Usagi slid into the passenger seat, through the door, and Sasuke shook his head as the surreal nature of his situation was reinforced once again. The blonde was quiet, and Sasuke placed both of his hands on the steering wheel, wanting to start the car and put the Hikawa Shrine in his rearview mirror but unsure of where they should go next. He knew that Usagi couldn't cry in whatever form she now held, but he could still see the sadness in the derelict look on her face and the way her shoulders hunched forward as she sat there.
"What should we do next?" He asked it because he didn't want to let the silence linger there forever. Usagi turned her blue eyes toward him, and then out the window.
"You went to see my family?" Instead of answering him, she finally asked the question he'd been dreading since Sakura brought it up earlier that morning. He wasn't sure whether to groan or be glad to see the hint of curiosity that had led her to ask him endless questions the whole time he'd known her.
"Yes." He didn't elaborate, didn't tell the whole story. She looked to be shrinking into the seat, still staring out of the window. He wanted her to keep asking the questions, to save him from the silence and the strange version of herself that was continuously unnerving him.
"You wrote an article about me." This was more of a statement than a question, but she turned to look at him again, searching his face for something. "Kakashi asked you to do it?"
"He didn't really ask. It was more of a command." She chuckled at that and then looked forward, out the windshield, thinking.
"Rei said we should try to bring my memories back but I don't remember very much past leaving the office. Just flashes of that face, in the darkness, of being tied up." Usagi trailed off, looking back at him again. "I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble."
It was his turn to look surprised. He tried to read the blonde's expression but she had turned to face the window again. Something about the way she had said it unsettled him. "I said I would help, Usagi. Don't worry about it."
"No, that's not what I meant. I mean from the beginning. If I had just left you alone like you wanted me to you wouldn't be in this mess at all. Kakashi wouldn't have asked you to write the article. This whole mess is my fault."
Sasuke couldn't say anything in response. The Usagi he knew was not one for self-deprecation. He tried to imagine what his life would be like right now if he didn't know Usagi. He pictured himself behind a desk inside a cubicle poring over pages of research in silence. He saw himself coming home, sleeping, and then going back to work. All in silence. The silence in the car now unnerved him, so he grasped for something to say.
"We should check out your apartment. Maybe there's a clue there to whoever took you." Usagi made a face that resembled a grimace before she shrugged.
"If you think it will help. Do you know where I live?" Sasuke was at a loss for a moment, and the look on his face made Usagi chuckle again. She gave him quick directions as he finally started the car and pulled away from the Hikawa Shrine.
xXx
Where Sasuke's apartment was immaculate and barely lived in, Usagi's was the exact opposite. The blonde had pointed out her spare key she kept hidden in one of the potted plants outside the door, an obvious hiding spot if there ever was one, and he had pushed the door open to what appeared to be an environment post-tornado. There were papers and books stacked on every available surface with empty coffee cans and junk food wrappers dispersed throughout. Usagi looked a bit sheepish as he stood inside the entrance, frozen in place with equal parts shock, awe, and disgust.
"I hadn't had time to clean recently," she said feebly.
"'Recently' meaning the time since you moved in?" Sasuke commented dryly as he reluctantly stepped further into the apartment. He stood still, surveying everything with his dark eyes, before he sighed with resignation and headed for the kitchen. Usagi hung back near the entrance, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment. He returned to the living room with the waste basket in one hand and a look of further disdain. Vaguely she tried to recall when she last washed the dishes and how many must have been piled into the sink and the surrounding counter space.
"I think someone has already been here, it looks different than when I left it. Maybe the police already came?" The blonde suggested, trying to distract from the unholy mess that was her home.
"That would make sense." Sasuke agreed as he started digging through her things and throwing garbage out of the way, into the waste basket, as he went. For a while the apartment was filled with nothing but the shuffling of papers and the rumpling sound of wrappers that he balled up and dropped into the garbage can. From the corner of his eye he could see Usagi drifting around the room looking at her things, not really seeing.
"What's this?" Sasuke moved a laptop aside and held up a heavy textbook in his free hand, one eyebrow raised in question. The blonde turned toward him, and when she saw the book in his hand, looked a bit flustered. The title was Understanding Psychology.
"It's just a textbook." Usagi said nonchalantly, turning and pretending to look around for clues once again.
