Chapter 5: Monday, January 5th, Evening —

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters was located in the heart of Tokyo, skirting the perimeter of the Imperial Palace grounds in Chiyoda City, east of Shibuya. The location was popular with such a magnificent backdrop, and the TMPD shared a campus with the Ministry of Justice, the High Court, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The National Diet was just past the stretch of municipal buildings making up her block of the campus, just out of sight.

With so many government workers crammed into that part of town, there were many different food options to choose from within walking distance of the TMPD. Mexican, Greek, Italian, Indian food, and more, could all be found on the same street, just a ten-minute walk away from Makoto's office. Everything from upscale offerings for the visiting dignitaries to casual dining for the locals. Not to mention three different 7-11 stores to the west, south, and east.

A veritable foodie's paradise.

Tucked in a side street between an Italian bistro and some sort of fancy hat boutique was Yakitori Alley, Detective Sato Sakai's preferred locale for lunch, dinner, and whenever he was just passing through and needed some takeaway. Tastefully decorated with hanging lights and paper lanterns, the walkup counter facing the alley offered some quality people-watching paired with sumptuous skewers of juicy meats and veggies.

"I love this place," said Sato, as he pulled out a stool to make himself comfortable at the wooden counter.

"Been coming here long?" asked Makoto, doing the same.

"Sort of? I came here once as a little kid—my family's from Hiroshima—and when I moved to Tokyo for work, I was like, 'Oh my god, is that little dive yakitori place that Dad took us to near here?' and went on a pilgrimage to find it. I was afraid Covid would have killed it, but it managed to survive."

"I'm sure the ample outdoor dining helped," said Makoto.

"Yeah," agreed Sato, glancing up and down the long walkup counter, "but whatever it was that kept this place alive, I was just glad it was here. I didn't know anyone when I first came to Tokyo, so the fact that there was anything familiar here really helped me find a home."

"What brought you to Tokyo in the first place?" asked Makoto.

"After my parents died, I didn't really have anything left back home, so I was just looking for a change. I picked Tokyo just because of the memories I'd made of it as a kid."

Sato seemed young to have lost both his parents already, but that line of questioning seemed awkward for her to pursue at this time. She'd lost both her parents too, and, though she was comfortable talking about it, she wasn't sure he would be, so she pulled at different threads of this conversation. "Did you visit here often?" she asked.

"No, we hardly went anywhere, but that's why my memories of my one trip away from home stuck with me so strongly. My parents were home bodies."

"I see," she said. She pulled a menu out of a small rack on the counter and began flipping through it. "Well, what's good here?" she asked, ready to change the subject.

"Everything. Are you a vegetarian?"

"No, I eat everything," she said, sort of tongue in cheek. It's not that she wasn't picky, but there were very few items on her yuck-list. Provided it wasn't something the animal pooped out of, it was fair game.

A middle-aged man wearing a hachimaki tied to his forehead approached them at the counter. "Evening, you two. What can I get started?"

Makoto hurriedly studied the menu that she had only barely glanced at before now, and signaled to Sato that he should order first.

"I'll have three sticks of shiro, and an Asahi, please," said Sato. "Extra spicy." He knew immediately what he wanted without having to consult a menu.

"You got it, Spiceman. And for you, miss?"

Makoto hated to keep people waiting with her indecision, so she held the first thing that looked okay in her mind before quickly scanning the rest of the menu for anything else that might leap out as hands-down a tastier option. "I'll haaaave…" she droned, flipping the menu to the other side and giving it a once-over, "…piman yakitori, please. Two sticks." In the end, she went with her initial, safe choice.

"Anything to drink?"

"Oh! Yeah. Asahi for me as well, please."

"Coming right up," said the man, before disappearing into the back of the establishment, whence he had come.

Alone once more, Makoto felt obligated to find something else for them to talk about, and she still wasn't feeling the dead-parent tack. "So, tell me about the case you just wrapped up." Another safe choice.

"Oh, it's nothing," said Sato, oddly staid in spite of the fact that celebrating the case's conclusion was ostensibly his reason for inviting her to dinner. "Dead bodies get lots of attention, but it turned out to just be another Tokyo suicide, so no big deal."

