Chapter Text
They were seeing a lot of each other outside of work. Someone had to accompany Angel everywhere — more often that not that person was Aki. Happy to escort him to the supermarket, to the movies, to bars and restaurants if the occasion called for it — Aki had become a near constant presence in Angel’s life.
Aki seemed more focussed now Makima was dead. Brighter. He used to zone out in conversation the moment Angel got him to really listen or open up. If Angel made some emotional connection or found some common ground — Aki would be there, then gone again, hard and glazed over. Angel wondered if he had been the same. Though Angel had felt Makima’s influence — he was not mortal, and therefore not as beguiled as Aki had been. If one were to ask Aki about his love life, there’d be only one name on his lips: hers. Makima, Makima, Makima.
And now, without her, Aki and Angel were getting closer. Talking more about bigger things. They felt like real friends, rather than just colleagues. They were present, connected and fully themselves.
When the lights came up after the shitty movie they’d watched had finished — Angel glanced over at Aki, and found himself smiling at the fact that Aki was smiling. It had been this terrible Hollywood movie, where a bunch of prisoners were trapped on a plane. Angel had napped through most of it — he wasn’t paying. Aki seemed to like it, though.
They got up, popcorn sticking to their shoes, and traipsed through the lobby. They talked about work — about life in division four under Kishibe. Things had gotten better in some ways — worse in others. They actually had to stick to regulations with Makima gone — their paper workload had doubled.
“I didn’t take this job to write reports.”
“So quit,” Angel said. “No Makima screwing up the inside of your head now — what’s your excuse?”
It was warming up — winter shifting into spring. They wore light jackets, and the gloves Angel tended to wear out of politeness were starting to make his hands sweaty. Still, the gloves meant their knuckles could brush a little as they walked; by mistake or on purpose, neither of them pulled away from it.
“I want to kill the Gun Devil,” Aki answered, simply. “I put my whole life into it. Might as well see it through to the end, with the time I have left. It’s… It’s like a sunk cost thing.”
“Sunk cost fallacy, you mean,” Angel replied, emphasising the word fallacy. Aki sighed. He lit a cigarette. He quit briefly after Himeno died but had taken the habit back up again.
“I asked Kishibe about it. He said if I quit, I’ll have to move out of the apartment, and they won’t let me take Power and Denji,” Aki grumbled. Angel nodded; he wasn’t sure why or how exactly Aki had gotten so attached to the Chainsaw Man and the Blood fiend. Power was crass and irritating. Denji was also crass and irritating; with the added bonus of his chainsaws sending a chill down Angel’s spine every time he revved-up. “But we’re gunna send Denji to school, at least,” Aki added, cheerfully. “I wanted to try and get him his own tutor ‘cause he’ll be so behind the other kids in a high school, but Kishibe said we don’t have the budget for it.”
“Maybe it’d make more sense to send him to a middle school,” Angel said. Aki shrugged. He said he’d actually pitched the idea of going to middle school to Denji, but Denji had said no. He argued it’d be too embarrassing for him to have to sit in school with a bunch of little kids.
“And it’s not like you can tell him it wouldn’t be — ‘cause it would. But I don’t know. I’m kind of worried about him going to high school. I think that might be pretty fucking embarrassing for him too. He can’t read kanji, you know. And I don’t know enough to help him — I didn’t go to high school either.”
“Kobeni went to high school. And she wanted to go to university,” Angel reminded him. “She’s actually pretty bright, you know. And she’d definitely take the extra money if you asked her to tutor him.”
“Good idea,” Aki said. He smoked his cigarette and he coughed. He was coming around from a bad cold — he probably shouldn’t be smoking yet. Though, as with anything related to Aki’s health, if Angel told him to stop, he’d complain that there wasn’t any point. “You’re full of good ideas,” he said.
They often got to this point in the evening — a point where it became clear one of their little outings was verging dangerously close to becoming a date. Then they’d both clam up. Angel would ask Aki to take him home — and neither of them would be brave enough to suggest there might be something between them.
Angel knew it was too tragic to acknowledge — so tragic it bordered on ridiculous. The Devil who drained the life from everyone he touched had feelings for a professional devil hunter with two years to live. Complicated by the return of his memories — the massacre at his village, the human woman he’d been in love with — Angel couldn’t really imagine himself in a normal relationship.
Aki had his own problems in that regard too. He’d confessed, over beers, that the moment Makima died he’d realised how badly he’d treated Himeno. That he’d liked Himeno since he was a kid, and as soon as he was old enough to do anything about it, Makima had wriggled into his brain and taken up residence there.
He’d been so cold with Himeno — but he’d slept with her, and had kept sleeping with her. It was his fault she’d stayed with public safety and his fault she’d died. And just as he’d gotten through the worst of his guilt and his grief — the mental damn that was Makima had been destroyed, and he’d been flooded by forgotten romantic feelings for Himeno.
Early on, Aki and Angel spent a few nights together lamenting the death of their respective lovers. Each of them blaming himself while the other talked him back into blaming Makima — the real villain, the only person truly at fault.
Aki was completely the wrong person for Angel at entirely the wrong time — but none-the-less, the feelings were there.
As they walked down the street, their knuckles brushed again.
“I’ll take you home,” Aki said. “You need anything?”
