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7. Into the Deep End

I shook angrily at that fox's actions. He takes one look at the guy that he's been fawning over for a week or more and he slams to door in our face. I started to shake and pound on the door while yelling up at him in English so Tomaka wouldn't understand me as much.

"JESSAN! Let us in you red furred fruit loop! You know I can break down this door, now let us in!" I pounded on his door again and this time he came and opened the door and pulled me in, leaving Tomaka outside while he started to yell at me.

"What is he doing here?! He's not meant to meet me until Saturday and you knew this!" The fox poked at me and I rolled my eyes, he really could be such a silly guy at times it would be totally laughable if I was the type to laugh at things aloud.

"Calm down... Geeze... Act like this is the first time you met a guy." I rolled my eyes and pulled him to the side and tried to talk to him calmly. "Listen, he's a good guy, decent morals and beliefs, ain't prejudice, smart, has a (as he calls it) 'Passion for Furs' and he's gay. I'm pretty sure you're gonna like 'im so just go for it and stop dancin' around this." I shrugged and kicked off my shoes as he stood their glaring at me like he wanted to chew me a new one before he finally relented and nodded.

"Ok, I'll talk to him," he looked down and looked pretty nervous about this before he glared back up at me, "But if this goes over wrong because of you, you're screwed! Got it?" He pointed a finger at me and I jerked my head back in surprise. This really was new territory for him, but I just smirked and got up close to his face and showed off my fangs in a literal 'wolfish smile'.

"Big words for a little mammal, Jess, try not to forget I've taken care of bigger threats than you." I joked and pushed him towards the door.

Jessan though just shook his head and flipped me a bird, "Screw you, Zeke."

I just scoffed at the remark, "Only after you take me first, Jess."

And with a deep breath Jessan finally turned the door and let Tomaka in. He slowly stepped inside and he looked around the place noticing the blue walls, the stair case and the enclaves that lead to the kitchen and dining room areas. After he had taken a moment to kick off his shoes we all made our way to the living room to talk and get situated. After that the two others sat down on some of the nice furniture they had in the living room. Tomaka choose the sofa and Jessan took his place in an easy chair as I sat down on another chair.

We sat there for a few minutes and after nothing was said I felt my need to leave.

"Well... as much fun as this is, I think I'll be leaving now. Tell me how it goes later, Jess." I started to walk off with a wave to them before I felt a slight tug on my tail and looked back to see Jessan holding it and glaring at me. For a fox this guy could sometimes be fiercer than some of the bigger predators I'd met, but only because he was angry at the potential embarrassment I'd gotten him into here.

I rolled my eyes and decided to sit down, it's not like I had anything else to do really. I wasn't upset at the fox for making me stay there, but I was rather annoyed with him, as I had been about this whole situation he'd gotten me involved in. It didn't matter though, he said I had to stay for him but that didn't meant I had to pay attention to anything.

They talked and got to know each other some more, they asked each other questions and they each answered honestly. Jessan revealed just how much he knew about Tomaka and I was impressed with how much he had practically stalked the guy. The human forgave him though and I thought things were going pretty well and that I could slip out soon enough, but then Jessan asked about Tomaka's parents and he started to act funny.

I looked up when I noticed he hadn't said anything and looked him over. He seemed to be shaking, and he was starting to breathe erratically. I got up and put my PDA down as Jessan ran over to him and held onto his back.

"TOMAKA! Oh my god, Zeke go get the phone he needs an ambulance, hurry up he's dying!"

I got up to him though and listened to his heart and felt his pulse, "ZEKE!"

"SHUT UP!" I glared at Jessan as he looked at his new friend with worry, "He's having a panic attack, go get a paper bag now to help his breathing and I'll try to keep him calm."

Jessan nodded and quickly ran to the kitchen to get the bag as I laid the guy down and tried to help even out his breaths. He was starting to sweat and hyperventilate but if we could just get his breathing back under control he'd be ok. Jessan got back with the bag and I held it over the poor guy's mouth and had him breathe into it for several minutes until he finally started to breathe normally. I hadn't had much experience with people having panic attacks, but thankfully taking various first-aid classes helped out here with his.

"Are you okay, Tomaka-san?" Jessan looked at him as the guy took the bag slowly from his mouth and I felt his wrist for his pulse to see if it had slowed down.

"Tomaka-san?" Jessan talked to him in a soft and kind voice, it was quite warm and it seemed to have an effect on him as he started to get up.

Jess got up and looked to me for a moment, "Zeke, can you go back to your hotel now, please?"

I looked at him annoyed, first he forced me to stay here and now he wanted me to leave. I just shook my head and sighed though, I didn't want to be here anymore anyway, this was something I didn't need to get involved in when I was going to be leaving so soon.

I turned and headed towards the door, saying goodbye as I left. It was time for Jessan to learn to swim as it was here and learn how to deal with this guy who he wanted to make into his boyfriend.

I walked back to the hotel where I was staying and as much as this day had sucked it looked like it was about to get worse when I saw Officer Tonaka standing outside the hotel and upon seeing me started to walk up to me.

"What do you want now, Officer? I haven't done anything illegal today and I have a witness to vouch for me." I grunted and kept walking towards the door as he blocked my path again.

"I need your help in finding something for me." I looked over at him and snorted.

