Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Some five years passed before Hisoka returned to Nagoya, and in that time, Nagoya Station, already one of the biggest in Japan, had gotten even bigger.

Hisoka stood outside the subway turnstiles, his arms crossed, and glared dirtily at the sign overhead listing the various train and subway lines.  Alongside the familiar names he had learned his first time in Nagoya, there was a new addition:  AONAMI LINE, which was included on the sign with an arrow pointing in the same direction as the JR and shinkansen lines.  "How many more train lines do you need?" Hisoka muttered.

Beside him, Tsuzuki bumped their shoulders together.  "Nagoya is one of the Big Three, you know," he said, a friendly reminder.  "A big city's going to need a lot of public transit!"

Hisoka let out a sigh of mingled resignation and exasperation.  "Come on," he said, beckoning Tsuzuki along.  "We've got a visit to make."

"I know," Tsuzuki said, his voice soft.  "I remember."

They picked their way through the crowds of people, making their way out of the station and into the open air.  Outside, Hisoka paused for a moment, looking off into the distance, and he saw a familiar sight--a too-wide boulevard teeming with taxis, skyscrapers reaching for the heavens, the spire of Hishou gleaming in the sunlight.  The path he walked, too, was familiar; so was Tsuzuki's presence by his side.  "This way," he said, and he led the way down the sidewalk.

Then, abruptly, he stopped.  Ahead of them were the familiar stairs, and beneath them--

"It's gone," Hisoka said numbly.

The space beneath the staircase was empty.

"It's gone," Hisoka repeated.  Then panic spiked inside him, and he whirled on Tsuzuki with wide eyes.  "Serve's statue is gone!"

Tsuzuki frowned, his eyes narrowing.  "It can't have just vanished," he said.

"Well, it's not there, is it?" Hisoka snapped.  "That statue is important!  That statue is how Serve--"

"I know, Hisoka," Tsuzuki interrupted.  "It's one of the ways to keep her memory alive, right?  I know.  But it has to have gone somewhere.  I'm sure we can find out."

Hisoka took a deep breath, quelling the worry inside him.  If Serve's statue was really gone--if there were even fewer opportunities for people to remember her--no, he couldn't entertain that possibility, not yet.  "There's an information center inside the station," he recalled.  "Let's go ask, maybe they know something."  He set off at a trot.

The Tourist Information Center was inside the station, almost exactly halfway between the JR lines and the subway lines.  Positioned in the middle of the passageway and with floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows, it was hard to miss.  There wasn't anyone inside except for the employees, either, so when Hisoka marched inside with Tsuzuki trailing after, the two women behind the counter both turned toward them and said, almost in unison, "Welcome!"

Hisoka mustered up a polite smile.  "I've got a question I was hoping you could help me with," he said.  "There used to be a statue outside the station, near the taxi stand?  A statue of a dog.  It's not there anymore--do you know what happened to it?"

The younger woman, so fresh-faced she was probably just out of college, frowned in polite puzzlement.  "Dog statue?" she asked.

"Oh, I know the one," the other woman said wisely.  "There used to be a statue of a dog by that exit," she told her coworker with matronly patience.  She turned back to Hisoka, thinking.  "I understand that they moved it to Sakae?"

Hisoka perked up.  "Sakae?" he asked.  It wasn't a part of Nagoya he'd visited, he was pretty sure, but the name rang a bell.

The younger woman brightened and promptly produced a pamphlet.  "It's very easy to get to," she said earnestly, unfolding the pamphlet to reveal a map of downtown Nagoya.  "Here's Nagoya Station," and she clicked a pen and circled Nagoya Station on the map.  "You can take the Higashiyama Line straight to Sakae Station."  She scrawled a line along the yellow Higashiyama Line on the map, then circled Sakae Station.  "The entrance to the subway is straight ahead," she added, gesturing.  "Sakae Station is just a couple of stops down."

She pushed the pamphlet a bit closer to Hisoka, silent encouragement, and so he picked it up even though he didn't really need it.  "Thank you," he said, then turned his attention to the other woman.  "I don't suppose you know where in Sakae they moved the statue to?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," she replied apologetically.  "But if you ask someone at Sakae Station, I'm sure they'll be able to help you."

He could only hope.  "Thanks," he said, already turning for the exit.  "Let's go, Tsuzuki."

They left the information center and headed toward the subway.  "I told you it didn't just vanish," Tsuzuki said smugly.

