— Chapter 6: Tuesday, January 6th, Midday —

Jiro took a hearty swing, met by so little resistance that he nearly hit himself with the bat before he could slow it back down. The ball then crashed into the back of the batting cage, adding to the growing pile of pitches he'd missed. The boys—Jiro, John, Takeshi, and Daisuke—were at the Miya Batting Stadium, a closed-roof batting arena just outside of town, slugging away their midday boredom. There were five batting cages at Miya, and the emptiness of the fifth cage did not go unnoticed by the four who were present—and Jiro was having a rough go of things so far.

"Say again why Ren no here?" asked John, eyes narrowed at the empty fifth cage.

"Ren no here 'cause Ren have blue balls," replied Jiro. "Ren need much study, for to finish school quick. Bang girlfriend long time."

"Just 'cause you baseball bad, no mean you need make fun my bad Japanese," said John, emphasizing his point with a loud crack as he hit one into the back of the arena. "Baseball American pastime. You no should feel bad I kick you ass."

Takeshi had opinions of his own. "Baseball is sort of a Japanese pastime too, John. He shouldn't suck as bad as he does…"

"Hey, shut up," said Jiro spiritlessly. He felt obligated to stick up for his baseball playing in spite of not giving any kind of a shit about it.

"Isn't bo staff just a longer, skinnier bat? Are you this terrible swinging one of those, too?" said Daisuke, laughing. Much like the knives he preferred to wield, this remark cut deep.

"That's low…" sneered Jiro, taking offense. "That's a totally different grip—much more about finesse. Besides, baseball's only redeeming qualities were captured best by EA Sports—I challenge all you all to come back to my place for some MLB Slugfest 2003 sometime. I'll kick your fucking asses."

"Slugfest was Midway, not EA Sports, Jiro. Jesus, I would expect you to know that," said Takeshi, who was a bit of a gamer himself, though less of a connoisseur than Jiro.

Jiro grimaced in acknowledgement of his shame. "Yeah, as soon as I said it, I knew I'd fucked up—didn't expect you to notice though."

"Anyway, I have absolutely zero interest in your second-rate, vintage baseball knockoff," said Takeshi. "PlayStation four or newer—none of this PS1 bullshit. How do you even have one of those? Didn't that come out before you were born?"

"It helps to have older siblings," said Jiro. "You get all the best hand-me-downs."

"Fits that you'd be the baby of the family," said Daisuke, hitting one out of the park—or at least into the back of the batting arena. "You've got 'spoiled mama's boy' written all over you."

"I'm the apple of my father's eye, thank you very much. And being the youngest rules—you get to learn from all your siblings' fuck-ups, and you have no chores."

"Right, that's what I said—you're a baby."

Jiro sighed, taking another swing and a miss. "Whatever. Anyway, John, not that this digression hasn't been fun, but 'Ren no here' because he's decided to blaze through the last of his coursework as rapidly as humanly possible so he can jet back to Tokyo and be with his woman. He can't bear another day in this shitberg of a town, apparently."

Takeshi risked looking away from the automatic pitcher long enough to spare Jiro a side-eye. "You sound a little butt-hurt by this, Jiro. Does it bother you that Ren wants to leave?"

"No, don't be stupid," said Jiro, clearly annoyed. "His going back to Tokyo was inevitable anyway—what does it matter that he leaves in one month instead of two? What difference does another few weeks make?"

"Difference is, he want be with Makoto and no you," said John.

"Well, duh, obviously." Jiro took another hard swing that netted him absolutely nothing to add to the scoreboard. Frustrated, he threw his bat down on the ground and ripped his helmet from his head, adding it to the litter of equipment peppering the area around him. "Okay, you guys can have these cages to yourselves for a bit. My ego has taken enough damage for one afternoon. See you all later."

"Aw, Jiro, come on, man, don't be like that," called Daisuke, letting a pitch fly right past him as he took a step away to try to cajole Jiro into sticking around. "John's just ribbing you. We can all tell how much Ren loves you—I'm sure he's as upset about leaving you behind as you are at seeing him go."

"Whatever, I'm not mad about that, I'm just sick of fucking baseball. It's a stupid game with stupid rules, only watchable when you're completely drunk off your ass. As American imports go, I'd say it's about as good as Michelob Ultra."

"Are we still gonna spar later?" asked Takeshi, lowering his bat and putting both hands on the chain link fencing separating his stall from Jiro's.