“The laundry in the building is broken. Beam got in it,” Angel said. “Can I clean my clothes at your place. Tomorrow or the day after? I’m really low on things to wear.”
“Tomorrow’s good,” Aki said.
They walked back to Angel’s apartment building – back to Public Safety HQ. They cut through Shinjuku, through Kabukicho, immediately bumping into a doomsday preacher. He was wearing a huge sign on his body:
THE END IS NIGH, REPENT.
JOIN THE LAST CHURCH OF JAPAN NOW!
“Begone, false angel,” hissed the preacher.
“Fuck off,” Aki snapped back. “Fucking weirdo.” With a hand in the middle of Angel’s back, Aki guided them away, into the crowd.
The Last Church of Japan made Angel nervous. He’d seen them around and had generally tried to block them out. They were one of several new Christian-ish Doomsday cults who thought various horseman devils would soon come and trigger the apocalypse, ala the book of Revelation. They prayed to Jesus and to God and to Angels to protect them from the Devils. Angel knew this, because he often passed this preacher on patrol, often heard him screaming at strangers, telling them to repent – to beg God for his forgiveness. This wasn’t the first time he’d been called a false angel, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Angel could hardly hold it against the preacher – he wasn’t exactly wrong.
Still, it was all a little too familiar – uncomfortably so, for Angel. He thought about the island, home, the people there who feared him and loved him, and etched chain tattoos on their foreheads in his honour. He stroked the marking that looped around his wrist.
“What the fuck is that, this Last Church shit,” Aki said, rolling his eyes. “Not to sound like a nationalist or something but… That’s just not Japanese. It’s weird, it’s creepy. It’s… American.”
Angel laughed.
“Plenty of cults in Japan, Aki,” he said. “You know, I came up in a cult a little like the Last Church.”
“No shit,” Aki said, sounding surprised. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”
“It never really came up."
"Bullshit. I've asked about you plenty of times, you just never answer," Aki said. Angel shrugged.
"The place I was from — it was a little island off the coast of Okinawa. They were… This kind of pseudo-Christian angel worshipping group. They formed shortly after the war and moved to the island in ‘62 and I was born in ‘65.” Angel paused and corrected himself. He wasn’t really born. “I manifested into existence in this body in ‘65. Because… well, people fear what they worship. I assume the previous Angel Devil had died, and that seemed to be the place it made the most sense for me to reappear – on that island.”
“You look a lot younger than thirty-two,” Aki said, unhelpfully.
“I don’t think my age can really be quantified in human terms,” Angel replied. He was born a child, he grew into a man within ten years, or so, and then seemed to stop aging.
“But you’re still way older than me,” Aki said. “So they like… worshiped you?”
“Kind of, yeah,” Angel said. “They’d wait on me hand and foot and they’d trade a few years of their life here and there for blessings from me – I don’t think they understood what I really was. I didn’t exactly correct them,” Angel admitted. Aki smirked – Angel expected him to judge that, to chastise Angel for lying. But Angel supposed Aki’s sympathy for any one dumb enough to convince themselves a devil was a real angel was limited.
“So you’re not lazy. You’re just really spoiled,” Aki said.
“I guess,” Angel replied. Aki started sniggering – he rarely laughed. Angel frowned. “What?”
“This just… Explains so much about you,” he said.
Angel’s building was in sight, now. When they were drunk, Aki would always walk him to his door, then hang around in the hall, artificially extending their goodbye. Sometimes they’d give each other an awkward, masculine, back-slappy hug. Once, Aki got hammered, and invited himself in. He stumbled into Angel’s grotty little studio apartment, took off his shirt, and said let’s just do this, let’s just… Let’s just fucking do this already. And then promptly fell asleep on Angel’s sofa. He woke up the next morning with no memory of what he’d said.
Tonight, he walked Angel all the way up to his door. They hadn’t been drinking, so no chance of anything like that happening tonight.
“Well… Goodnight,” Angel said. “Thanks for walking me.”
“Yeah, no problem. I mean, I have to,” Aki said. “But… You know, I want to. I like to.” He cleared his throat. He went a little pink. He punched Angel gently, awkwardly on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow,” he said.
Angel smiled and closed the door. He watched Aki through the peephole for a moment, watched him scrunch up his face in embarrassment. Then, he seemed to contemplate knocking again. Not moving, standing there, raising his hand, then lowering it. Deflating like a balloon. Blowing away.
*
When Angel got to his desk that morning, Kishibe was already sitting at it.
“You know about Christian iconography, right?” he asked. No good morning, no hello. “You know about the lore and stuff.”
The Lore and Stuff — like they were talking about Star Trek or something. But Angel did know it — he practically came pre-packaged with it.
“Yeah?” Angel said.
“I’ve got a big case for you and Hayakawa. Grab a coffee, come to my office,” Kishibe cheerfully drummed his knuckles on Angel’s desk, then went to his office.
Angel didn’t want to meet Kishibe. He didn’t want to “work” any case, especially not a big one, and he didn’t want to get his own coffee. He groaned quietly. He and Aki had more or less gotten away with easy jobs, so far. Walk around a neighbourhood — go to location X and kill Fiend Y or Devil Z. They worked cases that mostly consisted of looking at a dead body for five minutes, agreeing that a Fiend probably did it, then finding the Fiend within twenty-four hours of the body’s discovery.