"I can see that. What do you need a psychology textbook for?" After he asked the question, Sasuke suddenly wondered why he was prying. What did it matter to him if Usagi read textbooks in her spare time? Even if it did go against every preconceived belief he had about the blonde. He wouldn't have been surprised to find a stack of comic books.
"For school," Usagi responded, her voice small. "I've been taking online classes toward my Master's in counseling. I have a Bachelor's in psychology, which is why I was hired at the magazine to write the advice column."
"Oh." The one word response was all he could muster. Sasuke deposited the book back onto the couch, suddenly feeling uneasy. This was one aspect of her life he was certain Usagi had never spoken to him about, though he couldn't figure out why. He was more surprised than anything else.
For the better portion of an hour they didn't speak any further. Sasuke continued to rummage and toss things away, but all he could find was magazines and newspapers and candy bar wrappers. He returned to the kitchen with an almost full garbage can but little else to show for his efforts. When he replaced the can to the far side of the room, his gaze found the opened envelope of what looked to be the utility bill.
"Usagi, where's your mail key?" He asked, glancing over the bar that separated the kitchen from the living space and catching her gaze.
"It's on my key ring, which I lost when I was abducted." She trailed off, glancing around the room, before she said, "But there's a spare in that jar by the fridge. Why do you need it?"
Sasuke turned around and spotted the cat-shaped cookie jar sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator, its smiling eyes looking up at him knowingly. He removed its head and dug around its porcelain insides until his fingers closed around the small metal key at the bottom.
"Just a passing thought." He stepped out of the apartment and started down the hall, noting the number on the door. He remembered seeing the mailboxes near the office when he pulled into the building. Now he glanced over them to find the box that matched Usagi's apartment number.
When he opened the box, there wasn't too much inside to find. Usagi had only been missing for a few days and she probably didn't get a whole lot of mail to begin with. He collected the stack and headed back to the apartment, where the blonde was still waiting for him, perched on the couch he had so recently cleaned off, watching.
Sasuke sifted through the letters in his hands, passing up bills, another magazine to add to the blonde's growing collection, an ad from a local supermarket. For a moment he thought he had only wasted more time.
At the bottom of the stack was a postcard. It struck him as odd immediately, because who sends postcards through the mail these days? The front of it was a glossy, laminate photo of a shrine in Kyoto. He flipped the card over. In scribbled handwriting there was only Usagi's address and two words scrawled onto the blank side of the card: Day One.
"What is that?" Usagi had risen from the couch when she saw Sasuke grow still at whatever he had found in the stack of her mail, and now she stepped closer when his eyebrows knitted in confusion. Her voice seemed to draw him from his temporary reverie and he held the card up for her inspection.
"A postcard. Do you get postcards in the mail from someone you know?" Usagi shook her head as she took in the photo of Kyoto. The first thing that came to mind was the Hikawa Shrine and their earlier encounter with Rei, but she shook the thought and tried to focus. What was significant about Kyoto?
"My family went to Kyoto last year on a vacation, to get away. It was the anniversary of my father's death." Usagi's voice grew smaller with each word as she stared at the picture of the shrine, remembering. "What does it say?"
"'Day One,'" Sasuke read, hoping the two words held some meaning. Judging from the perplexed look she gave him, his hope was misplaced. "Any idea what that means?"
"Not at all." Sasuke let out a sigh and dropped the postcard back on the stack of mail. "Do you think it's relevant?"
"Strange postcard in the mail around the time you get kidnapped and murdered? Most likely connected, not exactly helpful since you don't have any idea what it means."
"Sorry." Sasuke stood in the center of the living space, now much tidier due to his efforts, but saw nothing else of use. He turned and headed towards the small hallway on the right, a short walk to the closed door that lead to her bedroom. "Hey, where are you going?"
"Your room," he responded without missing a step, his tone clearly stating that his intent should have been obvious. While Usagi had no sound accompanying her footsteps, he did feel the air shift around him as she rushed him, and the sudden icy chill that shot up the arm she laid her hand against, stopping him before he could turn the knob.
"Why do you need to go in there?" she demanded, looking flustered once more, though she did release him when she noticed him flinch away from her touch. Sasuke just looked at her blankly.
"Usagi, what's the point if we don't search your whole apartment? Don't worry, it couldn't be possibly be any worse than the living room." Usagi looked ready to protest further but Sasuke didn't give her any more time to argue before he turned the handle and pushed the door inward.