"I don't know, I'll have to see how I feel. Wooden sticks aren't my friends right now. I'll text you later if I still feel like it. Bye guys," said Jiro, turning on his heel. Morosely, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and exited the batting cage arena.

His three friends stopped what they were doing long enough to watch him leave. Once he was gone, the men exchanged a few glances. John shook his head. "Dumb fuck. These bats aluminum," he said, and they all went right back to their batting practice.

— — — Tuesday, January 6th, Afternoon — — —

As soon as she'd been able, Emiko had excitedly texted Ren and Makoto to let them know she would be working under their friend Tae Takemi at the university hospital. They had both replied with excitement and surprise, but though Emiko had been desperate for more information about her new mentor, neither of them had had the time available to talk with her about it. She was incredibly anxious to know what she was getting into, but the reality was that the first day—the first weeks, really—were primarily about observing and understanding her mentor. Sure, most of it was how Doctor Takemi approached and prepared for her appointments, and how she communicated with patients, but understanding who the woman was would also be a part of that.

Still, though, who wouldn't be eager to learn anything they could about someone who would be so important in their life?

Ren and Makoto had promised to get in touch with her to gossip as soon as they could, but, really, even just the first day had told her a lot about her mentor. Doctor Takemi was astute and thorough, and, in spite of seeming almost too laid back to care, she had a surprisingly good bedside manner. She was particularly good with kids. Emiko had watched her greet patients and ask them questions, and she was already getting a sense of what questions were routine, and what kinds of follow-up questions to ask, and when. Emiko had been keeping notes and jotting her questions in a small journal all day, so she wouldn't forget what she still wanted to talk about once the day finally ended.

The day had been a whirlwind, and Emiko found herself surprised at how busy they were and how quickly the time had passed. She hadn't realized how hungry and tired she was until she finally took a seat in Doctor Takemi's office at the end of the day, dropping herself into the sofa like a wad of warm dough.

"Hungry, Tanaka-chan? I think the last couple patients could hear your stomach growling."

Emiko squeaked with embarrassment, bringing her hand up to her mouth. "Are you serious?" she asked, instantly stiffening on the doctor's cozy office sofa, sitting up rigidly. "I didn't even notice—was it really growling that badly?"

"I should have warned you—it's really easy to forget that you have your own physiological needs when you do this job," said Tae, as she rooted around in her mini-fridge for something to offer the aspiring doctor. "You'll need to be intentional about eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom periodically, so you're not caught by surprise by your own needs. When you're on shift, you seldom get your breaks unless you force yourself to take them." Tae approached Emiko and offered her a cold Coke, a couple of German meat sticks, and a packet of string cheese, before taking a seat in the sofa opposite the one Emiko had planted herself in. "Tomorrow, be sure to bring snacks you can carry in your pockets and nibble on throughout the day—think lots of protein, nothing messy. Trail mix is my go-to food. I'll give you some tomorrow if you don't have anything handy to bring from home," she added, putting her feet up on the coffee table and unbuttoning her white lab coat.

"These are the things they don't teach you in class," said Emiko, gratefully tearing into the emergency rations Tae had gifted her.

"No, they don't, but that's what your internship is for," said Tae, smiling. "Hopefully that will tide you over until you can get home."

"This is wonderful, thank you," said Emiko, gingerly peeling a strip from the string cheese. Even in her hunger, she wasn't one to take bites off the end. "Sooo…" she said, preparing to change the subject, but with some hesitation. She was contemplating exactly what question she wanted to ask. She opened her journal and scanned her notes from the day.

"You've got questions, I take it?" asked Tae.

"Yeah," said Emiko. However, none of the things she'd written down in her notes were really holding any interest for her at that exact moment. She closed her notebook. "Tell me about you," she said at last.

"About me?" said Tae, betraying only a hint of surprise at the question. Tae's mind hunted around for a suitable topic as she made herself more comfortable on the sofa, switching up how her legs were crossed on the table. She popped the top on a Coke of her own. "I guess Ren and his buddies must have told you something to get you wondering… So… What do you want to know?" she asked.

Emiko let her curiosity about this unusual doctor run unchecked. Of all the questions she had roiling around in her head, she picked an obvious one to start with: "Why did you choose to be a doctor?"

"Huh," said Tae, giving Emiko a half side-eye. "Starting simple, huh?"

"Sorry," said Emiko, hoping she hadn't messed up. "It's kind of a dumb question… I guess I just wanted to know if being a doctor was your plan all along, or if it was something you stumbled into later… Being a doctor wasn't my original career plan," she added, by way of explaining the genesis of her question.

