The mood was fairly positive in the group as they arrived at an old and rickety building that bore the curious sign of "Ye Ol' Cursed Antiques Shop". It seemed strangely fitting that they should find the stolen ring here, given the nature of its history, despite the roundabout route the thing had taken to get here. The pawnshop owner escorted them to the door, bowed politely and left, needing to get back to running his own store. The boy's mother, needing a ride home and feeling she had an interest in the matter by this point, continued to stay with the officers for now.
Their mood dimmed slightly as they entered the dimly lit shop to see a number of overturned and broken displays, merchandise --many of the more fragile items in broken shards-- strewn across the floor, and one old man with a bushy white mustache slowly sweeping up the mess.
The lead officer tried to ignore the sense of dread creeping over her... or at least pass it off as the overall creepy effect this store gave its visitors. "Good sir... have you been robbed?"
"Eh?" The old man looked up (he might well have begun going deaf, considering he hadn't noticed their entrance before then). "Oh, no, I'm afraid not officer. Just some unruly customers. Not many crooks dumb enough to steal something from THIS shop, no no no... and if they are, well, I suppose they deserve whatever curses they get from whatever they pocketed... not that I believe in that sort of thing, mind you."
"I... see." The officer blinked. "Well, I'm afraid we three are operating outside our usual jurisdiction, but we can easily call in a local officer to come here if you'd like to file a complaint..."
"No no no... No need to bother. This sort of thing happens now and again... often in near proportion to the number of customers I get, actually, but that's par for the course when you run a shop like this. Two ways to read the sign outside, don't you know. Not that I really believe it, mind you."
"Huh?" One of the male officers blinked, turning to the other.
The other rolled his eyes and explained. "Either a shop full of cursed antiques, or a shop full of antiques that's cursed."
"Oh! Gotcha... so can we leave now? I'm starting to believe this assignment is cursed enough already."
"Oh hush!"
"Ahem!" The female officer cleared her throat meaningfully, silencing the chatter of the other two. "Well then, if you're certain, then I'll come straight to our reason for being here. Apparently two days ago you acquired a plain gold ring from the pawnshop owner up the street..."
"Oh yes, that thing. Quite a story to it, let me tell you! According to legend, it's been around for hundreds of years, apparently cursed by a witch to lead whoever wears it to a terrible end, probably making a great wedding band for a spouse you find yourself wishing ya never married, which I guess was her intent in making it. Not that I believe in that sort of thing, mind you."
"Marriage?" One male officer muttered curiously.
"I'm sure he meant being cursed to meet a terrible end." The other replied dryly.
"You're telling me there's a difference? Remember now, I've already met your wife."
"And I've met yours, and she says the same about you."
The female officer rubbed the bridge of her nose briefly, before deciding to ignore her partners. "No offense to your fine story-telling talents, good sir, but I've been hearing more authentic stories about that ring since I was a little girl. In actual fact, the ring is stolen property, sold to the pawnshop owner before he sold it to you. I'm here on behalf of the original owners (though I'm beginning to wonder why the two comedians behind me bothered to come) who are very anxious to have it back safely under lock and key before the curse, whatever form it might be, if any, harms anyone."
The two male officers shot each other a quick grin, then said in unison. "Not that we believe in that sort of thing, mind you."
Without missing a beat, the female officer continued. "And on another note, do you happen to have anything that might curse a pair of idiots with perpetual silence? How about just an hour? I'm not particular."
"You're quite the comedian yourself."
"Ain't she just?"
The female officer cupped a hand behind her ears, closing her eyes. "I hear a funny sound in the distance. It sounds like... two clowns who seem to be forgetting that I'm a rank above both of them, and can technically order them both to clean our station's bathrooms with nothing but toothbrushes and spit until they gleam."
Dead silence echoed behind her, causing her to smile.
"Well, good sir? Is the ring in question still in your possession, or has it changed hands yet again? We're quite willing to compensate you the money you spent acquiring it, even a bit more as a gratuity for your trouble. As I said, the true owners are quite insistent on having it back safely."