Someone nudged Angel. Aki, holding two coffees. They were from the new American coffee chain nearby, rather than the machine in the office. They’d been a few times — Angel always ordered something sweet, with too much shit in it according to Aki. He handed Angel a cup with a thick head of whipped cream on the top.
“There’s so much cream in this thing, it’s practically a milkshake,” he said. “When I ordered it the girl said: really? This early? But… You know – figured if you’re some object of worship that gives out blessings… I’d better stay on your good side.”
“Cute, thank you,” Angel said, flatly, snatching the borderline-milkshake-coffee from Aki’s hand. He drank greedily from the straw – rich vanilla, cream, sugar, only the vaguest, palest taste of coffee. Aki made a face. “Kishibe wants to see us. Something about a big case,” Angel said.
They went to Kishibe’s office, finding him drinking from a hip flask. His drinking had gotten worse since he took over Makima’s position, apparently. Angel didn’t know him well enough to make a judgement and didn’t particularly care to.
Kishibe immediately presented them with a series of gory photographs of a man hanging from his ankles, over the door of some seedy establishment in Kabukicho — an image-club named Fantasy Island. The man’s name was Ryuji Tanaka, he was unmarried, and worked in corporate, for a big bank. His hands were nailed either side of the door, spread wide, his body shaped like an upside-down cross. He was average looking, and slightly pudgy. Early thirties. There was no blood on him. His mouth hung open wide, and his eyes were blank, as if he’d been completely drained of life. It was a look Angel recognised from his own victims. Beside the corpse, written in Latin on the wall, were the words luxuria and invidia. They were probably written in blood, but Angel supposed it could be red paint.
“We walked by this place yesterday, I think,” Aki said. “I recognise the name.”
“Wild night out?” Kishibe asked.
“Yeah. Lost all our money in an illegal casino under a soapland – had to pull a shift there to pay off our debts. Plus, we’re both addicted to heroin now,” Angel said. Kishibe nodded.
“Standard Tuesday night, then,” he said. Angel nodded back. Kishibe did have a sense of humour, at least. Aki didn’t, not really. He was frowning, looking between the two of them suspiciously, as if he was worried Kishibe had believed Angel. Kishibe tapped his finger on one of the photographs in front of him, on the red words. “We asked somebody who speaks decent English to look at this — they said it wasn’t English. Maybe Italian or something. I figured the body looked kind of… Crucified. And I thought of Christian stuff… And I thought of you,” said Kishibe. “You think you can help?”
“It’s Latin,” said Angel. He could read biblical languages — Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek – but he wasn’t confident he’d understand any of those languages if he heard them out loud. When written down, the words seemed to translate in his head, effortlessly, as if they’d been written in his native tongue. “Lust,” Angel pointed at the word luxuria, Kishibe snatched his hand back, like Angel was a lunging spider. Angel chose not to acknowledge that – he pointed to the word Invidia. “And envy — two of the seven deadly sins. Plus, I think the body looks like…” Looks like something I could do, he thought, then decided not to say it aloud. “I don’t know what it looks like. Where’s the pathologist’s report? Were there any wounds?”
“Nah,” said Kishibe. “The pathologist hasn’t seen him yet but the body was totally clean. No bruising, no blood. Might as well have died of a heart attack.”
“Sounds like the cops were right to send this our way,” Aki said. “Any sign of gun devil fragment?”
“Not yet but…” Kishibe shrugged. “Seems weird enough that a fragment might show up.”
“Might?” Aki seemed indignant.
“I know — but it looks like we’re gunna need him for this,” Kishibe said. He pointed at Angel. Angel sighed. Oh how terrible it was to be needed for a case. Kishibe sighed back at him. “So you’re going to have to contribute. No whining. No dragging your feet or refusing to work.” And he really meant it. Angel could tell he meant it, because he was still pointing. Angel rolled his eyes. “Roll your eyes all you want, this case looks like it could be nasty — you fuck this up, you’re in trouble.”
Angel sort of believed him, sort of didn’t, and didn’t entirely care either way. He decided to make a show of trying, any way.
Kishibe wanted them to speak to the girls at the Image Club – he’d spoken to the owner this morning, and said he was very co-operative. Aki said they could head to Kabukicho as soon as the image club opened — Angel shook his head.
“We can go this morning. There’s a Catholic mission there. We could ask the… Priest, or whatever, we could ask him if he’s seen any body weird. Any body especially religious, or people talking about uh…” Angel sucked the plastic straw stuck in his coffee — it was already lukewarm, “Christianity themed Devils, I guess.”
“Like you?” Kishibe asked.
*
Angel understood Kabukicho had gotten kind of odd over the thirteen years since the gun devil attack. Still a thriving red-light district, the area had come to cater to gradually more extreme tastes and had become more and more controversial. Religious fervour was on the rise, had been gradually for the last decade — and for every sex club, soapland or love hotel there was now a conservative political protestor from a special interest group or a religious extremist to go with it.
