"Mr. Ginoza," Chief Kasei welcomed him as he approached her desk, her fingers knit beneath her chin, as they often were. "Have a seat."
"We haven't spoken in a while," Ginoza commented, taking the chair before her giant desk. He did his best to relax into the seat and made a conscious effort to smooth his face but internally everything was chaos.
"I've had no reason to summon you in your current role," she explained, sounding almost bored. "But this isn't a courtesy call. I just read over your report from yesterday's festivities. It seems Division One had quite the situation on its hands at the community college."
"Yes ma'am," he agreed. He folded his hands in his lap.
"You caught up to the suspect?"
"I did," he nodded.
"How exactly did he remove your tracker?"
"I'm not sure of that, myself, Madam. I just know that when I realized it was missing and I'd lost sight of him, I returned to find Inspector Shimotsuki's Dominator pointed at me." Her glare at him from behind her thin eyeglasses told him that his answer was insufficient. He cleared his throat. "There was a scuffle. I was able to avoid being hit. Perhaps when I punched him the wristband got caught on his clothing. I don't think it was deliberate."
"Inspector Shimotsuki's report states that your wristband seemed perfectly intact when they came upon it. How on earth did your hand just slide through?" She shifted forward over her elbows and raised an eyebrow. "Shimotsuki's report also details the scene where your tracker was discovered in great detail. There was no blood and no sign of a fight."
"She would say that," he muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"Chief Kasei, you have to believe me. I wasn't running away. I was trying to capture the suspect. I'm giving you all of the information I know."
She sighed and sat back in her chair.
"I looked up the reading from Inspector Shimotsuki's Dominator. Are you aware of your current coefficient?"
Now that she'd mentioned it, he hadn't checked himself today.
"You were reading so low, you weren't a target for Enforcement."
Ginoza's eyes widened.
"Today you're back up to your average, according to my door scanner, so don't go getting any crazy ideas," she shrugged. "Perhaps it was a Dominator malfunction. I've already called in to have Shimotsuki's analyzed. Regardless, I found it peculiar that returning from a fruitless chase would diminish your Crime Coefficient instead of increase it."
"I wouldn't know how to explain it either, Chief. I'm sorry I can't give you any further insight." He did his best to smile.
"Very well," she grumbled. He stood and bowed, excusing himself. He was nearly out the door before she called to him again. "Nobuchika, you've disappointed me once before. Try not to do it again."
The door closed behind him and he stepped out into the hallway. He couldn't put his finger on it, but ever since Kogami disappeared… no, before then… he'd had an uneasy feeling about Chief Kasei. Mika's obvious adoration of her probably had a bit to do with that. He returned to find the Division One employees gone to lunch; all but one. Yayoi sulked at her computer, prodding at the ramen she'd prepared for her meal with her chopsticks.
"You seem a bit gloomy today," Ginoza observed. She didn't respond. He took Sho's seat next to her. "Something wrong?" When she finally faced him, he recognized the worry in her eyes.
"It's Shion… She's not herself lately. Something's getting to her and she won't tell me what. I don't want to sneak around and figure it out myself, but if she won't tell me…" Her bangs cast a dark shadow over her eyes as she frowned down at her lunch.
"Why do you think that?" Ginoza hadn't ever known Shion to be one to keep things from Yayoi. Or really from anyone. The more the thought about it, Shion Karanomori was an open book to all of the Enforcers she worked with, and most of the Inspectors. When he'd been an Inspector she'd not failed to mention any little personal thing that might arouse some interest from him or Kogami, though that was before Yayoi's time at the Bureau.
"I… I tried to get her to talk about maybe wanting to get married at some point…" She couldn't believe she was telling him this. "She didn't outright refuse, but she didn't say yes. I don't know what to do Ginoza. If Shion's that afraid of commitment…"
"Don't go jumping to conclusions Kunizuka. You're starting to sound like me." He smiled encouragingly. "I'm sure things will work themselves out. They always do. Karanomori is crazy about you. She does whatever she possibly can to get your attention when we're all together. And she loves to show you off. She isn't going anywhere."
Where the Hell did that come from? Was I just being optimistic? Supportive? Encouraging even. Odd.
Ginoza must've made a strange face at himself, because Yayoi smiled and shook her head.
"Are you feeling alright, Gino? You're not normally this…"
"I know," he shrugged. "I'm definitely not."
A giggle from the doorway startled them both, but Ginoza's chest filled with warmth when he turned to see Tsubame's smiling eyes following a tiny holo canary that Sho had programmed in his spare time. She fawned over how lifelike the tiny creature was. It drew a contented smile to Gino's thin lips.
"I wonder what could possibly have transformed our sour, anxious Ginoza into such a softie." Yayoi elbowed him hard, following his gaze across the room. Akane and Mika followed the other two into the office and everyone got back to work, Yayoi sending Ginoza back to his own desk with a forceful shove of Hinakawa's chair, which Gino promptly returned to his red-headed co-worker.
The day wore on as unextraordinarily as they had before the campus incident. Ginoza wandered aimlessly up to Akane's desk to see if she needed anything completed before her shift ended. When he leaned down and propped himself up on her desk, he noticed a rather large bruise on the side of her neck. Though his first instinct was panic, he realized that it couldn't have possibly occurred during their last call since she'd been away from the actual riot. Then it hit him. Kogami.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Ginoza?"
"Uh, no Inspector. I was just wondering if there was anything I could do for you before you head home."