The old man snorted. "'Course I still have it! What, you think somebody would actually BUY something like that? Well maybe, but more fool them if they did! Come to think, had an idiot like that come back here just the today, hence the mess. Didn't matter how much I warned him, he just had to have that blasted Phoenix Egg, which wouldn't have been too much of a problem if he hadn't ignored my warnings and put the damn thing on his head, just as I said not to. You think this place is a mess, you should see the part of the neighborhood that got thoroughly trashed when the danged thing hatched and a newborn baby phoenix ran amok for a while before finally flyin' the coop... not that I believe in that sort of thing, mind you." He grumbled as he continued his sweeping.
The lady officer blinked. "Yeees, of course. Could we get back to the ring?"
"Eh?" The old man's head came back up. "Ring? Oh right, that. Damndest little thing, looks perfectly harmless, but there's this legend people tell about it..."
"I know the legend, gramps." The lady officer cut him off. "You told it to me already. Could we see it please? Where do you have it on display?"
"Eh? Oh, well it ain't on display yet. Haven't found a good jewelry box to lay it out on quite yet, since I been a bit busy this week. You come back Friday though, I'll have it up on display then for you young'ns to look at."
Mindful of their currently twitching superior officer, the two male officers whispered quietly to each other.
"Figure he's gone senile?"
"Could be... either that or he just gets his kicks jerking people around."
The female officer took a deep breath for patience and tried again. "Sir, the ring is stolen property. We don't want to look at it, we want to return it to its rightful owners. Since you say you still have it, could you give it into our safekeeping then... promptly?"
"Sure I guess. Can't say I'd recommend taking it though. Folks say it's more than just any ordinary ring. It's supposed to have itself a curse on it. Brings any fool who wears--"
"I... KNOW! Now could you PLEASE just produced the blasted ring already?" She thundered.
The old man blinked at her. "Um... not that it's really my business... but weren't you a woman a moment ago?"
The man tapped his foot rapidly, in a rather feminine, impatient manner. "Yes... yes I was. I'm under a curse to change into a man when I get angry, all the better to beat down whoever is pissing me off until they reach the point of soiling themselves, so it's as much blessing as curse, really, though I'm sure you don't believe in that sort of thing. Curses, that is. If you don't believe in being beaten down until soiling oneself, I'm sure I can make you a believer. So, unless I'm somehow managing to be far more subtle than I think I'm being currently, how about you show me the ring? NOW!"
"Goodness miss, no need to shout. I'm hardly deaf you know, no matter how old I look. Here's the ring, right here in my pock..." He patted the breast pocket of his vest. "Whoops, not that one..." he patted down another pocket. "Nope, not there either." He checked the side pockets.
At this point, the (formally) lady officer gave the old man's outfit a quick top-to-bottom, and estimated the whole outfit had a total of well over a dozen little pockets. Such seemed to be the only thing he expected from his clothes, and certainly didn't seem to care if any of the pieces went well together.
She briefly considered crying... but she was in her male form, and more importantly in uniform. Crying simply would not be appropriate.
So she waited impatiently for the old man to work his way through his pocket collection (often finding other things he seemed to have forgotten were in there, and being quite pleased by his little finds).
"AHA!" The old man cried suddenly, grinning proudly with one hand in the left back pocket of his cargo pants.
"You found it?" She cried hopefully.
"No, I just remembered I was wearing a different set of clothes two days ago when ol' Fat Toshi sold me that ring. No reason it would be in ANY of these pockets, no siree. That'd just be silly." And with that... he returned to his sweeping.
One of the male officers (actually they were all male at this point) hurried up to his superior's side. "Uh... remember Lieutenant, 2nd degree murder of a civilian is behavior pretty widely frowned upon for officers in the line of duty."
"Yeah," the other snickered, "wait until you're out of uniform."
The first male gave the other a shot in the arm to shut him up, sensing this encounter was about to become a lot less funny if their lieutenant really blew her stack.
