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Seven knew a thing or two about interrogating folks. He’d been on the other side of that bright-ass lamp a countless number of times, so when the crazy chick they picked up in the middle of the desert flashed a badge he wasn’t familiar with and started giving them orders and asking uncomfortable questions, he figured he knew what their little troupe of panic-attacks-waiting-to-happen was in for.
Nope.
Seven thought he’d met some brutal guys in his time on the force. He also knew that there were plenty of people who thought HE was one of those brutal guys. And he could be, sometimes. But these special security something-or-others? They were artists of torture. The way they treated the absolute insanity the players of the Nonary Game had been through with such banality was driving him up a fuckin’ wall. It’s like they had gone out of their way to pick out the most monotone, beige, repetitive, mind-numbing people that had ever existed to work their case.
All he wanted was to hear one person go “Holy shit!” Just one! But everybody he’d seen so far had treated getting trapped in a life-or-death puzzle party with a bunch of people who can do brain magic as just a normal, everyday thing.
He was getting too old for this shit.
But hey, at least the coffee was good. And the facility they’d all been corralled into was actually pretty nice for being in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Nevada.
And that’s where Seven found himself now. They had finally all gotten a break together, and everyone, immediately seeking out the comfort of other warm bodies, squished themselves onto the surprisingly nice couch in the common room. They had discussed taking turns napping on it, but none of them wanted to be comfortable while the rest were miserable. They never knew when the SOIS folks would call them back in for more questions, anyway. (Honestly, if one of them had suggested it, they probably would have piled together like cats in a sunbeam on the cold hard floor.) As it was, Seven sat in the middle, with Clover and Light on his right, and Junpei and Lotus on his left, all cradling cups of delicious life-giving caffeine in their hands and pretending they weren’t all so tired that they wanted to die. Except Clover that is- fuck if he knew why she of all people was still chipper when even her brother looked like a stressed out and exhausted mess.
He wished he could have been with all of them in the interrogation room. But he was a cop, not a lawyer.
He looked up from his Styrofoam cup at the rest of the gang.
The reason Clover looked no worse for wear, he guessed, was because she had been paired up with that Alice girl for most of the time they were there. (When the woman, dressed head to toe in ancient Egyptian garb, introduced herself in the jeep, Seven and Junpei had shared horrified looks over the heads of the others. They still weren’t convinced she wasn’t a recently thawed thousand-year-old mummy. At least, he wasn’t.) Speaking of Junpei, Seven had noticed early on that the kid was crying on and off, but he was afraid to ask what was up after all that weird shit he was screaming to himself about in the incinerator. He figured if Junpei wanted to talk to him about it, he would. Light kept nodding off and startling awake despite the nice coffin nap he had earlier, and he still didn’t have normal clothes on, despite asking when they got there for something less creepy to wear. And Lotus…
Lotus still looked like a million bucks on top of half her age, but the deep bags under her eyes were new. Now that he thought about it, he remembered Lotus asking for something normal to wear, also.
Wouldn’t that be a damn shame.
Without his express permission, Seven’s eyes wandered past Junpei to get another good look at her… Everything. It was all nice to look at. Real nice.
He snapped them back.
There were times and places for those kinds of thoughts and this was definitely 100% not one of them. He’d resigned himself already to not having any kind chance with Lotus. Regardless of the whole worst night of their lives thing, even under perfectly normal circumstances- look at her, and then look at him. There’s just no way, right? Right. No reason to get his hopes up.
Seven had successfully derailed his train of thought when the conductor of the metaphorical locomotive downed the rest of her coffee in one big gulp. He watched her as she put the empty cup down, stood, and beckoned to him.
“Hey, Seven”, Lotus began, in a more subdued and quiet version of her usual voice that nevertheless held its usual pull, “come with me for a sec.”
He figured it wasn’t a request.
“Uh” he replied eloquently, putting his own cup down and standing up. There was a squeak of protest, or maybe relief, from the poor piece of furniture that was previously holding his bulk. He stretched, his back and shoulders cracking ominously- foretelling the soreness that was sure to come- and followed her down the little hallway with the coffee machine in it that was adjacent to the room they were kept in.
She walked to the end of the hall before turning to him and leaning back against the wall on one side. He did the same on the opposite side.
“So, uh” he took off his beanie and scratched at his temple “whaddaya want, Lotus?”
“Hazuki.” She blurted out, sounding almost nervous. (He must be more tired than he thought to be hearing things. Lotus didn’t get nervous.)
He raised an eyebrow at the apparent nonsequitor. “What?”
She frowned a little. “My name. You don’t have to call me Lotus anymore. It’s Hazuki Kashiwabara. You can just call me Hazuki, though.”
There was a part of him that was trying very hard to read too much into this. He wanted to punch it in the face.
It took him a moment to come back to reality. “Oh, uh. Alright. Whaddaya want, Hazuki?”
She snorted at him. “Don’t you get cheeky with me. When someone tells you their name, you’re supposed to introduce yourself, too.” She made a hurry up motion “So get on with it.”
