2026-06-25: Maintaining Grace
- Log: Maintaining Grace
- Cast: Hyousuke Suzuki, Tamaki Uchida
- Where: Kuzunoha Detective Agency
- OOC Date: 2026-06-25
- IC Date: Fri Nov 30 2012
- Summary: Hyousuke visits the Kuzunoha Detective Agency not as someone seeking work, but as a client. What starts as a simple requests turns into him and Tamaki showing parts of themselves out of step with their usual conduct, however.
(|======================== Kuzunoha Detective Agency =========================|)
-=================================================== Sumaru City/Aoba Ward ====-
The first thing that greets visitors to Kuzunoha Detective Agency is a giant
golden lucky cat statue that, with its left paw raised, bids a hearty welcome to
customers and opportunities alike. Inspect it, and a mewling voice will ask for
donations: 100 yen from students and other children, and 1000 yen from adults.
A pair of dark couches that frame a coffee table have an excellent view of the
massive HDTV and dual stereos on the far right wall. On the far left wall are
shelves upon shelves full of books, none of which definitely can slide to one
side. A large desk with a lamp and computer stands in front of it. This is where
the portly older ex-gumshoe, Chief Daisuke Todoroki, makes his business, as...
blessed... by the agency's original owner. He investigates (and will spread) all
manner of rumors to find out the truth (and change reality), assisted by veteran
Persona User Tamaki Uchida.
The back room is nothing special; it has a stove and a sink, so it's a simple
task to always have tea ready for customers. There's a bathroom there too, but
it seems like it's always occupied. Don't ask who's in there, meow.
(|============================================================================|)
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
It wasn't unusual to see Hyousuke pass through the doors of the Kuzunoha Detective Agency. Many a time, he'd elected to earn some spending money by brawling a Demon someone had put a bounty out on. It might as well have been a part-time job for him, for all the fighting he'd done in the name of money. It wasn't even unusual to see him looking a little worse for wear as he walked in - though mercifully, at least in his eyes, it being the depths of November gave him an excuse to cover up the worst of his healing wounds.
Dressed in Kasugayama's winter uniform, the vast majority of the damage he'd sustained was hidden beneath layers of fabric. Not all of them were from the fight with Ulala either, however, with the vast majority being clearly older ones, while some fresh new marks littered his skin. Cuts from claw, pierced skin from fangs gnawing at his limbs, bruises and scrapes from where he'd been thrown to the ground - all of it was there, but all of it remained hidden. All that could be seen were some red marks on his knuckles, and the wisps of exhaustion clinging stubbornly to his eyes.
But that could just be attributed to Ulala, could it not?
"Uchida-san? You in?" Hyousuke called out idly as he stepped in from the cold. A stiff gust followed him once the door had swung fully open - a bitter chill surging in and stealing what warmth it could, before he closed the door against the elements once more. He didn't even look to the totally innocuous cat off to the side as he made his way forward. By that point, offering it the customary sum was muscle memory. It would have taken a conscious effort to keep himself from paying, rather than having to actually remember to do it.
"Was hoping you could take a look at something for me."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
As commonplace as it is, it is a ritual, and must be observed. The cat statue starts its usual tinny message, but skips in the middle as the money lands. "Nya~! Nya~! N -- THANK you, nya~!"
Tamaki doesn't exactly look in top form today, herself. She sits at her desk with poor posture as she lazily moves her mouse to peruse files on her monitor. Dark circles have formed underneath her bleary eyes. Some redness-reducing eye drops from a certain pharmacy sit beside her mousepad.
A yawn exits her mouth before her actual reply to Hyousuke. "Hwaaaaa. Yeah. I'm in." She doesn't stand, and instead swivels her chair so her body faces Hyousuke's direction. "What's up?"
A more alert Tamaki may have immediately taken more keen notice of Hyousuke's own state and gotten up to provide first aid supplies ... but that isn't this Tamaki, whose eyelids sluggishly droop and rise out of sync as she blinks.
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke instinctively reached his hand to his pocket to pull out the singular piece of evidence he had to work with, but he stopped halfway through when his own beleaguered mind finally processed what he'd been seeing. He fixed her with a perplexed look at first, tilting his head a little to the side and blinking quietly, before straightening himself and looking altogether more concerned.
"You doing alright?" He asked, the matter of his business put to one side for the time being. He remained standing, still looking at her, still concerned. Hyousuke kept the look restrained, but it was easy to see it either way.
"Still hurting from the other day? I can come back another time." Hyousuke asked, his tone softer than the one he'd walked in with. His posture was a completely different story. Though it appeared relaxed at first pass, he shifted a little from foot to foot, his hand fiddled with the item in his pocket, and the other tapped idly against his thigh as he fixed her with a concerned - yet somehow still expectant - look. While the offer had been made, it would have been fair to assume that he didn't want her to take it.
