Neko-Hiro
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Police
Nowaki arrived home in the early morning hours. He quietly slid open the closet door and looked lovingly down at the soundly-sleeping Hiroki. When he noticed that Hiro-san was wearing his night shirt, his heart skipped a beat. For a moment Nowaki wished he was small enough that he could crawl into the closet and curl around the cinnamon neko but instead he closed the door softly, not wanting to wake the hybrid, pulled off his work clothes, and crawled into bed.
Nowaki wanted desperately to be able to sleep so that he would be sharp for their appointment later that day with Usami, but things had been very distressing at the hospital last night and his anxiety was keeping him awake.
It wasn't just that there had been a lot of activity on the ward: the night had brought with it several emergencies. It was also that the police had been there at the hospital that evening asking questions about Tsumori.
One of the nurses had pointed Nowaki out to the police. An officer had come and talked to him while he was in the locker room changing into his medical smock.
"Excuse me, sir, are you Kusama Nowaki?" the officer asked.
"I am," Nowaki replied, feeling a tight knot forming in the pit of his stomach as he bowed.
The policeman nodded in return. "Ah, yes, I am Officer Sato and I wonder if I might have a moment of your time?"
"Certainly, officer, but would you mind terribly if I kept getting ready? I don't want to be late for my rounds."
"Fine, fine, I certainly understand," Officer Sato said. "It's just that I'd like to ask you a few questions. Could you please tell me, do you know Tsumori Kahori?"
Nowaki couldn't help but grin at hearing Tsumori's full name. Seeing the officer's serious face he quickly bowed in apology. "Please excuse me. I am unused to hearing Senpai's full name spoken so clearly. He never allows anyone to use his first name: Kahori is a girl's name, and it embarrasses him immensely. The nurses tease about it behind his back.
"Ah," Sato hummed at this explanation. "So, Kusama-san, it seems you know a bit about your senpai."
"Well, we know each other mostly through work." Nowaki answered.
"Did you ever spend time together outside of the hospital?"
"Well, we have gone out in groups with other interns occasionally. I went over to his house on Thursday night to watch a baseball game with him, but that was the first time I'd ever been over to his apartment or spent any real time alone with him outside the hospital, " Nowaki answered truthfully. He knew he couldn't lie, he was terrible at it.
"How did he seem to you that evening?" Sato took out a small notebook and pen and began taking notes.
"Well, he was pretty upset that his team lost and he drank quite a bit," Nowaki said. "I left him not long after the game ended."
"Did you see him at work on Saturday evening?" Sato asked.
"No, Officer Sato. I don't wish to be critical of my senior, but Tsumori-senpai is often late to work, so I don't always see him here in the locker room before I start. And there are many times when things are busy and then depending on where I am working in the hospital that night… well, we sometimes don't see each other, though our shifts are often the same." All of this was true, so this was also easy for Nowaki to say.
"So Thursday night was the last time you saw him?
"Um… no, I saw him Friday as well. Excuse me, Officer Sato, but can you tell me what this is about. I mean is everything okay?" Nowaki hoped he did not look as suspicious as he felt when he asked this.
Sato did not immediately answer as he looked intently at Nowaki. "So you saw him Friday, huh? Here at the hospital?"
"No. I saw him at his home again."
"Oh, really? Can you please tell me, Kusama-san, when and why?
"That afternoon and I went to buy a neko from him."
"Neko, eh?"
"Yes, Tsumori-senpai showed me the neko the previous evening. Senpai did not seem to really want him, so I offered to buy him. I came back to pay for Hiro-san and collect him," Nowaki said.
"The neko's name is Hiro-san?"
Nowaki shrugged and grinned a bit sheepishly, "Well, that's what I call him. He is a Kamijou cat and his name is actually Hiroki."
Now it was Sato's turn to shrug, he had heard a lot weirder pet names than that he supposed. Still, he made a note of this. "And do you have this neko now?"
"Yes, he's at my apartment."
