Haruko swept the last of the crumpled tissues into the waste basket, then fetched a fresh tissue box from the cupboard in the corner of her office. This last session with Ayami had been difficult: her father had reached out to try and mend bridges, and she was torn. Haruko was torn as well, for that matter. Given all that she knew about that man's treatment of his daughter, she had trouble imagining that he wasn't simply seeking to use her for his own ends. Haruko wanted to advise Ayami in no uncertain terms that she never make contact with her father again; but Ayami was so hopeful about a reconciliation. Ultimately, it was the client's choice, not Haruko's. And that just made it more difficult.

With a sigh and no small feeling of relief, Haruko placed Ayami's file in her drawer and drew out Li Hei's. She didn't have to look over it to know exactly where she wanted to start today.

He was on time, as usual. It was a small thing, but Haruko appreciated it. I wonder if he writes 'On time for appointments' in his notebook, she thought to herself with a smile as they seated themselves around the coffee table.

"So," she said, uncapping her pen, "how did your week go?"

Hei was more relaxed today than he had been in their previous sessions, leaning back against the chair rather than sitting straight and stiff. "Um, good, I guess."

Laconic as always. "How are things at the office, after your co-worker was injured last week?"

Hei shrugged. "Matsumoto was released home from the hospital; the others pretend they don't miss having him around, but I can tell they do. Misaki's been having a hard time with it, though; she thinks it was her fault. I keep telling her that it wasn't - she sent us out with the best information we had. There was no way of knowing there was a second contractor."

"That sounds familiar."

"There was no way for her to know," Hei said, his shoulders finally loosening as he sagged forward the tiniest bit.

At this rate, Haruko was going to have him doing self-reflection exercises for the next ten years. "Well, did you do as I asked you to last week, and think about telling Misaki that you left something out of your report?"

The way his eyes shifted away from hers told her the answer. "I thought about it," he said, almost sullenly. "But I bought her some flowers to cheer her up."

Well, we'll get there eventually. "That was sweet of you. Did she like them?"

He nodded. "Yes; but she was annoyed that I sent them to the office instead of just bringing them home. It was too risky; I should have realized that."

"Risky?" Haruko had planned on addressing his trust issues today, but the conversation had already taken a strange turn. "How is giving flowers to your girlfriend risky?"

"Well, because people don't usually send her flowers. Everyone saw. I didn't sign the card, but now the whole team is talking about who might have sent them, and they might guess it was me."

Oh dear. "Hei, are you saying that your co-workers don't know that you and Misaki are seeing each other?"

"There's no rule against it," he said hurriedly. "Misaki checked. But I…well, I guess I don't want them to judge her. If they find out about me."

Honesty, Haruko wrote in large characters and circled it. "If they find out about your criminal history, you mean?" she asked.

"Yeah. She has perfectly logical reasons for hiring me, but dating me…it wouldn't look very good for her."

"Has Misaki said that to you? That she would be embarrassed if people knew the two of you were together?"

"Well, no. But why wouldn't she be?"

Oh dear. "Hei, do you remember our conversation last week? About how your perception of yourself might not be entirely accurate, and you need to look at things objectively?"

He nodded, brow furrowed.

"Let's do that, then. Look at the situation objectively." Haruko held up one finger. "Misaki, knowing about your past, hired you for her team." She extended a second finger. "If I remember correctly, she told you that she was sure it would be alright if you told the others about your past. And three," she held up a third finger, "she has been nothing but trusting and supportive of you in your relationship. Would you say that that's accurate?"

"I guess so."

"Whose idea was it to keep your relationship a secret?"

"Um, we both decided. Together."

"And what was her reasoning for coming to this decision?"

His frown deepened. "That the others would worry that she'll give me preferential treatment. Which is stupid," he added. "Misaki is always completely fair, about everything, and everyone knows that."

"So given those facts, you've come to the logical conclusion that she's embarrassed or ashamed of you?"

"I…yeah. I guess it doesn't make any sense. Logically."

"It doesn't," Haruko agreed. "Which makes me think that this shame is coming from you. You've hinted repeatedly that you're ashamed of who you are - or at least, who you used to be, and whatever illegal things you might have done. This is the real root of the issue, what we need to address." She folded her hands in her lap. "How does it make you feel, keeping this relationship a secret? To not be able to acknowledge in front of your co-workers that you care about her?"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. I'm used to keeping secrets. It's not that hard."

