Chapter 4: First Loves, And Other Things You'll Want to Forget
Notes:
In 1954 in Japan, allegations of homosexuality were not grounds for criminal indictment nor any other legal action. Social repercussions, on the other hand...
The next day, Lupin went to report to the Commissioner like a good little cop bright and early in the morning.
"Since you are the principal witness," the Commissioner told him, between bouts of coughing, "you might be asked to—excuse me—"
"You alright there, chief?" Lupin asked.
"Stress makes my bronchitis act up," the Commissioner said, waving him off. He coughed like a goose into a handkerchief a couple more times. "It's this damn Yu-Fo investigation, I don't have time for it. Frankly at this point I'm glad they're taking it off my hands."
"What do you mean?"
"That's what I was getting to," the Commissioner said. "The agency is taking over the investigation of the object from Tuesday morning. We are to turn over all reports and related evidence to their representative when he arrives tomorrow. This is extremely sensitive information, so I expect you to keep it to yourself until the exchange has been formalized. Civilians would panic. And some of the Inspectors get… territorial. About jurisdiction."
Lupin kept a straight face. You don't say.
"Just—" the Commissioner coughed again. "Get your statements in order. And be ready to be called over to the Public Security Investigation Agency HQ. Who knows what kind of questions they'll have to ask you, if this turns out to be the kind of international incident they keep hinting at."
"Yessir," Lupin said. "Of course, I'll be sure to make myself as available as possible to our national government."
"Good, good," the Commissioner said, vaguely. "That will be all, Inspector. Carry on."
Lupin left the office. He grabbed some of the canned coffee from the break room, swung out to reception, and set a cup down on the counter.
"Hey, good morning Junsa, I wonder if you could help me with something?"
The beat cop at the desk looked up, eyeing the coffee. Lupin pushed it towards him.
"Sure, Inspector," the cop said, gratefully retrieving the drink. "What would that be?"
"Well it's the darndest thing," Lupin said, affecting a mournful expression. "Last night while I was packing up and cleaning my desk, I think I threw away my good fountain pen by mistake. Before I start digging in the trash can, I want to be sure the things from yesterday are even still there. The janitor…?"
"Oh, yes," the cop said, "cleaning service comes by at 8 every night. If you left before then, I'm afraid it's gone."
"The thing is, it was a very good pen," Lupin said. "A graduation gift, from my father. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, if it might still be where I can reach it…"
The cop wrinkled his nose, but obliged. "I think the dumpster gets emptied once a week. In the morning. No idea what day."
"That's all I needed to know! Thanks so much, you've been a real help."
The cop grimaced. "Don't get hepatitis digging around in there! Old crime scene evidence gets thrown in there too. God only knows what you'll catch."
Lupin raised his palms. "I'll be careful, I'll be careful!"
"Mm. If you say so."
With his own cup of coffee in hand, Lupin contemplated logistics. He took a turn around the outside of the building, measured the height of the dumpster, and went back inside.
For the rest of the morning, Lupin socialized a bit, caught up on gossip, and generally made himself visible and available while avoiding any actual work. Gainful employment was a nice place to visit, but he wouldn't want to live there! To be honest, it wasn't even very nice. He found himself tapping his foot against the underside of his desk, peering out the open door of his stolen office and waiting for something interesting to happen.
Finally he caught Officer Zenigata coming in for his shift—by the wrist in this case, dragging the kid into his office.
"Inspector Mori!" Zenigata protested, as the door closed behind them.
"Afternoon, Zeni-chan! How's the family?"
"Fine?" Zenigata answered. "You saw us only last night…"
"Great, great," said Lupin, waving it away. "Look, Zeni-baby. This is extremely top secret. I need your word that you won't tell a soul what I'm about to tell you."
Zenigata paused in the middle of belatedly removing his uniform cap. There was that glitter in his eyes, the thrill of the chase, even as his natural wariness fought with it.
"What's going on, Inspector?"
