They’d chosen the case that looked the most interesting and time-consuming of all those currently open to them, and, though it promised to remain just as interesting until it wrapped up, the number of days or hours it would pass seemed to shrink with every new lead Tokio uncovered.

Though she might do it sometimes subconsciously, she never truly wanted to retaliate against men by undervaluing them they way they undervalued her… but sometimes it did seem that male officers completely ignored the emotional nuances of cases and blundered past information whose importance couldn’t have been more glaringly obvious to a more sensitive investigator. Not that Tokio had the precise solution to this mystery yet, but with the picture coming together for her, it was only a matter of time.

Yasuyoto, the old man running the restaurant across the street from where she waited, knew everyone in the area and lived to tell all of them everything there was to be told about one another. In this noble endeavor he was aided by his funny little wife, and even an eccentrically female police officer had only to be polite, buy something insignificant, and word things in an amiable and non-threatening manner to get just about any kind of district gossip from them. This was doubtless the reason the group of local teenagers for whom Tokio now waited made the restaurant one of their hangouts: to take advantage of the information hub while still appearing totally innocent.

These hooligans, all the more docile during the day for being little hell-raisers by night, would probably show up here any time now for their afternoon snack; and once they did, they were sure to be informed with relish by the gossipy restaurateurs that a police officer had been asking about them around closing last night, and why were such nice young men being asked about by the police at such late hours? The nice young men couldn’t discuss their miscreant doings in front of the old couple, so they would make an excuse and then run — if not all the way back to their hideout, at least to some place convenient for them to talk and Tokio to eavesdrop — and she could discover whether or not they were concealing the person around whom this case revolved.

She took some pride in her makeup today. Sometimes she was forced to wash off and redraw the shadows and crow’s feet two or three times before she got them right, but today’s middle-aged woman had been convincing on the first attempt. Even older might have been preferable, but the more wrinkles she applied, the farther away anyone needed to be for her to maintain verisimilitude. As it was, with a little padding, grey streaks in her hair, and a staid married woman’s kimono (in a precisely bland color the eyes slipped right over), she was mobile, unobtrusive, and completely unrecognizable as that weird cop woman.

Why this plausible wife and probable mother of four was skulking around in a side-street small enough to be called an alleyway, in the rain, eyes glued to the restaurant across the way, might have been difficult to explain, but nobody asked because nobody saw her.

Zanza startled her by appearing about forty-five minutes after the rain had, strolling up the street without regarding the elements and heading she did not know where with purpose in his step. His bearing intrigued her, its nonchalance seeming little more than a façade that barely concealed a mixture of what she believed to be contemplation, agitation, and relief. He appeared satisfied and optimistic, but in a way that spoke of having had these emotions delivered via a turbulent scene. Had he spoken to Tsukioka, then? How exactly had that gone?

She peered after him as long as he remained in sight, trying to read him better and get some idea of what she wanted to know. Their conversation earlier had been awkward and low-key unpleasant, despite their best efforts, but also good to get out of the way and promising of better exchanges going forward; and she’d taken from it an impression of Zanza’s desire to comply with his friend’s request immediately. In fact that had been an excellent excuse for her to cut their exchange short: to allow him to get ready to go out in public (not that she suspected there was much involved in that process) so he could meet Tsukioka.

Of course she could have done some general damage control, worked on smoothing over what had happened between them, by regaling him about the current case and her need to put a bunch of subtle wrinkles and shading on her face, but the other option had seemed quicker and much less emotionally demanding. She still felt like a bit of a coward.

Her full attention returned to the restaurant as Zanza disappeared up the street. The volume of rain drumming just above her head increased every moment, and still no sign of her targets. If they were suddenly changing their habits just when she’d begun looking into them, either they were hiding Ichiro, as she believed, or they knew someone suspected them of it and were up to something else they didn’t want to fall under scrutiny. She would give them a little while longer to show up, though.

A tattered umbrella was the next distraction to come into view, and Tokio barely caught a glimpse of the face beneath it before its bearer had ducked into Yasuyoto’s. And this actually struck her as more interesting than Zanza’s appearance, though in the same vein. Not only was it the second time she’d seen Tsukioka by chance since his adventure at the Internal Affairs office, for him to show up so soon after his friend along the same street…

Well, he didn’t live too far off, and couldn’t a man leave his home and enter a nearby restaurant without all eyes upon him? But why not eat with Zanza, when they’d probably been together and had definitely come the same direction? The kenkaya had evidently had somewhere to be, but was that by his own choice or because Tsukioka had dismissed him? Zanza hadn’t seemed anywhere near as unhappy as Tokio assumed he would if the discussion with his friend had gone badly — assuming it had taken place at all — but if it had gone well, why had they separated? Did it relate at all to the fact that this restaurant was one of the district’s best information mines?

She’d seen the light of inspiration in Tsukioka’s eyes when they’d spoken the other evening, and knew he’d been on the verge of some sort of breakthrough. Did his behavior today have anything to do with that? Did he specifically want gossip from the Yasuyoto couple, or was this merely an early dinner? She wished she knew him well enough to ask, because curiosity was about to kill this cat. The best she could postulate at the moment was that, if he had some inappropriate plan, he must not have told Zanza about it; she didn’t believe the latter would have been nearly so satisfied in the wake of such news.

So the question was: did Tsukioka have some new subversive scheme he hadn’t disclosed to his friend, with whom he must then have had a deceptively placating conversation not too long ago in order to set Zanza at his ease? Tokio wanted to trust him, trust that whatever idea had sparked during their exchange the other evening had been an acceptable one. She didn’t like to think that a friend for whom Zanza had exerted so much might be deceiving him — but, though it was little to the credit of Zanza’s discernment that she thought so, she had seen too many corrupt, exploitative friendships and known too many idealistic radicals to be entirely convinced just yet.

At any rate, Tsukioka remained in the restaurant for long enough to convince anyone he’d had an innocent meal, not to mention long enough for the time Tokio had planned to give the hooligans to show up to have expired. In light of this, she decided to set the Ichiro case aside for a while and follow the artist when he emerged. If Hajime faulted her on this behavior, she could easily point out that it was his case too and she hadn’t seen him around here today. Of course he was undoubtedly doing something important — that was all he ever did — but he couldn’t deny having left her alone on this one.

Despite the excellent cover provided by the weather, she made more than a conscientious effort to remain totally undetected as she trailed Tsukioka up the wet, grey street, and he gave no sign of being aware of her. Beyond that, he acknowledged none of the few people he passed; he went at no greater speed than a natural walking pace; he seemed not at all nervous; in general, he succeeded in looking absolutely normal and trustworthy. Her misgivings didn’t necessarily lessen at this, but it seemed a good sign.

He entered a shop that sold paper and ink and emerged with a large package, which he shielded more carefully under his umbrella even than his own person; so far, for an artist, so unremarkable. After this they went in the direction of his home, and Tokio began to relax. On this little rainy day outing, at least, it seemed Tsukioka had no more sinister intentions than a bit of shopping. Or so she was ready to judge, until the moment Tsukioka recognized with a mostly unobtrusive nod a man leaning against the building’s corner in the shadows, who disappeared the moment after into the alley behind.

Her suspicions redoubled. That he could appear so very unassuming, so perfectly innocent, and still be up to something all along cast him in an even worse light than before. And that Zanza had apparently left him in such a satisfied mood and, she guessed, with no hint of suspicion that his friend would immediately after their discussion get started on some clandestine pursuit, spoke of deception and betrayal.

She spent the rest of the distance to Tsukioka’s apartment urging herself to be rational about this. There could be a perfectly acceptable, if not necessarily technically legal, explanation for the secrecy of the exchange she’d witnessed, something that fit with his new idea that didn’t involve destruction and war. Zanza might have seemed so satisfied simply because Tsukioka had, in fact, told him everything, and that everything was nothing to worry about. She didn’t have enough information yet to properly read the situation, and she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. But since Tsukioka might also be planning to bomb something, and that man he’d exchanged nods with was his new confederate, she kept up her surveillance.

For the next long while she listened uneasily for any sign of unusual activity from within his home, but there was none. Indeed, but for the light still unquestionably lit within, she might have thought he’d gone to bed early, for not a sound reached her above the pattering of the rain. This, for greater concealment, she endured without her umbrella, certain her wrinkles were horribly smeared at best.

He certainly was quiet in there! Surely if he planned something for this evening, he would not be so idle at the moment? Though since she never engaged in terrorism herself, she couldn’t be certain what preparing for it entailed, and whether it wasn’t just as likely that the nod earlier had been an ‘everything is ready’ indicator and Tsukioka had only to wait until the appointed time. Still, based on what she’d seen in his demeanor as she’d tailed him, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it would happen tonight.

Of course the only way to find out for sure was to remain here until then, and she’d come to the point where she had to decide whether that or returning to the Ichiro case should be her priority — whether to give more credence now to her paranoia or her surveillance instincts, her desire to protect Zanza or to trust his friend (and, by extension, his judgment). If only it didn’t all seem to balance out so equally.

Arbitrary as her eventual decision was, she felt as satisfied with it as she had with anything today or lately. She would talk to Hajime later and bring him up to speed on all this; she would talk to Zanza when she had a chance, awkward as it might be, and find out what he knew. But for the moment, she left the observation of the artist to the falling rain.

***

The glance Sano cast around the area as he picked his way from the street down the shallow gully that sloped between two properties was observed and assessed by Saitou, who waited at the point just before where the ground took a more precipitous dip toward the river. The young man appeared appropriately suspicious, ready for anything but for battle most of all. Still, though Saitou would never wish to encourage pointless paranoia, if Sano’s correspondent had intended him harm, the bravado and carelessness with which he looked around would have availed him little walking into such a perfect ambush scene.

As the kenkaya attempted to avoid the deepest mud, the downpour reached a point where it defied credulity that so much water existed in the world, let alone in the sky above them, and details blurred any farther away than about arm’s length. So Saitou couldn’t examine Sano’s expression any further, and only by the color of his uniform did he believe Sano might guess his identity.

The young man splashed along the side of the indentation, descending the general slope, and as he drew nearer and the rain eased up a trifle, Saitou could make out the mixture of skepticism and annoyance on his face. When he’d come close enough, he said in a bit of a grumble, “So it was you, was it? I was hoping for some kind of fight.”

“You found one.” Saitou gestured and turned.

“What’s the big idea?” Sano followed obediently, and they both slid down the steep wet hill onto a flatter space where the rainwater oozed in a less confined channel into the river beyond. Scrub blocked their view of the latter in that direction, and the walls of the flanking properties rose above the bushes and behind the trees to either side, creating a relatively open — if boggy and a little cramped for the purpose — and very private space in between.

Saitou turned to face Sano. “You need training.”

With a dubiously belligerent expression, looking around at the hidden field, Sano wondered, “In this weather?”

“What better cover?”

“Why not just at night or something? Well, yeah, I guess I have shit to do at night, but… in the rain?”

“People who are afraid of getting wet,” Saitou said in a mocking tone of patient explanation, “tend to stay inside when it’s raining. Beyond that, visibility is bad. We’re less likely to be seen now than at any other time. Do I need to explain why it’s better for us not to be seen together?”

“All right, all right. You’re heartless. What am I learning?”

Saitou felt some surprise at finding Sano amenable to the suggestion of training; maybe the young man’s bravado and carelessness were more of a show than he’d realized. Good for him. The officer began to unbutton his soaked jacket, and replied with a smirk, “How not to get stabbed and knocked out.”

The scowling Sano appeared to be trying to come up with something to say. But having been so thoroughly beaten by Saitou when they’d fought before evidently left him with little defense — quite appropriately, given he had so little in general. He settled for mimicking the man opposite him and stripping his upper half… which, though he probably didn’t know it, was retort enough.

This physical admiration had crossed a line into the realm of lust. With perfectly formed shoulders, beautifully tanned skin shifting over taut muscles as Sano shivered slightly in the cool rain; with clear droplets running past prickling nipples and over near-transparent skin-tight wrappings to disappear teasingly into clinging pants, he should really consider himself luck Saitou was not the type to abuse his superior strength in the name of personal passion.

He didn’t realize how long he’d been staring until Sano said, perhaps a trifle uncomfortably, “What?”

Then he wondered for an extended moment whether or not to be frank. He wanted to believe there would be no harm in making his interest known, wanted to believe a casual admittance of admiration would not come like an unexpected blow… but there was still the chance it would be exactly the wrong thing to say. He dared not risk driving Sano to desert their cause — not with Sano’s role so central. The ambiguous situation with Tokio remained as well. He couldn’t discover that those two had spent more than one night together so far, yet they might be more deeply involved than that fact seemed to imply. Best to keep his own counsel as he excelled at doing.

But the part of him that longed to run his mouth over each scar on the rain-drenched chest opposite him and see if they tasted as good as they looked whispered, He’s right; you are heartless. And, “Studying your balance,” he lied, pushing that thought away in annoyance.

“Why? Something wrong with it?”

“Maybe. Try to attack me.”

Sano’s face finally took on a more pleased expression as his demeanor went in half an instant from static to vigor, and he growled in a tone surprisingly devoid of anger (for now), “I’ll do more than try!”

What followed was a sore test of temperance. Despite Sano’s initial lack of complaint, he didn’t relish the idea of altering his clumsy fighting style, and felt the need to resist everything Saitou tried to show him. This was not the true difficulty, however. Sano’s stubbornness, though frustrating, was more of a challenge, a game, and almost more endearing than anything else. Saitou’s real trial was holding to his resolve of aloofness in a secluded place with a soaked, panting, flushed, increasingly angry young man glaring at him in perfectly unwitting sexiness. No matter what Sano did, no matter how reckless or stupid the move he chose to respond to Saitou’s techniques with, it looked good, and only the cool rain kept the heat of their exercise from being a serious problem in some areas.

As the force and volume of precipitation began to lessen in preparation for ceasing all together, Saitou brought the lesson to an end as well. “You need quite a bit of work still,” he told Sano, a little breathless even himself, “so unless you have something else to do, we’ll plan to practice here every time it rains.”

That Sano did not immediately protest was hopeful, but he didn’t exactly jump at the suggestion either. “All right,” he grumbled, “if you say so. I still don’t think I’m all that bad.”

“Once you can hold your own against me, I’ll let you say that.”

Sano stuck out his tongue. God, he obviously just had no idea.

Saitou changed the subject. “How close are you to either of our gangs?”

Slicking back his wild, wet hair (futilely) with each hand in succession, Sano answered. “I’ve got some people talking up letting me back in to Tone, so I figure that one won’t take much longer. Then once I trash some guys in the fights in Azabuku, the Karashi’ll probably be begging me to join them.”

“So those are active again, are they? We’ll have to shut them down as quickly as last time as soon as you’re done with them. It’s convenient timing, though.”

“Yeah, I was pretty happy to hear about ’em.”

“Just don’t get yourself killed.” This admonishment was only half serious in tone. “Those fights have always been brutal, and my wife won’t forgive either of us if you die.”

The statement had been a bid for information about the state of things between Sano and Tokio, but its results were different from anything Saitou had expected. Sano stared at him with brows lowered, looking slightly confused and as if he hadn’t quite heard right. “What did you just say?”

Puzzled by Sano’s expression, Saitou reworded. “Tokio won’t light any incense for you if you get killed in the Azabuku fights. And as for me…” But he fell silent, watching Sano in increasing bemusement.

The young man’s mouth opened once or twice, emitting no sound. Finally it simply remained slack. His eyes were equally wide, unblinking. After several long moments he dragged his jaw up with an evident effort and said, “But you called her your… You and her are…”

Recognizing at last the source of Sano’s astonishment, Saitou could find no other outlet for his own than disbelieving laughter. And at the sound, the younger man’s expression of shock and chagrin gradually crimsoned, whether in embarrassment or anger Saitou couldn’t be sure.

At length he said, “How is it possible you didn’t know we’re married?”

“Nobody ever…” Sano spluttered his way through his explanation. “I mean, somebody did tell… but I forgot… And she uses her old family… and-and she and I–” His blush intensified as he ceased abruptly.

“Ahou ga.”

“It’s not my fault!”

“Whose fault, then? You’re lucky we didn’t have this conversation before I hired you, because I never would have.”

“Just because I didn’t know Tokio is… is… ” He seemed to choke on the words.

“To have picked up so little when you were researching me isn’t very promising for an undercover agent.”

Sano ran his hands through his hair again, this time in a motion more like pulling at it in agitation than squeezing excess water from it. “Someone did mention it — I remember that now — but I didn’t really care! so I didn’t bother to remember it. I was researching the best way to fight you, not your personal life!”

“And her given name didn’t jog your memory? Nor the fact that we live together?”

“But you two don’t act like…” Sano no longer met Saitou’s eyes, and his face, if possible, glowed even redder than before. “I mean, why don’t you…”

The officer had been entertained by this exchange up until now, but Sano’s growing embarrassment was no good sign. Why would he blush so much, after all, or question intimate details if not from awkwardness or guilt about something that had happened between himself and Saitou’s wife? This was not unforeseen, really, just discouraging… but at least it served as some confirmation.

Saitou allowed Sano to proceed for a few fumbling moments — dancing around his real point, eventually trailing off, and looking again, hesitant but angry, up into Saitou’s face — before answering succinctly, “Our marriage is one of friendship and convenience. I’m not romantically interested in women.”

“Ohhh.” Sano sounded relieved and enlightened. Then silence fell just as the rain sank to a quiet, negligible sprinkle. The kenkaya once more had his eyes turned away, and obviously no idea where next to take this conversation.

Stifling a sigh Saitou finally said, “I believe we both have work to do.”

“Right.” Sano began searching for his gi. “Yeah.” Throwing the recovered garment over his shoulder with a splat against his bare skin and turning hastily, again not meeting Saitou’s gaze, he added, “So here whenever it’s raining, right?”

“Yes,” Saitou replied, and watched the young man walk off without any further word of goodbye.

Once Sano had struggled up the slippery hill and out of sight, Saitou found his own discarded jacket and absently reached into its pocket, glad he’d thought to tuck his matches into the water-resistant cigarette case before the rain started. For a long time he stood in the long, wet grass as the sun came out and dried his skin, smoking in thoughtful silence.

***

Looked at in a practical light, no logical reason existed for Sano to be so agitated about this. Understandable as it was to be a little agitated upon discovering a woman you’d slept with was married, and all the more humiliating and potentially dangerous as it made the situation to learn her husband was your boss, if you’d found out at the same moment that said boss only liked men and probably wouldn’t care you’d slept with his wife, the reaction should be negated, right? And since both Saitou and Tokio had obviously assumed he’d known all along, he couldn’t rationally be upset with either of them. So why did this bother him so much?

So rattled he couldn’t keep still, he wondered in a silent shout how many things a person could be expected to keep track of at once. He hadn’t ceased mulling over his own character and life philosophies… he hadn’t stopped worrying about Katsu and his life philosophies… He needed to go to Azabuku and impress basically the entire district, then find someone that knew about the fights so he could get signed up or passworded in or whatever it would take. He needed to find Kanno or some other Furukawatai jerk and check on his status there. He needed to figure out a way, in the middle of that, to help make Kotono’s situation less miserable. And now he really needed to get away from reflections on Tokio and Saitou and why it bugged him so much that they were married.

At first he couldn’t decide which item of business to pursue this evening — mostly because the aforementioned agitation had left his planning abilities in scattered pieces. He would like best of all to sit down calmly at a quiet bar somewhere and try to drink his head straight… but he hadn’t much enjoyed giving Tokio’s husband a no-real-progress report earlier. Saitou hadn’t said so, but Sano knew he would appreciate greater speed and efficiency. But which gang to play with tonight? They operated out of different districts, so the average night held insufficient hours to try making contact with them both.

After attempting some breathing exercises to calm himself (though pretty sure he got them wrong), eating some leftover rice that had to be finished off now or never, and confirming that the clothing he’d left draped beside the stove to dry had mostly done so, he finally managed to come to what actually seemed an obvious answer now he thought about it. If he harassed members of the Furukawatai about reentering the gang, it would make him seem desperate. They already knew he was poking his nose in that direction, and they specifically wanted him back; best to let the matter stew. The Azabuku fights, on the other hand, could already have started, and, for all he knew, the Karashigumi had no idea, as an organization, that he existed.

Dressed now in wet shoes, damp pants, and a very wrinkled gi he hadn’t had time or inclination to steam properly, he at last issued forth to spend the final light of the day carefully examining all the establishments in Azabuku where Karashi members seemed likely to show up. Taking special pains not to let it look like he traversed a premeditated route, he considered the probable schedules of such people based on his own history in a gang, and which of these bars and opium dens and gambling halls promised the strongest and most pugnacious of them.

He did this with a scowl on his face, partly in pensiveness and partly directed inward at his fixation on irrelevant facts. At least the expression matched his intentions; he’d decided the best way to attract the kind of attention he needed was to go heavy on the tough-guy act and get thrown out of a few places around here for fighting. All right, this didn’t constitute much of an act. He would have to be careful not to take it too far. Tokio (‘Takagi‘ Tokio his ass) would never let him hear the end of it if he got arrested during the course of what was essentially police work. He didn’t like to think what Saitou himself (who was just as married) would have to say about it.

A surprising amount of the time, bars that appeared to be the scummiest pockmarks on the world’s face actually had cleaner noses than their slightly less grimy and run-down fellows — possibly because they were ideal raiding-places for bored police rookies, and possibly because yakuza types, even the thugs, tended to consider themselves too high-class for such establishments. Therefore, though his own tastes weren’t so discriminating in the presence of decent drink and the absence of drug addicts, Sano avoided anything matching that description. And by the time true darkness had settled, he’d composed a sufficiently long mental list of places he thought worth visiting, and wondered idly how many of them it was safe to get tossed out of in one night.

The next problem he encountered, immediately inside the first bar, was how not to give the impression he was expecting someone or keeping an eye on the clientele, only angry-drinking or longing for a good fight. The subtle difference between how he wanted to appear and how he didn’t might make things difficult. It would be a breeze if he could drink a decent amount, fulfilling the bar’s purpose like everyone around him, but, being low on money (because a certain married man hadn’t yet given him the wage he’d promised), and wishing to remain cautious and observant and clear-headed, he had to limit himself.

Eventually, planning to keep an eye open for anyone he could insult or be insulted by in order to start some trouble, he decided on the brooding-in-a-corner look. Nursing a single drink (all he wanted to pay for) was really only convincing in solitude with a grim face, after all. And he had no difficulty coming up with a subject to occupy his thoughts and keep that scowl in place.

Might Tokio have said something to her… husband (thinking of Saitou in such terms remained almost mind-boggling) …about having slept with Sano? No, Saitou wouldn’t have failed to bring it up and work it into his mockery of Sano’s ignorance if he’d known. And she wouldn’t say something now, would she? Now they’d decided not to do it again? He couldn’t think of any reason Saitou should need to know about that. He also couldn’t think of any reason he should care so much whether or not Saitou knew, aside from wanting to avoid more mockery, but he did. Dissonance arose in his head whenever he considered having slept with Saitou’s wife. Perhaps he only worried Saitou would object to him as a partner for Tokio, believe him not good enough for her or something. But the affair had ended, so what could the officer even say along those lines?

