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Furuya Rei has been missing for almost two weeks.
Kazami has done everything within his power. He has deployed the agents who report to him to conduct physical searches and screen intelligence and camera footage. He has petitioned his superiors for additional man-power, and received it. He has combed through Furuya’s Amuro Tooru apartment, through Café Poirot, through the senior agent’s common haunts.
He’s found absolutely nothing. Furuya has dropped off the face of the Earth. Which means either the Syndicate has him sequestered, or he’s dead. Kazami is praying for the former, but he recognizes that’s not necessarily the better option. The world Furuya has stepped into is one of manifest cruelty, sadism without borders or boundaries. If he’s been caught, death would probably be kinder.
As the national policing agencies around the world have been drawing the net tighter and tighter around the Syndicate, Rum and his enforcers have been working faster, harder at sniffing out moles and ending them. Now, on the brink of a final, decisive action to take down the Syndicate, they can’t afford to lose Furuya.
Kazami, as the man’s only link to the light, his only tie to justice and joy, feels that imperative for more than simple business requirements. He’s never met anyone like Furuya, never met someone so bright and dedicated and talented – and yet riding so close to disaster at all times. Furuya is both heroic and haunted, and Kazami often feels like the only one who sees the latter state.
Furuya is Kazami’s senior in everything but age, but Kazami feels both awed by him and protective of him. The PSB is so ready to place its faith in Furuya without worrying about his ability to handle the incredible strain he’s under. For the entirety of his tenure with the PSB, Kazami has focused on doing everything in his power to lighten Furuya’s load. Now, with his disappearance, the fact that the PSB isn’t declaring all-out war on the Syndicate to get their agent back burns like battery acid.
So, after days of pushing for more intensive searches, bigger data cuts, longer hours, Kazami walks out of PSB head quarters and goes to the one person who he thinks might actually be able to help.
Akai Shuuichi.
***
Furuya’s hatred of the FBI agent is a byword in the PSB. His revulsion stretches so far that he won’t wear red, won’t drink rye, won’t even consider consulting the American law enforcement agencies on questions of intel. Akai Shuuichi spent several months apparently dead after the incident at Raiha Pass, then rose like a phoenix to plague Furuya for a second time. He’s now living close-by in Beika and regularly brushes shoulders with the PSB senior agent as Okiya Subaru. It seems incredibly cruel, a taunting without any cause but casual malice, and Kazami feels nothing but disapprobation for the American.
Still, the one thing the Americans have is resources. And the one thing Akai Shuuichi has, discounting his personality, is skill.
Akai Shuuichi is living as Okiya Subaru in the Kudou manor, somehow involved in the dual mysteries of Kudou Shin’ichi and Miyano Shiho. It’s been half a year since his first appearance as the engineering student; in the past two months or so Furuya has ceased to comment on him at all, which feels ominous.
It’s Okiya Subaru who opens the door to him this afternoon, an autumn typhoon blowing itself out, all wind and rain. Okiya says nothing upon finding Kazami on his doorstep, merely stares, waiting. Okiya is tall, broad-shouldered with long legs and a fox-like face which conveys an impression of casual thoughtfulness; his silence speaks more to Akai’s personality of quiet needling.
“May I come in?” asks Kazami. After years of hearing Furuya’s complaints it’s difficult to keep a polite tone with this man who is, to him, a complete stranger.
“I wonder what you could possibly want with me?” muses Okiya – muses Akai Shuuichi – but he steps back and allows Kazami into the large, impressive entryway. Akai is in slippers; Kazami slips off his loafers and looks around.
“We need to talk,” he grits out, the words rough as broken teeth.
“Do we? What about?” Akai stands before him, his face a blank mask. He makes no move to bring Kazami further into the house. His tone, in the face of Kazami’s harsh demand, is irritatingly innocent.
“About Furuya-san,” says Kazami. And, when that doesn’t prompt an acknowledgement, “He’s missing.”
