With Every Step

18. Vulnerable

"I wonder if he'll be fine," Haise mused aloud in the car after they left the hospital, and Akira's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Akira wasn't very familiar with Investigator Shimoguchi outside of the meetings their squads had, but she didn't need to be to empathise with him.

Losing your colleagues at the hands of a ghoul, left unable to do a thing... she had gone through such dark days too.

It took Akira nearly half a year after the raid to come to terms with the aching pain. Not that it got any better, but she simply learnt how to bear it and continue to live.

At one point, she had tried to drink herself to sleep in the hope it might dull the emotions, but with nobody around to take care of her anymore, she had woken up in the morning with a terrible hangover. Maris Stella had been rather disapproving too.

So she decided to cope with the heartache like she always had—through her work.

The 20th Ward once had six investigators, seven if one counted Hideyoshi. In the course of one day, that number had been cut down to three. There weren't enough of them to keep the ward secure from ghouls, but after Anteiku's demolition, the CCG predicted that ghoul activity in the ward would be at an all-time low, so they had continued there.

And three investigators for one ward meant there was always loads of work to be done. Enough for Akira to bury herself in and forget everything else.

With her promotion to Rank 1 and her transfer to the 1st Ward, a new responsibility had been added in the form of an investigator to train. Something else to focus her efforts on.

"He craves a maternal figure, hence I believe assigning a talented female investigator as his mentor is the best course of action."

Maternal figure... she barely had one that she could learn from herself. How in the world did Arima think she could fulfil that for someone else?

She hadn't complained though. All she had to do was play a role; just because Haise Sasaki thought her a mother didn't mean she had to care for him in any way.

What a fool she had been.

Thinking back to all the times she had comforted him when he was panicking or defended him against the scathing words of other investigators, she had no doubt that once again, she was caring for somebody.

And this time it was the killer of her former partner, as if the world wanted to pile more irony into her life. A person she should hate, just as she had tried to hate him, but failed...

She glanced at Haise, the innocence on his face, the openness, and couldn't help but remember another man who had similarly worn his heart on his sleeve.

"It's a painful thing," she finally said, looking ahead. "Losing the people who you've spent time with."

So please, stay.