Chapter 14: The Master Thespian

Thursday, 4:55AM, Hokke Nihonbashi Salaryman Hotel

Inaba was dreaming.

She was flying.

She was soaring high in the sky like a bird. Alongside her were Taichi, Yui, Aoki, and Iori. They were all wearing their old school uniforms from Yamaboshi Academy. They soared far above the city, circling higher and higher as they shouted with joy. The quintet wheeled and turned like a flock of eagles in the bright sunlight.

Inaba was thrilled and exhilarated by the experience. But she was having trouble keeping up with the rest of the group. She faltered a bit. The others turned to watch her. Iori was holding her hand to help keep her aloft.

Iori smiled at her. And then..

Iori let go.

Inaba promptly fell right out of the sky*. As she plummeted to earth she looked up and saw the quartet ascend out of sight, as if they were flying right up into heaven itself.

Meanwhile she was plunging down towards the cityscape that was rushing at her from below.

Gasp!

Inaba awoke with a start. She sat up quickly in her bed. And in doing so she smartly bonked her head.

"Ouch!"

It was because she had whacked her head on the low ceiling of the capsule. Her hotel room was basically a coffin, a tiny tube in a salaryman hotel. Row upon row of single beds were stacked like cordwood along the hallway.

She gently rubbed the bump that was slowly forming on her head. The dream seemed so real. The imagery was already fading but she could still remember the feel of the wind in her face and hear the laughter of her friends. It really felt to her like she was actually flying in the air.

But then Iori released her hand and she fell to earth.

Why did Iori let me go?

She laid back down again in her capsule. She decided against trying to psychoanalyze the dream because she knew she'd never get back to sleep that way. She had to get at least two more hours of sleep minimum to be properly rested for the morning job interview with Nomura Holdings, Japan's biggest securities firm.

Inaba closed her eyes again. Soon she fell back into a dreamless slumber.

Thursday, 7:30AM, Hokke Nihonbashi Salaryman Hotel, bath

Inaba leaned back in the sentō to try to relax. She had already eaten her breakfast: ramen noodles in a paper cup with hot water that was dispensed from a vending machine. She had eaten them slowly and was able to keep them down.

She knew she had about 30 minutes before she needed to get ready for the next job interview with Nomura Holdings. So she tried to soak away her troubles in the women's sentō. She sat alone in the shallow pool.

She could hear several men talking on the other side of the partition. The men's side was crowded, which was typical in a tube hotel during the workweek. In the past such facilities were always 100% men-only, designed for the hard-working hard-drinking salaryman on business travel.

During the past decade many of the larger tube hotels in the bigger cities had added a segregated women's section. It was typically smaller but slightly better furnished. All of them had a lavatory, but the better ones - like this one - also included a basic but serviceable public bath. Again segregated of course, and with the women's side smaller. And the baths were better equipped too. Inaba doubted that the shampoos that the hotel provided on the men's side were scented like hers.

With a white towel wrapped around her shampooed head, she leaned back further in the small pool with her eyes still closed. She then lightly touched her naked stomach under the warm waters. Nothing was showing yet. She figured that she had maybe four or five more weeks before she would be forced to make a decision.

In the meantime she had decided to simply plunge ahead with her life. She would go to her job interviews as if nothing had happened. Partly it was to distract herself from brooding overly much about her dilemma, and partly it was a rationalization - that if she bombed her remaining job interviews as badly as her first then the decision would be easy: she would come clean with Taichi and confess her condition. Then she would resign herself to a life as a homemaker and a mother. She would have no regrets, as she would have tried her best to fulfill her father's wish to be his worthy successor. Tried and failed. The series of negative job interviews would be proof positive both to herself and to her father that she was simply not up to the task. No regrets, then.

But what of Rina? She opened her eyes and stared up at the fake plastic bamboo ceiling as she clutched her stomach more tightly. That bitch will never have my firstborn child. No, the price was too high. She knew that eventually Rina would come knocking on her door to collect on her debt.

