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Maybe one trick was physical exertion.
A storm raged on outside, pouring down hard on everything beneath it.
It would make sense. Two hundred something years of psychological and medical study has proven that exercise significantly curbs stress levels. Pharmaceuticals and recreational drugs have advanced in that time, too. While they were capable of meddling with individual states of mind, they were still too temporary, too sticky. The human body, on the other hand, had not really changed in those two hundred years. Humanity’s base weaknesses remained the same until every bit of you was replaced. Even then, cybernetics only slow the process. Remarkable, how millions of years’ worth of evolution still maintained its fragile superiority. Stress relief through exercise remained the leading form of treatment.
Ginoza knew this firsthand. His therapist “strongly encouraged” physical activity (not alone, of course—always in tangent with CBT and DBT). While Ginoza had always been lithe, he was never the athletic type. Cardio was the best he could do at first, so he started with treadmills. His numbers stabilized and his stress levels indeed went down. But once he rejoined the world as a hound, he found that cardio wasn’t enough. Luckily for him, the PSB’s skyscraper offered an impressive athletic complex, and enforcers could go in and out without escorts. Dogs needed their exercise, after all. The only issue was the minor inconvenience of having to go up and down the building to get through his full routine. But outside of work, what else was he to do? Swimming and lifting were fantastic for his hue. Sparring so far proved to be far less rewarding.
It was during one of these mock-fights with the hologram-robot that it hit Ginoza. Even as a prodigy rookie, it was impressive how Akane Tsunemori still kept up with her more experienced enforcers. Having the right intellect didn’t always mean some newly minted inspector could handle running around for hours on the chase. That kind of athleticism required at least a year of daily practice for mere mortals.
The next realization knocked the air out of his lungs. Or, maybe it just dawned on him right as his back hit the stiff floor. Isn’t the ground here supposed to be padded? And weren’t these sparring partners supposed to go easy on you if you picked the easiest setting? Ginoza saw himself in the mirror, and all he could think was how pathetic. Sensing Ginoza’s coefficient rise, the machine stopped its offensive and offered a hand. It was a wonder, the enforcer thought, that Kogami made fighting these things look so easy.
Maybe she sparred. Just like he did.
Akane? With the way she held so tightly onto her dominator and how often she still shied away from direct, one-to-one combat, probably not. Ginoza stopped himself before continuing that train of thought. He already saw her enough during work hours. There was no need for him to think of his former subordinate at all, much less with any kind of bitterness. The thought of that sickened him more than the blows he had been dealt. Ginoza’s sparring partner, though just a robot, felt more like the embodiment of past mistakes. Maybe if you weren’t such a dick to her all the time, you could have a real conversation with her about it. But he can’t very well do that, can he? Not now. Not after...
“Hey, are you gonna be done soon?” Yayoi yawned. How long she had been standing at the doorway, Ginoza wasn’t sure. However long it was, though, it didn’t matter. He didn’t like the idea that someone may have seen this thing take him down just now.
“I’m done.”
As they traded places, Yayoi gave him a smug look. “Stay somewhere long enough, you can get used to anything.” Her voice faded as Ginoza quickened his pace.
No, thanks. He’s gonna stick to lifting. For now, it was time to eat.
The cafeteria was one of a handful of places in the PSB building that enforcers could go unsupervised. Protocol did not require him to sign anything, though Ginoza was sure that his biometrics were easy enough for the system to track. Not that it bothered him. At least, not anymore. The cafeteria even had a nice view. Ginoza figured out that it was emptiest in the late afternoon and the middle of the night. Less people meant more peace, and more sights uninterrupted. A necessity for clouded hues. At least that’s what he told himself. It was difficult for him to admit just how much he despised being around most people right now. Not for any normal, misanthropic reason. It was purely because Ginoza hated the idea of making himself even more of a fool than he already was. Who would want to see this shell of a former inspector? No one. Certainly not himself.
Years ago, he reminded himself. You were the one to watch, remember? And now look at you.
Lightning flashed just as Ginoza stepped out of the elevator. Thunder followed, only a few seconds behind, and the lights on the floor flickered with it. In the blink of an eye, all the lights went out.
“...great.” Power outage. These happened regularly in the age of analog power plants. Technology should have made these kinds of things impossible. A power outage, even the most temporary, would be catastrophic in this fully digital age. When your whole life was mostly a series of uploads and downloads, then how were you supposed to function without power? Millions of yen, dollars, pounds, lost in a sudden shutdown like this. On one hand, Ginoza was experiencing a true novelty, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event. Then again, this meant that all the automated cafeteria servers would be offline and, thus, shut down.
