Handa
“We’ve been here before,” I commented, looking around the sweeping college campus. It looked much different today, with the drizzling rain driving the normal clusters of college students indoors and the trees all on fire with autumn, but we’d definitely been in this same vicinity before, shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk and looking through the dense maples at the front of a red, brick library.
Sugita jerked and blinked down at me like he did when I’d pulled him out of a state of deep concentration.
“Remember?” I waved my hand to gesture to the tidy expanse of yellowed grass.
“Yeah. It was day before yesterday, Handa.”
“No, no. Day before yesterday, we were over there.” I pointed my cigarette to the adjacent road. “By the science building.”
Dumbfounded, he stared that direction. “So?”
“I’m talking about like five years ago, right after we got out of the academy.” I took another, careful look around. That day, it had been late summer, so the grass had been vibrantly green, and the damp air had been unbearably hot, especially in our uniforms, but everything had been exciting and new, and I’d felt like I was living for the very first time. “I was crashing with you, and there was an apartment near here I wanted to look at. You don’t remember?”
His brow furrowed. “You looked at a lot of apartments back then.” Shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat, he began to walk back toward the corner.
I stayed a moment longer.
Those had been the days. Getting used to walking a beat had been tough, and we’d seen some messed up shit not even the academy could have prepared us for, but Sugita hadn’t thought twice when I’d asked him to let me stay with him. He’d not once questioned why I couldn’t afford my own situation or why I couldn’t go back to my parents.
The studio apartment he’d been renting had been way out in the suburbs, so the commute had sucked up until I’d taught him how to drive, and there hadn’t been much living space. We’d slept side by side, in futons, on the floor. We’d had cup ramen every night for dinner.
Still, between breaking ourselves in as rookie cops and living like paupers, we’d had a lot of fun, playing around on our days off, exploring the city, looking for any opportunities we could find to do something big and get the attention of our superiors. At night, we’d played video games and gotten drunk. Sometimes, I’d convinced him to go out clubbing.
Even being such a loner, it had been obvious that Sugita had liked having me around for those few weeks, and for the first time in my life, I hadn’t felt so alone. I’d found a place of my own, but we’d continued to be inseparable; we’d continued to excel until we’d made detective together. Our superiors had been so impressed with us as a team, they’d made us partners.
I’d never forget the way that had felt. As if I simply couldn’t ask for anything better than knowing, in a sense, we belonged together. In a sense, he was mine.
There had been so many opportunities since then for Sugita to get disgusted and leave me. Times I’d messed up or been too annoying. Times I’d simply shown too much of my true self. Times my feelings for him had led me to act out of pure selfishness. He didn’t turn his back on me, though–he wanted me around–he remembered those days too, when I had been all right and things had been good.
“Come on, man,” he called, already halfway down the block. “I want to get this done so we can go have scotch and curry.”
Dragging slowly on my cigarette, I finally drifted after him. When I thought about those days spent steeped in a blissfully ignorant youth, I started to feel guilty, because Sugita still accepted me exactly how I was. He’d still do anything in his power to stick up for me or help me out of a tough spot. Meeting Kozakura hadn’t changed anything on his end, I was the one fucking things up.
Even now he waited on the curb for me, giving me my chance to catch up, the same way he had during academy training exercises. He had never once worried that my shortcomings would hold him back. Instead, he’d pushed me to keep going and encouraged me to do better.
I wouldn’t be shit without him.
“You really don’t remember coming over here?” I wondered when I’d reached his side. “I wanted to visit the campus, look for girls. We were in our blues, and I said it’d be easy because ladies love a man in uniform.”
“That’s happened so many times.” He pressed the crosswalk button, and we waited for our signal.
“Well.” I dropped my cigarette and scuffed it out with the toe of my shoe. There hadn’t been anything special about that day. I had just loved being with him.
Because Sugita was more than your average, self-centered jock. I could get over my physical attraction and even my infatuation with his unapologetic masculinity.
What I didn’t know how to let go of was his deep well of compassion, his righteousness, his commitment to justice. He had a genuine desire to make the world a better place, backed up by countless personal sacrifices, and a lot of the time, it felt like he was starting with me, pushing me to my limit and keeping me accountable, not letting me quit even when part of me wanted to.
“You act like this investigation means something to you,” I pointed out.
That happened sometimes, and it sucked, but it was easier to deal with when we both knew that one of us was taking it personally.
When he didn’t answer, I guessed, “Does that girl make you think of Kozakura-chan? They’re about the same age.”