"Still, you had to investigate that in order to determine that it was a suicide. That means someone trusted you enough to put you in charge of helping the family find closure," said Makoto, envious. Not until now had anyone trusted her to fill that role for a family in distress, and in her case, the captain had made it pretty clear that he believed the missing person had gone missing on purpose.

The server returned with their beers. He tossed a couple of paper coasters on the counter in front of them and set the drinks down. "Drink up, folks. Food'll be ready soon," he said, nodding once before heading away as swiftly as he'd arrived.

Sato picked up his open beer bottle and smiled at her, as he continued the thread. "Closure is nice, you're right. It's hard for folks to heal without it—sometimes they'll even let you give it to them," he said, raising his bottle to her in modest celebration before taking a hearty swig.

Makoto picked up her own beer and took a more tempered sip. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Do people not always let you give them closure?"

Sato pursed his lips, considering her question. He took another swig before answering. "Folks don't always like the answers you give them. If your conclusions don't agree with what they had in mind, they can get mad. Tell you you're a shitty cop… They can even go for your badge."

"Jesus, really?" That thought had never occurred to her. "Has that happened to you before?"

Sato shrugged. "Not the badge thing, no, but I know others it's happened to. I've definitely had people tell me I'm a shitty cop, though…" he said, looking dour. "It can really take the wind out of your sails to think you've wrapped up a case, only to have the other parties reject your conclusions and tell you you suck." He took another sip of his beer.

Makoto pondered this. He was essentially describing the fear she had about Saki Kobayashi. Makoto was certain that Mrs. Kobayashi would reject any conclusion that had her husband running into the arms of another woman. Makoto frowned at her beer—for some reason she didn't want to believe it either.

"It's especially true with suicides," said Sato, resuming the thread. "Suicide, whether intentional or accidental, and depending on the method, can bring a lot of shame to a family, so they'll often push back really hard when a death is ruled a suicide. 'It wasn't suicide, so and so or such and such is to blame!' they'll say—especially true of drug overdose deaths. Sometimes they'll even conjure convoluted murder plots for you to chase down, just to have it be anything else but suicide. All the folks who jump in front of trains? 'No—they must have been pushed!' Even though there was no one else there…"

"But doesn't the medical examiner determine the cause and manner of death?" asked Makoto. Though it was a first-year course series, she hadn't forgotten everything from her Evidence Handling series yet. "It's not really up to you to decide how the person died, right?"

Sato chuckled, "Yeah, but we're the ones who investigated, right? If the medical examiner says it was suicide, it could only be because we fucked up collecting the evidence we handed over…" Sato shook his head with sad chagrin and took another pull from his beer, staring off, unfocused, into the bowels of the restaurant.

Makoto studied him, choosing her next words carefully. "Is that… what happened with this case?"

Sato, seemingly coming out of his trance, gave his head a brisk shake and looked back at her, suddenly in much lighter spirits. "Ha, no! Sorry—didn't mean to get so dark all of sudden! I don't know how the family took it this time, actually."

"You don't?" She really wanted to follow up by asking, "How come?" but didn't.

She didn't have to, though, because Sato volunteered that information anyway. "I don't make those calls anymore." Makoto gave him a perplexed look, and he clarified: "I just have a secretary make those calls for me."

Her confused look didn't quite go away, however. "A… secretary?" she said. "But, that's…"

"—And if the family insists on talking to a cop," he said, cutting in again, "the secretary just refers them to the precinct captain. I know he seems like kind of a dick—and he certainly can be—but he's actually really good at protecting his officers. He doesn't mind seeming like the bad guy, and since he outranks us anyway, the families don't feel like they're being given the runaround. He just tells them how it is: 'Our detectives ran down every lead, the medical examiner gave their ruling, and I personally vetted everyone's conclusions. It is what it is.' He's shielded me from abuse on more than one occasion."

A secretary! Makoto wasn't sure how to respond, what to say, but thankfully, she was given a reprieve from having to come up with something right away—their food had arrived.