"And Kusama-san, do you mind if I ask what condition this 'Hiro-san' was in?"
"Not good, Officer Sato," Nowaki admitted, "that was why I wanted to buy him. I don't like to see any living creature suffer. "
Officer Sato had a soft spot for hybrids, nekos particularly: he owned quite a number of rescues himself. He sighed at the intern's disclosure. He studied Nowaki carefully. Though he had not been on the force long, Sato considered himself already to be a good judge of character. Kusama had a good energy about him and the young man seemed to be telling the truth. Besides, what he said certainly coincided with the information he'd received from the neighbors.
"Well, Kusama-san, Tsumori-san did not show up to work on Saturday evening. Yesterday he had the day off, but he missed an earlier shift he was scheduled to work this afternoon so one of the nurses called us. She said his attendance at work had been a bit sporadic lately."
"Ah, yes, I know," Nowaki said, "I often cover for him when our shifts don't overlap."
Sato hummed at this and then nodded, "We went out to the man's apartment and there were signs of struggle but the apartment was empty. I am glad to know the neko is with you. The neighbors said Tsumori-san was abusive to his pet, though they had been afraid to report it. It seems that many of them were afraid of Tsumori-san and were worried that, from the sounds they heard, as well as the type of people coming and going from the apartment, there may have been a criminal element present there too. To be honest most of his neighbors seemed quite relieved to think that your senpai might be gone permanently."
Nowaki frowned at this information,but not for the reason Officer Sato thought. It made Nowaki terribly upset to think other people knew how Hiro-san was being treated and had done nothing to try and protect the battered professor.
Sato chewed on the end of his pen thoughtfully for a moment. "Do you know, Kusama-san, if your senior gambled at all? Did he say anything about a bet perhaps when he was upset with losing the baseball game?"
"No," Nowaki said. Then, though he wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not he mentioned that there had been two men present when he had first arrived on Friday. "They looked a bit rough and they wanted to take the neko. Apparently Senpai had already spoken to them about wanting to sell Hiro-san," Nowaki said. "I am glad I got to Senpai's home when I did, as in the end, he sold Hiro-san to me. I can bring you his papers if you'd like to see them."
Sato shook his head. "I don't think that will be necessary at the moment."
Nowaki nodded and continued. I will say the men didn't seem very happy about Senpai selling to me, but they eventually left. Though they did say that they would be back. Tsumori-senpai told me, however, that they weren't anything he couldn't handle." That last bit was a lie and it made Nowaki nervous to say it.
"Could you describe the two men to me?" Officer Sato asked his eyes gleamed with interest.
Nowaki did, giving as clear a picture of the two knackers as he could. When he mentioned the tattoos on the mens' hands, Officer Sato quickly became excited.
"Thank you, Kusama-san. This information has been quite helpful." Sato snapped his notebook shut signaling the end of their interview. "You know you probably saved that Kamijou's life.
"I may need to speak with your pet later though if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Nowaki said. Though the thought of the police questioning Hiro-san made him very uneasy, Nowaki gave Sato his information and took a card from the policeman with his information on it as well.
Remembering all this as he lay tucked in his bed now, Nowaki let out a long, worried breath.
He wondered if it might not be better for Hiro-san to be with Usami-sensei once again. Especially if he ended up getting in trouble for thrashing Tsumori, if the police ever discovered the truth about what had really happened. At last, however, sleep began to overtake Nowaki, though his troubled thoughts carried over into troubled dreams.
A few hours later the closet door slid open and a wild cinnamon-brown head with a pert, naked ear peeked out. Hiroki looked over at Nowaki sleeping on the bed.
"Why didn't that idiot wake me up so I could join him?" Hiroki thought, though the fact that he thought this made him blush just a bit. Then he frowned and his ears lowered slightly. Perhaps Nowaki hadn't wanted to sleep with him since he would be going back to Akihiko's today. This possibility made Hiroki's ears flatten even more.
Hiroki slipped quietly out of the bedroom, into the bathroom and started the water in the tub. He liked that being a neko he could see really well in the dark.