Inaba had never imagined that Rina would ask for something like that. Her firstborn child? How cliché. It seemed like something that belonged in a bad fairy tale or something.

Wait.. A fairy tale?

Something tickled in the back of her mind. She tried to recall an old folk story that she had read in her Western Lit class. It was called.. what was it again.. Roompelstouskaru, or something like that? It was a tale about an ugly little man with a strange name who made a bargain and demanded the firstborn child of a young maiden. Perhaps there was a clue there..

She tried to remember how that old western folk tale went. She knew the story had a happy ending where the girl had defeated the evil baby-snatcher somehow. But how did she do it? Could that story contain a hint about how to defeat Rina as well?

She turned around and grabbed her sponge bag that was laying on the edge of the pool. She pulled out her smartphone and turned it on. The search engine corrected her bad spelling: Rumpelstiltskin. She clicked on a link to a website for public-domain works. Then she looked up the story of Rumpelstiltskin in Grimm's Fairy Tales. Her English was good enough that she could read it without translation:

Once upon a time there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold."

The king believed the miller's boast and put the girl to task overnight to spin straw into gold for him, on pain of death. He locked her away until she did so. Then a strange man appeared and offered to spin the wheel himself to create the gold in exchange for her firstborn child, and she agreed. And the miracle was done. The straw was turned into gold.

Her life was spared. And so the king married the pretty miller's daughter and she became a queen.

A year after, she brought a beautiful child into the world, and she never gave a thought to the little man. But one night he came into her room, and said, "Now give me what you promised."

The queen was horror-struck, and offered the little man all the riches of the kingdom if he would leave her the child. But the little man said, "No, something alive is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world."

Then the queen began to lament and cry, so that the little man pitied her. "I will give you three days time," he said, "and if by that time you find out my name, then shall you keep your child."

Inaba keep reading the story. Eventually one of the queen's woodland agents had secretly discovered the little man's home in the woods. He overheard the little man dancing and singing. He was singing a song.

"To-day I bake, to-morrow brew,

the next I'll have the young queen's child.

Ha, glad am I that no one knew

that Rumpelstiltskin I am styled!"

And so on the third day the queen confronted Rumpelstiltskin and spoke his name to him. His reaction was violent.

"The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that!" cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.

Inaba closed the browser window and sighed. She rather doubted that Rina would do a wishbone and tear herself in half like that, no matter how angry she got.

And as the story indicated, all the riches in the world would likely not pay off the debt as a substitute. No, she believed that the story of Rumpelstiltskin would be of no help.

And so she re-closed her eyes and tried to relax again in the warm water for the remaining minutes until her smartphone alarm chimed.

She then dried herself off and began to dress herself in front of her locker. Her interview outfit was now clean of vomit; she had washed it the night before using the hotel's automated laundromat. She did not bother to press it as no ironing was necessary. It was why she had originally picked out the 50% polyester/cotton blend - to avoid showing wrinkles after a long day at the office. She rechecked the bus directions on her smartphone to go to Nomura Holdings.

Nomura was Japan's largest investment firm. It was expanding rapidly due to the new economic-stimulus policies of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe in an attempt to end the country's 15-year downward deflationary spiral. Armed with its newfound capital from the government's new spending program, Nomura Holdings was now aggressively recruiting new financial analysts.

These analysts were nicknamed 'quants' because of their in-depth training in quantitative analytical economic theory. Now, there were only a small handful of quants worldwide who had both the theoretical knowledge and also the intuitive skill to make them exceptional market traders. They had some kind of undefinable quality about them - call it raw instinct or guts - to somehow always know when to make the right trades at the right times. Using their exceptional gifts these quants could, by executing a series of complex transactions at just the right moment, earn a large investment bank a billion or more yen in a single week of trading.

On Wall Street these exceptional analysts were called the 'Masters of the Universe'. The biggest Wall Street firms and international investment banks were paying incredible sums to recruit these traders by poaching them away from other big investment banks. And thanks to its newfound capital, Nomura was entering the poaching game as well.

