By the time Honda was finally convinced that YF was really attacked, two hours of the work evening had already passed and the entire café had descended into chaos. YF was too tired to care. He had gotten little sleep, as could be expected, and was already downing his third cup of coffee. Any words that people around him said bled together in YF’s head, such that he could not remember the replies he made just seconds after he had made them.

To exacerbate the situation, Fujii had insisted on calling Erika after hearing what had happened; Erika was now on her way to The Antelope. All work at the café had stopped since bug sweepers from Nishida would have to come down and check the whole building for hidden devices. The owner was furious, Kuroda and the deputy magistrate were shouting back at him, and everyone was either joining in the argument or feeling the walls as if that would somehow produce the alleged bugs. YF tried to ignore the noise as he finished the third cup of coffee.

“Ms. Ueno will soon,” said Fujii, who had been sitting silently next to him up to that point.

“Huh?”

“Ms. Ueno.”

“Oh, right,” YF replied.

He got up and walked toward the stairs. But before he could descend, Honda grabbed him by the shoulder. “We might not be able to work in the office after. But we’re still going out into the field today. Get ready Sakai.”

YF turned to her groggily. “My wife is coming.”

“This look like a bring-your-family-to-work type of place to you?” Honda demanded.

“We’re separated for now, domestic issues. But she found out about the attack,” said YF.

Honda loosened her grip and then let go. YF thought he could see her expression soften. “Ten minutes from the time she arrives,” said Honda. She grunted and then turned back to where the other personnel were.

YF descended the stairs toward the first floor. When he arrived at the entrance, Erika had already left her taxi and was running toward him. As she approached nearer, the image of her leaping on the sectarian woman flashed before him, causing him to flinch. But Erika did not seem to notice, grabbing onto him and hugging him by the waist. YF slowly brought his arms around her to hug her back. Multiple people from inside and outside of the café stopped what they were doing to look at them.

“Let’s go talk in the back,” YF whispered.

Erika nodded in agreement.

When they reached the back of the building, YF made as if to hand his coffee cup to her. She declined with a small wave. “Had enough in the office already.”

YF retracted his hand and took a sip.

“So what happened? Are you hurt? I came from work so I don’t have your receiver…” Erika started.

YF shook his head. “It’s fine. And I’m not particularly hurt, surprising as it is. Some guy showed up making threats of what might happen if I kept digging into the case. We had a scuffle. Guy jumped out the window. Seemed like he had some fall breaking device. Maybe a parachute.”

Erika looked confused. “Jumped out the window?”

“The living room door is broken. Glass shattered,” said YF. “He chucked one of your dumbbells through it. The other one was in the living room for some reason. It saved me from dying.”

“I was lifting with it, that time you went on a run,” said Erika.

YF recalled the meeting with Reina near the upper floors that day. “Right.”

Erika paused and seemed deep in thought for a few minutes. “Did he look paramilitary?” she asked.

YF shook his head. “No armor or anything. Why?”

“A bunch of armored men from the Blue Rose showed up at Choco’s door.”

“Aren’t they affiliated with Reina’s dad?”

Erika nodded slowly. “Yes, and she told me about them before. But I was always under the impression she didn’t like them. I didn’t get the feeling they were in a negotiating mood on Hana’s fate.”

“So where was she then?”

“Actually can I have a sip of that?” asked Erika, holding her hand out.

YF placed the cup in her hand. “So did they talk to Reina?”

Erika took a sip of coffee, then shook her head. “Choco placed her in some sort of tunnel. “

“How long is this going to go on?” asked YF.

“What?”

“Hiding Reina.”

Erika paused. “I’m taking her with me to Ikusayama.”

YF noticed that she did not say “we”, but “I”. He supposed it was safe of her to assume that he would not go with them. “You think mom and dad would be okay with it?”

Erika looked confused that he had addressed her parents that way, even though he always did. “It’s not like I was going to live with them when I went,” she said.

“And how do you plan on concealing some noble’s daughter in the countryside with no security detail? For that matter, if people were after her this whole time, how did something not happen sooner?”

Erika bit her lip. “The day they took Hana was the day I severed any remaining ties to the people that normally protect her. The people — probably multiple groups of people — that were interested in taking her, of course knew where she lived.”

“Erika, what’s going on?”

Erika had a pained expression on her face.“The person…the person from your case was supposed to take over my job.”

YF held his hand to his forehead.

