"Can't really go on a honeymoon, can we?" Suzuya said, leaning his elbows on his kitchen counter.

"Not really," Eto said sadly, leaning against the fridge.

The newlyweds gave the children that sat in the living room watching tv a mournful look.

"They could always stay with Naki," Eto suggested. The look she earned from her husband quickly put that idea out of the picture.

Suddenly, a knock on the door startled everyone. Eto's eyes filled with panic and she beckoned for the twins to come over to her.

"I'll see who it is," Juuzou said, a knot in his stomach.

The white haired man walked over to the apartment door and looked through the peephole. His stomach flopped as he saw an all to familiar face.

"Hide in the bedroom," Suzuya hissed at his wife and kids, who hurried into the back room and out of the sight.

The man adjusted his hairpins and tried his best to kick all of the twin's toys under the furniture. He opened the door and smiled.

"Hey, Kiniko."

The handsome man flashed Juuzou a pearly white smile, a sparkle in his ice blue eyes. He was dressed in his work clothes and held a box that had 'CCG' written on the side of it.

"Hey Suzuya," he said. "I brought you some stuff you requested from work. Cause yours broke. Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Juuzou said, mouth dry as he held open the door for his partner.

Kiniko strolled into the apartment and took a seat on the couch. "So," he said. "I have the kagune secretions detector that you needed. I believe you were borrowing mine?"

"Oh yeah," Juuzou said, nervously pulling at his hair. "It's in my room somewhere, I'll go get it."

The white haired man hurried into his room, leaving the brunette to his own devices sitting on the couch.

Kiniko frowned; Suzuya was acting weird. And not his usual 'let's play hide and go seek in the office' weird, but more like he was hiding something. He scowled and shook his head. His partner wouldn't hide anything serious from him. Sure, they had had a rocky start, but they had actually become good friends.

The brunette lazily looked around the room, and suddenly something caught his eye. There was a doll underneath the chair. He cocked his head; even for Suzuya, having a doll was weird. Kiniko could picture his partner having a voodoo doll or something like that, but this was a little girl's doll. Kiniko chuckled and shook his head; it was probably nothing.

The handsome man took out the kagune secretion detecter and turned it on. It was new, and he had been taught to always pre check all equipment. Suddenly, the small machine began to beep at a fast pace. Kiniko frowned. The machine was giving an odd reading.

He stood up and walked around the room, but the reading didn't go down. It remained rather steady, spiking in a couple places. He tried turning it off and back on, but the readings remained the same. The machine said that Suzuya's apartment was covered in kagune secretions.

Kiniko, a knot in his stomach, quickly returned to the couch when he heard Suzuya coming.

"Here it is," Juuzou said, handing his partner the machine.

"And here's your new one," Kiniko said, trying to act normal. "Why don't you test it?"

"I'll test it later," Suzuya said quickly.

"Alright," Kiniko said slowly.

"I was about to go to the store," Juuzou said, rubbing the back of his neck. "So…"

"I'll get going," Kiniko said, giving his friend a false smile.

The brunette gave the doll under the chair one last look as Suzuya guided him to the door. They bid their goodbyes, and Kiniko soon was riding in a taxi back to his apartment. He frowned, thinking of the readings he had gotten in Suzuya's place.

Hundreds of theories for the doll, strange readings, and Suzuya's strange behavior flooded his mind. But one was reoccurring. Memories of a pretty author swirled around his brain. He rubbed the scar tissue on his nose from when it had been broken. Kiniko knew Juuzou and the One Eyed Owl ghoul had been close. Of course, Suzuya had not known her identity. Then, something else hit Kiniko. It sent shivers down his spine and made him sick to his stomach. After the One Eyed Owl had been revealed to be famous author Sen Takatsuki, she had disappeared for about…

Oh god, he thought. Nine months.

The doll… It couldn't be.

Could it?