“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” The masked woman before him hisses with a smile, turning his head to the side forcefully as she pins him back against the wall. “I could make hundreds off you, with the right buyer.”

The fog in his head following the collision doesn’t make it easy, but he goes for a clever quip anyway. “Not quite your demographic, am I?”

“Not my type, no, but I know plenty of people who would put you up for a good amount.”

“I’d suggest a raincheck, but something tells me in thirty years when you get out of prison I won’t be the top of your list anymore.”

The woman’s lips curl into a sneer. “You haven’t caught me yet,” she taunts, lifting him by the collar and shoving him back against the wall again.

Ryousuke lets his head fall to the side. “On the contrary,” he says, his eyes shifting to a spot over her shoulder.

She looks back instinctively, and Ryousuke takes that opportunity to slip his second gun from its concealed holster and dig the barrel into her abdomen. She freezes at the sound of the revolver clicking into place. “You run, I shoot,” he hisses in her ear. “You attack, I shoot. If you understand, step back with your hands up slowly.”

She huffs a laugh, raising her hands and turning slowly, her eyes shadowed by the mask. “That might work on your usual customers, Doctor,” she says. Ryousuke’s finger weights against the trigger threateningly; her fingertips start to glow. “But you’re forgetting that I don’t need a weapon to take out cheap assets like you.”

Before either of them can fire, an explosion of sound thunders through the alley, and suddenly the woman is gone.

Scratch that–the woman is on the opposite end of the alley, pinned up against a wall with her hands cuffed behind her back, gritting her teeth against a mouthful of cement as Kuramochi burnishes the side of a building with her cheek. “Lady, you gotta death wish or something? What part of gun-to-the-gut don’t you understand?”

She snarls in response as the district’s law enforcement catches up to the scene, and Kuramochi hands her off to the head neutralizer. Ryousuke sighs and reholsters his revolver, walking a few meters over to where his standard issue pistol sits on the asphalt. As he bends down to pick it up, a firm hand comes down enthusiastically on his shoulder.

“Check pyromaniac-human-trafficker off the bucket list of crazy people I’m glad we put away,” Kuramochi chirps, shifting his weight side to side to rid himself of the excess energy that’s undoubtedly still in his system after his impressive show of speed. “You know, I feel like pyrokinetics always end up on the insane spectrum somehow.”

“‘Insane’ is a strictly legal term,” Ryousuke replies, looking over his coat for tears or stains. One of the too-common side effects of working a gritty job like the JAF. “But if you’re referring to how a high percentage of pyrokinetics tend to end up as arsonists, you should take into consideration that adolescents have a tendency to start accidental fires that skew the data meant for fires ignited with intent.” Looks like his clothes have been spared this time, if not his skull. That’s fine; bruises heal for free–clothes cost money.

Kuramochi shakes his head in fond exasperation. “Don’t suppose you know the exact percentage, while you're at it?”

Ryousuke straightens his collar, and Kuramochi falls into step with him as he sets off down the street. “Do you mean the fact that 42.65 percent of property fires occur within an average .5 mile radius of a pyrokinetic as of 2017, or that only 67.821 percent of those were legally designated intentional acts of arson by the judiciary?”

Kuramochi scoffs. “Right. Why do I even try anymore?”

Ryousuke offers him a sideways smile. “I’m not sure what you take me for, Kuramochi.”

“Most days? A pain in the ass.”

“I think you mean the one who saves your ass,” Ryousuke quips, folding his hands behind his back. They leave the alley and exit onto the main street, slipping through the police blockade and into the throng of civilians watching anxiously. They garner a few stares; they’re not the most discreet duo of assets, with Ryousuke’s pink hair and Kuramochi’s electric glare, but they’re thankfully nowhere near as popular as someone like Tetsu. The ‘Man of Steel,’ as he’s called, is a high-profile asset and the functioning captain of their team. Assets like him can barely walk down the street without someone recognizing them.

“In what world?” Kuramochi replies with a laugh. “She would’a toasted you back there if it wasn’t for me!”

“You know a gun works just as well, for disarming people,” Ryousuke reasons. “I don’t need to be able to shoot lightning from my fingers to stop a criminal.”

Kuramochi wrinkles his nose in distaste. “You make me sound so cliché,” he says.

“That’s because you are cliché,” Ryousuke answers. “The only person more cliché than you is fire-hands back there.”

Kuramochi sniffs as they reach the bus stop. Ryousuke pulls out his phone, checking for any word from Kataoka. “Whatever,” he grumbles. Then he glances up at the bus schedule and groans. “We gotta wait eight minutes just for this thing to show? You know I can get us back to base in less time than that, right?”

Ryousuke hums acknowledgement. “No offense, but I don’t really feel like getting my synapses fried right now. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Kuramochi rolls his eyes. “Suit yourself, Doc. I’ll see you back there, yeah?” He doesn’t wait for an answer to bolt, burning the air with the smell of ozone in his wake. Ryousuke takes a deep breath, savoring the tingling sensation that raises the hairs on his arms every time Kuramochi does that.

He’s relieved to be left alone. Not that he doesn’t enjoy Kuramochi’s company–they’ve been partners for a year now, and that kind of time tends to build a codependent fondness between people–but sometimes the constant jump from criminal to criminal wears him out socially, and he just needs a moment to breathe.

It can be exhausting, keeping up with assets all the time. Nobody makes a big deal out of it anymore, but when he first joined the team some people had their reservations. It’s not every day that someone with no special ability joins Japan’s special forces, much less the distinguished Asset Force. But he’s worked to get here his whole life, and he’s not about to start complaining about things being hard now.

It’s still debated whether an eidetic memory can be considered an asset rather than an irregularity, or if speed reading really counts as an ability. One thing that can’t be debated, however, is that Ryousuke has used both to get himself where he is today, and with two PhDs to his name, he can safely say he’s doing a little better than ordinary.

He slouches into a seat on the bus as soon as it reaches his stop. There’s a headache behind his eyes that he’s been staving off all week, and now that the adrenaline of his encounter earlier is starting to wear off it finds itself at the forefront of his attention once again. He closes his eyes and leans his head back, enjoying the white noise of the bus in motion. He sighs through his nose. He could really use a day off.

His work phone vibrates in his pocket, and he suppresses a groan as he pulls it out to check the message.

Kataoka: Good work subduing the subject. I have Takako on paperwork–you and Kuramochi have another debriefing in an hour.

Of course. There’s never a day off with this job. Well, okay, there are days off, but acknowledging that detracts from his preferential execution of hyperbole, so he’ll pretend there aren’t. But rhetorical devices can only do so much to improve his mood, and he knows from experience he’s better off sucking it up and getting over it. At the very least, he hopes their next investigation goes by quickly.

–– ––

Youichi kicks his feet up on the conference table, nearly toppling Miyuki’s coffee in the process. “Watch it, man!” Miyuki snaps, snatching the cup up off the coaster before it spills. Jun’s binder isn’t as lucky, precariously perched on the edge as it is, and it topples, throwing his case files everywhere.

“Oh, shit,” Youichi mumbles. Jun whirls around as if on instinct, a shout of outrage already halfway out his throat, only to find the papers suspended in place. In the seat next to Youichi, Miyuki shoots him a smirk. Slowly, the toppled binder reverses its fall, the papers re-aligning themselves into their respective folders. Jun calms himself, shaking his head with a growl.

“No matter how many times I see it, I’ll never get used to it,” he mutters.

Miyuki adjusts his glasses with a grin. “Time’s a tricky thing,” he replies coyly. Jun snickers, and Miyuki glances down at the watch on his wrist. “Speaking of,” he says, looking up around the office. “Where’s your boyfriend? Weren’t you supposed to be babysitting him on that case?”

Youichi frowns. “Not my boyfriend,” he snaps, “and I don’t babysit him.”

Miyuki presses his lips together, raising his coffee to his mouth. “Could’a fooled me,” he says just before taking a sip. He, Jun and Youichi exchange a series of raised-eyebrow glances. Youichi breaks the silent conversation with a huff and a shake of his head.

“Whatever dude. He wanted to take the bus back to base. He’ll be here in like, fifteen minutes.”

Miyuki glances at his watch again. “Well, your briefing starts in ten, and it’s kind of his job to be here. You know, in the office. With the intel.”

Youichi’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, and it’s also his job to be out there, in the field. You know, with the bad guys.”

Miyuki gives him the sort of not-so-nonchalant nonchalant shrug that tells Youichi just how much Miyuki agrees with him. Youichi frowns, folding his arms and eyeing Miyuki across the table. “Why do you give so much of a fuck whether he’s on time or not? You ‘n Sawamura are late every other day. For a guy who can manipulate time, I’d say that’s a pretty ironic problem.”

