JE NE SAIS QUOI

They say you should never meet your heroes.

Preconceptions and assumptions are one powerful drug. Reality, truth, everything gets thrown to the side for this sort of crystallized ideal that, when looked through, makes someone appear as if they were in the most flattering light possible. Like they were someone to look up to, someone to work towards becoming. Someone worth depending on.

Nothing-- nothing-- could have prepared Yata for meeting Zenigata.

Before Yata had ever met him, Zenigata had something of a reputation-- one notorious enough to span precincts and criminal justice organizations worldwide. Getting put on his taskforce was talked up like some sort of career death sentence, and yet every single person who had worked one of Zenigata's details said that it was one of the most insane experiences of their entire lives-- and not even in a bad way! The whole situation was as baffling as it was compelling.

When Yata asked to be Zenigata's assistant, a position that'd been unsurprisingly open for ages, he figured those reasons were why he was heavily dissuaded from doing so by his superiors. His captain at the time had looked at him like he had eight heads, but after a back-and-forth that'd make an onlooker say 'god, just get on with it already!', he finally relented. "You'll learn the hard way," his captain had said.

Yata had told himself it would be worth it. At the very least, he'd get some insights into the law enforcement profession that hardly anyone else would. He'd be able to pick the brain of the only man to keep a lockstep pace with some of the most notoriously uncatchable criminals on the face of the planet earth, and then he'd be able to deal with anything.

That was about a year and a half ago. Yata is now sitting in a Moscow prison cell with Zenigata waiting for ICPO representatives to negotiate them out. He sprained his wrist in a fistfight he and Jigen (well, mostly Jigen) had gotten into with a pack of Bratva thugs. Zenigata had to bail them out. He ""borrowed"" a combat ambulance from the Russian militia to do so, hence why they're both locked in here. It's a long, long story that Yata is too cold to dwell on at the moment.

Zenigata takes his trenchcoat off and drapes it over Yata's shoulders. "You can quit this position any time you want, you know," he says, gripping Yata's shoulder. In fact, he says that every time they get into a particularly rough mess. "I know it's selfish of me to say, but I'm starting to feel bad about how many life-threatening fistfights I've gotten you into."

Yata sniffles, his nose runny from Moscow's perpetual chill. "It's fine, really. It's just..." He bites his tongue for a second, unsure if now's the time to finally ask the question he'd been wanting to ask since he took this position with Zenigata. But his curiosity's killing him, especially after what they just went through, so he just rips the band-aid off and prays that Zenigata doesn't dismiss him like he usually does when he asks questions that inch too close to his relationship with…

"...Fujiko, and Goemon, and Lupin and Jigen… they're… important to you, right?"

Yata bites his bottom lip as Zenigata mulls the question over. He looks tired and bruised and battered-- fighting a half a dozen mobsters that're about as big as he is tends to do that-- but it looks like he might genuinely answer. Maybe today was the final straw.

“Yes,” Zenigata says eventually, nodding as he does so, “yes, they are. It's important that I catch them and make sure they face proper justice.”

That last bit feels tacked on for saving face's sake. A year and a half of watching from the sidelines gave Yata a… a strange idea of what the five of them were to each other. It certainly wasn't a ‘cop and criminals' interaction-- everyone and anyone who had been involved with the Tokyo Met Police and the ICPO over the past decade could tell you that. File-wise, he'd seen the TMP Commissioner describe it as "distinctly unprofessional and troublingly maladaptive." He, uh, can't deny that, exactly.

There isn't a word for whatever they are, not really. None that Yata had been able to find.

But some events come to mind-- small instances that had somehow stuck with him-- that lead him to think he might be on the verge of finding one.

---

Few know the true face of one Fujiko Mine, if there even is one to speak of. The woman that her targets meet is far removed from the one who inevitably robs them, and the woman who enjoys the spoils all to herself after the dust settles is certainly even more distanced from those.

Watching her work-- or god forbid interacting with her-- always leaves Yata in awe. Well, floundering for what to say and do with himself is probably more accurate; he has no idea how Zenigata manages to navigate her, much less keep up with her, or even get ahead of her, whenever he ever needed or wanted to.

Which made it all the more strange when she snuck into the bullpen just shy of three in the morning looking, well... human.

There was a solid few seconds where she hadn't noticed him. She clearly hadn't expected anyone to be crazy enough to wait up for Zenigata when he's working overtime, and it showed on her face. That was the only time he had ever seen her brow slightly furrowed, her face ever-so-slightly wound by some distant concern that only she knew and carried.

And then he blinked, and it was gone. His wide, owlish eyes locked with her sharp, piercing gaze, and he remembers his throat never being more dry than in that moment.

"Ah, you," she said, no hint of weight having ever cracked her perfect facade. If she was surprised by his being there, it was far too fleeting to notice. "Save me some time, will you? Which of these musty offices has the inspector holed himself up in tonight?"