“Gotta problem, kid?”

He’d become so lost in reflection as to completely miss that he’d been staring straight at someone for maybe quite a while. Now as he came to his senses, he couldn’t even curse himself for losing track, as this was exactly what he needed. “Name’s not ‘kid,'” he replied at a growl.

“I don’t give a fuck what yer name is,” said the object of Sano’s absent gaze. Burly and disgruntled-looking, he might be precisely the right type of person for the task at hand. “Just keep yer pervert eyes off my ass.”

Sano struggled not to show how much this startled him. He’d been very unaware of the direction his eyes pointed! But he managed to recover without letting his glower falter, and sat up straighter to indicate a greater level of engagement. “Most guys’d be proud I was checkin’ them out, but for someone as ugly as you, it’d be more logical to be scared shitless I’m just gonna kick that stupid ass out to the street.”

“You lookin’ to get killed?” the man snarled, and Sano had to work to keep from grinning at how well this was going. Not so difficult at all, really, putting on a show of this sort.

“Lookin’ to teach some cheeky bastard like you a lesson, maybe.” It took some practice to rise quickly from the benches at most bars without the movement appearing awkward and entirely backfiring even if you didn’t outright fall over, but fortunately Sano had had that practice. He stood abruptly to see if the guy would startle, and when the thuggish fool didn’t flinch, the pleased younger man added in a slightly louder tone, “Ain’t had a good fight in forever.” Entirely untrue, this, since he’d fought Saitou earlier today — right before the cop had mentioned he was married to Tokio — but the district needed to hear it.

The stranger stood as well, from a stool that took less dexterity and experience to leave smoothly. “You little shithead, I’m gonna–” But he was cut off by the appearance at his side of another man, who shook him hard and leaned up to whisper something roughly and beratingly in his ear. Sano definitely caught the words ‘kenkaya Zanza’ and ‘strong.’ So at least he had some reputation left; at least his recent loss to Tokio’s husband wasn’t the talk of the entire town.

The primary antagonist’s red face soured even further, and he pushed his friend aside mid-admonishment. Somewhat to Sano’s dismay, he said as he closed the distance between them, “You think I’m scared’a some failure who got his ass kicked by a cop? Yeah,” he added with an unpleasant little laugh, “yeah, I heard about that, Zanza.”

So maybe it was the talk of the entire town. Sano tried to plan in haste.

“Did your friend there have to tell you about that too?” he taunted as he weaved between two badly thrown punches. (His enemy had obviously taken a tad more to drink than he had.) “Does he always tell you bedtime stories?” He was buying space to think with these weak lines, but it also made him chortle a bit to see how angry the guy got.

Obviously next he must take this man out in the flashiest, concisest manner possible. But he also needed to make it absolutely clear to anyone paying attention that a kenkaya Zanza that had gotten his ass kicked by a cop still made a desirable acquisition for organized fights and for the Karashigumi. Not having a lot of time at the moment, he plunged into the first scheme he formulated without giving it much further thought.

Voices shouting at them to stop fighting or get out of the bar were converging from multiple sides, and the older man was making some new threatening statement Sano didn’t bother paying attention to. Instead, he said loudly as he continued to dodge, “Lemme tell you one too: everybody — even me — figures out eventually there’s always someone stronger than him. And for you and everyone else in this room…”

He caught the man’s right fist in his left hand, leaning back slightly so the wide upper body behind it bent forward inadvertently to follow. Then, using the strength of his legs rising from the crouch this had put him in to add extra power to his punch, he struck upward into the enemy’s stomach, lifting him off his feet and flinging him toward the low ceiling. The contact of body and plaster provided only a dull thud, since the guy’d been damned difficult to throw that high in the first place, and in the wake of the disappointing sound Sano finished his cocky statement: “…that’s me!” And he stepped aside as his enemy made a much more satisfying noise hitting the floor in front of him.

He wondered what Saitou, the husband of Tokio, would say about that move. Probably that Sano had been foolish to leave himself open for a left hook; what if he hadn’t been able to get in his punch quickly enough, and had been knocked out as payment for his showboating? Tokio, the wife of Saitou, would probably mock him for the showboating too, even if she had nothing to offer on his technique. It wouldn’t help to point out that he needed to showboat, and only did it (well, mostly did it) in the pursuit of their goals.

“And I’m still lookin’ for a good fight,” was his closing statement, rendered a touch grumpier in tone than he could have affected on his own by the thoughts he’d been entertaining.

“You need to leave,” came a voice over his shoulder. Much of the room had turned to chaos now as whoever this was threatened him, two other solid employees approached with a wakizashi and a club respectively, the downed loser’s friends clustered around to discover whether or not he’d died, and other patrons crowded for a good view and commented among themselves. Little more could be gained in here tonight.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sano waved the man behind him away with one hand, the two in front with the other. “You need to make sure your clients don’t bug me while I’m drinking.” Belatedly, already heading for the exit, he added, “Unless they’re actually worth fighting.”

The temperature outside compared comfortably well to the overstuffed bar, though the nearby gutters, still running high from the afternoon’s rain, scented the air just about as pleasantly as body odors and whatnot did within. The cloud cover had mostly passed, but a faint haze rising from the area’s various establishments colored the air, and the stars looked as dirty as the ground beneath his feet. These he moved smartly, heading for the next bar and the next fight. He wished he could gamble as he had the other night, but his near lack of funds made that unfeasible.

As he walked, he considered how he’d handled that last scenario, and decided he didn’t like it. He’d entered into it by lucky accident while distracted, then been so focused on how he would knock the guy out and what he should say to get his point across that he hadn’t paid sufficient attention to the people around him. How long had that man’s sleeves been? Might Sano have missed a chance to look for a Karashi tattoo? Had any been visible elsewhere in the room?

A voice spoke suddenly in his head: “You’re lucky we didn’t have this conversation before I hired you, because I never would have.” Because, yeah, Saitou wouldn’t have anything nice to say if he knew how inattentive Sano had been. He would probably connect it to Sano’s previous obliviousness about his nuptial state, and come to unflattering conclusions. And Tokio wouldn’t be much help; she was married to the bastard, after all. Besides, the only skill of Sano’s she could really attest to was…

He scowled and pushed onward, pushing at the same time all such thoughts out of the way. He had work to do: people to intimidate and awareness to attract, fights to start, and so on.

Now if he could only get the platonic married couple in his head to leave him alone while he did it.

***

The monotonous scraping of blade on wood had been Katsu’s constant companion these last few days, and without it he seemed to feel as if something had gone wrong, as if there were something he needed to be doing but wasn’t. The time had come to begin the printing process, to turn out the twenty copies of his first edition, so he’d set aside his carving tools and now faced a stack of thin papers that would undoubtedly prove tricky to find places for in his small apartment so they could dry after inking.

Something nagged at him beyond merely the absence of the previous days’ habitual sounds. He assumed it had to do with this being his initial step into a new world, a new line of work — he certainly recognized some measure of agitation concerning the public reception of his newspaper, the effect it might eventually have, and the potential dangers involved — and perhaps it was indeed limited to that. He nevertheless directed his mind toward ferreting out the cause for certain as he began to set up.

In the interest of making this a tenable long-term endeavor, he’d chosen just about the cheapest paper and ink on the market — the former much flimsier and the latter of a far lower quality than he used for artistic prints — and smallish, thin blocks of wood that often sold as remnants and that he wouldn’t have given a second glance for any other project. Each story existed on a separate block (though the main piece had stretched long enough to require two), and he’d carefully measured the space on the paper to make sure they would all fit.

Now he laid out the blocks edge-to-edge on the first sheet to be sure he’d done the calculations correctly. Confident that he had, he fetched a baren and a dish and brush for his ink (none of these ever too far from his hand). He decided to dilute the latter somewhat; after all, this first edition, and probably the second, would go for free, so he needed to conserve resources.

Along those same lines, he also needed to come up with a new artistic print that would be likely to sell. Regular nourishment formed a significant part of his life, and he would like to keep it that way.

But as he began an inking process that, though contextually different from what he usually did, he could still probably accomplish in his sleep, his head remained full of vague curiosity and worry over what kept needling him — what he’d missed, what he should be doing and wasn’t.

His distributor had signaled not only his readiness to hand out copies, but his success in locating the people he believed most likely to appreciate the content and share it in their own circles — thus paving the way for future editions. Katsu and his contact would be going about this quietly and as anonymously as possible; they’d taken every precaution. That couldn’t be what bothered him now.

Or could it? Increasingly while he inked and pressed and spread sheets of paper across his living space to dry, that woman, Takagi Tokio, kept drifting into his mind as if she had something to do with this. She, as a police officer not merely slightly acquainted with Katsu but romantically involved with his best friend, would be perfectly placed to make trouble for him. Despite what he knew of the work she did with Saitou Hajime, he couldn’t be sure she would react favorably to the suggestive or even specifically incriminating content of his newsprint. Perhaps she haunted him now due to skittishness concerning that reaction.

And yet… something about her fascinated him and seemed to draw his thoughts without needing any such excuse. He’d recalled her surprisingly often lately, and not necessarily when he pondered or labored at his new undertaking. Why should there be any reason to dwell on her today beyond what had driven him on previous occasions? On further reflection, he decided she couldn’t be the cause for his subdued anxiety either.

He’d finished the main article, and the next step was the second, starting back at the beginning of the line where the ink should have dried by now. But he hesitated, moving only slowly to gather up a few of the initial sheets and angle them toward the light to catch its reflection on any remaining moisture. Finally he set them back down in their places and reached instead for a drawer where he kept paper for nishiki-e. He had to sort through his somewhat disorganized stock before he found a size that would work, and then he extracted two pieces.

It would be wise, he’d realized, to keep a copy of each edition for himself in case he needed to reference something previously printed at a later date. And the second higher-quality facsimile would go to Sano, not only to ensure Katsu knew his thoughts on the content but as a gesture of friendship and gratitude.

As he pressed the main article’s two blocks again and replaced the wet cloth that would keep them from becoming crusted with dried ink before he was quite done with them, his movements remained slow with indecision. Because it had been Takagi-san that had largely inspired him to do this, not Sano. If he planned to make a gesture of friendship and gratitude, it ought to extend to her as well. If he truly didn’t fear the repercussions of giving a police officer a copy, he should prove it by sending her one in good faith. Perhaps that was what had been bothering him. He fetched out a third sheet of the finer paper.

He believed, printing the primary story for the last time, he’d solved his mystery. He was even able to give some thought to the kind of tray or sliding apparatus he would need to buy or build in order to lock all his blocks in place and be able to ink and print them in one go instead of piecemeal like this. But as he really did get started on the second article, he found that woman’s face once again interposing itself between his eyes and the work at hand.

“You must be an excellent police officer.”

“I’m afraid you’re one of the few men who thinks so.”

From the research he’d done, not to mention her attitude when they’d very briefly discussed this, Katsu knew Takagi-san had undertaken a constantly uphill journey, even a battle, when she’d signed on with the police. He knew many of the men at the precinct considered her as something like a pet Fujita kept around to amuse himself with. He knew, from the way they’d talked about her, that they viewed and treated her with very little respect. He knew, in short, that she couldn’t get herself taken seriously because she was a woman.

It came as no surprise, but he couldn’t understand it. He’d met her twice, studied her to some extent from afar, and heard Sano talk about her, and through all of that she’d done nothing but impress him deeply with her abilities, her effectiveness, and her moral determination. How could her co-workers fail to see it? How could anyone give her anything but the acknowledgements and admiration that were her due?

Yet men never took women very seriously, did they? Perhaps even he. His hands faltered on the third article as he made this speculation. He’d had it pointed out to him by a beautiful, fascinating woman that publicly performed notable work usually conducted by men; would it ever have occurred to him otherwise? Did he think of women — most women, everyday women, the ones that didn’t grab his attention and force him to own up to this social deficiency — as inevitably secondary, as less capable, as amusing pets whose concerns were far outranked by those of men?

He scanned the room, directing his gaze toward but not really seeing each growing copy of his first edition: a newspaper that mentioned no female even once in any of its articles.

Now a different woman’s face occupied his mental eye: a startlingly haggard face aged beyond its twenty-some years.

This contact he’d made at a market stall in Tsukiji had fallen into a strange melancholia after delivering her baby. She’d felt herself unequal to caring for the child, herself, or the household. She’d had trouble sleeping and little interest in eating, and could rouse herself from lethargy to no emotion other than anger. She’d grown distant and confused, and almost completely indifferent to everything in her life, including the baby.

Instead of seeking medical care — doctors in Europe, she’d said, studied melancholia and were developing new treatment methods every year — her husband had declared her unfit for motherhood or the maintenance of a household, and accused her of neglecting her marital duties. He’d divorced her and sent her back to her family in disgrace, where she’d spent almost a year recovering from both the initial malady and the subsequent shock. She hadn’t seen her son since, and now lived very miserably helping her parents sell fish.

Katsu had jotted all this down, omitting names, thinking, This story has merit. Then he’d brought it home and set it aside, buried it under more important men’s matters, continuing the thought, But it’s a personal or a social or a medical issue, and I’m writing a political paper.

But weren’t laws concerning marital duties and divorce a specifically political issue? Since primarily women suffered from them, no one — no man — gave them a second thought. Even he had dismissed the account as unuseful. But didn’t that bereaved mother deserve justice every bit as much as the victims of a pay conspiracy among shipping officials? Wasn’t she downtrodden and suffering, heavy with a story that needed to be told? Wasn’t her experience precisely the type of subject he’d set out to cover, to tell the citizens of Japan about?

He draped his wet cloth over the third article block and scrambled for yet another sheet of paper and a pen, as well as the notes he’d initially taken after talking to the woman. He could use the cheap ink to draft this and then rewrite it. He had to make it fit in the space he’d reserved for his fourth story, the one about the much-exploited loophole in a grains export law, and therefore must choose his words sparingly. The loophole could wait until the second edition.

How would his readers feel about this? Would it promote or discourage future patronage? Did taking this step doom his entire project to obscurity and failure right from the beginning? He was doing it anyway. Because his paper purported to expose evils in everyone’s midst, to prompt changes in attitudes and behaviors so as to improve the country. Because he believed it to be right. Because he was, and wanted to remain, ‘one of the few men.’ He wanted to be better. And because Takagi Tokio might appreciate it.

For some notes on these story segments, see this Productivity Log.

The hour was far too early for his eyelids to remain so stubbornly raised, and, given that all he could see anyway was a mass of shining black hair he would truly rather not look at, he had multiple good reasons to try to keep them shut… but he couldn’t. So he shifted onto his back, away from the accusatorily beautiful hair and the curve of a fine cheek visible through it, and tried to focus instead on the pale beginnings of dawn that gradually filled his apartment.

His next motion was to pillow bare arms beneath his head to facilitate his pointless gaze up at the shadowed, dusty ceiling, before he realized that so much movement might leave him not the only person prematurely awake and he wasn’t ready for that. He resisted the urge to turn and look at her again, simultaneously stifling a sigh. In addition to his inability to continue sleeping, he also couldn’t get comfortable, but he needed to lie still and avoid waking her. Too bad the thoughts in his head seemed to be bellowing.

He’d enjoyed it, of course; he always enjoyed sex. But he couldn’t deny that it hadn’t been… well, it hadn’t really been satisfying, and not necessarily in a physical sense. He didn’t want to postulate something wrong with Tokio any more than something wrong with himself, but this encounter simply hadn’t been enough for him. In fact the memory of last night suggested he’d lost interest fairly early and gone along from there solely for her sake. And while he didn’t believe he’d performed poorly, such perfunctory attention to such crucial business was something he couldn’t recall ever having given before… and it seemed tactless, perhaps even disrespectful. That wasn’t why his conscience was bristling, though. It wasn’t about whether his body had taken pleasure from it, or even whether hers had; it was that he’d done it at all.

But why should he feel guilty about that? Sleeping with Tokio had been a normal progression after flirting with her and kissing her, right? Sex was something people did… desire for it was a normal instinct… Sano was as red-blooded as anyone else he knew, and had indulged in sex ever since he’d been old enough…

No. Zanza had indulged. To him sex had been merely another tool, another physically distracting activity he could use to forget his past, erase his pain, even alleviate his boredom. Just another game, a pursuit as meaningless as his mercenary work had always been. And here Sano was playing that game again after he’d supposedly renounced that kind of sport and started living his life seriously. He knew he wasn’t serious about Tokio — he’d known it last night — and yet he’d done it anyway: played with her as he’d done with others in the past; taken advantage of her for some kind of quick, distracting thrill; forgotten himself as he used to do and brought her with him. How was he going to tell her it couldn’t happen again? How did you confess to something like that? How was he supposed to work with her after this?

Course I’d think of all this after… He’d been so pleased with himself last night, caught up in the progress he’d made and excited to share it with her, not to mention overwhelmingly relieved at finding her still his friend, and consequently full of fondness toward her… but that was no excuse for impetuosity that might prove to have hurt them both. Great mess I’m in now…

During this reverie, he’d turned onto his side again, away from her now and facing a haphazard clutter of blue, black, and white across his floor; as he stifled another sigh his eyes abruptly focused and began to range over clothing and wraps until they came to rest on a certain kanji that had somehow draped itself over the edge of the table to stare at him in stark condemnation. He grimaced. He really did feel like a villain.

She stirred beside him. His attempts not to bother her had been negligent, and it made sense she would be a light sleeper. How to interpret the apparent casualness and unconcern of her movements as she stretched languidly and sat up, he did not know.

“Ohayou,” she said. Either she knew he’d awakened before her, or she wanted him to awaken now. She didn’t reach out to touch him, to shake or alert him or to explore his body further than she’d done last night; but as she drew her legs up one of them brushed in a whisper of smooth skin against Sano’s right buttock under the blanket beside her, and it was an effort for him not to jerk away as if burned. He certainly mimicked her motion of sitting up abruptly enough, and his return good morning came out hoarsely.

For a moment they stared at each other, and Sano reflected what a shame it was that he couldn’t be serious about her. She was fun to be with, very convenient in his current situation, and sure as hell beautiful. This was the first time he’d seen her hair free of its bun, and, sitting there with it spilling down over pale shoulders past the line of a cute uniform tan and across nicely rounded bare breasts, she looked good enough to eat. For someone else, anyway. Sano, at the moment, would rather turn and run, faint residual stirrings in his lower body notwithstanding.

Her smile had changed as they examined each other, but Sano didn’t understand the new version any better than he had the old. She leaned back on her hands and crossed her legs, disarraying the blanket atop her. “I’d volunteer to make tea, but I’m almost afraid to touch your stove. It looks like it might fall apart and set the apartment on fire.”

Glad of an excuse to direct his attention away from her at the device in question, Sano protested, “You saw me use it just last night!” Not that he really wanted to bring up last night, and not that this attempt at naturality succeeded in any way.

“Every use could be its last,” she intoned.

Sano tried to laugh, but this too sounded far from genuine.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” Tokio sighed, “before we plunge into our serious discussion.”

Sano winced. He hadn’t meant to look like he wanted one, nor believed he’d betrayed his subject of reflection in any way. “What serious discussion?”

Her expression, as he swiveled back toward her, became a little sad even if her tone was still light as she replied, “The one we’re about to have.”

Sano nodded, attempting to return the smile but having more success returning the sigh. He should have known he couldn’t hide anything from a spy — especially one he’d slept with — but he’d been hoping for a little more time to figure out how to tell her he regretted what they’d done and didn’t want to do it again. Of course, she probably already knew… Two people didn’t start the morning after sex with a ‘serious discussion’ except to make a momentous change in their relationship — and as Sano obviously wasn’t planning on proposing marriage to her, she must be aware that any such discussion between them entailed a breakup of sorts. The problem wasn’t really how to tell her, but how much to tell her. He took a deep breath. “The thing is…”

She used the hesitant interval in his words to protest. “You’ve got to stop looking so guilty. We’re both thinking the same thing, so…”

“Are we?”

“That this was a mistake we shouldn’t repeat? I believe so.”

“Yeah…” He managed a weak smile this time, of relief perhaps but more of bewilderment. It hadn’t crossed his mind that she might have reached the same conclusion he had — and what an arrogant little shit it marked him as that he’d never even considered she might regret sleeping with him. This only added to how unfairly he thought he’d treated her, and he began again, “I’m sorry–“

“No apologizing either,” she cut him off, shaking a finger. “If we haven’t done right by each other… well, it’s in the past now.”

In what manner she could possibly think she’d wronged him lay beyond his ability to guess, but perhaps she was as reluctant to confess it as he was to put his own earlier thoughts into words. Still, he couldn’t keep from asking a bit helplessly, “What’s left to say, then?”

She pondered, crossing her legs and leaning her chin on her hand. He stared at the faint line between her eyebrows rather than any other point on her naked body. “How about this: I’ll say what I think, and you see if you have anything to add. If we haven’t worked this out by then…” A shrug seemed to finish with something to the effect of, “I don’t really know what we’ll do then.” Sano didn’t know either, but thought her proposed plan was probably for the best, and said so. And with a deep breath of her own Tokio began.

“I think,” she said slowly, “you’re a great guy. I’m glad I met you, and I’m looking forward to working with you. I think we’ll continue to get along very well. I’m glad we didn’t have to become enemies; I’m glad we’re still friends.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “And if it took sex to make us see what kind of friends we’re supposed to be, and what kind we’re not… I’m not going to regret it.” Her lips spread into a self-deprecating smile. “No, I’m already regretting it… but as an experience that’s in the past that we can both learn from…”

Contradictorily with a certain amount of effort, Sano finally relaxed. While Tokio’s description of the situation did not meet with the full approval of his conscience, it was plausible and he was more than willing to go along with it for the sake of preserving the friendship she’d mentioned. She hadn’t explained her compunctions about last night, nor her comment earlier that suggested she thought she’d done him wrong, but neither did she need to know the sordid details of his thought processes. At last, more easily than he’d said anything this morning, Sano allowed, “Well, I agree with you.” He almost wished he did have something to add, if only to prove how seriously he was taking this, but still found himself floundering in guilt and uncertainty and a desire not to tell her how much and how senselessly he felt he’d used her.

She raised an eyebrow. “You agree that you’re a great guy?”

“You sound like Saitou,” he snorted.

“Hn,” she replied. Then less facetiously, “So we’re not going to hate each other over this?” And despite having been the one to set everything right between them, to come up with the excuse that would prevent them from hating each other, a kind of nervous supplication flickered for a moment — only one moment — in her eyes as she asked this. As by pure luck alone he caught the expression, Sano reflected that in addition to having reached the same conclusion about the night’s events and their relationship, she might be experiencing emotions similar to his own on the subject. Perhaps she felt like a villain as well. And he wondered if she bought the ‘if it took sex’ speech any more than he did, or if it would simply become their standing silent agreement to leave it at that.

“Course not,” he said, struggling hard for a real smile at last if only to reassure her, as well as himself, that his words were true. And they had to be. He would make certain they were even if he had to work every moment for the rest of his life not to hate Tokio. How to go about repairing a mistake of this sort remained a mystery on the whole, but he could begin by ensuring it didn’t get in the way of their immediate happiness. He could only hope he’d be successful at deliberately holding together a friendship marred by a poor decision when that was something he’d never done before or even considered. At least he knew he could count on her help.