Akai’s slim auburn eyebrow rises. He turns and leads the way into the house, through a long hall lined with lovely watercolour paintings done in intricate detail to a study whose walls are covered floor-to-ceiling with books. There’s a fireplace, and a desk, and a pair of low over-stuffed leather chairs. The fireplace is cold, empty; there’s a computer open on the desk and a cup of coffee beside it. Akai strides back to lean his hips against it, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “Tell me,” he says. His voice is quiet, calm.
“I’m Furuya-san’s handler; he checks in every two days. The last time he checked in was nine days ago. He has been absent without notice from Poirot; there’s no sign of him at his apartment. I’ve had the Tokyo-area safe-houses checked; none of them have been used. We’ve been reviewing CCTV footage, checking dead letterboxes, making sweeps of places he often visits. There’s no sign of him.”
“And you think I know where he is? Or have you come to ask me to find him for you?”
Kazami bristles, shoulders high, his voice taut. “Either. Both. It’s my job to find him – whatever that takes.”
“Interesting. And that’s what I am – whatever it takes? You make it sound like a poison pill. I wonder what Furuya-kun has told you about me.” It’s not exactly a question, but Akai follows it with a pointed silence, waiting for a reply.
Kazami grits his teeth. “Your reputation is well-known in the Branch. The only man Furuya-san can’t stand. The only man who doesn’t respect him enough to keep his face out of sight.”
Akai shifts against the desk. “I see. Well, that’s plain enough. And, in light of that answer, do you think he would thank you for running to me?”
“As Furuya-san’s handler, my job is to do what’s best for him. Not necessarily what he would choose to do himself. Nothing I’ve tried has worked and, frankly, I’m out of options.”
Akai’s smile is thin, razor-sharp. “I see. A very dedicated subordinate. To answer your question: I don’t know where he is.” He pauses for just a moment, before continuing in a low tone: “That doesn’t mean I won’t find him.”
“If the Syndicate has him,” begins Kazami, and stops, because there is no good end to that sentence.
“If the Syndicate has him, then they’ll regret their mistake,” says Akai evenly. And for all his loose posture and fox-smile, his words are laced with threat so naked Kazami shivers. He believes with his whole heart that Furuya is the better agent, the one who has survived all this time in the Syndicate, the one who was able to gain entrance off his own bat rather than by exploiting a vulnerable woman. But Akai has always been known as the one who can end the organization, and right now hearing the firmness of his words Kazami almost believes it. Believes that, for whatever reason, to find Furuya he will rain down hell on the Syndicate if necessary.
Akai produces a phone from his pocket, unlocking it with a swipe, and hands it to Kazami. “Your number,” he says. Kazami takes the phone and inputs his burner phone’s number before he even realises he’s accepted a point-black order from Akai Shuuichi. He pauses, then finishes typing. Right now, there’s no other choice.
“Be ready to move,” says Akai, taking his phone back. He slides into the desk’s chair, and starts typing something on the computer. A moment later he glances up, eyebrows raised. One green eye slants open, gleaming with judgement. “You’re still here?”
Kazami frowns, but goes.
***
In under 24 hours, a police task force is moving out. Resources have been mobilized across Japan, timed raids planned on Syndicate offices up and down the country. The MPD has been drawn in, acting under Kuroda Hyoude. Forces from Osaka and Nagano are on stand-by. Kazami has no idea how it was achieved, who called who and laid down the law, but the fact of it is that Furuya’s disappearance may be the final nail in the Syndicate’s coffin. The action they’ve waited for for so long, the counter-attack against the Syndicate, is finally here.
Kazami insists on being placed on site where new intel provided by the Americans suggests Furuya is being held. It’s a traditional inn on the outskirts of Ito city near Mt Fuji, a home built in the late 1800s by a successful businessman and subsequently run as a high-class ryokan for tourists visiting Japan’s most famous landscape. Furuya has mentioned it in the past as being connected with the Syndicate.
The ryokan is built by a small stream in a gully full of maple trees; now, in mid-fall, they’re just on the cusp of turning red. There is no way for the police team to arrive by vehicle unannounced so they unload at the roadside and slip through the maple forest on foot like soldiers, Kazami and the PSB infiltration team in PSB jackets and caps. SAT is there too, represented by ten men in heavy riot gear. And, already in place and waiting in the shadows of an enormous red pine, is Akai Shuuichi wearing his own face. He’s dressed in black pants and a navy-blue Bureau windbreaker, the yellow FBI lettering on the back prominent. No more lies, no more disguises.