Now, Inaba believed that her skills as a financial analyst were nowhere near that level. First of all, she had no previous job experience whatsoever. She only watched her father's quants working at their computer desks. When she was a teenager some of the traders kindly took her under their wing. They let her sit side-by-side at their computer desks as they executed their trades, explaining their thought processes as they went.

Second, Inaba had never executed a market trade on a computer herself. Oh, she knew to do it of course. She knew her father's computer systems backward and forward, having first hacked into those servers back when she was only 14. As a teenager she had roamed those internal corporate networks far and wide, being careful never to touch anything nor to leave any traces behind. She had made personal copies of certain files that caught her attention, such as internal financial modeling spreadsheets, grabbing interesting ones with complex models and equations. Those spreadsheets contained valuable and carefully hidden algorithms that were never published in any academic economics paper or journal.

Third, she believed she could never be a 'Master of the Universe' simply because she felt that she didn't have the guts to make those kind of big speculative plays. Being a Master was a high-wire act, and she believed she could never be that fearless. Some of that reticence was of course due to her longstanding doubts about herself, her basic insecurity. But there was also a second very good reason: she knew precisely how risky it all really was.

For you see, there was one major downside to a person becoming a Master of the Universe: Just one of them could destroy an entire investment firm overnight.

It had happened before. In 1995, a single trader named Nick Leeson was sitting at a computer desk in Singapore. He had single-handedly destroyed Barings Bank, the well-respected major British investment bank that had existed for well over 200 years.

After the Kobe earthquake of 1995 (the Hanshin Awaji daishinsai), Leeson had executed several futures contracts on the Nikkei stock exchange on behalf of Barings on speculation that there would be a rapid economic recovery in Japan after the great earthquake. There wasn't. To compound the problem Leeson was hiding his bad trades from his bosses in London. And in the aftermath the bank had completely collapsed. Tens of thousands of employees were thrown out of work.

Inaba knew all about that disaster and others like it. She felt she could never take those kinds of risks herself. She could never live down the thought of being personally responsible for the destruction of a major bank and the layoff of thousands of employees and the effect on their families. She shuddered. She could never hurt her father like that, to ruin everything he had worked so hard to build.

And yet she recalled that her father had taught her quite the opposite: that she had to be strong, to be daring, to be willing to take those risks when necessary. He told her that she should take those risks with adequate care and due diligence of course, but a successful businessperson must always be prepared to be daring, to take big risks, even the biggest, in order to survive. He told her that being overly cautious could be just as fatal to a business as being too reckless.

That was why her father felt that having good business instincts was so critically important. And he told her that he believed that she had those instincts, unlike her brother, and that those instincts would make her a worthy and fine successor to run his empire.

But she herself had doubts.

She continued to dress herself for the job interview. As she looked in the mirror, she resolved to not be so nervous this time around.

Just relax. What's the worst that can happen? Let's say I flub this interview. Let's say I flub all of them. No biggie. I just tell Father that I did my best. I'm just not cut out for being a businesswoman. And then I tell him 'Oh by the way I'm pregnant'. That will still make him happy. And Taichi will be absolutely ecstatic. He'll be such a great dad. Maybe one day one of our children will grow up and become Father's worthy successor instead of me. Who knows?

So chill. The only real problem is Rina. I'll deal with her somehow. I'll go to Taichi if I have to, to Iori, to everybody, and I'll explain everything to them. Together we will find a way to stop her. Heck, I'll even go to Heartseed if I have to. So just mellow out.

She finished getting dressed. She looked at herself in the mirror. I'm ready. She left the hotel for the bus stop to go to the next job interview.

Thursday, 10:50AM, JRCS Regional Headquarters

Kurosawa was working intently at his desktop computer on a Gantt chart. His brow was furrowed in concentration.

