Counting the Differences
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Pinpoint
"I haven't seen Yuasa, Tange, or Dazai or Chino...and a few others around lately." Yankumi blew over her steaming sake cup, reconciling how there were fewer Oedo people but the same level of commotion. The spaces from fewer Oedo were filled with Ezakiya-kai's men. All of the men treated Yamaguchi as a person of royalty with perfect respect, yet she couldn't shake the uncanny feeling of treading on foreign land that was her childhood home.
The three men, the men she considered kin, circled the table with her yet they might as well be a thousand miles away, judging by their distant gazes.
"Lots of commotion lately from the Gusawa's Ezakiya-kai." She prod the four men, quieter than the herd of grasshoppers cooing outside. "I didn't expect to see them so much." She sipped while the composure from the three men remained perfectly rigid though guilt ripped them inside. "I've noticed a lack of 'turf etiquette' they stroll around here like they own the place."
Wakamatsu still withheld the trembles after he mercifully allowed Yuasa and Tange to abandon the clan whole bodied.
The wind caught Wakakamatsu's long sleeve when he faced Yuasa and Tange, two he still affectionately interacted with as his kouhai. The brutish men, normally unyielding in stature, bowed to their mentor in resignation.
"Forgive us, first in command."
"Give me your finger," ordered Wakamatsu.
Yuasa extended his hand without hesitation and Tetsu brandished the yubitsume blade. Minoru withheld a fearful gasp; he had never seen the blade fully unsheathed.
"This is not the path we chose. Gusawa is not what we chose," said Tange, a tremor nearly betraying him.
"Kuroda-sama chose this path and you show your disloyalty." Wakamatsu could only stare at the sun's blinding glimmer in the blade, unable to bear their faces, faces he had mentored since they were young men.
"I have given Oedo my life without hesitation through arduous times but I can't follow Oedo while it severs its own head," said Yuasa. In the garden, another camellia plopped on the ground into a crinkled pile of dry grass Minoru had earlier raked.
Wakamatsu pressed weight on the pinky finger joint, anger clouding his vision. When the fateful second camellia plopped on the ground, he slapped the hand away and turned away from his kouhai.
"Neh, don't you think it would be a good idea to talk to them about that?" Oojou's voice yanked him from afar and Wakamatsu forced his best smile.
Trembles rippled through Wakamatsu but with the smile he appeared to be chuckling.
"Just let me get situated. I know this has been a rough couple of weeks for you. Know that I want this process to be as painless for you as possible." Ballard read the situation report with perfect focus while the teenager fidgeted in the opposing chair at every false detail. Her father had asked her to agree to meet with Ballard to, in his words, 'straighten everything out'.
"Let's start from the beginning. Tell me what happened." He asked as if he and Davina didn't already know he had read every single statement backwards and forwards.
Davina hesitated with picking a moment, feeling his question was ambiguous on purpose. She started on the night Natsumi ran away.
"Johnson said he saw you leave the compound late that evening. What time did you leave?"
"After midnight."
"Well after curfew for a minor. And your father said he had NOT given you permission to be outside that time." He scribbled and Davina's stomach twisted with unease. "Continue."
She relayed the assault action by action. The taste of blood and sound of cracked bone triggered in her senses so vividly that Ballard's words slipped away.
"Why" Davina's head tipped heavily at Ballard's words, yanking her from her dizzy daze. "Did you leave? Why leave the scene?"
Delay the inevitable for as long as possible? Get to Yankumi before the military, the police and Sawada's government goons could sink their teeth into the situation? A desperate attempt to strategize even when they held no cards in their hand with a deck stacked against them?
"We were scared. Natsumi had to get away as far as I could get her. No idea if Johnson would have dragged her into it." That part about Natsumi was true and thankfully, Natsumi wasn't being dragged as an assailant in the ordeal. She had been filed only as a witness, thank God.
"How had you met Natsumi?"
The dizziness still rocked her head and Davina was glad she had skipped lunch before meeting Ballard.
She had met Shin's sister at a club, drinking underage with friends while Yankumi faced Inoue after Davina had been taken to the police station. Sure tell Ballard that, right? "A club, with some friends."
