Kei
Early, my phone went off. When I ignored it, it simply rang again, so, finally, I checked the screen, finding the pouting face of Hideki's profile picture glaring expectantly at me. Outside, the sun had barely risen.
"It's Sunday," I grumbled when I answered. "People my age like to sleep in."
A long pause followed.
"Did you butt dial me?"
"Are you at my place?" he asked, finally.
"Why would I be? You haven't been there in days." Even as I said it, I shifted in his bed and gazed around his room, taking in the various pieces of art, the trinkets and candles on the dresser. I felt a little like a dipshit for sleeping there without him, but he'd looked so burned out yesterday, I'd thought he'd go home. I'd waited all night.
"Okay," he sighed, tone laced with stress. "Sorry I bothered you."
"Wait, wait." I sat up, scraping the curtain of blonde out of my face. "I'm kidding. Of course, I'm at your place—your bed is nicer—why do you ask?"
Hideki hesitated again. "Can you do me a favor? A big favor?"
Even though I'd been waiting days now for him to ask me for help or confide in me, I asked, "What's in it for me?"
"Whatever you want," he muttered.
"Carte blanche?"
"Whatever, Kei," he repeated, and again I got a sense of strain in his voice. "Go look in my medicine cabinet. There should be some hemostat and a bottle of penicillin. I need you to bring both to me right away."
This time, I took the pause, staring at the faint edge of the bathroom door across the dark room. "Why do you—"
"I can't explain right now. Sorry. I just need you to bring them to me."
"Is this an emergency?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. Hurry it up."
Back in LA, my old partner, Chad Baker, had taught me that twenty years of being a cop altered what constituted an emergency, and I didn't think Hideki would say that if he didn't mean it, so I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, put my hair in a ponytail, and dashed out the door not ten minutes later.
In less than half an hour, I sat in the parking lot outside Matsuda's apartment building, watching Hideki saunter through the gray morning, shielding his eyes against my headlights. When I handed him the medicine, I hoped he'd give me an explanation, but he just muttered, "Thanks."
"You're not supposed to keep that," I told him, just so he wouldn't wander away immediately. "The more people pop antibiotics for their common cold, the more the bacteria mutates, and eventually they'll be totally immune."
Hideki huffed.
"Take as prescribed, Old Man."
"Not right now, Kei," he warned, sounding too dead tired to argue, and he'd turned gray since I saw him at the station—skin like ash, hair like charcoal, eyes like storm clouds. Based off his rumpled shirt, he'd slept in his clothes, and blood splashed the cuff of his left sleeve.
"What's going on?" I asked, looking him over for any sign of injury. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just tired."
It hadn't taken me a very long time of dating him to discover 'just tired' was Hideki's standard lie for when he felt upset, and, generally, there was no sure way past it.
"So, what's this emergency?"
He shook his head and lit a cigarette, closing his eyes and leaning heavily against my car. "Where should I start?"
It sounded like he really wanted an answer to that, so I studied the apartment building, picking out Matsuda's balcony, where faint light shone through the curtains. "Is Matsu really so messed up you have to stay here with him?"
"Princess, you couldn't pay me to leave that guy alone right now."
With interest, I studied his face again, noting how very serious he looked. When it came to his friends, he had a way of trivializing his feelings, and normally I think he'd bitch about Matsuda being a whiner and call it a day, whether he was worried or not.
Yesterday, too, he'd been off. He'd brought me lunch, but he'd only spared five minutes to eat with me, and he'd brooded the whole time. No matter how I'd teased him, he wouldn't laugh it off, and it wasn't until I'd commented that he looked sad that he'd finally murmured, "Yeah…I'll be okay… Just tired."
"Why isn't he in the hospital?" I asked.
Taking a deep drag of smoke, Hideki stared up at the apartment also, studying the lit balcony. "It's not really a hospital situation. Well, it is. But… I don't know. It's complicated, Kei."
"Okay," I agreed, shrugging and getting out a pack of gum. "I'll ask Chief about it when I get to the station."
"You're going in? It's Sunday, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but I've got nothing better to do."
Hideki tilted his head, as if to say, makes sense, and then mumbled, "Chief's here with us," like he didn't want me to hear him.
I stared at him, hard. "Chief's here?"
"Yeah." Hideki rubbed his eyes. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more. It's just really complicated. Kinda classified."
"So what are those for?" I pointed to the penicillin and wound seal.
"For Matsuda."
"But you took him to the hospital the other night. Didn't the doctor prescribe—"
"No. He didn't need antibiotics the other day. I don't know if he does now. I just thought…since I have them…" He sighed. "Anyway, that's all I can tell you. I better go back upstairs." He squeezed my hand. "Thanks again."
My heart sank. Seeing him this way, for only a few moments, was hardly any better than not seeing him at all. "'Kay. Well, tell Chief and Touma I say hello."
"Mmhm." Hideki tried to smile, but the look just rolled over and died, turning his face grimmer than ever.
"Taniki-tan." I grasped his sleeve before he could get away, but he winced, hard, like I'd hurt him.
"Don't call me that right now," he muttered. "Please."
"'Kay, sorry. Just, I miss you."
"I know. I'll try to come home soon."
"Don't worry about it." I smiled—I always did enough smiling for both of us, and right now, he looked like he needed some sunshine—and I tugged gently on his sleeve. "Just call me later."