Originally invented by Henry Gantt in the 1910s, a Gantt chart is a mathematical model for representing large complex project schedules and their interdependencies. Within the model he was building, Kurosawa was scowling at a bottleneck that he had spotted for the allocation of resources in the JRCS Master Contingency Plan for L4 earthquake preparedness: the governmental approval for the receipt of international emergency relief aid.

It was a problem in previous major disasters. This included the great Kobe earthquake in 1995, where political delays within Japan's government had prevented the timely acceptance of the United States' offer to send search and rescue (S&R) teams with trained sniffer dogs into the collapsed rubble to help quickly find and dig out the buried survivors. Critics pointed out that the political delays had caused several unnecessary deaths due to dehydration and exposure as victims waited a week or more to be rescued.

The government regulations were streamlined after that unfortunate incident. But Kurosawa felt they could be sped up even more. His idea was simple: arrange for the proper bureaucratic preapprovals to be given ahead of time, before the disaster happens.

This was the secret behind Kurosawa's rising reputation as a key manager in handling major natural disasters: his penchant for pre-planning. In his view the best way to deal with a major disaster was to prepare as much as possible for it beforehand. After all, such disasters are to be expected. They were inevitable. It was merely a question of when, not if, the next one would happen.

He finished typing up his recommendation memo for sending to the main headquarters. He knew his memo might be ignored, so if sending it up the proper chain of command didn't work, he already had contingencies. He could use his contacts within the Diet and in the Ministry of the Interior if needed. They could get the ball rolling for him. Many of them had owed him favors. Indeed, some of them had family members who owed their lives to him from previous disasters.

He sat back from the computer screen and rubbed his face. He was tired. To rest his eyes he looked out the window and gazed at the city skyline for a few minutes.

He saw some children playing in the park below. They were holding hands and dancing in a circle. Playing ring-around-the-rosy perhaps. While watching them scamper about he started to daydream about his own childhood.

It brought back to him memories of when he was nine years old. He was attending the private Christian school where his mother had enrolled him. She couldn't afford the tuition, of course, being a poor single mother with a son from an anonymous American soldier, living in disgrace. But she managed to get him admitted to the school as a charity case.

Kurosawa remembered a teacher playing a tune on the piano. He could no longer recall the melody, but he remembered his happiness in listening to that song. He had danced with joy as she played.

Afterwards during recess the other boys surrounded him on the playground.

"Hey gaijin! You dance pretty good!"

Another boy smirked, "Of course he does. His father was a saru. Ain't that right?"

Kurosawa just stood there.

"Everybody says you're a saru no musuko.**"

Again silence.

"Hey! You listening?" Then one of the boys pushed him. Then another, and another.

And so the beatings began.

They happened almost every day.

That didn't bother the young Kurosawa. After all, he knew the reason was that he was simply born that way. It wasn't his fault. His mother told him that some people were just destined to suffer. It was his lot in life.

The teachers ignored the bullying. Part of the reason was that he never complained about it, and so most of them simply never caught on. But some must have. In hindsight he realized they had to. But they ignored it too. It was only later that he realized it was because none of them liked him any more than the other children did.

Now, they didn't all hate him because of his slightly darker skin color, although some certainly had. What really put his teachers off was not his looks but rather his attitude.

For you see, Kurosawa was a perfect student. And he followed the rules perfectly.

And everyone hated him for it.

He had powers of observation and deduction like Sherlock Holmes, so he'd spot hidden misdeeds and report them to the teachers. He spotted everything the other children did. Then he'd spot things the teachers were doing and report them to the principal as well. This included a secret love affair that absolutely no one else knew about. He pieced it together from the most subtle of clues: an odd repeated coincidence in arrival times and departure times, a smudge of lipstick on a collar. It caused two teachers (both with spouses) to eventually be dismissed.

And so the other kids absolutely hated him and bullied him. In return he acted like a martyr and never defended himself. Nor did he report it.

Why? It was because it made him feel superior.

Superior to everyone.

He was the bastard child of an American soldier, a child who had done nothing wrong except for the crime of merely existing. His mother had explained to him that he would be hated and reviled by everyone for the rest of his life. She said that the only other persons in the entire world that would ever love him would be herself and Jesus.

