It took far longer than Ginoza had wanted to get Kogami to a place where Ginoza felt that he was ready to go into the pharmacy. Over the course of almost an hour of patiently feeding EENA language phrases to Kogami and having him repeat them until he had them right, Ginoza had barely been able to get a response out of Kogami unless he used his codename. Kogami knew the names of the medications to ask for, and he'd memorized a few phrases that Ginoza was hoping he could use to get them. But it was clear that Kogami had no idea what he was actually saying, and Ginoza wasn't even entirely sure that he fully understood why he was saying it. If anything went less than perfectly according to plan, Ginoza doubted Kogami would be able to recover.

But Ginoza couldn't give him a whole primer in the language, not the least because all of the words Ginoza knew he'd learned from an internet search over the course of the last two hours. He was pretty much at the end of what he could teach Kogami, whether or not it was enough.

"Is that it?" Kogami finally asked. "Am I…'m I good?"

Ginoza took his time responding. He took his hair down, shook it out, and then scraped it back into a ponytail. He hadn't showered in days - his bangs were sticking to his face. He wanted a shower, he wanted a change of clothes, he wanted a decent meal. He wanted the next forty-eight hours to have already gone by, and Kogami to already be safe. But all of those were equally impossible things. Ginoza breathed out slowly, rubbing at a spot above his right temple where his head had started to ache.

"Gino?"

"I think you're as ready as you'll ever be," Ginoza said. "What time is it there? Still light?"

"Still light," Kogami confirmed.

"There's really no point in delaying then. Please pack your things up. You can leave anything you're sure you won't need if you have a place to hide it. You won't be back here again, though, so make sure you have anything there's even a chance you'll need."

"Alright," Kogami whispered. There was the shuffling sound of him packing up his things. Or at least, that's what Ginoza hoped that he was doing - it was stressful not to be able to see him, and not to be completely sure what he was doing at any given time.

Ginoza realized it had been a week and a half since he had actually laid eyes on his husband at this point. He didn't know what Kogami was wearing. What if he'd gotten some horrible disfiguring wound on his face, and he hadn't mentioned it because it wasn't as bad as the stab wound? What if they'd needed to disguise him - what if they'd cut his hair?

Ginoza knew none of those things really mattered. On top of that, they weren't very likely. Ginoza just hoped that all of this would be resolved soon, when Ginoza could actually see Kogami.

"I'm done," Kogami said after a minute.

"Leave the basement," Ginoza said. "Try your best to make sure you're not seen. Once you're outside, you'll need to give me the name of the first cross street you see. I have your approximate location, but I won't be able to pinpoint where you are until I have a street name, and I can't direct you without your exact location."

"'Kay."

Listening to Kogami struggle up the stairs was horrible. Ginoza could hear him breathing heavily, breaking off occasionally to swallow back whimpers and moans of pain. Ginoza half wanted to call it off right then, and tell Kogami to go back and sit down until he had come up with a better plan. But Kogami didn't have much longer, and Ginoza knew that Kogami was capable of more physically than Ginoza knew. He just didn't want to have to see it.

Ginoza stayed silent and let Kogami work his way up to the top of the stairs, and he could tell by the change in Kogami's breathing when he'd made it.

"Are you out?" Ginoza asked.

"Not…yet," Kogami breathed. "Closed the door. Gotta…gotta open it."

Ginoza didn't understand what Kogami meant at first. If he needed to work up his strength just to open a door, that seemed like a very bad sign, and Kogami was doing even worse than he'd imagined. But then, he heard Kogami panting with exertion, and he realized that Kogami had probably meant one of the heavy bulkhead doors found more commonly in the country.

"I-I'm…out," Kogami finally managed. He was breathing almost too hard for Ginoza to make out his words, and he sounded as though he were seconds away from passing out. "Wh-what next?"

"Are you alright?" Ginoza asked sharply, no longer able to maintain the professional distance that Kogami seemed to need. He couldn't just sit here and listen to his husband choking on air, even if that was supposed to be helping him.

Kogami moaned, a soft and startlingly pained sound. "What…next?"

Ginoza closed his eyes, fighting to get himself under control and keep from hurling whatever came to hand. He could take care of Kogami when he returned. Or not, if he wound up arrested, but he could at the very least talk to Kogami normally once he'd acquired the medication. Right now, Kogami needed a handler, not a husband.

"Walk to the street," Ginoza reminded him. "Read me the cross streets."

Ginoza waited, listening to the ragged sound of Kogami's breathing, until he next spoke. "I can't read this. Diff'rent…characters."

He sounded defeated, and so exhausted Ginoza's heart broke for him. "Describe them to me," he ordered, trying to keep his emotions out of his voice.

