"Angels With Two Faces", Chapter Six
Title: Angels With Two Faces
Chapter: 6/??
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): beginning Nino/Jun-ish?
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language, and a bit of sexual situations.
Summary: "I'm Kazu Ninomiya. I'm 26 years old, and I'm here to catch a murderer. Let me tell you about Los Angeles."
Note: Hullo, awesome and fantastic readers. :) This is just a note that while we had this GREAT plan to get this fic done before we leave for Japan in the middle of October, it is pretty obviously NOT happening. So! This is just a pre-emptive warning that the authoresses will be gone from Oct 14-Oct 23 and not writing during that time. xD
I've gotten myself in a right mess. I'm not an outsider anymore- I'm just as hopelessly entangled in the damn thing as the rest of them are, and worse yet, I can't seem to pull myself out of the web that's being spun between Matsumoto and me.
Jesus, this wasn't what I was expecting. And now my gut keeps roiling and clenching and telling me that Sakurai has something to do with all of this, an overarching banner that has touched every single bit of this case. How does one go about investigating the lieutenant of the station he's been assigned to without arousing suspicion- or making some serious enemies?
I can't tell Jun- Matsumoto. Matsumoto. He has to be Matsumoto, because- well, the alternative isn't a good option. Isn't acceptable. I can't afford to let myself get any further involved in that business.
I don't usually think I'm a coward, but I flee the station after discovering the link between the cuffs and the North Hollywood outlet. Matsumoto would be coming back in soon, and I'm still hungover as shit. I need time to think and someplace to do it. I end up just getting a cab to the beach and sitting on the sand for a long time, staring at the waves.
Ocean's different from back east. Cleaner, somehow. Maybe it's been untainted by all the stuff DC and New York have seen. They've got years of corruption under their belts, and California is a relative upstart in comparison. But the case surrounding me feels infinitely worse than anything else I've come across, even though I know it isn't- I'm just too involved.
Too damn involved. This is the kind of thing the agency warns about.
I watched guys do this, fall apart and lose their steam, their respect, their badges. Just never thought I'd be one of them.
--
Nino didn't return to the station until the next day, head still spinning, chest still tight. It had taken the better part of a day to lose the hangover symptoms, and he had a hunch that wasn't the only thing his body was rejecting.
He got back to find the North Hollywood station in chaos.
He ignored the fact that he had to wade through a crowd of reporters outside the doors- they were back on the sidewalk, away from the entrance, like a riot waiting to be incited. By the time he got in, he was already annoyed- and it didn't look like his day was going to get any better.
"What the hell is going on here?" he asked a flustered looking officer passing him in the open room.
"You don't know?" came the answer, rushed and breathless. "Sakurai. He got suspended."
Nino couldn't tell if it was a lucky break or an incredibly unfortunate one. With Sakurai gone, the case was more or less in his hands; he'd been specially called there for it, and now the station was leader-less just as the problems had exploded into being around it.
"Shit," he grumbled. He let the officer go past to wherever he was running- all the case files were in Sakurai's office, all the suspect photos and investigation reports. Even if he did think the man had a hand in it somehow, his web and theories and speculations were on the lieutenant's desk, and he needed them.
He pushed open the door to Sho's office and wasn't expecting anyone else to be in there already.
Jun met his eyes for a second that felt like an instant, and then wrenched his gaze away to stare down at the papers he was going through from Sakurai's desk. Nino had trouble putting his thoughts in order- he'd expected a chance to prepare himself, and he wasn't going to get it.
"Sorry," he said immediately, as an impulse. "Didn't think anyone was in here."
"With Sho gone, I'm lead on the investigation," Matsumoto replied.
There was a long second of silence, stretched tight like thread from a needle's eye.
"Right," Nino said, finally. Jun's fingers were splaying over the papers in his hands, lithe and enticing, and he'd pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing pale skin that Nino's eyes trailed up until- Jesus. Jesus Christ, he had to stop. His body was hyper-alert already, buzzing.
He went over to the far wall, where the suspect pictures were still tacked up next to one another. In his mind, he could see the webs still hanging there, stagnant- he couldn't discount them all, not even with his own suspicions. They were still intricately bound to the case in some way, and without a clear, they had to be considered.
Behind him, Matsumoto cleared his throat. "Talked to Mizushima yesterday- he was first on my list because of his connection to Erika."
It was a bit of a jab, the man's way to implying that Nino's deliberate avoidance of the station had caused him to take a hearing with a suspect alone. But Nino's stomach was still too tight to really process the slight insult behind it.
"And?" he asked, when it seemed Jun was waiting for some kind of affirmation to continue.
"He's got an air-tight alibi. Was in filming all night, witnesses number in the dozens."
So that was that, then. Nino reached up for Mizushima's smirking photograph and pulled it down, ripping the top as the tack pulled through the paper.
"Seemed kind of upset," Matsumoto added, absently, but Nino wasn't sure how nonchalant it could really be with the tension settling so thick around their shoulders and pressing downwards. "Now he has to recast her part in the movie- sets them back by months, I guess."
"I feel so bad for him," Nino mocked.
There was another one of those awful quiet moments, and Nino could hear Matsumoto shifting behind him, papers shuffling. He couldn't make his body turn around, but his eyes were focused far beyond the suspects' faces. He could still smell the man's cologne like it was covering him, and it was making his head very hazy.
"You didn't have to-"
"So who is next?" Nino interrupted, nearly losing the ability to breathe completely. "Nakai? The mayor? Why would they want Erika dead?"
Matsumoto took a lifetime to speak again, and Nino thought he'd swallowed his whole heart from the way his entire body was trembling with every furious beat.
"Kazu."
That was it- the cords snapped, and Nino finally turned, whirling, entire body on overdrive. "I'm going to go ask around, see what I can find. Do some digging. Maybe in the evidence room."
"I- okay," came the response.
"Right, so, I'll come back with whatever I find," Nino continued, hands shoved in his jacket pockets and playing out furiously on an invisible piano the 3rd Suite from Bach's Partitas. "If I find anything. Just have to keep going."
God, Sakurai's office had gotten unbearably warm. Nino was sure the flush was evident in his face, on his cheeks, his jaw; he had to get out before he gave himself away completely. He looked anywhere but at the pull of Jun's shirt over his hips, the line of his slacks down impossibly long legs.
And the truth was, he didn't know what he was going to do- he couldn't tell Matsumoto yet that his suspicions were leading him to a face not tacked up beside the others on the suspect wall. He couldn't even try to fathom what would happen when he shared that piece of information; the bond between them ran deep, deeper than he could touch, and he was going to try shoving a dam into it.
"Take Aiba," was all Matsumoto offered, and there was something vastly different in his tone, like a sudden snap, a clip. A shortness- embarrassment? Nino should have been able to pick it up, he was trained to do that. But Jun had the power to elude his senses, clogging them up instead.
"Sure."
Nino had to bite back his growl when he left the office. He'd done this to himself, and he had no one else to blame, and even as he left the station, he couldn't get Jun's face out of his head.
--
The wind was blowing enough for it to smell like horse everywhere. Watanabe, the Mayor, Nakai, Kusanagi - all still had their hand in this somehow. They were all involved in this web of people, but was it Sakurai doing the dirty work?
Aiba was a very different partner from Jun. He chatted the whole way to Arcadia. He was worried for Sho. Nino couldn’t blame him - people like Sakurai didn’t take well to being suspended. People at the top of their classes didn’t like to be thought of as failures. Any man in Sho’s position, someone who already had a tendency to overindulge in drink, would be inconsolable. And that’s what Nino imagined was worrying Aiba so much.
Nino wanted to think this was all just coincidental. That Sho wasn’t really moonlighting as some psychopath. That he really was the stubborn, but hard-working lieutenant that Aiba looked up to for guidance. That Jun respected more than anyone else. But there were too many gaps, too many things that were starting to ring false about the lieutenant the more Nino thought about it.
It wasn’t just the handcuffs. And it wasn’t just the sudden weekend off Sho had given them just before Erika had been killed. It was the casual way he’d been munching his ice cubes at that New Year’s party even though he had two bodies in the morgue. It was the meet-up with Watanabe when he thought nobody was watching.
And now there was the suspension. Had it been Sakurai’s plan all along? Keep the investigation so muddled that Kimura would come down on him? He’d play the disgraced hero now, investigating on his own. Planning who would be next.
Nino shook his head as he followed Aiba through the entrance to the grandstands. They were on Watanabe’s territory, but they weren’t here for Watanabe. The party, Yu Yokoyama’s last known whereabouts. No need to ask about the boss - there were plenty of other very important people in attendance that night. The staff was definitely loyal to Watanabe, but maybe they had some things to say about the others.
Aiba was off with a quick wave, going to chit chat with the bathroom attendants. See who’d given good tips, who’d skipped out, if they’d seen anyone or anything suspicious. Nino had gotten the better assignment - he got the cigarette girls, the serving girls. What he really wanted to be doing was following Sakurai, trying to get into his apartment when he was out. But with Jun in charge, he had to toe the line.
