Volume Three: Rainbow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram June, 1996

Back in the present, Nobuyuki is trapped in a traffic jam in the rain on his way to pick up a group of tourists from the airport. He spots Henry and Sidney coming through with lights and siren blaring and, without thinking that they would actually stop, waves. Henry pulls up alongside, and Nobuyuki hears from them that the traffic jam is related to a homicide. Sidney spots Kiyomi in the bus with Nobuyuki, seeing the so-called yamato nadeshiko for the first time. Luckily, they arrive at the airport in time to pick up their clients. As he loads their luggage, Nobuyuki hears his name called from behind. At first he doesn't recognize the aging businessman, who turns out to be his father. Nobuyuki practically ignores him, turning back to his job, so his father, Yasuyuki, says he'll call later.

Nobuyuki returns home and has a hissy fit about his dad for a while, then turns on the news. He catches the details of what caused the traffic jam. An unidentified man in a taxi headed for the airport was shot from behind. A nearby patrol car set off in pursuit of the perpetrator, but to make his escape he shot the driver. The patrol car flipped over, causing a pileup, and the driver died. Nobuyuki doesn't have much of an appetite and starts munching on an apple for his supper when he hears Sidney knock on the bathroom door.

Nobuyuki tries to apologize for delaying Sidney and Henry on their way to the crime scene, but Sidney insists he has nothing to feel guilty about. He can tell Nobuyuki is upset about something, but Nobuyuki isn't talking, so he steals away the apple and takes Nobuyuki out to dinner to make sure he eats some real food. At the restaurant, he tells Nobuyuki that the officer who died had been Henry's friend since high school. Not only that, Henry is just about to marry the man's younger sister. This information makes Nobuyuki feel even worse.

Sidney tries to get Nobuyuki to explain why he's in a bad mood, but Nobuyuki changes the subject to avoid bringing up his father. The first thing that pops out of his mouth is a comment about how strange it would be that the victim was heading for the airport with no ID or luggage whatsoever. Sidney agrees, adding that all the man had on him was $500 cash in his wallet. That in itself is strange, as the only ones Nobuyuki knows who carry that much cash around are Japanese tourists. Sidney isn't fooled by Nobuyuki's attempts to hide what's on his mind, but he decides not to pry.

Nobuyuki's bad mood causes him to dwell on the fact that Sidney has not yet found a new boyfriend. He still feels at fault for Rod leaving, and he suspects that Sidney won't find anyone new until Nobuyuki himself gets a girlfriend. Thinking about this topic makes him more aware than usual of Kiyomi when he shows up for work in the morning, though he knows that she's way out of his league. It doesn't help that she drops the bombshell that his father called. Yasuyuki, the personnel director at a huge company, wants to revamp his company's program that sends employees to New York for a week to observe international business practices. He's hoping that Sky Travel might be able to serve his needs. Nobuyuki does his best to insist that he and his father have nothing to do with each other.

Nobuyuki is quite tired and depressed when he gets home. He starts to run a bath for himself before bed. Sidney knocks and enters (making sure that Nobuyuki is dressed first) and asks again what's wrong. Nobuyuki has to work himself up to talking, so he takes a bath first, remembering the time they were caught in the rain and Sidney went to get an umbrella. He feels all guilty for making Sidney do all the dirty work while he stays safe and dry, just waiting. He doesn't want to tell Sidney about his problems with his father because he wants to solve everything by himself. He doesn't want to keep depending on Sidney for help.

When Sidney first enters the bathroom, Nobuyuki notices that he must have gotten caught out in the rain because his hair and T-shirt are all wet. He gazes admiringly at Sidney for so long that Sidney has to remind him to turn the water off before his tub overflows.

Nobuyuki goes over to Sidney's apartment and chats about the boathouse memory. By the time he finishes, he breaks into hysterical laughter. When his laughter starts to turn into tears, he makes a dash for his room, but Sidney pins him against the bathroom door. Nobuyuki can't meet his eyes; he insists he'll explain why he's acting so strange eventually, but probably not for a few days. Meanwhile, Sidney has started breathing hard from being in such close proximity and has to jerk away before he loses his self-control. He stomps off into his bedroom, Nobuyuki believing that he's angry.

