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Heizou blinked away dense droplets coating his lashes. Summer rain had interrupted his usual walk, leaving the sky to slowly cloud into a disappointing gray. The harder to see things became, the more he’d rub his eyes. He had gotten considerably wet, but the only thing that quickened was the fluttering of his eyelids as he grew used to growing rain.
Getting dressed in his Tenryou Commission uniform before proceeding to not step foot into the building at all was a common daily practice of Shikanoin Heizou’s. Why spend time someplace where he was not liked when it really wasn’t necessary? Instead, he spent most afternoons engaging in conversation with people who did not want or enjoy a Tenryou Commissioner’s company. Heizou didn’t like to acknowledge this truth.
Life had a flow to Heizou, one that changed and bent as to his own desire. A Tenryou Commission member could go months without seeing Heizou and still find each and every one of his cases completed with more than satisfactory results. Doushin Shikanoin was always a mystery, and it seemed that not even the most practiced Kujou Sara could understand his eccentric personality. Therefore, he remained misunderstood.
The air had become misty, and Heizou’s line of sight was now more harshly misdirected. Summer rain wasn’t usually all that bad for the town in the sense that shops could still operate and children run around without the shield of the indoors. Today was different, however, as the rain was rather rough.
Heizou often found himself looking forward to summer because of the lack of rain that carried throughout the season. Rain washed clues away, something that no detective particularly enjoyed. Unfortunately, the seasons never exactly complied with his wishes.
From a distance, Heizou watched a mother hold an umbrella close to her child before spreading an arm over his shoulders. The two turned to each other with ecstatic smiles on their faces before scurrying away in a hushed exchange of giggles and laughter. The fog carried their figures away, and the laughter remained.
Apparently, not all people found the rain to be as much of an annoyance as Heizou did.
He looked around. It appeared that he was the only person left in the desolate shopping district. Heizou’s hair was now more than damp, and clothing was sticking to his skin. Summer rain was always weird. It wasn’t cold, just wet. He didn’t really like that.
The fog cleared by the slightest, he squinted. There was another figure in the vast distance. The outline did not seem to move, and Heizou wondered what someone could possibly get from standing in the middle of the rain at such a time.
He quickened his pace, and the closer he got, the clearer the figure became. What once was a mere outline of a person was now a young man with his head pointed up towards the sky; eyes closed as he allowed the rain to hit him without being disturbed in the slightest.
Heizou stopped to observe the oddity. Much like his own, the young man wielded an anemo vision. His hair was nearly white with a red tuff, and his clothes seemed to be that of a samurai’s.
The unknown anemo user opened his eyes. Red, Heizou thought.
“You’re staring” the boy stated, not moving from his upwards gaze. And though slightly confused, it was not a question.
Heizou was the confused one. “Yes?”
“Odd.”
Heizou watched as the young man turned and walked off, the fog carrying him away as it did the mother and child before him
“Odd,” Heizou repeated. Only seconds passed before he realized that he was staring.
…
Heizou shuffled through a busy market as he flipped through his recently bought book; a murder mystery he had been dying to get his hands on. It would’ve been an easier read, however, if the heat weren’t killing him as he tried to focus on whatever the story was about.
The summer heat was far worse than the summer rain. Heizou took back everything he had ever said about rain washing clues away because now, the rain sounded absolutely delightful. This ideology would have been different if he’d been focused on a case. But when leisurely wasting time with your nose stuck in a book, one does not care about any sort of clues being washed away.
Heizou read through the same passage thrice before blinking in confusion as he tried to comprehend what he’d even read. Nothing was registering itself to him. The heat made his brain malfunction, and suddenly, no words were sticking with him. It was too humid, too hot. Inazuman summers were not at all forgiving and each new year only seemed to get worse. Heizou shut his book before shoving it under his arm with an annoyed sigh. He couldn’t properly appreciate something if he wasn’t fully immersed in it.
Two figures brushed past Heizou, and he paused in his tracks to turn and see the same mother and child he’d observed just days prior; still with ecstatic smiles on their faces as they rushed over to observe a street booth. Heizou smiled gently at them.