The hybrid decided he would get ready to go and then make Nowaki breakfast. Hiroki knew he wasn't the best cook, but it was the least he could do for the man after all the trouble he'd gone through for him. Hiroki wished he was a really good cook, then he would have something more to entice Nowaki to keep him than… than what?
Hiroki realized he couldn't think of a single thing he had to offer Nowaki. Well, there was the man's delusional assertion of his cuteness. Then Hiroki turned the light on in the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror and cringed. With his crazy cinnamon mane, healing but still slightly swollen eye, and ridiculous shaved ear, right now he obviously couldn't even offer Nowaki that this morning.
For one wild moment, a small voice in Hiroki's head whispered, "You could offer him your love."
"Gaaaahhh!" Hiroki cried and then clapped his paws over his mouth. He hoped his exclamation did not wake Nowaki. Looking in the mirror the hybrid could see that he now had a bright red face to add to all his other defects.
Hiroki turned away and slipped into the bath. "Offer him love? What kind of schoolgirl world do you live in, you ridiculous feline?" He berated himself. "And how pathetic would that make you sound?" It would probably seem to Nowaki like he was begging, and only dogs begged, or if a cat ever did, it would certainly never be a Kamijou… Still…
Hiroki pinched his nose with his fingers and slipped into the silence under the water. He wondered if there was any way, without killing himself that he could manage to drown his pride.
Nowaki awoke a bit later to the pleasant aromas of Hiroki's breakfast. (The neko was actually really not a bad cook; he just didn't have any confidence in his abilities.) Nowaki stretched, got up and stepped out into the apartment's main room.
He stood there for a minute watching Hiro-san. Hiroki's brow was wearing a furrow of concentration as he stirred the vegetables simmering in a small pan on the stove. Despite his declaration about hats the previous day, Hiroki had found a knitted cap in among the items Nowaki had purchased for him and had pulled this down on his head trapping his unruly cinnamon brown hair and obscuring his shaved ear underneath it.
Seeing the neko dressed casually in a crisp tee-shirt and jeans and wearing the knitted beanie, if it wasn't for the tail that twitched up contemplatively behind him on occasion, at the moment with his cat ears hidden, Hiro-san otherwise looked pretty much completely human and absolutely, incredibly, adorable.
Nowaki turned and ducked into the bathroom quickly before the neko saw him. He suddenly needed to take a long cold shower. Standing under the water with his teeth chattering, Nowaki knew that if the start to his morning was any indication, today was going to be a very "hard" day.
When Nowaki had finally finished showering and gotten ready for the day, he came back out and found that Hiroki had set the table and laid out what looked like a wonderful breakfast. Nowaki was quite touched that Hiro-san had gone to all this trouble.
Hiroki touched the edge of the cap he was wearing self-consciously and looked up rather shyly at Nowaki. His huge russet eyes looked unsure.
"I made breakfast for you. I hope it's okay… I uh, just really wanted to say thank you for all you've done for me, Nowaki."
Nowaki smiled at the nervous neko. Though he'd only had it a few days, how he would ever live now without this daily fix of cuteness was beyond him. "It looks wonderful, Hiro-san, thank you and I would do it all over a hundred times more for you if I could."
Hiroki blushed furiously at such a sentimental declaration and even more because he had no doubt that what Nowaki said was true. He only wished he could be so bold. "You shouldn't say such embarrassing… things, you big goof," was all he managed to say instead.
Nowaki smiled even wider, "You are so cute, Hiro-san."
"And you're a delusional giant. How tall are you anyways? Such height should be illegal," Hiroki muttered, putting his hand to his beanie to make sure his frantically spasming ears didn't dislodge it.
"One hundred and eighty-six centimeters," Nowaki offered placidly as the pair sat down together at the table.
