The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department was nothing like what Uchi had expected. It was not a warzone with sergeants barking out frenzied orders, there was no big homicidal case waiting for the police force to solve, no overworked, grouchy police. Instead there was a strange silence that seemed to lull people into false security, because the space with small cubicles and desk space could easily masquerade as the setup of any generic insurance company. Uchi could almost swear he felt a moment’s disappointment. He was expecting something more, he had to. He needed drama, angst, he needed the earnest faces of rookie policemen and the brutal pain etched onto the victim’s families because that was what groundbreaking news was made of. He strode right past the open office space and headed for the office at the end of the corridor. That was when he felt speculative, curious glances, and he didn’t hesitate when he reached the door. He knocked and invited himself right in to the lion’s lair. 

Uchi Hiroki instinctively knew Nishikido Ryo when he saw him, standing at the window, his shadow dipped in darkness, cassock eyes behind the veil of dissipating cigarette smoke. He could see the wariness in those eyes, the hostility. He had pegged him as older, because in his mind, Nishikido Ryo had remained the figure cloaked in monotonous colors, the figure surrounded by reporters thrusting their mikes and recorders at his face on the yellowed pages of the newspapers. Two years ago, he was the man who had lost his sister to a depraved serial killer, and subsequently, the hero who had fallen off his pedestal when he was accused of assault on the murderer. The charges never stuck, maybe because he was the number one asset to the Tokyo Homicide Division and he had been punished merely with a slap on the wrist, suspension of duty for two weeks to pacify the detractors. In his case, it was too easy to forgive him, the gory details of how his sister had died were splashed in sensational articles across the country’s major papers and they had elevated Nishikido Michiko to a level of sainthood. Of course, Uchi never believed that. The journalists all wanted to wring the readers’ sympathy and emotions and the best way was to portray the victims as innocent and wholly undeserving of the fate that had befallen them.

Uchi had been more interested in the solemn man, the man who had taken the witness stand and described what he had seen with such level calmness, even when members of the jury were sickened. How his face remained impassive when the jury accepted the insanity plea. He was an enigma, and now looking at him, he looked much younger than Uchi’s impression of him. He could almost pass as a fresh college graduate, except for those eyes. His eyes were old, a deep contrast to the youthfulness of his looks. When he looked at him, there was no shrinking away, no slow closing of the eyelid, no pretense, just that bold straightforward sorrow. And yet it was more than sorrow, as though he had moved past the pain and now could face anything. And somehow deep in Uchi’s mind, he knew these were the eyes of people who had lived through the horrendous, or the eyes of people who were dying slowly on the inside.

“Who the fuck are you?” Those eyes narrowed on him. “Who let you in?”

Uchi took that as a cue to formally introduce himself. He dug out a name card from his pocket and offered it to Nishikido Ryo. He didn’t take it. He merely leaned down, jagged fringe hiding his eyes and when he looked at him again, Uchi felt the first stirrings of fear because he could see the rage whirling in those dark cesspools.

“No comment. No fucking comment.” Ryo said those words as if he was nothing more than an odious little vermin. And right now, he felt somewhat like that. The unexpected fear derailed his thoughts, but he couldn’t leave. Then he saw a photo frame on the desk, standing out in the room that seemed to be devoid of personal touches. He reached out for it, knowing what he would see, but his wrist was clasped hard in Nishikido’s hand. At the sudden heat of his hand engulfing his wrist, Uchi felt something coursing through him, and it was disturbing enough for him to struggle, to want to pry his fingers loose. When that didn’t work, he resorted to his instincts.

“The murderer got away by pleading insanity, have you ever wished you killed him the day you laid your hands on him in the interrogation room? Or was it when he told the jury how he killed your sister, how he watched, how he bled her dry…”

The hand clasping his wrist loosened and he got a brief moment of reprieve before he was yanked by the collar and unceremoniously slammed against the wall. The impact caused him to bow over slightly and he started to wonder whether he was going to die in this room with whitewashed walls, that smelled oddly like death, decay and dejection before he even got his first big scoop. He had set out to antagonize Nishikido, he had probably done the job a little too well. Those eyes that stared at him spoke of volumes of words yet to be uttered and stories yet to be heard, and a murderous rage that could only be directed at him.  The only consoling thought was that if he died, he was probably going to make the news.

The anger was clear-cut on Nishikido’s fine features and evident in the slight tremble of his hands; volatile and ready to unfurl and unleash itself at the slightest provocation.

“What makes you think you have the right to waltz right in and ask me those questions?” he snarled. “Have you ever been to a crime scene where the walls and floors are so drenched in blood that you can smell the rot from a block away? Have you ever walked in, only to find bodies so mutilated that you cannot recognise anything human about them?”

Uchi’s eyes widened, and pinned against those walls with Nishkido’s arm across his throat, he began to understand the frenzied, almost-manic glint in those eyes and comprehend the reason behind it all. He could hear the ragged, irregular breathing smothering him, the heat brushing against his cheek and against all his rationality, he felt a slight stirring of arousal pooling in his groins. Bad timing. 

“I’m not the one who killed your sister.” Uchi said, his voice passive and emotionless and he wasn’t prepared for the staggering effect those words had on Ryo. How those eyes fluttered and it was as though the last harsh wall he held against all those painful memories crumbled beneath its own weight. He backed away, into the desk and an envelop balanced precariously on the edge dropped onto the floor with an odd crisp sound. For a moment, Ryo seemed to have forgotten about Uchi as he stooped down and looked inside the envelop.

He slid his hand inside and retrieved something with duct-tape on it, presumably taping it on the inside of the envelop. It was nothing spectacular, just a necklace with a cross on it. But Uchi, having followed the case of Nishikido Michiko for years, knew it for what it was. The one missing link that was never found in the killer’s morbid collection of memorabilia from his victims.

“That’s Michiko's necklace. Who is it from? The killer? But he’s in the Kichijoji Mental Hospital. Did he have an accomplice?”

Nishikido furrowed his brows at Uchi’s barrage of questions before he leaned in close.

“You utter one word of this outside and I’ll bring you in for interrogation personally.”

“You can’t do that.”

“We’re the only ones who know what went on in this office. If you know anything, maybe it’s because you sent the necklace. Maybe you were that desperate to get a scoop. Either way, I can haul your ass in.”

Uchi knew he was right. No one was going to believe a fledging reporter of a struggling publishing house. But it wasn't the belated discovery of his conscience that made him stop, it was the red-rimmed eyes of Nishikido Ryo as he clutched the necklace in his fist, it was the erratic drumming of his heart and the realisation that this man and his pain was distressingly real. But he had one last question. One that had been plaguing him for these two years.

“Why are you still here? Some warped kind of self-punishment?” He looked at Nishikido who made no effort to answer the question. He knew he understood. After all the sacrifices, all he was left with was years of self-imposed exile, reaching inside the minds of serial killers, trying to understand the madness of these human predators and what spurned them on to commit such acts.

Uchi reached for the knob and suddenly he heard Nishikido’s defeated, weary voice.

“Because I need something to hold sacred, even if it is something I’ll never accomplish. Even if I’m just fooling myself.”

And when Uchi exited the door, he wondered why he had even thought that Nishikido was a survivor. Because the Nishikido Ryo he had met today, he was nothing more than another of the walking wounded.