Ballard dug up Inoue and Tsuchida-each name sparked a frustrated flutter in her eyes. "You were going to take advantage of your family's immunity, as noted on that Friday evening but changed your plea and wrote a statement Sunday afternoon. You were expelled from school but that was expunged from your school record after the charges were dropped. The two opposing parties were a no show and the Japanese authorities felt that beyond unreasonable doubt your statement was true."
Listening to Ballard chew the petty details of that time grated like chewing on dirt.
"So you spoke to your father to make a complaint?"
"Yes."
"Did he file a formal complaint?"
"I don't know if my dad had enough time to—"
Ballard cut her off, eyes on the paper as he wrote, her answer of if she knew or not unimportant. "You know you could have filed one yourself."
"He just said he would take care of it."
"So it was not a situation you thought to sort out through administration. OK." He scribbled.
"He was persistent but I tried to be nice," Davina added even though he hadn't asked.
"It was nice of you to try and let him down easy. Not everyone is decent enough to do that. We forget the other person is human too."
"I guess."
"You let him help you with your bags that day on the 22nd. That was nice of him don't you think?"
"He took the bag from my hand."
"But you let him help right? I mean you could have insisted that you take your bags yourself right? Moving on. He says then you two were star gazing and he made a move."
Davina remembered it more like Johnson had cornered her in the dark and put his hands on her.
"Johnson says it was on this encounter that you informed him about a boyfriend, Sawada. Why had you waited so long to tell him? You knew he liked you. It isn't exactly relevant to the case but as a person I want to know."
"I rejected his advances multiple times at that point."
"Were you clear about what you wanted?"
"I said I rejected his advances multiple times."
Ballard nodded his head earnestly. Yes he had heard her the first time. "What I'm trying to get here is if whether or not there was a misunderstanding between you two. He acknowledges the rejections but he says he felt as if you were testing him. Based on what you have told me here today, maybe you have reflected a bit, can you see how he might think that way?"
She had been warned interrogators would try techniques to catch her in a lie. "You might say that if you're not paying attention."
"Pardon if this is very casual but I'm a guy and I misread many girls who thought I could take a hint back in my young years."
Why did adults do that? Try to relate but in a completely patronizing way?
"You were a little vague if you ask me, Davina. Do you think maybe he thought at least some part of you wanted to say yes? Do you think if you had been clearer from the beginning that none of this would have happened—"
A severe knock on the glass behind urged Ballard to cut the crap. The man obliged and changed paces faster than Davina could blink.
"Johnson said he saw you limping after Sawada dropped you off and worried...well the worst."
Davina shook her head. "No—that was..." From the tunnel when 3-D fought those strangers—"a ballet injury."
Ballard's brows rose ever so slightly and he scribbled her lie.
"Davina, this is again very difficult to talk about. I have a daughter who was once seventeen so while I want to treat this business as usual, as a father and a man with a conscience, I am compelled to ask something." He put down his pen and interlaced his hands on the paperwork. "Has Sawada ever laid a hand on you?"
Dizziness hit her again and every second she couldn't voice a negative answer felt like an affirmation to Ballard's question. "Wha-what..N-never."
Ballard held up hand like a stop sign. "The reason I approach the subject is because Johnson did mention he had worried about a possible abusive relationship. And he said that was why he met you on your floor after receiving a text from Sawada ordering him to stay the hell away. Johnson had wanted to make sure everything was okay."
Aghast turned her skin white as a sheet.
"Really Davina if there is anything-"
"Never. Shin has never—" She didn't want to cry and swallowed the lump in her throat.
Ballard wrote adamantly denies next to the topic.
"Let's move on. How did you meet Sawada's son?"
It was a seemingly easy background question that should have been answered with 'at school' or 'through mutual friends'. Already too agitated Davina forwent the lies. "I don't want to talk about that."
"Why not?"
"It's not relevant."
"Why don't you let me be the judge on what's relevant."
Wasn't it enough that she had stopped talking to all of them? "I said I'm not talking about it. How many more of these stupid questions are you going to ask me?"
Movement behind the glass. Her father surely, probably pacing in disbelief at her outright disrespect.
