“I’m surprised you agreed to meet me today,” Kunio expresses joyfully, “After last week, I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.” He wore a forest green button-down shirt, with rolled up sleeves. The collar was unbuttoned enough to reveal his copper chest. His trusty blue jeans were starting to get holes in them from years of use.

“I’m sorry,” Snow replied in an uncharacteristically awkward fashion, pushing her choppy white hair behind her ear. “I’m just… not used to compliments. I didn’t know how to react. Thank you.” She looks at the glistening floor, shyly, as they walk through the mall. Despite being at the mall, she’s still dressed business-casual. Khaki slacks and a dress shirt, as if she’d only taken off her suit jacket and tie.

“You’re welcome,” he replies with a triumphant smile, as he looks down at her. She’s over a foot shorter than him. Five feet, compared to his six feet and two inches. He can’t get over how cute and petite she is. He wishes she would look up at him while saying something nice. “Hey, look over there!” he exclaims in excitement, and he nonchalantly leans closer and hooks his arm around hers. “They have a new book store! Wanna check it out?”

She looks up and sees that he is in fact telling the truth. “Sure,” she replies curtly. While they walked toward the store, he didn’t fail to notice that she made no effort to break free from his grasp.

As they were walking, two young women spotted them. “Wow, is that her boyfriend?” The one woman asks the other, “He’s a hunk!”

“You’re right!” The other one agrees, “She’s sure a lucky girl!”

Snow overheard this and was provoked in an unfamiliar way. Is he attractive? She wondered. I’d never thought of him that way before. She met him when they were teenagers. He was lanky with bad posture and weird, spiky hair. She always just imagined him that way when she thought of him, since his growth was so gradual for her. But now, she glanced over to the man on her arm, and for the first time… She saw him for the man he’d become and not the boy he had been. His profile was strong yet gentle. His nose was straight, his monolid eyes were dark and warm, and his lips were thin yet softly shaped. His cheeks had rounded out since his teenhood. He was too thin then. But now…

She started observing the thickness of his biceps, when she was interrupted by the store’s entrance bell. Once she saw all the books around her, her wanderings ceased, and her mind returned to its usual stern, scholastic state. She had a field day with the surprisingly large selection of books that were to her liking. She considered buying some books on morality, but they were very frequently disagreeable to her strict sense of good and evil. Instead, she looked at books about criminal justice and law enforcement… topics that would help her with her job. The only fiction novels she even glanced upon were murder mysteries and crime dramas. She was a workaholic with a one-track mind. It wasn’t that she particularly had a passion for these things. It was more of an obsession, really. Her sense of justice was the only thing she ever found herself clinging to, even though it infuriated her.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the small shop, Kunio had discovered the manga section. He was skimming through a romantic comedy that made him giggle like a school kid. He quickly decided it was worth the price, and walked over to Snow with that book in hand.

“Ready to go?” He asked.

She looks down at the book in his hand with a derisive sneer. “Can’t you find something a little more… educational?”

“Snow, it’s our day off!” Kunio replies, slightly bewildered. “Don’t you know how to have fun?” He looks at the pile of law books beside her. “No, I guess not.” After buying their books, they walk out of the store, their arms no longer interlocked.

“Kunio, is that you?” A young lady projects her voice sweetly across the mall hallway, as she runs over.

Kunio’s face lights up, as he recognizes the visage before him. “Sara!” He exclaims in recognition, “Wow, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Snow looks at the young woman. Her red hair is tied up in a high ponytail, with some bits falling down in front of her ears and straight-cut bangs. She wears a ruffly yellow blouse and short blue skirt with matching yellow heels and a pink ruffly bag. She gives him a hug, and he awkwardly half-hugs her back.

Who is this woman? Snow wonders.

“Oh, is this your girlfriend?” Sara asks with a friendly smile.

“Sara, this is Snow.” He explains, gesturing towards her. “She’s my… crime-fighting partner.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” She says, reaching out a hand for a handshake. “I’m Sara Bailey.”