And so he allowed himself to be bullied. And in his growing martyr complex he began to believe that it made him morally superior to everyone around him, to everyone in the world.

One day the other boys put a bag over his head before they began to punch him. They did it even though they knew he never fought back anyway. They yelled "Guess who hit you!"

And Kurosawa not only allowed it to happen, he revelled in it. For he knew very well the story of Jesus during the Passion, where He allowed his Roman guards to beat Him in exactly the same way while blindfolded. They taunted, "Guess who hit you!" And Jesus never fought back either.

And so Kurosawa fancied in his mind that he was just like Jesus.

By the time Kurosawa entered sixth grade most of the other boys had tired of using him as a punching bag, and they had moved on to other, more satisfying, targets.

But one kid was still a real problem. A super bully.

He was becoming vicious, crossing into outright molestation. Kurosawa still never reported it. The Vice Principal finally got wind of what might be going on from a teacher. There was no proof, as Kurosawa denied it all, but the VP did not believe him. Then he took Kurosawa quietly aside and told him that it was okay if he fought back, and that the VP would not punish him if he did.

Then it happened. It only happened once.

One day the bully was attacking Kurosawa as usual. Now, this kind of bullying had been going on for years, and Kurosawa had finally felt that proof of his martyrdom wasn't really needed anymore. Besides, the VP told him it was okay.

So he took aim and nailed him, just one act. It sent the bully to the floor.

It sent him to the hospital.

It was the only time in Kurosawa's entire life that he ever assaulted anyone in anger.

The VP was mortified. Terrified he would lose his job. Kurosawa told him he wouldn't say anything.

The VP then gave him a permanent hall pass so that Kurosawa had the right to go anywhere he wanted. He often took the opportunity to skip class. Usually he hung out in the library, where he dived into the world of books.

After the incident something strange happened. The super bully became one of his very few friends. They confessed to each other in private about the abuse they were both suffering (his was at home).

During their private talks, Kurosawa finally learned what the other kids really thought of him. And for the first time Kurosawa saw himself from their point of view.

And it wasn't pretty.

Kurosawa finally saw himself for who he really was: a mean little boy who spotted everything and anything and tattled on everyone. It didn't matter that he was always honest. He finally saw that what he did was wrong. It was wrong because it was done out of his own smug sense of legalistic self-righteousness and moral superiority, all due to his unacknowledged hatred of his persecutors.

He finally realized that he had been hurting everyone around him, sometimes quite badly. Instead of his fists he had been using mouth as a brutal weapon against everyone he saw.

He stopped doing it. At first life seemed to get better.

But then, during that same summer, he and his mother were crossing a busy intersection when a bus made a turn in front of them..

Kurosawa lowered his eyes and stopped watching the children play below. He checked his wristwatch. He still had time to dash off the memo to headquarters before lunch.

Originally he was planning to meet with Taichi over the midday meal for another friendly chat, but the young recruit had politely passed his offer for that day. Taichi profusely apologized and said he looked forward to meeting for lunch any other day at his convenience. He explained his reason and asked for time off for the rest of the afternoon.

Kurosawa heard his explanation and granted the young man's request with a smile, asking him only to adjust his timecard.

He rechecked his appointment schedule for the remainder of the day. His private meeting with Keiso was scheduled for 1:30PM.

His wheelchair hummed as it left the room.

Thursday, 2:00PM, Courthouse

Taichi and Aoki were waiting in the public seating area of the courtroom. The prosecutor was already seated at his desk up front. He was a dour little man with thick eyeglasses wearing a black suit.

Then Taichi saw Iori and Fujishima enter the courtroom together.

Taichi eyes widened as he saw the pair walking up the aisle. Then he closed eyes and pinched his nose. Oh man..

It was because Iori looked like a frightened and bewildered rabbit. She tightly clutched the hem of Fujishima's wool jacket as she blinked her eyes repeatedly.