“Apparently the Yakuza in Tokyo have been struggling. Getting themselves too involved in private devil hunting — they just don’t have the numbers to chase these idiots away any more,” Aki said. The idiots in question were a group of ‘Concerned Mothers’, protesting outside of a BDSM club. They held signs with little slogans: Sick Sex Freaks Attract Devils; Devil Breeding Ground.
“That club won’t open for hours,” Angel said. “What a stupid waste of time.”
“I guess I kind of get the logic with those people the… The people who think if we all just behave and keep our heads down, we won’t attract as many devils. But those freaks,” Aki nodded to his left. The Last Church of Japan preacher was there again, like he hadn’t moved all night. “I don’t get it.”
The preacher noticed the Angel again, and hissed. They moved along, walking as quickly as they could. He called after them:
“A false angel walks in our midst – be not tempted by his wickedness, for he is a child of hell, no true messenger of God but a demon born of fear and sulphur.”
“Shut up, it’s like fucking… Nine AM, give it a rest,” Aki shouted back. He turned to Angel, scowling. “He’s just causing problems for no reason – him and people like him — they’re just stoking religious fears, they’re gunna fucking make a devil pop-up, acting like that.” They walked past shuttered bars and clubs toward the catholic mission. Aki frowned down at Angel.
“Maybe they’re right to be afraid. Not saying it’s not counter-productive, but can you blame them? Hell is real, after all. It’s heaven I’m not so sure about.” Angel paused — Aki had scolded him before for saying weird and upsetting shit before a certain time of day. It probably was too early for this kind of talk; he tried to change the subject. “But I bet you believe in reincarnation.”
“Kind of. But I’d have to wonder what horrible stuff I did in a past life to get stuck with this,” Aki sighed. Then he shook his head. “It’s way too early to talk about this stuff.”
They arrived at the Catholic mission, a small building with a cross and the name written in Japanese, English and Korean.
“You go in first. Maybe give whoever’s in there a heads up about me,” Angel said. Aki nodded — entering the building and exiting again a moment later to wave Angel in.
Angel stepped into a small chapel; a lot of space in the building was dedicated to multi-lingual pamphlets extolling the virtues of converting to Catholicism. The priest was a Korean man who spoke fluent Japanese — Father Park – he’d come here to run the mission, to attract converts and council tourists. Aki and Angel explained the details of the murder to the priest — he was fairly young. His soft smile hardened when it became clear they were here to question him.
“Oh dear,” he said. Oh dear at the murder, or oh dear that they were asking him, Angel wasn’t sure. The Priest stared at him — spoke not to Aki but to Angel. “Why the Catholic mission? You should be talking to the people from the Last Church. If any one knows anything about-” he was getting angry — Aki cut him off.
“We’re just wondering if you’ve seen anything odd in the area. Spoken to any one with strange religious ideas or anyone who seems odd, or…”
“Things are getting stranger by the day, here,” the Priest said, relaxing again. “There’s a group of pretty women who’ve been recruiting for Last Church meetings — you’ll know them when you see them. I don’t know where they meet but it’s somewhere nearby. Try them, that seems to be the easiest way to talk to someone from the Last Church. I’d say to try the preacher they have posted up in the area — but he screamed at me yesterday, which is weird because he’s usually pretty docile.” Aki and Angel exchanged a look at that. The priest nodded, as if he’d finished speaking. Then he slapped his forehead. “Oh, of course! An ultra-nationalist group threatened me last week. Nothing to do with the Last Church. They were from the Anti-Devil Nationalist Party. Can’t say I’ve heard of them – I doubt they’re a real political party.”
“What kind of threat?” Aki asked.
“One blaming the presence of the catholic church for groups like the Last Church, and blaming us for Devil attacks,” the Priest replied. He excused himself to his office for a moment, where he retrieved a crumpled note — one which had been tied to a brick and thrown through his office window at the back of the building. It read:
FOREIGNERS LEAVE JAPAN! YOUR CHURCH BRINGS CRAZY CULTS AND DEVILS. YOU HAVE 7 DAYS! WATCH OUT!
It wasn’t the most threatening death threat Angel had ever seen. The Priest told them that if the note hadn’t been tied to a brick, he wouldn’t have taken it seriously.
“I’m not here to forcibly convert any one or stir up trouble. I have nothing to do with the Last Church. I’m here to help. To offer absolution to those who seek it — forgiveness to those who need it,” the Priest told them, beatifically. He sounded smug, suddenly Angel felt irritated. Religious people set him on edge. The way the priest was looking at him set him on edge.
“We don’t care,” Angel said. “Just answer the questions you’re asked.”
The Priest nodded, respectfully. Like Angel was right, like he hadn’t been needlessly rude. They had only a few more questions — dates and times, any names he knew of Last Church Members. He didn’t know much.
“Has it been seven days since the uh… Anti-Devil nationalists sent the threat?” Aki asked. The priest thought for a moment.
“Six,” he said. Angel groaned – he knew what that meant.
“We’ll be back to stakeout the building tomorrow,” Aki said. Father Park thanked them, and sent them on their way.
Angel didn’t mind sitting down for extended periods of time – that was probably the best part of a stakeout. But the hours it took. The concentration. The fact he wasn’t even allowed to read a magazine or play with the Gameboy he’d stolen from Aki several months ago! It was barbaric.
“Trust him?” Angel asked Aki, as they left the mission.
