(Here, I will be introducing an original character, since according to Wikia, Togane Sakuya joined Akane's team in the year 2114, though he had been an Enforcer for years. Also, I was confused because in the same source, in 2096, he was assigned to Division 1 (in the Work History), but in the the "History" part, it said that he joined Division 1 eighteen years later (2114). Also, let us not forget that Akane joined MWPSB in 2112, and Season 2 is more than a year later, when Togane joined, that is, 2114. Which means that the end of Season 1, when Kougami escaped, and the timeline of this fic, is 2113).

Two weeks had passed since Kougami left Japan. Shion never told a soul about it, not even Yayoi or Akane.

And at the same time, a constantly yawning Enforcer was assigned in Division 1. His name's Satoh Kenji, 24 years old, fresh out of Hikari no Sono Rehabilitation Center, the same center where Yayoi was once treated.

~~.

Mika was thrilled.

Today's her day off, and she shared the same off with Yayoi. Just for this week, these two share the same schedule, which made Mika's heart flutter. And today, Yayoi was going to hang out with her.

It was yesterday when she learned that Yayoi used to be a guitarist of a Sibyl-approved band. Shimotsuki Mika never knew about that until she saw Yayoi checking her electric guitar.

"I want to hear Kunizuka-san play," Mika told her Enforcer.

Yayoi nodded. The two of them agreed to meet at a park where people will hang out.

"But does Sibyl approve of a guerilla gig?" Mika asked.

"Yes, as long as the song is in accordance with the law," Yayoi solemnly replied.

"I've never been to a real rock concert, but a guerilla gig would be cool," Mika confessed, clasping her hands together in delight.

Mika already knew of Yayoi's relationship with Karanomori Shion, the lab analyst. Her radar was screaming loud and clear. So, tomorrow, she was going to snatch, or rather, borrow the Enforcer from the lab analyst. Mika was thrilled when Yayoi called her lover to say they can't meet tonight because she, Yayoi, had matters to attend to.

"Yeah, I'll make it up to you on Saturday," Mika heard Yayoi say over the phone.

Mika turned around to check if someone was sneaking up on them, only to see the silent Hinakawa staring back at her. She gave him a frown, and Hinakawa let go of the bowl, thereby spilling the remnants of his rice and some more pills. Mika sighed to see such a young man being addicted to medication, but the relief was that, Hinakawa just silently cleaned the floor without uttering curses.

And her thoughts got back to today. She made sure to dress up nicely so Yayoi could at least notice how cute she looked.

"Shimotsuki-san," a female voice called out.

Mika turned around and saw Yayoi coming near, a guitar bag hanging from her back. Yayoi still wore her dark trench coat. It seemed to Mika that black was the only color that Yayoi knew in her whole life, but then, she realized that it was because Yayoi is a rocker.

"Have I kept you waiting?" Yayoi asked. "I'm sorry for coming in late."

"No, I came a few minutes before you did," Mika replied, a blush creeping up her face.

Mika thought she recognized what seemed like a ghost of a smile on Yayoi's face.

"Oh, all right," Yayoi said. "By the way, I have an acoustic guitar here because I don't have some sound equipment with me. I hope that's fine with you."

"Oh, that's fine," Mika said, wearing her heart on her sleeves.

She and Yayoi walked over to the curb near the park, where Yayoi took out the guitar bag off her shoulders. Mika watched the Enforcer take out the acoustic guitar and tuning it.

"I hope you can gather fans today, Kunizuka-san," Mika told her, starting to fangirl over the stoic Enforcer.

"I like fangirls more than fanboys," Yayoi said with a blush. She found Mika fangirling over her so cute to watch.

Yayoi began to strum her guitar, and her lips open to let out a hum. After some seconds of humming, she began to sing a song, a song which was sung by her band before. But, by now, it was just a cover because she's no longer an official member of the band.

"Oh, look!" a girl said to her boyfriend.

More people started to gather, some of them taking fancams of Yayoi. The Enforcer had a really clear husky voice (you can imagine Utada Hikaru singing to "Drama") that it gravitated people towards her.

"Sugoi ne?" one woman said to a friend.

"Hai!"

And more fancams followed suit. As for Mika, who was standing at the sides, fell even more in love with Yayoi. It was her first time to watch a guerilla gig, and she was just glad that it was done by Yayoi.

~~.

Hinakawa's phone rang in the office, and Akane thought it was his terminal. She turned her attention to the young man, who grabbed the phone inside his pocket to answer the call.

"Hm?" Hinakawa answered. "Uh-huh? Uh-huh?"

Silence.

"Okay."