Miyuki heaves a sigh at the thought of his less-than-professional partner. “Sawamura’s got his own share of excuses to go around. I’m stuck cleaning up after him half the time. Do you know how many times I’ve had to rewind after he’s blown up half the building? You should all be grateful you don’t remember it.”

“I’d be even more grateful if you two would stop bickering so I can work,” Jun grumbles, turning a page on his report.

Miyuki snorts. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he jokes. Jun shoots him a glare to shut him up.

Ryousuke shows up five minutes later, somehow defying the bus schedule and arriving on time like he always does. Miyuki shoots him the innocent smile-and-wave combo he always uses to conceal the fact that he’s been saying asshole things, and in return Ryousuke gives him the standard thin-lipped-narrow-eyed grin that says all the scathing things he’s preventing himself from saying in a professional environment.

“Any idea what this case is on yet?” Ryousuke asks, sitting down next to Youichi and pulling out a small, pocket-sized copy of some foreign novel.

“None,” Youichi admits with a sigh, leaning back in his seat. “I’m thinking we deserve a break after this one, though. Brass has been running Squad A into the ground.”

“It is in our job description to be ready for dispatch at all times,” Ryousuke points out, but the weight behind his comment lets Youichi know that he could use a break too.

“Still, you'd think they'd let B and C Squads pull their own weight every now and then. What are they even paid for anymore?”

“Fortunately for you,” another voice chimes in from the doorway, surprising Youichi into swinging his legs off the table and sitting up straight. “B and C Squads do the majority of your paperwork, so you can be ready for action at any time.”

“R-right, of course,” Youichi says, bowing his head in embarrassment. Oh god, of course Kataoka walks in right as he says that.

Next to him, Ryousuke’s suppressing a laugh. (Maybe it's not all so bad.)

Miyuki and Jun recognize their cue to leave as Kataoka turns on the projector and leans against the table. Takako ducks in a moment later with manila folders for the three of them. Youichi opens his up to discover a copy of files from the Tokyo police department, paperclipped to several crime scene photos. Kataoka pulls the same photos up on the screen.

“Alright everyone,” Takako sighs, looking tired as she observes the gory images on the screen. “Let’s get into it.”

— —

Ryousuke wishes the mission read more cut-and-dry. Drug cartel jobs featuring poor assets typically wind up being the simpler cases: easy to find, easy to prove, easy to stop. But for all the information the collective Tokyo Metropolitan PD has gathered between districts over time, Ryousuke and Kuramochi really don’t have much to go off of.

“You’d think they’d’ve caught the guys by now with how many informants they’ve got undercover in the field,” Kuramochi says as he flips the turn signal on the government-issue SUV they’re in.

Ryousuke crosses his leg over the other as he turns to read the too-broad list of possible offenders. “Well, if they have to call us, I’m not surprised. You know how the police get when dealing with assets. It can be terrifying without the proper tools or training to go up against someone with unknown abilities.”

Kuramochi hums a concession, taking a right turn too fast (not that Ryousuke really notices his constant speeding anymore). “Fair enough. Still, they could’a narrowed down the suspect pool a little. I hate having to do their job.”

“Makes two of us,” Ryousuke sighs, turning to the crime scene photos. What caught the attention of the government initially were the serial murders that later became associated with the case. Three victims, two men and a woman, all lying face down in public areas without any indication as to how they got there in the first place. Takako had pointed out something that got him thinking in the debriefing room. He twists the ring on his little finger absentmindedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kuramochi’s gaze flicker toward him.

“What’re you thinking?” he asks, speeding up to catch a yellow light. Ryousuke stops turning the ring as soon as he becomes aware of the action.

“The victims are all missing the little fingers on their right hands. The third victim is missing her ring finger as well.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Kuramochi replies. “Takako said that’s most likely a yakuza habit, right?”

Ryousuke frowns. “Yes, but yubitsume tradition dictates that the left hand’s little finger is shortened first, then the right. The left hand is avoided altogether here, moving right onto the ring finger on the right hand in the woman’s case.” He studies the bloodied stumps as well as he can in the grainy photos. It’s no use; he’ll have to stop by the coroner later. “I’d say this is more of a cheap adaptation of yubitsume, tailored to a modern-day purpose.”

Kuramochi checks his mirrors as he changes lanes. “Which is..?”

Ryousuke furrows his brow in thought. “If I had to make an extremely well-educated estimate,” he starts, earning a snort from Kuramochi. “I’d guess that all of these people are right-handed, and that the fingers are cut off to make it harder for them to hold a handgun, as opposed to a sword.”

Kuramochi nods slowly. “That makes sense,” he says. “So it’s not yakuza?”

Ryousuke shakes his head. “We shouldn’t rule anything out completely, but I doubt it.”

They fall into thoughtful silence as Ryousuke continues to look over the file for any more telling information. It’s been a while since the two of them have worked a serial case. Every now and then Jun or Tanba or someone will ask for his input when they’re out of ideas, but it’s a little different to be the head investigators. Not that Kataoka doesn’t have his reasons for keeping the two of them on call instead of on the front lines lately.

The ring on his little finger feels warmer than usual.

Almost like he can read his mind, Kuramochi speaks up just then. “Ryou-san,” he says, carefully, like there’s something lying underneath the quiet between them that he’s worried might shatter if he speaks too fast. “You know you don’t have to prove anything.”

Ryousuke pretends not to understand him. “Of course not, Kuramochi,” he says haughtily. “Miyuki’s full of hot air, and I know I’m good at my job.”

Kuramochi takes the hint and doesn’t correct him. Ryousuke’s grateful, because he doesn’t think he could get into it with Kuramochi right now.

He doesn’t understand; Ryousuke does need to prove himself. Not to Miyuki, or Kataoka or any of the others, but to himself. To his family.

To his brother.

–– ––

They make it to the most recent dump site half an hour later. Youichi cuts the radio and turns off the ignition. The weather’s hot and sticky out. Youichi hates summers in Tokyo sometimes. Not that Chiba was much better, growing up, but there’s something different about being in a crowded city rather than in a poor apartment building in a small rural-ish town. It’s like the mugginess in the air comes from smog more than actual humidity. Disgusting.

The body has since been removed, but that’s alright–they’re not here to do the investigators’ jobs. Well, not all of it at least. There are things that only assets like him and Ryousuke are able to pick up on, by both nature and specialty. For all of his earlier complaining, he can’t really blame the standard investigators for getting stumped on this one.

“This is a pretty big intersection,” Ryousuke notices, observing the traffic backed up along each road. “No way anybody normal dumped a body here and made off without anyone seeing.” He compares a photo to the scene, then kneels beside the space where the body had been found. “I'm thinking illusionist or time-walker. Maybe a breacher, but that’s more of a super-unlikely worse-case-scenario.”

Youichi nods along, trying to keep up with all of Ryousuke’s branching theories. “Yeah, knowing our luck that’s probably it,” he scoffs. The corners of Ryousuke’s mouth quirk. Youichi’s chest tightens. He clears his throat. “So like, statistically, what’re our odds here?”

“Statistically,” Ryousuke starts, standing back up and straightening his files in his hands, “It’s most likely an illusionist. There are about twice as many of them as there are time-walkers, and almost six-times as many as there are breachers. Unfortunately, from a reasonable standpoint, the drug cartel has a near-equal chance of employing all three, since all would make it easy to obtain and deal illegal substances, as well as get rid of a body without leaving any trace.”

Youichi groans, running a hand through his hair in distress. “Great, so we’re back at square one.”

Ryousuke steps around him, moving to observe the shiny-new iron fence beside the crime scene. “Not necessarily,” he says, pulling a latex glove from his pocket and reaching forward to flatten back weeds poking up through the sidewalk around the base. “Almost every form of asset leaves some disturbance, if you know where to look. Time-walkers leave temporal ripples that other walkers can sense, but illusionists and breachers both have one tell in common.” He shifts sideways to make room for Youichi to see what he’s looking at. Youichi crouches beside him, and he notices the rust clinging to the bottom edges of the iron bars. He can hear the smile in Ryousuke’s voice as he says, “Both of them drastically raise the levels of oxygen in the environment momentarily, and most of them don’t even realize it.”

He and Youichi lock eyes. Youichi grins, biting back a laugh that he’s sure wouldn’t be considered professional. Youichi knows that look–the self-satisfied one Ryousuke gets after he’s made yet another kick-ass deduction with almost nothing to go on. It makes Youichi feel breathless; there’s something about his unwavering confidence that makes Youichi feel infallible.