Sasuke found himself surprised once more, not by the mess, but by the lack thereof. Aside from the tangle of sheets on the bed the room was well kept and tidy. It was small, as he would have expected in a one-bedroom apartment. The full-sized bed took up much of the floor space, and the dresser most of the rest. The latter was covered with various picture frames, each covered by a fine layer of dust. The door to the closet was shut, and when Sasuke opened it he found lots of hanged clothes, pairs of shoes covering the floor and boxes covering the shelves above.
As he moved toward the bathroom, the door was already ajar. There was a rumpled set of pajamas balled up on the floor and a slew of girly products covering the counter around the sink, but nothing of interest to be found. He crossed back into the bedroom and looked around a second time.
Usagi still stood in the doorway, watching him wordlessly. "Do you see anything that looks out of place?"
She shook her head and he sighed. "I suppose there's nothing then. Let's go."
xXx
Sasuke glanced at Usagi in the passenger seat as he turned the ignition. He let the engine idle as they sat there, the purr of the engine filling up the silence in the cab. Usagi was avoiding eye contact with him again, so he was forced to speak.
"Where should we try next?" He placed his left hand on the steering wheel and his right on the gear shift, ready to drive away from the blonde's apartment and the unsettling feeling it had given him as he left. He still couldn't explain the discomfort, but he would rather not think about it now.
"Maybe..." She finally turned from the window to face him, but when they locked eyes she hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. After a moment, she turned away again, muttering, "Maybe that's enough for today. You must be getting hungry, right?"
Indeed he was, though Sasuke hadn't realized until she brought it up. He shrugged and slid the car into gear, headed back to his own apartment.
xXx
Usagi sat listening to the stillness of Sasuke's apartment, the quiet hum of the refrigerator, the dull ticking of the clock on the wall, trying to avoid looking at the closed door leading to Sasuke's bedroom. It was hard to believe it had only been a day since the first time she walked in there, since Sasuke had agreed to help her find rest. She went over the previous day in her mind again, staring out the tiny kitchen window into the deep darkness of the city sky; no stars.
Resolutely she rose and walked toward his room again, passing through the door and ignoring the sense of déjà vu. Sasuke was sprawled across his bed much like the previous morning, dark locks of hair covering one side of his face, his breathing shallow and even. Usagi sat at the end of the bed, avoiding making any contact with him.
She glanced over his sleeping form again, continuing her internal struggle trying to work up the nerve to say something, though she hadn't yet decided what it would be. It didn't matter what she said now anyway, he wouldn't hear it. He never did.
She studied his face in the darkness, trying to think back to their days in their office, back to the beginning. The early days when she was fascinated by him, at first just his looks, but then something else. She remembered peeking over the tiny wall between their cubicles while he worked on an article, the crinkle that appeared in between his brows, his dark eyes focused on the screen.
One day, she had thought, he'll look at me. He will see me. What started as an infatuation suddenly became more than that. She realized it all at once on a random Tuesday afternoon, following Sasuke into the café across from their office where they frequently went for lunch, when he stopped to hold the door open for her and his hand grazed hers by accident. She glanced up into his eyes, feeling the funny way her heart stopped and then sped up too fast. Electricity where he had touched her and heat all over. She placed a hand over her racing heart and stared at Sasuke's back as he walked to the counter, completely oblivious.
And he still was, she thought. She had done everything possible she could think of trying to get him to notice her, all to no avail. After a while, all it did was hurt her, but she never gave up and never lost hope. Her mother would ask and her friends would ask. She would brush them off with a smile or a laugh and try not to think of it.
Are we friends? She could still feel the words cutting through her. The first time in all this that she had been grateful to be dead, to be unable to feel things like she used to. She could only imagine how she would have reacted before all this, when she could still cry and throw things and scream.
Her fingers danced along her thigh, and she pressed her fingers into her knee to prevent herself from touching Sasuke again. She could almost feel the heat again, the only warmth she had felt since she was dead had been from him.
She opened her mouth to speak and choked on the words before they could leave her throat. People always said that ghosts stayed rooted to the living world due to unfinished business. If there was any unfinished business that she had, Usagi knew that it was the words that she had never said to Sasuke. What could have been different had she found the guts to say them? Would she be so full of regret now, unable to move on?