"Nothing I can think of…" She checked the time on her communicator. "I should actually get going. I wanted to visit my grandmother's shrine on the way home."
"Let me walk you out," Ginoza replied, a little too hastily. Akane narrowed her eyes, but nodded, gathering her paperwork. When the elevator door closed, Akane broke the silence between them.
"Out with it, Gino, or else you might explode. You've been acting strange today."
"I think you already know." He scowled at her and poked at the bruise on her neck. "A friend of mine paid a visit yesterday and it seems he dropped by your place as well."
Akane's face flushed. Her ears flashed with heat as well as she quickly covered the spot Ginoza had pointed out on her neck. She hadn't thought to check for marks before coming to work. It was fortunate Mika hadn't seemed to notice.
"You're playing with fire, Inspector."
"If anyone would understand my fascination with fire, it's you." She stuck her chin out defensively. "You've known it longer than I have."
"That doesn't mean you should go setting your apartment on fire. Just… Be careful Akane. I already took a risk. I'm lucky. Yesterday I…" he closed his eyes. "Shimotsuki could've killed me yesterday. Why SYBIL didn't make that call, I'm still unsure. I just don't want to see you fall into this pattern like so many before you. You're too good of an Inspector."
"To be honest, Gino, I don't think becoming an Enforcer is the worst thing that could happen to me at this point. He's up to something. I don't know what, but it's big. And it has everything to do with us. This is only the beginning."
The elevator dinged as they reached the main level of Nona Tower. Ginoza followed Akane to the front door. She turned to glance at him over her shoulder, her bag hanging lazily from her elbow.
"Great." He rolled his eyes. Though his becoming an Enforcer had changed his worldview, he was still not one to cause waves. He tended to leave those things to Kogami and Akane. But he couldn't help but feel they were going to drag him into it despite his better judgement.
"Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."
The door slid silently back into place, reminding him that it was in fact not motion activated but worked based on nearby crime coefficients. Kogami's words rang in his ears as he mindlessly returned to the office. His head spun under the swirling current of contradiction in his mind, Shimotsuki's insults echoing under Kogami's desperate attempts to reject the reality of Japanese society as he had known it all his life. I am a dog. My purpose is to hunt down criminals and to protect my handlers with my life. Nothing more. He could see Shimotsuki smiling in his head at that. As he reached the office, Tsubame was walking out of the door.
"You okay?" She stopped just short of an arm-length from him.
"Wha- Yes. I mean, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Just tired is all." She smiled, though he could tell she didn't buy his story.
"You did try to sleep on the floor last night. That can't have been comfortable." She walked past him toward the elevator. "Coming?"
"Right." He turned to follow her back to the Division One apartment.
"Are you sure you're okay? You seem agitated." Tsubame typed the code for their floor into the touchpad and the elevator started its ascent. He noticed then that she stood away from him, with one shoulder pressed to the wall.
"I'm just thinking about something I heard once, is all."
Tsubame dropped it, but kept glancing at her coworker through her hair. When the elevator door opened, neither made the first step to leave.
"Ginoza! Nice to see you! You don't hang around the Cafe much anymore!" The man who approached them was familiar to Tsubame, but she couldn't remember his name. She relaxed a bit when Gino smiled back at him.
"That's because every time I go down there, you idiots insist I go back to the Division Two apartment to get smashed." It was the first time Tsubame had ever heard Ginoza be so informal. He met the man in the hallway, leaving Tsubame alone in the elevator where she could feel herself tense at his sudden distance from her, a reaction she couldn't entirely make sense of. She joined the enforcers in the hallway.
"Sugo, have you met Ms. Maekawa? I don't think she spends much time in the Cafe with you morons."
Teppei Sugo, she remembered as she timidly shook his hand. Akane had pointed him out to her during their initial tour of the tower.
"N-nice to meet you, Mr. Sugo," she stuttered, mentally facepalming at her inability to seem somewhat normal around strangers. She blushed at Ginoza's apparent worry as he shot a glance down at her.
"Likewise," he winked with a grin. "Hey Ginoza, isn't your birthday coming up?"
Ginoza's attention turned instantly back to his friend.
"I don't have a birthday," he insisted, grabbing Sugo's wrist as his calendar popped up on his communicator screen.
"Pft. Don't be like that, Gino. The guys want to celebrate. Even Sho wants to do something for you. You've been distant lately."
Though the accusation was true of course, Ginoza shook his head.
"I assure you, I'll be perfectly fine without a birthday party."
Suddenly, attaining this information became very important to the woman standing at his elbow.
"When is y-your birthday, Gino? I had no id-dea it was comin-ng up."
"Don't let it hurt your feelings, Hun, I'd bet Inspector Tsunemori doesn't even know."
"You forget that Akane Tsunemori involves herself in nearly every aspect of my life…" he grumbled. He turned his head to look at Tsubame. "My birthday is on the twenty-fifth."
"Christmas, if you celebrate that sort of thing," Sugo laughed. "Poor Ginoza can't slide under the radar on some other day of the year. Lots of people celebrate your birthday to some extent! Why shouldn't you?"
Ginoza shook his head.
"Remember when you asked why I don't hang out in the Cafe anymore?"
"Typical Ginoza," Sugo sighed.
"Back at you," he chuckled. "No parties. You'll have to excuse us, I would like to go get started on dinner. Tsubame?"
He turned to smile at her. Though she saw his cogency waver just a little, the shadow she'd noticed in his eyes had disappeared. Nodding, she waved and said goodbye to Sugo before following Ginoza down the hall to the apartment.