Kogami eventually stumbled through a visual description of the street names, well enough that Ginoza was able to pinpoint his exact location. Kogami had mentioned that he had a dictionary with him, but Ginoza knew that he was likely too far gone to use it. If he was aware at all, he was probably frustrated with himself. But there wasn't much Ginoza could do about that. As he kept reminding himself, he needed to guide Kogami, not comfort him.

"There isn't anybody around, is there?" Ginoza asked.

"No. No one."

"Thank you for confirming. I'll guide you for as long as I can. But once you start seeing people around, let me know. It would be suspicious for them to see you talking to me, I think, so at that point I'll have to let you go."

"How will I…?"

"I'll give you instructions," Ginoza said. "You…you do think you'll be able to follow instructions, right?"

"Probably," Kogami whispered.

That could have been more reassuring.

Ginoza had already planned a route from Kogami's approximate location to the pharmacy, and since he wasn't sure if any of the remaining rioting would have spilled as far out as Kogami's street, he had a few backup routes marked as well. He began describing the turns Kogami would need to take, wincing at the sound of Kogami's labored breathing as he started stumbling his way towards escape.

Once, Ginoza told Kogami he needed to turn left and Kogami told him that there was no left turn option. For a second, Ginoza panicked - was his map out of date? Had something obstructed the turn he'd expected Kogami to take? But then, he had Kogami start to describe his surroundings, and he realized that Kogami wasn't where he'd thought he was at all. It only took him a moment to realize that Kogami must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. It broke Ginoza's heart to force him to backtrack, but he didn't have a choice. After that, Ginoza made Kogami carefully describe each turn as he was taking it, hoping to catch him if he at any point started to make the wrong move again.

A few times, Kogami lost focus in the middle of a description. Since Ginoza really didn't want him to wander off track again, whenever this happened, Ginoza would snap his codename at him. This had worked to get him to pay attention so far, although he wasn't sure how much longer it would serve him. Eventually, Ginoza was sure that "Phantom" would lose its impact.

It took almost two hours of back and forth for Ginoza to guide Kogami back to the outskirts of the city. This was way longer than it would usually take Kogami to walk that distance, but Ginoza knew that he couldn't go any faster. Ginoza started to suspect that there must be at least a few people in earshot of Kogami now. He asked once again, and this time, Kogami confirmed that there were.

"I'm going to have to let you go," Ginoza told him. Quickly, before he could change his mind, Ginoza gave Kogami the rest of the instructions he would need to find the pharmacy. He repeated them twice, just in case. "Do you think you can follow those?"

"Uh huh," Kogami whispered.

Ginoza didn't know if he could trust him, but he couldn't exactly make Kogami repeat them back. Not within earshot of random EENA citizens, who would definitely wonder what a homeless man was doing muttering to himself in a foreign language.

"Alright. Good luck." Ginoza went to disconnect the call, then hesitated. Every time he hung up, there was the potential that it would be the last time he would be able to talk to Kogami. He didn't want to leave it like that, not after he hadn't even used his husband's name for the past two hours of conversation. Ginoza cleared his throat, broke off his sentence, and started again.

"Shinya. Be…careful, alright?" There was a brief silence, and Ginoza rushed to fill it before Kogami could. "I'll…. We'll see each other soon."

Kogami, when he finally spoke, sounded more alert than he had all day. Ginoza wished he hadn't heard it, because Kogami also sounded scared. "I hope so, Gino."

And then he was gone.

It took Kogami another hour or so to make it to the pharmacy that Ginoza had described. He'd gotten turned around a few times and had to double back, the map in his head confused by the fever and the painkillers. He wasn't even sure if this was the pharmacy Ginoza had had in mind - he'd eventually recognized a medical-looking symbol and simply headed for that. Now, he was standing across the street, looking through the windows at a drugstore that looked pretty similar to the ones back home. It didn't have the typical security drones, which wasn't surprising. EENA on the whole was much less reliant on technology, which had been proven by how easily Kogami had remained uncaught.

Kogami waited for a gap in traffic and followed a few other people across the street. Luckily, he didn't have to go to much effort to hide himself. At the moment, he was sure he looked bad enough that people would go out of their way not to see him, and he would blend right into the surroundings of the city.

On the other side of the street, outside the pharmacy, Kogami paused. Under his breath, he muttered the phrases Ginoza had taught him. He hoped he was getting them right, and that he wasn't just muttering nonsense, but he couldn't be sure. Usually, both his memory and his ear for languages was excellent, but right now everything was coated by a thick layer of foggy confusion. Talking even in his own language was somehow difficult, and if he'd mixed up parts of the EENA language, Kogami knew that he didn't have a hope of setting it right.