"I will." He leaned in to kiss me on the forehead, abruptly, and then sauntered away. "Later, sweet girl."
I watched him disappear inside the building, and then I sat there a few minutes longer, trying to figure it out.
When they'd found Matsuda, I'd thought everything would go pretty much back to normal, but things had only gotten weirder. For two days, Hideki wouldn't answer my calls, communicating only through texts—which he hated because he sucked at it—he wouldn't tell me where he was, and no matter what I guessed—the hospital, Matsuda's apartment, Aizawa's house—he'd just insisted he couldn't say. Any time I asked when he'd be home, or at least back at the station, he'd said he didn't know, and he'd seemed more frustrated by that than I was, giving me the impression he was torn between them and the rest of his life.
Finding the three of them holed up here didn't explain anything. Needing hemostat and a half-empty bottle of antibiotics made it sound like Matsuda must be hurt bad enough to be in danger of infection, but, suspiciously, not bad enough to to be hospitalized.
Finally, I pulled out of the parking lot and drove away, but the questions bugged me the rest of the morning.
At the station, things felt mind-numbingly slow.
Plenty of us had been searching for Matsuda. Top detectives had been taken off cases to look for him—Chief made finding one of our own a priority, and that aligned with his past maneuvers to unify the department—no one complained. Some had even volunteered to help, like me. We'd turned the city upside down, to no avail, and a lot of people had started whispering, when Chief wasn't around, that his favorite must be dead.
Nobody relished the fact. Aizawa did a lot of house cleaning after his promotion, transferring and outright expelling officers he didn't trust or who'd turned against him in the Reaper case, which left, in theory, only detectives loyal to him and Hideki. Matsuda had earned quiet nicknames like the chief's little brother and some Japanese equivalent to the teacher's pet, but I knew mostly everyone around here liked him. His absence left the station unnervingly quiet, and the fact that he might be dead had been a blow to morale.
So when we'd found out he was alive, everyone had been relieved and happy. Someone had even thrown together a small celebration in the break room, with cupcakes and punch, and I'd heard whispers about a surprise welcome back party, when the time was right.
I'd thought, at the very least, Hideki would snap out of the bitchy funk he'd been in.
Seeing how that had been more or less wrapped up, and the chief hadn't been in to debrief or reassign anyone, more than a dozen of us had nothing to do, and the unnerving quiet had taken on a flavor of confusion.
Whatever is going on, it must be a really big deal.
Aizawa never let us work together, but Hideki and I didn't have a problem talking about work or even sharing some details of our respective assignments, so I knew he'd been working all year on tying up the loose ends from the Reaper case, arresting syndicate members and trying to round up the last of the illegal guns that had come to Japan. Hideki had told me Matsuda wasn't allowed to work on that—he'd made it sound like Matsu had to be left in the dark about it completely—because there were still people out there who wanted to punish him for what happened to Kira, and with his history of taking matters into his own hands, Aizawa and Hideki both thought he'd be safest not knowing anything.
His disappearance and now these new, strange events must be tied together, but I was scared to think that the reason Hideki couldn't tell me anything might be because Kira or his notebook were involved.
By lunch, I started going crazy, sitting at my desk and poring over documents I'd read at least a hundred times before. I didn't move all the way to Tokyo and join the NPA to become a desk jockey.
As I waited for Hideki to call me, I began to think that I could get some answers by being more direct with him. He had an uncanny way of thinking a step ahead of me in most conversations, and if he wanted to hide something, he found a way to stump me, leaving me no choice but to drop it.
Thought it had taken a lot of practice, I'd begun to figure out ways to corner him so that he had to answer my questions, and, typically, that meant asking questions in a way he couldn't weasel out of.
One eye always on my phone, I struggled to think of the best ways to phrase my questions, but, then, as time passed, I started to suspect he wasn't planning on calling me at all, and I didn't think I should disturb him.
Finally, just when I felt sure I couldn't take the stagnation anymore, I thought of something I could do, so I left the station, grabbed food from my favorite sushi restaurant, and drove across town to Sayu's house.
She lived in a nice neighborhood, very low-key and quaint. After searching the area and then some with Hideki, turning over every stone without success, I knew it like the back of my hand.
It would be really nice, I thought, staring across the road at the house, to get some closure on that, to know where in the hell he went for so long, and what it has to do with whatever's happening now.
So far, the only info I'd gotten was that Matsu was alive, and that they still didn't know where he'd been or what exactly had happened to him.
I guess they expected that to be good enough, but I couldn't stop kicking myself for not going with them the night they found him. At least then I might have been able to stay with Hideki.
Just as I went to open my car door, I heard a knock on my passenger window and looked over to see Sayu herself frowning in at me.
Grinning brightly, I rolled that window down. "Hey-ya, oneechan!"
"It's oneesan," she corrected, stiffly. "What are you doing here?"
I laughed. "Wow, criticizing my manners and then being rude. You're a handful!"
Her thick brows dipped. I'd really only been around her a couple times—usually with Hideki and Matsuda—but normally she had a refreshing attitude, pensive, but talkative, intelligent, but energetic. I'd never seen her looking so annoyed. "Speaking of rude, it's not polite to show up at someone's house unannounced."
"Your boyfriend sure does it a lot to—"
"What do you want, Komagata?" she asked again, sharper.
