Chapter 2. Theory of Happiness

They were outside Makima's office. After dismissing him from the discussion, the woman had told him that he could take the rest of the working day off from the afternoon patrols to thoroughly review the case files he was supposed to be dealing with. Aki was walking briskly towards the stairs that lead down to the floor of Division 4, where also his office was located. Angel followed him, staying a few steps behind him. He was quiet, unusually so, almost disheartened. Not that he was the talkative sort, on the contrary, he remained silent listening to others, pondering who knows what, especially in the presence of other people. However, when the two of them were alone, Angel always had a sarcastic comment ready just in case. After arriving at the flight of stairs, located next to the lift, he started to descend the steps more slowly to allow the angel to catch up.

"What do you think of this situation?" Aki decided to include him.

"I don't like it," Angel replied lapidary and in a hurry. He was hurrying down the stairs and had surpassed him, walking in front of Aki with his hands in the pockets. Angel's mood seemed drastically changed from the one he was in before arriving at the offices, he didn't seem to like that place at all.

"Neither do I... who do you think is behind it?"

Not that there were many possibilities - Aki thought - the culprit could either be a devil or a group of people; the extent of the phenomenon seemed too great to be the work of a single individual. He still knew too little about the situation to make any further plausible hypotheses, but the idea that it could be the work of humans creeped him out. Devils generally had no goals, they were pure instinct... but people? He couldn't make any sense of it in his mind.

"It's too early to have an opinion, you know that too, don't you? But, from what Makima said, I think it's too calculated to be the a devil's work.'

Aki glanced uneasily at the figure of the little angel who disappeared around the corner of the wall. He turned the corner too; they had reached the sixth floor, where the offices of the Devil Hunter sections under Makima's direct control were located.

"I think you're wrong," replied Aki shortly afterwards in an anxious tone, feeling almost personally attacked. He refused to think about that possibility. Angel barely turned his head so he could look at him out of the corner of his eyes, through the red forelock falling rebellious on his forehead.

'It's just my intuition, it may not necessarily be the case. If it upsets you that much, I hope for your sake I'm wrong" Angel waited for him so they could walk side by side again. Aki couldn't deny that over time Angel had mellowed, with him in particular. They had almost become some kind of confidant, perhaps due to the fact that they spent most of their days together, and often, over a cigarette, an ice cream or a steaming plate of udon, they would slip into more or less profound conversations.

"Kind of you..."

Angel raised an eyebrow at that comment.

"Unlike you, I don't care about being right. I'd just like to finish this job as soon as possible... it seems far too exhausting" he huffed after finishing his sentence. Aki saw him, somewhat dejected, lower his head and gaze. He looked particularly pensive, more than usual, and his body language suggested that he wanted to talk about something else as well, but was holding back.

He glanced back to the front, ready to try to get whatever was bothering him out of him - he felt sorry to see him so depressed - when, from afar, Aki spotted an ash-blond-haired male figure leaning against the wall, right next to the door they were headed towards. The scar on the other man's face, ripping half his face from the left side of his mouth to his ear, still shocked him despite the fact that he had known him for years and had seen that wound a disproportionate number of times.
"Hayakawa... Devil..."

"Commander Kishibe..." greeted Aki in return. Angel gave a quick nod, then placed himself slightly behind Aki, close enough to be able to hear but not be an active part of the conversation.

'Makima gave me this for you' said the veteran, opening one side of his long, dark grey coat and pulling out from it a yellow folder somewhat faded by usage. Aki took it and read the black pen inscription on a white sticker, that had been changed who knows how many times: 'Summary for Hayakawa'.

"Thank you."

"I brought your brats back here to headquarters after our training, now I think they're at the boss's office... she had extra work to give them as well," Kishibe informed him, closing his coat and bringing his hands into his pockets.

"How is it going with them?"

"They've improved, maybe in a few months they might even be able to beat me... with a lot of luck and only if they learn to use their brains for good."

"Yeah, sometimes they're a bit impulsive," Aki commented, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Just a bit? They've learned to synchronise their attacks and their techniques better, but Power eventually wants to prove she's the strongest and overdoes it, fainting from anaemia; while Denji is still too weak in hand-to-hand combat, he gets caught up in the excitement and ends up distracted. He is strong as Chainsaw, but he must learn to fight without it, in case one day the situation calls for it. You cover them up far too much..."

"You've taken them to heart too, I gather."

