Hello, dear reader.

No, this isn't a prank. The best Persona 4 fic on the internet has returned after 1568 days (1569, depending on your time zone) on hiatus. I promised I would be back when I completed Change of Engagement, my Persona 3 fic. If you have read it, then you know it was worth the time to focus on it. If you haven't, you're missing the best story around that game on the internet as well – go check it out.

I feel like addressing comments made on the last chapter with such a great time gap would be pointless and awkward. For those of you who are still reading this little tale, I thank you. For those who are no longer, I understand. Either way, I'm glad that there are those of you who have stuck around this long and want to see how this story ends, because we will see how it ends together. Without any other fics to get in the way, my attention is on completing Continuance and doing the story justice. I'm in this to the end, and I'll finish it if it kills me.

Which it won't, of course. I have too many other ideas to keel over, like the Persona 5 fic, Casino Advantage, that will be my next grand epic after this one is complete. Expect to see it – it'll be amazing.

Thanks foremost go to Firion. His feedback and insight have been excellent in the planning and writing of this chapter. Glad to have you in my corner, good buddy; this wouldn't be as good without you.

All that said, dear reader, welcome back. Welcome, and enjoy.

Chapter 32

Izumi hummed a familiar tune to herself, finishing up her work for the day. The sky was still bright with the sun of spring and she would be able to take the slow route home through the park. It was only 6pm, far earlier than when she would have once considered going home, and more than one of her associates still looked at her strangely when they saw her leaving instead of sleeping in her office. But that had been over a year ago, before her trip to Inaba. Before so much had happened.

Since then, she had been much more attentive to her connections and family. Izumi had taken exactly nine weeks, four days and seventeen hours off for her sabbatical, then brought a quick end to it and got back into her job. Despite being passed over, she still had the clout and contacts to command her fair share of jobs, even if that share was considerably less than it had been before. But instead of chafing at extra time she had available to her, she scheduled regular calls with Ryo and Nanako, made efforts to reach out to Junko and Souji (with varying levels of non-success), and even had a few chats with Yukiko-san. She was reacquainting herself with old friends and associates, and in the year and three months since that visit, she was feeling more herself than she had in years. She'd even made Hitomi-san a priority in her spare time, talking her now-former secretary through her first pregnancy and standing in for the mother the young woman had lost to cancer in her teens. The conversations and time spent reminded Izumi of when she'd been pregnant with Souji, and while the questions she couldn't answer highlighted Izumi's own shortcomings in maternity, Hitomi-san had taken her time and advice as a blessing. The result was the birth of a healthy baby boy, and when Izumi had asked when Hitomi-san would be coming back to work with her, the answer had been some stuttering and hedging before, "After the next one. Maybe."

Izumi smiled now as she had in the conversation. "You like being a mom, do you?"

"It's… more than I expected it to be. And we've been talking; we'd both like to have a big family."

"Then keep in touch and ask me whatever questions you want. It's been a pleasure working with you, but if this is what you want to do, then I wish you the best."

The young woman had been crying into the phone by the end of the conversation, but Izumi was used to the waterworks. Even before pregnancy, Hitomi-san had always been ready with laughter and tears. Some of the women around the office sneered at the girl for that, saying she was too soft. Those were, Izumi noted, the same women who complained about their husbands, cheated on them, and then complained about their go-to men. In short, people whose opinions weren't worth the hot air they rode on. It was highly likely that Izumi would take some flak from those same people for her continued association with Hitomi-san, but she was used to the bitches yapping at her heels. She was enjoying herself too much being someone's senpai and having good, honest conversation again.

There was also the simple reality that being involved with Hitomi-san's pregnancy made Izumi think of her own offspring and left her wondering how soon she might be holding a grandbaby of her own.

But for all the perspective her time away had granted her, things weren't perfect. Sometimes she backslid. Sometimes she worked through nights and crunched through a weekend to meet deadlines and take on new projects. The adrenaline spike of overcoming challenges was still there, that hard acceleration that red-lined her engine and reminded her why she'd gotten into this line of work, and it tempted her every time to fall back into her old ways, to ignore what was around her and speed ahead ever faster until the only thing in her rear view mirror was burnout. But she mitigated the lure of her work as best she could. Sometimes she missed Ryo's calls or had to reschedule with Nanako, but where before she would have ignored whatever guilt could find her under the pile of her work, now her conscience had her direct line and a cattle prod. Her brother had only needed to chew her out once (though he'd done it twice just to turn her screws) before she made sure her family was enough of a priority that she could keep in touch. It was new territory, but she refused to get dragged down by guilt over missed opportunities and lost time. She had said she was going to make some changes, and come Hell or high water, she would.

She left the office building, walked to the subway and caught one of the less-crowded trains. The advertising on the station walls, singing the praises of a new brand of whiskey, sent her – quite happily – back to the most memorable meeting she had in Inaba, perhaps in the last decade.

She'd never been quite happy with how her first meeting with the Amagis went. She had spent too long being in charge of her engagements, or at the very least prepared for them, to take Ryoko's cunning and Katsuhiro's sharp words on the chin and act like nothing happened. So she'd offered, after New Year's and before she left the sleepy little town, to meet the woman for dinner and drinks. Neutral ground, no first impressions to get in the way, and the chance to bring as much or as little ammunition as one desired.

Izumi thought nothing of business over alcohol; it was her natural state of existence. Japanese businessmen were, bar none, alcoholics at varying levels of functionality. If you wanted to fit in, you had to go drinking with them after work, and if you wanted to stay fitted in, you learned to handle your booze. Nobody had time for some drunken rookie shooting his mouth off about the boss's wife's ass, after all. One could, of course, always turn it down, but Izumi had only made that mistake once. The weakest of the men called her uncommitted and dead weight behind her back, and the yappiest of the office bitches dogged her for weeks afterward. And because she'd missed that one night, even the men she got along with became distant to her. A test of her grit, as it were, and since then she'd been drinking with the guys every time it was expected. On her good days, she could keep up with them round for round, and on her worst, she used activated charcoal. Either way, she'd paid her dues with her liver and could handle pretty much anything the bar had in stock. On reflex, she'd assumed that Ryoko was similar. A woman in a man's world needed to run with the big dogs, and surely someone who thrived in the hospitality sector would be used to venting hard.

But then again, everyone knew that old saw about assumptions.

Izumi had ordered her usual whiskey straight, the bar having a not-bad brand at a seasonally inflated price, and prepared for the verbal sparring match she was hell-bent on winning this time. Amagi Ryoko was crafty, but Izumi wasn't going to roll over for the sake of decorum this time.

What occurred that night, however, nothing could have prepared her for.

She had expected Ryoko to order perhaps a fine glass of wine to nurse, or maybe something hard to take the edge off. What the Amagi matriarch wound up ordering was an umeshu cocktail Izumi had never heard of, sweet enough that Izumi wrinkled her nose across the table. Their discussions started off polite for the first drink, turned to their kids on the second, and sober discussion was impossible after that because Ryoko was swaying in her seat.

"That's how it is, Izumi-san," Ryoko asserted, flushed and eyes too bright in the familiar signs of intoxication. "You had the chance to raise a boy, so it makes sense you'd have a hard time getting him to open up to you. But it's just as bad with girls. They're wonderful little dears, but then they grow up and leave the cage and you wonder where all the time went." She drank hard from the straw, a multi-coloured little affair that couldn't have clashed more with the blouse and slacks the woman wore.

Izumi looked at the concoction across from her, wondering how on earth something so juvenile in appearance could have this much kick. Either that, or – as seemed to be the case now – Ryoko really couldn't handle her liquor. Izumi was now in a place she hadn't been since before Souji was born, and she was left with several prominent preferences: for a phone to record this, for the bill to leave as soon as possible, and for any indication at all that she needed to duck.