"Relax." I picked up one of the doggy bags I'd brought along. "I'm just swinging by with lunch." The smile I gave her was a real winner, a heart melter, the same smile that had been breaking boys' hearts and capturing friends since middle school, but Sayu's frown turned suspicious.
"Come on, girl," I insisted. "It's sushi."
"Not every Japanese person likes sushi, Gaijin."
After being here two years, that word felt like a slap in the face, but I tried to brush it off. "My bad. I just thought—"
"Did Ide send you?"
Taken aback, I laughed again. "Wow. No. Hideki doesn't send me anywhere. He's mybitch."
Sayu's face twisted with a dark outrage. "Excuse me? I'm sorry, you talk so much like a man, sometimes it's very distracting."
"Sayu," I sighed at last, "come on. I just dropped by to have lunch with you."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I can go, if you want, but I'll be very disappointed."
Caramel eyes analyzed me, unblinking, like I must be trying to trick her, and I didn't understand that either. The last time I'd seen her, having a few drinks with us after work, we'd gotten along well, I'd thought, teasing our guys and singing karaoke duets.
"Don't make me eat all this sushi by myself," I pleaded.
At last she muttered, "Whatever," and waved her hand for me to come along.
Smiling again, I hopped out of my car, lugging the bags of sushi with me as I followed her across the road to her house, and for the first time, I noticed the backpack on her shoulders and the books under her arm.
"Did you just come from school?" I wondered as she opened the door.
"It's Sunday," she informed me, stiffly. "I was studying with a friend."
"That's nice. Did you—"
"Anyway, I don't go to school, I go to university. There's a difference."
"Right, yeah. I know. My Japanese is bad."
Last time, she'd been nothing but polite about it, coaching me on my grammar and teaching me cute phrases to say to Hideki. Today, she snorted, "Make sure you take your ugly boots off."
Kicking my boots into the genkan, I scanned the livingroom, just as quaint and understated as the neighborhood. "Pretty house."
"Mom!" Sayu called. "I'm home!" And then added, stiffly, "The cops are here!"
In a frantic patter of feet, Mrs. Yagami appeared from around the corner, looking wide-eyed and worried, but she stopped hard when she saw me, blinking in confusion.
She looked like the typical, little, Japanese lady to me, but knowing she'd been married to the late, great Deputy Director Soichiro Yagami filled me with a sense of deep admiration and respect. I wished Sayu hadn't introduced me that way.
"Hello, ma'am," I greeted, awkwardly, barely remembering to bow "It's…not official. I'm just…here to chat with Sayu-kun." That was stupid; just the thing I'd always said back in LA when I visited a suspect.
Accordingly, Mrs. Yagami's forehead arched with alarm.
"No… I mean…" I muddled through my keigo. "I'm only here to conduct a friendly visit with Sayu-kun. If you'll have me."
"Sayu-san," Sayu muttered under her breath. "How long have you been in this country?"
Not long enough, apparently. For the first time in two years, I regretted not studying more of the language before I came over. Damn, it was hard, even here, surrounded by it every day, and it didn't help that Hideki and a lot of the others indulged me by speaking English. They probably just didn't want to hear me slaughtering their native tongue.
Mrs. Yagami looked all the more confused, but she finally admitted, "I'm not sure I understand, Miss…?"
"Komagata," I told her, automatically offering my hand. "Kei Komagata. Please pardon my intrusion, I just wanted to check on Sayu… Sayu-san."
Still, she didn't seem to understand, and I thought frantically for a way to dispel the worry lines from her brow.
"As a friend," I expanded. "Since she's been going through so much with Matsuda—"
"Let's eat!" Sayu half-shouted suddenly, and tore the sushi from my hands. "Mom, Komagata-san is just an acquaintance. That's all. We're just having lunch, and then she's leaving. Please don't worry about it." She grabbed my arm to pull me toward the kitchen, and even though she was short and frail, I let her. "I'm sure you're tired from work—I'll start dinner as soon as she's gone." Flashing her mother a gentle smile, she thrust me into the kitchen.
Eyes flashing, she hissed, "Don't talk about Touta to my mother."
I stared at her, flustered. "Doesn't she know what happened?" I didn't have to ask, though; the way Mrs. Yagami acted, she had no idea Sayu was going through anything.
"Just eat and leave," Sayu commanded, unloading sushi platters out onto the table. "This is the last thing I need."
"Why would you not tell her your boyfriend got—?"
"Because she doesn't want us dating at all. Now eat." She glared ferociously at the takeout boxes, and then suddenly whipped around to throw open a draw and tossed a fork down in front of me.
Laughing, I dropped into my seat. "You know I'm Japanese, right?"
"You're an American," she corrected. "Your accent is terrible." And then she mimicked me, "Konichiwa, Oneechan," and laughed, mockingly.
I studied her. I'd always thought she was a cute girl—small and feminine—and I'd definitely seen her be sweet to Matsuda. Even the night we went out, he'd gotten a little sloshed, and she'd turned almost maternal, piling affection on him, insisting he drink water. Despite the age difference between them, I'd seen that she had a better handle on personal responsibility, but she didn't seem to mind looking after him.
In that, we'd found solidarity, since Hideki was much the same. A grown up idiot who'd always lie and tell you he was tired, even in the peak of emotional distress.
Outside of that, Sayu had always been carefully polite to anyone older than her, using her titles and honorifics, deferring to their opinions even if I could tell she disagreed.