“That’s all I know about him, really. I know he was my replacement. I’d been trying to get out for a while so there was supposed to be a transition period. I never talked to him”

“You never talked to him?” asked YF incredulously.

“They tried to get me to debrief him but I was done already. I was only going to do something if Hana was in trouble.

“Your job...you were head of Reina’s security detail...weren’t you?” asked YF.

Erika nodded slowly, averting her eyes.

“And where does Hiroyuki fit into this?” asked YF.

Erika’s expression turned sour. “You talked to Hiroyuki?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“It seems you did too,” said YF. He was sure at this point there was nothing to lose by bringing it up.

“And who told you that?” Erika demanded, her tone growing aggressive.

“Does it matter? Look, I wouldn’t even care what you talked to him about except the fact that it seems somehow related to all this shit that’s happening. And if you’re putting me in danger with all these things you’re hiding from me, I deserve to know.”

Erika paused, seeming to wrestle simultaneously with thoughts of anger and guilt, one second looking like she was about to slap YF, while the next second she looked like she was about to apologize.

“It’s not complicated, Erika. I just want to know how it affects my safety. My brother’s safety. Is the guy who attacked me going to attack him too? You said something about cutting ties with Viper Sect but it seems like you talked to Hiroyuki that same day. Is Viper Sect the one attacking me? Tell me!”

“The two aren’t related,” Erika murmured.

“What’s not related?”

“Hiroyuki was having a lot of trouble dealing with Yui. He figured it would be safe to talk to me since she’s a bit possessive of him. Well, she’s very possessive of him. He tried asking your mom but he thought the generation gap was too big.”

“Trouble with Yui…?” asked YF.

“Like I said, she’s very possessive and insecure for some reason. I can’t fathom why that would be, but she is.”

“I thought you don’t like him. Now you’re giving him advice about his wife?”

“I started talking to him about Yui before that argument. But even after, we don’t have to talk about politics right? Isn’t marital troubles something everyone shares?”

The comment stung, but YF only nodded. “Then why do you hate him so much? You don’t ever want to talk about him when I bring him up.”

“Hiroyuki…Hiroyuki has a thing for pureblood girls…and then...”

YF thought it over a moment, putting the pieces together. “Are you saying my brother’s been fucking Reina?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You remember they had a thing during the Itsugo days.”

“Yeah but I thought they broke up.”

Erika crossed her arms, draining a good chunk of the coffee. “They were in a complex relationship when he went to university and there was some sort of overlap between her and Yui. But Hana is…complicated. Her situation as well as her personality. She wasn’t going to marry him, not because she looked down on him but just because she isn’t the marrying type. Though I have the feeling Yui was only okay with him being a commoner after seeing him with Hana.”

“Let me guess,” said YF. “My brother continued with Reina after the wedding.”

“Hana makes poor decisions,” Erika admitted. “But he hurt her in a lot of ways too. There were some exchanges when I confronted him about it. In any case, I don’t want to think about him anymore.”

YF inhaled deeply. “Well this wasn’t the direction I thought the conversation was going.”

“I’m sure whatever happened with the Station, the apartment, all that, Hiroyuki probably has nothing to do with it,” said Erika.

“So when you said you cut off ties to the sect that day. Hiroyuki doesn’t have anything to do with the sect.”

Erika raised an eyebrow. “Why would he? You know what he thinks about them. I just went to tell him that I won’t be protecting Reina directly anymore, but that he should stay away from her, or else.”

YF scratched the back of his neck. “This…this is all very…”

Erika held the end of the almost empty coffee cup, waving it up and down while pointing it at YF. “But you…you were spying on me…”

YF thought about mentioning Eiji briefly. But with Erika already looking like she was pushed over the edge, he didn’t feel like throwing Eiji under the bus and losing him too would be the greatest decision.

“I…” YF started.

“You thought I was sleeping with him. With your brother.”

“No…”

But YF was fully aware Erika knew every time he was lying.

Erika wound up and smacked the coffee cup into YF’s chest, coffee splattering onto his shirt. She then slapped him hard across the face. “Fuck you!” she screamed before storming off. Seconds later, YF could hear her yelling to the taxi driver about something before the sound of the hover module rotations let YF knew that she was gone.

YF wiped the coffee on his shirt with his hand absentmindedly. He was certain the entire village office had heard that last bit, and was not eager to emerge soon after Erika left to face everyone’s judgmental eyes. But eventually he had to come out from the back of the cafe. YF went around the side of the building and ran straight into Honda and Fujii; the former had her usual scowl, the latter looked very apologetic. “Get back upstairs, Fujii,” said Honda.