"I see," said Tae. "You were on your way to being a medical examiner, right?"

"Right," said Emiko. "I liked the investigation part of forensic science, but once I got a taste of patching up injured people, the rush I got from that sort of took over, and I decided to change paths."

Tae nodded knowingly. "It's satisfying to fix what's ailing someone, I know. Dead people can't be brought back, can they," she added, somewhat morosely. "There's nothing you can do for them once they're gone."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Emiko. "Dead people can't speak for themselves. You might not be able to bring them back, but you can help them tell their story. That's something you can still try to do for them."

Tae cocked her head, a faraway look in her eyes. "Hmm," she hummed, thoughtfully. There was a long pause while Tae continued to stare.

Emiko realized that Tae had never actually answered her question, and instead Emiko had ended up talking more about herself, further widening the gap between how much she knew about the doctor and how much the doctor knew about her. Much to her own surprise, she had even ended up defending her old career choice.

"Drugs."

The words came at Emiko as a non sequitur. "Huh?" she said, confused.

"I got into medicine because I was interested in drugs," said Tae. Emiko had no idea what the best way was to respond to that, but the expression she wore did her work for her.

Tae realized she needed to clarify. "Not because I did drugs, mind you. Don't let the dog collar fool you—I may have a bit of a punk rock streak, but I've never done hard drugs. I was talking about actual, medical drugs. You see, I was a very sick child. It was medicine that kept me alive, so… that's why. It was a doctor who made the medicine that saved my life, and, well… I wanted to be the person who saved people the way I was saved."

"I see," said Emiko, trying to understand . "So, is family practice your area, or…?"

Tae bobbed her head back and forth, equivocating. "I mainly work on research and development of new and better drugs," she said. "I have a small private practice in Yongen-Jaya, but I kept my ties to the university hospital because their resources are so much better for doing the kind of drug research that really interests me. I can get so much more done here than I could when I was working alone. And I have a lot of freedom in how I get to contribute—like taking on random med students," she added, with a wink and a devilish grin.

Emiko shook her head disbelievingly. "They really give you that much latitude? You just get to… do what you want?"

"Well, not exactly," said Tae. "There are other factors at work here. They're willing to let me keep my private practice and let me take on the jobs that I want because, as long as I do my research here, they get to share credit for any drugs I develop. That, and they owe me."

Emiko was intrigued. "They 'owe' you?"

Tae took her feet off the coffee table and sat a little straighter on the sofa, preparing to explain. "There was a man, years ago, who used to work at the UT hospital who oversaw my work… His name was Oyamada. He tried to scapegoat me when he took a drug I was developing and administered it to a child before it was ready, resulting in an adverse reaction. Even though I had nothing to do with administering the drug to the child, since it was my drug, I was blamed for the negative side effects she suffered, and was forced to resign my position at the hospital."

"Oh no, really?" said Emiko. "Was the child badly hurt?"

"Later on, I was told that the child had died," said Tae. "However, by that time, I had already met Ren and he was helping me continue my work on the drug. When Oyamada threatened legal action against me for continuing my research, Ren got him to back off."

Emiko balked. "Ren did that?" She laughed incredulously. "How does a teenage boy convince a medical executive to back away from legal action over drug research?"

Tae smirked. "I told you I owe him a lot. Ren did some digging and discovered that the child was, in fact, alive, and Oyamada had been lying to try to steal my research for himself." Tae took a long sip from her soda can as she studied Emiko's reaction. "Anyway, once the truth was revealed, Oyamada was forced to correct the record and I was offered my old job back."

"That's incredible," said Emiko. "So you just have the run of this whole hospital? What other things do you do here?"

"'Run of the hospital' is hyperbole," said Tae. "There just aren't orders given—I get to make requests, and they get to make requests. I make requests for things that move my research along—or that seem fun—" she added with a smile, gesturing to Emiko, "and they request my assistance when drug expertise is needed. Not to toot my own horn, but I really am something of an expert on the subject. As for what other things I do here, I've consulted in a number of places. Probably the thing I've done that would be of most interest to you, actually, is that I've assisted in the medical examiner's office. I've even performed some autopsies for them."

For reasons Emiko didn't understand, she lit up at this. "Really?"

