Chapter Eight

"Hello, China."

Kagura stared back at the man in her doorway, utterly speechless. As she took in his familiar easy stance and haughty red eyes, her brain failed to grasp the reality of him being there.

Why? was all she could think as he closed the door behind him with a soft snap and walked to where she was sitting. In place of his police uniform, he was dressed in a slate gray hakama and black kimono.

It was only when he was right in front of her that she found her voice. "You!" she shouted, whipping a finger up to point at him. "What are you doing here? The last time I checked your name didn't have anything like 'Yen' or 'Fay' in it so explain to me the meaning of this!"

In her excitement, she didn't even notice her speech slipping back into her pseudo-Chinese vernacular.

Sougo crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her over his nose. "Your friend downstairs let me up to see you. She told me to tell you that there's been a change of plans."

Kagura bristled. "A change of plans, my foot! You were the one who changed them, right? Bastard."

For the first time since he'd appeared at her door, a tiny smile pulled up one side of Sougo's mouth. Without uncrossing his arms, he lowered himself to the floor and seated himself directly opposite her. Even though his mouth was smiling, his eyes still held that infuriatingly impartial look.

"So, what? Do you expect me to serve you now? I'll bet you didn't even pay, you damn cheapskate."

"The cheapskate is your boss," was his quick retort. "Please don't confuse us." His eyes narrowed then and Kagura watched his half-a-smile fall away and be replaced by a serious frown. "Or is he even still your boss?"

Kagura was taken aback by the severe glint in his eye. "Hah? What do you mean by that?"

Sougo's expression didn't change. "China, in all the time I've known you, I knew you were a brash, irresponsible girl, but I never thought you were truly stupid."

Kagura blinked. She had no retort to this unexpected declaration. It was unusual for the sadist to take this tone with her—the tone he only used when he was deadly serious.

"When I figured out what you were doing here, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't think you would ever do something as unmitigatedly idiotic as selling your body for a little cash. But here you are, dressed up like a sex doll in the highest room in Yoshiwara. I thought you at least had more sense than to stoop to something like prostitution to get by."

Kagura's own eyes narrowed. She didn't appreciate the way the brat was talking about her work. Who was he to look down on what she did? What did he know? She bristled and glowered back at him. "I don't remember asking for your opinion, stupid sadist. What I do has nothing to do with you, yes? If you just came here to insult me you can leave right now. I don't need to be called an idiot by an idiot."

Sougo's eyes flashed and Kagura's voice died on her tongue when he slammed his palm down hard on the tatami and leaned forward to look her dead in the eye. "Dammit, China! Do you even realize how dangerous a situation you've put yourself in? This isn't the same as risking your life on the battlefield! Getting hurt here will screw you up far worse than an enemy's sword ever could. Think for a damn minute about the people who care about you and what they'd think if they knew you were putting yourself at risk for incurable diseases and crippling emotional trauma every night just to pay their bills for them." His normally detached expression was hard like steel as his eyes bored into her own. For once, he wasn't messing around. "If you want to sleep around, fine. You can do what you want. But having sex with literal strangers who don't give a damn about your safety or well-being every night just because they pay you isn't just ill-advised, it spits in the face of everyone who's ever loved and protected you."

Kagura's mouth fell open at Sougo's long and shockingly impassioned speech. Never in all the time she'd known him had she heard him speak so ardently. It caught her so off guard that all she could do was stare at him as her mind tried to catch up with his words.

Sougo took a deep breath then and fell back so he was no longer invading her personal space. He placed his hands atop his knees and regarded her with an expression that was closer to his usual calm. "You're right that it isn't any of my business what you do," he allowed, "but even though the two of us have never gotten along and I'd be beyond ecstatic if you skipped off to space with that psycho brother of yours and were never a thorn in my side again, I don't want to watch you destroy yourself in a place like this. When I leave here, I'm going straight to your boss to tell him what you've been doing so he can come here himself to drag you back. At the very least, I know you'll listen to him."

"Sadist…" she finally found her voice. She stared at the boy in front of her with wide, surprised eyes. She blinked again and it was suddenly as if she was seeing him for the first time. He hadn't said it in the conventional way—she'd never expect him to—but his message had come across loud and clear.

In his own—emotionally stunted—way, he'd just revealed that he cared about her.

"You should go pack your things," he spoke again, his tone returning to its normal indifferent drawl. "I don't doubt the boss will come straight here once I deliver the message. "You might as well save him the hassle of waiting for you."

He placed a palm on the floor and made to stand.

Kagura couldn't let him do that.

"Wait!" she called to him before he could move. She couldn't let him go off and ruin everything she and Tsukuyo and Hinowa had worked for. She at least needed to properly explain the situation to him.

