Chapter Text
It is a scale, the act of a human relationship. Tokens of platitude or affection, weighed against the usefulness of the exchange - what can you give me, now or in the future, and what can I do for you? Within this scale-bound world, a price is paid whenever you act - whether it is out of kindness or not, everything is measured against the self.
Of course, the scales have been tipped - destroyed, even, by the love of a few. But Shizue Kuranushi’s story does not start with them.
It starts like this: she’s at one of the hundreds of galas of her youth that all merge together in Shizue’s memories in a blur. The cost she paid for being the child of a high-ranked Diet member, of being the daughter of one. Her father’s hands were never sweaty - but where they fell on her shoulder, barely into her adolescence, they conveyed a warning she often heeded. Straighten up, Shizue, his grip would say, as he smiled above her head at the faceless Diet member he was sucking up to that evening. Play the part, and I’ll play mine.
“Have you met my wonderful Shizue?” He would laugh, with a shark's grin and clasp of her shoulders, “She is top of her advanced class. Already shaping up to be quite the prodigy”.
It was a point of pride - look at my daughter, my heir. A legacy, for a man who never quite could reach the pinnacle of his career, and so he was looking for a greener legacy, or a boost to his own career. Every response would be the same - She must take after you, (or your wife on the rare occasion someone wasn't aware of her mother’s reputation amongst the upper circles). It was all so false, and Shizue drank in every word and smiled along with the conversation.
After all, what more could she do? Barely old enough to be trusted to keep her mouth sealed and smiling, yet paraded around to events like a particularly pretty pair of heels to mindlessly murmur about to his colleagues.
Of course, the second part of the scales is equally as important - in exchange for being the perfect doll to parade out at events, her father would make an exchange. Every gala, no matter the weather, would drag on until the crack of dawn. In the crisp morning winds, Shizue and her father would walk along the rough streets, hand in hand. In her memories, she's far shorter than he, staring up at his dark eyes, as her father presses her about what flavour she’s thinking about this time.
Perhaps it was foolish to reminisce over - but watching her father’s shoulders sink, tension leaking out of his spine in sync with the spoonful of yuzu ice cream he brought to his lips, Shizue had never been so at peace.
Mizuki would brag, in a future that was not so far away, that she learned her stealthy disposition from her mama. She’s not wrong - before the endless network of bugs and contacts, bribery and exchanges, Shizue learned to do her own dirty work under her father’s roof.
It had become a habit, one that she was careful to conceal from the staff who would mingle around the estate late at night under the guise of ‘security’. At the stroke of midnight, her father would retreat to his office, to manage his ‘affairs’ - and Shizue would follow, creeping into the adjacent bathroom. Few knew of the loose tile plastered over the weak timber walls - thin, perfect for her father’s words to creep through.
Normally, the words were nothing important to a young Shizue - a smorgasbord of gossip about staff and opponents alike, moves being made in the upper circles, and a smattering of state secrets to match. Today, however, Shizue heard a familiar name. Hers.
“I understand that things have changed-” It’s not panic creeping into his voice, but something adjacent to the concept. “- But I promise, Shizue is far more valuable than many more you could find as your wife.”
Whatever response on the other end is lost, “- Maruko’s influence - yes, yes,” and here his voice turns cold, “- I know your feelings on her, but she has been useful in raising Shizue.”
“She’s still perfect, ignoring Maruko. You’ll see this when she comes of age- and, you remember that I did promise you my support in your future campaigns, my friend?” Whatever anonymous political snake her father was smoothing things over with was biting. Shizue pressed closer, and then - “What else is a daughter good for but to act as a guarantee.”
(She can be with a World more than a guarantee. Just not to the Kuranushi’s)
Her mother was always a fixture in front of a mirror, when she dared to lower herself to arrive before the early hours of the morning, stray hairs fighting the bounds of her bobby pins and hairspray. It was always paired with a briefcase and a compact - blush rosy on her brush and cheeks, as she perused another stack of files from the case, dabbing mindlessly at her perfect skin.
Orders would be barked to whatever poor hired staff Father had hired that month to care for the house while she worked - a string of girls, all called for by fine porcelain hands, and all disposed of by quiet rumours in the house of their presence in her father’s bed. Lady Kuranushi was not spiteful - and that, contrary to the belief within their circle, was never a lie. She was aware, as was most who frequented the Kuranushi household, including Shizue, that the young women who lined up at her vanity, taking orders at what fish would need to be obtained for dinner the next evening, were there to compete for her husband’s favour. However, it was never the whole truth - the girls would often be inherited from other prominent families, and in moments of nostalgia, over a whisky, or in a bed, secrets would fall from their lips.
