Fanfiction: Fractures (Completed 07/11/15)

[Sadako]

Well, this wasn't soul-crushing or heart-stopping so that's good

I must be slipping...

As of tonight I've got another one in the bag, which I'll post in the next day or so. Now I've got to research some stuff.

[Hesmiyu]

Well, this wasn't soul-crushing or heart-stopping so that's good

I must be slipping...

As of tonight I've got another one in the bag, which I'll post in the next day or so. Now I've got to research some stuff.

I'm just waiting for the big reveal to be that Hisao didn't die and that he is taking out his revenge for them not forcing themselves more to be his friend. Yep, that's what my mind is thinking .

[AntonSlavik020]

Just sat down and read all of this, and I love it. Sure, Emi's and Rin's relationship is pretty sad, and usually I wouldn't like it, but here it works. I feel a large part of the problem is Japan's view of metal illness rather than what Emi did. I'm hooked, and really looking forward to more.

[Sadako]

I'm just waiting for the big reveal to be that Hisao didn't die and that he is taking out his revenge for them not forcing themselves more to be his friend. Yep, that's what my mind is thinking .

Or maybe both are true... But the ragged-haired, vengeful spirit of Hisao crawling out of Misha’s TV is, sadly, the subject of another story…

[Sadako]

Just sat down and read all of this, and I love it. Sure, Emi's and Rin's relationship is pretty sad, and usually I wouldn't like it, but here it works. I feel a large part of the problem is Japan's view of metal illness rather than what Emi did. I'm hooked, and really looking forward to more.

Thank you, and I’m really glad you’re liking where I’ve gone with that…

By the way, that’s a lovely picture of Shizune you’ve got there.

[AntonSlavik020]

By the way, that’s a lovely picture of Shizune you’ve got there.

Thanks, I basically just googled Shizune until I found a picture I really liked.

[Sadako]

7. Talking in the Dark

Emi could hear Lilly’s voice as she made her way down the stairs, quiet sentences and interjections broken by long silences. One half of a phone conversation.

Her voice was coming from the Tezukas’ kitchen. Emi opened the door and saw Lilly walking slowly alongside the counter, her phone tight against one ear, the fingertips of her free hand brushing the work surface as she moved. “Of course,” she was saying, her tone cool and controlled. “I understand, yes. Please let me know as soon as it’s done.”

“Hey,” Emi said hesitantly, just in case Lilly hadn’t heard her come in.

Lilly nodded curtly in her general direction, then her fingers found the end of the counter and she turned, smoothly swapping the phone into her other hand. She was pacing, Emi realised, easing herself down onto a nearby chair. Which meant that Lilly was still a lot more upset than she’d been letting on.

“No, perhaps we shouldn’t tell them that. It would… I agree. Yes…” Lilly gave a slight, reflexive bow. “Thank you again, Mister Isei. Goodbye.”

“Who was that?” Emi asked, as Lilly set the phone down.

“The superintendent of Rin’s block. I didn’t hear her come down, is she all right?”

“Yeah, she’s zonked out, that’s all.”

“We should check on her regularly.”

“I will, don’t worry. So what did this guy have to say?”

“Well, I was hoping he would be able to repair Rin’s door and window before she went home.” Lilly leaned back against the counter. “He says the police have asked him to hold off until they’ve finished.”

Emi raised an eyebrow. “They seemed pretty finished when we were there.”

“Mr Isei had been instructed to keep the apartment secure in case they needed to come back. It appears he was somewhat lax in that duty. However, given that you may have just contaminated an active crime scene, I decided not to press the matter too much.”

“Oops.”

“Of course, if he had been there, he could have told us that Rin was alive and perhaps saved us a lot of needless heartache.” Lilly paused, then took a slow breath, as though readying herself for something she wasn’t particularly looking forward to. “Emi, when were you planning to tell me the truth?”

“What about? Oh yeah, the most shameful, repulsive thing I’ve ever done in my life. Let’s go with ‘never’.” She sat back, stretching her legs out under the table to try and ease the tension in her thighs. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to. In my head we were gonna make sure she was okay, she’d kick me out of the apartment and I could just go on trying to forget it had ever happened.”

“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t understand?”

“It wasn’t about you.” Emi glared at her. “Listen, Rin’s up there sleeping like a baby and she thinks I saved her. I didn’t save her, I couldn’t even spare the time to do that. I threw her over the fence and let someone else deal with her, and now it turns out that ‘someone else’ was a pack of fucking wolves. Even admitting that to myself makes me want to throw up, so why the hell do you think I’d want to talk about it to anyone else?”

“Because you might have realised,” said Lilly in a very small voice, “how insulting it is to be lied to like this.”

