdom of a beast), the only noise were leaves cracking under syr heels, the wind rushing through the trees. The smell was different, too; earth, still damp from the rain, smelt fresh and vibrant in a way the village never had. For those first few hours of walking, Netel felt strangely at peace, calm in a way se never had among people.

Then, se realized se couldn’t see the tower.

Even with autumn closing in, the canopy was still thick enough light barely broke through it, and when even the sun couldn’t be seen, there was no hope for the tower. It had never even occurred to Netel that se might have trouble finding syr way. After all, that tower had always been there, and always would. It was preposterous to think that se might not be able to see it.

And yet, se could not.

The rush of the wind was suddenly incredibly loud, syr clothes rough against syr skin in a way they hadn’t been before. Se rolled up syr sleeves, but it wasn’t enough, the phantom feeling of cotton still lingering, and so se scratched. Distantly, se recognized that this was bad, but the hurt was the only thing that felt real anymore, and so se scratched and scratched and then se was screaming, syr was burning and still se screamed and screamed and screamed -

Slowly, slowly, se came back to syrself. Se was still here, still in the forest, syr pants damp from kneeling on the ground, the birds still chirping. Syr arms and throat burned, and, distantly, se realized se had a fit. Because se couldn’t see the tower.

Brilliant.

It was easier to find syr calm here, though. In the village, people kept pulling at sym, talking to sym, and se could not tell them that se needed them to stop. There were no judgmental gazes or loud voices or rough hands here; there was just the wet leaves and quiet birdsong, and it was easier.

Se ate a little. Not much, se needed to ration for syr journey after all, but enough that se felt like se could stop shaking. It was late; the sun was setting. Perhaps se could sleep tonight, and try to find a way to the tower tomorrow. Just to rest a little bit.

There was no-one to stop sym, and so se rested.

The next morning, se went looking for water. After a while, se heard the rush of water, and se found a stream, its water running fast, splashing up against the rocks. Se drank to syr heart’s content, and looked up.

The tower.

Along the shore of the stream, the trees had cleared away, leaving the tower clearly visible against the blue morning sky.

Se laughed.

It would be alright.

For a week, se followed the river, accompanied by the fish swimming in the stream, the water rushing against the rocks, the smell of morning dew. No matter how close se came to the tower, the forest remained peaceful, bright in the clearing of the river, the birds as happy and calm as ever. It was hard not to be taken in by it, and more than once, Netel felt syrself relax against syr better knowledge. But se must not rest, must not falter; se had a monster to kill.

And finally, finally, se reached the tower.

It rose higher than se ever imagined, old and weathered, the ivy climbing up against it almost making it seem like a part of the woods. Windows set along the walls, but Netel could not see anyone - or rather, anything - inside; just darkness. There was no evil aura coming from the building, or any at all, in fact; it seemed like just another house, if an overly tall one.

And, to Netel’s surprise, it had a door. Wooden, normal, on ground level, easily pushed open.

Carefully, knife raised, se stepped inside.

Se hadn’t quite known what to expect. Maybe an infinite number of red eyes, staring at sym from the darkness; the sound of claws scraping over stone; animal corpses strewn across the stairs, dripping blood onto the floor, the smell of rot inescapable.

Instead, se found dust. Dust covering the hallways, so deep that se left footprints in it like se did in snow. It got in syr nose as se breathed the air, which smelt not of decay, but of stale parchment, with perhaps a whiff of mold. Syr footsteps echoed through the tower; otherwise, it was dead silent.

Se followed the stairs up, and found rooms. Normal, human rooms, covered in spider webs and yet more dust. The furniture was old and often molding, the books nearly falling apart, but they spoke of people who had lived here, once upon a time. Scholars, perhaps, if the sheer amount of dried-up ink was anything to go by.

But nowhere was a beast. There was nothing waiting in the shadows, nothing hiding in the silence, no monster living in the tower.

At long last, se reached the final room. From the top of the tower, se could see the valley, its forest and its villages, the mountains that cut them off from the outside world, the stream that had guided sym here. The breeze was cool, the sun low in the sky, its last rays hitting the window se was standing in.

A bird landed next to sym. It looked up at sym, cocking its head, hopped a little closer to syr hand, then flew away. Se watched it until se could no longer, and then, se fell to syr knees.