I doubted the five years I had on her accounted for her bad manners today. In the past, I'd gotten the feeling she thought I had a crush on Matsuda, and that was just the craziest damn thing. Sure, he was cute, but he didn't have the ruggedness or the spirit I liked; I thought about telling her that her goofy boyfriend was way too young and immature for me, but that seemed uncalled for, seeing how she'd gone so long without seeing him. She must be worried sick.
That, though, didn't excuse how gallingly hostile she was acting.
Spreading my hands and laughing too, I decided to cut the bullshit. "Hey, kid, I'm just trying to be nice. I don't know all the traditions and customs here, but where I come from, when somebody swings by with sushi, you say thank you, at least. And in America, it's not nice to make fun of people's accents, or to make a guest feel unwelcome. So." I stood up. "I guess I'll go. Enjoy your fish. Or throw it away. I don't really care."
Sayu's gaze dropped in shame, and her face turned red.
I added, gentler, "The only reason I didn't call first was because I don't have your number. Sorry, I bothered you, though."
She glanced up at me. "Ide-san really didn't send you?"
"No. Why would he?"
"To ask me more questions."
"Hideki knows more than you and me combined at this point. Asking you questions probably won't help."
I wasn't ready for the sharp, knowing look she gave me. "You know where Touta is, don't you?"
Oops.
I paused just long enough for her to get frustrated all over again. "Why am I the only one in the world who's not allowed to know where Touta is?"
"I don't know where he is. Not exactly."
"Ide-san does, though, right?"
"Yeah, they're together."
Despair darkening her eyes, she tugged ferociously on her necklace, and I remembered what I'd come here for.
"Can we just eat?" I asked. "I'm really hungry."
Slowly, she nodded and sat down, taking up her chopsticks in a shaking hand.
Eating with the fork was awkward, because scooping up huge bites of sashimi while she picked delicately at her rice really did make me feel like an idiot gaijin. After the way she'd all but thrown the fork at me, I wasn't about to ask for chopsticks and risk making a fool of myself with them.
"I'm sorry, Komagata," she said, suddenly. "I'm just…frustrated with the police right now."
"Yeah?" I glanced up from my dish. "How come?"
Sayu looked like the question puzzled her. "You don't know?"
"Well, Hideki told me you haven't been able to see Matsuda, and that they haven't been able to give you much information about what happened to him."
Snorting, she frowned. "No, they haven't told me anything at all, other than he's alive. But it's more than that." With that, she slammed her chopsticks back down, loudly, and explained, in a low voice, what she'd seen at the hospital the night they recovered him.
Forkful of rice poised halfway to my mouth I listened, and then asked, "Who took him? Not the chief?"
Grumpily, she confirmed Hideki and Aizawa had been there, but the three escorts were men she didn't know. The one sounded suspiciously like Director Boko himself.
This must be really big if it goes all the way to the top.
"That's weird," I murmured, mostly out of commiseration.
Sayu whispered, "It looked like he was in trouble." Tears filled her eyes, but she bit her lip, holding them back. "He was hurt, and they barely let me touch him."
Very weird, treating an injured warrant officer like a criminal.
Matsuda had a way of doing whatever he wanted, so it wasn't impossible for him to have gotten himself in trouble, but he was definitely a good cop—a good guy—and I couldn't imagine him doing something bad enough to get in that much trouble.
"I just want to know where he is," she explained in a tight voice. "I just want to know he's okay. I want to talk to him. But nobody will let me. I still don't even know if he was kidnapped, or what!"
"He was," I told her, automatically.
Sayu jerked hard and stared up at me with round eyes.
"I don't know why, or by whom, but Hideki told me Matsuda confirmed he was taken away from here at gunpoint."
Her face paled.
"He's okay, though." I got out my phone to find my text thread from a few days ago, trying not to smile at all of Hideki's ridiculous spelling errors. "Sarge is okay. Has some cuts and bruises, but he'll be all right. A little shaken up. He's safe though. Standby while we figure out the rest." I laid my phone down. "That's all Hideki's been able to tell me so far. I saw him today; I guess he, Matsuda, and the chief are all together—"
"Where?"
I shook my head. "He just said they have to stay with him."
Sayu toyed with her necklace, thinking furiously. "I'm not sure the NPA has the right to do this."
"That depends." I sat back in my chair, folding my arms. "Matsuda probably agreed to go along with them."
I'd said it to ease some of her fears, but the way her lips quirked and her nose wrinkled, that clearly didn't satisfy her. "If he agreed to go, he'd be allowed to call me, wouldn't he? That is, if he's being debriefed, or held in protective custody, or something like that, it's not like they'd keep him from contacting me."
"No, the chief wouldn't put you guys through that."
"Aizawa-san hasn't been answering my calls," she sniffed.
I considered telling her it sounded like Director Boko had gotten involved with the situation, and therefore it might not be Chief's choice to leave her out of the loop, but that would only serve to upset her more.
"He will. I'm sure. Just as soon as he can."
Sayu's eyes narrowed. "Even if Touta's been arrested for doing something wrong, someone should let me know what's going on."
"You're not his next of kin," I pointed out.
"I called his mother; she didn't even know he'd been found." She slammed back in her chair and started fixing her ponytail, a decidedly agitated snarl framing her mouth.
That really didn't make any sense. In terms of protocol, I could see why Sayu might be left out, but to neglect to inform a victim's mother that he was safe, letting her go on, worried and ignorant, that wasn't right.