"Seriously Lieutenant, if you want me to take over for a bit while you step outside and cool down a bit, none of us would think any less of you. This senile old coot would try the patience of a Bhudda."
The lieutenant twitched, but wasn't moving. 'Her' subordinate tried again. "In fact... personally I would respect you MORE for being able to recognise when you're dancing on the edge and choosing to step back from it before you do something that even your amazing son who so admires you couldn't be proud of you for."
That seemed to do the trick. The lieutenant took a deep breath, and let it out slow, unclenching his fists and relaxing. A moment later 'he' even shifted back to her normal, female shape, a clearer sign than any other that a Shimeru was in control of her emotions.
Just as she was turning to step outside for a few minutes (if the old coot was going to lead her subordinate through another song and dance number, she didn't want to watch it anymore) all three officers were surprised by the boy's mother, who stepped up to the old man and greeted him as though she hadn't been standing in the shop for a good 15 minutes already.
"Good afternoon, sir. I was wondering if you might help me find some useful item in your shop to solve a problem of mine."
"Oh! Welcome to my store, Madam. I'd be happy to help you, though I don't know if anything here could really solve anyone's problem. They tend to do the reverse mostly, being cursed items and such. Not that I believe in such things, mind you."
"Oh certainly not. That would be a bit too superstitious for an intelligent man of your dignified years. But nonetheless, perhaps something here might help me give a problem to someone who is a very serious problem to my family and myself. I'm afraid it's a bit of a story, if you don't mind taking the time to hear me out."
"Not at all! I love stories!" The old man grinned under his bushy mustache.
"Yes, I suspected you might. You see, there's this very bad man who's taken a rather unhealthy amount of interest in my family, even to the point of blackmailing us with inflated debts he claims we owe him in order to take my dear, sweet, young daughter as his virgin bride. Now I know many men seem to prefer younger women, but my dear child has just barely reached her 16th birthday, where as this man is at nearly 50, and a mobster besides. No one could call that a good marriage even by the most liberally minded standards, and frankly I'm terrified of what he intends to do to my poor little girl, considering the stories people tell of seeing prostitutes enter into his mansion through the front door and large bags being loaded into the trunks of cars through the back... not that I really believe in such things, mind you."
"Of course not, that would be paranoid." The old man said levelly.
"At any rate, he's made a bargain, one we can only pray he won't decide to go back on once he tires of my sweet little girl, that on the day of their marriage, all our suspicious debts to him will be cleared. Now I'm not certain what sort of items you carry, but given the circumstances, the most ideal outcome would be for him to marry my daughter, freeing our family from all his hold over us, and then perhaps meet some terrible end before he can do too great a harm to my dear, beloved daughter... ideally somewhere between the wedding hall and the marriage bed... but if the bastard drops dead anytime before he starts truly doing her harm, or she becomes another bag in the trunk of a car, I can be satisfied. Do you have anything like that? Perhaps something we could trick him into accepting from her during the wedding ceremony?"
The old man promptly set aside his broom, and took the desperate-seeming mother by the shoulders in a gesture of reassurance. "Never you fear, Madam! Ol' Shigawa's got just the thing to save your sweet child! A wedding band GUARANTEED to bring whoever puts it on their finger to a terrible end! Couldn't tell you how quickly it works, mind you, but it ought to do the trick just fine if you can get yer young'n to slide it up his finger. He don't sound like the kinda bastard karma owes any favours to... not that I believe in such things, mind you."
As the three officers watched with open mouths, the old man hurried up a set of stairs, apparently to his living quarters above the shop, and was rushing back down with a pair of tacky green pants in no time at all.
"These're the trousers I had on, day that Fat Toshi fella sold me the ring, like I was telling you about earlier..." The old man's excited expression faded into a look of mild confusion, "...or did I? Hmm..."
"It doesn't matter if we can save my daughter from a terrible fate." The mother quickly cut in.
"Right, right, the girl. Anyhoo, the rings right here in my back pocket where I put it that day. I remember it clear as a bell! Right in... here..." He trailed off awkwardly as he put his hand deep into the pocket in question... only to see his fingers protruding out from a sizeable hole at the bottom of it. "Oh dear..."