There was no monster living in the tower. It was old, abandoned by time and people, but there was no monster stealing children.

Anger burned in syr chest, brighter, more destructive than ever before. There was no monster. All those graves had been for children, innocent and alive, not shells or living dead. And se had walked past them, nearly every day; se had ignored the knives being sharpened, ignored the children doomed to die behind their house’s walls.

Se was one of the lucky ones, and se had been dragged to a healer every week of syr life, to be prodded and examined like an animal, talked about as if se was lifeless, stolen, despised by everyone around sym. And why? Why had they murdered, abused their children?

There was no monster living in the tower. There were graves outside the villages, knives being sharpened, people convinced that they were living dead. But there was no monster in the tower.

A ray of sunlight hit syr face.

Perhaps there should be.

///

There lives a monster in the tower. This was a fact well known to the people of the valley. It steals your children on the darkest of nights, climbing into homes and taking them from their beds. Once upon a time, it had been content to take their souls, but now, it took their bodies too. The people let it; they remembered the husks it used to leave behind, and considered that perhaps, this was a monster’s version of kindness.

Nobody dared enter the woods, the domain of the monster; this had not changed. If they had, if they had walked far enough and found a little stream, they might’ve seen clothes drying from the trees, heard the sound of children laughing, saw a vegetable garden in a clearing.

The tower was no longer empty. It was filled with people, children young, once doomed for death, and a few adults as well, who had been called the living dead. The rooms were cleared of dust and spider webs, the ink replaced, the books rebound. The sunlight seemed brighter than ever before, and in the morning, the birds arrived, knowing they could expect freshly cooked bread.

A quick sweep of the surrounding area provided little clues, aside from the slightly tilted door handle proving that someone had indeed picked the lock and walked in while he was showering. However, that did not narrow the suspect pool down in the slightest. He was in the middle of a police station, specifically working with the task force of a master thief renowned for dirty tricks; the odds of someone in his immediate vicinity knowing how to pick a lock were disproportionately high.

He could probably rule out Inspector Nakamori. While the man was as dim-witted as they come, he had a clear sense of honor and duty not often seen among officers. It was unlikely he’d stoop to the level of petty bullying; if he had a problem with Hakuba, he’d simply yell it at him, as he’d proven time and time again.

That said, it was exceedingly unlikely that he’d side with Hakuba over someone from his own task force. He was not well-liked, and therefore, he’d receive no help.

Not that he needed it. He was Britain’s youngest detective, rivaled in Japan by only a few. If he couldn’t even deduce who’d stolen his watch, he might as well retire to the country side right now.

He could feel the watch’s absence, as absurd and illogical as it was, taunting him from his pocket. Absently, he scratched his wrist, feeling his nails gauge the skin, leaving red gashes in their wake.

The first order of business would have to be narrowing down the suspect pool. He could hardly do a thorough examination everyone’s desks without getting caught, so he’d have to limit his search to those most likely to have committed the crime.

There was a bang on the door, and Hakuba startled.

“Yo, kid! How long you gonna be in there?” Nakamori’s voice called through the door.

How late was it? Out of habit, he almost reached into his pocket, before remembering the current circumstances and aborting the motion. It was hard to breathe, and his nails dug deeper into his arm.

He forced himself to take a deep breath despite the dam in his chest. Calm down.

“I’ll be right out,” he called back, and went to get dressed.

///

Narrowing down suspects proved to be about as difficult as expected, taken into account that a) no-one in the police station was fond of Hakuba, and b) all cops were varying degrees of bastards. But, finally, he managed to land on three key suspects: Hashimoto Takashi, new to the corps and therefore having something to prove; Fujiwara Akane, who had been accused of theft before, although the charges had been dropped; and Yamamoto Ken, who had been smirking at him for the past three days in an extremely smug fashion.

With the primary suspects nailed down, he went to work.

For some reason, people never even so much as considered the possibility that Hakuba might have some dubiously legal skills. People usually perceived him as an overly rigid rule-follower, and while Hakuba acknowledged he had a tendency to be somewhat inflexible, he was not exactly what you’d call a ‘rule-follower’. The law, while necessarily, was often flawed and illogical, and if the rules made it more difficult for him to do his job, he had no qualms ignoring them.