"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Sato, reaching for a stick. "Thank you so much—these look fantastic!"

Makoto looked down at her own plate and agreed—her piman yakitori looked delectable. Plucking a stick of her own off the tray, she took a delicate bite and savored the orchestra of flavors at work in her mouth. "Mmmm… You weren't kidding," she said, glad to have something genuinely positive to say.

"Yeah, their piman is good, isn't it? I've had everything on the menu at one point or another, but I come back to this one most often," he said, gesturing to his remaining sticks of shiro.

Makoto had to admit, they looked good. "What are those made from?" she asked, her interest piqued.

"Chicken intestine," he answered, pulling the last hunk from his first stick with gusto. He chewed it enthusiastically, smiling broadly at her.

Makoto kept her smile as she nodded at him, but the sincerity had fled her eyes. Intestines… Gross.

— — —

Ren had two other classes that day, but he had skipped them both. Ever since coming home after barely acknowledging his morning Correctional Theory lesson, he'd been hunkered down at his desk, nose down in his studies. He had two major essays to write, two finals to take, and all of his students' Blades evaluations to finish.

Having scoured his syllabi and corresponding course websites, he'd determined that all his classes could be completed early, provided he submitted his finals and essays with passing grades. There were twelve weeks left before graduation, but if he played his cards right, he could cut that down to three or four, and be back in Tokyo well ahead of schedule. He pictured himself showing up at Sae and Makoto's house, out of the blue. The look on Makoto's face when he tells her he's done with school… Maybe he could even have Sojiro do some apartment hunting on his behalf, and he could surprise her with keys to a new place for them to live…

He was getting ahead of himself. First things first: Do the reading.

So that's what he'd been doing. He wasn't even totally positive that his plan would work, anyway. He had sent a half-dozen emails, and would need to wait to hear back if he would still be awarded all his credits if he stopped attending the discussion sections for his classes that required them. The essay he had to write for his Behavioral Science class, for example, was supposed to be based on arguments he would develop over the rest of the term through debate with his peers. If his professor insisted that he stick around and engage in those debates in order to get all his credits, then writing his own essay early wouldn't matter.

However, just having a plan had buoyed him. Though he'd wasted an entire hour spacing out during a lecture, once he got home and had his plan outlined, he had been blazing through his Correctional Theory textbook, taking copious notes on the important points the syllabus had outlined. Even if the replies to his emails came back in the negative, he could probably spend the rest of the term sleeping through that class and still pass the final.

Having finally reached the end of a chapter, Ren tossed his pen into the middle of the book and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms out wide.

"Ready for a break?"

Ren's stretch was cut short by his surprise, and he jerked his head toward the window to see Morgana perched on the sill.

"How long have you been there?" asked Ren, regaining his composure.

"Just got here. Naomi was starting to play House, so it was time to go."

Ren chuckled and got up from his chair. "Did she try to dress you up again?"

"No, but I could tell things were headed in that direction. I don't know how Panther puts up with it… It's so undignified."

Ren stepped toward the window to close it, and Morgana hopped to the floor. "Well, buddy, I hate to have to remind you of this, but Panther is a cat. Like, a real one, not… whatever you are."

"I know, I know… but still."

"But stillllll…" Ren droned, preparing to fill in the blanks for his longtime friend and reluctant feline, "…she has cat parts, you have cat parts… It's a match made in heaven."

Morgana hissed. "You don't have to put it like that, you know."

"I know, sorry," said Ren, with a sympathetic chuckle. It wasn't Morgana's fault that Jiro and Naomi's cat was the only "Panther" that would ever agree to have sex with him. He couldn't be blamed for wanting to pretend like she was more than what she was.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, I'm starving. I've been studying all damn day," said Ren, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the time. "Holy shit, it's nine…" He fired off a quick text to Makoto to check in, then followed Morgana into the kitchen.

"Did you get a lot done while I was out?"

