The child psychologist sure is taking his sweet time. Toshiro thought, sitting at his desk and staring at the conference room that Nana and Dr. Yamamoto had gone through an hour ago.
Toshiro was pulled from his thoughts by Ryusuke who had two steaming cups in hand. The young detective handed one to Toshiro.
"Green tea to help bring you back to the world of the living. I still think you should've gone to the doctor." Ryusuke said, pulling up a chair to Toshiro's desk.
"Bah, I'm fine. Just a headache." Toshiro said, not taking his eyes off the door.
"Just a headache? Toshi? You were stumbling around the room talking to yourself like a mad man." The younger detective hissed, getting close to his partner to scold him. "The chief is suspicious but I managed to talk him out of giving you a breathalyzer test." Ryusuke spoke in a hushed but serious tone.
Toshiro still didn't move his eyes from the door.
Focus. Just a bit harder. Come on, you did it at the house, now it's time to prove to yourself that you're not crazy! Toshiro's head was shaking from the strain of focus, his eyes watering from not blinking.
"Toshiro!" Ryusuke hissed. Toshi relented and looked over at his partner. "Drink the damn tea! Get it all out of your system. If anyone sees you like this, they'll talk to the chief for sure, and I don't think I can stop him a second time!" Ryusuke hissed.
Toshiro looked over at the young man, his shirt black hair, gelled and styled in the fashion of the day, his face clean shaven, and his body in the prime of youth.
"I used to be like you, you know. I stopped shaving after my third year as a detective. Stopped doing my hair soon after that." Toshiro explained. Ryu gave him a look.
"What the hell are you talking about?" The young man asked.
"This job, life, really, took a lot out of me. Enjoy it while it lasts." Toshiro lamented. Ryu just shook his head.
"Yareyare, stop thinking about such depressing things. You need to start thinking of an explanation about how you found the girl. If you don't come up with an explanation, people will start to think you put her there..." Ryusuke suggested.
Toshiro looked up from his tea. He was subdued, tired, and hungover, but he still wouldn't let this suggestion stand.
"How dare you? I would never hurt anyone, especially not a child. If you think for one second—" Toshiro began speaking quicker before Ryusuke cut him off.
"I don't! I wouldn't dream of it. But other people might. Especially because of your daughter." Ryuske insisted.
Toshiro slammed his fist on the desk, spilling a bit of the tea. People in the office looked over at him curiously, but Toshi didn't care.
"How dare you! Mention that again, and I'll have to do something that they'll take my badge for!" Toshiro growled.
Ryusuke just shook his head and frowned.
A door clicked and the two men looked over at the conference room door where Doctor Yamamoto stood waiting.
"Gentlemen, she's ready for you." The small, thin man said.
Toshiro looked over at Ryusuke, their eyes met, and the older detective couldn't hide the anger from his eyes, but he gave a nod of preparedness, and Ryu returned it. Toshiro and his partner got up, tea in hand, and entered the small conference room where the child was being kept.
"Hello, I'm Detective Ryusuke Tamaguchi, this is my partner Detective Toshiro Nakagawa, we'd like to ask you a few questions, if it's not too much trouble." Ryusuke said.
I used to take the lead on speaking to kids. After Chihiro, Ryu took over without a word. I thank him and hate him for that. Toshiro thought, trying to avoid eye contact with the child who's stare he felt on him.
"How did you find me, mister?" Nana asked, ignoring Ryusuke and instead staring at Toshiro with sharp, curious eyes.
Ryusuke looked at the ground and pretended to inspect the door, trying to hide his surprise
Poor bastard, he's never had kids, he doesn't know they can smell fear. Toshiro had an internal laugh before:
"Well...I'm a detective, aren't I? It's my job to find people." Toshiro answered with a crooked smile and a breath of a chuckle.
"No one ever finds me. I played hide and seek all the time at school and at home and no one ever found me." Nana said without missing a beat.
Toshiro chuckled a bit.
She's persistent, I like that.
"As a detective, I've been playing hide and seek professionally for longer than you've been alive, so I'd say I'm a bit better than your classmates." Toshiro chuckled.
She doesn't know about me hearing her song, right? There's no way she can know...is there?
"So does that mean you're going to find Hanako and Tomohiro? The monster took them away, but it didn't find me." Nana asked.
Toshiro looked over at the psychologist who handed him a drawing.
It was well done, for a seven year old, it depicted a tall girl and a slightly shorter boy being carried away by a huge black monster with bile-yellow eyes as they passed by a smaller little girl in the closet. The monster had a tail that ended in what looked like a spear head and the beast had long black hair, longer than the hair of any woman that trailed behind it. Toshiro looked at the psychologist quizzically. The psychologist only shrugged. Toshi looked back at the child and showed her her drawing.
