Chapter 3
Akane
Latent criminals aren't allowed to lock their doors, so Akane slips in unnoticed by Ginoza, early Saturday morning.
The house is not too far from Akane's apartment. It's a small gated compound tucked away in a corner of the Ministry of Welfare's vast grounds, and she could see security cameras and armed drones all over the place. There are signs of Sybil's judgment everywhere. This is also where Joji Saiga lives, as well. Akane had been here before.
The house itself is small and elegant with a white picket fence, and about a bit away from it, there are five houses, two beside Ginoza's house, three facing it and the other two, and paths full of pebbles separate all of them and the pebbles clatter when the drones trundle down them. There are old, beautiful trees all around and Ginoza's house is latticed with the shadows of the two beautiful trees next to it. She doesn't know what trees they are. As she gets close, she spots another three tree behind the house, and she smiles. Ginoza must not hate his house too much.
There is a slice of lawn in front of it, and it's full of over-grown emerald grass and tiny white grass-flowers like tiny stars in a green ocean.
The inside of the living room is furnished, and there is no holo-projector. Dime was slumbering on a pillow on the small sofa, and as she enters he jumps from his seat and pads over to her, tail wagging, tongue lolling. He remembers her, from their two months together when Ginoza was in the isolation facility.
Akane bends and pets the orange husky wolf-dog (She's pretty sure Dime was a wolf-dog), and then scratches him slowly under the ear. Dime sits down in comfort.
She wonders where his owner is.
The door to the single bedroom is closed, and she wonders if she should knock. After five minutes of indecisive glancing about and gingerly petting Dime, she decides to make a cup of coffee from the open kitchen counter at one corner of the room and wait.
She opens the shelves of the kitchen cabinet, is not really surprised when she finds it neat and stocked up. The coffee-maker dings in a minute or two and she trudges back to the couch, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.
As she settles, Dime jumps back on the pillow beside her, and puts his head on her lap. Akane thinks he misses her.
"I miss you, too," she tells him fondly.
She wonders if Ginoza takes him on a walk.
She wonders if she should take Ginoza for a walk. And for a second, Dime and Ginoza become parallel lines in her mind, and it's heartbreaking.
She remembers the days when Ginoza was a inspector and she remembers his proclivity towards long, solitary walks, and the times when they were in night duty, he used to walk out around 3'o'clock and roam about the streets near NONA tower. There is melancholy shooting through her heart as she realizes he is deprived from all that, when he is needs it the most.
She wonders how cold his heart will grow as he gets more and more muzzled as time goes by.
Akane longs to ask Ginoza how he is, how he is doing, how is he living. She wants to ask about the Kougami-shaped hole in their lives in their lives. She wants to get into his head, because he is the only one left.
Nobody else remembers.
Nobody will remember after they are gone. Nobody will remember how Kougami and Ginoza used to play shogi when they had a night-shift together, Akane watching and Masaoka smiling. Nobody will remember Ginoza's stolen walks when he sneaked away, the night dying all around them. Nobody will remember Kougami's fall. There is nobody she can ask other than him because he's the only one, and grief is shooting up her jugular like cold realization.
She has a packet of Shinya Kougami's cigarettes in her apartment and everyday she puts one between her lips and sits, unlit.
She wants to talk to him about Kougami. She wants to know.
Akane closes her eyes, suddenly tired. There are birds chirping outside.
She can't. He has his own pride, and she has hers. She can't and doesn't resent him for his long silences, because she herself has nothing to say.
Akane has almost finished the coffee when Ginoza comes out of his room. He looks at her, muted surprise in the lines of his mouth, and sleep swimming in his green eyes.
He is wearing a black t-shirt and loose gray pants and his hair is mushed and he looks so young and the robot arm is glinting dully. Akane feels cold and sad and warm and she attempts to smile.
"Hey," he says, his voice still sleepy.
"Hey," she tells him. "Dropped by, as sworn."
"Good for you," he gives a narrow smile, blinking. "Do you mind waiting, while I…?"
