Juuzou walked down the CCG hallway, rolling a coin yen across his knuckles that he stole from a wishing fountain. The rolling was a trick he had learned recently, and practicing it captured his attention much more than helping Shinohara catch up with his paperwork.

"Investigator Shinohara was released from the hospital already, right?" asked a voice from behind a door. In the room, some of the bureau secretaries were gossiping over donuts and coffee. That was about all the secretaries were useful for - gossiping and bringing Juuzou donuts.

Before he could interrupt their 'meeting' to inform them that Shinohara was just fine, and to claim his well-deserved treats, he froze when he heard their next words.

"What about that creepy subordinate of his? Suzuya? I haven't seen him around lately."

"His file says he's supposed to be out on a 'solo investigation', for whatever that means. But my friend on the second floor said she saw him at the zoo just the other day. How childish. Wasting CCG funds for frivolous activities," said a red-headed secretary, taking another bite of her donut.

"I heard he hasn't even gone to visit Shinohara-san in the hospital. What a terrible person, that boy."

"Oh that's right, sometimes I forget he's a boy."

Giggles erupted from the room behind the door and Juuzou clenched his fist tightly around the knob. A part of him wanted to rush in there, snap all their legs and eat all the donuts in front of their stupid faces. But the better part of him, the part Shinohara and Emiko would be proud of, took a deep breath and left the doorway. Instead, he continued walking down the hallway and out the building.

The leaves had fallen off all the trees already, signalling that winter was coming soon. Juuzou wondered briefly whether it would snow again, like it did last year. He glanced down at his drawing of two giraffes on the sketch pad Emiko bought for him. It was good, although it needed more detail in the eyes - he was never any good at drawing those.

A giraffe had recently given birth to at the local zoo, and was making quite the commotion among the visitors. Children would squeal with joy when the baby came cantering near the high fence, and some of the braver kids attempted to feed it grass through the grate.

The mother giraffe was always the cautious one, particularly when it came to defending her young, and would always sway her head in discomfort if anybody got a little too close to her baby.

That's why it was a surprise when Juuzou looked up from his sketch pad just then, to see the mother giraffe just feet away, looking down at him with a calm intensity, searching deep into his soul.

For a reason Juuzou never understood, animals always seemed to like him. One of Shinohara's old neighbors said it was because he behaved just like an animal himself.

Regardless of the reason, Juuzou savored that moment with the giraffe for a little bit longer, eyes bright in wonder, before gaining inspiration and quickly began drawing once more on his sketch pad. Maybe this time he'd get those eyes right.

"Daddy, I want to go see the lions next!" giggled a little boy to his right. The boy was young, probably not even in elementary school yet, and after loosing interest in the giraffes, ran up to hold his father's hand.

And with that one image in his head of father and son, another emotion hit Juuzou, lifting its head out of that box inside of him and rattling those chains he so desperately tried to contain. Had anybody ever held his hand like that?

Juuzou felt disconcerted as he experienced a flashback of his childhood, raised by his Mama. These flashbacks happened often, and Emiko labeled it as 'PTSD' for whatever that meant. He remembered being tortured by his mama, becoming numb to physical and emotional pain. Of losing every last thing he had left including his friends, his humanity and his sanity.

Then he had a flashback to the day the doves came to rescue him from the ghouls. It was over in a matter of hours, but still nobody held his hand or gave him a comforting touch. Instead, he was received with chains around his wrists and was dragged off to a CCG hospital quarantine room, where doctors poked and prodded at him like he was some sort of animal.

But Juuzou's life wasn't all horrible, was it?

No.

The first time someone had ever held his hand, was when he met Shinohara.

"Hello, I'm Shinohara Yukinori. It's nice to meet you, Juuzou."

Even though it was only to reach out and shake his hand briefly, something he later learned was a common greeting, it was the first comforting touch Juuzou could ever remember receiving in his entire life. Somebody holding his hand.

And then a familiar voice interrupted Juuzou from his flashback.

"That couldn't possibly be a giraffe, could it?"