"You drew this?" He asked. The girl nodded. "Can you tell me what's happening here?" Toshiro continued.
"That's Hanako, and that's Tomohiro, they're being carried away by the monster, and that's me hiding." Nana explained, pointing to each of the figures in turn.
Toshiro and Ryusuke exchanged a look of confusion.
"You're saying a monster did this? It wasn't a man or a woman?" Ryuske inquired .
"Well, it talked like a woman...or, erm, a little girl. She told Hano and Tomo that she was taking them somewhere and that they shouldn't be afraid."Nana spoke quickly and in a hushed tone, as if the beast were in the room with them.
"Did the monster say anything else?" Ryusuke asked.
Nana shook her head.
"Hmm, ok, I'm going with my partner to talk to the doctor outside, we'll be right back." Ryusuke said. All the men stood up and exited the room.
"Doc, what the hell is she talking about? It's a fantasy story. Were you able to get anything that made sense out of her?" Toshiro asked.
"No." The doctor said, shaking his head. "She told me the exact same story she told you." He explained.
"But why would she make up a monster like that, Doc? She has to know it's important that we know what the perp looks like, right?" Ryusuke asked. The psychologist shook his head.
"It's not that simple, children process and rationalize things differently. This tragedy was too much for her to bear and so she made it make sense in her head. She thinks only a monster would kill her parents and steal her siblings and so she made a monster do it. She may yield a description, but you'll have to be patient." The doctor explained, in a tone Toshiro didn't like.
Why's he talking to us like that? The low, slow, calm voice like he's trying to lull us to sleep. We're not his patients.
"Oi, go back in there and speed things up, will ya? We have a little less than seven days before the next killing and I need to know what this bastard looks like." Toshiro said, trying to show the young doctor that he meant business.
The bespectacled doctor sighed, a highly pretentious sigh.
"I can talk to her some more to see if I can get anything else, but I doubt it would speed things up, children are honest but their perceptions of the world are imperfect. She could easily leave out key details no matter how hard I probe." The doctor explained, heading back toward the door to the meeting room, a smug look plastered on his face
"Yeah, yeah, do whatever you gotta do and we'll be waiting right here for the results." Toshiro spat, quickly loosing patience for the pencil-necked egg-head.
Of course, he wouldn't know what children are like, he didn't have his own for very long, how could he?
"Oi, what did you say, you bastard?!" Toshiro shouted, grabbing the doctor by his collar, spinning him around, and slamming him against the wall.
"W-what? I didn't say anything, are you crazy?" The psychologist asked.
"Toshiro! What the hell are you doing? Let him go!" Ryusuke exclaimed, pulling Toshiro away from the young man.
Toshiro let go and the doctor scampered off to the meeting room. Toshiro looked around him and pushed Ryusuke's hands off of him.
Everyone was staring at them.
"Get back to work! Show's over." Toshiro barked at the stunned crowd of law enforcement before heading back towards his office with Ryusuke hot on his trail.
Ryu managed to get inside the office before Toshi could slam the door.
"What the hell was that, Toshi?!" Ryusuke demanded. "You can't lash out like that, not in front of the other officers, and especially not when Goro Kikuchi and the rest of the parasite press are outside waiting for any story to fill their rags with!" Ryusuke was fired up, and Toshiro knew there was no escaping the question.
So, the old detective popped open his flask, took a seat at his desk, and took a swig before answering.
"You heard him talking about me like that, talking about Chihiro like that, he deserved it!" Toshiro raged, taking another drink of his flask.
"Toshi! Stop drinking that crap!" And the young man seized the flask and threw it aside. "It's making you crazy! The doctor didn't say anything to you." Ryusuke pleaded.
Toshiro smirked at this.
"You saying I'm hearing things now?"
"Yes! Back at the house, just now with the doctor!" The young detective was indignant he had to point out the obvious, then realised: "Say, how did you find the girl?" Ryusuke's question sounded a lot more like an accusation to Toshiro.
"Detective's intuition." Toshiro lied.
"Bullshit. Tell the truth. I've had your back for three years now, you owe me that much." Ryusuke countered.
Toshi got up out of his chair and retrieved his flask from the ground.
Damn, he spilled all of it. No liquid courage to make it come out, guess I have to do it dry...
"I...I heard her singing." Toshi finally answered, tossing the spent flask into his chair.
"You heard her singing?" Ryusuke asked
"That's what I said, isn't it?!" Toshi shouted, turning on his partner.