There was nothing for it now though. If this didn't work, Kogami would probably die here. But it might work, and if Kogami didn't do anything then he certainly would.

Before Kogami entered the pharmacy, he caught sight of himself in the mirrored front of another store. He paused for a second, shocked. He hadn't actually seen himself in…he wasn't exactly sure how long it had been since he'd left Japan now. The fever seemed to have destroyed his internal sense of time. But it had been a while, for sure.

He looked terrible. His hair was too long, unwashed. He looked pale and sickly and hollow. He was filthy, and the layer of grime might help to disguise his identity but it would also certainly make people less likely to want to help him. He looked sick, definitely, but he also did look like some sort of a fugitive.

His coat was probably the cleanest thing on his person, since he'd been mostly feeling overheated and hadn't been wearing it much in the basement. He drew it more tightly around himself, trying to disguise how dirty and ratty the rest of his clothes were. He smoothed his hair back with a hand. He didn't really think it helped. He didn't know how to do his hair even when it was clean.

He realized he'd probably been staring into the window of this random store for too long. He shook himself slightly - it was too late for any further disguises, and he was really just getting distracted.

Kogami walked a few doors down and pushed into the building he'd identified as the pharmacy. Luckily, at the very least it seemed to be the right place. The white tile and harsh overhead lights lent everything a sterile feeling. He wandered through aisles of products ranging from sunscreen to q-tips to bandages.

A man standing behind the cashier said something to Kogami. Kogami wasn't really sure what he'd said, but he was probably asking if he needed any help. Kogami didn't need help from him though - he'd already spotted the pharmacy itself at the back of the store. He needed to talk to someone with access to the kinds of drugs he needed, not some random kid.

Kogami walked up to the pharmacy counter, trying as best he could to look like someone who deserved to leave with the drugs he asked for and less like a homeless man who might also be a criminal. An older man came to the counter to speak with him, and while he looked vaguely disgusted by Kogami's appearance, at least he didn't look scared.

Kogami wondered if he should smile at the man. Then, he thought about how his face had looked when he'd caught sight of it in the glass, and decided that a smile would very much not improve things.

Kogami took a deep breath, and swallowed hard in an attempt to moisten his throat. His mouth felt very dry.

The man said the same thing the cashier at the front had said. "Can I help you?," presumably.

Kogami nodded and repeated the phrase Ginoza had taught him, hoping he was getting it right. He knew that it had to be obvious that he didn't really speak the language, but at this point, he didn't have another choice.

The pharmacist, instead of turning around and getting Kogami the medication he asked for, held out his hand and said something else. This was different than what he'd said before, but like before, Kogami didn't understand a single word.

Kogami blinked, and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out the wad of local money he'd been given, careful to move slowly in order to avoid pulling at his stomach and drawing more attention than he had to. He put the money on the counter, looking at the pharmacist and shrugging slightly, then repeated Ginoza's sentence. This time, he said it even more carefully, pausing on each syllable so it would be easier to follow what he was trying to get across.

Frustration flitted across the pharmacist's face, and he shook his head, ignoring Kogami's cash. He gestured behind him, saying a few rapid-fire sentences that Kogami didn't have a hope of catching, and then shook his head again.

It wasn't working. Kogami felt a rush of hopelessness leave him almost dizzy, and he gritted his teeth against the feeling. Had he gotten something turned around, somehow? Maybe the pharmacist didn't understand what he was asking?

No, Kogami didn't think that was right. It was hard to reason through the fever, but the other man had responded to him at first, like he'd expected Kogami to understand what he was saying. If Kogami had just said something unintelligible, then he probably wouldn't have bothered engaging at all.

So for whatever reason, the pharmacist didn't want to give him the medication. Kogami assumed that it was probably due to his current state, and he reached out and fanned the money across the counter. He didn't know the exact exchange rate, but he hadn't spent…any money since he'd arrived, and he knew he'd been given a decent allowance. It would be more than enough to purchase the medication he needed. Trying out a smile this time, Kogami patiently repeated himself.

This time, the pharmacist reached down and shoved the money back towards him, erupting into what sounded like a very incensed explanation. Kogami caught a few phrases being repeated over and over, but he thought pulling out the dictionary would only confuse matters, and he was starting to think that he'd missed something.

In Tokyo, it was never difficult to get access to medication. Even controlled substances weren't too hard to obtain, at least not for an ordinary member of the public. Access to pharmacies was strictly controlled by SIBYL, and a hue check would allow anybody with a crime coefficient below one hundred to enter. That was the only control necessary, because no one with a normal crime coefficient would dream of accessing a drug they hadn't been told to get by their doctor.