He had to get Takizawa to assign him a car. He had to pull rank on Jun, and it probably wouldn’t be pretty, but he wasn’t in the mood to interview cigarette girls when the real murderer was probably planning the next one. And if it was Sakurai, he had all the time in the world now.
The next hour passed slowly. Watanabe was up in Santa Barbara with his mistress. The girls in his employ were more than willing to share that sort of sordid detail so long as their boss wasn’t being incriminated for anything worse. One of the girls had disappeared with Nakai around midnight - coincidentally, Yokoyama had been pursuing the dame for the better part of a year. Nino wondered if it meant anything. At the very least, Nakai was a hypocrite.
Nakai’s predilection for cigarette girls who hadn’t yet reached their 20th birthdays didn’t necessarily mean he’d killed Yokoyama. But it was a lead, a connection. Something that Jun could chew on, something he could have Aiba dig into a bit deeper. Nino gave the last girl a friendly smile and a few dollars for flapping her gums.
Aiba met up with him back in the parking lot. The corporal hadn’t found out much more than Mayor Ogura didn’t tip as much as he was capable of doing. Nobody had seen Kusanagi (or Yokoyama) after 2 AM - another tidbit for lead investigator Matsumoto to fret over. He’d have to go down the rabbit hole, straying from the suspects themselves to find the tenuous strands that tied them together. He and Aiba would be plenty busy trying to see which lowlifes were eavesdropping on the big names.
It would give Nino the time he needed to follow his own hunch. He and Aiba headed back, but he requested a detour. “Need to drop me at the field office,” he said, as casually as you’d direct someone to a gas station.
Aiba was curious. “Field office? Are you being taken off the case?”
He shook his head. It felt rotten to lie to Aiba. “Gotta check in with Takizawa.” More like beg Takizawa to give him a car, plead for him to futz around with some paperwork and grant Nino freer reign over the investigation. Make him independent from Matsumoto’s reach as much as humanly possible.
“Okay,” Aiba said, concern lining his features. “Let me ask you something.”
Damn it. “Fine.”
“Is everything okay? With you and Jun?”
He blinked, his heart starting to pound like some tribal drum. “He’s got some big shoes to fill. Lot on his plate. Doing my best to stay out of his way and dig up some leads for him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the detective replied sternly. And Nino knew it wasn’t what he meant.
He rolled the window down, desperate for a little fresh air. “Jun’s a pain in the ass. And so am I. This case isn’t making us fast friends, Masaki.”
Aiba’s face was as serious as Nino had ever seen it. “If he doesn’t have Sho…Lieutenant Sakurai, then Jun’s a pistol waiting to go off. Don’t matter how much responsibility he’s got right now, but Jun needs someone to keep him under control. I thought…well, I just thought you…”
“Not his babysitter,” he interrupted.
Aiba frowned. “I’m not asking you to do that. You know what, never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“Masaki…”
The detective was eerily quiet for the remainder of the ride. Aiba’s family was crumbling around him, and Nino was just driving the wedge deeper. And yeah, he felt like shit for it, but it was too late - Nino had to follow the path he’d started down. And if it cleared Lieutenant Sakurai, all the better. He just hoped he wouldn’t uncover proof of what his gut was increasingly telling him was true.
Aiba pulled in at the field office. “I’ll tell Jun where you are. That is, if it’s alright with you, Agent Ninomiya.”
Jun was going to be livid that he didn’t check in. Nino just nodded, getting out of the car and slamming the door. Let him be livid then.
--
It had taken some serious wheedling, but Nino's hands were finally around a steering wheel. The car was a half-mile from falling apart completely- had to be the one they refused to actually give out to agents for fear of it dying on the field- but it was sputtering enough to get him around, and Takizawa hadn't given him a date in which it had to be returned by.
It felt good to be driving again. Felt good to be in control. There was so little he was actually in control of anymore that it didn't really feel like his own life. It was as if he was living in someone else's, moving someone else's limbs- seeing from someone else's eyes. California was bleary and white-washed in his vision, and the whole thing was just making him sick.
Nino was good at observing. He remembered the route to the station, the street from the bridge. He could even write down how to get to Forest Lawn Memorial Park where Erika Toda was buried. And he turned without thinking towards Sho's residence, even though he'd been high on panic and nerves when Matsumoto had driven them both there.
Sakurai's car was gone.
Nino sat on the street for awhile, idling, wondering why he had ever thought it was going to be that easy. Man was on suspension from his job at the station- he was probably doing what Nino would be doing and falling face first into a glass of scotch. And Nino didn't even have a plan. His gut was telling him that following an officer of the law like a damn low-life was six shades of wrong, and he was having trouble reconciling with it.
He gave in to the rumblings in his belly, and drove back to his hotel. The piano in the lobby was silent, and he ran his fingers along the top of the cover before pulling the bench out. He needed something fast- something to let his fingers fly. Something brooding.
Without thinking, he started into Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu. He liked the cross-rhythm, his left hand singing the triplets and his right flying across the sixteenths. It was easy to pound out while his mind went elsewhere.
Sho Sakurai- there were a thousand things hiding behind his eyes, and Nino didn't know half of them. He'd been conveniently absent during Erika's death- had even spoken about her prior to the event... but was that enough to seriously convict a man of four murders?
Nino frowned into the allegro agitato. Not when he was in charge of the North Hollywood station. He was a figurehead- an anchor. He was holding the branch together, and it was obvious just by the chaos Nino had already witnessed that it was going to fall apart.
"Why Erika?" Nino whispered to the keys, slowing to largo, languidly leaning into the board and sighing.
It didn't fit- nothing fit anymore. There was only so far he could slam the jagged edges together to attempt to find cohesion, and then all was just lost.
And Matsumoto...
Moderato cantabile. He was speeding it up too much, but he couldn't stop his hands from moving across the ivory. He had to get the man out of his head and he couldn't. Every swell of the notes and the music was accompanied by a lingering memory of the cologne Jun had been wearing, stinging like shame in the back of Nino's throat.
"No," Nino growled. The tempo was all off, a mess, notes flying all over the place- he'd lost the key somewhere in the coda, and it was a muddled disharmonious mess. And through it all, hands slamming out the sixteenths so fast they were no longer even discernable notes, all he could see was Jun.
He slammed his hands down onto the keys abruptly, ending everything. The mash of notes echoed through the lobby and he didn't even care.
He was suspecting a lieutenant of homicide and his own brain couldn't even get focused on the damn case. Not even Chopin beneath his fingers could right the axis of his world, everything was off, so off, off-kilter in ways he couldn't fix himself.
"Dammit." He slumped forward with his face in his hands, nearly choking on his own frustration.
Focus, Kazunari. Your eyes are all over the place and not on the notes.
"I can't see the notes," he hissed.
"You always talk to yourself?"
Nino jolted so hard his elbow fell on the ivory and banged out another dissonant mash of tones. "Jesus, Matsumoto."
And his partner looked none too pleased- looked like there was a raincloud over his head just waiting to dump its contents on his dark hair. "You wanna explain why I had to come out here to track you down? I have a murder case, Ninomiya, and I don't have time to run around the city trying to figure out where you slunk off to."
Jun was fuming, hands clenched at his sides, and Nino took a moment to attempt to reorient himself before spinning around on the bench.
"Aiba was supposed to-"
"Don't send Aiba to me with your fucking messages!" Matsumoto growled. "I'm swamped trying to deal with the press and do Sho's job and you're flaking out on me."
Nino pushed himself off the bench. "Don't tell me what to do."
"I'll tell you what-"
"I said don't tell me what to do!" Nino repeated, finger in Jun's face. "I outrank you; I am helping you with this case. I will go and do as I please, Sgt. Matsumoto."
Matsumoto was trembling with righteous indignation, but he seemed to bite back whatever retort wanted to come flying out of that pretty mouth.
Nino's head was throbbing again.
"Look into Nakai," he said, massaging the skin near his right eye wearily. "He's been dipping his wick in places he shouldn't be."
Jun bristled. "I don't-"
"Mizushima is out but the others aren't. Not yet," Nino continued, raising his tone, daring Jun to cut him off. God, he could smell the man's cologne again. He was standing too close, and it was making his head woozy. So damn heady.
"What are you going to do?" Matsumoto finally asked, with barely controlled rage.
Follow your boss. Dig. See what I can find. "Check out the others."
"You're an asshole," Jun hissed.
And Matsumoto didn't know the half of it. "Yeah," Nino said.
The man stalked off, taking his stupid cologne and his nimble fingers and his kissable, kissable mouth with him, and Nino just watched him go while his entire body was screaming at him to follow.
--
So long as he was in the car, roaming the streets of Los Angeles County, Jun couldn’t get to him. He’d been tailing Sakurai for the better part of five days, in between poking his nose into Kusanagi’s itinerary. He’d asked around about the gangster, looked into the law offices of the man who kept Kusanagi out of trouble all these years. Just so he could sneak into the North Hollywood station late at night and leave a neatly typed report behind for Jun.