In a little bit, when Sayu had stopped playing with her hair and resumed eating, I assured her, "I don't think Matsuda is in trouble, Sayu. Chief Aizawa can be a little overbearing…" That was putting it mildly. "I'm guessing it's a matter of security."
Being part of the Kira task force had made big mouth Matsu privy to some pretty sensitive information, and I could see Aizawa blocking him from contacting anyone simply to ensure nothing leaked.
Hideki had vaguely explained that Matsuda had been questioned by someone; in a criminal case, I generally took that to mean intimidated, if not physically forced, into disclosing information. Assuming I was right, he might be really distraught, and therefore all the more likely to go blurting things out.
The only information I could think of, though, so important that it might prompt Aizawa to start stripping away Matsuda's rights, would be related to the death note.
"His security?" Sayu wanted to know.
"Possibly."
"Or are you talking about top-secret information?"
"Could be."
"So, something to do with Kira?"
"I wouldn't want to jump to that conclusion," I confessed.
"But what you're saying is, it could have to do with the notebook."
"Notebook?" Taken aback, I stared at her and I faltered, wondering if I could have heard wrong simply because I'd been thinking about the notebook. "Um. No. What? What notebook?"
Pausing a moment to gauge my reaction, Sayu nodded to herself. "You know. Aizawa told me everyone who worked on the Reaper case knew."
All the more reason he'd kill me for mentioning it.
"Why would the chief tell you about any of that?"
"You know that, too."
"No," I said truthfully. "I really don't."
"You know that Matsuda shot Kira though, right?"
"Sure." I sat back in my seat. "That's probably why any of this is happening."
A look of triumph entered her eyes, and I realized I'd underestimated how sharp she was. Telling her anything had been a mistake.
"So," she said, lowly. "It all has to do with Kira. Still."
"I don't know that for sure," I insisted, weakly.
Nodding, she went back to eating, taking her time and swallowing several bites before saying in a conversational tone, "You were on the team looking for Touta, weren't you?"
"Yeah," I agreed, cautiously. "But there wasn't any evidence to follow."
Sayu simply nodded again, like she expected that. "It's weird, then, don't you think? That your own boyfriend won't tell you anything more about a case you're assigned to. Unless you're just pretending not to know anything else." She shot another intent look from beneath her lashes.
"I'm really not. I told you everything I know."
"So if they won't tell you, it must be really top-secret; if they won't even let me talk to him, maybe they're just nervous about what he'll tell me." She giggled to herself. "Touta's terrible with secrets."
"Yeah." I tried to smile. "I've noticed."
Again, the sharpness in her eyes as she locked gazes with me caught me completely off guard. "Out of the whole taskforce, he's the only one I would kidnap if I wanted information about Kira and the notebook. You're being left out because you don't know everything about the circumstances. It all makes sense."
Oh. Oh, shit.
Stupidly, I sat there holding my dumb ass fork. I'd only come because I felt bad for her, and I wanted to tell her what little I could to comfort her. I hadn't expected her to use that to extract a bunch of classified information.
"So it all makes sense," I agreed, somewhat shakily. "So what? There's nothing you or I can do with that information."
Sayu gazed out the window, deciding that for herself.
"Sayu," I said, more urgently. "You just have to sit tight."
"Standby," she intoned in a quiet but contemptuous voice, "while we figure the rest out."
"You don't have a choice. Wherever Matsuda is, he's with Ide and Aizawa—the two most stubborn guys I know—they'll get him back to you as soon as they can."
Still, she simply stared out the window.
I swallowed hard. If the chief found out I'd leaked so much sensitive information to her, there'd be hell to pay. Maybe I should tell Hideki before things got out of hand.
No, no. She was smart, but she was only a civilian—a little girl—she couldn't really use the information she'd gotten from me. It was all hypothetical and guesswork anyway.
"We don't know anything," I reminded her, forcefully. "If you're smart, you'll keep all this to yourself."
Again, she turned to me, and smiled sweetly. "Don't worry, Oneesan, I won't tell on you."
Matsuda
When I woke up, I lay in my bed, buried in blankets, but shivering. Breathing hurt and my whole head ached. Automatically, I tried to think about whether or not I had something stronger than Tylenol in the house.
I must have slept all day. It had gotten dark outside, and blinding light from down the hall cascaded through the open door, stinging my eyes. I heard voices.
"Boko can go to hell," Aizawa was saying—shouting. "He thinks he's some kind of super soldier now, but he's not. He's Matsuda."
In a loud voice, Ide countered, "If you go against the director's orders, we could lose everything, Shuichi. Twenty years of—"
"Since when is your job that important to you? Matsuda could die!"
"He's obsessed with his directive. What do you think will happen if we don't help him get the fucking notebook?"
Usually, he agreed with whatever the boss had to say, even if he didn't really believe it was the right thing to do, and especially when it came to me, I'd noticed, Ide had a way of shrugging and saying, "he knows best, Matsuda," or, "just do what the chief tells you, Matsuda." This was the first time I'd ever heard them fight about me.
When Aizawa didn't answer, Ide finished for him, "He will die if he goes after the notebook alone! Maybe the only thing we can do is back him up!"
"I just can't believe that's your solution! We can't stop him, so let's go with him to our deaths—"
"I'm being logical!" Ide screamed. "You're the one letting feelings get in the way!"