"Of course not," Akane shrugs off a disgruntled Dime and stands up. "I will make tea, or coffee?"
Dime yaps in protest of the dislocation of his head.
Ginoza doesn't answer immediately. He is staring at Dime, and though his face is unreadable, Akane knows he is thinking about the isolation facility, courtesy of which Akane and Dime's friendship had grown.
She feels lost, and displaced and so sad to see him like this, confined and haunted and walls of glass wrapped around him. Her ribs ache and she wants to touch his arm, but she knows it is not welcome. Not now. The world is quiet.
"You really don't have to." Ginoza breaks the spell, "But coffee sounds good."
He smiles at her, and she smiles back.
"I'll be back."
He disappears into the bedroom. And there is a lump is her throat.
He comes back in about ten minutes, and she has a cup of hot black coffee on the small wicker table in front of the couch. He looks paler in contrast to his dark get-up and there are hints of purple around eyes. He doesn't look well rested, but he looks much better than Friday.
Akane remembered his gaze as he stared at the scattered evidences of the computer screen, hungry and calculating, and it had reminded her of Kougami, his hunger and desperation. Kougami's ghost seems to slip under Ginoza's skin and she remembers her fear and loss.
Now, she looks for the signs and there are none, but she can't let go of the shreds of fear she feels. She doesn't want him to run wild too. She wants him, here, safe.
"Tired?", she asked him, as he cupped his palms around the coffee mug.
"A little," he says, eyes far away and half-closed. "Thank you for coming."
She shakes her head and smiles. "It's fine. I have an off-day anyway."
"Aren't you supposed to chill today?"
"Well," Akane says. "I have a plan."
He raises his eyes at her. She had made of a plan of sorts for today. And she was glad that she had, because Akane wants him to be around people. She doesn't think isolation is for him, just a chance for him to sink deeper into his grief.
"Hello." She says awkwardly to the white-clad pale figure sitting on the other side of the glass. There is a microphone and a speaker in front of her and the same sits in front of him, the only communication across the thick bulletproof glass. She had been finally allowed to visit Ginoza.
It's white all over here. She feels restless, and Ginoza, if he didn't have black hair, could have blended into the background. She feels the cold air of the conditioner raise the hair on the nape of her neck.
"Hello." He replies, and his voice, or maybe it's just the microphone, sounds dark and rough with unuse.
"How are you doing?", She asks him, voice tentative. She doesn't know what to ask him. She doesn't even know what to address him by. He looks pale and his hair was overgrown but, somehow, even in those loose white dressings, elegant. His face looks sharper, as if the one and the half months in the isolation facility and loss had chiselled and chipped it away, revealing the fine lines underneath.
She had gone to Masaoka's small memorial service, held by Shion and Yayoi, in the enforcers' dorm. There was only one other inspector there, Risa Aoyanagi. Ginoza hadn't been allowed to come. Cruel, she had thought.
"How's Dime?", He asks her, abruptly. He never makes eye contact with her, Akane notices. He just stares at a spot over her left shoulder. They are slightly unfocused, and it's maybe just her imagination, the vivid grass greeness of his eyes seem to have dulled. It's probably an effect of the drugs they give him. His wrists look bony.
Irrationally Akane wanted to cry and pour her heart out, and bring the man on the other side of the glass some measure of peace. It hurt her to see him like this, and she couldn't leave him here like this, drugged and yet, sadness and loss etched into the lines of his face. Displaced and about to be forgotten.
"He is fine. He's very energetic", she said, and then because, she was foolish and emotional:
"I have an offer for you."
"I thought we could go to this dog-restaurant downtown." She offers. Her heart beats a little fast at the thought of rejection. "Since none of you go out much."
He is fast to react to the slip.
"Can't go out, you mean." he sounds slightly sarcastic, the tone modulated to minimise the jab he can't really help.
Akane blushes. "Yes. Sorry."
"Sounds good," He smiles slightly, apology accepted and his voice is scented with hope.
Akane grins properly for the first time in two weeks.