Volume Seven: Swallow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram Early July, 1997

Meanwhile, Nobuyuki lands at Narita Airport and is struck by the little things, like the way the vending machines are all in working order, that tell him he's in Japan. He takes the Narita Express into Tokyo, worried about how expensive it is. The only money he has to support himself is what he managed to save up the previous month. [Cultural note: There are other trains vastly cheaper than the Narita Express. According to the author, Nobuyuki chose the expensive one for the convenience of not having to transfer between trains to get to Shinjuku.]

Back at Police Headquarters, one of Sidney's coworkers rags on him for the failure of letting his only witness be killed, proceeding to taunt him that the medal he was awarded in the army for saving a superior officer's life was probably won through sexual favors. Though Sidney usually ignores such insults, today he coldly shoots back that he knows some gay men with eccentric enough tastes that they would be willing to bed even someone so unappealing, and he could introduce the man to someone who would teach him everything he needs to know. His tone shuts everyone up, not because of its menace, but because it sounds on the verge of insanity, like a man holding a gun to his head.

When Henry gets home that night, he discusses his concerns about Sidney with his wife. For the first time it occurs to him that even such a simple and natural action as putting an arm around a loved one must hold a lot of meaning for Sidney. Kate, analyzing her impression of Nobuyuki's influence, believes that Nobuyuki is so accepting of everything that he acts as Sidney's ultimate refuge. No matter what Sidney does, Nobuyuki will never reject him. With that refuge gone, Sidney is left with nowhere to turn if he makes a mistake. Henry ponders the rocky road Sidney has ahead of him if he is to find happiness with Nobuyuki. On the one hand, he loves Nobuyuki very deeply and wants to demonstrate it, yet on the other, he knows how difficult it is to be openly gay and doesn't want to drag Nobuyuki into that kind of hardship. Henry concludes that it would be best all around if Nobuyuki himself awakened to his feelings for Sidney.

Nobuyuki's grandfather meets him at the station and takes him home. Nobuyuki is surprised at how small his grandparents both seem. He had thought that New York was his true home, and that his time in Japan had been nothing more than an extended vacation in a foreign country, but upon returning and seeing his grandparents again he is hit by the sense that this, too, is his home. As far as his grandparents are concerned, their only grandson has just returned home from a six-year vacation. They've heard from Nobuyuki's father that he is working for a travel agency and that he is doing well at his job. Nobuyuki is surprised that they're on speaking terms with Yasuyuki, since to them he is nothing more than the man who hurt their daughter.

He goes up to his room, which his grandmother has kept exactly as he left it. He pulls out a box full of letters from Sidney. The one on top is the last one he ever received, telling him that Sidney was preparing to enter officer training school. He goes through and reads all the letters, one in particular standing out from the rest. The letter consists of only two lines: "Beth died last night. Dad and I buried her in the yard." [Note: It is at this point that Beth II abruptly changes from being Beth's daughter to being a completely unrelated dog bought after Beth died. I'm assuming that this change is to justify the fact that Beth II was still a puppy when Beth died of old age. After this, Beth is said to have been spayed while young and thus incapable of having puppies.]

When Nobuyuki has breakfast the next morning, he imagines what Sidney might be doing at that moment and muses that Sidney has probably never tasted the items that he is now eating, such as Japanese eggs flavored with fish broth and sugar. He looks at the rainclouds outside and wonders when he will get to see a blue sky the color of Sidney's eyes.

The man Sidney arrested for Rocco's murder refuses to speak. He does, however, ask the police to fetch a baby that is under his care, which is the only lead Sidney has to the man's identity. He goes to the man's apartment and learns from the landlord that the man is Japanese and is going by the name Shirou. He was living with a Hispanic woman named Tina, the mother of the baby, until Tina died in the hospital shortly after the baby was born while Shirou was in Japan on business. The one present with Tina at the time of her death was her older brother.

From pictures they find in the apartment, Sidney learns that Tina's brother was Rocco. Shirou's story is fishy because his passport shows that he has been traveling back and forth between Japan and America every few months on a tourist visa, not a work visa. The case grows even more complicated when the police send Shirou's fingerprints to Japan for verification; they come back with a message that the prints belong to a man named Tadashi wanted for questioning concerning a possible murder case.