Regardless, his reputation for being a stickler to the rules meant that no-one had bothered to make any precautions against their desk being lock-picked and their phones being hacked. An oversight, of course; if you’re going to commit a crime, at least have the decency of covering it up properly. Especially if your target is a genius detective.

Neither Hashimoto’s nor Fujiwara’s desk contained anything out of the ordinary, and while both of their texts contained copious amounts of complaining about him, that was not a crime and did not in and off itself implicate them in theft.

Yamamoto’s phone, however, contained some very interesting messages indeed. He was in a small groupchat with some other officers, and he’d been making vague remarks about an ‘upcoming show’ and ‘the best prank in ages’ ever since the day Hakuba’s watch had gotten stolen. He backed up those messages to his own phone; it might prove to be important later.

His desk, however, contained no incriminating evidence, let alone the pocket watch. It should not have come as a surprise, and yet, he had to stop himself from breaking the drawer in two.

He had back-up watches, obviously, other models he could use in emergencies. Right now, a nice brown electric watch sat on his wrists. It was perfectly serviceable and of decent quality, and yet, it felt wrong. Too heavy on his wrist, always somehow managing to be in his line of sight, drawing attention to its obnoxious flickering numbers; every time he saw it, it became harder and harder to push away the panic that always threatened to overwhelm him.

He shoved the drawer closed, careful not to make too much noise. Then, he walked away, his hands shoved in his pocket so that no-one could see the way his nails clawed at the palm of his hands.

///

There was another heist that night. Unusually close to the previous one; KID preferred to have more time to plan out his tricks, but it seemed that dyeing Hakuba’s hair hadn’t needed much preparation. So, another heist.

KID was after the Red Haze this time, a 22 carat Burmese ruby. The owner, an old collector named Nakamura, had been most cooperative with the police, thankfully. Hakuba was crammed together with the rest of the task force in the display room, roughly ten minutes before the start of the heist.

He was panicking. He didn’t know why, but he was panicking. It was a struggle to get his breath under control, his fingers itched with the need to move, and when he turned to check the time the sense of wrongness was so profound it strangled him.

“Hey, Hakuba,” Yamamoto whispered. He bit his tongue to stop himself from yelling. He hadn’t noticed him get so close. Sloppy. Unusually sloppy.

He tried to focus on Yamamoto, but everything seemed hazy. He didn’t know how many minutes they had until the start of the heist, and he couldn’t bring himself to check. He needed to focus on Yamamoto. It might be important.

Yamamoto’s next words filtered through like he was underwater. “Guess what I have?”

In his hands was Hakuba’s pocket watch.

It took him one, two, three seconds to process what he was seeing, before he made a grab for it.

He missed. Through the fog, he realized that was strange, and then he remembered Yamamoto was tall; tall enough to keep anything out of Hakuba’s reach. It didn’t stop him from trying to get at it, jumping in an attempt to reach the chain, and that didn’t seem like something he should be doing, there might be laughing from above the water, but it didn’t matter, there was only one thing that mattered and it -

Was broken on the ground, shattered to little pieces.

Yamamoto was grinning, and ugly, smug smile, and the laughing had gotten louder. Hakuba stared at the remains of his watch, and someone was saying something, but the words were absolutely meaningless, he couldn’t understand them, couldn’t process anything except pain and panic and broken gears and a wide smirk -

Something was wrong. Distantly, he recognized this. His throat hurt, open and screaming, the sounds around him too loud, there were lights on now even though they weren’t before, his body was moving on its own, his hands making contact with something and doing it again and again and again, until he was pulled back by other hands, and still he was screaming and screaming and screaming -

A pair of hands pulled him along, and he tried to claw on them but it didn’t seem to be doing anything, the texture of their skin was off, somehow, but he couldn’t place it, and the lights were off now, and there was quiet. The hands let go, and he tried to follow them, because he needed to hit something, to scratch and hurt something, it was the only thing calming him right now, so he turned to himself, scratching and hitting and screaming. The pain felt real, at least.

And slowly, he calmed down.

There was no new input, nothing to exacerbate his current state, just him and his movements and his pain, and so steadily, the panic sunk and his head grew clearer.

It really was quiet. He wasn’t in the display room anymore; instead it was a smaller one, with a large bed in the corner and soft carpet under his hands. Probably Nakamura’s bedroom. Strange. They hadn’t been allowed in here, nor had they any reason to enter, for that matter. He shouldn’t be here. How had he gotten here?