“Oh please.” Emi rolled her eyes. “Come on, Lilly, since when I ever been that smart? I’m not the girl who faces up to her problems, I’m the one who starts running away from them and keeps running until she can’t see them for dust.”

“How eloquent.” Lilly felt along the countertop until she found her cane, and unfolded it. “Well, thank you for being honest with me about that, at least.”

There was no anger in her voice, not any more. Just a kind of weary disappointment, which was far worse. Emi drew her legs back and pushed herself upright. “Lilly…”

“I think it would be better if I called a cab.”

“It really wouldn’t.” Emi went over to her, and very carefully took the cane back out of her hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, for everything. I’m an idiot and an asshole, and after all this is over I’ll understand if you don’t ever want to talk to me again. But can we at least put that on hold until we’re not being chased by a psycho?”

Lilly gave a small, shivering sigh. “You’re right, of course. That was foolish of me.”

“No, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me either right now.”

“Very well. For Rin’s sake we’ll say no more about this. Barring two important points.”

“Which are?”

“Firstly, if you ever take my cane from me again you’ll be on the ground looking up before you know it.”

“Oh hell,” She pressed the cane hurriedly back into Lilly’s hands. “Sorry.”

“And secondly, perhaps you should take a bath.”

“What?” Emi stepped back reflexively. “You’re saying I smell bad, now?”

“Not at all.” Lilly almost smiled. “But I can hear from your voice that you’re still in a lot of pain, and I think it would help.”




While the idea of bathing at the Tezukas’ house embarrassed Emi to the point of outright horror, she had to admit that a good soak was probably the only thing that could save her leg muscles from seizing up entirely. And since there was no way she was going to leave Rin and Lilly to go back to her own place, there really wasn’t another sensible choice.

That didn’t stop her protesting for the next ten minutes, though.

Later, soaped and scrubbed and submerged in a tubful of clean hot water with a cloth on her head, Emi lay perfectly still and concentrated on the fading twinges in her thighs and back. The bath wasn’t quite as effective for muscle pain as sitting up to her middle in iced water, but it was close enough and, she had to admit, a lot more pleasant.

In fact, she realised with a guilty start, she was in actual danger of dozing off.

She scowled, sat up a little straighter. She didn’t want to be caught unawares if anything dreadful happened, like a hooded killer sneaking in or the Tezukas coming home early. Emi wasn’t entirely sure which of those two scenarios she feared more, but it was probably the latter. At least being murdered would save her having to avoid Rin’s parents for the rest of eternity.

And then she thought: Shit, Emi, that was dark. Even for a day like today, that was out of line.

She gazed down at her own body, distorted and refracted by the water. For a very strange moment she almost didn’t recognize it as hers – as if the Emi she had been at school was looking down on Emi in her mid-twenties and not liking much of what she saw.

“So, Takada,” she murmured out loud. “What have you done today?” Lounged around in someone’s bath without their permission. Walked all over a crime scene. Lied to a hospital worker. Alienated the one proper friend I’d been able to keep since I left Yamaku. “Not a bad day’s work, for a total idiot.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Emi gave a startled yelp, jerked upright so quickly that she lost all purchase on the tub. She flailed wildly for a few seconds, flinging water in every direction, then managed to grab the edge of the bath and pulled herself down behind it. “Rin? What the hell are you doing?”

“I asked first.” Rin was standing in the open doorway, looking vaguely around the room as if it contained at least twenty things more interesting than a naked, cowering woman kneeling in the bath.

“No-one. Just me. Go away.”

“That’s a bad habit. You shouldn’t do that too much. I used to, and look what happened to me. What were you talking to you about?”

“Nothing.”

“Also bad.”

Emi sighed, and eased back from the edge of the bath slightly. “I was just trying to remember when I became such a horrible person, that’s all.”

“Oh, okay. I can remember the date quite clearly, do you want me to tell you?”

“No. How are you feeling?”

“Hard to say. Kind of groggy and weird, but I don’t know if that’s new today or if I’ve always been groggy and weird and I’m only just starting to notice because people keep asking how I feel. I’m sure the splitting headache’s new, though.”

“They gave me some painkillers for you. Give me five minutes and I’ll find them. I’d better check your dressing too.”

“Okay.”

Several seconds went past. Rin didn’t move. Emi made an exasperated noise: “Rin, please go away and let me get out of the bath.”

“Um. Right.” Rin turned back to the doorway, a tiny smile lighting her face. “Spoilsport.”

Emi balled up the cloth and hurled it her retreating back, but she missed.




Back in the kitchen and clad almost entirely in towels, Emi sat on a chair with her legs off and gently peeled the surgical tape from Rin’s forehead. “Tell me if this hurts, okay?”

“Why? If I do, will you stop?”

“No, I’ll just be more gentle.”