After a quick blessing they began to eat. Hiroki watched Nowaki with great intensity as the man got ready to take his first bite. "careful, Nowaki. It might be hot still," Hiroki warned. "If it's too hot I can blow on it for you and make it cooler." Hiroki winced and turned red. What an idiotic thing to say, you dumb-ass! He thought to himself.
Nowaki chuckled lightly at the sweetness of the neko's offer which just made things worse. He watched in amusement as Hiroki's ears continued to twitched in embarrassment under the fabric of his cap. He would have made a cheeky suggestive comeback if this had been any other day.
He put a bite of food in his mouth instead to still his tongue. "Not too hot, Hiro-san, just right," Nowaki said once his mouth was empty again.
Hiroki tasted his food and made a face. It tasted off to him. He looked at Nowaki apologetically, who looked back at him puzzled. "It tastes wrong."
"I think it tastes fine, quite good in fact," Nowaki said taking another bite.
"No, I'm sorry, Nowaki, you shouldn't eat it, it's bad, I apologize, but thank you for being polite," Hiroki pushed his plate away as he said this.
"I'm not being polite, Hiro-san," Nowaki said earnestly, "I think it's really good."
"You're always being too nice, Nowaki, really I should just throw this all in the trash," Hiroki sounded frustrated and started to get up from the table.
Nowaki put his large warm hand over the hybrid's one. "Hiro-san, I wish you'd believe me. I'm telling the truth. Why is that so difficult for you to believe?"
Hiroki sat down again, he did not want to cause conflict their last morning together. He looked at Nowaki contentedly eating his terrible breakfast. Of course, Hiroki realized, Nowaki also said he was cute, so really what did the idiot know about taste?
Still, Hiroki knew in this moment, without a doubt, he loved him.
"Ummm, Nowaki…" Hiroki took a deep breath. He could tell Nowaki this, he knew it.
"Yes, Hiro-san?" Nowaki looked back at him with that ever-present smile and an expression of amused inquiry.
"If the weather is nice enough, do you think we can walk most of the way to Akihiko's?" Hiroki wished he could bite his own ear right now. How in the hell had that come out of my mouth? What kind of declaration was that?
Hiroki watched as the smile on Nowaki's face flickered for just an instant. "Of course, Hiro-san, I would love to be able to walk with you."
"Oh… good," Hiroki said softly looking down at his plate.
Nowaki looked at Hiroki. The neko wasn't eating. He thought perhaps Hiro-san was nervous about going to see Usami-san. Nowaki gazed down at his own plate. Or perhaps he was too…excited.
"Hiro-san."
"Yes, Nowaki?" Large russet eyes looked up hopefully from across the small table.
Usually he was so direct and had no trouble expressing his feelings, but today Nowaki found himself uncharacteristically at a loss, "Maybe we should plan to take an umbrella just in case. That way we can walk, regardless of the weather?" A rare frown crossed Nowaki's handsome face. "Where had that come from?"
Hiroki's eyes lost their shine. he nodded, "that sounds reasonable." Beneath his cap his ears had grown unusually still.
The pair spent the rest of their last meal together in silence.
Old AN:
Note: I made up Tsumori's first name, it is a Japanese girl's name and I picked it (though I've no idea what it means) because it rhymed and thought that was a bit funny.
Now the important stuff! THANK YOU everyone for all the reviews. I can't believe this story has hit three hundred. Simply Emotional, what a wonderful review to hit the 300 mark with!
And to everyone who had signed in, you are all AMAZING! I have been so overwhelmed with the quality of the feedback and the level of enthusiasm in the reviews lately, you all keep me going!
Shimaki-33, thank you for making your point about Tsumori, this exchange between Sato and Nowaki will tie into the plot later.
Teabags-please send me a pm and tell me what you think is going to happen to Hiroki, I'd love to hear what your brilliant mind has been envisioning.
RubyMonkey, thanks for the shout out and Kiyo12 thank you for joining the party.
Glad you all seem to be enjoying "dark" Akihiko, because you all will be seeing him tomorrow sometime.
EEEEEEEHEEEEEEEHEEEEEE! (evil text laugh).