"Great! So I've got two emotionless bastards on my side. One was bad enough—"
"I'm not about to let you make a stupid mistake over your out-of-control emotions!"
They care too much.
Get the notebook.
First things, first. I had to get the bleeding to stop and find a way to close the wound in my mouth, find something to take for the terrible pain.
Despite my pounding head and burning gums, despite my stinging feet and hands, despite the feeling of getting stabbed in the side over and over, I climbed out of bed and staggered for the door, pausing to lean hard against the wall before continuing down the hall, where I found them in the living room, poised to tear each other apart.
I never wanted to see them fight like this… I thought, but that, too, was merely a memory, a fact.
They shut up when they saw me, watching me round the breakfast bar into the kitchen. Yanking crusty gauze from my mouth and dropping it routinely in the trash, I started digging through my junk drawer. The taste of blood made me feel sick.
"What are you looking for?" Aizawa wanted to know.
"Superglue," I said, through swollen lips.
"We put hemostat on it," Ide informed me. "And we have more if you need it."
I touched my tongue to my gums, finding the hard, uneven line of a scab where the gaping hole should be.
"You still should see a doctor about it," Aizawa decided. "It might not be too late to fix it."
"I don't care about fixing it," I murmured.
Immediately, he exploded again. "Nobody cares! Nobody cares what you care about, or what you want, or what you think you have time for! In case you missed what's happening, your mind is fucked!"
"Shuichi," Ide tried to interrupt, like he usually did when Aizawa lost it. "If he—"
"Don't start with me!" Aizawa glared ferociously at him, and his booming voice made my head pound, reminding me that I needed something for the pain. "You're wrong, Ide! That's all there is to it!"
Sighing and squinting in the harsh lights, I turned to him, one hand braced against the counter. "Why are you so angry?"
"Because, Matsuda!" he yelled after a moment of shock. "You ripped out one of your teeth! You didn't have to do that!"
"A dental appointment would have taken forever."
"That's not the point! You're hell bent to destroy yourself over the notebook." He shoved Ide, harshly. "And this asshole doesn't even seem to see a problem with that."
Ide stumbled back and straightened up, bunching his fists like he wanted to throw himself at Aizawa. "For the last time! I do! I'm just saying—"
"To hell with what you're saying! It's insane! All of this is insane! Both of you are acting insane!"
Ide opened his mouth to shout something back at him, but got interrupted by a firm knock at the door, and we all paused to turn and stare that direction.
"Neighbors," I husked. "You guys are making a ton of noise."
"Don't talk to me about noise!" Aizawa raged. "Try getting woken up at six in the morning by you, screaming bloody murder!"
"Sorry I woke you up," I said.
"That isn't the point, Matsuda! You—"
The knocking echoed through my apartment again, more insistently.
"I'll get it," Ide announced, dourly, and marched to the door.
Ide
While I went to answer the door, Aizawa resumed yelling, this time at Matsuda, even though I didn't see what damn good it would do.
Then again, I didn't see that it did any damn good to scream at me either. All day, I'd sat at the sick bed of my unconscious friend, cleaning blood off him and listening as he called for Sayu, hoping he'd wake up normal again. It had been a long time since I'd felt completely helpless, and I couldn't stand the thought of some smug medic rushing in here only to cart him off to the insane asylum. On the off-chance he woke up scared, I didn't want him to be alone. I didn't want them to put him somewhere I couldn't get to him.
Luckily, he'd made his wishes clear by saying he'd fight the medics off, so I'd talked Shuichi out of calling the ambulance. He'd agreed, grudgingly, but then he'd been angry at me all day. As much as I hated to fight, I could only take so much, and, as usual, he didn't understand.
He did get one thing right, though—this was absolutely insane. Letting Matsuda go after the notebook would be insane. The fact that he was in this condition was insane. Trying to decide what to do at all was making me insane. It seemed like I hadn't had a moment of peace and quiet since he came bolting out of the yellow box and dove into a helicopter, and I was about to rip my hair out.
So whoever turned out to be on the other side of that door had better have nothing but nice things to say to me.
With a sharp breath, I threw it open, finding Mogi's thick frame blocking my view of the hall, dripping rain and heaving from running upstairs.
"Mogi," I blurted out, and behind me, Aizawa finally stopped screaming.
Looking uncommonly outraged, Mogi charged in, pushed past me, and spun in a half circle to scowl at us each in turn before he pointed at Matsuda. "You."
"Hey, Mochi," Matsu greeted listlessly, and he looked ready to pass out again, eyes dull with pain.
Mogi didn't seem to notice.
"Hey, Mochi," he echoed, not loudly, but his voice shuddered. "How can you hey Mochi me after what you've done?"
Matsuda watched him without much response. Being so pale and feeble-looking, it seemed like Mogi could knock him over with a feather, but I remembered what he'd done to Hisumi and automatically laid a hand on Mogi's arm.
"Easy, big guy," I soothed.
Rudely, Mogi jerked away, furious gaze still on Matsuda.
Aizawa started, "Mogi—"
Spitting, Mogi ripped through his words, "You're no better, Aizawa, using him against me."
Aizawa's eyes popped. "You think I tricked you?"
"Don't lie to me," Mogi warned, voice still trembling with quiet fury, and I'd never seen him so angry. He was like a hungry bear, up on hind legs, ready to strike, and if that wasn't just the last damn thing we needed. "Sending Matsuda. You knew I trusted him."