“So you’re not already being as gentle as you can. That’s a worry.”

“I’m going to poke you right in the eye.” Emi hid a grin. Despite Rin’s deadpan tones she could tell the woman was teasing her. “Maybe that will take your mind off how gentle I’m not being.”

“Now now, children,” said Lilly from across the kitchen. “Play nice.”

“Aw mom, she started it.” Emi stripped back the last of the tape, then looked closely at what lay beneath.

Damn, she thought.

For some reason she had been expecting a small, neat cut, but with the dressing off it was clear that she’d been naïve. Rin might have escaped serious injury, but she had still been shot – a piece of lead had skimmed its way across the bone of her skull, hard enough to knock her senseless, and the ragged tear it had left in the tissue above made Emi wince in sympathetic pain.

Higuchi had stitched the wound as neatly as he was able, but Rin was going to have a nasty scar there. Luckily her hairstyle would cover most of it. “Okay, it’s clean. Tiny bit of bleeding, but nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good news.” Lilly leaned down to set a tray on the table. Emi glanced at it, saw tea, sandwiches, small cakes.

“Seriously? You want to eat now?”

“Perhaps you’re not hungry, Emi, but Rin and I are.”

Emi dabbed at Rin’s wound with a cotton pad. “Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry. I just didn’t think we’d have time.”

“Before what?” Rin asked quietly.

“Going to the police.” She stripped the wrapper from a new dressing, then brushed the hair away from Rin’s forehead. “Hold still, this might hurt a bit.”

“Didn’t you already talk, ow, to them?”

“After the car thing, sure. But that was before I knew about Lilly’s letter or yours or somebody trying to shoot you.” She pressed the dressing down, neatly covering the wound. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” Rin looked away, as if unable to meet Emi’s gaze. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

Lilly slid a chair back and sat down, her hands finding the tray, the teacups. “I’m afraid we don’t have a choice. Failing to tell the police what we know about your incident would be withholding evidence. Besides, there is every chance we are still in danger.”

“It won’t take long,” Emi told her. “We’ll be back here before you know it.”

Rin closed her eyes for a moment, her lips moving. Distressingly, Emi could see her mouthing words. List them. One, two, three.

“I don’t want to go to the police because I’ve already spoken to them and it was scary and if I go back they might tell Mr Isei that I went crazy that one time and I don’t want to lose my apartment.” The jumble of words had emptied Rin’s lungs. She took a fast, almost panicked breath. “I like my apartment. I don’t want to have to move again, but if anyone finds out I was in the mountains I might have to.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Lilly.

“How?”

“I’ll think of something,” Emi replied. “Rin, please. You can’t go home until they catch him. What if he comes back to finish the job?”

“Maybe he won’t. He hasn’t even got a gun any more. It broke.”

“So next time he uses a knife. Or a brick. Or he puts a plastic bag over your head.” Emi saw Rin’s eyes widen slightly. “Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

What is wrong with you? Lilly mouthed silently.

“I don’t like this,” said Rin, looking glum. “I haven’t had friends for ages and suddenly I’ve got two and they’re both talking at me and now my head hurts.” She sighed. “Okay, but I reserve the right to remain silent. Can we at least finish our tea?”

“Sure.” Emi picked up a tiny cake and held it in front of Rin’s mouth. “Open.”

The woman blinked. “You don’t have to feed me.”

Emi kept the cake exactly where it was. “I know.”

“Hm.” Rin smiled, blushed very slightly. “Maybe this friends thing has an upside after all.”

[Sadako]

8. Two Divided by Zero

There were many things Rin Tezuka did not like about Assistant Police Inspector Namba.

She didn’t like the way he wore his tie, for example; there was something eerie about the way it was simultaneously loose and lopsided and yet pulled very tight around his collar. It made her think of a noose, or a Mobius Strip, an endless strangulation with only one side. She didn’t like the way his eyebrows were unkempt, with little grey-black hairs hanging randomly down over his eyes. They looked like wiry caterpillars. If he couldn’t look after his eyebrows, she reasoned, how could she trust him to look after Emi and Lilly? She was annoyed by the way he repeated things that people said to him, as though he couldn’t quite believe they had said them and he was trying the words out for himself to see if they worked better coming out of his mouth. He also wore very bad aftershave.

But what she disliked most about Namba was the way he looked at her.

Rin knew she wasn’t beautiful like Lilly or cute like Emi. She knew that her hair was scruffy and her eyes tended to half-close of their own accord and her mouth was too small and didn’t move much when she spoke. She knew, with a clarity that most people probably wouldn’t have given her credit for, that her lack of arms and the subsequent narrowness of her upper torso made some people uncomfortable.

There were people who had a problem looking at people who weren’t the shape people usually are; that was sad, but it was the way of things, and she had learned to ignore it.