"You remember how you spotted Mamoh fleeing the scene of the crash in that building?"
"Yes. Of course."
"And you know how I discovered that jade statue inside the machine?"
Zenigata narrowed his eyes. "I heard that Officer Suzuki found the statue."
"Naturally I found it first," Lupin dismissed, "but I was too busy attempting to resuscitate that poor bystander to hold on to it. Anyway, it doesn't matter who found it. What matters is that the PSIA believes that the statue is the key to Mamoh's entire plan. There must be some kind of secret hidden inside of it, or carved into the stone somewhere in code, maybe."
"Really?" Zenigata cupped his mouth in his hand. "Coordinates to something, maybe? Codes that would endanger the national security?"
"Who knows," said Lupin, who didn't know. There had been rumors about the Tokyo Guanyin for years, swirling around black market information networks. Suspicions about the mysterious treasure it might hold, curiosity about its obscure origins. He'd heard that it was moving to a less secure facility for material testing, and he'd taken the chance to find out for himself. Certainly she was an alarming little thing, posed like a Goddess of Spite who never existed. But he was certain that whatever enigma she held, he could unravel her as easily as any map or puzzle box before.
"The Agency is certain Mamoh will come back for it," Lupin continued. "There's no way he can finish whatever nefarious deed he had planned without it."
"Oh…" Then Zenigata's eyes widened. "But it's just in the evidence locker, right there!"
He was thinking, obviously, about Lupin's security lecture that first day. About the possibility of a lock being jimmied, or the key stolen, or maybe even the room blown with dynamite (which is what Lupin would have done, had he really been in a hurry).
"So you see why we can't trust anyone else," Lupin concluded. "But I've been asked to quietly deal with this, secure the statue, and lure him out if possible."
"Wow," Zenigata said, looking at him with a gratifying combination of hero-worship and gullibility.
Lupin leaned in. "But I can't do it alone," he said. He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder, squeezing the epaulet. "I trust you, now. You've shown me that you're reliable, and quick under pressure. Will you help me with this, Officer Zenigata?"
Zenigata snapped to attention and saluted him. "Yes, of course, Inspector Mori. You can count on me."
Good old Zenigata. Lupin clapped him on his shoulder before letting go. "Good man!"
In the dead of the night (8 PM), Officer Zenigata returns to the police station after taking his leave officially for the day. The Graveyard shift is beginning to trickle in, but most won't arrive until 9. Most of the day shift has left or is leaving now. Zenigata arrives with a brown paper bag of takeaway in one hand.
He attempts to avoid conversation, but where that proves impossible, he tells curious coworkers that he has forgotten something at his desk. The new phone number of a family friend, maybe.
He takes the long way to his desk. He is not particularly good at looking inconspicuous, but—
"Inspector Mori, that's not fair! I'm perfectly capable of being sneaky."
"Sneaky isn't the problem. It's that you look more conspicuous when you're sneaking."
Zenigata proceeds with a minimum of sneaking and a maximum of nonchalance towards the evidence lockers.
Now, this is the tricky part. The officer on duty who actually has the key to the lockers cannot be allowed to notice anyone else opening the lockers.
"Wait. How am I going to open them, if the officer on duty still has the key?"
"Oh, that's easy. I've been provided with a second key, by the commissioner. That's how important this mission is."
"Oh. So how do I get in without being noticed?"
Meanwhile, in the lobby, Inspector Mori will arrive carrying a very large pot of (cold) coffee. He has made this coffee himself, off screen, and upon seeing Officer Zenigata approach the locker room, he takes the pot of coffee out into the center of the lobby in order to offer all the newly arrived graveyard shift officers a brisk cup.
In a shocking turn of events for a man so dashing and graceful, Inspector Mori trips directly into one of the lady cops, losing his grip on the glass pot of coffee and sending it hurling into the air like a missile of lukewarm liquid and easily-shattered glass. A collective gasp goes up. He catches the handle of the pot as it plummets to earth, upsidedown, spilling every drop of coffee directly onto his own head and the shirt of the lady cop underneath him.