He was working, not as hard as he could have been, but putting something tangible on paper meant that Jun couldn’t question him. Couldn’t accuse him of not trying. And following Kusanagi’s trail was opening all sorts of doors - he was already pretty damn certain of a link between the Mayor’s pending election campaign and Kusanagi’s accounts. He threw those scraps Matsumoto’s way, letting him figure out just where in the department he could pass those on to. Dealing with all the red tape and bureaucratic bullshit would keep him busy while he checked up on Sho.
Lieutenant Sakurai’s suspension didn’t seem to be much of a setback for him. Though his car had sat in his building’s lot for the first day, he hadn’t been able to stay in self-imposed exile for long. On the second day, he’d had another one of his mysterious appointments with Watanabe.
The track owner and Sakurai seemed to have little concern for being seen, as Nino had followed them to the Griffith Park Observatory. They’d had a nice little walk along the lawn at the entrance before disappearing for a more private conversation down one of the park trails. Watanabe had puffed on a cigar while Sho walked with his head down, arms crossed. And Nino wasn’t blind - he’d clearly seen Sho passing the other man an envelope. Did Watanabe know what Sakurai was up to? Was Sakurai buying him off?
Sho had been more domestic the next day, idly passing an hour at the Ralphs Grocery, dropping off a few suits at the dry cleaners and returning library books. Nino gave up, spending the day nosing around Kusanagi. Sakurai kept mostly to himself the following days. Maybe he could tell he was being tailed. But it’s not like Kimura had the manpower to spare for it - he wondered if Sho would figure out just who was on his trail.
But it was a new day, and Sakurai was leaving his neighborhood. The car sputtered as he followed after the Lieutenant, just as the sun started its early descent in the winter sky. Two stops - first, the liquor store. Nino sighed, pulling away from the curb to follow Sho to his next destination. The man would have no liver left before too long.
The second stop was more shocking. He hung back as Sakurai disappeared into a small flower shop, emerging a few minutes later with a small bouquet. A lady friend? But the journey turned familiar as he followed Sakurai’s tail lights to the gates of the cemetery. He parked a long way back, needing his binoculars to see Sakurai stumble out of the car.
Whatever booze he’d picked up was already uncapped and a partly gone as he gripped the flowers and started walking. The memories were all too fresh in Nino’s mind - the Garden of Contemplation wing, Erika Toda’s final resting place. The night following her burial that had changed so many things for him - professionally, personally. Maybe Sho was saying goodbye, and Nino didn’t really want to see the newly carved headstone. Didn’t want to remember the way the girl’s mother had begged him to find her daughter’s killer. Maybe the murderer was right there, had been there all along.
He opened the car door quietly, not closing it to avoid making noise. It was near dark already - they’d probably be shutting the cemetery gates sooner or later. Maybe Sho didn’t mind getting shut in for the night. He had enough alcohol to put him to sleep out under the stars.
Nino crept along, hiding behind trees like some damned rookie, approaching Erika’s grave. The marker the family had chosen was simple - infused with the same gentle humility their daughter had possessed. His gut churned at the thought of Sho Sakurai finding her, taking a knife to her pretty skin and then going home to cry about it like he’d done nothing wrong.
He crouched down low behind a heavy stone, granting him a decent view of Sakurai. Sho seemed too depressed to check his surroundings. He was sitting cross-legged in front of Erika’s stone - it had only been about a week. There’d be no grass growing for a while, and Sakurai’s trousers were probably getting filthy. He’d set the flowers down at the base of the grave marker and the booze in the dirt mound beside him.
And he stared, just stared. Nino didn’t know if he should bad for the guy, losing his cute young idol in such a brutal fashion, or disgusted that he’d come back and mope after leaving her alone cuffed to that bridge. His feelings were still mixed - no amount of watching Sho putter around town in his shoddy ’31 Plymouth was giving him the answers he needed.
Sho was obviously involved in something - the meetings with Watanabe and the envelopes changing hands were proof enough of that. But was he a killer? Was all the drinking to forget the sins he’d committed? Did he go visit Yokoyama, Matsuoka, Nishikido? And the hearts - what happened to the hearts? Were they in the icebox of Sakurai’s bachelor pad right now?
“I’m sorry.”
He inhaled sharply at Sho’s voice breaking the quiet of the darkened cemetery grounds.
“Erika, I’m so so sorry.”
Nino patted the holster at his hip, feeling the cool metal of his pistol. The son of a bitch was apologizing. He was sitting at her grave, bringing flowers and apologizing. He oughta bring him in right now, sit him down in front of Matsumoto and make him talk. Instead, he got to his feet, disgusted.
He listened to Sho blubbering in front of the marker until his voice faded.
“Erika…forgive me.”
--
Sakurai was a heck of a lot easier to tail when he was moving outside of his house- after the graveyard incident, Nino was trying to get in closer, see exactly what was going on. Passed envelopes would mean nothing if he didn't have the dirt on what was inside them; blood money, maybe. Paying Watanabe off to keep him quiet or paying him off to keep him placated? Either way, it was a dangerous, risky business, and Nino needed to know what was going on in the undercurrents to get to the heart of anything.
Watching Sho cry at Erika's grave still left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue that even the burn of whiskey wouldn't get rid of.
Across the smoke, he could still see Sho seated alone at the table, but he wasn't alone for long. The club might not be the best place for business transactions, but Sakurai had shown his inclination for using it as such already and Nino wasn't really all that surprised. The man who showed up to meet him wasn't Watanabe- wasn't anybody Nino knew, actually, but there was a badge on his lapel and he had the look of a cop. Serious. Kind of stiff.
They shook hands across the tabletop, and Nino sipped at his drink.
It had taken him awhile to find the perfect location. He needed to be close enough to see the emotions that flickered across Sakurai's face; hearing him was a lost cause, especially with all the noise the club offered. But Nino could read lips a little, and could read expressions better. So long as the lieutenant didn't notice him in the corner, he was in the clear.
After watching the two men converse for awhile, he deduced that the newcomer- with the short cut hair, like military regulation- was from the LAPD main office. It seemed to be all business. There was very little on Sakurai's features that said anything else, and even the flashes of annoyance fell hand in hand with bureaucracy. Red tape, no doubt. Maybe Sakurai was trying to get out of his suspension- or get some information despite it.
Either way, he seemed to know the man.
By the time Nino was through a glass of scotch and had moved to chewing on the ice cubes, Sho excused himself and headed for the bathroom, and Nino got up. It was his chance to get some information on the newcomer- someone who wouldn't recognize him by face.
He bumped into their table with his hip on his way past, and turned to apologize. "Sorry, sorry- one too many, you know how it goes."
"Sure," the officer said, and then Nino stuck his face a bit closer, blinking blearily at the insignia on his collar.
"You an officer?" he asked. He held his hand out. "Always like meeting police. Doin' a good job, you know that? Cleaning up corruption and all that. Wanted to say thanks."
The man looked vaguely pleased, and shook Nino's hand. His grip was firm and solid, without a tremble- he hadn't been phased by whatever conversation he and the lieutenant were having. He seemed relaxed enough to be enjoying the atmosphere.
"You're welcome," the man said.
Nino gestured to the pins on his shirt. "You in the North Hollywood branch, then?"
"Bel Air," was the correction. Nino was close enough to read the man's badge tag- Inohara. Nino didn't recognize the name. But Sakurai would be coming back soon, and he had to step on it. He gave the man a little salute.
"Well, thanks again. Keepin' the streets safe. Have a drink on me, okay?"
He went back to his corner. He had no real information, but Sakurai meeting with another police officer was a bit less shady than him meeting with a horse track owner and passing envelopes between jacket pockets. He wished he knew what it was about- maybe Inohara and Sakurai went back to the academy.
Maybe that kind of information was in the lieutenant's file.
On his barstool, Nino watched Sho come back to the table, and wondered if he could get his hands on the background information- wasn't exactly public record, and Nino didn't exactly have an all-access pass. But there had to be a way; there could be something there, something under the surface that might offer him more insight.
The two left a half hour later, in separate cars, and Nino got in his own loaned clunker. He was tired; staying out of sight while following the man was harder work than he had realized, and his body was aching from it. He could have followed Sakurai more to see where he was going, but he was probably just going home, and Nino wanted nothing more than the climb between his own hotel sheets and get some rest.
The light at Magnolia and Lankershim was red.
And when he pressed down on the brake, nothing happened.
He'd been trained in a myriad of different situations in which he had a split second to react. Even so, his heart clogged his throat as he tried in vain to hit the pedal again, to no avail. He rolled through the intersection with a faint prayer that no one was coming from the opposite direction, hand grappling wildly under his seat for the emergency brake.