If she had still been breathing, Usagi would have sighed. Even now, with Sasuke asleep and unable to hear her, she couldn't make herself say it. She couldn't pull the plug, to let it all come tumbling down, to watch her hopes shatter. Now there was no more illusion, but it didn't make it easier. She clenched her hands into fists and stood once more, her words barely a whisper, "Goodbye then."
Usagi turned and walked toward the door, almost reaching for the doorknob but catching herself at the last moment.
"Usagi?" She froze, staring at the door she was about to walk through, inches from her face. Just keep walking. Don't turn around. Usagi closed her eyes, wishing for once she could listen to the little voice in her head. Instead she turned and looked at Sasuke, just sitting up in bed and pushing the hair from his face. He had the dazed look of someone just roused from sleep, but he squinted at her through the darkness. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"No, nothing. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep." She turned to go once more, but he was rubbing his eyes now and moving to the edge of the bed.
"Why were you in here then?" His voice grew closer with each word, making her turn again and shrink away. She didn't want to feel his warmth again, to make it any harder to leave.
"Uh, just," She couldn't think of a believable lie. She had always been a terrible liar. "Just saying goodbye. I'm going to go."
"Go where?" He sounded genuinely confused, still half asleep, not comprehending.
"I don't know yet. I'm sorry I caused you trouble. When I came I didn't expect any of this to happen. I'm going to go." She said it again, trying to make him see.
"Why?" He never did. But he was awake now, standing in front of her, studying her face and trying to find meaning in her words.
She tried to go but he reached out to grab her wrist. It wasn't electricity now but fire ripping through her, melting the ice that had seized her in death. He flinched from the cold but held on. "Usagi, wait."
The room went black. She thought she heard Sasuke saying something but it was far away, a whisper. She tried to move her arms but they felt like lead weights, her fingers immovable stones. Instead she focused on her eyelids, but the struggle was just as difficult. Several moments stretched on forever as she tried to open her eyes.
There was a sliver of light finally. One eye opened just far enough to see it. Bright, fluorescent and blinding it came, so much so that she had to close it again.
When she opened her eyes again, Sasuke was there. His eyes were wide and frantic. He was no longer holding her wrist, but both of her arms, squeezing.
"Sasuke?" Usagi thought she felt something, but it was fading now, like a dream slipping away now that she was awake.
"You were fading in and out just now. What happened?"
"I don't know." He released her, the warmth draining away instantly and the returning chill reaching down to her bones.
"You were leaving?"
"Yes." Usagi said it with resolve this time, forgetting the strange vision that she just had in lieu of the present moment. "Listen, I want to thank you again for trying to help me, but after yesterday...I don't really see the point."
"It's helping." She glanced up then, into his eyes, confused. She wanted to pull some meaning from his words, but she was done lying to herself. Sasuke was looking into her face, earnest and somewhat puzzled himself. "Being around you is helping me to remember. It's clearer when you're around. So don't give up yet. It was only one day. It's not like you to give up, right?"
Usagi laughed, because the irony of those words hit her so suddenly, because they were true, and because she couldn't cry. "I guess not."
xXx
Sasuke lay unmoving in his bed, eyes closed, unable to drift back into sleep. The wheels in his mind kept turning, thinking, fighting off rest. The digital clock told him it was still shy of five in the morning and he wondered if he shouldn't just give in and get up for the day. He moved his gaze toward the open door of his room, where he could see Usagi seated at the table, her back to him, her shoulders hunched forward.
The real thing keeping him awake was the last remnants of the panic that had seized him when Usagi started to disappear. It had shocked him. So recently he felt as if things had been coming back into focus, and in that moment it felt like all of it was slipping away again. So he had said what had come to him, to make her stay.
But wasn't it the truth? He wasn't sure of anything anymore. How he felt when he had heard of the blonde's disappearance seemed like a distant memory. He wondered if he had been living his life in this haze to avoid dealing with whatever feelings he was having now. He certainly wasn't enjoying them.
He looked over again, to Usagi's blonde hair shining softly in the dim light of his kitchen, to her tiny frame sitting completely still, waiting. Not long ago she had been content to disappear from his life forever and let him move on. Something had changed, but he couldn't puzzle it out and he had the feeling Usagi wasn't going to volunteer the information.