It must have been true that Ballard once had a teenage daughter because her agitation didn't faze his stony face. "We can move on. How aware are you about Sawada's school history?"
No, he wasn't going to get her to say it. She stared him on, crossing her arms.
"I don't know how much you know."
She stared him on, unyielding.
"Expelled for hitting a teacher, and numerous run-ins with authority for a variety of violent charges—"
"So what?" she snapped.
He straightened the sheets, signaling that he was finally down reciting information to her. "So what is that I have two stories. One where Sawada proclaims self defense another where Johnson says Sawada started it and he defended himself."
"There's security footage."
"The footage isn't clear enough."
Davina squeezed her arms against her chest. "It's as clear as day. Johnson did it."
"You have to see it from my perspective. On one hand I have a teenage delinquent who's been in trouble countless times and on the other I have a recruit who finished training with top marks, is esteemed by his mentors and fellow recruits. Who looks more credible?"
Who cut the air supply into the room and why did she feel so lightheaded? "Johnson attacked me and gave me a concussion. He attacked Shin who was just trying to project me. Was that self defense? Are you just going to ignore everything I witnessed?"
"Not at all. I'm piecing everything together. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle."
Davina hated the stifling room with overhead lights that glowed too bright, chairs too uncomfortably hard, glimpses of movement behind the one way glass that suggested someone was always watching. "What is the truth then?"
"I sense a jealous, possessive boyfriend and a recruit who misunderstood and was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She exhaled a long low blow of air as if she were just punched in the stomach. She stared on at Ballard, waiting for more, for something else that wasn't absolutely insane.
Her hands and neck were suddenly clammy. That had been the angle they pursued. That was why they drove her and her testimony in circles. "You think Shin and I set Johnson up-don't you?"
Ballard, a trained interrogator among his main duties, couldn't withhold the subconscious affirmative nudge of his head as he jotted final notes. The all too telling pursed lips before speaking as if he filtered more than what he literally said. "I'm just trying to figure out-percentage wise-just how responsible Shin Sawada is for all this."
Had Shin's father known that when he drove her home? That the military would smear Shin as at least a co-conspirator in a honey trap? That by telling her Shin needed to move home, transfer schools he could save some face before scrutiny could set in.
Her family, especially her father, knew the military's potential so he had known, as he observed behind the glass among his colleagues and superiors, when he said cut contact with Shin. That's why they wanted to paint Shin as the source of the problem with her as a victim of Shin while Johnson's harassment and assault were afterthoughts, accidents.
What was going on Sawada's side? The 'quality control' Shin endured, cutting off contact with his friends and Yankumi, losing his own place to return to a household that chucked him out like old furniture—Davina couldn't bear to think about it.
Were they also digging up her dirt to smear her too?
Davina vaguely pictured standing up without verbal acknowledgment, Ballard uttering that he wasn't done. She ignored her father when he called after her. Davina realized she was outside the compound, bagless and therefore ID-less, when she read 帰れ in red spray paint along the gray wall.
99% of the protestors were peaceful but it didn't stop the expats from showing aghast over a drippy piece of vandalism they couldn't even read.
"What does it say?" Terry asked her once.
"Ka-e-re. Get the hell out."
Heading down the path to Aoyama park, she spotted out of the corner of her eye Gaffney, Padilla and Johnson strolling as a bundle without a visible care in the world towards the Hardy Barracks on the opposite road.
Acid crept up her throat, the taste of blood and noise of cracked bone overwhelming her steady sense of being.
Arriving two hours earlier than practice, she'd rather sit in the changing room and wait or even warm up.
Sloggish footsteps and a familiar voice from behind filled her unease despite the person formerly being a source of comfort.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Davina trudged past the teacher muttering under her breath.
Yankumi raised her brows at the rude you Davina used to greet her. It wasn't so long ago that the redhead was the only teenager to politely call her Yamaguchi-sensei. However, the challenge only charged Yankumi's batteries.