Of course, on the surface, she was always too busy to notice her husband's eagle-eyed attention towards the cohort that circled like prey around him. But she was hardly naive - quite the contrary, in Shizue’s experience.
Mother was never cold, but Shizue’s mere existence didn’t seem to cross her radar very often - probably because she was too busy tagging everyone who entered their home with trackers and microphones, or rewiring the lounge again in the guise of being paranoid that someone was listening in on her darling husband.
Of course - someone was listening in, but the threat came from within the house. Shizue had learnt that young - pressed against her mother’s door, in a mimicry of her father's, memorising the unknown vowels that would cross her lips.
Mother had an agenda. That fact was clear - even without the years of tracing characters in books smuggled from the academy library without being checked out, out of fear her mother would find out.
Shizue would learn how to know things from watching her mother, the master of the craft.
A man like her father was ambitious yet talentless in the face of the real sharks, her mother would hiss over the phone in a foreign tongue, huddled in her room. A waste of my talents - but the girl has a use.
Her mother would pause, and looking back now, these words were not for the men on the phone, but for the ear pressed against the door. Let me bring her in. She’s a mini-me - a perfect legacy.
A small part of Shizue yearned to measure up to her mother - to be useful. It is what sealed Shizue’s lips for years, never tipping off her father. This eternal promise of a better life that now, looking back, was manipulation at its finest.
She learnt from the best, after all.
There’s a thousand stories at play - the night before her mother leaves, Shizue meets her on even ground. Tomorrow, not that Shizue knows this, her father’s main associate will have his connection to foreign powers uncovered, and his reputation will be in tatters. The Kuranushi estate, and the power that comes with it, will never quite reach the same height as her childhood; the stain on her father's reputation as a sympathiser will chase her father forever, and protect her finger from any rings.
No one ever admits to knowing who leaked the files. Her father rushed to cover up her mother’s disappearance the night before everything went wrong, instead pinning it on her, gaining cold feet and fleeing after the scandal.
That evening, in the cold white glow of the streetlight beyond the estate walls, her mother stands illuminated. The picture of frozen beauty and grace at the precipice of the estate, looking back at Shizue. Everyone had always commented on how Shizue had gotten her beauty from her, but in that moment, spite crawling over her mother’s face, that could be no further from the truth.
Her mother beckoned, only once, for Shizue to follow.
She doesn't. Shizue doesn't even know if she regrets it - instead, enrolling in the police academy the next day, never to see her mother in person again.
Mizuki would ask her, on a rooftop a lifetime later, if she loved her parents. Shizue-of-present, the Shizue with people she cared about, would say no, of course, what she had felt was not love. She was a tool for her father and mother, a weapon to be wielded against the world and themselves.
But in another universe, the feeling she would have on those mornings, lips ice frosted with sugar, and the afternoons spent in her mother's parlour, fingers gently braiding her hair, are not tainted. There, the scales do not exist. There is no even exchange - only the tantalising innocent love.
Every morning during the academy, she had a tradition. Back before ABIS, during the academy, a newspaper would be pressed under her doorway before she woke. No one ever noticed what was tucked between the leaves of the daily bustle - Hayato had teased her age for a month straight when he caught wind of the tradition, his laugh gruff and muffled by the cigarette passing between his lips and hers.
Hayato was willing to ignore plenty of Shizue’s quirks, at least on the surface - It’s just another reason she chose him as a friend after all. Selected, Chose, whatever - Shizue, entering the academy, had a plan. Why would she, a Kuranushi, have any interest in being a beat cop? No, she needed a position of stronger influence, something comparable to her father’s circles. But her name was dangerous in the political scene, and Shizue didn’t have the mind for science or medicine. Policing it was - but god forbid she actually have to do all the work.
That's where the plan came in - humans were easy after all. It had all been so simple to scout staff on site, from janitors to cooks to newspaper runners who were easily paid off by a bribe and promise of more money once they had proven their worth. Shizue did actually keep those promises - good information was hard to come by, and the ABIS coffers were far deeper than her own inheritances.
Within 2 months and 3 days, she had packages on every high-ranking instructor and half the police academy board at her fingertips. With new gossip arriving each morning, conversations were easy to have with her superiors about… leniency.