The next day, the two of them attend the funeral for Dennis, the officer who was killed. Henry introduces them to his fiancée, Kate. Henry is burning with the desire to catch the shooter. After they leave, Sidney tells Nobuyuki about a time when he had to inform the parents of a fellow detective that their son had died. When he and the man's partner showed up at the door with long faces, the mother figured out what had happened before they even said a word. At the time, he had told Rod about the experience, and Rod had responded that any loved one of a police officer has had nightmares of just such a thing happening. It gives Nobuyuki a lot to think about. He had never considered Sidney's job in that light before, and it's sobering for him to realize that Rod had lived with that kind of worry. Sidney, on the other hand, is glad that Nobuyuki hasn't been plagued with such a nightmare.

Monday dawns bright and sunny, causing Nobuyuki to don his flea market sunglasses. When he gets to work, he is lectured by both his boss and Kiyomi that with sunglasses on he looks like a drug dealer. As if that weren't enough, he is aghast to discover that the Sky Travel main office in Tokyo has already given thumbs up to the plan for his father's business tour. He's so upset that his father, who essentially abandoned him as a child and didn't even come to his mother's funeral, would butt into his life this way that he storms out...but with nothing else to do, he decides to take care of his laundry.

He receives another surprise when he runs into Sidney doing the same. After he also advises Nobuyuki to wear different sunglasses, Sidney explains why he's not at work. It seems that the previously unidentified victim in the shooting case was being followed by the FBI for drug dealing, so Sidney and Henry were ordered off the case. Henry, who is determined to find Dennis' murderer, was forced to take a week's vacation to cool off, and Sidney as his partner has no choice but to do the same. He's so mad, he punches and kicks at the apartment wall to vent his frustration.

As the two pause for a smoke, Nobuyuki holds out a lighter for Sidney. Instead of taking the lighter, Sidney wraps his hand around Nobuyuki's fingers as well and just holds his hand for a while. He comments, "It's good to get this kind of perq," and then embarrassedly laughs at himself.

Henry shows up dressed down in baggy clothes--his idea of going undercover. He wants to continue investigating the case. The FBI have speculated that the victim, Timothy Peyton, was killed by a hitman hired by his superiors in the drug trafficking trade, which is why they don't want the local police sticking their noses in and messing up their investigation. Henry reasons that if there's a chance the shooting was unrelated to that organization, then the FBI would have no reason to object to them pursuing the case. He has already found out that Peyton was once threatened with a gun by a high school student, so they decide to follow up on that lead, as unlikely as it may be.

The high school student in question was a boy named Leo. Nobuyuki volunteers to ask around at Leo's school to find out more about how to contact the boy, reasoning that his comportment is so unlike a police officer that the other students are less likely to be on their guard around him. Nobuyuki is still depressed that he always relies on Sidney for everything and never seems to give Sidney anything in return. He feels as if he is a burden on his friend. Henry and Sidney have their doubts about involving him in a potentially dangerous investigation, but they grudgingly accept his offer. He manages to talk to a friend of Leo's named Samuel and get Leo's phone number from him. Henry has the phone number traced back to an apartment in the same building where Dennis lived.

The three go to Dennis' family's apartment and speak to his mother. She tells them what she knows about Leo's family. They had moved to New York from Silicon Valley, but about one year later the parents divorced. The mother went back to San Francisco, leaving the father caring for two boys. The oldest graduated from high school and went to college in Berkeley. Since the father worked until late at night, Dennis had taken it upon himself to be like a big brother to Leo and keep him company whenever possible. Posing as Samuel's friends, the three men visit Leo's apartment. However, he suspects they're not what they claim and sneaks out through his bedroom window. Henry tries to follow, but he isn't able to climb along the ledge to the fire escape quickly enough.

They get recalled to Police Headquarters due to the commotion they caused trying to catch Leo. Nobuyuki waits on a bench while Sidney and Henry have a closed conference in the office of the division chief, Roy Kaplan. Some of the officers who see him are friendly, but some snidely accuse him of being Sidney's boyfriend. After an hour passes, Kaplan comes out to meet him. He's polite to Nobuyuki and makes him promise not to do anything reckless. Henry explains that this implies he accepts Nobuyuki accompanying the two detectives as they unofficially pursue their investigation. Sidney is in a bad mood over it, because he doesn't want Nobuyuki placed in any danger, but Henry is appreciative of any help they can get.