He jerked the wheel, trying to avoid an oncoming car. His speed was slowing but not fast enough. Unable to find the handle he was searching desperately for, he jerked again to the right, and the front bumper collided with some unfortunate family's mailbox at the side of the road, just past the curb, front wheels bumping up and propelling him forward. His forehead hit the wheel with a smack, and when the whole vehicle finally shuddered to a stop, he rubbed his palm against his head.
His heart was pounding wildly in his chest.
It took him several agonizingly long moments to get himself out of the car. His muscles were shaking like mad, and he struggled to catch his breath. The front end of the car didn't seem too damaged- not like he'd really be able to tell anyway, given the state of it prior to his driving. But there was no way the brakes would just go out like that- not without a hitch, a groan, a squeak. Some kind of sign that the line was pushed beyond its limit.
He stared at the headlights for a long time, gut twisting, looking out at the splintered pieces of wood from the mailbox he'd smashed into. Someone wanted him off the case.
And they were already in it for blood.
--
He’d made up a nice story for Takizawa. It had pained his senior enough to have to come and get the car towed away. Takizawa had asked if he was drunk - Nino had snorted, chastising the man for saddling him with an unreliable vehicle.
His hand shook as he lifted the coffee cup to his lips. Takizawa had offered to get him back to his hotel, but he’d shrugged the man off, grumbling excuses about following up a lead. Instead, he waited in the coffee shop. It had been one of the more awkward telephone conversations of his life, asking Jun to come and get him.
But Jun had said yes almost instantly, and much as it pained him to admit it, Nino was grateful that he was coming. He couldn’t tell the man why he’d been in the neighborhood. He certainly couldn’t tell him what had happened with the brakes, at least not the full truth. And it had been days since they’d spoken, looked one another in the face. His gut was rumbling, reminding him of how strange things had become between them.
The little bell in the doorway chimed as Matsumoto entered and headed back for his booth in the rear of the diner. The detective’s handsome face was controlled and neutral, almost painfully so. He was worried, then.
“Thanks,” he said almost immediately as Jun sat down across from him. Nino leaned his elbow on the table, propping his head up lazily. “Appreciate you coming.”
Jun turned over the other empty cup at the table, clinking it against the saucer nervously. He poured himself a cup and eyed Nino warily. “What the hell happened?”
“FBI car’s a piece of shit. Brakes went out.”
“Went out?”
He nodded. Didn’t need to tell Jun they’d been cut. So long as he didn’t look him in the eye, he could keep right on lying to him. “Ran through a red light, couldn’t slow down. Damaged property of the United States Postal Service.”
Jun sipped his coffee slowly. “You alright? Need me to take you to the hospital?”
“Takizawa asked the same. I’m fine.” He remembered the way his head hurt after Jun had gotten him with that golf ball - this wasn’t that much worse. “Just have to sleep it off.”
Matsumoto was still worried, drumming his fingers on the table. They were distracting, and he couldn’t stop remembering the way Jun had lain behind him on the too small bed, brushing those fingers through his hair. Maybe it had been a mistake to have Matsumoto come. He should have called Aiba. Even Dr. Ohno might have been a better choice.
“Could have been killed,” Jun mumbled. “What if you were up in the hills?”
“Well, I wasn’t,” he pointed out. Yeah, he thought, you sound real cool. Real brave. He finished the rest of the coffee, pulling out a couple dollars from his wallet and tossing them down on the table. “Come on. Don’t feel like sticking around here too much longer tonight.”
Matsumoto nodded solemnly, following him from the coffee shop. “Parked round back,” Jun said quietly as they made their way around the building in the misty rain. He could feel Jun, walking behind him extra close, felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling from his proximity. Even under his coat, he was shivering as the light raindrops pattered softly against the material.
He could have been up in the hills. He could have been on a sharp curve. He could have tried to brake and gone tumbling over the side of a cliff like one of the sharp turns on Mulholland. He really could have been killed.
“Car accident,” he’d said abruptly on the phone, not even introducing himself when Jun had picked up. “Can you get me a ride back to the hotel?”
And Jun had come, even after he’d been an asshole all week, leaving those reports on his desk and disappearing. Running his own investigation while Matsumoto probably had Kimura, the Mayor, the whole fucking town breathing down his neck. And then Nino was investigating Sho, who cried and apologized to Erika Toda one day and cut brake lines on sedans the next. Sho who Jun admired so much.
He stopped, nearly crumpling sideways as he sagged against the damp brick of the coffee shop. He could be dead right now at the bottom of a ravine, waiting for someone to find him - waiting for someone to come claim him. “Mr. and Mrs. Ninomiya, is this your son?”
“Jun,” he said quietly, breathlessly, and his back hit the brick. He was too stunned to protest when Jun’s lips found his jaw. It had been so long, so long since he’d felt anything close to this and the sensation was jarring. All Nino could do was shut his eyes, shutting out the world and the rather disgusting alley behind the humble coffee shop.
Matsumoto was desperate, consumed with worry, sloppily dragging his mouth along Nino’s jawline. But he was also hesitant. Every time Jun’s lips came close to Nino’s he’d pull back, moving elsewhere. Finally, he groaned, fumbling to find Jun’s face with his hands and opening his eyes. He blinked, seeing a fat raindrop land on Jun’s forehead, sliding lazily down to hit his fingertip.
His reason. He prided himself on clear thinking, on reason. But everything was getting muddled where Jun was involved. In the month they’d known one another, Matsumoto’s presence had wormed its way into his mind, falling into place like notes on a scale. Jun broke their staring contest first, looking down with an embarrassed laugh. Almost like a perfect star in one of those pictures that made women swoon.
Nino pulled him forward, closing the distance, and there was sudden heat between his legs as Jun gasped at the first hesitant meeting of their mouths. As if what had come before wasn’t real. Sharing a bed, waking up tangled together - it hadn’t meant anything. Just now, lips against skin - it hadn’t meant anything. But as he pushed his mouth against Jun’s, taking another measured breath and doing so again - this was real. Neither of them could deny it, ignore it.
“Kazu,” Jun breathed, bringing a trembling hand to Nino’s, pulling it down from his face. “We...we can’t.” But already, he could feel Jun’s arousal, insistent against his thigh.
“I know we can’t,” he replied, inhaling deeply. Rain mixed with Jun, like a heady drug. “I know we can’t.”
But Jun wasn’t moving, still keeping him back against the wall. Was it another competition, another battle of wits for them now? “You’re such a bastard,” Jun was mumbling as Nino stroked his cheek, brushing raindrops from the man’s pale skin.
“Feeling’s mutual,” he whispered back. He tried to move forward a bit, get away from the unforgiving brick, and Jun didn’t move. Instead, their bodies brushed closer.
“Jesus,” Jun moaned.
“Move,” he gritted. “Get out of the way.” If Jun didn’t move, he was going to shove him. “Please.”
Matsumoto backed up, running a hand through his damp hair. Nino felt like his entire body was aflame, and he already missed Jun’s closeness. It felt like years since they’d been in the coffee shop, and he cleared his throat, walking with shuffling steps to Jun’s car. This was bad. Hell, this was the worst thing that could have happened.
There was a case. There was a killer on the loose who had to be brought to justice. No matter how good it felt to have Jun surrounding him, to feel his hot mouth against his skin, there was no time for this. His body was still shaking as he sat in the back seat of the car, sighing and leaning back against the leather. If he sat up in front, only God knew what would happen.
Jun said nothing as he got the car running, turning on the windshield wipers as the rain started to fall more insistently. The palm trees were swaying along the dark boulevards as Matsumoto took him back to his hotel.
“Be in tomorrow,” Jun mumbled as he pulled in the hotel’s front drive. The detective’s gaze did not waver from the windshield wipers, streaking the glass. “I doubt Takizawa’s giving you another car, so come in and we’ll see where we are.”
Nino wondered if “we’ll see where we are” was really in reference to the case. He pulled his coat around him, still aching between his thighs for release. He didn’t bother saying good night to Jun, just slamming the car door and heading inside.
He could barely get the room key in the lock. He stripped off his wet clothes, suddenly feeling the headache coming back with a vengeance. A hot bath would have been perfect, but instead he settled himself under the sheets, squeezing his eyes shut.
The gasp Jun had made when their lips touched. He couldn’t get it out his mind. “Damn you,” he muttered, reaching under the scratchy sheet. “Damn you, Matsumoto.” He bit his lip hard enough to tear the tender skin, gripping the edge of the mattress tight. His hand was no substitute for Jun’s, but he made do.
He thought of Jun’s mouth, warm and dangerous. How sloppy with need it had been. How sloppy and desperate the pair of them had been. It had been so long for the both of them, hadn’t it? His whole body was shaking as he continued, sweat at his temples. “Jun, oh god, Jun.”
The rain was pounding the window. Jun had tasted like coffee and expensive cigarettes. Nino had nearly died, and he had to keep it secret. Jun’s lips, on the rim of the coffee mug - Jun’s lips somewhere else. He came with a low sigh, hand moving until he was almost in tears.
He’d nearly died tonight, and the only thing more frightening than that was what he was feeling for Jun Matsumoto.
