Shin calls. Twice. Once to ask about the details of the case, like Kaori's last known whereabouts, her relationship with her co-workers. Things he could have easily gotten from the police report Harada filed. She wonders about that, what prompted him to contact her instead. She thinks Amon, that rookie, has something to do with it, as this somewhat keeps her in the loop of the investigation.

The second call, though, kills those hopes without remorse.

Shin tells her in no uncertain terms that she is to have nothing to do with the case and that if she tries to interfere, he'll have her arrested. Though bitter over the matter, she isn't surprised. Whether it's because he finds joy in misery, or because he's simply following protocol, she didn't suspect that Nomura Shin, First Class Investigator, would allow her access to Kaori's investigation.

She still doesn't go into work. It's been... what? A week since she last set foot in the office? Harada should be calling in soon, threatening to cut her loose if she doesn't return by tomorrow. He'd be justified in his rage, but that doesn't mean Rui is looking forward to contacting him. Harada's temper is legendary among journalists even outside their paper, and he's been known to rival Kaori in stubbornness and comebacks (it's a sight Rui's seen all too often, and she gets chills just thinking about their epic encounters).

Without work, without the case, without Kaori, Rui's left with little to occupy her thoughts beyond gruesome imaginings of what could have befallen her beloved mentor. Crimson blood and shorn flesh flash just behind her closed eyelids, and she spends countless minutes staring at her cieling, desperately trying not to blink. She sees Kaori's face - bleeding, torn, destroyed - and her heart seizes in her chest, her breathing turns erratic. Rui rolls over on her bed, a pillow clutched to her chest, legs tangled up in her nest of sheets. Her heart just hurts.

Before now, she's never lost anyone - no one of importance, in any case. Her parents are alive, though she doesn't see them much anymore. They, along with her younger brother, packed up and moved to the Twentieth Ward two years ago, but Rui - rooted here with her burgeoning desire to enter the "gritty" journalism scene - chose to stay behind. She was eighteen then, filled to bursting with newfound independence that blinds teens to the complications of the yet-unknown real world, and she was a trustworthy girl in her parents' eyes. They let her go it alone despite her brother's teary-eyed complaints.

She was an idiot, obviously. Living all by her lonesome in an apartment she could barely afford, friendless as everyone from high school moved onto college and trade schools and left her behind. Rui quickly learned life wasn't the glorious adventure she'd conjured for herself in those half-lucid daydreams that occupied much of her school life.

Just when she was scraping the bottom of the barrel, perpetually on the verge of tears, when she found herself phoning her parents only to hang up before the ringing ceased, too ashamed to admit she couldn't make it without them - that's when she met Kaori.

Rui breathes in slowly, curling her fingers into the soft insides of her pillow. Warm, amber daylight spills over her, slanting in from the half-drawn blinds; shadows play across the wall she faces, flashing in quick succession, too swift for her to identify their source. Birds, most likely. A family of pigeons roosts somewhere on the roof of her apartment building. She remembers vividly her first encounter with them, when she'd thought it would be a fine idea to escape the crowded confines of her apartment in the hopes of having the fresh air revitalize her dulled inspiration. That didn't happen, but her clumsy footsteps did startle the nesting pigeons into a feathered frenzy; she has a small, curved scar on her right shoulder as proof of her rooftop battle.

God. What's she doing, lying here, alternating between sleeping like the dead and restlessly replaying Kaori's imagined death scene over and over and over? Now she's thinking about the damnable pigeons that reside above her? None of this will help Kaori, if she's even capable of being saved. If she even needs saving. Rui still can't shake the nagging, persistent hope that Kaori's just off on another of her cryptic, immersive jaunts, that she'll be back soon, that Rui will have another reason to check her messages with Kaori other than to remind herself of her own suffocating guilt.

It's frustration that finally urges Rui to toss away her blankets and throw her pillow into the headboard. She dresses quickly after showering, tugging on her sneakers as she's heading out the door - locking up behind her. She can't stay here, cooped up with only her thoughts for comfort; she'll drive herself mad. For all she knows, she's already gone down that path, perhaps so far that turning back now would be pointless. But it's not clear yet, and she'll pray there's a shred of sanity left to cling to when all this is over with.