Sasuke had the feeling that he had done something. Unintentionally he had done or said something to hurt her, and what unsettled him most was that he had always viewed Usagi as somewhat incapable of being affected by things he said. How else had she stuck around him for as long as she had? He had not changed much in the last stretch of his life.
He remembered back again to when they had first met, to the blonde's early infatuation with him. It was something he was used to. He wasn't vain, but he was also aware that his looks were appealing to most women. He had tried to brush her off as he had done with so many others, but Usagi was persistent, and he had fallen into their unlikely friendship.
But what if it hadn't changed for her? Sasuke suddenly sat up in the bed staring still at the unmoving Usagi with his eyes wide, the thought hitting him like a ton of bricks. Was Usagi in love with him? Is that why she had stayed around him for so long, put up with his silence and his bad moods and kept smiling? Is that why everyone at the office just assumed they were a couple?
Is that the reason she had come to see him one last time, even though she was a ghost?
Sasuke climbed out of bed and reached for his phone, plugged into the charger by the bed. Usagi finally stirred, turning to look at him. "I just thought of something. I need to make a call." The excuse tumbled out of him easily. He headed for his tiny balcony and slid the door shut behind him. He didn't care that it was an ungodly hour and every sane person he knew was probably sleeping. He flipped through his limited contacts until he found Naruto's number.
As the line rang in his ear, Sasuke rehashed the past couple of days. Usagi's family and friends all mentioned that the blonde brought him up often. He couldn't remember Usagi ever mentioning a boyfriend or going on a date in the past two years. The phone continued to ring until Naruto's voicemail picked up. He ended the call, waited a few moments, then called again.
"Hello?" Naruto's tired voice answered just before the voicemail picked up a second time. "You better be dying, man. It's not even six yet."
"Naruto I need to ask you something."
"Something that couldn't wait for daylight?" He didn't miss the annoyed edge in the blonde's voice. Sasuke heard Naruto yawning as he spoke and almost felt guilty for waking him up for this. "Go ahead then."
"Is Usagi in love with me?"
Sasuke flinched and held the phone away from his ear as Naruto started to laugh hysterically. He continued long enough that Sasuke was scowling at the phone with his own annoyance before Naruto finally started to get a grip on himself. "Sorry about that, it's just...is that seriously why you called me?"
"Yes." Sasuke was past the point of irritation, and slightly mortified that Naruto was laughing at his expense. The line was silent now though, as Naruto was thinking, or possibly just going back to sleep thinking this was all some strange dream brought on by something he ate.
"Sasuke, Usagi is crazy about you." Naruto spoke now with no trace of humor in his voice. "I seriously thought you two were dating. I thought that's why she put up with you all the time. I mean, no offense, but you can be a jerk sometimes. A lot of the time. So I thought you two were together, but when you told me that you weren't," Naruto paused for a second, then said quietly, "I realized that she must have really loved you, all this time. I mean think about it, what girl as hot as Usagi stays single for that long and hangs out with you? You really had no idea?"
"No." Sasuke was quiet in his response, letting the words sink in. All the pieces were falling neatly into place now. Everything was making much more sense, and at the same time, he felt his stomach turning, and something like anxiety burrowing into the pit of his stomach.
"Sasuke, my friend, you are an idiot and a jackass. Now I'm going back to sleep. Call me if you need some more obvious questions answered, like is the sky blue or does Rock Lee have intense eyebrows?" With that Sasuke heard the line click dead, and he lowered the phone from his ear, collapsing into his chair and staring out into the lights of the city, pondering.
Was it possible? He supposed it was. He had been working at the magazine for three years now, and it had been a blur of monotony since he started, of good articles and mediocre ones about things that did not interest him. Yet when he though back, before that, he remembered the same dull existence through school and college. Sometimes he felt he only functioned because that was what people expected of him. His family had died when he was still young, he had grown up alone in a series of orphanages, another nameless victim of the system.
Somewhere along the way he met some people he cared for, so he continued living and moving forward. He chose journalism as a profession because he enjoyed being a faceless voice, in doing research and bringing words together to make a story.
He thought again of meeting Usagi. She was just the type of person at first glance that he always tried to avoid. Cheerful and vapid, constantly prying into his personal life and talking. He preferred silence and being left alone. He had wondered why Kakashi hired the girl at all. Yet the more she came around, the more she wore him down, and the more he got to know her he realized she wasn't quite as vapid as she seemed.
