I don't own anything.
Detective Ikari
Chapter Seven: Acquaintances
"What happened?" Gendo demanded.
"All communication was lost with our agent," the Section-2 agent explained. "We allowed for two hours to pass before moving to investigate."
"And what did you find?"
"Our agent was found unconscious and hog tied with his shoe laces in the bathroom," the Section-2 agent answered. "He had a mild concussion and slight laceration on his wrists from the bindings."
"Is there any evidence of what happened?" Gendo asked.
"Apparently he was beaten over the head with something, mugged, and then tied up," the agent stated. "A CSI team is still investigating the area, but they don't have very high hopes."
"I see. You are dismissed." The agent saluted and walked out.
"What do you make of this development Ikari?" Kozo asked.
"It has nothing to do with the Third Child," Gendo stated confidently. "He would not try something like this."
"You haven't even bothered reading the reports on his activities during his absence have you?"
(:ii:)
"Spades you asshole!" Spades glanced back from where he was sitting on the foot of the bed watching the news.
"Morning Chief." His bedraggled boss glared at him and he turned back to the news, sipping his coffee.
"I remember what you did!" Amber accused.
"You remember me warning you about sake?" Spades asked. "Too bad you didn't remember after you began gulping it down." Amber's anger faltered. Spades took another sip of his coffee. "If you're going to drink like that than maybe you shouldn't come to the reunion."
"I'm sorry," she replied after a moment. Spades took another sip. "Where did you get that coffee?"
"The pot over there." Spades felt the bed shift as Amber climbed to her feet and made her way over to the pot.
"What is this?"
"It's what I make," Spades answered. He was surprised she didn't already know. His coffee was famous, or rather infamous, back in the office.
"This stuff doesn't pour," Amber remarked, "it drips."
"It's boiled down," Spades replied.
"Why would you drink it?" Amber asked.
"It's almost pure caffeine," Spades answered. "I drank it back in college. That stuff keeps you awake and that's all I need. Taste is optional."
"Not for me," Amber stated. "Is there anywhere to go eat?"
"I saw a little diner," Spades replied dismissingly.
"When?"
"My morning jog," Spades answered. Amber sat next to him and tried to tame her short hair.
"I didn't know you jogged."
"Ten miles every morning," Spades stated. "You want to go out and eat?"
"Just let me grab a shower and we can go."
"Alright."
(:ii:)
"All the luxuries of home," Amber commented as she looked around the diner. It really did remind her of the diners back in LA, from the multiple coffee makers to the half-awake patrons.
"Yeah," Spades agreed. "Two for smoking please."
"Of course!" the young waitress exclaimed perkily. Amber scowled. She hated perky morning people.
"Here you are." Amber slid into the seat at the table the waitress had shown them to. "Can I get you coffee while you read the menu?"
"Please," Amber agreed as kindly as she could.
"Sure," Spades replied as he tugged out his reading glasses and began pouring over the menu. The waitress made a note on her pad and practically skipped away.
"So," Amber began, trying to think of a topic, "this is the area you grew up in?"
"I grew up in Sendai," Spades corrected. "I came here at fourteen and survived until I went to America."
"Survived?" Amber asked. "That's an interesting choice of words Spades."
"Mm." He glanced up from his menu, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring over her shoulder at something. He looked down again before Amber could figure out what he was looking at.
"You're ignoring me," she accused.
"Mm?" Spades glanced up at her.
"You're ignoring me," Amber repeated.
"I would think that you'd be used to it by now," Spades commented before looking back down.
"Remember when I told you that women like honest men?" Amber asked.
"I remember having a conversation somewhere along these lines before."
"That would have been a good time to lie," Amber replied.
"And then you could have asked me to repeat what you just said and I would have looked like an ass," Spades replied.
"Somewhere along the line a woman screwed with your head and she did it very well," Amber stated. For a moment she saw Spades' brow furrow, turning his lazy half-open gaze into a piercing glare.
"You could say that."
"I said something bad again, right?"
"Don't worry," Spades replied. "You brought up my past. It's hard to say something about my past and not bring up something bad." He turned and stared at a woman Amber hadn't even noticed. "You aren't exactly a bad memory though."