“Good.” It was her usual cheerfully brusque tone once again. Unashamed of her nakedness, she pushed the blanket away, rose, and began to pick her clothing from among his off the floor. “You should make tea.”

Sano figured she was right: not belaboring the issue was probably the best way to move past it, at least while they were still in the same room together. “You don’t think it’s going to burn the apartment down when I touch it?”

“There’s always the chance,” she admitted regretfully.

Determined not to make tea in the nude, Sano reached for his pants. “Besides, don’t you need to get to work?”

“Yes, I have things to do — and so do you.” Finished with her undergarments, she was pulling a black shirt over her head with her back turned to him. “But there’s nothing wrong with starting the day out right.”

Sano laughed, but didn’t comment that they were off on the wrong foot — or would it be the wrong side of the futon? — already in that case. Half clothed, he looked around to see if he even had any tea, or anything to go with it; he was hungry.

Their brief and meager breakfast was a struggle, he guessed, for both of them, but a necessary one. Whatever degree of awkwardness they parted in now would undoubtedly multiply for their next meeting. Better to force themselves to stay friendly and casual and discuss things that remained common between them as if nothing untoward had happened. At least that was how he saw it, and the fact that she stayed for half an hour chatting about work over weak tea seemed to indicate she agreed. Still, he experienced unabashed relief when she finally made to depart.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she was saying as she moved to the entry to put her shoes on.

“Yeah,” he nodded, following like a good host.

“Do me a friendly favor?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Sure.” He paused in the act of reaching out to open the door for her.

“Kiss me.”

He shook his head in a mixture of amusement and admiration at her cheek. “Shameless woman.”

“Now who sounds like Hajime?”

“Fine,” he laughed, and kissed her one last time. He couldn’t help feeling as he pulled away that there was something unhappy in her eyes. It probably mirrored his own, but whether this was sadness that they weren’t meant for each other or guilt neither could completely overcome, he couldn’t tell. Things wouldn’t be entirely smooth between them for a while; that much was obvious.

“Bye,” she said softly, pulling the door open on her own.

“See ya,” he replied, equally quiet, watching as she stepped briskly away. After a moment she looked back at him. She didn’t turn, only glanced over her shoulder; it reminded him of when Saitou done exactly the same just yesterday. But all Tokio did was wave and move off again.

He returned the gesture, though it felt empty and she wouldn’t see it in any case, and closed the door on the sight of her receding figure. Then he slumped back through his room, absently straightening up for no reason other than needing something to do with his hands. Finally he sat down on the rumpled futon and lay back, arms behind his head and feet propped up on the table, and stared again at the ceiling.

Everything had happened so quickly — how they’d started down an unwise path last night and how they’d left it just now — that he felt a little dazed. And when he thought about it, he hadn’t really known Tokio very long in the first place, so even in relationship terms it at all been hasty. Maybe he’d purposely rushed things. Why he might have done so he didn’t know, but something had caused him to race ahead in his progress with Tokio. He’d never thought of himself as particularly desperate for sex — which only made him feel worse for having slept with her — so why had he done it? Was it simply what he’d been labeling it before — a leftover dalliance of Zanza’s — or was there some other reason he hadn’t yet recognized? Some craving for companionship, perhaps a result of recent events and actually having more to do with his new life than his old, that had led him to seek the only kind of closeness he knew he could rely on at this point? He couldn’t be sure.

What he was sure of was that nothing like this could be allowed to happen again. Somberly he made a vow to himself: Next time I fuck someone, I’m not gonna have to ask myself all these questions about it; there’ll be a damn good reason for it, or I won’t do it at all.

As this almost ritual moment of silent oath-taking passed, he gave the ceiling a grin both rueful and bitter in addition to slightly amused. It was funny, he thought, how much thinking he’d been doing since he’d met that woman. Actually it had mostly started with Saitou, hadn’t it? Lots of thinking in general lately, then. And he wasn’t entirely certain how much he liked it.

***

Tokio counted out coins to the solicitous attendant, and with a murmured thanks allowed herself to be directed into the dressing room. Steam welled up around her in a sudden rush as the door opened, and, hands stilling briefly on her jacket lapels, she closed her eyes and breathed in the good scents of wet tile and soap. She was glad she’d had some money on her. She’d already stopped by an herbalist she probably patronized far more often than most ‘respectable’ women did to purchase a certain technically illegal but very convenient concoction… but primarily she was simply relieved she didn’t have to meet Hajime today before taking a bath.

As she began, pensive and frowning, to undress, she anticipated with no great pleasure the moment when she would meet Hajime, an event that could not be put off for any reason so petty as social awkwardness. In fact she looked forward less to encountering him than she did to talking to Zanza again, since one ‘morning after’ conversation had already taken place, whereas the other… the other she didn’t even quite know how she would deal with.

There was some irony here that brought a faint, bitter smile to her face. Typically a woman’s thoughts regarding her husband after sleeping with another man would be very different than this, and her current reflections might have surprised anyone to whom she happened to relate them. Not that there was anyone to whom she would; she didn’t lack friends, but none of them besides Hajime himself were close enough, sufficiently privy to the details of her unusual life to share such personal affairs with. And how much she could possibly share of this with Hajime was a matter of very doubtful question.

What she’d told herself yesterday remained true: she didn’t owe it to him to give up on something she wanted just because he’d developed an interest in it (without offering any indication thereof, she might add). It represented neither betrayal of friendship nor dishonorable conduct to continue down a path she’d already started walking even having inadvertently discovered her husband would prefer to be the only one moving toward her destination. So far she was in the clear.

The combination of her new awareness of Hajime’s interest, on the other hand, with everything that had come to light last night and this morning made her feel she hadn’t treated either him or Zanza properly.

Three other women, one with a chubby child to soap up along with herself, occupied the washing area, and it appeared at least three more sat in the tub. Tokio took one of the last few stools, determined to scrub as slowly as possible in the hope that some of the soakers might leave and she wouldn’t be forced to share the space with seven other, probably socially inclined people. She didn’t have all day, but she also thought spending a little extra time in here to secure peace of mind would be well worth it.

One aspect of last night’s experience had been totally new to her: her partner’s heart hadn’t been in. Which is not to say she’d never had lackluster sex, that no previous lover had ever been tired or preoccupied… but she couldn’t recall ever having gone into a sexual encounter with someone so seemingly eager at first who had then pretty clearly lost interest the way Zanza had. In a way she was almost grateful for the circumstance, as its uniqueness was opening her eyes about her own condition as nothing in the past had ever done.

Excluding Hajime, most men treated her very poorly. At best they interacted with her the way they did with other women — that is, as if she were some kind of extra-intelligent animal that, while it could provide certain services, needed a lot of looking after and was (and must remain) gratefully subservient. The worst examples treated her like a criminal, a personal affront, something heinous and disgusting that needed to be trampled down on a regular basis to keep it in its place. There were very few exceptions. She’d always had to fight simply to be allowed to exist as she was in society; she’d become so accustomed to it by now that she often gave it very little thought. And she hadn’t considered, until today, exactly how deep this necessary rebellion ran, exactly how specific and personal some of her efforts were at getting the men in her life to take her seriously.

She scrubbed with only a very average level of force, but prolonged repetition was turning her skin red; yet she continued, as if with the motion she might rid herself of the guilt and the confusion and the… and the unexpected unhappiness that welled up inside her at her own thoughts. Even though she couldn’t actually wash away what she felt, action was still better than non-action.

Her last lover, Noriyuki, was a fellow police officer. She’d only slept with him a handful of times before discovering that, though he’d given an impression of respecting her abilities and ambitions, he expected without even asking that, once they became physically intimate, she would, if not actually divorce her existing husband, at the very least ‘settle down’ with Noriyuki, abandon her police career, and start having his babies. His inflexibility on this point — indeed, his frank skepticism at her unwillingness — probably should not have come as such a surprise to her; perhaps she’d been too optimistic. But the sex — the very act that had ushered them toward the end of their relationship — had been passionate and enjoyable while it had lasted.

The man before that, Taku, a rare uncorrupted government secretary met during the course of work, had made specific verbal claims to understand and support Tokio’s life choices; yet it had become obvious over time that, at least subconsciously, he, like Noriyuki, believed her government employment to be nothing more than transitory, that domesticity and perhaps even motherhood must be her actual ultimate goal. That relationship had suffered no serious change at the introduction of sex, so they’d had quite a bit of it, but it had necessarily eventually ended.

Prior to that, Iwashiro the struggling poet had always immortalized in verse such traits as her trim figure, charming laugh, or sparkling eyes, writing nothing of her mental or spiritual characteristics or professional accomplishments. He would listen largely in silence to her description of her day, having nothing to add despite his eloquence, then praise her cooking and wander off to get back to his own work. The sex had been pretty fun, though.

She didn’t want to go any further back in her memory. The latest four were more than enough to tell her what she needed to know: that she’d developed a habit of using sex not nearly so often for connecting with someone she cared about, or even merely a physically enjoyable pastime, as for a method of proving herself to her partner. It had long been an indicator not only of her unwillingness to lie quiescent and allow a man to take charge of the proceedings in any part of her life, but of a demonstrable talent not nearly so easily dismissed by someone close to her as the one she had for police work and spying. She hadn’t recognized that she did this until now, until she’d had an encounter during which her partner hadn’t paid her the attention she was accustomed to, had remained largely unengaged and unimpressed.

And this was shameful, disgraceful. Whatever a sexual encounter should mean to the people involved, it wasn’t this. It made sense, perhaps, that she had developed this habit, but just because she’d been treated poorly didn’t mean she should behave poorly in response. And given that sex was one of the few things, in the minds of the backward men of her culture, women were allowed to be good for (if not necessarily good at), aggressively proving she was skilled in that area seemed likely to do her — and other women — no real favors.

She rinsed away soap and shampoo at last with an almost vicious application of fresh, cool water that smarted against the flesh she’d rubbed raw. The number of ladies in the tub hadn’t decreased as she’d hoped, and they were over there chatting in a manner she would usually have considered pleasant about their lives, their children and husbands. She might as well join them rather than waiting any longer. None of them had a life like Tokio’s, though; none of them had a husband like Hajime.

And this brought her back to the one man that invariably treated her like a fellow professional and an intelligent being, yet with whom she not infrequently, if only subconsciously and probably merely because he was the closest man to her at any given moment, set herself up in competition. Had there been some of that last night? Had she, with the stone she’d used to ‘prove herself’ to Zanza, also killed the bird of scoring a point against Hajime in an undeclared and entirely inappropriate contest?

In the time she’d known him, which was about four months longer than she’d been married to him, she’d seen Hajime take interest in exactly two different men, not counting Zanza. He was picky and demanding — neither of the two had been with him long — and eclectic in his tastes — they’d been totally dissimilar, and Zanza was as different from them as they from each other. Not that either had been unpleasant… they simply hadn’t been what she might have expected Hajime to appreciate. And neither was Zanza. She’d given up trying to understand it. She only knew that, when Hajime did like someone, the entire impressive strength of his tenacious nature came to bear, and he didn’t give up until having it incontrovertibly demonstrated that being or remaining together with the man in question was impossible for whatever reason. Someone as passionate as Hajime (as Hajime often pretended not to be but unquestionably was) could easily get his heart broken that way, so it was probably for the best that he took such interest in others so infrequently.

She knew all of this, yet had brushed it carelessly aside, and for what? For a night of unwisely demonstrating some ephemeral superiority in some area to someone she’d specifically admitted she didn’t love. She had no moral objection to sex without love or commitment, and normally would not even have taken this point into consideration, but here was where that combination of circumstances she’d been thinking of earlier came into play.

Love, or even merely the desire to form a fulfilling physical arrangement, would have been sufficient reason to disregard Hajime’s interest in Zanza; or, if she hadn’t been aware of that interest, embarking on sex with Zanza with foolish, selfish motivations would have been as bad as in her previous relationships but ultimately harmless — even educational when Zanza, by losing interest, helped her understand her own heart at last and then (thank god!) seemed both unhurt by her behavior and disinterested in continuing the farce.

But having done what she’d done for the reason she had while knowing what she’d known, she had acted wrongly by each of her friends. And she felt wretched about it now.

And where in all of this she should place the question of how she might go about developing a real relationship with a man, having sex with someone for real reasons and never feeling the need either to prove herself or to compete with him, she couldn’t begin to guess. She didn’t have to be with someone… yet she almost constantly was. It was a stroke of luck, really — good or bad she didn’t know — that Zanza had caught her between other men at all; they came into her life like clockwork. But somehow it never answered. Was there anyone out there that was right for her, with whom she could have a fulfilling romance without all this inappropriate and destructive emotional and social fencing? And did the problem perhaps lie with her just as much as with the men around her? She didn’t know.

Not entirely to her surprise, though she had been a little perverse about it, relaxing in hot water alongside other women with troubles of their own — regardless of how simplistic some of those troubles might be in comparison with Tokio’s — calmed and comforted her. True, she couldn’t open up to them (and probably wouldn’t have been able to even had they been more than complete strangers), but there was a supportive, comradely feeling simply to having them there and to the pleasantness and welcome in their conversation. Then too it relieved her to concentrate a little less for a while on the tangle her own interactions with men had become.

Eventually, though, she could postpone no longer her departure and inevitable getting back to work. It was time to dress, leave this soothing ambience, and face her husband. He would probably have her take one of the day’s patrol assignments, which could prove either helpfully distracting or precisely the opportunity for further brooding she didn’t need right now, depending on which area of town she ended up walking and the happenstance of the day. But she had to get through that conversation with Hajime first. So, cleaner but wishing she had a different uniform to wear, she dried, covered her nakedness, and left the bathhouse for the police station.

She would need to tell him things hadn’t worked out with Zanza. She would like to tell him what she’d realized about herself as a result of this event, but knew that, at least, would have to wait. How she could even word the statement she most needed to make, the one that was to set things on the level between them, she couldn’t imagine. As she moved through town with steps she had to struggle to keep from becoming sluggish or ceasing entirely, she tried futilely to think of how to say what was required without having it come across as something like, “I’m done with him, but there might be some left over for you.”

Preoccupied, she hadn’t wrung her hair out as thoroughly as usual before putting it back up, and now drops of water fell perseverently from the bottom of her bun right down the collar of her uniform jacket. As she reached an annoyed hand up to rub the moisture into her skin, she realized that wasn’t the only somewhat uncomfortable sensation on the back of her neck. Perhaps she might have noticed sooner had she been less busy inside her own head, though maybe it had just started and she wouldn’t have, but she did have the sudden feeling that someone behind her had their eyes on her. She veered into a side street without breaking stride — what stride she was managing to maintain, anyway — and was able, with the ninety degree shift, to glance unconspicuously toward the area from which she believed the scrutiny came. She didn’t allow her expression to change at what she saw, though admittedly she couldn’t be sure what it would have changed to.

She knew that the disquieting impression she and Hajime had suffered the other day of being continually talked about had arisen in response to Tsukioka setting inquiries in motion about them out of worry either for Zanza’s safety or the degree to which he could trust him, or a bit of both. Despite the foolishness of his subsequent scheme, and the inconvenience he’d caused the two police officers, Tokio hadn’t really been able to blame him for that. But surely he’d learned enough at that time to require no further information about her and Hajime? Surely there was nothing else he felt he needed to know in order to protect (or assess the trustworthiness of) his friend? Because he seemed to be staring pretty fixedly, yet so subtly that it was clear he didn’t seek her attention.

But there could be another reason besides the aforementioned for him to spy on her. Zanza had expressed significant concern, after all, about where Tsukioka’s path would lead from here. Though unsure of the extent of the artist’s knowledge about Zanza’s involvement with the police — whether Zanza had framed it as a totally personal relationship such as Tokio herself hoped to use as their cover story with most of the world, or whether he’d elaborated on the professional arrangement as well — Tokio thought it seemed not improbable that the artist, knowing there was some involvement of whatever kind, sought to discover just how detrimental that involvement might be to any future illegal plans he was concocting. Honestly she couldn’t come up with any other explanation for that intense, secretive stare.

She also couldn’t think of anything to be done about it at the moment. To confront him would probably scare him off, and she doubted she’d get any honest answers out of him in any case; and it wasn’t as if he committed a crime — or even a particularly unusual deed, unfortunately — in staring at her. She would simply have to bear in mind that he still needed to be monitored until they knew for certain what he was up to.

This didn’t exactly oust the matter of Tokio’s relationship problems, only added a secondary subject of concern, but it did diffuse somewhat the more weighty subject in her thoughts so that when she entered the police station and her husband’s presence at last, she was less prepared than she had been for the scene that must follow. But her complete focus returned almost violently to the topic she’d been worried about all morning at the look Hajime gave her immediately she entered his office. For it was clear that he knew, without a single word from her, what had happened last night. He’d recognized her recognition of his interest yesterday, and now he knew she’d proceeded in spite of it. But he didn’t know what happened this morning — what had passed between her and Zanza, what had gone through her head — and she had no idea yet how to tell him.

“We still need to keep an eye on Tsukioka.” She wasn’t usually given to blurting things out so awkwardly, and as greetings went it was pathetic, but these were unusual circumstances.

“I’ll leave that to you.” He could be so cold when he wanted to! He didn’t even ask why she thought they should be watching Zanza’s friend.

She attempted to clear her throat silently, and continued seeking some method of delivering her news that wouldn’t be totally mortifying.

More paperwork than ever covered his workspace, and he’d been writing busily when she’d arrived. Now he stared at her, obviously aware she had something else to say and waiting for it with steely patience — or perhaps demanding she say something with his expectant silence and narrowed eyes. Desperately she dropped her gaze from his and scanned the sheets on the desk just to have anything else to look at. It appeared he’d opened up not only the packet of information they had on Rokumeikan but the more recently compiled details on the Karashigumi, not to mention a collection of miscellany that was undoubtedly connected in one way or another, and was using all of it to get a head start on the case report so he wouldn’t have quite so much to tire his hand with when everything was finished. That meant he’d done everything he believed he could with what they had at their disposal, anticipated no further useful reports on any of these subjects, and would soon leave his desk to work on some interim project — patrols of his own or unsolved minor cases — while they waited for progress on Zanza’s end.

Tokio found she still couldn’t say what she needed to say, so she asked the next question that came to mind: “Are you working Youko in?”

Whether he’d been passively waiting for or actively demanding a statement from her, Hajime probably saw he wasn’t going to get it. His eyes narrowed an infinitesimal further amount, and he shook his head. “There’s no real indication she’s related to Rokumeikan’s criminal activities. He may have driven them to it, but the blame for her death still seems to rest with his other mistress, that Tajiru woman.”

Though this was true, and Hajime’s exclusion of Youko from the report perfectly reasonable, it felt like a personal sting, punishment for her poor behavior and her inability now to explain things to her affronted husband. He probably knew it, too. She had so looked forward to seeing — to helping attain! — justice for that poor young woman. “Now she’ll never be avenged,” she murmured in some despair.

There was, somewhat ironically, a sense of relenting slightly to the grimness of Hajime’s response, “That depends on whether he’s with his new mistress when I eventually go to kill him.”

She looked into his face again, and, though things were not right between them and she still had no emotional strength to make them so, yet there was an acknowledgment in his gaze that their mutual concern for justice in this case superseded all personal awkwardness.

He was the next to remove his eyes, smoothly and with apparent unconcern: difficult to read, as ever. “There have been some unarmed disturbances centering around the Ayameie lately,” he told her with perfect coolness. “Head over that way today and keep an eye on things.”

“The Ayameie…” She’d heard about the disturbances, but couldn’t quite remember what or where the establishment in question was.

“It’s a brothel in Taitoku-akasen,” Hajime replied shortly.

“Ryoukai,” she acknowledged, heart sinking. Was he making a statement by sending her to a house of abused women? She could see clearly what he might mean by it. But, no, she was overthinking and paranoid. Hajime would never do such a thing. Not even to someone that had mistreated and possibly hurt him — not when that someone was a respected friend. Not even when that someone had something very important to tell him and still hadn’t figured out how.

She left the office feeling like the worst of cowards.

***

Useful though it often turned out to be, memorizing case information did not feature among Saitou’s top priorities. Of course he kept enough in his head to facilitate efficient work away from office and records, but there tended to be numerous little details he had to refer to that same written material in order to remember specifically. Things simply went more smoothly that way than spending further tedious hours he already didn’t have free committing everything in his paperwork to memory, even if it did mean a set of legible data he wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving under only the protection of the general police force.

In this situation, however, he’d memorized more than was typical of him, undoubtedly because he had alternately been more emotionally invested in this case than usual (thanks to Sano’s involvement) and readier than usual (this moment, for example, because of Tokio) to take advantage of the case as a distraction from unprofessional issues. He was far more conversant with the minutiae of Rokumeikan’s guilt than he usually was with that of a normal target, and really more than he wanted to be.

Although an unequivocal sense of certainty was an absolute necessity in his line of work, feeling that certainty often deeply frustrated him, and having the evidence memorized could only contribute to that frustration. What they’d collected about Rokumeikan was by now more than enough to satisfy Saitou personally, but undoubtedly would be insufficient in a court of law. Even if they could obtain a conviction on any of the charges they might bring him up against, it was likely to be a hesitant judgment in the face of the goodwill Rokumeikan could purchase; sentencing would be lenient, and Rokumeikan’s money and influence were likely to help him evade punishment altogether. And to anticipate this, to know the system remained so flawed while truth stared him in the face, was the primary source of Saitou’s discontentment.

A secondary source might have to do with his wife, but he was concentrating on something else right now.

And of course for the sake of situations precisely like this he had taken on the job in the first place. As he reorganized the papers he’d been headaching over and started filing them away again, he could practically smell the blood. Someday, perhaps — honestly he wasn’t too sanguine — assassination would become obsolete; the system would see improvement such that an operative like him would no longer be required to bridge the gap between idealism and reality; straightforward law would be powerful enough to achieve the ends he currently fought for in the shadows. But as long as things continued the way they were now, he would work toward blood. And assassinating Rokumeikan was going to be especially satisfying.

Though that might have been as much because he was in a sour mood as at the thought of the influence that corrupt official had on the fate of the nation.

To punish Tokio — or, indeed, to act any differently toward her than usual — had not been Saitou’s intention, and perhaps if the day had progressed further before their first interview he would have had his demeanor under better control. He believed that by the next time he saw her he would be able to maintain their normal amicable interaction; it had only been just then, in the face of her morning-after nervousness and rumpled uniform, that he hadn’t been able to help acting a little more like the rival he essentially was than the friend he was supposed to be.

And it didn’t help that he’d now used up his primary source of diversion from that matter by gleaning all the useful insight he could from the compiled notes — indeed, as previously mentioned, by reading them so thoroughly and repeatedly he’d mostly memorized them — and writing out everything he could at this point of the details of the case. What to do next? He required no further evidence about Rokumeikan, so dragging out the investigative stage would be counterproductive. Some rats, after all, could feel the eyes of even hidden predators, and it would be wise to take the direct focus off their enemy for a while and let him believe himself safe. If he were nervous and wary, that attitude would be reflected by the gang or gangs he controlled, making Sano’s deception more difficult. So Saitou needed to step back, find something else to busy himself with — hopefully something engrossing — and wait for word from his new operative.