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki stares at Hyousuke for several seconds before she rises to her feet and gestures for him to come closer. In sequence, she flatly answers his questions: "I've honestly lived through worse. Much worse." (But can she really call it living?)
" -- more emotionally than physically. Serizawa-san was -- " She makes a face before she corrects herself. " -- is a friend, still. I think."
With a commanding tone, she sharply adds, "Stay. Show me what you've got." She holds her hand out, palm-up, and motions for Hyousuke to offer it for her to examine. Having something to concentrate on seems to have helped her fight through the fatigue.
"You don't look so good, yourself." The fight with Ulala involved ... wind and illusions. Bruises may line up, scrapes slightly less so, but slicing cuts and piercing marks don't. Her eyes briefly narrow at the sight, then she adds, "Get some proper rest sometime, alright? Medical supplies are in the closet here, as usual, if you want them."
Hand still offered, she adds, "You're dealing with something else, aren't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke, of course, had little reaction to the statement she'd lived through worse. She was older than him, and had no doubt been in the business of supernatural investigations far longer than he'd even been aware it was a thing. What reason had he to think that she was referring to anything but a particularly tough fight? As such, it should hardly have been a surprise when his sole response to her rebuttal was to nod slowly, and step forward slowly.
"I think she still is. Whatever that curse was, I don't think it was really her talking." He didn't know if that was true or not, strictly speaking, but even he could tell that something foul had been afoot. But he didn't know the woman, nor her relationships with others. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, he supposed, and move on.
Once close enough, he drew the collar - or, rather, what remained of it - from his pocket, and placed it gingerly in her palm. Unfortunately for Hyousuke, doing so exposed just enough of his injuries that anyone with sharp enough eyes or paying enough attention would have been able to see a hint of them. The red-rawness of his knuckles was to be expected. He was a brawler, and it had been a gruelling fight back then, even with his training. The bruises and scrapes could be excused by the fight as well, given that he'd taken some nasty hits and been thrown against a wall.
But the trenches that had been carved into his flesh when his collar shifted at just the right angle, the lines of skin broken by savage fangs that were bared when his sleeves rode up... Ulala hadn't issued any attacks that could do that. They were injuries that could invoke suspicion, if nothing else, but Hyousuke either didn't notice that he'd exposed them or had elected to try and avoid calling attention to the fact. Whatever the case, he drew back once the damaged collar had been dropped into Tamaki's hand, and shook his head slowly.
"It's fine, I already cleaned 'em up before I came over here. And I'd rather we just focus on that for now." Hyousuke's tone was insistent. Palpably so. It wasn't something that crept in without his knowledge, it was him stating that he didn't wish to speak of it. Whether that was for the time being, or at all, was anyone's guess. "I found this while I went hiking with a friend. We think the dog that was wearing it got loose in the woods, and we're guessing it's still out there, but we've got almost no leads on how to find it or who it belongs to. This collar's the only thing that we've got."
The item in question was a strip of leather, dark brown in colour, though damaged from its time in the dirt. Each end made it clear it had been torn off, rather than simply removed, while the scratches and faded colour lent credence to the idea that it had been laying in the dirt for at least a few days. The tag - a round and brass thing, dulled by exposure and damage - had fragments of once-legible characters engraved into it, though scratches and other damage had removed any useful information from its surface.
"I know this is the kinda thing the cops or whoever should be looking at, but I don't trust 'em to do jack shit." Hyousuke didn't care that he'd spoken rather uncouthly around someone that was, by that point, effectively his boss. The dog was clearly his focus. "Poor thing's probably scared and alone out there, waiting for someone to do something - anything - to help it. I'll pay whatever it takes, just- just give me *something.* Please."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
What reason would Hyousuke have for doubt, indeed? Tamaki sees it a little differently; she is only several years older than him. She's still in university. If he's expecting a truly seasoned veteran, then that's Todoroki at the much larger desk on the far end of the room. Part of the friction between herself and Ulala was that the latter apparently views the former as picture-perfect, put-together, a professional who had at least proven herself capable of attracting a partner, even if that relationship fizzled post-proposal.
Tamaki gives Hyousuke an unamused stare in response to his attempt at condolences, then pinches the bridge of her nose. "I appreciate it what you're trying to do, but ... that was the real her speaking. Same as it was the real me tearing into her just as badly. It may not have been the entirety of her, but make no mistake: it was a very real portion of her."
She lowers her head slightly while she keeps her gaze fixed on Hyousuke. "Remember, that ugliness came from somewhere. She called the Joker Curse on someone. The rumor which Wang Long's originator spread only brought forward something which had already existed. We're all capable of such thoughts and deeds. Even you. Even myself. Don't ever forget that."