Utterly unaware of her companion's concerns – or much of anything, for that matter – Ryoko rattled her glass, looking at the ice cubes. "Yukiko? Oh, there you are, sweetie. You came home after all. I've missed you."

Past her gobsmacked incredulity, Izumi distantly noted that this was taking the meaning of Yukiko-san's name a bit too far.

The ice rattled again. "Oh come on, sweetheart, don't give me the cold shoulder. You're better than that."

Izumi turned to an employee standing nearby who watched with amused resignation. "Does this happen often?"

"It's not the first time, ma'am. We usually try to limit her intake, but we have someone new on staff this evening. By the time we realized it…" His sidelong glance said the rest.

"I'm open to suggestions."

"You might want to take her home for the night. She's never commented on her evening after coming back, so I don't know how much she remembers, if anything at all."

"I don't suppose you have her family's phone number."

"We do, actually. Several of the restaurants and bars have it on file for such occasions, both for her and, well, some other members of her family."

Izumi contemplated the ramifications of every eatery in town having your number on record just so they could call someone to come pick you up. Most people in those situations wound up in the drunk tank for the night, or blacklisted from the district. And there was the idle consideration in the back of her head that Yukiko-san might have inherited this quirk in some form as well.

"Would you like me to call them?" the employee inquired, still watching with faint concern and not-so-faint amusement. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your meal."

"Please do. And here." She handed the waiter a few bills, easily enough to cover the cost, and came around to the side where Ryoko-san was chasing the ice cubes around while noisily sucking through her straw. "Come on, Ryoko-san, let's get you up and outside. You'll feel better with some fresh air."

The Amagi matriarch looked up owlishly, somehow seeming staid despite bobbing her straw up and down as she spoke. "Outside? You're taking me with you?"

"It's for your own good." Izumi leaned in and looked at the woman, perplexed by how trashed she was acting while looking only a little flushed. "Up we go," Izumi added, pulling her to her feet.

Ryoko stumbled against Izumi, giggling freely like it was the most fun she'd ever had. "Kyaaah! Someone help me, I'm being abducted!" She draped onto Izumi, holding on and slipping her feet on the floor as she collapsed into fits of laughter.

Evidently locals were used to this little show; no one gave the two more than a cursory glance.

Izumi put an arm around the woman and helped her to the door, yet another skill she'd come by in her years in the office. At least there wasn't the risk of Ryoko copping a feel or turning to puke on her yet, and–

Ryoko squirmed, laughing uncontrollably and hugging Izumi harder. "K-Katsu!" She gasped. "Katsu, s-stop! Y-you know I'm ticklish!"

Izumi shuffled and adjusted her grip, but that only brought out more wriggling and laughter. It wasn't until Izumi found the one spot on the woman's rib cage where she wasn't ticklish – honestly, how did she manage day to day if she was this sensitive to touch? – that the laughter died down. By then, Ryoko seemed to have tired herself out, looking over through heavy-lidded eyes and murmuring to herself. "You're okay with us, you know," she said almost beneath hearing.

Finally, a sensible comment. "Thanks," Izumi answered. "You're not so bad yourself."

"You and Souji-kun, I mean." The sharp look was back in Ryoko's eyes, albeit drifting and bobbing with the woman's head. "I get the same feeling from both of you. You're tough because you've had to be, and you think you're lost because of it."

Izumi raised an eyebrow. Was this insight or an intoxicity-induced assumption?

"What do you think…"

"Hm?"

"...the grandkids will look like?" Ryoko staggered, almost taking them both down. "Yukiko's going to school and the wedding hasn't happened yet, but I can't wait! We couldn't have more children, but the best times were when she was running around the inn, that pitter-patter of little feet. I want three grandbabies," she declared. "At least three. And one of them has to be a girl!"

Izumi hid a smile. This was the topic they could have bonded over, without question, but she knew better than to open her heart to someone who wouldn't remember it the next day. "I'm sure Souji and Yukiko-san won't let you down."

"They had better not," Ryoko grumbled with an honest-to-gods pout. "And they need to hurry up. Think of the parties we can have with them, and the little outfits. And we'll teach them to cook properly – Yukiko never quite got the hang of it – and…"

Ryoko continued unabated for several more minutes before a car rolled up next to them and Amagi Katsuhiro got out, all six feet of him walking on eggshells and thin glass.

"Darling!" Ryoko cried, hands out to him. She would have face planted if Izumi hadn't caught her.

He approached and took his squirming wife. "My sincerest apologies," he told Izumi, face almost grim with contrition. "She doesn't get like this very often."

"It's no trouble. I was just a little surprised, that's all." Now came the game of mutual lies between the sober parties, another familiar step in this fumbling, tumbling dance. "She'll be all right, won't she? I didn't realize she drank that much."

"I'm perfect now that my darling is here," Ryoko insisted, leaning heavily on him and looking up through tempting eyes.

"She probably didn't," Katsuhiro noted. "She just can't handle alcohol. I thought she was going to have virgin drinks, but… Well, she'll have a headache in the morning, and she probably won't remember very much. I'd like to ask you for a favor: please don't hold tonight against her."

"Of course. This is how it goes sometimes, and it was more surprising than it was a problem. Nothing bad happened, and nothing untoward was said."

"Thank you for understanding." The man looked genuinely grateful, little of the overbearing intensity from their first meeting to be found. He hefted his inebriated spouse into his arms. "Come on, let's go."

Ryoko squealed in laughter, kicking her legs and hugging him. "Katsu, take me home."

The man went red as he worked at getting Ryoko into the car, and they left.

Izumi watched the vehicle disappear into the night before turning to walk back to Ryo's house, kept company by two thoughts. One, Yukiko-san being an only child was either a medical misfortune or an act of the gods if Ryoko was that affectionate after drinking.

And two, this night and all mention of the Amagi matriarch's behaviour was an oil-tanker sized ace that Izumi would gild and frame for whenever she needed it. Discretion with other people was one thing, but she wasn't going to give up her trump card with Souji's future in-laws.

Emboldened by her success, as she was planning her return to Kofu, she pencilled a date with Yukiko-san into the calendar. Relying on Ryo's advice and her own experience with proud, intractable men, she called her son first.

When he didn't answer her message she called again and texted. Then again, and again, and twice more before he finally picked up with a less-than-pleased, "What do you want?"

"The sooner you answer me, the less I'll have to badger you," she answered sweetly. "Good morning."

"Morning. Is this an emergency call? Is Nanako okay?"

"Of course. She's making breakfast, says she wanted to try one of your recipes. She really looks up to you."

His grunt was probably meant to be noncommittal, but still sounded pleased.

Izumi added, "You did a really good job with her. You should be proud of that."

"This isn't why you called, is it?"

"No. I'd say you need more sleep so you aren't this cranky on the weekends, but I'm sure you know that already. I called," she pushed ahead to cut off any objections, "because I want to meet with Yukiko-san. I'm going back to Kofu, and Kyoto's on the way."

There was a momentary pause before he cynically asked, "How did your sabbatical and vacation go? Either terrible or fantastic if you're going back this early."

"It's where I live. I can't mooch off my brother forever. And I didn't say I was going right back to work. I have friends I can visit and things I can learn there."

"Right. You're not feeling the itch? No desire to jump into a big project and come out on top of a multi-million-yen deal?"

Izumi couldn't deny that was exactly what she felt, not unlike a junkie jonesing for a hit, and she didn't like that analogy, however accurate it was. "Are you comfortable with me meeting with her?"

"No comment, huh?"

"I can get her number from her parents, if that's easier. I'm on quite good terms with them. I'm calling you because I don't want it to be a problem between you and her later."

