There might not be time for fun and games and harmony like that between the three of us ever again, even if I saved him from this wretched fate, because Handa had failed to recognize the way Koza accepted him. After our wedding, he’d chosen to distance himself from her out of his own insecurity, and Koza, in her supreme confidence, kept trying to show him he had a place in both our lives.

I’d always believed she’d win him over again, sooner or later.

As long as she had the opportunity.

“I’d better go,” I sighed, straightening up. “You’re having breakfast with your friend, right? Have a nice time.”

Before I could walk away, she caught my hand again, looking earnestly up at me. “You’re sure you’re all right? Handa-kun too?”

“Not exactly,” I admitted, quietly. I wasn’t allowed to tell her the full truth, but I refused to live out a marriage full of secrets and deceit. “But don’t worry. I have everything under control.”

That became my mantra as I sped back to Handa’s place. It was all under control. No reason to think otherwise. Chief Kobayashi had said he was going to handle it personally. Even if I completely fucked up, he would fix this.

But I couldn’t make that my excuse not to do my best either. Chief had a precinct to run; it wouldn’t be fair to count on him, one hundred percent, to solve this.

Right before six thirty, I screamed to a stop outside Handa’s place, phone already ringing. It went to voicemail, and I jumped from my car.

No reason to worry, yet. Not answering his phone didn’t mean he was gone. Just because he tended to run from unpleasant situations and things he couldn’t control or didn’t know how to face didn’t mean he’d disappear. If nothing else, he was still the optimist.

As I sprang onto the engawa, I noticed the warm glow of a few lights on inside, but I didn’t think about what that meant until I’d knocked on the door, and then a wispy, little lady pushing seventy stood before me, weather-worn face crinkled in a delighted smile.

“Sugita-kun. Good morning!”

Idiotically, I faltered. “Mine-san…” Of course, his landlady would be up, having breakfast. It hadn’t even occurred to me to try not to disturb her. “So sorry to intrude.” Hurriedly, I bowed.

“Not at all. I haven’t heard a sound from downstairs yet. I suppose he’s sleeping like the dead.” Light-heartedly, she chuckled, but my chest got all the tighter as an image pelted through my mind of Handa lying in a coffin, bony hands crossed over his chest.

I won’t let that happen.

Inside, I paused, blinking at the homey light. Ornate furniture crammed the small but colorful house, a lot of it western styled or antique, and bright colors splashed every surface, from accent walls to middle eastern rugs. A partially painted canvas waited on an easel by the living room window, and in the kitchen, a large collection of tea pots lined a shelf running along the ceiling. The eclectic, mismatched house gave me the impression that Mine-san had spent a lot of time abroad, and, like always, the delicate sight of her trinkets made me wonder what this old woman was doing keeping a rambunctious boy like my partner in her basement.

“Please have a seat.” She hobbled to the stove just as her tea kettle started to sing. “I’ll get you some breakfast, and I’m sure Hideki-kun will be up soon.”

Mine-san might have been well-traveled—even wild—in her youth, but now she was an old lady, so I didn’t understand why Handa wanted to share space with her either. According to him, it was cheap, but he made enough money to live wherever he wanted. Ever since I’d known him, he’d been talking about getting a place in Yoyogi, right at the center of the action.

Yet, here he was, in this quiet neighborhood full of elderly people.

Once, unable to help myself, I’d asked the landlady about their arrangement, but she’d smiled and said, mysteriously, “I suppose Hideki-kun and I are kindred spirits.”

Having no idea what she meant by that, I was left to my best guess. She had no children of her own, her husband had passed away, and she appreciated having a man around.

Hideki kept a heart of gold locked behind all his infuriating walls, so it was possible he stayed here to look after her. Every now and then, I found myself wondering what she’d do when he did finally move out. Even if she found a new tenant, they might not be as kind. They might rob her blind, down to her last antique teapot.

Why am I thinking so hard about this? No one needs to worry about any of that—I’m going to fix this.

“I’ll run down and get him,” I decided, kicking my shoes off and hurrying for the basement door. “We’re in a hurry this morning.”