"Don't gloat until we've found it," Hisoka muttered.  "Remember, if Serve doesn't have enough people remembering her, she won't have the strength to protect people.  That statue is important to helping keep her memory alive.  I know it wasn't in a great place, but it was at Nagoya Station, and that's a lot better than nothing.  If it's in an even worse place at Sakae--"

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Tsuzuki said.  "Let's check out the situation first."

Sakae, it turned out, was essentially an extension of downtown.  Hisoka hadn't gone to Sakae Station when he'd last come to Nagoya, but its subway station bore a great similarity to the that of Nagoya Station--multiple subway lines, an enormous labyrinthine shopping center, and hordes of people and their nearly unbearable multitudes of emotions.  Hisoka gritted his teeth as he studied the numerous placards posted to the walls, with maps of Sakae aboveground and underground and lists of where each exit led to.  The abundance of information was less helpful than he'd hoped.

"There's another tourist info center here," Tsuzuki commented, pointing at one sign.

It was as promising a lead as any.  "Let's go, then," Hisoka decided, and they headed off in the direction indicated.  It was a bit of a walk, but soon they emerged through glass doors into what looked like a sunken plaza, several storeys climbing up around them and an oval of open sky far above them.  The Tourist Information Center was easy to find, and when Hisoka asked about the statue, the man working there instantly knew what he was talking about.

"Oh, it's by the bus terminal," the man said.  "The city bus terminal, not the terminal here at Oasis 21."  He, too, quickly produced a pamphlet.  In fact, it was the same one as Hisoka had received at Nagoya Station.  "This is where we are right now," he said, circling the large oval titled Oasis 21.  "If you take those stairs," and he gestured off to the side, "that will take you up to the ground floor.  You'll be right here," and he starred a spot on the map, "and you just follow Hisaya-Odori."  He drew a line down the main thoroughfare.  "The statue's right about here," he concluding, scribbling a little circle.  "It's right near the Sakae Station subway entrance--you can't miss it."

Hisoka felt his eyebrows go up.  Can't miss it?  "Thanks," he said, gathering up the map.

"You're welcome!" the man said pleasantly.  "Enjoy your time here!"

Hisoka and Tsuzuki left the Tourist Information Center, and Hisoka looked down at his two identical pamphlets.  "What am I supposed to do with these?" he asked.

Tsuzuki looked at him with an entirely too practiced guilelessness.  "Whatever you want?"

Well, it was hard to get a better opening than that.  Hisoka shoved the pamphlets at Tsuzuki, who squawked and scrambled to keep from dropping them.  "Well, I guess that's an option," Tsuzuki said ruefully, and then he opened one and peered at the scrawled directions.  "Are you trusting me to read a map?"

Hisoka shot him an unimpressed look.  "It's a straight line.  We're not going to get lost."

"We hope," Tsuzuki joked.

They climbed up the stairs and emerged onto the sidewalks of Sakae.  The roads here were broad and busy, with convoluted traffic lights and impressive amounts of sidewalk space that were quite filled with people of all walks of life.  Hisoka drifted a bit closer to Tsuzuki as they strolled down the east side of Hisaya-Odori, alongside a stretch of park.  On either side of them towered office buildings and department stores, and behind them was a pale TV tower, and in the distance he caught a glimpse of what looked like a fountain.  It was a nice area, Hisoka grudgingly had to admit, as long as you didn't mind the teeming throngs of people.

"Thanks, Tsuzuki," Hisoka said quietly.

Tsuzuki had been humming idly beneath his breath, but he fell silent at Hisoka's words and cast him a startled glance.  "Thanks for what?"

"For coming with me to Nagoya," Hisoka replied.  "You didn't have to."

Tsuzuki chuckled, low and affectionate.  "I know I didn't have to," he said.  "But I know it's important to you.  And besides," and the light in his eyes was so fond that it hurt, "Nagoya is full of important memories to me, too."

Hisoka's face heated up, and he ducked his head and shouldered Tsuzuki a bit harder than necessary.  Tsuzuki grunted and stumbled, but then he laughed and nudged Hisoka back, with far more overt affection that just made Hisoka blush harder.

And then they stopped at a red light, and Hisoka saw it.

It was just across the street, at the other side of the intersection.  It stood beside the entrance to a flight of stairs descending down into the underground, and before it was an open plaza, and above it nothing but empty sky.  It was, indeed, impossible to miss.