As if taking its cue from his desire for a distraction, the universe saw fit here to provide him with one. Its herald came in the form of a police rookie knocking at his office door and subsequently entering to deliver a thick folded letter. When the young man had retreated and Saitou had finished stowing his papers and locking his drawers, he turned his attention to the correspondence. As he picked it up and examined it, the character of his frown changed, losing the look of profound private frustration it had held all morning and shifting to an expression of simpler puzzlement and annoyance at the tricky manner in which the letter was closed. Who would go to so much trouble folding their message? This was practically origami…

To my esteemed former colleague…

Oh. He knew who must have written this.

To my esteemed former colleague, whose efficacy in the management of affairs previously mutual to us both and whose demonstrated prowess in personal skills required by and related to those affairs I have always held in the highest admiration even at such times as — to my deepest chagrin in the light of further information that perhaps, in a spirit of trust born of a history longer and more profound than the time in which I had to consider what in the end proved to be a false notion, from the moment of the inception of that notion and to the contradiction thereof, I should have anticipated — I was deluded by circumstance regarding more intimate and, in the scales of eternity, crucial aspects of your character, I write, with the aim of obfuscating personal detail you and I might both wish to prevent any third party becoming familiar with, in the event that this correspondence be misdirected or stolen, with a constraint that will, I hope, meet with your approval or at least forestall your immediate disapprobation.

‘Constraint’ was one way to put it. Saitou pitied the victim of this letter ‘misdirected or stolen,’ and in fact rather pitied himself as the victim of it properly directed. And as for personal detail he might wish to prevent a third party becoming familiar with, he doubted even the plainest and most straightforward language Yonai Fumihiro could torture himself into coming up with — which this wasn’t — would inform that hypothetical third party of anything Saitou didn’t want them to know before it caused their brains to boil and leak out their hypothetical ears.

Undeniable as we find the naturality within the scope of human nature of a man’s deep-seated belief in the basic goodwill and courteous interest of those around him, particularly those with whom he shares a history of action undertaken in a spirit of moral conviction, and the certainty of any one contributor to a long-disbanded aggregate that the desire to rejoin, if only temporarily, some reminiscent vestige of that aggregate burns as strongly in the breasts of other contributors as it does in his own, modesty, bitter comprehension of personal culpability, and a sense of reason that, though perhaps neglected in the specific consideration of the aforementioned false notion, I yet retain forces me to admit the likelihood that you must meet my attempt to communicate with you herein, despite that constraint heretofore briefly touched upon, with no favorable attitude or feeling…

Well, that was certainly true.

… consequent on certain recent events orchestrated by my hand which must have proven injurious to your pride if not indeed harmful to your person…

And that was certainly not the reason. If anything, he should be thanking Yonai heartily for setting kenkaya Zanza on his trail. Even if things with kenkaya Zanza weren’t working out exactly as Saitou would prefer just at the moment.

Yonai went on to discuss the sense of betrayal and injury to himself and to the Shinsengumi that lay behind the excessive haste in his choice to hire a mercenary against his one-time captain, rather than directly questioning him, when he’d discovered that Meiji police Lt. Investigator Fujita Gorou was actually Saitou Hajime (without using names, of course; such was his constraint). Then he had to get into the circumstances under which he’d become acquainted with that fact, a story Saitou didn’t need in the first place and was in the second somewhat confused at reading due to Yonai’s insistence on repressing any kind of potentially sensitive detail. And all this in the type of language Saitou associated with mid-level government officials, not war-time companions. He didn’t appreciate having that pleasant nostalgic illusion eroded, and knowing Yonai could make up for this truly irksome habit with a number of good qualities made it no less annoying.

The letter then expressed surprise and admiration regarding the willingness of Saitou, not an especially forgiving man according to what Yonai remembered of him, to spare the bearer of so violent and inappropriate a message, and even to send an elucidating reply by, as it were, return of post. If, Yonai postulated, Saitou could overlook the affront of the physical attack, he could conceivably pardon the state of mind that had led to it as well.

Good god, there was another page and a half of this.

Though fully aware Saitou might not choose to forgive him and might, in fact, consider him henceforth an enemy, Yonai nevertheless felt it expedient to make what reparations he could for his impetuosity, despite the discomfort and possibly even danger of so doing. And since his time in Tokyo was drawing to a close… here he felt it necessary to elaborate upon his current business interests and how they tied in with the pre-existing family trade that had always made him richer than he needed to be…

Saitou started skimming.

…appeal to that justice aforementioned… …if you would favor me… …make apology face to face… …hear from your own mouth the account… …additionally, perhaps share some reminiscences of… …meet me at… …if it is not your desire to… …assume that you no longer… …hold no grudge… …ever respectfully…

He should have guessed — no, he should have known this entire epistle was merely a glorified invitation to go out and endure Yonai’s bombast somewhere in person. He tossed the letter onto his desk, closed his smarting eyes, and sighed.

In fact he should have seen all of this coming. Yonai had a fanatically elevated idea of the dignity of his station in life that led him to be thus ridiculously verbose, but that was the worst of it. His principles were otherwise excellent, and he would take the insult he believed he’d inflicted on a former comrade very seriously. Right now, with Saitou not only between projects but actively wishing for a distraction, really made for the perfect time to get this over with — to meet Yonai and accept whatever apology he wanted to offer, to put misunderstanding behind them. It was just that Saitou couldn’t abide the man. Had never liked him, did not plan to start now, and wanted little less in the world than to spend time in his company ‘sharing some reminiscences’ or anything of the sort.

Truly, though, it would be in his best interest to bite this bullet. It seemed likely that Yonai, a gossipy socialite, remained in contact with many of the other former members of the Shinsengumi (whatever that number had dwindled to these days), and talking this out now could put the matter of Saitou’s loyalties to rest indefinitely. Of course this wasn’t his first encounter, since joining the Meiji government, with someone that had worn the blue haori, so there must be rumors among them already; but this appeared to be the most convenient way of getting the word out more definitively and yet with relative subtlety.

Not that his heart burned, particularly, to have them hear about and believe in his continued devotion to justice and righteousness regardless of which side of a dead conflict he currently occupied — nearly everyone from those days whose opinion had meant anything to him had died long ago, and those that remained could think what they would of him, accurate or otherwise, without robbing him of sleep — but, regardless of his pleasure at the outcome of this latest instance, the string of mercenaries sent against him by those with the wrong idea could, to his preference, stop any time.

So he’d better go meet Yonai. It would feel easily as productive as finding a minor case to work on (though he would do that on returning to the police station later anyway, so this would only be a postponement of that other lukewarm productivity), and would give him something else to think about to help adjust his mentality so as to be ready to face Tokio — and Sano! — when next either of them came before him. He only hoped Yonai didn’t annoy him so much that he snapped and admitted exactly what he thought of the man.

He glanced first at the clock, then down to find the time and place listed in the letter, but the movement became a more searching gaze as it proved impossible to locate anything specific in that morass with a mere glance. Eventually he discovered he had just under half an hour before the proposed meeting, whose location lay a corresponding walking distance from here; at least Yonai wasted far less time in physical life than was taken up by the composition and perusal of his written communication. Refolding the letter as best he could (making no attempt to follow its original complicated network of creases), unsure of when would be too early a moment to set it on fire, Saitou pocketed it and departed.

***

The novelty of Sano’s new position as a secret operative hadn’t yet entirely worn off, and now it dragged him from his apartment when he might otherwise have gone back to bed not long after Tokio left — though he might not have been able to fall asleep again in any case. The room held that lingering scent of the night’s activities that would only have made him uncomfortable, so sticking around awake was out of the question. He left a window open and set out to get some work done, or at least to distract himself from unpleasant thoughts.

Unfortunately, the type of people by whom he needed to be seen and among whom he needed to be known — the grunts that could pass the word upward about Zanza’s habits, strength, and interest in finding a new organization to attach himself to — didn’t emerge much at this time of day. Plenty of higher-level yakuza members would be busy organizing their criminal activities this very minute, but Sano hadn’t progressed far enough yet to have any hope of finding or interacting with them. So what remained for him to do until the vermin started coming out of the woodwork this evening?

With the vague idea that it might yet profit him to hang out in Karashi territory even during the hours when the only gang members available would be the dregs not trusted enough by the organization to be offered regular work, he slouched off, still uncertain, in that direction. He couldn’t help thinking that what he would really like was to see Katsu. How was his friend doing? Had he come to any kind of decision? How did he feel about Sano? Were they, in fact, friends?

Though Katsu seemed far more likely than any yakuza thug to be up and about this early, and Sano might even be able to catch him at home if he tried, the timing didn’t feel right. It was still too soon after the incident. When the timing would feel right, when he might have waited long enough, he couldn’t guess. But he didn’t dare reopen dialogue today. In fact he should probably allow Katsu to make the first overture, knowing full well that if he chose never to do so, Sano would have to respect that choice.

And where had this sense of severe loneliness come from all of a sudden?

Warm sunshine flooded the morning, but it might rain later. He enjoyed the cool of the rain in the afternoon Tokyo heat that only grew as spring progressed, and today might be perfect for finding a porch somewhere to lie down on for a catnap, then strolling through some particularly alcoholic area to pick a fight. Too bad he couldn’t possibly pull off the first in his agitated mental state and had no interest in the second anymore if it would prove as pointless as it had always been. He really was suffering from a dearth of options.

Not two streets later, though, he realized abruptly and with some confusion that, during the course of these thoughts, he had unconsciously altered his route. He no longer headed toward the area of town where the Karashigumi held sway, but into a district full of bigger businesses and some government facilities, including Tokyo’s main police station. He rarely had anything to do with that part of the city except when he spent time in a cell, which hadn’t happened recently. Yet when he looked down at his black-shod feet, he noted with mild surprise that they still moved as if for that destination. Was he walking toward the police station? Why was he walking toward the police station? He couldn’t just pop into the place without reason, shouldn’t even be seen in its vicinity if he could help it, and wanted nothing less than to meet Tokio again right now. If talking to Katsu today would be ‘too soon after the incident…’

Of course he knew someone besides Tokio at the police station. Perhaps the thought of the distraction Saitou could provide — what with his having inspired, shamed, intrigued, irritated, entertained, and enraged Sano in dizzying alternation during the course of their acquaintance — had been the subconscious source of Sano’s redirection. The same considerations applied to make this an unfeasible goal, but for now Sano did not change course. He was safe for another few blocks. Not like he had anything better to do.

Though the ubiquitous carts and temporary stands people set up in this area charged only somewhat steeper rates than elsewhere in town, the permanent commercial establishments around here ran toward the decidedly pricey — which amused Sano when he considered how cheap so many policemen were. The open-air dining enclosure of a restaurant he now approached, for example, included among its current patrons only two employees of the nearby station, whereas Sano might see as many as a dozen off-duty cops at some dirty bar in a trashier part of town on any given night. He supposed the lower police ranks, like yakuza thugs, weren’t actually paid all that much.

Saitou never had mentioned his precise salary during their argument on the subject, but it seemed he was actually paid all that much, for as Sano drew closer he recognized his new employer as one of those two figures in blue at the restaurant. Except maybe he didn’t eat on his own yen today, because unless Sano was very much mistaken, Saitou sat across from none other than Yonai Fumihiro. Of course the kenkaya had seen the latter only once, but his strikingly handsome face had made an impression.

Sano stopped. For some reason, he found the scene annoying. It wasn’t that he regretted the results of Yonai’s request — in fact the eventual effects of his being hired to fight Saitou had been some of the most fortunate of his life — but it just seemed so ridiculous to see the man that had been willing to pay him decent money to prove an angry point to a former comrade sitting there chatting with that comrade as pleasant as could be. Well, actually, though Saitou did appear fairly relaxed, he also, Sano believed, had an air about him of patient irritation. Anyway it all felt so stupid. Why it should bother him this much Sano couldn’t guess, but somehow it discernibly increased today’s loneliness.

He turned away. This could be a good opportunity to talk to Saitou and get some of that diversion he’d apparently sought in coming his direction, but he certainly wasn’t about to try it under these circumstances. He hadn’t understood any of Yonai’s letter on his own; with Saitou present, even longer words might be flying around. At any rate, Sano’s steps seemed more sluggish now, as if he’d suffered a disappointment, in walking back through the crowded street.

What a great day this is turning out to be, he reflected bitterly as he passed by the expensive shops and neat merchants’ stands. Wrong side of the futon indeed.

“Zanza-san?”

Startled, Sano turned again. Of all the unexpected voices… “Kotono-san!”

Standing in the doorway of a store that advertised European haberdashery (whatever that was), Kotono looked stunning as usual in a sea-green kimono decorated with pink flowers and white swans and touches of gold embroidery that made the overall impression just a little too fancy for everyday wear. Sano had never considered where she might do her shopping, but now that he did, this seemed as likely an area as any. He hastened to her side, where she smiled shyly up at him. Tucking an escaped lock of wavy hair behind one ear, she said, “I’m so glad to see you. Will you step inside and keep me company?”

Glad to see her too — especially with how his morning had gone — and curious at her immediate invitation, he replied, “Sure,” and followed her into the shop.

As she moved to a place beside a shelf full of various styles of gloves marked with positively ridiculous prices, away from any other customers, he took the opportunity to examine her closely. Believing he could do nothing for her, he’d avoided paining them both by seeing her since her influence with Tone had assisted him in leaving the Furukawatai, but today she appeared no worse off than then — no new bruises on her exquisite face, her attractive figure no thinner — though she did seem worried.

“My escort is across the street,” she said, gesturing out the window through which she must have noticed Sano as he walked by. He followed with his gaze, which alighted on a tea shop where her bodyguards presumably enjoyed some illicit relaxation while she went about the (to them, undoubtedly) tedious task of selecting gloves or whatever else was sold here. Given that their presence probably functioned more as a sign of status and a method of keeping tabs on the oyabun’s favorite out in public than actual protection against enemies, Sano doubted this breach of performance represented any particular threat to Kotono’s safety… He just wished she had the nerve to slip away while her escort wasn’t looking and find a new life for herself. But apparently the only use she wanted to make of their absence was, “We can speak privately for a moment.”

“Yeah, of course.” Sano would have asked how she was doing, but, observing she had a specific purpose for pulling him in here, left it at this.

She took a deep breath, glancing around at the other people in the shop and lowering her voice to say, “I’ve heard that you might be coming back.”

Having anticipated something like this, Sano was ready with his answer. “I’ve been thinking about it. Got to missing the old days, you know?”

Her lips and eyebrows formed only the faintest frown as she replied with a futile attempt at conviction, “You… you shouldn’t.” It seemed difficult for her to get this out at all. “You should value your freedom more. Stay free. Stay away.” And though her words said, “Don’t come back,” everything else about her said, “Please come back.”

He wished he could tell her the truth — that he intended no permanent return, that in fact he planned to strike a blow against the organization that should allow her the same freedom she had once granted him — but he didn’t dare. He had to act his part, and only hoped, after how vehemently he’d sought to leave the gang in the first place, he could convince her or anyone else of his sincerity in wanting to rejoin. So he shrugged and said, “Hey, freedom’s overrated. Having a support network, and… you know… getting close to people… I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have given that up.”

She pursed her lips, seeming indecisive about her next statement. Finally she made up her mind and began, “But I’m afraid…” She smiled uncertainly at him, and a deeper dusting of pink joined the rouge that colored her cheeks. “I’m afraid you’re doing this for me. You were always so kind… and I was afraid you’d heard about… but you don’t need to worry about me…”

As she trailed off, as he looked down at this almost unbelievably beautiful shell of a woman, Sano reflected with astringent regret that the life Kotono had been compelled to lead had drained from her all assertiveness and effectiveness as a person. Minor remains of her former self and her geisha training, from the days before she’d essentially been enslaved, still clung to her, leaving her with smoothly enticing movements of body and, sometimes, engaging powers of conversation, but what was she underneath? A timid shadow of what she had once probably been. It outraged him that anyone should be in a position where her very character was forced to change for the sake of her survival. He had to get her out.

Then, all of a sudden, his mind caught at exactly what she’d said, and he asked in some startlement, “Heard about what?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I only want you to understand that you mustn’t be concerned about me.”

“No, seriously, I want to know. Heard about what?”

“It’s not important! I’m worried about you; don’t you see?” And she really seemed upset. Sano couldn’t help but be touched. “Kanno-kun said you’ve had some trouble with the police lately.”

This Sano had not necessarily been expecting, at least not so soon. Though he filed away the confirmation that Kanno oversaw the matter of keeping an eye on him, as he’d suspected, now he had to figure out something to offer in response to the rumor Kanno had started as a result. “Oh, yeah.” He put on an air of annoyance to buy himself time. “Don’t worry about that. See, my girlfriend’s a cop, and–“

And maybe this hadn’t been the best direction to take his explanation, if Kotono’s little twitch meant anything. She tried to hide the clenching of her hands into delicate fists, the slight widening of her eyes, but Sano saw them anyway. He’d often thought in the past, somewhat idly, that Kotono might have some romantic interest in him… Now he gave the idea more serious consideration. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, especially when she’d already gone through so much and still lived in bondage. At the same time, he had to have a solid story, and the words ‘my girlfriend’s a cop’ — not even true! — had already been spoken.

Perhaps to cover up her visible reaction, Kotono remarked, “I have heard that the local precinct has a woman working as a police officer. How interesting.” She tried with impressive success to sound politely curious rather than unhappy.

So that he wouldn’t sound unhappy, Sano adopted the tone of one that hasn’t noticed his conversational companion’s disinterest and is going to chatter away obliviously until he’s out of things to say. “Yeah, it’s great! She’s great. But her partner’s a complete asshole–” he invented as he went along, and hoped the cheerful speed with which he spoke wouldn’t end up getting him in trouble– “and he didn’t like her running around with someone like me. Actually I think he was jealous, even though she won’t give him the time of day in that way. That was the fight I lost where my sword got destroyed — you musta heard about that — because this guy really is a serious jerk, but eventually she got him to back off, and everything’s fine now.”

He ended so abruptly that he found Kotono staring at him as if expecting more. It made him nervous, so he endeavored to come up with a conclusion of sorts. “It’s kindof a pain being with a cop, ’cause I gotta be so careful about what I say and do so she doesn’t find out, uh, certain things about me, but it’s still a good deal ’cause now I’m in their blind eye, you know? Eventually I figure I’ve gotta hear some nice police secrets.” And he managed to come up with the most painstaking conspiratorial grin that had ever decorated his face.

His performance seemed to have eased her mind, for she returned a tentative smile. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but take care. If this policewoman finds out you’re trying to rejoin the Furukawatai…”

“Hell, if she finds out I was ever a member in the first place, there’ll be trouble,” said Sano, proud of himself for this line. “But, yeah, I know what I’m doing.” And in response to Kotono’s continued solemnity, despite the smile she’d offered a moment before, he added, “I’ll make a deal with you: you don’t worry about me, I won’t worry about you.” Since he was lying to her about everything already, he might as well go this far. “Sound good?”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s an equal bargain,” she replied in the lightest tone she’d used with him yet today, “but I suppose I can close on it.” Then she looked around again, out the window, and her quiet seriousness returned as the happier moment passed. “I need to go. I wouldn’t want my escort to come looking for me.” She returned her eyes to him, and as usual appeared somewhat downcast. “I suppose now you won’t allow me to tell you again to be careful.”

With a shake of his head, Sano replied silently, And I can’t tell you not to let anyone kick you around or use you like a broken toy… but I never could, could I? Aloud he said, “Put in a good word for me with Tone-sama, would you?”

She nodded deeply enough that it was almost a bow, then turned and made her way out of the shop.

Sano frowned after her. The very thought of what that woman’s life had become made his blood boil, and he avidly rejoiced in the assignment he’d more or less stumbled into that would allow him to help her out of her terrible circumstances. It couldn’t happen soon enough.

***

Every time Katsu had ventured out of his home since Sunday, he’d suffered the weariness and confusion that typically comes with convalescence after a long seclusion. Which struck him as ironic, since he didn’t know that he’d really recovered. Beyond that, his eyes seemed peculiarly sensitive to bright lights — again as if he’d been lying abed in a closed room for weeks or months attempting to get over some tenacious illness — so he’d quickly become crepuscular in his limited activities following the events of the new moon. He’d emerged to replenish his rice supply Tuesday at dawn, and to buy some ink that same evening… but hadn’t found himself particularly inclined either to eat or to sketch.

There was one thing he did incline toward, and it was the reason he loitered, in the overcast gloom of a Wednesday dusk, at the entrance to a particular neighborhood, standing conspicuously on a street corner doing absolutely nothing. Nothing but seething with much the same thoughts that had filled his head for the last several days.

He felt that Sano had not so much talked him out of his plans as touched them with the hand of death, withered them and rendered them ineffectual, impossible. And with them, some part of Katsu seemed to have crumbled away as well — perhaps this was the illness he’d been struggling to recover from — and he’d been left half formed, aimless, and likely to blow away at the whim of the next heavy breeze.

His passions had not deserted him, but as a defense mechanism against his current complete impotence to satisfy any of them, he’d pushed most of them aside. He still desperately longed to change this flawed society, but, at a loss how to go about it, he did his best to muffle that and all interrelated desires in the back of his head. Which left him with almost nothing besides the one other thing he wanted above all else, something he’d now decided to allow himself to seek.

He was starting to think, however, that he should be a little less circumspect about it, face the matter more straightforwardly, and that he might have missed the woman or chosen the wrong day to wait for her, when a carriage of just the right style — that is, the kind that tended to vulture at the police station — approached him around the corner from just the right direction — that is, that of the police station. These circumstances gave no guarantee that the person he wanted to speak to was inside (and in fact it might as easily be the husband, whom Katsu had no particular desire to meet), but he lacked the energy to think of a better plan.

It worked, though. The carriage drew to a halt not far past him, and the figure that emerged and cheerfully paid the driver before turning toward the waiting artist was the police woman, Tokio. As the equipage pulled off, she made her way toward him with the air of one approaching a prearranged meeting rather than having stopped out of curiosity to see what this friend of a friend might be doing at the outskirts of her neighborhood.

“Tsukioka-san, isn’t it?” She stopped in front of him, throwing a quick glance at where a lamplighter made his way down the street toward them, then met Katsu’s eye with a smile. “We were never properly introduced before, that night when Zanza was so drunk, but…”

“But he’s talked about us both,” Katsu finished for her. He tried to return her smile, reminiscent of the night in question when he’d been reunited with his old friend, but thinking about Sano was both pleasure and pain to him right now.

“Walk with me,” she invited. She probably wanted to keep ahead of the lamplighter. Katsu wasn’t sure exactly how much she knew about him and his recent activities, or how much she might guess about what he wanted to say to her now, but in any case she would still probably rather keep this conversation relatively private. He fell in by her side.

“Have you seen Zanza — Sano — lately?” Though on the surface this seemed a pretty standard polite inquiry about a mutual acquaintance, Katsu thought it was made with both care and precision.