"I didn't ask if you were used to it. I asked how you feel about it."

"I…" He trailed off, running a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. Then taking a deep breath, he said, "I hate it. I'm so tired of lying all the time. Being with Misaki is the closest thing I've ever had to a normal life, and I - I want more it."

Haruko breathed a sigh of relief. She was only just coming to realize how difficult it was for him to be honest with himself; this was a huge step forward. And it was also not the first time that he'd expressed the belief that he was somehow different from the rest of the human population - that he either didn't belong, or didn't deserve to.

"Good," she told him. "There's no reason that you can't have more normality - you just have to allow yourself to. The issue isn't that you're hiding your relationship with Misaki. I'm not saying that it's at all healthy; but the larger problem is why. And that seems to be the fact that before you joined the police, the people you used to work for were involved in some kind of criminal activity. Do you agree?"

He nodded slowly.

"You've kept this fact from your fellow police officers, the teammates that you work with every day. What is your relationship with them like?"

"My…"

"Would you say that you're friends? Do you chat with each other at the office, hang out after work? Do you hate each other?"

"Um…well, we don't hate each other. They all get along great."

He was being vague and avoiding again. Haruko merely folded her hands on top of her legal pad and waited. After several awkward silent moments, he continued, "Well, Saitou and Kouno have been partners for three years. They're always teasing each other, about how cheap Saitou is, how terrible Kouno is at dating, that sort of thing. Saitou knows all the best noodles stands in the city. Matsumoto has been with the police for almost twenty years, but he doesn't tell a lot of stories or talk down to the younger guys. And he has great connections with most of the beat patrols; some of the best leads come through him. Ootsuka's pretty quiet, but she's usually the one who arranges going out to the bars, office birthday parties, things like that."

Haruko listened to him talk, describing his co-workers mannerisms, habits, and personalities. It was like he was some kind of office anthropologist, observing and recording a newly-discovered culture without taking part himself lest he disrupt their way of life.

Eventually, she held up a hand, and he immediately fell silent. "Hei, you seem to have an excellent grasp of the interpersonal relationships in your office. But what I really want you to think about here is how you fit in."

He shifted in his seat. "How I fit in? Um, I mean, we grab lunch together while we're out in the field. Sometimes I go to the bar with them when the shift is over, when they invite me. They usually invite me; I don't always go."

Again, Haruko said nothing, but merely lifted an eyebrow.

"I guess…well, I could probably join in Saitou and Kouno's conversations more. They don't exclude me, I just don't really say anything. And Matsumoto…he seems to worry about me a lot. Like he thinks I need a - um, Misaki called it a mentor - in the police. Ootsuka didn't talk to me at all for the first month, she would just blush and then go hide every time I tried to say something." He frowned. "Sometimes I wonder if she remembers - I mean, I ran into her once last year, before I worked with the police. She was pretty drunk; I don't think she remembers."

That last cryptic remark aside, the conversation was finally moving forward. "Would you say that everyone has a good opinion of you?"

"Sure, I guess. I'm pretty good at getting people to like me."

There was such a self-deprecating tone to his voice that it gave Haruko pause. "You don't think they should like you?" she asked gently.

Hei shrugged, but didn't answer.

"You don't seem to interact with them very much on a personal level. Why is that?"

"I don't…I mean, I don't really know where I fit in yet."

"Do you trust them, to have your back out in the field?"

"Of course I trust them," Hei said. He seemed surprised that she would even ask that question. "They have a lot of experience, and loyalty to the team is something that Misaki makes a point of."

Haruko didn't miss the touch of pride in his voice. "And you? Do they trust you?"

"They -" he faltered, his gaze flicking away from hers. "I'm still kind of new, so they take extra care of me, even though they really don't need to. But I guess they trust me. For now, anyway. I'd never betray them, but, there's no way for them to know that."

"You make it sound as if you don't really care either way. You can lie to me all you want, Hei, but I need you to be honest with yourself. Is it important to you to have their trust?"

The tissue box on the coffee table suddenly seemed to have his full attention. Haruko tapped her pen on her pad. "Remember when we talked about how you've been afraid to make yourself at home in your relationship with Misaki, that she might one day abandon you?"