"Yeah, I guess. I think I did, at least," grumbled Ren, opening the fridge. He pulled out a bag marked 'Kura Sushi' and set it on the table. "I figure I ought to be able to bang out what's left in each of my classes in about a week each, or less, then finish my students' evals. I could be out of here in a month. I won't be there to see how my Blades students progress through the full end of the term, but Mifune-sensei will probably be lenient with me. Worst case, they end up trimming my instructor stipend a bit. No big deal." Opening the bag, he set one to-go box at his place setting, and another in front of Morgana, who was seated on the table opposite Ren's place. His phone chimed.

"You gonna tell her, or have it be a surprise?"

Ren opened his to-go box and shoveled some of his leftover soba noodles onto a plate and stuck it in the microwave to heat up, then returned to the table to open up Morgana's box for him: Leftover fatty tuna, as promised. He then lifted his phone, making sure the notification was from whom he'd hoped. "I'm leaning toward surprise," he said, opening Makoto's text.

Morgana began to chow down on his sushi, giving Ren a moment to read his texts. Ren swyped out a response. Pause. Another response. Another. A couple minutes elapsed, and Ren hadn't touched his food or said a word out loud.

"You gonna eat?"

Ren finished swyping something before replying, and when he finally did, it was clear his attention was elsewhere. "Yeah, sorry…" He took a huge forkful of noodles and stuck it in his mouth before going back to his phone.

Morgana finished his sushi and began licking his paws, evaluating his housemate, still immersed in his text-based conversation. "We don't have to talk right now. I can tell you really just wanna catch up with Makoto."

"Shit, I'm sorry, Mona," said Ren, heaving another forkful of noodles into his mouth and choking it down. "Yesterday she got that missing person case, and she's been slammed with investigating it ever since. This is our first moment in the last two days where we've been able to exchange more than a couple texts in a row with each other."

"Why don't you just call her?" suggested Morgana. "Your leftovers will still be there after you're off the phone."

Ren stood up, leaving his plate on the table. "You're right. I've had enough noodles to tide me over for a bit. She's home, just settling into bed for the night. This might be my only chance for a while…"

"Sounds good. Okay with you if I watch TV out here?"

"Of course. I'll go to the bedroom." At that, Ren abandoned the table and his plate of cooling soba noodles, and retreated into his room just as his phone was chiming once again. Instead of replying, he just tapped 'call'.

Makoto answered almost immediately: "Oh, hey, it's nice to hear your voice. Texting too slow for you right now?"

"I don't know, I guess," he replied. "I was basically ignoring Morgana, just looking down at my phone. If I'm actually talking to you, shutting myself away in our room and focusing on just you feels less rude."

Makoto gave a quick laugh in response. "Maybe I should feel worse about all the time I spend ignoring my sister to talk to you," she said.

"Maybe," said Ren, reclining into his bed and sliding one hand under his head. "Anyway, you were telling me that you wouldn't have even gotten this case if it weren't for another detective basically cajoling the PC into giving it to you. What's that about?"

"Well, I guess I've just been… sort of… in denial about how things seem to work there," she said, tiptoeing around what she was getting at. "I mean, I hadn't really noticed before now, but… there are like, no other women detectives at the TMPD. Every other woman I've seen there is either a secretary or a traffic cop."

"Are you serious?" asked Ren.

"Yeah, unfortunately, I kind of am. Was it like that when you were there?"

"I don't remember," said Ren. "I mean, I was in a program for rehabilitated delinquents, which tends to be a pretty male-dominated demographic, so I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it even if I'd been paying attention."

Makoto gave a wry smile. "I can see that," she said. "Anyway, the PC's first words out of his mouth to me were to tell me to get him more coffee. He called me 'sweetheart'… "

"Oof, what a dick," he said. "How'd the other guy manage to get the PC to give you the case?"

"He didn't say anything special, really. He basically just pointed out that I was a detective, and not a fucking maid. The PC really only relented when it became clear that everyone else was too busy to take the case."

"Wow," said Ren. "Misogyny isn't dead, I guess."

"I guess…" agreed Makoto.

After a brief pause to put everything together, Ren circled back. "So what made the other detective decide to lend you a hand? Is he a friend of yours?" In two years, Makoto had never mentioned any work friends.