"I understand that the situation is ugly but we must stay positive!" Yankumi bounced around to face Davina. "I know you're pessimistic and that you and Sawada aren't talking at the moment—" The redhead promptly turned away from the teacher. "But I really think that if we regroup and work together we'll see results! Neh Dabina-chan, how about we get your father and the military and Sawada's political party together and talk it all out honestly? Since your parents are probably trying to work in your best interests surely they would agree? And we would need a few translators of course—"
Yankumi saw the teenager's twisted smile before she slammed her locker in her face. The teacher's kind, optimism now now triggered disgust like a candy too sweet to bear.
Yankumi lost her train of thought, her nose inches away from Davina's as the redhead stared down at her. Maybe the teacher imagined it but she could have sworn the teenager looked older, sharper, drastically different since they all last hung out in peace just a few weeks prior. Things had changed.
Davina sighed as if to curtail her frustration from seeping into her voice. She didn't have it in her to scorn Yankumi.
"Yankumi, do you think all of this happened because Shin or I were dishonest? Everyone knows the truth of what happened. The military side is only buying time with pointless investigations because Sawada and his party are butting heads with the military. They make Shin look like an instigator but the LGP-Sawada's political party? An election is coming up right? Meanwhile Johnson is roaming free."
Yankumi digested those details, sympathizing with the teen's lethargy. "Dabina, a resolution is still possible. Neh, I'm about to go find Sawada as he goes home from school. We can go together."
"Thank you, Yankumi. For everything. But I'm asking you to please give up on this."
It meant she no longer trusted them. Not her family, not Yankumi, not Shin, not even herself anymore.
She sewed shoes during their final fifteen minute break on the edge of the stage with Murosaki. The pink satin shimmered under the stage lights and as Murosaki's casual conversation waved over her, memories of her talk with Jayla waved over like the tide.
"You know. There aren't many black ballerinas. Even in America where it's more diverse so there's no excuse."
Jayla's long hair tied in a high ponytail whipped the air she hooted with laughter. "N-no I'm not laughing at you. I just wanna say DUH? Where have you been?!"
"I don't know…"
"Ballet is very archaic, set in its ways. It's getting better but I had to paint my shoes brown to match my skin because it's hard to buy them—"
"You what? Wouldn't you just wear pink?"
Jayla restrained another bout of laughter. Her lovely friend, one of her best friends, who had been dancing probably since before she could walk, danced in studios all over the world, wanted to go pro in ballet, did NOT know that ballet shoes and tights were pink and white because most ballet dancers were pale toned.
"You know…you ought to introduce me to that Kozue-girl you told me about."
A metal auditorium door swung open, hit the wall and clamored shut near the balcony. Assuming it was stage crew having a terrible day Davina continued sewing her shoes when several voices bustled.
"Something up Dabina-chan?" Murosaki noticed her pause. "You seem distant today."
Davina sighed. "Be right back."
She strolled up the aisle to the lobby spiral stairs. Opening the heavy door that had just slammed shut she immediately spotted a group of bodies. Four boys lounged in the expensive seats like sofa chairs, their demeanor, never tepid to begin with, exaggerated to attract attention. When she stopped in front of them in the aisle, one by one they turned to her for effect.
The boys noticed her eyes float among them looking for a fifth...
"You aren't supposed to be here." Davina crossed her arms, her fingers drumming her fingers.
Noda blew a straw wrapper at her face, one he had carried with him since they sat in the cafe, for that sole purpose.
"Who the hell said we're here to see you?" Uchi, who had been saving the line all the way to the studio, kicked himself when the reactive statement was the wrong comeback. "Er—I mean we can be here if we want!"
"Yeah!" Kuma jumped to his feet, bobbing the chairs from the tight squeeze in the row. He awkwardly marched over to grip the collar of Davina's black leotard. He flashed scary eyes at her for a second but the boy softened his grip to not harm the gentle shiny fabric.
Minami: "You're not the only ballerina in the world."
Noda: "It's a free country."
Uchi: "Kuma's here to see Ami-chan."
Noda: "And we're supporting him!"
Kuma forced a wide-eyed glare again at the redhead but only held it for a fraction of a second before his bravado failed.
"In case you haven't heard about us, Aka—" Minami cleared his throat at the mistake, "we don't listen to adults or to teenagers who do their dirty work."
