Volume Eleven: Arrow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram Late August, 1998

Nobuyuki picks up Kate after a routine pre-natal checkup and brings her back to the apartment he shares with Sidney. On the way, she stops to do some shopping. When they arrive at the apartment, she wishes Nobuyuki a surprise happy birthday and pulls out a brush and comb set she had bought for him. He can only stand there, befuddled, while she immediately begins tidying up his hair and trimming off the split ends--while making sure it stays conveniently long enough to allow playful tugging by a certain someone. She quickly finishes, getting Sidney's seal of approval.

After Henry takes Kate home, Nobuyuki starts making dinner. He winds up getting so lost in thought that he stands there, dazed, holding a frying pan. He gets called on it, and he replies that he's just struck all of a sudden with how much he loves Sidney. His unexpected answer makes Sidney choke on his beer.

They receive an emergency phone call from Kate. Henry was just contacted that his adoptive father, John E., was arrested for murder. They rush to meet Kate at the father's high-class apartment, where she is comforting John E.'s second wife, Dana. None of them knows much about Henry's family; even Kate has only met them once, to tell them about her engagement to Henry, and they hadn't come to the wedding. Kate explains that John E. was apparently a distant relative of Henry's. He and his first wife, Catherine, couldn't have children. When Henry's single mother, Angie, died, leaving him an orphan, John E. heard about it and adopted him. Unfortunately, they didn't get along well, and Henry moved away from home while in high school.

Nobuyuki is shocked to discover that John E. and Dana are both white. He then becomes disgusted with himself for immediately jumping to the conclusion that they and Henry didn't get along due to their differing skin color. Dana is quite welcoming, though worried about her husband. She runs her own boutique, and she asked her lawyer to handle John E.'s case, but she's concerned because he has never dealt with anything so serious before. Henry and John E. return in a few minutes with the news that the arrest was all a mistake. John E. is in a bad mood from the ordeal and begins making hostile comments about the police, extending his sarcasm to include Sidney. Everyone quickly leaves, uncomfortable with the tension.

They go out for coffee together so Henry can tell them the details of the case. John E. had shown up somewhere for an appointment, but no one answered the door when he knocked. He found it unlocked, so he went in. There was a note on the reception desk saying "went to grab some dinner." He continued inside, where he found the body of the victim. That was when the police, tipped off by an anonymous phone call, arrived on the scene and arrested him. Since the victim had been shot, and there was no gun anywhere in the room--nor, of course, in John E.'s possession--it was soon evident that he was not guilty.

That night, Nobuyuki brings up that he hates that he made assumptions about skin color, and he keeps forgetting that he himself is an ethnic minority. The discussion eventually leads to him telling Sidney he has beautiful blue eyes and beautiful golden hair. Sidney calls him on the excessive use of "beautiful," and he amends, "I also think you're handsome." Sidney once again chokes on his beer.

At work, Nobuyuki has a long talk with Kiyomi about prejudice. Her impression is that most Japanese are oblivious to ethnic prejudice until they've been in the U. S. for a while. When he extends the topic to how the Sky Travel staff members feel about gays, she thinks that they might not understand the lifestyle, but they don't particularly find it offensive. Yamashina, in particular, wishes Nobuyuki had spoken up sooner so he wouldn't have wasted so much time worrying that Nobuyuki and Kiyomi might be dating. Nobuyuki imagines that any less pleasant opinions are hidden behind the typical Japanese custom of preserving peace by not telling the whole truth, but at least it's better than what Sidney has to endure at work.

Takada asks Nobuyuki whether he knows anyone who might be informed about Africa or the Middle East. Two U. S. Embassies had just been bombed in Kenya and Tanzania by Al Qaeda, leading to retaliation, and such international conflicts have an impact on travel. Since Japan has mostly been paying attention to Clinton's sex scandal instead, no one else really knows enough to write up any reports for the company. Nobuyuki is sure that Sidney has been keeping up to date on such issues, but he doesn't want to put him through the ordeal of having to talk about it, so he doesn't mention it.