He chuckled and put his hat back on. “Who’s bein’ cheeky now, huh? Maybe I just wanna be called Seven for the rest of my life- ever thought of that?”
Hazuki didn’t say anything. Just raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him and waited.
“Alright, alright, alright. Just stop giving me the mom look. You gotta promise not to laugh though okay? I’m a sensitive soul y’know.”
“Yes, I know.” She said with a smile. “But that’s ridiculous. Why on earth do you think I’d laugh?”
He sighed. “Because my name is Tarou Yamada.”
She laughed.
“I told you-”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” She gasped out between giggles, “That’s just too precious. My God.” She sucked in a big breath of air and let it out with a whooshing sound. “Tarou Yamada. I don’t know how you expected me not to laugh.”
He frowned with a twist of his lips. On anyone else this expression would be called a pout. “Aw c’mon, Lo- Hazuki, you don’t gotta be mean about it. I told you already, I’m sensitive.”
“It’s just that,” She interrupted herself with another short fit of giggles. “I can just imagine, somebody’s investigating a case with an unidentified man and you just look up from doing paperwork or something and shout ‘What!?’every five minutes and I can’t get it out of my head-”
“Hey, now, that only happened like three or fifty times, tops, before we worked it out.” That really punchable part of his brain was thoroughly enjoying making her laugh. This was how she was supposed to look, it thought. Flushed and smiling, making snarky comments between deep belly laughs. She shouldn’t have to be scared or miserable like last night ever again.
She laughed for a couple more moments before finally pulling herself together. Shaking her head, she reached into a pocket in her pants that he honestly wouldn’t have thought existed in her crazy outfit if he hadn’t seen her reach into it, and pulled out a folded up piece of paper that she handed to him.
He took it, gave it a once-over, and said, “Alrighty then, I’m officially confused. What’s this all about?”
“Just open the thing, dumbass.” She replied with a smirk.
He unfolded it to find that it was from the little legal pads the SOIS goons had given them to write on during the interrogation. Written on it was a string of numbers, then a string of letters and symbols. Out of reflex he worked out the digital root of the string of numbers before realizing what they were. (Funnily enough, it worked out to seven.) When his tired brain did finally figure it out what he was looking at after seeing Hazuki’s name written at the top, all he could say was, “I- What? This is…”
“My contact details, Tarou-san.” She said with a flirtatious lilt to her voice and a batting of her lashes.
What.
“What?”
She started laughing again. “What, you didn’t notice? You’re a detective, shouldn’t you be better at reading people than this? I thought I was being pretty obvious.”
The punchable part of his brain had taken over. Apparently it didn’t work as well as the rest, because all he could manage was, “I- You- Me- But-”
She just smiled at him, floundering there like a fish on a hook. “Aw, do you really not get it?” She took a step toward him, giving him a thorough once-over. He could practically feel her eyes raking over him. “I’ve seen you looking at me, you know- because I’ve been looking, too. And I’m not one to deny myself when I want something.” She was the devil. Surely, most men and a hell of a lot of women would fall at her feet with one word from that smoky voice.
But detective Tarou Yamada, the mountain of muscle formerly known as Seven, was not most men.
He shook his head. “This is goddamn ridiculous. Obvious? About what? Ninety-nine percent of the time all I could get outta you were insults and utter disdain. This is more than completely out of left field, the ball’s landed in my mitt after fallin’ right outta the fuckin’ sky!” He took his hat back off as he spoke. All of a sudden he was sweating really hard.
She gave him a thoughtful look, but remained silent. So he continued on.
“Listen, I’m not a moron. If a woman like you was actually interested in me, I’d have no complaints. Trust me, it’s takin’ a lot of willpower to complain right now. But we’ve all had one hell of a night, and I’ve dealt with a lot of people right after they’ve been through crazy shit. It makes you do and say and think things you wouldn’t do under regular circumstances. It’s a little thing called post traumatic stress disorder, and its best friends, shock and dissociation. You’ve lost your sense of what’s normal and now you’re clingin’ to the first thing that makes you feel remotely safe. Look at me,” He gestured to his hulking form and then his scarred face, “I make most people feel safe, once they figure out I’m on their side and not a Yakuza hitman or somethin’. It’s not the right time or place for this- and I say all this assuming you’re not just fucking with me. Cut it out, Lotus.”
She had kept up the thoughtful look, looking as if she was listening to him intently. He couldn’t tell if she was really listening or not, but he hoped she was. This was important stuff.
The breaking of his heart? Not so important.
When Hazuki realized Tarou’s monologue was done, she smiled and said “Thank you for worrying about my mental health. You’re always considerate of everyone else before yourself, aren’t you?” Her smile grew, and she looked him right in the eye and said, “That’s one of the reasons I like you so damn much.”
He growled at her “You’re not listening-”
“Shut up! It’s your turn to listen to me now.” Her smile had fallen, and she was leaning forward with her hands on her hips. Oh boy, lecture time. “I’ll admit to a couple things. Yes, I was fucking with you a little bit a second ago. But only because I thought we had a good dialogue going and acting like a teenager who was bad at flirting would make you laugh. I’m not lying about anything.”