The mother seemed to radiate the same youthful energy with her young boy as the two marveled over carefully crafted trinkets of glass and porcelain. Together, they giggled at miniature carvings and figures before she turned around and-
Ah.
Heizou’s eyes met with hers, and the two stared speechlessly. Seconds passed, and within a moment, her gaze turned hard; the youthful energy that once surrounded her now dissipated. She pulled the young boy close to her before rushing away from the detective, her clueless child’s head turning in confusion as his mother dragged him off.
“Who’s that?” The boy asked. His mother did not answer as she stared ahead while mumbling some words to herself that Heizou could only guess were harshly directed toward him.
Heizou frowned at himself.
…
“How are they?” Heizou wasn’t fond of this question.
“Jun’s been growing. It’s not really noticeable for a seven-year-old of course, but he’s getting there. I see Erika accompanying him to the market sometimes, but that’s it,” Heizou said as he leaned against a cold wall, fighting the urge to look away from the unfortunate sight.
The man behind the bars nodded almost mechanically. “Thank you, Shikanoin.” He spoke mechanically too.
“No need, I’ll help out as much as I can.”
Heizou watched the broken man close his eyes. He reminded Heizou of a rag doll of some sort, someone barely held together by the weight of their own bones. Silence drummed through Heizou’s ears as he waited for something he didn’t want to hear. “Erika,” the man mumbled. Heizou looked away, his mind no longer racing at the exhilaration of waiting for something that he knew he wouldn’t like.
Sometimes, prison drove people mad. Other times, it did things Heizou didn’t understand. Things Heizou didn’t want to understand.
Those kept in this specific area of the police station stemmed from petty thieves who were only kept for a few months, to more serious offenders who weren’t dangerous enough to be locked up somewhere more remote. This man’s crime wasn’t necessarily terrible, but enough to land him a few years behind bars; a few years spent away from a wife and child who now had no one to depend on but themselves.
Some days, Heizou tried to convince himself that there was nothing to feel sorry about, that guilt was going to be his demise. He ignored the fact that guilt was already his demise.
“Doushin Shikanoin, Kujou Sara requests your presence,” a moderately loud voice called from before the prison door.
Heizou fixed his posture, arms now uncrossing as he tore his eyes away from the child-like man. “Goodbye.”
Unsurprisingly, the man didn’t respond. And perhaps the two of them silently decided that it was better that way, that it was always better that way. He exited without a second thought.
When Heizou entered Kujou Sara’s office, he wasn’t phased to find her organizing files that were so perfectly placed it drove him mad. “You clocked in today,” the stern woman stated. Her posture was so rigid and expression so dead that it made Heizou uncomfortable.
“I did.” Sara was the opposite of a double-edged sword, and he could acknowledge it with every move she made, every word she spoke. Everything about her screamed Sara, and Heizou didn’t like that. She expressed herself so clearly, directly, and so honestly. It killed him. He wanted to shout at her to stop, to be more cunning, more secretive, more deceitful, but she wasn’t. She was an honorable woman, a genuinely good person despite her reputation. The only things Sara truly hid were her love for egg rolls and yearning for affection from a father who couldn’t care less about her. Heizou hated that.
“Undoubtedly visiting Hattori Jiro.”
Heizou sighed. “You know, we should really make prisons a little more lively. I mean, come on, even I would go mad in there.”
“You’re already mad, Shikanoin Heizou,” Sara said, her eyes no longer focused on work. “But you aren’t responsible for every prisoner we take in.
Caught.
Heizou nearly fell over his own words. “I know,” He said faster than he would have liked. Sara met his eyes and stared at him like she also knew. Like she could hear everything that was troubling him and understand. “Stop that, you look scary,” Heizou coughed, and he walked away before he could hear Sara's shouts from behind a closed door.
Kujou Sara glared at the shut door before moving on to the now-empty spot in front of it. “I don’t know if I want to kill him,” she paused. “Or protect him from himself.”
Heizou would rather have her kill him.