"Very courteous of you. Why do you want to talk to her?"

"She's going to be my daughter-in-law whenever you get around to marrying her. I like what I saw last time and I think I'll enjoy her company. Do I need another reason?"

"Just personal stuff, huh? Chit chat over tea and sweets? You say you're close to her family. If you do talk to her, how much will you keep to yourself?"

"Almost all of it, I imagine. If you think I'm collecting information for your father, he's out of town on business. I've learned a lot in Inaba and I will respect your privacy and theirs. He isn't a factor in this."

"And if that changes?"

"That's up to him. It won't affect how I feel about the Amagis, and I won't jeopardize them like you apparently think I will."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I am." Izumi let the words hang. "Her number?"

"Why are you asking? If you can get it on your own, why do you need my permission?"

"Respect and courtesy, and as I said, I'd rather not cause her problems with you. You're proving right now that you know how to hold a grudge, and I don't want to put her through that."

"Will you keep phoning if I say no?"

"Of course. This is important to me, and you aren't the only one in this family who can be a stubborn little shit."

He choked on his reply and Izumi knew she had him. He saw her as the impersonal parental figure, probably had her categorized as someone too distant or uncomfortable to dig in and fight. Her casual profanity blew holes in that perception, made her human enough to relate to whether he wanted to or not, and she'd dealt with enough men in her life to know that being disliked was a welcome price if respect was the payoff. Not condescending or bitchy, which was what so many other women got wrong, but strong enough to punch back and disciplined enough not to.

"I suspect she will tell you what we talk about," Izumi continued. "She'll know you have reservations about this, and I'm sure she won't let things go where you two don't want them to. I'm not going to dig into something she doesn't want me to; she'll probably tell me off if she thinks that's what I'm doing."

"And you'll accept that?"

"Of course. I'm not doing this with the intent to start a fight. If she's anything like her mother, I hope to talk shop, see the sights, and enjoy my time with her. I'll just make sure there's no alcohol involved."

Souji hummed the near-equivalent of a suppressed laugh. She'd thrown the remark out to fish for a reaction, an experience that she was sure he could relate to.

He either didn't notice the invitation or ignored it, though. "I'll talk to her. If she's okay with it, I'll send you her number. Now I have to get back to what I was doing. Take care."

She got a, "You too," out just before the call disconnected. He was brusque and guarded, but she knew he had his reasons. She wasn't discouraged. It would take time, and if her corporate career had taught her anything, it was patience and the value of small victories.

That evening, he made good on his word and texted her a phone number and nothing else. That same night, she had a time and place to meet with Yukiko-san, and four days later, after a heartfelt farewell to Nanako and a promise to Ryo to keep in touch, she was in Kyoto.

She'd agreed to meet Yukiko-san at the park near the university, arriving early per her standard, and she saw Yukiko-san get there just ahead of her. The young woman moved through the crowds easily, having shed her country-born naiveté and awe since she'd moved here, and whatever male attention she attracted was either skirted or rebuffed gently but firmly. Others, Izumi noted, told the admirers to "Leave the married girl alone."

Izumi had heard that Yukiko-san and her friend, Chie, were thick as thieves, but here she could see the girl was capable of handling herself alone. Another mark in her favour.

"Thank you for meeting with me," Izumi said as she approached. She noted in the back of her mind that she turned her own share of heads, and she preened internally at the attention. Married and a mother or not, she still had it.

Yukiko-san was polite but intentionally distant. "Of course. I wasn't expecting this, but I'm glad we have this opportunity."

"Well, come on. Let's go somewhere quiet, shall we?"

Izumi led them to a small cafe she loved, a hole in the wall that nonetheless served excellent food and tea. This meeting went far better than their first one. The girl was cautious when talking about her studies, and Izumi could see the same calculating mind that had served her mother so well in Inaba at work now in assessing the possibility of deception or a threat. It was one of the scenarios Izumi predicted, and she went with her plan by avoiding anything that might be read wrong. She spoke of Nanako and Ryo, sharing her own experiences with them and Naoto-chan and Kanji-kun as well, and mentioned her best experiences of Inaba. Yukiko-san leaned forward, engaged and sharing memories of her own, and it wasn't until there was a lull in the conversation and their plates were taken away that she recalled her reticence and retreated a little.

"Have you been to the inns in Kyoto?" Izumi asked, not deterred in the least. "There are so many of them here."

"I haven't had the time for it," Yukiko-san admitted, "and being on a student budget…"

"I remember those days, say no more. The reason I ask is because it seems like a perfect opportunity to see how they do things. Not from a textbook or some teacher who hasn't left the campus in years, but from the managers themselves. See what they've gone through, learn from real experience, take it and learn from it on your own."

Clear interest sparked in the girl's eyes. "I thought the same thing, but I doubt they would talk to a student. They must be busy."

"Some of them, maybe, but you'd be surprised how much they delegate things, and this isn't peak season for them." Izumi slipped a list across the table. "I know a few of them from business dealings and trips. If you're interested, I'm sure they would be happy to talk to you."

Yukiko-san's hand twitched toward the note, but she looked up, donning the appearance of politeness but not able to hide her suspicion. "I'd be glad to talk to these people, but if there's a price to pay at the end of this…"

"Then you would rather not?" Izumi finished for her. "There's no cost. I met your mother in Inaba and I feel like she does an excellent job with your inn. That said, there are always things that can be updated and improved, situations you'll run into that you won't have run into before. If I can help you become everything you can be, especially since Souji's going to be living with you eventually, then of course I want you to be as competent as you can be. He's sharp, but even he has his blind spots; he'll need you to cover him when that happens."

Yukiko-san seemed taken aback by the honesty.

Izumi smirked. "You did say I wasn't allowed to hurt him or interfere with your lives together. No interference is intended here – I want you to be the best innkeeper Inaba's ever seen. Knowing Souji, he'll be doing the same once he gets his feet wet, and then we'll get to see what you two can do together. I honestly can't wait."

"I might have been a bit emotional back then," Yukiko-san admitted. "I still don't want anyone to hurt him or get in our way, but I probably could have worded that differently."

"I'm glad you didn't," Izumi replied. "I have to listen to pandering and pussy footing all the time at work. Your directness is refreshing."

Yukiko-san took a moment before looking her in the eye. "Souji doesn't know how to take you. He's still expecting the axe to fall, like this is a big set-up for you pulling the rug out from under him."

"Ryo would kill me if I did that, but what do you think?"

"I don't know yet. He said you were married to your job, and you have that feel to you – you definitely know your stuff, and I'm sure your list of connections has lists of connections. But you also asked him if people can change, and you seemed sincere about getting along with Nanako-chan. If… if you're serious about that, then I have to give you credit for that, regardless of what you did before. Mom said she got that impression from you too, and she's usually not wrong."

Izumi nodded. "Take your time and make your own decisions. This is all still new to you, and my relationship with him is complicated. Even I don't know how it's all going to turn out. If you want to play it by ear, I'd understand, and I didn't come here to win you over or make things harder for you two. I liked what I saw before and I wanted to help you if I could. That's all."

"Thank you. A lot of people wouldn't be this understanding."

"I know how I must seem to him, and I won't pretend that I didn't earn some of it." Izumi shrugged. "I'm also not going to let it stop me from getting what I want, and what I want is to be able to talk to him without him looking for an excuse to hang up the phone. If it takes work to get there, then so be it – where I go now is up to me, and I'm doing what I can."

Yukiko-san nodded, slipping the note into her purse. "I feel like you're serious. Thank you for your consideration; I'll definitely use this."

The air of their conversation shifted into something more open and friendly. Yukiko-san engaged more and took notes when Izumi made suggestions, asked questions and laughed at the stories of Souji as a child. Before too long, their time was up and the sky was darkening toward dusk.