“No reason not to,” Aki replied. “But you seemed to have a problem with him.”
“He was looking at me funny.”
“A lot of people look at you funny,” Aki said. “Wanna grab uh…” Aki checked his watch. It was 10:00. “Late breakfast?”
So they went for a late breakfast – to a café. Angel dissuaded Aki from going to a traditional breakfast spot nearby, and instead steered him to a place which exclusively dealt in ridiculous souffle pancakes.
“The way you eat…” Aki said mournfully, staring down at a fat, fluffy pancake like it was a bowl of vegetables. Aki would probably be happier with a bowl of vegetables. “You’re like a little kid.”
“You’re so fucking boring sometimes,” Angel said. “Do you know that?” Aki shrugged. He did know that, it seemed. He took a few bites of the pancake, then abandoned it for a cigarette – he offered the plate to Angel, who greedily accepted.
Smoking, Aki watched Angel closely. Enough to make Angel feel self-conscious. He reached out suddenly, wielding a napkin, scrubbing a streak of chocolate from Angel’s cheek.
*
The owner of the Image Club let them in before the place opened. He was a shockingly respectable looking man – dull, middle-aged, wearing a suit, balding. He bowed deeply and sorrowfully and apologised for troubling Public Safety, like he was somehow responsible. He led Aki and Angel to his office (cramped and windowless) where a young woman sat.
Dressed modestly, the owner introduced her as Tomoko – she quickly corrected him. Her name was Toshiko, she was twenty-one, and the victim had been one of her regular clients. The police had gone to her apartment this morning – she had a solid alibi, and it seemed unlikely she’d be able to kill a man without leaving a mark. She couldn’t have strung him up either. Toshiko was shorter than Angel – barely five feet tall – and looked like she weighed about ninety pounds. Frankly, Angel struggled to believe that this woman was twenty-one – as if reading his mind, Toshiko assured him the cops had checked her ID this morning and that they could check for themselves.
They asked her about her relationship with the victim, with Ryuji Tanaka, and she asked the owner to step outside. He obliged.
Tanaka had been coming to Fantasy Island for about a year. He never gave her is last name – so she called him Mister Ryuji. That was how he liked it. Fantasy Island had a few themed sets and rooms – including a train car. Tanaka always wanted Toshiko, always in a middle school uniform, and always in the train car.
“Mr Ryuji had this whole story in his head made up about us. He called me Momoko, and he wanted to rub up on me in the train car. Standard chikan shit — always prefer they get it out of their system here instead of bothering an actual middle-schooler, you know? Much healthier to come to an image club,” she said. Angel nodded. He didn’t need to be convinced that Toshiko was providing a valuable service. “He started coming back every week. He always wanted me to be Momoko — and for Momoko to remember him, and tell him off but kind of… Like it, you know? At first I was improvising – then, one week, he shows up with a fucking script for me to read out. Pretty soon he’s writing Momoko like she’s about to agree to have sex with him, and I have to stop him because that’s illegal,” she said, raising her voice for the last half of the sentence. Then she lowered her voice and leant in close to Aki and Angel. “Truth is, he just didn’t offer enough money. I told him — I see a guy who pays me triple what you offered. He’s so angry that he hits me — he gets thrown out and banned,” Toshiko said. She asked for a tissue – Aki handed her one. She scrubbed the makeup off her cheek, revealing a small line of green bruises. She shrugged. “Two days later, he’s nailed to the door.”
Tanaka was her only regular, and she didn’t have a boyfriend who might get upset. The owner had an alibi too.
“We’ll need a list of everyone who knew about the incident, and a list of any where he mentioned he might like to go,” Aki said. He’d been scribbling all of this down in a notebook, in his appalling little-boy handwriting.
“Mister Ryuji didn’t mention any other places, I think he only came here — but you should talk to his buddy, Mister Fumio. Fumio’s this rich, flashy jackass who worked with him at the bank – they arrived together, sometimes,” she said. Then she leaned in close again, whispering. “He came back to see me a few times on his own. Fumio is the guy that paid me triple what Mister Ryuji offered for… you know.” And as if they didn’t know, Toshiko made an obscene hand gesture. “He seemed kind of nice, but… I don’t know. Men are crazy. No offence.”
“None taken,” Aki said.
Toshiko passed on Fumio’s contact details – she had a cell-phone number, but not a last name.
They went outside and used a payphone to call him.
“They should really give us cell phones,” Angel said.
“We have them, but you have to book them out. There’s like five for the whole department to-” Aki stopped suddenly, turning toward the phone. “Hello, am I speaking to – apologies, I got this number from a mutual friend of ours – Toshiko? – am I speaking to a Fumio?” Aki paused for a moment. “Not the police – public safety. We wanted to talk about-” He paused again, nodding, as if the man at the other end of the phone could hear him. “Yes about Mister Tanaka. I’m sorry for your loss. My condolence-” The man interrupted Aki again. “We’re not accusing-” he sighed, turning to Angel and shaking his head. “Well, we’d really appreciate that, thank you. Okay.” Aki wedged the receiver between his jaw and his shoulder. “Sunshine café, Arakicho – an hour. Perfect, sure.” Aki hung-up.