"Really. Tokyo is a big city—lots of people die here, and though they have a staff of five medical examiners already, they occasionally need backup. Since I have expertise in drug interactions, deaths where there is evidence of drug use—or if they're just struggling to find any cause of death whatsoever—are deaths where they might call me in for assistance. Or sometimes when they're just understaffed…" she added with a shrug. "I'm pretty good friends with a lot of those M.E. weirdos at this point, so I probably do more work for them than I have any real reason to. You have to be a little touched to want to do forensic pathology," said Tae, with clear implication directed at Emiko, though it was given with affection.

"That's so funny," said Emiko, still reeling from the revelation that Tae had performed autopsies. "What a weird coincidence. Did that have anything to do with why you chose me? Because of my background in forensic medicine?"

"It was all a rich tapestry…" said Tae with an exaggerated show of her hands, downplaying things with a hint of sarcasm. "I wouldn't have known about you at all if it weren't for Ren, but once he got to describing you, I was too intrigued to look away. You're like a car crash in that regard, though I hope the similarities end there," she added, grinning.

Emiko answered with a chuckle. "Wow. Well, I can't tell you how glad I am to be working with you, Doctor Takemi. This feels a little like destiny." She hoped she wasn't coming across as insincere, or fawning. She was so much more at ease with this person than she'd imagined she would be. Just two days ago, she'd been anticipating something so much different for her hospital placement, so much more formal. Doctor Takemi—Tae—already felt like a friend.

— — —

4:50pm

Makoto was already almost done with her presentation. Well, almost done with the slides, at least—she intended to write a script for what she planned to say about them, but she was confident that wouldn't take too long, assuming she wasn't too distracted.

I was distracted today, and that didn't stop me from tearing through this stupid assignment, she thought bitterly as she put the finishing touches on the slide of her line graph of murders for the year.

4:51pm. Time does go more slowly when you're constantly checking the clock.

It was almost the close of business, and Makoto was still waiting on her surveillance footage to show up. Sato wanted her to text him when she got it so they could look at it together. At this rate, he might be wondering if she'd forgotten about him.

That assumes he has nothing better to worry about than my case, she thought. I'm sure he has bigger fish to fry…

Makoto sighed and looked over her graph once more. She frowned. I should really make this a histogram…

4:55pm. Her email popped up a notification:

From: surveillance{at}fujiyamasecurity. co .jp
Subject: Your request

Makoto's breath caught in her throat as she clumsily moused over to the notification and clicked on it. Her email opened on top of her PowerPoint and she was taken directly to the message she'd just received. She noted the attachments, and hastily downloaded the files. The files were big, so it took a little while for them to finish downloading, but Makoto just waited. She fretted a little over not going back to her graph while she sat there, but after hours of studying spreadsheets, watching the progress bar was a welcome break from working on another graph.

As requested, she had footage from two different cameras positioned outside the Nightlife Bar and Grill in Harajuku—one of the front door, one from the alley—with the recordings beginning at 10:00pm on Saturday, January 3rd. When she clicked 'play', footage from both cameras ran simultaneously. She opened her notebook, placed Kosuke Kobayashi's photo where she could easily see it, and grabbed a pen from her desk drawer, preparing to take notes as she watched.

Although there wasn't a large crowd of people showing up for the Nightlife's hibachi that late at night, there was still a steady-enough stream of patrons coming and going through the front doors. On the other hand, there wasn't much activity on the alley camera—periodically, someone, presumably an employee, would emerge out of a back door for a smoke or to empty some trash, and then return inside. Makoto kept her eyes trained on the camera facing the entrance, looking for exiting couples. Makoto flipped back a page in her notebook to double check the description of the woman Mr. Kobayashi had reportedly left with. Someone about my size, with long hair and a green dress, thought Makoto, as her eyes returned to the video screen. Since the bartender reported them leaving at around 11:00, Makoto sped up the footage a bit, anxious to get to the most likely persons of interest.

There were a lot of couples leaving the bar that night, making this harder than Makoto would have thought. She was constantly having to pause, zoom in, scrutinize the man's face and the woman's outfit, note the time in her notebook, then zoom out and hope for a couple that better fit the description she had in mind. As the footage crept closer to 11:00, she got more anxious to find a good match.