"Thank you for making the time for me," Izumi said once they were back at the park. "I know your schedule must be full."

"I can spare a day here and there. Thank you for the call – this went really well."

"You have my number. If you ever need to call or if Souji is giving you trouble, let me know."

Yukiko-san smiled, and for a moment she was the girl in the photo from Souji's room, so vivacious under the decorum and alight at the mention of her man. This was who Souji fell head over heels for, and anyone who saw her right now would understand why. "I don't think it will come to that, but I'll call you sometime. We can discuss inns and anyone else you know in the business. If you're in the area again, let's do this again."

There was a drawn-out moment, and Izumi gestured toward her. "May I?"

"May you what?"

Izumi stepped forward and hugged her, patting her stiffened shoulders. "Thank you. You've made him happier than I've ever seen him. I know you love him, and I can trust you with him no matter what happens. Whether he and I work this out or not, I'm glad you'll be there for him. That means more to me than I can say, so thank you, Yukiko-san."

The girl nodded and returned the embrace before stepping back. "And I hope you can get through to him. He has his reasons, but you're not who you were back then. I think he'll love you too once he works out how he feels."

"That's the hope. Look after yourself." Izumi left for her hotel, still putting her plans together for her return to work, but she felt lighter now. Hope, that was it, and her goal felt that little bit closer. She chuckled and texted to Souji, "You really have a wonderful girl. Take care of her."

It was that night when he replied. "I know, and I will." Izumi read the smile in his words, begrudging or not, and chalked it up as a mission accomplished.

Izumi kept in touch with the Amagis from that point on. To Yukiko-san she sent names of inns and managers and received recommendations of places in Kyoto she'd never heard of in return. Ryoko and Katsuhiro were a regular source of fun – once you got past the professional distance and stern fronts, they were lively people. Izumi took two more breaks in the intervening months and patronized the Amagi Inn on both occasions. The hot springs were a blessing, and she recommended the place to her friends and associates, spreading the word about the ryokan.

"You're our guest," Ryoko told her after the second visit, "not our advertising manager."

"It's not like I'm lying. You run a tight ship, and that deserves to be promoted."

"We've been busier than usual thanks to you. Not that I'm complaining."

"That's a good problem to have."

During both of those trips she spent evenings with the Amagis, including Yukiko-san when she came home to visit. The atmosphere was relaxed, the conversation casual, and the drinks firmly non-alcoholic. Even Izumi forewent her usual whiskey to accommodate the other two ladies, and when she asked Katsuhiro about it later, he replied, "Yukiko takes after her mother, even more than I thought possible."

On one hand, Izumi wanted to see just how similar Yukiko-san was to Ryoko. On the other, she made some inquiries into the potency of wedding sake and wondered if a dry substitute would be out of the question.

She left the subway station and walked into her apartment, then set her things on the couch and noted that the door to Yuuma's office was closed. The light on the other side was on and she could hear him through the door, but he was absorbed in whatever he was doing.

This was nothing new. He'd completed his assignment in Niigata in fine form, and then had been in and out of the house on projects ever since, often before she had time to get reacquainted with him. He was alive with ambition, however. Each time, he told her, "I'm getting closer. I'm almost there," and she could see the ladder-climber's zeal in his eyes. Nothing else registered on his radar, and the few times they'd sat down and had normal conversations had been by accident or after making an appointment to see each other again, despite residing in the same house.

Izumi was familiar with that drive and wanted to believe that she was different from that now, and that she never would've gotten to this point in the first place. Either way, rather than having a husband who had been like a professional partner in crime, now she felt like a cohabiting spouse who happened to share the bills at the same address. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, and she had to tell herself, "He'll plateau and then he'll get back to normal." That was what happened, after all. It happened to her, so it would be the same for him. In the meantime, she would focus on her friends and family. Souji's birthday was coming up.

As she thought of what he might like, she went through her emails out of habit. She'd gotten nearly a dozen since leaving the office, but she took her time perusing them. She would order dinner, mix a drink, and stop anything work related at 8pm.

Nothing, also nothing, nothing important…

Then she froze. The sender of the next email was someone who had a finger to the pulse of one of her side projects. She'd hoped she would never have to read this, not from this person and not on this subject. But she also learned the hard way that hopes and wishes didn't keep the lights on. She hadn't gotten this far by burying her head in the sand, and that was exactly why she'd put these safeguards up when Yuuma came back.

She clenched her phone in a shaking fist and glared at the wall on the other side of which her husband sat. It might have been her imagination, but it seemed like his conversation was interrupted for a moment, perhaps by feeling her eyes on him or maybe the sense of someone walking over his grave. Certainly it felt like the temperature dropped by ten degrees.

She double checked the email contents, made sure it said what she thought it did, then dialed her brother's number by memory. When he picked up, she told him, "Something's come up. I need your help."

Few things in the idol world were more important than one's time. The right meeting with the right publicist or time spent on the wrong partnership, Rise had been so often told, could make or break careers. When she first started out, she believed that and tried to be conscious of Inoue-san's investment into her. She aimed for maximum effect and payoff for his sake and, by extension, her own, setting out to please so many people who wanted so many different things of her that she became both all and none of the Risettes that she portrayed. Just right here, not enough there, and she had to put her all into making everyone happy or she'd hear about it. Or possibly not, and that would have been curtains for her. Small surprise, then, that she lost sight of herself and couldn't tell which one of those projections was the real her.

She smirked. With some time and distance, she had to wonder if those guys were really as important as they made themselves out to be, or if that was all just the hot air they puffed themselves up with. Maybe they were victims of the industry even more than she was; after all, when her time was up and she was done being Risette, they would still be up to their eyes in this business.

She shrugged, letting the heavy thoughts pass her by. After all, her time was valuable, and instead of being in one of those meetings with one of those guys, she was sitting on a walkway bench incognito, waiting for someone much more important. He would be a little while yet, despite how fast she knew he would get here, so she plugged into her music player and played the tracks she mentally catalogued under the heading, "Yosuke." She didn't dare do something normal like sort them under a folder with that name, not with the ever-present risk of scandal or inquisitive fans should she lose her phone or someone get into her data, but one day she would, and she would do it happily.

Yet it would be interesting if these tracks did go public – they wouldn't mean anything to anyone.

Some of them were instrumental riffs or chords, others combinations of musical notes that had never seen the inside of a recording studio. Unaccompanied by vocals or lyrics, some no longer than twenty seconds in length, they were nonetheless her most valued auditory acquisitions. Each one thrummed with his growing attention to detail, and when she listened to them in sequence she could hear his growing musical proficiency. He was getting better, closing in on great at remarkable speed, and she was glad to be privy to his early experiments. Not only did they have music in common, not only did it broaden her horizons for her own work, but her ears danced to his tunes whenever he sent her something new. Whether he was a latent genius, or whether she was so attuned to his unique sound that hearing anything he made hit her harder than normal, Yosuke's work was enough to catch her attention, to drown out everything else when he was there either in person or in spirit.

Just thinking of him, how she'd dropped the honorific to flirt with him and how that stuck when he flirted right back, brought a goofy, tomato-red smile to her face.

That little something had been between them for months. She might have clued into it when he gave her the keychain accessory the Christmas before last, how she could listen to that unique tune of his and never hear the same melody twice. Maybe it was her growing up and accepting that Souji-senpai, for all his older-guy dreaminess, was well and truly beyond her grasp, and so she had to look elsewhere for a man of her own. Or maybe it was Yosuke himself, how he was growing into his own and tapping into what he wanted to do; few things were hotter than a guy who had a vision and worked toward it, after all. Whatever the cause, she had realized that she was focusing on him as a lot more than just a friend. She'd text him when she thought he wasn't available, then take his calls a second later when he proved her wrong. She'd find reasons to have lunch meetings with him – strictly professional, but with growing intimacy – whenever she was in town. And all the while, he kept expanding his craft, getting more handsome, and giving her those private looks when no one else was looking.