Uchi smoothed his hair, standing tall over Davina. "Next time you stop seeing friends, send the memo directly. Not with a messenger." He left his words sizzling at her ear like a snake as he sidestepped.
"You can stop looking. Shin's not here." Noda muttered over her ear, following Uchi.
When the others pushed past him Kuma immediately let her go and even smoothed the wrinkles in her collar. "Suman. Sorry about that." He bowed his head before dashing after them.
The boys watched the rest of the practice from their little corner. As hard as Davina tried to ignore them and focus on her dancing, she'd spot their corner every so often to make sure they hadn't wandered to the lighting deck or backstage. Davina remained on stage as the girls scurried to the locker rooms to change. Ami Murosaki who had eavesdropped to the best of her ability—Kuma was there after all— lingered behind with Davina.
Egged on by his friends Kuma approached the ballerina he had longed to speak with since they had parted in the warehouse district.
On stage Kuma stood in the lights like a lead character shyly sauteing towards his love interest to begin a pas de deux. Ami lit up yet was bashful about her sweaty face after the long practice.
Standing far away, none of them heard their conversation, only seeing the smiles and giggles.
Absentmindedly, Uchi pressed his weight on Davina's shoulder and the boys crowded around her downstage.
Minami: "So obvious."
The four of them nodded.
Upon realization they pried off Davina like she was a poisonous shrub they curled against by accident.
Noda: "Quit acting like we're here to see you."
Uchi: "Because we're not."
"Right," Davina mumbled, leaving for the changing rooms.
Minami checked his phone for a message then murmured to Davina, shyly scratching his rusty hair. "Kozue says hi by the way."
Shin's baseball darted off course when a woman's yell against the batting cage distracted him. A large dull game alert declared that throw's score a fat zero. Tsk, his average was ruined.
"Why are you two stubborn teenagers being stubborn and not returning my calls?!" Yankumi scolded her (not) student who was so clean cut she rubbed her eyes before shouting at him.
He left the cage, noticing his former teacher eyed him from his short hair, tie, and pressed slacks.
"I saw Dabina-chan just now."
"And?"
"She wasn't happy. Told me to buzz off."
"You traveled all the way here to hear it again."
"Hear what?"
"Buzz off."
Geez these teenagers were angsty. She straightened her glasses. If she could just get them both on board... "Neh Sawada, I know it's dire but I believe if we can just get your father and his political party, Dabina's military side and discussed it-"
"Don't get involved."
"I just spoke to her. I'm sure if you spoke to her she'd come around."
There it was again. The same twisted smile Davina gave her.
So far Shin ignored and threw away the polite memos from his father's secretary to meet with them. Behavioral issues aside, Shin's perfect academic record provided an excellent foundation to repair his image. Nothing to see here, just an academically gift student at one of the best schools in Japan. Oh? Behavioral issues? Those accusations were done by a teacher who since been dismissed (who in real life had picked on the wrong CEO's child) from campus.
Just a good kid who was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time by a violent recruit. All Sawada and his party want is justice and an honest debate about how the excessive US military presence in the country is affecting Japan. If their operations could be narrowed and removed from the capital entirely...
"This is out of your league, Yankumi. Your side has already stretched its neck too far into this."
The last statement made her freeze. "Heh?"
"Oh, I guess I only assumed." Shin continued nonchalantly. "When the Ezakiya-kai let off Natsumi without too much difficulty, I thought that was your meddling..."
Shin wasn't upfront with expressions but Yankumi could read the uncertainty in his dark eyes, showing he now doubted his own grasp of the situation.
Sawada mentioning the Ezakiya-kai, Wakamatsu's trembling and their unyielding silence whenever she asked for updates—why were they connected? Yankumi couldn't pinpoint what snapped within her when she turned away from Sawada and ran further into central Tokyo, to Gusawa's territory.
See? I'm not dead but I sat on this finished chapter an obscenely long time, thinking I'd go back and tweak it. I started writing for another fandom (YYH) and wow it is hard to change gears between fandoms. Anyone who can do it with ease, I envy you. This ended up being a pretty Yankumi-focused chapter but I'm happy for that. Thank you to readers and reviewers and let me know what you thought. Hope everyone had a lovely holiday season!