Namba, though, pitied her, and that just hurt.

It was on his face like a rash, like acne. That poor girl, why is she alive? Why would she want to be alive? How could she possibly live on her own? Someone should take care of her. Look after her. Put her somewhere safe where she can’t fall over and hurt herself.

He had looked at her that way when she was waking up in Niiza hospital, and he was doing it again now. Rin was sitting between Lilly and Emi, three hard plastic chairs lined up on one side of a desk in the interview room, and even though Emi was talking to him his eyes kept flicking away from her and back to Rin. To her shoulders and the empty spaces where her arms should be.

Emi had been telling him about how she had almost been killed by a green car. Now she was telling him about Rin, and how she had almost been killed by a bullet.

Two pieces of metal travelling at high speed, Rin pondered, glad to have something to think about other than Namba’s spooky tie or eyebrows or pity. Two near-misses. Two places where the universe divides. There was a certain fearful symmetry to that, like entangled particles; their spins shared, intertwined, reflecting one another all the way across Tokyo.

Decision points. Fractures. Moments when the path of events splits to race off in two entirely separate directions; causes changed, effects remodelled. In one branch a phone rings, and Rin turns to it, angry confused hopeful afraid and a fat rifle bullet punches through glass, through canvass, caroms across the white bone of her skull and embeds itself in the doorframe. Her apartment whirls away into sick slick darkness and becomes a hospital ceiling, doctors peering down at her as if she were an insect pinned to a board.

Travel down the other branch and the phone does not ring, or rings a second later, or Rin keeps her concentration and ignores it. The bullet erupts through her head, sending her thoughts and dreams and feelings splashing across the apartment floor, pale grey and wet dark crimson.

Am I here, she wondered, in that other universe? Is Emi lying beside me?

She imagined herself somewhere in the great grey guts of the police station, naked and bagged with her skull a broken, emptied eggshell. Emi, too, flattened and twisted with her smooth golden skin criss-crossed with tyre tracks. Not people anymore, just vaguely people-shaped spaces filled with crushed meat and splintered bone.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine. She already had a pretty good idea of what it would look like.

Another decision point, another knife-sharp divide in the waveform of her life. Six years ago, Yamaku, the day of the festival. Rin walks with Shiina Mikado back from the art room - Misha had needed something from the supply cupboard and wanted help finding it. They round a corner and see a cluster of students, hear whispering, weeping, someone being noisily sick and they push their way to the front just as two teachers are covering Hisao Nakai’s body with a sheet.

His head wasn’t really a head any more.

Entropy. Causality. In every universe events move through time to a state of inevitable chaos. Misha was never quite the same after that; every day her loud annoying laugh had been a little more false, a little more hollow, until one day she stopped laughing altogether. Rin had never really liked Misha, never found her interesting and her voice was like having someone clapping their hands right next to her ear, but she missed that laugh.

Thinking about it made her stomach ache. I hope she’s okay, she found herself thinking. I hope she’s happy, somewhere. I hope she didn’t get a-

“-letter, Miss Tezuka?”

She blinked. Namba was looking at her expectantly.

Order your thoughts, Rin. List them one, two, three. “I threw it away. I’m very sorry. It was creepy and I didn’t think it was important.”

Next to her, Emi raised a hand and laughed nervously. “Ah, same answer.”

“Not important. Right.” Namba was holding Lilly’s letter up to the light. It was already covered in a clear plastic folder, to preserve any fingerprints that might be on it, daubs and dabs and DNA, the tiny twinkling traces of himself that the sender would have left if he was really stupid and wouldn’t if he wasn’t. “We’ll get this tested right away. Miss Satou, I’ll have to ask you to provide fingerprints for elimination. And your secretary.”

“Of course.” Lilly was sitting to Rin’s left, directly opposite a more junior policeman who was writing everything down. It was plain that the scratching of the man’s pen irritated her. “Does she need to come here for that?”

“Come here? No, just her nearest station. They can send them across.”

“Thank you.”

There was a sudden, sharp rapping sound, bone on wood. Rin lowered her head, trying to hide under her own hair. She had a slight phobia about policemen, although she’d gotten very good at concealing it. She was always worried that one would knock her down and sit on her and break her ribs again.

Namba got up and opened the door, Lilly’s letter in his hand. He passed it to whoever was outside, whispering something as he did so.

Rin didn’t hear what it was, but she felt Lilly stiffen beside her.

“Okay, I think that’s everything.” Namba held the door open wider. “Thank you all very much for your co-operation.”

“That’s it? Seriously?” Emi pushed herself upright.

“Seriously. Unless you can think of something else you’d like to tell me.”

“No,” said Lilly, quite coldly. “I believe that’s all we have for you. Thank you for listening to us, Assistant Inspector.”