Angel made a face. Arakicho was like… an entire half-an-hour away on foot.
“This sucks,” he said. “I hate investigating stuff, this stinks.”
“You’re making it worse,” Aki said. “Come on. We’ll stop for… Whatever makes you stop whining.”
After the first fifteen minutes of the walk, Angel began threatening to take his own life. Then, Aki bought him a strawberry sando from a konbini, which did shut him up. He quietly munched for the rest of the walk, while Aki checked over his notes.
They took a seat at the Sunshine Café and ordered a coffee and a hot chocolate.
“If there’s no gun devil fragment at the end of this – I’m gunna be so fucking annoyed,” Aki grumbled. “I can just tell this is going to be a whole thing.”
“Ah, now who’s whining?” Angel said.
“I am. You’re not wrong, this does suck.” Aki shook his head. “Let’s try and stay positive.” He said this with a perfectly blank face and low, miserable tone of voice.
Fumio Watanabe burst in a moment later. He was flashy, especially for someone working for a bank. He wore an expensive navy-blue suit, a thick gold watch, and had a small diamond earring in left lobe. He was wearing sunglasses and carrying a big, leather briefcase, monogrammed with his initials, W and F, in the roman alphabet. He had a dark tan, like he’d just come back from vacation. He spotted them instantly, pausing for a moment to look Angel up and down, before joining them at the table.
“I already talked to the cops,” he said.
“I know but-” Aki tried to cut in, but Watanabe cut him off – he wouldn’t let Aki interrupt.
“And they cleared me, so-”
“But-”
“It obviously wasn’t me!”
“We’re just gathering information. We think-”
“A devil did it? Man that’s so crazy. That’s nuts,” Watanabe said. Angel wondered if it was, perhaps, a tad suspicious for him to jump to a devil did it – but then he supposed there was no other reason public safety would be talking to him. He twitched in his chair, fiddling with his ridiculous pop-star haircut and scratching at the back of his neck. Aki seemed stunned (or at least, infuriated) into silence.
“You seem a little on edge?” Angel offered. Watanabe flinched.
“Wouldn’t you be?” he asked. Angel shrugged – fair enough. Aki asked him if there was anything Watanabe could tell them – the last time he spoke to Ryuji Tanaka, anything odd he’d mentioned, the night he was banned from Fantasy Island. “I don’t know anything. Well, I know he slapped Toshiko – I don’t approve. Do you? No way. No sir, I don’t approve of that kind of behaviour.” Watanabe said, twitchily. The waitress brought Aki and Angel their drinks, and Watanabe told her he didn’t want anything. Then he made a show of slamming a thousand yen on the table – double what that order was worth. “That’s on me.” He said with a wink. Aki smiled tightly.
“Do you did talk to him that night, af-”
“After he got banned? Sure, sure, he was crazy upset about it. He said Toshiko was his perfect Momoko – Momoko’s this anime girl he likes, really odd guy, great friend of mine but woah, was he odd, real otaku type, you know? He said he’d never get a replacement, and I was like… Woah, dude… Chill out, you know? She’s just some whor…” as his mouth went to round off the word whore, he smiled, nervously, and self corrected, looking nervously at Angel as he did. “Horrifyingly cute girl, but there are other horrifyingly cute girls out there – like yourself,” he said. Aki snorted into his coffee cup.
“I’m a man,” Angel replied, intentionally deepening his voice. Watanabe squinted at him, tipping down his sunglasses.
“Oh,” he said. “Jeez, I guess you are, huh?” he whistled, then clapped, pointing at Angel. “You should cut your hair shorter,” Watanabe said, offering a solution. “Well, I think we’ve covered everything.” Watanabe got up, Aki yanked him back into his chair by the wrist.
“Sit the fuck down,” Aki said, coolly. “Tell us about the rest of the phone call.”
“Well… Hmm… He actually hung up when I called Toshiko a whore,” Watanabe apparently had no issue saying whore now he knew Angel was a man. He seemed to relax a lot, actually. “But he called me back a little later. Said he’d met some cuties on the street, they saw how sad he was, they picked him up, and they were taking him to some last chance church meeting? I dunno, he wanted me to come with him.”
“Last church of Japan?” asked Angel. Watanabe snapped his fingers, and pointed. Angel and Aki exchanged a look.
“Yeah! I totally didn’t want to go ‘cause of the church thing, so I told him no way,” Watanabe said. Aki sighed. He was struggling with Watanabe, Angel could tell. His knuckles had gone white on the handle of his mug.
“And you don’t think he knew about you and Toshiko?” Aki asked.
“Who said anything about me and Toshiko? Yeah I knew about her, went to Fantasy Island a couple of times – but she was Ryuji’s girl,” Watanabe said. There was sweat gathering on his forehead. Aki reminded Watanabe that they weren’t the cops – and that they’d already spoken to Toshiko. “Well… Okay, so I paid her a couple of times. She was cute… Kind of different from usual girls. You know, sometimes you just wanna uh… Try something out,” Watanabe said. He looked back and forth between Angel and Aki, waiting for one of them to nod in agreement. They just stared at him. Watanabe stared back. “You know? You know what I’m saying guys. I mean, she’s twenty-one, so…”
“I’m into older women,” Aki said, finally, as if that would close the matter. Watanabe nodded.