"She doesn't abandon people," he said quietly to the tissue box, but Haruko saw the worry in his eyes.

"Do you think that maybe you're doing the same thing with your co-workers? Refraining from investing yourself in any kind of friendship with them for fear that they'll turn on you once they find out the truth about your past?"

"Why wouldn't they."

The quiet resignation in his words tore at her heart. "Let's look at this objectively," she said gently. "I want you tell me why your co-workers, who all like you and depend on you, would suddenly stop trusting you once they know that you didn't tell the truth about one small thing."

He continued to stare at the tissue box in silence. At last, he said, "It's not one small thing. Misaki and I visited Matsumoto at his home this week. He's on bed rest until his leg heals well enough for a walking cast. He was happy to see us - both of us. It was…strange. We talked about everyone back at the office, and baseball, and what it was like to have a broken bone. It felt so…normal. But it was still a lie. I lied about not seeing the specter, and Matsumoto got hurt. Lying is what people like me do, and they know it. It's what I've always done. No one ever trusts me once they know who I am."

Haruko had no idea what specter meant, but she let it slide; it wasn't important. "Hei, why did you not tell anyone that you saw this…specter?"

"Because then they would know. About me."

"And knowing about you would cause them to mistrust you, because people like you lie. What other things do you think you might lie about to them in the future?"

He hesitated. "Well, nothing…except things about myself. That I don't want them to know."

"And why don't you want them to know about these things?"

"Because…" He frowned. "Okay. You're saying that if I just tell them, then I don't have any reason to worry? It's not that simple…"

Haruko spread her hands. "I'm sure it's not simple at all. But it's a place to start, isn't it? Misaki is sure that everyone will still accept you if you tell them the truth - isn't that what you said?"

Hei nodded doubtfully.

"I want you to imagine this scenario in your mind: you tell your team that you were once involved in criminal activity, and that you lied to them about it. What happens next, exactly?"

"Well…they'll get angry. They'll question Misaki's judgment in hiring me, and refuse to work with me because I can't be trusted."

Is this the only outcome he can think of? She'd hoped for a bit more reflection. "And what will Misaki do?"

"She'll - well, she's been talking about hiring a, um, someone like me for a long time. I know the others don't want her to; they've told me," he added despondently. "But even if they object, she won't fire me. She believes in her vision for the police too much. Maybe I'll just work on my own, attached to the department but still sort of freelance. I'm used to working alone; that wouldn't be so bad. But I don't want her to be criticized for it. Maybe I shouldn't have joined the police at all."

Oh dear; and the discussion was going so well. Haruko held up a hand before he could spiral any further. "Misaki makes her own choices; and she's made those choices with full information, yes?"

Hei ran his fingers through his hair again, but nodded.

"She made the decision to hire you, knowing exactly what the potential consequences might be. That's not the issue here. Look at it this way - this may be the perfect opportunity to redefine yourself."

"Redefine myself?"

"You don't have to let the past dictate who you are today. Maybe the Li Hei you used to be lied, all the time. Maybe he used to work for people who turned out to be criminals. But that's not who you want to be - so don't let it be you."

For some reason, that advice was not received with the thoughtful optimism she'd hoped for. Instead, he looked almost distressed. "I don't want to be just an alias anymore…"

Just an alias - that's some rather odd phrasing. Haruko perched her chin on her hand and thought for a moment. "Let's pause here and jump back to our conversation from last week. You mentioned that you were in the country illegally - can you explain that for me?"

"Um, well, I don't have a real passport to use; I had to get a fake one."

Haruko didn't have the first idea how one went about getting a fake passport. "Did the police help you with that?"

To her surprise, he shook his head. "I have a contact in Hong Kong who does that sort of thing. I have to have false papers because, well, I'm legally dead."

Haruko blinked. Okay, that might actually be a first.

At her dumb stare, Hei shrugged and added nonchalantly, "I've been using aliases for a long time."

"So, Li Hei isn't your real name?" She felt strangely…disappointed at that knowledge. As if his mere existence as her client was a lie specifically directed at her. His worries about his co-workers' reactions had a whole new context now.

He gave a half-shake of his head, then stopped. "It's not the name I was born with, but...I don't know, it feels more…real…than any other name that I've used."