Then he noticed a bright white blur among the darkness and - ah. The heist had started, then. Sadly, Hakuba was in no state to play mind games, and had no energy to arrest anyone, and so, he just sat back against the wall, closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

“You okay?” KID asked, something like worry in his voice. Fuck, this was embarrassing.

Not trusting himself to talk, Hakuba waved a hand. Not the most efficient method of communication, but it would have to do for now. Thankfully, KID seemed to get the message, because he shut up and let Hakuba figure himself out in the calm.

After a precise 300 seconds (he counted), he felt well enough to speak.

“As much as I can be after a meltdown,” he finally replied, proud of himself for not flinching back at the sound of his own voice. “Don’t you have a gem to steal?”

“Already did.” KID flashed the Red Haze between his fingers, and ah, yes, perhaps Hakuba should have suspected that. Not that he was up to doing anything about it. Speaking was enough of a challenge right now. “What was that, detective? You do not strike me as the type to lose control.”

Hakuba rubbed his face with one hand and petted the carpet with the other. It really was soft, and he could use some grounding right now. “A meltdown, in the context of neurodiversity, is a way autistic people react to an overload of stress, sensory input, fear, or other negative emotions. They are uncontrollable and can be quite extreme. I am not the type of ‘lose control’, but my brain does not always cooperate with me.”

KID cocked his head. “You’re autistic.”

“Yes. And I would appreciate not finding that rumor spread through the school tomorrow, Kuroba.”

“I am not this Kuroba person you seem to know, but if I were, I’m sure I’d be offended by the insinuation I’d betray your trust for a cheap laugh.”

“Well, just in case, you should know I have a 20000 word essay on why you likely have ADHD, and I am not afraid to use it.”

“Wait, you have a - Nevermind, I’ll steal it later.” KID waved his hand. “Either way, I’m assuming removing you from the source of the stressor was the right course of action?”

“It was, although I would advice against grabbing people if at all possible.” And then, through gritted teeth and with a near insurmountable loss of pride: “Thank you.”

“Don’t think too hard about it, detective.” KID threw the Red Haze into the air, catching it with nimble fingers before tossing it at Hakuba. “You can have the ruby back.”

“How gracious.”

KID shrugged. “Saves me the trouble of returning it later. And besides, stealing is no fun with your critics incapacitated.”

He gave one of his patented, overly dramatic bows, and with a “Take care, detective,” he was gone, vanishing out a window Hakuba hadn’t even noticed yet.

It was another half hour before he could bring himself to make the trek back to the task force.

///

As expected, there was a talk, afterwards.

Nakamori’s desk was messy, paperwork and candy wrappers strewn indiscriminately across the bureau, the only clean corner containing a picture of him and Aoko. Hakuba also noted another three pictures of her taped to his laptop. It seemed like the kind of thing Aoko might like to know, just to remind her that her father did, indeed, care.

Nakamori himself sat back in his desk, looking tired and annoyed in equal measure, rubbing his temples.

They’d been here for an hour now, Nakamori interrogating him on what happened under the guise of ‘wanting to hear his side of the story’. Hakuba hadn’t bothered to explain anything. It wouldn’t help, anyway.

“You know I can’t let you get away with this, right?” Nakamori asked. “If you refuse to give me any damn explanation, I’m going to have to report this to your father. Probably gonna have to do that anyway.”

Hakuba’s fingers curled around the chair’s arm, but he said nothing.

“Yamamoto might press charges.”

He snorted. As if his father would let that happen. Couldn’t have his precious reputation damaged by a criminal son.

Nakamori glared. “You think this is funny? You broke his fucking jaw, Hakuba.”

“And?”

It was the first thing he’d said all hour, and he wasn’t sure why he’d opened his mouth. His fingers were rasping against the wood, and there was something hot in his chest. Anger, he recognized. He’d been angry for days, perhaps even longer, and he was still too out of it to hold back this long. Great.

Well, if he was on his way out anyway, might as well make it a show.

“And?” Nakamori repeated, incredulous. “Do I need to tell you why you should feel guilty for breaking a man’s jaw? Really?”