“No,” he said, then added somewhat confusedly, “at least not for a few days. I was hoping you could take a message to him for me.”

“Ah, so that’s what you’re doing waiting around in my neighborhood.” She gestured before them. “Since you obviously know where I live. But you know where he lives too, so…”

And it had come to the question, Why don’t you talk to him yourself? even sooner than he’d expected. Katsu stifled a sigh, but couldn’t repress a frown, and did not immediately answer.

She turned her head toward him, walking without watching her next few steps as she studied his face. She wore, and had worn since she descended from the carriage, a demeanor of shrewdness, of penetration, as if, no matter how much she did or didn’t know about him, she could easily tell what he was thinking now. And this seemed more than mere fancy the next moment when she came up with the answer in his place: “You’re not sure what to say to him, so it’s easier to start with a message from me.”

Katsu admitted she was right, but, still completely uncertain about the message he supposedly wanted to send, said nothing more.

She glanced at him again, and her shining black eyes seemed to make quick work of what she saw. “I know you two had a falling out…” And was that really what Sano had told her, or was she paraphrasing due to the presence of the assiduous lamplighter that made irritatingly good time in their wake? “And you’re still bitter about it. You still resent him for what he said and did.”

“Yes.” Sano had closed off what Katsu had believed a clear path, nullified all the hard work of the last many months, stabbed ruthlessly at their shared past, and left Katsu a frustrated drifter with no remaining goals, no new plans, and no hope for any future fulfillment of his longstanding desires.

“But you don’t want to lose him,” Tokio added.

“Yes.” It came out even more quietly this time, though it was no less true. Sano was the only family remaining to him, and it still seemed nothing short of a miracle that they’d found each other again when they had — though Katsu had been avoiding the question of whether taichou had had a hand in it and, if so, what his motivations might have been. Katsu wanted to hold onto that friendship, that brotherhood so unexpectedly regained, and somehow the bitterness he felt in regard to Sunday night only made him want to cling all the more tightly to Sano.

“So you want to talk to him again, but you don’t know what to say.” Then, with a critical expression, she amended thoughtfully, “Or is it that you want to talk to him again because you don’t know what to say?”

“I… I’m starting to believe I can’t figure things out on my own. I need Sano.”

She threw him another look, this time more sidelong than before. “He told me he said some hurtful things, and you don’t seem like you’re ready to forgive him yet.” And was she standing up for Sano here, seeking to stave off Katsu’s prospective wrath, or simply working her own way through the tangle that was their relationship right now as best she could from the outside?

Katsu sighed again. “I don’t know that it’s a question of forgiveness. He did and said what he believed was right and true, and he tried his best not to hurt me with it. It’s more a question of me adjusting to that, aligning myself to his right and his truth.”

“But you don’t know that you believe he was right,” she insisted, “so whatever it is you have to do — forgive or adjust or align — you’re not ready to do it yet.”

“I have to be. I need him.”

“You feel like you’ll be able to find some answers by talking to him, but you’d be much better off talking to him after you’ve already found some.”

He shook his head, simultaneously sorrowful and deeply impressed. “You must be an excellent police officer.”

Now the look she gave him was startled, indicative of some confusion at the sudden subject change and some apparently reflexive wariness. “You say that because…”

“I wasn’t planning to discuss this all with you. I intended to request you take a message for me, and leave it at that. But you read so much of what I was thinking, and drew me out so well… You must be very skilled at dealing with witnesses.” Katsu had always considered himself fairly good at drawing information out of people, but didn’t think he could have prompted the level of emotional confession this woman had so easily gotten from him tonight.

She smiled acerbically. “Thank you. I’m afraid you’re one of the few men who thinks so.”

That explained her wariness when he brought up her profession. It also fit with what he’d learned when he’d been looking into the activities of Tokio and her partner. “I meant it,” he said seriously, “and I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else to offer.

She gave the shrug of one that has been laboring under a troublesome weight for so long it’s almost become a matter of indifference. “If more men thought like that, even outside the police force…”

“Nothing is right in this system,” he murmured, sounding almost more forlorn than grim. But even as he said it, the first hint of a new idea, like a scant stream in a dry channel after a long drought, came trickling down to him.

“It’s like you said — people just need an example to realize what they can do.”

“But what kind of example besides violence could possibly–“

“I hope you find another way.”

“If more men thought like that, even outside the police force…”

Only moments before, he’d said he didn’t think he could figure this out his own… but perhaps it hadn’t really been any further help from Sano that he needed. Not that he wanted to see him any less — especially now he had this faint beginning of an answer — but perhaps he’d just received the catalyst he wanted from a completely unexpected source.

He’d stopped dead on the sidewalk, grasping at the threads of this idea, trying in a measured panic to weave them together into something less ephemeral before they slipped away. The lamplighter had caught up with them, and was, in fact, mounting his ladder not three feet off; and Tokio was staring at Katsu with a curious smile.

“I seem to have given you an idea,” she said.

Keeping a tight mental hold on the all-important strands, Katsu yet allowed the woman in front of him to come back into greater focus. “Yes,” he said gravely. “You’re very inspiring, Takagi-san.” And he meant it as sincerely as he’d meant his complimentary assessment of her police skills before. With her firm but pleasant demeanor and those lovely lips saying so easily exactly what he’d needed to hear tonight, she’d made a significant impression on him.

Her smile widened. “I’d love to hear about it sometime.” –though a quick glance at the lamplighter they couldn’t get free of, a slight roll of eyes, and a shake of head indicated that she wouldn’t ask for details in present company. Which relieved Katsu, since he didn’t have details yet, and remained uncertain how much to share with this woman regardless of how she’d inspired him.

“If you could take that message to Sano for me,” he said instead, with a nod, “I’ll let you get home.”

And again she read him with seeming ease as she suggested, “Only that you want to talk to him?”

He nodded again. “Thank you, Takagi-san. Good evening.”

She returned the goodbye with a wave he barely saw before he hurried away into the growing darkness.

***

Sano hoped the thunder that rumbled in precise concurrence with the door’s opening didn’t auger badly for the conversation he’d come here for. The sounds of an approaching rainstorm had colored his entire earlier discussion with Tokio — the first since they’d slept together — and that had gone more or less not terribly… but the growling sky lowered a lot more closely and darkly now. Still, it might be a propitious sign that this encounter started out exactly as that one had: with the two parties staring at each other in silence across the threshold for a length of time that quickly escalated the mood into extreme discomfort and awkwardness, clearly unsure how to begin or whether the visitor should be invited inside.

Tokio had been much better at this, and had started things out eventually with a creditable attempt at smoothness. Now, not nearly as skilled but desperate for something to put forward, noting the condition of Katsu’s hair and yukata, Sano said, “I didn’t wake you up, did I?” His voice sounded hoarse, and he had to clear his throat after speaking.

Katsu let the silence hang for another very awkward moment, and finally replied, “You did, but only because I was out all night.” And despite being the one to have solicited this meeting, he sounded every bit as uncertain as Sano did. While the latter refrained from demanding to know why he’d been out all night and whether he’d been doing something revolutionary, Katsu with a visible effort went on in no particularly welcoming tone. “It’s going to be raining soon. Come inside.”

Sano hesitated, drew in a deep breath he hoped Katsu wouldn’t take special notice of, and followed when the artist stepped back to allow him past. As he watched Katsu close the door and then absently make a rather futile attempt at calming his tousled locks, Sano swallowed and forced himself to say, “If you need to go back to bed, I can go…”

“No.” It was more commanding that welcoming still. “Sit. I’ll warm up some sake.” And this must be deliberate; he must know what an inducement for Sano to stay, and what an indication of the proposed length of their interaction, sake would be.

Sano found a seat at the table, which seemed at least twice as cluttered as it had been the last time he’d visited. Surprisingly, the mass of papers strewn across its face was not, as he’d expected, a collection of sketches or random-looking blots of ink or color tests, but covered in writing, not all of it in the same hand. His curiosity and unease only increased at this sight, but he exerted his will power and did not pry. The atmosphere in here was already stiff enough; he didn’t need to be jumping right in with accusatory questions.

Whether or not Katsu had the same idea, his next remark, as he rummaged through something across the room, seemed somewhat forced. “I hear you’re trying to rejoin the Furukawatai.”

Did he want to induce panic? Sano saw no reason he should — that would be an awfully stupid revenge, and, besides, Katsu shouldn’t even know his statement would make Sano panic — yet here Sano was panicking. It came out in his voice, for all he tried to keep his tone even, as he asked, “How do you know that? Are people talking about it?”

Katsu paused in the act of getting a demurely small bottle of sake set up on his stove, looking over at Sano darkly but also with some bemusement. “Only certain people in the Furukawatai,” he said both carefully and curiously.

This wasn’t the first time Katsu had been far better-informed than Sano had expected, but it was perhaps the most important to Sano and his interests. He wanted this cleared up right now, no matter how it increased the awkwardness between them. “So you have contacts — sources — in the Furukawatai. It’s not just gossip.”

“They believe it’s just gossip,” Katsu replied, lighting his stove. “But, yes, ‘contacts’ or ‘sources’ describes them better.” And, indeed, the words sounded much more appropriate than the ‘friends’ he’d used in a previous conversation.

“Well…” Sano had already practically admitted it, and might as well not backtrack. “Yeah. I’m trying to get back in.”

“I would have thought you were done with gangs.” Seeking cups, Katsu faced away from Sano, so only by tone of voice could his attitude be assessed. And he really did seem to be trying to make casual conversation — ‘casual’ relative to talking about his own terrorist activities and Sano’s hurtful behavior, that is.

“I would have thought you were done spying on me” was, perhaps, a less casual return.

“I am. If what I do can be called ‘spying,’ then I spy impartially on everyone.”

Sano relented, for more than one reason. “Spying’s fine. Or gossip, or whatever you want to call it. Go ahead and spy impartially on everyone. I love spying.”

Katsu raised a brow as he set down their cups and took his place at the table within arm’s reach of the stove.

“Just…” Sano hadn’t wanted to come right out and ask, but his impatience and agitation now took the lead. “Why are you spying on everyone? What are you doing? Looking for new targets? Are you still planning to–” But at Katsu’s hard glance, he bit down on his words with a grunt. They stared grimly at each other for a long moment.

“I wish,” Katsu finally said softly, bitterly, “I could explain… I wish I had the right words for how much I let go of because you insisted. For how lost I felt after you made me give up everything I was working on for so long.”

“I didn’t make you,” Sano protested, his heart aching. “If you did give up on that bombing shit, I’m really glad, but I left you a choice.”

Katsu shook his head, and looked as if he would speak again, but refrained.

“And you don’t need to explain,” Sano went on. “Because I do know how that feels. I just barely gave up fighting for money, remember? How do you think I felt after that? I was doing that for years too, you know.”

With a smile only a tiny bit too sad to be sarcastic, Katsu asked, “But did your fighting aim to free the country from a corrupt government?”

“No, but it was everything I was for so long, and… the only thing that helped with the pain from back then.”

“We were both thinking of taichou…”

“Listen.” Sano shifted restlessly. “I can’t take back what I said about him and what he would have wanted. But I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry I had to say shit like that; I’m sorry I hurt us both.”

The artist continued to frown. At last, slowly, he prefaced with a deep breath the response, “And I’m sorry I’ve been so upset with you for it. I know you were doing right in your own estimation, and I should never expect you to do anything by halves.”

Sano wasn’t exactly sure where this exchange put them. Katsu hadn’t told him what his plans were yet, and they’d really only apologized for unpleasant emotional interactions. He had to admit, though, to a lessening of the heaviness and unpleasant pressure in his chest, to the thunder that roiled inside his own head rather than outside.

“I can’t take back what I intended,” Katsu went on presently. “I don’t know that I don’t still think it’s the best way to set an example for the people, to set events in motion. But that’s over.” He made a helpless gesture that was yet less unhappy than Sano would have anticipated. “Sometimes a plan has only one right time, and that time has passed.”

Sano could not apologize again, and sat uncomfortably silent.

Katsu turned and took longer checking how the sake was getting on than seemed strictly necessary. Sano believed he was staring into the heating water beneath the bottle without realizing what he saw there.

Sitting in loaded silence with Katsu was easily as bad as the forced continuance of conversation from earlier with Tokio. So anxious had she and Sano both been not to let this exact type of wordlessness fall between them that they’d manufactured cheer and chatter and ended up repeating themselves and laughing too loudly and spewing nonsense just for each to check how the other was doing and Tokio to report that Katsu wanted to speak to Sano. Still, it had been a crucial patch to their damaged friendship and a promise of less awkward times to come… which was exactly what he needed with Katsu here and now, and probably what Katsu had been aiming for when he’d first entered.

So, “Probably not ready yet,” Sano forced himself to remark. And he was about to go on about his terrible stove at home and say something about the last time he’d used it, but, recalling what the issue of that evening’s drinking had been, shut his mouth with a faint heat in his cheeks.

“Not yet,” Katsu agreed, finally tearing his eyes from the stove and resuming a normal position at the table. He didn’t look at Sano, but let his gaze range over the papers strewn between his resting hands and his friend’s. As if he’d been reading Sano’s thoughts, or as if some other set of mental prompts had led him to the same topic as Sano’s reflections, he said, “I spoke to Takagi-san the other evening, as you probably know.”

“Yeah…”

“She’s impressive. A very talented, effective woman.”

“Yeah.”

“And yet she’s held back by the way men think of women and have always thought of women.”

“Absolutely.” Sano wondered where this was going, but didn’t wonder at all that ‘the way men think of women’ had come up in the conversation between Katsu and Tokio, even if that conversation’s original purpose had only been to get Tokio to relay a message to Sano.

“It seems there are more subjects than corruption in the government people need to be enlightened on.”

Remembering what Katsu had postulated before, about Tokio also being held back by her devotion to a system that should be dismantled, and her potential to do so much more if she were ‘freed’ from that restriction, Sano said a little uneasily, “Probably more than that, even.”

Katsu nodded. He spread his long fingers out across the chaos of papers in front of him, ruffling them gently, and looked up at Sano. “So I’m going to do my best to enlighten them. I’m going to present the truth wherever I find it, and with it the idea that things need to change.”

Sano’s breath caught, and in a frantic nod-like motion he turned his gaze up and down from Katsu’s eyes to the chaos of text in front of him a couple of times. “So you’re gonna be writing–“

“A newspaper.” Katsu tapped the table gently and turned back toward the stove again. “Something easily distributed. I’m already set up for printmaking, of course, and since everyone talks to an unthreatening artist, I have, as you realized, many well placed sources of information.”

For a moment Sano couldn’t speak. It wasn’t merely relief that Katsu truly had abandoned his bombing scheme, and to all appearances wouldn’t resume it now he had this significantly less dangerous undertaking in mind. It was that Sano had seen a hint in his eyes of what he’d seen there so intensely before: the fire of drive, of faith in a tenable plan and eagerness to start on it. Yes, it had only been a spark, but the point was that Sano hadn’t crushed Katsu’s spirit or destroyed his ambition to better Japan and work toward what taichou had wanted.

That Tokio had apparently inspired this new idea only made Sano a tiny bit jealous. He knew full well how inspiring those police officers were, and didn’t begrudge it as long as Katsu had a new idea. As long as Katsu could hold onto his beliefs and desires and his personal safety at the same time. As long as Katsu was no longer looking to start a war.

Sano found a purely happy and relieved smile on his face, and himself drawing breath to speak. He paused, though, trying to get a grip while Katsu’s back was still turned to test the sake. He had to remind himself not to be patronizing, not to act like a parent whose kid has finally found something non-destructive and non-annoying to do so dad can take a nap, not to immediately compare this new notion with the old, terrible one. That was probably why, in the first place, Katsu had felt the need to work his way around gradually to telling Sano about his intentions: for fear of how his friend would react in multiple senses.

At last he allowed himself to say, “That’s an amazing idea.” It came out sounding very much like his smile: happy, relieved, approving, enthusiastic. “You can get the word out to so many people that way.”

The set of Katsu’s spine relaxed just a trifle at this, though his face remained as serious as before as he reached across to pour sake into the cup Sano raised. “If I take care to word it simply. I’ll need to keep the language accessible in order to make it as generally readable as I can.”

Sano chuckled. “Not too many kanji, then,” he advised, and sipped his sake. In light of this conversation, it tasted excellent.

Katsu smiled, his relief now clearly evident. “I have enough information for an issue or two.” He gestured with his own filled cup to the papers on the table again. “I was out late talking to all kinds of people. Now I just have to write it all up. It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“A lot of work and maybe a lot of trouble,” Sano said consideringly. “If you’re gonna be printing up ‘truths’ about the government or anything else, you’re gonna have a lot of enemies pretty quick.” It remained less dangerous than bombing government buildings, but there was definitely a risk involved.

The artist shrugged. “Nothing in this world is truly safe,” he said philosophically, offering Sano a refill. His eyes rose to meet Sano’s as he did so with a look of slight accusation. “Would you say the Furukawatai is safe?”

Sano sucked in a breath at the unexpected subject change. Pleasant as it was to recognize Katsu’s reciprocal concern, he couldn’t be sure of the wisdom of getting into details on this topic right this moment. But a quick, complicated set of reflections on Katsu’s impartial spying, the probability of his finding out eventually anyway, his potential usefulness as a source of information, his openness with Sano today and ever since they’d met again, and just how much Sano wanted things to be on the level between them convinced him to tell all.

“They won’t be when I’m done with ’em,” he said.

Katsu gave him a skeptical look.

“I’m trying to join the Karashigumi at the same time,” Sano explained succinctly with a growing grin, finding it was actually pretty fun to say what seemed like overblown dramatic nonsense so straightforwardly. “I’m gonna get the two groups to brawl so the police have an excuse to make a bunch of arrests. Especially the leaders.”

“You’re working for Saitou,” Katsu said flatly.

Sano’s grin faded at the tone. “Yeah. I’m trying to make a difference too.”

Slowly Katsu nodded, and he sipped his sake in silence for a moment. Finally he said, “I owe those two for more than just the idea Takagi-san half gave me. If I hadn’t been looking into their activities, I would never have realized just how much useful information someone like me can dig up by speaking casually to the right people.”

“I owe them even more than that,” Sano murmured.

“Is that why you’re working with them?”

“No.” Sano’s voice went completely serious now. “I really, truly am trying to make a difference. Fighting’s what I’m best at, and being a lowlife, and I’m gonna use that to get shit done.”

Katsu laughed a little, probably at Sano’s wording, and said, “Then I’m very happy for you, Sano.” And perhaps this reaction was his version of what Sano’s had been minutes before on learning Katsu’s plans. They’d each found something new to do that would, they hoped, please their dead captain.

They drank quietly for a few moments, and Sano reflected on the blessedly improved atmosphere in the room. It seemed they’d come to terms and were properly friends again, which was what Sano had wanted most in the world, at least from this afternoon and this meeting.

Eventually Katsu asked, “Why those two particular yakuza? The Karashigumi has always been big news, and I haven’t seen any efforts to take it down before. The Furukawatai is only starting to become a serious force.”

“Turns out the Karashigumi kinda belongs to this one politician–“

“Rokumeikan Hatsuo? Army Ministry?”

“Well, shit, if everyone knows, I don’t know why Saitou can’t just take him out openly,” Sano grumbled.

“That’s only a guess based on a combination of rumors,” Katsu soothed. “I doubt a man of his connections and influence could be brought to justice openly in any case.”

“Well, anyway, I guess Saitou wants to take care of the gang Rokumeikan controls before he goes after the guy himself.”

“Not a bad idea. Just a dangerous one.”

Sano grinned all over again. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to that part.”

“Bakayarou,” Katsu murmured. He tapped a pensive finger against the sake bottle, tipped it toward him to see inside, and refilled his cup. “Actually, I may be able to help you. Do you remember the organized fights they used to have in Azabuku two or three years ago?”

“The ones that got stamped out ’cause too many guys got killed?”

“Those ones, yes. They’re restarting, with much tighter security this time around so they don’t get shut down again. And as far as I know, it’s mostly Karashi involved. That is their part of town, after all.”

Sano was nodding enthusiastically. “That’s a great idea! If I can get in on those, it’ll be easy to get into the gang next.”

“And I can’t see that they’d pass up an opportunity to have you fight,” Katsu agreed somewhat dryly. “It should be simple.”

“That’s an amazing tip,” Sano said. “Thanks!”

“Of course. Any time you need information, feel free to ask. I may not have exactly what you need, but I plan to do a lot of gossiping from now on.”

“Careful,” Sano advised, “or you’ll end up as an honest-to-goodness police informant.”

“If they’re all as attractive as that friend of yours,” Katsu said with relative lightness, “I might not mind so much.”

Sano was incredulous. “Who, Saitou?”

Katsu blinked. “Takagi-san, I meant.”

“Oh. Well.” Complete openness in mind, and because the implication here was fairly clear, Sano added, “It didn’t really work out with her.”

“Really?” And Katsu definitely seemed interested in that news. “I had heard you and she were a fixed thing.”

“Good. That’s my excuse for hanging out with her.”

Pensively Katsu nodded.

Sano was pondering whether to tease him about all of this or whether he should let what charged conversation they’d had be enough for today when the sound of downpour from outside — which he realized abruptly had been going on for some time — made him suddenly sit up straight and set down his sake cup. “Oh, shit, I forgot. I gotta go.”

“Forgot what?”

“I got this anonymous note yesterday telling me to meet someone if it was raining today, so that means now I’m late.” His anxiousness first to talk to Tokio in anything like a rational manner and second to smooth things over with Katsu had driven it entirely out of his mind.

Both of Katsu’s brows went up. “That sounds incredibly shady.”

“Yeah it does. Hopefully it’ll be either fun or useful.”

“It could be someone who wants to hire you for a fight; the ‘rain’ clause makes it sound like something someone wants to keep under cover.”

Sano nodded as he got to his feet. “Anyway, it’s raining–” he pointed toward the shouji– “so I’ll find out soon.” Heading for the door he added, “Thanks for the sake.”

“Sano.”

When he turned, he found Katsu too on his feet. The artist threw his arms around the kenkaya as soon as Sano faced him, and pulled him close with a grip that would not be denied. “Stay safe,” he advised. “I’d rather not lose my brother to some stupid ambush in the rain.”

Sano’s heart clenched, and to his own astonishment he felt a prickling behind his eyes. Gruffly he replied, “You too, nichan. Don’t go asking the wrong questions.” And they avoided each other’s gaze as they withdrew from the hug and Sano turned away again to leave.

For some author’s notes, see this, this, this and this Productivity Log.

Of course the simplest solution would be to arrest the artist before the catastrophe could take place, but for a few different reasons Saitou chose not to. The greatest of these was Zanza’s existing feeling of annoyance, perhaps even betrayal, that Tokio had been spying on him. Stepping in and hauling his friend off under his nose wouldn’t help him like or trust those that were supposed to be his allies. Besides, he’d said he needed to figure this out on his own; arresting Tsukioka would take that opportunity from him.