An alert popped up on the enforcer’s wrist comms: “EMERGENCY. TEMPORARY POWER OUTAGE. REMAIN CALM, REMAIN IN PLACE.” There were backups after all. Generators, solar-powered satellites, whathaveyou. Ginoza could only assume those would take over in times like this.
Ginoza was at least sure that some of the vending machines here were completely wireless. He just needed something quick until the servers came back online. Where those blasted machines were, however, he wasn’t too sure. He rarely spent time up here as an inspector. It was only now that he’s been severely demoted, when his ability to roam freely has been taken away, that he’s found himself looking for reasons to come up here in his precious spare time. What was once just an oversized room with oversized tables and bland flavors offered some a clear view. A better peek into the outside world, but without being deeply entrenched in its evil. The out there had teeth, and it was hungry. From here, though, Ginoza only saw skylines and the tiniest specks of humanity. It would be a lie to deny that the lightning struck him with reverence for the heavens.
As the rain hammered against the windows he passed by, Ginoza wondered if anyone had been caught outside by this storm. Certainly, this downpour was predicted, but the weatherman’s warnings were almost never heeded these days. For some strange reason, his mind circled back to Tsunemori, and he could picture her rushing home in this weather. Not that she was some ditz, always unprepared and unaware. He once thought that, sure, but now, he just thinks she’s too absorbed in her work to care for much else. He could imagine that woman, too focused, too honest, and far too patient, forgetting something as small as an umbrella. Though, knowing her, she would probably laugh it off eventually.
Physical exertion, huh?
Some lights flickered back on, dim, as a strange humming sound aroused his attention. A sign caught the enforcer’s eye. A recreation center one way, and the cafeteria behind him. Strange. He had never known there was a recreation center here. There was the pool on the 50th, martial training in the first basement subsection, and the gym was on the 14th floor. Was that new? He passed by another massive wall of glass just as lightning flashed, thunderstruck, and the lights flickered back off. It was dark and silent again.
Now would be the perfect time to escape. The all too familiar voice of guilt in the back of his head only ever articulated the worst intrusions. But it wasn’t wrong. This fully automated city required constant power. Without it, all the things that made it keep going were obsolete. Including the security systems.
There were other things in the way. Global tracking by the solar-powered satellites. Back-up generators (which should have been turning on by now). This blackout should at most last for ten minutes. Besides, Ginoza thought. I couldn’t just leave. He was an honorable man, one with the conviction to stick to his values. As much as he couldn’t forgive himself for his transgressions, Ginoza was no coward. At least, not anymore. Unlike some others, when the Sybil system judged him a latent criminal, the hound knew that it was only fair for him and the world that he stayed in his place.
He was in a dark, windowless hallway now. No vending machines here. The only light came from behind a single half-glass door just ahead. Ginoza took a moment to orient himself. He could just turn around, although he couldn’t see the rest of the hallway. Had he turned some corner? And there was something else: music. Probably from behind that door. A minor curiosity pushed him towards it. He’d just pass it by, maybe take a peek. He'd arrived at the recreation portion of this floor, and he wanted to know what people used this place for. Inside this rec-room was the small, shadowed figure of someone dancing across the empty room.
A flash of light rid the shadows on the dancer’s face for just a moment.
She balanced herself, pirouetted into a perfect spiral, then to a graceful arabesque. As Akane Tsunemori reached out, lightning struck relentlessly behind her, outlined her form in a golden halo. As she moved, long limbs emphasized in full but careful extensions. Her neck looked even longer than usual, and the man couldn’t notice just how defined her body was. Odd, though, that a woman who bumped into desks and sometimes tripped over herself managed such delicate movements with such care. Hardly the movements of someone who sometimes returned home covered in someone else’s blood. When the young woman breathed in, she would stretch herself, spotting as she spun, landing in perfect thirds and fifths even after her highest leaps. Then, she glided to the other end of the room to rolling thunder, away from Ginoza, taking all the air in the building along with her.
He didn’t know she could dance.
Part of him urged him to look away. That door was already closed and there was a reason she was here alone. He should walk away and allow this woman the isolation she likely sought out. Although, Ginoza told himself, he needed to confirm this wasn’t some hallucination. She turned again, maybe too fast this time because she fell. But in moments, she was back up, spinning around with the same zeal she did just about everything else with. And, as if Akane had choreographed the storm outside, jagged lights flashed behind her as she thrust herself into the air. When she finally returned to the earth, her massive brown eyes looked up right into his own. It almost sacrilegious to look upon her.