It was obvious to Taichi that Iori had carefully planned everything out with Fujishima.

The bailiff stood up. "All rise!" Everyone did.

The judge entered the courtroom from the side entrance and sat down.

And so the performance began.

It was masterful. Taichi had to bite his lip to suppress a grin.

Fujishina gently patted her client as she quietly consoled the frightened girl, "There, there, my dear. You are safe now. Just sit down. It's okay. Just sit down right here."

Iori hesitated, then sat down quickly and began to rock back and forth.

Fujishima consoled the poor girl. "It's all right. I'll make sure you are protected. No one will hurt you anymore. The bad man is gone."

"Are.. are you.. sure?"

"Yes, I promise you're safe. The bad man cannot hurt you anymore."

"Okay.."

And the judge, of course, missed none of this. Iori was already spinning her magic web over him.

And the hearing had not even begun.

The bail hearing was nearing its end.

Fujishima was addressing the court with her final remarks. "And so, your honor, it is plain to see how Goru Yamazaki had brutalized and mentally traumatized this poor woman beyond all reason with his unspeakable acts. And so I respectfully request that.."

The judge raised his hand to interrupt. "Counselor, thank you. I think that is sufficient. You have more than adequately made your case for your client." He looked at the prosecutor. "Do you agree?"

The little man stood up. He said, "Yes, your honor. The Prosecutors Office*** moves to drop all charges."

Taichi quietly put his hand on Aoki's knee. In doing so he successfully suppressed the large man's impending whoop for joy.

Then the judge leaned forward and said quietly. "But, counselor, I am still concerned for your client's well being."

Fujishima replied, "I agree. That is why I would like to respectfully petition the court to classify my client as a vulnerable adult and to temporarily assign me as her guardian."

It was subtle, but Taichi could see it. Iori's facial expression was frozen. That part wasn't in the script. Something was wrong.

To her credit, Iori recovered quickly and stayed in character. She said in a quavering voice to Fujishima, "You want to be my.. my guardian?"

The judge nodded. "Ah, I see. Counselor, I think that is an excellent suggestion. Of course the Court will need to first see the necessary psychological test results before we can classify your client as a vulnerable adult. That is unless, of course, she agrees to be placed under your guardianship right now. Do you, young lady?"

Iori realized what was happening. Fujishima had cleverly boxed her in. If she underwent psychological testing they might figure out her deception. Maybe she could fool the shrinks, but she didn't want to chance it. Besides, she felt she could handle Fujishima. And so she nervously scrunched up Fujishima's coat in her hands, nearly pulling the jacker right off her shoulders. She said, "Yes.. yes.. I do. I do. Oh thank you, Fujishima-sama, thank you!"

The judge looked at the prosecutor, who simply replied "No objections, your honor."

The judge looked at all of them. "Very well. It is so ordered. The charges are dropped. Counselor, you are now her guardian. Case dismissed." He rapped his gavel.

Fujishima bowed, "Thank you, your honor."

The judge then smiled and said, "Well, well, it is rare for me to see a such happy ending like this." As he stood up to leave the courtroom the judge added, "I have to say, counselor, this is very commendable of you. Your giving so much of yourself to your clients like this is quite laudable. I wish that more attorneys in my courtroom were like you."

Another deep bow. "You are too kind, your honor."

"And I've heard so many good things about you from your father." It was because the judge and the police commissioner often played golf together. "I very much look forward to seeing you in my courtroom in the future."

"As do I you, your honor. Thank you so much for your kind words." Her eyeglasses glinted.

"Good day." The judge left.

Fujishima gently escorted the traumatized girl out the emptying courtroom, followed by Taichi and Aoki.

In the hallway Taichi whispered to Fujishima, "So.. did Goru actually do all those awful things to Iori that you said he did?"

Fujishima shrugged, "Who cares? You can't slander the dead."

"Oh, I see."

They were finally outside the courthouse. When they had turned the corner to the next street Iori dropped her frightened-rabbit act. She crossed her arms and said matter-of-factly to her attorney, "Now, Fujishima, your grabbing guardianship so you could lord over me was not part of the plan."

