4/14 Midday
After reading the same line for about the tenth time, I decided to do my sanity a favor and leaned back in my chair, melting into the fresh and comfortable leather I bought to replace the typical old and used up variant that came with my desk. Huang chuckled from behind the low divider, to which I responded with a glare. "Trouble in paradise?" I had to suppress a groan at the bad joke.
"When you see paradise, let me know so I can escape there and flip all of you off as I pass by." I grumbled, reaching for my cup of coffee before remembering that it was empty. I finally gave in to my exhaustion and just let my head collapse onto the bundle of case files and notes that was piled on my desktop, trying my best to will them away as I groaned out loud. I was thankful for the fact that Haung and I actually had our own little office, tucked away and cramped as it was.
"Damn, I guess I actually did tear you away from something good. Or someone." I peeked from over my makeshift pillow to level my best glare at him as he peered over his own files, bloodshot and dry though my eyes were. Didn't help that Huang was never really all that easy on them to begin with. "So, when do I get to meet 'em?"
"When they ask you to deliver my newest batch of fan mail." My chest panged at the harsh dismissal, but I ignored it.
"Regular player, are you?" Huang closed the file he was holding and grabbed a fresh one. I recognized it as the one that held the criminal backgrounds of the dealers our department was currently busy trying not to lose its head over. Well, one of the things it was trying not to lose its head over at least.
"We've gone over that file enough times to know it isn't helpful." I sat back up, repressing the urge to yawn and straightened out my hair. As I learned at the briefing two days ago, the dealers were lowlifes who were lucky enough to be picked up by the Qing Long Tang and nothing was found on the buyers even after all this time. Granted, that brought up its own batch of worrying questions, but given that past couple of days I was lucky that I could even think straight.
A rising shout from outside the room broke through the walls that made the back of my head tense up. I had to resist the urge to fill up my coffee and take a long, much needed swig from it in order to power through the day, but it wouldn't do my growing headache any favors. "He's still going at it." I don't know why I was surprised. Kudo had such a set of lungs on him that I was convinced he was part of a chorus line in another life.
"Nothing makes him love his job more than yelling at people." Huang placed the new folder down and brought a hand to his neck as he angled his head, a dull popping sound coming from it. "Then again, I actually find myself agreeing with him this time around."
"Heh, no kidding." The fire from two days ago was still fresh in everyone's mind, most of all the group of uniformed officers who had decided to fire upon our friendly neighborhood pain in the ass after helping one of the first responders. Given the direction of their aim, the bullets wound up going through a few of the buildings and into still occupied office spaces. Luckily no one was hurt, but the officers in question had all received three weeks suspensions as punishment. And that wasn't even getting started on the field day the news was having with it. The report that was on this morning was one of the kinder ones I'd seen recently.
'And yet all they get is a suspension. With pay.' I shook my head to stop from going down that thought train. I already had enough on my mind. "Have any of the interrogations got anything out of them yet?" I asked to reorient my mind, Huang popping one last kink in his neck before replying.
"No. Those triad punks know what's in for them if they talk, and those other guys haven't said a single thing since they came in." I quirked my brow up at that.
"Really? As in 'haven't said anything incriminating,' or...?" I trailed off.
"As in they haven't said so much as a 'fuck you, pigs,' since they got brought in." He grumbled. "At least with the guy who got his face rearranged, I understand." I leaned back into my chair, digesting the information.
That suggested both a lot and nothing. For what it did imply, it showed that either these guys were so terrified of their boss that they knew better than to say anything or either respected him enough for the same effect. Even if that was something that could be said about anyone who worked with the yakuza, if these guys were even with the yakuza. The chances of them arranging this kind of deal without support from a criminal group was pretty much impossible at best, but given the kind of world we lived in, the chance was frustratingly not zero. And this wasn't even getting into the fact that, seeing as how these men were caught with a supply of illegal weapons that the shores of Tokyo, let alone Japan hasn't seen in... well ever, it's likely that whoever these unknown men worked for would have them killed whether they talked or not just for that.
So yeah. It told me a lot without really telling me anything.
The only piece of intel that was any good were their records. For the Qing Long Tang members, the list of priors was nothing on the scale of a gun deal. Only one of them had a major offence attached to their name, for assault. Other than that, the crimes under their names went along the lines of minor drug dealing and racketeering. While the latter could get you twenty years, it was leagues away from being in the same sort of area as selling illegal arms. As for the apparently mute buyers, there was not a single crime to their names. This would be their first offence. A lack of information was a sort of clue in and of itself, but it didn't change the fact it was still a lack of information.