Tokio’s uncertainty about the decision Zanza would make had been aggravating, but nothing more than Saitou could have predicted. For the young man to be faced with a choice like this so soon after his life’s metamorphosis and before he’d even had the chance to start his new assignment seemed an unkind and unfair trick of the universe… but the universe was known for its lack of gentleness and parity. Zanza would have to deal with it as best he could; what conclusion he eventually came to would speak volumes about his character… perhaps even release Saitou from the fascination and emotional involvement he’d been gripped with ever since meeting the young man. Not that this was the outcome Saitou wanted, but it would, at least, be a silver lining to a poor decision on Zanza’s part.

He would like to talk to him, or at least observe him — though he doubted he could get any clearer impression of Zanza’s intentions than Tokio had; she was better at that kind of thing — but in any case found himself unable to track the kenkaya down. It was a big city, and on his own (since enlisting anyone else’s help was obviously out of the question) he had neither the time nor the luck to locate Zanza in it. And he had other things to do anyway. He would just have to wait for tomorrow and see how the scenario played out. Though well aware it could play out very badly for everyone involved, still it seemed wisest to stay his hand until the proper moment. But he was early to the Internal Affairs offices on Saturday night.

What route the artist planned on using to enter he couldn’t predict with 100% accuracy, but if Tsukioka had any sense — which Saitou believed he did, clouded though it might be by old pain and a revolutionary haze — he would scale the wall (which, though crenelated, foolishly bore nothing sharp at its top to prevent this) near where Saitou had stationed himself: some trees, also foolishly placed for tactical purposes, grew on the grounds in this area and would hide the climb from the sight of anyone not close by, and the earth’s slope made this the highest point anywhere inside the perimeter. Saitou was still taking a chance waiting where he was, for doing so assumed Tsukioka had planned thoroughly and wouldn’t be taking unnecessary risks; given the man’s fanatical nature, no matter how much sense Saitou ascribed to him, he could be certain of neither. But he trusted his instincts and stayed.

He glanced upward into the tree whose deep shadows concealed him. No, he couldn’t be sure he was correct, but he estimated a pretty high probability. So even when, a tediously long and quiet time after he’d taken up his position, explosions sounded outside near the main gates, he held his ground, watching the wall carefully from his hidden place through the moonless gloom. His speculation was confirmed when, with a click, the head of a grapnel arced up and over, drawing back and latching onto the inside corner of the top of the wall on the first try. Saitou remained perfectly still, counting on his dark clothes and hair and motionlessness to keep him from notice, as a man followed the hook onto the summit, where he gathered it and the attached rope concisely around his arm and peered into the space beneath him.

Saitou recognized Tsukioka from the description Tokio had provided: a stocky, long-haired figure in dark red and saffron with a bandanna reminiscent of Zanza’s around his forehead. Against the stars at the top of the wall he appeared inscrutable and almost ominous, and the officer didn’t remove his interested eyes from him as he dropped to the turf below.

Tsukioka wasn’t the only one that jumped down seemingly out of nowhere. Zanza hit the ground not five feet in front of Saitou, descending from where he’d been relatively well concealed in the tree (‘relatively’ because, despite his ideal hiding place, he still wore all white), and ran toward his friend. It took only a moment for the artist to notice him and pause.

Saitou leaned forward slightly, scarcely breathing. This was the moment that would confirm the hopes or fears he and Tokio had been harboring for days, determine the course of their mutual interest in Zanza, and possibly completely alter the Karashigumi investigation.

Tsukioka had said his friend’s name, and the tone in which he spoke as well as his subsequent words caused Saitou’s heart, previously subdued as if to muffle its own sound and make listening easier, pick up again and thud perhaps a bit more vehemently than usual: “You said you weren’t coming with me!”

“And you said you weren’t gonna try this alone.” Zanza spoke as if they’d both been taken in a lie, or perhaps something less reprehensible — as if they’d each been cheating at a game where this was allowed as long as it remained undetected, and they’d caught each other out at exactly the same moment.

Tsukioka’s response, “And I thought you believed me,” held the same rueful, friendly accusation.

“Nope.” Zanza shook his head. “I know you were already getting ready for this even before I showed up. No reason not to still go through with it just because I didn’t want to, right?”

“That’s about right. So why are you here?” Tsukioka looked impatient to get on with his work, but also justifiably suspicious at Zanza’s presence.

Even from his concealment some distance away — though only because he had excellent night vision — Saitou could see the deep expansion of Zanza’s chest. This wasn’t easy for him, but he seemed resolute. “I’m here to stop you.”

And at these words, Saitou too found himself able to take a deep breath and let it out. It was all right. Zanza had come to the right conclusion. And did Saitou’s disproportionate relief have anything to do with the fact that he wouldn’t be forced to abandon his infatuation? Because it would really be more convenient if he could let it go…

Tsukioka stiffened, perhaps a little bewildered or betrayed, if not both. “Why?” he hissed. “After everything we talked about, why would you–“

Zanza interrupted, “You musta known I didn’t like this, or you would’ve just told me you were still planning to do it even when I didn’t want to come along. So I think you know why, too, underneath everything.” When the frowning Tsukioka just shook his head, Zanza went on. “This isn’t what taichou would want. Maybe years ago, right after the Bakumatsu, this would’ve been a good idea, but not now, not anymore. Taichou wanted people to have safe and happy lives, and this isn’t going to give them that.”

“We have to do something,” Tsukioka protested. And that, at least, was a better attitude than many citizens had.

“But not this! This–” Zanza gestured toward the building and the distant sounds of running feet and shouting– “is only going to start your new war if you’re really, really lucky, and either way you’re probably gonna die.”

“I told you I don’t–“

Zanza was relentless. “And so will a bunch of other people, innocent people! Look, I know this government is bullshit, but there’s a lot of people working their asses off trying to make things better. You can’t just trample all over that!”

Now Tsukioka definitely appeared betrayed. “You’ve been talking to that Saitou about this, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t even seen him,” Zanza said dismissively, making Saitou glad, in a way, he hadn’t found him when he’d looked. “I’ve just been thinking a lot. Because things are improving, aren’t they? People — like Saitou, yeah — are working hard for reform, and they’re getting somewhere! People are happier now! Isn’t that worth preserving?”

“There’s only so far anyone can get in a faulty system! It needs to be overthrown!” The noises of inquiry and alarm from over by the gates seemed just a little louder, and Saitou thought Tsukioka’s willingness to stand here debating proved something, if not about his overall intentions, at least about his dedication to this specific attack at this specific moment: he wasn’t as sure as he pretended. Exactly why this was, Saitou didn’t know — he would have welcomed Tokio’s assessment of the emotions in this scene — but the wavering was there in any case.

“And once it’s overthrown, if you can somehow manage that,” Zanza was saying, “what do you think’s gonna replace it? Are you gonna rule Japan, or just try to talk some sense into the Emperor? Or are we gonna assassinate him too?”

Saitou didn’t want to grin and risk having starlight gleam off his teeth and possibly betray his presence, but he was just so pleased with Zanza for bringing up this point — especially as he observed the lack of certainty in Tsukioka’s answer, “There are many people who think like us…”

“You know who else there’s a lot of? Old, bitter Bakufu supporters just waiting for a chance to put things back the way they were. Seriously, what are the odds the right people are gonna grab power after this?” Zanza snorted. “‘After this?’ Hell, what are the chances even the right people will be fighting this new war of yours? Seems to me it’s more likely to be people like the guys from Satsuma, trying to get back the last three hundred years.”

Saitou wished he would bring up foreign relations and how petty scuffles like this appeared to other power-hungry countries, but you couldn’t have everything — and he’d already gotten so much more than he could have asked for tonight. He’d come out here fearing Zanza would do something stupid and morally questionable that would damage him irreparably in Saitou’s estimation… and instead the wolf found himself more impressed by and attracted to the young man than ever.

Again Tsukioka insisted, “But we have to do something!”

“You don’t always have to break something to fix it, though.”

“But do you really think people like those police of yours can possibly have any long-term effect on a system like this? You can’t fix a problem this big from the inside!”

“Maybe with enough people working on it, we can fix some of this shit. It’s like you said — people just need an example to realize what they can do.”

Tsukioka’s demeanor by now seemed perfectly desperate, though toward exactly what end Saitou didn’t know. “But what kind of example besides violence could possibly–“

The noises of what must have become a thorough and energetic search of the entire grounds were suddenly growing significantly louder with increasing nearness. All three men glanced around, but could see very little through the shadows of the scant trees. And when Zanza turned back to his friend, he appeared very grim.

“We’re out of time here,” he declared. “We gotta go.”

“No!” Tsukioka’s gaze seemed to burn in the starlight. “I can still — Sano, I’ve worked too hard for this!”

“At least put it off,” Zanza begged, lowering his voice now there was more danger of being heard. “Think about it and come back another night if I really can’t convince you.”

Tsukioka just stared at him hopelessly, and it became clear he couldn’t bring himself to abandon his progress and all his preparations. No matter what he felt or to what extent Zanza had him persuaded, he was simply incapable of moving. Saitou had seen that look before — in battle, just before cutting down an opponent whose conviction outweighed their common sense and self-preservation instinct. Tsukioka had admirable desires and even a certain amount of savvy regarding social change… but he needed a better channel for his energy.

Zanza looked just as troubled and agitated as did his friend. With another deep breath, he placed a hand on Tsukioka’s shoulder and said slowly and heavily, “Hey. Forgive me for this.” Then in a swift movement without warning, he punched Tsukioka so hard in the gut that the artist collapsed immediately into his waiting arms. “I won’t lose you,” he muttered. “Not like this.”

Saitou stepped unhesitatingly from the blackness at that moment, and Zanza, busy slinging the red and yellow figure over his shoulder, almost dropped him in his startlement at the unexpected movement and the officer’s abrupt appearance. “Holy shit! How long’ve you… why are you here?”

“In case you needed help,” Saitou replied, “and now you apparently do. Can you get over the wall?”

Gathering his wits, Zanza blinked, shook his head slightly, then looked around. It seemed he hadn’t given much thought to how he was going to get out of here carrying an unconscious body. “I… could use a hand up,” he admitted.

“I’ll tie his wrists together so you have your hands free,” Saitou suggested, and, swiftly approaching, confiscated Tsukioka’s rope for the task.

Still baffled, Zanza asked, “How long were you there?”

“The whole time. Nice work with him.” With this brief answer, Saitou was finished preparing the artist for transport. He took up a place near the wall and cupped his hands expectantly. “I’ll take care of the guards. Go!”

“Can you…” Zanza seemed suddenly a little flustered. “Can you meet me at his place later? Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes.” Saitou gestured with his head toward the wall and repeated, “Go!”

Zanza got a decent running start from where he’d been standing talking to his friend, stepped onto Saitou’s waiting hands and sprang upward with the added force of Saitou’s heave. Even with the assistance, he barely made it high enough to grasp the top of the wall with that swinging burden on his back, undoubtedly scraping himself and possibly Tsukioka in numerous places as he hauled them both up and over and out of sight. The sound of the doubled weight hitting the ground on the other side and his retreating footsteps assured Saitou he’d gotten down in relative safety. And then the wolf turned to meet the approaching guards.

Without appearing very suspicious — and his story of coincidentally hearing the bombs go off as he passed by on a night patrol and somehow entering and reaching this corner of the grounds without anyone seeing him was already a little suspect — he couldn’t disengage from the offices’ employees and the search for the attackers for quite some time. With those ambiguous words ‘Can you meet me’ echoing in his head, this was more than a little irritating. But so satisfied was he at how well Zanza had handled the situation, he couldn’t consider even the futile pursuit of a bomber long fled throughout the empty grounds of the government buildings a waste of time. Still, he was intensely curious what Zanza could want from him, so when, after almost two hours, he was finally able to depart with impunity, he set off for Tsukioka’s home by a roundabout way as quickly as he could.

***

Given the numerous disasters in potentia during Zanza’s walk back to Katsu’s apartment — to name a few, his friend awakening, declaring he hated Zanza and should never have trusted him, and running back to the Internal Affairs offices to complete the interrupted job, undoubtedly getting himself killed in the process; any one of the truly distressing and extremely uncomfortable number of hard round bombs secreted about Katsu’s person and digging into Zanza’s as he carried him going off unexpectedly and blowing them both to pieces; someone he passed on the street, darkness notwithstanding, noticing the tied wrists around his neck of the figure on his back, very understandably mistaking him for a kidnapper or murderer, and reporting him to police far less likely than Saitou to be relatively sympathetic — it was nothing short of a miracle that he reached his destination without incident.

Katsu didn’t stir when Zanza clumsily searched his pockets to find the key to his door, nor when he was laid onto his futon by tired arms trying, and probably failing, to be as gentle as possible. Nor did he react when Zanza began removing the copious bombs from his pockets and sleeves and stacking them very gingerly in the cupboard from which they’d originally come. The artist remained still and silent, except for his somewhat shallow breathing, as Zanza finally finished his task and threw himself down to rest.

The kenkaya leaned back and closed his eyes, unexpectedly bone-weary and beginning to feel the smart of the scrapes he’d taken from climbing that wall and a certain kink in his back from carrying another grown man such a distance. And in his head he heard, rather than any of the things he and Katsu had said to each other tonight, a different statement from days before: “One of the hardest things about being with the police is that there will always be situations where there’s nothing you can do. No matter how good you are at your job, you’re going to run into those times.”

He had applied Tokio’s words, as she’d specifically intended, to the anger and wretchedness of not being able to help an anonymous woman attacked by anonymous men; they tore at him so much more viciously now as he considered the possibility that Katsu might soon open eyes full of angry rejection, that Zanza might be forced to say goodbye to his oldest friend just as definitively as if he’d allowed Katsu to go through with his suicidal plan. He couldn’t decide whether to hope for a longer or shorter period of unconsciousness; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how Katsu would behave when he awoke.

Of course, this wasn’t the only thing he had to think about.

“In case you needed help.”

Not, “To stop you from doing this,” or, “To arrest your friend,” but, “In case you needed help.” That Saitou had remained hidden until the other two had finished their debate (if it could be called that), until the moment Zanza had specifically required him, attested to the truth of the statement, but Zanza could still hardly believe it. Because it meant Saitou, the guy that had never said anything kind to him once since they’d first met, had trusted Zanza to handle the situation using his own judgment.

Reasonably, why should he be surprised at this? If Saitou didn’t trust him at least a little, he wouldn’t have hired him. Yet Saitou, even in the midst of discussing that very assignment, had given him such a hard time about past choices he considered poorly handled… It astonished him that that Saitou had been willing to watch and say nothing until the situation had progressed to a point where Zanza could no longer get by on his own.

And then, “Nice work with him.” ‘Nice work?’ This was so far from the condescending and insulting behavior Saitou had offered him on previous occasions that Zanza was almost tempted to call it ‘praise… ‘ but didn’t quite dare. In any case, it had been comradely and encouraging… and since when was Saitou that friendly to him? Or did Zanza simply not know the man as well as he thought he did?

Why, though, should he think he knew him at all? He’d fought him exactly once, talked to him barely more often than that… Most of the knowledge he had of him was from the research he’d done before his battle, which wasn’t exactly personality-profiling. Sure, he had a pretty good idea what Saitou’s morals were, but what did he really know about Saitou personally? Maybe it would be wise to spend some time with his new employer and find out whether the guy was actually as big a bastard as he’d been assuming.

With these reflections helping to push away the far more uncomfortable ones about what would happen presently when Katsu woke, Zanza nevertheless waited uneasily for that event and his doom, leaning against the wall between a cabinet and a table alternately staring up at the dark ceiling and into the deeper blackness of his eyelids in a room where he hadn’t bothered — or perhaps had the heart — to light a lamp. It was no great wonder that, after a while, he drowsed and lost awareness of his surroundings. He wasn’t so deeply asleep, however, that the sound of Katsu stirring did not immediately return him to full consciousness. He had the vague impression that hours had passed, and there was definitely a crick in his neck, but as it was time to face the music he didn’t spend too long thinking about either of these circumstances.

At first it was merely a change in Katsu’s breathing patterns and a slight shifting of limbs — perfectly normal sounds for someone coming out of sleep or something like it — but then, so abruptly it startled Zanza into a more upright attitude of his own, he bolted into a sudden sitting position as if memory had come back to him just as precipitously. “Where–” His level of tension hardly decreased as he looked frantically around and recognized his own room, and eventually his eyes fixed on Zanza and stayed there, wide and trembling. “Sano…!” And a long moment of silence followed.

Recognizing the necessity for him to start the conversation, no matter how difficult it would prove, Zanza forced his mouth open. His words came out very heavy indeed: “Hey. I’m sorry I hit you. I hope you don’t hate me.”

Katsu simply continued to stare at him.

“I just thought the whole thing was such a bad idea,” Zanza explained awkwardly, “and it felt like I was never gonna be able to get you to leave.”

Katsu’s face seemed to be compressing, his eyes losing their agitated wideness, his brows drawing together, and his mouth tightening to a hard, bitter line. This change of expression spoke volumes, but his voice said nothing.

Zanza pressed on. “Taichou did a lot of dirty work trying to reach his goals, even if his goals were good…” Though an integral part of the conclusion he wanted to draw that had been on his mind quite a bit lately, this hurt him to say aloud, and he felt the driving need to add, “I know we’d rather think of him as this perfect guy who always did the right thing, but we’ve both gotta know that’s bullshit.”

The artist’s gaze dropped his lap, his face now at an angle unreadable in the darkness.

“But it wasn’t like he wanted it to be that way. Because his goals were good, and he probably would’ve liked it a whole lot better to keep his hands clean for them.”

Finally Katsu spoke, but if Zanza hoped to gage his current attitude and likely future actions from his tone, he was disappointed. “Sometimes the end justifies the means.” He said it so dully, so totally without emotion or direction, that the words could indicate any point along the scale from unmotivated philosophy to specific planning.

“Maybe,” Zanza allowed helplessly. “I dunno.” He sat silent for a moment, feeling his ability to debate this topic entirely exhausted for the night, but also that he must get his final point out before giving up. “You kinda made it sound,” he resumed at last with some difficulty, “like you thought taichou was arranging things from wherever he is now… like he brought me to you just at the right time…” And perhaps it was dangerous to state this idea so explicitly when it had only been hinted at before, but Zanza felt what little conversational finesse he might have had earlier draining from him now.

Nevertheless, Katsu, though still staring down at the hands clenched in his lap, nodded slightly.

Zanza believed this was a good sign, and his tone was a little stronger as he continued, “I think you’re right about that. But I don’t think it was for me to help you with your plans.” After this his words came out on a rush: “I think it was for me to stop you, because he might see that as a second chance — a chance to keep us from making ourselves as dirty as he was.” He took a deep breath. “We can’t do shit that makes us as bad as our enemies. That’s never what taichou would’ve wanted.”

Almost no motion had shown in Katsu’s figure during all of this, but at these last words he went so perfectly still it appeared he’d stopped breathing. Zanza knew from recent experience how very, very difficult it was to have your way of life and the attitudes behind it criticized in a manner you couldn’t ignore; the situations weren’t entirely the same, but he did have some idea what he was putting his friend through at this point.

‘His friend?’ Was that even true anymore?

“But, look…” He also knew, from that same recent experience, how important choice was in personal revolution. Sorely, wearily, sadly, he got slowly to his feet, watching nothing but Katsu even as he stepped toward the door. He sighed, and finally dragged his eyes away, directing them toward making his way through the dark room. “I didn’t touch anything. Your bombs are all still there, and nobody knows what you tried to do tonight.” He refrained from mentioning Saitou, unsure where they stood on this matter. “You can still go back another time if you want. I just… really… really hope you won’t.”

No word, not even a shifting of garments sounded from behind him, and in fact the only thing he heard was the echoing statement in his head, “There will always be situations where there’s nothing you can do.”

“I hope you find another way,” he said, and left the apartment.

Outside, he sighed again and turned his gaze upward. This wasn’t comfortable on his neck after having dozed however long against Katsu’s wall, but he nevertheless stared up at the moonless, spotted blackness for several long moments, seeking to calm himself. He might have been seeking something else as well, which he realized only when he directed a mental call into the sky: I did my best. What the outcome of his best might be he couldn’t guess, and he would be watching newspaper headlines anxiously for the next several days, but he doubted there was anything more he could have done. If Sagara-taichou had arranged this, it was time for him to take a hand again to nudge things along to their proper conclusion.

When Zanza’s eyes finally dropped from the stars, he found Saitou standing beside him. He started violently, and had to restrain himself from yelping; instead he hissed, “Dammit, stop startling me like that! You and Tokio both are so sneaky!”

Saitou’s smirk was more visible in the starlight than Katsu’s entire form had been inside the unlit apartment. “You asked me to meet you here.”

Slowly Zanza nodded, and began moving away from Katsu’s door so as to be able to speak at a more normal volume without risking the artist hearing them from inside. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had asked Saitou to meet him here; he supposed he’d entertained some hazy idea of the officer’s being useful if Katsu decided he wanted to run straight back to the Internal Affairs offices, but now, as uncertainly as everything had turned out, he knew neither what to do with himself nor what to request of Saitou.

The latter followed him across the street, then followed his constantly returning glance to Katsu’s door. “You think he’ll try again tonight?”

Zanza let out yet another sigh. “I’ve got no idea what he’s gonna do.” With a deep breath, trying to order his thoughts, he shook his head and forced himself to be more rational. “No. I don’t think he’ll try again tonight, at least. But I sure as hell don’t know about tomorrow night.”

It was probably nothing more than a trick of the shadows, but there seemed an unexpected amount of understanding in Saitou’s nod. “You made a number of excellent points, and told him what he needs to hear; all you can do now is stand back and wait for him to make his own decision.”

This was exactly what Zanza had been thinking inside, and coming from exactly the person most qualified to make the pronouncement with far more conviction than Zanza had been thinking it. It heartened him, but at the same time stood as a painful reminder of how much control he didn’t have over the situation, the potential loss of an important friend. Saitou couldn’t have felt precisely this way while waiting to see what effect his words would have on the backward mercenary that had come to attack him, yet he must understand to some extent what this was like for someone that had suggested a change that might after all never take place.

Saitou was leaning against the wall now, withdrawing a cigarette as if he had nothing better to do than stand here with Zanza in the dark discussing possibilities. And when he evidently observed the young man had no answer for his latest statement, he went on casually. “And you don’t do anything by halves, do you? You only just agreed to work with Tokio and me, but already you’re throwing around phrases like, ‘Don’t you think that’s worth preserving?'”

“I…” Zanza had to smile faintly at hearing himself quoted. “I didn’t even know what I was saying half the time. I was just trying to save him. If it sounded like I knew what I was talking about, I was putting on a really good show. I just… didn’t want to lose Katsu.”

“Do you think his plan has potential?” Saitou’s tone remained surprisingly conversational, something Zanza had heard almost none of from this source in the past.

“The more I thought about that, the less I believed it. That shit would only work if every little thing lined up just right, and maybe not even then.”

Saitou nodded sharply, exactly as Zanza had seen him do in a similarly dark street on a recent night during a very different discussion. It was, he thought, a nod of approval. “But you were tempted.”

“Yeah.” The smile returned, now bittersweetly nostalgic. “You’re too old to know what it was like to be a useless kid during the Bakumatsu. The idea of really getting to fight this time sounded really good.”

Saitou shrugged. “You’re still a useless kid, though. Sano.”