Chapter: 6/??
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): beginning Nino/Jun-ish?
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, language, and a bit of sexual situations.
Summary: "I'm Kazu Ninomiya. I'm 26 years old, and I'm here to catch a murderer. Let me tell you about Los Angeles."
Note: Hullo, awesome and fantastic readers. :) This is just a note that while we had this GREAT plan to get this fic done before we leave for Japan in the middle of October, it is pretty obviously NOT happening. So! This is just a pre-emptive warning that the authoresses will be gone from Oct 14-Oct 23 and not writing during that time. xD
I've gotten myself in a right mess. I'm not an outsider anymore- I'm just as hopelessly entangled in the damn thing as the rest of them are, and worse yet, I can't seem to pull myself out of the web that's being spun between Matsumoto and me.
Jesus, this wasn't what I was expecting. And now my gut keeps roiling and clenching and telling me that Sakurai has something to do with all of this, an overarching banner that has touched every single bit of this case. How does one go about investigating the lieutenant of the station he's been assigned to without arousing suspicion- or making some serious enemies?
I can't tell Jun- Matsumoto. Matsumoto. He has to be Matsumoto, because- well, the alternative isn't a good option. Isn't acceptable. I can't afford to let myself get any further involved in that business.
I don't usually think I'm a coward, but I flee the station after discovering the link between the cuffs and the North Hollywood outlet. Matsumoto would be coming back in soon, and I'm still hungover as shit. I need time to think and someplace to do it. I end up just getting a cab to the beach and sitting on the sand for a long time, staring at the waves.
Ocean's different from back east. Cleaner, somehow. Maybe it's been untainted by all the stuff DC and New York have seen. They've got years of corruption under their belts, and California is a relative upstart in comparison. But the case surrounding me feels infinitely worse than anything else I've come across, even though I know it isn't- I'm just too involved.
Too damn involved. This is the kind of thing the agency warns about.
I watched guys do this, fall apart and lose their steam, their respect, their badges. Just never thought I'd be one of them.
--
Nino didn't return to the station until the next day, head still spinning, chest still tight. It had taken the better part of a day to lose the hangover symptoms, and he had a hunch that wasn't the only thing his body was rejecting.
He got back to find the North Hollywood station in chaos.
He ignored the fact that he had to wade through a crowd of reporters outside the doors- they were back on the sidewalk, away from the entrance, like a riot waiting to be incited. By the time he got in, he was already annoyed- and it didn't look like his day was going to get any better.
"What the hell is going on here?" he asked a flustered looking officer passing him in the open room.
"You don't know?" came the answer, rushed and breathless. "Sakurai. He got suspended."
Nino couldn't tell if it was a lucky break or an incredibly unfortunate one. With Sakurai gone, the case was more or less in his hands; he'd been specially called there for it, and now the station was leader-less just as the problems had exploded into being around it.
"Shit," he grumbled. He let the officer go past to wherever he was running- all the case files were in Sakurai's office, all the suspect photos and investigation reports. Even if he did think the man had a hand in it somehow, his web and theories and speculations were on the lieutenant's desk, and he needed them.
He pushed open the door to Sho's office and wasn't expecting anyone else to be in there already.
Jun met his eyes for a second that felt like an instant, and then wrenched his gaze away to stare down at the papers he was going through from Sakurai's desk. Nino had trouble putting his thoughts in order- he'd expected a chance to prepare himself, and he wasn't going to get it.
"Sorry," he said immediately, as an impulse. "Didn't think anyone was in here."
"With Sho gone, I'm lead on the investigation," Matsumoto replied.
There was a long second of silence, stretched tight like thread from a needle's eye.
"Right," Nino said, finally. Jun's fingers were splaying over the papers in his hands, lithe and enticing, and he'd pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing pale skin that Nino's eyes trailed up until- Jesus. Jesus Christ, he had to stop. His body was hyper-alert already, buzzing.
He went over to the far wall, where the suspect pictures were still tacked up next to one another. In his mind, he could see the webs still hanging there, stagnant- he couldn't discount them all, not even with his own suspicions. They were still intricately bound to the case in some way, and without a clear, they had to be considered.
Behind him, Matsumoto cleared his throat. "Talked to Mizushima yesterday- he was first on my list because of his connection to Erika."
It was a bit of a jab, the man's way to implying that Nino's deliberate avoidance of the station had caused him to take a hearing with a suspect alone. But Nino's stomach was still too tight to really process the slight insult behind it.
"And?" he asked, when it seemed Jun was waiting for some kind of affirmation to continue.
"He's got an air-tight alibi. Was in filming all night, witnesses number in the dozens."
So that was that, then. Nino reached up for Mizushima's smirking photograph and pulled it down, ripping the top as the tack pulled through the paper.
"Seemed kind of upset," Matsumoto added, absently, but Nino wasn't sure how nonchalant it could really be with the tension settling so thick around their shoulders and pressing downwards. "Now he has to recast her part in the movie- sets them back by months, I guess."
"I feel so bad for him," Nino mocked.
There was another one of those awful quiet moments, and Nino could hear Matsumoto shifting behind him, papers shuffling. He couldn't make his body turn around, but his eyes were focused far beyond the suspects' faces. He could still smell the man's cologne like it was covering him, and it was making his head very hazy.
"You didn't have to-"
"So who is next?" Nino interrupted, nearly losing the ability to breathe completely. "Nakai? The mayor? Why would they want Erika dead?"
Matsumoto took a lifetime to speak again, and Nino thought he'd swallowed his whole heart from the way his entire body was trembling with every furious beat.
"Kazu."
That was it- the cords snapped, and Nino finally turned, whirling, entire body on overdrive. "I'm going to go ask around, see what I can find. Do some digging. Maybe in the evidence room."
"I- okay," came the response.
"Right, so, I'll come back with whatever I find," Nino continued, hands shoved in his jacket pockets and playing out furiously on an invisible piano the 3rd Suite from Bach's Partitas. "If I find anything. Just have to keep going."
God, Sakurai's office had gotten unbearably warm. Nino was sure the flush was evident in his face, on his cheeks, his jaw; he had to get out before he gave himself away completely. He looked anywhere but at the pull of Jun's shirt over his hips, the line of his slacks down impossibly long legs.
And the truth was, he didn't know what he was going to do- he couldn't tell Matsumoto yet that his suspicions were leading him to a face not tacked up beside the others on the suspect wall. He couldn't even try to fathom what would happen when he shared that piece of information; the bond between them ran deep, deeper than he could touch, and he was going to try shoving a dam into it.
"Take Aiba," was all Matsumoto offered, and there was something vastly different in his tone, like a sudden snap, a clip. A shortness- embarrassment? Nino should have been able to pick it up, he was trained to do that. But Jun had the power to elude his senses, clogging them up instead.
"Sure."
Nino had to bite back his growl when he left the office. He'd done this to himself, and he had no one else to blame, and even as he left the station, he couldn't get Jun's face out of his head.
--
The wind was blowing enough for it to smell like horse everywhere. Watanabe, the Mayor, Nakai, Kusanagi - all still had their hand in this somehow. They were all involved in this web of people, but was it Sakurai doing the dirty work?
Aiba was a very different partner from Jun. He chatted the whole way to Arcadia. He was worried for Sho. Nino couldn’t blame him - people like Sakurai didn’t take well to being suspended. People at the top of their classes didn’t like to be thought of as failures. Any man in Sho’s position, someone who already had a tendency to overindulge in drink, would be inconsolable. And that’s what Nino imagined was worrying Aiba so much.
Nino wanted to think this was all just coincidental. That Sho wasn’t really moonlighting as some psychopath. That he really was the stubborn, but hard-working lieutenant that Aiba looked up to for guidance. That Jun respected more than anyone else. But there were too many gaps, too many things that were starting to ring false about the lieutenant the more Nino thought about it.
It wasn’t just the handcuffs. And it wasn’t just the sudden weekend off Sho had given them just before Erika had been killed. It was the casual way he’d been munching his ice cubes at that New Year’s party even though he had two bodies in the morgue. It was the meet-up with Watanabe when he thought nobody was watching.
And now there was the suspension. Had it been Sakurai’s plan all along? Keep the investigation so muddled that Kimura would come down on him? He’d play the disgraced hero now, investigating on his own. Planning who would be next.
Nino shook his head as he followed Aiba through the entrance to the grandstands. They were on Watanabe’s territory, but they weren’t here for Watanabe. The party, Yu Yokoyama’s last known whereabouts. No need to ask about the boss - there were plenty of other very important people in attendance that night. The staff was definitely loyal to Watanabe, but maybe they had some things to say about the others.
Aiba was off with a quick wave, going to chit chat with the bathroom attendants. See who’d given good tips, who’d skipped out, if they’d seen anyone or anything suspicious. Nino had gotten the better assignment - he got the cigarette girls, the serving girls. What he really wanted to be doing was following Sakurai, trying to get into his apartment when he was out. But with Jun in charge, he had to toe the line.