Her attorney chuckled, "Sorry for the improvisation. It simply hit me as I was making your case," she lied. "I needed it to seal the deal. I figured you'd agree. And it worked - charges dropped. And this way they won't hit you with any awkward psych tests."

Iori muttered, "I coulda beaten those shrink tests.."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Those psychological examinations have become rather sophisticated lately, you know. They are especially adroit at detecting deception. Now the court won't ask for them, so this way you don't have to concern yourself about beating them, see?"

"I suppose. But, c'mon, you're my guardian for crying out loud?"

Fujishima chuckled, "Don't worry, it's not like I would make you my slave or anything like that."

Iori deadpanned, "Of course not. You did what you had to. I understand."

Fujishima hugged her shoulder. "I'm glad you do, my lovely dear. All I ask is that you come to my home and let me prepare you a delightful meal tonight. I'm a bit of a gourmet chef, you know. That food in the detention center is just awful."

"So, you are inviting me for dinner?"

"Yes, so we can discuss the case, of course."

"Oh, of course."

Taichi spoke up. "I better come too, then."

Fujishima turned to face him, "Sorry, Yaegashi. Attorney-client privilege. I have to meet with my client in private."

"Ah, I understand." Then he leaned over and whispered to Iori, "You okay with this?"

She whispered back, "Don't worry. I'll be fine. I'm looking forward to it."

Taichi understood implicitly. Iori was planning to hit Fujushima with a full-on snowjob, a full-court press. It would be tour-de-force of charming subterfuge and deception against a formidable and intelligent opponent, and one who ostensibly had the upper hand.

And it was a game that Iori very much wanted to play.

Taichi knew it would greatly amuse Iori. She would try to see just how how quickly the master thespian could spin Fujishima around.

And so all Taichi said was, "Well, goodbye Iori. You take care. Call me if you need anything."

She said earnestly, "Thank you, Taichi. Thank you for everything. Especially in the hospital. I mean it." Then Iori grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek. He yelped.

As she did so she took the opportunity to whisper into his ear, "Don't worry, I'm not staying. Keep a futon warm for me at the apartment."

As she pulled away Fujishima showed Taichi a small predatory smile that Iori could not see.

And then, with her back turned so Fujishima couldn't see her either, Iori gave him an even nastier predatory smile.

Yikes. Taichi unconsciously stepped backwards away from both of them.

Taichi didn't need Heartseed's thought-transmission capability to read Iori's thoughts at that moment. Game on!

Then Fujishima locked her arm around Iori's and primly escorted her away. As they walked down the street together he heard Fujishima's voice trailing off in the distance, "Now Iori-chan, you simply must see my collection of de Goya paintings."

"Ooh, I'd love to! I want to become an artist myself someday."

"You do? Really? I didn't know that."

"Oh yes. I think that de Goya is such a wonderful painter. So strong."

"Yes, he is. So you know his work, then?"

"Oh of course I do. He's a master. Such boldness."

"Yes! I do so love de Goya's style. The paintings I own are only reproductions, of course, but I find his work to be so deliciously violent, so savage.." Their voices trailed off.

And so the thespian and the dominatrix walked into the setting sun together, arm-in-arm.

Taichi grinned at their receeding backs. He would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to watch Iori spin her web tonight. Iori's snowjob of the judge fascinated him, but that was childs play for Iori. Tonight would be different. It would be an epic contest, a true test of her skills against an intelligent and wary mark.

Oh wow, I wish I could watch them. I bet it will be even better than watching a WWE Smackdown title fight.

He went home.

Friday, 2:20AM, apartment

Taichi awoke to the sound of repeated knocks on the apartment door. He put on his dressing gown and opened it.

It was Iori. She looked tired. "Hey.. can I come in?"

He noticed that she looked out of sorts. Her hair was mussed up a bit. Then he looked down her front and saw that the buttons on her blouse were misaligned.