Suddenly, Hazuki appeared to fold in on herself. Gripping one elbow with the opposite hand, she now refused to meet his eyes. “And you’re right. You do make me feel safe, Tarou.” That was the first time she had said his name seriously, and she appeared to mull it over for a moment before continuing. “In that hideous, horrible, awful situation, you made me feel safe in a world I’ve been terrified of since my daughters were abducted nine years ago.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
She barked out a sudden coarse laugh. “Yeah, ‘oh’. I’m a grown-ass woman. I know what’s important to me. I know my own mind. I know what I want. And what I want is not to just throw away this gift you’ve given me. I’m not proposing. I’m not asking you to bend me over this table-” Woah, woah, woah, that’s a mental image he didn’t need right now- “I’m just asking for a chance. And you’re not an idiot, so you’re going to give it to me.”
Yeah he’d like to give it to her alright- bad mental image! Bad bad bad!
She continued, unaware of the things she was making his brain do. Actually, she was probably totally aware of what he was seeing behind his eyes right now. Deranged woman. “I’m no fool either, you know. You’re brilliant, courageous, determined, and basically my hero. A couple of scars don’t bother me, I’m not that superficial. Did you really think I’d let a catch you get away?”
He was a grown fucking man. A lot of people would consider him an old man at forty-five. A couple of compliments from a pretty lady shouldn’t be making him feel warm like this, shouldn’t be making his heart speed up and his stomach do flip-flops.
He shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. “You’re… You’re impossible. You fearless, scary woman. Goddammit. Yes.”
She raised that perfect eyebrow at him again. “Yes what?”
He stared at the floor and scuffed one boot on the tile. “Yes everything, all of it. Fuck! You’re right, I like you too, okay? I wanna give us a shot.”
She just blinked at him for a bit before a huge, impossibly beautiful smile transformed her whole face. “Glad you could finally see things my way.”
They just stood looking at each other for a while, and just as he began to wonder if she could feel the unfathomable thing between them, too, a noise that sounded suspiciously like “squee” rang out in the sterile, quiet space.
Simultaneously both Hazuki and Tarou turned toward the entrance to the hallway. They found four pairs of eyes staring at them, wide eyed.
Well, actually, it was three pairs of eyes. Light was still blind.
Strangely, Clover had her hand clapped over Alice’s mouth.
Seven glowered at the group and yelled “Are you serious?! You brats can’t give two people just a little bit of privacy for fifteen fuckin’ minutes?”
Clover snapped back. “Oh come on, did you really just expect us to ignore the only source of entertainment we’ve got in this joint? And Light would have been able to hear everything you said anyway so it doesn’t even matter!”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Fine! That’s fine. I’ll get you back for this later. But what the hell is she doing here?” He pointed at Alice.
She slapped Clover’s hand away from her face. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just a sucker for this kind of stuff!” She said in her slightly accented, but uncharacteristically enthusiastic voice. “I’m sorry I interrupted, but I’m the one who told the crew to give you a few extra minutes, so really, you should be thanking me-”
Seven put his head in his hands.
Lotus’ laughing could be heard even on the other side of the facility.
-
After the interrogation was over and everyone else had exchanged details, the SOIS promised to call them to facilities closer to where each of them lived in a few weeks for reasons they would not disclose at the time. They were all set to be put on separate flights for security reasons, and when the time came they were shuttled out of the facility in unmarked cars one by one with increments of an hour in between. Clover was the first to go, and she gave everyone, including Seven and even Alice, as big a hug as her little arms could muster before they lead her out. Light was next, and when he offered Seven a handshake, the big man crushed him in a hug, too. The blind man laughed as he returned the embrace, surprising Seven with his strength. Lotus was third, and instead of a hug, Seven got a kiss on the cheek. A promise of what was to come. Junpei was to go last, so when it was Seven’s time to leave, he gave the young man a hug and promised him they’d all see each other again real soon.
And then Seven went home. And that was it.
-
One Week Later
He didn’t know how those SOIS thugs accomplished it, but for now, detective Tarou Yamada- who, for just a handful of hours, had been known as Seven- had paid leave from the force for the foreseeable future. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on yet, but the organization had a base of some sort right outside of Tokyo, so he was told, and he would be meeting up with Junpei and Hazuki there soon.
Speaking of meeting with Hazuki, he opened up the messaging app on his phone, so he could read through the last mail she sent him again. The way she wrote wasn’t much different from the way she spoke. Totally blunt and to the point, not a frill to be seen.
We’re going out for dinner Friday at 8. I’ve attached directions to the restaurant, it’s one of my favorites. Dress casually. I will be paying for my own meal. I hope you like Korean barbecue and good beer.
Regards, Hazuki AKA Lotus
P.S. I miss you. I can’t wait to see you again.
Regards. What the hell. He smiled warmly at the little screen, put it down, and picked his book back up and tried to read.
He ended up putting it down and picking his phone back up without getting through an entire page.