The guard finished talking on the phone, then held the receiver out for Kyoko. She took it and placed it to her ear, saying, “Hello?”
“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Naka-chan?” Takeshi Hashimoto’s voice was as stern as ever. “Falsely accusing some kid of theft, then dropping my name when the station guards realize you were full of shit?”
“I had to act fast, Sensei. He was getting away and didn’t want to risk losing him again,” said Kyoko.
“The hell’s this about anyway?”
“He was Akane Suzuki’s boyfriend and he’s been missing. I think he might be connected to her death. Might even have had something to do with it.”
“That’s a lot of speculation, you have any proof?”
“If I could talk to him, I could find out for certain.”
She could hear Hashimoto’s sigh over the phone. A pang of guilt hit her. Dragging Hashimoto into this was a risk, but she had to do something to get her hands on Yuki. Kyoko imagined her mentor sitting at his desk, nervously rubbing his hand through his hair as he tried to make a decision.
“You realize I could get in a lot of trouble for helping you out, don’t you?”
“You’re the only chance I really have of making sure I can hold onto him,” said Kyoko.
Another sigh, followed by, “Hand the phone back to the guard.”
Kyoko did so and the guard took the phone. He spoke to Hashimoto for another minute or so, but it mostly consisted of the guard offering one-word responses to whatever it was her mentor was telling him.
“Understood. Thank you, Inspector.” The guard hung up the phone and looked at Kyoko. They were sitting in an office in the subway station. “Inspector Hashimoto requests you be given a few minutes alone with that young man in the next room.”
“I just need to ask him some questions.”
The guard leaned back. “You know I can refuse his request. And there’s the matter of your false accusation, which is causing a nuisance in my station.”
“A girl is dead, possibly murdered. He may have information. Please. Just a few minutes.”
The guard took a deep breath. “You get five minutes. After that, I let him go.”
Kyoko bowed. “Thank you, that’s all I need.”
He rose from his seat and led Kyoko to a door connected to another room. The other guard stood against the wall, arms folded and staring at Yuki Ichikawa, who sat in a chair at a table. The two guards spoke quickly and then left Kyoko alone with Yuki, closing the door behind them.
“Yuki Ichikawa,” she said as she approached the table, sitting in the chair across from him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
There was no response from him. He just sat quietly, staring at the table.
“In looking for you, I’ve learned a few things,” said Kyoko. “For one, I know Akane Suzuki’s idol career ended because of you. I also know that you were a source of friction between her and her parents. And that you complained to your neighbor about her infidelity.”
“You don’t know shit,” muttered Yuki. “I had nothing to do with Akane’s death.”
“I found some used condoms in her apartment. Three different men, all in the same day. What are the chances that one of those DNA samples is a match for you?”
“If you had anything on me, you’d have called the police. You wouldn’t be questioning me yourself.”
“I just want to know what part you played in Akane’s death.”
Yuki slammed his hands on the table. “Akane killed herself! She got drunk, she felt like shit, and she jumped! That’s it!”
He was getting agitated. Kyoko maintained her cool. “So why hide from my people, Yuki? Why did your mother refuse to tell us where you were? Why did you run out on me when I came to her house?”
Yuki shook his head. “You don’t know anything…”
“I know Akane was working at a hostess club because she had no other options. I know she was involved with drugs. And I know she was probably selling her body. Which is why the two of you weren’t on such great terms.”
Kyoko leaned forward and rested her hands on the table.
“I went to your apartment. Your neighbor said you hadn’t been there in some time. In fact, no one’s really seen you since Akane’s death. That seems a little strange, don’t you think?”
Yuki didn’t say anything.
“Where have you been, Yuki?”
He sighed. “I was at my mother’s.”
“Why?”
“Because I felt like shit, okay?” He scoffed and folded his arms, looking away. “Akane and I had our problems, sure. But I loved her. I’ve loved her since I was thirteen. I would’ve done anything for her.”
“And the infidelity?”
“When she started working at the hostess club, I was upset. I’d be lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining her at that club, all dolled up, with some old fart sitting next to her. His hand on her leg while she poured his drinks, lit his cigarettes, and flirted with him.”
Yuki sniffed and looked up at Kyoko. She could see his eyes had started to become glassy.
“You have any idea what that’s like?”
“No, I can’t say that I do,” said Kyoko. Although she had seen the other side. Her job had brought her into contact with a lot of women whose husbands were the ones cheating on them with girls like Akane.
He continued. “So yeah, it was stressful. We’d fight about her job. I’d try and tell her to find something different. She kept saying she was going to get back into the music business, but I told her to give it up. Get a job at an office or something, go back to school, talk to her parents—anything.”
His words hardly seemed believable. The way Yuki tried to make it sound, he was almost a stabilizing influence on Akane. But that didn’t seem to fit with everything else she’d learned up until this point.