As the footage rounded 11:08pm, Makoto spotted a male/female pair that looked promising. The man, obviously inebriated, stumbled as he walked, and the woman he was with was clearly very into him. She held him fast around the waist with one arm, and had her head tipped toward his, nuzzling him affectionately. She did have long hair, but Makoto couldn't really tell if she was wearing a green dress or not—the low-fidelity footage and the halogen light from the streetlamp washed out most colors. To make it trickier, this woman was wearing a black coat over her outfit anyway, leaving only a small scrap of her dress peeking out above her knees—it might have been green, but Makoto wasn't sure she'd swear to it. The woman looked to be wearing high-heeled shoes, as the Nightlife's bartender had thought, and she carried a purse on a long strap over her left arm. Makoto watched the couple carefully.

After taking a few awkward steps together, they proceeded left out of the bar and down the sidewalk. It wasn't long before they walked out of frame, and Makoto couldn't tell where they went from there. Makoto sighed, and backed up the footage to the moment they emerged, preparing to watch it frame by frame to try to get good screenshots of the two of them—hoping to confirm their identities. Zooming in on each of them, she clicked forward and backward through time to find the best moments, grabbing a couple stills of their whole bodies, and some closeups of each of their faces.

Comparing the man's face to the photo that Mrs. Kobayashi had given her, it seemed possible that this man could be Kosuke. She didn't know his facial expressions, but his hairstyle and the basic shape of his face matched. The Kosuke in the photo was bright and clear-eyed. This man's eyes were very bleary, but he had a sloppy smile on his face that wasn't dissimilar to that in the photo. Makoto's photo didn't show Kosuke's whole body, so she didn't know how well the man matched Kosuke in other respects. She would want to show these surveillance images to Mrs. Kobayashi to see what she thought.

As for the woman, besides grabbing several good images of her for future reference, there wasn't a lot she could do. There was very little about her that set her appearance apart from any other young Japanese woman's. Her hair was long, not quite to her elbows, and had a little bit of a wavy quality—that was about it.

For good measure, Makoto watched the whole bit of video a couple more times just to see if anything else popped out at her before watching the remaining footage for any other candidates who might emerge. Toward the end of their time onscreen, the woman reached into her purse with her one free hand to produce a set of keys on a lanyard. Makoto inferred she was headed to her car. It looked like there was an I.D. card attached to the lanyard, but she couldn't make out any details on it—just that it was white and card-shaped, which limited it to being literally any I.D. card in the entirety of Japan.

After watching all the remaining footage, she jumped back to all the places she'd noted couples exiting the bar, and took screenshots of a few more of the men, preparing a "lineup" for Mrs. Kobayashi to scrutinize later, hoping she'd be able to definitively identify which one was her husband—and hoping that she'd pick the same man that Makoto was already leaning toward as their guy.

She saved all the files to her work drive and glanced at her phone to check the time, getting ready to call it a day: 7:24pm. "Crap!" she blurted, as she realized she had missed a text from Sato asking about the footage—she had completely forgotten to let him know she had received it. She also had one from Ren, just checking in to see what she was up to, and another from Emiko, talking about Tae Takemi.

She felt like her reply to Sato would take a minute to craft, so she decided to handle her other texts first. She fired off a quick reply to Ren: Just spent my evening looking at surveillance footage. You?

While she waited for a reply from him, she sent a message to Emiko: LOL! Yeah, Tae is a pretty interesting person, right?

Makoto gathered up her things, watching her phone for replies from either one of them. Emiko texted back: omg seriously… how's your missing person?

Makoto was already walking out of the station, starving, having once again worked until dinner snuck up on her. As she scurried out of the office and off to the subway station, she tried to keep her responses short as she struggled to swype out her replies:

Just heading home now. Wanna have lunch tomorrow?

Uhh, sure
You have time for that?
You're so busy lately…

Makoto realized she might need a friendly pep talk before contacting Saki Kobayashi to update her on the status of her missing husband. Sato was helpful, but she wasn't sure that a man who used secretaries to deliver bad news was the best person to rally her for an undesirable task. She knew that tomorrow's visit to the Kobayashi residence would be uncomfortable, and she wanted to talk to someone who would give her courage, not tell her to run and hide. She'd make the time for lunch with Emiko.

Yes
Meet you at the UT hospital?

Makoto hit send and stepped outside into the cold evening air. She pulled her gloves out of her pockets and slipped them on before noting Emiko's reply in the affirmative. Deciding not to reply and further prolong the conversation—and her hands' exposure to the cold—Makoto considered it good and turned up her collar, stepping resolutely forward into the winter wind.

She was cold, she was hungry, she was tired. She had a distraught wife to deliver some disappointing news to. And she had a fucking histogram to make.