Miraculously, almost as if it was done with intent, no one is hurt.
While the noise, mess, and opportunity to laugh at another's mistakes distract the total present force of policemen in the room, Zenigata slips into the locker room and retrieves the Guanyin.
The Guanyin sits on a top level locker, wrapped in a brown paper evidence bag, inside a wooden crate. Zenigata carefully removes the Guanyin from her paper bag, replacing the now empty bag exactly as he found it and locking the door behind him. He now sets the Guanyin inside his large takeout bag, refolds the top, and exits.
On his way out, he spots the janitor making the rounds to gather up the day's trash in various cans around the station. With a polite apology to the janitor, Zenigata places the takeout bag on top of the can currently being carried outside to the dumpster.
Where, hidden in the dark, Inspector Mori Jirokichi will wait to retrieve the bag.
There was a twang, a pull, and then a hollow bang as the fishing line pulled Lupin's quarry free.
"Haha!" Lupin crowed, snatching the paper bag out of the air. He peeled the paper open with slightly damp hands, and grinned at the faint glitter of carved jade underneath the street lamps.
The dumpster was located at the back of the building, where the precinct kept its unused vans and pursuit vehicles parked most of the time. It was quiet now, with no particular disasters about in the city at this early hour.
"Did you get it?"
As Zenigata came out into the light, Lupin swung out from the shadow of the roof, scaling back down the wooden support pillar with the fishing rod and fish-hooked bag slung over his shoulders. He hit the ground, ran a hand through his sopping hair, and grinned in a put-upon-way.
"The things we do for the job," he sighed, still smiling. "Come on, let's get this thing out of here."
He lifted the bag to show it off, but Zenigata wasn't even looking at his hand. He was staring at Lupin's wet, coffee-soaked dress shirt. Lupin glanced down, tugged the thing away from his skin with two fingers, and grimaced.
"Ugh," he said. "That's not coming out." Luckily, it wasn't his shirt. He'd lifted it from a laundromat the day before.
Well, he wasn't getting any less wet, standing around here in the cold. He set off for the street.
Zenigata jolted. "Where are we taking it now?" he asked, jogging after Lupin across the lamplit parking lot.
"Right now, we're taking it back to my hotel room. It'll be safe enough there until the morning, since no one else knows what we've done." He made his way through the rows of parked cars, out toward the little grass edged hill at the bottom of the property.
"And then?"
"And then, I'll set a trap," Lupin replied.
"What kind of trap?" Zenigata demanded, dogging his heels. "Are you going to let him know you have it? Are you going to make a fake and lure him in with that?"
"Zeni-chan, you're getting way ahead of me," Lupin laughed. "Right now, let's just focus on getting all this coffee out of my hair, okay?"
"Oh, right," Zenigata said, blushing. "Here, I brought my bike. It'll be a lot faster if you let me give you a ride."
Stumbling at the edge of the parking lot, under the heavy phone cables that crisscrossed the air, Lupin stopped fully to stare at Zenigata. "You had a bike this entire time? Why haven't you been taking it for any of this?"
Zenigata scratched his jaw, looking away. "I like to run to work. It keeps me in shape."
"What about last night!"
"Um. You seemed like you had it under control?"
Lupin groaned. "Fine! Yes, I'd love to take the bike. Go grab it."
"Sir!"
Lupin stood there, damp and cold, sulking, until Zenigata came back with the bike.
At this point, a couple things became clear to him. "Oh," Lupin said. "I see. It's a one-seater. Of course."
Zenigata looked at him like he was an idiot.
It was a little racing bicycle, nothing unusual by the standards of the decade, but very much not Fujiko's motorbike. And also very much meant for one person. He sighed.
"You peddle," he said. "I'll… hang on."
He considered for about five seconds trying to sit on that skinny bar over the back wheel, but the idea of putting his entire weight directly on the pride of his masculinity simply did not bear thinking about. In the end, he took the seat and Zenigata stood to peddle.