"It's age that makes your brain rot, Hayakawa, and you're on that same path, maybe even more prematurly than me... - the Commander Kishibe said looking at him and then shooting a fleeting glance at the devil behind him - I have other things I have to discuss with you as well, but in private, follow me."

Aki turned slightly towards Angel; he usually walked him at least as far as the basement floor where his cell was located.

Every time he left the angel there, he felt sorry for him. That place could freeze the blood in his veins from how repulsive it was with its putrid, rusty walls; exposed wires and pipes; dampness and dirty water leaks. Every time he had set foot in that place, he had felt chills down his spine. He felt guilty, it was an irrational feeling: he believed he was to blame, at least partly, for the angel's poor living conditions, even though he had no voice in the matter. So he took the trouble to pick him up and accompany him, also because otherwise Angel would have had no way of getting out of the cell. Aki was the only one who took care of him. The rules for Angel's circulation were very strict compared to those of the fiends, because of his power and the anxiety generated by the rumours about him and his power. It must not have been good to live locked within those four cold, bare walls... who knew how long he had been there. Aki could understand why other devils, like Curse or Future, were restrained there, they deserved it... but Angel? He had never shown any signs of hostility towards humans or Devil Hunters and he took an active part in Public Security operations.

He was sure that for his work he received no remuneration; he always asked Aki to pay for him. Angel hardly ever spoke and never reacted so visibly beaten down by his more than miserable living conditions. And Aki wasn't even entirely sure that the angel was aware of the concept of 'rights', however, Aki was certain that Angel perceived the gross injustice he suffered, especially since when he started spending so much time with him. Several times Aki had thought that this issue contributed to his resignation to death. After that job, he would try to convince Makima to do something about that; a starting point might have been to allow him to circulate around the building and its surroundings, as was already the case with the other fiends, like Power or Violence.

"No problem, I'll go alone," replied the impassive the angel, and immediately walked towards the end of the corridor.

After about fifteen minutes, in which Kishibe had led the way, they had arrived at a small, modest-looking restaurant located in the side street adjacent to the main square. Kishibe took a seat on one of the small tables outside and Aki followed suit by sitting in front of him.

"Do you have a cigarette?" Kishibe asked him as if he didn't know that Aki didn't leave the house without the pack and as if, every time they were together, he didn't ask that exact question. It was like the beginning of a ritual of which Aki never knew the outcome. He searched his trouser pocket, handed the man a cigarette and then brought another one to his mouth, igniting it. The middle-aged man did the same, but with his own lighter, inhaling the first puff of smoke.

"Are the gentlemen ready to order?" The waiter had immediately approached the table with his notebook in hand and a friendly smile.

Aki started to formulate his request but was interrupted by Kishibe who promptly, making the two sign with his fingers, replied, releasing some smoke: "Two whiskeys on the rocks."

Aki was ready to protest because it was only 5:12pm on a Tuesday afternoon and he was more the beer type, but he was not given the chance to do so; Kishibe silenced him with a wave of his hand and, in less than a few seconds, the waiter had disappeared inside the bar.

"Makima told me about the good results you are bringing," he began, banging the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. It was already halfway up.

"I'm just doing my job..." he retorted, and it was the truth. It was his job to bring home results.

"I meant with the Angel Devil: you tamed him. We couldn't get that one to cooperate even under torture" he pointed out, barely squaring him with his dark eyes.

"Angel... he's not evil, he just needs the right incentive" he explained, despite the fact that he didn't like those words and how the discussion was turning out. "In fact, compared to Denji and Power, he's even easier to handle... and you know them."

Generally speaking, he didn't like having to talk about all three of them in those terms because, although Aki had been entrusted with precisely that task and had been given carte blanche as to how to deal with them. He preferred to believe that he had managed to form a sincere relationship of trust and affection with all of them and that that was the sole reason for their collaboration. Not fear.

The waiter re-emerged through the bar doors and handed them the two round glasses and the bill. Aki grabbed one of the drinks and brought it under his nose, swishing the liquid around the glass and then inhaling the smell of alcohol. It was really too strong at that hour, although Aki was someone who got along quite well with alcohol on the right occasions. Kishibe threw away the finished cigarette, picked up his drink and brought it to his mouth, barely sipping it. Aki imitated him.
"Listen to me, this may sound like a scolding, but I'm talking to you like a father, not like Commander Kishibe. And it's advice that if I had gotten years ago, I would have been very grateful..."