Mine-san had started pouring two cups of tea, but she said, “Oh, I understand. In that case, shall I wrap up something for you to take with you? Hideki-kun doesn’t eat enough, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Thank you, Mine-san.”

Throwing open the door, I charged down the stairs and jerked to a stop at the bottom to let my eyes adjust, pulse racing as I tried to decide where I should go first if he wasn’t there.

What a dreary place. Especially compared to the lavish upstairs. The only natural light spilled through the door leading into the barren back yard, making it especially dark. Handa tried to make it homey by hanging a few traditional tapestries on the cinderblock walls and covering the concrete floor in cheap tatami mats, and one corner had been converted into a small kitchen. Luckily, he had a full-sized bathroom. Mismatched furniture—couch, coffee table, television, sub woofers—sat crammed together in the wide part of the room.

Still, there just wasn’t any dressing up the fact that he lived in a basement. He complained a lot during the summer about spider bites and finding centipedes in his bathroom; in the winter, I worried about him catching a chill or getting pneumonia. I always wondered about radon levels.

And yet he stayed, year after year.

Per usual, I tried not to think very hard about how living here might reflect his self-esteem, and I turned to locate him on the couch.

Wearing yesterday’s suit, he lay passed out, face down, still clutching a mostly empty whiskey bottle.

Relief and annoyance hit me simultaneously, so I drew a deep breath, reminding myself that this wasn’t the time to yell at him. In fact, I didn’t have a reason to yell at him. He was probably a functioning alcoholic, so it would have been foolish to think he wouldn’t get drunk in order to cope with this.

Even so, as I crossed to the couch and shook him, I couldn’t help being a little rough. “Wake up. We don’t have time for you to sleep in.”

Handa stirred to life slowly, twitching, and then lifted his head to squint up at me. “Hey,” he grunted. Finding me standing over him first thing in the morning wasn’t exactly odd. It seemed like I was always coming over to revive him from a hangover.

If only today could be that way. I’d do anything to just sit down and watch the baseball game and eat donuts with him.

With a groan, he shifted onto his side and glanced around. “What’s happening?”

“It’s time to get going,” I told him, sternly.

“Right.” He checked his watch. “It’s early. The gym?”

“The case. You got bit by a kyuuketsuki. Did you forget?”

“No.” He dragged himself into a sitting position, rubbing the bite on his neck. “Of course not.”

“Hurry up, then. We don’t have much time.”

“Okay.” He yawned and rolled to his feet. “I’m up.”

Before he’d found this place, he’d crashed with me a few weeks, due to family problems—go figure—and I’d learned then that being up meant something different to Handa than it did to me. To me, up was up, and there was a simple routine to complete before walking out the door—shower, get dressed, breakfast. Not only did I never deviate from that, it took the same amount of time every day.

Handa tended to wander around, smoking and playing music as he chose an outfit, fussing with his hair, sometimes changing clothes at the last minute. I’d even seen him lie back down for five minutes before forcing himself to leave.

It was a frustrating process to watch, and it often put us both behind schedule.

“How’s the weather?” he asked.

“Like yesterday.”

“Cold? Is it raining?”

“No. Could you hurry?” I dropped onto the couch, picking up the whiskey bottle, and then furtively watching him shamble to the closet to start shuffling through his endless array of dress shirts. “Are you hung over?”

Handa didn’t answer, a sure sign that he must be.

“Do you think it’s smart to go to work this way?”

“We’re not really going to work.”

“You called in?”

He hesitated to inspect a shirt, running the sleeve through his fingers. “I don’t think Chief is expecting me,” he said, glibly.

I rolled my eyes. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

With a wave of his hand, he gestured to the couch. “I was asleep, Sugita.”

The phone didn’t wake him up; he must have drank himself into a coma. Typical. I couldn’t think of another way he would have been able to fall asleep after what happened to him last night; not even he was that laid-back.

He wanted me to believe he was. I couldn’t let his relaxed attitude sedate me to the crisis we were in, but berating him too much could cause him to lose his grip. I had to find the right balance of slack to give him.