“Yes ma’am,” Fujii replied.

Honda motioned forward. “Come on, we have work to do,” she said.

***

The cameras they were supposed to check that day were all in the park where YF had talked to the daywalker on his day off. They went through the routine of checking the failsafe clocks, the manufacturer tags, and communicating all of the information to Fujii. When they took a short break, Honda approached him with a hesitant expression on her face, something YF had never seen from her.

“The coming days are going to be rough,” said Honda. “Just remember not to make a decision you’ll regret.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked YF. He was not in a mood to take Honda’s bullshit, even if she blew up in response to his question. But instead, her expression only turned to sadness.

“What I’m saying Sakai, is that marriages build strength over time. An initial crack in the foundation will take a long time to fix, but it’s fixable. When people see the crack though, they usually think first of abandoning the house. Or worse, they decide to pour water all over the ground, finding some sort of twisted satisfaction in hastening the propagation of damage. Once that happens, no amount of DTKs will fix it,” said Honda.

“Why this all of a sudden?” asked YF.

Honda smirked. “I’ve seen a few things Sakai. And don’t forget, I was a young woman too thirty, forty years ago.”

YF found that hard to imagine, if only that he quite literally could not think of a man who was manlier than Ms. Honda. Erika once commented that those were the types of women that came out of Reo society still standing on their two feet. It only then dawned on him what sort of nonsense Honda had to deal with all her life to make it this far.

“I appreciate it,” said YF.

“Good, let’s finish up here then.”

***

YF made up some excuse to explain to Hiroyuki why he wasn’t going back to the latter’s house. Even if YF didn’t learn what he did from Erika though, he was not planning on staying in Hiroyuki’s house long. In YF’s own apartment, the property manager had placed temporary metal barriers over the windows so that the sun would not get in, though that meant he could not open his living room balcony door. He might be able to deal with that the rest of spring, but not when summer hit. YF could only hope it would be fixed by then.

Sitting in the dark living room on the couch, YF felt a mix of loneliness and a sense of release from the events of the previous day. Though the silence only served to deepen his solitude, he tried to see if he could grasp some level of clarity from the silence. It had been a long time since the house was that silent. He or Erika would always have some sort of music playing, a TV program, or a video game. But now, there was nothing; he didn’t even have his receiver to flood his notifications with ads to spend his nonexistent money. On top of that, the added darkness of the metal barriers helped him feel like he was being swallowed by the void. YF thought about the statue of Revir Enellen in the park he and Honda had visited that day. Was this the type of silence that people born into that era were used to? What did they do with all their free time? In such silence, minutes could pass like seconds, and before he knew it, it was about time to go to bed.

YF got up and walked toward the hall. As he did, he glanced at the blank terminal panel on Erika’s desk. He debated internally for a few moments before going over to the panel and waking it from sleep to see that it still had Erika’s login name on. A small voice inside him advised against trying to guess her password, and so he switched to his own user and logged on. It was then that he saw an encrypted message sent to his admin level inbox. It was common for receivers and terminals to have at least two levels of password protection, with the higher level requiring periodic biometric scans to access. YF scanned his palm on the screen and opened the message.

“Are you all right? -Fujii,” the message read.

“Fine. Did you get home safely?” he messaged back.

“Still at the office,” Fujii replied.

YF felt his heartbeat quicken. Why would she send an encrypted message? Why was she still at the office? The relaxing atmosphere of his dark apartment brought him back to what he felt before he and Fujii had started drinking at the Black Hat Bar. YF thought about her form fitting dress, her thighs brushing against his leg, her warm lips pressed on his, and her fangs grazing along his neck. While the rest of the memories of that night blurred together, he clearly remembered Fujii stopping them at the last moment. YF knew that had she let him, they might have regretted the next few minutes.

But unlike back then, deep in his heart, YF knew exactly what was happening now, and that this time, there would be no holding back. The cursor on the terminal messaging app blinked over and over again. Fujii was more traditional — she was waiting for him to say something.

“Don’t make a decision you’ll regret,” he could hear Honda saying to him.

“Fucking Honda,” he murmured. “Always fucking up everything.”

YF hovered his hands over the keyboard. “I’ve got to go somewhere. See you in the café tomorrow,” YF messaged.

YF unplugged the terminal. He then stood up and grabbed his coat, heading for the garage.