Chapter Text
When Shinonome Akiko dragged her exhausted steps out of the family restaurant's back door, the city had already sunk into the silence of the early morning hours. She removed her grease-stained apron, tucked her orange hair and dog ears into the hood of her jacket, the small braid on her left side hanging against her neck, swaying gently in the night breeze. She glanced at her cracked phone screen—the time was 1:23 AM. The last rail transit had long since stopped running, so she had no choice but to walk back to her rented apartment.
It was a night in late August, and the air carried a certain cloying chemical sweetness, completely different from the crisp floral fragrance that permeated her rural hometown. Akiko came from a border town, a place where multiple races lived together. She was nineteen years old, having reached adulthood one year and nine months ago. She had entered this city's university with the third-highest grades in her entire town, majoring in Magical Criminology. Her dream was to become a Magical Police Officer, wearing a uniform, carrying a magical firearm, protecting those who had no one to rely on.
But that dream felt very distant from reality at this moment. She had been in this city for less than a month and had already changed part-time jobs three times. She lived in a six-tatami-mat rental room, surviving each day on convenience store rice balls and vending machine coffee. Her savings were rapidly depleting, and her class schedule was rapidly expanding.
Tonight's shift had been especially grueling. The overly friendly canine-type demi-beast chef in the back kitchen always found opportunities to rub against her tail, and Akiko had to force herself to endure the discomfort and dodge him each time. She hated other canine animals—this aversion wasn't directed at individuals, but rather an instinctive anxiety. Back in the countryside, every mating season, the young adult canine-type demi-beasts in town would gather together, sniffing and chasing one another, emitting low growls that irritated her. She always hid alone in the maple forest behind the mountain, waiting until the commotion subsided.
There were even more canine-type demi-beasts in the city. In the subway, in shopping malls, in parks—everywhere she looked, there were fellow kin with perked ears and wagging tails. Their way of greeting each other was sniffing wrists, and every time Akiko saw this, her skin would crawl with goosebumps. She tried her best to avoid areas where her kind congregated, choosing routes with more humans, but in a city where demi-beasts made up thirty percent of the population, this was nearly impossible.
She chose the shortest route home. That path would cut through an old urban district currently being demolished. Half the streetlights were broken, construction debris piled on both sides of the street, and few people normally walked there. But Akiko didn't care. Her sense of smell and hearing were many times sharper than a human's—the rotting food in a trash bin fifty meters away, the sound of rats crawling through pipes a hundred meters away, none of it escaped her perception. This ability gave her confidence when walking at night. Unfortunately, she was a bit overconfident.

The alleyways of the old district were deeper than she had imagined. Akiko turned onto a small path she had never walked before, with half-demolished concrete buildings on both sides, their steel reinforcement bars exposed. The moonlight was obscured by clouds, and only the neon lights from the distant commercial district reflected over, casting dark red shadows on the ground.
She smelled something—a pungent chemical sweetness, like industrial fragrance mixed with medicinal herbs. Her nose wrinkled, and her footsteps slowed. The scent came from an alley entrance about twenty meters ahead. The entrance was blocked by two abandoned vans, leaving only a narrow gap. Through the gap shone a faint blue light, along with several hushed voices.
Akiko stopped. Her instincts told her she should turn around and leave, but curiosity scratched at her heart. She quietly approached, hugging the wall, ears perked up, catching those muffled words.
"This batch is high purity."
"Deliver to the usual place."
"The police have been cracking down hard lately."
Drug trafficking. Akiko's blood froze for an instant. She had read about such cases in her textbooks, seen reports in the news, but had never witnessed it with her own eyes. Her first instinct was to pull out her phone and call the police, but the moment her fingers touched her pocket, she remembered that her phone's screen had cracked during work and had already shut down.
She hesitated for one second. In that one second, a sharp voice came from the alley entrance: "Who's there?"
Akiko turned and ran. But her footsteps echoed through the empty alleyway, like sounding some kind of alarm. Three figures burst out from the alley, moving faster than she had anticipated. One of them held a metal rod, tracing a cold arc through the darkness.
She didn't make it ten meters. A burst of agony exploded at the back of her head, and the world shattered into countless spots of light before her eyes. She collapsed onto the ground, her cheek pressed against the rough concrete, smelling the mixture of blood and dust. She tried to get up, but her limbs wouldn't obey.
"It's a demi-beast," one voice said. "Ears are perked up."
"She heard us."
"Phone?"
Someone rifled through her pockets, pulled out the cracked phone, slammed it to the ground, then crushed it underfoot. The sound of shattering plastic and glass exploded beside Akiko's ear.