Engrossed in formulating a response for the slander, he almost missed the cop’s deliberate use of his real name, but as soon as it caught up with him he stilled the words on the tip of his tongue. Despite its appendage to a needlessly insulting remark, he found he rather enjoyed being called that. “Yeah, that’s me… Sano…” A slow, thoughtful frown grew on his face and a slight shiver ran through him as he fully realized what Saitou was prompting him to let go of. “I guess I’m not really Zanza anymore, am I?”

“Aren’t you?” Saitou asked neutrally.

“Zanza…” Sano worked through this slowly, more for himself than for his listener. “Zanza would have gone along with Katsu, for one reason or another. Either just for fun, or because…” He shook his head, and his next words held increasing decisiveness. “Zanza was the reason I was tempted in the first place. Zanza was all about living in the past, and this–” he gestured across the street– “was all about the past: reviving the Sekihoutai, bringing back the war, sticking with an old friend… but Zanza was always just a bad way of coping; he was never really right about anything.”

And now, at last, Sano could give him up. As he put this into words for the first time, he felt a positivity, a surety, about his own actions and beliefs that he’d never been able to harbor before. He’d been certain of nothing tonight — or, indeed, since Katsu had presented his plan — except his desire not to lose his friend, but now all of a sudden he saw his path clearly and felt he could walk it with determination. There was no longer even a shred of temptation to go back to his life of meaningless fighting in order to escape the complications that currently plagued him. And this had taken place specifically because he’d been able to talk to Saitou about it; perhaps subconsciously, in response to those unexpectedly encouraging phrases the officer had granted him back at the office grounds, this had been the real reason he’d asked him to come here.

Saitou was nodding, the bobbing end of his cigarette bright in the darkness. “And maybe this whole plan was just your friend’s way of coping.”

Sano dragged his eyes back from where they’d wandered to the police officer as he considered yet again what a difference this man had made in his life, and turned them once more on the door deeply shadowed in its frame across from them. Would Katsu be able to let go the way Sano had? There simply was no telling at this time.

“Well,” said Saitou after what felt like an extremely long silence, throwing his spent cigarette to the ground and stepping on it as he stood straight, “no reason to keep waiting around here like a stray dog hoping for scraps.”

Wondering to what extent the circumstances did cause him to resemble that ignoble beast, Sano too pushed himself straight from where he’d wearily been leaning against the same wall Saitou had. “Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly. “And I guess if he does decide to try again…” But he didn’t know what he would do in that case.

“I’ll send warnings to all the government offices as soon as I get back to the station.”

“You won’t just arrest Katsu? Or…” Sano could barely bring himself to say it, but he remembered certain statements Saitou had made that he’d never been able to doubt. “…kill him?”

“Only if I have to,” replied Saitou steadily, and Sano appreciated his honesty even while deploring the idea. And then the officer turned to leave.

The former kenkaya found himself loath all of a sudden to part from Saitou after the events of the evening. It seemed his life’s metamorphosis that had begun during their second encounter had been completed tonight, and there was a sort of binding power to Saitou’s words, even the ones not strictly concerned with Sano’s state of being. It felt wrong — ungrateful, lonely, unthinkable — to let Saitou walk away. Besides, hadn’t he been reflecting earlier that he should probably spend some time with the guy and get to know him a little better?

And perhaps Saitou recognized this when, upon his taking the first step up the street, Sano immediately followed as if it were prearranged they would be going together. He glanced back at the younger man with a raised brow, at first asking a wordless question. Behind Sano the sky brightened, changing to a dark grey instead of black and gradually swallowing up the stars, and he was surprised to realize the night’s adventure had taken so long; but he was even more surprised when the growing light seemed to show a softening of Saitou’s facial expression before him, as if the officer truly did understand Sano’s present vulnerability and did not necessarily object.

Saitou turned fully to face him again instead of merely looking over his shoulder. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yeah!” Sano replied, startled. He’d had no idea, but found he was.

“Come on.” Saitou gestured as he turned again. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

Sano did not hesitate to fall into step beside him, but couldn’t help querying, “Is it a good idea for you and me to be seen together in public, though?”

“There’s a restaurant where the police often go,” Saitou assured him. “They’re very good at keeping quiet.”

“Then lead the way!” Sano restrained himself from throwing one last glance back at Katsu’s door, just continued to walk at Saitou’s side filled with an almost startling new feeling of satisfaction and confidence.

***

After Sano left, how much time passed with Katsu in exactly the same attitude, cross-legged on his futon staring down at his hands, he wasn’t sure; but he had the impression he’d been sitting in the dark far longer than this. In fact light had been the aberration; the periods of his life he hadn’t spent in the dark were vastly overshadowed by those he had.

The family into which he’d been adopted as a young child had given him a few advantages: among them, the beginnings of an interest in fine art in a setting where he was privileged to enjoy such things; a name he’d eventually discovered he could trade on, however he felt about it, and thereby obtain a somewhat better education than he otherwise could have; and a relatively safe haven when his birth parents had been executed for treason. What they hadn’t given him was any motive — based on loyalty, love, or an idea of what he ‘owed’ them — to stay with them once he discovered what had happened at his former home; any significant amount of respect for a class system that encourage the swapping of sons like trade goods, no matter the reasoning behind it; or any sense whatsoever of family. That sense had only come later, with Sagara Souzou and Sanosuke.

And now had he lost it all over again?

There was a certain feeling he often experienced at the completion of a long-running artistic project he’d granted a lot of concentration and energy: a bleakness, an emptiness, an ignorance of what to do next or even if he could do anything next or ever again. Of course he invariably recovered — especially if he had another project lined up — but the labor took a lot out of him, and, even when he approved the finished work, that depression of spirits at the closure of any such project sometimes made him wonder whether it was all worth it.

This was worse. In addition to those precise sensations, he felt crushed, defeated, that all his hopes and plans had meant nothing; he suffered the same lowness that came after he’d finalized some intricate painting weeks or months in the creation, but with no finished work to show for it.

He remembered lying awake with Sano far into the night, in their little tent adjacent to the captain’s or an alcove just off his bedroom when they weren’t on the march, talking about basically nothing — the trivia children discussed, meaningless and unremembered in its specifics but inestimably valuable in the bond it forged — then being chided good-naturedly by Sagara-taichou in the morning when they drooped over breakfast. Taichou always ate breakfast with them, even if official conversations had already started across that meal and even if he would soon be called away on other business. He always made that time. And thereafter, tired though they might be, Sano and Katsu would enjoy carrying out their duties — tasks within their skillsets assigned to them without condescension — because they knew they were valued members of the group.

Sagara, the man that had eaten with him regardless of what other responsibilities he might have, that had cared whether he was getting enough sleep, that had listened to what he had to say, that had allowed a couple of kids from two totally disparate classes to do what they were capable of in the fight for justice and equality, had walked out of his life one day in 1869 when he’d gone to Shimosuwa supposedly to try to clear up the ‘misunderstanding’ regarding the Sekihoutai but probably knowing very well he would never return.

And Sanosuke, the friend to whom Katsu had drawn so close, the tent-mate to whom he’d bared his young heart, his comrade in what arms they children had been allowed to take up, the only true brother he’d ever acknowledged, had walked back into his life just when Katsu had honed the biting memory of that time ten years ago to its sharpest point, one day in 1878… to do what? To refute his beliefs, thwart his schemes, destroy his vision of the future?

Or to rescue him from disaster?

Katsu didn’t know whether he felt he’d been stabbed in the back or snatched away at the last possible moment from a precipice whose edge he hadn’t realized was so near and whose height he hadn’t realized was so towering.

Not that Sanosuke had been absent from Katsu’s thoughts even before he’d returned. With the scattering of what remained of the Sekihoutai’s first regiment after Sagara’s execution, Katsu had entirely lost track of Sano physically, but never mentally. Having plunged back into that darkness of a life without family, without love, he’d clung all the more tenaciously to the distant memory of the father figure whose severed head he’d seen on public display and the brother he acutely hoped had survived. In a way, the plans he’d gradually been formulating and the bombs he’d eventually created had been every bit as much for Sano’s sake as they had been for Sagara’s.

And then Sano had shown up and declared he didn’t want any of it.

But this couldn’t be exclusively about what Sano wanted. Whether or not his friend had betrayed him, the issue was not merely Katsu’s will versus Sano’s. True, Katsu’s motivation in this matter had taken a severe blow at Sano’s declaration that he wouldn’t be accompanying him, but he’d felt strongly enough about the enterprise to proceed with it anyway. And he’d been utterly torn when Sano had appeared unexpectedly on the office grounds to try to stop him, but even the intense desire to comply with Sano’s wishes in some way — any way — in deference to their old attachment hadn’t been enough to drag him from what he intended to do.

A combination of his indecision and Sano’s physical strength, however, had been enough. And afterward — how long afterward he still couldn’t tell — his decisiveness had yet to return. Of course he could go back, try again, just as Sano had stated on his way out of the apartment, but his limbs felt stone-heavy; the faint light of stars and streetlamps through the shouji of his door was not enough to show his path clear, and he didn’t know what to do. But did this irresolution arise from to a desire to placate Sano now he had him back in his life (if he had him back in his life), or from fresh doubts about the entire business?

He felt as if he’d suffered a significant loss: not merely of the opportunity provided by a moonless and less-guarded night, but also of the burning drive that had powered the undertaking in the first place. Everything was in a shambles now, and he couldn’t decide, intellectually or emotionally, where he currently stood in relation to his former designs. Was he merely shaken by the events of the evening, by feelings and memories that naturally reached deep but that were, in the end, unrelated to this endeavor? Would he recover, regain that drive, feel secure again that he’d come up with the only viable option for enacting change, and head out once more with strength of spirit redoubled? Or had Sano’s words and actions — many of which had come across as less reasoned than blatantly desperate but all evidently hailing from an honest place — penetrated him more thoroughly than he recognized yet? Was he truly doubting his own convictions?

He’d hinted at a belief in Sagara-taichou’s supernatural supervision, and Sano had later stated the idea openly… but did Katsu truly have any faith in that phenomenon? He’d been so alone for so long… Surely more light would have shone into his empty life if his captain had been watching over him? And Sano too, the ‘Zanza’ Katsu had met after so many years apart, had, at least up until this very night, seemed so lost, so aimless… If Sagara Souzou was directing events on behalf of either of them, why had they both walked such tortuous paths through darkness? The one reasonable supposition was that Sagara had taken a ghostly hand in the proceedings only when that hand was most needed — that is, when Katsu had finally solidified his plans for sedition and violence. But had that interference been intended to bring Sano to him just at the right moment, as Katsu had believed, to assist… or, as Sano believed, to hinder? Each of them regarded the timing of their reunion as significant, and possibly ascribed it to the will of their dead commander, but each had assigned him a different motivation. Each was using the circumstance to support his own point of view.

Exactly as Katsu had been using the memory of Sagara-taichou’s political goals, the concept of ‘reviving the Sekihoutai,’ to further his own agenda?

It had hurt him so profoundly earlier to hear Sano talk about Sagara as having been dirty, as having committed wrongs even in the name of the righteousness he’d longed to achieve. Some part of Katsu was glad Sano had left him to his thoughts, because after that statement he wasn’t sure he was capable of a level-headed conversation with his friend. For the beloved companion of his youth, his brother, to malign a man that had been as good as a father to both of them had been more than Katsu could bear, even if Sano had gone on in practically the same breath to reaffirm the essential virtue of that man.

But Sano had once had a real father and an affectionate family, even if some careless impulse had driven him to run away from Nagano farm work and join the Sekihoutai, and perhaps — it stung even to consider, but seemed nonetheless rational — perhaps that allowed him a clearer view of the figure that had acted as surrogate during the war. Perhaps Katsu’s memories of Sagara were warped in a way Sano’s never would be by the fact that the Sekihoutai had been the only true family Katsu had ever known. And perhaps the whole bombing scheme had been an attempt, however strange and backward it might seem, to reconnect with that. Maybe Sano was right, and it wasn’t at all what Sagara-taichou would have wanted, whether or not the blinded Katsu could see that. If only Sano hadn’t cut so deeply in conveying the idea.

And yet… no matter how he felt about his old friend, the manner in which Sano had altered his course, or his goal of destroying the Internal Affairs offices… no matter how accurate Katsu’s picture of their captain was or wasn’t… it was undeniable that the vision Sagara-taichou had died for was not yet realized. The classism of the previous era, though technically abolished by law, was still tacitly upheld in the dealings of this fraudulent government. Criminals such as those that had betrayed the Sekihoutai to disgrace and death still ran unchecked and often even unrecognized, certainly unpunished by this imbalanced system. His specific drive might have faltered, but he still had a deep-rooted desire to fight against this corruption on behalf of Sagara and all of his fallen comrades. As he’d told Sanosuke earlier, those that had eyes open to the true state of things couldn’t simply do nothing.

He’d also told him the end sometimes justified the means. He’d told him war was the only way. Sano hoped he would find a different one, but Katsu couldn’t imagine what that might be.

Would the people of modern Japan respond to anything short of violence? Was there any better, more peaceful manner of righting the wrongs brought about by the Meiji, of inspiring the downtrodden to claim their rights without embroiling them in the weary horrors of another bloody conflict? Could anyone expose and begin to scrub away the grime of this era without getting it all over his own hands? And if such methods could be determined upon, would someone that had lived most of his life in a darkness without family, without love be capable of using them?

He found himself staring over at the lamp on his table. Light was such a simple thing, so easy to produce and maintain. He could strike a flame and set it to the wick and bring his room into much greater visibility and comprehensibility just as he’d done thousands of times before in preparation for going about his daily activities and working at the tasks that were important to him, the things that made his existence in some measure worth continuing. Yet he found, though unable to remove his unhappy eyes from the familiar implements that could so easily restore luminance to the space around him, that he simply didn’t know how.

***

Tokio had informed him in the past that he had a terrifying smile. While taking the statement with a grain of salt and assuming only certain smiles qualified in any case, Saitou nevertheless had good reason to believe it upon reaching the station that morning. Overt cheerfulness, after all, was no particularly striking characteristic of his, and might convince anyone his mood was homicidal rather than pleased and optimistic.

Imitating his wife’s behavior of a few days before as he entered his own office, he closed the door only imperfectly and leaned toward it to listen. And just as when Tokio had done this, what he overheard simultaneously amused and annoyed him.

“Holy shit, what’s his problem?”

“Didn’t look like a ‘problem‘ to me.”

“Well, he sent his butch woman off somewhere–” Of course this remark was Hino’s– “so he’s got some time free for his side piece.”

“Are you kidding? Any woman in her right mind would run like hell if a guy looked at her like that.”

“Maybe it’s a man, then?”

“A suicidal man!”

Nervous laughter.

Shaking his head, Saitou shut the door completely. Maybe indeed. It was remarkable how disrespectful otherwise fairly rational people felt free to be when the objects of their discussion were even minutely unorthodox in any way. He still would have enjoyed avenging himself and his wife — giving those officers something far more terrifying to consider him by than a smile — but when he wasn’t working directly with them, that would have been unprofessional, petty, and (most pertinently) ineffectual. Best just to get on with what he had to do today.

The latter, predictably, struck him as infinitely more boring than usual. At the same time, he seemed also to have a vastly improved ability to tolerate it, a greater strength for dealing with tedium, fueled by the memory of breakfast. If Zanza — if Sano had grasped exactly how much that simple meal had affected the man he’d eaten it with, he surely would have been taken aback. He might have reacted very much as the officers out in the station proper had, speculating inappropriately though probably not coming as unwittingly close to the real reason for Saitou’s good mood as those policemen.

Saitou hoped, however, and to a certain extent liked to believe Sano wouldn’t be nearly so stupidly offensive about it. Stupidly offensive about any number of things Saitou could easily picture the young man, but in this area, at least, probably not. Sano had demonstrated a decent level of respect for Tokio and her professional abilities so far, and she usually didn’t interest herself in anyone inclined to treat her (or refer to her) the way men like Hino-kun did.

Admittedly Sano had mentioned Tokio in Saitou’s presence only a handful of times, which contributed in no small degree to the frame of mind that so unsettled his co-workers. Though their discussion over breakfast had ranged from the personal to the occupational and back, Saitou’s wife and possible rival had barely been touched upon. That seemed a promising sign.

“Tokio claims she’s a really good cook.” Sano exhibited a preposterous and charming fluctuation of mood as he ate: every time his attention returned squarely to his food, he seemed immediately to experience an entirely pure and simple happiness based on its presence in front of him; but when his thoughts evidently moved toward anything else, his face would gradually darken — up until the moment he looked down and remembered his breakfast again, at which point he would grin slightly and shovel another bite into his mouth. He’d made his latest comment in the pleasant atmosphere, then started once more on the descent.

“She is,” Saitou replied, but did not elaborate; instead he spoke in response to the unpalatable reflections that obviously repeatedly returned to Sano’s stream of consciousness. “Are you still worrying about your friend?”

“I’m trying not to,” Sano sighed. “It won’t do any good, right? He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, and me dwelling on it won’t change what he decides.”

“What’s bothering you, then?” Saitou asked bluntly, fully aware he might not get any kind of satisfactory answer. And when Sano glanced up at him sharply, his handsome face closed off, then visibly relaxed, Saitou’s curiosity might have been described as ‘desperate’ regarding what rapid thought process had prompted the young man to open up.

“Just thinking about the Sekihoutai… and taichou… and all that.” The smile Sano couldn’t seem to help as he somehow plucked another strip of pork, a head of broccoli, and three or four noodles all at once appeared incongruous with the statement he next made before stuffing everything between his teeth. “I said some awful shit to Katsu in there.”

“You said you didn’t know what you were saying half the time,” Saitou recalled. “Did you mean those things, or was it just something you were using to try to convince him?”

Sano swallowed half of his mouthful and talked through the rest. “I did mean it, and that’s what makes it so awful. It was the first time I ever admitted out loud that taichou wasn’t perfect, but I’ve known for years and years the Sekihoutai had all sorts of problems. Don’t get me wrong; the Ishin Shishi screwed them over and murdered a bunch of… well, not innocent guys, but innocent of what they accused them of: guys who maybe didn’t deserve to die. But there was some pillaging, and intimidation and shady deals trying to get recruits and a better position with the patriots. It mostly went over my head as a kid, but with what I heard afterwards and then looking back…” He shrugged unhappily, helplessly, then directed his gaze down at his food and smiled seemingly against his will yet again.

“While I was fighting all those years, I didn’t think about that much.” He began gathering together another massive bite. “I was proud of being the ‘evil’ survivor of the ‘false army,’ and I didn’t give a shit whether the Sekihoutai and Sagara-taichou really did some evil things. But now…” His next words came out muffled. “I don’t feel like I can ignore that real evil anymore. I’ve always worn the kanji to protest what happened to people I cared about, this label that got put on them unfairly… but now… maybe it’s more true than I ever wanted to admit it was. And I don’t know if I wanna claim that anymore.”

Saitou thought he understood. He still didn’t know why Sano had chosen to lay this dilemma before him — perhaps simply because he’d paid for such a substantial breakfast — but he was touched, every bit as happy as Sano seemed to be at finding food continually in front of him, that he had. And he considered himself uniquely suited to respond to these concerns. It wasn’t something he discussed with just anyone, but the fact that he wanted to be closer to Sano and was therefore willing to broach this subject only increased his suitability for the exchange.

Since he, unlike his companion, wasn’t given to talking with his mouth full, he swallowed his current bite before beginning. He also lowered his tone, though restraining himself from glancing around suspiciously at the few other early-morning restaurant patrons and staff. They really were tight-lipped here, and he’d trusted the setting with more secure information than this. “The Shinsengumi,” he said slowly and seriously, “has been called a lot of things by various parties since it dissolved. We’ve been painted as everything from the most honorable protectors of true nobility to a despicable band of treacherous thugs.”

Motionless, Sano stared at him, and as he did so a long noodle slithered from the grasp of the chopsticks that had paused on their way to his mouth and plopped back into his bowl. The look on his face was an interesting mixture of far-away consideration, grudging admiration, and what Saitou could almost describe as rote disapproval. Many people reacted thus to talk of the Shinsengumi these days. At last he said, in a tone expressing all of this, “To a lot of us you guys were the enemy. Larger than life. A lot of kids thought if they could just get to Kyoto and beat you, the war’d be won.”

Speculating that Sano himself might have been one of those kids, Saitou remarked, “Kids are ignorant like that.”

Sano snorted. “The point is, yeah, I get it — there’s been lots of talk about the Shinsengumi and what it was like as long as I can remember. Why?”

“The truth about us was a little of all that talk. There were the honorable and the noble among us, and there were the treacherous thugs. And there were honorable, noble men who sometimes descended into treachery and mindless violence.”

Slowly Sano nodded, finally chewing with his mouth closed as he evidently had nothing to say.

“My time in the Shinsengumi was integral to who I was then and who I am now.” He had reached the crux of his discourse. “But I don’t have to claim everything they were. I can retain my pride as a former captain while rejecting what I consider evil.” Even, he did not add, evil committed by his own hands under the Shinsengumi banner during a youth that had shaped him into a man that would look back on some of his former actions with regret.

Again Sano was staring, and by the arrangement of his features he clearly took the point. He couldn’t seem to decide how to respond, though, and sat in silence with without moving for several moments. Eventually, rather than acquiescing or offering thanks for this insight or acknowledging how unexpectedly private some of this exchange had been, he cleared his throat, returned his ostensible attention to his food, and shifted their focus. “You were always trying to fix shit in the Shinsengumi, though, weren’t you? I heard you were kinda the police back then too.”

“Something like that,” Saitou agreed, his tone lighter than before.

“And now you’re doing the same thing with the Meiji government.”

“The Meiji government is significantly bigger, though,” Saitou observed, sardonic.

“Yeah.” Sano gave a rueful laugh. “Still, it’s good you’re going after guys like… well, I already forgot his name… that politician who’s working with the Karashigumi.”

“Rokumeikan Hatsuo.”

“You know you kinda grind your teeth when you say that?” Sano wondered with apparent interest.

“Some politicians abuse their influence to provide themselves with money and luxury and social prestige,” Saitou replied — indeed, through gritted teeth — “which, while far from harmless, tends to be the least of the evils they can do. But Rokumeikan, in addition to that, seems to love power for its own sake. We can’t definitively prove any crime at this point, but it’s evident his every political decision is intended to flatter and appease his professional colleagues, and every deal he makes is aimed at gathering more influence in the Army Ministry. Needless to say, those decisions and those deals aren’t made in the best interest of the country or its people.”

“So why don’t you just take him out?” Sano wondered. “You could clean up the gangs afterwards?”

Saitou wondered if Sano could tell just how much he’d love to do exactly that, how his hand almost twitched toward the hilt of his sword every time this came up. It seemed wise to remind himself of the answer to the question even as he provided it for Sano. “Several reasons. Rokumeikan’s death will be a warning to anyone involved with him, and if these gangs he’s working with are still active at that time, their most important members may go into hiding and take greater care to avoid capture. It’s also more convenient when it comes to the case review — because I do have to answer for my actions — to have dealt with all aspects of the problem at the same time. Then, damaging or destroying his underground operations all at once may bring to light other organizations under his control that we’re not aware of yet. And of course it’s just sensible caution to remove his manpower in addition to him personally.”