Sougo paused and looked back at her.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. "This isn't what you think it is," she told him evenly. She looked him steadily in the eyes as she did so to convey her sincerity. "I'm not really a courtesan, and I haven't slept with any customers."

Sougo's eyebrows rose up his forehead. She watched him hesitate for a moment, then he relaxed back into his previous position. "…What?"

Kagura felt her cheeks heat and she shook her head in an effort to dispel the creeping redness. "This isn't what you think it is," she informed him again, gesturing around the room; to the saké bottles and double futon and her own elaborate clothing. "All this… it's fake."

Sougo stared at her. His eyes narrowed. "Explain."

Kagura did. "This is just a ruse. It's a trap to catch a killer."

"A killer?" His interest seemed to pique at the word.

She nodded. "For the past several weeks, a killer has been murdering girls here. Tsukky told me about it when I stopped by two weeks ago to get your stupid handcuffs off. I volunteered to help lure out the killer by pretending to be a courtesan. We thought the killer wouldn't be able to resist coming after Yoshiwara's 'hot new star', so every night I've been entertaining clients up here in the hopes that he'll show himself."

Sougo tilted his head and crossed his arms. "Entertaining but not sleeping with? How does that work?"

Kagura shuffled around in her sleeve and produced the capsule containing the sleeping draught. She held it up for Sougo to see. "I give them this. It knocks them out, and when they wake up the next morning they have no clue that they never got what they paid for."

Sougo plucked the capsule from her hand and held it up to his eye to examine it. His mouth was set in a pensive line. He gave the capsule a little shake, watching the liquid inside slosh around, and then handed it back to her. "I see. I think I get the gist of the routine. You seduce them, get them drunk, and then drug them, right?"

Kagura's smile tightened at his frank summation of what her job entailed. "Well…yes. That's exactly it." As expected of a sadist. He didn't need her to explain a thing.

Sougo tilted his chin upward and regarded her with an expression she knew all too well. "Using men like cheap lottery tickets—scratch until you win and toss the rest away. I'll bet you get off on that, don't you? It's alright, I understand perfectly."

Kagura's face contorted in disgust and she leaned forward over the tatami. "Don't confuse me for you, Do-S slime ball. As if I would take pleasure in something like that."

Despite her claim, she couldn't stop heat from spreading across her cheeks. The fact was, he was infuriatingly right. She had been deriving pleasure from the power her position awarded her. She enjoyed hearing her clients beg and moan beneath her, knowing she was the one in control. It excited and aroused her.

God, she was as sick as him, wasn't she?

Sougo's knowing smirk only widened. He wasn't convinced in the slightest by her protests. "I always had a feeling you were an S."

"I'm not an S or an M or an XYZ or anything else!" she corrected him, willing the color to leave her face so that he'd stop looking at her with that smug, know-it-all smirk of his. "Don't think I'm a pervert like you. I'm just trying to find the man who has been killing girls here, nothing else."

Sougo moved his elbow to his knee and placed his cheek in his palm. His smirk faded. "I'll freely admit that I'm perverse," he allowed, his eyes remaining steady on her own. "But let me correct you on one thing before you go around spreading misinformation about me. I'm not a pervert." He used his free hand to gesture about the room just as she had minutes before and when he spoke again all traces of humor were gone from his tone. He sounded as serious as when he'd lectured her moments before. "All this? I hate it. It makes me so uncomfortable I might be sick."

Kagura regarded Sougo with surprise. She blinked in confusion, not at all expecting such a declaration from Edo's sadist king.

"To be perfectly honest, I'd like nothing better than to get the hell out of this creepy room, but as it turns out, you and I are here for the same reason."

The same reason? Kagura leaned forward again. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I didn't come here just to talk sense into a fake-Chinese alien immigrant. Officially, I'm here to investigate the death of the government official you 'entertained' last night." He moved both hands to lace his fingers in his lap. "You said that women have been turning up dead here. Why don't you tell me more about that?"

Kagura's eyebrows furrowed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Sadist, but could it be that you're thinking of working together with me?"

Sougo's face remained expressionless, but he cocked his head to regard her with something akin to appraisal. "That depends. How much stock would you put in the theory that our two killers are one and the same?"

Kagura's eyebrows furrowed and she nodded. "That was my thought from the beginning."

"Then yes. That's what I'm suggesting."

Kagura said nothing for a moment as she gave the cop in front of her a critical onceover. Of all the unexpected things that had happened so far tonight, this took the cake. Sure, the two of them had worked together many times in the past, but it had been a long time since either of them had deliberately stated an intention to do so.

Why did it feel like a huge shift had just occurred in their relationship?

She shook her head, putting that aside for now. "Fine," she consented. "I'll tell you what I know."

oO0Oo

The moment you've all been waiting for, ladies and gentlemen. Our wayward protagonists' paths have finally conjoined. And it only took—hold on while I count—eight chapters! Talk about your slow build up.