Volume Thirteen: Yellow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram Early May, 1999

Nobuyuki has a talk with Henry about his concerns, and Henry agrees that Sidney is a bit closer to the danger zone than usual, but that he believes Sidney will calm down given time. Sidney joins them just as they switch to the topic of Sidney's upcoming 31st birthday. Suddenly, they receive a report that a uniformed officer has been killed. As the two detectives rush to investigate, Nobuyuki is reminded of the dangers inherent in policework.

When Sidney comes home that night, he explains that the officer was known for being a dirty cop. He would do things such as look the other way when crimes were committed and take groceries from local stores without paying. These actions put his partner in a bad position, because no one likes a tattletale. Everyone else in his precinct simply pretended not to notice.

The next day, Nobuyuki is summoned to help Mayumi and Yanagisawa, who were on their way back from the gospel tour in Harlem when they got caught up in a shooting. Ordinarily it wouldn't have been such a problem, but the shooting caused a three-car pileup, and the tour bus got trapped in the resulting traffic jam. Nobuyuki runs into Sidney and Henry investigating the scene, and they tell him to keep a record of the tourists on the bus in case they need to do any questioning later.

As it turns out, the shooting had occurred directly behind the bus; the bullet lodged behind the license plate. One of the young women in the back seat actually witnessed the murder. Nobuyuki stays with the bus while Mayumi and Yanagisawa escort the tourists back by subway. Nobuyuki asks the witness and her two friends to stay in their hotel room the rest of the afternoon so they can be easily contacted, compensating them by giving them leave to order whatever room service they please on the tab of the travel agency. He relays this to Sidney, who agrees to meet him at the hotel to question them.

Nobuyuki notices that Sidney standing in front of the hotel is so handsome, he's causing heads to turn. Sidney states confidently that he's quite well aware of the effect he's causing. They go up to the girls' room, where they learn that the victim had dashed into the street from the direction of Columbia University, and the shooter had short, dark hair and wore a white T-shirt and jeans. One of the young women vaguely recalls seeing the character tamashii on the T-shirt. Sidney later hears that the bullet that killed this victim came from the same gun that killed the dirty cop, Altman.

As Sidney waits outside the hotel room for the women to finish the fruit sundae they had ordered, he comments that he smells them eating something sweet. Nobuyuki pokes him in the chest and teases, "Just as I'd expect from someone with such a sweet tooth."

Henry and Sidney attend Altman's funeral as part of their investigation, and Nobuyuki tags along. They hear that Altman's deeds were a result of his brother's death from a drug overdose thirty years earlier. According to his logic, no matter how many drug dealers he might arrest, more would always take their place. However, by taking money for not arresting them, he was at least cutting into their profits. The stores from which he took items without paying were places that were shady to begin with.

They give a ride home to Altman's partner, Russell. He was partnered with Altman right out of the academy; Altman always made him go away before he did any dirty business, so he never actually witnessed anything, but he never spoke up against it either. He asks if Nobuyuki is also a detective. Nobuyuki says he isn't, but he's not sure whether it would inconvenience Sidney to be more specific. He's open around his own colleagues, but he doesn't want to make Sidney's life more difficult. He is pleasantly surprised when Sidney introduces Nobuyuki as his boyfriend. This changes to shock when Sidney goes on to point out that Russell is gay as well.

At home that night, Nobuyuki demands to know how Sidney could tell. Sidney explains that it's intuition, from long practice. He adds that he's glad Nobuyuki can't tell, because if Nobuyuki ever got to be so experienced that he developed that kind of intuition, he'd have a lot more to worry about. They snuggle for a while on the couch, Sidney expressing what a miracle it was for him that Nobuyuki returned his feelings.

For some indecipherable reason, Sidney turns on the television, and they are faced with a news report that NATO forces accidentally bombed a Chinese Embassy. This dampens his mood, and he switches the television off. [Note: Sidney! Stop turning on the news when Nobuyuki's on your lap! You should know better than that by now! <ahem> Sorry, back to the story...] Nobuyuki, concerned that Sidney will have nightmares again that night, presses for them to continue in the bedroom.

Nobuyuki is so fervent, he says even the couch is fine with him, he just wants to give Sidney a *really* good birthday present. Sidney warns that they would risk falling on the floor like they did the first time.