It took four "not-dates," three weekend meetings, and a lot of late-night phone calls that were either serious enough for her to need to hear his voice, or so funny that the others told him to keep the laughter down to a dull roar, but just this January, when she stopped by during the post-holiday lull, he pulled her to the side of the apartment, looked at her all serious and nervous as he did, and told her, "I really like you, Rise. I know we can't do this openly yet, but please go out with me when you can."

She acted like it was a surprise even though she'd been hoping he'd pop the question at Christmas. She tried to behave like she had to think about it, but she tripped on the execution, bit her tongue, and wound up hugging him because, to her eternal mortification, she couldn't speak properly just then. She was sure he would remember that moment for the rest of his life and hers, but she was too happy to care.

From then on, things both changed a lot and changed very little. She had to pretend to be single and he had his classes and work and budding music career. She still played at being coy – girls loved the chase, after all – but well before he had the talk with her, she was focusing on his sound alone, blanking out on other guys she was meeting at work or being interviewed beside, guys that other idols and Inoue-san told her were big names. Almost certainly the hope was that she would fall for one of them so as to make her name even more magnetic, to hitch her wagon to his star and soar even higher, or even to sell news that she was with someone and then manufacture a break up for more attention. It didn't matter; those guys didn't register and she didn't care, so she could easily say, "No, we aren't going out," whenever people tried to put them together or churn the rumor mill a little harder.

Not one of them sounded like Yosuke, and without that tune in the background, her own little soundtrack to the rhythms of life, she wasn't interested. Simple as that.

After all, the main problem was her job. Japanese idols were contractually obligated to remain single so they could appeal to their demographics as much as possible. Little girls needed someone pure to look up to, and teenage guys had to believe, even in the smallest way, that they had a chance with their #1 girl. Rise didn't like considering the marketing around her brand that, to her eyes, seemed exploitative, but the business was what it was and the cutthroat nature of the job meant playing by the rules or being bled out and fed to the next up-and-coming star. That left almost no leverage for her.

Yet rather than the situation being a wall that they couldn't get around, Yosuke had been manly and handsome and said, "If Souji and Yukiko-san can make it through a long-distance relationship, then I can handle your career. I'll be here, and we'll make this work."

She smiled, turning to one of his particular compositions just as the memory hit. That had pushed her to initiate their first kiss by jumping into his arms and wrapping her arms around his neck. By any standards, it wasn't a great kiss. She'd caught him by surprise and he'd been off balance. She'd been eager, he'd been nervous, and their noses bumped twice as they tried to adjust. But that was just the moment. The second and third and fourth try, and each one after that, got progressively better until their stolen kisses never stopped with just three or four.

That brought her to the present. He had an understanding of the business from their discussions and her venting on bad days, so whether it was his own playful nature or because he knew her well enough, their little back-and-forths continued right under everyone's noses. Rather than being content when he'd gotten his prize like so many other guys would be, Yosuke continued their lure and chase by sending her a string of notes in a text. Sheet music, Rise knew, and in a combination that didn't make sense until she hummed it. Her perfect pitch registered what he was going for and what he was communicating, and she squealed the first time she interpreted his message. He'd found a way to keep their game up. What's more, he did it in a way that no one else would be able to interpret. If anyone read it, it would just be notes on a page. If they heard it, she could say he was a fellow musician and they exchanged samples and ideas.

Their own little code, a cipher known only to them. To him it must have been a clever show of his craftiness, but to her, who lived and died by sound and music, it only drew her in deeper. His musical messages thrummed with her heartbeat, and she had it in the worst kind of way the longer their game went on.

Of course, there were flaws with the system. Nothing in life was perfect. Sometimes the rhythm was off or didn't convert properly in recording. Sometimes the sharps and flats weren't clear enough or the key signatures blended together too much. And sometimes their experiments didn't pan out and what one thought was a cool new thing, the other just didn't care for. But they played the game to the hilt and took the failures with almost more humour than the successes, always with a laugh on their lips and always trying something new or building on what they already had. They were in their element, free and alive and playing in their passion, and there was so much ground to cover that by the time they got to the end, she would almost certainly be done being an idol and ready for her next step in life.

To Rise, it was what she would always use as her example of what love sounded like.

Her phone vibrated, alerting her to a text. Before she even checked it, she pulled the earbuds out and heard that unique tumble of tonal twists and turns. She looked over and saw him approaching. No longer uncomfortable with his secrets, he was smiling as always, bright and handsome and getting attention from four university girls as he came over.

How badly she wanted to take his arm, or kiss him, just to show those hussies up. Sure, they could look, but this was her man!

"Hey," she said instead, all smiles.

"Sorry I'm late. Classes and the train…"

"It's okay, so long as you keep sending me music." Her delivery made it sound like a veiled threat, but only to someone who didn't know them – he'd do that anyway.

True to form, he laughed. "No problem. You really like those, don't you?"

"Of course." She whistled low a tune that to them meant, "Because it's yours."

He whistled back, "Whatever you like, Beautiful." It turned out he was almost as good at vocally reproducing sounds as she was; yet another element of their game. Using words, he offered, "Have you eaten yet? Treating you is the least I can do for making you wait."

"Lead on." He knew her favorite restaurants and diners, all places they could eat and not hurt his wallet too much.

For the benefit of the people around them, their conversation stuck to the mundane: work, school, their friends. But their little whistles or the tunes they texted to each other in between subjects, that was where their affections were communicated in full.

They would have their chance, Rise knew. Not too far from now, they could be together and do all the sappy stuff that Souji-senpai did with Yukiko-senpai and more. But until then, there was so much left of the game to play, and no matter how far along she went with Yosuke, he was showing her there was always more to find.

They were in love. They had their way of showing it. And to Rise, that meant being freer and more herself than she'd ever been.

Kou got off the train and made his way to the hotel he knew by memory. It amused him now to think about how going to a love hotel used to worry him. A year ago when he'd first made the suggestion, he was all thumbs and stutters. The implications, the chance to be with Chie, the need to plan out his schedule, everything had rattled him. Taking that step together had been no small deal, either, and it hadn't been without its fumbles and missteps that they could now look back on and laugh at.

It was still a cause for smiles and an elevated heart rate, still reason to lose sleep the night before, but for different reasons now.

It had been the sensible solution, really. Yukiko and Souji started with the good idea of meeting halfway between Fujisawa and Kyoto in Hamamatsu, and while there was a cost to the train ride and spending the night at a love hotel, it gave them the space and privacy that a dorm room wouldn't. The idea hadn't even come up in conversation as a possibility; neither of the girls wanted to impose on the other, nor did they feel like biting on sheets and pillows as to not announce to their neighbors just what was going on.

Truth to tell, there was enough of that with their dorm mates anyway. Both of the girls had ear plugs on their nightstands for exactly that reason.

With the halfway meeting place, there was no chance of running into someone they knew, and the accommodations were nicer and cheaper than what students could normally get. It allowed them to get away from where they worked and lived and studied, to see something new and novel with all the sights Hamamatsu offered.

Kou's bag clinked as he went down the stairs from the train station, and he slowed so he didn't risk breaking anything. This stuff was expensive; the best products always were.

When he'd first popped the question to Chie to meet here, he tripped into a lame excuse that he was learning massage in his classes for muscle relaxation and physical therapy. That was his cover, that he wanted to practice on her and see if she liked it, that the massage, not the rendezvous, could become a regular thing.