I stared at the closed file of the personnel folder that held their mugshots and names. Their faces flashed in front of my eyes, memorizing them easily given how long I had stared at them these past two days. I could feel myself trying to form a connection between them, to let the rush of information that always came with my power overtake me, letting me see the thin threads that linked these men and the weapons together. Their motives, their reasons, what they were hoping to accomplish with these amounts of guns and equipment.
Nothing came of it. No names were revealed. No missing link was found that would wrap the case up in a neat little bow. Just an ever-growing headache that was soon to be in desperate need of some medication so I could get through the rest of the day.
"Damnit." I muttered under my breath. Everything I would need to solve this case was right in front of me. Hell, in my early days, all I would have needed was just one of these mugshots and a photo of the guns and I would have learned everything I would have needed. Now I was just stuck here, sitting around and twiddling my thumbs like a moron.
"Ease up, Akechi." Huang broke through my thoughts, looking at me intently with those small black eyes of his. With his cap off, his bald head shined in the bright lights of our office, making my tired eyes strain. "Were about as close to solving this case as everyone else at the department. Just need some more time and we'll nail the bastards."
I wanted to snipe back at him for the fortune cookie wisdom, but whatever words that had formed in my throat died before they reached my lips. While it did nothing to stop the rising irritation in my gut, if there was someone who had earned the right to tell me when to calm down and relax, it was Huang. So, I just settled for a bitter sigh and got up from my chair, stretching my back and relishing the satisfying series of cracks that reverberated down my spine. Haung let out a laugh.
"You're too young to have your back sound like that." My lips actually did quirk up this time at the jibe.
"Been working with you for too long." I went to the door, heading out to refill our coffees. As soon as I opened it though, I stopped in my tracks at the sight of the precinct's civilian administrator standing in front of me, hand brought up to knock. She let out a small squeak at the door being opened in her face before straightening herself out. I made sure to put my trademark smile on my face, hoping that the tiredness in my whole being didn't show.
"Detective Akechi, detective Huang. The chief wants to see you both in his office." She quickly recovered, straightening the hem of her suit jacket over her skirt. Sachiko Owada, the precinct's civilian administrator, was one of the few people I worked with that treated me like any other officer or detective here, my age being completely irrelevant to her. I wouldn't go as far to call us friends, more friendly, but that was refreshing in its own way in this line of work.
"Thanks, Owada-san. What's the issue?" I asked, my Ace Detective façade feeling just a bit more genuine talking to her and less condescending than it usually is.
"Didn't say, just that it was urgent and for you two only."
"Should we bring some ear plugs?" Huang sniped as he got up, putting his cap back on as I exited the room, closing the door behind him. Sachiko chuckled before answering.
"Probably wouldn't hurt." She nodded and turned away, navigating through the sea of detectives and officers working around the bullpen back to her desk.
When I first learned that Huang and I were the only detectives who had our own office to work, I felt a mixture of glad and insulted. Glad because I wouldn't have to work around the detectives who were disgusted and pissed off that a young teenager was showing them up with ease. Insulted because I saw the move for what it was; a way to hide me away, to let the older, more 'experienced' people do the hard work that someone like me had no business doing.
At seeing the absolute deluge in front of me; various people with piles of files on their desks that threatened to spill over, partners and detectives going from one desk to the other to back check different information they had found and had already gone over, and what I believed to be smoke rising from the printer of one unfortunate detective's desk, I decided to feel the former at the moment.
Huang and I looked to each other, his face just as surprised as me. I wasn't able to remember the last time the bullpen was this hectic, with only a few cases that came to mind hardly managing to hold a candle to the place now. Taking a breath, I made the first step and navigated my way through, not bothering to apologize to anyone who bumped into me. I could hear Huang behind me, a pained shout coming from him. Someone stepped on his foot in the mayhem. I ignored the expletives they exchanged as I managed to get a hand on the chief's door, Owada giving me a sympathetic glance from behind her circular glasses, the sounds of Kudo shouting easily coming through them. I appreciated the gesture as I opened the door.