Yata dared not ask why she was there, or how she got in, or what she wanted with Zenigata, but the thought had crossed his mind nonetheless. Then the somewhat obvious thought that it was his job to arrest people like her had also popped in there, but the sheer weight of her presence and confidence kindly told that thought to sit the hell back down, and in rather 'him' fashion, Yata could only muster the will to point her in the right direction.

"Thank you, dear," she smiled, this perfect, utterly disarming Mona Lisa smile, and any gusto Yata had about staying late with the inspector was thrown straight into the proverbial dumpster when she added that he should probably head home.

Leaving his superior for, at the time, all of three weeks alone with an internationally wanted criminal had only really hit Yata half way to the bus stop; but at the same time, he wondered (and frankly, was still wondering) why in the world Fujiko Mine would trust Inspector Zenigata with whatever weight was weighing on her shoulders.

---

Not many people can say that they've shared a bench at a rural Japanese bus stop with a bona-fide samurai, but Yata's one of them.

It was very awkward. Quiet, barring the pattering of rain on old, old wood. Every part of Yata's body ached with overexertion and fatigue. Goemon was perfectly unphased, as usual. They were both soaked to the bone, having hiked through the woods for hours and hours and hours, and had Goemon not known these woods as well as he did, what with all of the training he had done out here, they would have more than likely been wandering out there for days.

And Yata, in all his insecurities, felt like it was all his fault. They wouldn't be out here if it weren't for him. Had he been quicker on his feet, had he seen the signs of betrayal from the people they had been assigned to protect from Lupin's thievery sooner, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have gotten in the way, and they wouldn't have been split up.

It had only been two months. Two months, and he still couldn't even come close to keeping up with them. To keeping up with Zenigata, who surely expected more of him by now. It was embarrassing. Yata help but scrunch in on himself even further than he already had been, propping his feet up on the damp bench and pulling his dirt-stained knees up to his chest. He was no less cold, and the smell of earth that hit his nostrils did not make him feel any better.

"Zenigata-dono would commend you for your bravery today."

Goemon's words had made him jump. It was extremely unlikely at that point, but he was still on edge by the looming threat of getting jumped by men hired to make sure that they wouldn't see a warm bed tonight. Well, that and those words quite literally being the first words Goemon had ever said to him directly.

As per usual, when anyone in Lupin's group talked to him, around a dozen panicked thoughts wooshed through his head.

Holy crap, Goemon is talking to me, I just watched him and my boss beat the snot out of, like, forty thugs, explosions and gunfire, knives and swords, all that crazy stuff... all while I fumbled with opening the exit gate. My first Lupin case with him involved and this is his first impression of me.

Yata had settled for asking, wearily, "Not to be, uhm, rude, but... how can you be so sure of that? I really messed up today..."

After that, Yata still remembers everything that Goemon had said to him word for word, especially whenever he was doubting himself. How couldn't he?

"I know him well, and trust me when I say that Zenigata-dono has 'messed up' far worse. We all have. Those mistakes are how we adapt and become better. You did not run, and you looked to us for help. It may have taken you a... significant amount of time to facilitate our escape, but you did not back down. It is the mark of someone who knows their limits, and the mark of someone who is not afraid to become better through seeking the help of others. That is how I know."

It hit Yata like a ton of bricks. So much so that he couldn't really find anything else to say. But he planted his feet back on the ground and waited at that bus stop with his head held a little higher. When the bus finally came, he didn't miss a beat when the bus driver's eyes widened at them as he paid the fare with damp bills.

"It's a long story," Yata had said with a weary smile, and the bus driver simply shrugged and headed on his way.

---

Lupin and Jigen are a package deal. Wherever Lupin is, Jigen is never far behind, casting an ever-watchful glare from the boundary of the gentleman thief's shadow. They work with virtual unthinking efficiency, to a perfect tempoed beat that only they can hear, without ever having to say a single word to each other.

They sure do yap a lot, though.

Whether he's involved or not, Yata feels pretty confident in his ability to keep up with a conversation. It was seven months into Yata's tenure before he and Zenigata had their first start-to-finish truce with Lupin and company, and by some terrible stroke of luck, when they decided that their best course of action was to split up, Yata was left with Lupin and Jigen. Yata had, for the first time in a long time, tuned out of their conversation when Lupin and Jigen had begun arguing over whether "Bustheist" was a good codename to call this whole operation. In Yata's opinion, Lupin had no shot of winning.

They were perched up on an overlook staring down at a beautiful castle around a quarter mile away from them, setting up some scopes and rifles and other technical doodads that Lupin would man for a step in Lupin and Zenigata's harebrained scheme. Yata figured that was why he was up here-- he wasn't a half bad shot, all things considered.

"Hey Yoshi," Lupin had said, snapping Yata out of his self-induced sanity-salvaging stupor.