What was worse at the time is that he hadn't even been lying – massage was indeed the focus of the unit he was in and something he'd talked about weeks and months before. Trying to back out of the truth without coming across as a coward would have been impossible, and she'd sounded hopeful with her reply, "S-sure. I've got some tension from practice, and if you could, um, work it out with me– for me, that is, then I'd love to give it a try."

The results spoke for themselves. Their first night together hadn't involved sex at all – he'd worked such magic with his fingers that she fell asleep partway through and had such a peaceful look on her face that he couldn't bring himself to wake her up. She'd been mortified the next morning, scrambling and fretting over what he had expected, but the episode had broken the ice on the subject of sex and let them move forward, with the written and codified rule that meetings between them were to includes massages, no matter what.

That worked for him. The bed got even more use than expected, and he didn't have to worry about how much oil he used – the hotels had to clean the sheets anyway.

A few minutes of walking more brought his girl into view. "There you are," she said, slipping into a hard hug and moving under his arm as they walked. "How was your ride?"

They exchanged pleasantries, now a part of their greeting ritual as much as anything. Kou took in the sight and feel of her as always, and as always found himself sweating. She had really grown into herself. No longer gawky or insecure, she'd found the balancing point that worked best for her between functional and feminine, feathered hair and light make-up alongside denim shorts and a jacket reminiscent of his own. More than a year of martial arts and access to the university's gym had sculpted her chassis into leonine lines and sleek curves. When she pressed against him, laughing at some joke he told or story he brought up, he could feel the tense strength in her, and it was both familiar now and still so novel he felt like that teenager he'd been who couldn't even speak to her without biting his tongue.

If only it was just her that had his thoughts turning this time.

They checked into their usual place, even getting the room they'd shared that first night. Another first for them, another precious memory, and he set his oils and lotions out on the table as she stripped and slid under the sheets – fully under now to make the build-up even better, another part of their shared ritual.

"Dry now, oil later?" she asked as though his answer would change.

"Of course."

He knelt next to her, stealing a kiss. A hum of surprise turned into a purr of invitation, and he pulled back just before she could snag him and pull him in. "Tease," she accused, pouting playfully and settling back down.

Kou breathed and tried to put his thoughts aside. It didn't work. He ran his hands along her ribs and vertebrae. Same now as when he began doing this, it was strange how different she felt under his fingers. He practiced massages with his classmates, turned down offers from the girls in his class, but no one else felt like Chie did. Other people felt like how the textbooks and lectures suggested, but Chie's muscles and skeleton were a roadmap of hard wear, bumps of knots and grown cartilage, and ridges where it felt like breaks hadn't healed properly, except even that wasn't right. When he dug deeper, he came to the conclusion that it was like the breaks, if that's what they were, healed too fast. Basic biology and his own research told him that was impossible; how did someone heal broken bones in some places faster than in the rest of their body? Yet his girl was living proof that it happened, somehow, and it was so crazy that even trying to talk to his instructors just produced misunderstandings and discussions that went nowhere.

There was someone who knew, but Kou also knew he'd get nowhere if he asked. He knew because he'd already tried.

It hadn't been hard to surmise that whatever Chie had been involved with that made her like this, it was the same thing Souji was tied up in when everyone was back in Inaba. Even accounting for Souji being the transfer student with the gutsy attitude, there was a lot going on behind the scenes. First it was him, then Yosuke and Yukiko-san and Chie, then Tatsumi Kanji and that Detective Prince Shirogane, even Risette. All these people brought together despite them having no reason to even know each other, meetings after school and missed days when it rained, it was all fuel for the rumor mill. Then there were the days off that they would all take at the same time, or when someone would bump into them or pat them on the back and get a pained look or the snap of a flaring temper. There were even people who said they saw bloody bandages under their clothes or scars that weren't there before, hesitance to change around others and long spells of moody silence. Yet no one he knew spoke of what was going on. If you weren't in that circle, you weren't in the know. No exceptions.

Those had been high school rumours and whispers, but this was Chie he was talking about. His girl. What on earth had happened to her?

When Kou brought that very question up to Souji a week before, he got that look he'd seen before: the distant smile, the faraway look, and no answers to offer. "Something did happen back then, didn't it?"

"It's not something I can get into," Souji answered. "It's nothing personal, but explanations wouldn't work."

"Try me. You've got burns and cuts on you from something a student shouldn't have encountered, not in the city and definitely not in Inaba. What's the big secret? Is it tied to that murder investigation?"

"Yeah."

The answer was too easy. Kou knew that his friend wasn't lying, but there was a lot more under the surface than the answer gave. "So what are the details? Why not talk about it?"

"You're bothered by this. Why? It happened years ago, we've all been checked out at the hospital more than once, and my uncle's a detective; do you think he'd let me off the hook if I were hiding something serious?"

"Not really," Kou admitted. Everyone in Inaba knew what a bloodhound Doujima-san was, and no one wanted to get on his bad side. "If you lived with him, then it must have been above board."

"Exactly."

Kou shared his concerns about Chie with Souji, mentioning the odd feel of her body and the obvious concern that she was getting hurt.

Souji smiled. "I see, so that's where this is coming from. Whatever the reason for what you're describing, she can look after herself, and I'm pretty sure that most of what she's doing right now is martial arts lessons and training for the police. It's not like she's getting involved in that stuff anymore."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes, and I can't get into how I know or why I'm not saying anything else. It's not that I don't trust you, and if it helps at all, I feel like an ass for stonewalling you when care this much for her. But it's in the past."

"I'll take you at your word. You wouldn't lie to me. But if she's getting hurt on the side, or if something comes up because of this…"

"Then you'll be there to help her, and you'll handle it with her. You're looking out for her already, so you'll see it if something pops up."

Kou nodded.

"It's not my place to give unsolicited advice," Souji continued, "but what you're digging into might be something she can't talk about. Not that someone's holding a gun to her head or something, but that it's not something she can put into words. Might be that she can't explain it, or she doesn't want to go back to that time."

"You're saying I should help her, but not know what caused the problem in the first place?"

"It might come to that, yes. I know it's not easy, and it's definitely not fair. She's the one you should talk to about this, naturally, but don't think it's all for nothing. Even if you don't have the full picture, that doesn't mean what you're doing isn't helping, and she'll always need that."

"What's wrong?" Chie murmured languorously, pulling Kou from the memory.

"Wrong?"

"Something's bothering you. I can feel it in your fingers."

Kou looked at his fingers, then back at her and laughed. "My fingers are talking?"

"Your fingers, your posture, even how you're breathing," she clarified. "I know how you are when you're relaxed. This isn't like that."

"Thanks for caring. Honestly."

"Of course I care."

Kou tried to smile her concern off, but it felt fake. Worse, it felt like lying, and lying to her was something he would do only after he ate glass and washed his mouth out with drain cleaner.

She gathered the sheet around her chest and turned, concern obvious on her face. "If something is bothering you, let me help. Gods know you've done it often enough for me."

He knew she was sincere – that was the cornerstone of her nature – but when he glanced to the side, he saw how the sheet twisted and clung to her. Those long legs, rounded rear, cinched waist and defined abs where so many other girls let themselves go, all on offer and gift-wrapped in two layers of nude. It was almost enough to derail his train of thought, and it was enough to push his eyes further up, catching on her arm and the faint, puckered scars that looked like canine bite marks. He moved the sheet back and saw the claw-like scratches on her side and the long, jagged lines on her back, calling to mind someone being ambushed or pinned down and attacked.

All fading, none of which deterred from her beauty, but also not something he could avoid or ignore.

He knew he'd been quiet for too long when she shuffled and scrunched in on herself like she was bracing for something while trying not to look like she was. He tried for a smile and stroked her face, brushed back her hair, soft and smelling heavenly. "I've had some things on my mind, but I'm not sure if the words are right. You might have to bear with me."