He had to get Takizawa to assign him a car. He had to pull rank on Jun, and it probably wouldn’t be pretty, but he wasn’t in the mood to interview cigarette girls when the real murderer was probably planning the next one. And if it was Sakurai, he had all the time in the world now.
The next hour passed slowly. Watanabe was up in Santa Barbara with his mistress. The girls in his employ were more than willing to share that sort of sordid detail so long as their boss wasn’t being incriminated for anything worse. One of the girls had disappeared with Nakai around midnight - coincidentally, Yokoyama had been pursuing the dame for the better part of a year. Nino wondered if it meant anything. At the very least, Nakai was a hypocrite.
Nakai’s predilection for cigarette girls who hadn’t yet reached their 20th birthdays didn’t necessarily mean he’d killed Yokoyama. But it was a lead, a connection. Something that Jun could chew on, something he could have Aiba dig into a bit deeper. Nino gave the last girl a friendly smile and a few dollars for flapping her gums.
Aiba met up with him back in the parking lot. The corporal hadn’t found out much more than Mayor Ogura didn’t tip as much as he was capable of doing. Nobody had seen Kusanagi (or Yokoyama) after 2 AM - another tidbit for lead investigator Matsumoto to fret over. He’d have to go down the rabbit hole, straying from the suspects themselves to find the tenuous strands that tied them together. He and Aiba would be plenty busy trying to see which lowlifes were eavesdropping on the big names.
It would give Nino the time he needed to follow his own hunch. He and Aiba headed back, but he requested a detour. “Need to drop me at the field office,” he said, as casually as you’d direct someone to a gas station.
Aiba was curious. “Field office? Are you being taken off the case?”
He shook his head. It felt rotten to lie to Aiba. “Gotta check in with Takizawa.” More like beg Takizawa to give him a car, plead for him to futz around with some paperwork and grant Nino freer reign over the investigation. Make him independent from Matsumoto’s reach as much as humanly possible.
“Okay,” Aiba said, concern lining his features. “Let me ask you something.”
Damn it. “Fine.”
“Is everything okay? With you and Jun?”
He blinked, his heart starting to pound like some tribal drum. “He’s got some big shoes to fill. Lot on his plate. Doing my best to stay out of his way and dig up some leads for him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the detective replied sternly. And Nino knew it wasn’t what he meant.
He rolled the window down, desperate for a little fresh air. “Jun’s a pain in the ass. And so am I. This case isn’t making us fast friends, Masaki.”
Aiba’s face was as serious as Nino had ever seen it. “If he doesn’t have Sho…Lieutenant Sakurai, then Jun’s a pistol waiting to go off. Don’t matter how much responsibility he’s got right now, but Jun needs someone to keep him under control. I thought…well, I just thought you…”
“Not his babysitter,” he interrupted.
Aiba frowned. “I’m not asking you to do that. You know what, never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“Masaki…”
The detective was eerily quiet for the remainder of the ride. Aiba’s family was crumbling around him, and Nino was just driving the wedge deeper. And yeah, he felt like shit for it, but it was too late - Nino had to follow the path he’d started down. And if it cleared Lieutenant Sakurai, all the better. He just hoped he wouldn’t uncover proof of what his gut was increasingly telling him was true.
Aiba pulled in at the field office. “I’ll tell Jun where you are. That is, if it’s alright with you, Agent Ninomiya.”
Jun was going to be livid that he didn’t check in. Nino just nodded, getting out of the car and slamming the door. Let him be livid then.
--
It had taken some serious wheedling, but Nino's hands were finally around a steering wheel. The car was a half-mile from falling apart completely- had to be the one they refused to actually give out to agents for fear of it dying on the field- but it was sputtering enough to get him around, and Takizawa hadn't given him a date in which it had to be returned by.
It felt good to be driving again. Felt good to be in control. There was so little he was actually in control of anymore that it didn't really feel like his own life. It was as if he was living in someone else's, moving someone else's limbs- seeing from someone else's eyes. California was bleary and white-washed in his vision, and the whole thing was just making him sick.
Nino was good at observing. He remembered the route to the station, the street from the bridge. He could even write down how to get to Forest Lawn Memorial Park where Erika Toda was buried. And he turned without thinking towards Sho's residence, even though he'd been high on panic and nerves when Matsumoto had driven them both there.
Sakurai's car was gone.
Nino sat on the street for awhile, idling, wondering why he had ever thought it was going to be that easy. Man was on suspension from his job at the station- he was probably doing what Nino would be doing and falling face first into a glass of scotch. And Nino didn't even have a plan. His gut was telling him that following an officer of the law like a damn low-life was six shades of wrong, and he was having trouble reconciling with it.
He gave in to the rumblings in his belly, and drove back to his hotel. The piano in the lobby was silent, and he ran his fingers along the top of the cover before pulling the bench out. He needed something fast- something to let his fingers fly. Something brooding.
Without thinking, he started into Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu. He liked the cross-rhythm, his left hand singing the triplets and his right flying across the sixteenths. It was easy to pound out while his mind went elsewhere.
Sho Sakurai- there were a thousand things hiding behind his eyes, and Nino didn't know half of them. He'd been conveniently absent during Erika's death- had even spoken about her prior to the event... but was that enough to seriously convict a man of four murders?
Nino frowned into the allegro agitato. Not when he was in charge of the North Hollywood station. He was a figurehead- an anchor. He was holding the branch together, and it was obvious just by the chaos Nino had already witnessed that it was going to fall apart.
"Why Erika?" Nino whispered to the keys, slowing to largo, languidly leaning into the board and sighing.
It didn't fit- nothing fit anymore. There was only so far he could slam the jagged edges together to attempt to find cohesion, and then all was just lost.
And Matsumoto...
Moderato cantabile. He was speeding it up too much, but he couldn't stop his hands from moving across the ivory. He had to get the man out of his head and he couldn't. Every swell of the notes and the music was accompanied by a lingering memory of the cologne Jun had been wearing, stinging like shame in the back of Nino's throat.
"No," Nino growled. The tempo was all off, a mess, notes flying all over the place- he'd lost the key somewhere in the coda, and it was a muddled disharmonious mess. And through it all, hands slamming out the sixteenths so fast they were no longer even discernable notes, all he could see was Jun.
He slammed his hands down onto the keys abruptly, ending everything. The mash of notes echoed through the lobby and he didn't even care.
He was suspecting a lieutenant of homicide and his own brain couldn't even get focused on the damn case. Not even Chopin beneath his fingers could right the axis of his world, everything was off, so off, off-kilter in ways he couldn't fix himself.
"Dammit." He slumped forward with his face in his hands, nearly choking on his own frustration.
Focus, Kazunari. Your eyes are all over the place and not on the notes.
"I can't see the notes," he hissed.
"You always talk to yourself?"
Nino jolted so hard his elbow fell on the ivory and banged out another dissonant mash of tones. "Jesus, Matsumoto."
And his partner looked none too pleased- looked like there was a raincloud over his head just waiting to dump its contents on his dark hair. "You wanna explain why I had to come out here to track you down? I have a murder case, Ninomiya, and I don't have time to run around the city trying to figure out where you slunk off to."
Jun was fuming, hands clenched at his sides, and Nino took a moment to attempt to reorient himself before spinning around on the bench.
"Aiba was supposed to-"
"Don't send Aiba to me with your fucking messages!" Matsumoto growled. "I'm swamped trying to deal with the press and do Sho's job and you're flaking out on me."
Nino pushed himself off the bench. "Don't tell me what to do."
"I'll tell you what-"
"I said don't tell me what to do!" Nino repeated, finger in Jun's face. "I outrank you; I am helping you with this case. I will go and do as I please, Sgt. Matsumoto."
Matsumoto was trembling with righteous indignation, but he seemed to bite back whatever retort wanted to come flying out of that pretty mouth.
Nino's head was throbbing again.
"Look into Nakai," he said, massaging the skin near his right eye wearily. "He's been dipping his wick in places he shouldn't be."
Jun bristled. "I don't-"
"Mizushima is out but the others aren't. Not yet," Nino continued, raising his tone, daring Jun to cut him off. God, he could smell the man's cologne again. He was standing too close, and it was making his head woozy. So damn heady.
"What are you going to do?" Matsumoto finally asked, with barely controlled rage.
Follow your boss. Dig. See what I can find. "Check out the others."
"You're an asshole," Jun hissed.
And Matsumoto didn't know the half of it. "Yeah," Nino said.
The man stalked off, taking his stupid cologne and his nimble fingers and his kissable, kissable mouth with him, and Nino just watched him go while his entire body was screaming at him to follow.
--
So long as he was in the car, roaming the streets of Los Angeles County, Jun couldn’t get to him. He’d been tailing Sakurai for the better part of five days, in between poking his nose into Kusanagi’s itinerary. He’d asked around about the gangster, looked into the law offices of the man who kept Kusanagi out of trouble all these years. Just so he could sneak into the North Hollywood station late at night and leave a neatly typed report behind for Jun.