Thinking on it, it made sense that she had been in love with him. Why else would anyone put so much effort into a relationship with someone who clearly was not interested in pursuing any type of friendship? It's not like Usagi didn't have enough friends. Everyone in the office, even those he couldn't identify at all, greeted the blonde by name. She would always bring up some minute detail of their life to ask them about. She was friends with everyone.
She wasn't exactly hurting for dating prospects either. Sasuke noticed men look at Usagi all the time when they were out together. They usually looked away quickly when they noticed him beside her while she usually stayed oblivious. The more he thought about it, the more he became certain.
"Hey Sasuke," The subject of his thoughts was standing beside him now, her voice startling him back to reality. The sun had started to rise over the city now, the lights blinking out one by one to welcome daylight. He must have been sitting here a while, he realized, making her wait. He looked at her, seeing her differently, really seeing her. "I was thinking about that postcard..."
"Yes?" He willed himself to speak, but he was barely able to concentrate now. Usagi was very pretty. She was such a constant in his life he had never paid attention to it before. She was in love with him.
And she was dead.
"There was this man that came up to me and my mom in Kyoto, while we were buying food for dinner. He was an older guy who kept flirting with my mom and asking us about where we lived and where we were staying. He seemed off to me so I made an excuse to leave, but I remember seeing him again recently. It was at the train station the last time I went to visit my mom in Juuban."
"Wait," this brought him back to the moment, back to their situation, "You met this strange guy in Kyoto and then saw him in Juuban near your mom's house and you didn't think that was odd until now?"
"I thought it was strange but I hoped it was a coincidence. In retrospect I don't think he intended for me to see him at all. When we made eye contact he looked away quickly and disappeared into the crowd." Usagi trailed off with the memory and then averted her eyes to the ground. In a small voice, she said, "Maybe he was following me."
"Usagi," Sasuke gritted his teeth. There were a lot of things he wanted to say in that moment, mostly mean, but he held his tongue. After a few minutes of collecting himself, he asked, "What do you know about this guy?"
"Not much. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. He said his name was Hideki but that might have been a lie. He told us he had retired from the military and owned a house outside of Tokyo. He invited us to come over for dinner." Usagi frowned at the memory. "I think he may have given mom the address."
"Let's go." Sasuke retreated back inside the apartment and started grabbing clothes. It was too early to call the Tsukino household but by the time he drove to Juuban they would most likely be awake. Usagi watched him moving around the room but didn't say anything. He tried to keep his mind off of his new revelation as best he could.
He went into the restroom to change and get ready. When he emerged, Usagi was still standing there, waiting patiently and looking uncertain. "Your mom might still have that address, or she may remember where it was. It's worth a shot."
xXx
There were only a few news vans camped outside of the Tsukino house when he arrived. Sasuke parked a ways down the street and headed for the front door with Usagi trailing behind him. No one approached him as he walked down the sidewalk, ad thankfully none of the reporters recognized him from his previous visit, so he made it to the door without a hold up. Shingo answered the doorbell when he rang, looking still half asleep. When he realized who was at the door, he looked surprised but allowed him entrance.
"Hello. I'm sorry to come by so early but I have to ask your mother about something pretty urgent. Is she awake?" Shingo blinked at him, and then nodded.
"Yeah, she's up. You'll have to come upstairs though. She hasn't been feeling well." The younger boy looked uncertain for a moment, but the expression passed. He waited for Sasuke to remove his shoes, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Did something come up about Usagi?"
"Sort of. I remembered something that she told me a while ago and I wanted to see if your mother remembers anything." Sasuke tried to remain vague. He didn't know if this would lead anywhere or if Shingo knew anything about the incident at all. He followed the blonde boy up the stairs.
"Well she hasn't been feeling well so she's still in bed. I don't think she'll mind seeing you though." Shingo led him down the hallway towards the last door on the right. He knocked briefly and poked his head in, "Hey mom, Sasuke is here to see you. He wants to ask you about something."
"Let him in." Shingo pushed the door open and nodded his head, signaling that Sasuke was going in alone. He entered and shut the door softly behind him. Ikuko was sitting up in bed, supported by pillows, sipping her morning coffee. She looked pale and only managed a small smile when she greeted him.
"Good morning, Mrs. Tsukino. I'm sorry to disturb you this early in the morning."