Since John E. is no longer a suspect in the murder case, Henry and Sidney are allowed to take charge of it. Unfortunately, one of the other detectives who already dislikes Sidney for being gay recognizes John E. from the column he writes as a theater critic. He makes racial slurs about Henry only getting his job through John E.'s influence, which really brings Henry down. He later comments that one reason the Japanese series Pokemon can be so popular is that both the allies and the enemies are all monsters, so no one has to worry about racial issues when deciding whom to root for and whom to hate.

Sidney tells Nobuyuki that it seems clear someone intentionally set John E. up for the murder. The murdered man was a member of a group of theater-related hopefuls who had banded together in an attempt to create their own production, though it never got off the ground due to creative differences among them. The one actor in the group, Eugene, had finally received the lead in a play the previous summer when he was heavily criticized by John E. and then dropped from the role. A few months afterward, he died in a traffic accident, hit by a drunk driver. However, some members of the group still believe that he committed suicide as a result of John E.'s criticism. John E. was called to the group's headquarters for an appointment with this Eugene. He knew the man was dead, but his curiosity drove him to show up for the appointment anyway to find out what it was all about.

John E. writes a column in which he describes his experience, suggesting the officers who arrested him had watched too many police dramas. Nobuyuki can't understand why he would do something so inflammatory. The backlash from the article's critical comments makes things even worse for Henry at work. Sidney calls Nobuyuki over to meet him at the park in front of Police Headquarters after work for a bit of cuddling to help him relax. Nobuyuki is thrilled that Sidney is willing to show such affection so close to where he works.

Two of the officers who dislike Sidney spot them and swing by to toss out some insults. Nobuyuki calls them utter jerks in Japanese, though he keeps a smile on his face. He puts to good use the Japanese tradition of tatemae--saying what is polite rather than telling the other person what one is really thinking--by pretending that their cracks about Sidney liking colored people are thoughtful compliments. The two soon give up and leave. Nobuyuki assures Sidney that, in the travel business, he has to put up a polite front for tourists who are much more insulting and demanding than the bigoted officers, so it doesn't bother him a bit.

Henry comes running up to report that he received a message from John E.'s lawyer, Matthew, that the members of the group to which Eugene and the recent murder victim belonged, Arrow, are threatening to sue. They rush to the group's loft, where Matthew is being confronted with the three remaining members, Colin, Fred, and Nikki. Colin claims that he will sue for damages--the lost income that Arrow would have had if John E. hadn't written the article about Eugene causing him to suicide. After Eugene died, his boyfriend, the original leader, left the group. Eventually they were down to four members, and Bart, the murder victim, was the only one with a relatively steady income as a freelance photographer. Colin says that, if they don't receive compensation, he'll spread the story that John E. wrote that critical article about Eugene because Eugene rejected him. Sidney storms out, disgusted by the ridiculous threat. Noticing that Fred and Nikki are both doing drugs does not help raise his opinion of them.

While describing the possible leads on Bart's murder case, Sidney mentions that the perpetrator may have been someone Bart photographed, since he also took pictures for porn magazines. He teases Nobuyuki about what his reaction would be if he saw the photos.

That night, Sidney and Nobuyuki discuss the claim that John E. had been romantically interested in Eugene. Sidney brings up the fact that Nobuyuki himself has experience with both men and women. Nobuyuki isn't sure what his sexual orientation should be called. He explains that when he slept with his girlfriend in college, he mostly did it just because it was expected rather than because he was truly in love with her. He doesn't think he's gay, though, because he isn't attracted to any men other than Sidney--for which Sidney is extremely grateful.

In the morning, Kate suddenly shows up at Nobuyuki's apartment in tears. Henry had told her that he doesn't need children. Not knowing what else to do, Nobuyuki takes her to Youko for consolation. Kate relates that Henry has been in a bad mood since John E.'s involvement with the police. He spouts facts about couples who want adopt children mostly wanting blue eyes and blond hair, the underlying reason being that those economically wealthy enough to adopt are generally white and want their children to resemble them. He goes on to say that he never felt a parent's love, so he doesn't think he'll be able to love a child of his own. Youko reassures Kate that he's simply feeling temporarily unsure of himself and he doesn't really mean it.