On Sunday, Nobuyuki is assigned to drive the bus for the gospel tour in case anything goes wrong. When he picks up Mayumi with the tourists, she reports that she spotted someone during the service who had tamashii, meaning "soul," on his shirt. Nobuyuki gets her to draw a sketch of the person and then calls Sidney.

Sidney and Henry show up at the office to look at the sketch, meeting Yamashina and Dale for the first time. Dale thinks they both look like movie stars, and she's tickled to hear that she's similar to Sidney's mother. The two detectives feel so at home that Sidney teases Nobuyuki by tugging on his ponytail as usual. The two take Nobuyuki to the church in Harlem to ask around about the man in the sketch. Sidney is relieved to hear that Yamashina is dating the yamato nadeshiko, to Nobuyuki's puzzlement.

There is a wedding being held at the church that day, which makes questioning difficult, but just when they're about to give up and come back another day, someone mentions seeing the man there. They follow the directions and spot the man carrying a box. Sidney tries to talk to him, but as soon as he makes a move toward the box, the man throws it at him and runs away. They discover that the man was apparently there to steal the church's antique dishware; he was casing the place when Mayumi spotted him that morning.

Since the next day is Nobuyuki's day off, he begs Sidney to let him help out with the investigation. Sidney helpfully advises him to use kisses as bribes anytime he wants something. That strategy proves so successful, Sidney pushes him down on the couch, casting aside his worries because he can't wait long enough to get to the bedroom. ...They do, of course, fall on the floor.

Nobuyuki meets Sidney in front of Police Headquarters the next day and hears that the thief was captured, but that he denies being involved with the shooting. Sidney suspects that the tourist witness who mentioned the character on his shirt remembered seeing him from the church and mixed that memory up with what she saw of the crime. He makes arrangements with Nobuyuki's boss to call the witnesses at home that evening, when it will be morning in Japan.

While they wait, they drive over to Altman's precinct. On the way, Sidney mentions that Yamashina reminds him a lot of a man he knew from the army. The man once commented that he wished landmines had warnings attached to them like the yellow lights on traffic signals so they would know it was dangerous to proceed. That notion clicks with Nobuyuki as he considers other parts of life that don't have warning signals attached, making it hard to know when one has gone too far.

They talk with Russell again, and Nobuyuki gets him to confess what really happened the day Altman was killed. Altman had told him to go away because he was stopping at a shady drugstore he frequented, but soon afterward he heard a woman yelling that someone had snatched her purse. Russell and Altman caught the perpetrator, who turned out to be a young boy. The boy desperately explained that he needed money because his older brother was addicted to drugs and beat up him and his mother every time he ran out. Altman told Russell to go occupy himself elsewhere while he took care of the problem; Russell did so, guessing that Altman intended to get some drugs for the boy. After waiting a long time, he heard a report that an officer had been hurt. He rushed to the scene, stricken to find that Altman had been killed.

They return to the Sky Travel office at the appointed time, where the place is packed as if it were the busy season. Nobuyuki is bewildered by the number of employees there until it becomes clear that they were all hanging around to meet Sidney and Henry. After most of the employees leave, they call the witnesses in Japan. The tale unfolds that the shooter was a woman, and she was there with her son. Nobuyuki quickly figures out that they were the same ones who were being beaten by the drug addict from Russell's story. The mother had followed her son when he went purse-snatching; when she saw him being taken to a deserted parking lot by a white cop, she thought he was going to be attacked because he was Hispanic, so she shot Altman, Unfortunately, as they two ran from the scene, they bumped into a college classmate of the older brother. Worried later that he might turn them in, the mother located him the next day and shot him as well.

Discussing the details of the case afterward, Sidney notes that this time the one Nobuyuki had managed to synchro with was Russell. If he hadn't gotten the details about the purse-snatching out of Russell, they wouldn't have been able to solve the case. He adds that Russell worked harder than anyone to find the family responsible.

At first, Sidney displays a bit of anxiety that Nobuyuki might have a deeper interest in Russell, but he quickly assures himself that Nobuyuki isn't gay. He's quite pleased that Nobuyuki doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Shortly thereafter, Nobuyuki, Sidney, and Henry show up at Garth's high school graduation to congratulate him. Garth has decided to major in psychology at Pennsylvania University.

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