“Not at all.”

Rin stood up, moving very carefully so as to draw as little attention to herself as possible. “Thank you we’ll go now.”

“Wait,” said Emi.

“Please let’s not.”

“But what are we supposed to do?”

“Do? Go home,” said Namba. “And try not to worry. Just make sure your doors and windows are locked.”

Rin considered telling Namba that her window had been locked when a bullet had come through it, but decided not to. She just wanted to be away.




She sat in the front passenger seat as Emi drove them away from the police station, her head turned to the window. It was raining, quite hard, and the droplets coursing across the glass turned the streetlamps into a procession of golden glowing spiderwebs. Rin watched them slide past, one after another after another, merging and sprawling. She tried to fix them in her memory, but it was impossible. She still didn’t feel well, her head throbbing and muzzy with painkillers. Besides, she couldn’t think about painting right now. There were too many other things on her mind.

The most pressing of which was the unnerving feeling that Lilly and Emi didn’t like each other anymore.

She had noticed it ever since she had woken up in her room and found Emi in the bath. It was a nervousness between them, an invisible barrier, like the push of two opposing magnets. Whenever Emi would take Lilly’s arm to guide her she would hesitate, as if unsure what would happen if she did. When they touched, Lilly would flinch. And whenever they spoke to each other there was an edge to what they said and how they said it; a brittleness, their words as sharp and fragile as glass.

They used to be friends, Rin thought miserably. Not really good friends – Lilly had spent most of her time with Hanako, until that day in the school cafeteria, and Emi with Rin – but close enough for Lilly to meet Emi as soon as she returned to Japan years later. Now Lilly was hunched into the far corner of the Toyota, looking as if she was trying to get as far from Emi as she could.

A state change had occurred, a destabilising factor introduced into the geometry of their relationship. A new pigment mixed into the bright blue and gold shades of them, shifting them around the colour wheel, rendering them discordant. They clashed, now.

Rin knew exactly what that colour was, but she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it. You can’t unmix paint. You have to wash the palette off and start all over again.

“Did either of you hear what he said?” Lilly was saying. “After that knock on the door.”

“Who, Namba?” Emi didn’t look round. She drove with a strange determination, Rin had noticed, hunched slightly forward, glaring at the road with her hands tight on the wheel. “Something about sending it somewhere.”

“Almost. He said ‘Put this with the others, get them over to Yagi.’”

“Them?”

“Exactly.”

Emi frowned. “So where’s Yagi?”

“He’s not a where, he’s a who.” Rin told her. “Another policeman. He was on TV talking about that boy who got stabbed and our faces stuck on him.”

“Ah,” said Lilly. “Of course, thank you Rin. I believe he’s heading up the Kodai case.”

“Well, at least somebody’s taking us seriously,” Emi replied.

Emi’s face when she drove was rather like her face when she ran, and Rin hadn’t seen that for a long time. “I hope he’s a better policeman than Assistant Inspector Namba.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t like him. When he talked to me in hospital he thought that if I fell over I’d not be able to get up again. He doesn’t care where the photographs came from. He didn’t ask anyone to take prints of my toes. Maybe he’s not even a real policeman.”

“I’m sorry, Rin,” said Lilly. “But what do you mean by photographs?”

“Pictures you make with a camera.”

Lilly made a very quiet sound that was midway between a sigh and a growl. “For your next trick, perhaps you’d like to define the word context.”

That was a puzzling thing to say. “Not really.”

“Rin,” said Emi. “Which photographs were you talking about?”

“The ones somebody used to make those death threats we got sent. I mean, we know they came from our high school yearbook, but there’s no way he could-“

The car swerved wildly. Rin stuck her legs out to brace herself, but she couldn’t stop her head from connecting painfully with the car window.

She heard Lilly yelp Emi’s name, the blare of a car horn from somewhere behind. Panic surged up into her throat. “Are you okay? Emi? Are you having a seizure? Did you see a dog?”

The Toyota was pulling sideways, fast, sliding into a parking space by the side of the road. Emi braked, harder than she needed to, twisted in her seat to glare at Rin. “What do you mean they came from our yearbook?”

Tiny specks of light were whirling Rin’s vision. “Where else would they have come from? What about the dog, is it okay?”

Emi closed her eyes, began to tap her forehead against the steering wheel. “There. Is. No. Dog. How long have you known about the photographs?”

“Since I saw Lilly’s. It was a yearbook photo like mine.”

“And when were you planning to let us in on your little secret?” hissed Lilly.

Rin was looking wildly from Emi to Lily and back again. “I… I thought you already-“

Lilly’s hand slammed against the back of the seat. “How could I possibly have known?” she snarled.

“Don’t yell at her!” Emi was fully around in her seat now. “Who the hell gave you the right to talk to her like that?”