–– ––

Kuramochi’s reluctant to follow Ryousuke into the morgue. “Hey man, you know me. Investigation’s your thing. I'm just backup muscle.” So Ryousuke mercifully leaves him at the car and turns to enter the coroner’s office on his own, promising to be out in at most a half hour. Kuramochi says something about running to get them lunch and disappears in a snap of electricity. The leftover static crawls up Ryousuke’s back as he makes his way into the building, and he flattens the hairs rising up out of their neat, organized place on his head.

The coroner’s a short man with thick glasses and a nasal sort of voice that reminds Ryousuke of Miyuki, if Miyuki was more intelligent and professional and just generally less of an asshole. He talks fast and has a habit of interrupting himself, so by the time he gets back around to his original point Ryousuke’s already got a hundred different conclusions stemming from the beginning of the conversation, but the general gist of things tells Ryousuke it was undoubtedly homicide, the M.O. is most likely a fall from a high place, judging by the pattern of scattered breaks and lesions along the bodies, and the little fingers on the right hands are all missing and unaccounted for. All things Ryousuke could've figured out at a glance, but it doesn't hurt to have a second opinion.

“Did you submit for a toxicology report?” Ryousuke asks, snapping on latex gloves and carefully peeling back the sheet on the body.

“Nothing returned positive,” replies the coroner. “Though tests did reveal abnormally high levels of salt in the bloodstream.”

“Hypernatremia?” Ryousuke muses. “That's odd. In all three?”

The coroner nods confirmation. Ryousuke hums. “That makes sense if they were detained for extended periods of time without water.”

“Though none of them died of dehydration,” the coroner points out. Ryousuke steps back, thinking as he looks over the corpse.

There are any number of assets that could have influenced blood sodium levels, and plenty more that the government doesn’t have on record. The issue, in his particular field of expertise, arises from the fact that this information isn’t asset-specific, and generally does nothing for his investigative purposes but suggest these people were captive for a while.

“Aside from those sustained during the fall and the missing fingers, are there any notable antemortem injuries you noticed?” he asks, turning the head from side to side to observe an abrasion on the right side of the skull.

“There are,” the coroner declares, bustling over to a desk littered with a mess of files. “Let’s see… There were obvious signs of restraint around the wrists and ankles–rope burns, for the most part, some quite raw. And bruising, too, in various stages of healing along the thoracic and abdominopelvic regions.”

“But no signs of sexual assault,” Ryousuke remembers from the coroner’s earlier ramblings. “So our suspect has his captive, but he takes his time. This is either for punishment or information. Unusual behavior for a drug cartel around here,” he says. He’ll want to run it by Kuramochi. The headache at the base of his skull is throbbing up into his temples now; he’ll never admit it, even to himself, but deep down some part of him knows that he's not thinking as clearly as he should be on this case.

__ __

“You have a bad habit of thinking the better of yourself,” the man on the video had said to him, his thick beard twitching as he laughed. The scar stretching down the side of his face crinkled as he squinted, as if peering through into the future at the man he knows is obsessing over the thirty-second stretch of grainy film.

Ryousuke’s watched it at least a hundred times by now, despite the department’s best efforts to stop him. They even asked Miyuki to Walk him back to before he saw it, but Miyuki’d just stood there, grimly shaking his head. “It’s not my right,” he’d said, and he’d left before they could argue.

So Ryousuke locked himself up in his office with the lights off, only moving to replay the video for even the slightest clue to giveaway a location, but there was nothing. The background was static. Other telling noises have thus far been deemed indiscernible.

Every now and then, there was a knock on his office door, the nervous rapping of Kuramochi Youichi, Ryousuke’s partner of eight months and the currently-insufferable nuisance of his conscious. But nobody came in, and Ryousuke sure as hell wasn’t coming out until he got a lead on this case.

The man in the video stepped to the side, exposing the figure in the chair. Even after watching it so many times, Ryousuke’s heart still clenched at the sight.

“This oughta take you down a few pegs,” the man said.

He leveled a gun to the boy’s head.

–– ––

The car door slams, and Youichi jolts out of his doze in surprise. Ryousuke’s back, holding a manila folder in one hand and reaching for his seatbelt with the other. Youichi rubs at his eyes.

“Geez, don’t gotta be so loud about it,” he grumbles, stretching up toward the roof of the car.

“You’re the one who fell asleep on the job,” Ryousuke points out unapologetically.

“Yeah, well, you’d be tired too if you constantly generated static electricity.”

The argument dies there. Ryousuke’s obviously got something else on his mind. Youichi straightens his seat up and adjusts his mirrors. “What’s up?” he asks. “Coroner find anything useful?”

“I’m not sure,” Ryousuke admits, and Youichi raises an eyebrow. That’s a first. “I wanted to ask your opinion on some things before I made any final conclusions.”

“Sure, okay,” Youichi replies, feeling a little breathless. Not even six months ago, Ryousuke would’ve turned his nose up at any of Youichi’s offers to help him with the investigative portion of their partnership with a sneer and a snide remark.

A lot can change in half a year, he’s come to find out.

“Blood tests on all three victims revealed hypernatremia.”

“Which is…?”

“High sodium concentration,” Ryousuke explains. “I’m thinking the suspect is detaining our victims for extended periods of time. That’s the most statistically likely explanation, but there are plenty of assets whose abilities would enable them to trigger a similar physiological reaction.”

He pauses, glancing at Youichi as if checking to see that he follows. By the skin of my teeth, Youichi snarks to himself, but he does his best to look outwardly engaged and intelligent.

“I’m doing my best not to jump to conclusions. There were no signs of damage to the intestines–at least, not caused by forced excretion.” Youichi suppresses a shiver, remembering a particularly foul case from his early days on the asset force. “Which makes me think that this isn’t the work of any kind of midbrain. But at the same time, it’s not definitive, so I can’t rule it out, even though there are plenty of more-likely options. You can understand my frustration.”

Midbrain; it’s the colloquial term for psychics, the “more politically correct” term, if one asked some of the more socially-present of them. (Apparently “psychic” projects the image of hokey magicians and gypsies in traveling caravans and not the powerful, sometimes horrifying image that manipulators of the mind are going for these days.) Youichi takes a deep breath. Ryousuke’s doing it again–getting that tunnel vision that strikes him every now and then since their last serial case four months ago. He wonders if something the coroner said reminded him. Youichi doesn’t want to point it out though, so instead he puts on a casual front and pretends to think about what Ryousuke’s saying.

“Maybe we’re thinking too narrow,” he says, careful to include himself in that statement. “Like, maybe if we can’t use that to figure out what kind of asset we’re dealing with, we can use it to find location or something. ‘Sides, we already know it’s probably a time walker.”

Ryousuke nods along. “Good point,” he says. “It does us no good to get caught up in what we’ll be facing. We’ll just have to find them and be prepared for whatever they throw at us.”

Youichi grins, the weight in his chest lifting. “So, what’s our next move?”

Ryousuke looks out the window. “I hear Tokyo Bay is lovely this time of year,” he replies, shooting Youichi a sideways smile.

Youichi clicks his belt into place and shifts the gears of the vehicle, tearing out of the parking lot for the thrill of it. “That’s more like it!” he cheers, merging smoothly with traffic and taking off down the freeway. Ryousuke holds tight to his stack of papers, making sure they don’t spill out across the car. He doesn’t seem to have noticed his relapse, as far as Youichi can tell.

It’s probably better that way.

–– ––

The drive takes a little under an hour. Kuramochi gets frustrated in heavy traffic, so by the time they reach the bay he’s generating enough static that Ryousuke gets shocked if he so much as leans close to his partner.

“You’d better get rid of that before we reach the beach,” he warns as Kuramochi shorts out his phone for the millionth time in his life. “I really don’t feel like piling home insurance onto our federal debt.”

“Relax, would you? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Ryousuke replies without pause. This only serves to fluster Kuramochi more, so he waves a hand to cool him and gets out of the car, tugging his umbrella out of the back seat.

“It’s not raining,” Kuramochi points out as Ryousuke joins him on the other side of the SUV.

Ryousuke tilts his head. “Have you never been to the Bay Streets?”

“Have you?”

“Sure,” he says, “I had an aunt who lived off-coast on my mother’s side, so we visited a lot when I was younger.” His gaze lingers on the boardwalk entrance, and a brisk gust of wind seems to throw him back in time for a moment. It was usually busier back then, when they went to visit Aunt Yukina for the holidays. There would be festival stands lined up and down the walk for New Year’s. He had to carry Haruichi back to Aunt Yukina’s after he fell and scraped his knees and scared himself into thinking he couldn’t walk. He hadn’t realized how fond those sorts of memories were.

