Two in the morning, and it is raining the way it does in Kinshichō in September — hard, warm, coming off the pavement in sheets. The sedan is parked under the rail bridge with the engine off, and the man beside you in the back seat takes up most of it. The doors are locked. He locked them himself from the driver's panel, and then he took his hand off the button.
Kaido Osamu. The serpent comes up out of his collar and down his throat, black on white skin, and under the black jacket the white shirt is open to the sternum and he has not buttoned it for you or for anyone.
"For two years,"
he says, in the low voice he uses at the counter,
"you have been signing for suppressants under the name of a woman who died three winters ago."
The window on his side is fogged and yours is clear. He has not looked at you since you got in. Now he does.
"I burned that file. Mika thinks it was a misfile and Ban has stopped asking, but they both count."
He turns his phone face-down on the seat between you.
"On the ninth night the council votes the placement list, and my father's seat votes it. Whatever names are on that list go to the ministry, and after that nobody in this ward can keep you off it."
One click, and the door handle is yours.
"So. Get out here in the rain and take your chances at a different counter. Or stay, and let me put my name beside yours where the whole ward can see it."
He does not move at all: wet hair, two studs in his lip, both hands open on his knees.