"Sure. For as long as you need." She drew herself up, still wrapped in her sheet and ready for the talk, likely assuming that any private plans had been put on hold.

"I've had a hard time working out this thing you and the others have that I don't," he began. "I know you were involved with those murders back home, and I know that cop they caught would have gotten away without you. But none of you talk about it, and whenever it gets brought up, you and Souji and Yosuke, even Risette, you guys all clam up like the door's been shut and no one else is allowed in. You're kind of doing it now."

"It's not anything personal," she assured him, "and if something serious came up because of–"

He raised a hand. "I'm not accusing you of anything. None of you. It's just that it's obvious that something is there that you guys aren't talking about. And they have scars the same as you do, like Souji's burns or how Risette gets weird when there's a blues sax on the radio. It's what brought you together, and it's probably what helped you all get through the murders."

He stroked her hand, able to smile now that his thoughts weren't jamming up the works so much.

"Part of my training," he continued, "hell, even part of the reason I got into this line of work in the first place, is to help people. Try to fix whatever problems or damage I see. It's like skating uphill with you guys, though, because none of you let it slip, like you all agreed it's in the past even though it defined you."

She looked down and murmured, "You're not wrong."

"It's a big deal, enough that you came out of it stronger, and I can't be part of it. I'm working with half the information I need, and I'm trying to help you without knowing if it's really enough."

"It is," she told him immediately. "It really is, and this has been wonderful and normal and–"

He tapped her lips until she held back again, eyes darting in concern over where this conversation was going, where it was most likely to end up. He stole a kiss and stroked her cheek with a smile. "I think that you… No, that's not right. What I mean from this is that if you want to tell me what happened, I'll listen, and if there's some way I can help, I will. But if you can handle it on your own and you're okay with how things are, if you're sure you'll handle it if anything comes up and you'll tell me if there's absolutely anything I can do to help, then I'll take that, too. What I want you to know most of all is that I trust you, and that means I trust your judgment on whether you want to talk about it or not."

It was a few heavy seconds before she spoke. "Things did happen," she admitted. "The scars, the nightmares, even some other things I'm still working out, it did happen, and it was real. But I've been trying to forget about it and move on. It's in the past, and I want to leave it there."

"That's good, and that's all I want if you're on the mend and it's in the past. Same goes for the others. If you want to talk, then I'm here, and I'm not going to let it get in the way. I've said it and I don't want it to be something it isn't. I trust you either way, and I want to keep moving forward with you."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Sure it bothers me. Someone hurt you, and I want to find whoever did it and bury them alive in concrete. But you're also strong enough to handle this – you've got this many scars, and that's plenty of proof for me. So if you tell me, honestly, that you're over it, then I'll drop it. I don't want to waste the present, what we have, over something I can't change."

She looked up and brushed his hair to the side before letting the sheet slip as she hugged him, close and tight. "Thank you. That means a lot." They held each other for a few minutes before she continued. "I'm not completely over it, but I'm heading in the right direction. Yukiko's helped with it. Actually, you've been the biggest influence on me."

"Me?"

"Yeah. What we have, this normalcy, it's what I want. What I need. You've been understanding and patient and a sweetheart, and I know it's not fair to you but I want to leave all that stuff behind."

"Then that's what we'll do. From here on out, it's full steam ahead, and if you want to talk about it, I'll be here, but I'll be here regardless."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

The kiss she gave him then was no laughing matter. "Good. Now, was there anything else? Because you're being really cool and sexy right now, and I don't want to talk anymore." She moved her hands under his shirt.

Kou chuckled huskily and squeezed her ass. "I guess the massage is over?"

"For now. I still want one." She gave him a heated look. "But right now, I want something else, and a girl has her priorities."

He flipped her on her back, tangling them both in sheets and laughter, and they saw to each other's priorities several times over.

It was late that night, or maybe early in the morning, when Kou was nudged out of his sleep by something. It wasn't Chie, she was a mostly stationary sleeper, and it wasn't his phone. But when he looked at her, he knew his subconscious had brought him awake for this. Here, now, she looked soft and vulnerable and happy, truly happy. She was up against him, her arm across his chest, and softly breathing with the occasional light snore.

His dream girl. Incredible from the moment he saw her, and even more so since he got to know her. Despite the distance and the trials between them, she was here when it mattered. Her flaws were under the surface now, her scars gentle expressions of her grit, and he knew she'd gotten them helping her friends and fighting for what she believed in, because that was who she was.

That was all he needed.

"I love you, you know," he whispered into her hair, pulling her close. She giggled in her sleep, and he drifted off before he heard the dream-induced reply:

"You too."

"Good work, Souji-kun," Hasagawa noted as they finished up for the day. "You're on a roll these days."

Souji stretched and popped his shoulders, glancing at the steady rain outside. "Only because I had some good teachers. Thanks for the assist."

"You're giving me too much credit."

"I'm not giving nearly enough."

The exchange was a familiar one, part of their day-end routine. Hasagawa was modest by nature and always wanted to get onto the next big challenge while Souji, for all that he knew when he joined the company, was still just a student. He could appreciate that now, the sheer amount of hard work and good luck it took to get this far in this business.

In his more forgiving moments, it also made him appreciate more what his parents must feel like in closing this big deal or finding that particular loophole that turned everything around. The feeling was pretty amazing. It didn't change how he felt about them, of course, but there was a touch of insight there.

"Have a safe trip home," Souji continued. "Don't kill yourself getting there; Maya-san would never forgive us if something happened to you."

Hasagawa grinned. Maya-san was his girlfriend, a younger classmate of his who he'd had a crush on when they were in school, but the girl had gotten married early and that was that. The year before, however, Maya-san had been widowed when her husband – of whom she had little positive to say given the arranged nature of her marriage – died during a fishing trip. A few months of time, a few calls and dates, and now the pair were so over the moon that it was hard to be in the same room as them. Souji knew that feeling, but there was no way that he and Yukiko had never been this sappy. No chance. Not one.

"About those other cases," Souji brought up. "Mizushima-san was able to figure it out?"

"It took a few calls, and the customers haven't been forthcoming on just why they made those changes, but he's on the case. He'll know if anything else changes. Hey, don't worry," Hasagawa assured him. "These things happen. You did everything right; it's not your fault they changed their mind."

Souji wasn't convinced. Several of his assigned customers, people who had gone through the company for years and had no reason to change their portfolios, had made small adjustments that wound up shifting things quickly. Souji was sure he'd accounted for his numbers before he'd closed the files – he did with every case he had – but it took some fast work and creative alternatives to mitigate any damage to investments or corporate image. He was sure he'd covered his bases, and the files where the 'discrepancies' had occurred were ones he always watched. So either he'd made a rare mistake more than once, or the customers acted against their own best interests and adjusted the numbers themselves, then covered it up to sandbag him.

He didn't like speculating, but he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Either way," he said to Hasagawa, "thanks for the help. See you tomorrow."

His co-worker waved in reply, already taking the emergency stairs down to the ground floor so he didn't have to wait for the elevator.

Souji slipped through the office as it closed, then grabbed his umbrella and headed for home, his footsteps interrupting the static of rain around him. His skin tingled from the humidity, now as it had this morning, but for a very different reason than it used to.

In retrospect, it had been immature of him to assume that he could handle something as strong as his precipitation-induced nightmares on his own. Something so big was always going to get out and splatter all over whoever happened to be nearby. That particular night, it had been Yukiko after dinner and a movie in her dorm room for a date. The rain had put Souji on edge all day, but he'd tried to keep it bottled up. Some time with his girl, seeing the sights of Kyoto, then supper on a student's stipend and a film she'd had her eye on. As the credits rolled, he nodded off with her curled up next to him, but his next memories had been of her screams and blood all over his hands, surrounded by a suffocating blackness and running down the countless corridors of his mind.