"Deal with her," another voice said, calmer, more authoritative. "Throw her in the river, or bury her."
"Wait," a third voice said. "She doesn't seem to be breathing."
A rough hand reached toward Akiko's nose. She held her breath, her heart pounding wildly.
"She really isn't breathing."
"Then just leave her here," the authoritative voice said. "This whole area is being demolished tomorrow anyway. One push from an excavator, and nothing will be found."
Footsteps gradually faded away. Akiko lay on the ground, the agony at the back of her head threatening to make her lose consciousness. She knew she couldn't fall asleep—if she slept, she might never wake up again. But she couldn't control it. Darkness surged up like a tide, carrying the sweet chemical fragrance, swallowing her whole.

When she woke again, the first thing Akiko felt was pain. The back of her head felt like a piece of burning charcoal had been stuffed inside, and every heartbeat brought a wave of dull throbbing. She tried to move her fingers; her fingertips touched a cold, rough surface. It seemed she was still in that alley.
Moonlight leaked through a gap in the clouds, illuminating the two vans at the alley entrance. In the distance came the rumble of rail transit—probably around four in the morning. She had been unconscious for nearly three hours.
Akiko struggled to sit up, a wave of dizziness forcing her to brace herself against the wall. She touched the back of her head, feeling a sticky wetness. The blood had already dried, forming hard clumps matted in her hair.
Her phone lay not far away, shattered into pieces, the screen completely black. She picked it up and tried pressing the power button—no response.
She needed to call the police. But she had no phone, didn't know where she was, was covered in blood, and dizzy. She braced herself against the wall and stood up, inching her way toward the alley entrance.
The streets of the old district were completely empty. Most of the streetlights were broken, and the few remaining ones flickered with unstable light, stretching and shrinking her shadow. After walking about fifty meters, she discovered a telephone booth at a street corner.
It was an old coin-operated phone, its metal casing covered in rust, its glass plastered with layers upon layers of small advertisements. Akiko pushed open the door, smelling a mixture of mold and dust. She pulled out her wallet, found a few coins, and fed them into the slot.
She dialed the emergency number. The operator's voice came through the receiver, calm and professional: "This is the emergency center. Please state your location and situation."
Akiko opened her mouth, but her throat was so dry she couldn't produce a sound. She cleared her throat, struggling to organize her words: "I'm in the old district demolition area someone beat me drug trafficking"
Her voice grew weaker and weaker, her consciousness fading again. She slid down the glass wall of the telephone booth, the receiver slipping from her hand, dangling in mid-air and swaying.
"Hello? Hello? Please stay conscious. We have located your position, rescue is on the way—"
Akiko didn't hear the last few words. Darkness swallowed her once more.

When she woke again, she smelled disinfectant.
That hospital-specific scent, clean and cold. She lay on a narrow bed, covered with a white blanket, fluorescent lights humming with faint electrical current overhead. The back of her head was bandaged, the sensation tight and numb.
She tried turning her head and saw someone sitting by the bedside.
It was a woman, tall and slender, wearing a dark blue police station uniform jacket over a white shirt. Her hair was very long, reaching her waist—the left side was light blue, the right side dark blue, with bangs parted from the left side, still displaying a beautiful luster even under the hospital's white lights. Her eyes were silver-gray and upturned, with a beauty mark below her left eye. She was looking down at a notebook in her hands, her eyelashes casting faint shadows on her cheeks.
She appeared to be about twenty-four, but Akiko noticed that the ears peeking out from her hair were slightly pointier than a human's but rounder than an elf's—the characteristic features of a half-elf. Half-elves lived longer than both humans and elves, and their apparent age often didn't match their actual age.
The woman sensed Akiko's movement and looked up. Silver-gray eyes met green ones for an instant. Those eyes held a calm scrutiny, as if observing an object that needed to be classified and catalogued.
"You're awake," she said, her voice low and gentle. "I'm Aoyagi Touka, a clerk from the Special Crimes Investigation Division of the police station. You can call me Touka."
Akiko opened her mouth, her throat as dry as if stuffed with sand. "Water," she rasped.
Touka stood up, picked up a cup of water from the bedside table, and held it to Akiko's lips. Her fingers were long and pale, her nails neatly trimmed. Akiko noticed a small ink stain on her cuff, as if she had just finished writing some report.
Akiko sipped the water, feeling her burning throat gradually soothe. She set down the cup and looked at Touka, trying to process her current situation.
"Where am I?"
"Municipal Third Hospital," Touka said. "You were found unconscious in a telephone booth in the old district, with a head injury and excessive blood loss. Emergency personnel brought you here, and we received notification and came immediately."