"That's quite alright. Come in." Sasuke stepped further into the room, closer to the bed. "I read your article. It was really good."
"Thank you." He was suddenly uncomfortable, aware of Usagi standing behind him and her mother peering up at him, possibly thinking that he was in a relationship with her missing daughter. "I wanted to ask you about something that Usagi mentioned. She said there was a man who approached you in Kyoto last year."
"Oh yes. Usagi thought he was strange but he seemed very nice to me." Ikuko took another sip of her coffee while Sasuke sighed internally. Now he knew where Usagi got it from at least.
"She said he gave you his address. Do you still have it?" He allowed himself a bit of hope given Ikuko's response. If she didn't think he was a bad guy maybe she didn't toss the address. The blue-haired woman pondered for a moment.
"I think so? I don't think I ever took it out of my bag when we got home and unpacked. Look in the closet. On the top shelf there's a blue suitcase. If you could bring it to me," Sasuke nodded and forced himself not to sprint to the closet door. He flipped the switch to illuminate the small space and spotted the luggage almost immediately. Reaching up, he pulled the suitcase down and brought it across the room to the bed. Ikuko unzipped the small compartment on the front and began rummaging through the various papers inside. Assorted receipts, brochures, ticket stubs, and other memorabilia collected on vacations flashed by. As she drew closer to the bottom of the pile, he felt his hopes dwindling away.
"Here," she finally said, pulling a slip of paper with a handwritten note. Sasuke felt his stomach do a flip-flop as he accepted it, the letters detailing an address in Chiba. "Do you think this is important? Is this man involved in this somehow?"
"I don't know. It was just a thought. I'll let you know." Sasuke pocketed the paper and helped Ikuko put away the rest of the papers before her returned the suitcase to the closet. He caught a glance of Usagi's expression as she looked at her mother, sad and worried. "Thank you for your help, Mrs. Tsukino."
"You're welcome." Ikuko smiled for him before he excused himself to go, letting Shingo know he was leaving on his way out. The reporters looked a little livelier as he stepped onto the sidewalk, and a few tried to flag him down for questions. He ignored all of them and made a beeline for his car, itching to get at the address in his pocket.
When he slid into the driver's seat, he pulled the now crumpled slip of paper out of his pocket. The address was written in neat, meticulous print, with a phone number at the bottom as well. He stopped and wondered if he should try calling first, but quickly decided that was a bad idea. What did he plan to do with this address now? Should he take it to the police or would they just ignore him? Should he go to this guy's house and confront him, or maybe just poke around?
Sasuke turned to ask Usagi what she thought only to realize the blonde was not in the car with him. He stared at the empty passenger seat and then looked up the sidewalk towards the Tsukino home. He remembered the look on her face in her mother's room and wondered if she had stayed behind without him noticing.
He wondered what he should do now. He couldn't go back into the house at this point, not without appearing insane and being swarmed by reporters. Yet he had a nagging feeling that something was wrong, and he felt anxious without Usagi there.
Then, all of a sudden, she was. She appeared in the passenger seat out of thin air, hunched over like she was in pain, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked around frantically until she saw him, her eyes wide and full of panic. For a moment she was terrified and about to reach out for him, but at the last second she remembered who she was, where she was, and what she was. She retreated back against the passenger door and relaxed against it, still wide-eyed.
"Usagi? What happened?"
"It happened again. Like this morning." She made eye contact with him, still shaken up. "There was light in my eyes, and I felt heavy, like I couldn't move. I was cold." Usagi got quiet, and while Sasuke struggled to think of something to say, she spotted the paper still clutched in his hand. "So she did have it?"
"Yes," he answered, relieved at the change in subject. "Should we go?"
Usagi bit her lip, thinking. Her blue eyes were studying the address in his hand. Then she glanced up into his eyes again. "What if you really do find my body?"
The question caught him off guard. That had been the goal when they started this. The idea was to help Usagi move on. He had learned a lot about himself since that moment when he agreed to help her. If Usagi was kidnapped and murdered by this guy, and if solving this brought her peace, was that game over? He would never see her again. "Wasn't that the idea?"
Usagi looked into his face, thoughtful, studying him. Normally this wouldn't affect him, but he almost squirmed under her attentions now. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and he wondered for one fleeting moment if she meant to confess right then.