"You know the kid's name is Yata, don't be an asshole," Jigen piped in.

"Yeah, yeah. Crow kid," Lupin waved Jigen off, and Jigen turned away to grumble some unflattering 'see how you like it' names to call Lupin to himself. "I've been meaning to ask-- why stick around with Pops? No one really signs up for this kind of stuff. It's usually a one and done 'adventure of a lifetime' deal with a tagalong-of-the-week before they go back to their nice and comfy day-to-day."

"It's a resume thing, isn't it," Jigen had said more than guessed, and had this conversation been near the start of Yata's tenure, he honestly wouldn't have been too far off. "If you can put up with this, you can put up with anything."

"There's no way!" Lupin said. "You're an adrenaline junkie, aren't you. Or is it for all of the free travel?"

"No amount of free travel's worth the crapholes the ICPO puts you up in."

"That's how some people do it, Jigen. All you need is a place to store your undies while you check out the sights... and babes." Lupin wiggles his eyebrows.

"Don't project your freaky nonsense onto the kid, man. That's weird."

"So? What's the deal?"

It took a second for Yata to realize that Lupin was back to addressing him and not Jigen. It took another second for him to decide that he wasn't keen on divulging his intentions to two of the men he was supposed to be arresting.

"Why do you?" Yata answered with a question. "Put up with Pop- uh, the inspector, I mean. You guys should hate him."

"Hate is a strong word," Lupin said.

"I didn't like him at the start," Jigen added.

"But he grows on you, doesn't he? So passionate," Lupin clasped his hands together and swooned, then peeped an eye open. "About his work, of course."

"Lu..." Jigen chastised, and Lupin flashed this evil little grin at him before turning back to Yata.

"Listen, Yata, if you don't want to answer, that's fine. But I'll only tell you this much." Lupin crouched down and plucked the scanner Yata had been fiddling with from his hands and worked on it while he talked. "He changed us. For the better, no less! Half of us used to axe people for a living. Fujicakes and I are still a work in progress, obviously, but I like to think that we're a lot more charming when going about our work than we used to be."

"Make of that what you will," Lupin finished, handing the perfectly calibrated scanner back to Yata. Yata could only sit there and blink as he processed Lupin's words. An accidental glance toward Jigen revealed that the gunman had a big smirk on his face. Like Fujiko's worried face, it felt like a rare sight.

Then Lupin stood back up and clapped his hands together. "So! Jigen, about dinner later..."

---

A shiver that comes from a wave of warmth rather than cold brings Yata back to the present-- an accusatory question and an even less than satisfying answer. He says, tentatively, "Sir, forgive me if this is out of line, but... I don't think that's it. The only reason we're in here is because we had Jigen with us... if we left him, we might be on a plane heading home by now."

"He needed medical attention," Zenigata answered quickly. "Just like you. I wasn't about to leave him out in this cold when he can barely walk, and I wouldn't expect you to do any less."

All Yata could retort with was a pleading look.

"Oh boy. Alright," Zenigata sighs as he slumps back against the concrete wall behind them. "I hope you know that you're too sharp for your own good."

"I learn from the best, sir," Yata replies, enjoying the body heat from the coat finally melting into him.

Zenigata chuckles and rubs a hand behind his neck. "Honestly, after all this time, I'm not even sure. We aren't exactly enemies, but we certainly aren't friends, either. Despite everything, we still respect and trust each other. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's what we have, and I'm happy to have that relationship with them. It's... the most fulfilling part of my career."

That last bit is what really drives it in that this is Zenigata's honest-to-god truth. Yata's chest grows tight, and he pulls his knees up to it the same way he did back on that bench with Goemon. It might be silly, but Yata feels like he really earned something in this god-forsaken icebox of a detainment cell. Like the past year and a half of life-threatening adventures was all worth it. Maybe, just maybe, he could last a year and a half more.

"And I trust you too, Yata. But if you tell anyone anything I just said, you're fired," Zenigata smiles at him, warmly.

There isn't a word. There doesn't need to be one. All that matters is that the inspector feels safe and happy, and that's just enough for him.

"Wouldn't even think of it, inspector," Yata smiles back.

ARTIST STATEMENT

"The French don't really use the saying "je ne sais quoi", but the literal translation is "I don't know what". It's typically used by English speaking folks to describe an indistinguishable yet alluring characteristic about a person. Before I even had the term in mind, I thought it would be interesting to explore this dynamic that they all seem to have with each other through a sort of "third party" watching just outside of our usual five's exploits, and Yata felt like an obvious choice for a point of view.

People like him and he seems to be around to stay, which is pretty significant for a franchise as old as Lupin III. I think my favorite depiction of him has to be in Prison of the Past, where he's somewhat keeping up with what's going on and definitely carves out his own place in the group. Plus he's the catalyst of a whole lot of wanton destruction, so I'd say that's as good of a right of passage as anything. "