Kuramochi clears his throat, and Ryousuke looks up in time to see him look quickly away. “Guess you’ll know better then,” he says, feigning nonchalance. He starts off down the boardwalk, pocketing his keys. “C’mon, I wanna get this case over with and put in for some vacation time.”

Ryousuke smiles tightly. “I’ll drink to that,” he says, but the amusement he’s going for falls short as it confronts the darkness hovering at the back of his mind. Is Kuramochi babying him? Does he think Ryousuke can’t handle himself?

No, of course not, he reprimands himself, following after his partner. He’s just looking out for you, like always. He needs to stop being so defensive.

So when they reach the entrance to the Bay Streets and Kuramochi opens the door to the glass stairwell with a sweeping gesture of exaggerated chivalry, Ryousuke takes the joke at face value and marches into the tunnel with his head held high to humor him.

It really has been too long since he’s visited the Bay Streets. Located just below sea level off the coast of the Tokyo Bay, it’s home to both a bustling community of water-based assets and upper-class retirees looking for a pleasant place to spend the rest of their days. If high salt concentration is a factor they’ll be taking into consideration, it stands to reason that he and Kuramochi would explore the underwater district first.

Upon exiting the glass tunnel, Ryousuke opens his umbrella in anticipation of the open ceiling, a vast chamber of breathable air submerged beneath the surface of the bay that, more often than not, drips with a sort of constant drizzle. For people like himself who prefer a freshly-ironed button down to Kuramochi’s less-professional T-shirt-and-leather-jacket look, it’s better to come prepared for any sudden downpour. He can’t help but laugh when, almost right away, Kuramochi becomes the victim of a sudden lapse in the barrier, and a torrent of water comes down on top of them, leaving Kuramochi soaked and Ryousuke shaking a spare droplet off his shoes.

“Give a guy a warning next time, would you?” Kuramochi grumbles, shaking his hair out like a wet dog. The electricity still circulating through his system spikes his hair back up right away, and sends small currents of energy surging through the puddles around him.

Ryousuke shrugs, avoiding stepping in the water. “It’s not my fault you don’t have the foresight to at least bring a swimsuit to what is essentially a massive, residential water park.”

Even so, Ryousuke holds his umbrella out to let Kuramochi take hold of it and carry it over the two of them, taller as he is. Ryousuke has to school his features into practiced neutrality when Kuramochi’s arm brushes his even as the contact sends a thrill down his spine. (He’s not as good at separating work relationships from his personal life as he thought he was, it turns out. He just does his best to pretend he doesn’t notice whenever Kuramochi goes for more physical interaction than is strictly necessary between them.)

They don’t really have a particular destination in mind, so they roam the streets, screening alleyways and backstreets for suspicious action as they go. Ryousuke’s not sure what they’re looking for; he’s just sure that eventually, they’ll find the trouble they’re looking for. (Or, less desirably but just as acceptable, the trouble they’re looking for will find them.)

There aren’t any notably large, empty buildings among the Bay Streets. The architecture is relatively close-knit and linear, due to the obvious complications included in building underwater. Normally, they’d look for something like a warehouse, or storage unit–start with the standard hideouts–but there’s nothing like that in Tokyo Bay. Instead, Ryousuke keeps an eye on the rows of buildings, looking for even the smallest detail out of place.

He slows to a stop as a thought comes to him. Kuramochi notices and turns around. “Ryou-san?” he says, coming back with the umbrella. “What’s up?”

“The city has strict regulations for the Bay Street residencies,” he remembers, having heard his Aunt Yukina complain time and again about not being able to start gardens along the (admittedly not very fertile) sand out in front of her complex. “Since the county’s entirely surrounded in salt water, there’s particular upkeep for making sure buildings are in functional condition. I’m thinking, since we know our suspect already creates a hyper-oxidized environment when he uses his abilities, we should look for buildings with signs of rust, or with signs of being frequently cleared of rust.”

Kuramochi’s face lights up. “That’s a good idea,” he agrees, leading the way down the street again. “I guess we’ll have to go back around to check the places we already passed, though, huh?”

Ryousuke snorts, incredulous. “Of course not. Only one of them had a gate that was notably rusted, but the pattern appeared natural and far too gradual to be created by an asset.”

Kuramochi shakes his head. “If you say so,” he says, shooting Ryousuke a sideways grin. Ryousuke smiles conservatively back, then turns to keep his eyes on the buildings around them.

–– ––

In the end, his theory only leads them to two destinations, one of which is inhabited by an old, half-senile woman that undoubtedly just forgot to upkeep her property. She asks them if they’re the police coming to fine her, then immediately invites them in for lemonade. They go, just to cover their bases, but after a couple minutes it becomes clear that she (somehow) lives alone, and is entirely incapable of hurting anyone for how intensely her hands shake when she serves them drinks.

The second building has rust in the hinges of the door knocker. Ryousuke exchanges a meaningful glance with Kuramochi, then raises a hand to knock. It takes a minute for anyone to answer. Ryousuke raises an eyebrow at the window, where he sees the flicker of a curtain falling closed right before he hears the click of a lock turning in the door. It opens slowly, as far as the chain behind it will allow, and a face appears in the crack.

“Can I help you?” the young woman says, her gaze flicking nervously between him and Kuramochi. Ryousuke flips his badge for her to see.

“Sorry to disturb you miss,” he apologizes, offering his most sincere smile. “We’ve been interviewing people about a recent pattern of murders. Would you mind if we asked you some questions?”

The girl’s eyes widen, and she moves to unlatch the door. “Of course,” she says, “come in.”

The woman’s name is Wakana, and Kuramochi forgets how to speak when she asks for theirs. Ryousuke’s eyes narrow, but he smoothly introduces them, thanking her once again for admitting them into her home.

“Do you live alone?” He asks her once they’re seated in the living room.

She shakes her head. “I have a roommate, but he’s not here right now.”

“Is he around often?” Ryousuke pushes, steepling his fingers loosely in front of him.

Wakana takes a moment to think. “He comes home late, but that’s just because he works after his classes let up.”

“And what does he do for work?”

“He's employed part time at a fish packaging warehouse on the surface.” She pauses, looking hesitant. “He’s a good person. If he's a suspect, I think you should know you've got the wrong guy.”

Ryousuke opens his mouth to assure her he’s only a person of interest, but Kuramochi jumps in before he can. “We believe you!” he assures her quickly. Ryousuke gives him a sharp glance, raising an eyebrow. “Don't worry, we just want to ask him some questions too, since he's uh, not here right now.” Kuramochi’s eyes flick to meet Ryousuke's, then immediately away as his face reddens. “So uh, what's his name? And the address of his work?”

They wrap up with a few questions about the building and the rusting, which she confirms happens unusually quickly to their apartment. They thank her for her trouble and duck out of the building. Kuramochi wrestles the umbrella open and grins up at Ryousuke, only to be met head-on by a knockout-worthy Signature Kominato Chop.

He stumbles backward, just barely remembering to raise the umbrella again as another excellently placed spill of water splatters down from the watery dome above. He holds his nose, looking hurt as he looks up at Ryousuke again.

“What was that for?” he demands.

Ryousuke’s gaze narrows. “Do the Force a favor and keep it in your pants next time we interview a woman. It makes the rest of us look unprofessional.”

Kuramochi takes a second to process what Ryousuke’s said, and then his face goes red. “I wasn’t–that’s not–Ryou-san, seriously, I wasn’t like, hitting on her or anything, I swear.”

Ryousuke steps down off the doorstep and joins him, but only stays close enough keeps the better half of himself under the umbrella. “I know that, but I also know the social tells to look for when someone’s gawking.”

Kuramochi sighs, side-eying Ryousuke under the umbrella with incredulity. “It’s not a crime to think a girl is pretty. Really Ryou-san, not everyone can be as emotionally stoic as you.”

And that sort of hurts to hear, but Ryousuke can’t really contradict him. He knows Kuramochi likes girls, even witnessed one of his earlier breakups, and the fallout that followed, but it’s a little different to witness the beginning of something like affection rather than the end.

“It’s only a matter of doing our job to the best of our ability,” Ryousuke says instead, training his eyes on the end of the street ahead of them.

Kuramochi shakes his head. “Man, Ryou-san,” he says with exasperation. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re jealous.”

Ryousuke suppresses a scowl and tilts his chin back to stick his nose in the air. “Well, there’s a reason I’m the one with the doctorate in communication and you’re the one with a high school education then isn’t there?”