“Well, that all makes sense.” Sano was picking the last morsels out of his bowl. “It doesn’t really answer my question, though. I mean,” he continued quickly before Saitou could demand how on earth he hadn’t been thorough enough with his reply, “all that’s really good stuff, and you’re right: it is sensible caution. But it’s not exactly immediate. Aku Soku Zan, right? You’ve got this freaky look like you could go out and stab someone right now. How can you stand to wait when you know what that bastard’s up to?”

He could tell, then. That pleased Saitou more than he was willing to show, especially since a smile would have seemed incongruous at the moment and he had no food-related glee to excuse it. So he just sighed a little as he replied, “This is the Meiji, and while things are fundamentally unchanged in what I do and what I believe, we’re no longer at war. Acting in haste or with undue passion would be foolish.”

“Shit, you’ve got more patience than I do,” marveled Sano.

Saitou restrained his smile no longer, though it had a disdainful twist to it now. “Of that I’ve been aware since our first meeting.”

“What?” Sano’s brows lowered over the tea he’d been slurping. “Why?”

“If you had any patience at all, you wouldn’t have been running around accusing people of treachery and attacking them without talking to them first.”

“Hah!” Sano set down his cup so firmly that tea sloshed over its edge onto his hand. As he wiped the latter on his pants, he added with a grin, “Like I would ever have talked to a jerk like you!” And his expression and tone made it plain he didn’t mind the idea nearly so much anymore.

“No, indeed,” Saitou agreed. “That would have been far too sensible for someone like you.”

Almost everything Sano ever said to him reiterated how headstrong and impetuous he was, yet Saitou liked him. And maybe those traits, annoy him though they might at times, were part of the foundation of his infatuation. Certainly Sano’s ability — a somewhat unexpected ability, but all the more delightful for that — to seriously consider issues of self and morality was part of why Saitou felt about him the way he did. He didn’t even mind, after that conversation, the thought of how weightily captivated he was and how this morning had only intensified the condition, despite how it threatened to distract him as he went about his work.

Tokio entered his office that evening, weary and dirty as usual after such an assignment, and gave neither report nor even greeting before soliciting news of last night’s events. In fact her hand hadn’t left the door handle yet when she demanded, “Well?”

Her presence could not exactly destroy his mood, but was somewhat irksome, and he found himself, in response to her insistence, perversely unwilling to tell her anything — as if last night were a secret he wanted to guard jealously from her, or as if while she’d been gone some new understanding had arisen between himself and Sano and he balked from welcoming her into it. That might well be the case, and in fact there was no actual need to describe breakfast, but hadn’t he decided he wouldn’t be competing with her? So with an effort he replied casually, “It went very well.”

“What went well? What happened? Did you have to fight him again? Is he all right?”

With the beginnings of a smirk at her frustration, he leaned back in his chair and reached for his cigarettes. “He’s fine. I didn’t fight him.” As she rested a hand on his desk in a gesture more like pounding it down insistently than supporting her tired frame, he put a cigarette to his lips (which were therefore conveniently occupied for a few more moments) and lit it. Finally he finished his brief account. “He went to the Internal Affairs offices and talked Tsukioka out of his plan. I just watched.”

Tokio took a deep breath, standing straight again and letting the air back out in a sigh of relief. “He… talked him out of it…”

“At least for last night.”

“I thought the most he would manage was just not to go along with it. I didn’t think he was far enough along to actively oppose his friend.”

“It was more that he didn’t want Tsukioka to get himself killed.”

“He didn’t want to lose him,” she breathed, nodding. “Of course. That was the angle I should have tried all along.” She looked irritated all of a sudden. “We could have skipped that ‘enemies’ talk.”

Saitou laughed briefly, though he did sympathize: Tokio could almost always read, during the course of a conversation, what someone was feeling, and could often use that knowledge to extrapolate about their plans and spin the discussion in the direction she wanted in order, perhaps, to manipulate those plans. But no one was omniscient, and she knew it; her irritation faded as quickly as it had arisen. She was obviously far more relieved, anyway, that the potential disaster had been averted than hung up on what had passed.

“So what about Tsukioka?” she finally asked. “‘At least for last night?’ Is he likely to try again?”

“That’s what we’ve been wondering. Sano raised every point in the book to convince him his plan was foolish, but whether it was enough to shake Tsukioka out of his idealistic trance… we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“‘Sano?'” Tokio sounded nothing more than curious, but in her eyes that did not break from her husband’s was the light of epiphany. Usually he saw it shining there over dinner when she’d realized belatedly she could have made such-and-such to go with the fish or something equally trivial, but this time it was perhaps a little more detrimental. To what, Saitou wasn’t sure, but he feared maybe it had been a mistake to speak Sano’s newly resumed moniker. There was an edge to his wife’s expression that Tokio herself possibly wouldn’t have recognized if she’d seen it: a demand, a challenge.

And Saitou would not meet it. “That is his name.” He might inadvertently have thrown down a gauntlet, and she might have taken it up with dawning recognition, but he refused to acknowledge that.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice already absent as her gaze became guarded and pensive. “Yes, that’s what Tsukioka calls him.”

“Well.” Saitou deliberately changed the subject. “What do you have to report?”

“Yes,” Tokio said again, now seeming to shake herself in an attempt at focusing on the new topic. “That poor woman, whose name was Youko, was Rokumeikan’s resident plaything.” A deep crease appeared between her brows and her lip curled in disgust as she added, “I hate to use the word ‘mistress’ when he controlled her so completely, but to society… She was originally hired as a maid, though, and never really achieved the status a mistress would have. But when he transferred his attentions to some other mistress — this one a woman named Tajiru who lives elsewhere and only occasionally visits; Rokumeikan usually goes to her — Youko tried to run away. Obviously she, as the previous mistress, was afraid of retaliation from the new one.

“Everyone in the household — even Rokumeikan’s wife — knows about both Youko and Tajiru, and doesn’t think very highly of either of them. But since Youko was on the premises and Tajiru usually isn’t, the talk about Youko was much more vicious, as if it were her fault Rokumeikan pressured her into sleeping with him and then her fault she tried to escape the situation.” By now Tokio’s tone reflected the vehement bitterness only a woman deeply concerned for an abused fellow could feel; it was an intensity of emotion Saitou could only partially understand. “Some of them even laughed about Youko’s death. I don’t know if Tajiru really had anything to do with it, or whether Rokumeikan ordered Youko hunted down because she knew too much about what goes on in his household, but all his other servants knew exactly what had happened to her and didn’t seem to care much.”

“Animals,” Saitou muttered.

“To last any length of time working for someone like that…”

He pursed his lips in distaste similar, if perhaps not equal, to hers, and ground out what remained of his cigarette in the ash tray. “I’m going home,” he declared, rising. It was a little earlier in the evening than he usually did this, but he’d had no sleep last night and had only been slogging through paperwork today anyway.

“I’ll write up my report,” she replied, “and then…” The blank pensiveness returned briefly to her expression, but she snapped out of it fairly quickly and her eyes flicked over to him with a momentary touch of suspicion. “I’m going to go look for him.” There was just the briefest pause before the pronoun, as if she’d been considering greater specificity but perhaps hadn’t been able to decide which name to use — or simply didn’t want to think about names at the moment.

Saitou nodded; that was more or less what he’d expected. And as he left his office, feeling no obligation to return a goodnight for her silence, he wondered if things were actually going as well as he’d believed.

***

So… ‘Sano,’ was it?

She moved through the evening streets, silent and pensive, ignoring the traffic that diminished gradually at the coming of night and ignored even more thoroughly by it. With her self-contained movements and her dark hair and clothing, thoughts turned entirely inward with no inquisitive or aggressive edge to give her a discernible ki, she became, ironically, more thoroughly invisible than she could ever manage during a spying mission when on her guard and actively concentrating on not being seen or heard.

‘Sano?’

She must be a very great fool. She relied too much on manifest emotions and not nearly enough on the actions people took in response to those emotions. Usually this wasn’t a problem, because most people’s feelings were so readily legible… but every once in a while, when she met someone with a tighter-than-usual control over what they displayed, she had a tendency to forget there might be other ways to determine what someone was thinking and planning. And she interacted with Hajime far more often than ‘every once in a while,’ so it was a very foolish thing to forget.

Why had Hajime offered Zanza such a high wage for a task they could have assigned more cheaply to one of their regulars?

Why had Hajime fixed on Zanza at all to work with them on the Karashigumi business?

Why had Hajime aggravated Zanza with such seeming pointedness, such deliberation, very much like the grown-up version of a petty child that didn’t know how else to make sure someone’s attention remained firmly fixed on him?

Why did Hajime call him that name used by Zanza’s oldest friend?

The answer to these questions — a single, looming, all-encompassing answer — seemed painfully obvious to her now. But she’d had to be obtuse and delude herself into believing that since she couldn’t easily decipher what her husband might be feeling most of the time, she must be completely lost when it came to what was going through his head. As if she hadn’t known him for seven years. Damn.

What was she going to do about this?

She sighed. The answer to that question was precisely as obvious as the previous, and frustrated and distressed her precisely as much. Because there wasn’t anything to be done about this; this wasn’t a puzzle for which she was required to find a solution. Even if part of her absolutely believed it was.

Hajime hadn’t seen fit to reveal his simultaneous interest to her, undoubtedly because he could see perfectly well what was developing between his wife and the young man he had his eye on. After Tokio had made the first move and clearly captured Zanza’s attention, Hajime exhibited discretion entirely typical of him by keeping quiet — not to mention, most likely, a sense of loyalty equally typical of him in not making this a contest that might destroy his relationship with his best friend.

It was this sensibility on Hajime’s part, this unwillingness to drive a wedge between them by making his own overtures, that seemed to insist Tokio change her own behavior in response to what she’d learned today. And that was absurd. Of course she hated the thought of making light of his feelings, of hurting him or letting him be hurt, but it would be unreasonable to expect someone to give up something they’d been working for just because someone else wanted it. She didn’t think she was unselfish enough in any case to make such a sacrifice, even for Hajime.

And of course she was considering this in very finite, one-sided terms. She had no romantic understanding with Zanza, and they could veer from the path they were on at any time. She liked him, and wanted to see where that might lead, but she certainly wouldn’t claim at this point to be in love, and was fairly sure he felt the same. Things could change one way or another, and she did not plan on feeling guilty.

Well, it was too late for that: guilt had prompted all of these musings in the first place. But the end result was still that what she’d discovered didn’t and wouldn’t change anything.

It galled, though, and undoubtedly would for a while, that Hajime’s interest had so completely escaped her notice until today.

She found Zanza’s longhouse uninhabited — or at least no reply came to her knock and identification of self — and the combination of her desire to sit quietly thinking for a while and the feeling of eyes on her from somewhere in the near vicinity prompted her to let herself in to wait for him. The cheap, simple lock on his door gave her little trouble, and soon she was picking her way across the dark, dirty space beyond — empty just as she’d believed — looking for the most comfortable place to settle.

Having time to sit and think did nothing for her, since her reflections proved exactly identical to those she’d had on the way here, but she was glad to rest for a while with no surveillance to conduct and no potential enemies to avoid. And in fact she descended into something like a doze, having pushed her unreasonable guilt away as best she could, by the time, now fairly late, Zanza returned home.

The first warning she had of his arrival was not the sound of a key in the lock (though that came soon after); it was an unknown voice shouting across a certain distance outside, “Zanza! You fucking that police woman now?”

Zanza’s tone closer to the door was very jovial as he returned, “None of your goddamn business!”

“I can’t think of any other reason for her to be sneaking into your house at night,” called back the other voice proddingly.

There was the briefest pause before Zanza, still sounding very cheerful, repeated himself. “Still none of your goddamn business!”

And the neighbor, disappointed at his failure to get any gossip out of the kenkaya, replied with friendly surliness, “Aw, fuck you,” at least one syllable of which was partially drowned out by the sound of the door sliding open.

The dimly backlit Zanza scanned the room carefully before entering, though his gaze seemed to pass over where Tokio sat at least twice without any apparent slowing. When she chuckled at his inability to locate her, his head turned properly in her direction even as he closed the door and stepped up out of his shoes. “You’re still sneaky as hell,” he remarked. Then with an audible grin he added, “But not sneaky enough for that dumbass over there not to notice you.” He gestured over his shoulder, presumably indicating the nosy neighbor. “Is that safe?”

Tokio stood and stretched. “Actually, if people think we’re having an affair, that gives us a perfect excuse…” Never mind that she fully intended to have an affair with him if it worked out, rendering this far more than just an ‘excuse.’

Zanza made a thoughtful, amused sound as he moved to set down on the table whatever he was carrying, which by its sloshing clunk was probably a big jug of sake. This guess was confirmed when he lit a lamp thereafter, but Tokio was less interested in the alcohol than in the expression on Zanza’s face as he turned toward her: obviously very happy to see her, and not merely because he was operating in a general state of as-yet-unexplained jocundity at the moment.

They met for an enthusiastic hug in the middle of the room, and Zanza rocked her back and forth with a glee that couldn’t be stifled. “Not enemies!” he said with great satisfaction. He smelled like sake, smoke, and cheap food, and his gi needed washing, but she wasn’t significantly tidier, after her time sneaking around outside Rokumeikan’s enormous house, and didn’t let it bother her.

“No!” Though she shared his pleasure to some extent, she couldn’t help responding with a certain amount of annoyance and accusation, drawing back from the embrace far enough to look him in the face. “You had me worried half to death for the last couple of days; why that stupid ‘goodbye kiss’ if you weren’t planning…”

“Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly, releasing her and standing back a bit. He reached one hand up to scratch beneath his bandanna as he added, “I really hadn’t actually decided yet. I really didn’t know. It was a damn tough decision.”

“I know it was,” she said more gently.

He turned from her and went back to the jug he’d been carrying, which he used to fill an extremely battered copper pot he then set atop an undersized stove that looked as if it might fall apart and spill ashes all over the floor at any moment. As he lit this questionable device, Tokio came to sit nearby and listen to his latest statement. “I was just sure you’d show up at the Internal Affairs offices, and when it was only Saitou I was worried. I thought you must be so pissed at me you didn’t want to see me yourself, so you just sicced him on me and Katsu. Then he was really nice about it — actually surprised the shit out of me, how nice he was — so that was all right; but I forgot to ask him where you were, so when I thought about it afterwards I was still afraid you might be pissed at me.”

Tokio was disheartened for more than one reason. First, Zanza had believed her willing to ‘sic Hajime on him and Katsu’ even though he must be aware Hajime not infrequently killed wrongdoers; did he really believe her that vindictive when upset? Second, Hajime had been ‘really nice about it,’ to the point where Zanza had specifically noticed what struck him as unusual behavior; her husband might not have declared war on her in this field, but there couldn’t help being a certain amount of quiet competition between them regardless of whether or not they admitted what was going on… and Hajime had evidently scored a point. Third, though supposedly concerned about Tokio’s absence, Zanza had forgotten to ask the one person that knew where she was for an explanation. He’d certainly been happy and relieved to see her this evening and affirm they weren’t enemies, but had he actually cared as deeply as his words implied?

She intensely wished she’d been there last night.

But there was no reason for him not to know where she had been. So, while the sake warmed and Zanza peered into what cups he owned that weren’t too badly damaged to imagine drinking from to see if their level of cleanliness didn’t also disqualify them (and for most of them it did), she explained what Hajime had learned about the woman Youko that had sent her to spy yet again on a mansion on the edge of the city. “She was Rokumeikan’s mistress, however unwillingly, and she ran away when he started openly seeing someone else. It was either the new mistress or Rokumeikan himself who ordered her killed.”

Zanza shook his head in response to this unfortunate summary, and handed over the cup he’d eventually selected for her. He still seemed contradictorily upbeat, and evidently her brief story had contributed to that; it seemed she would have to wait a moment to pick up on why, though. “Saitou told me a little more about Rokumeikan, so I guess I’m not really surprised… What an asshole…”

And there he was mentioning Hajime again — in all innocence, yes, but no such reference could fail to discomfort her now she knew what she knew. It shed some light on Zanza’s mood, too: in part, she thought, he was pleased because she’d been so open with him about her relatively secret assignment; he’d obviously been pleased that Hajime had provided information about their current target as well. It seemed he was gratified to be a part of their work. That wasn’t everything, though — he’d already been tickled when he’d approached the apartment, before he’d even known she was here or any of this had been brought up — and she didn’t want to have to dig for the rest of the answer. So she asked, “What are you so cheerful about tonight?”

He glanced at her sidelong, as if finding the question a bit of a non sequitur but unable to deny the truth of her words. And indeed his cheer sounded in his tone, gradually increasing, as he answered, despite the seriousness of his response. “After last night and this morning, I really felt like I wanted to get to work on something that would help make shit better.”

Tokio wondered about the distinction between last night and this morning, but did not interrupt.

“I couldn’t do anything that Katsu thinks is gonna help, even if I wanted to, but I figured there was something I could do. So after I got some sleep, I headed right into Karashi territory. Saitou’s right: they are all about gambling. I just spent the last three hours being really visible rolling dice like I didn’t give a shit about what I lost.”

He’d mentioned her husband again, without even any annoyance in remembering how insulting Hajime had been when he’d brought up the nature of the Karashigumi. Did that matter? In any case Tokio speculated, “But you didn’t lose.”

The smile he’d been trying to restrain, in light of his lightheartedness seeming inappropriate just after having discussed the sufferings of a murder victim, now blossomed into a full grin. “Nope! The guy I was playing with ran completely out of money, so he had to wager his sake–” Zanza gestured at the jug on the table– “and obviously he lost that too, so he damn well won’t forget me anytime soon… and even if he wasn’t Karashi himself — seriously I fucking cannot remember what their tattoo looks like — I’m pretty sure at least a few of the other guys in the place were. So that’s a good start, right?”

Suspecting the sake in question would soon be rather too warm with only the inattentive Zanza keeping an eye on it, Tokio removed the pot from the stove and poured herself an experimental dribble. A quick sip having demonstrated the need for another minute or so, she replaced it and turned back to the young man that had taken a seat at her side. “It starts out on the upper arm with black and white bands and flower petals,” she said.

“Yeah.” Zanza followed the gesture she made with one finger along her own arm. “That does sound right.”

“Hajime and I have researched them quite a bit lately — in fact when I talked to him earlier, he was up to his elbows in all the reports we’ve collected about them — so if you need to know anything else specific…” And there she was talking about Hajime. But she and Zanza both worked with him, for god’s sake… she couldn’t keep taking special note of every single time he came up in conversation between them.

“He was busy with reports all day even after being out all night with me, huh?” Zanza shook his head. “I wonder if he got any sleep.”

This she could take special note of, not that there was anything to be done about it. “We’ve already established he’s a workaholic,” she sighed. Though it might be still a little too early, she reached for the sake again in order to give her hands something to do, and changed the subject. “Did you see any of that tattoo at the gambling hall?”

“I think so.” He held out his cup so she could pour for him, then added at a grumble, “Upper arm’s a stupid place to start a design; it’s usually gonna be covered up, depending on what you wear, and by the time you get enough added on so it’s down to your wrist and people can actually see it, you’re already such a big shot in the gang that people’ll recognize your face anyway.”

“Yakuza aren’t known for their practical social customs.”

He snorted, and for a while they drank in silence. He still seemed pleased with himself, and with this attitude Tokio was equally pleased. She didn’t know exactly what had been said last night (‘and this morning?’), but obviously not only had Tsukioka been at least somewhat convinced, Zanza too had taken away from the experience a greater resolve than she’d seen in him prior to it. It was good to find him so eager for this work, regardless of how that had come about.

The sake was cheap and not of the highest quality, and Tokio tired of it sooner than Zanza, who continued to drink and refill while she sat mulling over what remained of her second cup. But what the acquisition represented was more important than how it tasted, so it was safe to say she was enjoying it nonetheless. And when he next spoke, she believed there couldn’t be much left in the copper pot in any case.

“So you’re really not mad at me?” He gave her another sidelong look, and she thought she knew why he was asking.

“I was more worried than angry. I could tell how much you were tempted.”

“Could you? ‘Cause I was really tempted.” Zanza went to pour himself a final cup, but made a disappointed sound at the bare few drops that emerged. He had long since poked out the stove fire, and, most likely, that last trickle wasn’t even warm anymore.

“Have mine,” Tokio offered, handing it over. Zanza set his cup down on the nearby table and accepted hers. She went on, “And maybe I couldn’t tell exactly how much you were tempted, but…”

“Did you think I’d go through with it?”

With a slight frown Tokio shook her head. “I didn’t know. No matter how much I analyzed everything you’d said…”

“That’s because I didn’t know yet.”

“Mmm.” She felt she should have known, even so. She should have been better attuned to him. There were a couple of different things she should have known recently, in fact, about men she was supposedly close to.

“So we were worried about each other all weekend for nothing.” Zanza still looked incongruously cheerful as he set down her empty cup beside his.

She had to smile at his demeanor, and though she was serious as she remarked, “If you call everything that’s happened ‘nothing…'” she said it more lightly than she otherwise might have.

He moved closer to her, and pointedly put an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We still don’t know what Katsu’s gonna decide to do, and it’s terrible about that poor woman, and Rokumeikan’s a dick. But…” He turned his face, now very close, toward her. “You and me are good, right?”

Right.

It wasn’t like the uncomfortable kiss he’d given her the other day when she’d left fearing they might be enemies, but much more like the reassuring, playful ones they’d shared on the pier. She enjoyed it very much, but it immediately brought back the guilt she’d sworn she wouldn’t entertain.

Throughout Zanza’s discourse this evening, it had become clear — subtly but plainly to someone listening for it — that he considered Hajime much more a comrade now than he had before. That was probably where the ‘Sano’ had come from: last night’s events had changed Zanza’s feelings toward Hajime, if only ever so slightly, and Hajime had taken encouragement from the interaction. Of course Zanza had no idea he had shored up the romantic ambitions of the man that had stabbed him in the shoulder, or he would have conducted himself very differently tonight… but that encouragement had obviously been given, and Hajime — who, Tokio recalled, had also seemed to be in an unusual mood, as far as she could tell, when she’d spoken to him at the station — believed he had more of a chance now. And Tokio was forced to revisit her earlier question: What was she going to do about this?

But as she enjoyed the taste of sake in Zanza’s mouth more than she had in her own cup, enjoyed the feeling of his lips working against hers and his arm drawing her near, she came to the conclusion that the answer was also the same as earlier.

Whether she pushed him or he pulled her or both, or whether it was solely his tipsy lack of equilibrium, they were suddenly on the floor, she squirming into a better position on top of him and their hands busier than they had been all night (not excluding Zanza’s three hours of gambling). And whether it was Zanza’s foot or Tokio’s elbow, or an impossible gust of wind through the suddenly warm room, the little table beside them was shaken hard enough to put out the lamp that had been their only source of light. And in the resultant darkness, any number of things could happen, Hajime entirely notwithstanding.

She simply refused to feel guilty about this.

For author’s notes on these segments, see this and this Productivity Log.