April 27, 10:20 pm, Tokyo, j.a.pan

Sakura sat awkwardly in front of the detective and Michi as they got just...way too comfortable with each other. She sipped her water through a straw as she watched them, doing everything she could to not look visibly disgusted.

Unfortunately, since she was using her powers to disguise her face, it was actually harder for her to control her expression. Her illusory face was very attuned to her emotions and thoughts; which Sakura had less practice in controlling compared to her facial expressions.

"Why the face, girl?" said another man, the stink of alcohol already on his breath. He leaned in close, "accidentally" touching her thigh. She fought the urge to push him away.

There were a total of seven of them, three men and four women. Four of them had already been in here when Sakura, Michi, and the detective all entered. The air was thick with the smell of tobacco, and all the girls had a look of resignation as they hung off the arms of their respective men.

They were all sitting in a private booth; a small square room, with plush walls and sofas surrounding a small, equally square, gla.s.s table. There were gla.s.ses of beer and an overflowing ashtray set atop the table, and occasionally the men would lean forward to take a sip.

Right now though, they all seemed more occupied with their women. One couple was slowly making out, in a fascinatingly disgusting way. If Sakura didn't have a job to do, she would probably have just watched in horrified fascination the way the man seemed to be eating the woman's face.

"You're face is bad, but your body is pretty good," the man continued to say, bringing Sakura back to her unfortunate present. His hand crept up higher up her thigh, and this time Sakura pushed his hand away.

"Tease," he grumbled, then went back to the girl he'd been fooling around with before. Thankfully, this creep seemed to at least know what 'no' looked like.

During this whole exchange, Detective Kiritaka didn't seem to be paying much attention to her. He was very focused on leering at Michi, who was playing the shy, but curious minx role to a perfect T. It was honestly a little nauseating to watch for Sakura. Not because she thought there was something wrong about a man acting cute, but because she knew Michi and this whole act was baffling to her.

Why was he doing this? He wasn't into the detective at all. As far as she knew, he was still into Bunta. And the detective wasn't even Michi's type. If she remembered right, Michi was more into bears, which Bunta definitely was, and the detective definitely wasn't.

"I want to be a fas.h.i.+on designer," Michi giggled. "But it's hard to get into the industry."

"Is that so?" the detective replied. "Sounds like you need a papa to keep you while you work hard."

Sakura almost choked on her water. Thankfully, no one noticed.

Michi leaned in towards the detective.

"Mmmm...that sounds nice," he said sweetly. "But I think papa would get tired of me being scared all the time."

"No need to be scared baby," the detective replied somewhat smoothly. "I'm a police officer. A detective, actually."

Michi oohed and aahed as he lavished the detective with affection. Sakura narrowed her eyes. She suddenly had a feeling that she knew where this was going.

"I've actually been worried about something lately," said Michi cutely, amplifying his girlish charm to the max. "My friends have all been saying stuff about a serial killer on the loose."

The entire room suddenly seemed to get cold. Sakura noticed that all the men had stopped paying attention to their women, leaving them looking a little annoyed.

"She was saying something about a serial killer on the loose, going after people," Michi went on, apparently unaware of the scene he was causing. "So scary."

"What is the name of this...friend?" asked the detective, looking over at Sakura. He looked at her face carefully, eyes narrowing. With a jolt, Sakura realized what he was doing.

He was trying to remember if she was the same Sakura that he had met in the cafe about a month ago.

"What? Why, do you know her?" said Michi, fake surprised. "Did you tell her about it?"

"B****, what's the name of your friend?!" he suddenly yelled, getting up. Michi froze in shock.

Sakura didn't.

CRAs.h.!.+

The gla.s.s of beer shattered on the detective's head, spilling alcohol and gla.s.s everywhere. The ladies all shrieked as Sakura grabbed Michi by the arm.

"We're leaving! Now!" she said firmly.

Michi didn't protest. The two of them left the room before anyone could react. She dragged Michi out past the bouncer before they started to hear a commotion from the back of the bar.

"Okay, run," said Sakura, kicking off her heels and legging it.

Minutes later, they arrived at the deserted train station, feet sore and out of breath. Michi angrily ripped out the tissues stuffing his bra.

"Oh, screw this!"

He pulled up his bra over his head from under his dress, and threw it to the floor. For some reason, this act just annoyed Sakura even further.

"What the h.e.l.l were you thinking?!" she said, voice raised. She couldn't help it. She tried to keep it down, but the more she thought about what he had done, the more it infuriated her.

"Did you even stop to consider the consequences of your actions?" she went on. "Did you even stop to THINK about what you were even doing?!"

"If I could get him to talk, we would have more information on him!" Michi yelled back. "I was just trying to help! If you hadn't ruined-"

"Excuse me?" interrupted Sakura. "Ruined? Rui- He would have beat you half to death if I hadn't stepped in!"

"You don't know that!"

"Oh don't I?" said Sakura, sneering. "You think he's just a nice guy who happens to be a cop?"

"He's a detective!"