If the lightning strikes alone amazed the man, then this was far more overwhelming.
Ginoza choked as she stood up. Another flash of brilliant, forked white, and the cage around his lungs seemed to rattle as she moved towards the door. He wrenched himself back, turning away just as he heard her very real and ever distinct voice say his name.
“I didn’t realize people were still up here,” Ginoza heard his superior say, though he swore he immediately forgot how to speak and understand words. He wished he was miles away. “Most of the inspectors went home.” Tsunemori paused as the enforcer turned around. Her face flushed red. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot that— well, I— I just…”
“I just got a little lost in the dark is all.” Ginoza found his voice at the bottom of his chest, found his will to turn around and face her. She didn’t look the same way he remembered, and the thought of that made him forget what Ginoza was even doing here. So maybe what he said was a lie. “The lights went out, and I just got a little lost.” He really only repeated it so he could convince himself. Getting lost doesn’t mean you can stand there, watching women from the shadows. What are you, some kind of creep? Tsunemori looked so distant though she stood only a few feet away. The Ginoza of yesterday struggled to uphold the barrier he so carefully built around him. And all she was doing was standing there.
“Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that the lights were out! My music must have been too loud.” How that would have made the power outage go unnoticed, neither were too sure. The fact of the matter was that Akane Tsunemori was caught dancing, and that her former superior had seen her. Yet, judging by the stagnance, the calm casual in Tsunemori’s tone, he was the only one between them that felt so exposed. If they had been in opposite positions, Ginoza thought, he would have been just as, if not moreso, embarrassed as he was right now. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
“I was just on my way to find some vending machines while the power was out.” There it was: his reason, stumbling out of his mouth. It was a legitimate one, nothing extraordinary, yet it felt forced. All he could think of was that Tsunemori looked like some kind of angel with the lightning strikes, crown of gold on her usually brunette head.
“Oh, okay.” Tsunemori paused, her head tilting slightly. Was he staring too much? Was his face contorted in some stupid expression? Ginoza cleared his throat and looked down just as she continued. “Do you mind having some company? I’m getting a little hungry, and I know where the nearest vending machine is.”
“Sure.” He wanted to ask her why. She could have just yelled at him, told him off for staring. But all that followed his response as he mindlessly trailed behind her was the sweetest of silences. Whole planets could take up the space between them. That’s what Ginoza would have done: shout, angry, at those who he thought were below him. The past tense, however, made him think if that would truly be the case if their roles were reversed. Guilt creeped up from his stomach to his lungs, reminding him that at least he’d been decent to the woman these days. Back then, not so much. And that’s something you need to make up for, isn’t it?
That’s one reason Ginoza found himself thinking about Tsunemori more often than he’d like. How many times he willfully belittled her intelligence, her skill, and her worth. All the more reason why it was inappropriate to stare. But the more he thought about it, the harder it was to dam the flood of memories now drowning his thoughts. She’d always had a long neck, long fingers, wide brown eyes. When they first met almost a year ago, he hated how much youth she embodied, how much kindness and patience she would give. Too small, too thin, too clumsy. But she was bright. She did everything with such zealous exuberance, throwing herself into caring for things—for people—that the system had already judged for her. Ginoza wondered then if he’d always be stuck with the rookies, why he couldn't just have another, more experienced inspector assigned under him. How many times had he put in complaints about her? How many times had they gotten into literal screaming matches in the middle of the office? She pushed every single one of his buttons more than once a day back then. And after Kogami, after Makashima, after his dad, there were days in isolation that the man actually believed part of all this was her fault. Though time had long since rid him of that blaming instinct, the man still held up the wall, bricks of resentment, crushed bits of condescension and bitterness, that he’d built between them.
“I haven’t actually seen you much lately,” Tsunemori said, breaking their treaty of silence. “So I’m glad I actually ran into you. I’ve been meaning to reach out and get together. It’s been way too long since we’ve really… talked.” Was she asking for permission? Was that even possible, considering Ginoza’s position within the greater scheme of things? Overdue as it was, a conversation with Tsunemori didn’t sound nearly as appealing as it seemed. There was something in that hypothetical that he didn’t want to face. They would catch up, likely talk about everything that had happened. Who was gone, who was still there, maybe some work chatter, and then right into the hard stuff. They’d share their innermost thoughts in a way that people getting to know each other would. Talking it out would potentially even help him, loosen that knot in his belly that had tightened whenever Tsunemori was around.
But all he could muster was: “Maybe.”