Rin bounced up in her seat, hit the seatbelt release with her heel, the door handle with her knee. She swung herself out of the car and bolted into the rain.

She ran across the sidewalk. The car had pulled up on a small shopping street; a jagged grid of TVs loomed in front of her, a confusing sprawl of colours and moving forms. She stumbled to a halt, reflected images dancing around her feet, a thousand raindrops hitting and bouncing and flying up, circles and ripples and endless endless detail.

She shut her eyes tightly. A sob ripped its way out of her.

Behind her, the thudding of car doors. “Rin, wait!”

She turned around. Emi was running towards her, Lilly striding quickly along in her path, cane out and tapping at the wet concrete. “Leave me alone.”

“You know I’m not going to do that.” Emi stopped in front of her. “Rin, it’s pouring. Please come back.”

“I can’t!” She wanted to be quiet, to be careful. There were other people on the street and they were already staring, but she couldn’t keep the words in. They bubbled out of her like vomit. “I hate this! You’re shouting at each other and I know it’s my fault and I don’t know why!”

“Oh Rin…” Lilly was at Emi’s side. “We promise not to shout anymore.”

“It’s not that. I’m scared!” There was water on her face. Was she crying, or was it just rain? She couldn’t tell. ”I’ve only just found you and now I’m going to lose you again!”

“You’re not going to lose us!” Emi’s green eyes were huge with distress. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I’m the one that’s making you hate each other.”

“Oh God, no.” Emi shook her head. “It’s not… It’s not your fault, not at all. It’s mine.”

“It is ours.” Lilly put her hand on Emi’s arm. “Rin, you are blameless in this. Please don’t think you have done anything wrong.” She sighed. “I was angry at Emi because she lied to me about what happened to you. And I have taken that out on you both. That was unforgivable of me, and I am sorry.”

“Me too.” Emi sniffed noisily. “God, we’re a bunch of lost causes, aren’t we.”

“People are looking at us,” whispered Rin.

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re gorgeous.” Emi gave her a small, sad smile, then put out a hand to touch Rin’s side. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“No,” said Lilly.

“No?”

“No.” Lilly’s face was set hard. “The more I discover about this business, the less happy I am to sit at home with the doors and windows locked and wait for something to happen. Especially with someone like Namba in charge.”

“He had horrible eyebrows,” said Rin. Lilly wouldn’t have known that. It was important that she did. “And his tie was freaking me out.”

“All the more reason.” She smiled grimly. “Emi, can you find us an internet café? I need to call someone.”

“Who?”

“Someone I- No, someone we can trust.”

[Sharp-O]

Awww shit, we're getting the band back together!

[AntonSlavik020]

I'm glad to see they're at least trying to sort out their issues with each other. And the stuff about why Rin didn't like the officer was really fun. Part of the reason her perspective if always so interesting. Looking forward to more, but you already know that.

[Mirage_GSM]

His head wasn’t really a head any more.

So that puts paid to the idea that Hisao is the killer...

They might start calling a number of people though, to get the warning out...

[Sadako]

Awww shit, we're getting the band back together!

Chapter 9 is called Risk Management. All I'm saying.

I'm glad to see they're at least trying to sort out their issues with each other. And the stuff about why Rin didn't like the officer was really fun. Part of the reason her perspective if always so interesting. Looking forward to more, but you already know that.

Thanks very much, that's great to hear And writing Rin is always hugely enjoyable. Tricky at times, though. She's easily the one I have to re-write most often.

His head wasn’t really a head any more.

So that puts paid to the idea that Hisao is the killer...

Misha still can't eat porridge. True story.

[Hesmiyu]

His head wasn’t really a head any more.

The one part I accidentally skipped over. Oops.

[Sadako]

9. Risk Management

A quick check on Emi’s phone revealed three internet cafés within walking distance, although Rin vetoed one immediately. “Not KomiKoffee. I went there once and now I’m not allowed to back.”

“You got banned from an internet café?” Emi tugged her hair out from under her scarf, smoothed it down. She had gone back to the car to retrieve their coats, and the three of them had moved under a nearby awning to put them on. “Should I even ask?”

“Um. Turns out you can play computer games with your feet, but people don’t like it.” Rin was watching raindrops hit the sidewalk. “Especially if you’re winning.”

Emi pulled up the collar of Rin’s leather jacket and adjusted her hat. She’d found them in the wardrobe. “Never figured you for a gamer.”

“I’m not. But I do commission work for games, so I thought I’d try it to see what it was like.”

“Was it fun?”

“Not as much fun as some of the other things I’ve tried to see what they were like.”

She grinned. “Ooh. You need to tell me about those.”