“And the infidelity?”
Yuki sighed, looking down. “I was at her place. Akane was taking a shower and her phone beeped. I ignored it at first, but then it beeped again. The message was just sitting there on the lock screen, so I glanced at it. It was from some guy, telling her how amazing she was last night.”
“What happened after that?”
“I just stared at the screen. I couldn’t unlock her phone to read the rest of the message, but I knew what he was talking about. Just knew it.” Yuki looked down. “I sat there, staring at that damn screen, waiting for her to come out of the shower. Seemed like I was waiting for hours. When she finally came out, I looked up at her and showed her the phone. That look on her face…”
He sniffled again, this time wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
“Did she confirm?” asked Kyoko.
A nod. “She said she had no choice. That she needed the money. I got pissed. Told her that she should’ve asked me for help. I-I called her a slut. She cried, said she was sorry, said she loved me.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her to go to hell and then I left.”
She scoffed. “You’re a real prince.”
Yuki’s head snapped up. “What did you expect? You think I took her in my arms, held her tight, told her everything was gonna be okay? That it didn’t matter what she’d done in the past? That I told her I love her and forgive her?” He shook his head. “I’m human, okay? I freaked out, that’s what people do.”
Kyoko sympathized with the kid. But she had an investigation to get to the bottom of, and if that meant she had to needle him and close the door on her emotions for the time being, then she was more than prepared to do that.
“But that wasn’t the last time you saw her, was it?”
Yuki shook his head. “No. I tried to put her out of my mind. Even tried dating someone else. But Akane was always in the back of my mind. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“Then one day, I got a call from her. I thought about ignoring it, but I couldn’t help myself. So I answered. She was in tears. Something happened, I know that. But she wouldn’t say what. She said she had to see me, right then. So I went to her place.
“As soon as she opened the door, she threw her arms around me, sobbing into my chest. I barely had a chance to close the door. She said how sorry she was, that she loved me and wanted to make things right. And then…”
“You had sex,” said Kyoko.
“We were both crazy with emotion. Consoling turned into kissing, then kissing turned into petting, and next thing I knew, our clothes were off and we were fucking on the tatami.”
“And you used a condom?”
Yuki nodded. “Akane had them, of course. For her…part-time job.”
“What time was this?”
He shrugged. “Late afternoon, four-ish, I think? Maybe five.”
“So you had a little afternoon delight, and then what?”
“Then reality came back.” Yuki closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Akane went to shower and I took the condom off. Went to throw it out in the trash and I saw another used condom in there. Once Akane came out, I asked her if she was still…working.”
He paused. Struggling to get the words out.
“It’s okay, Yuki,” said Kyoko. “What did she say?”
“Nothing. She wouldn’t answer me at all.”
“She didn’t say a word?”
He shook his head. “Just stood there, a towel wrapped around her body, her eyes tearing up. But she wouldn’t say what happened. So I got pissed. Told her she would never change. As I was getting dressed, I told her I never wanted to see her again. Then, I stormed out.”
“You were gone before six?” asked Kyoko.
Yuki nodded.
“Where did you go after?”
“My mom’s place. I was upset. Then the next day, when I heard…” He sighed.
“What about the drugs?”
He looked up. “Drugs? What drugs?”
“The police found a heavy dosage of amphetamines in her body.”
“But…” Yuki stuttered. “I never knew she was using drugs.”
“Were you?”
“What? No!” Yuki sat up straight. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“There was someone in your apartment, dropping off some pills.”
Yuki’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about? I’ve never used drugs before!”
“I heard him say Ichikawa on the phone.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“You’ve been good up ’til now, Ichikawa. Don’t start lying to me.”
“I’m! Not! Lying!”
The door to the room opened and the two guards stepped in. “Okay, that’s enough. You’ve had your time.”
“I’m not finished,” said Kyoko.
“Too bad. I want you both out of here now, or I’m having you arrested.”
Kyoko stood and took out her card case, setting a business card on top of the table. “If you’re telling the truth, then I need to know what you were doing with amphetamines in your apartment, and why someone was looking for them.”
Yuki picked up the card. He looked at it, then crumpled the card and threw it on the table. “I didn’t kill Akane and I have no idea where you got this drug stuff from. You wanna know why I ran from you? Why I was at my mom’s? Because my girlfriend had just died!”
“That’s enough!” shouted the guard.
Yuki moved from the table and walked towards the door, which was being held open by the guard. But before going through it, he looked back at Kyoko.
“I spent damn-near a month just lying in bed in my old room, staring up at the ceiling. That’s. It.”
One of the guards escorted Yuki out. Kyoko stood to follow, but the second guard blocked her path. “Last thing we want is you starting another incident in the station. You wait here a few minutes, then you leave.”
She grunted, but gave a nod. But now she had more questions.