They arrived at a vending machine, glowing with neon lights that highlighted the snacks within. She looked at Ginoza, a question on her brow, while he pushed himself to focus on the options available before him. After a few moments, he was unable to make up his mind, so he just pushed a couple of buttons and waited. The white flag of silence rose between them, but there were fires to be put out, bridges to be fixed, maybe even built. It made sense to maintain a professional distance. Perfectly logical, in fact, however painful. Because yes, something hurt. But he still held the flood gates closed. As tiring as it was, it was better this way.
“I wanted to apologize, by the way.”
Ginoza furrowed his brow as he looked at her. “What on earth would you need to apologize to me for?”
“For not doing… enough.” The vice grip around his center squeezed, harder, the moment that Tsunemori looked at him. Here was yet another part of her he’d never seen before. Ginoza had been there during her memory scoop, so maybe he’d had just a glimpse, but this wasn’t her screaming. This was Akane Tsunemori opening the door again. “When you were an inspector—even if I didn’t admit it or acknowledge it—I know you were always just pushing me to do my best.” His mind went blank as a strange, dizzying fear overwhelmed him. Ginoza could just walk out. It would be good to just clear his head. He could end this conversation now and just leave. But something held him firm in his place, slack-jawed and staring as the lovely crashes of thunder echoed through the hall. If she cried because of anything he did, Ginoza wasn’t sure that running away would make him feel any better. And her? No. He couldn’t keep doing that to her. “I know that I could be difficult, maybe even combative at times. And I messed up so much. I know now that I could—”
“Stop.” Lightning flashed, striking down the barrier between them as Ginoza faced her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He realized just then how close she was, how much of his personal space she had invaded. Tsunemori was also barely dressed, clad only in a leotard and mesh leggings, baring more white skin than usual. But the usual feelings that came with that kind of closeness failed to manifest, even when his right hand found a place on her shoulder.
Another flash. The world felt so still, so quiet. Yet, in the dark, on the rainiest of days since they met, they found each other. Or, rather, Ginoza, fumbling through the dark, found his way to her. Except, it was like they were meeting for the first time all over again. But there were no villains to chase here, no cases to follow up on, no distractors to take either one of them away. Instead, Ginoza found himself, in the moment, memorizing the young inspector’s face. There was something new in the way she looked at him. Brilliant lightning strikes lit her up like a star, one he was going to follow. And for the briefest of moments, the hound wanted nothing more than to stay here. For the first time since he became Enforcer Ginoza, he was fine with where she was above him. And there was something else there, too. He just wasn’t sure what it was. A presence? A feeling? The flood gates opened. Her skin was soft under his hand. He could feel some kind of charge in the air, suddenly felt so light.
But when the PSB’s lights finally flickered back on, the man moved his hand away. How long they had been standing there, neither were too sure. Ginoza swiftly retrieved his snack—a bar of chocolate. Someone else, far more of a manchild than he, would have enjoyed this greatly. Almost as if that very manchild took over, Ginoza heard himself: “Want this?” I’m not sure what I was thinking ordering this, he wanted to add. Tsunemori smiled and gracefully accepted. “And if you’re still hungry afterwards, would you like to keep talking in the cafeteria?”
Tsunemori nodded, her smile widening, her eyes never wavering away from him as they headed back to the cafeteria.
Though they never had the kind of conversation Tsunemori had hoped for, there was something so novel about the way Ginoza smiled. He initially just meant for this to be a starting point. They could sit in silent reverie, giving him room to get used to being near someone again. Chit-chat turned into stories shared from their days before the PSB. The storm outside continued, lightning and rain relentless against the glass. As the late afternoon turned into night, the torrential downpour slowed into a gentle drizzle. Ginoza smiled a few times, sometimes at jokes, sometimes at funny stories. A day turned into a week, and they found themselves meeting more often. The space between them was evidently smaller than before.
In his next therapy sessions, the evaluations of his mental health put him at a number far lower than expected. “Is it the sparring sessions?”
Ginoza shook his head. He was willing to admit that, as of the past few days now, he’s been working out harder. No rhyme or reason, really. At least, none that Ginoza was able to explain. He just felt so much more energy, so much more comfort in this skin and flesh he had. Enforcer-status be damned, he liked that he felt more like a person than ever before.
“What do you think it is, then?”
At night, when storms rolled into the endless skies of his dreams, Ginoza found himself once more in that dark hallway. The door before him, however, was open. She would be there, dancing across the space between them, starkly lit by the lightning strikes beyond. He would ask her if this was how she kept herself so grounded, so calm. Tsunemori would just laugh, reach out a graceful hand. Each time she did, the gap between them would shrink even more.