"Thank you," the absolutely stunning woman replied.
"Grab a seat Class Rep."
"Okay."
(:ii:)
Hikari Horaki sat down and smiled at the droopy-eyed man sitting next to her. "It's been a long time Ikari."
"About six years," Shinji replied. He set down his menu and took off his glasses. "How have you been Class Rep?"
"Please," Hikari commented, "I haven't been your class representative for ten years."
"Alright," Shinji replied. He turned to look at the light-haired woman across from him. "This is my boss, Amber Young."
"Hello," Hikari said as she held out her hand. "I'm Hikari Horaki. It's nice to meet you."
"I can say the same," the woman replied in rather heavily accented Japanese. "You went to school with Spades?"
"Spades?" Hikari replied.
"It's a nickname," Shinji answered. "Don't ask where it came from."
"I'm kind of interested in knowing that," Amber commented.
"You just want to win that bet back in the office."
"Money is money," Amber replied. She turned back to look at Hikari. "So you're here for the reunion too?"
"Yeah," Hikari answered. She glanced back at Shinji. Everything about him seemed so different. The only thing that had tipped Hikari off to his identity were his eyes. Hikari clearly remembered the blue color of his eyes from when they had first met. He had been the only person in their class to have blue eyes until Asuka had arrived. Even though she never admitted it, Hikari had always loved his eyes. "Have you talked with Asuka lately?"
"I haven't spoken with her in six years and I am ecstatic with that fact," Shinji replied. "Why would I have talked with her?"
"She disappeared about the same time you did," Hikari explained. "Everyone kind of assumed you two ran off together." Shinji snorted.
"Well I don't enjoy constantly being hit and belittled," Shinji stated. "That kind of put a damper on any relationship we might have had." Hikari frowned. She had used to think that Shinji and Asuka Sohryu were something of a couple. It just seemed so romantic, two people struggling to save the world and falling in love.
"I guess I should have known better," she allowed. Hikari had seen first hand exactly how her German friend had treated the young man. 'Not so young any more,' she thought, running an eye over her former classmate. "That's kind of stupid I guess. You were dating that woman at the time."
"Yeah," Shinji replied. "So how's Touji?" Hikari winced. She had that coming for bringing up that woman.
"I don't know," Hikari stated. "I took a page from your book and took off. I left about two weeks after you did."
(:ii:)
"Here's your coffee."
"Thanks." Spades picked up the cup and took a sip.
"See?" Amber asked. "This is how coffee is supposed to be."
"It all goes to the same place, does the same thing, and fucks up your heart the same way," Spades replied as he reached into his pocket. He tugged a Gold and Mild from the pack and slipped it between his lips.
"How many of those did you bring?" Amber asked.
"Enough to last me a while," Spades replied as he tugged a match from his coat and lit it off the palm of his hand.
"Are you ready to order?" the waitress asked.
"A little longer please," Amber replied. "Would you like some coffee Miss Horaki?"
"Please."
"So," Spades began, turning back to Hikari, "you said you left. Where did you go?"
"I traveled a little," Hikari answered. "After I graduated from college I went to France and enrolled at a culinary institute there."
"I've always wanted to go to France," Amber commented.
"I'm not surprised in the least," Spades replied. "You always did say that you liked to cook. So, have you been staying in France?"
"No," Hikari answered. "I came back here and I've been working at a French restaurant in Tokyo-2. We have a lot of foreign dignitaries as customers. Right now I'm not too important, but the head chef is starting to give me bigger and bigger jobs."
"Good for you," Spades stated. Of all the people he had known, Hikari was probably the only one who deserved a happy ending.
"What about you?" Hikari asked.
"What?"
"You," Hikari repeated. "What did you do after you pulled your disappearing trick?"
"Went to America and worked on my master's degree and doctorate at the University of California," Spades answered with a shrug.
"You're a doctor?"
"Just got the title a few months ago," Spades replied. "It was a bitch to do while holding down a job, but that's what night school and summer classes are for."
"Isn't that how you finished your Master's in a little over a year?" Amber asked. Spades nodded. Being a clinical genius hadn't hurt much either.