After dropping the call, Hinakawa decided to check a message he got from his friend, and checked the attachment. It was a video of Yayoi singing in the park. He inserted the head buds to his phone and started to listen, so as not to disturb the Inspector and the Enforcers. Satoh could be very cranky when his catnap or his yawning would be disturbed, he thought, so Hinakawa was keeping the video to himself.

"Whoa! Cool!" he blurted out all of a sudden.

Akane, Ginoza, and Satoh turned to his direction, but Satoh thought it was just some plain child's play, so he continued typing his report while yawning away. Ginoza and Akane thought that someone had given this kid a necessary tip for a case, but by the time they sprinted towards Hinakawa's place, they saw the video of Yayoi singing in the park.

"Ah, Kunizuka used to be in a band," Ginoza shared, and Akane turned to him.

Hinakawa realized someone was watching him, so he abruptly turned around and saw the seniors looking at him.

"I'm sorry," was all he said.

"It's okay," Akane said with a silly grin on her face. "Beside's it's Kunizuka's day-off, and she can do whatever she wants with it."

Ginoza turned to look at Akane. Ever since that night at the soccer field, Akane seemed to mellow down and smiled more often. She smelled less of the cigarette that Kougami had used. The scent was lesser, but it was still there.

"You're still thinking of Kougami, huh," he thought as his soft green eyes studied her.

"Hello everyone," a bored female voice greeted everyone.

All of them, save for Hinakawa, who kept his phone away, turned to the sound of the voice. It was Shion.

"I haven't been here for, like, three weeks already," she absent-mindedly said to no one in particular.

Akane observed the buxom blonde. Shion seemed to be looking for something or someone.

"How may I help you, Karanomori-san?" asked Akane with a smile.

Shion smiled back at Akane. She was glad that the girl looked a bit okay now.

"Kunizuka isn't here," Akane said.

"Oh, I know. I know her schedule, and she's at the park now, doing a gig," was the lab analyst's proud announcement.

Shion turned her attention at Satoh, whose yawning stopped the moment he stared at her chest.

"May I take a look at your hand?" Shion boldly asked the sleepy Enforcer.

"Huh? Oh-kay?" Satoh asked while holding out his hand to her. A blush began to show on his cheeks.

Shion took his hand in that majestic way of hers and examined his palm seriously.

"Hm. You don't look like someone who can scrub the floor properly," was her blunt comment.

"What?" the offended Satoh asked her, making sure she saw his displeasure.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I offended you, Honey," came her sweet tongue. "I am Karanomori Shion, lab analyst from the Analysis Department. I'm Division 1's go-to person."

"Pleased to meet you too, Karanomori-san," Satoh replied with a silly grin. He hadn't met the lab analyst yet since he came in the Bureau because he often was assigned to go with Shimotsuki on the field during his first few weeks. "I'm Satoh Kenji"

Shion smirked and turned her attention to Akane, "Well, I need someone to help me at the warehouse."

She stepped further and saw Hinakawa typing furiously on his keyboard. The shy kid was too engrossed with his work, and Shion was not in the mood to use him because she had a kind heart today. She did not want to abuse a kid to work for her.

"Well, Ginoza-san can assist you," Akane naively recommended.

Shion turned around and saw Ginoza in his seat. She had not noticed that he had taken his otousan's place.

"Ginoza, you don't mind, do you?" she asked him before biting her lower lip.

A ghost of a smile lit up Ginoza's face, "I won't mind."

Akane suddenly saw a subtle something that she could not point out. Shion was looking at Ginoza differently, and Ginoza was staring back at her with a different kind of smirk, like the two of them were hiding something. Akane suddenly remembered two weeks ago when Shion called Ginoza over the phone. He had a different kind of smile on his face. She began to wonder what the heck was happening behind her back.

"Tsunemori, you won't mind Ginoza coming in late this afternoon, will you?" Shion asked the Inspector. "The warehouse needs a major workout. Too much stuff we need to rearrange."

"No, I won't mind," Akane said.

"Please call me when you need me, Tsunemori," Ginoza informed the Inspector before hastily leaving the premises with Shion.

Akane's vision tailed the two, and went to the door to sneak. However, nothing strange occurred to the two as they walked down the hall.

"Hmm…" Akane thought as she went back to her seat.

"Is anything wrong, Inspector?" Satoh's sleepy voice suddenly cut through her thoughts, startling Akane.

"Ah, nothing," she replied with a smile.

As Akane took her place in her seat, Satoh let out a massive yawn and went on with his report.

~~.

Ginoza came in very late inside an empty office that afternoon, and he came in with some dirt on his clothes. He didn't realize the emptiness because all he heard was the soft buzzing of Hinakawa's computer. He could not understand why the heck Kougami allowed himself to be abused by Shion like this before. He remembered once when he chided Shion that Kougami came in late, but before that, Kougami explained he was late for a meeting because Shion called him out to help at the warehouse. Was Kougami the only able-bodied Enforcer out there?

