August 3rd, 20XX, Cujoh Apartment, Ueno, Tokyo, 9:30AM

It was a long, long sleepless night for Angela Ziegler. While Jonathan had managed to get to bed without any issues - even with a date that she knew would potentially be a make or break moment for him in his life - her test results simply wouldn't get out of her mind no matter what. The DNA sample recovered from Hana Song's corpse only gave her a roughly 90% match to the blood stain on her old jacket from that night eight years ago. That couldn't be right…it needs to be greater than 99%, and anything lower than 95% means that it's unlikely to be from the same person…but the police report was certain it was her…her thoughts bounced around her head, and a lack of coffee in her bloodstream certainly wasn't helping her either. The fact that all of this came from a simple hunch of McCree's concerned her. Did he know more than he was leading on, or was this actually a hunch? Hanzo hated to admit it but McCree had a knack for being right when it came to his hunches, for better or worse. Angela had to text McCree about the results, and quickly did so on her phone with one simple text. "90% match." If she was alive…

"No, I can't let that happen. I won't" she said, steeling herself while looking into a mirror in the kitchen, her baggy eyelids and messy blonde locks reflecting a person who thought the rough part of her life was all in the past.
But Angela knew that the past had a nasty way of catching up on you. What happened in Busan eight years ago taught her that.
"You won't do what?" a groggy voice, Jonathans called out from behind her, catching her off guard. He walked over to the cupboard beside her, peeked inside and closed it again instantly, realising that he intentionally didn't buy any coffee yesterday.
"W-Won't let you mess up your date tonight!" she said with a confident, but clearly fake, tone. "What are you planning on wearing out?" she asked with as much pomp and curiosity that she could muster, trying her best to sweep Jonathan's previous question under the rug.
"Well, not a suit that's for sure" he said, grabbing a carton of Suntory Apple Juice out from his fridge. If there was no coffee, this was his next best thing, a sweet, sugary and fruity kick start to the day.
"Obviously not…heh, sometimes I'm not sure why I even bother, you're just going to wear whatever you want I guess" she said in an easily defeated tone of voice. It was true, he was going to just wear something smart casual, as he always did unless he was doing work for an official government body, or something along those lines. Suits bothered him, he felt like he was too stuck up and formal with a tie and undercoat, plus they were expensive to buy and maintain, so Jonathan only kept two and made sure to only wear them if he absolutely needed them.
"Exactly! A black turtleneck and a nice pair of Jeans could never go wrong" he said with a small smile, finishing off his apple juice with a wipe of his mouth, dunking the carton into the recycle bin. Angela simply smirked and sauntered off into the bedroom to get ready for another day of testing, nervously awaiting McCree's next text. She didn't know what to expect now. She wanted to hope that somehow, somewhere, her math and methodology were wrong, but Angela was too good. She was the best in her field. A mistake like that would hurt her pride too much, her meticulous nature and determination to prove herself to everyone that she was the best couldn't allow her to be anything less than 100% accurate.
Jonathan meanwhile had some online translation work he needed to do before he even thought about getting ready for his date with Kiriko later. He decided against skipping breakfast as he had yesterday, feeling like he should probably have as much energy as possible for the long day ahead. He went to his cupboard and pulled out a few eggs and some spring onions, alongside bacon lardons. He tossed the bacon into a warm pan slicked up with oil and fried it up until a nice golden brown was coming from the fatty part. He then tossed in his stirred up eggs and onions, seasoned of course with salt and pepper, and fried them until the eggs had barely stopped being runny to make a quick and tasty omelette, which he cut into two large pieces for both himself and Angela.

"Oh, you didn't have to!" she said with delight. "This totally makes up for the lack of coffee!" she said, tucking into her food. "I bet Kiriko would love to have a man who could cook around" Angela flirtatiously said with a wink, forcing a groan out of Jonathan.
"She's more than capable by herself, after all she's a killer baker, I'm almost certain she'd be great at traditional cooking too" he said, putting his own half of the omelette onto a plate.
"If you say so!" Anyways, thanks for the hospitality but I'd better be going to the lab, more meetings, more tests, the life of a scientist is a hectic one!" Quickly after scoffing down her omelette and putting her plate in the sink (leaving Jonathan to once again wash her mess after her), Angela scurried off from the apartment building towards the Yamanote Line at Ueno Station, where she'd catch a train to Shinjuku where the labs were.
"That woman…she's somethin' else entirely" Jonathan mumbled as he began washing his and Angela's dishes. After he put the plates and cutlery away, he booted up his computer and filed through his emails, as he did every day, to find the document he needed to translate for his client. The document in question was a missing persons report that was requested by an anonymous client, who only gave the initials "C.C" as their contact name alongside what was clearly not a primary email address. Jonathan thought it was fishy but he didn't care too much. After all, to Jonathan, a job's a job and money's money. A quick job like this would be able to cover the cost of his date comfortably, unless Kiriko ordered everything on the menu, but he figured that despite her high energy, she wouldn't be THAT hungry. At least, he hoped she wouldn't be.