He was working, not as hard as he could have been, but putting something tangible on paper meant that Jun couldn’t question him. Couldn’t accuse him of not trying. And following Kusanagi’s trail was opening all sorts of doors - he was already pretty damn certain of a link between the Mayor’s pending election campaign and Kusanagi’s accounts. He threw those scraps Matsumoto’s way, letting him figure out just where in the department he could pass those on to. Dealing with all the red tape and bureaucratic bullshit would keep him busy while he checked up on Sho.
Lieutenant Sakurai’s suspension didn’t seem to be much of a setback for him. Though his car had sat in his building’s lot for the first day, he hadn’t been able to stay in self-imposed exile for long. On the second day, he’d had another one of his mysterious appointments with Watanabe.
The track owner and Sakurai seemed to have little concern for being seen, as Nino had followed them to the Griffith Park Observatory. They’d had a nice little walk along the lawn at the entrance before disappearing for a more private conversation down one of the park trails. Watanabe had puffed on a cigar while Sho walked with his head down, arms crossed. And Nino wasn’t blind - he’d clearly seen Sho passing the other man an envelope. Did Watanabe know what Sakurai was up to? Was Sakurai buying him off?
Sho had been more domestic the next day, idly passing an hour at the Ralphs Grocery, dropping off a few suits at the dry cleaners and returning library books. Nino gave up, spending the day nosing around Kusanagi. Sakurai kept mostly to himself the following days. Maybe he could tell he was being tailed. But it’s not like Kimura had the manpower to spare for it - he wondered if Sho would figure out just who was on his trail.
But it was a new day, and Sakurai was leaving his neighborhood. The car sputtered as he followed after the Lieutenant, just as the sun started its early descent in the winter sky. Two stops - first, the liquor store. Nino sighed, pulling away from the curb to follow Sho to his next destination. The man would have no liver left before too long.
The second stop was more shocking. He hung back as Sakurai disappeared into a small flower shop, emerging a few minutes later with a small bouquet. A lady friend? But the journey turned familiar as he followed Sakurai’s tail lights to the gates of the cemetery. He parked a long way back, needing his binoculars to see Sakurai stumble out of the car.
Whatever booze he’d picked up was already uncapped and a partly gone as he gripped the flowers and started walking. The memories were all too fresh in Nino’s mind - the Garden of Contemplation wing, Erika Toda’s final resting place. The night following her burial that had changed so many things for him - professionally, personally. Maybe Sho was saying goodbye, and Nino didn’t really want to see the newly carved headstone. Didn’t want to remember the way the girl’s mother had begged him to find her daughter’s killer. Maybe the murderer was right there, had been there all along.
He opened the car door quietly, not closing it to avoid making noise. It was near dark already - they’d probably be shutting the cemetery gates sooner or later. Maybe Sho didn’t mind getting shut in for the night. He had enough alcohol to put him to sleep out under the stars.
Nino crept along, hiding behind trees like some damned rookie, approaching Erika’s grave. The marker the family had chosen was simple - infused with the same gentle humility their daughter had possessed. His gut churned at the thought of Sho Sakurai finding her, taking a knife to her pretty skin and then going home to cry about it like he’d done nothing wrong.
He crouched down low behind a heavy stone, granting him a decent view of Sakurai. Sho seemed too depressed to check his surroundings. He was sitting cross-legged in front of Erika’s stone - it had only been about a week. There’d be no grass growing for a while, and Sakurai’s trousers were probably getting filthy. He’d set the flowers down at the base of the grave marker and the booze in the dirt mound beside him.
And he stared, just stared. Nino didn’t know if he should bad for the guy, losing his cute young idol in such a brutal fashion, or disgusted that he’d come back and mope after leaving her alone cuffed to that bridge. His feelings were still mixed - no amount of watching Sho putter around town in his shoddy ’31 Plymouth was giving him the answers he needed.
Sho was obviously involved in something - the meetings with Watanabe and the envelopes changing hands were proof enough of that. But was he a killer? Was all the drinking to forget the sins he’d committed? Did he go visit Yokoyama, Matsuoka, Nishikido? And the hearts - what happened to the hearts? Were they in the icebox of Sakurai’s bachelor pad right now?
“I’m sorry.”
He inhaled sharply at Sho’s voice breaking the quiet of the darkened cemetery grounds.
“Erika, I’m so so sorry.”
Nino patted the holster at his hip, feeling the cool metal of his pistol. The son of a bitch was apologizing. He was sitting at her grave, bringing flowers and apologizing. He oughta bring him in right now, sit him down in front of Matsumoto and make him talk. Instead, he got to his feet, disgusted.
He listened to Sho blubbering in front of the marker until his voice faded.
“Erika…forgive me.”
--
Sakurai was a heck of a lot easier to tail when he was moving outside of his house- after the graveyard incident, Nino was trying to get in closer, see exactly what was going on. Passed envelopes would mean nothing if he didn't have the dirt on what was inside them; blood money, maybe. Paying Watanabe off to keep him quiet or paying him off to keep him placated? Either way, it was a dangerous, risky business, and Nino needed to know what was going on in the undercurrents to get to the heart of anything.
Watching Sho cry at Erika's grave still left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue that even the burn of whiskey wouldn't get rid of.
Across the smoke, he could still see Sho seated alone at the table, but he wasn't alone for long. The club might not be the best place for business transactions, but Sakurai had shown his inclination for using it as such already and Nino wasn't really all that surprised. The man who showed up to meet him wasn't Watanabe- wasn't anybody Nino knew, actually, but there was a badge on his lapel and he had the look of a cop. Serious. Kind of stiff.
They shook hands across the tabletop, and Nino sipped at his drink.
It had taken him awhile to find the perfect location. He needed to be close enough to see the emotions that flickered across Sakurai's face; hearing him was a lost cause, especially with all the noise the club offered. But Nino could read lips a little, and could read expressions better. So long as the lieutenant didn't notice him in the corner, he was in the clear.
After watching the two men converse for awhile, he deduced that the newcomer- with the short cut hair, like military regulation- was from the LAPD main office. It seemed to be all business. There was very little on Sakurai's features that said anything else, and even the flashes of annoyance fell hand in hand with bureaucracy. Red tape, no doubt. Maybe Sakurai was trying to get out of his suspension- or get some information despite it.
Either way, he seemed to know the man.
By the time Nino was through a glass of scotch and had moved to chewing on the ice cubes, Sho excused himself and headed for the bathroom, and Nino got up. It was his chance to get some information on the newcomer- someone who wouldn't recognize him by face.
He bumped into their table with his hip on his way past, and turned to apologize. "Sorry, sorry- one too many, you know how it goes."
"Sure," the officer said, and then Nino stuck his face a bit closer, blinking blearily at the insignia on his collar.
"You an officer?" he asked. He held his hand out. "Always like meeting police. Doin' a good job, you know that? Cleaning up corruption and all that. Wanted to say thanks."
The man looked vaguely pleased, and shook Nino's hand. His grip was firm and solid, without a tremble- he hadn't been phased by whatever conversation he and the lieutenant were having. He seemed relaxed enough to be enjoying the atmosphere.
"You're welcome," the man said.
Nino gestured to the pins on his shirt. "You in the North Hollywood branch, then?"
"Bel Air," was the correction. Nino was close enough to read the man's badge tag- Inohara. Nino didn't recognize the name. But Sakurai would be coming back soon, and he had to step on it. He gave the man a little salute.
"Well, thanks again. Keepin' the streets safe. Have a drink on me, okay?"
He went back to his corner. He had no real information, but Sakurai meeting with another police officer was a bit less shady than him meeting with a horse track owner and passing envelopes between jacket pockets. He wished he knew what it was about- maybe Inohara and Sakurai went back to the academy.
Maybe that kind of information was in the lieutenant's file.
On his barstool, Nino watched Sho come back to the table, and wondered if he could get his hands on the background information- wasn't exactly public record, and Nino didn't exactly have an all-access pass. But there had to be a way; there could be something there, something under the surface that might offer him more insight.
The two left a half hour later, in separate cars, and Nino got in his own loaned clunker. He was tired; staying out of sight while following the man was harder work than he had realized, and his body was aching from it. He could have followed Sakurai more to see where he was going, but he was probably just going home, and Nino wanted nothing more than the climb between his own hotel sheets and get some rest.
The light at Magnolia and Lankershim was red.
And when he pressed down on the brake, nothing happened.
He'd been trained in a myriad of different situations in which he had a split second to react. Even so, his heart clogged his throat as he tried in vain to hit the pedal again, to no avail. He rolled through the intersection with a faint prayer that no one was coming from the opposite direction, hand grappling wildly under his seat for the emergency brake.