She watches him closely, anticipating her own disappointment if he manages to make the same category error as Ulala had. Then again, Tamaki doesn't really make it easy for anyone to perceive the truth of the matter, does she ..? First she doesn't want people to know more about what she's been through, but then she gets upset that they don't see that about her? Which one is it? It's an ever-shifting goalpost with her contrarian nature, endlessly circling the field to the opposite approach someone takes towards her.
Like Hyousuke, she doesn't like when people focus on her own wounds. "Sure," she brusquely offers in reply to his insistence. Immediately, she frowns when the collar serves as a hint to the task: finding a lost dog. How unglamorous. How unexciting. It can't be worth the time nor pay, she starts to wonder. She's got rent to pay, tuition, groceries, all on the commission an apprentice such as herself makes subcontracted out under Todoroki, and in the growing world of the supernatural, there's also opportunity.
'From love affairs to ghosts,' her tagline goes. A pang of guilt shoots through her heart -- she wanted to be in this position to help out people who would otherwise fall through the gaps. This fits that very definition, doesn't it? Her frown softens as she scrutinizes the collar and tag, taking its details into her memory.
She waves a hand dismissively at Hyousuke. "We can talk payment later. I can help you out. Which woods did you find this in, exactly? I'll do some analysis and take a hike out there myself sometime."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke's lips twitched a little when Tamaki corrected him, and the heat of shame washed through his veins. He tried to maintain a still expression, and he attempted to keep himself from saying anything else that would risk offence. It wouldn't do to tarnish his image in front of someone that he relied on, after all. It wouldn't do to make himself seem like even more of a dumb, impulsive, brute than he already had. But even so, some few things still slipped out. The tensing of muscles, the twitching of fingers, the momentary breaking of his gaze... It was subtle, but it was there.
"I understand. I'll keep it in mind. I'll... try to control myself." Hyousuke said tersely. He wasn't entirely sure he did understand - no surprises there - but he at least made the attempt. That aside, it wasn't the hammer's place to question why it was driven into a nail. He was there to fight whoever he was thrown at - nothing more, nothing less. Who did he think he was, trying to provide some measure of solace, or trying to put together a puzzle he'd not even investigated the pieces of? Besides, there were other matters to attend to.
The seconds between Tamaki taking the collar and offering her answer stretched out into what felt like aeons. Hyousuke didn't dare to breathe, lest it risk drawing her ire and jeopardising his case. But there was only so much he could suppress, even if he made an active effort to remain as still and silent as humanly possible. His fingers twitched, motioning as if he wanted to clutch at his jacket in anticipation, only to be forced back. He couldn't hold her gaze for long, glancing down every so often before he had the stomach to look her in the eye again. His feet shifted in place, only some fraction of an inch at a time, but they shifted nonetheless.
It was only when she spoke again that he resumed some measure of vigour and alertness, as if he were soldier called to arms. Air rushed into his lungs as he indulged in the luxury of drawing breath once more, only for it to slowly fall past his face in a relieved exhale.
"It's a trail just outside Tokyo. My friend took some pictures of the spot we found the collar in as well." He handed Tamaki his phone, turned to face her the right way up. Amongst the pictures Ichika had sent him was a few pictures of the signage before the trail, and a spot marked on a map showing where the trail began as well as roughly where they'd come across the sole lead he possessed.
Another few seconds of silence passed. It wasn't a thoughtful quiet - it was dead air. Stillness in which one could hear a pin drop. Hyousuke broke it eventually, but it was with an uncharacteristically awkward lilt to his voice.
"Thank you. I know it's not your usual thing, but I didn't know who else I could go to, and I don't know who even could help me, and I can't stand knowing that it's just out there alone and waiting for someone to come find it but not seeing anyone and-"
Hyousuke swallowed to cut himself off, suddenly realising that he'd lost control no more than a minute after he'd promised not to. Another embarrassment to flood his psyche with shame. Another display of abject weakness. He hoped that, at the very least, bowing a little in gratitude would help hide his face some.
"...I mean, thank you. For this."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Too sharp. Tamaki let her tongue go loose again. She sighs in exasperation, primarily aimed at herself. "It isn't so much about control as it is about understanding. I lost control."
She places her forehead in the palm of her hand and props it up with an elbow. "I'm ... telling myself this just as much as I'm telling you. Or maybe I'm projecting. Give yourself some grace, either way."
Whatever the case is, her hackles seem lowered. She peers at Hyousuke's phone and nods. She quietly mutters, "Could you text me those? Thanks."
"It kind of is my usual thing. You ... do know how few cases of mine are supernatural, right? They're the exception, not the norm." She chuckles. "Honestly, I could use a breather after the gym ..."
Her final reply is simple. "You're welcome. It's what I'm here for."