"What?!" Kudo's face swiveled to me, red and sweating. The only other person in the office was one Kazuki Ide. He was assigned to interrogate the arms dealers, the look on his face telling me that he hadn't made any progress. That and I could hear as much from the other side of the room. "Oh, you two. Come in." I stepped aside for Huang, not a trace of his usual snarky attitude in his face. "Get out. I expect results next time I see you." Ide only nodded, turning on his heel so fast I'm surprised he didn't tear something. I closed the door behind him, relishing the petulant glare he gave me. I stood at attention in front of Kudo's desk. A mess of papers, files, and phone lines lay on top, a stark contrast to its usual meticulous care and lack of clutter.
I reveled in the untidiness of his office a bit before I asked, "You wanted to see us, chief?" He took a moment to grab a handkerchief and dab at his forehead, taking a deep breath.
"Got anything to tell me that I don't know on the gun case?" Huang and I kept quiet, staring blandly ahead at the slowly fading red on Kudo's expression. After a few seconds, he scoffed. "Just perfect." He leveled a pointed look my way. "Figured you'd already have this whole thing cracked by now, Ace Detective."
My nails dug into my skin even through my leather gloves, it taking all of my willpower to keep my serene mask up. "Even I need to take my time, chief. After all," I did let my smile become just a bit more malicious though, "we wouldn't want to make any snap decisions, would we?" Kudo's jaw worked in small circles, doing his best to glare at me through his fogged from sweat glasses. It had no effect.
Whenever these snippy little confrontations popped up between me and everyone else in the department, no matter the frequency between days – hell, between hours - they always managed to make the back of my head tense up in just the wrong way. They'd get on my case for not being the 'Ace Detective' I was propped up as by the media, then they'd get on my case for acting like said detective in order to do my job. It was the fact that they couldn't make up their damn minds that irked me. If you're going to be an ass, make up your mind about what you're going to be an ass for at very least. However, those were the least of my issues. And I suspect that another one of them was about to crop up this meeting. "Again, what can we help you with, chief?" It felt physically revolting to put on the polite tone I was using, like my throat was about to tear itself apart for doing so, but I stomached it all the same.
He glared at me for a few seconds before deciding to finally tell Huang and I why he called us. "There's a situation over at Shujin Academy that we just got notified about. Someone attempted suicide by jumping off the roof." …. Well now I just felt like an ass for my attitude. A rare occasion.
"They okay?" Huang spoke up.
"As a matter of fact, yes. In perfect health even." At our confusion, the corner of Kudo's lips went up just a fraction. "Another one of the students managed to catch the poor girl in time by jumping through the window and grabbing her." Her shook his head, more to himself than at us. As if he didn't believe what he was saying. "Kids these days." He muttered. "The only bit of bad news in this is that the other kid actually did manage to fall saving her."
A girl tried to commit suicide on school grounds in the early morning. There were few parts of this news that didn't qualify as bad. "He's on his way to the hospital. I want you two to head there and get on top of this thing." He looked straight to me as I just started to talk. "You're friends with the Niijima girl's sister, right?" Immediately my voice stopped dead in my throat, knowing that with the mention of that woman's name I wouldn't be able to get out of this.
"We're acquainted." A nice, modest and safe answer. To call us friends would be far too friendly a qualifier.
"Good. Then you'll have no problem getting to the bottom of this." Kudo leaned back in his chair, heaving out a dreary sigh. "This gun business is shaping up to be one of our largest messes in recent memory. We've had hours to look over the facts and detainees and neither avenue has brought something up. Add in the fiasco with that damned vigilante," his voice took on a harsh snarl as he practically spat the word out, "we are in mighty need of a nice, simple win for the police. To show the people that we have things under control." He folded his hands on top of his desk, adopting the grandfatherly 'cares for this city like his own children' façade that he liked to do that always made me grind my teeth whenever he did it. It was a wonder my dental bills were as small as they were.
"We have any other details?" Huang was kind enough to actually ask about the case we were now slotted with while I was too busy contemplating Kudo completing the grandfather image by finally dying of old age.
"Uniformed officers are already on site, school's closed down. Media is also on the scene, but thankfully the boys already down there are keeping the perimeter up. Students have been instructed to return to their classrooms and stay until further questioning, outside of four." Kudo milled around the mess on his desk until he grabbed a slip of paper. "One Ryuji Sakamoto, who got into the ambulance with Kurokuya Kouzai, the kid who saved Shiho Suzui, the girl who attempted suicide. Rounding them off is Ann Takamaki, a friend of Suzui who went home with her before the school was put on lockdown." He leaned back into his chair once more, taking a quick breath. "The Kouzai kid is at the hospital, so save him for last to let the doctors look him over."