He understood that Kougami and Shion were friends, and in fact, they share the same smoking habit. He was also aware that Shion liked Kougami a lot.

And he suddenly realized. Could it be that Shion tried to cope up with Kougami's loss by acting out her feelings on him? Was the lab analyst just using Ginoza just to forget Kougami? Shion's bi, so she's attracted to both men and women. But if that's the case, Ginoza felt bitter. He didn't want to just be second best in any relationship.

A bitter feeling left an aftertaste in his heart. Just when he started to get a crush on Shion, he realized that Shion might only be using him. Or if not, Shion was just having fun playing around. Or if not, Shion was not really serious about her feelings for Kougami or for him, because she had Yayoi. Whatever it was, he felt bitter. He hated being used, he hated being thrown away. So many things had happened, and he didn't want to be left behind by people again.

Losing his dad was hard. It will take him time to recover. Losing Kagari was hard too, for no one ever knew where the kid was, whether he went MIA or died somewhere in the ground floor during the chase for Makishima. Losing Kougami to being an Enforcer was also hard, but he had started to deal with it. Losing his spot as an Inspector was hard too, but he had dealt with it, thanks to Dime. It's just the loss of people that he hated the most. He's not even sure if he can handle losing Akane, Yayoi, Kenji, and Sho too.

He never knew Shion's real feelings for him except for the fact that she started to secretly flirt with him as well a month earlier. However, if he's just gonna lose her too, he'd better drop his feelings early on so their professional relationship won't get awkward. His head started to spin when he kept thinking if he had also lost to Kougami. He knew Kougami didn't have a thing for Shion, just friendship, but what if? What if something happened between the two of them? What if they did something behind Yayoi's back?

"Damn it!" he muttered.

"Ginoza-san?"

He looked up from his seat and saw Akane. He realized that he was alone in the office.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He noticed, finally, that the office was empty, and only he and Akane were left.

"Where's Hinakawa and Satoh?"

"Satoh's at the nurse's office," Akane replied. "And Hinakawa's extremely tired. I had him sleep in the quarters."

Akane grabbed a seat and sat in front of the tired Enforcer.

"Are you all right?" she asked again.

Ginoza stared at his dirty shoes. He had to get rid of the dust when he gets to his apartment. He didn't want dirt on his clothes.

"I'm… scared," he mumbled.

"Scared?" Akane asked, trying to get if she understood what she had just heard.

Ginoza looked at her, his green eyes trembling. Akane's eyes went wide open, wondering what scared the Enforcer after just helping out the lab analyst at the warehouse.

"I just realized a lot of things back there," he murmured. "Can I help it? I thought I had moved on… moved on from our losses."

Not trying to pry, Akane seemed to get what he meant. This was the same man who told her not to light a cigar just to think of Kougami.

"I feel like if everyone's gone, including you, I'll be alone again," Ginoza replied.

Akane looked at the 28-year-old Enforcer. Even adults hated losses. Even adults hate being alone.

Her hand adeptly landed on his hand on his lap, and she smiled at him.

"I'll be here for you. I'll do my best to survive, Ginoza-san," she gently replied. "So that you won't be alone. Like I told you before, I also need you."

"Tsunemori…" he whispered. "I… I will also do my best to survive."

"Yes, let's," she said with conviction, and with an assuring smile on her face. "Let's watch each other's back, okay?"

"Yeah, and I'll be the guardian of your hue," Ginoza remarked.

Akane giggled. Her giggled was so gentle and soft like skin of a baby, like Dime's fur when he was still a puppy.

"Oh, yeah, you and Karanomori-san…"

"We're friends," was all Gino could say. He didn't want to tell Akane the real score between him and Shion. "We're just friends. She has Yayoi, remember?"

Akane just nodded along. She didn't take it at face value, but what the heck? If Gino wasn't willing to share it, then, whatever.

Ginoza took his hand from Akane's grasp, and without a signal, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. Akane's cheeks went red, but she felt her knees going soft when the Enforcer tapped her back.

"I'll promise to be here for you too, Akane," he whispered, even though they both were still in the office. "Let's deal with our losses and try to move on."

Akane laughed a bitter laugh, her hands still limp at her side, "If only moving on is easy."

Tears started to fall from her eyes as her arms wrapped around Ginoza. She rested her face on his sturdy shoulders and sobbed. She was letting it out on the person who used to be her superior officer, the person who opened a part of himself weeks before. Ginoza continued to wrap her around him as his tears started to fall down as well.

~~.

(I tried to pair Shion up with Ginoza also, because Shion is bi anyway. And besides, she also looks good with Gino ^_^ And Ginoza is hot too.

Last chapter's about Akane and Kougami, thinking of each other at long distance. Dayum!)