“I really shouldn’t.” Rin smiled back at her from under her hat brim, one of those small, sly smiles that took up almost no real estate on her face, but still managed to light her up like a bulb. “You’d be shocked. Scandalised. Jealous. Possibly all three.”

“Okay, now you’ve definitely got to tell me.”

“When you two have quite finished flirting,” said Lilly, not unkindly, “we should set off soon. I’d like to catch Shizune before she leaves her office.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Emi opened her umbrella, then put her other arm next to Lilly’s. The woman took it without hesitation, walked with her out from under the awning. “You’re sure she’s gonna be okay with this?”

“Absolutely.” Lilly nodded firmly. “Right now I can think of no-one better suited to help us.”

“It’s so weird hearing you say that. Because I kind of remember you two, well… Not sure how to put this…”

“Hating each other’s guts?” Lilly smiled ruefully. “Yes, there was that. However, you might also remember that we were teenagers then. Adolescence is a strange time, in many ways.”

“Actually, I’m finding adulthood pretty messed up as well. When did you get back in touch with her?”

“About eighteen months ago, initially through work. Her department handles disability discrimination cases, something that the Foundation has to deal with all too often.” Lilly tipped her head back slightly, as if listening to rain hitting the umbrella, traffic hissing past. “We’ve worked closely together a number of times since the Japan branch was mooted, or at least as closely as our circumstances allow.”

“Her department?” Rin wasn’t under the umbrella – there wasn’t room – but her hat was wide enough to keep the rain off. “She owns a whole department?”

“Not quite. Or at least, not yet. Shizune is a senior legal secretary. However, she’s training to be an Attorney. Well on her way to qualifying, too.”

“Wow. Does she sleep, ever?”

“Only grudgingly, as I recall.”

Emi chuckled. “Shizune Hakamichi, Ace Attorney. Why am I not surprised?”




Had she been anywhere near central Tokyo, Emi would have worried about finding an internet café that hadn’t been subdivided into an endless warren of dingy cubicles. From what she had seen on TV, almost none of the old style facilities had survived there. The explosion in personal, portable computing had finished most of them off; those that remained now catered exclusively to a growing need for cheap, slightly desperate overnight accommodation.

Emi didn’t want to breathe stale cigarette smoke all night, and certainly not in a fibreboard box smaller than the Tezukas’ bathtub. Thankfully, Niiza was far enough from the city to still boast a few independent cafes. Behind its gaudily stickered windows and garish neon, Hi-Score CyMedia had remained reasonably traditional, with a dozen high-end PCs dotted around what looked like the interior of a pleasant little coffee shop.

Lilly had paid for an hour’s computer time, passing over a matte, Braille-embossed credit card with the Braithwaite Foundation logo on it. When the cashier put it through the till something had appeared on his screen that made his eyes go very round behind his spectacles. Emi couldn’t see what it was, but within moments she was with Rin and Lilly at the biggest desk in CyMedia, sitting in front of a monitor that was larger than her TV at home.

Emi was no computer expert, but under Lilly’s instruction she soon had a video call queued and a message window ready to connect to Matsushima Legal. “Is this how you normally do it?”

“At the Foundation we use bespoke software, but there are workarounds for when we’re out and about. How good is your typing?”

“Hunt and peck, sorry.”

“In which case, I’ll transcribe what’s needed, and you read.” Lilly frowned uncomfortably. “Emi, before we begin… When we are speaking with Shizune, it might be best if you don’t mention Shiina Mikado.”

“Misha? Why, what’s happened?”

“I wish I knew. All I can tell you is that they have not spoken in a long time, and that Shizune finds the matter painful to talk about.”

“Shit.” Emi sagged a little. “Seriously, did anyone stay friends after we graduated?”

“We did,” said Rin, in a small voice. “Didn’t we?”

“Well,” Emi mumbled, suddenly finding the surface of the desk rather interesting. “I mean yeah, but-“

“Just because I hated you all that time doesn’t mean we weren’t friends, does it?”

She sniffed. “Rin, stop it. Or I’m gonna have to hug you really hard right here and people will look at us funny.”

Rin stuck her tongue out. “Funnier than usual.”

“In all honesty,” said Lilly, “even an average high school can be something of a bubble. Friendships made there seldom survive contact with the real world. And given how tense and fragile things were at Yamaku towards the end, I think we three are the exception, rather than the rule.”

“Yeah, but Shizune and Misha? Out of everybody, I thought those two…”

“Sadly not. And Shizune blames herself. Once she confessed that she still wonders what she did to drive Misha away, just as she was beginning to appreciate her in a way she hadn’t before.” Lilly sighed wistfully. “She was rather drunk, though.”

Emi tried to imagine Lilly Satou engaged in long-distance boozing sessions with Shizune, and failed. That would require Rin-level leaps of mental imagery. “Okay, so Misha’s off-limits. Shall I tell it to dial?”