After sitting down at his desk, he began his meticulous process of translating the document. There's a lot of missing info he thought, looking over the key details. The name, nationality and physical description were all mostly missing. All he could tell about the person in the report was that they were a woman in their 20's. The rest of the report was simply a description of their last known whereabouts which seemed to be somewhere in Hakone in the Kanagawa prefecture. Nothing else. Jonathan finished a quite accurate translation of the document within five minutes and sent it to the client via email. Within minutes, he got a notification from his Revolut banking app with a deposit of 40,000 yen, with the sender only saying "thanks, C.C"

"C.C…"Jonathan mumbled to himself. The letters meant nothing in particular to him, but still, it was strange nonetheless, like this person was trying to hide something from the law, but he was pretty bad at covering his tracks. He thought that maybe Yamagami might know something about it, but decided against telling her anything for now, after all he had the more pressing matter of Yamagami's daughter to deal with this evening. Still though, he had plenty of time to get himself ready for it, the day was still young after all.

Shimada Institute, Biological Department, Shinjuku, 11:45AM

Every ringing tone of the outgoing phone call felt like it took longer and longer to send for both Hanzo Shimada and Angela Ziegler. After another round of tests this morning, the DNA samples were starting to show less and less matches with the genuine sample and they were beginning to get worried. Angela, on her third coffee of the day, couldn't believe it. Every re-calculation was more and more precise, yet they were getting further and further away from a close match within Angela's acceptable range of greater than 95%, taking into effect decomposition and the like.

"Howdy y'all" a familiar voice from Angela's youth croaked up over the phone, the voice of her senior year homeroom teacher, Jesse McCree, though now he was the head of the United Nations Anti-Talon taskforce, cleaning up any remnants of the shadowy terrorist organisation that still existed. He led a very small skeleton crew consisting of himself, Fareeha Amari, Angela, Hanzo and Genji Shimada. Hana Song was a loose thread of his he thought was tied up by Satya Vaswani and her assistant, Brigitte Lindholm, who were treating and assisting Hana's trauma brought on by Talon, as well as her Multiple Personality Disorder.

"I don't think this is the time for cowboy nonsense" Hanzo said plainly, grimly looking at the intercom receiver. "The data…it's not looking good" he grimaced.
"Whaddya mean not looking good?" said McCree with concern echoing throughout his voice.
"The DNA samples don't match. Simple as. I've run the tests dozens of times and the matching result gets lower and lower each time" Angela said matter of factly.
"Good grief…so Song's-"
"-still alive" Angela and Hanzo said in unison. An uncomfortable silence filled the room, the stagnant air eventually broken up by McCree.
"What about Bigshot, Jonathan?" McCree asked.
"He's still suffering on the inside, but outwardly he seems to be fine, though those scars on his chest will never go away, not that that really needs mentioning" reported Angela, going over the case files. "He actually has a date tonight, funnily enough"
"Hmph, lucky him I guess" McCree said with a tinge of irony attached to his voice.
"In any case, we'd better inform him as soon as poss-"
"NO!" Screamed Angela, suddenly losing her composure, visibly shaking Hanzo. It was unlike any scream she'd ever made before.
"Sorry…I, I just can't bear seeing him fall after recovering so well after the last few years. That break-up was bad enough but this would make him a complete wreck. We can't do that to him…" she said, sadness beginning to swell through her voice.
Despite a very audible and resigned sigh echoing from the speaker, McCree could only utter out "Yeah, yer right Ziegler".
"Look," Hanzo began "we can't eliminate the possibility that Song really did die until the number goes lower than 50%, but anyways I'm going to be keeping an eye on Jonathan, along with Dr. Ziegler, for the time being. We can't risk him, not after all he went though, we made his mother a promise…how is she by the way, Jesse?"
"...still not great, her health is still pretty bad, but not worsening thankfully"
"Okay, well update us if anything changes. We're going to go back to analysing this data. We'll update you soon."
"Okay, see y'all soon" McCree signed off as the phone's speaker shut off, signalling the end of the call. Angela sat down looking utterly tired, and in many ways, hopeless.

It was going to be another long, LONG day, especially when Jonathan got back from his date.