"This is so embarrassing," Lupin muttered, glaring pointedly up at the moon. "It's like you're sitting in my lap…"
Zenigata didn't say anything; he just ducked a little further forward over the handlebars.
Still, it was a pretty night, and Lupin finally had the prize he'd been after. The elegant Tokyo streetlights, the gentle autumn smell…
The windchill…
"Okay, fuck it, I'm cold," Lupin said, and pulled Zenigata down onto his lap, wrapping arms around his stomach. "If I have to be soggy, you have to be soggy too."
Zenigata made a little shrill yelp, but Lupin did not let go.
Once he had a warm body to block the cold, Lupin relaxed into the ride with a dreamy, tired contentment. There was something about being only a little miserable that put a haze on everything. The ride was out of his hands, and so was the wind. But Zenigata was soft and solid and Lupin stole every bit of heat that his thin, wet clothing touched.
At the hotel, Lupin disembarked, reluctantly letting Zenigata peel himself free. There were still some guests milling in the little garden out front, by the evening lights, but they paid no attention to the new arrivals.
He fished the hotel key out of his pocket, tossing it and catching it in his palm.
"Park your bike over there," he said, gesturing to the hitching post by the door. Halfway up the stairs to the second floor, he glanced over his shoulder at Zenigata, who was standing uncertainly next to his bike. "You coming?" Lupin prompted.
After a moment, his footsteps echoed up the stairs to the second floor.
Lupin's hotel room was quite nice, for the little change he'd paid—clean sheets, modern toilet, coffee service in the morning—if a bit cramped. He set the bag with the Guanyin down on his bed and immediately stripped off ruined shirt and undershirt both, tossing them over the radiator.
"I'm washing this stuff off," Lupin announced, grimacing as he rubbed a hand over his bare, coffee-stained skin. It'd even gotten into his chest hair, and it was clashing with Mori's cologne. "What I wouldn't give for a real shower…"
There was a sento type communal shower downstairs, but it was only open certain hours of the day. Despite being a "western" style hotel, they still hadn't gotten around to private bathing rooms around here. The past was really, really inconvenient in a lot of ways.
He stepped out of his shoes and made a beeline for the sink.
"Toss me one of those towels from the hamper, Zeni-chan?"
Lupin stuck his whole head under the faucet, spitting and grumbling. He still had all his latex modifications in place, but at least those were waterproof. The main problem was drying his face without accidentally peeling them off. He scooped a few handfuls of water to rub over pecs and tried not to flinch too much as drips ran down into his waistband.
Finally, thoroughly sopping, Lupin swung upright. A mist of droplets sprayed against the mirror and walls. He'd stopped putting the pomade in his hair since he arrived in the past—partly to blend in, partly out of necessity, since he had none with him—and the floppiness of his wet hair startled him a little bit. He blinked at his spotty reflection.
"Um?" said Zenigata.
He was holding one of the towels. Clutching it, really.
"Right, thanks," Lupin said, and plucked it out of his hands.
Warm water left the thick weft of the terrycloth gentler on the skin—Lupin relaxed as it scrubbed away the chill, following the curve of his neck down to his shoulders, and then hitting his chest just for good measure.
"Next time," he sighed, "you can be the decoy. Then you can be the one trying to bathe in a sink."
"…Next time?"
Lupin paused, towel pressed against his chest, and looked at Zenigata. It wasn't that he'd forgotten who he was talking to. It was only… this routine was so familiar, the escape and the triumph and the good-natured bitching, cleaning up in a hotel room while his partners drank beer and smoked a victory cigarette.
And he'd always wondered, at the back of his mind, what it would be like to work with Zenigata, instead of against him.
"No, you're right," Lupin laughed uneasily, "I got ahead of myself there. What are the odds of there being a next time, anyway?"
Zenigata didn't smile. There was something odd about his face, some intensity Lupin couldn't put a name to.