In a strange moment of total coordination, four hands smacked into four foreheads, all of the visitors experiencing a moment of philosophical brilliance as they simultaneously discovered the answer to the ancient Zen riddle; 'what is the sound of one hand clapping'.
The mother took a deep breath and smiled patiently. "Could it possibly be in one of the other pockets, or even a different pair of pants?"
"Of course not! I remember clearly putting it right in this one. What'cha think I am, senile?"
"If either of you two answer that, I'll kill you right here." The lieutenant moaned under her breath.
"Wasn't going to."
"Me either. WAY too easy."
"Well then," the mother replied reasonably, "we just need to find where it fell out then, don't we? Would it be upstairs somewhere? I'm sure we'd all be happy to help you look if you don't mind us being in your living area."
The old man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, examining the hole in his pants carefully. "Hmm... nope, I don't think so. Hole this big, right in the bottom like that, ain't no way that ring would have hung around in it long enough to come with me back to the shop. Most likely it fell out right were I was when I tore the pants. 'Cause they sure weren't torn like that when I put them on in the mornin'. The old lady may've gone on without me, but that don't mean I can't take care of myself neither. Been doing it for years now."
The two male officers glanced at each other, but spoke under their breath, far to low to be heard by the conversing pair across the room.
"'Gone on without him'... you think he means death or divorce?"
"Could be either one, the way he thinks."
"My bet is she jumped in front of a bus to put a quick, merciful end to the insanity." The lieutenant muttered.
"Hmm... should we ask?"
"Let's not... seriously."
"I'm sure you manage well enough, even without your dear wife." The mother assured him. "Well then, I guess we should go look around where you tore the pants. Do you remember where that happened?"
"Course I do! What'cha think I am, senile?" He demanded hotly.
"Certainly not, though sometimes people don't notice when they tear their clothes. That's all I meant."
"Right, right." The old man tapped his chin in thought. Then brightened. "AHA!"
"You remember?" The mother asked delightedly.
"Course I do! What'cha think I am, senile?" He demanded hotly.
To her credit, the mother only blinked several times before regaining her pleasant smile. "Well where do you think you tore your pants then?"
"Had to be when those danged punk kids were shoving me outta the way while raising such a fuss over that baby phoenix what hatched on that fool kid's head. Damned kids... all I was there to do was remind them not to put the damned egg on their heads... though they mighta already done that by that point... hmm."
"And where did this happen?" The mother quickly asked before the old man's thoughts could wander down another tangent. "Can you take us to the place?"
"Well sure I can, but that phoenix already grew up and flew the coop, so to speak... if ya can relate that fool's head to a small empty building fulla nothing but straw and chicken crap... which if ya knew him, ya just might."
"Charming," the mother said, "but we don't care about the phoenix, we want to go looking for the ring that fell out of your pocked when the young people pushed you and your tore your pants. Could you show us the place that happened, please? My poor daughter is counting on us to find it in time!"
"Right, your daughter! We gotta find that ring quick and save the poor sweet young'n!" The old man thumped his chest with conviction, marching smartly towards the door... then paused. "Why am I holding my pants?"
"Perhaps you meant to set them aside somewhere so you're remember to mend the tear in them later, but we should find the ring first, don't you think?"
"Naturally, that only makes sense." The old man said, dropping the pair of pants right on the floor (well, he'd remember them when he went back to sweeping, surely). Then he was off at a sharp march out the door.
"You two follow him, and see if you can keep his brain from wandering off the goal. We'll be along in a moment." The lady officer ordered. "And keep scanning the ground as you go along for the ring. It's been polished now, so it ought to be shiny and fairly easy to spot of the sun hits it right."
"Yes Lieutenant!" They both replied crisply, immediately following the old man out of the shop, jogging to catch up to his brisk pace.
The mother looked at the lieutenant curiously. "Is there something you and I need to do before we follow?"
