Chapter 5
"How do you think I'm doing?", Akane blurts out.
They are finishing desserts, Ginoza sipping strong black coffee, and Akane indulging in a beautiful confection of frozen whiskey icecream, bitter rum-chocolate cookies, and maple syrup. She had wanted to order a beer, her new-found delicacy, but Ginoza's presence had made her feel more than a little hesitant.
"As in?"
She bites one of the cookies and waves her hand. "Running the division. Being the Shepherd One. Being you."'
She misses to catch herself. The heavy dinner, dim lights and the comfortable ambiance is making her slow.
Ginoza doesn't react much. He laughs a little and looks at her, and loneliness swirls inside Akane.
"Doing quite a good job," He tells her. "Better than I could ever do."
The unexpected compliment warms her and she grins at him. The setting is quite comfortable. Dime is resting sleepily against her leg.
"Thank you."
"Well," Ginoza shrugs and grins a little. He has nice teeth, Akane thinks. "I think I was always suited to this kind of job—", He waves at himself, "-than being an inspector. I feel more—free?"
Akane wonders what is making his tongue so loose. It is her who is consuming alcohol of any sort.
She nods at him though. She doesn't know what else to say or do.
But it seems he has more to say.
"It is quite liberating to operate without checking my hue every few minutes." He finishes.
It is a one way to look at it, she thinks. Much before all of this, she had the this strange feeling about Ginoza—that his zealotry stemmed from a lack of faith, purposefully blinded by his conscious actions—rather than like Mika, whose zealousness came from the faith she held in Sybil's judgment, which was almost religious.
She looks at him from under her eyelashes, careful not to let him see her observing.
There are purple circles under his eyes, and he looks pale and tired, but there is a decided lack of rigidness about him and an aura of energy about him—a feeling of confidence. He is dressed in a navy turtleneck and jeans, his limbs loosely arranged as he sips his drink. He was always good-looking, Akane thinks, but now that has turned into a sort of elegant beauty. Not like Kougami's, who looked like a wolf on the prowl. Ginoza looks like a snow-leopard, she decides.
And then she blushes.
She doesn't know why her thoughts are running amok. Looking at Ginoza, his long legs and casual fingers, makes her want to take him out for a dance. She hasn't danced for so long—she hasn't touched a male body for so long, not with desire or intention at least.
Akane's thoughts run scarlet on the beige of her mind.
It's the loneliness, she concludes sadly. it's long, cold nights and dead dawns she spends in her bed, submerged in the depths of a dreamless sleep, the confused and slightly arousing dreams she has sometimes, that she can never remember. It's all that—and it really doesn't help that he's attractive, as she had thought from the day they had met.
Damn, she thinks, jumpy and wistful. I'm only twenty-one. He's right. I should be seeing other people, not secretly fantasizing about my Enforcer.
But right now, she feels reckless and caught up in this moment, and she tips as he looks at her from under his sooty lashes.
"Are you done?", He asks her.
"Yes," She says and the word shivers from her mouth.
Her throat feels a little dry.
"Do you want to go to a dance with me?"
He looks taken aback. Surprise flits across his face, then he coaxes his face into a perfect poker face.
Akane shrivels with embarrassment.
"I thought—that we could go a club," she says, feeling lame and small. "It's only seven 'o' clock—and well, none of us have work tomorrow—"
"You forgot Dime," Ginoza cuts in smoothly. "He can't go."
Akane gulps and hopes the earth would open up and swallow her.
"Yeah," She smiles, or tries to, face burning.
Ginoza looks at her, amusement flickering in his eyes.
"Do you want to come home for coffee?", he offers.
Sitting in his sofa, Akane feels the fatigue of the week settle deep in her bones.
"You look really tired", Ginoza comments.
She looks up from the cup of hot chocolate she is holding. His eyes are trained on her with an unusual amount of focus, and she can barely stop herself from squirming under his gaze, especially after the incident in the restaurant.
"I am tired," She confesses.
"Do you sleep enough?", He asks.
Ginoza had always asked these sort of these questions. Even when she was the junior inspector and him the senior, these questions passed between them, not very personally, but with concern. Ginoza had always liked to worry, she thinks fondly.
"I try to."
He knows she is dancing around it, but he doesn't pry. Simply tilts his head back on the back of the smaller couch he is sitting on.
Akane can't take her eyes off the long, pale column of his throat. She can see the blue, thick veins on either side of his neck, and she can't look away. There is a soft warm glow in her mouth, and paper moons are dancing inside her diaphragm.
Too much alcohol. She is mortified.
She stands up.
"I think I will go now," She says, and feigns an yawn.
As he shows her out, he places his fingers on her shoulder, holding and turning her for an instant.
Akane can feel the beat of her heart in her lips, and the rush of blood in her heart.
"Thank you for coming." His eyes are black, in the overhanging shades, and his face is solemn.
Akane can barely thank him, and hurries to her car, secure in the knowledge that he didn't see the red on her cheeks.
Home is cold and gray when she enters.
Candy greets her, and advises her to go to bed after giving her a full cymatic scan. She changes into a pair of old slacks and a tank top. Brushes her teeth, and snuggles under the covers.
She doesn't know what is happening.
When Akane first joined Division 1, she had felt an amount of attraction to Kougami. It was quite natural, at least she thinks it is. Kougami was physically attractive and, his unapproachable attitude,, obsessive detective-work and slight inclination towards violence gave him a charisma that Akane had been drawn towards from the first day. Later, it had matured into something more tangible and mutual as they became more and more entangled in the web that Makishima wove around them. They had been kindred souls in a way.
They became entangled in each other too, only once, one late night.
It had been towards the end; right before all sense collapsed onto themselves. It was four 'o' clock, and it was just them, Yayoi excusing herself. They had moved towards each other, and when they fell towards each other, Akane had been dimly surprised at how easy it had been.
Shinya Kougami and Akane Tsunemori had kissed and held each other for a long time. There had been no words, because they both knew the inevitable was coming. In the meager comfort of one another lips and fingers, for one dawn, they had searched for the tree of salvation together.
Akane wants to curl up and weep now, because she feels like a traitor.
What am I doing?
She doesn't know anything, doesn't want to know anything. The feeling of guilt sits tight and dark inside her lungs even as her body stirs to unbidden images of Ginoza slither around her mind.
This is so damn strange. It is not that she had been unaware of Ginoza's attraction. There was something about those green eyes, something hidden under the bigotry in his manner that Akane had been aware. But with Kougami's overpowering presence, and Ginoza's own behaviour, it had faded into the echoes of her mind.
Akane was not a nun; and with this other Ginoza with the shadow of Kougami on his back, she feels herself slipping, even as feelings of guilt and betrayal clog her airways, and squeeze her heart.
It's been only seven months….
Akane pushes her face into the downy pillow; one hand gripping her bedsheets, one hand sliding between her legs under the slacks.
As she orgasms, she weeps.