“Guilty? I should feel guilty?” And oh yeah, he was angry, hot and boiling and it spilled over into his words. “Yamamoto steals my watch with the express purpose of using it to humiliate and hurt me in front of his friends - if not the entire task force - during a Kaitou KID Heist, and I should feel guilty for retaliating?”

Nakamori blinked and opened his mouth to say something, but Hakuba continued on, bulldozing over his next words. “Am I supposed to feel sorry that his plan had some unforeseen negative consequences? He knew perfectly well that I would not react calmly to him smashing my pocket watch, and this was, in fact, the whole entire reason he decided to do it in the first place, and now I’m supposed to feel sorry that I reacted somewhat stronger than he planned? With all due respect, Inspector Nakamori, fuck off. He reaped exactly what he sowed.”

Nakamori leaned forward, blowing out a deep breath through his nose. “Even if what you say is true, which I highly doubt, considering the fact that I’ve known Yamamoto for years and he has never done anything like that, that isn’t a damn reason to get into a fistfight. You should have come to me -”

“And what? What would you have done?” Hakuba’s hand slammed on the desk, and Nakamori flinched back, startled. “I come to you and say ‘Inspector Nakamori, my watch has been stolen’, and what would you do?”

“I would have launched an investigation -”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Hakuba cut him off. “You would have rolled your eyes and told me that I probably just lost it, that it’s just a watch, that I don’t need to be so melodramatic or make any false accusations. So then I would have decided to do my own investigation, which is exactly what I did anyway, and I would have found evidence that Yamamoto was likely responsible.”

Nakamori opened his mouth, but Hakuba ignored him. “So then I try again, and I come to you with the evidence, but it’s not watertight, so once again, you just roll your eyes. You tell me that you will talk to Yamamoto, after which you call me back into the office to say that Yamamoto denied the accusations and you feel inclined to believe him due to the fact that you’ve ‘known him for years’, and you tell me once again not to make any false accusations.”

He took a deep breath. “And then tonight happens, and it goes the exact same way it did now, and you will tell me that I reacted too strongly and that I will be removed from the case, as you are doing right now.”

Hakuba sat back, and went through the effort of looking Nakamori straight in the eyes. “Tell me, Inspector, exactly what would have changed if I had come to you? Why should I have bothered?”

A silence fell as he stared down Nakamori, the ticking of the clock louder than it ought to be.

Nakamori broke first. “You have evidence?”

“Text messages illegally obtained, not admissible in court,” Hakuba confirmed. “I’ll send them to you, in case you’re interested in maintaining your facade of objectivity.”

Hakuba stood up. “In the meantime, I will be expecting my official dismissal by Friday. I can see myself out.”

And just like that, he walked away.

///

He spent the next day finding ways he could circumvent the task force’s grip on the KID case. Sneaking into heists might be difficult, but it would not be impossible. Probably. Hopefully.

(Hakuba wasn’t that good at disguises, or at least, not at KID’s level, which is what the security around the heists was counting on. He may actually have to ask Kuroba for tips, but that would be an absolute last resort. He did still have a sliver of pride left.)

Either way, he could definitely hack into their database and read their reports, but it wouldn’t be the same. This case had just gotten significantly harder.

At 4AM, he finally fell asleep at his bureau. When he woke up, he found the carefully hidden physical copy of his KID/Kuroba ADHD essay stolen (to be expected and no disaster; he still had numerous digital copies he could print at any moment) and a brand new pocket watch on his pillow. It was silver, with little movable doves decorating the case.

Hakuba spent precisely eleven minutes and fourteen seconds playing with them, and he smiled.

///

By Friday, he did not receive his dismissal, as he had expected. Instead, he received another invitation to talk to Nakamori.

Strange. Perhaps Nakamori wished to deliver the news in person.

Either way, come Monday, he showed up at the task force once more. As he walked to Nakamori’s office, people kept their distance, whispering from the sidelines. Hakuba didn’t care. It wasn’t like he’d have to work with these people again.

He sat in the exact same chair he’d sat last week, and noted, with some perverse pride, that his nails had made little indents in it.

Nakamori was not usually that difficult to read; he wore his heart on his sleeve and was not afraid to speak his mind. That made him easier to deal with than most other people, and although his loud nature grated on Hakuba, it was something he’d always, on some level appreciated.