“Aged like a fine wine, huh? I never got that personally, but… Any way, you know… Ryuji, he was my buddy, but he was dumb as shit. Real dense. He got so upset with Toshiko because he thought she liked him. He thought she was really into it. He had no idea I’d seen her,” Watanabe said.
“No body’s that stupid,” Angel insisted. Watanabe shrugged.
“Yeah, well Ryuji was. And now look at him.”
*
They spent hours looking for them – the last church girls, allegedly handing out fliers in Kabukicho. Angel now had his pockets stuffed full of advertisements for hostess clubs and soaplands and sex clubs and nail salons and… He saw a trash can, and dropped them all inside it.
“I want to go home. It’s past five,” he complained. Aki checked his watch.
“It’s three minutes past five.”
“The last church girls aren’t going to come anywhere near you with me around. I’m the false angel, remember?” Angel tried. Aki blinked, then groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
“Fuck… Shit, that’s a good point,” he took a deep breath, and kicked the trashcan. “Okay, tomorrow we’ll stakeout the church for those nationalists – and then I’ll break off and look for the Last Church girls while you keep an eye on things at the Catholic Mission.” Aki smiled, and they began to walk in the direction of the office. Angel did not smile back – that sounded like a day of hideously hard work, to him. “Did you want to do your laundry at my place?” Aki asked, suddenly.
“If that’s okay,” Angel said. His laundry was bagged up and ready to go in his apartment. Aki nodded.
“It’s cool,” he said. Then added: “You can have dinner with us, too, if you want.”
*
Back at Aki’s apartment, Angel was shovelling laundry detergent into the machine, while Aki cooked and told Denji and Power about their case. Denji and Power’s gunky work clothes were balled up in the corner of the laundry room – covered in orange slime. They’d tossed them in without really acknowledging Angel – Angel didn’t really feel the need to acknowledge them
“You went to an image club,” Denji hooted – to him, a dingy sex club was clearly the height of eroticism. “What’s she look like? Sexy? Big boobies?”
“She was pretty but, she looked like a twelve-year-old. This tall,” Aki said. He must’ve been holding a hand out to indicate Toshiko’s height. Angel loaded up the machine with his white shirts, then strolled into the living area. Aki insisted that Angel wash the suit he was wearing, and made Angel borrow an oversized hoody (big enough to fit his wings inside) and a pair of shorts. The only shorts Aki had that would fit Angel were these gym shorts from Aki’s middle school. A pair he’d never gotten rid of, for some reason. “She was flat as a board, made Kobeni look like a gravure idol. Didn’t she?” Aki asked, spotting Angel.
“There for a specialist clientele, I think,” Angel agreed.
“Well what kind of guy wants to…” Denji paused and thought for a moment. His face fell. “Oh… Eww, gross.”
“We smashed the Pumpkin Devil,” Power cut in. The two of them were already at the dinner table, wearing mismatched pyjamas and drinking soda.
“Smushed it real good,” Denji agreed. “Kishibe said you have to make us a special dinner-”
“No vegetables,” Power said, pounding the table with her fist.
“To celebrate,” Denji said, nodding furiously. Aki was cutting salad vegetables at the counter. Angel sat at the breakfast bar and watched him rhythmically slice a cucumber.
“No he didn’t,” Aki said.
“He did, he did!” Denji said. “He said you have to give us cake or something. Real cake!”
Angel sighed, heavily. He struggled to hide his impatience with Aki’s charges. Power heard the sigh, and threw one of her cat’s small, mouse-shaped toys at him.
“Why are you always here?” she asked.
“The laundry is always broken in my building. Tell Beam to stay out of the mechanics and you’ll see less of me.”
“I don’t mind you being here,” Denji said, politely. Power elbowed him hard in the ribs.
“Only ‘cause you thought he was a girl till like… Two weeks ago.” Denji insisted he did not, and after a did not, did too back and forth, Power snapped: “You asked Aki if she was single!”
“No I did not,” Denji yelped. He was bright red, looking pleadingly at Angel, whose lip was curled. Angel shook his head. Aki came over from the kitchen and dropped a bowl of salad on the table.
“You’re making the guest uncomfortable,” he said. “Idiots.” Power narrowed her eyes at Aki.
“This looks like vegetables,” she said, observantly.
They ate dinner – salad and rice and fish, not the most exciting meal Angel had ever eaten, but he wouldn’t complain. Power did, though. She ate the salad like it was half-rotted – chewing it carefully, disdainfully, glaring at Aki as she did. Denji would eat anything set in front of him and tipped back the dull meal like it was candy. When Aki told him there was ice cream in the freezer, Denji looked like he was about to weep with happiness.
“I’m so fucking happy,” he said, looking earnestly into Aki’s eyes. Aki told him to shut up; Angel decided he understood how Denji could be kind of endearing, maybe. Power’s appeal was still lost on him. She banged her hands on the table again, crying for meat.
“You guys are cleaning up tonight,” Aki said, hopping up from the table. “We’re gunna go over our case notes in my room. If I hear anything break…”
“Yeah, yeah you’ll take the PlayStation away, whatever,” Denji said, clearing the plates. Power watched him, then turned the PlayStation on. Aki went not to his room, but to the balcony, cigarette dangling unlit from his lips. He nodded for Angel to follow – and Angel did.