Rui slips on a sweater she grabbed off the back of her desk chair, clutching it tight around her chest. Warmth slowly bleeds into her chilled arms but she shivers all the same. Every time she blinks, there's Kaori - ravaged and broken. Lifeless, soulless. Gone. Gone to a place Rui isn't welcome. She can picture Kaori's smile, the way her eyes crinkle when someone gets her laughing hard, all the good, lovely things Rui loves about her; but the second she closes her eyes, the smile's replaced with a gruesome, bloody grimace and the laughter's turned to agonized wails, and she just--

"Miss? You doing okay in there?"

Knuckles rap softly at her forehead, and Rui stumbles back, caught off guard. It happened again. Again, she's zoned out, lost herself in her thoughts. No wonder she feels as though she's going crazy; everyone else must think it, too.

"I'm..."

She can't finish the sentence. The words fix themselves to her tongue, which chafes against the roof of her mouth, glued there with a mixture of overwhelming remorse and fear. She's not fine, Akane was spot-on about that. Maybe she'll never be fine, whatever she unearths about Kaori.

And she can't bring herself to admit that.

"Sorry," she says instead, fumbling for manners, "I'm sorry. I just... got distracted."

"Happens to the best of us. Something important on your mind?"

"Nothing... nothing in particular..."

She's so incredibly convincing.

But the man only laughs, and Rui shakes off her bangs for the first time to look up at him, a flicker of recognition stirring amid her cluttered thoughts. She blinks. It's him. The gothic man from the other day, the one she bumped into in this very hallway, on her way to the elevator. Warm honey-brown eyes, thick gray brows pinched together in what she assumes to be concern; thin lips quirked into the ghost of a smile, the afterimage of his laughter. Her eyes flick downward briefly; as she suspected, the name of another obscure, possibly-western band adorns his shirt.

    She suddenly becomes aware that he's yet to remove his hands from her shoulders, and she takes a deliberate step back, a wave of deja vu washing over her. He lets her go, holding his hands up in mock-surrender, lips a touch more upturned than before.

"I'm Hinata," he says, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "Yamasaki Hinata. I live right around the corner."

He gestures with his chin, indicating the hallway opposite the one Rui herself has just come from. She frowns. That explains why she doesn't recognize such a flashy neighbor; they live in opposite wings of the apartment building.

"...Kitamura Rui," she offers eventually. Nothing seems inherently off about Hinata, though his friendliness in and of itself is unusual. The residents of this building tend to gravitate towards self-centered apathy for one another, and in the three years that Rui has lived here Hinata is only the second person to willingly strike up a conversation with her.

"I've seen you around before," he admits. "Early in the morning, on your way out."

"Yeah, I... uh, work. That's usually for work."

"Haven't seen ya recently, though. I was wondering what was keeping ya cooped up in there."

Rui's lips form a tight smile.

"It's... nothing. My hours at work were changed."

Hinata smiles at her like he has no intention of buying her bull response, but he doesn't call her out on it. Instead, he gives her a quick once-over, and she imagines he takes note of the fact that she doesn't have her usual leather bag she takes into the office, and that her attire is far from professional at the moment. It's what she would notice, in any case, so perhaps she's giving him too much credit; but Hinata surprises her when he pulls one hand free of his pocket, extending it towards her.

"If you're not busy now, Rui-chan" - her eyes widen at the casual cadence of her name on his lips but the correction dies in her throat as she meets his gaze - "wanna get some coffee with me? 'S been a while since I had some decent company."

Her immediate response is no. It took Akane a month to coax Rui out of her shell (and the office) to go out together; such a flimsy basis for a relationship as theirs (Hinata and herself) wouldn't warrant any spectacular result like that. And the word, the simple, monosyllabic word, sits ready on her tongue, eager to hit the air and warn off this overeager stranger.

But Hinata tilts his head, lips curling upwards at the corners.

"You look like you could use it," he says, not unkindly. "The coffee, I mean."

Rui can't really deny that. She saw it in the mirror this morning; the lack of sleep's taken its toll on her, smudging dark circles beneath her eyes and dulling the blue in them, lending a sallow complexion to her otherwise unmarked skin.

Her fingertips dig into the tender skin of the inside of her wrist, nails trailing red lines in their wake.

She could use it. Not the coffee, but an escape.

"Al--" Rui clears her throat, swallowing back the squeak of her voice. "Alright, that sounds... kinda nice... Hinata-kun."

He beams.

"Then let's go. I know a great cafe, but it's a little out of the way. We'll ride my bike, make the trip a bit easier."

"...You drive... a motorcycle?"

"Heh, don't go backing out on me now, Rui-chan!"