He took another sip of whiskey... damn if that wasn't suspense to Aki's ears.

"A proverb says: Within the office and the flat, it's better not put your shaft" and he said it with an inflexible expression.

Aki's eyes widened as he heard those words; not wanting to spit out his drink fro the shock, he swallowed it whole in one gulp, making it go down his throat, feeling the maggot flow painfully down his oesophagus. His throat burned as he struggled to cough; his cheeks had turned purple.

"W-what the hell are you even talking about?" he protested choking with the little voice he had left.

"Hayakawa, let's not kid ourselves. A 20-year-old has who can screw with me successfully has yet to be born. Too many of you have passed under my supervision."

Aki looked at him stunned and dazed but, before he could argue any further, the man continued.

"I don't know why all of you go after these beings, not just you. Also the other girl with the Violence fiend and..." Aki noticed his superior's gaze get lost in the amber liquid just before he brought it back to his lips, wetting them.

"You're the one who's the craziest, though, because not only did you pick a devil yourself, but the Angel Devil... That one is going to kill you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, between me and Angel there's nothing like that" Aki replied back, this time his voice was a little higher pitched and barely steadied. He was baffled by the fact that he even had to specify such thing, to say the least.

"Are you sure about that? You even gave it a name and only use it yourself..."

"We are buddies, I can't keep calling him Angel Devil forever. It's not efficient."

He brought the glass to his mouth again, the ice clinked on the glass. The whisky was finished and he didn't even realise it, but at that moment he wished he had more in the glass to chug it down. Not only did he feel unfairly attacked for something that wasn't even true, but he also had to justify himself... to his superior, moreover. He brought the cigarette to his mouth and, in one big breath, he finished it, filling his lungs with smoke, and he put it out with a decisive gesture in the ashtray. Bullshit, that was just bullshit and he knew it, because if there was one thing that came to his mind when he thought of the person he liked, it was very red hair tied up in a precious, delicate braid and... red round eyes?

See, already the alcohol and that surreal conversation had risen to his head. Besides, he hated devils. Angel was a devil: no matter that he tolerated him much more than all other devils, and no matter they had become friends: the line between hate and love was clear and well defined. It was impossible to cross it. He puffed out all the smoke.

"All right, whatever you say. Think about what I said, though" Kishibe tried to placate him before Aki completely flipped out.

"Anyway, advice isn't free... you pay the bill, right?"

Yeah, because if there was anyone else Aki always paid the bill to, besides Angel, it was Commander Kishibe.

Sitting at the kotatsu on which beer cans were resting and with Nyako holed up on his lap, Aki was leafing through the dossiers that had been handed to him a few hours earlier. In front of him, squabbling in a savage fight for possession of the remote control, there were Denji and Power.

Immediately after the surreal conversation with Commander Kishibe, he had returned to Public Security to pick them up and go home together. He was exhausted after all that had happened, and the off-hours booze had been a good contribution. He knew the other two always arrived exhausted after training, so on the way home they had gone to the konbini to get some pre-cooked meals to eat quickly. That evening, he didn't really have the will or the energy to get behind the burners, let alone he was brave enough entrust the cooking to those two. If he had been momentarily distracted, even for just a second, with them in the kitchen, he was sure they would have had to run away from a fire; and he really didn't want to deal fires and runaways. He still had to study the case and felt his energies leave him. He yawned audibly, covering his mouth with his hand. It was just a matter of time before he was going to go to fall asleep either willingly or by passing out on that table. So it was better to get to work and focus than to wake up the next day with a stiff neck.

He jumped straight to the pages with the police analysis and, sipping his beer, read them quickly but carefully.

Thirty cases were reported and each involved a couple, bringing the total number of victims to a total of sixty. Of these cases, sixteen were fights, eight were double suicides and the remaining six were murders followed by suicides, like the one he had read about on the newspaper that morning. Apparently, from what had been reported by their relatives and neighbours, they were all facing more or less serious problems in their relationship at the time of the murders, but no significant or worrying history had been reported. The first dated case, which had similar characteristics to all the others, happened four months prior, and the frequency seemed to have increased exponentially for each month. The time elapsed between the discovery of the bodies of the case number one, 'car brawl', and the case number two, 'pen murder', was about one month. As time went by, however, the finds became more and more frequent. There was no precise analytics regarding when most of the murders took place during the month, since many corpses were still being found while most of the already retrieved had yet to be examined by autopsy, and, in any case, the numbers were still too small to be statistically , analysts estimated that within the next few weeks the number of new cases could have risen to thirty-two, following the theory of the exponential trend of two, which seemed quite well-founded, for a total of sixty-four additional victims, which, added to the previous ones, brought the total to one hundred and twenty-four deaths.