"No, not really—but I guess he's starting to be. He's been sort of helpful in getting my investigation moving. I thought I'd hit a wall with it, but he gave me some advice, so tomorrow I'm gonna try to check CCTV. So far, it's looking like the missing guy had an affair, or at least a one-night stand or something, and then just didn't come home."

"If it was a one-night stand, wouldn't he have come home by now?" asked Ren.

"Maybe," said Makoto. "Sato—that's the other detective—he says that people basically never call to tell you that everything's okay. So if the guy came back, I guess I wouldn't know that without calling her to follow up. I suppose it's possible he could have made it home by now, and I'm fretting over nothing."

"So, best case scenario, he already came home, and in the end, we just have a terrible husband and a pissed off wife, but no one's missing or dead—or I guess maybe even better than that, he didn't have an affair after all, and just didn't make it home for some other totally innocuous reason. How sure are you that he was screwing around?"

Makoto made a frustrated noise. "Ugh, not sure at all… Talking with his wife, they sounded like they were really happy together. Their one-year anniversary is next month, and they had a whole trip to Hawaii planned. It only sounds like there was an affair because the last person to see him, as far as I know, was the bartender at that place I went to last night, who says he left around eleven o'clock with a 'very attractive woman'. He seemed pretty certain that they left to go have sex."

"Huh," said Ren, considering. "So… what does your gut tell you?"

Makoto sighed. "I don't know. I can't tell if I don't want to think he had an affair because I want to believe that the wife wasn't wrong about how good their relationship was, or because I just don't want to have to tell her that, or… I don't know. It'll be so much worse if I end up having to tell her that he's dead—or," she added, with a distinctly derisive change in her tone of voice, "I guess I could just have a fucking secretary tell her that for me."

Ren knit his brow, confused. "What?"

"Sorry, I'm being pissed at Sato right now. He didn't have a terrible explanation for why he does this, but he said that when he has bad news to deliver, like a suicide or something, he just has a secretary do it."

"That seems sort of cowardly."

"Yeah, and a shitty thing to do to the secretaries. The way he explained it, it kind of made sense why he does it, I just still don't really like it."

"What supposedly good reason did he give you for this practice?"

"Oh, just that families get really upset when you tell them things that run counter to the narratives they were hoping for. He said that if the families insist on talking to a cop about the conclusions that were drawn, the secretary will refer them to the PC, and he acts like a shield for them, absorbing and deflecting the families' anger."

"Hmmm," Ren hummed disapprovingly. "I don't know… This still sounds shitty to me."

"I know it does. Sato didn't seem real proud of himself about it either, but he said he's dealt with so many suicides, and those are the ones that families get upset at you about the most. The case he had just wrapped up today was a suicide, and he did this same thing. Said it's the thing he hates most about the job."

"Did he tell you how the person died? How did he know it was a suicide?" he asked. His mind flitted briefly back to the conversation he'd had with Tae over Winter Break, about her friend who'd killed himself last spring. She still hadn't gotten over it.

"The person jumped in front of a subway train. His investigation determined that there was no one else there, and the body was on the tracks. Medical examiner's autopsy confirmed it was a suicide."

"Seems pretty cut and dry. How many suicides in Tokyo are we talking about here? Is that a thing you've researched yet?"

Not even a pause to think about the answer: "Two thousand, one hundred and forty-two last year."

Ren blew out his cheeks. "Phew! Compared to a hundred and five murders? Jesus, we really are just killing ourselves left and right…"

"Yeah. So I guess I can't totally blame him if he's put up some self-defense mechanisms to deal with this particular part of the job."

"Man, I guess… This isn't something I think our education really prepared us for."

"No, definitely not. I never saw 'Delivering Bad News: One-oh-One' listed in the course catalog, did you?"

"'Fraid not," said Ren. His mind flitted back to his courses, and his plan to power through what was left of them. He kept his thoughts to himself, but a small smile crept into his expression that he instantly felt guilty about, given the weight of their conversation. But he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Makoto didn't know what to say either, and for a minute, the two of them just shared a quiet moment together, simply listening to one another breathe.