“Snow Kobayashi.” She replies with her usual curt tone, shaking the girl’s hand. “How do you know officer Kunio?”

“We were dating, years ago.” Sara replied, simply.

“Dating?” Kunio raised an eyebrow at her understated response. “It was a little more than a couple dates.”

“We were engaged for a month,” Sara explains to Snow, “but it didn’t work out.” She gives Kunio a slightly malicious look, since he’s the one who dumped her.

“Oh,” was the most eloquent response the little white haired woman could come up with.

“Have you found someone new?” The red-head asked, trying to be positive.

“Uh, no,” The man replied, and then clarified, before his companion’s hands could start glowing, “well, yes. I had a couple girlfriends since then, but… it just didn’t last.”

“Ah,” Sara replies with a nod.

“Sara,” Snow addresses her, suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Do you still love him?”

“Wh-what?” Sara objects, flustered. “Don’t be silly! I… I gotta go!” She turns away and leaves. Snow’s hands glow brightly.

“Why did you ask her that?” Kunio replies in a slightly upset tone. He looks down at Snow, who’s looking down at her hands.

“I… don’t know,” She replies in a monotone voice and stares at her hands for a moment. “You had girlfriends before?”

“Well… yeah,” he replies slowly, while ushering her over to the nearest bench. She doesn’t look well. “I’m twenty-seven, Snow. I’ve had quite a few girlfriends. Have you never had a boyfriend?”

“Not really,” she replies with a blank stare. “There were two guys I went on a couple dates with, but… the second they lied to me, I told them I didn’t want to see them anymore.”

“There’s your problem, Snow.” He looks straight into her eyes, like he always does, always waiting for the slight chance that those eyes might look back at his. “You never give people a chance to get to know-”

“Did you love them?”

“Huh?”

“Those girlfriends… Did you love them?” she repeated, her expression turned aggressive. “Or did you lie to them to get in their pants, like you tried with me?”

“What?” Kunio replied offendedly. His typical calm, open-minded demeanor turned tense. He usually had no problem with Snow’s blunt way of speaking and was pretty good at not taking offense where offense wasn’t intended. But this time… “Is that what you think of me? You honestly think I’m the kind of person who would do that?” He pushes his hair back, which he tends to do when stressed, and takes a breath, “You really don’t trust men, huh?”

“I don’t trust people.”

Kunio takes a moment to calm down. He knows she has trust issues, and the last thing he wants is to get in a fight. Snow didn’t grow up with a loving family like he did. She hadn’t been taught things that are common sense to most people, and she doesn’t have a lot of experience in social situations. He knows this, and he knows that if he wants her to improve, he needs to teach her.

“Okay, listen,” Kunio begins, “Maybe when I slept with them, I wasn’t 100% certain that they were the one I was meant to spend the rest of my life with, but Snow… When you like someone… all that matters to you is that you’re with them in that moment… And you want to get to know them better.”

“So you admit that it really wasn’t love?” her response was as typically cynical as ever.

“At the time, I thought it was. But later I realized they weren’t meant for me.”

“You didn’t consider beforehand that you might be lying to yourself?” She questioned, wondering how someone can go about life without carefully considering their actions like she does.

“People act on impulse, Snow,” he explains. His thin black eyebrows bunch together in concern. How can he make her understand? “Life isn’t long enough for us to logically contemplate everything we say and do. And many things in life can’t be answered with true or false.” He took a moment to pause and figure out what he was going to say next. “Ten years ago, when I confessed to you… I think your lie detectors went off because I was still young and uncertain. I didn’t know you yet, so I couldn’t be that sure of how I felt. Yeah, I wanted what every teenage boy wants, but that doesn’t mean… That doesn’t mean I was trying to use you. I thought I loved you then, but now I know…”

He takes both of her hands in his. “I’m in love with you, Snow.”

This time, her hands didn’t glow.