Matsuda sagged against the breakfast bar, rubbing his head with a shaking hand, but I heard Aizawa's anger mounting in his voice and knew he must be nearly out of patience. "You've got to be kidding."
"Shuichi," I counseled, even though he'd been irascible and inconsolable all day. "Just—"
Like I hadn't spoke, he snarled, "Why would I intentionally send Matsuda to steal the deathnote?"
"You're chief of the NPA now," Mogi accused. "I have no idea what your motives are."
"You've spent too much time with L if you think that's even possible. He specifically requested to talk with Matsuda alone!"
"Apparently, he didn't trust you."
"Hey," I tried to interrupt. "Let's not lose our cool, boys—"
Once more, Shuichi cut across me with ease. "You really think I planned this whole abduction scheme as a means to lure Near back to Japan?"
"At the moment," Mogi grated out, eyes glinting with distrust. "That's the way it looks."
"Okay." Aizawa laughed, bitterly, and then shouted, "Do you also think I personally kicked the shit out of Matsuda just so you'd buy my story? Look at him! For fuck's sake, Mogi—"
"Did you?"
"No! I would never use Matsuda—"
"You sent him in there wearing a wire—"
"I was trying to protect him! From L, and from—"
"Then you don't trust me—"
"You're not the one I distrust—"
"Hey!" I said, louder. "That's enough! We're all on the same side here!"
They continued to glare at each other, and I couldn't remember seeing them fight before. Ever since the beginning, they'd been similar. Steady and reliable. Yes, Aizawa had a way of losing his temper or getting a little too gung-ho any time his passion took over, and Mogi was careful to a fault, rarely saying what he truly thought, unprompted, but when it came to having someone on your side who was going to dig in, work hard, and never back down, you couldn't ask for anyone better than the two of them.
Seeing them at each other's throats was almost more than I could take. If they went to blows, I wouldn't be able to stop them, I'd just be standing on the sidelines, like a child, ineffectively screaming for them to cut it out.
"Guys…" I eased toward the center of the room, hands raised. My eyes darted to the guns Shuichi and I had left on the coffee table, and then to Mogi's belt, but it didn't look like he was packing anything. "Let's just talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about," Aizawa growled, enraged glare on Mogi. "After everything the four of us have been through, how could any of you possibly think I'd use Matsuda—"
"No, no," I insisted, and looked earnestly at Mogi. "It's all a misunderstanding. We—"
Sharply, he said, "Save your smooth talk."
"I'm just trying to tell you, that isn't what happened."
Finally, he tore his eyes off Aizawa to glare at me. "You'd say that even if he did betray me. No one can trust a word that comes out of your mouth."
My breath hitched.
Aizawa roared, "Don't you fucking talk to him like that!" He even charged forward a few steps, sticking a warning finger in Mogi's face. "You don't have any right to barge in here and start slinging accusations! You've got some balls to—"
"Geez," Matsuda sighed, loudly, and suddenly went around to flop down on his couch. He switched on the TV, like they weren't about to go to blows in his living room, and we all watched him flip through the channels until he finally found some dumb anime and left it there.
Normally, he'd throw himself in the middle of the fight, take all the blame on himself, and beg us not to fight. His lack of interest stunned Aizawa and Mogi enough to shut them up, and I took the awkward silence as an opportunity to say, "We didn't do any of this on purpose, Mogi. I don't even think we could have preventedit. I've thought about it and thought about it, but if we could, I just don't see how."
He frowned at me, eyes dark, and I couldn't deny that, no matter what Shuichi did, I would cover for him—my partner—I didn't dare let myself be offended for losing a faith I doubted I'd ever had in the first place. Earnestly, I added, "We need your help."
"I can't help," he grumbled, and then went to stand over the couch, scowling down at Matsuda. This time, I detected hurt in his gaze. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I hit you," Matsuda announced, unapologetically.
"No," Mogi snarled, rubbing the back of his head. "Matsuda. My career with Near is over unless I can get the notebook back!"
But Matsuda only gave him a dismissive shrug. "Well, I didn't mean for any of this to happen either."
Mogi stared incredulously at him, mouth falling open, and then looked back at us, and I completely understood. Normally, Matsuda would be kao-taoing before him, begging forgiveness, for an infraction even slightly that severe.
"I guess we'd better fill you in on some things," I said.
Tensions ran high as the three of us took our seats. Matsuda stayed stretched out on the couch, and I didn't have the heart to so much as nudge him, so Aizawa and I perched on the edge, much too close together for my tastes at the moment.
Meanwhile, the way Mogi sat down in the armchair, fists clenched on his knees, and scowled at us, it was clear he really did believe we'd done him a bad turn on purpose.
Since the day I'd met him, he'd been logical to a fault, and much too good to roll around in the dirt with the rest of the guys, taking any negative remarks with a grain of salt, way too busy being the perfect investigator to care what anyone else said. It really annoyed me in my twenties, but I'd figured out that Mogi Kanzo earned what he had by honestly being the best. He was always right.
I couldn't understand why he'd jump to an unfounded, illogical conclusion, or what would shake his faith in Aizawa; everyone knew Shuichi didn't have a deceptive bone in his body, that his honor could never be compromised. Even if he didn't give a shit about Matsuda, he'd never be able to play him like a chess piece.
Working with L, infamous for his dirty tactics, must have planted seeds of suspicion in his mind. Or maybe the whole fiasco with covering up the death note in the first place had stretched all our trust so thin that his simply couldn't hold up anymore.