I supposed I should be relieved, in fact, to find him behaving so normal, so I told myself to calm down. Getting on the road a few minutes earlier at the expense of his sense of stability wasn’t worth it the drama.

“Hey, which one?” He held up two shirts, one off-white, the other a tint of purple.

“What’s it matter? Just put one on.”

“Well, the white one is a heavier weave.” He held it up to stare it down. “Almost a flannel. It might be good, if we’re having cold weather. This one, though.” He held up the purple. “Looks really good on me. But then, I don’t know.” Next, he tugged at the collar of the shirt he still wore, pointing out the large blood stain. “This one got wrecked last night, and it was expensive. The flannel is slightly cheaper—”

“Wear the white one,” I grunted, shutting my eyes. They felt so dry and strained. “Why would you wear an expensive shirt on a job like ours?”

“All my shirts are expensive,” he answered, dismissively.

“So, just wear the one you like. I don’t care.”

He resumed his silence. Regardless of what I’d said, he’d probably take at least another five minutes to decide, and he hadn’t even picked out his shoes yet.

“Hey, here.”

I opened my eyes just as he lobbed a black bottle at me, and I caught it a nano second before it would have clocked me in the face. I glared, first at him, but he was busy hanging up his old shirt and slipping into the purple one, and then at the bottle, which turned out to be some expensive hair gel. “Who has time to think about hair at a time like this?”

“Believe it or not, we’re supposed to try to look professional.”

“I thought you said we’re not going to work.” All the same, I scraped my fingers up into my hair.

“Didn’t you sleep?”

“Not very much.” I squeezed some gel into my hands, propping up my hair so it wouldn’t fall in my eyes, but he had a lot of audacity nagging me about professionalism when he was about to go on duty with a hangover. “I did a lot of research.”

“Find anything out?”

“Nothing useful.”

Clicking his tongue, Handa jerked into his blazer and adjusted his collar. “What a waste of time.” Next, he picked his pistol up off the coffee table and checked the chamber. “You should have slept instead.”

It annoyed me so much, I nearly told him he shouldn’t have his gun when he’d been drinking, but as he leaned down to scrape his badge up, the curtain of his ebony hair shifted forward, revealing a glimpse of his ears, delicately pointed and almost sharp.

My breath hitched, and he gave me a questioning look. His eyes, also, I thought, appeared paler than normal.

“I hate it when you don’t sleep.” He holstered his gun. “You get so weird.”

I kept staring at him, trying to decide if the changes were real. Maybe it was all just a trick of the light and a product of sleeplessness. After all, I was expecting him to turn into a kyuuketsuki right before my eyes. I might be imagining it.

I can’t afford to ignore any details.

“How do you feel?” I asked, quietly.

“Fine.” He shrugged. “So far, so good. Maybe nothing will happen.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d do anything to skip all this and go right back to my usual routine, knowing he was fine. The false alarm would even do me good. I’d know next time not to keep my partner in the dark, no matter how classified the information was, and if we could escape this situation without his getting hurt , I’d be better to him, for the rest of my life.

I understood why the doctor had warned against letting him leave last night. Hideki was capable of putting himself into incredible states of denial; left alone, he could even convince himself this wasn’t happening. He needed me to keep us on task, and if I looked the other way on things like pointy ears and silver eyes, I’d lose control.

Someone who knew what to expect should be watching over him.

“Do you want to go back and see Yamada-sensei again?”

“Maybe later.”

Of course, he didn’t want to. He hadn’t liked the clinic, he hadn’t liked Yamada; he’d go to absurd lengths to avoid returning, despite our chief’s orders.

“Let’s plan on it. It’s important to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” He smiled, quickly, and then, without warning, bounded up the stairs, so I had no choice but to drop it and follow. In a little while, when he’d woken up completely and settled into his day, I’d mention Yamada again. Hopefully, he’d oblige just to make me happy.

That was the nice counterbalance of Hideki’s evasive personality. He never tried to outdo me or started pissing matches over who gave the orders, he just went along with what I said, eighty percent of the time, and coolly steered me away from potential lawsuits.

That twenty percent, though, when he asserted himself, could be a real kick in the ass.