"Yes, just one thing." The lady officer smiled, then suddenly hugged the woman. "Thank you! I'm so glad you came along!"
The mother giggled and patted the lieutenant's back. "You're welcome. Just try not to be TOO hard on my son while he's in your care, and we'll call it even."
"Done. Now let's go get that damned ring!"
"Indeed."
~ ~ ~
Though they kept their eyes scanning the ground for anything shiny, the two women did catch up to the men in short order (partially helped by one of the officers who hung back a bit to make sure the rest of their party caught up, while the other kept on the old man's heels). Eventually they reached an empty lot in a residential area, and found the old man and the officer who'd followed him closely moving around, scanning the ground carefully.
"Is this the place?" The lieutenant asked.
"He seems fairly sure, Lieutenant."
"'Course I'm sure! What'cha think I am, senile? Punk kid knocked me down, and I landed on my ass right here... at least that time."
"Did they knock you down anywhere else?" The mother asked.
"Oh sure, a few times, but this was the one where I landed on my bottom, which had to be how I tore the back of my pants. Kids today! No respect for their elders!"
"Makes sense to me." The lieutenant nodded. "Everyone fan out and search from this point. Old man, I'd like you to try and remember that day, and everything that happened after you fell here; where you moved to after you got up, where you were standing later; anywhere that the ring might have fallen out after the pocket was torn."
"No problem. Got a mind like a steel trap, I do!"
"Rusted shut." One of the officers muttered.
"Just be quiet and look, you!" The lieutenant snapped.
~ ~ ~
Two hours later the sun was setting, but in that time, they'd thoroughly searched the entire lot, and the street for a block in each direction, as well as traced the route from the lot back to the old man's shop... three times in fact, with no sign of the ring anywhere, and they'd turned over every windblown leaf, kicked every pile of dust (and a whole whopping lot of roofing tiles which seemed to have been blown right off of several nearby roofs fairly recently). The ring was simply not to be found.
"You think maybe it landed on its edge and rolled down a storm drain or something?"
"No chance of ever finding it then, but that means no one else ever will either, which was the biggest thing we had to worry about."
"The Head Family is NOT going to accept that as an answer." The lieutenant pointed out. "Further, that is far from a safe assumption. The ring was lost here two full days ago; that's plenty of time for someone passing by to have spotted the shiny object and picked it up."
"That wouldn't have been good. Shopkeepers planning to sell the ring wouldn't go trying it on usually. Some teenage girl who wants to fantasize about her wedding day for a few minutes? On her finger it would go, guaranteed. It does look like a wedding band, after all, being just a simple gold loop."
"Welp... it's sundown. Guess it's time to close up the shop for the night... wait... why am I outside? I oughta be minding the store! Hope I didn't forget to lock the doors again; some fool might steal something... though it would serve them right! Not that I believe in that sort of thing, mind you." The old man muttered as he started to wander off back in the direction of his shop. The rest of them watched him go with the look of people who regretted being far too exhausted to beat their heads against a wall.
After a long sigh, one of the officers looked to his superior. "Lieutenant... you think we ought to search his whole shop, top to bottom, just in case?"
"That would be the next logical step," the lieutenant said, in the same tone of pained resignation of a patient with gangrene accepting that their leg would have to be amputated. "However, unless we can get his permission (which is a conversation I'm dreading) we'd need a search warrant to tear the place apart without his consent, and I frankly doubt we could get one, given that he's not suspect of any crime, is firmly convinced he lost the ring out here, and has already fully cooperated with the search (to such extent he seems able to, anyway)." She turned reluctantly to the boy's mother. "Miss, you've pretty much given up your entire day to help us out already, and I hate to ask you for even more, but do you think you could try and work your magic on that madman one more time to let us search his shop and living area? Tomorrow I mean; I don't think any of use can stand dealing with him any more today, never mind that searching would be easier in better light."