Kazami has only once before seen Akai Shuuichi without a mask, at Raiha Pass the night he rose from the ashes. Everything about him is sharp – the angle of his jaw, the line of his cheekbones, his heavy, dark lashes. His eyes flash green in the setting sun, and he steps up out of the cover he was waiting in to give orders like a general. There’s a brief squabble for power between him and the SAT leader; a radio-call to HQ puts Akai in charge.
“If there are Syndicate operatives here, they’re most likely to be in the banquet rooms off the main entryway. SAT will infiltrate from the front, taking care of that possibility. Furuya-kun, if he’s here, is probably being kept in one of the guest rooms towards the back of the ryokan. PSB and I will enter from the rear, five men per floor. Rules of engagement: pictures have been circulated of the key Syndicate operatives most likely to be present; if you encounter one consider yourself cleared to shoot on sight. If you encounter anyone not pictured as a lead operative, do not shoot without clear evidence of threat. If you encounter a hostage situation, do not engage, back off and call it in to the tactical lead. If you find Furuya, secure him – that is the lead priority. Understood?”
“Roger,” echo the men and women forming the SAT and PSB forces. Akai Shuuichi produces an M19 from his holster and checks the chamber and the clip, before clicking the safety off.
“SAT to the front; radio when you’re in place. We go on three.”
The SAT force slip off into the woods, dark forms shadowed by the brightly-coloured maple leaves. The PSB team hunker down to wait for their sign.
Kazami kneels beside a tree, his palm on the smooth bark of its trunk. The earth is wet, the smell of fallen leaves and damp soil pungent. Overhead, the leaves are dripping from the recent rain, a quiet patter on jackets and helmets.
Kazami’s slightly behind Akai Shuuichi, can see the tilt of his back and the cut of his jaw. He’s wearing an FBI cap, his presence announced for all to see. Kazami wonders briefly if that’s the point – if Akai intends to shock any operatives he encounters into delayed reaction. He wears the clothes like he was born to them, like he’s never been anything but a field agent leading infiltration teams and investigations. His left hand, holding his pistol, is absolutely steady.
“SAT 1 in place,” announces a voice on the radio, followed almost immediately by “SAT 2 in place.”
“Roger that. Go on three. One. Two. Three.” The radio signal cuts out as Akai leaps over a low rope fence at the edge of the maple forest and storms across the soft moss yard behind the ryokan, a team of PSB agents on his heels. He’s up onto the veranda in seconds, finding the first door and yanking it open. The shoji door rattles in its wooden tracks but he’s already inside, disappearing into the soft lighting of the traditional inn.
The PSB team disburses as soon as they breach the premises, half the members heading for the stairs while the other half start breaking open rooms on the main floor. Akai stays on the ground floor, directing the team with the battering ram to door after door before stalking in to search.
Kazami follows, barely able to keep up with the FBI agent, the bright yellow lettering of his jacket flickering like a lure as he strides ahead, green eyes gleaming with threat. He clears rooms with an efficiency that’s frightening to see, without any thought for his own safety, slamming open bathroom doors and closets. The rooms, one after another, are empty – no luggage, no clothes, no guests.
At the end of the hall is a corner room tucked in under a wooden stairwell, its entryway in relative darkness, its walls thick. Akai stops beside the door and motions to the breach team; they run up and break open the door and he slips in like a hunting dog, sleek and silent. Kazami follows, stopping dead in the doorway.
The room is a storage room, not a guest room, the floor plain wood instead of tatami. There’s a table with some kind of apparatus with dials and buttons and wires atop it, beside a smaller closed box and a pack of unused syringes. There’s a bucket with a cloth hanging over the edge, the end of it stiff with blood. And, lying on the floor with one arm chained to a bracket in the wall, is Furuya Rei.
He’s held slumped against the wall by the chain, his arm raised high above his head. He’s naked to the waist, dabs of blood along the meat of his forearm and bicep. There are electrical burns on his torso, small but serious, flesh bloody and blackened. His eyes are closed, head fallen to one side.