He was alarmed. "Iori! You okay?"

She made a small smile, "I'm fine." Then she glanced down her front where his eyes were looking. "Oh, I see."

She started to rework her front buttons. "Don't worry, nothing happened. I mean.. well, not much happened, that is.. uh, well.."

Taichi crossed his arms and gave her a disappointed look like a father receiving a daughter who came home far beyond her curfew.

She put her hand on the back of her head and looked at him sheepishly. Busted. She tried to explain. "Look, I wasn't planning on letting her put a finger on me." Then she sighed, "So okay, yeah, I hadda, but only just a little. I admit it was kinda icky, but in the end it was soooo worth it. Heh, heh."

Taichi wasn't buying it. "Hmm. Worth it?"

She nodded quickly. "Oh definitely."

"Huh?"

Then she smiled at him. "Taichi, I won. I own her."

He gave up playing the fatherly role with her. "So, uh, congrats, I guess?"

She walked in. "Thanks. I knew you'd understand. Yeah, I flipped her."

"Oh.. that's great.."

"Man, she was tough. One of my toughest. I almost blew it when I biffed the fact that I actually didn't know anything about ancient Greek or Roman sculpture. But in the end I flipped her. All she wants in return are more deep intellectual discussions with me about art, history, or whatever. And I'm just a community college dropout! In a couple weeks I'll convince her to end the guardianship."

Taichi simply stared at her.

"I haven't had this much fun in ages!" Then she raised her arms in victory and loudly yelled, "Yahoo!"

Taichi quickly covered her mouth. He hissed at her, "Iori, be quiet. You'll wake up Aoki." He let go of her mouth.

She whispered back, "Sorry, I didn't know Aoki was here. For some reason I always like jumping up and yelling 'yahoo' whenever I'm excited, dunno why really." Then she asked, "Hey, where do I crash? I'm bushed."

Taichi escorted her to the main bedroom. She saw that it was empty. "Where is Dereban?"

"She's not here."

"Oh? Pity. I was looking forward to sharing some pillow-talk with her."

Taichi quickly explained the situation between himself and Inaba. Iori thought a moment. "I see. So Dereban is off on another walkabout. Figures. She's so predictable that way. Well, I guess I'll chat with her about things later. Right now I'm completely shot."

Then she smiled. "Hey, I'm shot. Get it?" She raised her bandaged left arm. "Get it? Shot? Ha ha!"

Taichi ignored her lame joke and simply asked if there was anything else she needed, but she simply waved him off with her good arm. She flopped on the futon without undressing. In seconds she was asleep. Taichi gently covered her with a blanket.

He then picked up his own pillow and another blanket and moved to the second bedroom to sleep with Aoki, who was snoring loudly.

While laying on his futon Taichi stared up at the ceiling. He began to wonder if he did the right thing by inviting Iori to stay with them.

He did it originally because he believed that he and Inaba could help Iori with her psychological hangups, whatever they were. Together, he thought, he and Inaba could find a way to steer Iori away from her self-destructive path and save her from herself.

But now he began to wonder just who it was that he had so blithely invited to stay with them. She was his first love, second only to his wife, and now she was sleeping literally a few feet away from him.

And she had just done a successful mindjob on someone that he knew was far smarter than he was.

If she could do that to Fujishima, what could she do to him?

She wouldn't do that to me. And if she did? He was resolute. I love Inaba now. And Inaba loves me. That's all there is to it.

He allowed himself to finally fall asleep.

A/N:

* Inaba's fall from the sky happened during the second ending of Kokoro Connect (episodes 6-10). You can watch ED 2 in a short video entitled Kokoro Connect Ending 2 at www dot vidlii dot com slash watch?v=xoo6vpU_M-h The song played in ED 2 is entitled Cry Out.

** The English translation is "son of a monkey". Kurosawa is a light-skinned mulatto.

*** In Japan's system of justice, state prosecutors are attorneys within the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office, which is under the administration of the Ministry of Justice.