"He hates us!" Sakura yelled. "And he isn't stupid! You think he wouldn't figure out you're a guy? Or that you're leading him on to try and get information about this 'serial killer?'"

"So what, we're just supposed to wait?" Michi fired back. "Wait to find answers that we're not even sure we'll find here?"

Sakura's mouth dropped open in shock.

"You...hold on, hold on," Sakura bit back the fury that was rising up in her throat. Her hands were shaking with rage. She couldn't believe...he was…

No. She needed to calm down a little.

"I can't just sit-"

"You...put this entire operation jeopardy..." said Sakura, her voice radiating a cold fury that immediately shut Michi up.

"...and when I say 'operation,' I mean this whole story," continued Sakura, holding up a hand, unable to express her anger in mere words. "Because if we got caught, if he realized who we were, make no mistake, he would have come after us with the entire backing of the police force."

"You did all that...just because you didn't want to do this plan?"

Michi's knuckled were white. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

"I did it, because we weren't doing anything to fin-"

"Bullsh*t!" yelled Sakura. "You think you know more than me about how to investigate someone? You think I wasted years of actually studying for this?"

How dare he treat her the same way everyone else in her industry had? Like she was some stupid little girl, as if she didn't even know how to form a coherent sentence? Like she should leave all the 'serious' subjects to the men?

"This isn't about you!" Michi roared.

Sakura watched as Michi trembled with anger. He looked just as angry as Sakura felt.

"This is about how I, me, a grown-a** man, can't do a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing when a bunch of men in black come in to invade my own home!"

Sakura blinked. Of all the things he expected to say, this was not one of them.

"F****** h.o.m.ophobes, come into my house, which I pay for with my own money, then start ripping the place up, telling me I'm some kind of freak!" he went on, his anger getting on a roll now.

"Wasn't it supposed to get better? Weren't people supposed to be more accepting these days? So why do they say the same things they told me since I've been a boy? That I'm a pervert, that I'm weak, that I'm a f****** girl!"

"I'm a gay MAN! But they don't care! They don't even care about the difference between me, and you, and everyone else like us! And they're gonna keep on not caring, right up until they face some actual consequences for their actions!"

As Sakura listened, her perspective of the entire night started to s.h.i.+ft. What she had thought was Michi just being grumpy was him trying to deal with the trauma of effectively being kicked out of his own home. His gripes about the crossdressing were about how he didn't want to conform to what those people said he was. And his actions with Detective Kiritaka…

"...I just...I need to do something," said Michi. Suddenly, he was spent. He dropped onto one of the seats, looking more tired than Sakura had ever seen him.

"...they can't...they can't keep getting away with this..."

Sakura watched as he put his head in his hands. She sighed, and sat down next to him. They stayed like that for a while, sitting at the station as they announced the last train for the night.

"They won't get away with this," said Sakura, turning to look at Michi. His face was still in his hands.

"Hey. C'mon, look at me."

She shook his arm, and he looked up. Sakura pretended not to see the tears.

"I promise you," she said slowly, "that they will not get away with this."

"How?" asked Michi, his voice thick with emotion.

"I'm gonna force the world to change," said Sakura. "I'm gonna expose everyone behind this conspiracy, not just to j.a.pan, but to the entire world."

Michi smiled sadly.

"But that's not enough," Sakura went on before he could say anything. "I know it's not enough. Just showing people that the world is rotten isn't enough to change it."

"What I need to do is to find a way to actually bring these people down," she said. "We can't trust the government to hold them liable; for all we know, they're in this too. And right now, we've got nothing on them. Nothing but the truth."

"So I need to find a back door, a secret...weapon, or pressure point, or SOMETHING that can give us the power to pressure them," finished Sakura. "But to do that..."

Michi sighed. He looked away, towards the street. Despite the time of the night, it was still bustling with people.

"I know," he said quietly. "But I...I want to do something..."

"Then trust me," said Sakura, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's hard. I know it feels like you're just wasting time. But...just having you here, just knowing you're around makes things so much easier than if I were doing it alone."

Michi didn't say anything as Sakura's grip tightened slightly on his shoulder.

"And it goes both ways, Michi," she added. "When you're not doing so well, like now, I want you to know you can tell me about it. And...I'm sorry if I made it seem like you couldn't before."

Michi sighed and smiled back at Sakura.

"I mean, I would, but you're kind of a complete disaster," he said. "I'm not sure you'll be able to solve my problems."

"Then I won't," said Sakura. "I'll just help you figure out how to solve them."

Michi went silent for a while.

"When did you get so good at making people feel better?" he said suddenly, pretending to pout. "It's not fair. I'll have to relinquish my authority as the senpai gay."

"You're six months older than me, you're not my senpai," said Sakura dryly. "...and I had a good teacher for all the emotional stuff."

"Shut up, you're gonna make me cry."

"Cry then. Baby."

"It'll ruin my make up!"

"It'll fix your face though."

They laughed as they chatted, right until the last train came and went, not yet noticing how Sakura's phone was flas.h.i.+ng.