"Those drug dealers—"
"Someone is already investigating," Touka said, "but that's not the main point."
She set down the notebook, her silver-gray eyes looking directly at Akiko. That direct gaze wasn't aggressive; rather, it carried a kind of thoughtful gravity.
"The main point," Touka said, "is that those drug dealers thought you were dead. They left you in the alley without confirming whether you were alive or dead. But now you're alive, and you called the police. This means they know you might still be alive, and you could become a witness who exposes their movements."
Akiko's heart sank. She understood what Touka meant. Gangs didn't allow eyewitnesses to exist. If she continued living in her rented apartment, continued working and going home alone every day, she could encounter those drug dealers again at any moment, coming to silence her permanently. But to ask her to leave this city and return to the countryside, abandoning all her efforts and dreams from this period? She absolutely wouldn't agree.
"I can move," Akiko said, her voice weak but stubborn. "I can also request leave from my workplace and hide for a while—"
"Not enough," Touka shook her head. "These people aren't ordinary street thugs. They belong to a cross-racial drug network with tentacles extending into every corner of the city. You can't hide from their eyes and ears."
She paused, as if weighing her words. Then she said: "I have a proposal."
"What?"
"Move in with me."
Akiko was stunned. She looked at Touka, at those silver-gray eyes, trying to find traces of jest or conspiracy. But Touka's expression was serious and sincere, without any hint of mockery.
"Why?" Akiko asked.
"Two reasons," Touka raised one finger. "First, to protect you. My home is in the police station dormitory area, with twenty-four-hour security monitoring. Gangs won't dare approach easily."
She raised a second finger: "Second, I need your help."
"My help?"
"You're a canine-type demi-beast, and you briefly came into contact with those drug dealers." Touka said, "Your sense of smell and hearing far exceed ordinary people's. You may have already memorized those drug dealers' appearances and scent characteristics. And the clues our police station currently has about that drug network mostly remain on paper and magical trace analysis—we lack the ability for field tracking. If you can assist us, using your sensory advantages, our case-solving speed will increase greatly."
Akiko fell silent. She looked at Touka, at this person she had known for less than five minutes, trying to judge whether the other was trustworthy. The back of her head still throbbed with pain, reminding her that last night's encounter wasn't a nightmare.
"Why should I trust you?" she asked.
Touka smiled slightly. That smile was faint, like moonlight flashing and vanishing on water's surface, but it carried a certain reassuring warmth.
"You don't have to trust me," she said, "but you don't have many choices right now. Either accept my proposal, or face those people who might come looking for you again, all alone."
Akiko closed her eyes. She thought of her father and sister starting arguments every few days, of her mother's helpless sighs, of the maple forest back home that she could never return to and didn't want to return to. She thought of why she had come to this city, why she endured the dual pressure of work and studies, why she insisted on that dream of becoming a Magical Police Officer.
It wasn't to get beaten to death by drug dealers here, then buried in construction debris by an excavator.
"Fine," she opened her eyes, green eyes flashing with stubborn light, "I accept. But I have one condition."
"Please say it."
"I want to catch those people who attacked me, with my own hands."
Touka looked at her, silver-gray eyes carrying admiration. "Deal," she said, extending her hand. "Pleasure working with you, Miss Shinonome Akiko."
Akiko took that hand. Touka's hand was much larger than hers, fingers long, touch slightly cool, carrying the scent of white sandalwood mixed with ink.
"How do you know my name?" Akiko asked.
"Your student ID was in your wallet," Touka said. "I read it."
She stood up and began gathering the documents on the bedside table. Akiko noticed her movements were somewhat clumsy, like someone who had lived alone too long and wasn't accustomed to tidying things in front of others. Her uniform jacket was wrinkled, as if she had worn it for several busy days without changing, and there was a coffee stain on her shirt collar.
"When can Miss Shinonome be discharged?" Touka asked the nurse.
"The doctor said observation for twenty-four hours. If there are no concussion aftereffects, she can leave."
"Then I'll pick her up tomorrow afternoon."
Touka walked to the door, then stopped and turned around.
"By the way," she said, "what fragrance of toiletries do you use?"
Akiko was taken aback. "Bergamot. Why?"
"Nothing," Touka said, the corner of her mouth rising slightly, "just confirming. It's best if my roommate doesn't use the same scent as me, otherwise it would confuse my olfactory judgment."
She walked out of the ward, her footsteps gradually fading down the corridor. Akiko lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling a strange sense of unreality.
Twenty-four hours ago, she was still a country girl struggling alone in the city. Now, she was about to move into a police clerk's home, live with a half-elf, and assist the police in tracking a drug network.
Life had become more bizarre than any romance novel her sister bought.