Today, however, Hakuba couldn’t get a good read on him. He was sitting straight in his chair, unusually professional, and his face was blank. Or, maybe the expression on it was just too subtle for Hakuba to read. That was a distinct possibility too.

Either way, it was unsettling. Hakuba reached into his coat pocket and traced the doves on his new watch.

“So,” Nakamori started. “I called your father.”

Naturally.

“He explained that you’ve gotten into fights with officers before, and basically threatened to end my career if I decided to remove you from the case.”

Hakuba closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Expected, but no less annoying.

“Not that I give a shit about any of that. Not the first time my job has been in peril, and it won’t be the last. I wish them good fucking luck trying to find a replacement for me.”

Hakuba barely managed to hold back a laugh. Nakamori had proven time and time again to be by far the most suited to leading the task force, and KID had proven time and time again he wouldn’t tolerate anyone else. Nakamori was right to be unafraid. His father had no power here.

“But the fact that this apparently wasn’t the first time you snapped and decked a guy did make me curious, so I did a bit of digging.” Hakuba’s surprise must have shown on his face, because Nakamori shot him an irritated glare. “Don’t look so shocked, you’re not the only detective in the room. There’s a reason I got this job in the first place.”

Hakuba inclined his head, contrite, and Nakamori continued. “Anyway. I did some digging, and found out that this is pretty routine for you. You work with the police, you deck a guy, you get about as fired as a high school detective can get, rinse and repeat. Kind of a weird pattern, considering the massive stick up your ass. Since it seemed out of character for you to just attack someone for no reason, I assume that all instances of that were caused by similar situations as this one?”

“Does it matter?” he scoffed.

“It does, actually.” Nakamori leaned forward on his desk. “You seemed pretty certain I wouldn’t have done a damn thing for you, and to be honest, you were right. I don’t like you. I do like Yamamoto - or I did, at least. It would’ve been way easier for me to just wave you off, so I probably would’ve.”

Hakuba sat back, blinking. Well. At least he admitted it.

“And I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what happened with the others, too.”

Nakamori looked at him, and a beat too late, Hakuba realized he was expected to answer. He nodded. “Yes, although I fail to see how this is relevant.”

Nakamori rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s relevant because it explains why you didn’t come to me in the first place, and it’s relevant because it shows that this situation is as much my fault as it is yours.”

Hakuba’s hand slid off the watch, the doves’ cool metal replaced by cotton under his fingers. “What?”

Nakamori glared. “I said, it’s my fault as much as it’s yours. As leader of the task force, it’s my job to take these kinds of matters seriously, and I wouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have made you feel like you can’t turn to me for help, and I definitely shouldn’t have been playing favourites, and I’m sorry for that. I should have done better, and I’ll try to do so in the future.”

Hakuba opened his mouth. Closed it again. Repeated the process. He should be saying something, but he was at a loss for words.

“Stop imitating a fish, dipshit,” Nakamori snapped. “Either way, you still broke a guy’s jaw, and I can’t let that slide. Although I can’t suspend you, considering the fact that you’re not actually an officer, I’m removing you from the case for the next three months and refusing you access to the heists. Also, if you pull a stunt like this again, I’ll be kicking you out properly. Just come to me next time, and I promise I’ll take your concerns seriously. No more vigilante justice, understood?”

“What about Yamamoto?” he managed to ask.

“Your evidence was obtained illegally, and not something that would hold up in court anyway, so therefore, it’s not something I can use to level any serious charges against him. However, his messages did imply rather heavily that your accusations were valid. Although your retaliation was far too extreme, childish bullying in the manner displayed by Yamamoto is not something that I’ll tolerate in my task force. As such, I requested for him to be transferred to another department. Hopefully that, and his time in the hospital, will teach him to behave in the future.”

Nakamori leaned back in his chair. “Now, I’ll ask you again: no more vigilante justice, understood?”

Although this barely felt real, Hakuba nodded. “Understood.”

“Good.” Nakamori waved a hand. “Now get out of here, and don’t let me see you for another three months.”

Outside, Baaya was waiting with the car. He watched he houses flash by as she drove him home, still somewhat dazed. He’d have to jump through some hoops for the next three months, but he wasn’t removed from the case permanently. Someone other than him had faced consequences. Nakamori had taken responsibility and apologized.