The mother sighed. "Well, I suppose I could try, but I'd have to come with you tomorrow too, since he seems to have trouble holding on to one idea for very long, unless he's fully interested. Just my helping keep him focused doesn't mean he'd agree, however. As you've said, he's firmly convinced the ring was in that pocket, in those pants, and that it fell out when he tore them here. It's not the same as if he were confused about it. He knows exactly the spot he fell. It's really more his concentration than his memory that seems to be faulty. Also, his reasons for thinking this is where it should be are sound. Frankly, I personally think it's far more likely the ring really did fall out here, and was either picked up or, less likely, rolled exactly right to disappear down the crack of the street's storm drains, then for it to be somewhere in his shop."
The lieutenant rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Much as I hate facing it, you're most likely right. The question is how the hell do we find it now? It could be anywhere!"
"Maybe we could put an add in the paper?" One officer suggested.
"Like in the classifieds? No one ever reads those unless they're looking for something specific! And what exactly are the odds that whoever picked up the ring lives in the same household as some compulsive newspaper reader who avidly reads the whole thing, front page to back, every single day?" The lieutenant scoffed.
(Somewhere several blocks away, a middle-aged man with long back hair and a matching mustache, wearing a brown dougi as was his daily habit, sneezed sharply. He was somewhat annoyed by this, as it would result in two pages of his newspaper sticking together, and he still had yet to read through the adds for the cars he would never buy, the personals he would never call, or the jobs he would never apply for.)
"Hmm, well how about tap the local police department? Check the lost&found boxes of every police box in a several kilometer radius? Someone might have turned it in if they found it; after all, as you've said, it resembles a wedding band."
"Yes..." the lieutenant frowned, tapping her lip in thought, "and one with no inscription or other distinguishing marks, for that matter. I just had this horrible image of having to sort through a box full of plain gold wedding bands, all almost exactly identical, save that one of them might somehow curse us when we touch it. It would have been easier to identify it if it had been left as it was; unpolished and ancient-looking."
"Hmm, but you know, it might not be so dangerous as all that." The mother offered. "After all, we've now met three people who've handled the ring personally, and none of them showed any ill effect, even after 48 hours had passed... er... that is... assuming the old man at the Antique shop was that way to begin with, of course. He IS fairly old."
"Hmm... could be, although there's also the possibility that whatever the ring does only effects those of the Shimeru clan, rather than regular people. We do, after all, have some quite unique genetic traits to us, and it's our clan who have guarded and been concerned about the ring all these centuries."
"What about my son?"
"No offense, but he's pretty much a Shimeru by name only. Unless some recessive gene in him activates, he'll be the 3rd generation of that branch unable to Shift. There's just so much outsider blood in his makeup that he basically IS an outsider. Once again, no offense."
"None taken. I may have married into the Shimeru clan, but I'm frankly grateful that my son doesn't shift like you do. Neither I nor his father, or his father's father, have ever had to live life that way, so we'd be ill-prepared to guide him if he did start doing it."
"Probably for the best then, though there are a lot of advantages once we get used to it."
"I'm certain." The mother said levelly. "So how shall we know when we find the ring then, or even if someone has put it on and triggered its 'curse'? We don't even know what exactly it does, or what signs we should be looking for, assuming there are any."
The lieutenant nodded reluctantly. "The ancient records indicated that it would be extremely obvious when someone became affected by the ring, though they regrettably don't say specifically how or why. I suppose we should just keep our eyes peeled for anything that seems totally wrong or out of place."
The sound of soft singing caused the foursome to immediately silence their sensitive conversation in the empty lot, and drew their eyes to the street running alongside it. A moment later, a teenage girl came into view, skipping gleefully out from behind the dividing property walls, as she made her way happily down the street.
She was quite a cute-faced girl, with a stylishly short haircut, but what really caught the eye was the way her quite generous female endowments jiggled up and down as she skipped along, clearly unrestrained by any from of bra, beneath the blouse of what they correctly assumed was the local high school uniform dress. With so much attention on her gyrating upper body, one could easily miss the strangely out of place motions of her skirt as she merrily skipped by, raising her thighs high with each step, though there almost seemed, from the odd way the skirt moved, as though there was an extra thigh under there lifting it up from time to time, not that anyone had their eyes focused down there. Any person who had no interest at all in breasts wouldn't have noticed the out-of-step fluttering of the skirt either, once she passed close enough that the words of the merry tune she sang to herself became understandable.