Juuzou looked over his shoulder to the man standing behind him. "Shinohara-san, so you were discharged from the hospital?"

"Yeah, I caused a lot of problems didn't I?"

Together they glanced down at the sketch book in Juuzou's hands. The page that was once a cute drawing of a mother and child giraffe, was now covered in an intricate kaleidoscope-design of red patterned spots and freckles. He must have finished drawing it during the flashback. Sometimes, Juuzou spaced out and didn't realize what he did until afterwards.

For some reason, he imagined Emiko might like this picture, so he flipped the page and made a mental note to send it in the mail soon.

"I've come by to tell you that you were selected as a member for another big operation. For the suppression of a certain ghoul. The target this time is a ghoul called "Owl". It's an SSS rank."

"Is Owl strong?" Juuzou asked, eyes fixed on the giraffe that was now walking away, back further into the enclosure.

"Yeah, he is strong," Shinohara said. A grave look fell upon his face. "I didn't want you to get chosen for this mission. This time... you might actually die."

"I'm so excited!" he said back, smiling now. Over the past few weeks that Shinohara was in the hospital, Juuzou had been hunting down lower level ghouls all over the twentieth ward, and was in desperate need of a challenge. It's so boring when ghouls keel over and die before you even get the chance to hit them with your new, awesome quinque.

Shinohara didn't seem to like that answer however. "Juuzou…"

"Hmm?"

"If you were to die, I'd be sad."

Juuzou looked at his superior for a long time, staring into those sad eyes of his that oddly reminded him of the giraffe. For a fleeting moment, he desired to comfort Shinohara, like he had when he shook his hand that day all those years ago, but didn't know how.

"Whether I live or die, is no big deal." Yeah, Juuzou sucked at comforting people.

A ringing from Shinohara's pocket sounded just then through the zoo, and Juuzou saw the giraffe's ears prick towards it.

"Hello?" Shinohara said, answering his cell. "How can I help you?"

While Shinohara answered the phone, Juuzou attempted to continue on his next drawing, but stopped when the larger investigator wrapped his hand tightly on his shoulder.

"What?... No…. Is she ok?... I'll be over there right away."

For the first time in a long time, Shinohara's face betrayed fear as he shoved his cell phone back in his pants suit pocket.

"What is it…?"

"A ghoul attacked Emiko's home last night. She's in the hospital right now."

Juuzou nearly dropped his coloring supplies as he stood up, something like shock registering through him. Nothing within him wanted to step foot in another hospital ever again, but none of that mattered right now. Somebody hurt Emiko, his precious thing, and now they were going to answer to him.

It was dark outside by the time Juuzou and Shinohara stepped into the hospital.

"I'm sorry," said an old nurse, eyeing up the two - and in particular, their briefcases - with disdain. "Koen-san has already talked with multiple investigators about the incident. She needs to rest now, not be pestered."

Like hell some old lady was going to keep Juuzou from seeing Emiko. With the Juuzou's own disdain for hospitals showing, he shoved the poor old woman aside easily, making her drop her clipboard, and continued forward while Shinohara muttered indistinct apologies and attempted to explain the situation. That they were visiting as friends, not as investigators.

In a rage, Juuzou threw the door open wide to a hospital room, before realizing he must have entered the wrong one. He tried a few more doors, before finally...

"Emi-chan!" he shouted, running to her side.

She was still asleep, and although worse for wear, looked oddly peaceful. Slowly, he looked and saw her hand lying limp by her side. For a brief moment, the thought of holding it flashed in his mind, and instead of thinking through what that might mean, he reached for it.

Entwined with hers, Juuzou finally realized how cold his own hands were. Like the rest of him, his hands were small but strong, yet they seemed normal sized when compared with hers. Yes, their hands fit together quite nicely.

"Aki…? Is that you?"

Juuzou instantly dropped her hand as she woke up. Her eyes peeked open slowly, and he was slightly taken aback by Emiko's bad eye, glazed over and staring at nothing in particular. That familiar twinge stung at his heart - the same one he felt whenever he looked at it, and he was surprised to find it was the same emotion he felt when he bruised her wrists in the hospital elevator a few weeks ago. He wasn't ready to label it as guilt yet, however.