But all the money and information in the world could only go so far in covering her lack of certain skills. Mentioning around the physical evaluations instructor his particular… patronage at a certain bar in Shibuya had only bought her a higher grade if she passed in the first place - something about not being willing to risk sending any cadet out without at least passing training and such. Not very useful for Shizue at all - and thus, she needed one more man. Someone she could befriend and train with.
By the end of the week, Shizue will have a list. All 36 cadets of their year, ranked by entrance test score (obtained by a janitor who somehow already had cloned a copy of the file, something she was definitely investigating soon). The cadets were also ranked on background (no one who even remotely moved within the circles of politics or foreign risks) and physical examination estimates. The information didn't lie - there were clearly some students she had to avoid, and some who were passable options. But one stood out - an orphan recruit, easily traceable, jumps through the system, with a freakishly high score on his physical examination and an eye for the ladies. Perfect.
The rest, as they say, was history.
She catches Hayato snooping only once - she arrives back at the dorms early, her elective cancelled, and while she would traditionally use the time to go to the gym, as Cadets are especially loose-lipped and vocal when hitting the weights, that day she didn't feel up to it. The ‘morning news’, she was willing to admit, had thrown her for a loop.
So, she wanders into their shared room and finds Hayato flipping through her newspaper.
She’s not worried - the papers sprawled across his desk in their dorm are innocent, a selection of fluff pieces that said nothing much at all. Except, of course, within the stack, she had some favourites. There was one about the recent increased investment of tax funds into housing in Osaka, and one on a new release of flower pressed blush, gold-dusted and worth ¥7458, first on display at the Osaka branch. It’s a collaboration with an Italian brand- and what the article doesn't say is this: Her mother is on the move. Her interest this time is in the financial connection to Italy.
Shizue can read between these lines: Her father has been hard to reach - answering her at odd times, and while she doesn't have confirmation yet that his secretary is screening her calls from the other side of the world, it doesn't take a genius to assume that the only reason daddy dearest is ignoring his favourite daughter’s calls is that he is asleep. Italy is a new one - Shizue had been under the assumption that her father and his powerful allies were busy with India.
Hayato’s hands don’t even move to hide the papers, and it is what she respects about him the most. Hayato knows when to play with a losing hand and when to concede defeat.
So in turn, she doesn’t confront him - a mistake, perhaps, and more than a few nights were spent second-guessing whether Hayato had worked it out.
She never got an answer in words, as Hayato was allergic to sharing the truth. However, Kaname, after the HB killings, would never tease her for the errant newspapers she still left out in her office. Nor would he even acknowledge them, not even going cross-eyed the way Mizuki (Date) would when she saw them, obviously asking Aiba for her aid. Kaname was… oddly targeted in ignoring them, except for once, mid-October, a rudimentary case finds Date in her office for his usual antics. It’s all routine, until he turns to leave, and his scared finger comes down directly on top of an article about a bar in Hakone’s recent boom in sales.
“You should send Ryuki down for this one-“ his face is obscured, but Shizue knows Kaname’s expressions by heart, mask or no mask, “- Kodama won’t be so receptive to Bibi’s presence - especially not if her reputation has spread outside of Tokyo.”
He doesn’t offer to go down himself - and that itself is as telling as the mention of Mizuki. It hadn’t been a priority, a few extra murders on the edges of her radar. But knowing that she was down at very least 3 agents dealing with a yakuza… assassin. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
No matter how she changed, she couldn't admit it - but Kaname became her right-hand man in everything but name, slipping into and carving out the hole in her organisation that she could never imagine anyone occupying. A confidant, who brought information in his own right - but information given freely, with no expectations in return.
Pewter will ask her, after the year of hell that was the cyclops killer, the first question she ever regrets not answering. Illuminated only by his creations, facing away from her, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes on the Psych machine, he would ask it. “How did you never know?” her technician would say to the darkened room, “A woman like you would not have fallen for his mask.”
Neither of them needs him to say who he is. It’s the right question, at the wrong time. What Shizue doesn’t say in response is this -
Did you know my mother spent a decade letting my father’s conquests into her home, all because he had the ear of the prime minister? All so she could have the ear of a man across the seas.
So yes. I did fall for it. But only because, as long as I didn’t question him, I could use him.
It doesn't escape her that, while Pewter asks her about Hayato, he has someone different in mind. How did you fall for the stranger behind their eyes, I wonder?
Her answer won’t give him peace. Shiuze willingly walked into the lion’s den with Hayato - Pewter… did not.
Something unfreezes in her chest, seeing Pewter despondent like this. He betrayed ABIS….Shizue… and yet.
No. He’s still useful. Nothing more.
End of Part 1.