"What do you mean by that?"

He stared into the tissue box again. "Hei is how I've thought of myself for the past ten years, even when I was working under a cover story; it's who I was when I met Misaki. No," he amended, "technically I was Li when I first met her; then when I asked for her help I also asked her to call me Hei."

"Why is that?"

"Because...that's who I was asking her to help, I guess. Me, not my alias. And I couldn't - I couldn't ask her to trust me, if I was lying to her about something as basic as my name."

The question of why he needed an alias to begin with - how he came to be declared dead hung over the conversation, but they were running out of time for this session already. Haruko instead refocused on the previous topic. "So when you returned to Tokyo a few months ago, you created a new identity for yourself - chose your name, chose a career with the police." Haruko tapped her fingers on her legal pad. She'd never had a client in quite this position before, but if she thought it through... "Do you see Li Hei as a -" what was the word he'd used? "- an alias? Another false persona to mask who you really are?"

"I...I don't want it to be. I want to be myself, but who I was as just Hei...the whole time I was him, I wished I was someone else."

"And yet you chose that name."

He frowned. "I used it on my application to get Misaki's attention."

"You couldn't have gotten her attention another way? Called her, maybe?"

He didn't answer, lost deep in thought. At last, he said, "If I'm not Hei, I don't know who I am."

"It's tempting to want to run from our past, rather than face it," Haruko said gently. "If you chose a completely new name, would that wipe out everything that you did as Hei that you're ashamed of?"

"No."

"No. But you can redefine who Hei is. Take the assignment that I gave you - recording all of your selfless acts. The more you write them down, the more you'll realize that that is who you are; you'll start to believe it. Once you believe it, it's true. And what about Li? That was an alias you were using when you met Misaki?"

He nodded.

"Is that why did you choose that for your family name? There are quite a lot of Lis - it's one of the most common names in China, isn't it? Why choose that?"

He gave a half shrug. "Common names make good aliases. It was easy, and I knew Misaki would recognize it."

"You already had Hei for her to recognize," Haruko pointed out. His logic made perfect sense to her, but he was yet again refusing to meet her eyes. There was another layer here that he was reluctant to share. "Was it necessary to add Li as well?"

He didn't answer, which Haruko took for confirmation that he had an answer and didn't want to vocalize it. "Why Li?" she asked again. "Did you know someone with that name?"

"It - it used to be my name. Before I was Hei. It was my father's name." His voice was so quiet that she barely heard him; and she didn't miss his use of the past tense. She also didn't miss the slight tremble in his hands, which he quickly masked by clasping them together.

"Is it painful, to think about your father?"

"That's why I don't," he said curtly. His knuckles were turning white; Haruko took that as a sign to stop pushing for now.

"I won't ask you to talk about anything that you don't want to," she reminded him. "But ignoring painful emotions - it's a coping mechanism that many people turn to. It's one that may have helped you through difficult times in the past. But in the long run it's only going to make things harder."

"It's always worked before." The tightness hadn't left his voice.

Haruko raised a questioning eyebrow. "I would argue that it hasn't. We'll leave that for next time, though - we're out of time for today. This week, I want you to continue your daily log. I also want you to decide who you want Li Hei to be. I don't mean things like how you dress or what you eat for lunch," she added, remembering his list of observations about his co-workers. "What are your values? What are the goals for your life? Is police work truly the career that you want to commit to, and why? Include Misaki in this exercise if you want, she'll probably have some great insight for you; just make sure that all of these decisions are ultimately coming from you, and not anyone else."

She'd given this assignment to many clients before, and after several weeks of intense contemplation they would find it helpful. Of course, none of those clients had been truly redefining themselves, in the sense that they'd never changed names or lives like changing a suit of clothes, as Hei had made it sound. But the concept was the same; she was sure that if Hei actually sat down and examined what he wanted out of life, he would find it a valuable exercise as well.

"Does that make sense?" she asked when he didn't respond.

He nodded once, brow furrowed. "It's - it's strange," he said. "This is the first time in my life I've been able to decide who I want to be. But what if - what if I can't redefine myself? What if I really am just Hei? How can I change what I've been for so long?"

"That's what we're going to figure out," Haruko told him kindly.