#castag

Well, her possible transgressions; she glared at her speedometer threateningly. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be erring this close to the speed limit on a speedometer that was close to breaking, but Misaki couldn’t much help herself; not when the authorities in Hatachinaka had called her to personally check on a lead that seemed linked to her own most recent case. It was most effective, after all, to drive precisely as the speed limit delineated. She just had to hope that her own car was not conspiring against her.

Red. Red in her vision, running down the panes of her windows, blaring against the shadows of her hands. Her hands clenched against the steering wheel. Shit. Without waiting for the policeman to direct her -fellow policeman, her mind corrected against her will, and her face reddened violently- Misaki pulled over to the side of the highway, rolling down her window pre-preemptively. She deserved this, for not fixing the damned speedometer sooner. Her purse clinked as she fumbled through it for identification. 

“Ma’am, I’m going to-” 

“I’m on it.” Misaki waved her hand in the officer’s general direction, not even sparing him a glance as she rummaged through her purse. With any luck they could get this over with in the most efficient way possible. Her fingers skated across her police ID- no, definitely not that. She didn’t want to be treated any differently when it came to being handled by the law. 

Misaki turned to produce her civilian ID and car registration to the waiting officer. “I’m really sorry about that- Hei?”

She blinked. Rapidly. Repeatedly. But there he was, clad in her same standard blue shirt, staring at her as though he expected her at any time to physically melt into the earth. 

“Misaki?”

But already she was on the defensive. “What the hell are you doing dressed as a police officer?”

“I-”

“And what the hell are you doing pulling me over?”

Hei scratched the back of his head, a gesture she would have found endearing had it been in the privacy of her own apartment, and not in the glaring noon of the highway sun. She hated the way he was looking at her as though discovering a whole new creature within her, one capable of something so scandalous as a speeding infraction. 

“You were speeding,” Hei said simply. Awkwardly he drew up his radar gun. Where did he get a real radar gun? Had his organization really infiltrated that far into her own? “Nearly 30 kilometers over the limit.”

“Damn,” Misaki said. “My speedometer’s been acting up lately, and on the highway it’s so hard to-” she shook her head, narrowing her eyes at Hei. “That’s not the point. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, or is someone with real jurisdiction going to have to take you in to talk about it?”

There was a long beat before Hei answered. Against her will, Misaki found her eyes scanning the length of his uniform, from the smartly starched collar of his shirt to his dark blue slacks, crisply folded. It gave him the same sharp, classical effect as when he wore his coat, Misaki mused, his hair gently tousled beneath his officer’s cap, and her thoughts took a decidedly dangerous turn.

Hei caught her staring. “I was waiting for a contact,” Hei finally admitted in a low voice, though he wouldn’t catch her eye. She wondered if that had anything to do with how hard she was blushing. “They were supposed to be going 30 kilometers over, in a car similar to yours…”

“Are you saying you thought I was a criminal?” Misaki asked, incredulous. A forbidden thrill coursed through her that she refused to ever, ever verbalize.

Hei looked as though he feared she might shoot him. “Yes?”