Thanks for reading! Please do leave a review. Anyway, that's it for tonight on...CRIMINAL MINDS. Tune in next week! To the real show, I mean.
Love & Peace,
Incanto, 2011
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Kurt Vonnegut.
"Morgan, you are my ever-loving man, but if you dare peep over that wall, it will be the last sight your eyes behold!"
"All I'm saying is," said Reid, "it's traditional for those on the men's side of the bath to peep on the women's side. We can't go against tradition."
"A when in Rome kind of a thing?"
"Precisely. So, on the count of three, you boost me up."
"Okay. One, two…"
"That's it!" yelled Prentiss. "Joking or not, you guys have this coming!"
A bucket sailed over the bamboo wall dividing the pool, and Morgan flailed a moment before catching it with both hands.
"You'll have to do better than that against an ex-quarterback, Prentiss!"
Hotch emerged on the patio of the open-air bath, a towel wrapped around his waist. He sighed. "I can't leave you children alone for a minute, can I?"
"Sorry, dad," Reid and Morgan said in unison.
The hot spring was built into the side of a cliff. Below them, the green hills of Chiba prefecture stretched towards a distant town. Night was falling. An airplane trailed across the sky. Hotch stood to admire the scenery for a moment, before wading once again into the murky, sweet-smelling water.
"Good news. That was JJ on the phone," he said. "She's decided to spend the rest of her vacation with us. We'll be meeting her in Kyouto."
Morgan looked up. "We're going to Kyouto?"
"The Old Capitol," said Reid. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. You know, Kyouto was one of three cities to escape allied firebombing during the war. Some of the temples and structures date as far back as…"
Rossi came out, holding a giant bottle of beer under one arm, a clay jar of sake under the other.
"Who wants refreshments?"
"You have got to be kidding me," said Prentiss. "Dave, pass one of those things over the wall and nobody gets hurt."
Rossi looked at Hotch. "How can she see what I've got?"
Hotch was scanning the wall, and shortly before the others, he noticed a small notch between two of the bamboo poles.
"She's been peeping us the whole time!" Reid exclaimed.
"Not voluntarily. I'm just making sure you guys don't monopolize the hootch."
Morgan sank in the water to his chin. "This is indecent! I've been violated!"
"Save it, Derek, it's nothing I haven't seen in the showers after field training in Annapolis."
"Oh," agreed Garcia, "there is totally a glory hole in that wall, and none of the guys know about it."
"Then I'll be sure to file a report when we get back to Maryland," said Hotch. "Anyway, we have a flight out of Tokyo tomorrow. Sasaki is paying for everything."
"Too bad he can't come with us," said Rossi, cracking open the beer. "Poor Doctor Reid will be lonely."
He poured them each a small ceramic cup of sake, keeping the beer for himself. They settled back into the water, looking up at the lavender sky.
"I would have liked to spend more time in Tokyo," Rossi went on, philosophically. "But I saw a lot. I never would have ended up in a place like that, if not for…well."
"I take it you no longer find it abnormal?" asked Reid.
"It made more sense to me than I imagined." He took a pull on the beer. "Maybe more sense than working a nine-to-five job, married to someone you hardly know. There's no harm in a little make-believe. I mean, love is hard to come by. We shouldn't pass it up when we find it."
"You know," said Morgan, "we're kind of like that, aren't we? An unconventional family unit. Reid here is like my little brother…"
Reid quickly took up the metaphor: "You're my older brother who wins all the trophies, gets the girls, and overshadows me in every way. Prentiss is my queen bee big sister who wouldn't give me the time of day…"
"Hey!" came a shout from across the wall.
"…Gideon was like my father, and Rossi, you're the fat, mean Italian jerk my mother fell for when he left."
"Well, thanks a lot! I'll put you over my knee when we get home, young man."
Hotch laughed.
It was the deepest, purest laugh he had uttered in some time, and everyone looked at him in amazement. He couldn't help it. Several times he tried to stop, only to burst out again, louder than before. He buried his face in his hands, and sank down into the water, the steam rising up around him, washing his skin, tugging gently at the lines set into his grief-hardened face.
It was dark. A long black car pulled into a driveway. The suburb was settling fitfully down for the night, a few lone dogs barking in the silence. It was a well-to-do neighborhood, every house defended by a tall hedge.
Hasekura stepped out of the car. Silver-haired, dressed in an overcoat like a suit of armor, he had an air of tired, abused dignity, and carried himself as if he'd been wounded. He went up the path to the garden gate. He took out a heavy key ring, but when he pressed on the gate, it swung open.
For a moment, warily eyeing the house, he hesitated. But he figured in his distress, he'd forgotten to lock it when he left that morning. He went in. The house was dark. The big house, that had cost him so many years of grafting, toadying, cajoling, bullying, and of making hard, informed decisions, stood there to welcome him.
From the moment he set foot inside, he knew something was wrong. He flipped the switch but it didn't respond. The darkness ahead of him seemed thick, alive, and he recoiled in fear; but cursing his stupidity, forged ahead. A fuse had blown, that was all.
In the living room he took off his boots, then hung his coat on a peg. There was just enough moonlight to make out the shapes of furniture. Then he made out something else. His blood froze.
The room was full of men, as still and as casually disposed as giant stuffed dolls. At first he was sure they were mannequins, placed here in some crazy prank. He opened his mouth to shout.
Then there was a click, and a tiny flame trembled across the room. It illuminated a human face. A dry-roasted face, deeply lined, with big, somewhat bloodshot eyes, underneath a helmet of tightly curled black hair.
Toyoda held up the mother-of-pearl lighter.
"Okaerinasai," he said. "Welcome home, superintendent."
Hasekura sat down hard on a cushion. His face was gray. His hands refused to work.
With a regal wave of his hand, Toyoda splashed the light on the other men. There were seven, and each held either a wooden sword, or a real one in a black lacquer sheath. Their expressions were identical to his own.
Hasekura gave several dry sobs, but they sounded perfunctory; the body's reaction, while the mind had already resolved itself. He looked up.
"My wife and children?"
"Asleep."
"Will…will they wake up?"
"Of course. Don't be stupid. We only drugged them."
Hasekura shut his eyes. "Thank you."
The men began to draw their swords.
"Ryo Gan was like a brother to me."
Hasekura nodded, eyes clenched shut. Toyoda stood up, and took a few wide, casual steps across the room.
"Hey, superintendent. You listen to the blues?"
No response.
"You know that song, The Whale Has Swallowed Me? It's one of my favorites. Now, how does it go…?"
The eyes of the old gangster narrowed in remembrance. In a low, surprisingly beautiful voice, he sang:
"They say the whale swallowed Jonah…out in the deep blue sea...oh, they say the whale swallowed Jonah…out in that deep blue sea. Sometimes, I feel…that same old whale…has swallowed me."
He snapped the lighter shut. Night fell.