Instead of getting offended like he might have back in the earlier months of their partnership, Kuramochi laughs. The sound shoots right down Ryousuke’s spine and glitters in his chest for a moment like a stupid, pointless crystal, and it makes the practical side of him want to throttle the less rational, more emotional side of himself that he’s done so well to bury up to now. “Maybe,” Kuramochi agrees, stepping closer with the umbrella like the considerate idiot he is. “Let’s grab some lunch before we hit the fish warehouse, yeah? That smell always makes me feel less inclined to eat afterwards.”

–– ––

People got reckless when they got emotional.

Youichi knew this for a fact–he’d seen it happen so many times in his line of work–but for some reason, it still astonished him when Ryousuke stormed out of their office after three solid hours alone in the dark watching that horrible, horrible video on repeat god knew how many times. His face was darker than any storm Youichi’d ever seen Furuya generate. He looked ready to kill.

(Frankly, Youichi couldn’t really blame him.)

Youichi followed him out of the building and into the parking garage, where Ryousuke ducked into the passenger seat of Youichi’s car and commanded him to drive. Youichi got in, but didn’t turn the ignition. He locked the car doors and turned his body to face his partner.

“What are you doing?” Ryousuke demanded, his knuckles white around the phone in his hands. Youichi looked down and noticed it was ringing, his mother calling to ask after her son. Youichi’s heart tightened, and he reached out to put his hand over Ryousuke’s to try and ease the tension, but it only served to wind him up more.

“Ryou-san,” he implored him. “Kataoka took us off the case.”

Ryousuke’s eyes burned at that, and he pulled his hands back. “He can’t do that. It’s our case. Kuramochi, that’s my fucking brother.”

Youichi winced. He felt like he was choking. He couldn’t imagine what Ryousuke was feeling. Still, this was a self-destructive path to pursue. Youichi couldn’t let him go any further. “Ryousuke,” he said, dropping the nickname for the sake of pushing every ounce of sincerity into his words. “He’s sent the entire force after this guy. He’ll be in maximum security by the end of the night.”

The rage Youichi could see rising in Ryousuke’s chest had no outlet, nowhere to go, so Youichi didn’t protest when he punched the dashboard and clasped his hands over the back of his neck, bending over in his seat so far that his forehead pressed against his knees. After a second, he sucked in a deep breath and yelled “Fuck!” so loud that his voice broke over the curse. Nausea stirred in the pit of Youichi’s stomach as the adrenaline pumping through his system picked up all over again. He covered his eyes with one hand, as if by blocking out his sight he could block out the horror of their current reality.

Not him, he begged silently, as Ryousuke cursed again. Please–God, or the universe, or anyone–please not him.

But God had never answered him before.

–– ––

It’s like, twenty degrees hotter above ground as opposed to the temperate climate of the Bay Streets. Youichi hadn’t really noticed the shift as dramatically earlier, but the sun’s climbed higher since they entered the underwater district, and the afternoon heat is stifling. He groans. “God, I hate doing footwork on days like this.”

Ryousuke snickers. “You hate doing footwork regardless of the weather. The only reason you joined the Force was for the high-profile fighting that everyone thinks is our only job.”

Youichi can’t really argue with that. “If I’d known there’d be so much paperwork and investigation in between all the action, I would’a just gone vigilante.”

Ryousuke clicks his tongue. “And you were complaining about being called a cliché.”

“Whatever,” Youichi sighs. He likes being back above ground. The Bay Streets are stifling in a different way, like some big room full of recycled air. How do they get proper ventilation? Ryousuke would probably know. Not that Youichi’s gonna give him the satisfaction of confessing that he himself doesn’t know just to find out. Being constantly surrounded by a conductor like saltwater doesn’t help his constant itch for movement, and keeping his static to a minimum for the past hour has left him jittering with anticipation for action. I hate it when the police don’t do their jobs, he concludes.

They reassess the case over convenience store pre-packed lunch boxes in the car.

“What d’you think we’ll get out of this guy, if he is our guy?” Youichi asks, picking around the vegetables in his box.

“There are any number of things that could happen,” Ryousuke replies, scooping whatever excruciatingly hot concoction he’s purchased into his mouth without even blinking. (Fuck people who say Ryousuke doesn’t have any abilities: he’s clearly superhuman, to be able to eat the shit he does on a regular basis without searing his taste buds right off.) “The way I see it though, he has three main options: he’ll try to talk his way around it, he’ll attack, or he’ll run. Assuming he’s guilty, of course.”

“And if he’s not our guy?”

“Then chances are he’s been in contact, or he’s an asset that just so happens to fit the bill of our suspect, but has no connection at all.”

Youichi frowns at his lunch. “Right. I hate how much we get coincidences. Like, seriously, what are the odds?”

Ryousuke tilts his head to one side. “Well, considering that the Tokyo Metropolitan area’s population exceeds thirteen million as of the 2018 census, coupled with the fact there is a vast amount of assets we still know little about, as well as–”

“Thank you, Dr. Kominato,” Youichi cuts in sarcastically before his spinning head can roll off his shoulders. “But I was being rhetorical.”

Ryousuke smiles. “I know, and I was proving a point.”

“Which is?”

“The chances of us encountering coincidences far exceed the chances of us stumbling upon our suspect on the first try. Especially since all we’re going off of is circumstantial evidence.”

Youichi groans, slumping back into his seat as the mere thought of being on this case for the whole next month drains him of energy. “This is a fucking nightmare,” he mumbles, staring blankly ahead at the parked car in front of them. “I wish just this once we’d get a simple, open-close case where all we have to do is show up and kick ass and go home.”

Ryousuke snorts. “You really should have gone vigilante.”

Youichi sticks rice into his mouth and chews aggressively in his frustration. “I’m glad we agree.”

–– ––

He was forced into a minimum one month of grief counseling after Haruichi was killed. For the first time in his entire life, Ryousuke didn’t even try to save face, capitulated to Kataoka’s condemnation without protest like he didn’t have the energy to even raise his head in defiance. So he found himself in Rei’s office every other afternoon, feeling conflicted and angry but mostly numb.

She didn’t make him talk the first day, which was good, because he’d come straight from his brother’s funeral and he didn’t think he could find words that would be able to fit the chaotic roar of blood in his ears that stopped any thoughts from fully forming in his brain. How ironic. A man with a doctorate in communication of all things and an eidetic brain that’s memorized every page of the dictionary in three different languages couldn’t even manage to figure out how to say “I’m hurting” quite the right way.

As the month went on, he was able to find them, like his Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas were puzzle pieces he’d found while sifting through the couch cushions for the television remote while the channel in front of him played only deafening static to distract him. She helped him define the chasm that seemed to split down the center of his chest as if his brother had been a physical part of him crudely removed in an archaic experiment involving ice picks and the brain… What was that called again? Lobotomy, she supplied. His mind was lined so thickly with cotton that he didn’t even think to be embarrassed by the lapse in memory. He turned the ring on his little finger obsessively as they talked. It was just a cheap metal band without any actual value or appeal, but it had been given to Haruichi by his first (and only) girlfriend to mark their one-year anniversary, and he had cherished it so much. He told this to Rei when she noticed it. She told him it wasn’t wrong to want to hold on to some piece of someone who was gone. He told her that Haruichi had broken up with his girlfriend only three months before.

By the end of the first week, Ryousuke’s head had cleared some. He was able to reason with himself, able to recite the five stages of grief and mark where he stood among them. He’d denied it in the first three hours, while that video had played over and over, as if once wouldn’t be enough for someone with his memory to lock down every detail of the scene. He’d been so angry he didn’t know what to do with himself in Kuramochi’s car that night, and he’d wished for some way to exchange his life for Haruichi’s when he woke up the next morning on his partner’s pull-out couch with no memory of how he got there. He knew he was in the depression stage then, that useless, immeasurable stretch of time where there was no more fight to give life to the desperation that had hollowed out his thoracic cavity and hadn’t cared to put everything back before it died. He was exhausted and restless all at once, like there was something he was supposed to be doing that he just didn’t have the energy to do.

One day in the third week, Rei said something like this:

“Don’t think that anyone is rushing you to feel better. Nobody overcomes tragedy like this overnight.”

And maybe it wasn’t just that statement that did it for him, but it was that statement that reminded him what got him here, in the Japan Asset Force Squad A. He had a damn good streak of overcoming the impossible, and a bad habit of taking the word “nobody” and changing it into “nobody except for me”.

It was the first time since Haruichi’s murder that Ryousuke felt like he could breathe.

–– ––

The packaging warehouse smells about as bad as Youichi expected. Sure enough, any lingering appetite he’d had following his less-than-fulfilling convenience store lunch vanishes as soon as the heavy wave of fish-smell hits his nose. He resists the urge to gag, just barely. Even Ryousuke wrinkles his nose in distaste as they approach.