I got it if he didn't completely trust me at all times, but to attack Aizawa of all people was absolutely ridiculous. It was thanks to Aizawa Mogi even had his job with Near in the first place; even if it wasn't, he'd always been tight with him. From the day the little snot walked into the squad room, a pretentious rookie with good academy marks, Aizawa had been impressed with him. He'd taken him under his wing, coached him, and recommended him for promotions. If nothing else, he owed him enough respect to grant him the benefit of the doubt.
For the longest time, it had felt like we couldn't trust anyone but each other, and now, with Matsuda being used against us by some unknown foe and the director himself, it seemed even that trust was being picked apart.
I cursed the day I heard about Kira.
Aizawa began explaining everything that had gone wrong lately, starting with the night Matsuda first disappeared, and then walking Mogi through every nightmarish second that had followed, all the way up to this morning, when dumb ass had yanked his molar. He glossed over that part, some, and I didn't blame him. Finding Matsuda hurt like that, and coming to realize he'd done it to himself, had been disturbing.
Last night, after Matsuda had gone to bed, the two of us had been able to encourage each other and share confidence. Shuichi insisted that, as long as we could keep the situation under control, we'd find the solution.
This morning, we'd learned there was no controlling Matsuda. Shuichi might take longer to accept that than I had, and he'd be twice as devastated once he did.
By the time Aizawa was saying, "Boko insists we have his support," I was on my fourth cigarette, and Mogi's eyes were threatening to fall from their sockets. "Whatever that's worth. Personally, I'd rather not go after the notebook at all. Even if I did, I'd probably lose my badge by the time I was done with the sadistic fuckers behind all this."
Mogi nodded, studying Matsuda, who hadn't said a word the whole time. His half-lidded eyes stayed fixed on the television, where some cartoon girl with giant tits fought monsters. "I'm sorry," Mogi said finally. "I shouldn't have accused you of conspiring against me, Chief."
With a sigh, Aizawa raked his fingers across his goatee. "Everyone's just on edge." He shot me an apologetic look from the corner of his eye.
Seeing that he'd still jumped down Mogi's throat for calling me a liar, like he normally would, I couldn't be too mad at him. I jerked my head in acknowledgment.
Satisfied, he resumed, "Recovering the notebook is important. Given the state of things, though, I think it would be best if you guys handled it."
"Yes," Mogi agreed. "Unfortunately, I'm the only help from Near you're going to get."
I nearly inhaled my cigarette. "What? He's not going to go after the death note in person?"
Mogi lowered his eyes. "I'd imagine he'll be engaged with it eventually, but, for now, he seems to think the NPA should be able to handle it."
"We can," Aizawa agreed, "but it's a time sensitive matter. Doesn't he care?"
Passing a furtive glance at Matsuda, Mogi said, "Near believes Matsuda has the answers we need. It's just a matter of recovering his memories."
Groaning, I sank back in the couch, ignoring the feeling of Matsuda's knees digging into the base of my spine. "How are we supposed to do that?"
"I can't believe this!" Aizawa exploded. "I can't believe everyoneexpects Matsuda to get the notebook back on his own!"
Quickly, Mogi said, "Since there's no physical evidence, Matsuda's experience is all we…" He broke off suddenly to ask, "Where's the GPS?"
Aizawa wrinkled his nose. "In the kitchen floating in a glass of milk."
Delicately—very delicately—I told him, "We need that device more than Matsuda needs one of his molars."
But from the deep gash of a frown that crossed Shuichi's face, I knew he didn't agree. "Depending on what you think we can get from it."
"It's probably dead anyway," I reminded him, gently.
He turned on me, snarling, "It wouldn't be dead if you hadn't gotten in my way."
"You could have called the ambulance." I drew a deep breath. "But like I said, they weren't going to perform surgery on an unconscious patient, and Matsuda made it clear he didn't care about going to see the dentist. It's not my fault it died, and at least if it can help us it'll be worth something."
Mimicking my careful tone, Mogi added, "We might be able to see where it's been."
At once, Aizawa's expression turned thoughtful, resigned, regretful.
Finally, Matsuda mumbled, "What good will that do?"
"Still one step behind, huh, kiddo?" Aizawa said, softly though.
Wincing at the sight of his swollen face, I looked down at him. "If we can see where it's been, we might be able to find out where they had you detained."
"Duh," Matsuda snorted. "But don't you think that's probably the place I woke up in?"
"Maybe," Aizawa agreed, getting up to pace. "But maybe not. Either way, having a location to search gives us a chance to get our hands on hard evidence. Besides." He drew a long pause, studying Matsuda with a pained look on his face.
Matsuda propped up on his elbows to meet his gaze. "I hate how long it takes you to talk."
"I'm glad you're still capable of hating something," Aizawa told him, absently, and then rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhibiting familiar anxiety. "If you go back to the place where they held you, it might jog your memory."
That sounded bad already. He'd forgotten so much, and when I'd listened to his chat with Near, there'd been a sense of relief to know Matsuda didn't remember all the pain he'd endured. If his mind blocked it out, having it come back to him could even be dangerous.
"Huh." Matsuda studied the ceiling, thoughtfully, and we studied him, looking for any sign of trepidation or excitement, but he just said in an apathetic voice. "Yeah, I'll bet you're right."