Aki got a knot in his stomach just thinking about those numbers. It was terrible, he felt nauseous thinking about all those deaths. Although he had all the histories of the previous thirty cases, he decided that he would have not read a single one of them unless it was absolutely necessary. Tiredness and stress were beginning to take their toll more and more on his body and he absolutely needed to rest. His brain was processing far too much information; first of all, Makima had put him in charge of solving that case. She put on his conscience no less than - he checked the number again - 64 people. Was she kidding or what?! What a hell of a day he'd had!

He slammed his forehead on the table for the exhaustion, attracting the attention of the other two housemates, who had been silent for a while. Nyako also jumped off his legs in fright. At the end, Aki couldn't tell who had won the battle for the remote control; he was too focused on his reading, but if he had to bet on either of them, he would have done it on Power.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Denji. Aki turned his head so he could look at him as he spoke to him; the blond guy had a slightly worried expression on his face.

"I'm in deep shit with work..."

"When were you not!" exclaimed Power as she stood up and pointed her index at him, amused. "Topknot, you need to chill, to live it down, it's just useless work. Otherwise you'll succumb from the stress before the two years. Am I right, Nyako?" she asked the kitten, taking the pet in her arms and bringing it to her face. Nyako answered her with a placid 'Meoow'.

"That's right! Meow meow... meow - she made funny lovingly faces at the cat - Did you see that? She agrees with me too!"

"It's not useless, idiot. And you could be a little more subtle," Aki replied offended.

"Power's right though, every day you're tense about something different. You sound like a fucking coiled spring. And do you know what happens when you keep pulling the string? Zac!" said Denji tilting his neck and sticking his tongue out as he gestured his thumbnail sliding over his throat. Power beside him incited him by repeating the same sound Denji made.

"You should be more like us... Miss Makima duplicated our work, yet you see us agitated? No!" Denji smiled smugly, closing his eyes and looking like he was convinced he was right.

Shit, if they didn't fucking stop messing around wanting to infuse him with their dumbass Zen-like calm... it was making him even more nervous.
No, that he wouldn't 'zac' because of the job; he would certainly 'zac' because of guilt if he couldn't solve that hellish case.

He took a deep breath and mentally counted to three, calming himself down a little: "What did Miss Makima give you?"

"The same thing she's giving everyone: crimes. Even Kobeni and Violence got the same stuff... Then Miss Makima said that if you need us for anything, your request takes priority over the other tasks we have. But did she give you something else?"

"Same as yours... and then she wants me to find whoever is the culprit of this massacre."

"What the fuck, she gave a cooler job to you" whined Denji.

"Ahh ha! A tough nut to crack. This is one clever devil, I tell you," Power taunted him.

"How do you know he's a devil?" he asked her immediately. A small glimmer of hope lit up inside him.

"I can feel it... Call it the smart-fiend-instinct."

"Angel says it's too well organised to be the work of one of you devils."
Aki saw Denji and Power exchange a lightning-fast look of understanding between them as soon as they had heard that name. He decided to not read into it.

"And reading the report I think he's right... what the hell, I'll never find him if they're planning to have a specific number of people killed every month... they're a math-obsessed psychopath. But then how do they do it?"

"Aki... you'd better go to sleep and think about it tomorrow with a fresh mind and breakfast in your belly, it's midnight and you're still a little tipsy" Denji picked him up from under his armpits and lifted him up, pushing him towards his room. Aki was resisting but couldn't longer when Power joined Denji. They threw him inside his room, causing him to lose his balance slightly, and they closed the sliding door behind him.

"Good night, big head," Denji told him from the other side.

"And sweet dreams, idiot, make sure you shut that brain off" Power added.

They were so stupid to care so much about him, Aki thought. He smiled slightly, with sincere affection, at those words and wished them a good night.

Author's notes: "Within the office and the flat, it's better not put your shaft" is probably the hardest sentence to translate in the whole fic because in italian it rhymes and it's so freaking funny, I hope I was able to recreate that in English. I also hope you liked this chapter, please let me know what you think about this! See you tomorrow with chapter 3: 'Before the storm'.