He'd woken up on the floor, trying to bring himself back, Yukiko scared but still there next to him, coaxing him back to sanity. He admitted to her, in the dark of her room, what the rain did to him, how the nightmares dogged him still. Her response was one of love and compassion, but he hadn't seen the determined look in her eye. From then on, she sent him emails or texts when it was raining. Little endearments, loving sentiments, or minute-long calls that nonetheless intruded on the swirling madness that circled him and waited to pull him under. Then, when they met halfway in Hamamatsu for one of their get-togethers that inevitably involved a love hotel for some privacy, she pampered him and hugged him, maintaining as much skin contact as possible when there was any rain at all.

The night he'd put the preliminary pieces of the puzzle together had been when she'd shown him what had become his new favorite of her lingerie selection – sleek, red and lacey. Their clothes were strewn about the floor, bed, and lights, and she snuggled up after the second round.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" he asked. "You've been a lot more active whenever it rains."

"Of course." She said it like it was natural, like it needed no explanation.

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"I did some research and talked to some people. You get nightmares when it rains because you've linked rain with the worst of what happened during the investigation." She shuddered a little, still harboring her own demons from that part of their life. "They call it associative memory. One way to deal with it is to provide a newer, stronger association to block out the bad memories."

"So instead of connecting rain to nightmares," he kissed along her shoulder, "I connect it to you and us?"

She purred, stroking his hair. "That's right. You'll think of me and forget everything else."

"I think of you anyway."

"Then you'll think of me more. Maybe it'll happen soon, or it could take a while, but I'll make sure it happens." She kissed him softly. "Nothing gets to bother you unless I say so. And I say no more nightmares during the rain."

He saw the same quiet willfulness that had drawn him to her, that had conquered her Shadow and formed the foundation of the strongest girl he'd ever met. Not jagged or pushy, not imposing, but there to support him in a way that was strictly her. He flipped her on her back, silenced her delighted shriek with a kiss, and set about ignoring the rain for the rest of the day.

From then on, her nudges became commonplace. It had taken him several iterations to realize that she was keeping an eye on the weather in Fujisawa. Sometimes her texts or calls arrived hours before the rain, other times the rain stayed away altogether, and sometimes they talked through the night when it was pouring. Regardless, if there was a chance of bad weather, he knew to expect hearing from her. The effort she put in had convinced him – once again, and as though he even needed the reminder – that he had the best girl in the world. Any dates they had in the rain were immediately more loving and intimate than the others, and no matter what else was happening on her end, she never missed a day.

Souji smiled as he moved past rivulets running down the roads. It had taken work, but he was largely over his aversion now. Instead of being afraid of the rain, it woke him up in a sweat for a different reason entirely, and he almost always needed a cold shower afterward.

He came to the apartment he still shared with the others. He went up the elevator and met Kou in the hallway coming the other way.

"You might want to keep it quiet," his friend advised once their greetings were over. "She's over."

"I will. Thanks for the warning. You're heading out? Tell Chie I say hi," Souji said, as always. It was good to see Kou make the first move, but it was also good to see Chie getting over her fear of anything girly. They both deserved this.

"I will." Kou leaned in a bit closer. "Everything okay?"

There was no point in hiding it from his friends, and Souji was trying hard not to do that anymore. "Something's come up. Work related. I'm hoping I'm wrong."

"If you need anything, let us know."

"I will. Go on, you have a train to catch."

Kou nodded and left, and when Souji turned the key to their door, he did it as smoothly as he could to avoid making noise. Not that noise was unusual in a condo full of teenagers – far from it – but it seemed they had company.

He padded into the den on the way to his room, and there on the couch, sitting next to Yosuke, was Rise. The two had an ear bud in from the same music player, so off in their own little world that they didn't register his presence.

The pair didn't make up the most conventional couple in the world – Souji had been surprised to find out they were talking half as much as they were – but he couldn't help but be happy for them. For how much they'd both gone through in the investigation, they were both due their own happiness. Finding it together, in each other, was the best thing that happened for both of them, no matter how cliché that sounded. Yosuke had someone to bounce his music off of, and Rise had someone to keep her grounded.

The only hitch, and it was barely worth mentioning or calling it such, was the paparazzi and media attention, if any, should someone suspect anything. Rise had gotten away with her antics before, but she had risen high enough that the other idols in the business would be gunning for her, looking for any scandal or discrepancy to nail her with.

The answer had been simple. Kou's family was technically on the lease for their apartment, so Rise coming by was indeed, "just visiting a friend." And with one conversation with the other tenants, they all adopted the answer of, "Risette just hangs out. Watches movies, eats dinner, that kind of thing," whenever someone asked.

It was a cover, of course, but Souji didn't care even as he watched his two friends living in sin. He didn't ask for details, and so far as he knew they were keeping things under wraps to avoid breaking the rules too much. He smiled when he saw her, small and comfortable and miles deep in whatever she was listening to. Yosuke looked up, part in recognition and part in instinctive protectiveness. Souji tapped his lips once, shared an understanding look at the starlet that was so bright in both their lives, and padded silently to his room and closed the door with a wry smile.

He hadn't expected to be a leader in Inaba. He definitely hadn't expected the role to follow him here. But here he was, involved to some degree with the lives of the people around him. Next, he'd be talking to Yoshiro and Megumi about them having their first kid or something. He hoped not, or at least not yet – they were all busy enough with school and work without an infant to care for.

Thinking of work, Souji opened his laptop and checked the numbers he was afraid of, hoping his suspicions were wrong. But against his hopes and Hasagawa's assurances, something had indeed been going on.

It wasn't just these business deals that he'd been working on that had gone awry, but a few that Mizushima handled personally and even a few at Minoru-san's level had gone downright strange. Despite his growing family and attention to Akane-chan and Etsuko-san, the man was still a force to be reckoned with, and when there were signs of something strange afoot, he found them and fixed them in record time.

Everyone else figured that it was just customers being customers, fickle and testing the waters, part of the game they were all playing. But when Souji checked times and dates and names, he found a pattern. Specifically, a connection through investments or corporate officers that tied these people and companies to a certain megacorp that also had a Seta on its payroll.

Corporate espionage and tampering through proxies. It seemed that Father dearest was making his moves, and he wasn't calling to set the rules in place first.

Souji grabbed his phone and dialed a number. "Uncle Doujima," he said once the call connected. "I might have a problem. It's regarding my old man."

The detective grunted. "I figured as much. First your mother calls me, now you. I'm already on it."

Souji hesitated, brought up short. "She called you? Why?"

"Same as you. She was concerned about your dad, said he was doing things that weren't going to be to your benefit, and she needed information. She also said to help you however I could, and that she'd talk to you soon."

"Why would she be looking out for me?"

"Because you're her kid. And because she knows, like I do, that this isn't an enemy you can fight on your own."

"Do you think that's really the–"

"Yes. I do. I've talked to her since she came here and, unlike you, I'm not pretending that she's got something to hide. She put these measures in place for your benefit, so don't waste time second-guessing her."

Souji grit his teeth, but bit back his retort. His uncle was blunt, but nothing he'd said was wrong. "I just didn't think she'd be interested."

"Well, she is. Expect a call from her. She gave me plenty to work with, but why don't you give me what you have, too? Let's see what we can put together; not like this problem is going to go away."

Souji nodded. He had his reservations where his mother was concerned – for all her attempts to reach out to him, talking to her still felt strange – but he knew this feeling and knew to put any grudges aside.

Because when you went to war, nothing else mattered.