"Iii'm OFF to get some pussy! And maybeabigthrobbingCOCK! I'm such a wiz at finding some jizz, wherever some jizz there iiis!"
The mother blinked owlishly at the brazen girl as she skipped past, and was about to make some comment about the state of young girls these days, but noticed her companions were clearly too spellbound by the sight of the bouncing bishojou that they likely wouldn't have heard a word anyways. Mildly annoyed, she swatted both the male officers in the back of their heads (after all, they were old enough to know better, and police officers ought to set a better standard than to ogle at overdeveloped teenage girls). She was about to share a comment about men with the female lieutenant, when she saw that she (though she was rapidly expanding to become a 'he', possibly in more than one direction) was just as mesmerized as the nominal men, so she smacked 'her' too.
"Ow!"
"Honestly Lieutenant! The men I suppose I can understand, but aren't you really a woman?"
The sulking lieutenant (now shrinking again back to the form of her birth-gender) rubbed her head ruefully. "Alright, I suppose I deserved that... somewhat. I don't know why you're so surprised that I would stare as much as the 'boys' here would though. My birth gender has nothing at all to do with it. Everyone in the Shimeru clan is naturally bisexual. We kind of have to be, considering our husbands and wives change genders the same as we do... typically, anyway."
The mildly confused normal woman cocked her head thoughtfully. "Yes, I do understand how you can only really have sex in your other forms, but wouldn't that mean you only needed to be attracted to that form?"
"Ah, but then how would we develop an interest in our partners in order to become aroused enough to have sex? Even if there were some way around that, we need to be able to be attracted and interested in our spouses in both their forms if we were to fully appreciate them and have a healthy relationship with them. Wouldn't you agree?"
The mother chewed her lip in thought. "I suppose that makes sense in theory... though I may never be able to quite wrap my head around it in a more practical sense. Or perhaps I should phrase it that I can somewhat understand what you mean on an intellectual level, but not on a personal one that I could readily identify with."
"Fair enough. Still, if you can't empathize, then at the very least don't judge. Too much of that already in the world."
"Ah, well I can agree with that point, certainly. At any rate, if the three of you police officers, who are all married, are done undressing that (admittedly very improperly behaving) high school girl with your eyes, could we not get back to how to unearth the missing ring?"
"Alright, you've made your point. So what ideas do we have so far? Newspaper ad, checking lost and founds, informing the local police to be on the lookout for it... actually, there may be a bit of a problem deciding just what to tell them. If we told them everything, they'd just laugh at us, but if we told them too little, that it was just a case of a lost ring, they wouldn't treat it as anything but an extremely low-priority matter."
"Hmm... would there be a way to allow them to accept the reward without insulting their integrity?"
The lieutenant blinked. "Reward?"
"Your expense allotment from the head family. I assumed you were going to use part of it as a reward for finding the ring... you know, so people might actually care?"
The lieutenant scratched her head, mulling it over. "Well... that wasn't quite what I think they had in mind for it... but alright. Let's use about half and offer a reward of 25,000,000 yen. Since our trail went cold, we may as well use every means at our disposal to try and find it. We'll use all these plans at once. Pick a method and get to work on it. We'll meet back at the hotel this evening. Oh," she turned to the boy's mother, "and I suppose I'll drive you home, finally. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time."
"Not at all. Are you sure there's nothing more I can do to help?"
"Other than keep your eye out for a gold ring or anything strange that could conceivably be the 'curse' in action, no."
As she followed the lieutenant back to the car, the mother wondered if these three officers might not be the strangest thing she'd seen today. Perhaps not, but it was close.
~ ~ ~ And now that you've had a bit of moderate intellection stimulation, we return you to your regularly scheduled BE-quality Addventure! (Aw come on! Don't cry!)
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(Posted Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:35)
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