"Still," Lupin said, more to fill the silence than anything, "you're not bad for a rookie! You've got a knack for this. That was smooth work with the lockers."
He finished toweling off his hair and then tossed the wet lump directly at Zenigata's chest.
"I knew you wouldn't let me down," he said, as he stepped past the younger man and knelt to rummage in the bedside table. He deftly nudged Mamoh's gun, which naturally he'd never turned over to anyone at the station, out of sight. Better not to be asked about that. "I've got a little Jack Daniels left in the bottle under here, if you want some. Have a drink on me, haha."
He came up, bottle in hand, only to find himself eye to eye with Zenigata. A shock leapt up his spine at the sudden proximity. Zenigata's face was flushed again, but his jaw was set with some kind of determination, shoulders squared, like he was readying himself to dive into a storm of bullets.
"Inspector—Jirokichi—"
This was closer than they usually stood. This was much closer than they usually stood.
"—yeah?" Lupin answered, belatedly.
Zenigata's Adam's apple bobbed. "I'm ready."
What was that supposed to mean? Was this some kind of cop thing that Lupin didn't know about? Zenigata seemed to expect some kind of response. "…You are?"
Zenigata looked down, fingers flexing at his sides in almost a nervous gesture. "You'll have to show me."
"…I will?"
"I'll do my best," Zenigata said. "If you—if you'll be patient with me…"
The space between them seemed to close of its own accord. Like magnetism, like the inevitable draw of gravity, the distance dwindled. Lupin felt his heart pounding in his throat. Some instinct pulled inside him, some unrealized potential, sucking like the draw of the tide before a tsunami.
In a burst of—confidence? No, sheer recklessness—Zenigata dove forward and pressed his mouth to Lupin's.
Lights burst behind his eyes—Lupin's body understood a fraction of a moment before his mind could catch up to it. In that fraction of a second where he stood frozen, a thousand things dawned on him. Shock, bewilderment, and then a voracious desire, a hunger he hadn't known he had—
This, he could have this. He could take this, he could make Zenigata his forever—take him, own him, steal and possess what this fool was too naïve to protect—
Lupin shoved back, knocking into the bedside table, rattling the lamp. He staggered a retreat. On the floor, the last fingers of whisky sloshed and settled.
"Zenigata!" he yelped, "What the hell!"
Zenigata stared at him with huge wide eyes, stock-still where he stood.
"Did I—" Zenigata said, in a rough, hollow voice, "did I do something wrong?"
Wrong? Wrong? Of course he'd done something wrong, looking at Lupin with those big brown eyes, peeling himself open like fruit ready to be spread between Lupin's thumbs.
"He kissed me," Lupin muttered under his breath. "Zenigata kissed me." He touched the edge of his own mouth, half surprised lipstick didn't come away on his fingers.
"Jirokichi?"
Lupin looked up at him, hoping he didn't look as poleaxed as he felt.
Zenigata fidgeted, thumping the knuckles of his right hand into his left. "Tell me what I did wrong and I'll fix it! I still want to try; I swear, I'll do whatever you tell me to."
"I can't believe this," Lupin said, digging his fingers into his wet hair. "Since when do you even like men—where is this coming from?"
Zenigata recoiled, expression turning thunderous. "What do you mean by that!" he said. He pointed a shaking finger at Lupin. "You've been making moves on me since we met!"
Lupin gaped. "What are you—How could you— I've been hitting on you?"
"I'm not stupid!" Zenigata shouted. "I'm not the one who keeps grabbing and—and groping —"
Crap. Had he been doing that? He had, hadn't he! No wonder Zenigata had—but it was Zenigata.
Lupin twisted away, hand clapped to his mouth, thinking furiously. He'd never thought… Zenigata was supposed to be as remote as the peak of a mountain, as immovable as granite, unwilling to play along with even the most harmless overtures. Toying with him was an easy game you could never lose, because you could never win either. All this time, could he have…
All the liberties he'd taken rushed to mind at once, all the flirting he'd barely even registered. Zenigata hadn't been red-faced because he was offended, he'd blushed because he was flustered. Because he wanted to go further and didn't know how.