"Oh Juuzou, it's you."

Knowing he wasn't any good at comforting people, Juuzou elected to stay silent. It's not like he could think of anything to say anyway, good or bad. Together they simply were, sitting in silence, and like her bad eye, staring at nothing in particular.

And then Shinohara stepped in to save him from the awkwardness.

"Emiko, oh no, I'm so sorry…"

With the presence of now the two most important men in her life, Emiko allowed herself to cry at that moment, and Shinohara stepped over to wrap her in his strong arms.

Juuzou however, began to feel uncomfortable. As if somehow he didn't belong in this room anymore, despite the fact that just seconds before, being here was the only thing he wanted to do. Emotions were too confusing to have, and he briefly wondered if this was why most people acted so irrationally.

"How could something like this happen?" whispered Emiko once she had stopped crying enough to talk.

"The investigators that were here said the ghoul must have been connected to Aki somehow, but when his family looked into it, they realized there was no connection at all to any of Aki's previous cases," he began to explain quietly. "The last I heard, they think the ghoul was connected to Aogiri Tree. I know nothing else…"

Shinohara reached forward on the bed and held her once more.

"What did the ghoul look like?" asked Juuzou suddenly, an idea sparking in his mind. "If you tell me what it looks like, I can kill it like I did the one that killed your dad." That surely would make Emiko feel better.

But the therapist shook her head and raised two, empty eyes to look into his. "That won't be necessary. It's dead already. I... killed it."

Juuzou genuinely felt shocked. It's not that he thought Emiko was weak... Well yeah, he did actually. Sure she was strong in certain situations, and she wasn't a completely useless bum, but against a ghoul he never thought she would be able to stand a chance, let alone kill one.

"You… killed a ghoul?" he responded dumbstruck, something of a smile forming on his chapped lips.

Emiko only continued to stare blankly at him though, as if her thoughts were somewhere else. "Yes," she said. "Aki was sleeping, when I went to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. That's when I-I heard him scream. I-I-I didn't know what else to do! I ran to the living room where Aki keeps his quinque and ran back as quickly as I could, but…."

She began to cry again, and Shinohara placed a hand on her shoulder.

"That's ok, you don't have to talk about it anymore," he said. "Get some rest, you've been through a lot. If you're being discharged soon, you can come stay at our house tonight."

But Emiko shook her head. "I'll stay the night here. The doctors want to run some more tests."

As if on cue, a doctor peeked his head through the door. "Oh, it's rather late for visitors isn't it?"

Seeing Emiko crying on the bed in Shinohara's arms, the doctor was about to turn around to come back later, but Emiko stopped her tears just for him.

"Please," she said. "I need to know. Is everything ok? There's no damage, right?"

The doctor looked hesitantly back into the room, but with one look at Emiko's tear streaked face, he decided to stay.

"That's right, everything looks healthy Koen-san. Congratulations, your baby will be just fine."

A sigh of relief escaped Emiko's mouth, while Juuzou's jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

"B… Baby?"

The doctor escaped the room quickly at that moment, to allow the grieving patient more privacy with her visitors.

"'Baby', what does he mean?" asked Shinohara, clearly shocked as well.

Emiko looked up at him, still buried in his arms. "We meant to tell everyone earlier, but with what happened during the raid a few weeks ago, we wanted to wait until it was a good time. I'm... three months pregnant."

"Is it Aki's?"

All eyes turned towards Juuzou, but Emiko was too tired to be offended. "Yes Juuzou, it's Aki's."

He didn't know why Shinohara was looking at him like that. Did he say something wrong?

"We should let you get some sleep then. It's not good to think about bad things. We can pick anything you need at your apartment, and come meet you in the morning."

That night Shinohara and Juuzou got a hotel in the 13th ward, before heading over to Emi and Aki's apartment. Windows were broken and tables and couches were overturned, but the blood all over the bedroom was the most prominent feature. The body had been removed, along with any evidence, but there was a still a big mess to clean up.