"Do we know what the cause is for the victim's actions?" I asked. A large part of me wanted to ask why we were being put on this case to begin with, but I didn't want to waste my breath on something I already knew the answer to.
"No. Probably just disturbed. You hear all kinds of crazy things from people nowadays, kids especially." Thanks. Real helpful. Also fuck you too. "Now get to it. I want to start hearing some good news for once." Like Ide before me, I turned on my heel so fast that I could feel the muscles in it twinge awkwardly. Ignoring the shot of pain, I forced myself to softly open the door, pushing through the sea of morons and to my office, not bothering to respond to Owada's concerned look. I only just remembered not to slam the door in Huang's face.
"An easy win." The words seethed through my teeth as I brought a hand up to rub away the growing headache I was getting. "Girl tries to kill herself; he worries about news headlines." It shocked me how I could still be surprised about things like this. The gerrymandering for public approval, when they were usually too lazy to actually think for themselves about anything important. And of course, in order to help with that neat little bit of manufacturing, he assigned me to the case. A young detective with a fanbase of vapid teenage girls going to a school, why, it's a match made in heaven!
That was the problem with Kudo. While he was no different than the rest of the detectives that looked down on me, he was at least smart enough to use my popularity to the department's advantage. It made me sick every damn time he did it.
"Least it gets us away from the crapshoot in the office." I twisted my neck to look over Huang, already in his old coat and ready to head out.
"Always looking on the bright side, eh?" I shot back, whatever patience I had left in me long since expired. At that, Huang actually gave me a reproachful look.
"Not seeing a bright side to this, kid." I grimaced at the old nickname, one he rarely used anymore. Only on special occasions. "Come on," he clapped my shoulder as he grabbed his keys, "let's go be heroes."
I stayed, rooted to the spot for a long couple of seconds. 'Heroes.' The word made my stomach twist uncomfortably. in the corner of my eye, I could see a small bit of memorabilia form an old case of mine that I distinctly remembering throwing out. One of my earlier cases that I remember working tooth and nail to solve, even after everyone else was convinced it already was.
I ripped my blazer from the back of my chair, forcing it on as I followed Haung to the elevator. The cavalcade of idiocy went from loud to quiet as the doors closed in front of me. We didn't say anything to each other throughout the ride down to the garage, even when the doors finally opened up and we left the lot in Huang's old car.
'There aren't any heroes in this city.' And the incredibly sad thing about that fact was that I knew I wasn't one of them. Because the only thing I felt about being put onto a case about a girl my age attempting suicide and pulled away from what was looking like the crime of the century...
…. was annoyed. And the fact that I wasn't as bothered by that as I should be only further unsettled me.
"The casualties of service." Huang looked to me from the corner of my eye as I muttered to myself, staring out the windshield and at the hapless people milling about the city, completely unaware of the multitude of issues and problems that were going on in this shithole.
I leaned my head on the back of my gloved hands, my mood not improving the entire ride over.
Author's Note:
Hey again. I'm back! With only a month in between updates! So... progress?
In all seriousness, I am trying to improve myself with the update schedule. It's just that, after last chapter, I had to go out of town for work and needed to empty a huge chunk of my bank account in the last couple of weeks, so I haven't really been in a good headspace for writing. The struggle is real, my friends.
Anywho, with this chapter we dive deeper into the mindset of everyone's favorite bastard, Goro Akechi! And how, even though he's a good guy with the lack of a Metaverse, he's still a colossal prick! One thing that I think I've kind of flubbed on in the earlier chapters is the portrayal of the relationship with the police and the civilians of Tokyo is that, even though I have the characters exposit on what they think it's really like, I haven't exactly SHOWN said relationship as how it's described. With the next couple of chapters, I hope to rectify that.
And with how Akechi keeps on moping about being 'sidelined' by being put on Suzui's case, I don't mean to diminish what she went through, but instead show how burnt out he is by all of the office politics he's surrounded by as the 'Detective Ace' he's propped up as. He's still going to do his job, but he's done it for a long time, and the reasons he used to have for doing it have long since evaporated.
Hope you enjoy! Please comment and critique!
BTW the story now has a tropes page. I made it to help spread awareness for more discussion. Edit it if you so choose. Helps my ego. (jk)