"Yes," she said instead, turning to look out the window. "Let's go."
xXx
Finding the house was no menial task. Sasuke plugged the address into his phone's GPS, but as he quickly learned, GPS wasn't perfect. It led him around in circles for a while as he clenched the steering wheel in frustration. Usagi stayed silent through his navigation struggles, her eyes glued to the window.
He turned the GPS off and zoomed into the map of the streets, trying to navigate the old fashioned way. This was a newer district of the city, parts of it were still under construction, so he tried to find the way around the best he could.
When Sasuke finally located the house number a full three hours after leaving Juuban, he drove past it and parked around the corner. He stepped out of the car and walked down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace, a feigned attempt to not seem suspicious. Usagi fell into pace beside him, looking around curiously, not having the same concern. The houses here were spread out, with nice sized yards all fenced in. It looked like an expensive neighborhood.
As they got closer to the house, nothing stirred inside or out. There were no cars parked in the driveway, but the garage door was closed. Sasuke glanced around, but the street was currently deserted. There were no cars cruising by or neighbors out walking their dogs or mowing the lawn. He turned and walked up the driveway, toward the door.
"What are you doing?" Usagi sounded uncertain as he rang the doorbell, now looking around nervously.
"Seeing if he's home," Sasuke replied evenly, listening for any signs of movement in the house. He waited, and rang the doorbell twice more to be sure. Then he walked back around, past the garage, and without a moment's hesitation jumped the fence. Usagi appeared through it a moment later, her eyes wide and terrified, and followed as he headed for the back door.
"Sasuke, this is a bad idea. What if you get caught?" The blonde's voice drifted after him like the haunting words of his conscious as he inspected the lock on the back door. Thanks to the fence surrounding the back end of the property, the owner hadn't seen fit to deadbolt the thing, so popping it open would take a matter of seconds. The guy probably had a home security system, however, so the real question was how much time he had once he was inside to poke around before he had to make a run for it.
If Usagi was inside, though, maybe he wanted home security to send the cops to the house. For a moment he thought of backtracking and taking what he had so far to the police. The next moment he was pushing the door open and stepping into the house.
It was warmer than he imagined. He'd always imagined suburbia homes to be icy cold with constantly running air conditioners, but the air felt a little stagnant. As he glanced around, Sasuke noticed the place didn't look all that lived in either. Everything was immaculately clean and in order. He walked through the kitchen and spotted no dishes in the sink. Silence settled in all around him, making him more nervous than he already was.
Knowing he had very little time, Sasuke took a right and ascended the stairs to the second floor. He'd start at the top and work his way down. There were mere minutes before he would have to make a hasty exit. The security company was probably putting out a call to the owner already. In a blur, he poked into a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom that were all as empty and tidy as the rest of the house. Back down stairs he found a study with a nice collection of books and a living area with a pretty nice sound system set up around the flat screen television.
As he circled back toward the kitchen, Sasuke was beginning to consider the possibility that this was a terrible mistake. He hadn't heard the phone in the house ring, which meant that if there was a call out to the owner it must be on a personal cell phone. The police could arrive at any second. The house was empty. Cursing silently to himself he turned toward the back door to make his retreat.
That's when he saw it. The door beneath the staircase that had escaped his attention the first time. The door to the basement. He turned to say something to Usagi only to find she wasn't behind him. He glanced around, but didn't see her. How long had she not been there?
He didn't have time to waste wondering about that now. Sasuke turned the knob and pushed the door inward. He wanted to sprint down the stairs but at the same time felt a wave of apprehension come over him. The staircase was narrow, and he took it as fast as he dared. The basement was surprisingly well illuminated, the lights above fluorescent and almost blinding after his traipse through the silent house above.
When he reached the basement floor, everything seemed to come to a halt. He took in the scene all at once. The stretcher, the IV pole, the sheets glaring white against the luminous surgical lights above them. Nestled in the midst of it all was the impossibly small form of Usagi.
Sasuke forced his feet to move forward, but it felt like he was walking through quicksand. She was there, as pale as her ghostly form, blue eyes closed and completely still. As he drew closer he tried to piece together what he was seeing. The tools collected around the room, the strange yellow liquid hanging from the IV pole, none of this was what he'd expected. Sasuke reached the side of the stretcher and, reluctantly, reached his hand out to touch Usagi's face.
She was warm, and with a jolt he realized, still breathing.
That's when he heard the sirens.