Akihabara Station, Electric Town Exit, 6:55PM

"Man, these benches fuckin' suck…" Jonathan said to himself, sitting on a "standing bench" which was barely any more comfortable than just standing up with no support. These were a common sight throughout the city in many of its districts, Akihabara and Shibuya especially. It provided the government a way to offer public seating without having to worry about any potential issues that could arrive with homeless people bumming there for the evening. It was an unfortunate reality, but a reality nonetheless, thought Jonathan, nervously checking his phone every minute or so. He was always exceptionally early to any event, but that only made his anxieties worse when it came to waiting on a date to arrive, especially since Aki was always exceptionally late for dates, sometimes he thought she did it on purpose. He decided to close his eyes and put his Airpods back in to try and ease his mind with some random music. He hit the shuffle button on Spotify and the song "City Ruins" from Nier Automata began playing. The comforting, repetitive piano and soothing violins were a good stroke of luck he thought, his heartbeat slowing down. The vocals soon kicked in, their serenity and power giving him a small confidence boost as he turned his head up, and opened his eyes, looking over at the Tamashii Nations store on his left, before turning his attention back towards the station entrance, where out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her.

It was like something out of a movie, the way the light from the station brought her into focus and shone behind her, a light breeze forcing her to throw a bang of her hair behind her ear as she began searching for Jonathan. He thought, briefly, about going towards her to show confidence, but not even the music of Keiichi Okabe could give him THAT much confidence. He was completely gobsmacked, his mouth opened in a small "wow" shape as her eyes found their way to his, upon which she quickly made her way over to him.

"Hey there, Jonathan Cujoh!" she said with a smile, bowing politely to him. "Looks like we're twinning tonight, what're the chances of that huh?" she said, scratching the back of her head as Jonathan's focus snapped back to reality and he glanced up and down at Kiriko's outfit. Other than her Nike high top shoes, she was basically a match for him with a black turtleneck and navy jeans on, though she also complimented it with a small golden chain necklace and small earrings both in the shape of a fox.

"Yeah, that's kinda weird, and funny I guess" he laughed awkwardly. "Did it take you long to get here? he said, standing up beside her.
"Dude I got the train, I know you're a foreigner and all but like, come on" she said playfully. "I'm kidding I'm kidding, I don't live too far actually, I live in Ueno so it's only-"
"-two stops over" they say in unison, causing them both to laugh at each other. "Okay, maybe you know a thing or two"
"Well, I also actually live in Ueno, near Inaricho station" he said.
"Damn, if I had known that then we could've gone to the Yokohama Ramen store in Ueno!"she says in a slightly disappointed tone. "But I guess we're here now, we may aswell enjoy the sights and sounds of Akihabara while we're here right?" she said, motioning towards the main street.
"Yeah, let's go get some ramen, I'm starving!" Jonathan said, rubbing his belly like a kid, Kiriko giggling at his childish mannerisms. "You're something else, Jonathan Cujoh" Kiriko kindly said in a joking manner as the two began to make their way towards the restaurant, crossing the busy street and walking along for a few moments.
"You think so?" Jonathan said as he approached one of the two empty ticket ordering machines. These were a godsend to him in his early days in Japan since it limited the amount of time he would have to spend awkwardly interacting with staff to order food. He inputted his order of M-Sized Shio Ramen, Melon Soda and 4 pieces of Karaage and went inside, with Kiriko following him only a few seconds later.
"What did you order?" he asked her and they sat across from one another at one of the smaller booths in the crowded restaurant.
"Oh just an L-Size Shio Ramen, Cola and 8 Pieces of Gyoza" she said, putting her purse, fox themed of course, to one side of the desk.
"Sheesh, I think I may have met my maker here. You really went all out huh?" he said to her, embarrassed at how much larger her order was compared to his.
"Don't worry dude, you can have a gyoza…two if you're nice!" she said flirtatiously.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" he said with intrigue imbued in his voice.
"Hmmm…" she began to ponder, dramatically holding her chin like a detective in a sci-fi thriller movie would, squinting her eyes even more so to be even cheesier, before going back to a more neutral pose and looking right at Jonathan with a sincere, warm smile.
"It means if I like you, which shouldn't be too hard for you, mister," she said, sticking her tongue out in a playful manner. Taken slightly aback by this, Jonathan was thankfully reprieved by the waiter bringing out their drinks, both in large glasses accompanied by large red straws.
"So you've got a sweet tooth too" he said, noticing her large cola.
"Dude, I bake doughnuts for a living, I kinda have to"
"Oh yeah, true, haha" he laughed nervously, taking a sip of his Melon soda, the sweetness of which flowed along his tongue filling each and every taste bud with a refreshing crisp pleasure that only a carbonated soft drink could supply.
"That being said though, I didn't as a child. My mom was quite strict on what I ate growing up to keep my fitness up in school. I was actually on the softball team, and was one hell of a batter" she said with pride.
"Could you give Shuhei Ohtani a run for his money?" he teasingly asked.
"Haha, I wish! But I stopped once I left high school and began working in cafés. I used to work for a chain, Tully's coffee, but then I saw that Kitsune were hiring, and I LOVE foxes so I couldn't pass up that opportunity!" she said with a beaming smile as their food arrived. The waiter, though, handed the wrong bowls to each of them, causing a bit of confusion and the waiter to look at Jonathan with a puzzled and bewildered look, as if to say "really man? She's eating more than you?" Jonathan rolled his eyes as the waiter walked away, turning back to look at his bowl of noodles, pork and seaweed, the thick salty smell from the broth filling his nostrils up, his mouth salivating.
"I can't hold on a minute longer, let's dig in! Itadakimasu!" he said, tucking into his food, Kiriko giggling at his eagerness. She did the same and began nibbling away at her food, piece by piece, alternating between the gyoza and ramen. Jonathan ate a few bites of the noodles before having a couple of pieces of karaage, then turning his attention back to the noodles, slurping them down with vigor with each and every mouthful he had.