“Remember,” Ryousuke says, “as far as he knows, he’s not a suspect, just wanted for questioning regarding crime in the area.” Youichi nods along, thankful not for the first time for his partner’s steady presence beside him. He remembers the month he’d spent working solo–suffice to say he mostly just stumbled through investigations, screwing up more than he cared to admit.

When they enter the warehouse, the room is bustling with workers in latex gloves stationed along different sections of the assembly line. It only takes a moment for Ryousuke to point their guy out to Youichi, likely recognizing his face from a photo or something in Wakana’s house. Ryousuke leads the way over to him, weaving between workers hosing down fish and weighing them on scales until they reach the section of the warehouse where people are wrapping them in wax paper for packaging.

“Excuse me,” Ryousuke says to the man he’d pointed out before. “Are you Nobugawa-san?”

Nobugawa turns, confused, with a half-wrapped fish in his hand. “Uh, yeah?” he says nervously.

Youichi’s no mind reader like Takako, and he doesn’t have Ryousuke’s much-boasted doctorate detailing human behaviors, but he doesn’t need to be or have either of those things to tell that this kid’s not their guy. He’s got a round face, the kind that suggests he hasn’t quite grown out of his youth. His eyes are wide and watery with a sudden cautious glint behind them, guarded like he’s worried these random people in a button down shirt and a leather jacket, respectively, are here to jump him or something. A tension Youichi hadn’t noticed before eases from his spine at the realization that this kid’s just another person to interview. The adrenaline-charged electrical current surging under his skin slows and retreats.

Ryousuke takes care of introductions and has Nobugawa lead them to a more private section of the warehouse (which, unfortunately, happens to be the hallway leading to the bathrooms, but what can you do). It’s not the most official interview they’ve ever conducted, but the whole case has been sort of unorthodox, for all the police work they’ve had to make up for up to this point.

“What’s this about?” Nobugawa asks once they’ve pulled away from the bustle of the warehouse. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Not to our knowledge,” Ryousuke replies, allowing the warning to slip through his tone. “We just want to ask you a few questions in compliance with an ongoing investigation.”

Nobugawa chews on the corner of his lip, which Youichi notices is cracked and dried out. He glances sideways at Ryousuke to see if he’s noticed, but Ryousuke gives nothing away. “Nobugawa-san, are you in possession of an Asset License?”

Nobugawa’s nose wrinkles in confusion. “What? No, I mean–I don’t have an asset. I’m normal, man.”

Youichi raises an eyebrow. Down the hall, the door to the men’s room opens and someone slips out, looking apologetic as he interrupts their conversation. They wait until he’s gone to continue talking. “You’re sure about that?” Youichi asks. “Not even one you might not know about, or that you don’t have a license for? We’re not here to fine you for that, just so you know.”

Nobugawa looks annoyed now. “No dude, I’m sure. I just pack fish.” He looks between them. “What’s this even matter anyway?”

“We have reason to believe there’s been increased asset activity around your apartment in the underwater district,” Ryousuke explains. “We also believe it’s possible that this person is involved in our criminal investigation.”

Nobugawa’s eyes widen, and he unfolds his arms and pushes up off the wall he’s been leaning against. Ryousuke’s eyes narrow.

“What is it?” he demands. Youichi knows that tone of voice–he’s putting something together. It sends the electricity in his veins into a renewed frenzy of anticipation.

“I’ve had a friend over a lot recently. I know he has a license, but I don’t know what he does.”

That’s odd, Youichi thinks, and he knows Ryousuke’s thinking the same thing. People don’t usually keep their assets a secret.

“Can you tell us his name?” Ryousuke presses.

Nobugawa looks uneasy, like he’s starting to make sense of however many months worth of uncomfortable or off-putting encounters with this person. “Narumiya Mei,” he says, looking down to the end of the hall. “He’s the one who just passed us.”

Ryousuke stiffens with alarm. “He knows we’re on to him,” he realizes, and as soon as he says it, he and Youichi take off in the direction the kid from earlier had taken. They stop once they reenter the main room of the warehouse, confronted by the overwhelming activity of the packaging company.

“Split up,” Ryousuke says. “I’ll take the east side, you take west and whatever else you can get to. He’s got a head start, but you’re faster. If you find him, be careful. We don’t know what he’ll do.”

Youichi nods, and takes off towards the west exit of the building. What does Narumiya look like again? He hadn’t really been paying attention when that guy walked by the first time. He’s like, eighty percent sure he’s blonde, though, so that’s a start. As far as he can see, there aren’t any blonde people in the warehouse at the moment, so he pushes through the exit doors and out into the alley behind the building.

He puts the charge building under his skin to good use, using it to cheat the refractory period of his neural synapses and send himself careening down the length of the alley in under a second. The burst wears off quickly–better to save his speed for when he actually has to fight the guy than to fry his brain just trying to find him.

“God, I wish I’d paid more attention in science class,” he grumbles to himself, remembering something Ryousuke had once told him about how he should be able to extend his ability to sense electromagnetic waves in the vicinity with enough practice. The only thing he ever remembered about electromagnetism though was that assets tended to warp it, not that that knowledge does him any good now.

Something about this scenario feels wrong, though. If Narumiya had known they were talking about him, why would he show himself so obviously in the hallway when he could’ve just waited for them to leave and look for him? And why would he use his asset around Nobugawa’s and Wakana’s apartment without them knowing? And what would any of that have to do with drug cartels and murder mysteries and cutting off the fingers on right-handed victims?

He shakes his head. He’s not good at thinking too much about these things. Tying all the pieces together is Ryousuke’s gig, and it’s best if Youichi just leaves all that to him.

But that feeling stays with him, the one that says something’s not right, and before he can decide whether he’s going crazy or if he should listen to his gut feeling, he turns a corner out onto the edge of some shipyard and nearly runs headfirst into Narumiya, who grins and swings his baseball bat, making skull-ringing contact with Youichi’s head that immediately renders him unconscious.

–– ––

Kuramochi showed up at Ryousuke’s door one night, unannounced. They squared off in the doorway for a moment, neither having anything to say. Finally, Ryousuke aimed for whatever recycled jab he could muster. “What are you doing here?” he said. His voice was flatter than he meant for it to sound. Oh well. Kuramochi’d seen his worst by now, had been through enough of his own struggle to understand that Ryousuke didn’t mean any real harm by it.

“Just thought I’d check in,” Kuramochi said, “see how you’re holding up.”

“At three in the morning?”

Kuramochi shrugged and cracked a half smile. “Would you believe me if I told you I was suddenly a psychic asset as well?”

Ryousuke managed a smile back. “I’d believe you more if you just came out and admitted you had Takako keep an eye on me for you, but I’ll humor you for now.”

Kuramochi sighed at having been caught, but his smile didn’t waver. “I’m glad you’re awake enough to make fun of me,” he said dryly. “I brought some of that spicy noodle shit you like from that place with the fancy koregusu sauce. I mean, it’s cold now. I bought it a few hours ago on my way here, but… Stuff came up. Sorry I’m so late.”

Ryousuke’s smile melted into a sympathetic frown. “You got a lead?” he pried, standing to the side to let Kuramochi into his apartment.

Kuramochi shook his head, setting the takeout boxes on the counter in the kitchen and opening Ryousuke’s cupboard for a plate. “Nothing substantial. It’s just more dead ends.”

Ryousuke glanced at the food as Kuramochi scooped it out onto the plate and stuck it in the microwave. He didn’t feel much like eating this late, but Kuramochi did go through the trouble, and it was hard to say no to koregusu. “I wish you would have told me. I would have come to help.”

Kuramochi smiled, seemingly to himself as he scooped out his own far-less-spicy noodles onto the ceramic dish in front of him. “I know you would’ve, but you’ve got enough to deal with without stacking my problems on top of it all.”

Ryousuke scoffed. “It does me no good to sit around here all day watching reruns of soaps from the early 2000s. I’m begging you, give me anything to do but that.”

Kuramochi laughed. It made Ryousuke glad; Kuramochi was the only one in the whole force that didn’t act like he was walking on eggshells around him lately. Whenever Ryousuke visited the office for sessions with Rei, the others would keep their distance, or only talk to him to see how he was doing, which, okay, nice of them and all, but he didn’t really want to talk about any of it with them. Kuramochi got that though; he kept the formalities brief, then went back to normal. It wasn’t denial of what had happened–rather, an encouragement that life could go on in the face of tragedies, and that this terrible thing that had happened wouldn’t change the fact that the two of them were partners.