“Already done.”

“What, now? Thanks for the warning, Lilly.” Emi edged away from the screen, suddenly aware that her palms were damp.

Lilly was very still, her long fingers spread lightly over the keyboard. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Just feeling like I’m gonna get told off, that’s all.”

Looking back, her reaction wasn’t all that surprising. She had never really gotten on with the Student Council, to say the least: Shizune had always been too competitive for her liking, controlling and abrasive and perpetually accompanied by the infuriating Shiina Mikado. There had been some public, and occasionally quite vicious spats between them and Lilly Satou, which Emi had taken very personally, not to mention the all times Shizune had scolded Rin for what seemed like trivial infringements of class rules.

Emi had usually just tried to stay out of their way. Despite that, the thought of the Council falling out disturbed her far more than she would have expected. It was clear to everyone who knew them that Misha had been Shizune’s only real friend. With her gone, Shizune would have had no-one at all to talk to.

No-one she could talk to. Emi shivered, watching connection icons flash on the monitor. She must have been so lonely.

The computer chimed, a weirdly cheerful sound, and the video window lit up. Emi found herself looking onto a bright, open plan office, with what appeared to be a panoramic view of Tokyo visible from a broad strip of windows beyond.

Between her and the city sat a compact young woman, impeccably dressed in a plain dark suit and red blouse, her short, neat hair so black it was almost blue. For a second or two Emi didn’t recognise her – the open, delighted smile that had appeared on the woman’s face didn’t match the memory of her at all – but then she reached up to adjust her glasses and everything fell into place.

“Shizune’s there,” Emi smiled. “Damn, she looks good.”

A sentence appeared in the message window. Why thank you!

Emi blinked in surprise. Had Lilly typed something without her noticing?

“Hello Shizune,” said Lilly, quietly, but more slowly and carefully than sounded entirely natural. “As you can see, I’ve brought friends.”

Of course, Emi thought. She grinned and waved at the screen. “So you can read lips now.”

Shizune nodded. Emi heard a light rattling of keys through the PC’s speakers, saw words spooling out into the message window. “Something I should have done years ago,” she read aloud, “but I was too stubborn. Stupid, don’t you think? The world doesn’t sign and I have to keep up. Still learning, though, so please face the camera and speak clearly.” She nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”

Lilly smiled. “I’m very sorry to call you unannounced, Shizune. I know you must be busy.”

“Ah, Shizune says not at all, it’s always a pleasure. And seeing these two reprobates with you has made my day. Heh, that’s nice.” Emi felt Lilly tap her arm. “Oh, sorry. I mean… But I’m guessing this isn’t entirely a social call?”

Being Shizune’s voice was harder than it looked, Emi decided. The woman wrote clearly and concisely, of course – a direct result of sign language being her primary means of communication – but to read out the bald text of her words in such a way as to make sense to Lilly, and not add any commentary of her own… She was going to have to concentrate very hard.

No wonder Misha always looked so overworked.

“I’m afraid not,” Lilly replied. “We need your expertise.”

“Would you like me to get one of the singers?” Emi squinted. “Signers! I guess she means like, ah, you-know-who…”

Lilly shook her head firmly. “May we keep this between ourselves for the moment?”

“Of course,” Emi read. She noticed Shizune frowning, peering more closely at the screen, a sharply analytical expression on her face. “Rin, what happened to your head?”

“Not out loud, please Rin,” said Lily quickly, and then typed: She was shot. At her apartment this morning.

Shizune’s eyes widened. “There was a news report. Woman injured in a firearms accident.” Emi kept her voice low and level. “So that was you. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine thank you.” Rin’s voice was barely more than a whisper. Emi glanced across and saw that she was keeping very still, her head slightly down, eyes fixed on a point a few centimetres above the desktop.

Her feet were rubbing nervously together.

Shizune had noticed her reaction too, at least from the desktop upwards. She smiled reassuringly, an expression so warm and gentle that it almost made her look like someone else entirely. “Rin, I know you were ill for a short time. You have nothing to fear from me.” Emi swallowed hard, then reached around behind Lilly to touch Rin’s shoulder. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be careful with Shizune. She knows you’re all better now.”

She heard typing. “Mental health rights are something else we fight for. But please have Lilly type your words. You’re a little hard to read.”

“Yeah,” said Rin. “I get that a lot.”

“So the police are still treating this as an accident?” Lilly’s fingers fluttered across the keyboard. We believe otherwise.

“I suspected you might.” Shizune reached out of shot, came back with a leather-bound legal pad in one hand.

“All right. Tell me everything.”

[brythain]

Okay, this is now officially my favourite of all 2015's crop of new serial fics. Thank you.