Nobuyuki, determined to get to the bottom of Henry's childhood trauma for Kate's sake, decides to contact either Dana or Catherine to find out what happened. Kate takes him to Dana's boutique--a women's lingerie shop that makes him blush like crazy. Dana explains what little she knows. Catherine, as a teenager, had had an illegal abortion. Several years after she married John E., she saw a doctor about her infertility problem, and the doctor told her it was the result of the abortion. In an attempt to make her feel better, John E. sought out Henry from among his distant relatives. Unfortunately, Catherine never met Henry before agreeing to adopt him. All she saw was a picture of his mother, taken with one of her white friends, and jumped to the wrong conclusion about which one was Angie.

That night, Sidney and Nobuyuki discuss their upcoming vacation time. Nobuyuki admits that the only time he ever left New York on vacation was when he went with Sidney's family to Boston. Sky Travel has a day-tour of Washington D. C., but he's never been there personally because the Washington branch office handles it. Sidney boasts that he's been to many more places. Nobuyuki knows he means with his family or Rod on vacation, but for an instant he is reminded of the places Sidney was sent for the army.

Sidney asks what Nobuyuki is staring at, and Nobuyuki once more tells him his eyes are beautiful. Luckily, this time Sidney has the foresight not to take a drink of his beer and thus avoids choking again.

On his day off, Nobuyuki wanders over to Arrow's loft, where he meets up with Colin on the street. Colin is planning to go back to his hometown to rediscover his inspiration. They go inside, Nobuyuki asking to take a look at Bart's darkroom, and find Fred and Nikki unconscious on the floor from a drug overdose. Nobuyuki calls 911 and they are both rushed to the hospital, but Nikki doesn't make it. Nobuyuki tells Sidney that he thinks the overdose happening on the same day Colin decided to leave is too coincidental. He asks Colin if he told them he was leaving, but Colin says he couldn't bring himself to break the news to them. He did, however, call Matthew to let him know he wouldn't be troubling John E. anymore.

Nobuyuki starts to synchro, putting together things that hadn't made sense to him before. For one thing, if someone went through all the trouble to set John E. up for Bart's murder, then why didn't the person do a better job of it? The person should at least have left the murder weapon at the crime scene, for example. Second, how did Fred and Nikki, who were both unemployed and couldn't even pay their rent, get the money to buy enough drugs to overdose? He gets Sidney and Henry to take him to Matthew's office, where he's working even though it's Labor Day, forcing a subordinate to work with him. Nobuyuki knows he is doing so in order to make certain he has an alibi.

Once John E. arrives, Nobuyuki describes what must have happened. A man came to a lawyer, saying he needed to kill someone. The lawyer did a bit of research and found a connection between the victim and John E. With a little money, the lawyer arranged for both Fred and Nikki to go out to supper at the same time, leaving no witnesses for the man to shoot Bart. The lawyer also sent the mysterious letter to John E. setting up an appointment with him at the loft just after the murder. The actual murderer, however, didn't realize that the lawyer was trying to frame John E., so he took the gun with him.

That left Fred and Nikki as loose ends. They probably wouldn't have been any problem if left to their own devices, since they had started taking drugs, but Colin's attempt to sue John E. stirred up a lot of attention that the lawyer wanted to avoid. He subtly arranged for them to overdose on drugs by giving them either the drugs or the money to buy some, then telling them that Colin was leaving, letting their despair take over from there. Thus he was able to stay in the background pulling the strings.

The motive for Bart's murderer was, as Sidney suspected, to get back inconvenient photographs. Matthew's motive was based on his jealousy of John E. Dana had been his client first, and he had harbored feelings for her, even though she had no idea. When she married John E., Matthew felt as if she had been stolen from him.

Henry's daughter Angie is born in mid-December. Nobuyuki and Sidney go to see Kate at the hospital, where they hear that John E. had gotten them a carseat as a shower gift. Henry is already determined to protect Angie from all comers, beginning by shadowing the nurse carrying her as a bodyguard. He gushes about how beautiful she will be when she grows up.

When Sidney and Nobuyuki head out of the hospital, they overhear a news announcement on television that the U. S. military has begun Operation Desert Fox against Iraq.

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