"So why'd you come to Japan?" Kiriko asked out of the blue. It was a natural question, after all he was a foreigner who had a full visa after only eight years. However, the answer to her question was a very long - and painful - one.
"Long story, but the short version is I needed to get away from home. I went to university here and studied translation, and now I'm a freelancer. I tried getting a permanent job with Taito but they didn't think much of me" he said, a hint of resent tinging his voice.
"Taito, the Space Invaders people?" Kiriko asked with curiosity.
"Yeah. I would get paid less per translation but I'd have a stable salary. With freelancing everything's crazy. You can set your own rates but you can't rely on a corporation for things like client guarantees and things like that"
"Kind of like running an independent café…" she said, mixing her noodles in her bowl slowly.
"Is it hard?" he asked.
"Yeah, I do it basically all by myself, the owner is only there once a week to collect taxes and stuff. We barely get any customers, even though we're the only place that does live music, even though it's just my friend who plays for us. You should come by, she's pretty good actually!"
"If you think she's good then she must be, after all those doughnuts were good by your admission and you weren't wrong there."
"Well duh! I'm the best there is in the whole of Kanto, not just Tokyo!" she said confidently, but also assertively, as if to deny anyone else were even in her league.
"Okay Okay I believe you Kiriko, haha"
"It's hard to keep that standard high though when I'm dealing with the store all by myself, not to mention all the stuff that's happened in the last ten years. But you don't need to worry about that, let's finish our food!"
"Well…if you wanna talk about it, just let me know, and I'll be there to listen" he said with a sincerity he hadn't felt in his voice in eight very long years.
"Heh…if you say so…by the way…"
"Hmm?" he looked down
"You're a pretty nice guy" she said, putting a piece of gyoza on his plate, causing him to chuckle.
"What can I say? When there's a nice girl in front of me, it always pays off to be nice!" Jonathan tried acting as cool as he could saying that.
"Oh so you're just being nice to me because I'm a girl?" she said with a fake insulted tone.
"Oh come on Kiriko"
"I know, I'm just playing around" she winked at him again. She really did like winking at him. The two continued to pass the time eating, ordering a few beers and getting to know a little more about each other, and before they knew it, two whole hours had passed.

*hic*"Sheeeesh, I probably drank a bit too much, heeeeheeee" Kiriko blubbered out, as they got on the train to Ueno. "Yeah, *sic* maybe juuuust a little, haha" Jonathan said, less drunk but still over the edge a tad bit. "My cheeks feel funny, do they feel funny Jonaffann?" she grabbed his hand and placed it rather roughly onto her cheek. Despite being intoxicated, Jonathan could feel the warmth and softness clearly, like it was radiating calmness to him.
"Wow…so soft…" he said aloud, not realising.
"Duuuudee that's cringe!" she said laughingly. "I didn't take you for a perrrv! *hic*"
"Nono you'reeeeeee mistaken Kiriko! h-honest!" He quickly pulled his hand away, before she grabbed it again, but this time keeping it held in her own.
"You know…you're kinnnnda cute. The way you put your hand on my cheek l-like thaaaat…I kinda liked it, dude" she said, staring into his eyes, her words reminding him of something the girl who tore his world upside down once said to him when they were drunk and locked in a bedroom closet together. He briefly tried moving his hand but Kiriko's grip was too strong for him at that moment.
"Heeheee…sorry, that was kind of silly of me to say…speaking of which, you workin' tomorrow misterrr translatorrrr?" she asked as the train pulled into Ueno station, the two walking off together.
"Ehm, well, no, actually" he said, his anxiety starting to make the alcohol slowly wear off.
"Well then….

….you wanna, uhmmmm, come back to mine?"

(Hey everyone, hope this wait wasn't bad. A lot quicker of a turnover from me though this time! Thanks again for reading. I liked how this chapter turned out a LOT actually! Please keep the reviews, favourites and follows coming. Thanks a million and see you next time!)