Should he…
He looked at Zenigata. The younger man looked like this conversation was causing him excruciating pain.
"Shit," Zenigata said, grimacing, "so you didn't want me to…?" The color started to drain out of his face, as some new thought dawned on him. "I thought—" he said. "Maybe I was imagining…"
An unexpected thrill shot through Lupin, hot down to his fingertips. "…What were you imagining?"
Zenigata drew himself up and barked, "I'm not going to tell you just so you can put it in your report!"
It took Lupin a second to catch up to what he meant.
"Shit," Zenigata said again. His gaze darted to Lupin, real fear in his eyes now. "Shit. Inspector—please, forgive me, I was out of line—I didn't mean it—"
His career. He was worried about his career—maybe worse, even. Maybe much worse. For all he knew, Mori Jirokichi could be a vindictive type of man. How would he know? They'd met barely three days ago.
"Please," Zenigata said, his voice thin and trembling now. "Forgive me."
Hesitantly, sidelong, Lupin approached Zenigata. The younger man watched him with the trepidation of a prisoner at the steps of a guillotine. And yet, he wouldn't run. Of course he wouldn't. He was Zenigata.
Lupin lifted his hands and cupped the young officer's face.
At first Zenigata tensed at the touch, but a moment later he relaxed. As if anything about Lupin could somehow be reassuring, calming even. His lips parted, and his fists uncurled. Tentatively, he settled his hands on Lupin's waist.
Maybe he should fuck the kid. God knew the idea was doing something for him. Lupin could do things to him that Zenigata would spend the rest of his life dreaming about. And it would make this whole uncomfortable conversation evaporate like it never happened, and they'd never need to speak of it again, and in another day Inspector Mori Jirokichi would be gone for good—
The familiar face was warm in his cold hands.
"You don't know anything about me," Lupin said, as much to remind himself as Zenigata. "It wouldn't be fair to you."
Zenigata's mouth pinched, like he was about to argue. Lupin pressed his fingers to Zenigata's lips.
"You're a good man," Lupin told him, "I don't want you to start having regrets on my account."
He withdrew, turned away, and avoided Zenigata's gaze as he went about collecting his clothes from the radiator.
"You better head home, Zeni-chan," he said. He shook out wrinkles. "Your mom will be worrying about you."
Lupin did not sleep that night.
"Unbelievable!" he muttered, laying on the mattress with one knee kicked over the other. "Unbelievable! Anyway he's too old for me—I mean, too young for me—"
He bounced his leg.
"And what is he thinking, giving it up to some pervert like Jirokichi?" he demanded. "He wouldn't even be fucking me, the Great Lupin! He'd just be fucking some boring guy I made up to be Boring On Purpose! That guy thinks he can take my place and also, incidentally, Zenigata's virginity? I'll—I'll! Arggghh!"
He rolled over and slammed his face into the pillow, kicking his legs and savaging the pillow with his teeth until he ran out of juice.
He lay awake for a while, glaring at the ceiling. Then he unbagged the Tokyo Guanyin and started investigating.
Her perfect little hand out-flung, her twisting posture, her averted face—exactly as he remembered it. He searched the jade top to bottom, tapping his nails in search of hollow spots, feeling for spots where the stone might be warmer to the touch. He looked for covert symbols in the folds of carved robes, mathematical properties, anything he could think of.
In the early morning darkness, he ended up sitting at the little desk in his hotel room, eyeballing her.
What was her secret? None of the rumors ever quite agreed. She was simply the Goddess of Mercy, carved perverse and—to borrow a Catholic phrase—blasphemous in stone. Maybe he'd wasted his time on a simple historical curiosity, an urban legend cooked up to explain why something so unsettling existed in the first place.
He sat back with a harsh sigh, stretching his arms over his head.
The hotel room was too quiet. He left to get some air.