Leaning over the rail of the balcony, Aki lit his cigarette. Angel took him in. Relaxed, in his soft clothes, his hair down, he looked serene. He was at peace with the little life he’d carved out for himself, even if there wasn’t much of it left. Angel looked at the rusty deckchair beside them – it was next to a small outdoor table, white plastic, and flecked with cigarette ash. There was an ashtray on the table – new, and from an aquarium Angel knew Aki had recently visited with Power and Denji. The ashtray was pinning down a crinkled magazine – some men’s fashion rag it was kind of funny to imagine Aki reading. Serious Aki, fussing over his hair and his clothes – buying good cologne, pricey moisturiser.
He offered Angel a cigarette. Angel had sort of gotten into the habit of smoking, occasionally, when Aki was around. More-so when they drank. Right now, he said no.
“We should have the pathologist’s report tomorrow. I think we meet at the office, then head to the morgue first thing – then we can stakeout the church together till sundown and then I’ll split off and go look for the Last Church girls.”
Sounded like a plan. Angel watched Aki finish the cigarette, stub it out in the aquarium ashtray, then head inside – through the balcony door that went to Aki’s room. Angel perched on the bed, while Aki immediately went to the wardrobe, sorting through shirts and pairs of pants – pulling out everything that wasn’t black.
“What are you doing?”
“Picking out a salaryman outfit. They'll avoid me if I'm uniform,” Aki said. Angel didn’t really think Aki looked like an office worker. He’d be more convincing as a host or a hooker or some yakuza whelp – of course, that’d be far too embarrassing to say out loud. You’re too young and handsome to work in an office, maybe you should dress a little sexier, Angel thought, watching Aki pull a dull blue shirt and a grey pair of pants from his closet. “What do you think? I’ll make myself look kind of rumpled and drunk. Blend in with the crowd,” he said. He put the shirt and the pants in front of his body. Angel shrugged.
“What about your hair? You look too much like yourself still. What if they saw you with me today?” Angel said. Aki thought for a moment. He parted his hair more in the centre, pulling his bangs off his face. He swept his hair back behind his ears, and then went to his nightstand. He pulled a pair of plain, wire rimmed glasses from a black case, and popped them on. He crouched down to Angel’s level, for inspection.
“What do you think? Different enough?” he asked. Angel squinted – the lenses of the glasses distorted Aki’s face just a little, they made his eyes look slightly smaller. The style was dated, too, like he’d gotten them cheap. He still looked handsome – Aki was one of those annoying people that could sort of get away with wearing anything. The out-of-style, economy glasses looked like some sort of fashion statement on him. They made him look older, though, and changed his face enough that Angel doubted any one from the last church would recognise him – especially with the change of hair and the outfit.
Angel plucked the glasses from Aki’s face, and popped them on. A childish impulse. They were very big on Angel.
“These are prescription. You look different in them. Older. I think it’ll work,” Angel replied, taking them off – they weren’t very strong, but still, his eyes ached. “You can drive without these, right?”
“Oh yeah, totally. My prescription’s really low. I probably should wear them more often, but…” Aki shrugged, he took the glasses back and put them on again. “I guess I’m a little too vain to wear them… well, ever. I look stupid in them, right?” he asked. He wasn’t fishing for a compliment – he genuinely thought they looked silly. Angel shrugged.
“I think they suit you, actually,” Angel said. He was suddenly aware of how close they were. A little more than a foot apart – lean-in-and-kiss distance.
“They didn’t suit you at all,” Aki said, smiling. He licked his lips – Angel swallowed. Not the first time they’d done this – stared at each other for a while, sitting too close, with the air getting thicker and thicker.
“Rude,” Angel said. Then he flopped back on the bed, casually, saving Aki the trouble of breaking their long, charged stare. What a tragic life this is, Angel thought to himself. He sighed with frustration – the smell of Aki’s bed and his clothes suddenly overwhelming, making his stomach turn with excitement and misery and loneliness. He kicked his legs – like a child throwing a tantrum. Aki ignored him, if he even noticed – Angel could hear him fussing in the closet again.
“Oh! I’ll ask tomorrow if we can loan out the cell phones. That way we can keep in touch while we’re separated,” he said. What a dull, sensible thought to have in a moment like this. Maybe he distracted himself from the tension with dull, sensible thoughts. Maybe he didn’t realise there was tension.
Angel hummed in agreement.
Lying on his back, he lifted his feet in the air, stretching, arching his back. He pointed his toes and listened to his bones creak and pop. Aki grabbed his foot (safely stored in a sock) and went to tickle it. Angel kicked out and told him to fuck off. He hated being tickled – and he was in no fit state to be flirted with. A little too much physical contact and Angel might just go ahead and kill himself on the way home. Aki didn’t try to grab his foot again, but he did sit by Angel on the bed – Angel sat up and scooted away.
“Do you want to stay over? I mean, you might as well. It’s late.” It wasn’t all that late, not really. The trains and buses were all still running. They could call a car from HQ at any time. Still, Angel didn’t feel the need to point this out.
“Okay,” he said.
Nothing happened. They made plans, went over their notes and went to sleep. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened.