CHAPTER 9
Shinji
At about three o’clock, Shinji left Teruo and Nakagawa to keep digging about the supernatural companies, and headed to the parking lot. As soon as he was inside the car, he slumped back in the seat, feeling bone tired even though all he’d done was sit at a desk and research.
“You okay?” Keiko asked. Her ghostly mist was a welcome breeze of icy air.
Shinji let out a despondent chuckle. “Why does everybody keep asking me that?”
“Because you look like shit,” Keiko stated.
“Gee, thanks. You pull no punches.” Shinji shook his head, and slumped even more. His gaze drifted toward her. “Do I, really?”
“I wasn’t joking.” Keiko settled on the passenger seat. “You’re…” She paused, studying him for a second. “You seem on edge. Like you’re stretched thin and you’re about to snap.”
Shinji looked away and ran a hand across his face, then put the car into gear. A rainstorm had started two hours earlier and it hammered against the windshield in a steady, relentless rhythm, almost in sync with the beat of his own pulse.
“It’s this thing with having perfect control over my spiritual energy,” Shinji said. “I’m not used to keeping it inside for so long.”
“But it’s not like you’ve used it daily in the past. Not sure I get the issue.”
Shinji cut through the downpour, cursing under his breath for the low visibility. He was tempted to pull aside and wait for it to pass, but it was typhoon season and it wasn’t likely the rain would stop any time soon.
“It’s not about using my energy,” Shinji continued. “I can go long periods of time without using it. It’s about making a conscious decision not to let it float free.”
“Gotcha. That’s why you have that strange glow.”
Shinji nearly didn’t press the brake at the stoplight, then pushed his foot hard on it.
The car stopped with a screech on the asphalt slick with water.
He stared down at his body. Although barely visible, there was indeed a faint fog of white energy around him.
There had been so many things on his mind lately, that it shocked him to realize he hadn’t noticed it.
“For how long?” he asked.
“Oh, it comes and goes. It seems to appear when you’re stressing about something: like right now.”
Shinji swallowed a knot in his throat, his hands gripping the steering wheel, the leather still too warm underneath his palm.
Beyond the windshield, the neon lights hanging on the buildings reflected through the rivulets of water like fractured, colorful patterns.
He focused on them, struggling to calm himself, and hopefully get rid of that stupid glow.
A glance in the rearview mirror told him the opposite: the glowing intensified.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered and drove as the lights changed. The traffic moved frustratingly sluggish under the weight of the storm. “Do you think Teruo noticed?”
“Yes, he did,” Keiko confirmed.
No wonder Teruo tiptoed around him. He must’ve been afraid, possibly confused too, and Shinji couldn’t blame him.
This was unprecedented for both of them.
Shinji had never experienced this type of effect on his body either as he’d never forcefully tried to block his own spiritual energy.
He wanted to talk to Superintendent Yoshida, but Kazuya had told him not to.
The fewer people knew, the better, Kazuya had said, but Shinji felt it was useless to hide.
Commissioner Horiuchi had a classified file on Teruo.
How long before that classified file turned into public knowledge?
“You should talk to Teruo,” Keiko said, interrupting Shinji’s derailing train of thought.
“About what?”
An annoyed huff escaped her. “Everything, you genius. Besides this new energy issue, you need to have a proper discussion about those bullies who aren’t leaving you alone. It’s clearly affecting you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. They’re overzealous.” Shinji shrugged. “They’ll get over it.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you really believe that,” Keiko said.
“Can’t look you in the eye. Gotta pay attention to the road.”
“Lame excuse.” Keiko floated closer, resting her arms on the dashboard.
She’d gotten so good at focusing herself that she no longer passed through objects unless she wanted to.
“You’re both in a vicious cycle of protection,” she continued.
“You’re pretending you’re fine to protect him and he’s keeping quiet about his worries to protect you. It’s not doing either of you any good.”
Shinji blew a breath. “I know,” he admitted. “I just… I really wish I could somehow return to the homicide unit, but I don’t know how without making things worse. I barely even started this case and I already dread finishing it and having to work with the other units.”
“Tell Teruo that.”
“I can’t.” Shinji glanced at her before turning back to the road.
“The moment I do, he’ll go over all of his superiors’ heads to get me back into the unit and I can’t have that.
He’s walking on thin ice as it is. Don’t imagine that his job is suddenly safe just because officers aren’t harassing him to his face like they do to me.
All these years of work he’s put into being promoted and leading the homicide unit can go down the drain just like that.
” He snapped his fingers. “No. This is the situation now and we have to live with it.”
Keiko folded her arms. “Well, I’m not giving up,” she added. “I’ll do some spying, see if I can find a weakness, something I can exploit, maybe blackmail someone.”
“Don’t joke about that…”
“I’m not joking.”
“Keiko…”
“Shinji. Are we calling each other’s names?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be a smartass like Teruo.”
“Well, I have been studying under the biggest smartass on the planet.”
“Never tell him that. It’s gonna go to his head.
” He chuckled, but Keiko’s face was serious.
Shinji sucked in his lower lip, chewing on it in discomfort as the silence stretched.
“I’ll talk to him. Believe me, I know it’s not good for us if I keep avoiding the subject, but I don’t know how to keep him from possibly ruining his career just to protect my honor. ”
“He’s a grown man, Shinji. He can handle the situation without ruining his career.”
“I don’t know,” Shinji muttered. “He loves me…” It made his heart flutter as he said it because he knew it was true and it was the most amazing feeling.
“I don’t think I deserve that much love, but…
” he paused a few seconds before continuing, “Sometimes I think he might be blinded by love. I’m scared he could make a rash decision because of me. ”
“Are you really whining because you’re too loved?”
“No. Of course not. I’m afraid because I know how stubborn and hot-headed he can be.”
Keiko pursed her lips. “Okay, fine. That’s a good point. He’s hot-headed, but not unreasonable. Given everything you guys have been through, I’d say he’s pretty understanding.”
Shinji couldn’t argue with that and she was right.
He had to speak with Teruo. Lately, he felt like he’d been keeping a lot of things bottled up and he was on the brink of exploding.
Every time he thought that, finally, things would settle down, something else happened, and he was back to fighting for control, which seemed to have the opposite effect.
“I hear you…” Shinji sighed.
“Good.” Keiko floated back into her seat and fell quiet.
As the car advanced toward Musashino, where his jurisdiction was, the rain intensified, the downpour bouncing off the windows, and the heavy sheets turning the streets into a gray, watery haze.
Even as powerful as it was, somehow the sound of rain always soothed him, so he cracked the window just a fraction, enough to let the noise in.
A few droplets entered inside, landing on his hair, face, and the top of his suit jacket, bringing with them a damp smell of wet concrete and earth.
Soon, Shinji reached the abandoned building behind which his gate was hidden, and he parked.
Although he liked the rain, the wind was another thing entirely, and right now it howled, every gust looking stronger than the last. He reached toward the back seat and grabbed the rain coat, putting it over his clothes and tugging the hood on his head.
“You sure you wanna do this today?” Keiko looked outside the window in concern. “The weather’s crap.”
Shinji’s hand rested on the door handle. “The weather’s will be crap tomorrow too. Probably the entire week. I’m already here, I might as well get it over with.”
“How do you plan to do it? You can’t patrol the neighborhood in this downpour, so you’ll have to summon the ghosts to you. That’s dangerous for Teruo, isn’t it?”
It was dangerous. He’d only used what Shinigami called the ‘touch of death’ around Teruo—by accident—once and nearly killed him.
Hadn’t used it since, but he didn’t have much of a choice.
Even if he drove slowly around the neighborhood and picked them up one by one, he’d still consume a lot of energy to hold them in place inside the car and then bring them to the gate.
“I’ll go to Higashikurume afterwards, and replenish my reiryoku,” Shinji concluded.
“In this weather?” Keiko asked incredulously.
Shinji glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I can’t stop working because of crap weather.” He rolled the window back up.
Shinji braced himself and stepped out, the rain drumming against his body, drenching the lower part of his legs and his feet.
Sharp droplets slapped his face and he pulled the hood tighter around his head as he turned on the spot to look around the neighborhood.
The weather was the last thing on his mind while he stared at the only person passing by, a man struggling with an umbrella.
“Something wrong?” Keiko asked as she reached Shinji.
“Not yet.”
Her brows furrowed. “Should there be something wrong?”
“Possibly. We have an extractor loose on the streets. I want to make sure they aren’t following me.”