Akai’s already there, a hand at Furuya’s neck, his other pushing the press-to-talk radio button. “Furuya Rei located – EMS stand-by.”
“EMS roger,” comes the response from the paramedic team waiting at the nearest road intersection, along with a paddy wagon and a fleet of police vehicles.
Kazami steps into the room as Akai carefully tugs Rei up into a sitting position to take the pressure off his arm socket, Furuya’s head resting against his chest. Kazami can see now that Furuya’s breathing is slow, shallow. “Drugs?” he asks.
“Check the box,” replies Akai, without looking. Although he had charged straight through the room to Furuya he somehow saw the small kit; Kazami shifts his revolver to his left hand and snaps the little box open. It’s filled with a myriad of bottles – scopolamine, sodium thiopental, amobarbital.
“Truth serum. Lots of it,” says Kazami, his stomach tight, queasy. Most of the bottles are empty, or almost empty. He checks the mechanism on the table – a high powered battery with the current run through the device to modulate strength; wires with metal clips on the end. Electric muscle.
Akai has Furuya held against him, and is now pulling at the chain affixing him to the wall. It’s thick, each link almost a centimeter in diameter, too thick to cut without dedicated tools. It’s locked by a combination bike lock. Akai draws his lips back to reveal his teeth in a show of disgust, then raises his pistol with his left hand. With his right, he shades Furuya’s face, using the thick line of his elbow to protect Furuya. The gun barks once, and the lock breaks open. The chain falls, slithering like a snake, Furuya’s arm falling limply with it. Against Akai’s chest, his head rolls slightly. “Nnh?”
The sound is soft, barely audible, but Akai glances down, taking Furuya’s pulse again before cradling the side of his face with a tenderness that absolutely shocks Kazami. “Furuya-kun? Rei?”
Furuya’s lashes flutter but his eyes don’t open; his legs remain slumped on the floor, chest propped up bonelessly against Akai.
Kazami ducks around the table and comes in to check on Furuya; Akai’s eyes snap to him, all sharpness and violence like a cornered wolf. Kazami freezes, heart suddenly in his throat as the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; the threat is unmistakable. Akai blinks, then a mask of professionalism falls over his face. Just like that the tension, the promise of violence, is gone. “He’s feverish and weak,” he says, placing the back of his hand against Furuya’s cheek. “Probably dehydrated, kept without heat or blankets.” He shifts Furuya’s weight against him and quickly, efficiently strips out of his FBI jacket. He wraps it around Furuya like a blanket, the navy blue dark against his wan skin.
Akai draws Furuya up close and then stands with the PSB senior agent in his arms, Furuya’s blond head lolling against his shoulder. “We go out through the back; PSB leads. I want an escort of at least four,” he orders; Kazami snaps up to his feet and takes hold of his revolver. Other agents stream in to meet them by the door, their eyes shadowed, glinting as they watch Akai lift their injured colleague.
“Coming out,” says Kazami. He sweeps out of the room, conscious of the creak of wood as Akai follows him carrying Furuya. From the front of the ryokan he can hear shouting, then a short hail of gunshots; the PSB team forms up around Akai facing outwards, faces taut with tension.
They make it out of the inn and across the moss-licked garden; in the woods some of the tension lifts. With Furuya located, more of the infiltration team has joined them; there are eight of them all together now, moving fast through the trees. “Half of you go to back-up SAT; the rest with me,” says Akai.
On the other side of the woods they come out onto the road, where the cruisers, tactical vehicles, paddy wagons, and ambulances are parked in a long wagon train.
Akai’s breathing hard now, teeth tearing into his lip as he carries Furuya, still wrapped in his windbreaker. He trudges through the ankle-high grass, his heavy boots crushing it underfoot and churning through the damp soil. A team of paramedics comes running over with a gurney; they put it down and Akai drops precipitously to one knee to let Furuya spill out from his arms onto the cushioned board. The paramedics are already taking his pulse, setting up an IV, calling out in quick, measured tones for oxygen and ointment.