Nobuyuki takes flowers to his mother's grave, but when he gets there all he can think about is that the Gulf War had ended right before she died. His heart nearly stops when he contemplates that Sidney could have been one of the few soldiers killed during the conflict. He knows that, even if Sidney doesn't have any physical scars left from his time in the army, deep inside he must still be hurting from the things he saw and did. Nobuyuki is startled by his father, who had come to the grave to offer incense. He goes to his father's Shinjuku apartment for supper, where they chat about New York. Yasuyuki mentions that an international businessman is a lot like a migratory bird.

Sidney and Henry are sent to Tokyo to find what information they can about Tadashi/Shirou. They are met by a Japanese detective named Hasegawa who explains about the case that took place two years before. A woman died of strangulation in her apartment. The ones who found the body were the woman's parents. Later, an investigating officer discovered that the string around the victim's neck matched a string tied to the light fixture; the string had clearly been cut to take the body down. The question was whether the string had been cut before or after she was dead.

The police tried to locate her husband for questioning, but he had left for America on business. His plane left approximately the same time as the estimated time of death, so he couldn't be entirely ruled out as the murderer, if indeed it was murder rather than suicide. The man, Tadashi, vanished upon reaching Los Angeles and hadn't turned up again until the police matched his fingerprints to those taken in New York. He worked for the same company as Nobuyuki's father.

Just being in the same country as Nobuyuki has worked wonders for Sidney's attitude. He seems to be his old self again. Once settled into their hotel room, Sidney tells Henry about when he was twelve and Nobuyuki left Whitestone for Japan. Sidney had closed himself in his room in protest, but when the taxi arrived, he couldn't stay there. He couldn't bear to say "goodbye" to Nobuyuki, but he went outside and hid in the shadow of his house to watch the departure. As the taxi drove off, Beth chasing desperately after it, Sidney sank to the ground, crying and ripping at the grass in helpless frustration. He laughs self-consciously at the memory, speculating that this time Nobuyuki had left him a letter because he remembered Sidney's inability to say farewell.

When the two detectives arrive at their hotel in Shinjuku, Sidney buys a map of Tokyo and pours over it; Henry guesses he is searching for Nobuyuki's address.

Nobuyuki leaves his father's apartment and walks back to his grandparents' house, lost in thought. He had come to Japan mostly in search of his own identity. He feels that his life has left him not entirely American nor entirely Japanese; he's stuck somewhere in the middle. As with his perpetual childishness, this neither-here-nor-there existence makes him disgusted with himself. He begins to wonder whether he, too, is like a migratory bird with homes in two different places.

The next day, Sidney goes to meet with the representative from Tadashi's company who agreed to explain the situation, and to his surprise it turns out to be Nobuyuki's father. Yasuyuki also hadn't expected the visiting detectives to be Sidney and Henry. He tells them that Tadashi had apparently had a rather unhappy marriage.

Nobuyuki encounters his grandfather while out on a walk. They watch a swallow nest together for a while. When his grandfather tells him that he appears more mature than when he left, Nobuyuki admits his feeling that he's always relying on Sidney and never doing anything in return. His grandfather gives him another way to look at the situation by comparing him to the swallow. The bird just feels that it's going about its own business, unaware that it is affecting anyone, but the people who see the bird recognize it as a sign of spring, and it brings them happiness. Nobuyuki, likewise, brings Sidney happiness by his mere presence.

After Sidney and Henry leave Yasuyuki's company, Sidney comments that they hadn't learned anything that they couldn't have gotten via fax. He considers the trip mostly wasted. Henry suggests that they locate Nobuyuki and ask for his help in solving the case, but Sidney vetoes the notion. The conversation does give him an idea, though, and he turns around and asks to speak to Yasuyuki again. He steels himself and makes the announcement that he's gay--to which Yasuyuki replies that he already knows. Sidney goes one step further and reveals that he's in love with Nobuyuki, but to his astonishment, Yasuyuki knows that as well.