"Wow," Hikari stated. "So what are you a doctor of?"
"Psychology," Spades answered. "I specialize in criminal psychology and behavioral psychology."
"What do you do for a living?" Hikari asked.
"I've been working at a private investigations firm in Los Angeles for the past four years," Spades replied. "She's my boss."
"Young Private Investigations!" Amber exclaimed as she shoved a business card at Hikari. "While our primary area of operations is Los Angeles, we have carried out many operations abroad and our list of happy customers includes several foreign governments."
"Down girl," Spades ordered. "She's a chef, not a chair for a fortune five hundred company."
"Sorry." Amber sat back down. Spades glanced at Hikari and saw her staring at him. He took a deep drag on his Gold and Mild.
"What?"
"I just never pictured you being anything like you are," Hikari stated. Spades took another drag.
"That's funny. . .because neither did I."
(:ii:)
"See you tonight!" Spades dropped his Gold and Mild and stubbed it out under the heel of his shoe. "Wave goodbye Spades."
"Goodbye," Spades replied dryly, doing a fairly decent impression of a politician's half-assed wave. Hikari laughed and continued on her way.
"See?" Amber demanded. "Not everything in your past is bad!"
"I barely knew her," Spades stated. "She was in my classes and dated an acquaintance of mine. We never really made an effort to get to know each other, or talk for that matter."
"So this acquaintance would be that Touji guy, right?" Amber asked. Spades nodded. "What kind of idiot would cheat on a girl like that?"
"An overly hormonal adolescent who refused to grow up."
"Well that's still ridiculous to do when you have someone like her waiting for you," Amber stated. "Did you see her boobs? They had to be at least a big C-cup. I wish mine were that big. I thought guys dug slim chicks with big boobs."
"Is all this talk about her breasts from your bi-sexual days in college?" Spades asked. Amber's cheeks turned bright red.
"That only happened twice."
"That you remember," Spades stated. "My little drunkard."
"Docked paycheck!" Amber shrieked, trying to control the twitching in her eyebrow. Spades held his hands up in submission. "So, did she get a boob job?"
"I'd hate to say it, but that seems like the only explanation," Spades answered. "She was fairly small chested throughout college. I thought she was more self respecting than that."
"Never underestimate the kind of pressure society can put on someone who is viewed as imperfect," Amber stated.
"True," Spades replied. "Though most of the men I knew thought she was cute, even without large breasts."
"Cute can only get you so far," Amber stated. "Plus there's always the old saying that perfection is in the eye of the beholder."
"That's beauty," Spades corrected.
"So, what do you think about me getting a boob job?"
"I'd never talk to you again," Spades replied flatly. "I mean it."
"Okay. Sheesh. I was just kidding. If they were any bigger they'd just get in my way," Amber stated. She was silent for a moment. "So you think only insecure women get boob jobs?"
"More or less," Spades replied. He was fairly certain that this topic had come up somewhere before.
"Well you can always be proven wrong," Amber commented.
"Of course," Spades replied. "I just don't understand why women think that all men want a very large chested woman."
"Men," Amber said in disgust. "What I see in men I'll never know."
"Sexual gratification?" Spades guessed.
"I have all the sexual gratification I could ever want in a shoe box under my bed," Amber shot back, "and it never gets soft."
"It constantly needs new batteries I would wager," Spades commented.
"How did you. . .that was some sort of comment to suggest that I am sexually frustrated, wasn't it?"
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Spades asked.
"I'll have you know that my sex life is excellent!"
"And empty."
"That's beside the point." Spades glanced at his watch.
"We have nine hours before we're supposed to meet Horaki for dinner," he stated.
"So?"
"So, you said that we'd go somewhere really nice," Spades replied. "Really nice places require reservations."
"So?"
"So we don't even know where a really nice place is."
"Well that's a problem."
-End
(:ii:)
-Author's notes. As you might have guessed, I am a master of tasteless sex jokes.
Please note: I write in a limited third person point of view. Sections with Hikari as the main character have Spades called Shinji because she doesn't know him as Spades. Just in case I was confusing you again.