"You tired?" she asked after a bit.

"Eh, only a little," replied Ren. "I didn't do anything particularly exciting today. Nothing like the day you had, sounds like. You only just got home from work a little bit ago—I've been home for hours."

"Well, I quit working around six," she said. "I ended up going out to dinner with Sato, actually. He had just wrapped up his subway death case, after all, and he said he felt like celebrating."

"Celebrating after a suicide?" said Ren, incredulous. "Okay, whatever. Where did you go to eat?"

"A little walkup place called 'Yakitori Alley'," she said. "It's a short walk from headquarters."

"Did he pay for your food?" Ren asked, somewhat facetiously.

Makoto giggled. "No, he didn't pay for my food," she said. "I made it clear that I had a boyfriend before I agreed to go to dinner, don't worry."

"Hey, no judgment here, I'm not the jealous type," he said. "I was merely curious. I'm in school to be a detective, you know. Asking questions is my job."

Makoto paused, letting her incredulity show on her face, despite no one being around to see it. "You'd be upset if I let him pay for my dinner, don't lie."

"I'd be upset if you had let him pay for your dinner without first telling him you were spoken for, that's true, but if dude knows you're taken and wants to pay for your food anyway, well, that's on him. It's not gonna get him anywhere, but he's welcome to try."

"You're hilarious," she said. "You're not at all worried that I'll be swept off my feet by some other guy out of loneliness, or boredom or whatever?"

Ren understood that this hypothetical scenario was entirely for fun, that these weren't serious questions, but that didn't stop him from reflecting on exactly why he had no such fear whatsoever. Perhaps he should have been worried about something like that, but he just wasn't. "No," he said. "No, I'm not. You would never do that. And it's not because I think I'm too amazing to cheat on and you'll never find anyone as good as me or anything like that, but it's because of you—of who you are."

Makoto listened, smiling as Ren talked. She didn't disagree, but she wanted him to go on. To say more on this subject. So, coyly, she drew him out just a bit more. "And who am I?" she asked.

"You're Makoto Niijima," he said. "You're Johanna. You're not attracted to things that are flashy or superficial. You're fiercely loyal, and unwaveringly moral. You would never cheat, or lead someone else on, or be swayed by another man's charms because you know who you are and you know what you want, and more than anything, you want someone who knows you. Who understands you. And who loves and appreciates you in spite of your stubbornness. Who loves you because of your stubbornness. You're smart and you're incisive, and I see that about you. And you see that I see that, and you know no one else will ever see it as clearly as I do. And that's why you want me, and no one else."

Makoto's heart was beating fast in her chest. He was right. Every word. She both loved and hated that he understood her so well—she wished she could be just the least bit mysterious for him. Was she? She knew him as well as he knew her, yet to her, he was dark and mischievous—a sly, sinister something in him that only she could see. That something, as much as she loved it, made her the tiniest bit apprehensive that he could be led astray by someone else. Someone else… Someone who looked at him with the same predatory gaze that Joker wore when he was taken with some primal thought.

In spite of her nagging worry, she couldn't help reaching for her bedside drawer and pulling it open. Imagining him in the Metaverse, as Joker, staring at her with those fiery, intense eyes… She became aware of a burning in her belly. Fiddling blindly with the contents of her drawer, she pulled out a cool glass dildo and tucked it under the covers with her, lifting the hem of her nightgown to warm it against her stomach.

He spoke low into the phone, a gravelly quality to his voice. "You've gotten quiet. What are you thinking about right now?"

Oh, he knows damn well… He wants to hear me say it. "I'm thinking…" she said, looking for the words. He was so much better at phone sex than she was. "I'm thinking I wish you were here right now."

He chuckled low in his throat. "Why do you wish I was there right now? Do you need someone to make you dinner? To fix you a late-night snack?"

She twisted up her mouth, smiling playfully in spite of her frustration with him. "Stop that," she said. "You know what I'm talking about."