He jerked the wheel, trying to avoid an oncoming car. His speed was slowing but not fast enough. Unable to find the handle he was searching desperately for, he jerked again to the right, and the front bumper collided with some unfortunate family's mailbox at the side of the road, just past the curb, front wheels bumping up and propelling him forward. His forehead hit the wheel with a smack, and when the whole vehicle finally shuddered to a stop, he rubbed his palm against his head.
His heart was pounding wildly in his chest.
It took him several agonizingly long moments to get himself out of the car. His muscles were shaking like mad, and he struggled to catch his breath. The front end of the car didn't seem too damaged- not like he'd really be able to tell anyway, given the state of it prior to his driving. But there was no way the brakes would just go out like that- not without a hitch, a groan, a squeak. Some kind of sign that the line was pushed beyond its limit.
He stared at the headlights for a long time, gut twisting, looking out at the splintered pieces of wood from the mailbox he'd smashed into. Someone wanted him off the case.
And they were already in it for blood.
--
He’d made up a nice story for Takizawa. It had pained his senior enough to have to come and get the car towed away. Takizawa had asked if he was drunk - Nino had snorted, chastising the man for saddling him with an unreliable vehicle.
His hand shook as he lifted the coffee cup to his lips. Takizawa had offered to get him back to his hotel, but he’d shrugged the man off, grumbling excuses about following up a lead. Instead, he waited in the coffee shop. It had been one of the more awkward telephone conversations of his life, asking Jun to come and get him.
But Jun had said yes almost instantly, and much as it pained him to admit it, Nino was grateful that he was coming. He couldn’t tell the man why he’d been in the neighborhood. He certainly couldn’t tell him what had happened with the brakes, at least not the full truth. And it had been days since they’d spoken, looked one another in the face. His gut was rumbling, reminding him of how strange things had become between them.
The little bell in the doorway chimed as Matsumoto entered and headed back for his booth in the rear of the diner. The detective’s handsome face was controlled and neutral, almost painfully so. He was worried, then.
“Thanks,” he said almost immediately as Jun sat down across from him. Nino leaned his elbow on the table, propping his head up lazily. “Appreciate you coming.”
Jun turned over the other empty cup at the table, clinking it against the saucer nervously. He poured himself a cup and eyed Nino warily. “What the hell happened?”
“FBI car’s a piece of shit. Brakes went out.”
“Went out?”
He nodded. Didn’t need to tell Jun they’d been cut. So long as he didn’t look him in the eye, he could keep right on lying to him. “Ran through a red light, couldn’t slow down. Damaged property of the United States Postal Service.”
Jun sipped his coffee slowly. “You alright? Need me to take you to the hospital?”
“Takizawa asked the same. I’m fine.” He remembered the way his head hurt after Jun had gotten him with that golf ball - this wasn’t that much worse. “Just have to sleep it off.”
Matsumoto was still worried, drumming his fingers on the table. They were distracting, and he couldn’t stop remembering the way Jun had lain behind him on the too small bed, brushing those fingers through his hair. Maybe it had been a mistake to have Matsumoto come. He should have called Aiba. Even Dr. Ohno might have been a better choice.
“Could have been killed,” Jun mumbled. “What if you were up in the hills?”
“Well, I wasn’t,” he pointed out. Yeah, he thought, you sound real cool. Real brave. He finished the rest of the coffee, pulling out a couple dollars from his wallet and tossing them down on the table. “Come on. Don’t feel like sticking around here too much longer tonight.”
Matsumoto nodded solemnly, following him from the coffee shop. “Parked round back,” Jun said quietly as they made their way around the building in the misty rain. He could feel Jun, walking behind him extra close, felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling from his proximity. Even under his coat, he was shivering as the light raindrops pattered softly against the material.
He could have been up in the hills. He could have been on a sharp curve. He could have tried to brake and gone tumbling over the side of a cliff like one of the sharp turns on Mulholland. He really could have been killed.
“Car accident,” he’d said abruptly on the phone, not even introducing himself when Jun had picked up. “Can you get me a ride back to the hotel?”
And Jun had come, even after he’d been an asshole all week, leaving those reports on his desk and disappearing. Running his own investigation while Matsumoto probably had Kimura, the Mayor, the whole fucking town breathing down his neck. And then Nino was investigating Sho, who cried and apologized to Erika Toda one day and cut brake lines on sedans the next. Sho who Jun admired so much.
He stopped, nearly crumpling sideways as he sagged against the damp brick of the coffee shop. He could be dead right now at the bottom of a ravine, waiting for someone to find him - waiting for someone to come claim him. “Mr. and Mrs. Ninomiya, is this your son?”
“Jun,” he said quietly, breathlessly, and his back hit the brick. He was too stunned to protest when Jun’s lips found his jaw. It had been so long, so long since he’d felt anything close to this and the sensation was jarring. All Nino could do was shut his eyes, shutting out the world and the rather disgusting alley behind the humble coffee shop.
Matsumoto was desperate, consumed with worry, sloppily dragging his mouth along Nino’s jawline. But he was also hesitant. Every time Jun’s lips came close to Nino’s he’d pull back, moving elsewhere. Finally, he groaned, fumbling to find Jun’s face with his hands and opening his eyes. He blinked, seeing a fat raindrop land on Jun’s forehead, sliding lazily down to hit his fingertip.
His reason. He prided himself on clear thinking, on reason. But everything was getting muddled where Jun was involved. In the month they’d known one another, Matsumoto’s presence had wormed its way into his mind, falling into place like notes on a scale. Jun broke their staring contest first, looking down with an embarrassed laugh. Almost like a perfect star in one of those pictures that made women swoon.
Nino pulled him forward, closing the distance, and there was sudden heat between his legs as Jun gasped at the first hesitant meeting of their mouths. As if what had come before wasn’t real. Sharing a bed, waking up tangled together - it hadn’t meant anything. Just now, lips against skin - it hadn’t meant anything. But as he pushed his mouth against Jun’s, taking another measured breath and doing so again - this was real. Neither of them could deny it, ignore it.
“Kazu,” Jun breathed, bringing a trembling hand to Nino’s, pulling it down from his face. “We...we can’t.” But already, he could feel Jun’s arousal, insistent against his thigh.
“I know we can’t,” he replied, inhaling deeply. Rain mixed with Jun, like a heady drug. “I know we can’t.”
But Jun wasn’t moving, still keeping him back against the wall. Was it another competition, another battle of wits for them now? “You’re such a bastard,” Jun was mumbling as Nino stroked his cheek, brushing raindrops from the man’s pale skin.
“Feeling’s mutual,” he whispered back. He tried to move forward a bit, get away from the unforgiving brick, and Jun didn’t move. Instead, their bodies brushed closer.
“Jesus,” Jun moaned.
“Move,” he gritted. “Get out of the way.” If Jun didn’t move, he was going to shove him. “Please.”
Matsumoto backed up, running a hand through his damp hair. Nino felt like his entire body was aflame, and he already missed Jun’s closeness. It felt like years since they’d been in the coffee shop, and he cleared his throat, walking with shuffling steps to Jun’s car. This was bad. Hell, this was the worst thing that could have happened.
There was a case. There was a killer on the loose who had to be brought to justice. No matter how good it felt to have Jun surrounding him, to feel his hot mouth against his skin, there was no time for this. His body was still shaking as he sat in the back seat of the car, sighing and leaning back against the leather. If he sat up in front, only God knew what would happen.
Jun said nothing as he got the car running, turning on the windshield wipers as the rain started to fall more insistently. The palm trees were swaying along the dark boulevards as Matsumoto took him back to his hotel.
“Be in tomorrow,” Jun mumbled as he pulled in the hotel’s front drive. The detective’s gaze did not waver from the windshield wipers, streaking the glass. “I doubt Takizawa’s giving you another car, so come in and we’ll see where we are.”
Nino wondered if “we’ll see where we are” was really in reference to the case. He pulled his coat around him, still aching between his thighs for release. He didn’t bother saying good night to Jun, just slamming the car door and heading inside.
He could barely get the room key in the lock. He stripped off his wet clothes, suddenly feeling the headache coming back with a vengeance. A hot bath would have been perfect, but instead he settled himself under the sheets, squeezing his eyes shut.
The gasp Jun had made when their lips touched. He couldn’t get it out his mind. “Damn you,” he muttered, reaching under the scratchy sheet. “Damn you, Matsumoto.” He bit his lip hard enough to tear the tender skin, gripping the edge of the mattress tight. His hand was no substitute for Jun’s, but he made do.
He thought of Jun’s mouth, warm and dangerous. How sloppy with need it had been. How sloppy and desperate the pair of them had been. It had been so long for the both of them, hadn’t it? His whole body was shaking as he continued, sweat at his temples. “Jun, oh god, Jun.”
The rain was pounding the window. Jun had tasted like coffee and expensive cigarettes. Nino had nearly died, and he had to keep it secret. Jun’s lips, on the rim of the coffee mug - Jun’s lips somewhere else. He came with a low sigh, hand moving until he was almost in tears.
He’d nearly died tonight, and the only thing more frightening than that was what he was feeling for Jun Matsumoto.