Akai stands back and watches for a moment. The paramedics slip his windbreaker away, replace it with a lightweight thermal blanket. Akai dips and picks up his discarded jacket; he holds it in his hands for a moment as he looks down at Furuya.
In that second, no longer than a heartbeat, Kazami sees longing, and hurt, and fear.
Then Akai is pulling the jacket back on, and taking up his M19 again. He reaches up and clicks his radio on. Akai Shuuichi, returning to the inn. PSB team alpha is with me. He looks across to Kazami, a member of team alpha.
“You stay with him,” he says. Kazami genuinely can’t tell if it’s kindness or condescension. Before he can decide if he wants to challenge the order, Akai is already gone.
***
The paramedics want to get Furuya to a hospital, and given that Kazami doesn’t have clear confirmation that the Syndicate’s most dangerous agents have been taken care of, he follows Akai’s orders and goes with Furuya as his sole guard.
At the hospital Furuya undergoes a full barrage of diagnostics before being settled in a small, single inpatient room. Apart from the drugs slowly washing out of his system and his burns, he has several cracked ribs and some minor internal bleeding that the doctors are keeping a watchful eye on. His wrist has been worn almost to the bone by the manacle, and is swaddled in layers of white gauze. He’s got an IV line running with saline and antibiotics; no pain killers until the drugs are flushed out.
Now that Kazami’s out of the op, his radio has been cut off by the comms team. He’s receiving brief, skeletal texts from HQ in case a threat emerges from any of the active firefights. One by one the ops shut down as the Syndicate is caged, subdued, razed. The final note comes from the Ito op, Akai leading.
Syndicate member Gin dead. Member Vodka in custody.
Kazami stares down at his phone for a few minutes, then places it face down on the small bedside table and turns back to Furuya. He is deeply unconscious, and perhaps due to the drugs his face is relaxed, blank. His blunt lashes lie feathered against his tanned cheeks; his blond hair spills like gold foil over the white pillowcase. Like this, he looks younger than his years. He looks fragile; vulnerable.
The hours tick by. Nurses come in to check on him, then a doctor. And finally, sometime in the black hours long before dawn, Akai Shuuichi appears.
He’s shed his FBI jacket and cap for a black North Face windbreaker and a plain knit cap. From beneath the soft edge of the cap protrudes a tiny stripe of white gauze; his right arm is in a sling. His posture and his gait speaks of pain, carefully controlled. He pushes the hospital room door open and steps in without announcing himself, letting it slide shut quietly behind him. As he walks over his left leg drags slightly. His mouth is very tight, lips thin. He comes to a stop at Furuya’s bedside, on the opposite side from where Kazami sits with his back to the window.
Akai looks bruised and battered, but as he stares down at Furuya there’s no trace of regret in his face. He reaches out with his left hand and cups Furuya’s cheek with his palm; the gesture is tender, intimate. Kazami feels outrage rise in his throat like bile, thick and burning. He stiffens as he bristles, about to snap at the FBI agent for his temerity.
In the bed, Furuya sighs quietly and shifts. Dark eyes slide open, not fully, but enough that Kazami can see they’re only partially focused, pupils glazed.
“Akai,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. He looks up, searching.
“Aa. It’s over. It’s all over.”
Furuya lets out a shaky breath, and nestles his cheek against Akai’s hand. “You’re here.” He sounds… wondering. Disbelieving.
“Naturally. There’s nowhere else I belong.” His thumb drifts out to stroke Furuya’s cheek, a soft caress. Kazami feels his cheeks heating, something warring between shock and embarrassment twining in his gut. Akai’s voice is pitched low, a gentleness that hitherto now had seemed unbelievable. “Sleep now. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?” murmurs Furuya, the line of his mouth dipping in a slight frown, a hint of distress.
“I promise.”
Furuya makes a soft sound, something Kazami has never heard from him, and as abruptly as a light being extinguished slips into sleep. Akai stands there for a moment, then withdraws his hand and straightens. A flash of tight pain crosses his face and he staggers, putting his left hand flat on the mattress to catch himself. Kazami is already up, rounding the bed. He comes up on his right side and grabs his right elbow – the one in the sling.