"You're hungry for something else, then? What are you hungry for, Makoto Niijima? Tell me."

"I want…" Makoto took a breath and closed her eyes. She had a hard time being creative when it came to talking dirty on the phone. All she could do was lean into her honesty. So, she let herself picture exactly what she really wanted from him at that moment, and that's what she tried to describe for him: "I want to feel the warmth of your body lying next to me," she said. "I want to feel your breath in my ear, and your hand on my thigh…" The dildo she'd been cradling against her belly was warm enough by now, so she lowered it into the spot between her legs and let it slide between her slick lips and across her clit, rubbing though not yet penetrating. "I want to feel your fingers inside my pussy," she said, whispering breathily.

"You want to feel my fingers inside you?" he said, playing into her fantasy. "Is that all you want, Detective? Just my fingers? You don't want me to suck on your ear while I play with you? To slide my tongue, slowly, into that spot behind your earlobe, and nibble on the fleshy parts of your ear while my fingers do their work?"

Makoto moaned and gently inserted the toy, moving the dildo slowly in and out of herself as she imagined exactly those things happening to her. She even tilted her head to the side to give him better access to her ear and neck, as though he were there for her to further entice. Arching her back, she moaned low and long, moving her other hand to her breast and squeezing gently. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I want you to do that." She writhed under her bed covers, believing she could feel his hands on her body, doing their work.

"Can you feel my hands on you right now?" he asked, as though he were reading her mind. She nodded, not that he could see. "Moving my fingers slowly, in between your folds, wet with your juices," he said, narrating what he'd be doing if he were actually there with her.

Ren's body wasn't immune to the images he was describing. He'd loosened his own pants and was stroking himself rhythmically as he imagined himself slipping in and out of her, her labia slick and warm between his fingers. His thumb, gently massaging her clitoris as his index and middle fingers penetrated her body, over and over again. His hips rocked forward and backward as he imagined himself taking things further.

"It's time for me to fuck you," he said, giving in to the fantasies his mind was conjuring for him. "I'm squeezing your tits right now, getting your juices all over them," he said. "I want to lick your wetness off your body while I fuck you. I want to hold your arms down over your head and watch you writhe underneath me as I press into you, again and again, grinding, thrusting."

Makoto's fingers were getting a workout, moving rapidly over her clitoris while her other hand worked the dildo. She moaned louder, trying to imagine the weight of his body pinning her down as he thrust into her. Her clitoris was completely swollen, and she was mere moments from climax. Her middle and ring fingers moving back and forth, faster, and faster, against her electrified nerves.

"What are my words doing to you? Tell me what you're doing right now," he commanded softly.

Makoto breathed heavily into the cell phone pinched between her head and shoulder—finding her voice well enough to meet his demands would be a struggle. "I'm… I'm fuh… fucking myself…"

"How are you fucking yourself, Makoto Niijima? I want you to tell me…"

"I ha-have a… dildo and I'm…" Makoto paused to gasp, her fingers increasing their intensity against her clit.

Ren grunted, squeezing himself a little harder as he pulled on himself. "More," he urged. "Tell me more…"

"Ahh, it's inside me and I'm… rubbing my… Uhhn!" Makoto shut her mouth to stifle her own cry. She was so close.

Ren tipped his own head back against his pillow, squeezing his eyelids shut as he came apart. Hearing him gasp into the phone was all Makoto needed in order to tip her over the edge as well, and together, they heaved with breath. Spent from their respective orgasms, it was at least a full minute before either of them spoke again.

"Eighty more days," she whispered between breaths, once she'd regained the capacity for speech.

Ren couldn't help but laugh a little. He hoped it wouldn't really be that much longer, but he wasn't about to give away his plan yet. "It'll feel like longer," was all he could say. Regardless of how long it would actually take for him to get back to her, that it would feel like more than eighty days was certainly a truism.

There was so much she wanted to say to him in that moment, but she was simply too tired. So many words to convey all the reasons she needed him. But she didn't have the energy for all those words right now. She wasn't even sure she had the vocabulary. Not that any of it was really necessary to say—he knew it all already anyway.