That evening, Sidney and Nobuyuki discuss how Henry seems to be running wild over this case. Sidney comments that, from his experience, the only way to stop someone who is out of control like Henry is to let him keep running until he gets it out of his system. Nobuyuki worries, "What if he crashes into a wall?" At that point, Sidney gets a phone call from Nobuyuki's father inviting him to dinner. Sidney is pleased to have found out what has been causing Nobuyuki to act so strangely. Blushing somewhat, he answers Nobuyuki's question by saying that one must simply destroy the wall before the friend crashes into it, and then he sets out to meet up with Yasuyuki. Nobuyuki is hit with the impression that he is once again sending Sidney out into the "rain" to take care of his problem while he waits safely in the "boathouse." Unable to bear it, he dashes out after Sidney.

Yasuyuki takes them to an expensive seafood restaurant where the manager knows him by sight. Nobuyuki is positive that if he or Sidney had wandered in on their own, they'd be booted right back out again, but the manager is putting up with them because Yasuyuki is a valued patron. Nobuyuki proceeds to sulk his way through the meal, guzzling the champagne his father orders. Sidney is behaving politely to an extent that is way out of character, practically bending over backward to be nice to Nobuyuki's father. This only makes Nobuyuki feel as though Sidney is siding with his father against him, which causes him to act even more sulky.

By the time the meal is over and Yasuyuki has taken a taxi to his hotel, Nobuyuki is drunk and frustrated that, due to his father's influence, the people at work are going to see him not as himself but as the son of a rich and powerful man in a huge company. He works himself into such a tizzy that he gets sick. Sidney carries him into the bathroom and stays with him until he feels better. They walk home together, Sidney explaining that he hadn't actually wanted to have anything to do with Nobuyuki's father. He wanted to yell at the man that it was his fault Nobuyuki had to go back to Japan. However, he already has the fact that he's gay working against him. He doesn't want Yasuyuki to think that his son is hanging around with bad company, so he hid how he felt and tried to make a good impression.

When they're in the bathroom together, Sidney points out that they should leave and comments, "Being in such close quarters with you is making me feel funny." Nobuyuki, of course, misinterprets him completely.

The police stake out Leo's apartment, but the boy doesn't return. His father comes home, yet he doesn't leave for work in the morning. After they pick up a search warrant and head toward the apartment, Nobuyuki begins to imagine that he hears someone crying. Sidney realizes that he has started to synchro with someone again. They arrive to find Samuel sitting on the front steps of the building. Suddenly, Nobuyuki figures out the whole story. He urges the police to hurry up and enter the building, but it's too late. Leo's father has already committed suicide. He left a letter for the police, confessing that he was the one who killed Peyton, describing the crime in detail.

They pick up Leo, who has been hiding out at Samuel's place, and take him to Police Headquarters. Nobuyuki explains to Sidney and Henry what he has guessed from resonating with the case. When Leo's father got a divorce, he had custody of the two children. Then the oldest son decided to move to Berkeley, near his mother, for college. It reminds Nobuyuki of when his own parents had divorced. He had overheard his grandparents discussing that his father would likely get custody, so he made his way alone to his father's office and begged to be allowed to stay with his mother. He believes that Leo's father probably felt betrayed that his oldest son chose to live on the opposite coast.

Eventually he became obsessed with the son who remained with him, Leo. At first Leo thought it was great that his father cared about spending time with him so much, but after a while he wanted the freedom to play sports and such with his high school friends without being hassled to come home early. In rebellion, he began wandering the streets until late at night, which was when he met Peyton. Peyton started him on drugs. When his father discovered the drugs in his drawer, he claimed that he hadn't known what they were; Peyton had lied and told him that it was medicine to recover from exhaustion. At that moment, Leo's father began stalking Peyton, finally shooting him on his way to make a drug pickup at the airport. Killing Dennis, who had been Leo's friend, was a tragic accident.

With the case wrapped up, Nobuyuki goes back in to work. He is afraid that he might be fired for skipping so long, but Kiyomi had covered for him by saying he was assisting the police. His boss announces that the plans for the business tour have been finalized, and that it is set for the end of October. Takada also encourages him to take the one day he has left to visit his father before Yasuyuki returns to Japan.

Nobuyuki goes outside, where he meets up with Sidney and Henry, who are on their way to pick up Leo's mother and brother from the airport. He remembers that when he and Sidney had finally left the boathouse that day so long ago, the rain had stopped and a glorious rainbow had filled the sky. Henry comments that it takes rain to make a rainbow. He will not soon recover from the loss of his friend, but he is no longer running out of control. Nobuyuki asks them to give him a ride to his father's hotel.

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