"Shinohara-san?"

"Hmm?"

"I still feel angry. But I feel something else too. What is this?"

The investigator glanced down at his subordinate thoughtfully. "Well, Emiko is somebody precious to you, right? It's natural to feel angry and sad when something bad happens to somebody close to you."

Juuzou shook his head. "No, that can't be it. I was really angry when I heard a ghoul attacked Emiko, and I thought I would feel better when I heard the ghoul was dead already, but I don't. These feelings won't go away."

"Well," said Shinohara, gathering up Emiko's bag. "Revenge killing doesn't automatically make everything better. Sometimes, you just need time for healing to take place, surrounded by those you love."

Juuzou wrinkled up his nose, but instead of arguing further, he disappeared into the bedroom, and came back out quickly with two eyepatches in his hand. One was plain white, and on the other was stitched a storm. The one he had stitched for her.

"Do you have everything?" Shinohara asked as he stuffed the storm patch into the bag. The other he put in his pocket.

"Yeah, let's get back to the hotel. They might have left us some candies on the pillows."

That night, Juuzou was wrestling with sleep before he suddenly felt as though transported to a strange place.

"Hello?" he called out in the strange room. "Where am I?"

All around him was blue, and something like a storm was crashing about on all sides. With one look down, Juuzou saw that he was actually somewhere in the sky, looking down on Tokyo.

Juuzou was never afraid of heights - he was never afraid of anything really - and so he immediately dropped onto his knees and gazed in wonder at the world below. It was as if he was suspended in air, standing on glass looking down.

"Hello Juuzou, it's been a while," said a voice standing next to him, yet from very far away.

He looked over his shoulder to see a little girl with white hair and wearing a pretty white dress. She was adorable, he thought, and seemed familiar.

"Do I know you?" he asked, standing up to get a better look at her.

"No," said the little girl, shaking her head. "You have no idea who I am. Not any more."

Juuzou was confused by this answer, and walked closer to get her to look him in the eyes, but then stopped.

The little girl was chained to a post. She had a black collar around her neck, with a little yellow bell in the center of it.

"Oh…"

Juuzou no longer wanted to be around this girl. Iinstead of continuing towards her, he turned around and began walking away. But as soon as he turned, a solid block of black thunderclouds sprang up in his way, forcing him to turn around and face his problems once again.

"Please help me," said the little girl, tears welling up in her eyes and falling down her soft, pale cheeks.

"Shut up, Rei," he told her. "I'm not falling for it."

Instantly, the little girl's crocodile tears dried up. "Very well. If you won't help me, I'll be forced to help myself." At that moment, a set of keys appeared in the girl's hands, and she swung them around gracefully on her pinky finger.

"Where did you get those keys?" asked Juuzou, angered.

"You don't remember? You gave them to me. No take-backs."

As if willed by his anger, Jason suddenly appeared in Juuzou's hands. "Don't you get that I am trying to help you? I'm trying to help us both survive, and that means you need to stay chained up to that post. Drop the keys now, or I'll kill you." He brandished Jason out in front of him skillfully, hoping to intimidate.

"You won't kill me," said the little girl, the faint traces of a smile on her face as she fingered each individual key on the chain.

"Watch me," he said. Juuzou leapt forward then, his scythe lifted up high above his head, ready to swing low, but suddenly Rei wasn't there anymore. "Stupid girl," he muttered in her cloud of smoke. The thunder clouds began to rumble overhead. "I should have killed you a long time ago. Now that I have Jason, you can't run from me anymore."

A giggling from close by told Juuzou the girl was behind him now and he swung around, ready to point Jason at her neck, but realized the girl standing there wasn't Rei anymore. It was Emiko. Or rather, Rei now took the form of Emiko.

"Well, you might kill me," said Rei's distinctive voice, through the therapist's body. "But you wouldn't kill Emiko, would you?"

Juuzou hesitated. He knew Rei was just playing tricks on him again, so why did it matter?