Yasuyuki had hired a private detective to investigate his son when Nobuyuki moved to New York. The news about Sidney had shocked him at the time, but seeing a photo of Nobuyuki smiling happily while walking with an equally happy Sidney made him realize that their friendship was good for both of them. When he visited the previous year and took the two out to dinner, it was all he could do not to laugh because Sidney was acting the same way he himself had upon first having dinner with his future in-laws. He concludes that it's not up to him to make Nobuyuki's decisions about his life for him, nor to dictate whom he may or may not love. At hearing that, Sidney feels ready to return to New York.

Nobuyuki has a long talk with his grandfather again that night. He wonders why his mother waited so long to divorce his father, especially since he finds out that his grandparents had been suggesting it for years and she stubbornly refused. His grandfather suspects that she held out for so long because she knew how close Nobuyuki and Sidney were and didn't want to separate the two. She finally changed her mind when Yasuyuki's mistress told her she was pregnant. After Nobuyuki's mother died, his grandparents confronted Yasuyuki about the issue, but he hadn't known about it. The woman may have lied just to force a divorce, or she may have miscarried soon after; either way, her marriage to Yasuyuki only lasted two years before they also divorced with no children.

Sidney and Nobuyuki fly back to New York, where Sidney has a talk with Tadashi and they clear up the details surrounding his case. He had been miserable in Japan because he thought all his success was due to his father-in-law rather than his own hard work, and that hurt his pride. He decided to run away to America using a forged passport. When his wife found out, she hanged herself. He came home and immediately cut down her body, but she was already dead. She had left a note saying "Now you're a murderer," which made him panic. Rather than sticking around to call the police, he left on his scheduled flight to Los Angeles, and from there made his way to New York, where he met Tina.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get a job on a work visa, so he had to live off his savings, flying back to Japan every few months to renew his tourist visa and getting part time jobs there to pay for his plane tickets. When Tina had a baby, he intended to go back to Japan and tell the police the whole story so that he could start fresh and marry her. The tragic consequence was that Tina was filled with anxiety at the fact that he hadn't asked to marry her, even though doing so would have gotten him a greencard. She knew her brother Rocco had been dealing drugs to make money for their large family, so she stole some from him and used it. Since it was her first time, she didn't know what she was doing and wound up dying from an overdose. Tadashi found out what happened and, upon getting back to New York, stabbed Rocco in revenge. Sidney guesses that the murder Rocco had witnessed was probably drug-related, which was why Rocco hadn't stuck around to give his story to the police.

Nobuyuki is gloomy that he came to Japan during monsoon season and thus hasn't seen a blue sky for days. He is also frustrated with himself because he came all the way to Japan to re-assess his life without relying on Sidney, yet all he can think about is how much he misses Sidney. His grandfather suggests he get out of the house and do something, but nothing catches his interest. He decides instead to sort all of Sidney's letters into chronological order. The first letter Sidney ever sent to him in Japan had included a picture of the two of them with Beth, taken during one summer vacation. Nobuyuki holds the picture up and shows it around his room, talking to it as if it were Sidney himself. He doesn't even realize that he is crying.

Nobuyuki eventually takes the photo to a nearby library and looks up all the different shades of blue he can find in the dictionary, comparing them to Sidney's eyes to see which matches most closely.

Finally the long month ends and Nobuyuki returns at last to New York. His mind is filled with nothing but thoughts of how soon he can see Sidney again. While he's in the middle of calculating what time Sidney is likely to get home, Henry and Sidney pull up in their police car to pick him up. He starts running toward Sidney, who yells at him for leaving his suitcase sitting unattended. He feels quite comforted when Sidney puts an arm around him and welcomes him back.

He starts telling the detectives what he did during his vacation. He offers to be a free guide and translator for them if they ever go to Japan, which makes them both burst out laughing, though they don't explain the joke to him. Instead, Sidney slides into the back seat with him, tugs his hair, and kisses him.

[Note: The homicide detective Hasegawa whom Sidney and Henry meet in Tokyo is a crossover character from one of the author's books by a different publisher.]

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