But here, they didn't have the ability to scan someone's crime coefficient, so…they would have different laws to prevent the access of controlled substances. He'd read books that took place in America in the 1900s and early 2000s, and in those sorts of books, you couldn't get access to a medication unless you had a doctor's note that you could give to the pharmacist to indicate that you were allowed. The same thing might be true here, or else there might be some other check he needed to pass that he was missing.

Whatever the situation, it was clear that the pharmacist wasn't going to just hand him the drugs he had asked for. Repeating the same sentence over and over again wasn't going to change that. And apparently, fanning money in front of the man wasn't going to change that either.

Maybe if Kogami had had a ton of time to think, he could have come up with more options. As it was, he could really only think of one.

He'd tucked his gun into the back of his waistband, so it was carefully covered by the pack he was wearing but still in easy reach if he needed it. He whipped it out now with a motion so smooth and practiced it only tore at his stomach a little bit. He pointed it in the man's face, and slowly and carefully repeated the words Ginoza had taught him one last time.

This time, the effect was immediate. The man froze, eyes widening. Kogami had absolutely no intention of shooting him, but he didn't need to know that. Or, more accurately, Kogami had no intention of shooting him as long as he got Kogami the drugs he needed, which in some ways came down to the same thing.

"Hurry up," Kogami said, then immediately regretted it. The man didn't speak Japanese, so yelling at him in Japanese was no help. And on the off chance that he somehow recognized the language Kogami was speaking, it might make Kogami easier to track down.

But the man's face showed no recognition, thankfully. He did seem to take some understanding from Kogami's tone, and he jolted to the back, beginning to rifle through bottles of pills and packets of medication.

Kogami looked around. The cashier was gone - not great, Kogami didn't know where he was, but obviously didn't have time to look. His eyes flitted upwards, and he saw that there was a camera set high off to one side. Kogami was nearly positive he wouldn't have given the camera a good view of his face yet, but he did wish that there was a way to be a little more sure.

He couldn't risk it now though. He used one arm to shield as much of his face as possible, then turned towards the camera and shot it out. The sound of the gun made the pharmacist cry out, but he quickly seemed to realize that he hadn't been hurt and went back to searching the shelves.

Kogami kept the gun pointed towards the pharmacist, scanning the rest of the store through the high, curved mirror mounted on the wall behind the counter. He assumed that it was there for the pharmacist to keep an eye out for potential threats, but it worked just as well for the potential threat to use. Kogami could see himself in the mirror, too, and he tried to adjust his posture to look at least fairly composed, rather than injured and on the edge of consciousness. A store like this certainly might have security, and Kogami didn't want to make himself an easy target.

The pharmacist ended up taking longer than Kogami would have liked, but he didn't have a way to tell him to hurry up, and barking orders at him in Japanese would probably just frighten him and make him go even slower.

Eventually, he came back towards Kogami, clutching a brown paper bag and looking terrified. Kogami held out the hand that didn't have a gun in it and took the bag, ignoring the stream of frantic words spilling from the pharmacist. He took one last look in the mirror, scanning for the kid that had been at the register, and wished he'd been more careful when he'd come in. He should have checked for cameras, he should have avoided the other workers, he should have made sure no one had seen his face.

For a brief, desperate moment, Kogami considered just…pulling the trigger, and making sure there would be no witnesses to the robbery perpetrated by a strange, rough-looking foreigner. His own government certainly wouldn't care, if they ever even found out. That's why they employed people like Kogami.

But that was going too far. Kogami wanted to make it back to Ginoza, needed to make it back to Ginoza, but if he was willing to kill civilians, he wouldn't be the person that Ginoza wanted to come back. Kogami lowered the gun, turned, and ran for the exit.

Behind him, the pharmacist started yelling something, probably "help." Kogami just put his head down and kept running, shoving through the swinging glass doors and spilling out onto the street. He picked a random direction and sprinted away down the street, vaguely hearing the sounds of pursuit behind him over the blood pounding in his ears and his footsteps pounding against the pavement. His stomach hurt, of course it hurt, but it was shoved almost to the back of his mind by the adrenaline.

Suddenly, every other sound was banished by the familiar crack of gunfire. Kogami kept his stride for another pace until he was thrown sideways, staggering almost into the street. The adrenaline surged through him, buoying him up and keeping him going, and it took him another good few steps to realize that he'd been hit. He didn't know where, exactly, he didn't even feel any pain yet. But he could smell the blood, and his body was very good at knowing when something was wrong.

But there wasn't time to stop and evaluate. He had to keep moving. And so he did.