Before having to make the decision himself however, soon the front of Emiko's white dress was soaked in blood, and he realized it was coming from the thunderclouds all around him. Yes, it was raining blood down on them both. He took advantage of the confusion to snatch the key ring from her hands.

"Stupid boy," said Rei, her own childish face back again and twisted into a frown. "Well no matter. I'll be free soon, whether you give me the keys or not."

Juuzou wanted to ask what she was talking about, but stopped himself. He always knew what Rei was talking about.

She sensed his hesitation. "You feel it don't you? These walls of cloud and glass you built around me are breaking. The chains you put around my wrists are crumbling and getting weaker everyday. Soon I'll be free, and you'll have to accept me as a part of you. That's all I want, is for you to acknowledge me. I've accepted you. Why won't you just-"

"Shut up!" Juuzou screamed, swinging Jason around wildly in front of him with one hand, and clutching his head with the other. His head always hurt whenever she talked to him. It was an awful, head splitting pain that felt like fire - like a thunderstorm was raining blood inside his own head. "Shut up! Shut up!"

"Juuzou? It's ok! It's just a nightmare!"

He awoke to find himself drenched in sweat and his own blood, blood from the places he had clawed at himself during the night.

"Are you ok?"

Juuzou shook his head, clutching his head with both hands now. Jason laid inside it's briefcase at his side, giving him some comfort, but not as much (he noted), as Shinohara gave.

"M-Mama…" he whispered hysterically.

Shinohara rubbed his temples, but was used to being woken up in the middle of the night by Juuzou's screaming. Although for the past year or so they have been less frequent.

"You're mama isn't here," he said, remembering the words Emiko taught him to say whenever this happened. "You're safe now in the custody of humans. I'm Special Class Investigator Shinohara Yukinori, and you're Second Class Investigator Juuzou Suzuya. As long as I'm by your side, I promise to protect you."

Aki's funeral was held two weeks after the ghoul incident at their home. That's how long he lasted in the hospital before finally passing away. Poor guy didn't even get to hear the news of his child and wife being safe and sound. His life was merely there one moment, and gone the next. As fleeting as a cold fall breeze or the sun peaking through on a cloudy day.

Juuzou never understood funerals and wouldn't have gone, especially to someone like Aki's, but he did it for Emiko. He went because he didn't know what else to do. Because she was so incredibly sad and there was nothing he could do to make her feel better.

The funeral was quiet, and filled with crying old ladies and men in suits. This time, Shinohara didn't force him to wear one, but he decided to of his own free will. Wearing uncomfortable attire suited the occasion more.

This time as well, instead of falling asleep during the boring parts, Juuzou thought of the time he and Shinohara were at the zoo, just a few weeks ago.

"If you were to die, I'd be sad."

That's what Shinohara said. Is that how Emiko felt? For some reason, a small part of Juuzou understood her feelings, ever so slightly, when he thought of Shinohara's words.

"I don't think he'd want you to be sad," Juuzou said quietly during the reception after the funeral. They found a moment of solitude together, after the people began clearing out.

She turned to look at him cautiously. The casual tone made him sound mocking. After all, this was the boy who compared death to playing games. But one look in his eyes and she knew his sincerity.

"Yeah… You're right."

As Juuzou was about to get up to leave, Emiko began to make strange, muffled noises. Assuming she was crying, he reached down and patted her on the head. Didn't you hear me? he thought. Aki doesn't want you to be sad, so stop it. The words just weren't forming in his mouth.

Emiko reached up and grabbed his hand, running it down her cheek, getting his palms wet with her tears.

"Don't leave," she whispered.

The sound of a bell rang in Juuzou's head at that moment, but he quickly stifled it. Instead of thinking, he simply obeyed, and sat down beside her, in the uncomfortable plastic funeral chair, while she continued to cry into his hand.

Hello!

It's been a while - I hope you all haven't forgotten about this story. I couldn't tell if this was a good chapter or not, but instead of overthinking it, like Juuzou, I just decided to do it, and post it anyway. I just happened to be in that angsty mood. Next chapter I'm going to get into some of the Anteiku Raid stuff. Have fun!