Akai makes a low, breathless sound of pain and tips forward over the bed, curling in on himself. Kazami lets go, cursing, and skates around to his other side to help prop him up. Akai’s breathing through his teeth, a thin hiss; Kazami drags him around the bed to the chair, which he sinks into. His left hand is pressed to his shoulder, fingers curled over the top of it and palm flat to his collarbone.
“Should I get someone?” asks Kazami, feeling lost.
Akai’s green eyes are narrow, unflinching. “No.” He replies immediately, an instinctive reaction. “I’m fine.” His voice is guttural; he doesn’t sound fine.
“Broken clavicle?” asks Kazami.
“Gunshot wound,” replies Akai. “A last present from Gin.” Kazami sucks in a breath. The lean updates he had received had no information on wounded agents; the focus had been entirely on Syndicate members. He wonders briefly whether Akai is even cleared to be up and walking, but he doesn’t really have to wonder. The answer is almost certainly no. He knows, because it’s exactly what he would expect of Furuya in the same situation.
“You took him down.” Kazami can feel the rightness of the words as he speaks them. For all his rage and his pain, Furuya has never downplayed just how much the Syndicate – how much Gin – feared Akai. But in the end, it was for Furuya that Akai acted.
Akai just looks up at him, wordless, his jaw clenched. He looks like nothing so much as a wounded animal, dangerous and barely in control. Ready to lash out to anyone who comes too close to him – or to what’s his. Which very clearly from his attention, his focus, includes Furuya.
It feels a little like the earth has come unmoored beneath Kazami’s feet, like he’s suddenly on a shifting, scrambled landscape. Like he’s blinked, and the whole world around him has changed. Not just Akai, but Furuya also. Furuya who even tortured, even drugged, woke looking for Akai – not to punish, but for comfort.
Kazami has spent years working with Furuya, his one connection to the PSB, his lifeline. He’s come to think of Furuya as a friend as well as a colleague; his respect for him is second to none.
But standing here in the hospital room with these two battered men, he realises that whatever connection he has to Furuya is nothing but a spark compared to the flame of their relationship. He can feel it, the intensity of the tie between them. The intensity of their feelings for each other. Feelings which, very clearly, are not hate.
Kazami had thought that Akai was the unwelcome one, the third wheel here. But it turns out that he’s the one in that role, the unnecessary guest. He wants to ask Akai if he can be trusted here, if he can leave him with Furuya without any additional protection.
But he can’t. Ask. Because Akai just went to war with the entire Syndicate to do what Kazami couldn’t – bring Furuya home safe.
“I apologize,” says Kazami, quietly. “For judging you by your reputation. No NOC should be defined by the stories people tell about him.”
Akai blinks, the lines around his eyes softening slightly.
“You brought him back. So: thank you. I’ll see myself out.” Kazami bows, stiff, shallow, and heads for the door.
“Kazami-kun.” Akai’s voice stops him with his palm on the handle. He half turns, looking back over his shoulder.
Akai is sitting on the edge of his chair. His right arm is tucked in against his stomach; his left is resting on the bed beside Furuya’s limp hand, just their pinkies touching. The only sound is the quiet hum of the HVAC system. “You’re a good handler,” he says. “You did what you had to do to save your agent. He will remember that. As will I.”
Kazami knows the words for what they are: a bargaining chip. One he can keep for months or years; one Akai will accept, if it ever comes time to cash it in. It’s probably the most valuable gift Akai could give him.
“I’ll be back to see him tomorrow,” he murmurs, pulling the door open. “Shall I tell James Black where you are?”
“Tomorrow,” says Akai. “For now, I want to remain invisible. Free. For just a little longer.”
“Understood.” Kazami steps out into the hall, and lets the heavy door slide shut behind him.
He pulls out his phone: 4:02am. He leans back against the wall and rubs the heel of his palm into his eyes, letting his head rest against the wall for a moment. Just for a moment he lets himself feel all the things that are swelling in his chest: relief, pride, confusion, jealousy. Hope. Then, sighing, he straightens up and goes to find some visitor seating.
There’s a lot of work to do.
END