Sugita just frowned.
“I don’t care.” I spread my hands. “Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t matter. I don’t even need to know what it is. I’m always going to back you up.”
He slammed me on the back, just as our signal changed. “Keep your eyes open, Handa.” And then we started walking.
We walked and walked, pushing our way through the rush hour crowd, all the way back to the park again, but instead of stopping there, Sugita turned us to skirt its perimeter. Before long, we’d left the park behind too.
The sun set, and the crowds thinned out, turning the streets lonely and quiet, but Sugita showed no sign that he so much as had a destination in mind. He stopped anyone who’d listen to him and asked about strange activity in the area, popping into various establishments along the way to take a look around before walking right back out again. Any time we passed a dumpster, he had to stop, thrust open the lid, and examine the contents. Whenever I asked him about what we were supposed to be looking for, he simply warned me, “Keep your eyes open, Handa.”
Meanwhile, I got colder, wetter, and more confused by the moment. I talked a lot, but Sugita barely spoke to me. Dinner time came and went, and then I was hungry, which made me feel annoyed.
Typically, following Sugita’s lead worked out much better for me than trying to argue with him. He was stubborn. This time, I just wondered where the path of least resistance was taking me.
But I could be stubborn too, and I was determined to stick it out. If Sugita happened to find something or someone of interest, I’d be there to back him up, watch his six, keep him safe. I had to trust that he had a solid reason for this bizarre method of investigation. So what if he refused to tell me what it was? He must be keeping me in the dark because he thought it was the right thing to do.
Besides, Sugita’s doggedness was what made him a good investigator. Not everyone had the patience to hit the pavement and go around examining every brick in a wall or every crack in the sidewalk. Plenty of times, I’d seen him find the hard evidence we needed by scouring high and low for clues.
It got later, though, and my partner acted like he was on another planet, hardly aware of my presence, which made it hard not to wonder what exactly we were trying to achieve. In time, I had to ask, “How long do you intend to be out here, doing whatever it is you’re doing?”“As long as it takes,” he grunted.
“Okay.” Shit, that could be a really long time. “We could be out wandering in the rain until dawn, then.”
“I don’t think we will be.”
He made it sound like we could be, though. He had no intention of giving up.
“I know you can’t tell me...for some reason...what we’re looking for. But maybe you could give me an idea of what we’re doing.”
Sugita passed me a questioning look.
“Are we just following your gut?” I guessed.
“Not my gut exactly, no.”
Baffled, I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Keep your eyes open,” he instructed, and then he suddenly cut down an alley, apparently headed for the dumpster parked there.
“I don’t get it.” I trotted a little to keep up with his long-legged stride. “What is it about this case that has you so bothered?”
He didn’t answer.
“I know it sucks that a girl disappeared, but we can’t help anybody if we run ourselves ragged and catch pneumonia.”
“Naito-kun’s victim was found in this area,” he announced.
At last, my irritation resurfaced. “Is that really important?”
“Of course, it is.”
“We don’t have any real reason to think the girls were taken by the same person. Naito looked at our file for fifteen seconds. He single-minded. Whatever pattern he noticed may not be important.”
He must be getting cranky too, because he snapped, “And you’d pass it over anyway because you have some personal problem with him.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with him,” I insisted, as Sugita stopped in front of the dumpster, looking it over. “I’d be a bad investigator if I let feelings like that get in my way; I’m just trying to be realistic. We have our own victim to look for, and the fact that we’re here because this is where Naito’s victim was found makes it seem like we don’t have anything at all. Maybe that’s true, but we should at least get some sleep so we can come up with something worthwhile tomorrow.”
“So, go home, Handa.” He threw his hands up.
“I might as well, right? You made it sound like you were getting into something dangerous, but all I’ve seen you do is go climbing around in trash bins.”
“With good reason. This is the dumpster they recovered Arai Mei from.”
We really had nothing, and my partner thought he could find Kishi’s body by looking around where the other girl had been discovered. I had no idea why we’d walked all the way from the college to get here, but if I just played ball, this would be over soon.
I scanned the area, looking for something useful to contribute.
The alley was open at both ends, with the street behind us and what appeared to be a parking lot ahead of us. The only windows were two stories up, and the nearby fire escape looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. “What kinds of buildings are these?”
“Housing.”
“So, Naito’s killer could live here.”
Sugita jerked his head no. “Naito-kun would have caught him.”
“Right. Of course.”
At my snide tone, he shot me another mild scowl, but simply stamped toward the mouth of the alley.
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