"Toshiro, that place was swarming with cops and CSI, the shutter clicks and the chatter, not to mention that we were on the second floor, there's no way you heard her." Ryusuke pleaded, trying to get the man to talk sense.
"I didn't—I didn't hear her...voice. I...I heard her...her thoughts." Toshi explained
"W-what? You're saying you read her mind?" Ryusuke asked, looking nervous now.
"Yes, damn it! Just like I heard you worrying about me at the scene, just like I heard everyone's thoughts at the scene, and just like I heard that sweater vest wearing son of a bitch out there insulting me and my family!" Toshiro growled like a mad dog, throwing accusatory fingers all over.
But his energy was spent, so he collapsed back into his chair instead of continuing to rage. Toshiro stole a glance to get Ryusuke's reaction and saw that the young detective was staring at the floor in disbelief, taking the chair opposite him.
"Toshi...why didn't you say something?" Ryusuke shuddered.
"It started happening the night we found Nana, I just thought I had drank too much. I didn't want anyone to think I was going crazy." Ryusuke explained.
"So tell me, what am I thinking now?" Ryusuke asked, before staring intently at Toshiro.
Toshiro rolled his eyes and was about to tell the young man off, but then he saw how serious Ryusuke looked.
Fine, I'll humour him...
The old man made eye contact with his partner and pushed using an invisible muscle in his head, the one he felt flexing uncontrollably the night they found Nana. Toshiro gasped, for it was as if a wave had crashed over him, he could clearly hear Ryusuke's voice in his head coming in waves.
Unagi. Ocha. Birthday. Weekend. Firecracker. Tanabata.
"Why are you thinking random words instead of sentences? Birthday, Unagi, tanabata, you couldn't have picked something that made more sense?" Toshiro complained.
Ryusuke couldn't hide his astonishment, he jumped up sharply and fell back against the wall of the office.
"Y-you, you did it! You r-really d-d-did it!!" Ryusuke cried.
"Of course I did. I'm a cop, I can't lie." The old man joked.
Toshiro left the office early that day, he wasn't feeling well after using his power and Ryusuke wouldn't stop taking glances at him to check if he was reading his mind.
"I'm home!" Toshiro called as he took off his shoes at the entrance of his home.
"Welcome back." His wife called back in a passionless monotone.
When they first got married, Sango would rush to the door and pounce on him the moment she heard the lock click. After Chihiro was born, it was two lovely women excitedly greeting him at the door. He couldn't help but remember how happy those days had been. When he'd come home and they'd have dinner together, Chihiro would ask him about work and Sango would chastise her:
"Chihiro! Your father has been at work all day, don't ask him about it, tell him about your day instead." Sango would say.
"Right. Sorry papa." Chihiro woudl apologize.
"Nonsense, I understand. But my work is too much for a young lady like you to hear about. What did you do today?" Toshi has asked.
His heart would always skip a beat as Chihiro's face lit up.
"I drew you a picture!" Chihiro said before shooting off to her room to retrieve it.
"That girl, I swear she forgets her manners more than I'd like." Sango had sighed.
"She's just young, she'll grow out of it eventually." Toshiro had said, taking Sango's warm hand and returning her even warmer smile.
Chihiro brought the picture down and explained that it was the family all together. She gave it to Toshiro as a gift and to this day it sits framed in his office.
But all of that is over now. Toshiro just came home to Sango's hollow voice and the audio of the home video playing on the tv. Toshiro came up behind Sango who was sitting on the couch. He put his hands on her shoulders.
Damn it, I can't help her. I wish she would just tell me what to do or say. I wish I knew what to say, I—
Toshiro's thoughts stopped dead in his mind.
Maybe if I...
It was easier than getting into Ryusuke's head, this wave being much stronger. Toshiro focused in on the noise and:
I need her. I miss her. Why doesn't he talk about it? He pretends like she never existed...
Toshiro couldn't help but cry, his grip on Sango tightened. Sobs broke out of him, unbidden, and Sango turned to look.
"Toshiro?" She said, turning around to look at him, kneeling on the sofa. She took his face into her hands.
"I can't talk about her, it hurts too much." Toshiro sobbed.
She pulled his head down and hugged him.
"That is why you must. If you don't let the pain out, it just stays inside, hurting you with no escape." Sango whispered into his ear.
Toshiro pulled away from her and sat on the couch beside his wife. He pulled her close to him, and for the first time in a long time, he watched the video with Sango. Hearing his daughter's voice hurt him almost as much as losing her. But he knew he had to keep watching.