“Maybe next time, then,” Kuramochi promised as the microwave beeped cheerfully. “It didn’t matter this time. It was just a hunch.”

“A hunch that you spent at least four hours tracking, if the restaurant closes at ten and you account for an average half-hour travel time between here, there and the office,” Ryousuke pointed out. Kuramochi sighed again in exasperation, switched the plates and quickly setting Ryousuke’s down on the counter as it burned his hand.

“Nothing gets past you, Ryou-san,” he joked. Ryousuke waited. Sure enough, a moment later, Kuramochi caved, and he leaned back against the counter. “I dunno. I just thought… if I checked some of the old places, that maybe I’d find them, or someone who knows where they are, or like, even a hint…” He trailed off, shaking his head at himself. “It’s like, I know nothing’s changed. I know that statistically, they’re probably dead by now.” Ryousuke winced at that; he remembered the first month of their partnership, when he’d first learned about Kuramochi’s ongoing quest to find his missing family and had made a scathing remark about the probability of them being alive after two years. He should have remembered; the three year anniversary of their vanishing was coming up. No doubt Kuramochi would be stressing over them more than usual. “But it’s like… I feel like if I just keep checking, something might change.” He shook his head again and tried to shrug some invisible weight off his shoulders. “I dunno. Stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Ryousuke found himself saying. “Nearly ninety percent of the time, judging by the averages calculated between multiple studies on the subject, your instinct is right.” Ouch, a bit robotic, Kominato. Try again. “If you’ve felt there’s a chance of finding them this long, you’re probably right.”

Kuramochi looked up at him, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I’m like, ninety-nine percent sure that you said that most of the time the ‘desperate feeling of family members that their missing children or relatives are still out there’ is just ‘people clinging to hope’ most of the time, judging by the one memory I have on the subject.”

Ryousuke snorted. “That was before I knew you,” he admitted. His fingers tightened and loosened on the edge of the counter behind him. Why was he suddenly feeling so awkward in his own apartment? “But I know better now. You’re reckless, but you’re not the type to let your emotions overrun your judgement. You’re not obsessive or anything like that–just stupid, sometimes, but that’s not what this is.”

Kuramochi barked a laugh at the same time his own meal finished reheating. “Is that your professional opinion?” he asked.

“As a doctor? Absolutely.”

Kuramochi grinned and scooped up his plate, this time having the foresight to safeguard his hand with a paper towel so he didn’t burn it. Ryousuke lead the way over to the couch in the main room, then went to get drinks for the two of them. When he sat the glass of water down in front of Kuramochi, his partner looked up and met his eyes with that obnoxiously earnest expression of his. Ryousuke sat down on the other side of the sofa, putting that scientific unit of measurement known as the straight-space-bubble to considerate use. “I really appreciate that, you know,” Kuramochi told him. Ryousuke raised an eyebrow.

“What?” he asked.

Kuramochi nodded to some nonexistent thing behind him, referring to their earlier conversation. “Your opinion. Your honesty.” He waves his hand like he doesn’t know what gesture to make to emphasize his point. “You always tell me exactly what I need to hear, even if it’s not always what I want to hear. I appreciate that about you.”

Ryousuke reminded himself that people get more honest late at night in order to swallow his heartbeat as it swelled into his throat. “That’s awfully sentimental of you,” he said instead of the thousands of other things demanding to be let out of his chest. “Are you sure you didn’t accidentally put hot sauce on your food too?”

With the moment effectively ruined, they dissolved into their typical banter as Kuramochi suggested they watch the sports channel’s baseball highlights. Ryousuke didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he woke up the next morning to find Kuramochi half-falling off the other side of his couch, he figured waking up wasn’t always the hardest thing in the world.

–– ––

Right. Of course it’s a breacher. Their worst-case scenario come to life right before Youichi’s eyes.

Okay, well, maybe not quite before his eyes. He’s still blinking spots out of his vision from that blow to the head earlier, because wow. That’s a concussion for sure.

From what he can make out, he’s in a dark, dry place. Honestly, he could be literally anywhere right now. Narumiya might’ve opened a gate to the fucking Sahara for all he knows, which would suck so much ass. How the fuck would Ryousuke and the others get clearance to work in Northern Africa, where half the countries don’t even acknowledge assets as functioning citizens? If Narumiya’s smart, he’s probably thought of that. Oh god, he’s in the Sahara isn’t he?

There’s a rubber cord binding his hands behind the chair he’s tied to. Great, so no frying through that. He’ll have to get creative if he’s gonna get out of here.

With perfect action movie timing, seeing as Youichi’s only just come back to consciousness, a door across the room opens and backlights a silhouette that Youichi already knows to be Narumiya’s from his pretentious posture alone. He switches on an old light bulb that flickers weakly to life above Youichi’s head and swaggers into the room, closing the door behind him.

“Dude,” Youichi says, taking in the cobwebs and the old concrete walls of the room around him. “You know, I was kind of impressed by your whole serial killer setup–just ‘cuz it’s pretty out-there for what we usually deal with–but you’ve really lost all my respect by resorting to cheap crime-drama clichés.”

Narumiya snorts. When he speaks, his voice is something like a shrill whine, and he sounds just as full of himself as Youichi suspected of a pretentious narcissist like him. “As if your opinion even matters. I can see you’re not the smart one in the partnership, then.”

Youichi scoffs. “What, you haven’t done your research? Probably would’a been a good idea, considering who you’re dealing with.”

“What, the government?” Narumiya laughs, and he pulls up a chair and straddles it backwards, propping an elbow on the back and leaning his chin into his palm like this conversation is the most uninteresting thing he could possibly be doing at this moment. Youichi can’t lie to himself–he knows it’s an interrogation tactic (he’s seen Ryousuke use it plenty of times when talking to suspects), but it’s really annoying to be on the receiving end of. “They can’t do anything. I’m sure you’re not so stupid that you’d think I let you and your friend see me just for the thrill of it.”

Youichi tugs at the bindings on his wrist experimentally. It feels like some sort of bungee cord. It’s tight, choking his circulation, but if he wears it down enough he might be able to stretch himself free. Just keep him talking for now. Learn what you can. Thank god for that “Everything That Could Ever Go Wrong and What to Do 101” class he had to take while he was training to join the Force. “So what were you going for, then? What d’you gain by exposing yourself if it’s not just for funsies?”

Narumiya examined his cuticles with disinterest. “Well, since you’re so well-versed in drama clichés, I’m sure you know that if I told you everything, I’d have to kill you.”

It’s Youichi’s turn to laugh. “Right, because you still really intend to get away with all of this now that the feds are onto you? Sorry, not just the feds–the Japan Federal Asset Force?”

Narumiya sighs and waves his hand like he’s shooing off Youichi’s insignificant arguments. “You’re all just a bunch of government dogs that the law barely allows to exist. I know how tight your leash is, so I know you won’t be able to go off on us without fucking up the reputation of the whole damned J-FAF.” He looks content at the way calling Youichi’s bluff has left his prisoner with a sour expression. “Don’t worry, though,” he says, standing back up and swinging the chair back to the corner of the room. “You’ve got a while left before we dispose of you. Maybe they just might surprise us!”

Before he can leave, Youichi tries one last time to get Narumiya to divulge some information. There is one thing he can try. “Who’s ‘we’? You mean the drug cartel you work for?”

Narumiya turns, looking delighted. “They actually bought that shit?” he asks, incredulous. “God, the government really is stupid.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll have to tell Kunitomo his dumb plan is working.” Then he kills the light, and Youichi is left alone in the dark once again.

–– ––

With Ryousuke out on leave, Youichi had a lot of time to himself. Kataoka let the whole team take time off where they need it–Furuya was feeling the hit too, seeing as Haruichi was his partner, and Sawamura was his best friend (which had resulted in emotional outbursts that caused explosions all around the station, much to the chagrin of Miyuki, who was always stuck reversing time just to save the building from collapse). So Youichi didn’t feel too bad taking the time off, as long as he and Kataoka agreed that he would be called to action any time he was needed. But he didn’t get many calls, so he found himself walking the streets a lot, thinking.

His mind always came back to the same thing, though, especially when he was already feeling down. It had been almost three years since his family disappeared. Three years since he decided he would dedicate himself to the Japan Asset Force and do everything in his power to find them. He knew the rest of the squad helped where they could. He was pretty sure he’d even caught Miyuki doing a timewalk on the second anniversary, which was super against the law without proper sanctioning and super characteristic of his non-flashy way of going about helping people. But even with their help, it still hadn’t been enough. How much longer would he have to wait to see his mother again? Would he ever see her again? He used to think that people didn’t just vanish off the face of the earth, but he was feeling less and less sure about that as of late.