"What? Can't you use one of the other furs on your squad to help you out?" I smirked at him snidely. I knew that there weren't any furs on the Tokyo Police force despite equality laws stating that Furs could be hired none had come forth to join them in the past 25 years since the laws had been passed.

"Funny, but no, I need your help. You can smell guns obviously, but how are you with tracking?"

I looked at him from the corner of my eye, "Ok, Tonaka, you need me for something, so spill it, what is it you need from me that you can't get anywhere else?"

"Blunt as always, and please refer to me with the proper honorific, Thomson-san." He cleared his throat and looked at me straight in the eye as he told me the story.

"Late last night a man was shot and killed. Thankfully someone heard the shot and we arrived quickly to try to apprehend the man but when we were finally able to catch him he didn't have a gun on him. We tested his hands and clothes for GSR which proved positive, but he said that he had been at a shooting range earlier and that was where the GSR came from which we confirmed him being at an hour before the shooting. We searched high around where he had been chased but we couldn't find his gun. I'm afraid that if we can't find the gun and match that bullet to it then he will get away with murder."

I raised a brow to him and leaned against the side of the building as I absorbed all that information.

"That is all well and good, but again, what does that have to with you needing me?" I could easily see what he needed of me, but I thought it would be so much more pleasing to hear him say it himself.

He stared me down for a moment before he sighed and shook his head relenting to my question, "We have no furs on our squad, as you know, and you're the only one we know at the moment who could help us. Tokyo is mainly a human city and there are only 500-1000 furs around at any time. We would like you to co-operate with us on this case and help us find the gun."

I looked at him and studied his face. He didn't like to admit that he needed help, but he was making a step towards something good here. If I helped him out like this it would help prove that furs had a set of skills that humans didn't and maybe if I could help them out a bit then this could help others in the future, find jobs, and be more accepted by people. I was going way off tangent with my thought process there, but I was just trying to run a scenario of what doing this might cause to happen. In the end I doubted it would really change anything but I still agreed to it and asked to be taken to where the man was arrested.

I figured the man likely hid the gun somewhere before he had been arrested, or maybe had allowed himself to be arrested after he had hid the gun to throw the police off his track. Either way this guy wasn't going to get off with murdering someone and as we drove through the busy streets I wondered just where he might have hid the gun that the police couldn't find it.

We drove along for a few minutes until Officer Tonaka pulled in behind a large building of some sort and parked his squad car.

"This is where he was arrested. We have searched all over the grounds and sewers and the river basin for the gun but we haven't found it. We're afraid it might have been washed away."

I got out and started to sniff the air around me and sighed, "It's not a plastic bottle. Unless there were some fairly strong currents in the river it wouldn't move very far once it fell to the ground." I kept on sniffing the air and walked over to a rather tall tree and sniffed around while Tonaka kept on talking about some bull that I really didn't bother to pay attention to.

"HEY! You know that you can't mark a tree like that in the city. It's indecent exposure! And were you even listening to me?" I growled and felt my tail go stiff in anger.

"I WASN'T DOING THAT!" I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to keep cool, "And no I wasn't listening, I was trying to catch a scent of any firearms around here."

I jumped up into the tree and he scoffed at me, "Well as I was saying, the man we have in custody is a somewhat intelligent man. He owns a large moving business that he bought from a smaller company in a hostile take-over and we have reason to believe that he is involved in several under the table deals in the city. Furthermore-"

"Found it." I had climbed the tree by now and found that the gun had been stashed away inside an enclave in the tree. It wasn't a very big hole but it was large enough for a gun to fit inside and not be found easily. I took off the shirt I was wearing and picked the gun up with it before I stashed it in my pocket, slipped my shirt back on and climbed down.

"Y-you found it!? Already?! We've been looking around this whole area for over 10 hours and you find it in less than 10 minutes!? HOW!?" He stared at me like I'd just solved the biggest case in history and I just shrugged.

"I followed the scent, it wasn't hard. I have a higher sense of smell than humans do and I took a summer course in gun and drug sniffing when I was 13 so I can easily find guns and drugs just by being near them. It really isn't hard to do for most furs if they have the right training." I shrugged, what I said was true. Most canine type furs had very good sense of smell just like our feral counterparts. That's why in communities that had more furs canines were popular in police, military, and detective work, though others were still on them too.

Tonaka just stared at me flabbergasted and wide eyed before I snapped my fingers and he shook his head.

"Well... right..." He sighed and scratched his head a bit, "Maybe it's time I look into hiring a fur from another precinct then... If we had had one that was even half as good as you we wouldn't have had to waste so much man power looking for a gun that was right above our heads. Well..." he bowed his head to me a bit and sighed, "Thank you very much, Thomson-san, for your help. If I may have the gun now, please?"

I nodded my head to him and once he gave me the bag I got the gun into the bag without touching it. My work being done I was driven back to my hotel, thanked again, and was left to my own devices.

What a strange day it had been, my first week in Japan wasn't even over yet and already I had managed to fight off a would-be murderer, gotten a job as a body guard, beaten up some speciest punks, gotten Jessan with Tomaka, and helped the Tokyo Police department gain evidence for a serious crime. I couldn't believe it and yet I still had the concert to go to later this week and I was still unsure of what to expect during what very well could be a very memorable night for myself.