He thought back to his conversation with Ryousuke in his partner’s apartment two days prior. Ryousuke had been his biggest critic, back when Youichi had first joined the Force. One of the very first things he’d ever said to him was a statistic regarding the percentage of missing persons still alive after the first forty-eight hours of abduction, and he’d proceeded to tally off the ever-shrinking percentage of those kept alive beyond that time until Tanba had graciously stepped in to stop him. Suffice to say, their introductions hadn’t been the smoothest in the world.

But they had come so far. A month into their time together, Youichi finally learned Ryousuke’s whole story from Haruichi, who was an elemental type asset that had admired his brother very much. He always spoke of Ryousuke like he was the reason the sun rose every day, and Youichi thought then as he walked along the streets of Tokyo on that drizzly evening that maybe Haruichi had been onto something. Youichi, who had initially thought that being partnered with an asset-less grouse of a man would make it impossible for him to gain recognition in the Force, learned that Ryousuke was anything but useless.

They were closer now than Youichi ever though would be possible six months ago. Ryousuke was his best friend, and Youichi, though he would never stop looking for his family, felt that he had gained something that could help fill the hole that had been carved into him in their absence. He intended to return the favor, now that Ryousuke needed him.

The night he’d spent in Ryousuke’s apartment two days ago had been replaying in his mind ever since he returned home the following morning, and he couldn’t really place why. He kept thinking about that one thing Ryousuke had said to him, about how he wasn’t obsessive or whatever. Why did his chest feel tight when Ryousuke said those things? Why did the mere memory of that conversation make him anxious? He didn’t think he was uncomfortable with any of it–Ryousuke was his partner, after all. They’d seen the best and worst of each other even in the short time they’d known each other. That was bound to urge them toward a more intimate friendship. Was he embarrassed? Maybe. He could be a bit too honest about his feelings sometimes. Maybe Ryousuke was put off by that, especially since, obviously, he was already dealing with a lot of emotional shit right now. Ryousuke wasn’t as open as Youichi was. That was probably what it was.

He sighed and watched his breath cloud in the cool air in front of him. The sun was starting to set. He didn’t feel like going through the trouble of “zapping” himself home, as Miyuki mockingly called his electrically-induced speed. He turned on his heel and nearly collided with a guy on a jog coming up behind him.

“Whoa! Sorry about that,” Youichi said. His phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. “Ah–Shit.”

The runner, a dark-skinned young man with slicked-back hair, smiled kindly and bent down to pick up Youichi’s phone before he could get it. “No worries, man,” he assured him as he handed Youichi the phone. “Have a good night.”

“Thanks man, you too,” Youichi called as the runner took off again. He checked his phone to make sure it hadn’t cracked, then turned it on to see if something was wrong with it. The screen glitched for a second, then returned to normal. Youichi double checked that nothing was damaged, then shrugged and put it in his pocket, turning to make his way home.

–– ––

Ryousuke slams the door to the Squad A division office open, nearly toppling a poor intern in the process. Jun and Tetsu, who are having a conversation at one of the conference tables, stand up in alarm.

“Ryousuke?” Jun asks, watching as Ryousuke marches down the hall with what he supposes is a rather violent expression on his face. “What’s going on? Is–” He looks back towards the door and notices Kuramochi isn’t following him. “Where’s Kuramochi?”

“I need to talk to Takako,” Ryousuke replies, and he shoulders past Miyuki, who’s arguing with Sawamura in the hallway. Jun and Tetsu follow after him, and Sawamura starts shouting at Miyuki to face him like a man, which has Ryousuke thinking Miyuki’s following him too. It doesn’t matter–he opens Takako’s door and storms up to her desk, slamming a hand down on the table and startling her out of an intensive session of paperwork.

“Ryousuke-san!” she says, surprised. Ryousuke doesn’t have time to feel bad for how rude he’s being–he needs her help now. The ring on his little finger feels like it’s cutting off circulation.

“I need you to find Kuramochi,” he says without prelude. “He’s been kidnapped by our suspect–a breacher. I need to know where he is.”

Takako’s face hardens immediately. “I’m on it,” she replies, and she opens her drawer to find a proper grounding object.

“Your guy’s a breacher?” Jun gapes, reminding Ryousuke of the little parade behind him. He turns to find Jun, Tetsu and Miyuki in the doorway, with Sawamura jumping up and down behind them to try and get a look into the room. Jun’s shaking his head, running a hand down his face. “Of all the things it could’ve been…”

Ryousuke turns to address them. “I need one of you to get me all the information you can on someone named ‘Narumiya Mei.’ He’s the one who took Kuramochi, and he’s the one we suspect is behind the murders on our case.”

Jun starts to leave, but Miyuki’s surprised voice stops him. “Narumiya Mei? Chris and I have been off and on his case for a year now.”

“What?” Sawamura squawks, affronted, but Ryousuke narrows his eyes.

“Tell me everything.”

–– ––

Miyuki sits them down at a conference table and goes over his history with Narumiya. Ryousuke learns that Narumiya’s part of a faction of misguided assets lead by an unknown figurehead, who finds malleable young assets and manipulates them into doing his bidding, usually by convincing them assets are the ‘superior race’, from what he and Chris have found out. Their discussion is interrupted by Takako, who leans out of her office and announces she’s got a lead. Ryousuke’s chair nearly falls back with the force that he stands.

“He’s not actually that far,” Takako says, turning her laptop to show them the location on Google Maps. “More inland than where he disappeared from, but he’s still in Tokyo.”

Ryousuke almost can’t bring himself to ask, but he needs to know. “So he’s alive?”

“Without a doubt,” Takako assures him. “Get this: I even got a broadcast from him. He’s sending me any information he can through our link–from what I can tell, he’s totally okay, just tied up. But he says it’s not a drug cartel. He says there’s a guy named Kunitomo involved.”

That name seems to send Miyuki reeling. “Kunitomo?” he echoes.

“That name means something to you?” Tetsu asks, watching as Miyuki disappears into his own black hole of an office only to reappear with a thick manila folder labeled “CASE 00487, CLEARED”.

“Chris and I interviewed him at the beginning of our investigation. He checked out back then, but if we consider that he had Narumiya under his thumb at that time, it makes sense that he might have a convincing alibi.”

Ryousuke marks down the coordinates on Takako’s computer and stands abruptly, ignoring the looks he gets from the others.

“You’re going alone?” Tetsu guesses, watching as Ryousuke makes for the office door.

“I’m not waiting for Kataoka’s song and dance,” Ryousuke replies, referring to the standard protocol for rescue missions. “I’ll deal with him later.” I’m not losing Kuramochi too, he doesn’t say. He knows from they way none of them protest that they hear him anyway.

–– ––

“There’s one thing you should know, about my brother,” Haruichi tells him one day over lunch.

Youichi looks up from his sandwich, chewing hard to try and swallow quickly. “What’s that?” he responds as soon as his mouth is no longer full.

Haruichi pauses for a moment, as if wondering whether he should tell Youichi or not. He and Ryousuke do that a lot, he’s noticed. He wonders if it’s a family thing.

“Once he decides to do something, nothing can convince him to stop.”

–– ––

Youichi faces down with Narumiya once again half an hour later.

“Change of plans,” Narumiya sighs. “If I’d known you were the valuable one, I would’ve gone after your partner instead.”

Youichi raises an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

Narumiya flicks on the light again and leans up against the wall, arms folded. “Carlos says we can’t kill you. He’s been on your tail for a while now, working out how to fit all the pieces together.” He looks over his shoulder out into the hall, then shrugs. “I guess he’s finally found out how. Anyways,” he steps further into the room, looking over Youichi like he’s a stain on the floor and not a human being. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Your little groupies are going to get here in–” He checks his watch. “–ten minutes. By then, we’re going to be long gone, and you’re not going to tell anyone anything you know, or any of what I’m about to tell you.”

Youichi scoffs. “Yeah? And why the hell would I agree to that?”

Narumiya leans over in front of him, grinning a cold, humorless smile at him. “Because, Kuramochi Youichi, I know where your family is, and if you want to keep them not-dead, you’re going to agree to everything I say.”

–– ––

He’s prepared to show up guns blazing, but when Ryousuke reaches the building, it’s empty. He worries for a minute that Narumiya escaped and took Kuramochi with him, somehow tipped off that Ryousuke was on his way, but then he finds Kuramochi tied to a chair in a room with a flickering old light, and the relief that floods him is almost debilitating.

“Ryou-san,” Kuramochi says, bewildered as he looks up, and Ryousuke’s glad to see he’s physically okay but there’s a faraway look in his eyes.